Oscar Predictions: Crafts Categories

You can see a full list of all predicted categories here.

I've now seen every film on the list except for Zero Dark Thirty, but curiously, I'm not feeling confident about many of these predictions. Whether it is the effect of the Academy's decision to pull back the date of the nomination morning or just a coincidence, I'm not sure, but this is an extremely exciting race as far as Oscars go. 
I don't have much to add to what I've written on these categories previously. Next weekend will be time for my final predictions and any lingering thoughts will be discussed then, I guess. For now, here's where I think the chances stand: 

Best Cinematography

1. Life of Pi (Claudio Miranda) 

2. The Master (Mihai Malamaire Jr.)

3. Skyfall (Roger Deakins) 

4. Lincoln (Janusz Kaminski)

5. Django Unchained (Robert Richardson)

Alternative: Zero Dark Thirty (Greig Frasier)

Recent Screening Update

Killing Them Softly (dir. Dominik)
Lacking the poignancy of Dominik's last film, but just as beautifully stylized; lacking the subtlety of that film, too, but compensating with bitter comedy, and an absolutely killer last line. (B+)

Bernie (dir. Linklater)
You wouldn’t know, spending time with these plastic characters, that Bernie is based on a true story. Black tries his best but he can’t wipe the faux sheen from the film's face. (C)

Tabu (dir. Miguel Gomes) (thoughs)
Pure magic incarnate and far and away the best film of 2012. Tabu's enchanting love story and subtle study of post-colonialist aggression puts the audience in a delirious state that's hard to shake off. (A)

Amour (dir. Haneke)
It creeps up on its audience as slowly as death itself. A heartbreaking, disturbingly frank portrayal of everlasting love in the final days of life. (A)

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (dir. Jackson)
A thin children's tale stretched over three unbearably bloated and hideous hours. Repetitive and aimless plotting only strengthens the feeling that Jackson's decision to extend the films to a trilogy is motivated by $$$. (C-)

Silver Linings Playbook (dir. Russell) (thoughts)
Glaringly flawed, but directed with verve and acted with passion. Russell oversimplifies mental disorder to quirkiness, but exhibits even greater prowess at touching the heart than he did with The Fighter. (A-)

Anna Karenina (dir. Wright)
Enhanced by Wright's vision and the need to creatively overcome financial restrictions, Anna Karenina is vivid, original, luminous and with the exception of Vronsky, superbly performed. Marianelli's score is the best show. (B+)

Oscar Predictions: Acting Categories

*You can an index of all predicted categories here.

Best Actor

1. Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)

2. Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables)

3. John Hawkes (The Sessions)

4. Denzel Washington (Flight)

5. Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)

Alternative: Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)

This category couldn't possibly be tighter. Day-Lewis aside, I can see any combination of four from the remaining five making the cut; and that doesn't even begin to mention longshots like Denis Lavant and Jean Louis Trintignant. Jackman has the disadvantage of being in a musical, something the Academy is not very fond of for leading men (see: Gere in Chicago, McGregor in Moulin Rouge!) but is winning rave reviews for his work. John Hawkes's film is quickly fading but his costar Helen Hunt is certanily a nominee and anyone who casts a ballot for her will do the same for him. Denzel Washington's film has no hope of registering with any other branch but the flip side is his celebrity charisma and his terrific performance. Joaquin Phoenix wasn't nominated by SAG and that's very alarming. He clearly doesn't care about awards, has publicly announced his disdain for the whole thing and isn't generally a likeable person, but he has given one of the showiest and strongest performances of the year. If he's not nominated, the Academy's decision will look like a faux pas of catastrophic proportions in retrospect. Bradley Cooper, on the other hand, was nominated by SAG and is winning career-best reviews. Then again, a lot of people think best in his career doesn't mean much. Are voters willing to go there with him yet?

Monday's Words of Wisdom

"Congratulations, Peter Jackson. You are George Lucas."

- Kris Tapley

This will, in all likelihood, remain the most poignant review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ever written.

Magic of Cinema in Tabu

Of all the films I've seen this year, Tabu is the only one I'm willing to throw the coveted M word at. Perhaps not coincidentally, it's also the hardest one to write about.  I tried at first, but then gave up, even though I'm brimming with thoughts and emotions on this unique, exemplary piece of filmmaking. And in a rare case - in fact, if my memory assists, the only case I can recall - I have had no desire to read anyone else's thoughts on the film either. Not because it isn't worth the time or effort. Au contraire, it's occupied my mind completely since I watched it, its images etched in my memory and its words sweetly whispering in my ears like music. But this is a joyous feeling that I quite like to keep undisturbed from critical scrutiny.

Tabu is separated into two episodes, completely different in tone and narrative form. The first - a look at a curious relationship between the elderly and wealthy Aurora, her African maid, Santa, and their well-meaning neighbor, Pilar - is formally challenging and thematically absurd. The second - a look at a younger Aurora through the memories of an old lover - is poetically narrated and dreamily shot. Between a story of romance and a critique of White colonialism in Africa, between Lisbon and the hills of African mountains, between sequences of sparse, surrealist storytelling and passages of continuously narrated reveals, director Miguel Gomes finds the perfect sweet spot: enough of everything to give the story depth, but not too much of anything to complicate the darkly comic love story.

