One more thing. I'm proud to be the guy who was shouting "Jean Dujardin!" last year, when many prognosticators were crying "George Clooney!" I'm also mightily embarrassed that I called the 2010 Best Picture race for Avatar. A look at my previous posts reveals that I am, more often than not, right about this stuff; it also reveals that when I'm wrong, I'm dead wrong. So kick back, relax, and take my predictions with a sense of trust and a grain of salt.
Best Picture:
What Will Win: I tend to roll my eyes at Roger Ebert's Oscar predictions. After all, this is the man who vehemently and repeatedly asserted that the True Grit remake would fill its metaphorical hands come Oscar night. Yeah. About that. However, a mea culpa is in order: through the entire Oscar season, the man has been calling the race in Argo's favor, and it's looking like a very good call indeed. It's a decent choice; the film is overlong and historically dodgy, but it's also the rare thriller that's done with a mastery approaching high art. As literary critic Stanley Fish has pointed out, it's basically a meat-and-potatoes caper picture with a dash of topicality thrown in, but the thing is staged with a breathless immediacy and dazzling ingenuity that renders such griping irrelevant while watching it. In other words, the film's saving grace is its direction. So, naturally, Oscar voters elected to overlook the director. The guilt and embarrassment incurred by the Ben Affleck snub all but guarantee this movie a Best Picture Oscar--and its topical urgency and self-congratulatory, just-look-what-movies-can-do message don't hurt either. I won't be upset if it wins, but I won't be doing some sort of embarrassing happy dance either.
What Should Win: Lincoln could've been sap-happy, timid, and overly reverent. Instead it was one of the gutsiest historical pictures of recent years, a genuinely ballsy attempt to marry a warts-and-all portrait of a secular deity with a broader examination of our nation's system of government. Some found it terribly treacly, others bland and blah as cardboard. I found it a deeply moving, at times galvanically powerful portrait of a man and the political machine he mastered, one that acknowledged both the tragic flaws and the imperfect beauty of its dual subjects.
What Just Might Win: Lincoln is not the front-runner it once was, but it's still a biography of our greatest living president, starring our greatest living actor and helmed by the world's most famous director. The pungent smell of Oscar bait might be a little too much to resist. Les Miserables once had a shot at this category, but the nasty backlash against Anne Hathaway (mostly undeserved) and director Tom Hooper (somewhat deserved) have killed the Best Picture dream it dreamed.
Best Actor:
Who Just Might Win: If anyone has a snowflake's chance in hell of beating out DDL, it's Hugh Jackman. Anne Hathaway has become the face of Les Mis, but a great many people recognize that Jackman was its generous and genuine heart. Plus, I'd say a certain number of Academy members just flat-out cherish the rare opportunity to reward a male performer for his work in a serious screen musical. The question is: how many? The likely answer: probably too few.
Best Actress:
Should Win: I'll raise my glass to a Lawrence win, but I'd really love it if the trophy went to Quevenzhane Wallis. She was a force of nature in Beasts of The Southern Wild, and hers is probably the best performance delivered by a child since Anna Paquin's Oscar-winning one in The Piano.
Just Might Win: If you want to go cray-cray and bet on one long-shot upset this year, go for Emmanuel Riva in Amour. Last year, Christopher Plummer became the oldest person ever to win an acting Oscar. Riva would break Plummer's record. Plus, it's her birthday on Oscar night. Make of that what you will.
Best Supporting Actress:
Just Might Win: You're kidding, right?
Best Supporting Actor:
Just Might Win: It's been a long while since Robert DeNiro has given a really good performance in a really good movie. The Academy knows this. They also know he's aging, and fast. TLJ's still in front, but DeNiro's right on his heels.
Should Win: Both Jones's and DeNiro's performances resonated very deeply with this writer. I'd be pleased if either one of them won. I'd be duly delighted if the Academy pulled a Streisand-Hepburn and gave this award to both of them. Just think of it; two of the most greatest actors of their generation, sharing recognition for the best work they've done in my lifetime. Granted, that's only slightly more likely than a Herman Cain presidency, but hey, a movie lover can dream.
Best Director:
Will Win: This one comes down to two big contenders: Steven Spielberg, whose work on Lincoln was a thrilling return to form, and Ang Lee, the man behind the Herculean effort to shepherd Yann Martel's nigh-unfilmable novel Life Of Pi onto to the screen. Give the edge to Lee. Those who consider Life Of Pi an achievement know that it is first and foremost a directorial one--light on dialogue, free of showy acting, and almost entirely reliant on the vision of the man behind the camera.
