2006
2006 sees the introduction of a new BMA for Best Foreign Film. The qualifications are that the film must be in a foreign language and from a foreign country, so as a result, Apocalypto, The Queen, etc. would not count. Similarly, as I have watched quite a few documentaries, there is also a new BMA for Best Documentary.
Best Picture:
Brick
Children of Men
The Fountain
Inland Empire
Pan's Labyrinth
The BMA goes to: Children of Men! But then, you already knew that.
The Brandon Academy Award for Best Picture:
Babel
The Departed
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen
And the BAA goes to: I'm pulling for Little Miss Sunshine, but any of the three that are actually in the running (LMS, Babel, Departed...probably in that order) would be fine by me.
Best Actor:
Christian Bale--The Prestige
Sacha Baron Cohen--Borat
Ryan Gosling--Half Nelson
Edward Norton--Down in the Valley
Forest Whitaker--The Last King of Scotland
The BMA goes to: Sacha Baron Cohen! He lives and breathes Borat, and the Golden Globes were right for once: Sacha Baron Cohen gave the best lead male acting performance of the year. I'm a little perplexed, however, as to why great performances like Bale from The Prestige, Norton from Down in the Valley, or Gael Garcia Bernal in the King get overlooked? Phenomenal performances from mediocre movies often make it into the awards circuit (Felicity Huffman in Transamerica, among others), so it's not a question of quality. I guess it's mostly due to the fact that there were so many great performances this year (and probably every year--I just have the advantage of having seen about 90 films this year, way more than usual).
Apologies to: Gael Garcia Bernal (The King), Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond), Toby Jones (Infamous), James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland), Peter O'Toole (Venus)
Leonardo DiCaprio--Blood
Diamond
Ryan Gosling--Half Nelson
Peter O'Toole--Venus
Will Smith--The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker--The Last King of Scotland
The BAA goes to: I'm pulling for Gosling on this one, even though he is about 4th or 5th most likely to actually win. However, of the four performances here that I've seen, I loved them all and would appreciate a win for any of them. Sorry, Will Smith, but I have no inclination to see The Pursuit of Happyness and would only do so out of a sense of obligation, which would not be the best viewing circumstances for me to judge your performance. Thanks for understanding.
Best Actress:
Judi Dench--Notes on a Scandal
Laura Dern--Inland Empire
Maggie Gyllenhaal--Sherrybaby
Helen Mirren--The Queen
Kate Winslet--Little Children
And the BMA goes to: Laura Dern. Watch Inland Empire and tell me she's not worthy. Btw, it feels kind of lame debating the merits of the brilliant performances by Dench, Dern, and Mirren. But playing authentic in a Lynch film with like four or five different (the same?) roles impresses me more than all the others.
Apologies to: Sienna Miller (Factory Girl), Kirsten Dunst (Marie Antoinette), Shareeka Epps (Half Nelson), Elizabeth Reaser (Sweet Land), Amy Sedaris (Strangers With Candy), Naomi Watts (The Painted Veil)
Penelope Cruz--Volver
Dame Judi Dench--Notes on a Scandal
Dame Helen Mirren--The Queen
Meryl Streep--The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet--Little Children
And the BAA goes to: Helen Mirren, of course. The biggest lock of Oscar night, and for good reason.
Best Supporting Actor:
Ben Affleck--Hollywoodland
Christian Bale--Harsh Times
Joseph Fiennes--Running With Scissors
Brad Pitt--Babel
Michael Sheen--The Queen
And the BMA goes to: Brad Pitt for Babel. I'm not sure I agree with Ebert that this is the best work Pitt's ever done--the man has a body of work to kill for--but it's certainly one of the best performances of the year. Also, Michael Sheen carried much of The Queen and well, might I add. In fact, all five of these guys are fairly underrecognized, in my opinion, Affleck's Best Actor at Venice notwithstanding. Christian Bale, especially, burned what would have been an okay movie into my memory with his extremely natural performance, essentially playing the dutiful military man with his superiors and completely transforming into the easily unhinged ghetto product with his peers.
Apologies to: Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine), Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children), Jack Nicholson (The Departed), Guy Pearce (Factory Girl), Mark Ruffalo (All the King's Men)
Alan Arkin--Little Miss
Sunshine
Jackie Earle Haley--Little Children
Djimon Hounsou--Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy--Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg--The Departed
And the BAA goes to: Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. I liked Eddie Murphy's performance the least of these, actually, although Mark Wahlberg's, if you really examine it, is mainly to deliver lines that would be hilarious even if they hadn't been fired from such a natural actor. What I mean is that his role isn't all that meaningful, and the same is true for Murphy. Haley and Hounsou generally rule, although anyone watching Blood Diamond should know that Housou is easily the lead, or at the very least co-lead.
Best Supporting Actress:
Adriana Barraza--Babel
Debbie Doebereiner--Bubble
Catherine O'Hara--For Your Consideration
Meryl Streep--A Prairie Home Companion
Emma Thompson--Stranger Than Fiction
And the BMA goes to: Meryl Streep for A Prairie Home Companion. All five of these are great performances though, especially the underrecognized Debbie Doebereiner from Bubble and Emma Thompson from Stranger Than Fiction. I would also like to point out that I actually prefer Meryl Streep's performance in A Prairie Home Companion to her turn in The Devil Wears Prada, because she's a lot more subtle, and just as tragic, except I feel like in Prairie, her character doesn't realize the intrinsic sadness in her life, while in Prada, she certainly realizes what's happened and even smiles at the good that came out of it for Hathaway. In Prairie, she's so much more subtle and fleshed out, and I don't fault Streep (certainly she's been recognized more for Prada) at all. In fact, the defining characteristic for all of these performances is that they are all tragic.
