And so once again, on this Oscar Eve, we embark upon Mike’s prognostications regarding which of the roughly 2,000 features films made this year, of which roughly 700 were deemed suitable for some sort of theatrical release, will be honored tomorrow as the best of the best, the creme de la creme, the most excellent of the excellent crop of titles that made the cut as Oscar nominees. Nine films qualified this year for the Best Picture nomination:
American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, 12 Years A Slave, and The Wolf of Wall Street.
In addition to these nine, there are a few more titles that did not qualify for Best Picture but did get nominated in some other major category. These would include Woody Allen’s "Blue Jasmine" for which Cate Blanchett made Best Actress, Sally Hawkins Best Supporting Actress, and Woody himself for Best Original Screenplay. There is also "August: Osage County" that scored big in both Actress categories for Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts.
As my expertise as a filmmaker is focused mostly on writing and directing, I do not feel qualified and so do not bother to comment on the more technical categories such as Production Design, Sound Mixing and Editing, or even Cinematography and Editing. I certainly don’t claim sufficient expertise to opine on such areas as Score, Song, Makeup, or Visual Effects. And since it is very difficult to see the Foreign Language entries (at least in time for Oscar) as well as the documentaries and short subjects, I abstain from those categories as well. Animation is another area that is so highly specialized that, though I enjoy it very much, I don’t get a chance to see most of them and so won’t comment on them. I have seen "Frozen" and that was great, for what that’s worth.
This is a year that all nine candidates are comparably excellent. That’s as it should be. Most years I’m able to identify at least a couple titles that I don’t feel deserve to be there and name other titles that I thought should have been. Not so this time. And that is how it should be. If the industry is doing its job right, Oscar should be a very tough call. This is a year that all the titles possessed greatness in some capacity or another. I will be pointing out weaknesses in some of them in making my call that they probably won’t take home the trophy. And there is also one film that is a standout and it will be obvious below that I think it will be the Best Picture this year.
But the nine titles for Best Picture do represent most of the important films made this year so, as I always do, I will focus most of my remarks on brief reviews of those.
1. "American Hustle"
This is not too unlike any of the many Martin Scorcese gangster films and could easily have been just another tragic crime drama. But this one is played for comedy and the fact that it’s a true story makes it all the more fascinating. But don’t think that because it’s played for comedy it makes any compromises in authenticity. This film is as raw and ugly as any of the best classic crime dramas, which makes it all the more worthy since it also succeeds in being funny as hell. But be warned. This IS a film about gangsters, and no varnish is applied.
An almost unrecognizable Bale is up for Best Actor, Amy Adams for Best Actress, an equally unrecognizable Bradley Cooper (JLaw’s costar last year in Playbook) for Supporting Actor, Russell of course for directing and screenplay, production design, costume design, editing, and of course the lovely Jennifer who, as I mentioned last year, does not seem capable of making a mistake (overlooking of course her little misstep at last year’s ceremony). I would have to say that this was my 2nd favorite of the nominees.
2. "Captain Phillips"
This is still another true story, this time much more recently as a detailed accounting of the 2009 Somali terrorist attack on the merchant ship Maersk Alabama and the genuinely heroic actions of the ship’s captain Richard Phillips in protecting his crew and outwitting the attackers. The one nomination that was missing this year was Tom Hanks for Best Actor (but then which of the other Best Actors would we have bounced?) But the Academy makes up for it by with a Supporting nod for Barkhad Abdi, an actual Somali refugee whose background made possible a very brave and dimensional portrayal of the head terrorist.
But this is not an action film. The dramatic power here lies not in shoot-outs but in the very human anxieties and fears that this Captain Phillips faces as he tries his best in what very much appears to be a hopeless situation. Though bullets do fly, it is a story of character rather than combat. Some of the actual crew have come out against the film claiming that their captain was not really that heroic. Whether this is sour grapes or genuine who knows, but one must keep in mind that a film has less a responsibility for strict factual accuracy that to telling a great story, and this film tells a great story.
