In defense of this year's Oscars

In the wake of the 83rd Academy Awards, a disproportionately large wave of outrage and disgust swept the interwebs. Apparently, so many viewers felt utterly violated by the ineptitude of hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco that the head of the Academy more or less issued an apology. In a hyperbolic Fox News poll, 57% of respondents said it was the worst Oscars ever. Was the show really that bad?

Of course it wasn't! In fact, I found it to be quite enjoyable and well done (especially compared to last year, with hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin off their game and the sullen-looking stars of Twilight presenting a random horror movie montage). But the main problem with the Oscars these days is that it's locked in a standoff between the producers and the viewers.

The producers are bending over backwards trying to appeal to younger viewers, and in doing so are alienating and ignoring the older viewers who make up the majority of the audience. They're also constantly on the defense, hiring different creative personnel every year and trying to distance themselves from whatever came before. But then instead of actually trying to figure out what viewers want - reaching out to the public through focus groups, polls, what have you - they just come up with ideas in a vacuum and hope for the best.

The viewers, for their part, seem to approach the awards unwilling to like them. They refuse to like any host except for the all-stars of 20+ years ago. They say the hosts don't have enough good banter, but then they complain when the show gets too long. Maybe this seems cynical, but it reminds me of people who declare that "they don't make movies like they used to" but then shut out modern movies entirely and thus miss many that they would actually enjoy.

Basically, it's all a tangled mess of wrong moves and prejudices, so viewing the actual show objectively can be near impossible. However, if you can manage it, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Here's what I was digging this year:

- KIRK DOUGLAS! When they brought him out, I nearly plotzed. I don't care that he took forever - he's a 95-year-old legend who still puts moves on the ladies. They should have him host next year - the show will be 12 hours long, and AWESOME.

- Every year they spend millions of dollars on the set...and it ends up looking the same. It was great, then, to see them do something different (projecting different movie scenes and backgrounds onto the multi-layered arches).

- The Inception-based intro was seamless and hilarious.

- I had a good chuckle every time Hathaway blurted out "It's the young, hip Oscars!"

- And speaking of the hosts, yes, maybe they won't enter the hall of fame, but that's no reason to burn them at the stake. Hathaway was effervescent and charming as always, and Franco was...Franco. He wasn't high, he wasn't insane, he was just being James Franco. I'm not sure what the Academy thought they were getting when they hired him - you need only Google him for five minutes to find out about his, uh, "personality" - but I kind of enjoyed watching him have the last laugh by just being his kooky self.

- Whoa, it's Barack Obama! And he loves "As Times Goes By"!

- Presenting the awards in groups of two gave things a nice flow.

- I'll agree that the two-year experiment of having former winners say nice things about the nominees was a bit much, but I thought it was really nice to have one person dish out all the compliments. Having said that, I fully concede that it probably only worked because the presenters in question were the endlessly warm and lovable Sandra Bullock and Jeff Bridges. If the duty fell exclusively to, say, Sean Penn, that would just be terrifying.

- I'm glad they scrapped the little presentations of each Best Picture nominee. They're basically just trailers, which by Oscar night everyone's seen a hundred times already. And yeah, maybe John Doe somewhere doesn't yet know the plot and cast of The Kids Are All Right, but that doesn't mean that they have to take up broadcast time pandering to him. But I loved what they did instead, which was the...

- MEGA-MONTAGE! Having seen all the nominated films (and naturally, their trailers) already, it was neat to see the new life they took on when combined. Showing the differences, but mostly the similarities, shed a whole new light on the race. I hope they stick with this.

- Bringing out all the winners at the end was a nice touch.

Unfortunately, the things that really got me down this year were pretty important - namely, the winners of Best Director and Picture. Can somebody actually explain to me, in concrete, logical terms, why The King's Speech is a) the best picture of the year and b) a good movie at all? And you can't just say "it's inspiring," because if that's all that matters in filmmaking (and it isn't) 127 Hours or The Fighter should have won. Those films are EXPONENTIALLY more inspiring than a low-stakes story of a man overcoming an impediment that somewhat hinders but doesn't even remotely jeopardize his personal life or (token) career. Really, it could have been called "The King's Mild Inconvenience." On top of that, Tom Hooper's direction was actively bad. That's pretty difficult to achieve in a straightforward type of film like this one. Every frame was packed with unmotivated choices. Oh well, I'm sure history will have the last laugh when TKS is forgotten within a year.

And as a final, rather irreverent thought, I had been proposing ever since Colin Firth's win became inevitable that he conduct an Oscar swap with Jeff Bridges. It's like this: Firth's nominated performance last year in A Single Man was better than both Bridges in Crazy Heart and Firth himself in TKS. Bridges, on the other hand, won his Oscar for the tepid and uninteresting Crazy Heart but was incredible this year in True Grit. Basically, both men did great work but got Oscars for the wrong role - one too early and one too late. Usually the Academy has a displacement problem - they give Actor X the award the year Actor Y deserves it, Y the award the year Z deserves it, and so on - but this would be a simple, clean fix. Just sayin.


What did you think of this year's show?

The only Oscar prediction you'll need

Let's keep it simple, people.



Happy Oscar watching! May you win your betting pools!

Best overlooked and underappreciated performances of 2010

It's that time again...for me to complain about what everyone got wrong! Not really. But I realized that I've developed this now annual tradition because come awards season, I never feel like I have anything terribly compelling to add to the discourse. For as much as people hate on the awards circuit, they get a lot of things right, and at this point I hardly have any worthwhile contributions on the terrific work of Bale, Bening, et al. So instead I'll continue to champion the lesser-known underdogs and point out some of my favorite performances of the year that flew under the radar. Some went completely unnoticed, others got attention but no awards. Once again, I offer my disclaimer that these are not necessarily replacements or alternatives for this year's batch of nominees/winners - just ones I think deserve more love. 

