Oscar The Grouch

Oscar showing his true colors.

THE BIG (BLACK AND WHITE) PICTURE 

So here’s my two cents. 

I was talking to a theatre friend the other day about the Academy Awards and whiteness, and how it kind of makes this year’s Oscars like Moby-Dick, complete with harpoons in its flanks, and I said: “Y’know, if any of the movies up for Best Picture had been staged as plays in New York in the last twelve months, there would have been multi-cultural casting all over the place.” And my friend said “Except Manhattan Theatre Club,” and we both cackled with glee, because MTC is doing its White Male Season this year. But with that notorious exception, theatre in this city, for the most part, has it all over movies because the world which theatre is trying to reflect is New York City, and you can’t get more diverse. The world that movies is trying to reflect is the LA version of Davos. 

YOU: What’s Davos?

ME:  It’s where the World Economic Forum is held.

YOU:  Ah—rich white people.

ME: Rich anybody—because as long as you’re rich, you’re honorary white. All of them reaffirming the bubble they live in.

YOU:  New York is a bubble too.

ME:  Yeah, but its gum has more flavor. 

The point being, if it doesn’t say THIS GUY IS BLACK in the script, Hollywood doesn’t even think of casting a person of color in the part. Which is sadly one of the few times it ever actually honors the wishes of a writer. 

HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER:  You didn’t say he was black.

WRITER: If I said he was black, you would have asked me to make him white.

HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER:  And I cast a white guy anyway. See? It all works out! 

And you won’t hear it out loud for publication, but you can bet that someone somewhere in LA is saying “Black movies don’t make money,” or “Black actors don’t deliver good opening weekends,” which is the capitalist form of racism, as if movies can take on the color of a lead actor, or an actor’s connection to his or her audience is based not on talent but on melanin. It’s the same dismissal you get when movies are defined as “women’s films,” or when producers believe that boys will spend money to see Scarlett Johansson kick ass but not kiss assholes; and if it didn’t piss me off so much, I would pity these poor dopes, because they cannot view the world except through categories. They do not see people; they see types of people, they see metrics and they make assumptions about income and likes or dislikes based on an arbitrary category—the most public of which is the audience age breakdown that always gets talked about with each new movie. “We’re targeting males from 18 to 30!” the studios cry, and I would just love it if some nothing-to-lose reporter would respond by asking: “So are those white males or what?” Which, when it comes to Hollywood, is a rhetorical question. 

And I’m sorry, but adding people of color to the Academy voting rolls or their board of advisors, or whatever the hell they have, is pointless. Making the referees black doesn’t change an all-white football team. You need to field a team with diversity. If the product the Academy is judging for an award isn’t diverse in the first place, then the judges are still going to have to pick an MVP from that all-white roster. It’s Hollywood that needs to change; not just the Academy.  

Will it change? Doubtful. The whole Hollywood system is supported and perpetuated by its ability to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to money versus art. When people blame Hollywood for being artistically irresponsible, you get: “But we’re a business, we’re marketing a product here, and that has nothing to do with art.” And then when you accuse them of being the worst kind of crass number-crunching plutocrats, you get: “But movies are the cultural mainstay of our society, they’re the highest art form in creation, and that has nothing to do with money. And can somebody look up plutocrats for me?”

 

The truth is that, in the eyes of Hollywood, art is valued at precisely 1/365th the value of money, because that’s the ratio of how many days a year box office totals come first and how many days a year the Oscars are given out.

(And that was actually about twenty cents; sorry.) 

So. On to the Awards.

 

THE WHO CARES AWARDS 

The trick to gaming the Oscars is trying to figure out how Old White Guys with gorgeous twenty-year-old female assistants will vote when presented with a list of films they slept through. Sometimes it’s easy; sometimes it’s hard. But it’s always a window into their brains. In the minor awards area, that window opens out onto a stage where Inside Out should win Best Animated Film and Amy should win Best Documentary; Foreign Language Film is either going to be Son of Saul or Mustang (probably Son of Saul because Holocaust); Original Score will go to either Morricone for Hateful 8 or John Williams for Star Wars: The Sequel Awakens; and Best Song will go to “Til It Happens To You” from a movie nobody saw because Lady Gaga.  

THE CYNIC IN ME: And by the way, Academy, you should be ashamed of yourself for nominating that feculent howler of a song from Spectre for ANYTHING. I mean, there’s clueless and then there’s fucking clueless, okay? 

The writing awards are a little trickier. I’d give Best Adapted Screenplay to The Big Short, because it was both a well-told story and an entertaining lecture. My other choice would be Room, for opening up the first-person narration of the novel without losing any of the charm and wonder of that point of view. Which one will the Academy pick?   

THE CYNIC IN ME: The Martian, because it had the snappiest dialogue, and the Old White Males probably think Matt Damon wrote it. 

Best Original Screenplay could legitimately go to any of the nominees except Bridge Of Spies and I would be happy. (Have I told you how much I hated Bridge of Spies? No?  Then you need to read this.) Inside Out was smart, Ex Machina was brilliant, Spotlight was solid, and—wait, there’s a movie about non-whites in this category? WTF! Wow. This could be where the Oscar actually attempt a little atonement. Bu-u-u-u-ut it won’t be, because none of the Old White Voters went to see it, thus fulfilling their prophecy that people don’t go to black films, and inadvertently clarifying their definition of “people.” Who will win? Smart and brilliant don’t stand a chance against solid in this world; Spotlight should get it.  

THE CYNIC IN ME: But solid doesn’t stand a chance against didactic, and that’s Bridge Of Spies to a T. Which is why I say Bridge of Spies. 

The shorts and the animated stuff: I usually see these at Landmark, but I didn’t this year, so I have no clue. And when I have no clue, I usually go by The Unwritten Rules Of Oscar. To wit: in anything live action, Holocaust trumps race; race trumps children; and children trump women. If there is a current medical issue, that pulls away in the stretch, as does any horse from the Middle East. As for the animated shorts, Pixar trumps everything, with the possible exception of Wallace and Gromit. Good luck. 