Should Win: This wasn't a first rate year in Directorville. Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, and, yes, even probable winner Ang Lee let me down. Among the few who didn't disappoint; Joss Whedon, who brought wit and humanity to the year's biggest popcorn extravaganza: Ben Affleck, whose protean command of the camera made a nuts-and-bolts thriller into something more: and Steven Spielberg, who reminded us what he's capable of when he tempers his knee-jerk inclination towards poetic grandeur with rationality and restraint. Of those three, only the Spielster is nominated, so I'll go with him.
Just Might Win: Spielberg has a fighting chance.
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Will Win: Chris Terrio for Argo. I've accepted that it's the likely victor in this category, but I don't wanna talk about it....
Should Win: ...Because Tony Kushner's borderline brilliant work on Lincoln should be the undisputed champion here. Kushner's one of the few true-blue geniuses in American letters today. Whether he's writing for the stage or for the screen, his scripts are gigantically satisfying, defiantly deep, and occasionally maddening personal epics that radiate raw emotion even as they dazzle us with their hyper-articulate braininess. Lincoln is no exception; in the span of two glorious hours, it manages to resurrect and reinterpret one of the Deadest White Men in American history. The script's historical errors, while disappointing, don't hold a candle to Argo's, nor do they truly mar the stunning scope of Kushner's overall achievement; he's created a work of art that's jam-packed with ideas, throbbing with earnest emotion, and free of his own reactionary politics. Improbably enough, he also manages to turn one of the most famous legislative debates in American history into something of a thriller; as Roger Ebert puts it, he succeeds "in taking a story marinated in history and viewing it as something that could have gone either way". Did any other script in this category achieve such a lofty goal? Certainly not. Will Oscar take note? Not likely. Will I throw a temper tantrum if this one loses? Definitely.
Just Might Win: *taps ruby slippers* There's no script like Kushner's, there's no script like Kushner's....
Best Original Screenplay:
Should Win: Moonrise Kingdom was my favorite film of last year. This is its only shot at being recognized. It won't happen, but I'd very much like it to. I'd also love for Flight, perhaps last year's most overrated motion picture, to lose. Ahh, schadenfreude.
Just Might Win: It's not likely, but it's possible that Django's copious violence and liberal use of the n-word will somehow conspire to deny it a victory. In that case, Zero Dark Thirty will take the cake. However, the controversies surround that film's depiction of torture could possibly shut it out of an Oscar.
Quickie Reviews: Abbreviated Thoughts On The Best Picture Contenders
Les Miserables: Rough, flawed, often clunky. But also heartfelt, ambitious, and occasionally brilliant. Improves with multiple viewings. Definitely deserves its nomination. Didn't earn a win. A-.
Silver Linings Playbook: Beautifully acted, tender-hearted look at the raw emotions that fray the fabric of a family, as well as the ones bind them inextricably together; in other words, a David O. Russell movie. Ending is a cop-out, and some of the characters are a touch underwritten. Russell's weakest film, but he's a good enough director that it's still the most lovable and honest comedy of 2012. A-.
Lincoln: Do I really need to say more about it? Loved it and will always love it, in spite of its myriad flaws. A.
Amour: Haven't seen it. Blame James Joyce and Business Statistics for that.
Beasts Of The Southern Wild: Saw it. Loved it. Put it on my Best of 2012 list hours after I finished watching it. Was bothered by it in the weeks afterward, and this article explains why better than I ever could. An affecting love letter to Louisiana, which is great; also, intentionally or not, a creepy pseudo-anarchist screed, which is not so great. A film surrounded by near-fatal flaws, but one with a must-see performance at the center, that of little Quavenzhane Wallis. Full disclosure; she had me bawling by the end. B.
Argo: A extremely well-crafted, hugely enjoyable thriller. Nothing more, nothing less. A-.
Django Unchained: Lacks the cleverness of Inglourious Basterds, the zeitgeisty zing! of Pulp Fiction, and the heart of Kill Bill, Vol. 2 and Jackie Brown. Boasts crazy-good work from Leo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson. Yet only Christoph Waltz gets nominated. Go figure. B-.
Life Of Pi-PG-ifies the book's darkness and irons over the complexity of its themes. Transfers the last section of the book to the screen with a dull thud. Transfers the famed tiger to the screen marvelously. A better adaptation than expected, but far from the best one that could've been made. C+.
Zero Dark Thirty-Critics are saying it's better than the director's previous film, The Hurt Locker. Said critics are drunk. Still, a smart, often riveting look at the War on Terror that makes the bold and necessary decision to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty. A very good movie with a great, unforgettable last shot. B+.
Happy Oscar Day, folks!
Happy Oscar Day, folks!