The Real World on Films

Before I take a look back at some other Oscar years, I thought I'd ponder over the Documentary offerings a bit. Those who care about such things might know that this category has been historically fraught with some sort of controversy.

Even given my status as "interested party", I know relatively little about what makes this category a controversial one. I do know it has to do with the rules of academy voting which are, apparently, different than the other major categories. Those eligible to vote are also different. This year's big stink revolves around new requirements that a film wishing to be considered for a Best Doc nom must have been reviewed by both the NYTimes and LA Times. Seems reasonable to me, but then again, I am unfamiliar with the nuance objections to the other side.

And I'm glad.

I'll admit I've acquired a large arsenal of critical baggage that often ruins casual movie-going. While I wouldn't change it, I kinda like that I can't assume what constitutes a traditional Best Documentary nominee. More than generally speaking, I'm in synch with how the film critic collective feels about the year's nominated films. In fact, just today I was listening to archived episodes of Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR and thrilled when David Edelstein explained the split in critical opinion on 2004's Best Pic Winner, Million Dollar Baby, calling the film, "a crude and obvious melodrama dressed up in moody art-house clothes."

But I digress...

I first became aware of the disconnect between "popular" and "nomination committee" documentaries back in 1994 when the media was predicting that Hoop Dreams would not only win the Best Doc category, but would be likely be nominated for Best Picture (which would have been the first). It ended up being nominated for neither. This year, I managed to see one doc in the theater (Buck, which I loved and highly recommend). I wanted to see the Interrupters (a film by the Hoop Dreams team that I'd heard about on NPR but missed the week-long run it had as a special feature at the Wexner Center). Both were speculated to be Oscar contenders but neither were nominated

As far as the documentary category at the Oscar telecast, I can remember the year Michael Moore won and invited the other nominees up on stage and proceeded to oppose the Iraq war that had just been declared the week before. The topic of whether political statements are appropriate at the ceremony aside, I was amused by the reaction of some of the other nominees who clearly did not expect this. Of course, it could be argued that it would be foolish to follow someone like Michael Moore's blind lead if were not at least vaguely familiar with his agenda. But still...

I can only hope for some kind of interesting display this year.

Homage to the Great Films of 1991

While I am waiting to make my plans to see this year's Oscar nominees, I have been contemplating this year's ramping-up-to-Oscar night "project". This started five years ago when my brother and I kept dragging our feet about seeing that year's nominees. I wasn't quite up for the brutal intensity of the Departed, and wasn't particularly rushing out to read subtitles on Clint Eastwood's 2 1/2 hour Letters from Iwo Jima. So we decided to rent some Academy Award winners from previous years we haven't seen. We managed only one - Midnight Cowboy - which ended up being the last thing the two of us did together before he died. Then two years ago, I was deeply committed to a month-long Meryl Streep-a-thon. This year, I've decided to re-examine particularly special years of great filmmaking.

1991 is my personal favorite year of film. While I don't want to take the charm out of it by over-intellectualizing, I am curious. Is it because I was 21 and found my appreciation shift and deepen? Was it that there happened to be more serious female-centered stories produced that year? Or did it signal a shift in pop culture as a whole.

So much for not over-analyzing...

The Academy Award for Best Picture that year went to the Silence of the Lambs. The big deal, Oscar-wise, about this film is, first, it was released in February, a huge no-no for a studio wishing to get any Oscar buzz (watch, after the telecast, there will be veritable wasteland of cinema until summer...) It is also still one of the few films to sweep Best Pic, Director, Screenplay, Actor, and Actress (you can look it up). While it's a difficult watch, I continue to love Silence of the Lambs on many levels, but mostly because I find Clarice Starling to be the greatest female character in film history. Pretty big statement, it's true, but she's an archetype - an intelligent innocent on a true hero's journey who ends up slaying a dragon and saving a princess in her smart and quiet way (without having to wear pleather pants and tote an Uzi...)

I genuinely love all of the films for Best Pic nominated that year - The Prince of Tides, JFK, Bugsy, and Beauty and the Beast (which caused a huge stir for being the first animated film ever nominated for Best Picture - and directly lead to a separate category). Along with a heap of other worthy contenders - Thelma & Louise, the Fisher King, the Commitments, Boyz in the Hood, Rambling Rose, Delicatessen, Barton Fink, and City Slickers (okay, that last one is technically not Oscar material, but charming nonetheless... and got Jack Palance some worthy attention for doing one-armed push-ups on stage when he accepted his award for Best Supporting Oscar...)

Consider any of the above solid recommendations when trying to fill in your depleting NetFlix queue.

