The nominations are in. If you are feeling all Internety, the New York Times has the interactive graphic for you (which can double as your Oscar bracket, you know, if betting were legal). I have been personally invested in completing my Oscar collection for a long time, but time and money usually prevented me from getting all five. And then they went and did something rather rash: expanded the Best Picture slate to anything up to ten (because of this tiny movie, no one's ever heard of). My job had been made that much harder, especially considering the fact that there is always one movie that has long since faded from theaters. But this year, between the magic of the Internet distribution system and the consistent "What box office have I seen lately?" attitude of Academy members, I have managed to see all of the films nominated for Best Picture, and by some bizarre miracle, which I assume will never be repeated, all of the nominees for Best Director (which was a subset of the Best Picture nods, because you know, logic). I dodged a Weinstein sized bullet when The Master failed to garner either of those nominations. That film is utterly unavailable to nosy people like me, for rent or purchase until AFTER the Oscars, in what can only be seen as a spiteful choice to mess with amateur Oscarologists who damn well should have seen The Master in glorious 70MM but who had the temerity to have lives, jobs, responsibilities, and the desire to see the sunny side of life, so screw them.
Before we dive into the nominations proper, I'll admit to three lacunae in my Oscar Year: The Master, as I noted earlier, The Impossible, and The Sessions (hmm, pattern much?). These only impact my ability to assess the acting categories, but not really because Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role belongs to Daniel Day-Lewis and the Academy had "Anne Hathaway" etched into the statuette for Supporting Actress since the first trailer for Les Misérables was released. That just leaves Actress in a Leading Role and Naomi Watts. I will be able to see The Impossible before the ceremony, so I will hold off on that one for a week. I figure we can tackle all the acting nominations at once and all the rest of the nominations after that (with maybe a separate post on the writing awards).
Let's get down to brass tacks, handicapping the race Best Picture Style. Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty
Happy to Be Here
Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Les Misérables
Sorry to be a hater. These films are here because people want to reward quality work from late in the year and if you can get up to ten, why not? These movies have no shot and would be the first to go, if we had to get back to five. Interesting to note here, this is why I have no problem with Affleck not getting a director nod (more detail on that later), and why I have a very real problem with Russell getting one. I enjoyed the crap of out of parts of Les Mis, but you can't like parts of a movie and not the whole and have a shot at Best Picture.
You Mean I've Got a Chance?!
Life of Pi, Django Unchained, Amour, Zero Dark Thirty
The big problem with the previous lot, the biggest, is that they aren't about anything else. Good stories, well-executed, but not a ton of depth. That's the background of these flicks; all of them have got a lot going on. Pi is the least interesting of these movies. I loved the movie, but at it's heart, it's a novel. Ang Lee made some very pretty pictures, too, but the framing of the story (and it's length) hurt it as Best Picture. Django is not as good as Inglorious Basterds, though it is dealing with some gnarly racial heritage problems. Love that it got nominated for this, but has anything this gleefully violent ever won or even deserved to win? Zero Dark Thirty is handicapped by the fact that it is based on a true story and resolutely refuses to judge anything that happens in the story. It's fascinating because Bigelow really only seems to be interested in Maya's story, that the movie isn't about America because of Bin Laden, it's about America because of Maya. And then there is Amour. I am impressed that it got nominated for Best Picture and it is a great movie, great movie, about aging and what happens when you approach death in this culture. It is also pitiless and unsentimental. It's a mortal lock for best Foreign Film, another knock against the Best Picture Odds
King Kong Ain't Got Nothing
Lincoln, Beasts of the Southern Wild
If I had a ballot, Beasts wins this in a landslide. It is by far the best movie on this lest, it is heartwarming and devastating and wonderfully imaginative and incredibly American (entrepreneurial, underdog-y). It's so good and so beautiful that it is possible that Best Picture goes to Beasts despite the indieness of it. But Lincoln is the gorilla in the room and it is everything the Academy wants: big ambition, great box office, great performances, and brand names (cf. Titanic). I think Lincoln is the heavy hitter, the giant ape, the prohibitive favorite.
Ok, that's enough Oscar for now. In a couple of days, we'll talk direction (and why I don't think that word means what you think it means).
No comments:
Post a Comment