Oscar Race 2009: Winner Predictions - Short (Animated)

Strange that the only time Pixar won here was the same year it lostand tragically soin the race for Animated Feature. Nine years later, it seems doubtful that Presto, which accompanied WALL-E throughout its theatrical run, will end what's slowly becoming a Susan Lucci-esque losing streak: The story of a bunny who takes vengeance on the magician who denies him a carrot, the short is adorably feisty but forgettable. If you spend much of the film wondering what Chuck Jones could have done with it, you'll likely balk at Oktapoid, in which two octopi struggle to escape from the clutches of a delivery man, for seeming too much like an audition on the part of its six directors for a job at, yes, Pixar. Like Presto, Oktapoid lacks for poignancy, but neither film is as flippant as This Way Up, the story of two glum undertakers whose attempt to bury an old woman is constantly and inexplicably thwarted by the world around them. If This Way Up trivializes death, Lavatory Lovestory cutely celebrates the possibility of love blossoming in unexpected places, but Konstantin Bronstin's memorable short doesn't hold a candle to the only other 2D short in the category, La Maison en Petits Cubes. The strange account of an old man who builds his house up toward the heavens as the water that drowns the world continues to rise, Kunito Kato's production initially cries out for context, until the old man loses his pipe and his attempt to retrieve it from the lower levels of his home literally opens the floodgates of memory. The Triplets of Belleville cult will go nuts for Kato's expressionistic drawings and his intuitive evocation of loss and loneliness.

Will Win: La Maison en Petits Cubes

Should Win: La Maison en Petits Cubes

Forecast: The 51st Annual Grammy Awards

RECORD OF THE YEAR
"Chasing Pavements," Adele
"Viva la Vida," Coldplay
"Bleeding Love," Leona Lewis
"Paper Planes," M.I.A.
"Please Read the Letter," Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

Eric Henderson: So both the Grammys and the Oscars are hip to M.I.A. now? No matter. Slumdog Millionaire may be a frontrunner for Best Picture, but I bet "Paper Planes" comes in fifth here.
Sal Cinquemani: Despite the fact that I can't imagine the academy awarding a song with gunshots in it, I see this as a three-way race between M.I.A., Coldplay, and Plant & Krauss, who could feasibly sweep in every category they're nominated.
Jonathan Keefe: I'd say that all of the people who voted for the Ray Charles & Norah Jones duet a couple of years ago would automatically vote for Plant & Krauss this year, except that Adele's single keeps "Please Read the Letter" from being the most boring nominee. Usually the vote-split favors something particularly tepid, but the reverse situation could actually keep M.I.A. in the running here. But it's always a bad idea to bet against Krauss at the Grammys, and I think she and Plant will pull off the sweep.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, Coldplay
Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne
Year of the Gentleman, Ne-Yo
Raising Sand, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
In Rainbows, Radiohead

Sal: Raising Sand embodies both the academy's archaic but still lingering tendency to award seemingly wholesome/veteran acts as well as their recent penchant for trying to prove their hipster cred in this category.
Eric: I'd say that Radiohead, at this point in their career, fills both roles similarly.
Sal: Nah, Thom Yorke looks too much like a fetus.
Jonathan: Yes, that, and the In Rainbows pay-what-you-want release hardly seems like something NARAS's most conservative older voters would want to reward. This one is probably the easiest call this year: Coldplay's Bends-lite pulls enough of the rock contingent's votes from Radiohead, and Ne-Yo pulls enough of the urban branch's votes from Weezy to guarantee that Raising Sand wins.

SONG OF THE YEAR
"American Boy," Estelle featuring Kanye West
"Chasing Pavements," Adele
"I'm Yours," Jason Mraz
"Love Song," Sarah Bareilles
"Viva la Vida," Coldplay

Eric: Collectively, this has to be the fastest set of songs that's ever shown up in this category, and by a winning margin of at least 50 bpm on average. Obviously, the four-on-the-floor of "American Boy" revels in its brisk tempo most conspicuously, so that's not gonna win this unofficial "Best Ballad" category.
Jonathan: The Avril Lavigne/Vanessa Carlton act never wins here either, so Bareilles is out too. It likely comes down to "Viva la Vida," which kind of sounds important but doesn't make a hell of a lot of literal sense, and "I'm Yours," which is better than the John Mayer drivel that usually wins "Best Ballad" but still makes me want to punch Mraz square in the Adam's apple for using the word "bestest" and thinking that's just precious. Normally, that would make Mraz the winner, but Coldplay's just too big not to win one of the major awards.
Sal: Did you just compare Avril Lavigne to Vanessa Carlton? And maybe more upsetting, did you just compare Bareilles to both of them? As much as I (publicly) hate Avril, I can at least sit through the first few notes of her songs without wanting to stab myself in the ears with freshly sharpened pencils (in rhythm with the bouncy beat, of course).
Jonathan: Put down the pencils, Sal. I just meant that, as a young, pop-friendly female singer-songwriter, they all fill a certain "type" in this category, and that type never actually wins. Rest assured that we're all (publicly) glad that Avril has dropped off the face of the earth.

BEST NEW ARTIST
Adele
Duffy
Jonas Brothers
Lady Antebellum
Jazmine Sullivan

Eric: Given that the Jonas Brothers have been around in some stage of puberty or another for the last three or four years, I wonder if we shouldn't throw our vote to them in anticipation of hastening that fifth and final year. Nah, I think they have to throw something Adele's way, right?
Sal: Duffy had one of the biggest selling albums in the world last year (my dad even likes her), so if she doesn't win here, I can't imagine Adele doing it. Besides, Grammy typically likes to award one of its own in this category. Assuming the two Brits cancel each other out, one of the other three could have a shot, and my vote goes to Jazmine, whose Fearless would probably have made our year-end list had I heard it in time.
Jonathan: Sullivan and Lady Antebellum are the only two I see still being halfway relevant in the U.S. five years from now. Of course, just last year this award went to someone who's doing her damnedest to ensure that she won't be alive five years from now, so maybe long-term projections aren't the way to go.
Sal: I'm suddenly seeing the Jonas Brothers taking this. After all, Malia and Sasha are fans. And we're in a recession.
Eric: Best New Artist = $$$?
Sal: No, but popularity is a factor. Hello, Evanescence? Vagina + album sales = win.
Eric: So you're saying the Jonas Brothers fulfill that equation this year?
Sal: Yes.
Jonathan: I just ask for a reaction shot from Taylor Swift when it happens. Maybe if she gets caught making an Angelina-worthy bitchface, people will finally settle down about her.