What I remember most about that year's Academy Awards is that I was in my last year of college and the telecast fell on the night of one of my friend's 21st birthday. Because we were college students used to going out around 10:00 or later, I got to watch most of the show at my apartment before heading over to the friend's, where five of us would ultimately go out. I can remember us standing around the living room mesmerized by the ceremony, continually aborting our ill-attempts at leaving for the bars. There were arguments over whether or not Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis would ultimately cancel each other out for Best Actress or whether they might share it if one one over the other (as I remember correctly, I was rooting for Jodie Foster the whole time). The birthday girl was itching to get out of the house and I can't remember if she successful in getting us out before the final award or surrendered to the flurry, but it was a good year.

Will Blog for Oscar...

God I'm a sucker.

After months of half-hearted attempts at diving back in, it inevitably takes this year's official announcement of the Academy Award nominations to fully kick things back into gear.

I can't lie and say my enthusiasm matches that of years past, but I've also come to a peaceful acceptance that my knowledge of and devotion to this phenomenon is way too deep and ingrained to be passed off as some lingering fancy of my youth.

The most recent evidence of this was discovering that today's announcement has penciled in on my datebook since I purchased it just before the first of the year. Along with birthdays, my weekly writing group, my annual exam appointment from the appointment card affixed to the fridge, is the Academy Award nominations, announced the fourth Tuesday of January (which I am careful to confirm on oscar.com).

Then I try hard to ignore the Golden Globe buzz (don't get me started on the bullshittiness of the Golden Globes, an organization that, despite its fore-runner status to the award season, has chosen to nominate Patch Adams and LaBamba for Best Picture, went on to grant Madonna with a statue for Best Actress, and inevitably create misguided hope for some actor or film who/that never expected attention in the first place - Albert Brooks in Drive and 50/50, for example...) Alas I was not successful this year, but am committed to moving on.

Onto the awards...

I won't post a list, given that by now you can find it anywhere (12-year old Lia would have truly loved such a convenience).

What jumps out first is the charm (and justice) of the Artist. I haven't yet seen this film, but I find it a perfect example of how a film made by an unknown (and foreign unknown to boot), filled with unknowns can rise and get recognized seemingly on its creative merits alone. Can't wait to see it.

On the opposite end of the collective love spectrum is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Again, I haven't seen this film, so I can't properly comment. All I know is critics over-all hated it. To me, it feels like an example of people with exceptional influence muscling their way into an "Academy Award Nominated Film" credential to slap onto their marketing campaign. Of course I'm not naive enough to think this kind of stuff doesn't happen all the time, but I love when its blatancy is obvious.

Some of my favorite noms? Meryl, of course, that goes without saying. And I do think she has a good shot of winning this year (even though I say that every year, deep in my heart is feels more like a possibility than a hope this time...) Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids. I'd heard this rumored and dismissed it as one of those unlikely hangovers from the Golden Globes. But, unlike the other performances I simply didn't think were worthy of Oscar attention, I thought every moment of McCarthy in Bridesmaids was brilliant. She was so good that when I now see commercials for her sitcom Mike and Molly, I am constantly surprised at how pretty she actually is, based on how raw she was in the movie.

Of course I will always have a special place in my heart for what I refer to as all of the "non-famous" nominees - Best Live Action Short, Documentary Short, and Animated Short. What an absolute blast it must be to be at the award ceremony and enjoy all the pomp without having to wade through a sea of Melissa Rivers and Billy Bushes... And, those people always give the best speeches (one year a woman said, "You know you're in a different league when your dress to the event costs more than your film." Another thanked the Academy for seating her next to George Clooney during the nominees luncheon. Last year a winner no older than 25 shyly remarked that he really should have gotten a haircut (and he really should have...) Not that any of these speeches are particularly rousing, but certainly preferable to the blithering rambles that come from people you admire. That can be heartbreaking, truly.

My only disappointment was that the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo did not get a nom for Best Pic. Not that it deserved to be in that "top five" (match up the Best Director selections to see how it would have been had the whole top ten - another example of a blatant marketing manipulation) but it was scored better than Extremely Loud... I was pleased to see it get a Cinematography and Editing nomination (especially given my crush on Angus Wall.)

My next tasks are to see all of the films nominated for Best Pic. I went in with three under my belt. Six to go...

About Last Night

Surely by now everyone has viewed a online slide show, read an article, Tweet, Facebook post or caught an Entertainment Tonight-type segment of last night's show. So I will concur, Anne Hathaway and James Franco, while charming and cute, seemed in way over their heads. Makes one realize just how hard a gig that hosting job is. I was already thinking about how they kind of seemed like they were hosting a high school variety show (albeit at a really good arts-focused private school), and then Franco came out in drag, which is exactly one of the types skits Dave Bevins and I wrote for ourselves when we co-hosted our high school variety show (but at the inner city west side not-arts-focused high school...)