Apologies to: Cate Blanchett (Notes on a Scandal), Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), Jennifer Connelly (Blood Diamond), Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls), Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), Evan Rachel Wood (Running with Scissors)
Adriana Barraza--Babel
Cate Blanchett--Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin--Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson--Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi--Babel
The BAA goes to: Adriana Barraza from Babel. Don't get me wrong, JHud's a great singer, and her story was the most compelling of the film, but I prefer the realism of Babel as exhibited in Barraza's overwhelming performance as someone who almost gets away with her mistakes without a scratch but ends up completely screwed.
Best Ensemble:
Babel
Bubble
Little Miss Sunshine
A Prairie Home Companion
United 93
The BMA goes to: Babel. And for my money, Bubble's the second choice.
Apologies to: Dreamgirls, Flags of Our Fathers, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Children of Men
The Departed
The Last King of Scotland
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal
The BMA goes to: Notes on a Scandal. "Judas had the dignity to hang himself, but only according to Matthew, the most sentimental of the apostles."
Best Original Screenplay:
Babel
Brick
Inland Empire
Little Miss Sunshine
Pan's Labyrinth
The BMA goes to: Brick. "I've got all five senses, and I slept last night. That puts me six up on the lot of you."
Best Foreign Film:
12:08 East of Bucharest (A Fost Sau n-a Fost?)
The Aura (El Aura)
The Lives of Others (Das Leben Der Anderen)
Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)
Volver (To Return)
The BMA goes to: Pan's Labyrinth
Best Poster:
Factory Girl
The Fountain
Fur
Marie Antoinette
A Scanner Darkly
V for Vendetta
The BMA goes to: V for Vendetta. I just couldn't decide which of these six I should cut, so I decided to have six nominees this year. It's interesting that I have three sorta girly movies and three more boyish movies, and the girly ones are all "biopics" but not really. I'd also like to say that The Good German's poster was a great try, but way too photo-shopped to make the cut.
Apologies to: Apocalypto, Borat, Casino Royale, Down in the Valley, Flags of Our Fathers, Little Children, The Painted Veil, The Science of Sleep
Best Trailer:
Babel
Borat
Brick
The Fountain
Letters From Iwo Jima
The BMA goes to: Brick
Apologies to: The Departed, Little Children, Marie Antoinette
Overlooked Prize:
Brick
Bubble
Feast
Old Joy
Sweet Land
The BMA goes to: Brick. This is the highest-ranked overlooked film in the history of the BMAs, as it is indie, extremely overlooked, and my second favorite film of the year, whereas my usual Overlooked films come from the 20s or so. Also, I didn't count overlooked films with awards buzz like Venus or even Hard Candy, just because these films have been completely overlooked except by certain critics.
Apologies to: Infamous, The King, Factory Girl, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Brandon A. Nowalk Award for Creativity:
The Fountain has been Darren Aronofsky's dream project for years now, which usually means something has gone wrong, but in this case, not so much. Aronofsky has created something entirely unique, and it helps that its subject matter is so tailored to my interests. I read somewhere that the effects are mostly un-CG, but chemical reactions instead. Even without that creativity, the story involves the same characters in three different times, reflecting the plot's quest for immortality. Darren Aronofsky's vision is realized breathtakingly, and I'm really proud to not only include it in my top 10 but to give it this special award as well.
BMA MVP:
Edward Norton--Edward Norton carried three films this year, delivering a fresh, distinct performance in each. In the Illusionist, Norton plays a magician named Eisenheim trying to win his love from the grip of a tyrant, and when Eisenheim is seemingly rebuffed for good, he transforms into the picture of melancholy, who is of course planning something all along. In the Painted Veil, Norton plays a 1940's doctor who travels to China with a wife who is indifferent to him only to fall for her later, all while trying to save as many Chinese natives as he can with modern medicine. And in Down in the Valley, my personal favorite performance of his this year, Norton plays (SPOILER) a crazy drifter who believes he is a cowboy even though he lives in random hotels in Los Angeles in 2006. He is so sweetly innocent, however, even after doing abhorrent acts, because he clearly has no understanding of what is actually going on.
Best Documentary: The BMA goes to: Jesus Camp. I have seen way more documentaries this year than normally (6 in fact), so I feel qualified to actually give out this award this year.
BMA Losers:
You all get a reprieve, I suppose, for now at least.
BMA Shout Outs:
Cate Blanchett--Most
Versatile--my runner-up MVP, perfect co-star of The Good German, Babel, and
Notes on a Scandal
Sofia Coppola--Don't Let the Cannes Get You Down--Get it?
Alfonso Cuaron--Biggest Snub--for directing Children of Men brilliantly
Will Ferrell--Best Surprise--for giving great performances in the typical
Talladega Nights and the excellent Stranger Than Fiction
Rian Johnson--Best Newcomer--the director of Brick upstaged almost every other
director this year
Steven Soderbergh--Expanding Horizons Award--I appreciate Soderbergh's
dedication to film experimentation in Bubble and The Good German
The Three Amigos--Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron, and Guillermo Del
Toro--for not only directing three of the best films of the year and putting
Mexico on the cinematic map, but for bringing that sense of camaraderie with
them (check out the Special Thanks sections at the end of their movies),
tirelessly encouraging each other to achieve their fullest potentials.
From what I've seen, this year, they each achieved their best work to date, and
for that, they should each be very proud.
Recap:
Babel: 2 BMAs--Best
Supporting Actor, Best Ensemble
Borat: 1 BMA--Best Actor
Brick: 1 BMA--Best Trailer
Children of Men: 1 BMA--Best Picture
For Your Consideration: 1 BMA--Best Supporting Actress
Inland Empire: 1 BMA--Best Actress
Jesus Camp: 1 BMA--Best Documentary
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