Scene after semi-silent scene, shot after resplendent shot, Tabu exhibits more and more of everything I love about cinema as it confidently experiments with the fundaments of the medium. But the startling camera work that signifies so much about each character with the games it plays with light and focus, the effective shift to 16 mm in the second episode of the film, the sonic structure that utilizes ambient noise to perfection, and the beautiful performances that blend so well into the atmosphere should all be experienced first hand. It's a niche item, surely, and one that audiences might find puzzling especially during the first episode; but surrender yourself to it and you'll be lost in an enchanting world of longing and passion, with no easy way out.

Oscar Predictions: Foreigners, Animators and Documentarians

Best Foreign Language Film

1. The Intouchables (France)

2. Amour (Austria)

3. A Royal Affair (Denmark)

4. Lore (Australia)

5. Our Children (Belgium)

Alternative: No (Chile)

I'm sticking with what I had in this category the last time because the buzz on these titles doesn't change quite as often now that festival season is over. January's shortlist will clear things up obviously, but until then, France's crowd-pleaser, Austria's French-language critical favourite and Denmark's period festival hit remain the frontrunners. I wonder if I'm not taking Germany's Barbara seriously enough. It's a unique film that I've been itching to revisit since I watched it at TIFF and it features a central performance by Nina Hoss that is easily one of the year's best. Will the voters warm up to its slow-paced narrative though?

Interview: Michel Franco, Director of After Lucia

Over at The Film Experience, I've interviewed Michel Franco, the director of Mexico's foreign language film submission and Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard winner, After Lucia. It's a terrific film, possibly my favourite of the year, and I had a blast talking to this fantastic director. It's definitely a director's film and one of those that grip you and trap you within their world and don't let go when the curtains close. It's a must see, really.

You can read my interview here. Don't forget to chime in with your thoughts!

Spike Lee's Bad 25

At The Film Experience, I've reviewed Bad 25, Spike Lee's newest film. It's a documentary that chronicles the production of Michael Jackson's 1987 album, Bad, in a straightforward structure, but with tons of interesting interviews with his collaborators. It's well worth your time, and I think an indication that, just in time for his remake of Oldboy, Lee might be bouncing back from a few unsuccessful films. 
Head over and join in the conversation with your comments!

Oscar Predictions: Directors and Screenwriters

Best Director

1. Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)

2. Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)

3. Ben Affleck (Argo) 

4. Tom Hooper (Les Misérables)

5. Michael Haneke (Amour)

Alternative: David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)

My brain tells me that leaving Ang Lee (Life of Pi) off the list is not smart as his films is one of the most visually impressive of the year and that's a key factor in this race. It is very... Directed. But I'll go with my gut and assume that the directors' branch likes to see itself as high-minded and will go for the man behind the year's most acclaimed foreign film. With LAFCA choosing homeboy Paul Thomas Anderson for The Master could the voters be persuaded to give the American auteur their fifth spot? Possibly, but then again, LAFCA was always going to stand up for Anderson, so that's a non-event. Could Hooper fall off the list? I say no, but stranger things have happened. 

SAG Ensemble Predictions and Wishlist

My last piece over at The Film Experience is ten days old now but I completely forgot to link to it here. As the title suggests, it's my predictions for SAG's ensemble award which will be announced later this week, and a wishlist of what films I would like to see nominated. 
Head over and join in with your own predictions. 

 

Unholy thoughts on Holy Motors

If I’m being honest, I didn’t like Holy Motors as much as everybody else seems to. It’s not a film that can be dismissed easily, but it’s frustrating how adamant it is in undermining itself, always remaining one step behind its ideas and never quite achieving what its visionary facade promises. I enjoyed watching it quite a lot, but feel like I left the film empty-handed; there really isn’t much to mull over. Leos Carax’s film appears very enigmatic on the surface, but is actually very clear about the details of the stories it’s telling, and suffers from their weaknesses and incoherence. It goes so far as to explicitly explain Oscar's occupation and intentions - though his employers or his audience are never revealed - but it never convinces us to care about him or enjoy his work any more than he does. It is disjointed, rather than segmented, in its narrative and this lack of connection from sequence to sequence prevents Motors from making an emotional impact. It’s clearly a deliberate choice to make these episodes wildly different, but a choice that doesn’t pay off in the end. 

In Defence of Flawed Filmmaking...

Immediately after Silver Linings Playbook won the audience award at TIFF, an intense backlash started against it by critics who hadn't taken to the film. And the rapid escalation in the number of people who claimed it was a serious contender for Oscars only made matters worse. At the moment, I think Silver Linings Playbook might actually be the most divisive film of the year, even ahead of The Master. 