The rest of the categories all have Best Picture implications, because they are the early contests in which The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road are up against each other. They are: Cinematography, which should go to The Revenant; Costume Design, which should go to MM:FR; Film Editing (a toss-up; I’d give it to Mad Max); Makeup and Hairstyling (Mad Max 4ever); Production design (Mad Max 4sure); and the crucial Sound Editing and Sound Mixing, which are usually key indicators of Best Picture. Again, a toss-up.  As for visual effects, this may well go to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, not so much for breaking new ground but for replicating the old ground so exactly. If SW:TFA doesn’t get it, then I think the winner of this award will get Best Picture.

 

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

This should go to Mark Rylance, who’s the only good thing in Bridge Of Spies. (Okay; I’ll stop now.) 

THE CYNIC IN ME: No I won’t. 

Tom Hardy plays one note in Revenant, and he does it so well that you feel like every other character on-screen with him has to be blind and deaf not to see and hear that he’s a craven little shit. Christian Bale is also one note, but it’s a more complicated note: what every other character on-screen with him sees has nothing to do with his inner self, and he’s a good enough actor to let us see that and not them. Sylvester Stallone?  In a way, I’d love to see him get it because it’s just so typically Hollywood to give an award to the old white guy in the movie that stars the young black actor who should have been nominated but wasn’t. And then there’s Mark Ruffalo, who got the nomination because of his One Big Speech in Spotlight, but also because he’s just so Mark Ruffalo. If it’s not Rylance, then I think it’s going to be Ruffalo; and if he does win, then he’ll be winning as a representative of the entire cast, which means that Spotlight has a great chance to win Best Picture.  

Notably missing in this list: Benicio Del Toro in Sicario. (I really liked Sicario.)

 

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE 

This is an odd category this year, because it includes two women who should be up for Best Actress and aren’t: Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl, and Rooney Mara for Carol. One of these two should win, and rightly so—neither of their movies would work without them. Mara totally looks like 1950’s Audrey Hepburn, which sells the period completely; plus she has the stillness to balance and anchor Cate Blanchett’s theatricality. And to my mind, Vikander is the Danish girl of her movie’s title. The heart of the movie lives in her, and her reaction to what and who her husband is. Either one would be a fabulous choice, and the only edge Vikander has is that she’s won earlier awards in the same category. As for the others, Jennifer Jason Leigh is a long shot for H8teful, Rachel McAdams is solid but not quite the female Ruffalo in Spotlight, and Kate Winslet is actually better in the five seconds she shows up in the Triple 9 trailer than she is in all of Steve Jobs. 

 

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE 

And the losers are: Cate Blanchett for Carol, who was a little too theatrical for my taste. (And besides, Sarah Paulson should have played Carol. She wouldn’t have been as glam, but I think Blanchett’s obvious flashiness was the main reason why the movie wasn’t as good as it thought it was. Paulson would have raised the movie to the next level. Given that she’s essentially the GBF in this film, what a missed opportunity.) Also a loser: Jennifer Lawrence, who had the misfortune to be great in an ambitious but so-so film; Charlotte Rampling, who was great in a small but slight film; and Saorsie Ronan, who was nowhere near as great as she’s been elsewhere in what is basically a Lifetime movie. 

That leaves Brie Larson, and the award is hers to lose. And rightly so. This movie punches your heart in so many different ways, and she's half the reason for that. The other half is Jacob Tremblay. The chemistry between the two of them is one of those HFS things that can move creative mountains. When Larson wins this award, it'll be his as much as hers. 

Notably missing from this list: Emily Blunt in Sicario. (I really really liked Sicario.)

 

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE  

And the losers are:  Bryan Cranston for Trumbo (It’s an honor to be nominated, Brian); Matt Damon for The Martian (Remember the five minutes when The Martian was going to win everything? Good times.); Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs (has anybody spouting Aaron Sorkin dialogue ever won an acting Oscar?); Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl (you won it last year, pommy boy; and besides, it’s Alicia Vikander’s movie); and Michael B Jordan for not even getting nominated for Creed while Stallone was.

That leaves Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant, the odds-on favorite to win the male version of the Uglified Babe Oscar that went to Nicole Kidman for The Hours and Charlize Theron for Monster. Because really, all he does in this movie is grunt and look like shit. Which you and I do before we shower every morning, so where’s our fucking Oscar? 

Personally, I think the Oscar should go to one guy who deserves to be on this list and isn’t: Tom Hardy, for Legend. Even though it wasn’t the greatest movie in the world, and  I was one of maybe 50 people in the country who saw it, the work he did to make each of the Cray twins unique was phenomenal. It’s on par with what Jeremy Irons did in Dead Ringers, and you all know how great that was. 

YOU: I don’t.

ME: Then you need to WATCH IT RIGHT NOW. Plus it’s a Cronenberg movie.

YOU: Hot damn. Wait—it’s not crappy later Cronenberg, is it?

ME: Nope. 1988—between Dead Zone and Naked Lunch.

YOU: Yowza! 

 

DIRECTING  

All five nominees here are also up for Best Picture, and only one nominee has won before, so does the Academy go for the double-play or do they mix and match? Will they give Alejandro Innaritu his second Director Oscar in a row? Will they give it to George Miller for basically being the Bernie Sanders of directors (age and politics both)? Or do they reward the Funny Or Die cleverness of Big Short, the solid workmanship of Spotlight, or the subtle handheld brilliance of Room? All I can say is, I really want to see George Miller win this. In fact, I would rather see him win this instead of Best Picture, because he shares one thing in common with Innaritu—the movies they made would look and feel completely different if anybody else had been at the helm. The only other film I think you can say that about is Big Short; it has a very specific stamp on it, and it’s not Adam McKay’s usual stamp. Room and Spotlight are stampless—the direction serves the story, which makes it invisible, even when it’s unique. So which way do you lean? Direction that’s invisible, or direction that looks like DIRECTION?  

THE CYNIC IN ME: We’re talking Hollywood. Guess. 

Flashy it is then. My heart says Miller will get it. But my head says Innaritu. But my inner Old White Guy says Tom McCarthy for Spotlight.

 

BEST PICTURE  

The great thing about great movies is that you can re-watch them over and over and still get something out of them. The sad thing about the Oscars is that they almost always go to a movie that you only watch once.  

ME:  Seriously: who’s seen The King’s Speech or Slumdog Millionaire recently? Anyone? I didn’t think so.

