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Newsstand: November 19, 2009
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The Art of Not Knowing
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominations for the Oscars this morning. Canada done good.
Torontoist fave Sarah Polley landed a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay for Away From Her, based on the Alice Munro story "The Bear Came Over The Mountain." The film, which Polley also directed, was also nominated for Best Actress, Julie Christie.
Canuck-fest Juno also scored a bellyful of nominations. The film landed four nominations: Best Director for Montreal-born Jason Reitman, Best Motion Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actress for Haligonian Ellen Page. Bupkis for Page's co-star, Brampton-native Michael Cera, but let's hope he has enough Superbad money to keep himself happy.
Eastern Promises, the latest film by Canadian director David Cronenberg, got a single nomination: Best Lead Actor for Viggo Mortensen. Cronenberg wasn't nominated for A History of Violence, his previous collaboration with Mortensen, either.
For Best Animated Short Film, two of the five nominees were Canadian productions. Montreal filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski were nominated for Madame Tutli-Putli, about a woman who boards a night train and is confronted by her past, and Torontonian Josh Raskin was nominated for I Met the Walrus, which layers animation over a John Lennon interview.
Winners will be announced on February 24. Whether anyone shows up will depend on the current writer's strike situation. No word yet if the eventual winners intend to melt down their statues and sell the gold on the market.
Photo of Page as Kitty Pryde via X-Men: The Last Stand website.
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Hey don't forget Canadian Hal Holbrook! Nominated for supporting actor. He is the star of my Canadian Fave horror Rituals! Poor Hal deserves his props.
He may have been stationed in Newfoundland as an American soldier in WWII, but Holbrook isn't Canadian.
I think it's also pretty cool that four of the five Best Picture nominees played TIFF.
And yet we cherish Holbrook as if he were our own.
I extend my proverbial "props" to chantelle for the Rituals reference. Holbrook is pretty badass in it and it's one of my favourites too.
Thanks for mentioning Hal Holbrook, Chantelle!
Here is the complete nomination info on the honourary Canadian: Hal Holbrook, 82, was nominated for his role as a supporting actor in Into The Wild. It is his first Oscar nomination.
I think it's bullshit that Cronenberg keeps getting passed over... though I'm not sure if it'd be a good thing if he won for Eastern Promises.
Also, if Cera got a nomination for his like... 10 minutes in Juno, that'd be a real sham.
The Oscars are so weird. I think Eastern Promises was the best movie I saw last year, and definitely better than Juno and There Will Be Blood. And two noms for Cate Blanchett? She's a fabulous actor, but Elizabeth: The Golden Age and I'm Not There were two of the worst movies I've ever seen.
Juno is NOT an Oscar-worthy film. It was entertaining enough, and I can see the mass appeal, but I'm sorry, nothing about it said "this film should win awards" to me.
I agree with Nib. Juno sounds like yet another movie about teen pregnancy, one we've all seen before a million, billion, gazillion times on TV. Plus, the plotline sounds a lot like the 1989 movie Immediate Family (starring James Woods, Glen Close, Mary Stuart Masterson and Kevin Dillon) only updated to 2008, with Juno and her boyfriend as alterna-rocker fans rather than metalheads as in the other movie (Masterson & Dillon). Here's the info;
I'd rather see Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde again in a series of solo movies focused on the younger X-Kids (Generation X) than as a pregnant teen-or maybe we could see Kitty Pryde as a pregnant mutant teenager dealing with bringing another mutant life into the world (Bobby's the dad)! On second thought, maybe not that last one.