Never Too Old To Play™

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its list of nominees for this year’s 82nd annual Academy Awards which takes place on March 7, 2010. As expected, James Cameron’s Avatar, the blockbuster highest grossing film of all time, and The Hurt Locker, the low budget independent critical darling directed by Cameron’s second wife, Kathryn Bigelow, led the field with nine nominations, and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds followed closely with eight nominations. All three films were nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year, the category that the Academy expanded this year to include ten instead of the traditional five nominees, and all three directors were nominated for the Best Director trophy.

This should come as no surprise to moviegoers as the Oscar buzz surrounding all three films has been about as loud as it has ever been in recent years, and truly good, Oscar-worthy films have been few and far between throughout the past year.

Similarly, all we’ve heard about for months is how good George Clooney was in Up in the Air, how inspiring Gabourey Sidibe was in Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, and what a star making turn Christoph Waltz had as Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. There was never any question that these actors would be nominated for Oscars, and their chances of winning in their respective categories range from “really good” to “guaranteed.”

Is there really anyone out there who doesn’t think that Mr. Clooney is taking home that Best Actor trophy in March? Ms. Sidibe has a bit of competition from Meryl Streep, who graced the screen with an amazing portrayal of Julia Child in Julie & Julia (and earned a place in history as the most nominated performer with 16 Oscar nominations and 25 Golden Globe nominations), and Sandra Bullock, who beat her out for the dramatic lead actress trophy at the Globes this year, but I think the strength of her performance and the type of character she played is a better fit for the Oscars than the Globes. And Mr. Waltz? Considering he has won every award there is to win (including the first one, the Best Actor Award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival), I’d sooner bet on lightning striking the same person twice than on any other nominee in the Best Supporting Actor category.

Indeed, there’s little room for surprise at this year’s Academy Awards. Avatar has incredible momentum right now and is all but a lock to win at least every single “minor” award for which it’s nominated while its prospects in the top categories like Best Picture and Best Director are a little less clear with the aforementioned competition. Mr. Tarantino is definitely going to take home the Best Original Screenplay prize while Jason Reitman, the director of Up in the Air, is a lock to win the Best Adapted Screenplay award. And when Pixar’s Up is so good that it’s nominated in the Best Picture category (the last animated feature to show up in that group was Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in 1992), there can be little doubt that it will stand proud as the winner of the Best Animated Feature of 2009.

This is not to say that there were no surprises, though. As a big fan of the surprise sci-fi smash hit of the summer, District 9,  I’m pleasantly surprised to see it nominated in the Best Picture category although the realist in me knows that the only reason this happened was because of the field expansion for the category: if the Academy had stuck with the status quo, the nominees would assuredly have been Avatar, Up in the Air, Precious, The Hurt Locker, and Inglourious Basterds. I’m not so much a fan of the other major surprise – the nomination of Penélope Cruz for her supporting role in the huge flop Nine - but it’s not such a big deal since the statue is likely going to either Vera Farmiga for Up in the Air or Mo’Nique for Precious.

Perhaps the bigger surprise, however, will be the likely skyrocketing ratings for his year’s Academy Awards broadcast now that the Academy has finally had the good sense to nominate a film that is not only critically acclaimed but also a popular hit with the mainstream moviegoers for the Best Motion Picture of the Year award. It’s no secret that ratings for the show have steadily dropped for the better part of a decade because of the Academy’s shift towards artsy films that most people didn’t care about.

When the race is down to films like Atonement, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, you know that people are going to do something more interesting (like clip their toenails or do the laundry): the 2008 ceremony had the lowest ratings in Oscar history with barely 31 million viewers and had fully transitioned to a state of irrelevance to the American culture. The Academy didn’t learn their lesson last year when they failed to nominate The Dark Knight for Best Picture despite overwhelming critical and public support for the film, but better late than never.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association released its 2009 Golden Globes nominations today with a good mix of expected nominees and surprise candidates.

The big news for me is that my two favorite new television shows of the season - Glee and Modern Family - were nominated for “Best Television Series – Musical Or Comedy.” In addition, Glee’s Matthew Morrison, Lea Michele and Jane Lynch were nominated for their lead actor, lead actress and supporting actress roles, respectively.

The “Best Television Series – Drama” is an interesting category in that only one of the five nominees, House, is on a broadcast network while the other four – Big Love, Dexter, Mad Men and True Blood – all reside on pay cable channels. I don’t know if that speaks more to the quality of these cable shows or the dearth of solid dramas on CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox.

On the other hand, the major networks own the “Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy” category with NBC’s 30 Rock and The Office alongside Modern Family (ABC) and Glee (Fox) with cable represented only by HBO’s Entourage, whose most recent season was fairly weak (I still love the show, though).