YOU:  But then: Lawrence of Arabia. Casablanca.  So it cuts both ways.

ME: Maybe so, but the watch-it-only-once side is the thicker cut. 

In the Re-Watch Me Race, Mad Max: Fury Road is the frontrunner. I could see that again right now, which I certainly can’t say about  Bridge of Spies even if you put a Kalashnikov to my head. (Okay; I could re-watch all the Mark Rylance scenes, but that’s it.) And Brooklyn was sweet but a little too Masterpiece Theatre safe, and The Martian was fun but it’s one of those films that seems bigger than it really is when you see it in a theatre—watch it on TV and it’s not going to have the same (cough) Gravity (cough). Spotlight and The Big Short are flip sides of the same ripped-from-the-headlines coin, one earnest and one snarky—and yeah, I could re-watch them if they showed up on HBO, one because it’s comforting, one because it’s confrontational—so they each have possibilities.  But really—is there anyone with a certificate of mental health who wants to sit through The Revenant again?  

YOU: Not me, and I’m half-crazy.

ME: And I’m the other half. I liked this movie a lot better when it was Jeremiah Johnson. 

That leaves Room, which is the one movie in this list which was so powerful and wrenching that it’s not that I don’t want to see it again, but that I don’t think I can, because it’s either going to put me through the same wringer all over again, which would be devastating; or it won’t, which would be even more devastating. To my mind, that’s the kind of movie that deserves awards: the kind you’re wary of seeing twice because you’re afraid it might wreck you all over again and even more afraid that it won’t. 

Will it win? Probably not. Judging the movies against each other on their own Oscar-Worthy merits thins the field in a different way. The Big Short is too snarky, Room is too disturbing without being appropriately uplifting and comforting (in other words, it tells a disturbing story without undercutting it with a unrealistically comforting message, which is Death To Oscar), and Mad Max: Fury Road is a stealth-female-lead action-adventure movie that tells the same story twice—once from right to left, once from left to right.  

Now by rights The Revenant should be in this group as well, because it’s basically a revenge western, and when not even The Searchers gets nominated for an Oscar, you’re talking genre suicide.

 

THE CYNIC IN ME: Trivia question: what is the only award that The Searchers won when it came out? A Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer: Patrick Wayne. Ah-hahahahahaha!)

 

But—and it’s a big old but—the way The Revenant was filmed, with its long single-shot takes and natural lighting cinematography, are like a neon sign saying THIS MEANS THE MOVIE IS AN ARTISTIC STATEMENT. Because if you take those two things away, all you have left is an Anthony Mann western with a shitty script. I mean, look at the title. When the title is a word that the old men in the Academy have to ask their twenty-something female assistants to look up in the dictionary, that spells ART. 

So The Revenant gets into the Oscar-Worthy group because it plays into  the Academy’s self-importance when they say The Movies are all about Art and not money. And the other movies in the group? They are all, at bottom, inoffensive.  Bridge of Spies isn’t even dramatic; Tom Hanks is always right, and everybody else is a shallow moron except for the Russian spy he defends, who is the only real human being in the whole movie, thanks to Mark Rylance’s performance. Brooklyn is a feel-good movie about the European immigrant experience, which is the only immigration experience that speaks to Old Man Hollywood; he gets to watch this and say “We did all right by those Irish and Italians, didn’t we?” The Martian, which (not counting all those Native Americans in The Revenant) actually has more diversity in its cast than all the other nominated movies combined, is MacGyver In Space, which is an inherently fabulous pitch, a delightfully entertaining movie experience,  and an ultimately weightless affair. Which leaves us with Spotlight, whose implied message of good-old-American can-do truth-revealing reporters-against-a-conspiracy-of-silence gumption is just the kind of message Old Man Hollywood loves. If it was just set in LA, it would be a shoo-in. (Rumor has it that, during an early script conference, some studio DB actually suggested that the story be set in LA because “movies about Boston never make money.”) 

YOU: Really?

ME: No, I just made that up.

YOU: Doesn’t sound made up.

ME: I know; sad, isn’t it? 

So. As much as I’d love to see Mad Max: Fury Road win, if only because it would the second-ever movie with a colon in its title to get Best Picture, it’s either going to be The Revenant or Spotlight. Revenant is the front-runner based on earlier awards, but I think the Old White Males who run the show behind the show want to feel good about themselves this year, and what better way to do that than to vote against child abuse by giving the Oscar to Spotlight?  

THE CYNIC IN ME: Hey—that’s my line! 

 

A Lot Of Potentially Innacurate Oscar Predictions

 

In the universe where I get to nominate movies for an Oscar, I would be talking about Scarlett Johansson’s Under The Skin chances against Tilda Swinton in Only Lovers Left Alive, or David Oyelowo's chances against Ralph Fiennes, or why Selma is a mortal lock to win Best Picture.  But instead, in a universe where the Motion Picture Academy gives Selma a (literally) token Best Picture award, I’m talking about this:

 

The Beats The Crap Out Of Me’s

Best Original Screenplay 

This could go to Birdman, Boyhood, or Grand Budapest Hotel.  If it goes to one of the first two, it could be an indicator of which movie will get Best Picture.  Me, I think it should go to Grand Budapest, not least because Ralph Fiennes should have been nominated for making the script’s main character come so alive that when you read the words on the page, you hear Fiennes speaking them.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay 

This could go to Whiplash, Imitation Game, or American Sniper.   The reason Whiplash is here is because it’s based on a short film made a few years ago by the same director.  The reason Imitation Game is here is the reason Imitation Game is everywhere in these awards, because Harvey Weinstein.  Me, I’d give it to American Sniper, because the script sets up both a pro-war and anti-war story at the same time. 

Best Animated Feature Film 

This should be The Lego Movie, but The Lego Movie was not nominated.  The smart money is on How To Train Your Dragon 2 over Big Hero 6. 

Best Foreign Language Film 

Do you give it to the fabulous post-Holocaust film (Ida), the fabulous dark look at local Russian politics (Leviathan) or the fabulous look at military and religious occupation (Timbuktu)?  I’d say Leviathan, but never discount The Holocaust Factor, which could tip it to Ida.