BEST ACTOR

Ben Stiller as the titular Greenberg
Stiller is actually a talented actor when he puts his mind to it, which is basically never. Seemingly content to churn out Night at the Museum and Fockers sequels for the rest of his life, he came out of nowhere to deliver a career-best performance as the neurotic and wholly unlikable Greenberg. The film was a divisive one that raised questions about the need for likability in protagonists, with audiences so dismayed by the character's self-destructive behavior that they were booing and demanding refunds. That's an absurd and limiting viewpoint, and those who could get past it were rewarded by a rich, subtle, and hilarious performance that made the midlife crisis seem fresh again.

Patrick Wilson as Barry Munday
This is one of those films that would be completely forgotten while viewing it if not for the overwhelmingly charismatic performance of its lead. Wilson is an actor I've been championing for years, with bona fide talent to back up his blinding attractiveness. The film is a kookier, darker Knocked Up, with Wilson essentially playing a loser who doesn't identify himself as such and is just trying to make the best of any situation. A wholly lovable lead in a fluff movie...stars have been born from less.

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in Iron Man 2
Look, whiners: you know why everybody says that the Iron Man sequel is inferior to the original? Because the element of surprise was gone - the "wait huh Downey is a superhero I thought he was still in rehab and Gwyneth Paltrow is actually kind of sassy and appealing and Favreau is directing the hell out of this whaaaaaa AWESOME!". Instead, they crammed the sequel with enough character development to fill a dozen superhero flicks. I'll steal a line from my boyfriend's review on his blog: that the writers came up with "the great conceit that just because a narcissistic, live-for-the-moment playboy has become a superhero doesn't mean he isn't still narcissistic and unable to confront the real, pressing issues in front of him." We were stunned and delighted when the second-act low point came not from the nefarious plans of an antagonist, but from Tony's own flaws. And even with all this going on, Downey still maintains the sprightliness of Cary Grant. (And for those who complained that Iron Man outshone the villains, isn't that a good thing? Didn't you complain that the villains in The Dark Knight snatched the rug out from under Batman? No pleasing you people.)

Michael Douglas as Ben Kalmen in Solitary Man
The two things that Michael Douglas got attention for this year were throat cancer and his revival of the Gordon Gekko role, respectively. Less conspicuous, then, was his terrific work in this little indie, which is hardly original but boasts a great cast giving it their all. As the solitary man himself, Douglas spends nearly the whole film's running time digging himself deeper into a hole (he starts out pretty deep already) and making bad, self-destructive decisions. His interactions with supporting players like Jesse Eisenberg, Susan Sarandon, and Imogen Poots enrich the character and make you remember why everyone likes him as an actor. He puts up a solid struggle against the audience's sympathy, but wins it anyway.

Jim Carrey as Steven Russell in I Love You, Philip Morris
I'm so glad that this film finally debuted stateside after over a year of delays - it's hilarious, outrageous and even rather sweet. You get kind of immune to the phrase "based on the incredible true story" after it's abused by very believable movies about underdog sports teams, but trust me when I say this is one of the most unbelievable stories I have ever seen. It concerns the affairs, escapades and numerous jailbreaks of a gay con man played adroitly by Carrey, channeling his typical comedic elasticity into his portrayal of this glib genius (Russell has a rumored IQ of 163). Carrey can really knock it out of the park when he's not just phoning it in for paychecks, and here he's found a role that seems positively written for him.


BEST ACTRESS

Greta Gerwig as Florence in Greenberg
I haven't extensively explored the oft-maligned "mumblecore" genre, but if history relegates it to nothing more than a training ground for talents like Gerwig, that'll still be a pretty good legacy. Much as her costar Stiller breathes new life into the midlife crisis-ing male archetype, Gerwig rejuvenates the manic pixie dream girl as a figure with her own concerns and dreams. Sure, she helps shake Greenberg out of his funk, but she's pretty damaged herself (although thankfully, not from excessively dramatic life circumstances but rather just the typical pitfalls of the aimless soul). Plus, she's got great comedic timing.

Emma Stone as Olive in Easy A
I was skeptical when I first saw advertising for this film, seeing nothing to differentiate it from other nondescript high school comedies. But following the trail of good reviews it received, I saw it in theaters and was pleasantly surprised. My boyfriend said that the resonance and success of similar movies comes from having a protagonist that the audience wants to be. I guess I never quite clicked with the Brat Pack films because the characters were too one-dimensional to be relatable - I mean, Ferris Bueller is cool, but in the cartoony way that Bugs Bunny is. Olive, on the other hand, is incredibly smart and witty (without being a nerd stereotype), has a great relationship with her awesome family, and doesn't need any kind of "makeover" from the film except to boost her own self-respect. Stone plays the character with a great, fresh energy that should rightly propel her into the ranks of leading lady.

Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (I haven't seen the other two)
Rapace's performance(s) was hardly overlooked in the traditional sense - it won her a slew of awards in Sweden, sent Hollywood scrambling after her and inspired an American remake of the first film. Yet come awards time, everyone was curiously silent. I'm sure it doesn't help that the films themselves are not Typical Oscar Material, and they're foreign-language ones to boot. But that's a shame, because Rapace burst through the narrow mold of femininity that American films pull from and presented a fierce, brilliant, aggressive, and unusual-looking woman constantly fighting to stay afloat. The "tattoo" scene (not pertaining to the dragon tattoo, but I'll leave it at that), among others, is one of the most dynamite of the year, but I know that due to ratings restrictions the remake is going to have to be a lot tamer. So kudos to Sweden, for letting their actresses "go there."


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Paul Rudd as George in How Do You Know
This movie isn't all that good, but it's not the train wreck some critics are making it out to be - I think it would be an ideal movie to watch on a plane, for instance. But Rudd continues his decades-long streak as one of Hollywood's most affable second bananas, bringing charm and even a dash of pathos to a movie that hardly deserves him. I've been a huge fan of Rudd for years - sure, he's no Brando, but he can really light up a room. And he really makes the tepid dialogue dance - the Play-Doh scene, for example, would probably have just fallen apart in someone else's hands.

