Yeah, I guess that doesn’t really work as a word.
This evening I will be attending an Oscar party to rail against the death of American cinema when Avatar probably wins and I set the room on fire or something in protest. I actually cried when Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash, you guys. It was ugly. And I didn’t even like Brokeback that much beyond Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams, but the injustice was just too much for me to handle. Even now I am sitting here all, “ROBBED!” as I think about it.
It’s a curious paradox, this relationship the Oscars and I have: I hate-watch them every year. Every year I say, “Next year I will not subject myself to this spectacle of glitter and appearance-policing! I do not give a shit if you wear a swan as long as you are happy you are wearing a swan! WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE WINNING AWARDS THEY HAVE NO TALENT OH MY GOD! This speech is really, really bad!” And yet, every year, I tune in again.
I have seen nearly every movie with a nomination in the major categories except The Young Victoria, and here are my dream picks:
Best Picture – Up in the Air
Actor – Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds
Actress – Carey Mulligan, An Education
Supporting Actress – Mo’Nique, Precious
Director – Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Adapted Screenplay – Up in the Air
Original Screenplay – The Messenger
What are yours, ladies?
I’ve seen only a small fraction of the films nominated….but I’d love to see Gabby win best actress for “Precious.”
I’d like Jeff Bridges to win, just because he’s good and hasn’t won after a long, long career of good films.
I’d like “Hurt Locker” to win best director and even best picture because it is time for a woman to win already, and beating men at their own game (war/manly men/action genre) would be a tasty treat.
I don’t usually have the stomach to watch the whole show and usually read about the winners & gowns the next day. I’ll be watching the “Amazing Race.”
How many shout outs to free Polanski will be broadcast tonight? Will his supporters choose a ribbon color for him? WHat color is good for saving a rapist from the consequences of his actions?
gogo – I didn’t even think about the Polanski thing but if that happens – if there are shoutouts – I’m going to have to diversify the outlets for my anger because the thing about a room on fire is that it can only happen once?
The Hurt Locker is a hard case for me, although I did like it. I just sort of wonder how much of a triumph it is for “women in film.” I mean, yes, it beats men at their own game, but inverting that, it sort of… accepts the terms of their game. I mean… my reaction to that film is that it was scrubbed of any hint that the director might be a woman, to the point where when her name comes up in the credits I bet some unsuspecting audience members were surprised. Which is good in terms of proving that there is no innate biological hardwire that says, “I can only make certain kinds of movies because my ovaries tell me so.” But there’s an implicit devaluation of women’s lives, and the fulsomeness of those lives, in the kind of movies that people choose to celebrate – i.e. movies that center and prioritize the inner lives of men. So that is my complicated and equivocal answer re The Hurt Locker.
I’d love for Up in the Air to win. And while I don’t really think Anna Kendrick earned an Oscar, I’d like to think that her career will go up from here and that she won’t be one of those “whatever happened to that actress who got a random Oscar nod?” nominees.
I also have a huge soft spot for District 9.
Predicting upset wins for Jeremy Renner and Gabourey Sidibe (I could see Streep and Bullock splitting the vote, like Nicholson and Day-Lewis did in ’03, letting Adrien Brody slip in ahead). But then again, maybe not.
hey I will also be screaming in rage when Avatar wins. My upset prediction is that Inglorious Basterds will irritate me by taking picture when it doesn’t deserve to. I don’t want this to happen but the new voting system for picture makes it feasible. I’ve also seen all the nominations, except I have to admit Avatar because I refuse, yes refuse to watch blue people plus I’m protesting 3D on the grounds that as a migraine sufferer it gives me bad headaches.
Anyway here are my picks
Best Picture – Up in the Air or Hurt Locker – I loved both pics although I probably lean towards Hurt Locker if only for its ending.
Actor – Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds
Actress – I have no feelings on this category, I hated Julie and Julia and I can’t bear what they’ve done to The Blind Side, which is a great book, I also think An Education is very overrated and the book’s tons better, if I had to pick then Gaboury Sidhe.