BEST FEMALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE
"Chasing Pavements," Adele
"Love Song," Sarah Bareilles
"Mercy," Duffy
"Bleeding Love," Leona Lewis
"I Kissed a Girl," Katy Perry
"So What," Pink

Sal: Duffy's got a solid shot at all three of the categories she's nominated in (the third being Best Pop Vocal Album, which lacks a no-brainer Album of the Year nominee), but I think this might be her surest bet. And before you point out that "Bleeding Love" is nominated for Record of the Year, Leona Lewis is decidedly missing from the Best New Artist tally.
Eric: Duffy's up-in-the-throat singing will definitely get a few extra votes from those who take the phrase "vocal performance" very literally. I was going to point out that Adele is also nominated in Record of the Year and Best New Artist, but I sort of think both will fall in this category to Sarah Bareilles. I mean, she didn't even write you a love song, so what's there left to award but her vocal performance?
Sal: Yeah, but this category really has very little to do with vocals. Or maybe I just can't stand song titles that contradict their lyrics…or maybe I just hate that one.
Jonathan: Bareilles isn't winning this if the likes of Natalie Imbruglia, Michelle Branch, and Vanessa Carlton before her couldn't; 10 years' worth of recurrent airplay at AC radio is her reward.
Sal: What? I can't hear you. My ears are filling with blood.
Jonathan: More so than trying to interpret the whims of the Blue Ribbon Panel that cherry-pick the General Field nominations, it's probably more meaningful to look at the Pop Album nominations to see who has a broader base of voter support (see the Clarkson vs. Stefani throwdown from 2006). To that end, this is most likely a contest between Duffy and Leona Lewis. "Mercy" was the only song from Rockferry that I liked much at all and it would get my vote, but Harvey Wein…um, Clive Davis has too much clout for Lewis not to win something, and this is her best bet. But before we go omitting certain other nominees from the discussion on principle, let's not forget that "Who Let the Dogs Out" and "My Humps" both won Grammys. So there's precedent for the nightmare scenarios actually coming to pass.

BEST DANCE RECORDING
"Harder Better Faster Stronger," Daft Punk
"Ready for the Floor," Hot Chip
"Just Dance," Lady Gaga & Colby O'Donis
"Give It 2 Me," Madonna
"Disturbia," Rihanna
"Black & Gold," Sam Sparro

Sal: There's probably no stopping Lady Gaga, what with her song having hit the top of the pop charts and all. Plus, her song has the word "dance" right in the title!
Eric: So you think voters will go Gaga just because the song's title tells them to dance? What about Madonna's "Give It 2 Me"? Do you think that title will make voters fuck her en masse…again?
Sal: If that was a joke, I don't get it.
Eric: She's a whore. That's the joke.
Sal: Oh, a dated Madonna-whore joke. Good one, Eric. I think the title will make voters think she wants a hotdog—I mean, a Grammy—real bad, in which case she won't get one. At least not this year.
Eric: Now there's a dated reference [Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde].
Sal: Anyway, you're right. If "D.A.N.C.E." couldn't beat Rihanna last year, maybe "Disturbia" could take this one.
Jonathan: I thought we decided to cover this category so we could talk about how balls-out stupid the Daft Punk live performance nomination is. Which, since the only thing the Grammys love more than Alison Krauss is to reward live versions of songs that arguably should have won in previous years, means that Daft Punk could very well beat Gaga.
Sal: And we have Kanye West to thank for it. And no, I'm not being sarcastic.
Eric: I don't give Grammy voters credit for anything, much less realizing that "Harder Better Faster Stronger" isn't a new song, much less that it came out eight years ago (plus or minus a couple of decades, if you're Edwin Birdsong).

BEST ROCK SONG
"Girls in Their Summer Clothes," Bruce Springsteen
"House of Cards," Radiohead
"I Will Possess Your Heart," Death Cab for Cutie
"Sex on Fire," Kings of Leon
"Violet Hill," Coldplay

Sal: It's only right that the Grammy gods will try to rectify the Boss's Oscar snub by granting him his 19th Grammy (and fourth in this category). Anyway, he's got a better shot here than he does going up against Paul McCartney and Neil Young over in Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance.
Jonathan: It speaks to how across-the-board shitty the Rock field is this year that this is its best and most competitive category. Of course, the idea that Kings of Leon's arena-rock version of DJ Lady Tribe's VD rap from Bret Michaels' Herpes Bus qualifies as the best of anything— hell, it proves that the Kings can't even write competently about the one thing that they know, which is their own sluttiness—should have been enough reason to cancel the whole damn show. Springsteen wins by default because he always does, but I'd vote for Coldplay's kind of awesome Steely Dan song.
Eric: I can't wait for Coldplay to release their Gaucho.

BEST URBAN/ALTERNATIVE PERFORMANCE
"Say Goodbye to Love," Kenna
"Wanna Be," Maiysha
"Be OK," Chrisette Michele featuring will.i.am
"Many Moons," Janelle Monae
"Lovin You (Music)," Wayna Featuring Kokayi

Eric: This category's creeping closer and closer to "Alternative" these days. Kenna and Janelle Monae are pretty far removed from India.Arie and Jill Scott. I like it (especially the Fisher Price funk of "Say Goodbye to Love"), but I imagine voters will probably hew close to the infant category's legacy of awarding soft, cerebral, world music-infused R&B. Mouth-clicking cover of Minnie Ripperton for the win.
Sal: Oh, geez. You mean I actually have to listen to music before commenting on a category? BRB…I like the Kenna song but the material on his second album pales in comparison to his debut. Plus, he was kind of an asshole when we interviewed him. I think Chrisette's got this in the bag.
Jonathan: After reading that interview, I was really glad that I passed on doing it, no matter how much I liked New Sacred Cow. I heard the Janelle Monae single about a week too late to vote for it on our year-end list, but I absolutely love it, even if its lack of will-dot-i-dot-am mainstream appeal will keep it from winning here.

BEST RAP/SUNG COLLABORATION
"American Boy," Estelle featuring Kanye West
"Low," Flo Rida featuring T-Pain
"Green Light," John Legend & Andre 3000
"Got Money," Lil Wayne featuring T-Pain
"Superstar," Lupe Fiasco featuring Matthew Santos

Sal: "American Boy" seems like a sure thing here, but frighteningly, T-Pain statistically has a 40% chance of winning.
Eric: And he'll probably have a 60% chance of winning next year. If voters keep that threat in the back of their minds while contemplating their ballot, "American Boy" is probably a slam dunk. That said, "Green Light" represents the Grammy credential double-shot.
Jonathan: The way I predict this category is simple: Which song do members of my extended family have on their iPods? This year, that would be "Low," and their Flo Rida obsession has made for some truly horrific moments at family gatherings. Since I'd just as soon forget some of those moments, I'll agree that "American Boy" actually wins.

BEST COUNTRY ALBUM
That Lonesome Song, Jamey Johnson
Sleepless Nights, Patty Loveless
Troubadour, George Strait
Around the Bend, Randy Travis
Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love, Trisha Yearwood

Eric: Once I was in a K-Mart and trying to decide whether I wanted to buy a book of Word Find or Sudoku puzzles. I heard a woman yell to the cashier, "I done lost all my gah-damned money!"
Sal: And I perused the music section of my parents' local Wal-Mart while I was home for the holidays and realized why Tower Records went out of business.
Jonathan: That's the angle the two of you are taking on this? Really?
Sal: You didn't really expect Eric to sit through five country albums, did you? And by "Eric" I mean "me."
Jonathan: Fair enough. Since I have heard all five of these albums, I'll say that this is, top-to-bottom, the strongest of all 793 Grammy categories this year. In fact, with the exceptions of an inexplicable nomination for Martina McBride (at the expense of Miranda Lambert, no less) and the annual indefensible nomination for Rascal Flatts, the entire Country field is damn near perfect. Yearwood, Loveless, and Johnson would all make for excellent, richly deserving winners—I'd vote for Yearwood's set, which marks her eighth nomination in this category since it was reintroduced in 1995 and is arguably her career-best work—and even the sets by Travis and Strait are better than some albums that have won in this category of late. I think Yearwood has a real shot at this, but Johnson, who has nearly all of the critical buzz this year, and Strait, who has never won a Grammy and is regarded as overdue for some make-up wins, are more likely to take it. Strait has sentiment and a significant commercial edge working in his favor, but I'm going with Johnson, whose gritty album wasn't nearly as lacking in effort as Strait's.
Eric: I'll say this, you annually make me wish I was remotely interested in country, but in this year of Adele/Jonas/T-Pain/reheated Daft Punk, I think we can truly take him at his word that this is the best Grammy has to offer.