Harrison Ford as Mike Pomeroy in Morning Glory
It's almost hard to believe that the charismatic Han Solo of the Star Wars trilogy is the same person who's been sulking through bland thrillers for years now. His attempts to play grim-faced determination have just come off as cranky. But romantic comedy director Roger Michell, of all people, seems to have figured out what to do with the 21st-century Ford: poke fun at his grouchiness. Ford plays a once-great news anchor reluctantly roped into hosting a morning show, and displays surprisingly adept comic skills in mocking his recent screen persona. He evens brings back some of that old charm to serve as the linchpin in the surprisingly sweet finale.

Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker in The Social Network - Frankly, I'm surprised that the awards-givers aren't all over this...a singer in a flashy supporting role? Jennifer Hudson, anyone? Timberlake clearly has a blast gnawing on Aaron Sorkin's delicious dialogue and playing a pretty outrageous true-life figure, proving equally adept when Parker starts to break down near the end. The only real indication of his acting prowess prior to this film was his lamentably infrequent appearances on SNL, but here he proves that he could pursue this path if he so desired. 


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Olivia Williams as Ruth Lang in The Ghost Writer
Making it onto my list for the second year in a row is the consistently wonderful Williams. To call her a bright spot in this amiable but unexceptional thriller is an understatement; she's nothing short of a supernova. Ruth is a woman of contradictions: confident but jealous, straightforward but secretive. At first she just seems like another stereotypical political wife, but Williams is great at peeling back the layers to show how complicated and dynamic the character really is.

Michelle Williams as Dolores in Shutter Island
It's already hard to discuss a twisty film like this in much detail and keep things spoiler-free, so praising Williams' brief but crucial screen time is nearly impossible. I can tell you that she plays the main character's deceased wife and is seen only in flashback - and that's about it. Just watch it already...as if you need another reason to see this fantastic and underrated film.

Jemima Kirke as Charlotte in Tiny Furniture
The film itself is pretty insufferable - it starts as a spot-on satire of New York cliches, but then goes down in flames when it tries to make you care about its one-dimensional, poorly acted characters. It's a cast of "non-actors," which I don't mind as long as they're watchable, but everyone on screen seems uncomfortable and downright...itchy. The lone bright spot in this mess is perfectly calibrated Kirke, who nails her every punchline like a pro while everyone around her trips over theirs. She plays a daffy, ditzy sidekick whose earnestness and good intentions leave the audience no choice but to love her.

Chloe Moretz as Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass
It's a shame that so many audience members couldn't get past the fact that an 11-year-old girl was saying "the C word," because that's really unfair to the immense skill that Moretz displays here. Her physical performance alone is staggering - my understanding is that she did a fair share of her own stunts, and over the course of the film she takes out at least a football team's worth of grown men. Her performance is hardly subtle - it's demented pop art, and it's all the more impressive that someone of her precocious age can work on that wavelength.


SPECIAL MENTIONS

Ensemble Award: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
The awards circuit has been honoring films like The Town, The Social Network and The Fighter for their ensembles, and while all those films have terrific casts, each of them still rests primarily on just a few characters. Scott Pilgrim presents a different type of ensemble, which became clear when I tried to single out some of its performances for special mention - and couldn't. This thing is a well-oiled machine, with each cog seeking no greater glory than the make the film as a whole run. It's cast to perfection, down to the tiniest part - I lamented afterwards that I wanted it to be longer, just to afford all of these great talents more screen time. Names like Anna Kendrick (fresh off an Oscar nomination) and Chris Evans (our future Captain America) show up for mere minutes, and the film is better for it.

Dynamic Duo: Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson in Easy A
At first I was going to honor Tucci and Clarkson separately in the respective his and hers categories, but I realized that that would be missing the point. As the lovable dropped-a-bit-too-much-acid-in-the-60s parents of high schooler Olive, they have an energy and chemistry that makes it seem like they've been married for years (it probably helps that they also played a couple in 2007's Blind Date). The power of their performances hangs in the air between them. How come it really took this long to have parents in a teen movie that are ridiculously sweet, supportive, and hilarious?

So there you have it. What are your favorite overlooked/underappreciated performances of the year?

Documentary subject matter vs. quality

Recently, I saw two of the most buzzed-about documentaries of the year, Waiting for "Superman" and Inside Job. Despite the extremely urgent and pertinent subject matter (education and the financial collapse, respectively) and the universal critical praise, why did I find the net result to be rather underwhelming?

While some might grumble that narrative films about wars or social issues get a lot more love at Oscar time, the disparity becomes jacked up so much in the documentary world that a nonfiction film can coast on its subject alone. In an article over at Cinematical earlier this year, Christopher Campbell notes that despite its worthy topic, he found the documentary Food Inc. to be downright mediocre. He claims that "the majority ignored the problems with its storytelling, editing and narrowness of testimony because they favored the cause," and offered excerpts from critics who were essentially unable to defend the film on its own merits but just kept stressing that people should see it. Despite the opportunities offered by the cinematic medium, he concludes that the film offered nothing beyond the book on which it was based.

Now, I will say that making a documentary about an issue as opposed to a specific person, group or event poses great challenges. Do you include lots of facts and figures? Interviews with experts, the common man, or both? What stance do you take? These questions have no right answers, but with Inside Job and Waiting for "Superman" I can't help but feel that something was wrong about the approach.

WfS must be making serious bank off the guilt of the privileged and insulated, because the chatter in the ladies' room afterwards seemed to indicate certain viewers' lack of awareness of the state of American education. Listen, I don't expect everyone to know the details and statistics, but as far as I'm concerned knowing that education here is awful is as basic as knowing that we went to war with Iraq. But I guess if everyone knew that, not as many people would be finding the film so eye-opening. As a way of demonstrating its point, the film follows a handful of students in different cities in their quest to escape the public school system and get into a private or charter school. I had trouble getting involved in these stories, because of the distance maintained by the constant reminder that the education of these kids isn't what's really at stake, but they're Representative of a Larger Issue.

