Oscar Nominees 2016: Part 1 of 11

Every year in the weeks leading up the Academy Awards ceremony, I post my thoughts on all of the nominees, although I exempt myself from the documentaries because I don't really like documentaries all that much. For me that means 47 films this year (3 fewer than last year). I said that 2015 was even stranger than 2014, but it seems to me that the 2016 awards seem somehow even more strange. Many people are complaining that the Oscars are too white (they are – more on this soon). But because my favorite thing about all of this movie hubbub is the surprises, I am still blogging this Oscar season, even though I wasn't a fan of a lot of the movies the Academy loved.

A while ago I did post an elaborate set of reasons for why I still pay attention to the Oscars, I want to amend this in light of a philosophy I developed regarding the foreign language films:

I hear a lot of complaints about which films should have been nominated, which films were passed over and "snubbed", etc. (I myself still plan to complain about Beasts of No Nation and Creed not getting enough nominations.) But here's what I will say: if there are movies that you loved that you are sad didn't get nominated, comfort yourself by reminding yourself that you've already seen those movies! Use the Academy, instead, to draw your attention to movies you haven't seen. For the folks who saw Carol and loved Carol, you already know that you loved Carol. Let the Oscars direct you toward a hidden gem that you haven't seen yet. I've already, for example, been completely surprised by the Animated Feature nominee Boy & the World, which I found absolutely magical, and also by Kenneth Branagh's really charming Cinderella, which I expected to be Disney fluff (it is, but it is charming fluff). Even when the Academy creates a mess, they're still going to point us toward some great movies.

Finally, and I say this every year, but most of the films in my top ten for the year were passed over (White God, Beasts of No Nation, Saint Laurent), but most of them scored a nomination or two (Son of Saul, Mustang, Youth, 45 Years) and two were nominated for Best Picture (The Revenant and Spotlight). In any case, this is a bizarre year, and I am excited for what is going to happen.

If the nominee has been nominated for Oscars previously, he or she will be listed next to his/her name in parentheses).

This year's nominees:

The Revenant

12 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman or the Unexpected Value of Ignorance, Babel)
• Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street, Blood Diamond, The Aviator, What's Eating Gilbert Grape)
• Supporting Actor: Tom Hardy
• Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki (Birdman or the Unexpected Value of Ignorance, Gravity, The Tree of Life, Children of Men, The New World, Sleepy Hollow, A Little Princess)
• Film Editing: Stephen Mirrione (Babel, Traffic)
• Production Design: Jack Fisk (There Will Be Blood) & Hamish Purdy
• Costume Design: Jacqueline West (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Quills)
• Visual Effects
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Editing
• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: Iñárritu

Cast: DiCaprio, Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck, Duane Howard, Arthur Redcloud, Melaw Nakehk'o, Fabrice Adde, Lukas Haas

I loved this movie. I loved it for so many reasons, but primarily for all of its Malickian choices, which make it feel derivative at times, but also such a great tribute to the master. I am surprised at how well the Academy likes this movie, though. It's artistry is certainly front and center, but that doesn't always matter for the voters. In any case, I am delighted that the Academy likes it so well. Huge congratulations, too, are in order for Iñárritu, who has made a story about revenge and some kind of generic triumph of human will into a movie about violence and colonialism and masculinity, and about the thoughtless extermination of American native peoples. The Revenant beautifully brings together strains from many of Iñârritu's earlier films, and he's made a simply gorgeous movie. ...And right now it's looking like it's going to win everything. If he does win director, it will be the first time a director has won twice in a row since Joseph L. Mankiewicz won back-to-back Oscars in 1950 and 1951. I am not really a huge Leo fan, and I don't think he ever really does much in this movie, but I expect him to win. Lubezki also seems poised to win his third Oscar in a row. In many ways this is a big studio creation filled with big contributors, and honoring it means honoring the big studios for the kinds of things they can occasionally churn out. It's hard for me to feel mad about that, though, when I loved the movie as much as I did.