 

Best Documentary – Feature 

Let’s see—one movie about current politics (CitizenFour), one about ancient history (Last Days Of Vietnam), one about apes (Virunga), one about a forgotten photographer (Finding Vivian Maier) and one about a Brazilian photographer (The Salt of the Earth).  Cocking my ear to hear what Old Hollywood is saying, I pick up a raspy voice whispering “Apes are fun; I’ll go with the apes.”

 

Best Documentary – Short Subject

Best Live Action Short Film
Best Animated Short Film

Beats me.  And who cares, really, unless you're doing a pool?

Best Original Score 

Alexander Desplat is up for two separate scores.  Want to bet he wins with one of them?

 

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Any movie with a half-naked wrestler covered in tattoos and a half-naked black woman in greenface should win, so I say Guardians of the Galaxy over Grand Budapest Hotel and Steve Carell’s nose in Foxcatcher. 

The Coin Tosses

Best Sound Editing
 

I don’t know why Whiplash isn’t up for this and The Hobbit: The Cash Grab With Five Armies is, but there you are.   My gut says American Sniper will win, because the Academy loves to reward shoot-em-ups.  But it also loves to reward movies about Hollywood guys who stick it to New York, so it could go to Birdman.   


Best Visual Effects

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Interstellar

Part of me is betting this will go to Interstellar, part of me is betting that this is the year the Andy Serkis Technique gets rewarded.

 

Best Costume Design
 

Mr. Turner has the kind of believable period costumes that get dirty, so that lets them out.  Into the Woods managed to cover up Emily Blunt’s pregnancy, but didn’t ring enough changes on Fairy Tale Couture 101.  Unlike Maleficent, which did.  That’s more of a possibility than Inherent Vice, which is way too current to win this kind of award.  Me, I’d give it to Grand Budapest Hotel, because everybody wore the kind of unbelievable period costumes that never have a speck of dirt on them ever.

 

 

Best Film Editing

        Boyhood

        Whiplash

This could go either way, depending on whether the Academy wants to reward the woman who slogged through twelve years of footage to assemble Richard Linklater’s dream project, or the guy who made jazz drumming look sexier than Rosamund Pike with powdered sugar on her face. 

 

 

The Mortal Locks

Best Supporting Actor : J. K. Simmons – Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette – Boyhood

Best Actress: Julianne Moore – Still Alice

The other people in these categories will try to look gracious while they sit there waiting to get smashed at an after-party.  Who would I choose if these three performers had not made movies this year?  Edward Norton for playing himself,  Emma Stone for making Edward Norton and Michael Keaton look human, and Rosamund Pike for making the entire movie of Gone Girl work.

 

Best Original Song:  "Glory" from Selma

This is the only award Selma is going to win.  Considering it's only nominated in two categories, that's a great percentage.  But considering it's only nominated in two categories, it's also a travesty.

Best Sound Mixing: Whiplash 

If you stop and think about the plot of Whiplash, it makes no logical sense at all, but thanks to the frantic editing and sound mixing, you get so caught up in the moment that all the absurdities don’t hit you till the movie is over.  

 

Best Production Design: The Grand Budapest Hotel 

Seriously—was there anything more beautiful to look at last year than this film?

 

 

Best Cinematography: Birdman

There’s a chance this could go to Mr. Turner for its painterly compositions, or Ida for its black-and-white excellence, but I smell an early win for Birdman.

The Down To The Wires

 

Best Actor

Michael Keaton – Birdman

Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything

Bradley Cooper – American Sniper 
 

Keaton and Redmayne have been the front runners from the beginning.  Cooper, like his film, has made a strong post-Christmas finish.  Keaton gets points for pretty much playing himself, and Redmayne and Cooper get points for playing real-life people, but Redmayne gets bonus points for playing a real-life person with a disease.  That usually trumps everything.  Except that Keaton gets bonus points for making the movie that he’s in impossible to imagine with anyone else in the lead.  I wish there was a way to see the post-award voting in this category, because I suspect that votes for Cooper are going to be the deciding factor here.  If they take votes away from Redmayne, Keaton wins; and vice versa.  If there were two categories, one for acting and one for performance, Redmayne and Keaton would both win.  Barring a tie, that’s not going to happen.  Me?  I want Redmayne to win it, but I think Keaton is going to pull it off, mostly because I think votes for Cooper will cut into Redmayne’s totals.

 

Best Director

Alejandro González Iñárritu – Birdman

Richard Linklater – Boyhood
 

 

Two architects of separate but stunning tours-de-force, one of whom uses real-time raw material to tell a story spanning years, and one of whom uses real-time single-takes to tell a story combining fantasy and reality.  This is a hard one to call because they each deserve to win, for pretty much the same reason—the manipulation of time.  And since you could say that Linklater’s editor had more to do with Boyhood’s success, and Iñárritu’s cameraman had more to do with Birdman’s success, even the hedges on your bet are identical.   Figure that if the Academy decides to vote for the film which grabbed them harder, it will go to Iñárritu, and if they vote for the film whose logistics are staggering, they’ll vote for Linklater.  Figure momentum and it goes to  Iñárritu.  Figure direction that draws attention to itself and it goes to Iñárritu.  So I guess figure Iñárritu.  (And yet, those twelve years behind Boyhood . . .) 

 

Best Picture

 

The Imitation Game is BBC hokum; The Theory of Everything is Hallmark hokum; and Whiplash is a monster movie populated by clashing cymbals.  Of the remaining nominees, Grand Budapest Hotel is my personal favorite, and the movie I would like to see win, but the Academy likes to vote for movies that make it feel good about itself, and a movie that is tinged with melancholy despite the fact that it goes down like a sweet confection is probably going to confuse the hell out of Academy voters who pick up on the sadness, never mind those who think “sweet” means “slight.” The Academy does not want to be known by a movie that makes it feel slight, it wants a movie that makes it feel important—which is why Selma not only doesn’t have a chance, but why it never had a chance, because how can a bunch of old white guys feel good about a movie in which all the old white guys are taken to school by smart, committed black men and women?  (I’ve been working on a post about Selma and Hollywood for the last two weeks, and it keeps getting angrier and angrier.)  Selma should win, but it won’t, and I hate to think it got roundly snubbed because 12 Years A Slave won last year, but there you are.  

