Big birthday day!

Michelle Pfeiffer, Daniel Day-Lewis, Uma Thurman.

Love DDL, especially after 2007. Uma Thurman is one of my favorite actresses when she's not being terrible, which is sadly not all that often lately. Still, all she really needs is Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction and she's already got two performances most people would die for. Don't care for Michelle Pfeiffer, the praise she gets for Batman Returns still utterly baffles me. She was okay as the cat in full regalia, not anything special but not bad, but she was horrendous as the secretary. Granted, that part of the movie didn't last terribly long, but it still left a sour taste. Recently, people (not a lot, but they're out there) have been giving her noms for Hairspray. WTF?

Part One of The Unfortunate Oscar Losers

Uma sees a member of the Academy...

So, tonight, cuz I can't think of anything better to do, I'm going to do my list of Unfortunate Oscar Losers of the 2000s onward. This first part is the people who, I believe, were in sixth place every year in certain categories (the majors that aren't the screenplays). I'll have explanations if I find they're necessary. I'm probably really wrong with the early 2000s since I didn't really start following the Oscars until 2005ish...but oh well.

2000
Best Picture: Almost Famous
Best Director: Ed Harris, Pollock (it had popularity among the Academy. Actor turned director)
Best Actor: Michael Douglas, Wonder Boys
Best Actress: Renee Zellweger, Nurse Betty
Best Supporting Actor: um. Gary Oldman, The Contender
Best Supporting Actress: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Traffic

2001
Best Picture: Shrek
Best Director: Baz Luhrmann, Moulin Rouge! (I don't understand how they liked it enough to nominate it for Best Picture and have it win several awards...and then didn't nominate it for Best Director. What the hell do they think made Moulin Rouge! Moulin Rouge!????? Some very good movies don't have very distinct direction. This one sure as fuck did!)
Best Actor: Gene Hackman, The Royal Tenenbaums
Best Actress: Naomi Watts, Mulholland Dr. (um...well...Nicole in The Others probably had more votes but you know what? If enough saw Mulholland Dr. to nominate it for Best Director, enough would have seen Naomi to vote for her as Best Actress. She probably got a lot of #1s.)
Best Supporting Actor: Jude Law, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
Best Supporting Actress: Gwyneth Paltrow, The Royal Tenenbaums

2002
Best Picture: um. About Schmidt?
Best Director: Peter Jackson, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Best Actor: Richard Gere, Chicago
Best Actress: Meryl Streep, The Hours
Best Supporting Actor: Dennis Quaid, Far from Heaven
Best Supporting Actress: Cameron Diaz, Gangs of New York (I like Cameron quite a bit as an actress, but lordy I am glad she was snubbed here.)

2003
Best Picture: Cold Mountain
Best Director: Anthony Minghella, Cold Mountain
Best Actor: Russell Crowe, Master and Commander: I Can't Remember the Rest of this Title =/
Best Actress: Uma Thurman, Kill Bill: Volume 1
Best Supporting Actor: Peter Sarsgaard, Shattered Glass
Best Supporting Actress: Scarlett Johansson, Lost in Translation (remember, they were campaigning her supporting? Which is CRAZY TALK.)

2004
Best Picture: Hotel Rwanda
Best Director: Marc Forster, Finding Neverland
Best Actor: hmmm, I wonder... Paul Giamatti, Sideways (the snub of snubs!)
Best Actress: Uma Thurman, Kill Bill: Volume 2 (poor, poor Uma. She deserved it both years 100%, too.)
Best Supporting Actor: David Carradine, Kill Bill: Volume 2 (let's snub the old guy who's actually good. Let's give the nomination to the old guy who's really boring [that's an insult directed toward Alan Alda, not Morgan Freeman. I luv u Morgan.])
Best Supporting Actress: uhhhh...Kate Winslet, Finding Neverland ????

2005
Best Picture: Walk the Line
Best Director: James Mangold, Walk the Line
Best Actor: Russell Crowe, Cinderella Man
Best Actress: Ziyi Zhang, Memoirs of a Geisha (I don't want to hear your silly Joan Allen-ness. Though thank God both of 'em were snubbed.)
Best Supporting Actor: Terrence Howard, Crash
Best Supporting Actress: Maria Bello, A History of Violence (I'm still really confused about how Hurt got in, and she didn't.)

2006
Best Picture: Dreamgirls
Best Director: the peeps who directed Little Miss Sunshine
Best Actor: Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat... though I think Leo in The Departed had more votes than him
Best Actress: God only knows, since the same five were repeated all awards season. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sherrybaby
Best Supporting Actor: Jack Nicholson, The Departed
Best Supporting Actress: Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada (HA.)

