Results tagged “juno”

Most of us watched the Oscars last night, while others of us found something else to do, but either way, we were happy to see another Chicago-area native bringing home an award. Writer Diablo Cody, author of the excellent year-as-a-stripper memoir, Candy Girl, won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the teen-pregnancy comedy Juno. While it was the only Oscar for the critical darling little-movie-that-could, it's another addition to the growing list of awards both the film and Ms. Cody have racked up so far. Diablo, accepted the award from Indiana Jones and was on the verge of tears during her acceptance speech (see below). Giving props to her fellow nominees and the cast and crew of her film, Ms. Cody seemed genuinely shocked, excited, and overwhelmed by the award and recognition. We wish Ms. Cody luck on her skyrocketing career and can only imagine the heights of cinematic excellence that could be reached if she were given a crack at something like, say, the next Harry Potter movie. We might actually pay to see that.

Ah, the Academy Award "Shorts." Largely ignored in favor of the races focusing on acting accomplishments and what movie had the saddest/more politically controversial/historically momentous ending, the Short Subject categories often offer a hodgepodge of achievements actually more worthy of your time than most of the feature length tripe that hits theaters these days. They're also full of fun trivia: did you know Billy Zabka, a.k.a the fantastic villain Johnny Lawrence from one of our favorite films of all time, was actually nominated for an Academy Award in the Live Action Short category in 2004? And have you ever seen Don Hertzfeldt's excellent 2001 nominated animated short, "Rejected"? Wacky stuff.

Nominees for this year's Academy Awards were announced this morning and there weren't any huge surprises. Personally we're pretty excited to see P.T. Anderson up against the Coen brothers in both the directing and best picture categories. And everyone we've spoken too seem to think Ellen Page is deserving of her best actress nomination for Juno. in fact, for the first time in recent memory, we actually think just about all of the nominations are pretty right on.

If you're like us, you're already getting pumped up for the Oscars! Not. Jeez, let's get past New Year's first, O.K.? Oops. Too late. The Chicago Film Critics Association has already jumped the gun and handed out their awards. To the surprise of no one the big winner was No Country for Old Men, the new Coen brothers movie that both impressed and disturbed us when we saw it last month. It won four awards in all (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem). We're very pleased that Bardem won; there wouldn't be much of a movie without his chilling character study, and he damned well better win the Oscar.

With the city being overrun by holiday bar crawls, it might be difficult to walk the streets this weekend without being accosted by a drunk dude in holiday vest or run over by a Santa in a hazmat suit. Throw on your best Cosby sweater and enjoy any or all of these weekend delights....