That leaves the Big Three.  Boyhood got out to an early lead, Birdman has been closing in the stretch, and American Sniper came out of nowhere to make it a neck-and-neck-and-neck race. 

Birdman.  Is Birdman pretentious or amazing?  A little of both.  But it’s the acting (yes, I’m going there) that gives this movie its wings.  Edward Norton has never been better, playing a thinly-disguised version of the asshole we’ve all heard he is.  Emma Stone has Keane kid eyes (seriously, they’re bigger than most people’s heads) and balances a hefty chip on her shoulder with screw-you aplomb.  Michael Keaton is only a Beetlejuice rant away from being everything you want to see Michael Keaton embody in a lead role.  But as a close friend of mine remarked, the movie dies or lives on its last moment—you either buy into that or you walk away feeling gypped.  I go back and forth, but the more I think about it, the more I think that last moment is when the movie goes Hollywood by becoming just another oh-wait-look-up-there-he-really DOES-exist Santa Claus movie. 

Boyhood.  The first half of this movie is amazing.  There’s nothing familiar about it, and it has everything going for it.  The second half is when the main character gets old enough to become a Richard Linklater character, and we’re suddenly in what feels like a very familiar movie.  I think that, when people talk about how amazing this film is, they’re talking about the logistics behind it—the mechanics, the way it was produced and shot—the way, if you want to make a war analogy, all the soldiers and equipment were coordinated for a battle which, in the end, isn’t as thrilling as the plan of attack—where the actual fight is something of a letdown.  And it’s the fight that gets the Academy’s votes.  Which brings us to the dark horse:

American Sniper.  Depending on how you look at it, this is an anti-war movie masquerading as hero worship, or hero worship masquerading as an anti-war movie.  In other words, how you see it depends entirely on what you’re looking to see, and the movie is clever enough to play to and support those two opposing visions.  It’s also classically constructed, balancing a kid-with-a-weapon scene at the beginning with a kid-with-a-weapon scene at the end, to chart the difference in Bradley Cooper’s sniper.  Its battle scenes are models of clarity—you always know who’s who and where you are, especially in that sandstorm sequence.  And yes, it has the usual wife-who-is-feeling-distanced female lead, but Sienna Miller (Sienna Miller!) nails it.  Plus the Academy loves Clint Eastwood.  So this could totally sneak in as Best Picture, or—just like voting for Bradley Cooper—cut into the votes for one of the two other favorites.  If that happens, look for those votes to come from Boyhood’s totals. 

 

In the end, I think Birdman is going to win, thanks in no small part to that final Yes-Emma-Stone-there-IS-a-Birdman moment.  Because if it's anything the Academy wants to believe in, it's Santa Claus.

This Year's Oscars, or, The Stiffs Our Dreams Are Made Of

I have only two sure-fire Oscar predictions: if ten people say the word “Hazanavicius,” it will be pronounced ten different ways, and by 1AM Monday morning we are all going to be sick to death of hearing the word “dreams” used to describe multi-million-dollar market-researched products of the global film-making entertainment complex. I can hear those presenters now, all of them repeating a version of the phrase, “Movies are where dreams come true,” to describe The Artist and Hugo and The Help (“A dream of tolerance and equality.”).  And of course, the irony is that this year’s nominated movies are only like dreams because, ten minutes after they’re over, you can’t even remember them.  (“The Descendants.  A dream of seven confrontations that never actually happen.”)

Actually this poster is more like 
"Look--George Clooney is totally 
checking out that teenager's ass."

So besides the dream thing, is there a pattern in this year's nine Best Picture nominees?  You bet there is.  We have a feel-good movie about 9/11 (Extremely Twee and Incredibly Mawkish), a feel-good movie about World War I (The War Horse, aka Schindler’s Stallion), a feel-good movie about institutionalized racism (The Help), a feel-good movie about nostalgia (Midnight in Paris), a feel-good movie about the birth of movies (Hugo), a feel-good movie about silent movies (The Artist), a feel-good movie about adultery, life support, and family legacies (The Descendants), a feel-good movie about baseball (Moneyball), and an actual honest-to-God film about  growing up in the 50’s and God’s answer to Job (Tree of Life).

When you look at it like that, it boils down to a race between two movies: the one about baseball, and the one where nobody talks.  If The Help had a couple of guys in it, it’d be in the running too, because everybody likes to feel good about racial equality.  But since it’s impossible for the Old White Male Majority of Academy voters to watch an all-female movie without (a) feeling threatened and (b) imagining the envy of their peers if they were seen in public wining and dining all the nubile young actresses in the film, it’s just (you should pardon the expression) a token nominee.

As for the other six movies?  Since most of the Academy voters are old enough to remember World War I, and still think they can get cast as a romantic lead opposite Marion Cotillard, on paper the race should be between War Horse and Midnight In Paris.  But Midnight In Paris has the temerity to presume that you’ve read a book in your life, which makes it a New York movie, so that’s out.  And War Horse was directed by Steven Spielberg (who isn’t even up for Best Director), which means that, from the opening credits, you know that the horse lives and the final shot is going to be a beautiful sunset. (If Spielberg directed King Lear, Cordelia would not only live, she would marry Edgar.  On a hill.  During a sunset.)

What else?  The Descendants?   The only thing slighter is  the chance of rain in the Sahara.  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close?  It’s the 9/11 version of Where The Wild Things Are: call it Where The Mourning Kids Are.  Hugo?   If Martin Scorsese couldn’t win for movies with plot and characters, how can he win for movies with effects and allegory?  (Although since this IS Hollywood, that’s exactly what he’ll win for, right?)  And Tree of Life is one of those no-middle-ground movies (a) you either despise or adore which will (b) be argued about 50 years from now.  In other words, an actual creative work of art that doesn’t pander to an audience, a category that includes a lot of other non-Oscar-winning classics, like, say, Goodfellas. (Sorry--couldn’t resist.)