Also nominated for Adapted Screenplay, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Film Editing. The only thing really against this film is that most of the other nominees are equally deserving.
3. "Dallas Buyers Club"
I do distinctly remember being at McDonnell-Douglas in the mid-1980s when AIDS first became a topic of panicked discussion, when even physicians who should have known better were refusing to treat AIDS patients and being given a pass by both the public and the media as the overwhelming popular sentiment was that it was very possible to get the disease just by being in the same room, certainly by having them breathe on you or touch you. The prejudice was still very much in evidence even though the disease had already been around for decades. This film starts in 1985 and tells the (again true) story of one common street hustler who contracts the virus and must battle the world to save himself.
Matthew McConaughey has almost certainly got the Best Actor category nailed for the job he did here. Shockingly thin (he lost over 40 pounds to prepare himself for the role), his performance of this gay-baiting lowlife Ron Woodruff is someone you really want to hate but just can’t bring yourself to do so. You might guess that at least some of the dramatic power in his performance (and in the story) comes not just from the fact that his character is not gay but is actually a guy who hates gays. So when he is diagnosed with this disease that the rest of the world automatically classifies as a gay plague, he has more than a little reevaluation to do of his own moral code, especially when he discovers that the only support he’s going to get is from the LGBT community.
But the greater accolade for this film goes to the truly groundbreaking performance by Jared Leto (nominated as Supporting Actor) as the transgender Rayon who becomes McConaughey’s greatest friend and ally. When I lived in Hollywood, I had the opportunity to observe a great many transvestites and transgender men and most of them were capable of quite remarkable illusions. I always wondered why in the many films that have been made about this lifestyle, they always portray these people as so obviously male, looking ridiculous in their getup. I had always promised myself that if I ever got a chance to make a film about the gay community, I would be sure to have the transvetite/gender roles played by actors who actually knew what that meant. Well, Jared Leto has done exactly that in this film and it is the first time I have seen it done so well.
Also nominated for Best Screenplay, Editing, Makeup. Surely it’s a shoe-in for the makeup. As for the rest of it, this one’s a tossup. The Woodruff character is despicable. He is so abrasively rude, arrogant, and profane. He is exactly the kind of guy that any decent parent would shoot before letting him anywhere near their daughters. Now the reality is that as the story progresses, the character becomes less profane and more inventive as he must create his own alternative underground (and questionably legal) healthcare system in order to survive, a system that actually proves to work and ends up helping thousands of impoverished AIDS patients who have been abandoned by conventional medicine. Here is a guy who is given just four weeks to live at the beginning of the story and manages to survive more than seven years. He does end up doing an awful lot of good before the end. But it does come a tad late in the story.
That’s the major question. It’s breaking a lot of rules of story construction. Will that count against it or will the Academy see that as inventiveness and reward it? I do hope that Jared Leto gets recognized. McConaughey may also have a shot for what is undoubtedly the most brilliant performance of an already brilliant career. But the Academy may very well be in the mood to reward another much older actor this year who hit another homerun in a low budget film called "Nebraska."
4. "Gravity"
We have finally arrived, the one great standout film of the year. The smart money throughout the whole season this year has been between "Gravity" and "American Hustle," or "Gravity" and "12 Years A Slave." My vote is for "Gravity." This is an amazing technical and artistic accomplishment on so many different levels. Before it was even out, it was already being heralded as the best film ever made about space, the most realistic, and the most dramatically worthy. The opening title says it all. Before we see anything else, there is the blurb, "In space, life is impossible." And that sets up the entire intensely nail-biting experience. This is a film about accomplishing the impossible task of staying alive in space.
Like Dallas Buyers Club, this one too breaks a number of traditional storytelling conventions. The most glaring of these is that the introduction of the main conflict happens just five minutes into the story. Yes, we have just five minutes of business as usual as a team of astronauts in the space station are on a space walk doing repairs, when suddenly their area of space is just pulverized by a field of debris, thousands of pieces of space junk soaring by at hundreds of miles per hour, destroying the space station and killing all but two of the astronauts.
