By DOUG STRASSLER

While the news of Corey Haim’s death earlier this week wasn’t exactly shocking, it sure was sad. Haim represents a window of my childhood that I look back upon fondly. Between that and last Sunday’s fitting John Hughes tribute at the Oscars, my mind shuttled back to a period where students didn’t have the privacy of cell phones nor the luxury of contact lenses, and I knew I wanted to say something about it. And then I realized just what it was that I wanted to say: goodbye.

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A truly enjoyable Oscar ceremony needs to be both a carefully planned event and a hotbox of spontaneity. We need to simultaneously see the polish of professional artistry and the messiness of raw emotion. That way, we can experience the enjoyment of watching an excellent film and the delight of remembering that the talented people who make excellent films are just doofuses like the rest of us.

I’d say last night’s Oscar ceremony succeeded on both fronts.

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Another great week in the blogosphere. Here are some highlights…

(1) StinkyLulu regularly hosts a Supporting Actress Smackdown, in which bloggers debate the merits of a particular year’s supporting actress Oscar nominees. This week, the team takes on the current crop of supporting actresses, and though I disagree with them about Vera Farmiga and Maggie Gyllenhaal, I really enjoy reading what they’ve got to say.

(2) Theatrical producer Ken Davenport makes some interesting parallels between Off Broadway and independent film.

(3) The Film Experience is giving out some awesome awards. Nathaniel R., who runs the site,  just coronated the Film Divas of the 2009. (He’s also responsible for that picture up there of Sandra Bullock as a Na’vi.)

By DOUG STRASSLER

Since we’re approaching Oscar eve, my favorite time of year, I figure it’s not only fitting but necessary to write another entry for the Best Picture Expansion Project. In honor of the apparent battle royale between frontrunners Avatar and The Hurt Locker, I’ve decided to write about another year with polarizing Best Picture results: 1980. A full list of that year’s films can be found here; below is the list of the five finalists:

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It’s coming to theatres on March 19, but is it possible you’ve already seen Repo Men? Multiple times? Or is that not true? Is it an original and exciting sci-fi adventure starring Jude “Still Hot” Law and Forest “Oscar” Whittaker?
Watch the trailer and let me know what you think…
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If you’ve ever filled out a ballot at an Oscar party, then you’ve probably felt your eyes glaze over when you got to the Short Film categories. Live Action What? Animated Who Now? When it comes to these races, there’s usually nothing to do but guess.

Until now! Behold… a guide to all ten of this year’s Oscar-nominated short films! (Fictional films, that is. I haven’t seen the short documentaries.) Use this as your guide, and you’ll get a leg up on everyone else at your Oscar party.

And of course, let me encourage you to see these films if you have a chance. All of them are interesting, and some of them are brilliant. Taken together, they demonstrate how vital short films can be.

Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures are currently presenting all of this year’s nominees in a single event that’s screening throughout the country. Use this website to see if it’s playing at a theater near you.

And now… on with the guide!

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Happy almost-weekend everyone! Woo-hoo! To send you out on a high note, I would like to share these delicious morsels from the blogosphere…

First, Roommate Joe and his friend AB Chao delivered a hilarious live-blog of the short program portion of Men’s Olympic Figure Skating. Even if you missed the skaters or don’t know a thing about them, I encourage you to read this recap and enjoy phrases such as “I’d like to invite Evan Lysacek to jump straight up my ass.”

Second, over at Benefit of the Doubt, Jesse Miksic writes smart things about movies. I’m especially impressed by his deconstruction of what goes wrong in Wolfman. He even creates a vector graphic to prove one of his points. That’s commitment, people.

Third, have a gander at “Five Frames From,” a wicked-fun game over at My New Plaid Pants. You see five still-frames from a movie, and then you have to guess the movie. Whoa!

Finally, if you are a geek for statistics, then you should lose yourself for a few moments in College Results Online. It’s a website that breaks down major stats from tons of colleges and universities. What’s the average SAT score at Brown? How many women graduated from UC Irvine in 2005? Find out here! (Here’s a tip… once you look up a school, click on the tab that says “similar colleges.” That’s where you’ll find the most stats laid out in the most accessible way.)

I’m writing this post about the Oscars while I watch the Grammys. Right now, my award-show haze is being pierced by Pink’s bad-assitude (She’s spinning in the air… and singing!),  Jamie Foxx’s self-satisfied assholery, and Taylor Swift’s tizz-errible singing.

But let me get back to the matter at… God, Taylor Swift! You are so out of tune!

Okay, okay… here’s my wish list of Oscar nominees in all four acting categories.

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Thanks to Doug Strassler for reminding me that Invictus should have been on my list of the worst movies I saw this year. Here’s the entry I forgot to write…

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Invictus

You remember how I was worried that this movie was going to be sanctimonious? And that it would mash complex questions of racial relationships in South Africa into tasteless, colorless pabulum? I was totally prescient, you guys.

The way Clint Eastwood directs (and the way his writers write), it’s like they’re smart guys, but they think we’re too stupid to hold up our end of a conversation. So they use sophisticated camera techniques and highly polished scripts to make the most simplistic points imaginable… like they’re doing us a damn favor by introducing our tiny minds to concepts like racial inequality or parental grief or lady boxerdom.

I will give Invictus this, however… it provides me with an image that encapsulates why I generally hate Eastwood’s movies. Now, I don’t have to explain my loathing any more. I can just describe this image and be done with it.

In the movie’s final moments, you see, when the South African rugby team wins the World Cup, thus uniting the nation’s races around a common sport and helping Nelson Mandela start the process of healing, we see a shot of Matt Damon holding his team’s trophy. Then we get a close-up of his white hand on the trophy. And then we see a black hand slide into the frame, gripping Damon’s hand and the trophy at the same time.

And then we get a wave of nausea. Or at least I do.

That pretty much sums up my response to Eastwood’s humorless, pompous inistence on “teaching me” what I’ve known since I was in utero. The man is a talented filmmaker, but other than with Changeling, he’s never applied his talent to anything that respects me the way the critical community clearly wants me to respect him.

Previously: My Best Picture Candidates

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It’s not just the Oscar nominations that get announced next week… it’s the Razzie nominations, too. On Monday, The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation will announce their nominees for the worst cinematic crimes of the year. As part of his excellent year-in-film coverage, Roommate Joe announced his least faves earlier this week. So before I get to my favorite performances of the year, which I’ll write about soon, I want to join the fun and dishonor my least favorite movies of 2009.

Keep in mind that I’m only discussing movies I’ve actually seen. Therefore, no All About Steve or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen or Bride Wars. But despite missing those gems, I still saw an awful lot of crap last year.

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