Oscar chatter

The redoubtable Manohla Dargis responds to questions from readers about the Oscar nominations, and their attendant vagaries. She's one of the few critics to prefer Heath Ledger's work in Brokeback Mountain ("I don’t just admire the performance on the level of craft, I am also deeply moved by it, just as I am by the film") over Philip Seymour Hoffman's in Capote ("both the performance and the film leave me cold. I don’t care about either") and to give Bill Murray what-for:

Listen, I usually love Bill Murray (I even suffered through “Garfield” because of him) and I think he should have received an Oscar and every other possible prize in creation for his performances in “Groundhog Day” and “Rushmore.” In preparation for reviewing Harold Ramis’s latest film, “The Ice Harvest” (sigh), I recently watched “Caddyshack,” “Stripes” and “Groundhog Day” back-to-back for the umpteenth time. Ivan Reitman’s “Stripes” is slapdash if a lot of fun – the other two, meanwhile, both directed by Mr. Ramis, are genius – but what struck me this time around was how much more present and engaged Mr. Murray seemed in these earlier films than he did in either “Broken Flowers” or “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.” He was wonderful in Mr. Jarmusch’s “Coffee and Cigarettes,” but since "Lost in Translation" he sometimes seems content to coast on his cool, which, while very considerable indeed does not a fine performance make.