when i say "don't get me started," this is why i say that
vs.
I wasn't going to do anything nearly so presumptuous as this, but then I started to reply to a friend's question on Facebook and I found this wikipedia page and the list kept building. So, you know, here I am being pretentious and presumptuous.
Again. As usual.
Suffice it to say the Oscars suck. 2007's awards went, more or less, to the deserving and that gave everyone hope. THAT HOPE WAS MISPLACED, MY FRIENDS. (Let's hope this isn't foreshadowing!) Anyway, I could go on for hours -- and if you buy me a drink, I will -- about how brutally, throatpunchingly disappointing and hollow a film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is. On the plus side, it is truly a marvel of technical achievement and the performances are across-the-board solid. But on the minus side, it's the most soulless effort in filmmaking in a long time, with almost no connection or relevance to the real world, and all I see when I watch this film is the most expensive reel piece for a bunch of digital effects houses since George Lucas uttered the words "I think I'll direct them myself." The movie is that rare breed of bad art that has retroactive repercussions: I can not bring myself to go back to Zodiac, for fear I am misremembering its worth. (Fortunately, Fight Club and Seven are too well memorized for me to doubt them as well. But now the question feels less like "When did Fincher lose it?" and more like "Did Fincher ever have it?")
But I digress. (I told you I could go on and on.) I was going to make a pretentious/presumptuous list, my own would-be nominations, based on what I liked during 2008. See the bottom for my caveat, the heartbreaking list of Have-Not-Seen(-Yet)s.
Right, right.
And so.
Best Picture
The Wrestler
Rachel Getting Married
Milk
Synecdoche, NY
In Bruges
Best Original Script
Robert Siegel, The Wrestler
Jenny Lumet, Rachel Getting Married
Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, NY
Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Jonathan and Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Best Adapted Script
David Gordon Green, Snow Angels
Frank Miller, The Spirit
Don McKellar, Blindness
Justin Haythe, Revolutionary Road
Clark Gregg, Choke
Best Director
Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Jonathan Demme, Rachel Getting Married
Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, NY
Oliver Stone, W.
Best Male Actor, Lead
Sean Penn, Milk
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Leonard DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
Best Male Actor, Supporting
Woody Harrelson, Transsiberian
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Aaron Eckhardt, The Dark Knight
Josh Brolin, Milk
David Strathairn, My Blueberry Nights
Best Female Actor, Lead
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Julianne Moore, Blindness
Catinca Untaru, The Fall
Emily Mortimer, Transsiberian
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Best Female Actor, Supporting
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Samantha Morton, Synecdoche, NY
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Cate Blanchett, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls
Tilda Swinton, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Cinematography
Darius Khondji, My Blueberry Nights
César Charlone, Blindness
Harris Savides, Milk
Colin Watkinson, The Fall
Wally Pfister, The Dark Knight
Best Documentary
Encounters at the End of the World
Man On Wire
Because of my Look-How-I-Suck list (below) it was damn hard to fill these lists out to an even five (almost every list, the fifth "nominee" is a filler). Some of my mentions are pretty unique to me (honestly, The Spirit is one hell of a fun movie!) and despite hating it, Benjamin Button did sneak in a lot, I admit.