There you have it. Two astronauts adrift in space with nothing but what they have in their space suits. No food, no water, a quickly depleting oxygen supply, and no way to communicate with control central back on planet Earth. And of course very much assuming that they are being left for dead. Is that a setup or is that a setup? Sandra Bullock plays the astronaut with George Clooney the commander. They have only minutes of oxygen left and a maximum of 55 minutes before the next flood of debris is scheduled to hit, and this one will surely be fatal. Played out in real time, (the film runs a mere but very intense 85 minutes), Bullock’s character must exercise incredible ingenuity to make the oxygen stretch and somehow get to a place from which she might be rescued.
"Gravity" is a visual explosion that treats all the senses to the realities of space and the impossibility of her quest. Do not even bother to see this unless you can do so in 3D. Anything else would be analagous to listening to great music on an old transistor pocket radio. It’s still in 3D in some theaters. But if you must watch it on TV and don’t have 3D, find a friend who does and invite yourself over for a movie night. It will be worth it.
Also nominated for Best Actress, Director, Design, Cinematography, Sound, Editing, Score, and of course Visual Effects. It deserves them all. My opinion is that it’s certainly a shoe-in for Visual Effects, and probably also for Sandra Bullock except that, like Dallas Buyers Club, the Academy may be in the mood this year for rewarding a much older actress in a low budget film called "Philomena."
5. "Her"
This film really might have been titled "Quher" for it has "quirky" written all over it and is certainly the most unconventional film of all this year’s nominees. Whether this will be held against it or rewarded for inventiveness is anyone’s best guess. Joaquin Phoenix, (another performance that should have had a nom for Best Actor) in his most challenging role yet, plays the ultimate geek in a story that explores the extreme logical extension of artificial intelligence. What if computers could be programmed to feel? What if they could be designed to love? In a near future society, this is exactly what computers can do and his Theodore Twombly falls in love with his PC’s operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johansson in another role that should have had a Supporting Actress nod if for no other reason than what she accomplishes without ever being seen.) Falling in love with a machine that isn’t really a machine anymore is hardly new material but because of the strength of the script, direction and performances, we get a glimpse into this brave new world that examines how his life (and ours - and society at large) might be impacted both professionally and socially.
Will Oscar reward this very quirky and worthy accomplishment? I doubt it, especially since it’s already got plenty of quirk represented in American Hustle and Dallas Buyers Club. But in a field so crowded this year with other equally worthy candidates, the nomination itself truly is the honor and the film is certainly worth a view. Also nominated for Screenplay, Design, Score, and Song.
6. "Nebraska"
An old man in early stages of dementia gets a letter from a sweepstakes company saying he’s won a million dollars. Despite his wife and adult children trying desperately to convince him that he really hasn’t won anything (You see Dad, it says right here, "IF you have the winning numbers" ... you almost certainly don’t have the winning numbers!), he’s not buying the argument. So one morning after breakfast he simply walks out of his home in Billings, Montana and begins to walk to Lincoln, Nebraska and the sweepstakes headquarters.
A few hours later, the police pick him up as he’s walking down the freeway and his son, desiring some long overdue bonding with Dad while he’s still with us, decides to drive him to Lincoln himself. Along the way, they do a stop in the old man’s childhood town and have a family reunion with long neglected relatives. The problem is old Dad can’t keep his mouth shut about winning the million dollars and despite the son’s vigorous attempts to nip the misunderstanding in the bud and inform everyone there really is no money, nobody believes it. Soon there is a whole parade of family "friends" and distant "relatives" lining up with hands out to get their share of the loot. Naturally, complications arise.
Bruce Dern after a very long distinguished career completely hits the ball out of the park with his performance as the mildly senile old dad. And June Squibb who’s been playing character roles for decades is an absolute delight as the crotchety wife in this charming comedy about the All-American family dysfunction. Both Dern and Squibb are up for Oscars as well as director Alexander Payne (who hasn’t made a bad film yet) and screenwriter Bob Nelson. It is an unusually compelling story considering it is basically just slice-of-life but the life it’s taken a slice of is one that is just a delight to observe.
