Sunday, February 24, 2013

Thoughts on Oscar

Best Picture.  I saw six of the nine nominees.  I doubt that Amour, Les Miserables or Life of Pi is going to win, so I won't trouble myself over missing these three.  Of the remaining six, I liked them in this order.

1. Lincoln.  I was so ambivalent about this movie.  I adore Abraham Lincoln but I have grown very tired of Spielberg's aesthetic and need to be nice.  But he took some chances with this movie, and I liked it very much.  I also am going to go against the consensus and predict that it will win this category because....

2. Zero Dark 30.  I was mildly disappointed by this movie for the opposite reason that Argo irked me.  I think that Catherine Bigelow felt overly constrained by the need to get the details right, and that made for less than cinematic movie making.  But she's a great talent and this is still a very strong film.

The most interesting thing about this movie is the reaction of various political camps.  Last fall it was assumed that this movie would be a thinly veiled campaign flick for the President.  They wisely delayed the release to avoid that controversy.  But the President is barely mentioned in this movie; the most political thing about the movie is the honest depiction of the torture that our interrogators put subjected suspected terrorists too in the early part of this decade.  The reaction of the right-wingers is particularly interesting.  They like to point out that these "enhanced interrogation" techniques preceded the capture of Bin Laden but they haven't quite embraced this movie as a sop to their sensibilities precisely because it shows that (back to English) torture in an accurate and honest way.  And no one, not even Dick Cheney, can bring himself to run around saying that we should be proud of having treated people like that.  (And of course it must be emphasized that torture led to many dead ends and distractions that might have delayed the eventual killing of bin-Laden by a number of years.)


3. Argo.  I perfectly fine, adequate, entertaining movie that will probably be most remembered for the liberties that it took with history.  I think the only reason this movie is considered the favorite is that it's written around the idea that people from Hollywood once behaved bravely and produced a minor miracle.  Maybe that's enough to get it over the top but the fact that Ben Afleck was not nominated for Best Director makes me suspect that support for the movie is weaker than believed.

4. Djano Unchained.  Difficult to watch. I swayed back and forth during the movie between admiring Tarrantino for not pulling any punches in depicting how brutal the institution of slavery was and feeling queasy that he was using this violence in an exploitative way. And the 3rd act is way too long.

5. Silver Linings Playbook.  Cute and mildly ambitious for the genre but doesn't quite deliver.

6. Beasts of the Southern Wild.  Heavy handed and kind of dull.

Best Actor.  Daniel Day-Lewis will win and he deserves too.  Denzel was terrific in a pretty mediocre film.  Bradley Cooper stepped up his game.  Did not see Hugh Jackman sing or Jaquin Phoenix in the Master but if there's going to be an upset here, I think it would be Phoenix.

Best Actress:  Jessica Chastain was very good in Zero Dark 30 so I'm rooting for her but I think it might go to  Emmanual Riva for Amour, a film that I have not seen.

Best Supporting Actor:  Quite a field. All 5 nominees have won before, in either the lead or supporting category.  I think Alan Arkin deserves it among the nominees I saw but I'm once again thinking that there could be an upset from the Master.  I also wouldn't rule out Robert Deniro because it's been a long time since he's won and Silver Linings seems to have been very popular with the Academy.  Tommy Lee Jones is the betting favorite and I enjoyed his performance but it wasn't much of a stretch for him to play a curmudgeon.  Christopher Waltz was fine but he wasn't even the best supporting actor in his movie.  That would be Samuel L. Jackson, who was robbed of a nomination this year and probably should have won the whole thing.

Best Supporting Actress:  I didn't see Les Mis but I know Oscar bait when I see it and Anne Hathaway has all the makings of a trooper.  She will win.  Helen Hunt gave the best performance that I saw in this category.  (I have no literally no memory of Bradley Cooper's mom in Silver Linings but I guess she impressed someone.)  The lifetime achievement Oscar should go to Amy Adam's agent.  Year in and year out she plays mediocre parts in movies way better than her performance and yet she's been nominated for 4 Oscars in 8 years.  Remarkable.

Best Director: Spielberg


Monday, February 18, 2013

The Ron Wood







It's the little things in life.  Earlier today I sent a tweet to Ron Wood, and he made it a "favorite".  That's high praise and worthy of such a lofty subject.