Javier Bardem was honored by his home country of Spain yesterday. He won the country’s 2008 national film award for his “defense of the acting profession and a constant commitment to Spanish cinema.”

I was introduced to Bardem with his engaging role in Almodovar’s Live Flesh where he played a paralyzed ex-cop who has an unhealthy obsession with both his wife and ex-lover. After seeing that film, I knew that America would be seeing a whole lot of him. Thus it’s no suprise, that this latest honor coincides quite nicely with his Supporting Actor Oscar for No Country for Old Men. Bardem was truly frightening in that role.

Thus, I’m delighted by the change of tone with his latest movie, Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Trailer Check:

Allen’s using ScarJo again? At least, he’s seeing the world and portraying a new version of the love triangle. But does all that stuff really matter? The inclusion of Javier will be enough to get most people to the theater. Vicky Cristina Barcelona already premiered to positive reviews at Cannes and hits US theaters on August 15th.

(News Source: Yahoo AP)

I’m probably the only one excited about The Golden Compass dvd release from yesterday. I’m a sucker for fantasy movies, but seriously the fantastical world of the movie intrigued me.

Since the movie ends abruptly, it enticed me to read all three books. In my opinion, a movie that encourages book sales can’t be all bad, right? And it did after all win an Oscar for best special effects. The effects of the daemons were superb as was the rendering of the compass itself. Everything looked vibrant and pretty realistic.

Pajiba’s Phillip Stephens said it had all “the essentials: great, complex characters and a fully realized world are in fine form.” I completely agree and gonna hope against hope that they make the sequels, especially since The Subtle Knife has a much stronger story than The Golden Compass novel.

My favorite film from 2007, There Will Be Blood, arrived on dvd this week. I chuckle to myself at the mere thought of milkshakes and immediately think of Daniel Day Lewis’ engaging performance from the end of the film.

Apparently, the dvd collector’s addition wasn’t up to scuff and Defamer had a few choice words for Mr. Anderson. It’s riddled with cries of disappointment, but I think what they had to say was out of love for PT’s work.

I’m glad I didn’t rush out and pre-order it now. The author of that rant makes it sound like Paramount tried to pawn off a bootleg copy of the movie (like the really bad ones made with a shaky compact camcorder and horrible sound) instead of the real collector’s edition.

This year’s Oscar broadcast was the worst in recent history! I guess America doesn’t have the patience to sit through four hours of Hollywood self-congratulations. Or it’s more likely that the films nominated weren’t the most popular or highest grossing ones from 2007. No Country for Old Men, a film with a modest box office gross, swept the ceremony with four awards, including best picture.

Personally, I didn’t think they were all that bad. Jon Stewart did an alright job, especially if you consider the short time they had write the jokes. Sadly, the funniest thing I saw was Gary Busey bumping into Jennifer Garner and then snubbing her for Laura Linney. And that moment was just a happy accident of comedy caught by E! entertainment’s video cameras.

Find a full list of winners here.

I don’t know how exciting this year’s ceremony will be since most of the awards seem very predictable. I will be utterly shocked if Jennifer Hudson doesn’t win. That would make me believe that those geezers still have some surprises left. The telecast better zoom in on the losers with a HD camcorder because I wanna see their disappointment in high definition. That’s when those home theater systems come in handy. And I love it when they try to play music to get them to wrap it up. It never works and I’m sure they’ll be tearful speeches as usual.

But seriously, here are my Oscar predictions vs my actual choice.

Best Film - Babel or Letters from Iwo Jima will win instead of The Departed
Best Actor - Forest Whitaker, which is okay by me. But Leo was pretty damn good in Blood Diamond
Best Actress - Helen Mirren, no question. That lady’s a fox.
Best Supporting Actress - Jennifer Hudson, can’t say about the other nominees really
Best Supporting Actor - Eddie Murphy will win, but I prefer Djimon or Marky Mark
Best Director - It’s Scorsese baby all the way!
Best Original Script - The Queen is my guess
Best Adapted Script - The Departed
Best Cinematography - Pan’s Labyrinth, I personally prefer The Prestige
Best Editing - United 93, but I think The Departed was better edited and paced
Best in Art Direction - This one is tough. I prefer The Prestige once again, but I think they’ll give to Dreamgirls
Best Costume Design - I actually can never guess this one right. I think Devil Wears Prada is a front-runner though.
Best Score - Anybody’s guess. I think The Fountain was grossly mislooked for this category. Clint Mansell is so talented.
Best Song - It’s either Randy Newman or Dreamgirls (freakin’ 3 out of the 5 nominations!)
Best Make-up - Pan’s Labyrinth
Best Sound - This is a weird category. I’m gonna go out on a limb and gamble on Flags of Our Fathers. War sound effects are really hard to pull off
Best Sound Editing - Pirates II or Blood Diamond
Best Visual Effects - Pirates again
Best Animation Film - Happy Feet
Best Foreign Language - Pan’s Labyrinth, a safe bet by the sheer force of its other nominations
Best Documentary - Inconvenient Truth
And I have no idea about the short film categories…

Judging by the amount of labor it took for me to write my guesses, this is gonna be a hellishly long ceremony. I’m sure there are gonna be a lot of Oscar parties that might run out of steam. My advice is to use a sony handycam to videotape your guesses before the ceremony. And then tape your reactions to the actual winners. That would be a funny tape if you were at a party full of film students. Trust me, things can get heated.