PRE-GAME WARM-UP
Yes, it's that time of year again. For the first time in quite a few years, I have actually seen every feature film nominee in every category (excluding foreign language and documentary), so I'll know exactly how disappointed I should be by the winners (and some of the nominees).
As I haven't posted on many films (or much of anything else) recently, I thought I'd take a look at the top nominated flicks before putting forward my predictions and preferences.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (13 nominations): This is probably the most over-produced chick flick in cinema history, but it works pretty well. It is shamelessly sentimental and manipulative, but the premise of the story gives about three dozen narrative clichés a slightly different spin - better, stronger, faster manipulation. It is also extremely well-executed and its technical and design awards are no surprise. To me, a Best Picture should excel in almost every area - acting, writing, directing, editing, soundtrack, design - and Benjamin Button manages to do so. Brad Pitt doesn't stand much of a chance at taking the Best Actor award (he's not bad, but about half of his performance is computer-generated, which will probably count against him), but if Penelope Cruz doesn't win the Supporting Actress award for - wow! - speaking in her native tongue and "acting crazy", then it should go to Taraji P. Henson for Benjamin Button, who managed to out-perform her make-up (which Cate Blanchett didn't quite manage). Apart from Visual Effects, though, it will probably lose most of its technical and design nominations to Slumdog Millionaire or something idiotic like The Duchess. It'll most likely lose the Adapted Screenplay honor, as well, which it probably deserves for effectively exploiting its gimmick (and expanding the original source considerably and successfully).
Slumdog Millionaire (10 nominations): This film is pretty successful on just about every level, even if the feel-good script is a tad predictable (though making an upbeat film involving sectarian violence, torture, corruption, murder, and dire poverty is no small achievement, either). The framing device is clever enough, but otherwise it's really the direction, editing, sound, and cinematography (all of which are brilliant) that made the film. The performances are quite good as well, but they're all foreigners and only foreigners played by Brits deserve recognition by the Academy. Hollywood might be ready to give their highest honor to a film in which the protagonists are Muslim - and it has a good chance of a sweep with screenplay, directing, and a handful of technical awards. That said, I don't know if I would consider it the best film of the year - and it's certainly not Danny Boyle's best film (that would still be Trainspotting, with Millions a close second; in fact, I'd probably put Sunshine and Shallow Grave ahead of Slumdog, as well, but with the Academy, you take what you can get.)
Milk (8 nominations): I enjoyed Milk while I was watching it, but I'm afraid I've forgotten it almost in its entirety. I remember the script being pretty decent, as well as the design, but I didn't really think the actors had that much to do, all things considered. I don't know, it just struck me as being a bit bloodless: it never manages to be very engaging. I was a bit surprised to find that, by the end of the film, it hadn't moved me in the least. It certainly captures the spirit of the time (the gay movement was always a bit flightier on the west coast than in New York - I was in San Francisco for most of 1976 and in New York on either side, so I know whereof I speak), so I had a nostalgia sort of thing going on, but even that wasn't really involving. Penn and Brolin are both quite good with the undemanding script, James Franco is fetching, and I understand Emile Hersch was in it. Meh - The Times of Harvey Milk tells his story much better and, overall, is a superior piece of film-making. I won't mind if Milk wins any awards, but I'll be a bit surprised. Sean Penn's work is unquestionably superior to Mickey Rourke's in The Wrestler (though not quite as good as Frank Langella's more demanding political impersonation), but Rourke may still get the sympathy vote for having overcome Hollywood's biggest nightmare: aging badly.
The Dark Knight (8 nominations): This is quite possibly the most overrated film of the 21st century. Were it not for Heath Ledger's death, I doubt the Academy would even have remembered the film by the time nomination season rolled around - except, maybe, for Visual Effects or Sound Editing. The script is so humorlessly awestruck with itself that it appears to have been written by a middle-brow teenage Goth with delusions of significance. The sententious screenplay would be easier to overlook if the visual story-telling weren't so murky, chaotic, illogical, and trite. The cinematography and design are excellent, but too much is lost in the MTV editing and the relentless action movie soundtrack. The cast is decent, though the much-hyped Dead Guy is one of the weaker links: good enough in the quiet menace department (most of which is achieved by the make-up), but otherwise ridiculously mannered and inorganic. Give me Jack Nicholson's Joker any day.