Will Win: Picture, Director, Actor, Cinematography, Film Editing

Could Win: Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Makeup & Hairstyling

My Rating: #8 out of 58

Mad Max: Fury Road

10 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: George Miller
• Cinematography: John Seale (Cold Mountain, The English Patient, Rain Man, Witness)
• Film Editing: Margaret Sixel
• Production Design: Colin Gibson & Lisa Thompson
• Costume Design: Jenny Beavan (The King's Speech, Gosford Park, Anna and the King, Sense and Sensibility, The Remains of the Day, Howards End, Maurice, A Room with a View, The Bostonians)
• Visual Effects
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Editing
• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: Miller

Cast: Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Melissa Jaffer

I was not into this movie, and I continue to be surprised by everyone's absolute love for it. The success of this film should indicate to us all that the popular voice at the Academy is still being heard loud and clear (we saw this last year with American Sniper's popularity with Oscar); fanboy culture is completely mainstream, in case you hadn't noticed. I expect it to win most of the below-the-line stuff here, and I could say that it probably deserves a lot of them, too. The look of the film is unique and very cool. It might be worth noticing, in passing, that although Leonardo DiCaprio is probably going to win an Oscar for an action-hero performance in The Revenant, Charlize Theron's similar action-hero performance in this movie got basically no buzz at all. Not even at the Golden Globes.

Will Win: Production Design, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Makeup & Hairstyling

Could Win: Cinematography, Film Editing
My Rating: #49 out of 58

The Martian

7 Nominations

• Picture
• Actor: Matt Damon (Invictus, Good Will Hunting)
• Adapted Screenplay: Drew Goddard
• Production Design: Arthur Max (American Gangster, Gladiator) & Celia Bobak (The Phantom of the Opera)
• Visual Effects
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Editing

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Benedict Wong, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean, Donald Glover

I've started to dislike this movie more now that it has gotten so many nominations. In truth, it isn't terrible; it's just so annoyingly smug. I would say that its seven nominations seem a bit inflated here, too, but I had singled out The Martian's gorgeous production design in my own review of the movie, and the film really does look very cool technically. As for Matt Damon, we should all be embarrassed that this has happened. He didn't get nominated for The Talented Mr. Ripley or The Bourne Supremacy or even that old Oscar bait nonsense The Legend of Bagger Vance, but we'll throw him a nomination for The Martian?! People be crazy.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #38 out of 58

Spotlight

6 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Tom McCarthy
• Original Screenplay: Tom McCarthy (Up) & Josh Singer
• Supporting Actor: Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher, The Kids Are All Right)
• Supporting Actress: Rachel McAdams
• Film Editing: Tom McArdle

Director: McCarthy

Cast: Michael Keaton, Ruffalo, McAdams, Brian D'Arcy James, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup, Len Cariou

This is my favorite of the Best Picture nominees, and one of my favorite films of the year. It probably shouldn't be, because it is a mostly conventional potboiler that is set in a newsroom, and it's about doing detective work and figuring something out that in fact we all already know about, but I didn't mind one bit. In fact, I just was with it the whole time. It helps that the acting is great and it's about big, big issues about which I care a great deal. At one time this was the frontrunner for Best Picture, and it is still clearly in the big top five, but I think upon reflection Spotlight can start to feel more and more underwhelming next to the larger-than-life grandeur of The Revenant, Mad Max, and The Martian. I think we're looking at one Oscar only.

Will Win: Original Screenplay

Could Win: Picture, Film Editing

My Rating: #5 out of 58

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11.

Far-too-quick 2015 Movie Roundup

I've been seeing a ton of stuff over the last two weeks, cramming everything that is in wide release (i.e. in theatres in Orlando) in before I get to Los Angeles, so that I can spend time seeing the limited-release stuff like Youth and Carol and 45 Years while I'm there. I have already posted about Creed, so I won't review that, but here's some other good stuff. Almost all of these movies are really good, so get out to the movies.