Oscar Race 2009: Winner Predictions - Makeup

It's probably foolish to immediately write off the movie nominated in 12 other categories, but if there was one moment in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that threw me clean out of the movie's up-to-then pretty seamless illusion, it was the moment the crane shot landed on Brad Pitt on that fishing boatthe precise point where the visual effects team hands the reigns of ancient Pitt over to the makeup team, who handle middle-aged Pitt. Granted, the movie doesn't truly get lost in Uncanny Valley until the VFX team makes their encore performance to turn the clock back (forward?) on Pitt's face, suggesting a PIXAR remake of Legends of the Fall. In any case, Benjamin Button has to have a better shot than The Dark Knight, unless all 38 Academy members who are both male and under 40 want to show their gratitude for helping them out with their Halloween costumes this year. (Like elderly Pitt, Two-Face is really more a VFX triumph.) Though Academy members might find its rogue's gallery a lot less Alice in Wonderland and a lot more Hellraiser, we're betting Guillermo Del Toro's Oscar goodwill continues here.

Will Win: Hellboy II

Should Win: Hellboy II

Reinventing the War on Terror

The executive orders President Barack Obama signed on Thursday are the beginning of a long battle by human rights defenders to reign in an executive branch bloated with power. In conducting his War on Terror, George W. Bush established a shadow network of spies and covert detention sites, one governed by its own secret laws promulgated largely through confidential memos. The prison at Guantanamo Bay was only the most visible part of this network. To thoroughly dismantle this terrible executive inheritance, Obama's legal team in the Department of Justice will need to do much more. And even though the Obama administration has taken the initiative here, it is unlikely that substantive reforms will occur without pressure from Congress.

The person most significant in bringing our wayward executive branch under the rule of law will be incoming Attorney General Eric Holder. Alongside Dawn Johsen, the incoming head of the Office of Legal Counsel, and Obama himself, the heap of memos, executive orders, and other documents authorizing Bush's excesses will be his to confront. Holder will decide, for example, if Gitmo's closure becomes more than a symbolic victory. If his office declares that the enemy combatants detained by the Bush administration were entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions, Obama's defense and justice departments will have to radically revise the Bush strategy for holding and prosecuting enemy combatants. But that's unlikely. Obama's Department of Justice hasn't yet decided how to go about prosecuting these prisoners, as evidenced in their request that all habeus corpus hearings be delayed while a system is put into place. As to whether the detentions were illegal in the first place, Holder has already stated that he does not believe the prisoners in Gitmo were entitled to Geneva protections to begin with. Fighting to have Geneva applied to Gitmo's enemy combatants won't win Obama any further political favor, but having to recognize stricter due process standards for enemy detainees will create headaches for the Department of Justice later on—principally, by forcing the administration to accord enemy combatants the legal privileges and rights enjoyed by prisoners of war.

It's also up to Holder to decide what happens to the Gitmo detainees. One of the options left open by Obama's order is that prisoners be "transferred to another United States detention facility." The intense scrutiny that Gitmo has been subject to has prompted officials to release prisoners and permanently close sections of the prison, but the Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan has only seen more prisoners extradited. For suspects imprisoned there, access and oversight are even scanter than they would have been in Guantanamo Bay.

The order also specifies that untried detainees may be "transferred to a third country," as clear an indicator as any that Obama and Holder intend to continue the controversial renditions program. This is the same program by which the Bush administration oversaw extradition of suspected terrorists: to have their spines extended in Syria, to be electrocuted in Egypt, to be executed in Pakistan. While this program ballooned under Bush, it began quietly during the Clinton administration, and it's likely that Holder and Obama will continue this program. But worse than that, it's going to be almost impossible for anyone to find out whether they do continue the program or not. In this respect, the extent to which Obama's order to end torture makes a practical difference in the way prisoners are interrogated hinges on Holder's future decisions.

If there's a bright spot in all of this, it's Johnsen's appointment to the OLC. Her recent work has thoughtfully confronted the excesses of the "unitary executive" argued for by Bush's legal counsel and, more importantly, has gestured at a way forward. In 2007 she published the article "Faithfully Executing the Laws: Internal Legal Constraints on Executive Power," in which she argued that "enemy combatant designations, extreme interrogation techniques, extraordinary renditions, secret overseas prisons, and warrantless domestic surveillance" were both illegal and unwise. More importantly, she spent time arguing for a set of constraints that could inhibit future abuses from being authorized in the same fashion. Some on the left have already hailed Johnsen as the "anti-Yoo," referring to the head of the OLC under Bush. John Yoo's infamous "torture memos" provided the justifications for the Bush administration's most egregious crimes. But even an anti-Yoo won't be able to undo all of his handiwork.

Among those who will be most disappointed with Obama's ascendancy are those who are hoping to see the lawyers and executive officials responsible for the Bush excesses punished. The problems with trying to hold justice, defense, and White House officials accountable were articulated with disturbing clarity in Jane Myer's The Dark Side, last year's unsettling investigation of the War on Terror. What Myers makes clear in her analysis is that the question of whether Obama's administration wants—or is obligated—to prosecute those who oversaw torture and illegal spying exists quite apart from the question of whether or not he can do so with any success. Even if Obama wanted to take a strict, prosecutorial stance, the fact that torture and detention took place with the blessing of the OLC essentially immunizes the perpetrators. A Supreme Court decision establishing the unconstitutionality of Yoo's interpretations would not place them in any further legal jeopardy, so long as they can claim to have made a good faith effort to follow the OLC's advice. That is, even if Yoo's "laws" turn out to have been illegal, it's unlikely that anyone can be prosecuted for following them.

A better approach, which Jack Balkin of Yale Law School has advocated, would use congressional inquiries to gather information on what exactly occurred inside the Department of Justice, the CIA, and the Department of Defense, then develop reforms and improved constraints on that basis. It's an approach that's more forward-looking in its pursuit of accountability, but it's also more realistic for it. Trying to prosecute executives who have a near-airtight defense would yield few results, and much of the information the public would hope to gain would be confidential or inadmissible.

Holder and Johnsen's best chance to do good—and allay a lot of justified fears—is to work publicly with congressional leaders on the development of new rules to govern, for example, the outlawing of cruel, inhuman, and degrading interrogation tactics, or the future use of FISA-approved surveillance powers. In terms of jurisdiction and oversight, though, Congress can do little if Holder and Johnsen don't take the initiative.

Congress can step forward in revising the most extreme sections of the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. The former bill became infamous in the aftermath of 9/11 for drastically increasing the federal government's ability to gather information from telephone and email databases, to detain immigrants and terror suspects, and to widen the scope of executive power within the U.S. But it's the latter law that truly demands attention. Parts of the Military Commissions Act, passed in 2006, utterly removed the ability of designated terror suspects to contest their detentions under habeas corpus, allowing them to be kept in an endless legal hell for years at a time. Other sections of the bill allow coerced confessions to be admitted in trials, so that admissions literally beaten out of suspects can be used against them. This kind of barbarism has stayed on the books for too long, and Congress should act swiftly to amend those bills without cue or coordination from the Department of Justice.