WALL-E (6 nominations): Another Pixar triumph, if not their best. WALL-E is great visual story-telling, with very little dialogue. It's a bit obvious as cautionary environmental tales go, but I thought that its depiction of life off Earth, with its fat, over-indulged humans in a world run by a monolithic corporation-turned-government made for the most prophetic film I've seen since Idiocracy. Otherwise, it's fairly typical Disney fare, but it's apparently been enraging wigngnuts across the country (Jonah Goldberg apparently finds it another example of "liberal fascism"), so that's another plus. All in all, though, I think I had a better time watching Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Cars. I doubt it stands much chance of winning its music, sound, and screenplay nominations.
Doubt (5 nominations): I'm afraid I found this effort rather shallow and silly, though it does give new meaning to the word "melodrama". Viola Davis is quite good during her few minutes on screen. Meryl Streep, though, is hilarious. My God, can that woman chew scenery - though she often manages to do so while under-playing (though not always, by any means). Amy Adams is so unidimensionally sweet and innocent that she would make Streep's performance in Mamma Mia! look like Margaret Hamilton on meth. I've never been a Philip Seymour Hoffman fan and this film did nothing to habilitate him, in my mind. I have no idea, though, why he was nominated as a Supporting Actor. He has about as many scenes as Streep - plus three sermons.
Frost/Nixon (5 nominations): Unsurprisingly stage-bound and surprisingly flat, I blame Opie the Auteur for not allowing any of the story's potential sparks to ignite. That said, Frank Langella managed to rise above both the screenplay and the direction to deliver one of the finest performances of the year. Anyone who can make Richard Nixon seem even momentarily sympathetic, without losing the bland evil of the man deserves some kind of award. I quite like Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, and Kevin Bacon - and Michael Sheen is okay - but none of them survived the treatment. Langella's nomination was no surprise, but this thing is in on screenplay and editing awards? Please.
The Reader (5 nominations): Oscar loves Nazi pictures, so I suppose it was inevitable that The Reader would appear in the Academy's shortlist. But a naked Nazi with child-bearing hips that would have astonished Rubens? Kate Winslet is a shoo-in. I was very moved by Lena Olin's performance, but the sympathetic manipulation in writing the Winslet character (and in her convincing performance) made me want to take a shower - and kick in the teeth of writers Bernhard Schlink and David Hare. SS guards in prison camps were not hapless working girls trying to eek out a decent wage in the Weimar Republic - they were die-hard party loyalists who bought into the ideology with a vengeance. Inventing such a blatantly revisionist character is both immoral and irresponsible, no matter how much pathos results. This is a film that should never have been made - never mind honored. Ah, well - at least the Winslet character has the "redeeming value" of starting an affair with a fifteen-year-old boy after her death camp career.
Changeling (3 nominations): This is a great little film, with a nice balance of character study, horror, and procedural drama - and it probably has the best ensemble cast of the year. Angelina Jolie is very good (and dominates the picture), but the supporting cast is uniformly excellent - including John Malkovich, Michael Kelly, Jeffrey Donovan, Jason Butler Harner, and a stunning performance by fourteen-year-old Eddie Alderson as the killer's unwitting accomplice (and the real Best Supporting Actor of the year). It also has great period design and visual effects, atmospheric cinematography, and one of Clint Eastwood's most evocative scores. His direction is pretty good as well (no surprise), though the pacing is little off in the last third of the film, once it appears that most of the story has been resolved.