I also understand a documentary's desire to convey a specific stance, but even with my limited knowledge of the situation I know that nothing on earth is as binary and straightforward as the director, Davis Guggenheim, makes it out to be. Basically, the take-home message is that everything is the fault of the cackling, nefarious cults known as teachers' unions, and we just need to send all kids to charter schools because charter schools are perfect. But how convenient that all the charter schools they feature are excelling, which is not entirely representative of how they're actually faring nationwide. And how convenient that it's entirely the fault of the unions, and has nothing to do with politicians, government, parents, or anyone else. Look, I'm fine with biased documentaries, and if you're Michael Moore you're sure as hell going to leave out any information that hurts your cause. But if a film is urging reform, I think it's actually detrimental to say there's only a single cause and single solution. Why was there no mention, for instance, of Brockton High School, which went from performing dismally to outperforming most of the state by an aggressive implementation of literacy and writing lessons in every class, including gym? There was no government involvement, no unions got their feathers ruffled, it didn't cost a thing, and no personnel was shuffled. Did I mention that this was at a school with 4,100 students? Where's the documentary on that? I suppose that ultimately, this film can be galvanizing and startling to those who genuinely believe that the American education system is peachy. For everyone else, however, it's clunky and simplistic, and its likelihood of winning the Oscar because the voters feel guilty about sending their kids to private school bums me out.

Inside Job, conversely, could never conceivably be described as simplistic - it's a barrage of information that's actually pretty well organized. The problem, though, is that the movie has no exclusive information. Oh sure, there are plenty of interviews, but they don't offer anything new - economists and scholars reemphasize that they predicted the meltdown, and the fat cats squirm in the spotlight and act like nothing happened. All the information is already out there - frequently on the front page - making the film simply a synthesis. That's fine, I guess, but I tend to agree with critic Shawn Levy's assessment that it hasn't "been rendered in a way that's genuinely worth paying contemporary movie ticket prices to learn about." I couldn't help but wondering if it was really more of a TV special, something in the vein of 20/20 perhaps. Had it been produced and aired in that format, it probably would have reached a significantly wider audience. But instead they had Matt Damon narrate it, released it in theaters and cinched a Best Documentary nomination.

Look, I'm always glad when any form of media gets people talking, especially about issues and current events. I just don't think that should be confused with good filmmaking, and if the best-made documentary of the year is actually about a cute kitten with a funny hat, it should be recognized as such. What do you think? Does subject matter trump all? What was your reaction to these films?

Oscar thoughts: are film professionals qualified to judge their own kind?

The concept of Oscar voting is simple, at least at a basic level: people vote for their own. Directors vote for the directing category, editors vote for the editing category, makeup artists vote for makeup (the exceptions are Best Picture, which is voted on by everyone, and some of the other "best film" categories, which have committees). It makes sense in theory: people in that line of work should be able to recognize a job well done. But I'm starting to wonder - can they?

Certain trends emerge. The win in the costume category always goes to a period piece with gowns if there is one. The editing award more often than not goes to the nominee with the shortest average shot length. Sound editing/mixing goes to the loudest movie. And acting, well, it's quite well-documented that there are basically four types of wins: The Underdog/Cinderella Story/Comeback Actor, The Historical Figure/Biopic, The "So and So Doesn't Have an Oscar Yet? Let's Give Them One," and the Caricature (extreme physical transformation or a particularly histrionic role). If these are truly the people most informed about their craft, wouldn't they be the first to break these patterns and be vocal about the fact that those are not the only ways to excel in that field? Where are the costume designers standing up and saying that it's just as hard and creative to design costumes for The Devil Wears Prada or Milk as it is for Marie Antoinette? Or that in editing, sometimes the art is in having long shots? Cinematographers this year apparently don't even know the definition of cinematography - they nominated Avatar, of which more than half is completely animated and apparently the other half just looks lame (see my boyfriend's analysis of that weak move here).

And actors. Oh, actors. Acting is a very subjective thing to judge, don't get me wrong. But 20% of the Academy is comprised of actors, over 1000 people. And of them, how many have formal training? How many are actually huge movie lovers? How many are just paycheck actors, who discovered that people throw money at them when they grace a screen? The Academy doesn't disclose its full list of members, but from press releases of new members I can glean that their ranks include such names as Seth Rogen, Hugh Jackman, Paul Rudd, Jet Li, Jennifer Aniston, and Dakota Fanning. Now before you scream at me and start listing off great roles by these people, let me state that I find them all quite affable - hell, Paul Rudd is my number one celebrity crush - but they are not Brandos or Streeps. And for that matter, what does Streep know about acting? Not about doing it, which she's obviously very adept at, but judging it in someone else is really a different skill set. It's a similar story with directors - how many actually know what they're doing and can recognize talent in others? From the same press releases, I can see names like DJ Caruso, Peyton Reed, Peter Berg, David Frankel and Mark Waters, who work almost exclusively in the genres of generically lame action or romance movies that are ironically siphoning viewers away from Oscar-nominated fare. What do they know about the craft of directing?

This is my point. I feel that perhaps when people vote on their own kind like this, they're limited to viewing candidates through the prism of their own skills, weaknesses, and experience. Having a talent doesn't automatically make you able to recognize it in others. That's why I often find awards from critics' groups and hell, even the Golden Globes to be more dynamic, varied and well, accurate - because they come from people whose sole job description is to study and critique film. They're also distanced enough from the Hollywood game to not be swayed by its politics - how many people won't vote for James Cameron because they think he's a jerk, or will vote for Sandra Bullock because gosh, she's just such a nice person and she should just win by now? I don't mind the Oscars existing - it's fine to have an awards show voted on by your peers - but it seems strange and unqualified that it became the definitive award.