Oscar Race 2009: Nomination Predictions - Picture

There's nothing more to add to what "actressexual" blogger Nathaniel R. already made perfectly clear when he reacted to the umpteenth set of guild nominations reflecting the carbon-copy lineup of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon, Milk, and Slumdog Millionaire? And I quote: "I'm so confused right now. I swear that I saw 113 movies in 2008 and I'm beginning to think that I imagined 108 of them. Did I? Are these the only 5 movies that came out in 2008? It sure seems like it. Who knew that movie theaters were so empty all year? I specifically remember being in movie theaters and in all kinds of places and weather, too. Am I losing my mind?" Like Jamal's game-show victory, it is apparently written in stone that these five films will move on to the next round; one gets the sense that this Best Picture lineup won't actually have anything to do with Academy voters' personalities, biases, or whims. And who are we to argue when there's such a clear lack of alternative candidates below the line, thanks in large part to guild hegemony? Case closed, right? And yetthere is the small matter of voter passion. Academy nominations are set up in such a way that rewards passionate fan bases, something I'd argue at least two of these preordained nominees-elect don't have; I'm looking specifically in the direction of the two films about politicians not named Barack Obama. Maybe living in the Obama era for the last 24 hours has filled me with a newfound sense of optimism, but I reckon that most of the voters who bother to cite WALL-E on their ballots are most likely to slot it at the top of their lists. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe old-guard Academy voting habits (the ones that hold politically liberal, aesthetically conservative biopics above all other films) die hard. But for now, here's to blind hope.

Will Be Nominated: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, and WALL-E

Should Be Nominated: Happy-Go-Lucky, In the City of Sylvia, Rachel Getting Married, WALL-E, and The Witnesses

Oscar Race 2009: Nomination Predictions - Director

You know the drill: No guild is better at predicting the winner of the Best Picture Oscar than the Directors Guild of America. For Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, the group this year has thrown its weight behind David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight), Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon), Gus Van Sant (Milk), and Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire), and history tells us at least three, most likely four, of these directors will hear their names called when Oscar nominations are announced on Thursday. We think it'll be four this year, and before you accuse us of wishful thinking when we say Ron Howard will be the odd-man out, let us remind you how Opie was nominated for a DGA in 1986, for Cocoon, but failed to secure an Oscar nomination. Okay, so no one really expected an Oscar nomination to follow that curious DGA acknowledgement, but let us also remember how Opie followed in Steven Spielberg's footsteps by winning the DGA award a decade later for Apollo 13 but again falling short of an Oscar nomination. Those were merciful snubs, and though AMPAS would finally shine a light on the man for A Beautiful Mind, we'd like to think enough Oscar voters have come around to the embarrassment of that award to refuse the man a chance at another victory lap. Yes, Frost/Nixon's show-and-tell screenplay and smugness may be up the Academy's alley, but I can't be the only one who feels the film has the look of something shot on Michael Douglas's ginormous Wall Street cell phone. The Academy's director's branch is known for giving at least one spot here to industry outsiders, assuming you feel folks like Pedro Almodovar and Paul Greengrass qualify as such, and though Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler) fits that criterion quite nicely, so does five-time Oscar nominee Mike Leigh, a surprise Best Director entrant a few years back for Vera Drake and whose Happy-Go-Lucky may be his best work to date. The richness of Leigh's philosophical inquiry has ironically and tellingly flown over the heads of persons stuck on Sally Hawkins's performance, but there's no doubting that the popularity of the film feels as passionate as a ribald flamenco dance—something you could never say about Howard's frosty motion picture.

Will Be Nominated: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire, David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Mike Leigh for Happy-Go-Lucky, Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight, and Gus Van Sant for Milk

Should Be Nominated: Tomas Alfredson for Let the Right One In, Jonathan Demme for Rachel Getting Married, Jose Luis Guerin for In the City of Sylvia, Mike Leigh for Happy-Go-Lucky, and André Téchiné for The Witnesses

Oscar Race 2009: Nomination Predictions - Actor

You can write Brad Pitt off right now—not because his performance presumably owes some debt to the wizardry of makeup and hexadecimal code (let's face it, actors frequently flat-out win this category thanks to wonton latex appliqué), but instead because this category is owned by the assholes. Make that old assholes, otherwise Leonardo DiCaprio's devolution in Revolutionary Road from smooth but sensitive breadwinner to sniveling, tantrum prone boy-in-man's-body would probably be every bit the contender Kate Winslet is. DiCaprio's still got a shot, but we prefer the odds on Richard Jenkins (who underplays his crusty role to the extent that The Visitor becomes less an example of white liberal guilt and more an endorsement of well-timed white liberal rage), Frank Langella (whose Richard Nixon resembles the former president only in the same sense that Joan Crawford resembled Medea), and Clint Eastwood. Granted, Eastwood's probably got the toughest obstacles to surmount because, though his character (potential spoiler alert) achieves a dignified and easy moment of total redemption, and even though he coughs up more blood than Camille, Satine, and Ratso Rizzo combined, there is the small matter of how delicately Eastwood the director allows Eastwood the scowling matinee idol to walk the line between absolving him of his grumpy-old-coot racism and valorizing him for it. But we can easily imagine there's a big enough bloc of Academy members who now stroke their own cocked fingers while glaring at their minority of choice. That all said, the category's two undeniable frontrunners—Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke—are admittedly not so much assholes as they are calculating and callous, respectively. Rourke's biggest dick move (forgetting to go out for dinner with his estranged daughter) would normally be forgiven in the second act of a family sitcom. And Sean Penn's ruthlessness as a politician is easily rectified by the film's firm knowledge that he's in the right; in other words, slightly dirty politics are A-OK if they light the fire under the asses of the well-meaning do-nothing-ers. Like Nixon said, when Harvey Milk stabs Dan White in the back and all but blackmails George Moscone, it's not illegal.

Will Be Nominated: Clint Eastwood for Gran Torino, Richard Jenkins for The Visitor, Frank Langella for Frost/Nixon, Sean Penn for Milk, and Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler

Should Be Nominated: Chiwetel Ejiofor for Redbelt, Michael Fassbender for Hunger, Ben Kingsley for Elegy, Sean Penn for Milk, and Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler

Oscar Race 2009: Nomination Predictions - Original Screenplay

There are two ways to spin this category. The first and most polite way is to say that, unlike Adapted Screenplay, it's filled with qualified, even great, contenders, that it will be an honor to be nominated in this category this year. The second and less polite way to spin it is that there are a lot of films here that probably ought to be stronger contenders in a lot of other categories, starting with the other category writers can nominate them in: Best Picture. Beyond Milk (which, being based on a true story, is only tenuously "original" given that the Academy delegated sequel-not-remake Before Sunset to Adapted Screenplay), there aren't many eligible films that feel as though they could crossover into that venerated top category, and yet still we find a surplus of possibilities here. Sure, Rachel Getting Married drives as many people to drink as it does inspire others to celebrate it with a long, unwieldy toast. Sure, the relish with which writer Nick Schenk serves up Clint Eastwood's persuasive, creative racial slurs in Gran Torino occasionally suggests the use of Paul Haggis's thesaurus. Sure, we think Vicky Cristina Barcelona is more Icky Christina Barfelona and that buzz for The Visitor has overstayed its welcome and that The Wrestler falls hard into cliché whenever it tries to string a narrative sentence together. The point is some of these movies can at least boast a passionate fanbase, something I refuse to believe exists for Frost/Nixon, even if evidence in the form of a near-perfect precursor record suggests the opposite. It's a logical fallacy to synthesize the actions of a small subgroup with the larger voting body, and I don't mean to suggest that a great script automatically means a great film. I'm merely holding the state of this race up as an illustration of why it sometimes seems that you'll find genuine character in individual categories that you only rarely find at the very top. Why you get Children of Men, A History of Violence, and Borat down in the writing categories but don't presume they were even in the running against the preordained likes of Babel, Capote, and Ray. Oftentimes you hear film fans moan how the Oscar nominees for either of the screenplay categories would've made a better, or at least more interesting set of Best Picture nominees. Nothing suggests this year will be any different.