Revolutionary Road (3 nominations): Whoa - people in the suburbs are angry and depressed - what a revelation! Ugh - what a waste of time, energy, and money this piece of shit is. The best that can be said of the film is that it has decent, if antiseptic, period detail - with a few glaring anachronisms like smoke detectors, modular phone jacks, and three-prong electrical outlets. I have no idea why it took decades to get this film made - or why anyone [i]spent[/i] decades pursuing the rights and a script. Sorry, but I'm sick to death of middle-class angst - and this thing is nothing but. Kate Winslett and Leonardo DiCaprio take turns gnawing on the furniture and after what feels like several weeks of enduring their histrionics, Winslett does us all a favor by dying. Revolutionary Road? More like Pedestrian Crosswalk.
The Duchess (2 nominations): This is like Revolutionary Road in 18th century drag - which makes it upper-class angst. No one even has the good grace to die in this pointless exercise. It tells the story of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire - up to the point when her life actually started getting interesting. [i]Huh?[/i]How that Knightley chick keeps getting work is utterly beyond me. She makes Tori Spelling look like Judi Dench. And, trust me, she's no better in a four-foot wig. Someone should please kill her now and spare motion picture history another frame of celluloid spoiled by her inconsiderable talents. I'm told that many find her beautiful and I would, therefore, recommend that she just do porn - but she's probably not even a good fuck. Oscar loves costume drama, though, and this abomination has big hair, big hats, and big hips in abundance, so it'll probably walk away with the Costume honors. Sad, sad, sad.
Frozen River (2 nominations): If Slumdog sweeps the awards, as it well may, this could be the year of poverty porn - and Frozen River would fit right in. Unlike the Danny Boyle film, though, this offering remains mired in gritty realism - almost as gritty as The Wrestler, if vastly more interesting. I must admit, though, that I'm really weary of American Realism and, apart from a glimpse of reservation life (even if it has to be through the experience of Anglo characters), this film has little else to offer. And, I'm sorry, allowing oneself to look haggard does not constitute Great Acting. Melissa Leo is fine, but there's not much to the performance. Still, it's good to see some lesser-known actresses (and independent films) getting a glimpse of the limelight, so I don't begrudge her the nomination.
Iron Man (2 nominations): This film is a thoroughly enjoyable (despite some questionable politics) and Robert Downey, Jr., is a real hoot, but it's only nominated for Sounds Editing and Visual Effects, neither of which it has a chance of winning, so who cares, right?
Wanted (2 nominations): Not quite as enjoyable as Iron Man, with James McEvoy instead of Robert Downey, Jr., and two sound nominations, so really who cares?
The Wrestler (2 nominations): Bleagh. More gritty realism serving no discernible purpose whatsoever. I thought (hoped?) this sort of thing had gone out with Clifford Odets. Touted as Mickey Rourke's "comeback film" (which I thought was Sin City - or Spun - or Buffalo 66), this thing begs the question: comeback from what? Bad career decisions? I mean, when the hell did he go away? But the "comeback" meme seems to have taken hold and was enough to garner him an undeserved Golden Globe, so it may work for Oscar, as well. He's not bad in the film, but the performance is nothing to write home about. Neither is Marisa Tomei's. And the direction is just appalling, making very little of a pretty lousy script. For some reason, Darren Aronofsky has the camera follow Rourke around for about 60% of the film (literally - the cameraman walks about four paces behind Rourke for shot after shot after shot like some deranged stalker with a bad hair fetish). We see more of the back of Rourke's straggly, bleached-blond head (which, granted, is more becoming than his face) than anything else in the movie - even Marisa Tomei's thong. It's just [i]weird[/i].
Happy-Go-Lucky (1 nomination): Mike Leigh's worst film ever was deservedly overlooked by the Academy, with the exception of - wait for it - a screenplay nomination. Um... Oscar? This is Mike Leigh we're talking about. You know, the director who has his actors improvise the characters, their dialogue, and the storyline? Who himself works out only the sketchiest scenario before work begins on the film? Meaning... there is no screenplay. Anyway, Leigh has come up with some terrific films using this process - Life Is Sweet, Naked, Secrets & Lies, Topsy-Turvy, Vera Drake. But Happy-Go-Lucky is not one of them. Totally not one of them. And his relentlessly optimistic Sally Hawkins is no Amélie Poulain. She is far more grating than ingratiating and is as charmless as cold sore. Being a Mike Leigh film, it does have some good performances and some effectively poignant moments (if far fewer than usual), but overall, I just found it off-putting.
