The Andrew Awards-Best Picture and Best Actor

Now the Benjamin Button has been seen, I can close out a few categories of the Andrew Awards, my own version of the Oscars, pointing out what the Academy voters got wrong.

First up---Best Picture. The nominees are---

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

The Oscar went to Slumdog Millionaire.

Here is my take. First, Benjamin Button...Yeah, right! Should not even have been nominated. Someone on this film must have had some incriminating evidence on someone on the nominating committee. Frost/Nixon took a pretty boring subject (c'mon Dick Nixon talking) and made it very good entertainment, but it did not compete. And now, I may be committing blasphemy here, but was Slumdog really that good a movie? Granted, it was a happy movie during a time this nation sorely needed that, but I don't think it was a better movie than either The Reader or Milk, it just was the underdog.

The Reader and Milk both take on difficult characters, but ultimately, I think the best picture has to go to Milk. The movie is about basic human rights, American rights, about discrimination against people for no other reason than their sexual orientation. And about a man who rocked a nation by becoming an openly gay elected official. The Reader too was an amazing movie, but Milk touched a chord of greater values, of something beyond just what is popular, but what is right. It was skillfully and beautifully done. It did not win the Oscar, but has won the Andrew Award!

Now, Best Actor nominees:

Brad Pitt-Benjamin Button
Frank Langella-Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn-Milk
Mickey Rourke-The Wrestler
Richard Jenkins- The Visitor

The Oscar went to Sean Penn

Brad Pitt, NO WAY! Terrible. Langella was good, but it was not so compelling to be best actor. That leaves Penn, Rourke and Jenkins. And this was a REALLY hard decision. Rourke was so good, and in a couple of scenes was heartbreaking. Penn was his usual amazing self in Milk. he may play for the other team after this role, that is how good he was. But for sheer subtly of performance, for inhabiting the role, Richard Jenkins wins the Andrew Award for Best Actor. He was sublime. He was perfect! Perfect. And not in a showy way. In a quiet professional, absolutely no special effects, this is an actor way. Richard Jenkins. Congratulations!