This one too is going to be a tough call. Again, I say the honor is in the nomination. And if listening to salty language from a bunch of seniors doesn’t bother you (actually that may be the most attractive part of this thing), it’s well worth two hours of anyone’s time.
7. "Philomena"
In 1951, a pregnant teenager named Philomena is sent by her family to one of the notorious homes for unwed mothers in Ireland, run by a sadistic order of nuns. She is allowed to raise her baby boy until the age of 2 when one day quite suddenly he is taken from her and sent to an adoptive family in the U.S. Flash forward to 2004 and a now a 70-something Philomena living in England has never stopped missing her child but has long since accepted the inevitability of her fate. A widow with grown children, she chooses the occasion of her lost son’s 50th birthday to tell her daughter her dark secret. The young woman launches her mother on the seemingly impossible quest to find the son enlisting the help of a BBC journalist to do the investigation and write about it.
Thus begins what is one of the most fascinating detective stories in a film this year. One recalls 2002’s "The Magdalene Sisters," a film on the same subject except taking place entirely in the 1960s. Surely by 2004 reforms have been made. What is so unique and extraordinary about "Philomena" is her rather unsavory discovery that, though these institutions have now learned to put on a happy face, there are still deep dark closets filled with skeletons and the Church remains in active conspiracy mode to keep those skeletons hidden. Philomena and her entourage encounter one roadblock after another but the shocking truth finally comes out – these priests and nuns have been lying to her all along and have no remorse about it whatsoever.
The journalist being quite the savvy investigator is able to get to the truth despite the nuns’ amateur attempts to stop them and eventually locates the wealthy American family who adopted the boy. They also uncover the ugly truth that the nuns were for decades running a "baby blackmarket" for Americans, exploiting these young girls and making a fortune doing so. There are a few more major surprises along the way, but the main point is the film’s sharp reminder that, at least in Ireland, not much has changed in 60 years. Crimes are still being committed, still being covered up by Church authorities, and the evil business itself of selling babies for profit while enslaving the young helpless mothers is not that long in the past.
Chilling is the best word to describe "Philomena" and Judi Dench gets a well deserved Best Actress nomination for her bravura portrayal of a woman who has remained a deeply devout Catholic all her life and whose willingness to forgive her tormentors qualifies her as leading the Christian life better than most of us. Dench just might be a dark horse this year and beat out either Bullock or Blanchett.
Also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Score.
8. "12 Years A Slave"
This is the big "issue" film this year, the one everyone is debating as the frontrunner for Best Picture. It has been named the #1 film of the year by any number of critics associations and took home the award from the Golden Globes. (Since the critics are the ones who select the Golden Globes, should this surprise anyone?) It’s gotten so ridiculous that it’s become almost politically incorrect to find fault with this film or opine that there are other films that are as good or better. One evens runs the risk of being accused of racism if you don’t vote this one for Best Picture.
But artists need to be brave and I am willing to risk being slandered and take a stand that this film does not deserve the Best Picture accolade. This is not to say that it is not a very fine film. It is. But in a field with so many outstanding candidates, it is not a frontrunner.
It is an important film and one that demands to be seen. It tells the important true story (I think "Her" and "Nebraska" are the only two nominees this year that were not based on true stories) of Solomon Northup, a free and affluent black man in 1841 New York, a professional violinist who receives the high honor of being invited to give the President of the United States a concert at the White House. Of course, Washington D.C. is right on the border of the slave states so, without knowing anything about the film, it was not at all difficult to predict the outcome. The man is kidnapped by slavers, stripped of all his I.D. and sold to blatantly abusive (of course!) plantation owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender, up for Supporting Actor) outside New Orleans. There he remains enslaved for 12 years witnessing the most awful atrocities (and enduring a few of his own) until providence sends a true Christian in the person of a Canadian named Bass (Brad Pitt) who aids him in getting word to his colleague (Paul Giamatti) in New York who can bring the law down to free him. Since the day of his capture he has been trying to get the word out but the institution is so carefully and intentionally designed to prevent this and even those who profess to be Christian (which are most of them) betray him in defense of Southern purity.
