Oscar Predictions 2012

I guess I can’t put this off anymore.  The Oscars will be presented on Sunday and this year I believe I have seen more nominees than in any year since I began this blog, (29/53 total nominees).  However, this feels like one of the most unpredictable years I have ever witnessed.  So, here are my somewhat informed, probably completely wrong Oscar predictions:

Cinematography

Life of Pi, no other film comes close to its visual beauty.

Costume Design

Haven’t seen 3 of these nominees…Why not Anna Karenina? Pretty dresses often help in this category.

Sound Mixing

Leaning towards Les Mis, mostly because of the mix of cannons and singing.

Editing

Zero Dark Thirty, I just feel it.

Sound Editing

Django?  I mean come on, how many westerns have won this category?

Visual Effects

The Hobbit, maybe because I saw it in HFR 3D.

Makeup and Hairstyling

The Hobbit again.  Did you see all those crazy beards?

Original Song

Skyfall for Skyfall because Skyfall.  Anyone else psyched for a the Academy’s tribute to Bond films?

Original Score

Life of Pi, mostly because I really didn’t notice the other scores much and found this so beautiful.

Animated Short

Head Over Heels.  Inventive, imaginative and a lot of heart.

Feature Documentary

So, I thought I saw all of them this year (it would have been my first year to do so!) but I kinda accidentally skipped The Gatekeepers and saw The Imposter instead.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  So..The Gatekeepers! Cause it would be just my luck to miss out on the best.

Foreign

Amour, duh.  Did Up or Toy Story 3 lose best animated when they were also up for best picture?  No.  It’s in the bag.

Animated Feature

Ok, let’s break it down: ParaNorman and Frankenweenie seem to be treading in the same territory and may step on each other’s toes.  Pixar didn’t bring their best work with Brave, that may cost them.  Wreck-It Ralph depends on pop culture too heavily.  Therefore, The Pirates!

Best Actor

As much as I loved the other performances, especially Cooper’s, I bet Daniel Day-Lewis gets this.  He was a phenomenal Lincoln.

Best Actress

This feels like such a weird category this year.  Seriously, our ladies’ ages range nearly 80 years.  But I think it will fall in the middle, on Jennifer Lawrence.  She was such a force in SLP.

Supporting Actress

Anne Hathaway.  Nuf said.

Supporting Actor

This is tough, partially cause I’m still waiting for DiCaprio to be nominated.  But it might be De Niro.  He owned his scenes.

Original Screenplay

As much as I want to root for the sweet, quirky and wonderful Moonrise Kingdom, I feel like Django will take it.  And Tarantino’s speech will be awesome.

Adapted Screenplay

SLP had such a great script, I loved every conversation.  I really hope it takes this one….and more.

Director

First…the camera might just pan over Affleck as whoever is presenting is blathering on for irony.  Poor Ben.  Honestly, I’m happy if it’s David O. Russell or Ang Lee. If I had to bet on one, it would be Lee.

Best Picture

In the 3 years that I have been keeping this blog, it hasn’t been this hard to pick a favorite for BP.  There was only one film I didn’t really like (Lincoln) but it’s still so good.  Honestly, you might have better luck tossing the names on a dartboard and blindly throwing to pick it.  Lincoln, Argo, Django, Les Mis and ZDT all have some historical elements and could split that vote.  Then again, Hollywood loves stories of itself in their movies (remember the Artist and Hugo last year?), therefore I can’t count Argo out just yet.  Amour isn’t easy to digest.  Beasts is really indie.  That leaves Life of Pi,  SLP and Argo.  Now that is tough, two of these 3 are my favorites.  However, there has been a curse lately that director follows picture…so there goes Argo.  Now, I’m predicting Lee to win director, so naturally his film will take the cake.  There, Life of Pi to win best picture…but I’m not sure.

Also, Seth MacFarlane will use his “Stewy” voice no less than 8 times.  And I will make it a drinking game.

Let me know what you think and enjoy Oscar night!

Les Misérables

Those who have been reading my blog for awhile may have noticed that my tolerance and appreciation for musicals has gotten better.  I am much less likely to roll my eyes or groan in pain whenever films break into an elaborate song and dance number.  In fact, apart from awkward singing conversations, the musical aspect was one of my favorite things about Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables.

