Finishing up the Oscars

As of today, for the 23rd consecutive year, I've seen all five nominated films prior to Oscar night.
This time, in what was a remarkably strong year for movies, I thought the nominating process flubbed it pretty good. Ben Affleck's "Gone Baby Gone" was better, much better, than any film nominated save for "Juno." But I guess if you're going to make fun of Ben for most of this decade, you can't then turn around and proclaim him to be brilliant. Too bad. "American Gangster", which I considered to be flawed, was better than Nos. 4 and 5.
I'd rank the nominated films in this order:

1. Juno
2. Michael Clayton
3. No Country For Old Men (a better-made film than No. 2, but too nihilistic for it to be truly great).
4. Atonement
5. There Will Be Blood.

I know there is much love on this board for P.T. Anderson, but Blood was sloppily edited, overlong and -- indeed -- boring at many points in the movie. Daniel Day Lewis was as excellent as he's been since "My Left Foot," but that's not enough to make it a great movie.

 

Michael Clayton was slick boilerplate.