Congratulations go out to Steve Carell from The Office and Thomas Jane from HBO’s Hung, a show I got into earlier in the season that is also represented by Jane Adams in the “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role” category, for their “Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series – Musical Or Comedy” nominations.

And let’s not forget Neil Patrick Harris’s nomination for his portrayal of the ever-hilarious Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother and Jeremy Piven’s nomination for playing ruthless Hollywood agent Ari Gold on Entourage. I love ‘em both but admit that I’m pulling for NPH this time because Piven has already won 3 Emmy awards and a Golden Globe for this role.

I admit I’m a little disappointed that Jim Parsons was not nominated for his portrayal of Sheldon Cooper, Ph.D. on The Big Bang Theory, one of the funnier shows on television. He got an Emmy nod earlier this year, but I guess the Hollywood Foreign Press Association didn’t share The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ opinion.

On the movie side of things, nominees were pretty much as expected with a few surprises here and there. Movies like Precious, Up in the Air and The Hurt Locker – nominated in the “Best Motion Picture – Drama” category – and Julie & Julia and Nine – nominated in the “Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy” category – have had their fair share of Oscar buzz.

I’m a little surprised, though, by the nomination of Avatar for a top award although I suppose that maybe I should not be since the movie holds an 83% general rating and a 93% Top Critics rating at RottenTomatoes.com. I’ve read and heard a lot of backlash from film geeks about the lackluster story, snail’s pace of development and cheesy dialogue, and especially about the intimidating length (161 minutes).

The nominations of George Clooney (Up In the Air), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire), Morgan Freeman (Invictus), Tobey Maguire (Brothers), and Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia) were quite expected considering all the Oscar buzz surrounding each of them.

The surprise was in the nomination of Robert Downey, Jr. for his portrayal of literary icon Sherlock Holmes, Joseph Gordon-Levitt for his part in (500) Days of Summer and Sandra Bullock for her role in The Proposal, and in the number of dual nominees this year: Bullock scored another one for the drama Blindside, Streep got her second for It’s Complicated and Matt Damon was nominated for his lead role in The Informant! and his supporting role in Invictus where he goes up against Christoph Waltz’ portrayal in Inglourious Basterds of Hans Landa, described by many as one of the best movie villains in history.

More interesting to me, though, is the “Best Animated Feature Film” category since I’m a big fan of animated movies. For the first time since the Golden Globes and Oscars started honoring these films with their own category, there has truly been a wide field from which to nominate. Despite how good some of the other nominees are, however, it’s realistically going to boil down to a vote for either Up’s impressive accomplishment of being the film that shows the world that animated movies can be as deep and sophisticated as live action films or The Princess And The Frog’s impressive accomplishment of bringing back the magic of Disney’s traditional animation studio with a generous dash of nostalgia for people like me who grew up on Disney movies. If the people were to choose, I’m sure nostalgia would win out, but we’re talking about critics here so I’ll have to give the edge to Up.

Marlin and Nemo: father and son fin-in-fin

Sometimes a movie comes along that has it all – a great story that speaks directly to the audience, well developed characters that moviegoers can relate to, a good mix of both comedic and serious scenes, and a great cast to boot. Finding Nemo is such a movie.

Disney and Pixar’s family feature masterpiece, directed by Andrew Stanton (who accepted the Best Animated Film Oscar at the Academy Awards) from a story he wrote and a screenplay he co-wrote with Pixar collaborators Bob Petersen and David Reynolds, is one of my favorite movies of all time and is easily my favorite Disney feature.

Finding Nemo has a spot in my top ten list not just because of its perfect mix of many of the elements that make a great movie experience but also because it is the first movie I took my nephew Jeffrey to see.

People who have known me a long time know that one thing I’ve always wanted, even as a little kid, was to have children of my own. I never viewed fatherhood as a speed bump I had to deal with on the road of life; rather, I prepared myself to embrace and cherish the privilege once fate saw fit to bless me with it.

When Finding Nemo came out in May 2003, I had not yet had any kids – in fact, I would not become a father for another four years – but I loved Jeffrey dearly and doted upon him almost as if he were my own son. Taking my nephew, who had just turned three years old, to his first movie was an honor I still treasure to this day and I imagine will only be surpassed when I take my sons Alexander and Aidan to their first movie.

The importance the relationship between someone and their child had to me factored greatly into my love for Finding Nemo, whose story focuses mainly on that subject. I value the perspectives offered by the movie even more now that I have two sons of my own, both for whom I feel an overwhelming concern and need to protect, and I have a greater sense of appreciation for how my parents raised me and why they did the things they did.