The film is a musical form of Victor Hugo’s novel that has come from page, to stage and to screen.  Hugh Jackman plays Jean Valjean, who was harshly sentenced to years as a slave for stealing bread for his sister’s child.  He breaks parole and makes a new life for himself, but always fears his real identity will send him back to prison.  Russell Crowe plays Javert, the inspector who will uphold the law dutifully and chase Valjean to no end.  Along the way Valjean’s life is touched and changed by a kind bishop, Fantine (Anne Hathaway), her daughter Cosette (Isabelle Allen as a child, Amanda Seyfried as a young woman) and the young men pushing France into revolution.

The opening longshot, beginning under water and rising up to see a tipping ship being pulled by hundreds of slaves in a storm, absolutely astounded me.  I felt my jaw literally drop and my expectations for a beautifully shot film rise.  Unfortunately, that was the visual high of the film.  I kept seeing glimpses of beautiful sets, but they were all obscured by the large singing faces that dominated the screen.

I understand how close-ups are something you just won’t get if you see a stage production of Les Misérables, so why not enjoy them in a film production?  However, it’s too much and too often.  I’m the kind of person who prefers the back of a classroom so I can see all my setting and I can have plenty of space between myself and those facing me.  At one point during the film, I realized I had my feet on the seat in front of me, trying to push myself back from Jackman’s singing face on the screen.  It was too much and too close for comfort.  And for those who will defend that he’s not a bad face too look at, maybe so, but I never want to be so close that I can see snot glistening in his nostril.

Despite being in their faces too much, I enjoyed all the different actors, their characters and singing talent.  Jackman’s leads the film both musically and emotionally, fitting perfectly into Valjean at the different stages in his life.  Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen are a fun swindling duo who add some much needed comic relief.  The child actors, mainly Isabelle Allen and Daniel Huttlestone, add vocal range and melt our hearts with their sad stories.  While Russell Crowe certainly isn’t the best singer in the film, he isn’t awful, as some sources led me to expect.  Besides, if any character is going to sound like he’s got a stick up his ass, it’s going to be Javert.

Anne Hathaway gives the strongest performance in the film.  Even before she is cast out into the street, she shows us what a vulnerable and fragile person Fantine is.  Her shining moment is singing I Dreamed a Dream.  The whole song is done in one continuous shot, always keeping Hathaway’s face toward us and in frame.  This moment, her singing, her face feels like an overwhelming wave of crushing despair and sorrow.  It was the one moment in the film that brought tears to my eyes and I heard a few sniffles around the theater.

Les Misérables is nominated for for eight Academy Awards.  Along with best picture, the film is competing for best sound mixing, original song, costume design, hair and makeup design and production design.  In the acting categories, Hugh Jackman is nominated for lead actor and Anne Hathaway is nominated for supporting actress.  I believe Hathaway will come home with the Oscar, but that may be the only one for Les Mis.

While Les Misérables is well done film with a beautiful soundtrack, I found the whole experience a little disappointing.  It was far too long.  I found myself checking the time only an hour into the film wondering how the last hour had lasted so long.  Unless you are really into checking out every last detail of someone’s face, the film is visually lacking.  Still, as far as epic musicals go, Les Mis is good, will draw you in emotionally, give you some engaging characters and leave you with a good tune in your head.

“Suddenly the world seems a different place, somehow full of grace and delight.”

The Dark Knight Rises

The third installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy picks up eight years after The Dark Knight.  Since then, Gotham has adopted Harvey Dent as their hero, keeping hundreds of thugs and mob men locked up under an act named for him, and the Batman hasn’t been seen since Dent was killed, taking all the blame.  Only Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) knows the truth about Dent and Batman’s innocence, but since this lie has helped make Gotham peaceful, he keeps the real story for another day.  The whole city is unaware that a storm is brewing, led by a man more evil and powerful than Gotham has ever encountered, Bane (Tom Hardy).  Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) first gets wind of this from a thief putting her allegiance in the wrong hands, just looking for a clean slate, Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway).  Bruce knows he must bring the Batman back to protect Gotham from this new rising terrorist, even though Gotham believes he is an enemy.