I will say that the highlights of the evening for me were not re-capped on Access Hollywood and those were the non-celebrity winners. These people never fail to amuse me. They are in that enviable position of attending anonymously, enjoying all of the perks (one year, a nominee thanked the academy for seating her next to George Clooney at the nominees luncheon) without the barrage of annoying C and D level media outlets. The guy who won for Best Live Action Short came on stage with the shaggiest hair I've seen on a white guy and said, "I guess I should have gotten a haircut" and proceeded to thank his mother, who served as Craft Service (catering) on the film. Loved it.

As for the dresses, I loved Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis, Mandy Moore and Reese Witherspoon. I thought Cate Blanchett's dress was awful but I got an email from a friend today claiming her Best Dressed. And the special fashion correspondents on ET agreed. I guess I'm not all that fashion forward. I like the classic elegant look.

My favorite presenters were Russell Brand and Helen Miren. I think they should co-host next year. I think Aaron Sorkin gave the best speech.

But, alas, no surprises this year. Which I went in knowing, but still. It's always nice to hope. But, as I already said in an earlier post, it was a terrific year for film.

One Day to Oscar!

So my plan to blog regularly leading up the Oscars was, obviously, not realized.

However, I did manage to see all ten nominees for Best Picture (as well as a fair amount of others). 2010 was indeed a good year for film. The biggest change in "gearing up to Oscar" is that there is so much media these days that there are rarely any surprises, and if there are, they are "predictable" surprises like one of the dark horse nominees in one of the Supporting categories. It renders the who-will-win speculations almost irrelevant. What is too bad is that the perpetual "Oscar news" almost never gets beyond the same sound bites. Which is a shame given all the potential to profile some stellar work.

So I'm not going to talk about who I think will win.

I can say that there was only one Best Pic nominee that I didn't like this year - Winter's Bone. Perhaps it was because I had high expectations. It's the lone quiet, low-budget indie pic of the group, an instant underdog. But God was it boring. Excruciating. Now there are some who will accuse me of not being patient, of not being able to appreciate the "subtleties" of such a film. To them I say, that is bull. I blame the editor. All of the scenes are full ones, meaning we are privy to every piece of the action - someone leaves their house, walks to the car, gets out of the car, walks to their destination, knocks on the door, waits, the door opens and they state their business, they enter the house, get settled, have a conversation, leave, walk to the car, drive, etc. Over and over and over. Properly edited, the whole thing could have taken forty minutes and not lost a single plot point.

On the other hand, 127 (which I wrote about last entry) is surprisingly exhilarating and uplifting story for being about a guy who is stuck in a canyon for five days and has to cut off his arm. Filmmaking at its best.

I was also pleasantly impressed by Blue Valentine, the small indie pic that wasn't nominated for Best Picture (but surely could have taken Winter's Bone's spot...) but got a nod for Michelle Williams for Best Actress. I'll admit, I was a bit afraid to see it which, for a film buff, can be an intoxicating notion. I was afraid because I'd heard it was intense, hard to watch. I was intrigued because I couldn't quite get a feel for why. Sometimes, if there is gratuitous violence or a one-dimensional display of victimization, I don't want those images stuck in my head. But I didn't find Blue Valentine hard to watch at all. Yes, I left the theater preoccupied by the dynamics and the subject matter, but I'll choose that any day over a movie that is just something to do to spend an evening.

What I liked about Blue Valentine most was the way the story was told. When we meet the two main characters - a blue-collar married couple with a young child - they are clearly at a crossroads in their marriage. It's hard to tell exactly what is wrong, but both are weary. The filmmakers jump back and forth in time, revealing various pieces of their history that build to an appropriate climax. What I love most is that, at the end, neither is clearly to blame. There a dozen major complexities that ultimately seal this couple's fate. I liked that it was not a story where you spent the movie rooting for someone you know will ultimately get away. At the end of this one, I found myself honestly hoping they could work it out.

In terms of the Oscar broadcast itself, I am really looking forward to seeing hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway. I give the producers a lot of credit for going young. At the same time, Franco and Hathaway bring a sense of old-school charm to the table where it doesn't just seem like some old white guys are desperately baiting a younger demographic by bringing in some "young people".

Last year, right after the last Oscars, I was out in L.A. for the first time in my life. I got to take a tour of the Kodak Theater (the highlight of my trip) and love that I can watch and recognize certain places.

Sure would be nice to make it into that audience one day.