What I really want to rant and spew bile about is the kind of scripts Hollywood makes, which are scarcely scripts at all at worst, and insultingly faceslap-obvious at best. Something big, a volcanic spleen-venting is bubbling up in me on this subject, and probably but maybe not a big ol' bitch session will come out in a future livejournal entry, and certainly many recent posts have mentioned it, but the dumbed-down hand-holding opposite-of-subtle thing every "Hollywood" movie does? Man oh man oh man. If comedians had to explain their jokes, how funny do you think they'd be? If every novelist, poet, playwright and painter throughout history had written his own Cliffs Notes, how many thesis papers do you think there'd be written on them? The problem is success for a motion picture is no longer measured by its shelf-life, its returnability, by the durability of its story. It is measured in number of units sold in a single fiscal quarter. Success means everybody has to get it, want it, and need it again, right now. In twenty-five years Synecdoche, New York and Encounters at the End of the World will still be in print, on Criterion (or whatever fills that niche), and college kids and filmmakers everywhere will be talking about them, analyzing them, riffing on the ideas or referencing them in their own works. Fucking Benjamin Button will be as well-remembered as Honey, I Blew Up The Kids or Captain EO, and if there's any justice people will mostly forget that David Fincher directed it. But right now, all those special effects draw people out, make them go hey wow, and because it connects with people who maybe feel like they've seen it before, fifteen years ago, people will no doubt flock to buy the goddamn Blu-Ray of it, with its twenty-nine hours of special making-of features that, who knows, maybe they will even watch someday. The point is, it's a commodity item and whether or not they are still moving units next year, let alone in ten, is the last thing anybody's thinking of when they fork out a hundred and fifty million dollars to make these things. All they care about is, will it make money now? "Does it stick with audiences and give them something to think about?" is the last thing they're asking themselves. The only thing they're asking is, "How many demographics can we cross-market this to? If there's any demographic who doesn't like this, can we excise the egregious element and implant something that'll draw them in, too?" I once read (I believe regarding Sam Pekinpah) that in the 70s a film was considered a successful film if half the people loved it and the other half loathed it. Now it's a failure if fifteen old women in Tampa Bay, FL are lukewarm on the subject. It's a wonder anything worth making gets made at all.
And the Oscars? Tell me they're any better. Popularity and ratings, moving units. Just more bland commodities. No longer celebrating bold and exciting film, if they ever were. The Oscars go, 9 out of 10 times, to the film with the Easy-yet-Uplifting Message, easily bought and more easily sold. Grar. I'm just so angry. I feel like a cynical, pissed-off teenager again.
The thing I want most from any piece of art is not to be insulted by it, but it's hard to make a case that I am not in the minority with this desire. People want to be entertained, and for most people that means "to have fun and turn off the thinking." I've never been good, or comfortable, with that. I'm only entertained when I'm thinking and feeling about the same thing. Either something is wrong with me, or something is wrong with everyone else, everywhere. (My odds aren't looking good.) And while I'm on the subject, I'd be lying if I told you that "my way" leads to any kind of satisfaction or happiness. The whole neurotic overanalytical thing? I can't recommend it. If you are a fun-haver, despite my tirade above, I say stick with it, at all costs!
Two new categories for the Travis-Oscars this year, and then I will hit "post" and end this infernal diatribe. To wit:
Most Insulting, Pandering, Mentally Belittling Film of the Year
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
Revolutionary Road
WALL-E
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls
Most Interesting, Thoughtful, Respectful-of-its-Audience Film of the Year
Synecdoche, NY
The Wrestler
Rachel Getting Married
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
In Bruges
(Honorable mention goes to Encounters At the End of the World, My Winnipeg and, honest to god, The Spirit, for being entertaining and weird and completely non-pandering as well. For all its faults, Miller's weird, lurid take on the Eisner comic doesn't hold your hand and guide you from plot point to plot point... in fact, I really think it presupposes you have a firm grasp of hard-boiled detective stories, serial adventures, and balls-out so-extreme-its-nonsensical comic-geekery. As to Maddin and Herzog, they need no defense. Both men are consistently challenging and respectful of their audiences.)
Oh, and lastly, here's my embarrassing list of the movies I wanted to but could not rate or consider. It's a big list and obviously some didn't need consideration (though I do or did want to see them, even if only out of morbid curiosity or a sense that "if everyone else did, I guess I should, too" [I'm looking at you, Get Smart]), and you can see why certain films like Doubt and Slumdog Millionaire, Happy-Go-Lucky and Frozen River never show up on my lists. It's because I suck.
And so that list is as follows: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Counterfeiters, Chicago 10, Funny Games, Leatherheads, The Visitor, Mister Lonely, War, Inc., The Strangers, Stuck, Mongol, Quid Pro Quo, Hancock, The Wackness, Get Smart, Space Chimps, American Teen, Frozen River, Elegy, Tropic Thunder, Star Wars: Clone Wars, Hamlet 2, Lakeview Terrace, Appaloosa, Battle in Seattle, The Duchess, Miracle at St. Anna, The Lucky Ones, RocknRolla, City of Ember, Happy-Go-Lucky, What Just Happened, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Slumdog Millionaire, Australia, Nobel Son, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, Wendy and Lucy, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Doubt, Gran Torino, Che, The Tale of Despereaux, The Class, Valkyrie, and Waltz With Bahir.