Movies 2006 to
present day
2006
 Best
Picture- The Departed
 Animated Feature Film- Happy
Feet
 Actor- Forest Whitaker in The Last
King of Scotland
 Actress-Helen Mirren in The
Queen
 Supporting
Actor- Alan Arkin in
Little Miss Sunshine
 Supporting Actress- Jennifer
Hudson in Dreamgirls
 Director- Martin Scorsese for The
Departed
Other movies Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s
Cave
 X-Men: The Last Stand
 The Da Vinci Code
 Superman Returns
 Casino Royale
 Mission Impossible III
 Miami Vice
 Poseidon

 The
Departed- gritty tense cop
suspense thriller and crime drama
about a pair of Irish Bostonians,
one an undercover cop (Leonardo
DiCaprio) spying on the local
organized crime family, the other a
police plant (Matt Damon) hired by
the same family
Queen- “inside story”
monarchy chronicle told about the
week the Royal Family became
reviled by the British public due to
their silence following the death of
the People’s Princess Lady Diana
in 1997, and how newly elected
Prime Minister Tony Blair cajoled
Queen Elizabeth II to acquiesce to
the public’s demands
 The
 Letters
From Iwo Jima- director
Clint Eastwood, Japanese
perspective during the bloody
Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II
 Little
Miss Sunshine- quirky light
comedy/road movie about the
adventures of an oddball, dysfunctional
New Mexico family driving cross
country in a broken down Volkswagon
van for their 7 year old daughter
Olive’s Miss Sunshine beauty pageant
in Redondo Beach, California
 United
93- moving account of the real
life events about the doomed United
Flight 93 jet airliner, which was hijacked
by terrorists during the September 11,
2001 attacks on New York City and
Washington D.C. who were overcome
by passengers who self sacrificially
crashed the plane rather allowing it to
be used as a weapon
 The
Last King of Scotland- Forest
Whitaker plays the brutal
infamous Ugandan dictator Idi
Amin, who was responsible for
the genocide of over 500,000
Ugandans
 The
Pursuit of Happyness- Will Smith
plays the real life single father and
rags to riches success story of Chris
Gardner, an unpaid Dean Witter intern
and homeless father who supported
himself and 8 year old son Christopher
while living off the streets before rising
to corporate prominence
 An
Inconvenient Truth- harrowing
ecological disaster documentary
film about the ravages of global
warming lectured by former U.S.
Vice President Al Gore
Dreamgirls- musical about a trio of soul
singers- thinly veiled about Motown
singing group The Supremes
 Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for
Make Benefit Glorious Nation of
Kazakhstan- Sacha Baron Cohen plays a
Kazahstani television reporter Borat
Sagdiyev

2007
 Best
Picture- No Country For Old
Men
 Animated Feature FilmRatatouille
 Actor- Daniel Day Lewis in There
Will Be Blood
 Actress-
Marion Cotillard- La Vie
en Rose
 Supporting Actor- Javier Bardem
in No Country for Old Men
 Supporting Actress- Tilda Swinton
in Michael Clayton
 Director- Joel Coen and Ethan
Coen for No Country for Old Men
 Atonement-
story about lovers
Cecilia Tallis and housekeeper’s
son/childhood friend Robbie torn
apart by false allegation from
Cecilia’s over imaginative younger
sister Briony
16 year old girl’s unplanned
pregnancy
 Screenplay by ex stripper Diablo
Cody
 Ellen Page- played smug wise
cracking precocious title charactertook baby to term but gave up baby
for adoption to childless yuppie
couple (Jennifer Garner and Jason
Bateman)
 Juno-
 Michael
Clayton- George Clooney
played Clayton, a ruthless high
powered former prosecutor turned
troubled “fixer” corporate lawyer
in New York
 Sweeney
Todd: the Demon Barber of
Fleet Street- Johnny Depp played role
of 19th century demonic vengeful and
murderous barber Benjamin Barker
(Sweeney Todd) who avenged his
wife and daughter’s deaths by slitting
perpetrator’s throats and making
meat pies of the body- horror musical
 Hairspray-
girl named Tracy who
racially integrated a 1960’s TV
dance show through her
participation- John Travolta (in
drag) and Christopher Walken
played her parents
2008
 Picture-
Slumdog Millionaire
 Animated Feature Film- WALL-E
 Actor- Sean Penn in Milk
 Actress- Kate Winslet in The
Reader
 Supporting Actor- Heath Ledger in
The Dark Knight
 Supporting
Actress- Penelope
Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona
 Director- Danny Boyle for
Slumdog Millionaire
 Slumdog
Millionaire- low budget
film made for $15 million, had no
American superstars, lots of
foreign language dialogue- feel
good theme and romantic sub
plot, song/dance finale, exhibiting
extreme poverty of India
 Slumdog-
about impoverished 18
year old orphaned slum thief
Jamal Malik who is arrested for
cheating when only one question
away from winning the top prize of
20 million rupees in Indian version
of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
 Milk-
historical biography about
California’s first openly gay, openly
elected public official, mayoral aide
Harvey Milk who was assassinated
alongside San Francisco’s mayor
George Moscone
 The
Reader- story of a young
German teen and relationship
with an illiterate train
conductor/ex Nazi concentration
camp guard Hanna Schmitz in
the 1950’s, and dealing with her
past decades later
 Frost/Nixon-
adaptation of the
successful Tony winning Broadway
drama about the famous series of
interviews of Nixon conducted by
British talk show host David Frost that
aired on May 19, 1977 during which
Frost memorably had Nixon admitting
complicity in the Watergate scandal
“When the President does it, it’s not
illegal”
 Wall-E
: science fiction tale about
a lonely garbage compacting robot
Wall-E stranded on post
apocalyptic trash laden Earth who
encounters a sleek metallic female
robot Eve who seeks plant life to
signal a colony ship’s return after
700 years of exile
 The
Wrestler- Mickey Rourke
played Randy “The Ram”
Robinson- a broken down,
formerly famous 80’s headliner
pro wrestler who now fights in
small circuit 20 years later
 Rachel
Getting Married- story of a
recovering drug addict who is
given a day pass from her
rehabilitation clinic to attend her
sister Rachel’s wedding
 Changeling- Angelina
Jolie plays real
life Christine Collins, a desperate Los
Angeles single mother during the
Great Depression whose son
vanishes, and is given another boy
who is claimed to be the missing son
by the corrupt police department
 Frozen
River- a struggling cash
needy lower class single mother of
two in upstate New York who
becomes involved in a people
smuggling ring across the
US/Canadian border in an attempt to
avoid losing her home
Meryl Streep got 15th
nomination (all time record) played
role of Sister Aloysius Beauvier- the
suspicious, domineering strict head of
Bronx Catholic school in New York
City in the 1960s who believes that
progressive new priest Father
Brendan Flynn is a pedophile
 Doubt-
 The
Dark Knight- Heath Ledger
played the wildly psychotic villainThe Joker
 Tropic
Thunder- Robert Downey
Jr plays obsessive faux-black
white Australian Method actor Kirk
Lazarus who has medical surgery
to transform himself into a black
man to completely immerse
himself in a dark horse role in a
Vietnam war movie
 Vicky
Cristina Barcelona- Cruz
plays Maria Elena- newly
divorced crazy Spanish temptress
from ex husband painter-