(Bear in mind, the only movies here that I’ve seen were The Wrestler, The Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder. Everything else is based on my assumptions on how the academy will vote, what I’ve heard from others, or just arbitrary decisions. My picks are in bold.)

Best Picture – I’ve gotta say, I’m not too impressed with this crop of nominees. The only one I really want to see is Frost/Nixon, but this pretty much follows the standard formula for best picture nominees. It’s a veritable Breakfast Club of film selections.

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - This is the obligatory big name/big budget selection (which I thought would have gone to The Dark Knight).  I’ve heard mixed things about it, and I honestly spent about a week thinking that it had won the Golden Globe. I think it could win on an argument of cinematography/technology–in other words the best made movie–but I don’t know if that’s enough to beat the others.
• Frost/Nixon – This is the obligatory political movie. As a history nerd, this is the only one of the bunch I really have any interest in seeing. There could be some Bush-backlash votes for it, or votes for its character-driven nature, but I don’t think that’s going to push it into the win.
• Milk – This is the obligatory issues movie. It’s also my pick for the winner. Whereas Frost/Nixon might benefit from Bush-backlash, Milk could get the Obama-bump, as well as the much more powerful Prop 8 backlash. I think the voters are going to try to send a message by voting for it, and it’ll probably win on that strength.
• The Reader – This is the obligatory historical pick. I honestly know next to nothing about this movie, but I feel like it was more a prestige pick than anything else. I think that with the strong “personalities” of the other movies, this is going to be seen as more of “just another WWII movie,” and will probably finish pretty low in the final polling.
• Slumdog Millionaire – This is the obligatory indie pick, which did actually win the Golden Globe (an award voted on by the Hollywood Foreign Press, I should add). It’ll get a lot of votes, and probably could have won in another year, but I just don’t see it happening here.

Best Director – Not surprisingly, the directors of the best picture nominees all got nominated. But, I don’t think the votes are going to come down the same way. I think I might have picked this analogy up from The (aforementioned) Movie Blog, but the coach of the year doesn’t always win the super bowl.

• David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Remember when I said that Benjamin Button might win on the basis of being the best made movie? Consider this a consolation prize.
• Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
• Gus Van Sant, Milk – He’s got a pretty good shot too, but I think that the same people that pick Milk for best picture are going to attribute it more to Sean Penn than Van Sant.
• Stephen Daldry, The Reader
• Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor – This is really a two horse race between Penn and Rourke. Fortunately, both of these guys are big enough assholes that it won’t come down to a popularity contest.

• Richard Jenkins, The Visitor – I’ve never even heard of this movie, or this actor. Good for him though. Moving on…
• Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon – There’s usually a boost for playing historical figures, especially someone like Nixon, but there’s also a downside of having a definite reference point to compare the actor too. This raises questions about what merits you’re supposed to base your vote on, and when Rourke and Penn are both nominated, why bother thinking that much?
• Sean Penn, Milk -  See the other guy for my rationale.
• Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – When you’re Brad Pitt, just getting nominated is a pretty good feeling. I feel like most of the praise he got was based on the technology used to change his age, so probably no statue.
• Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler – Rourke is going to beat Penn. And he had damn-well better thank Darren Aronofsky, because this whole movie was owned by Rourke. Again, there’s some bias in that this is the only performance I’ve seen, but I still feel as if a lot of the praise for Penn is coming off the Prop 8 thing, which probably won’t overcome the real-life comparisons and high praise handed to Mickey Rourke.

Best Actress – I always feel kind of bad about the Best Actress category. There really just aren’t that many good lead actress roles out there, so it always comes across feeling like more of a “best supporting” category.

• Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married – She’s been getting a lot of buzz, but I don’t think the academy is going to be ready to hand a statue to the star of The Princess Diaries just yet. Give her another good role or two.
• Angelina Jolie, Changeling – Call me shallow, but I really just don’t think of her as being that good of an actress. Props for the nomination, but it’s not happening.
• Melissa Leo, Frozen River – Again, no clue about the movie or actress. Moving on…
• Meryl Streep, Doubt – It’s another tribute to the lack of quality female lead roles that Meryl Streep seems to get nominated every year (She’s already won a supporting and a lead, and been nominated a total of 15 times including this year). I don’t mean that as a knock against her in any way, as she could very well win the award this year too. But, she did also appear in Momma Mia! this year.
• Kate Winslet, The Reader – Speaking of multiple nominations, Winslet has six nominations (including this one) without a win. If you break this down to Winslet vs. Streep, which some voters may well do (though Hathaway could be in the mix), the tiebreaker may well be that Winslet was also in Revolutionary Road. She needs to thank somebody for not making her run against herself.

Best Supporting Actor – You know, I’m still not sure how you define “supporting Actor,” but I’ve gotta say, this is probably the most interesting category of the bunch.

• Josh Brolin, Milk – I haven’t heard too much about Brolin in this movie. But given everything I’ve been saying about Prop 8, I don’t see it happening.
• Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder – I want to see him win if only for the acceptance speech, but I think that getting nominated for a role where you’re essentially in blackface is good enough.
• Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt – Here’s my runner-up pick. I think Hoffman’s one of the best actors out there, but I think he’s already set his own bar a little too high. However, I’m a bit curious why he’s in this category, considering that every piece of footage from Doubt that I’ve seen has him in it, but so be it.
• Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight – You know, I wasn’t going to pick Ledger at first. It seemed a little too trendy, and a little too reliant of the whole “being dead” thing. But looking at the other nominees, I really think he’s the only one who deserves it. He brought a whole new light to the character and blah blah blah, but it really was a great performance.
• Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road – I don’t know who this guy is. Good for him all the same, but moving on…

Best Supporting Actress – I’m making a fully arbitrary pick here. I don’t have much in the way of justifications or thoughts about this category, but I kept it in for the sake of not seeming sexist.

• Amy Adams, Doubt
• Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
• Viola Davis, Doubt
• Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler – She was good, but not that good. Plus, she has weird nipples (So much for not seeming sexist).

So yeah, those are my picks for some of the major categories. I thought about giving my thoughts for the screenplays, until I realized that without seeing the movies themselves, or god forbid, reading the screenplays, there really wasn’t any point (plus, I’m lazy). I’ll probably be wrong on most of them, but that’s the fun of the Oscars, right?

Hit the comments if you want to argue with me.

Two more articles published in the Allston-Brighton TAB: “Obama Supporters celebrate Inauguration Day at the Kells in Allston,” and “Boston College plans head to Boston Redevelopment Authority despite neighbor’s protests.” It’s exciting stuff, trust me. I’ll also give a quick shoutout to my roommate Kevin, who had an article in the TAB this week as well.

There’s also a great piece on Bernie Madoff in the Times, which contains this wonderfully high brow insult: “An easy answer is that Mr. Madoff was a charlatan of epic proportions, a greedy manipulator so hungry to accumulate wealth that he did not care whom he hurt to get what he wanted.”

I also finally got around to seeing The Wrestler this weekend, so I can verify that Peter Travers review really was awful. It’s an amazing film, and I’m all but certain that Rourke’s going to get the Oscar for it. It’s not really a plot-driven movie, and it relies so heavily on him that he’ll probably get it almost by default (kind of like Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood).

And today is also my 22nd birthday. Go me.

I hinted at my dislike for both Peter Travers and the concept of reviews in previous posts, but I want to expand on the former, and maybe clarify the latter.

(First of all, I want to say that I don’t really hate Peter Travers the man. He’s probably an okay guy in person, and I’m sure talking to him would be pretty interesting. My hatred for Peter Travers is purely abstract. I don’t wish any ill will on him, his career, or his family. He’s successful at what he does and he fits his niche, so I wish him a long and successful career that I will try to undermine at every opportunity. It’s like Batman and the Joker, except I’m more like one of those cast-off DC characters that shows up every now and then to fail miserably.)