Also, actors and film people are some of the most absurdly busy people imaginable. They never have time to see all, or even half of the nominated films or performances. So we're asking the group least likely and able to see all these films to vote on them. And finally, having everyone vote for Best Picture? Most of the Academy works on such a small and focused sector of production that they may not be good at judging what makes a good film on the whole. Like, what qualifies a makeup artist to help select the best film of the year over someone in another creative field, like a graphic designer? I understand the mentality that if you get everyone together who is involved in making a movie and have them vote, you'll hear all the voices of production and have a well-rounded outcome. But does it actually work that way, or do you just get a lot of input from people limited to their own expertise? And did you know that PR people and other executives who cannot vote in any other category are allowed to vote for Best Picture? Um, conflict of interest much? Wouldn't they just vote for the films from their own studio so they get more money?

I still watch the Oscars with great interest and will continue to do so. While I don't whine and call the ceremony "just rich people congratulating themselves" as many do, I no longer consider them the last word, the authority in cinema. It's more of a bizarre sociological experiment, and I predict winners on my ballot by way of convoluted psychological explanations. The Academy Awards aren't concrete, they're symbolic. They're given for careers, personalities, or as a sign of the times. And rarely do I get really worked up about any one nominee, but this year that symbolic nature can be used for good in giving Kathryn Bigelow the statue for Best Director. It can kickstart the mountain of reparations that Hollywood owes women, and it couldn't be for a more deserving candidate.

What do you think? Is the Academy qualified enough to vote for itself?

What are the weirdest Best Picture nominees in history?

While doinking around on the internet, I found an article called "Is A Serious Man the weirdest movie ever nominated for Best Picture?". I expected to find the piece comparing ASM to nominees of yore, but instead it was just a straight review/analysis of the movie's weirdness, which is fine. But it got me thinking...what other truly weird films have been nominated for Best Picture? The Academy has a reputation for playing it safe, but every once in a while something will slip through the cracks (and I'm talking about movies that are intrinsically weird, not "isn't it weird that it got nominated?"). Below, some of the great weird nominees, some of which are so canonized you may have never stopped to think how weird they truly are (in chronological order):

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

All fantasy films are inherently a little kooky, because they can make up their own rules of reality. But what makes this seem stranger than, say, the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings films is that the world is decidedly less cohesive, probably because it's all in a young girl's subconscious (SPOILER ALERT!). Tin men, scarecrows, lions, midgets, witches, flying monkeys, ruby slippers, and a "wizard" with a strange complex sound pretty nonsensical on paper and, well, it's pretty nonsensical on screen too - but it's so charming and captivating that it became a classic anyway.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Billy Wilder was Lynchian before Lynch was. It's a self-referential, gothic comedy of decay...can that phrase be used to describe any other movie ever made?! In being a part of the Wilder canon, which includes the sparkling, madcap comedy of Some Like It Hot and the bittersweet wistfulness of The Apartment, audiences can forget how truly strange this film is. I mean, when we first meet Norma Desmond, she's having a funeral for a monkey. A FUNERAL FOR A MONKEY. Like A Serious Man, people often have no idea what to make of this film's tone, or have vastly differing interpretations. That, to me, is a sign of truly dynamic cinema.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

I recently saw this film for the first time (no use berating me...I saw it, didn't I?) and for the first 25 or so minutes I absolutely could not believe it was considered a classic. It's certainly not unworthy of that distinction, but what I mean is how did something so out-there become a must-see of American cinema unquestionaly endorsed by everyone (even the stuffy and polite suits at the AFI)? It becomes distinctly less bizarre after the beginning, but that sets the mood for an unparalleled psychadelic and ultraviolent journey. The only thing that could have made it weirder is if the menage-a-trois scene was shown as originally filmed - an unbroken, 28-minute take!

Cries and Whispers (1973)

In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I have not seen this movie. But I did see a clip. And even if the rest of the movie is a formulaic romantic comedy (which yes, I know it's not), that clip alone guarantees its inclusion here. Any film featuring a heavily arranged soundtrack of screams and heartbeats is usually way too out-there for Oscar. Maybe the prestige factor of Bergman secured the spot?

Taxi Driver (1976)

Movies that can be accurately classified as "feverish nightmares" don't usually score too well with the Academy, but the 70s were a different time, I guess. What solidifies the weirdness most of all is the false-note happy ending that resonates similarly to the ending of Blue Velvet - is he dead? Dreaming? What just happened, exactly?

All That Jazz (1979)

A jazzy, autobiographical musical about death. Yup. Again, that phrase describes exactly zero other movies.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

If this film seems pedestrian now, it's only because it spawned a million imitators and its style became the norm. Let's add up the elements: man-rape in a torture dungeon, soliloquies about cheeseburgers and foot massages, a hitman finding God, a man called in specifically to teach two formerly-tough hitmen how to clean a car. It's nuts!

And that's just what I know of. The 20s or even the 80s have many now-obscure nominees that may contain volumes of weirdness. So it looks like A Serious Man has some pretty awesome company, and it goes to show that sometimes, when the stars align, the Academy will recognize great films outside the usual comfort zone.

What Best Picture nominees do you find weird? (If you need your memory jogged, the full list of nominees and winners is here.)

Best forgotten and overlooked performances of 2009

There's a certain blank-slate magic in the air before movie awards season, when everything is fair game. Praises are sung in the moment. But then it gets to the end of the year, and for starters, the first three-quarters of the year in film are almost completely forgotten. Then, one critics' group will come forward with their picks. And another. Momentum builds for certain films and performances. And then it gets to a point where it becomes hard to deviate from the status quo. Thankfully, I feel that 2009 has been a pretty rich year for film, which has led to less of a consensus (I mean, obviously films and people emerge as frontrunners, but opinions are more divided this year). In the course of this snowballing, performances get lost. Maybe they were earlier in the year, they weren't seen by enough people, or they were just somehow overlooked, but for some reason they're not cropping up with distinctions and awards even though they completely deserve it. I've compiled a list of what I feel are the overlooked/forgotten performances of the year. Now, I want to be completely clear: I'm not saying that these are necessarily better than the performances getting all the recognition. In most cases, I don't think they should yank the rug out from under the Clooneys and the Streeps (in other cases, definitely!).