Will Be Nominated: Happy-Go-Lucky, Milk, Rachel Getting Married, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and WALL-E

Should Be Nominated: Happy-Go-Lucky, My Winnipeg, Rachel Getting Married, Reprise, and The Witnesses

Oscar Race 2009: Nomination Predictions - Adapted Screenplay

For the first time, Slant has decided to tackle nomination predictions in the screenplay categories. Why, you ask? Are we simply making an attempt to demonstrate prognosticating prowess? Nah, it's because they're just so damned easy this year, especially the category based on material previously produced or published, now currently plundered or pillaged. Most years, this is the category that's overstocked with potential candidates, if for no other reason than Oscar's historic fondness for films that assert their Tradition of Quality credentials by adapting from serious literature. In other words, more Best Picture candidates get their validation here. That said, it's precisely that literary bias that might keep one of the strongest dark-horse Best Picture candidates out of the running. The Dark Knight boasts a WGA nomination, but we're betting the Academy's writers branch will probably over-consider the source. It's not like they've never nominated scripts based off comic books before. Hell, they've done it three times already this decade: Ghost World, American Splendor, and A History of Violence. But this is Batman we're talking about, and my hunch is that the writers en masse won't embrace the words growled by Christian Bale as warmly as they did the snark evinced by Thora Birch or the fuggedaboutits from William Hurt. Otherwise, there's very little reason to argue against the other four scripts cited by WGA: Benjamin Lumpen, Shout, Lost/Nixon, and Slumdog Millionaire. Little reason to argue because there's almost nothing else out there. The ranks are so thin that we could almost see them finding room for the appropriately titled Let the Right One In, but they usually only check their radar for films with hipster cachet over in Original Screenplay. Nah, the final spot probably comes down to one of the two tasteful Kate Winslet adaptations. The overripe dialogue of Revolutionary Road is certainly more gaseous, but writers who've had "show, don't tell" drilled into their heads won't respond kindly to all of Winslet-DiCaprio's declaratives. Bet on The Reader to land the fifth slot in talismanic (if misguided) defense of literacy.

Will Be Nominated: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire

Should Be Nominated: The Class, Elegy, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, Let the Right One In, and Slumdog Millionaire

And Gosh Darn It, (Some) People Like Him

"So you seriously voted for the Franken guy?" It's a question I've been asked before, and one I anticipate I'll continue to hear if Al Franken ever takes his seat in the 111th Congress. I understand the skepticism. If it weren't for the grueling, much-publicized Minnesota recount, most Americans would still know the Democrat as Stuart Smalley of SNL fame, or as the prankster who antagonized the right with books like Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. At that, they might be inclined to view Franken as a dubious celebrity politician in the tradition of Jesse Ventura, the pro-wrestler who became governor after promising Minnesotans he'd "body slam" their tax rates.

I expected Franken to be written off by conservatives. The O'Reillys, Limbaughs, and Coulters have already plunged in to accuse Franken of defrauding Minnesota voters and "stealing" the election (which, as Salon's Joe Conason points out, is essentially accusing him of a felony on the basis of nil evidence). But dismissal hasn't just come from the right. A wide swath of voters, including plenty of loyal Democrats, responded to his campaign announcement with confusion. Was Franken a "serious" candidate? Could a comedian really be expected to know anything about the economic crisis or the war in Iraq?

Those surprised that a funnyman would vie for office clearly hadn't been following his evolution since his all-out brawl with the Fox and Friends crowd. Franken's The Truth (with Jokes), published in 2005, presented meticulously footnoted arguments about the solvency of Social Security, the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, and the below-the-belt electoral tactics that allowed Bush to carry the 2004 election. The arguments were thoroughly partisan in their research and presentation, but the same could be said of The Audacity of Hope. Even before the 2004 election, Franken had returned to Minnesota to promote his political views via Air America Radio.

Before he had even entertained the notion of a senate bid, though, Franken was a participant in one of the proudest traditions in Minnesota politics. The state's progressive movement has a long history, one that bears much in common with the pragmatic brand of Midwestern progressivism that produced figures of national stature such as Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, and Wisconsin's Russ Feingold. The Land of 10,000 Lakes has the highest voter turnout rate in the country, one of the nation's best public school systems, a thriving bipartisan conservationist movement, and the best healthcare coverage rates in America. Despite being overwhelmingly white, Minnesotans elected the nation's first Muslim Congressman in Representative Keith Ellison. But no part of Minnesota's progressive political history commands more respect than the story of Senator Paul Wellstone.

Wellstone came to prominence not as a politician, but as an organizer of poor rural workers. While a Political Science professor at Carleton College, he galvanized his students to get involved in their communities and, eventually, in his senate campaign. He took on Republican Rudy Boschwitz in 1990 and won, despite being outspent by a 7-to-1 margin. His decidedly leftwing politics were tempered by a pragmatic outlook and a sense of humor that came through in his quirky television ads. Eventually, Wellstone came to be known as "the Conscience of the Senate." He lived up to that title in 2002, when he was the only senator up for reelection to vote against the authorization of the invasion of Iraq. He died in a plane crash 11 days prior to the election, clearing the way for Norm Coleman's victory.

Franken had been a loyal friend and advisor of Wellstone throughout his political career. He was a fixture at Wellstone fundraisers and frequently stumped for the campaign. He played a major role in convincing the progressive establishment that Wellstone's brand of populist, insurgent politics had a place in the Democratic Party. And after Wellstone's death, Franken became an avid supporter of Wellstone Action, an organization which trained community organizers in the techniques of political empowerment innovated by Wellstone's campaigns.

This connection was not lost on Minnesotan voters during the 2008 race. Even as moderate Democrats scratched their heads, those who had been a part of Wellstone's progressive wing understood what Franken's candidacy stood for. A common rallying cry from Franken supporters was to "take back Paul's seat"—expressing their faith in Franken and their dismay that the seat was now occupied by an unimaginative Bush Republican. Franken's connection to the Wellstone legacy goes beyond the symbolic too: Voters who paid attention to his positions discovered a candidate with a passionate commitment to reforming a corrupt government and making life easier for middle-class families. Franken has been a tireless advocate for universal healthcare and a more progressive tax system.

In a year when Americans rallied around the Democratic Party in record numbers, the urgency of renewing Minnesota's progressive commitments was widely felt. The state's progressives failed to unseat Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty in a close 2006 race. Under his administration, social services have faltered and Minnesota's tax system has increasingly burdened the poor and middle class. Just as Barack Obama's victory demonstrated the promise of reform at a national level, Franken's upset—not to mention the now veto-proof majority that Democrats won in the state legislature—signals a resurgence for Minnesota's brand of practical progressivism.

