filmland / By Charlie Myers

Pick O’ The Oscars!

Plus: Spying, shopping and slashing through last week’s films

(Feb. 19, 2009) Preview

With the Academy Awards ceremony coming on Sunday, there is only one new local opening on Friday, Feb. 20 — although Defiance is returning, in case you missed it. Last Chance Harvey opened nationally on Jan. 16 and seems to have gotten lost in the Oscar shuffle. Set in London, the film stars Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson in a sort of later-life romance. They meet at an airport bar where Hoffman’s character is drowning his disappointing life in alcohol and the rest is romantic in vino veritas. I never thought of Hoffman and Thompson as a romantic duo, but who knows? Rated PG-13 for brief strong language. 92m. At the Broadway.

GALLERY >

Oscar Predictions

Risking total humiliation, I am reviving the Who Will Win/Who Should Win Oscar predictions, and happily my Journal colleague Ryan Burns agreed to join me. His comments and both our picks for eight major categories are below.

From Ryan: Yes, Hollywood’s annual self-love fest is silly, grotesquely opulent and in the grand scheme, totally meaningless, particularly in these (all together now) “dire economic times.” But what greater escape in a fiscal downturn than the movies? (The Great Depression was a Golden Age for cinema.) All of which is merely a convenient excuse — my justification for watching The Oscars, something I do every year regardless of the state of the economy. A big part of my nerdy fandom is predicting the winners and then bitching when the big golden eunuch goes the wrong way. (I’m still bitter about 1990, when Dances With Wolves beat Goodfellas for Best Picture.)

Best Picture

Ryan: Will win: Slumdog Millionaire. Should win: I watched Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King last weekend, and it filled me with magical movie joy. No such film stood head and shoulders above the competition in 2008, which isn’t to say there weren’t some outstanding ones, though Slumdog Millionaire and Milk are the only two in this category that would make my top 10. I’ll go with Slumdog because it so clearly was not made with Oscar in mind, and because it’s wonderful.

Charlie: It’s hard to disagree here so I’m also going with Slumdog, and it should win, but Curious Case has an outside chance.

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