The king-size flaw in this film is that there is nothing new here. Every other nominee this year, even if it was treading over old ground, at least found a uniquely new and inventive way of doing so. "12 Years A Slave" is something we’ve seen so many times before that it could almost have been a TV movie. I will ignore the insulting comments that director Steve McQueen (also up for an Oscar) has made in interviews that he made the film to educate the American public about the horrors of slavery. Does McQueen understand that there was a strong abolitionist movement long before the Civil War that was already painfully aware of this? What about "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" and the mountain and like-minded literature? What about the whole Roots saga and the slew of other films on this subject? What about last year’s "Django Unchained" which portrayed slavery in such unsparing graphic brutality that Spike Lee objected because a white director had made it? Does McQueen really believe that Americans as a people are still unaware of the horrors of slavery?
But as I said, I’m ignoring this comment. I can’t help the director’s motivation in making the film. I can only judge the film on its own merits and the film is very well done but does not rate as the best film of the year, nor for that matter even the best film on the subject of slavery. What I found so curious were the dramatic flaws in the film. I mean was this guy really this outrageously naive? Why would an educated and affluent black man living in 1840s America be so stupid as to accept a gig, as high an honor as it was, just a few short miles from slave territory, and in a community where the underground slave trade was known to be quite active? What was he thinking? Knowing nothing about the film, I saw what was coming as soon as he announced he was going to Washington D.C. with his quartet. Why was there nothing in the story to show that he knew he was taking a big risk? Why did his wife not object? Why did he not take much stronger precautions to make sure he’d be safe in Washington?
This is just one of many examples where the film stretched credibility almost to the breaking point. This is one of those cases where, though it’s based on a true story, it’s not at all believable. My suspicion is that if I read the book it is based on, I would discover that there were indeed other things going on and that the circumstances were not as shallow as portrayed here.
Nevertheless, like Roots, like Django, and like so many other films and literary sources of its ilk, "12 Years A Slave" does an excellent job of portraying how we are all dehumanized when people are reduced to being mere property rather than persons. And like the other films, the abject cruelty and evil of the plantation families is right in our face. Hell, even some of the Nazis were moral people who struggled with the evil that surrounded them and tried to help the oppressed, something strongly dramatized in Schindler’s List. It raises an interesting question. Were there ANY moral white people living in the slave-era South?
Were there ever any white people in the South that fought against the institution of slavery? If so, they’ve never been represented in any popular literature or films. Everyone is portrayed as being sadists and rapists and with no moral qualms about the evil they do. I may be wrong. Maybe every single one of the Southern whites were evil. But if I’m not wrong, then this (and most of the films of this topic) has committed a major dramatic sin. It is guilty of being one-dimensional.
Dramatically, I also found the ending to be quite unsatisfying. He is portrayed as having a very close friendship with a fellow slave named Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o up for Supporting Actress), but then leaves her behind in the lurch when he is suddenly whisked away in the finale. Why was there no follow up on this, no mention in the story about what happened to her, no mention of any efforts he may have made (or not made) in order to buy her freedom and get her the hell out of there? Considering they’d been together for 12 years, you’d think it would have been his top priority, even moreso than getting immediately back to his family, to move heaven and earth to rescue her? Instead, McQueen just drops this story element like a hot potato. Perhaps no one knows what happened to her. Perhaps her story was so complex it would have required another movie. Whatever the reason, it was a major dramatic flaw that McQueen just dropped this absolutely critical part of the story.
I started this by saying that it’s almost become dangerous this year to find fault with this film. If by my saying here that I liked very much but did not love this film subjects me to accusations of racism, then so be it. I would only ask any accusers to look into their own hearts and ask themselves genuinely if their views of good and evil might be a tad simplistic? And if their ability to be objective about dramatic material might be compromised?
Up for Best Director, Best Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Design, Costumes, and Editing.