Best Actress

Rachel Weisz as Penelope Stamp in The Brothers Bloom
Cinema has its share of man-children, but women-children are a lot harder to come by (specifically, ones that are just naive but without a mental illness). Enter Penelope: she's brilliant and cultured, but has never left the house. Once two charming con men take her into their world, she opens up and takes the audience on her crazy ride. Weisz throws herself into the role with wild abandon - she actually learned a staggering array of instruments, sports, and talents for the part, and has great all-the-way moments like frantically humping the floor with a childlike declaration of "I'm horny!" (The fact that I found that scene funny and endearing instead of disturbing should make my point.)


Melanie Laurent as Shoshanna Dreyfus in Inglourious Basterds
Virtually absent from the film's trailer but really its driving force, Laurent's breakthrough performance is a knockout. Maybe audiences didn't see the true genius because she spends so much of the film speaking through gritted teeth and guarding her secrets for dear life, which isn't as immediately impressive as hardcore scenery chewing. But it snakes into your brain and stays there, right down to the iconic image of her maniacally laughing black and white face on a movie screen consumed with flames. I'd say the performance echoes Al Pacino in The Godfather.


Maya Rudolph as Verona in Away We Go
We all know the familiar story of a woman trying to free an emotionally stunted man from his shell. But what happens when the gender roles are reversed, and a happy-go-lucky man tries to do that for his girlfriend? Rudolph shows us beautifully, starting with an indignant smack to her boyfriend's head when he suggests she might be pregnant to some candid and completely unforced personal moments. She goes beyond being a funny lady from SNL, and then some.


Amy Adams as Rose Lorkowski in Sunshine Cleaning
Adams has virtually conquered the market on adorable - from perky pregnant southerners to princesses (she's even kind of a cute nun). Her persona is put to perfect use in this bittersweet comedy, where she applies a touching sincerity to what would be unbearably hokey in the hands of a less capable actress (she talks to her dead mother on a CB radio, for god's sake!).



Best Supporting Actress

Samantha Morton as Olivia Pitterson in The Messenger
Morton may be kind of nuts in real life (there are strong indications that she lied about having a stroke), but on screen, she aways delivers. As a newly widowed army wife, she's not glamorous, but she's real. In a series of hypnotic long takes, she lays her heart bare in a much more candid and real way than, say, Halle Berry's hysteric thrashing and screaming in Monster's Ball. I found myself hanging on her every word, literally entranced.


Olivia Williams as Miss Stubs in An Education
I wanted to like this movie, but I just didn't get what the fuss was about. Sure, it was solid, but I didn't feel it was anything special. All the attention has been lavished on star Carey Mulligan, but Williams, in a great supporting performance, has been ignored. I lamented not seeing Williams more after her amazing work as another teacher, Miss Cross, in Rushmore, and here she brings a quiet intensity to her interplay with Mulligan's Jenny that plays like a dramatic version of Cady's relationship to Miss Norbury in Mean Girls. (I know it's not a very highbrow example, but they are completely identical.)


Marcia Gay Harden as Mrs. Cavendar in Whip It
For as formulaic as this film got, one sharp and welcome deviation from formula was the main character's mother. So often in these teen sports movies, the mother is a shrieking caricature whose sole purpose on earth is to prevent their teenage daughter from participating in her sport of choice for completely arbitrary reasons. But Marcia Gay Harden is better than that. She's excelled in supporting roles in films like Pollock and Mystic River, and she brings the same elegant and multidimensional approach to this role. She's a real person, a real mother, and you find yourself agreeing with her a lot of the time. I also want to give a shoutout to Kristen Wiig and her role as Maggie Mayhem in the same film; much of my praise is the same. In a beautifully understated scene, Wiig tells our spunky protagonist that her mom might be right, but in a way that never feels preachy.

Best Actor

Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell in Moon
I'm not alone in gunning for Sam as Sam - there's a lot of support, including an online petition, to get him an Oscar nomination. After all, how often do you see a film featuring one actor playing multiple versions of a slightly different character...who interact with each other...successfully? I can't think of another. Moon is a great film all around, but without the anchoring performance it would fall apart. Rockwell is compulsively watchable in everything, and this introspective sci-fi odyssey is no exception.


Nicolas Cage as Terry McDonagh in Bad Lieutenant
Werner Herzog understands the truth about Nicolas Cage: if you want to get anything out of him as an actor, you have to let him run around and be crazy. He doesn't do subtle, he does crazy. Frankly, from early reviews I was expecting a lot more crazy, but there are still plenty of deliriously pleasurable moments to be had. From Cage's inexplicably Jimmy Stewart-sounding voice when he's high to random and over-the-top sex acts. It's funny, weird, disturbing, and sad.

Tom Hardy as the title character in Bronson
Quick, name a performance from this year that featured extremely large amounts of body painting, bizarre makeup, yelling, fighting, and full-frontal male nudity. There is only one answer - and that alone should give you a hint as to how bold this performance as Britain's most violent prisoner is. Plenty of actors can do psychopath, but rarely in such an extravagant, immersive, comical, and brave way. To further prove his chops, Hardy is just as good in psychotic prison scenes as he is when demonstrating his profound discomfort at normal social interaction in the "real" world. This is usually the gonzo stuff that award-givers love, but maybe it was underseen or just too out there, which is really a shame. If nothing else, they love the award physical transformation for a role, and this one rivals any I've ever seen.


Michael Sheen as Brian Clough in The Damned United
I could always tell that Michael Sheen was a talented actor, but in the first few roles I saw him in I felt like he wasn't being given enough to work with. He was pretty good in The Queen, but it was Helen Mirren's show. He was pretty good in Frost/Nixon, though the character wasn't very fleshed out and Frank Langella had the flashier part. In TDU, he finally got his chance to shine. At first nothing seems extraordinary, and then you realize a) that Sheen has become the character so fully that nothing even seems like acting, and b) that a man that just seemed cocky actually created a fierce sports empire driven by nothing other than his own selfish ambition. Combine those two factors and you get a compulsively watchable, egotistical asshole. That you root for.