None of this should imply, though, that Franken does not have his work cut out for him in Minnesota. The campaign was noted for the ugly attack ads run on both sides, despite occurring in one of the most bitterly partisan campaign cycles in recent history. Dean Barkley, an Independent candidate, received nearly 15% of the vote as many in the electorate became desperate for a candidate who had stayed out of the increasingly nasty fray. After the exhausting campaign season, followed by the even more exhausting recount, either candidate would have come into office with many voters unconvinced.

Franken will probably begin his term with one of the lowest approval ratings in the Senate. During the campaign season, he convinced voters that he was a serious candidate, with all of the positives and negatives that entails. Next, Franken will need to convince Minnesotans that he is a serious leader, one who is willing to stand up for the progressive principles which have guided his participation in the state's public life for over a decade. Most important, he has the potential to continue the legacy of Paul Wellstone and remake his reputation as an energetic champion for progressive policy.

Bush Gets Goosed

For a president who has experienced notoriously bad luck over his eight years in office, the water-landing of bird-struck U.S. Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River shortly after takeoff yesterday afternoon, which resulted in almost nonstop primetime cable news coverage focusing on the heroism and miraculous lack of fatalities, spared him of an evening that might have been dominated by analysis of his farewell address. Discussion of the problems with the speech—that is to say, his presidency—will undoubtedly resume in full today. Indeed, he began his final address to the nation, which took place at the White House in front of an audience of approximately 250 and which was brief enough to postpone Must See TV by only 15 minutes, by thanking the American people for their trust, even as he has betrayed that trust at every juncture of his presidency.

But it was his more specific statements that were the most problematic. Bush quoted Thomas Jefferson ("I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past," the third president of the United States once wrote), no doubt intending to evoke America's unwavering, centuries-long optimism but instead shining a light on Bush's own dismissive, even contemptuous, view of that history. This isn't the type of man who ever buried his nose in his books back at Yale, and he isn't the type to reflect on the lessons of history either. Hell, he wasn't even willing to learn from the mistakes of his own father.

Bush claimed his administration turned Afghanistan from "a nation where the Taliban harbored al-Qaida and stoned women in the streets, to a young democracy that is fighting terror and encouraging girls to go to school," a statement in direct conflict with reports that have come out of the country over the last few years. On Wednesday, The New York Times painted a picture of Afghanistan that is far different: The Taliban is not only resurgent in the region, bolstered by new recruits in the years since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, but they are specifically targeting female students, attacking schools and trading stones for acid. Young women continue to defiantly attend classes, but it's far from the rosy picture Bush would like us to imagine.

In his speech, Bush said America's air, water, and land is "measurably cleaner" than it was eight years ago, and while that may be statistically accurate (the country's air, water, and land has been steadily improving for the last 30 years, ever since the modern environmental movement began and Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts), but Bush has refused to take almost every important step required to further protect the country's natural resources and wildlife, leasing protected land to oil companies like a subprime mortgage broker in a minority neighborhood and gutting the list of threatened and endangered species. He has failed to lead developing nations like China and India by refusing to further cap carbon emissions or truly encourage clean energy, he has starved environmental protection budgets and altered scientific data, and he has promoted the thinning of national forests under the guise of keeping them "healthy."

When asked about his mistakes at his final press conference on Monday, Bush said the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was "a significant disappointment." It wasn't just a disappointment—it was a disaster. But it's the things Bush doesn't deem disappointments or disasters that could feasibly take several presidencies to undo, if ever. In his farewell address, he said that our "gravest threat" was not the systematic shredding of our Constitution, the suspension of due process, the expansion of executive power and privilege, the discrediting of science, the stifling of dissent, or an economy in tatters, but "another terrorist attack" on American soil. For the coming weeks and months, and probably years, President-elect Barack Obama will be spending most of his time playing cleanup, which means affordable, accessible healthcare and clean energy will likely continue to be the pipedreams of hippies and so-called Marxists. And that might be the outgoing administration's greatest accomplishment of all.

Oscar Race 2009: Nomination Predictions - Actress

One of the more frustrating aspects of the seemingly year-long awards season is watching pundits and prognosticators remain largely oblivious to their role in shaping the Oscar race. The noise people like Tom O'Neill make throughout the year feels as influential to this rat race as the awards handed out by critics, which makes it frustrating when these pundits refuse to promote films they've seen instead of lavishing free publicity on productions that won't come out for many months. These forecasters buy into the idea that films released during the beginning of the year have no chance at snagging Oscar nominations, and their disinterest in endorsing films such as The Witnesses and The Flight of the Red Balloon rubs off on distributors, when it stands to reason that some of these films might actually connect with Oscar voters if more awards watchers were less interested in snagging better batting averages than their fellow soothsayers. But is this trend changing? Take, for example, the rather exceptional cases of Richard Jenkins and Melissa Leo. It's unlikely these two fine, older performers would be on any Oscar voter's mind right now if it wasn't for the concerted reportage of people like Awards Daily guru Sasha Stone, one of the few Oscar bloggers out there who seems to recognize that Academy members are among her readers, and who often took a break from conventional prognosticating last year to spotlight films and performances she felt should to be on AMPAS's radar. There's never joy in seeing films like The Visitor and Frozen River (both, curiously, without prime real estate over at Stuff White People Like) lapping up praise, but there's no doubt that Jenkins and Leo survive these risible films with their dignities in tact, or that Stone's coverage of the Oscar race is thoughtful in a way O'Neill's never is. Without the efforts of persons like Stone, it's impossible to imagine Leo with a SAG nomination, something Sally Hawkins doesn't have—though Hawkins has something Leo doesn't: a Golden Globe and the adoration of the collective critical community, to say nothing of Meryl Streep's approval. If Hawkins, Anne Hathaway, Streep, and Kate Winslet are locks by this point, that leaves Leo to fend off Angelina Jolie for the final spot, assuming you believe Cate Blanchett's predictably chilly non-performance in The Curious Benjamin Button and Kristin Scott Thomas's heralded turn in Me Love You Long Time don't have enough fans. Jolie, who was arguably snubbed last year for A Mighty Heart, received both a SAG and Golden Globe nomination for her work in Changeling, and though she has big-studio muscle behind her, the Clint Eastwood film's tepid critical reception will undoubtably hurt the superstar actress. For sure, just as the buzz around Jolie's performance has continued to dissipate, Leo's has only built since being vetted by people like Stone (was this partly responsible for Sony Pictures Classics beating every other studio out of the gate with Frozen River screeners?) and catching the attention of both SAG and the Independent Spirit Awards.