Brooklyn is a beautiful, small picture with some absolutely lovely performances. Saoirse Ronan is a lock for a best actress nomination, and she carries the picture with her deep, beautiful eyes and enigmatic smile. But, in truth, the movie itself doesn't need a lot of carrying. It is elegantly scripted by Nick Hornby, and the supporting performances are all spot on thoroughly enjoyable. Julie Walters, in particular, is very funny while simultaneously feeling richly created; she takes a simple part and makes it into something legitimately fascinating. Domnhall Gleeson, too, gives his usual excellent performance, quietly moving through his role with sensitivity and care. But for me the breakout here is Emory Cohen, who plays an Italian boy Ronan meets in Brooklyn at an Irish dance. Cohen's performance is buoyant, endlessly lovable, and overwhelmingly charming. I was in love with him in under five minutes, but he looks at Ronan with such love in his eyes and half-smile that it seemed to me impossible not to love him back. It is, perhaps, a relatively simple role, in what turns out to be a relatively simple movie, but I found the whole thing emotionally satisfying and wonderfully romantic.

Oscar possibilities for Brooklyn: quite a few, I'd wager. Actress, picture, adapted screenplay, score, costumes. And that's a conservative estimate.

* * *

The Good Dinosaur... was better when it was called The Lion King. The plot is simple and clichéd, like most kids movies, I guess. The look of the film is its most interesting feature – which isn't to say that it is good because the look of the film is decidedly odd.

The scenery in The Good Dinosaur is hyperrealistic. Beautiful water, gorgeous trees and sunsets. And then there are storms and weather: all of these are done pristinely, as though this were CGI for a Marvel movie, ready to be inhabited by basically realistic-looking humans and animals. But then the dinosaurs in The Good Dinosaur, and the other animals as well, all look like they were drawn by an intrepid sixth grader. All of the actual inhabitants of the world of this film look like cartoons. Cartoon creatures and humans living in a carefully crafted realistic world. The effect is bizarre, to say the least, and contributes to a kind of constant, nagging confusion I had while watching the movie. Still, the script is charming and funny (particularly the sequences with Sam Neill and Steve Zahn), and I quite liked The Good Dinosaur while never quite feeling comfortable with it.

Oscar possibilities for The Good Dinosaur: a definite nomination in the animated feature category. That's it, though.

* * *

I loved Spotlight, on the other hand. Directed by Tom McCarthy, who has directed some excellent movies over the years (The Station Agent, Win Win, The Visitor), this is his best film yet. Spotlight is an ensemble picture that follows the story of the sex-abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese of the Catholic church. I honestly don't think I have much to say about this because I just thought it was solid, and I enjoyed it completely.

In truth, if I am honest with myself, Spotlight is a sort of conventional movie about truth and justice and doing the right thing and making the bad guys pay, but it felt so much more than that while I was watching it. McCarthy ratchets up the stakes, and for me Spotlight came to be about the way that each of us allows injustice to continue in the world because of (a) devotions and loyalties to various dogmas and traditions, (b) apathy and indifference about the real sufferings of other people, (c) actual fear that people might not like us, and (d) greed and self-interest. We watch the film's central characters struggle in different ways with all of these qualms and difficulties, and these miniature character studies are all very interesting, even compelling.

I enjoyed Spotlight from start to finish, admiring the filmmaking (it's shot cleverly and without ostentation) and the powerful ensemble work from Keaton, Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber, Rachel McAdams, Brian d'Arcy James, Len Cariou, and Billy Crudup. And I like the film's subject matter, too. It is so easy to cover up something instead of truly dealing with it, so simple (especially if you're getting your pockets lined) to choose to kowtow to the powerful and the wealthy instead of telling the truth. By the time Spotlight's end title cards rolled around, the sheer scope of the conspiracy that this team of reporters exposed bowled me over. This is a conventional film but a stunning story.

Oscar possibilities for Spotlight: This is currently the Best Picture frontrunner, so that means all of the nominations that go along with that: editing, screenplay, cinematography, supporting actor (Ruffalo? Keaton? who knows), and director.

* * *

I shall leave you on a sour note. I had crossed Trumbo off of my list because the trailer looked so... whimsical, but then the Screen Actors Guild nominated it for ensemble, best actor, and best supporting actress, and then the Golden Globes followed suit with nominations for best actor in a drama (even though it is a comedy) and (again) best supporting actress. So, I put Trumbo back on my list and headed over to the cineplex.