Adam Sandler as George Simmons in Funny People
I am not one of the many who threw popcorn at the screen during Funny People because there was not a suitable sex-joke-per-minute ratio. It's a drama, people. And while I definitely thought it was uneven, it had great elements like Adam Sandler's performance as George. Wistful, sad, and autobiographical, Apatow managed to tap the same depths in Sandler that Paul Thomas Anderson did in Punch-Drunk Love.


Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre in The Informant!
Okay yes, technically this performance is getting buzz, but I don't understand why it's not a "given" like Clooney or Bridges on the lists. Maybe because it's funnier and more bizarre, and hardly the archetype of awards bait. But god dang it, that's what makes it great! Damon's Whitacre has such a fractured mind (from bipolar disorder) that he can compartmentalize everything in his life to the point where there is no overlap. When he lies (as he does often), it's unclear whether he believes it or not. Often, in movies featuring a constantly lying character, the audience knows the truth. Not here. Damon strings us along, pulling us into Whitacre's mind with hilarious interior monologues on subjects ranging from word pronunciations to polar bears that occur when he zones out. Damon has the advantage of being an actor with no defined persona, so he can seamlessly slip into roles like this one.


Best Supporting Actor

Christian McKay as Orson Welles in Me and Orson Welles
McKay had plenty of practice playing the larger-than-life Welles - he did so in a fruitful run of a one-man show. The tricky part of playing a real person, especially one as dynamic as Welles, is elevating the performance above mere impersonation. McKay achieves this by toying with the characters and the audience just like the real Welles did - like Welles' out-there documentary F for Fake, you never know when he's telling the truth or being genuine. Similarly, McKay's Welles is just as slippery with sincerity, which makes him a treat to watch.

Fred Melamed as Sy Ableman in A Serious Man
The Coen universe is dotted with wonderfully absurd characters, and Sy Ableman marks another one of their great creations. Condescending and slimy but with a strangely soothing presence, his contribution to this deadpan experience is capped by his brilliantly serious delivery of the line, "I think, really, the Jolly Roger is the appropriate course of action." Ableman is a serious man, all right - a seriousness that leads to absurdity that brings the funny.

Billy Crudup as Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen
Brad Pitt was nominated for a Golden Globe and Oscar for creating a character with insane technology in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - and yes, the finished result was visually impressive, but I found the character and performance to be pretty bland. Why not reward a successful fusion of the two? Dr. Manhattan is great to look at, of course, but Crudup pulls off the incredible feat of conveying a superhuman being that knows and can do absolutely everything, but has no attachments to this world and exists beyond emotion. Just as Dr. Manhattan exists on infinite planes of being, so does Crudup's performance.

Jackie Earle Haley as Walter Kovacs/Rorschach in Watchmen
On the other side of the Watchmen spectrum is someone too emotional. Haley - after a buzzed-about comeback in Little Children and with his upcoming role as Freddy Krueger - might become permanently typecast as a psychopath/creeper, but I'd probaby pay to watch it every time. He is unrelenting, merciless, and sometimes even right. There's a reason that Rorschach is, as my boyfriend claims, a fan favorite, and Haley brought all those conflicting reasons to life.

Special Mention: The cast of Humpday - Mark Duplass, Joshua Leonard, Alycia Delmore
I'm singling this film out because it's awesome, and there's no reason that it couldn't have been a totally accessible hit like I Love You, Man except for lack of a huge marketing budget and a fear of indies. I had heard of the mumblecore movement before but never really explored it, and hell, if it just means talky scenes that are hilarious, improvised and unbelievably realistic, consider me a fan. Delmore, as the wife of a completely straight man (Leonard) who is considering having onscreen sex with his best male friend (Duplass), has a series of amazingly profound scenes where she and her husband grapple with what love means in the 21st century. That sounds like a drag, but it's fresh, honest, and often funny. Duplass and Leonard have great bro-chemistry in their escalating dare. The three of them work together for a sense of realism that's never dull (i.e. if the word realism scares you because it makes you think of Italian Neorealism with really long shots of "the common man" shining his shoes). SEE IT!

Special thanks to my boyfriend and his blog, The Rail of Tomorrow, for helping me remember why I liked things.

The Oscar nominations will be announced February 2nd. Maybe they'll wise up and nominate some of the above.

Do you agree? Then what are your favorite forgotten/overlooked performances of the year?

Some new ways of considering the Oscars

So the Oscars are soon...but if you're reading this blog, you probably know that. There's been a lot of grumbling about this year's nominees, and I agree that there were some major snubs. But here's a few things to take into consideration. The first is a fact, and the second is an opinion.

1. (fact) The way that Oscar voting works is convoluted, but surprisingly democratic. Everyone's vote counts (as evidenced by a 1967 tie for Best Actress between Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn). Initially, all the voters in a certain category compile a ranked list of their top five choices for nominees. They can write in anyone. When you consider that in Grammy voting, the organization can overrule the popular vote, the Oscars suddenly seem like the voice of the people. Then it gets into a lot of math I don't understand. But here's an important factor that I think somewhat lessens the democracy: a person or film cannot be nominated if it isn't at least one person's first choice.

What?

So if every single person voting for Best Picture put The Dark Knight as their #2 choice, it would not be nominated, but if a healthy smattering of people put The Reader in the lower ranks of their lists but ONE PERSON put it at #1, it would be nominated. I kind of see what they're going for with that rule, but not really. If my number 2 choice ended up on the final ballot but my number 1 choice didn't, I'd still feel pretty good about voting for #2.

Bottom line: it's easy to blame the Academy for a snub, as if they got in a room and conspired all night, but it's really the decision of thousands of people who may not even know each other. Plus, there's a stupid rule involved.

2. (opinion) Allow me to propose a theory I have that might explain some surprising nominees or winners.

Elements (be it actors or cinematography) from mediocre films stand out more than elements from uniformly solid films.

