THE QUESTION The award season is just around the corner. What movies and/or actors do you consider to be Oscar contenders?
you're such a critic
WHAT YOU SAY
For my money, the Best Picture, so far, has been either L'Enfant or Lady Vengeance (best American movie has been Little Miss Sunshine), while the best acting awards, again so far, belong to Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) and Helen Mirren (The Queen).
PETER MUNCIE, COLUMBIA
In the acting realm, the compelling, carefully nuanced performance of Forest Whitaker, as a deranged dictator in The Last King of Scotland, gets my nod. In the film category, I'm going with Martin Scorsese's The Departed. His depiction of a psychotic Boston Mob operating at Moral Ground Zero reminded me a lot of how the Bush-Cheney Gang does its business.
LIAM HUGHES, BALTIMORE
Helen Mirren is such a standout in The Queen, I'm confident she will receive an Oscar nomination. I'll be extremely disappointed if she doesn't win, regardless of who else is in the running.
DAVID BOYD, WHITE HALL
Best Female Actor, Helen Mirren: Once again Helen Mirren in The Queen convinces us that in the realm of acting, "less is more."
She has played many queens in her career, but as Elizabeth II she communicates diffident imperiousness as she simply overwhelms those with whom she comes in contact. Check the way she handles her purse.
Best Male Actor, Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland: As Idi Amin, Whitaker runs the emotional gamut from loony fatuous buffoon to cold, calculating sadistic tyrant.
Best Picture, Flags of Our Fathers: Yes, it's a little convoluted and redundant, but director Clint Eastwood nevertheless conveys an amoral culture in which war must be marketed in order to be won. Patriotism is not the last refuge of a scoundrel. It is the cloak that a nation must don in order to "sell" an odious product.
ARTHUR LAUPUS, COLUMBIA
THE NEXT QUESTION Casino Royale opens today. What is your favorite James Bond movie and why?
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