Throughout the film, there is the idea of pain, both physical and emotional.  There is Bane, his mask sending him a constant surge of morphine.  For a while, Gordon is in the hospital and we are told of his broken family.  We see Bruce limp, struggle to fix his leg and later physically build himself again.  Alfred tries to spare him pain by hiding the truth about Rachel.  And Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Bruce understand each other from their experiences growing up as orphans.

Then there is the idea of class warfare.  In all three films there has been a large gap between Gotham’s elite and the lowest of the low.  The fact that Wayne Enterprises has stopped funding an orphanage does not help.  Bane exposes this flaw and lets Gotham’s prisoners take control of the city, while trapping all the police underground.  Suddenly, the wealthy are thrown onto the streets while thugs crash in their homes.  And Bane begins this madness at a football game, destroying the stadium and a private box area  in front of a full crowd.  I doubt tickets to a Gotham Rogues game are cheap.

Then there is the idea that one man’s tools can become another man’s weapon.  It is hard not to be sickened by the stark reality of this after the shooting during this film in Colorado.  Anyone familiar with Batman comics knows that only villains use guns and Batman seldom kills.  His tools are designed only for him by Fox (Morgan Freeman) and hidden from falling into anyone else’s hands.  But Bane breaks in and starts using the tank-like batmobiles to roam and threaten the city.  Worse, Wayne Enterprises has secretly developed a fusion based sustainable energy source, but in the wrong hands, it has been turned into an atom bomb capable of destroying all of Gotham.

I believe The Dark Knight Rises was the best film of the summer.  How that will hold up come Oscar season is always questionable.  Nolan’s last summer smash, Inception, was a Best Picture nominee.  There is also more favor toward the finishing film of a trilogy with the Academy (LOTR:ROTK cleaned house) and TDKR finishes this franchise in a strong fashion.  Considering how there have been 10 nominees for the past three years now, I would not completely count TDKR out of the running, but I do consider it a long shot   However, I’m sure some sound and visual effect nominations are in store.  And did anyone else feel especially moved by Michael Caine’s Alfred this time around?  I know the field is thick, but I hope I’m not the only one looking for a supporting nomination there.

“Ah you think darkness is your ally?  You merely adopted the dark.  I was born in it, molded by it.  I didn’t see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but blinding!”

Rachel Getting Married

Often times, films about family tensions skirt around the main issue.  Here, Kym (Anne Hathaway) is the issue, and she knows it all too well.  She always feels the eyes upon her, judging and keeping a safe distance.  It’s enough to drive anyone mad and the bravest, and worst thing she can do is acknowledge everything that everyone is already thinking.

Kym has a sketchy and tragic history with drug and alcohol abuse since she was a teenager.  She is allowed enough time out of rehab to attend her sister Rachel’s wedding festivities for the weekend.  Little by little throughout the film, we understand more and more about how her addiction has affected her family.  Bringing up these painful memories only diminishes the spotlight and happiness that Rachel feels she is well overdue to deserve.  All the resentment that Kym feels toward her doesn’t make her recovery any easier.

The family home is busy, filled with busy people excited about Rachel’s wedding.  Like the natural light shining in through most of the film, there is a happy sense of family here.  Kym feels it and enjoys it, but seems to be afraid she will only ruin it.  Her first scene with Rachel shows mix perfectly.  They are obviously sisters with love and memories to share, but always some tension.

At first, we may not think Kym is making a real effort to put her life back together.  She hopes to have some alone time at her family’s home and attends an AA meeting not long after arriving, but does not speak up.  After the rehearsal dinner, she hooks up with the best man (Mather Zickel), who was also at the meeting.  Later in the film, however, she opens up more, more than she probably has in years.  The old wounds we watch her open up are heart wrenchingly painful, but only after everything has been put out in the open can forgiveness have a chance.

Part of what makes Hathaway’s performance worth of Oscar nomination is the uncomfortably honest way she portrays Kym.  She blatently brings up the way everyone is walking on eggshells around her, as well as her assumption that she would be her sister’s maid of honor.  We get the sense that she is self centered, but if she isn’t honest with her family now, then when?

One of Hathaway’s best scenes is her speech at the rehearsal dinner.  It seems everyone is giving a speech but her, and she seems to grab the nearest microphone to cut in.  Repeatedly in her speech, she references her problems, sometimes with too much detail.  She fumbles and isn’t very classy here.  We’re embarrassed for her just watching, but she continues so she can make her apologies.  Kym isn’t very good at it, but at least she’s trying.  If only Rachel could understand that.