So, that out of the way, I hate Peter Travers. If you’re not aware, he’s the movie reviewer for Rolling Stone. He’s also hack and a whore who can’t go two sentences without throwing out some overly bombastic turn of phrase that no normal human being would ever consider writing, solely for the purpose of seeing his name come up in a movie trailer.

In fact, before I started this website I was seriously thinking about writing a blog titled “I hate Peter Travers” where I’d just rip apart bad movie reviews. Think Fire Joe Morgan, but not about sports. I would have been fair and hated on all offenders, but “I hate Peter Travers” just has a certain ring to it.

I never got around to starting that site (though I did register www.ihatepetertravers.com, just in case), but I think I can make “I Hate Peter Travers” a regular feature on this site. Take a look at his review for Wrestler. (I’ll overlook him leaving “the” off the title, but I challenge you to read that whole thing and tell me that you learned anything about the movie from it.) Seriously, I’ll wait.

How to describe Mickey Rourke’s raw, elemental tour de force as Randy “The Ram” Robinson in The Wrestler?

Here are the search results for “Peter Travers “Tour De Force”“, confined to the Rolling Stone website. You’ll notice that there are over 100 hits. Even if you account for repeats, that’s still probably around 75-80 uses of the phrase, which, according to dictionary.com means “an exceptional achievement by an artist, author, or the like, that is unlikely to be equaled by that person or anyone else; stroke of genius.”

Think of a stick of dynamite with the fuse lit and ready to blow. Rourke gets everything right about this battler who’s not ready to go over the hill — his pain, his battered body and his grieving heart.

I don’t even know what that means. Are we supposed to be terrified of Mickey Rourke? perplexed by the relative calm, knowing full well that mass destruction is imminent? Should we run away? These are the kind of things I think of when I think of a lit stick of dynamite. How can you possibly go from a perfectly apt description of destruction and demolition to an old washed up wrestler with emotional issues? Shouldn’t that be more like a stick of dynamite with no fuse? Seemingly destructive, but not really a threat?

The scenes in which Ram works out the choreography of a wrestling match with his brothers in the game are funny as hell, and hell to watch when the wrestlers bleed for real.

Using the word “for real” while discussing a work of fiction is kind of a contradiction, isn’t it? I haven’t seen this movie, so maybe somebody can answer this for me (and since nobody’s going to answer, I’ll just direct these questions to the wall above my desk). Is the wrestler not a feature film, but instead a documentary? Did they not have a choreographer on set, and instead let the actors, in character, choreograph their own fights? Were there no special effects, requiring these actors, in character as wrestlers, to in fact bleed their own blood? No, no, and no? So was Peter Travers just making another empty point because he’s in love with his own writing? Alright then, moving on.

Can Ram climb back to the top? Well, Rourke sure can. With movies as bad as Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man, it’s no wonder Rourke switched careers and went into boxing for a fair share of the 1990s.

And here, Peter Travers makes an effort to provide some relevancy to this review. Disregarding, of course, the fact that every feature written about this movie so far has focused on all of these details. Never mind that there’s no mention of Rumble Fish, Diner, Barfly or any of the other roles that made Rourke famous. Nope, we’re supposed to know that Rourke was a big name, but not that it was Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man that sank him.

He inched back with a pow supporting role in 2005′s Sin City, but the star spot in The Wrestler makes Rourke the year’s comeback kid.