All of which leaves us with the silent movie from the French team that brought you Those OSS-117 Movies, and The Soderbergh Movie That Never Was.  If it was me, I'd split the difference by giving Brad Pitt Best Actor and The Artist Best Movie.  But I don't think that's the way it's going to go down. There's a lot of buzz for George Clooney as Best Actor, which I don't understand. Mostly because I still don't understand why he was nominated.  I mean the movie was nice, but memorable?  Only the daughter was memorable, and she didn't get nominated.   Is Jean Dujardin memorable? Yes--he has a thousand watt smile and an expressive face.  Will that make him this year's Roberto Benigni?  Probably.  But like everything else this year, and maybe I've just got da blahs, no one really stands out. (I've seen 4 out of the 5 Best Actor performances; didn't see Demian Bichir.) So since it's not about who you want to win, it's about who you think will win, who will get the statue? Either Dujardin or Clooney.  Of the 4 I've seen, Pitt would be the wild card, and Gary Oldman the really wild card, even though he had about as many lines in his movie as Dujardin does in his.  

But trust me--The Artist is a lock to win for Best Picture.  Why?  Because whether anybody says it out loud or not (and nobody does), we are reliving The Depression, and The Artist is the modern equivalent of a Fred and Ginger movie.

As for the other acting awards?  I’d like to see Brian Cox and Vanessa Redgrave win for Supporting Actor & Actress in Coriolanus, and Tilda Swinton win Best Actress for We Need To Talk About Kevin.  But none of them were nominated.   I’d also like to see everybody who’s ever been in one of the Harry Potter movies win a special ensemble Oscar.  That includes the three leads, none of whom was ever arrested for anything in the course of the series, something which would have happened after the third film if they’d been American kids.  (Hell--if they'd been American?  They'd all have slept with Lindsay Lohan during Goblet of Fire.) 

Of the actual nominees, I’d like to see Christopher Plummer get Best Supporting Actor for Beginners (which should have been nominated for Best Picture) and Melissa McCarthy win Supporting Actress for Bridesmaids (ditto).  As usual, these categories will be the bellwethers for the bigger awards. If Max von Sydow wins Supporting Actor, it's a vote for silent movies (he doesn't have a line in the film).  If Jonah Hill wins, Moneyball may have an outside shot at Best Picture.  If Berenice Bejo wins Supporting Actress, it’s Artist all the way.  My gut says Supporting Actress will go to one of the two actresses nominated for The Help, which means the dark horse here is Jessica Chastain, because she’s The Real Deal and she’s one of The Stories Of The Year.  If she wins, it’ll be because she’s been consistently memorable in everything she’s done in the last seven months--during which time she’s worked with almost as many people as Max von Sydow has in his entire career.

Best Actress? On the surface, this is an easy choice, because only one of the films for which the actresses are nominated is a Feel Good Film. (There’s an essay about women and film in that statement; if I feel up to it, I may just attempt it.)  Given that criteria? Viola Davis should win. But the Academy loves women who suffer (and there's my essay), so Michelle Williams has a shot. (Plus she’s playing a real-life tortured movie star, something the Academy voters regularly go gaga for.)  But Glenn Close suffers in Albert Nobbs, so she has a shot. And Rooney Mara is playing the popular culture's Current Epitome of A Tortured Female, so theoretically, she has the best shot of all to win.  The only one who doesn’t have a chance is Meryl Streep, who is playing a woman nobody liked in a movie nobody saw, and is fast turning into a female cross between Paul Muni and Charlton Heston. I eagerly await her Mother Teresa, her Carol Channing, her Ann Richards, her Miss Marple, and her Margaret Mitchell.

Which leaves Best Director. Personally, I’d love to see that go to Scorsese or Terrence Malik, because Hugo was All Direction And Little Else, and because Tree Of Life is, as I mentioned, a creative work of art which nobody else on earth could have made in just this way except the person who did make it.  And I think Woody Allen has a shot, because of the nostalgia angle, and because all the old white male voters think they could get Lea Seydoux in a heartbeat. (Which actually accentuates the whole Woody Allen And Young Girls Thing, so there could be a backlash there.) But in the end, this is one of those categories where who I want to win, who I think should win, and who I think will probably win are three completely different people.  I want Terrence Malik to win, Martin Scorsese should win, but Michel Hazanavicius will probably win for The Artist.

Having said all that, what would make my Oscar Night special? (Besides, y’know, giving up celibacy for Lent with Sandra Bullock?)

One thing: Michael Shannon winning Best Actor for Take Shelter. Too bad he wasn't nominated.

The posters above, as well as a few others, can be found here.

The Oscars: The Great White Hopes

The State of the Union Hollywood was this morning, and it's pretty clear how Hollywood wants to think of itself this year, based on total nods alone: The King's Speech got 12 nominations, True Grit got 10, and The Social Network got 8. And yeah, nominations don't always translate into statues, but it's not the potential winners that I'm pondering here, it's the marketing. Neither movie with the most nominations is based on current events, unlike The Social Network, which, compared those two, is more like an HBO movie that got released to theatres than a "film." The British Movie has two things going for it: it takes place 75 years ago, which is about the average age of the Academy voter, and it's intelligent without actually being smart, which is how Hollywood defines clever. The Remake Western has two things going for it as well: it's a remake, which means it strokes Hollywood's business-based ego as a supplier of product rather than a creator of originality, and it has that Independent Outsider Vibe, aka it's a Coen Brothers Film, something which actually used to be outside the mainstream once but can now be found in that insider room down the hall. So, based on nomination totals, these two are the pre-emptive heavy-hitters which Hollywood is angling to see square off against each other in the ring, for exactly the same reason as NBA officials always try to make sure that LA and Boston get into the Finals: it's a better story.

So what does the entire Best Movie field say about the state of Hollywood? Well, to my mind, the 10 Best Picture nominees are clearly divisible into two separate groups:

1. Best Picture For Reals: Black Swan, The Fighter, The King's Speech, The Social Network and True Grit. It's no accident that these five represent the five Best Director nominations. These are the heavy-hitters, the ones to beat. And what are they? A soft-core torture-porn version of The Red Shoes, this year's Holiday Sports Movie, this year's must-see Snob Hit, The Movie The Kids All Watched, and a xeroxed Western. Which are my admittedly snarky descriptions. So how will Oscar describe them? In the same order, A Young Girl's Struggle With Her Inner Demons, An Aging Young Man's Struggle To Compete, A Duke's Struggle To String Two Words Together Without Choking, A Young Asshole's Struggle To Change The World, and A Young Girl's Struggle To Catch Her Father's Killer Without Ever Once Speaking A Contraction.