It's an understandable position on the critics' part, as Playbook is by no means a perfect film. In fact, it has enormous flaws in both its conception and execution that would under any other circumstance be incredibly grating. There are moments where one can point to specific decisions in camera work or directing that hurt the film. There can be legitimate complaints about its treatment of mental disorder or its practice of tired romantic comedy tropes. From virtually any angle, this is a film that, on paper, should not work. And yet, it totally does. Because, every now and then, comes along a film that reminds me why I love films in the first place. It reminds me that I watch them to be moved, and to be affected and to live with its characters beyond the two hours I spend in the dark of the theatre. Silver Linings Playbook is that film. Not because I can dissect it and analyze it with what I learnt in university film classes, but because it's honest and moving. Because it can look at itself and like everything about itself without reservation; the loving part and the slutty part and the crazy part. All of it. And I commend it for that.

The beauty of Playbook is in the unpredictable energy of Tiffany's dishonest cries of "he's harrasing me," contained within a performance (by Jennifer Lawrence) that is so at ease with the character's insecurities and her unsubtle sexual allure that it becomes reminiscent of the greatest works of Barbara Stanwyck. The greatest moments in the film aren't the work of a director who creates calculated set-ups, but one who reaches inside his actors and finds their deepest human instincts; like when Dolores gently kisses his son on the forehead, or when the father swells up as he opens up his age-old wounds in the attic, and more often than not, in Pat's confused, heartfelt and sky-blue gazes into our soul. It's a film full of nuanced performances that, under Russell's (problematic but) gutsy direction, breathe a new life into an otherwise generic story with their compassion. Russell may well be the greatest humanist working in American cinema today; a director not with his eyes on the viewfinder but with his heart on his sleeve.

Oscar's Documentary Race Cut to 15 Films

Over at The Film Experience, I've looked at the 15 films that have been shortlisted by the Academy in the documentary category. It's a list that, as usual, leaves off several critically acclaimed titles and proves that the new voting system hasn't really made that big an impact on the race yet. Of my three favourite documentaries this year, The Gatekeepers has made the cut (my review), Queen of Versailles (which I just saw) has not and Stories We Tell (my review) was not eligible. The most endearing surprise is the inclusion of Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb's This is Not a Film, which you may remember was one of the best films of 2011 in my opinion. 
You can read my thoughts on the whole list here. And please join in with your comments!

Monday's Words of Wisdom

"And since the movie is basically the "Oscars for Tony and Helen" show, let's go ahead and end with them: both are perfectly satisfactory, neither is revelatory: Mirren can do this kind of character in her sleep and very much seems to have done just that, rousing herself only for the florid Oscar clip scene that showed up so big in the trailer ("all they can see is the Great and Glorious genius AL-fred Hitch-cock!!!"), while Hopkins, considerable more alert and robust in his unashamedly hammy performance, resembles the famous director not at all: his makeup is a joke, but of course that's not the actor's fault, and while Hopkins gets the positively dehydrated sense of humor down, and in the film's opening nails a perfect "good evening", he doesn't come even close to capturing the psychological dysfunction that the movie wants us to see there, very clearly preferring to play a more avuncular Hitch than the screenplay apparently has in mind."

- Tim Brayton

Tim Brayton, as I've noted long ago, is one of my favourite writers, and I can always depend on him for articulating my thoughts in ways much more eloquent than I can ever hope to do on my own. The excerpt above is taken from his brilliant review of Sascha Gervasi's Hitchcock, which you may remember I mildly liked if only because it made for a fun double bill with Psycho. I noted in my own review that "Hopkins is never Hitchcock; he's Hopkins playing Hitchcock. And the same can be said of Biel and Johansson, unfortunately" so I think Tim's right on the money with this one. I do wonder, though, if Mirren and Hopkins have what it takes to be in the Oscar race despite their clip-ready performances. This is far, far from their best work and both have been well-rewarded in the past.

Oscar Predictions: Best Picture

You can see a list of predictions in all categories here.

Best Picture

1. Lincoln (dir. Spielberg)

2. Les Misérables (dir. Hooper)

3. Argo (dir. Affleck)

4. Life of Pi (dir. Lee)

5. Silver Linings Playbook (dir. Russell)

6. Zero Dark Thirty (dir. Bigelow)

7. Amour (dir. Haneke)

8. Beasts of the Southern Wild (dir. Zeitlin)

If there are more than eight nominees...

9. The Master (dir. P.T. Anderson)

10. Moonrise Kingodm (dir. W. Anderson)

Let's put aside the possibility that the world might end in 2012. Can you think of any other reason why we might not see Lincoln, Les Misérables and Argo nominated for best picture? I certainly can not. They're as locked as they come at this point in the season. All three have been screened to positive response from critics and two of them have become sensational box office performers already. All are prestige studio productions with respected talent involved and none of them has anything going against it. There are minor quibbles, like disagreements with Argo's politics, but nothing signifcant enough to become a real hindrance. But let's look at what really matters now: the films in contention for the remaining spots.