So basically: the Academy's snubs have sometimes left out really bad, overhyped performances and movies (anything that brings Almost Famous and Emily Blunt less glory makes me oh so happy), and sometimes they've left out really amazing performances and movies (THE BRIIIIDE). Not really anything we didn't know.

happy birthday to a motherfucking genius (the language is in his honor)

we get it, quentin, you like uma

"Normally, both your asses would be dead as fucking fried chicken, but you happen to pull this shit while I'm in a transitional period so I don't wanna kill you, I wanna help you. But I can't give you this case, it don't belong to me. Besides, I've already been through too much shit this morning over this case to hand it over to your dumb ass."

Yeah, Quentin Tarantino is one of the most annoying people ever put on planet Earth. But you know what? He's also one of the most talented directors ever put on planet Earth, so it sort of balances out. Whatever you want to say about him, you can't deny that he has the ability to take tons of shit from other things and make them truly his own. Pulp Fiction is the best movie ever with the best screenplay ever. I do not exaggerate that statement. Plus, he's the only one who knows what the fuck to do with Uma Thurman (see the picture above, which still cracks me up. Uh, Quentin, her face is up there.). My ranking of his movies:

1. Pulp Fiction (A+, and my favorite movie ever.)
2. Kill Bill (A+ together, an A for both volumes)
3. Jackie Brown (A-/A)
4. Reservoir Dogs (A-)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Now get cranking on some more movies. Can't fuckin' wait for Grindhouse!!

2003

figure i might as well get the "bad" years out of the way...but i don't actually think 2003 was that bad (only the third-worst of the new millennium, after 2000 and 2005). also note, i am including the hbo miniseries angels in america, the single best film in the time frame 99-06. also, 2003 had the godly lost in translation as well as mystic river, which still blows me away (shut it), and the first half of quentin tarantino's kill bill masterpiece.

Best Picture
1. Angels in America
2. Lost in Translation
3. Mystic River
4. Kill Bill, Vol. 1
5. City of God
6. Love Actually (shut it)
7. Cold Mountain (shut it...again)
8. Girl with a Pearl Earring
9. thirteen
10. Finding Nemo

Best Director
1. Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation
2. Mike Nichols for Angels in America
3. Peter Jackson for Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (this is more of a cumulative award, to be honest, because I felt bad snubbing him)
4. Quentin Tarantino for Kill Bill, Vol. 1
5. Gus Von Sant for Elephant (and to a much lesser extent the awful Gerry)
6. Clint Eastwood for Mystic River
7. Fernando Meirelles for City of God
8. Robert Altman for The Company
9. Andrew Jarecki for Capturing the Friedmans
10. Danny Boyle for 28 Days Later...

Best Actor
1. Bill Murray in Lost in Translation
2. Justin Kirk in Angels in America
3. Sean Penn in Mystic River
4. Jude Law in Cold Mountain
5. Ben Kingsley in House of Sand and Fog
6. Hayden Christensen in Shattered Glass
7. Sean Penn in 21 Grams
8. Chiwetel Ejiofor in Dirty Pretty Things
9. Russell Crowe in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
10. Robert Downey Jr. in The Singing Detective

Best Actress
1. Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, Vol. 1
2. Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation
3. Charlize Theron in Monster
4. Evan Rachel Wood in thirteen
5. Scarlett Johansson in Girl with a Pearl Earring
6. Zooey Deschanel in All the Real Girls
7. Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give
8. Gwyneth Paltrow in Sylvia
9. Jennifer Connelly in House of Sand and Fog
10. Meg Ryan in In the Cut

Best Supporting Actor
1. Jeffrey Wright in Angels in America
2. Al Pacino in Angels in America
3. Tim Robbins in Mystic River
4. Peter Sarsgaard in Shattered Glass
5. Bill Nighy in Love Actually
6. Kevin Bacon in Mystic River
7. Alec Baldwin in The Cooler
8. Patrick Wilson in Angels in America
9. Hugh Grant in Love Actually
10. Ben Shenkman in Angels in America

Best Supporting Actress
1. Meryl Streep in Angels in America
2. Mary-Louise Parker in Angels in America
3. Renee Zellweger in Cold Mountain (totally deserving of her Oscar)
4. Patricia Clarkson in The Station Agent
5. Holly Hunter in thirteen
6. Marcia Gay Harden in Mystic River
7. Lucy Liu in Kill Bill, Vol. 1
8. Miranda Richardson in Spider
9. Emma Thompson in Love Actually
10. Emma Thompson in Angels in America

Best Screenplay
1. Lost in Translation
2. Kill Bill, Vol. 1
3. Angels in America
4. Mystic River
5. Love Actually
6. City of God
7. Cold Mountain
8. The Barbarian Invasions
9. The Station Agent
10. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

mmm-hmm.