MY FRIEND AMANDA: Still snarky there, pal.
ME: Sorry, can't help it.

2. Best Picture Nominees Who Are The Filmic Equivalent Of A Plus One: Inception, The Kids Are All Right, 127 Hours, Toy Story 3, and Winter's Bone. And I use the plus-one comparison deliberately. These movies are the arm candy that make you look good, but none of them have a chance in hell of winning anything. Toy Story 3, for instance, which is one of the two actual best movies this year, is also nominated as Best Animated Feature, so cross that one off the list. Winter's Bone, this year's live-action best movie, was directed by a woman, and since Kathryn Bigelow's victory last year means there'll be a good five years of women directors being happy just to be nominated, that takes care of both Winter's Bone and The Kids Are All Right,which was also directed by a woman. Inception is on the list because it made a ton of money, but it was actually very smart, not just Hollywood smart, so Christopher Nolan will be punished for not talking down to those 75-year-olds by having to settle for making a ton of awardless money. And 127 Hours? Really? Come on--we all know Hollywood would cut off its arm rather than give this movie an Oscar.

As for the acting awards, in each category but one there is at least one actor who's won a previous award. (The exception is Best Supporting Actress, which means that somebody in that group is going to win an Oscar for the first time. My guess? We'll get to predictions later.) The award-winning thesps include Kidman, Bridges, and Rush, and to continue that fighter image, the ringside match-ups are Bridges vs Firth, Rush vs Bale, and (yes folks, I'm going there) a three-way in the Best Actress category, with Kidman vs Bening vs Portman.

Overall impressions?

1. God, what a lean year for good movies.
2. I see white people.
3. 127 Hours? Really?

Attack Of The Februaries!

Yesterday I got the first rejection letter from everything I sent out in November and December last year, so it's official -- the Februaries are off to a running start! Nothing like rejection, low self-esteem, and an inner voice saying that the only way your name will be in fucking lights is if they bury you with a neon tombstone to make you feel like, if the earth had a shoulder, it would shrug you off like the annoying bug you are.

Other examples of the Februaries: I'm at The Bitter End last night when this guy wearing a chckered cap leans over and says:

GUY IN CHECKERED CAP: Hey, do I know you?
ME: Not unless you know a lot of unproduced playwrights.

Ninety minutes later they announce a special guest, and up to the stage goes the guy in the checkered cap. Turns out he was Garland Jeffreys. This is what the Februaries does to me. It's the month when I'm guaranteed to make a snarky comment about the Schubert Organization while a Schubert is sipping wine at the next table.

And it's also February 2nd! And you know what that means -- today's the day when, if Anne Hathaway sees her shadow, we have four more weeks of Oscar speculation. That's right, Oscar noms come out today.

More on all this later, because really, what's a depressed writer stuck in a soul-destroying day job to do except escape into a discussion of why Avatar is the coming of the apocalypse, why Kathryn Bigelow is like Victoria Woodhull, and why Nine should be retitled "Four, With a Six Point Five From The Russians."

Random thoughts on the 09 Oscars

Stop—you’re killing me! Jesus, could you make the memorial sequence any more difficult to sit through? The way the camera was swerving back and forth in front of the clip screen, I had to keep walking back and forth in front of the TV set just to see the names. And sorry, but I wanted to see Cyd Charisse clips, I did not want to see Queen Latifah. When they do Latifah's memorial, I hope somebody has the decency to digitally insert the entire "Slaughter On Tenth Avenue" number in front of her clips with Steve Martin.

And speaking of bad video. Why was the goddamn Kung Fu Panda always rearing up at us whenever they showed a split-screen?

Nobody in Hollywood has seen The Reader. From the opening musical number's joke that unopened screening copies of this movie are lying around the living rooms of Southern California like technological dust bunnies, to Judd Apatow’s dead-on “this movie is so Serious it’s a fucking hoot when you’re stoned” take-down, I think we can safely say that the reason Kate Winslet won the Oscar is either (a) for her performance in Revolutionary Road or (b) to shut her up already.

40% Tonys, 60% Oscars. That’s what it felt like, anyway. Kudos to Hugh Jackman and the opening number, major props to Anne Hathaway for adding yet another credit to her Good Sport Résumé (and wow--singing chops! Who knew?), but what was up with that "Musicals is back" medley? It was like an hour-long number that got edited down to seven minutes, or some weird live approximation of a clipfest --with actual clips running in the back that were so far away you couldn't see them. Was this Baz Luhrmann's revenge for the tanking of Australia? Also: Beyoncé's thighs looked like a Daniel Craig could hide behind each of them. Is this woman digitally altered when she does her music videos or what?

Which reminds me. Daniel Craig can't read a teleprompter. Either that or he had dinner reservations five minutes after his presentation sequence was over.

"The Music Made Me Do It!" There is no truth to the rumor that the national homicide rate tripled when screaming knife-wielding viewers ran into the streets stabbing anything in sight as they sang the JC Penney music after the fifth commercial aired. It was after the 30th commercial.

What's with the wedding-train gowns? Is this some Depression-chic thing I missed? It made every actress wearing one look like they were auditioning for a Bridezilla rom-com.

Oh, shut up. I love Sean Penn the actor, but Sean Penn the dude totally turns me off. Listening to him espouse a cause by ordering people what to do makes me want to (a) hug poor Gus Van Sant because filming Milk must have been a fucking nightmare and (b) burn my membership card in the homo-loving commie underground. How could somebody so humorless in real life play somebody as enchanting as Harvey Milk? (Oh yeah; acting.)

The perfect analogy. The Oscar show is a 3-4 hour version of 52 weeks of movie openings. The opening half hour is like January -- it teases you with something fun and something serious (the first supporting acting award). The next two hours are like February through May, with awards nobody cares about and movies that suck. But now it's June, which means we're halfway home, and it's time to be desperately entertained by loud vulgar crap for the next 90 minutes, until we get to September and the stuff we're supposed to be impressed by -- the prestige releases (meaning all the rest of the major awards crammed into 20 minutes). This analogy means that you will always be able to turn off the TV at the 30-minute mark, stick a summer blockbuster in your DVD player, watch it in its entirety, and return to the live show in plenty of time to get sternly lectured by Sean Penn. It's the law.