Only two Best Actress winners of the last 10 years have been from the film that won Best Picture, and only three Best Actor winners. Think of performances like Helen Mirren for The Queen, Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland, Jaime Foxx for Ray, Charlize Theron for Monster, Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote. The movies themselves were okay, but they were really performance vehicles. The performances stood out because the rest of the elements were eh.

I think maybe being too solid can hurt a film. Look at Zodiac. Incredible cinematography, flawless special effects, inspired directing, great performances, great script. Too perfect. Nothing stood out. There were no weak links that would emphasize the strong parts. This may also have been why Revolutionary Road was almost completely ignored (save for a Best Supporting Actor nom). Doubt did get a lot of nominations, but isn't really predicted to win any. That movie is so rock solid from top to bottom that if you gave it one award, you'd have to give it all of them.

Think of it this way. If you walk out of a film and can't immediately put a finger on what you liked best about it, it may not jump into a voter's head when they're assembling the best five whatever of the year. If an Academy member walks out of The Wrestler and his first thought is "Mickey Rourke was amazing!" then he's probably going to conjure up Rourke when he's voting. If he walks out of Revolutionary Road and thinks "That movie was amazing!" he's less likely to think of Leonardo DiCaprio when he's voting. (As an aside, I think the people behind the marketing of The Wrestler shot themselves in the foot by promoting it solely as a performance vehicle - it's completely solid in all areas.)

What do you think?

What Oscar categories really mean

I know it's not Oscar season yet, but those little golden men have been on my mind lately. If you think about it, a lot of Oscar categories mean things more specific than just best such-and-such. Here's my handy guide to decoding what some of those tricky buggers mean. (And please, don't compile a nerdy and meticulous list of exceptions and send them to me. This is meant, on some level, to be humorous).

-Best Picture
Actually means: best drop-dead serious drama preferably about war or other actual events

-Best Actress
Actually means: whoever got fattest or ugliest

-Best Actor
Actually means: whoever most effectively portrayed a real person

-Best Supporting Actor/Actress
Actually means: best spunky sidekick with awesome one-liners that, if they were the main character, would not have won an Oscar. Comes with high risk of never winning an Oscar again.

-Best Costume Design
Actually means: best costume design for a period piece

-Best Documentary Short Subject/Feature
- Actually means: most depressing documentary, preferably about AIDS, the Holocaust, or genocide. I remember watching the awards last year and telling my friend how pissed the directors of some of the documentary short subjects must be, because they were up against one about AIDS and didn't stand a chance.

-Best Foreign Film
Actually means: most depressing foreign film

-Best Directing
Actually means: whoever directed Best Picture

-Best Original Screenplay
Actually means: quirky movie that should have been nominated for Best Picture but was not a drop-dead serious drama about war or other actual events

Some categories are legitimate wildcards though. "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp" winning best song? Who could have seen that coming?

Should Portrayals of Real People Have Their Own Oscar Category?

Let's look at two of this year's Oscar nominees for Best Actress: Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen and Penelope Cruz as Raimunda in Volver. Both were outstanding performances by talented actresses in great movies. There is one major difference, however: Mirren played someone who really exists, while Cruz did not. By pitting these two performances against each other, was the Academy comparing apples to oranges?

There has been a surge of actors winning golden statues for playing real people in recent years: Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuornos in Monster, Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line, Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote in Capote, Russell Crowe as John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich in the film of the same title, Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf in The Hours, and on and on and on. That's only (some of) the winners - there's also been a marked increase in nominees.

I don't know why this is. Maybe it was the rise of Method acting in the 50s and 60s - to really get into the character, do what they would do, etc. Before that, it was more about Cary Grant being Cary Grant and Clark Gable being Clark Gable. I am reminded of an article I read once which claimed that two types of people populate the silver screen: actors and stars. An example given of an actor was Meryl Streep, which is a good choice: she's very versatile, and when you picture her, you don't immediately connect her to a particular role or type of role. A star is someone who just always plays him or herself, but the audience loves it anyway. They gave the example of Jack Nicholson. From The Shining to As Good as it Gets, Jack is always Jack. The Academy doesn't look as favorably upon stars anymore. They want you to pile on pounds, an accent, and an attitude and play someone completely unlike yourself. Cary Grant can't play, say, a dictator very well if he's still playing Cary Grant.

That still doesn't solve the problem, though. The character of Raimunda may not be very much like Penelope Cruz. I can't explain the phenomenon of this increase, but I can explain the psychology of gravitating to these performances. It's simple: the comparison factor.

Judgment of acting is a very nebulous thing. But when you're comparing a portrayal against a real person, it offers some kind of scale. If Philip Seymour Hoffman walks and talks like just like Truman Capote, then clearly he nailed the role. Cate Blanchett mastered Hepburn's distinctive accent, Forest Whitaker could go batshit crazy with the same ferocity of Amin. In these cases, acting can be measured quantitatively.

The problem with this is that it can deteriorate into an impression contest. "OMG, Nicole Kidman looked and sounded JUST LIKE Virginia Woolf, give her an Oscar for that!" Obviously, this is not a conscious stream of thought in the mind of Academy voters, but I feel like it might be subconscious.

It should also be noted that biopics aren't made about just anybody. Filmmakers seek out the juiciest stories that actors would claw out each other's eyes to star in. I feel like the lead in Monster was just an Oscar waiting to happen. Of course Theron did a good job, but I really think any other talented actress working today could have brought home the gold for playing an ugly, scary, lesbian prostitute serial killer. The Academy eats that shit up.

So here's the dilemma. Can roles that are hand-picked for juiciness and able to be measured quantitatively justly compete against ones that aren't? I don't think it's fair. If you're judging a costume contest and one of the finalists is dressed to look exactly like a famous person, and the other is wearing some impressive abstract thing, you're probably going to be biased towards the former, based on the recognition factor. It won't matter how amazing the abstract one is. Is it fair to judge these together?

God knows the Oscar ceremony is long enough already. But perhaps a "Best Performance Based on a Real Person" category could encompass both male and female, or both lead and supporting.

What do you think?