Will Be Nominated: Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married, Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky, Melissa Leo for Frozen River, Meryl Streep for Doubt, and Kate Winslet for Revolutionary Road

Should Be Nominated: Juliette Binoche for The Flight of the Red Balloon, Penélope Cruz for Elegy, Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married, Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky, and Famke Janssen for Turn the River

Oscar Race 2009: Nomination Predictions - Supporting Actress

Call it a showdown between the two wannabes. Leave it to the Golden Globes to return (from their obligatory hiatus during last year's WGA strike) and destroy the nefariously sycophantic Broadcast Film Critics Association's carefully laid plans for Kate Winslet. Almost as though to deliberately undercut the BFCA's self-appointed, self-important positioning as the most accurate bellweather for Oscar whims, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association responded to the BFCA's highly prescriptive, strategic best supporting actress award for Winslet's arguably leading performance in The Reader by handing Winslet two Golden Globes (one for The Reader, the other for Revolutionary Road, Winslet's official leading performance bid). Aside from raining on poor Anne Hathaway's days after rumors surfaced in the blogosphere that the Globes's website preemptively tipped her as the winner, the HFPA's actions have also essentially hit the reset button on Winslet's campaign, which up until about last week appeared to be barely surviving mostly on the maxim "strength in numbers." Given both of Winslet's performances this year are housed in what we expect to be revealed next Thursday as failed Oscar bait that no one particularly likes, we were originally going to bank on the Academy's resistance to allowing a questionable double bid just because Winslet's presence is considered obligatory (especially after the same hustle netted Cate Blanchett a best actress nomination for fucking Elizabeth: The Golden Age last year). Because her thinking man's Ilsa act in The Reader is at least conceptually riskier than her put-upon dishrag Debbie Downer in Revolutionary Road, we were that close to throwing her by the wayside in this category, especially because there's a clearly superior crypto-leading role in the mix (Rosemarie DeWitt, whose titular character in Rachel Getting Married has been shut out of a lot of races thus far, but we feel anyone who actually watches enough of the film to justify throwing their vote toward frontrunner Anne Hathaway should have no other choice but to recognize DeWitt's equally tricky, equally attention-stealing performance). But given how recent developments have cocked up the BFCA's attempt to engineer a narrative strategy, Winslet should reap the benefit of the doubt, and thus we doubt Amy Adams's utter lack of doubt in Doubt will prove as redoubtable as Viola Davis, Penelope Cruz, and Marisa Tomei, unimpeachable frontrunners all. That clears the first hurdle for soon-to-be seven-time nominee Winslet. Luckily for those that don't necessarily want to know the results of every last Oscar category months in advance, the Oscars are entirely on their own at this point to figure out whether they want to award Winslet twice, once, or not at all.

Will Be Nominated: Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Viola Davis for Doubt, Rosemarie DeWitt for Rachel Getting Married, Marisa Tomei for The Wrestler, and Kate Winslet for The Reader

Should Be Nominated: Rosemarie DeWitt for Rachel Getting Married, Beyonce Knowles for Cadillac Records, Julia Ormand for Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, Ann Savage for My Winnipeg, and Debra Winger for Rachel Getting Married

Oscar Race 2009: Nomination Predictions - Supporting Actor

Why a person is nominated for a supporting actor or actress Oscar often has a lot to do with riding coattails, which probably explains why it takes so long for awards prognosticators to pin down the nominees in these two categories: It's all about waiting to see which films catch fire at the box office—or on the blogosphere, where most Oscar campaigns seem to be launched nowadays. At the start of the awards season, which begins for some almost as soon as the credits roll on any given year's Oscar ceremony, few of this year's likely nominees seemed to be on anyone's radar. Even Heath Ledger, whose death has been largely attributed to his intense thesping as the Joker in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, was making few shortlists many months ago until everyone collectively agreed that a nomination for the late actor would be something more than just a gesture of remorse. Another sure lock, Robert Downey Jr. will receive his first nomination in more than a decade for his role in Ben Stiller's wretched Tropic Thunder in a bid that seems less like a reward than a consolation for there being no room for him in the Best Actor category for his performance in Iron Man. And seeing as Sean Penn and Meryl Streep are locks in the Best Actor and Actress categories, it seems impossible to imagine Josh Brolin and Philip Seymour Hoffman missing out here given how their respective performances in Milk and Doubt are inextricably bound to those of their costars. That leaves one wild spot, and though we're tempted to give it to Dev Patel for Slumdog Millionaire, to do so would acknowledge that the Screen Actors Guild nailed this lineup when the group announced its nominees several weeks ago, but SAG has accurately forecasted the five nominees in this category exactly once. So, assuming Patel is unable to ride the immense success and popularity of Slumdog to a nomination, that leaves the fifth spot open for either Michael Shannon or Eddie Marsan. Though Shannon has gotten raves across the board for his memorable performance as a mental patient in Revolutionary Road, the buzz surrounding Sam Mendes's prestige picture fizzled out almost as soon as it came out. Months ago, no one was raving as loudly about Marsan's turn as a lunatic driving instructor in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, but just as the collective critical community has practically made Sally Hawkins a frontrunner in the Best Actress category, they've also made Marsan something of one here. It'll be a close one, but we say: En Ra Ha!

Will Be Nominated: Josh Brolin for Milk, Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder, Philip Seymour Hoffman for Doubt, Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight, and Eddie Marsan for Happy-Go-Lucky

Should Be Nominated: Bill Irwin for Rachel Getting Married, John Malkovich for Burn After Reading, Eddie Marsan for Happy-Go-Lucky, Danny McBride for Pineapple Express, and Jeffrey Wright for Cadillac Records

Bush Vs. Textbooks

During the final segment of his 1977 interview with Richard Nixon, British TV host David Frost pressed the disgraced 37th president one last time on the issue of his "mistakes." Nixon's face appeared twisted and labored as he answered, in part: "I let down my friends. I let down the country. I let down our system of government and the dreams of all those young people that ought to get into government but think that it's all too corrupt." The interview, dramatized in Peter Morgan's 2006 stage play Frost/Nixon and in Ron Howard's new film adaptation of the same name, shows a man beaten and on the cusp of admitting defeat, if not absolute guilt. Another recent Hollywood film, Oliver Stone's W., depicts the current president's answer to a similar question, albeit in a less historically accurate context, when, during a 2004 press conference, Time's John Dickerson asked George W. Bush what his biggest mistake was following 9/11 and what lessons he had learned from it. Bush couldn't think of one.

It took the world three years to coax a pseudo-confession from the lips of Tricky Dick, and while it's unclear what kind of hindsight Bush might be granted in that amount of time, what is apparent is that the level of self-awareness and pathetic self-deprecation portrayed in Frank Langella's Nixon is absent in Bush and those who have surrounded him during the last eight years. One need look no further than the administration's Legacy Tour, which sounds more like some geriatric rock act's nostalgic traveling stage show than an attempt at an overhaul of his political image. The administration has consistently defaulted to as-yet-unborn high school textbook writers to determine whether or not any of their actions were good or bad, but that hasn't stopped Bush and his cronies from going on a whirlwind publicity tour in an attempt to shape that historical determination.

* * *
In order to fully comprehend the extent to which the administration fails to comprehend—or the extent to which it willfully obscures—its mistakes, it's necessary to recognize just how early in Bush's presidency those mistakes began. I remember being glued to the television in a friend's dorm room on election night in 2000. It was the first time I had participated in our democracy, and a small group of us stayed up into the wee hours of the morning as, one by one, the networks—led by Fox News, whose Election Analysis Division's John Ellis called the statistically too-close-to-call Florida, and thus the election, for his cousin George—declared that our new president would not be Al Gore after all. It would be weeks before all the recounts were completed (or not completed, as was the case) and the Supreme Court handed the presidency to the man who, even sans a proper tally, lost the popular vote by over half a million votes.

The electoral college, a system designed over two hundred years ago by founding fathers who believed the office should seek the man and not the other way around, men who still feared British political influence and who aimed to protect the Union from the encroaching powers of the biggest of its then-13 states, was designed at a time when not everyone could see a candidate up close and personal or quickly gain access to copious amounts of information about the men running for public office at the click of a button. Times have changed, though, and the failure of that system eight years ago had consequences far greater than even the biggest cynic could have imagined.