Trumbo is an awful film. It is ostensibly the story of Dalton Trumbo, the blacklisted screenwriter of Roman Holiday and The Brave One and Spartacus, and I guess it is that, but this movie is so all over the place that one is never quite sure what it's about. It covers an enormous span of time, and its opinion about its protagonist shifts rather a lot, but this isn't really the problem with Trumbo. The problem is that the script is terrible, the acting is hammy and nonsensical, the makeup is too thick, the cinematography is inept, and the whole thing feels so phony that even though this is apparently a true story, one comes away from the film feeling as though it was rather a nice story, but not that our government actually, you know, was fascist and used violence and imprisonment to silence political dissidence. It is all designed to feel so charming: the good guys won. Of course they did. This is America! Utter nonsense.

Oh, and if you think this film might be about mid-century politics? Like Communism or Fascism? You would be wrong. Fascism in Trumbo is a mere plot device. Fascism in Trumbo is just an excuse for John Goodman to get laughs by swinging a baseball bat around an office and for Helen Mirren to say fuck.

I am not Spartacus, but I play him in the movies.

There is more to say about how bad Trumbo is, I guess, but it seems to me that perhaps the most egregious thing about this movie is Hollywood's obsession with having younger actors play famous bygone stars of yesteryear. Trumbo boasts Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, John Wayne, Otto Preminger, and Hedda Hopper as characters, so that younger actors do their best impressions of these Hollywood royalty, but it always feels so fake. Michael Stuhlbarg, a fine actor, does a rather awful Edward G. Robinson impersonation as it turns out, and although Dean O'Gorman and David James Elliott do very good impressions of Kirk Douglas and John Wayne (respectively), the impression is all they do; characterization is non-existent, as though because they're trying so hard to play the famous face they forgot how to play humans. As for the two racking up nominations, Bryan Cranston growls his way through his part, and as far as I can tell all Helen Mirren does to get into the part of Hedda Hopper is simply to half-heartedly drop her British accent.

As for old Hollywood itself? In Trumbo (as in Saving Mr. Banks and Hitchcock before it) 1940s and '50s Los Angeles looks like a candy store. It's as though the entire purpose of these movies is to increase nostalgic tourism in the city of Los Angeles. Trumbo looks nothing like the real world in either the mid-twentieth century or the early twenty-first. Avoid at all costs.

Oscar possibilities for Trumbo: I honestly don't see any. The Globes and the Actors Guild are fine, but I predict that Trumbo will follow its predecessors (Banks and Hitchcock) and score a single nomination in some below-the-line category. For Trumbo I predict costumes. The film is so bad that if it scores any more than a single nomination in January I'll be shocked. It could happen, of course, but I just can't see it.

Such a Win

I have to admit that when I saw the trailer for Thomas McCarthy's Win Win I was highly skeptical.

I tend to be skeptical of Paul Giamatti in general these days. His brand of schlubby but lovable, difficult but ultimately charming heroes has begun to wear thin with me. Last year's truly awkward Barney's Version is a perfect example. (He does historical dramas a lot too, I've noticed: Cinderella Man, I liked, but The Last Station and The Illusionist? I dunno. To me he seems sort of out of place in these.)

But Win Win is something else altogether.

First, and I want to stress this because I don't think it's an all-that-common occurrence, Win Win is a really funny comedy. By this I mean that I laughed, many times, at jokes that the film told well and that absolutely landed.

Second, the film knows that it's a genre picture. It's totally aware that it's a movie about a white, bourgeois, middle-aged man learning a lesson about his middle-aged manhood. Win Win always knows that it's riffing on a theme that's been played before, and it never pretends to be doing anything else. This makes Win Win smart. It avoids all the typical ways that those films work and does its own thing.

Third, Bobby Cannavale (who is fabulous in McCarthy's first film The Station Agent) is a genius. The man is a genius. He is simply one of the most skilled actors working today. I don't feel the need for any equivocation here. His performance in Win Win is excellent. It's brave and self-effacing and also manages to be absolutely hilarious. And it's one of Cannavale's typical side-man movie roles, one he could have easily phoned in. Instead he plays the part with a nuance that make his version of this rather stock character feel almost revelatory at times. Like we might want to look again at all of those good-for-a-laugh side-men in buddy comedies. The performance is just extraordinary.

I loved everyone else in the film, too. The little kid (Alex Shaffer) is great. Giamatti is great. And so are Amy Ryan and Burt Young and Margo Martindale (who is understated in a way I never see her).