Supporting Actress – Mo’Nique, Precious
Director – Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Adapted Screenplay – In The Loop for at least making me laugh
Original Screenplay – hmm The Hurt Locker or A Serious Man
Actually when i think about it this is a crap year for films. The three best films I’ve seen are all nominated for foreign anyway:
The White Ribbon, A Prophet and The Secret in their Eyes – any of this would have graced the list of best pic nominations.
The White Ribbon is indeed excellent. I love Haneke.
I really felt very strongly about The Messenger in terms of largely unrecognized films. Also, I feel like Ben Foster is one of those actors who will forever fly below the radar but is really among the top three young actors working today.
I agree that An Education was overrated, and that is a crap category, but I thought she was charming.
Ugh, the ‘Crash’ win! I get nauseated every time I think about it. When it came out, it was the spark for the single biggest fight my partner and I ever had–it was an ugly clash, as he and some other dude argued with me and another lady about whether the scene in which Thandie Newton’s character is assaulted by the cop constituted rape, and whether the cop was “redeemed” by his white-savior behavior at the end of the movie. Gross. He (my partner) has since seen the error of his ways, btw.
Actually come to think of it I haven’t seen The Messanger, I probably should as you are selling it to me.
philosophyerin, worst win ever although it won lots of money for my husband who predicted its victory as follows:
‘this is the sort of lets all pretend we love each other shite that the academy can’t help but vote for in order to pretend that they are caring people and not actually soul sucking greed demons. It’s bound to win even though it’s crap.’
So he put lots of money on it and we felt a bit tarnished when it won, but only a bit.
When “Crash” won you could see Jack Nicholson saying “what happened?” after reading the winner. He later said he was so disappointed that Brokeback didn’t win, and I just loved that he was so shocked he basically said “WTF” during the telecast.
Favourite piece of Brokeback trivia: Joel Schumacher was at one point lined up to direct.
At the risk of sounding ignorant, what was so bad about Crash?
(I never realized Crash could somehow be considered offensive?)
Katie, try this: http://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2009/12/worst-movie-of-the-decade/32759/
Harpies, hope this is OK.
Totally, Plum-Pie! I was about to write a wordy respond but careful eye makeup application got in the way.
(What? Eye makeup is my armour.)
Joel Schumacher? Does…not…compute…
I am rooting for UP! All categories. Whatever.
If The Secret of Kells beat it, I wouldn’t be terribly sad though because it was random but very pretty to watch.
(I think 80% of the movies I see are animated.)
Me too, DM. The only category I can talk about with *any* authority is the Animation.
And you’re right about Kells–visually lovely, but narratively weak. I’m pretty sure UP will take it, but I’ve crossed my fingers for Coraline.
Yay animated movies! I’d love to see Up win. I saw it and then dragged other people out to see it and they liked it too.
@emilyanne: ‘this is the sort of lets all pretend we love each other shite that the academy can’t help but vote for in order to pretend that they are caring people and not actually soul sucking greed demons. It’s bound to win even though it’s crap.’
Not exactly my words, but yes. Oh god yes. I didn’t even need to see the movie to know it would win.
And gogo you raise a good point about the Polanski shout outs. I’m not big on the Oscars anyway, but with all the buzz all over the blogs I read I was thinking of watching. Now I’m reconsidering.
So to cheer myself (and anyone else who needs it) up, have an Up remix http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2yt1ooLQGo
I don’t understand all the love for Up In The Air – it’s formulaic, unrealistic and altogether unimaginative and predictable, from the acting to the cinematography to the music to the editing. I am supposed to believe that a hotshot young woman executive isn’t aware of the existence of carry-on bags with wheels and doesn’t know how to pack light? Ugh. George Clooney was basically sleepwalking through his part; he was far better in Michael Clayton and Syriana. I know why the Academy loves it – for the same reason it loved Crash: it reminds them of themselves. So happy it didn’t win anything. And so happy for Kathryn and Hurt Locker.