In Bruges (1 nomination): Working with the best screenplay of the year, Martin McDonagh created the Best Picture of the year with several of the Best Actors of the year - notably, but not limited to, Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleason, Clémence Poésy, Ralph Fiennes, and Thekla Reuten - with gorgeous cinematography by Eigil Bryld, terrific editing by Jon Gregory, and a great score by Carter Burwell. Naturally, the Academy virtually ignored the film - apart from a single nomination for McDonagh's thoughtful, darkly comic, moving, suspenseful, and exhilarating screenplay - which probably won't win. Yay, Oscars!
Rachel Getting Married (1 nomination): Can we all chip in a buy the independent film industry a fucking tripod? If I see one more pointlessly hand-held shot in anything, I may start screaming. Yo, directing community: jerky-cam shots do not make your film edgier or more immediate or more realistic or psychologically incisive or more energetic - or more "independent"; they make it fucking hard to watch. Seriously, after Frozen River and The Wrestler, I was ready to invest in a dolly to loan, free of charge, to any independent filmmaker in dire need of a stable frame. After this excruciating film, I was ready to invest in a shotgun - to loan, free of charge, to any borderline psychotics with a fixation on independent film-makers.
But I digress. Anne Hathaway is nominated for playing the world's most irritating addict in recovery - which the actress somehow manages to overstate. Screenwriter Jenny Lumet (whose father, director Sidney Lumet, clearly sucked up all the family talent) should be drawn and quartered. Seriously. It is bad enough to sit through a wedding rehearsal, a rehearsal dinner, a wedding ceremony, and a reception in real life. Quite bad enough. It can be even worse sitting through one's home videos of the same events. It is geometrically worse to have to sit through someone else's home videos of such events - especially if the family in question is thoroughly uninteresting, mundanely unpleasant, unnecessarily shrill, and ridiculously self-involved. Rachel Getting Married is NOTHING more than what I've just described - except you have to pay money for it. (Actually, the in-laws in the film seem decent enough, but that just makes the more central characters more unbearable.) Tolstoy was probably correct in asserting that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. It's just that some unhappy families also manage to be both inconceivably annoying and unutterably boring. I kept praying that the film would end with a neutron bomb. Tragically, it doesn't.
Tropic Thunder (1 nomination): A half-step up from a Farrelly brothers movie, this sporadically entertaining flick somehow managed to attract a far better cast than it deserved - and Tom Cruise. How the Academy decided on Robert Downey, Jr.'s questionable performance in a year in which many amazing supporting roles have gone unappreciated is as baffling to me as a director casting Keira Knightley in anything (with the possible exception of zombie porn).
Vicky Christina Barcelona (1 nomination): A relatively okay film by recent Woody Allen standards, though still pretty far from his best work (Annie Hall through Husbands and Wives). The often quite good Penelope Cruz somehow got a nomination for turning in a performance that would not have looked out of place in a Telemundo serial. And she could well win. Go figure. The rest of the cast, especially the excellent Scarlett Johansson and the persistently under-appreciated Patricia Clarkson, is much better (though it must be admitted that the Cruz character suffers from the thinnest writing). The photography is quite good and the locations are stunning. It also has a terrific score by a variety of Spanish artists. The writing and direction are among Allen's best in the past fifteen years. If a win for Cruz means more people will watch his films, more power to her.
The Visitor (1 nomination): A nice, effective little drama with a fine, understated performance from Richard Jenkins and an equally compelling supporting cast (Haaz Sleiman and Hiam Abbass are terrific). It has an economic screenplay with well-drawn characters in engaging relationships and a narrative that touches on a number of social and political issues without even approaching the preachy or polemic. it's altogether excellent - and you will never hear of it again.
So that's the laundry done. I'll be back with my actual picks shortly...