I don’t want this to get lost in the rest of this. Peter Travers just used the word “pow” as an adjective. Apparently dictionary.com says this is acceptable to mean “exciting or appealing,” but seitzwrites.com says that the word “pow” sounds goddamn ridiculous. Regardless, it doesn’t even describe Rourke’s role as Marv in Sin City, where he was onscreen for most of the film and, in the opinion of many, carried the movie. In fact, no less a source than Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers wrote that “Mickey Rourke gives a sensational comeback performance as Marv, an ex-con with a Frankenstein jaw line who wakes up next to a dead hooker (Jaime King) and vows revenge. [...] All three of the overlapping stories involve voice-overs, but Rourke puts real heat into his as Marv searches for ‘a soul to send screaming into hell.’” Yep. That sounds like a “pow supporting role” to me.

Rourke doesn’t make a single false move in this movie. His boxing training gave him a new respect for wrestling, and his dedication shows in the ring. You may flinch, but you won’t look away.

This is a series of three loosely related sentences. Taken individually, they make great pull quotes. Strung together with no attempt at transition, they sound stilted. This, however, is an integral part of every Peter Travers review. After meandering around the plot for a bit, he takes a second to make sure that the marketing department for the movie, should they choose, has a number of quotes that they can splash on the screen without putting in the extra …’s that make people suspicious. See, Peter Travers sucks because he cares.

But let’s look at these alone:

Rourke doesn’t make a single false move in this movie.

So wait, you’re telling me that there isn’t a single scene in this movie of him flubbing a line, tripping on his feet, or accidentally cutting a fart? BRILLIANT! I think every movie should adopt this strategy. In fact, I think we should have special people on set to make sure this doesn’t happen. There can be one guy there to direct all of the actors and scenes and make sure they get all the right footage. We’ll call him a “director.” Then, and stay with me here, I know this is revolutionary, you can have another guy to edit all of the footage and and make sure that no “false moves” make it in to the final product. I’m thinking that he can be the “editor.” Now I know what you’re thinking. What if “director” misses something and the “editor” doesn’t have good footage to work with? Well, in that case, they’ll call everyone back for more filming, or “reshoots” to get the right footage. Man, I should work in Hollywood.

His boxing training gave him a new respect for wrestling,

By this logic, my journalism training gave me more respect for movie making, my history classes gave me more respect for English, and my guitar playing gave me more respect for tuba playing.

and his dedication shows in the ring.

Yes, one would almost think that Rourke were trained in the art of showing emotion and dedication, some form of “acting” (which probably gives him an appreciation for dancing). I’m starting to actually think that Peter Travers doesn’t realize that this is a movie.

You may flinch, but you won’t look away.

And another meaningless phrase that sounds good in big type, written solely because Peter Travers loves the sound of his own words. But I gotta admit, even I want to blow this line up and put it at the top of my page.

You watch The Wrestler (with a superb title song from Bruce Springsteen) in a state of pure exhilaration. A great actor in a great movie will do that to you.

Sweet mercy, we’re at the end. By the way, this is what that sentence would look like with out the parenthetical Boss-slobbing:

You watch The Wrestler in a state of pure exhilaration. A great actor in a great movie will do that to you.

Without the Springsteen quote in parentheses (Which, first of all, is illogical in it’s placement. You’re not watching the title song, and I hope the song doesn’t play for the entire length of the movie. Second, he’s merely acknowledging that there is a song by Springsteen in the movie, and that it is apparently “superb.” He just decided to toss it into the second-to-last sentence, rather than trying to, you know, write it into his review.) this is an example of another Peter Travers hallmark: telling you what you should feel. I was always under the impression that a review was supposed to discuss the reviewer’s feelings, not those of the poor, unenlightened souls that make up the imaginary audience in his mind. Worry not children, Uncle Peter will tell you what to think. I’ve gotta say though, I’m impressed with the restraint in that last sentence. Just great? not transcendent, masterful, or brilliant?  I’m guessing that he just ran out of synonyms in the thesaurus at this point, and decided to go out on a weak note.

Wow. This was much easier than actually reviewing the movie (which I still haven’t seen) would have been. As long as he keeps writing this stuff, I’ll keep breaking it down.