@Dziet – Totally agree. The whole time I was watching that movie I kept thinking that it was glaringly obvious that Anna Kendrick’s character was written by a man. The general unexplained incompetence, sobbing in the lobby of the hotel, the “5-year Plan” crap … it was pretty obnoxiously “Aren’t women bad at life? har har!” to me.
re Up in the Air – interesting takes, i didn’t think we were supposed to think Clooney was good at life, i thought we were supposed to think exactly the opposite, that his life was hollow and empty and remained so because he had a fundamental inability to communicate properly with people, which made him good at his job but crap at pretty much everything else. I have to say I enjoyed the movie, didn’t think it was amazing but didn’t think it was terrible.
I said it above and i’ll say it again this was a very bad year for Anglocentric movies, all the foreign film noms were superior to the best pic list and I liked Hurt Locker, I do think it was the best film nominated but it was nowhere near the best film I saw this year. The academy needs to wake up and stop simply nominating US and UK films above everything else.
Re: English language films – spot on. Most of the best films I’ve seen recently have been ‘foreign’; The White Ribbon, especially, was in a whole other league, and I can’t wait to see Un Prophete (Sur Mes Levres one of my all-time favorites) and Mother by Joon-ho Bong. Having said that, The Road, Fish Tank, Antichrist and Bright Star were all brilliant. I have to keep reminding myself that The Oscars is showbiz, and nothing to do with artistic merit!
Diziet-Sma, good point I forgot Fish Tank, The Road and also Hunger (which wasn’t eligible but which I only saw this year).
Haven’t seen Bright Star although I imagine I’ll enjoy it based on the subject matter but I have to say I hated Antichrist with a passion, I loathe Von Trier I think he’s a misogynistic prick who tries to hide his misogyny with supposedly empowered female characters. I’m actually sick of watching women sacrifice themselves sexually in his films. He might be a visionary director but i don’t think that counts when the vision is that puerile. Then again I’ve never got over Breaking the Waves, a film which I think is among the most vile made and I wouldn’t have willingly watched Antichrist (I had to for an article).
We’ll have to agree to disagree on Antichrist and The Hunger: I actually view Antichrist as about misogyny; The Hunger, I felt, depoliticized an intensely political story to no good end (ie. it didn’t emotionally engage me as a pay-off) and dealt in arthouse clichés, rather than true originality. However, I did react strongly to it – with loathing – which is more of a reaction than most films get, so I guess I have to acknowledge it has power. Of course, it’s all subjective.
@ yvanehtnioj: Also, Vera Farmiga’s obvious body double in the sex scene? Very disappointing.
@Dziet_Sma – Oh yes, that too.
@emilyanne – It’s not that Clooney is put forth as the “good at life” character – but his problems are fleshed out and at least partially resolved, and when he can’t connect with other people the audience is on his side. Clooney can’t connect, the audience wants him to be able to. Clooney tries to connect with his sisters and it does work out or with a love interest and it doesn’t work out, either way the audience is on his side. Clooney lives alone and that’s sad.
Kendrick’s character, on the other hand, elicits eye-rolls and scorn with her audacious sense of confidence in her ideas, and when she falls apart the movie takes real glee in it, as if it’s about time she got her comeuppance. Young women shouldn’t be in charge of overhauling a company’s business plan! Who the hell does she think she is?? Kendrick ends up alone and the audience hopes that she’s learned her lesson.
@Dziet_Sma and yvanehtnioj: Bright Star is wonderful, as is Hunger. I guess I’m not familiar with art-house cliches to spot them, but Hunger to me was the best possible way to capture that specific history. I went into it terrified of getting an intensely political story and pitting a side as right or noble. And I left amazed and relieved that no one looked better or worse, just human-fantastically flawed confused and filled with murky motivation. The politics of the Troubles have been played and replayed over and over with every participant vilified or commended as heroes of the cause. Hunger simply made it human again. Frankly, as far as I can understand, that is where film excels.
This year I enjoyed lots of the films, though I don’t think I’ll remember any as utterly amazing except in spectacle. Though Rosamund Pike’s turn as the thickest blonde from Thickton, London rivals Mulligan’s standout show.