Legitimate or not, Bush's election was the first profoundly and thoroughly squandered opportunity of his administration. Any other presidential candidate might have been humbled or even embarrassed by the lengths and depths to which he or she had to fight for the office; a more lucid politician might have recognized that a nation divided was not one on which a partisan agenda should be thrust. He or she might have made concessions to the left and reached out in compromise. Instead, Bush defined bipartisanship as the willingness of the opposition to support legislation that bolstered his neoconservative policies.

Bush's biggest missed opportunity, however, came just a few short months later, when, after ignoring warnings that Islamic extremists were intent on using commercial airliners to attack the United States within its own borders and then they did just that, newspapers across the globe declared, "We Are All Americans!" Out of great tragedy came great opportunity, and for a moment in time, even Democrats rallied around the president. But Bush abused the goodwill he was given and, with the aide of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and the other chief architects of the Iraq invasion, he exploited the events of 9/11 in order to execute a plan that had been in the works for years: removing Saddam Hussein in the quest of creating a larger footprint in the region. The opportunities that the administration saw in the tragedy of the terrorist attacks was not unification or peace but the acquisition of power via the steady and deliberate dismantling of the country's very founding principles.

Out of great tragedy also comes great responsibility. Bush's cabinet appointments alone, from Alberto Gonzales (who presided over the most corrupt, ineffective, politicized, and discriminatory Department of Justice in U.S. history) all the way down to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Edwin G. Foulke Jr. (who is, according to R. Jeffrey Smith at The Washington Post, a lawyer and former Bush fundraiser who used to defend companies cited by OSHA for safety and health violations), would tarnish even the most noble of American presidents' legacies, to say nothing of the appointments he attempted, but failed, to make. But it was Michael Brown, who was appointed as director of FEMA despite having little to no experience, who shouldered much of the blame for the administration's biggest domestic blunder: the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A scapegoat for the administration's failures, Brown would later claim that he warned Bush of the imminent dangers of a levee breach but that those warnings were dismissed and that the decision about whether or not to federalize the region was viewed as a political opportunity by those close to the president.

* * *
This history, of course, has been so well documented and accepted by the American people, finally, that repeating it here serves merely as context for what is, perhaps, the Bush administration's most audacious enterprise to date: the rewriting of that history as orchestrated by Karl Rove via a series "exit interviews." "I think I was unprepared for war," Bush said when asked last month by ABC News's Charlie Gibson what he was most unprepared for during his tenure in the White House. It's a stunning, Nixon-sized admission coming from the man who once proclaimed, "I am a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind." When asked if he would have gone to war with Iraq had the intelligence showed that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction, he said he was unsure.

Rove himself launched his Bush Legacy Project by telling a New York audience that the U.S. would not have invaded Iraq if they knew there was no WMD. But he, like Condoleezza Rice, still stubbornly defends the decision to enter into the elective war, even if the reasons continue to be as disparate as the religious, political, and ethnic factions that comprise Iraq's population. Rice thinks it was good for America: "[Hussein] was an implacable enemy of the United States," she reasoned in a recent interview with Tavis Smiley. What's good for America, then, is evidently good for the world, right? In 2005, at the height of the violence in Iraq, Pentagon advisor Richard Perle told The Pittsburgh Tribune Review that the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war was intended to promote democracy throughout the world: "This doesn't mean imposing democracy by force. We can't do that, and we know we can't do that. But sometimes the obstacles to democracy can only be removed by force." To quote Michael Knight from his piece "Empire America – Spreading Freedom, Democracy, Terrorism": "Darling, I would never rape you. I am just tearing your clothes off so we can make love."

This myopic view of the world is manifest in everyone in and surrounding the administration—no surprise considering that its namesake is seemingly incapable of looking inward or backward. Dick Cheney is, maybe, the only one not involved in some daft attempt at political revisionism, proudly telling ABC's Jonathan Karl in early December that he did indeed authorize the use of torture, though he refused to use the word, and generously expressed astonishment on behalf of all of us who witnessed the attacks of 9/11 that there hasn't been another one yet. The implication is, naturally, that the administration is due credit for subsequently preventing an attack like the one it failed to prevent in 2001.

"There can be no debate about the results in keeping America safe," Bush told the U.S. Army War College, ostensibly the only audience he could find that would be unlikely to call him out on his rhetorical challenge. "We'll never know how many lives have been saved," he continued, citing failed attempts to bomb fuel tanks at JFK Airport, a plot to blow up international jets, and a plan to attack a Chicago-area shopping mall—effectively giving himself a hypothetical pat on the back for the hypothetical prevention of attacks that were essentially hypothetical (that is, merely aspirational and not operational). It's like Osama Bin Laden expressing a desire to bomb Smurf Village, realizing he's not an animated cartoon character, and then Papa Smurf taking credit for preventing the attack.

For an even flimsier logic than Bush's, look no further than a recent piece by Peggy Noonan (the title of which, "At Least Bush Kept Us Safe," speaks volumes in and of itself): "It is unknown, and perhaps can't be known, whether [the lack of another domestic terrorist attack] was fully due to the government's efforts, or the luck of the draw, or a combination of luck and effort. And it not only can't be fully known by the public, it can hardly be fully known by the players at all levels of government. They can't know, for instance, of a potential terrorist cell that didn't come together because of their efforts." (The Wall Street Journal apparently now pays writers to talk in circles.)

Three weeks ago, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino released a statement in response to a New York Times article which placed the blame for the financial meltdown of 2008 squarely on Bush's soldiers: "The Times' 'reporting' in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn't fit their point of view," she said. Ignoring for a moment both the veracity of the Times piece and the thanklessness of Perino's job, one can't help but notice the blatant hypocrisy with which the White House statement smacks. It's reminiscent of Bush's own countless missives, like his second inaugural speech, which was littered with hypocrisies about the "ideologies that feed hatred," the "pretensions of tyrants," and the "force of human freedom," historical inaccuracies about the founding of the republic, and propaganda that summoned all of the most ignoble parts of our nation's history. He was the tyrant of which he spoke.

And, at least starting in 2004, he became a demagogue, obtaining power by appealing to the fears of the people and then claiming it was absolute, first by dubbing himself "the decider" and then by laying claim to a "mandate" after winning reelection. "Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time," Bush said during that second inaugural, apparently unaware that his oath of office requires him to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," not the American people—the pretense under which the administration has waged its wars on sovereign nations and its own citizens' civil liberties.

Addressing an audience at a Holocaust Museum last month without, miraculously, strapping himself to a board and pouring water down his own throat afterward, Attorney General and latest Bush lapdog Michael Mukasey said: "[L]aw without conscience is no guarantee of freedom; that even the seemingly most advanced of nations can be led down the path of evil." Agents of the outgoing administration—both major and minor, direct and tangential—appear utterly oblivious to the self-damning hypocrisies that are falling from their mouths in their attempts at salvaging their legacy. In a recent DOJ court filing in which the U.S. is charging the son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor to 147 years in prison for torturing people in his own country, Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Heck Miller wrote that torture "undermines respect for and trust in authority, government and a rule of law," exposing the tragic comedy behind a U.S. court prosecuting torture in other countries while the administration continues to retroactively redefine the word to mask its own crimes. It is the very definition of hubris, the product of a nation whose government has unequivocally become morally, ethically, and intellectually bankrupt on every level and in every branch. There isn't a textbook big enough to record—nor a cynical political advisor savvy enough to conceal—a legacy as damning as that.