WTF? "Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat" as the exit music?!? Covered by Beck?!?!? My brain just 'sploded!

Oscar Predictions 2009

In which I once again fall flat on my face attempting to read the fame-deluded minds of a bunch of old white men who think that prestige movies are the equivalent of those thick British novels you have to read in English class, the ones you use years later to prop up your bedroom air conditioner. That’s where most of the nominated films this year will end up.

Best animated feature film of the year. This is the consolation prize for Wall-E, which should have been nominated for Best Movie and wasn’t because (a) it’s animated and (b) it’s popular. Expect to hear the Oscar Orchestra play “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” for this.

Best foreign language film. I only saw Waltz with Bashir. Since it deals with Israel, it’s the only one of the four nominated movies with even a peripheral connection to Matthew’s Fourth Rule Of Oscars (anything with a Holocaust-related theme wins), so it gets my vote over the French classroom movie, the German history lesson, and the weird Japanese cremation thing.

Supporting Actor. There’s always one category where you say “Crap, I bet they wish their movies had been released next year, because there’s no way any of them is going to beat [insert name here].” Fill in Heath Ledger’s name and that’s what Supporting Actor is this year. Philip Seymour Hoffman was his usual brilliant self, Josh Brolin made Dan White sympathetic, Michael Shannon brought Revolutionary Road to life (twice!), and Robert Downey Jr. got nominated for a role which made fun of what actors will do to get Oscar nominations, but because Heath Ledger fucked up his anti-depressants, none of that matters. The only real lock of the night. If Ledger doesn’t win this, he should rise from the grave and haunt everyone who voted against him. As for who’s going to accept the award on his behalf, I’d love to see Downey do it in blackface.

Supporting Actress. Personally I’d like to see Marisa Tomei win it; there’s a scene she has in The Wrestler that I rave about whenever the movie comes up and I still can’t forget it. (And no, it’s just her face. As a male friend of mine said a couple of nights ago: “You were looking at her face?” God yes.) But Tomei’s already won this once. Penelope Cruz has the Woody Allen Factor going for her (Allen's films are like a frakking gold mine for Supporting Actress Oscars), and wouldn't it be cool if Javier Bardem handed her that statue? But since this is the only acting category with people of color, the award will probably go to either Viola Davis or Taraji P. Henson. Given Hollywood’s preference for fantasy over reality, I’m guessing Henson for Benjamin Button.

Adapted screenplay. Doubt and Frost/Nixon were plays, so they don’t count. The Reader has Matthew’s Fourth Oscar Law going for it, Benjamin Button has the literary cachet (F Scott Fitzgerald story) and the Hollywood spin (look -- Brad Pitt’s face CGI’d over an old man’s body!), and Slumdog Millionaire is Cinderella (or rather Sejal-ella.) The snarky side of me wants Benjamin Button to win, so I can chortle over how nobody mentions F Scott Fitzgerald’s name once the way nobody mentioned Winston Groom’s name once the year Forrest Gump won everything. But I think Slumdog will take it.

Original screenplay. Nobody saw Frozen River, maybe two people saw Happy-Go-Lucky, and Milk made me want to rent the documentary. That leaves Wall-E and In Bruges. The anti-animation bias, added with the pro-McDonagh bias (he won best short film in ’06) means In Bruges will win.

Best Song. "The Wrestler" by Bruce Springsteen. I don’t care if it wasn’t nominated. The fact that it wasn’t nominated pisses me off. So when the nominees are read, I am going to HALO into the Kodak, steal the statue at gunpoint, and drop it off in Jersey. "Jai Ho" can eat it.

Best Actor. Conventional wisdom says this is a two-man race between Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke. Outside shot: Frank Langella’s Nixon. But Straight Man Does Gay trumps Historical Mimicry, so advantage Penn. Way outside shot: Richard Jenkins, who’s worked with everyone. But Comeback trumps Connections, so advantage Rourke. No shot at all: Brad Pitt, who if he ever wins an Oscar at all, will get it for the crazy character stuff he does in films like Snatch and Burn After Reading. So that leaves Penn and Rourke. Penn’s already won Best Actor, which is a plus for Rourke. But Rourke’s already won a couple of ancillary awards (like the Golden Globe), which is a plus for Penn. I’d say it was a dead heat except for the Cinderella Factor. Given that Slumdog has no actors nominated, Rourke is the closest thing to Cinderella in the Actor category. Personally I’d like to see him win it, but when it comes to acting, Straight Man Does Gay trumps everything.

Best Actress. Melissa Leo, your award is the nomination. Angelina Jolie? Individual frames from Wall-E were more animated. Anne Hathaway has an outside shot, but her scenes made people squirm. Nobody in Hollywood likes to be forced to squirm in a real-life movie –- that’s what horror movies are for. So if Rachel Getting Married had zombies, or if Hathaway started taking an axe to her family, she’d be a shoo-in. (Memo to Hathaway’s agent: have her do the Full Charlize and play somebody ugly next year. She’ll be a lock.) Which leaves Streep and Winslet. Since Winslet’s part falls under the Fourth Law of Oscars, the little gold guy is hers to lose.

Best Director. Usually there’s one guy in here (and I do mean guy) whose movie hasn’t been nominated, but this year, all 5 Best Movie directors are up for it. So how does it break down? Ron Howard basically filmed a play; sorry, Ron. Stephen Daldry gets nominated every couple of years and has finally caught on that Hollywood Loves The Holocaust, but he picked the wrong movie. People want to be told that the Holocaust is bad, but there were good people who surmounted it -- people don't want to be told that the Holocaust is less shameful than illiteracy. Gus Van Sant has the outside shot here over David Fincher because, while both men have effectively squelched their signature styles to make a “popular” film, Van Sant’s film has the Straight Man Does Gay thing going for it. If it goes to Van Sant, look for Milk to have a better shot at Best Picture than Slumdog. If it goes to Danny Boyle, start practicing your Bollywood dance moves.

Best Picture. Filmed Play trumps Forrest Gump Clone. Biography Of Martyr trumps Filmed Play. Holocaust trumps Biography of Martyr. Cinderella trumps Holocaust.