Oscars Roundup

It's been an intense past few weeks of movie watching for me. Here are my votes from the nominees:

Best Picture: I watched Babel, The Departed, and Little Miss Sunshine. I do have Letters from Iwo Jima, but unfortunately can't find the subtitles. Errr, to be honest, I didn't think much of the ones I watched. If I had to pick, I'd pick Babel. If nominations were up to me, I'd go for Pan's Labyrinth as Best Picture. Honestly, my fave movie for 2006. The Pale Man is the most imaginative creature I've seen in a long time. Trivia: The actor who played the Pale Man also played Pan, and was the only cast member who didn't speak Spanish. He had to learn his lines as well as Ofelia's because he couldn't hear properly out of his costume and had to know when to speak.

Best Actor: This is the only category where I've watched all the nominees - Leonardo in Blood Diamond, Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson, Peter O'Toole in Venus, Will Smith in Pursuit of Happyness and Forest Whitaker in Last King of Scotland. Without a doubt, Forest Whitaker. Nobody else could've done Idi Amin.

Best Foreign Film: Admittedly, I only watched Pan's Labyrinth and Das Leben from this category. Guess which one I'd pick :) Das Leben was interesting because it gave an insight to the German socialist era, but a tad on the slow and predictive side.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Borat, Children of Men, The Departed, Little Children and Notes on a Scandal (I didn't watch it). Borat for sure! *lol* Personally, I don't understand all the fuss about Children of Men. I've seen better apocolyptic themed movies.

Best Documentary Feature: I could only get Jesus Camp and An Incovenient Truth. After watching An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore has my respect. This guy should've been the President of the United States. Not the total douche bag that's in in place now. It would've been a different world. Jesus Camp wasn't bad as a documentary, but I liked An Inconvenient Truth better.

Best Cinematography: Nominees are The Black Dahlia, Children of Men, The Illusionist, Pan's Labyrinth and The Prestige. I'd give it to Pan's Labyrinth. Trivia: Pan's legs are actually real in the movie. They're mechanical and not CGI, which made it that much more realistic and believable. The actor's real legs were digitally erased later on. I couldn't finish watching the Black Dahlia, boooring...

Best Film Editing: Out of Babel, Blood Diamond, Children of Men and The Departed, I'd vote for Babel. Although I didn't like the movie, I'm willing to say that it was well directed and well edited. The scene switching between cities was pretty seamless.

Ones Worth Watching IMHO: Blood Diamond, Last King of Scotland, The Prestige, An Inconvenient Truth and of course, Pan's Labyrinth. Curse of the Golden Flower was surprisingly not nominated for Best Cinematography. Instead it was nominated for Best Costume Design. I think it's worth watching it on the big screen. It was _made_ for the big screen.