Even more, the film is never schmaltzy. It doesn't get bogged down in the kind of sentiment that the trailer appears to promise, and it treats the film's relationships realistically and respectfully.

If you're looking for something light, and you want to see some excellent performances all around, check out Win Win. This is the comedy that everyone should be renting. Step away from the Kate Hudson movies and pick this one instead. You won't be disappointed. I promise.

(P.S. I have loved all three of Thomas McCarthy's movies, but I just want to note that I hate hate hate his character on The Wire. I think I just wanted to punch him in every single episode. Shall we chalk it up to good acting...?)

Smart about Race

So, on the way back from Chicago this summer, Julien, Becky and I were talking about The Help. The movie hadn't been released yet, but both Becky and I were skeptical. Julien asked about our skepticism. Do you think the movie will be racist?

The point, I said, was not that the movie would be racist. Most everything is racist. Hollywood itself, for that matter. But when I think about films, I told Julien that I think some films are smart about race and some films are stupid about race. I assumed from the trailer that The Help would be stupid about race.

I was right. The Help is actually extremely stupid about race. From its total ignorance about the state terror under which black people lived (and continue to live) in the South to its insistence on black women's love for the white children they're forced to raise to the almost total absence of black men in the film to the humorous way The Help deals with black women's fear of white men, The Help is just dumb about race.

Any film with a magic negro in it falls in the category dumb-about-race for me.

But all this got the three of us to thinking about what films are smart about race. I might need some feedback on this. I could not think of that many. These are the films I could think of:

Two films by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck: Sugar and Half Nelson. The first is about a baseball player from the Dominican Republic who comes to the U.S. and is transplanted to a midwest farm team. The second is about a teacher who is addicted to crack. Half Nelson in particular taught me about my own racist prejudices when I watch a film. That film stars Ryan Gosling and Anthony Mackie. So good.

I also recently watched the film Claudine from 1974 with Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones and found it funny and moving and extremely smart about race.

I always thought Monster's Ball was pretty smart about race, too, but it's been a while since I saw it, so I can't remember that all that well.

Of the films I've seen in the last ten years:
Precious.
The Class.
The Visitor.
The Last King of Scotland.
Caché.
Junebug.
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.
Dirty Pretty Things.
Raising Victor Vargas.

There are probably a couple more that I am missing here. Anyhow, the point is: the list as such is not very long.

Thoughts?

Kids' Movies

I saw two kids' movies in the span of a couple of days. That is, I saw two animated movies in the span of a couple of days. One is definitely a kids' movie; the other is too, but it is also, definitely, something else...

Pete Docter's Up is charming and frequently funny and always sentimental. I liked it a lot because it has the same Pixar magic we've gotten used to with delightful features like Ratatouille and The Incredibles. Up is not as good as either of those two pictures, but it has some delightful, magical moments all the same.

Up is the story of an old white man who, in order to keep a promise to his deceased wife, transports their old family home from the middle of the city by tying thousands of balloons to the grate in the fireplace and floating it to South America. This is the stuff of movie magic: a rainbow of translucent balloons sailing by the windows of city-folk, busying themselves about their days. The rest of the film is much more conventional. In fact, the rest of the film is essentially one of the oldest movie narratives there is; to wit, a curmudgeonly, misanthropic old man meets a young kid who depends on him completely, and so the old man shows his true colors—invariably the feelings owned by a heart of gold—which had (but you knew this) been there all along, they just needed someone to love.

Conventional though it is, Up is at times breathtaking, frequently very funny, and nearly always visually (if not narratively) imaginative.

Henry Selick's Coraline, on the other hand, is totally completely brilliant from start to finish. The look of the film is stunning (it will remind you, immediately, of Selick's The Nightmare Before Christmas); the visuals consistently intrigue, even when the plot is interesting enough that they don't need to. The voice talent—Keith David, in particular—is stellar.

The story... is the story of a horror movie, basically. Coraline is never disturbing enough that it would be inappropriate for children, but it is incredibly unnerving almost at all times, and visually... visually the movie is just wonderful. Again and again and again my jaw dropped in disbelief at the things that Coraline puts on the screen. It's a beautiful movie, well worth your time. Compared to Up, Coraline knocks it out of the water.