While Hathaway is the obvious star, many of the actors provide beautiful and stirring roles.  Bill Irwin’s father role shows how stretched thin he is between both daughters, but still loves Kym no matter what.  Rosemarie DeWitt’s Rachel is a tense balance between happily stressed bride and struggling with her sisterly love.  And Debra Winger as Kym and Rachel’s mother has a very bold scene I did not expect.

Rachel Getting Married is a stirring, well written film about family tensions that may not sit well for all audiences.  Such high tensions piling up right before a wedding with no laughter in sight may make this a tough film to swallow for some.  The frequent use of handheld cameras give it a lackluster indie feel, but Johnathan Demme’s direction makes it work.  And though I enjoyed the happy mix of cultures, I couldn’t help but wonder where the Indian influences for the wedding ceremony came from; Rachel seems like a very white girl and her fiance an average black man.  Nonetheless, Rachel Getting Married is a surprisingly great film, filled with tension and heartache.  That’s just how it is on the road to recovery.

“I can live with it, but I can’t forgive myself.  And sometimes I don’t want to believe in a God that could forgive me.”

Brokeback Mountain

Around February 2006 my parents and I were just idly talking about movies and Brokeback Mountain casually entered the conversation, to which they immediately advised me, “You shouldn’t see that movie.”  I had seen it just the week before, I told them.  There was a moment where they looked at me like I had just come home from either a war zone or a whore house, as if with one film all my innocence had shattered and a piece of my soul chipped away.  I don’t think my parents are homophobic, but they sure got the wrong idea about Brokeback Mountain.

The story centers on Enus Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gylenhaal), two young men who work as sheepherders on Brokeback Mountain for a summer.  To sum them up in one word, they’re cowboys.  Enus is very quiet and more reserved than wannabe rodeo star, Jack, but Jack is better at and has a real need for communication.  Their work is hard and lonesome, so once the two finally break enough ice to talk, the summer passes too quickly.

Alright, everyone wants to know about the dreaded tent scene.  The best way I can describe it is that the scene depicts sex as a natural urge.  Prior to the scene, there are no advances or flirtations between the two and whatever attraction there is, they don’t even realize it or just write it off as friendship.  The event happens in the middle of the night, both men about half asleep and completely consensual.  They realize what happened in the morning and are immediately uncomfortable, “You know I ain’t queer.”

When the summer ends, Enus gets married and Jack plays the rodeo game a while before settling down.  Jack marries Lureen(Anne Hathaway) who’s family is rich while Enus and Alma (Michelle Williams) are struggling and live above a laundromat.  It’s years before Enus receives Jack’s first postcard proposing a fishing trip to Brokeback.  Enus drops everything, including a few jobs, to go on trips with Jack.

The first time Alma sees Jack, Enus is kissing him.  He’s obviously more excited and passionate about seeing Jack than he ever could be with Alma.  What does a Wyoming girl in the late sixties think when she sees her husband kissing another man?  Is it jealousy, fear, disgust?  Or is it worse?

At Brokeback, Jack proposes his great idea; he wants to run a ranch with Enus.  Work together.  Live together.  And they could be real successful doing so, no problem.  But Enus realizes the social implications that would have.  People would see them differently and talk about them.  He remembers what happened to two ranchers living together when he was just a boy.  They were murdered and mutilated as the killers saw fit.  Enus’s father made sure his boys saw the full extent of what can happen.

So the extent of their relationship stays a secret, but rules their lives.  It’s heartbreaking to watch.

Brokeback isn’t an easy ride, but it sure is beautiful.  Director Ang Lee has a wonderful gift bringing the natural scenery to its grandeur on the screen.  The mountains, the clear lakes, the sprawling plains are just breathtaking.  For someone who’s never been west of the Mississippi, it’s mind blowing to imagine such beauty and such silent repression in the same place.

The immature and the homophobes will still make their jokes, no doubt about that, but I imagine Brokeback Mountain to become a classic and upheld for its modest, quiet push for America’s current gay rights movement.  The film’s tagline sums it all up, “Love Is A Force of Nature.”