Consolation Champs

As is her custom, Brooke tries to make us see as many of the Oscar-nominated films each year as possible. Last night, we watched Unfaithful, starring Richard Gere and the Oscar-nominated Diane Lane. I don’t have a lot to say about it, other than that it was an above-average thriller with some mildly spicy sex scenes.

Two things are interesting about it, though. First, it is a remake of a French film, Claude Chabrol’s La Femme Infidele, which is loosely based on Madame Bovary. This makes me want to see the original, which is probably sexier and more thrilling, or at least sexier. Second, I recognized a piano arrangement of the Radiohead song “Exit Music (For A Film)” and it turns out it’s performed by Brad Mehldau, and a live version was included on the CD Mix Of The Month for May 2002, sent to me by Josh Benton. He’s so way ahead of the “cool curve,” it’s scary.

Ok, the grouch is me. The nominations for the Oscars were announced today, and I was a little disappointed. I enjoyed Chicago as much as the next guy (and even more than I thought I would), but I think its 13(!) nominations are way out of line. Nothing against Queen Latifah or John C. Reilly, but I really didn’t think they did all that much to deserve their nominations.

Especially galling is that Dennis Quaid’s fine fine work in Far From Heaven was overlooked, as was director Todd Haynes. I was also surprised to see both Adaptation and About Schmidt shut out of the Best Picture and Best Director nominations.

I guess that with a war looming, Americans would rather see escapist fluff like Chicago than more quirky, difficult, challenging, or yes, depressing movies. Which is why I think it will sweep most of the awards it’s nominated for. And that’s too bad, since it’s not a terrible movie. It’s just not a great movie.

Another surprise was that Talk To Her, the acclaimed film from Pedro Almodovar, was not submitted by Spain as its entrant for Best Foreign Language Film. I bet it would have wiped the floor with the other nominees, though I haven’t seen it yet. It gives me a little hope that one of my favourites, The Man Without A Past, might have a chance. I wrote a little about that film here.

As always, I covet your comments.