Thankfully, neither of my parents suffered the same fate that the title character’s mother does in the opening scene, but such a tragedy is not an ingredient of a parent’s protectiveness of their child but a catalyst to elevate that instinct to possibly illogical levels. In other words, you don’t have to have lost your spouse in order to want to protect your kids from the often harsh realities of life for as long as you can.

It’s really no wonder that Stanton conceived the idea of the movie from his own feelings of overprotectiveness of his child, and it is because of this origin that the story has so many resounding truths that speak directly to not only the parents in the audience but the children as well.

Indeed, one of the strongest qualities of the movie is that it overflows with insight into the perspectives of both parents who don’t want to let their children grow up and the children who think their parents are holding them down, and then poignantly flips those views around so each group can see things from the other side of the mirror.

Despite the depth and wisdom of the lessons, Finding Nemo is still first and foremost a fun family film (try saying that fives times fast) with plenty of hilarity for both adults and children alike. Much of this is supplied by Ellen Degeneres in the form of Dory, a scatterbrained regal tang with no short term memory who befriends Nemo’s father Marlin, a neurotic clownfish played by Albert Brooks, shortly after Nemo is captured by an Australian dentist on a scuba diving vacation. I’ve never really been a fan of Degeneres’ standup or television work, but her cheerfulness and good natured charm makes Dory quite the memorable character.

Equally humorous is the gang of fish who live in the aquarium in which Nemo ends up. Led by Gill, a scarred moorish idol voiced perfectly by Willem Dafoe (who portrayed the Green Goblin in Spider-man), the gang, which includes a puffer fish named Bloat (played by Everybody Loves Raymond’s Brad Garrett) who tends to expand like a balloon when he gets upset, a yellow tang named Bubbles (voiced by Office Space’s Stephen Root) who is obsessed with bubbles coming out of a plastic treasure chest and a friendly pink starfish named Peach (played by The West Wing’s Allison Janney), enlists Nemo to help them with an unlikely plan involving a toilet bowl and plastic baggies to escape the confines of the tank.

Adding to the fun factor are a trio of sharks (played by Barry Humphries, Eric Bana and Bruce Spence) who have sworn themselves to the mantra “Fish are friends, not food” as members of “Fish Eaters Anonymous,” a school of moonfish who arrange themselves into images to help Dory and poke fun at Marlin with a collective voice provided by Cheers’ John Ratzenberger (who has a long standing relationship with Pixar and plays a minor character in each of the studios’ films), and a friendly pelican strangely interested in dentistry played by Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush.

Of course, Stanton couldn’t let the cast have all the fun and lent his voice to surfer dude hipster Crush, one of a clan of laid back sea turtles riding the East Australian Current who gives Marlin and Dory a ride after their particularly nasty encounter with a school of box jellyfish. Although Crush is only in the film for a few minutes, he plays an important role in Marlin’s development by giving him some sound, much needed advice on fatherhood, and in fact Stanton gets to convey the central lesson of the movie when Marlin asks his character about how parents can figure out when their kids are ready for the real world.

Finding Nemo also amazes from a technical perspective due to an incredible undersea world created by some of the most impressive computer animation techniques ever used in a feature film. Especially gratifying is the accurate portrayal of vision - distant objects are as blurry and unrecognizable in the murky depths of the ocean as they should be, and the whole movie has a sort of softness of focus, a realism born from various scuba diving trips the animators took to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Nevertheless, even with this shroud of reality draped across the moving images on the screen, the world as perceived by Marlin, Dory and their aquatic friends is beautiful – from the cornucopia of colors adorning the reef Nemo calls home to the bubbly vortex of rushing water that is the East Australian Current, Finding Nemo is a breathtaking wonder to behold.

Considering how visually stunning the movie is, it’s puzzling that Disney has yet to release it on Blu-ray disc. As early as October 2006, the title has appeared in official lists of Disney movies that would be released on the high-definition format, and in January 2008, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment made an official announcement of the release, even going so far as to cite full motion picture-in-picture and a new 7.1 surround sound mix as features. However, the supposed release date of Fall 2008 came and went without so much as a whimper of news about when rabid fans like I could expect it.

Disney, the day you release Finding Nemo on Blu-ray is the day you make money hand over fist. The film is still your highest grossing cinematic release with a worldwide gross just shy of $866.6 million (The Incredibles came the closest to dethroning it with a little less than $635.6 million worldwide). So snap to it!

In conclusion, I highly recommend that anyone looking for a well written, visually impressive, funny, heart-warming family film that will tug at your heart strings while making you smile buy or rent Finding Nemo as soon as possible. I absolutely love this movie, and I honestly think that you’ll have a hard time not loving it, too.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Experience it for yourself!

• Finding Nemo (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition) DVD