9. "The Wolf of Wall Street"
What one of our greatest directors, Martin Scorsese, did to Las Vegas in "Casino" and the mob in "Goodfellas" he has now done to Wall Street. This beautifully wrought drama of the true story of one of the most notorious Ponzi schemes ever perpetrated against investors is certainly worthy once again of every major nomination it has received. And it has received them all – Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor, Director, and Screenplay.
What Scorsese has so brilliantly done is taken a true story of evil and corruption and put a Faustian twist on it. It is damn near an X-rated movie in terms of its graphic representations of sex and drugs and generally lewd and profane behavior. But if you put it in context, does this not make DiCaprio’s (Best Actor) Jordan Belfort the devil and his firm hell? For what does Faust tell us about the devil and hell? Isn’t it mainly that Satan is a very glamourous person and that hell is a very attractive place – at least at first glance? But then the deeper you get into it, the quicker you understand what a horrible mess it is and what an unimaginably anguished existence you now have for being part of it?
Is this not exactly the picture that Scorsese has painted of Wall Street in this film? So let’s not be too shocked that it’s pushing the envelope so hard on its adult content. This is a remarkable portrait of hell and hell is lewd. DiCaprio gives a brilliant performance as the demon who just won’t take no for an answer even though he knows he’s peddling a pack of outrageous lies. And it’s fascinating to watch how clever he is in drawing people in, how convincing he is in selling himself as the savior of the world and building such staunch loyalty in his team that they are willing to do anything for him, including committing crimes, including destroying their own families. This is probably Scorsese’s best morality play to date.
But it does share the same dramatic flaws as 12 Years A Slave. Scorsese has an obvious contempt for Wall Street, just as Oliver Stone before him, and if there are any decent souls in the brokerage industry who are just doing their level best to provide their clients with comfort in their retirement, there is no evidence of it here. There is but one scene where a young intern questions the ethics of the sales pitch and the poor guy is promptly and severely humiliated and fired. The moral: sure you can stand up to these folks, but you’re committing professional suicide if you even think about it. So moral people either stay away from these places to begin with or get sucked in. The film does an excellent job dramatizing just how easy it is to get sucked in.
Again, the year is crowded with equally deserving candidates. And as good as Scorsese is, how many times does he have to be nominated (and win!) before Oscar finally gives someone else a break?
Honorable Mentions:
"August: Osage County"
Not a Best Picture nominee but notable for its double duty for both Best Actress (Meryl Streep ... again!) and Best Supporting Actress (Julia Roberts), this is the searing portrait of the total disintegration of a Southern family during a reunion weekend where some pretty ugly deeply hidden family skeletons come out of the closet. The screenplay, based on the stage play by the same author, is curious to say the least. On the one hand, it plays like an episode of "All My Children" (is that still on?), soap opera all the way and at its worst. On a totally different level, it reads like great Southern literature worthy of Carson McCullers, who is in fact referenced in the film. Anyway, great performances, middling script, and total all around bummer of an ending, in fact one of the most depressing films of the year.
"Blue Jasmine"
Haven’t been able to see it but, fortunately, it is available via Comcast’s "On Demand" so I may still be able to catch it before tomorrow evening and then send an update. Everyone’s money is on Cate Blanchett for Best Actress. I may agree after I see it, but again I must stress that there are extraordinary candidates this year and my money says it will be either Bullock or Dench. But what do I know? CB is one of my faves (along with JLaw) and so far she’s been sweeping them up.
"The Great Gatsby"
I was a little surprised this one did not do better in the nominations having only gotten production and costume design. DiCaprio as the classic Fitzgerald anti-hero did an equally superb job here as in Wall Street. I read the novel in college and even then was impressed by how difficult it would be to film. The 1970’s Robert Redford version certainly did not work for me. This one did. This one really did a superb job of capturing the decadence of the book and, shot in 3D, made a huge impact on creating the feeling of being right there on Long Island in the 1920s. I don’t even like Baz Luhrmann but he did a great job on this one.
"Before Midnight," "Inside Llewyn Davis"
Two films from great directors that have really gotten a lot of buzz. I do intend to see them and, thanks to Netflix, I’ll be able to. Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment