The 2nd Annual Anti-Oscars

Every year there are great performers and films that for whatever reason do not get the attention they deserve at the Oscars. Sometimes they’re underrated, sometimes they’re critical darlings and sometimes the field is just too vast.

I guess I should be proud that when I did this feature last year, none of the movies or performers I named got nominated. Is that a good thing? Anyway, here again I’ve picked some names that have nary a prayer when the Oscar nominations are announced next Thursday. If it feels like I’m missing a really good one, assume they actually have a shot.

Best Picture

  • Looper
  • The Kid With a Bike
  • The Turin Horse
  • Bernie
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower
  • Rust and Bone
  • The Impossible

I’ll maybe wish I included my four of my Top 10 movies of the year on this list when they don’t get nominated. Those are “The Master,” “Skyfall,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

But the movies I have selected are all just as wonderful and not Oscar bait at all. “Looper” is exactly what clever studio filmmaking should be. “The Kid With a Bike” is such a heartbreaking and darling film about a kid who loves too strong the things that don’t love him back, and it’s only being forgotten because it premiered two Cannes film festivals ago. “The Turin Horse” is so gigantic, epic and hard to watch, it may just be considered one of the best movies ever made years from now. “Rust and Bone” is a daring romance that the Academy simply hasn’t seen. “Bernie” treads the line between comedy, drama and documentary a little too closely for the Academy to care. “Perks” is destined to be a teen classic alongside “The Breakfast Club.” And “The Impossible” should have Oscar bait written all over it, but Academy voters have already booted it out of contention in fields such as Visual Effects and Makeup.

There’s no questioning that the movies that are being nominated for Best Picture are quality films, but some of my picks might hold up in the culture’s eye just a little better over time.

Snubs: “Chronicle,” “The Comedy,” “Oslo, August 31stContinue reading “The 2nd Annual Anti-Oscars”

Off the Red Carpet: Week of 12/12 – 12/19

‘Tis the awards season for many lists and nominations. I’ve had a lot of fun doing this column, but this is probably my last of this sort. Next week I’ll likely take off because of the holiday, and the following week I’ll put together an article of my final Oscar predictions, charting the ups and downs of certain films based on the preliminary predictions I’ve made each week since.

This is the point when most Oscar bloggers say that all that’s left are the Oscars. The Best of lists have started trickling out, the Golden Globes have been named and subsequently ignored and all the movies have been seen. You and I both know that last bit isn’t true, because I’ll likely miss “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Amour,” “On the Road,” “Not Fade Away,” “Searching for Sugarman,” “Rust and Bone,” “How to Survive a Plague,” “The House I Live In” and “The Gatekeepers” and “West of Memphis” before the year is out, and God knows I’m trying much harder than you to see these.

But nevertheless, I’ll cobble together a Best of the Year list myself along with some other fun features in the next few days. So for the last time, here’s this week’s roundup.

Golden Globe Nominations Announced

The Golden Globes have a tendency to be plain embarrassing. They’ll nominate something “The Tourist” to get Johnny Depp in attendance, and their ridiculous split between drama and comedy or musical means that nothing gets snubbed, except of course for things that are actually interesting. Last Thursday, “Lincoln” led the pack with seven nominations, and the only real surprise of a nomination were the multiple for “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.” Okay, whatever, we’ll let you have that one.

Scott Feinberg’s analysis is by the far the best of them, mentioning what a big deal it is to see Nicole Kidman, Rachel Weisz, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Richard Gere, Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor and Leonardo DiCaprio, although he probably lends a little more weight to the Globes than I do. The biggest, yet predictable omissions included “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “Amour.”

What really piqued my interest in Feinberg’s analysis was one statistic that said people who are nominated for a SAG award, Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe all go on to an Oscar nomination, and he’s got a list of five in the Best Actor race already. Those names are Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, John Hawkes, Hugh Jackman and Denzel Washington. You tell me who’s missing. (Full list via The Race)

Hair and Makeup Category Shortlisted

Here’s the list of the seven films advancing in the newly revised Makeup category that now also includes work for hair dressing.

“Hitchcock”
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
“Les Misérables”
“Lincoln”
“Looper”
“Men in Black 3”
“Snow White and the Huntsman”

The two big snubs here are “Cloud Atlas” and “Holy Motors,” both of which involve characters going through multiple performances and appearances, and “Holy Motors” especially calls attention to its makeup. I also would’ve liked to see “The Impossible” on this list for the amount of blood stained clothes and Naomi Watts looking ghastly that’s in that movie. (via Oscars.com)

ZeroDarkThirty

“Zero Dark Thirty” selected by Chicago Film Critics

Hailing from Chicago myself (I didn’t vote. Don’t flatter yourself), I always find these interesting. Announced on Monday, the Chicago critics selected “Zero Dark Thirty” as their winner for Best Picture while granting it four other awards. “The Master” came in second with four awards. This is an interesting list, one that goes against the grain a tiny bit by selecting “The Invisible War” as Best Doc and “ParaNorman” as Best Animated. The full list of winners is below. (Full list of nominees via CFCA website)

Best Picture – Zero Dark Thirty

Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow

Best Actor – Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Actress – Jessica Chastain

Best Supporting Actor – Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Best Supporting Actress – Amy Adams

Best Original Screenplay – Zero Dark Thirty

Best Adapted Screenplay – Lincoln

Best Foreign Language Film – Amour

Best Documentary – The Invisible War

Best Animated Feature – ParaNorman

Best Cinematography – The Master

Best Original Score – The Master

Best Art Direction – Moonrise Kingdom

Best Editing – Zero Dark Thirty

Most Promising Performer – Quvenzhane Wallis

Most Promising Filmmaker – Benh Zeitlin

New York Times Best of the Year Lists

If the New York Times sounds off on anything it’s a big deal, but what I loved about A.O. Scott’s and Manohla Dargis’s lists was the optimism brimming from them about the state of cinema, all this coming from a year where people have been mostly negative. Dargis didn’t rank hers, but Scott picked 25. They’re must-reads. (Dargis’s list and Scott’s list via NYT.com)

Manohla Dargis

Amour

The Deep Blue Sea

The Gatekeepers

Holy Motors

Moonrise Kingdom

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Searching for Sugarman

Silver Linings Playbook

Zero Dark Thirty

A.O. Scott

1. Amour

2. Lincoln

3. Beasts of the Southern Wild

4. Footnote

5. The Master

6. Zero Dark Thirty

7. Django Unchained

8. Goodbye, First Love

9. Neighboring Sounds

10. The Grey

holy-motors-05

New consensus emerges from critic polls

I feel Metacritic’s aggregation is fairly comprehensive in terms of evaluating the best movie of the year, but both Indiewire and Village Voice conducted their own critics polls and selected “Holy Motors” and “The Master” respectfully. It’s almost funny considering that it’s likely neither of those will be nominated for Best Picture (but we’ll hold out for “The Master.”) and the other consensus title, “Zero Dark Thirty,” may just win Best Picture. Indiewire also did a cut and dry determination of what the Oscar nominees would be based on their votes, and of the 10 Best Picture nominees, they selected six potential Oscar nominees. Here are the individual critic poll Top 10 lists:

Indiewire

  1. Holy Motors
  2. The Master
  3. Zero Dark Thirty
  4. Amour
  5. This is Not a Film
  6. Moonrise Kingdom
  7. Beasts of the Southern Wild
  8. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
  9. The Turin Horse
  10. Lincoln

Village Voice

  1. The Master
  2. Zero Dark Thirty
  3. Holy Motors
  4. Moonrise Kingdom
  5. This is Not a Film
  6. Amour
  7. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
  8. The Turin Horse
  9. Lincoln
  10. Tabu

Continue reading “Off the Red Carpet: Week of 12/12 – 12/19”

Off the Red Carpet: Week 3 (10/17 – 10/24)

Three weeks have passed since I started this column, we’re 18 weeks away, and I’ve seen yet another two major contenders thanks to the Chicago International Film Festival (I might’ve seen three if not for CIFF’s awful secret screening selection), “The Sessions” and “Silver Linings Playbook.”

“Silver Linings” is exactly the kind of film that could take Best Picture and sweep some of the acting awards if I didn’t think “The Master” could absolutely dominate in the acting branch, and that’s because it’s a crowd pleasing romantic comedy with a lot of depth and poignancy about disabilities. It’s more about disabilities than even “The Sessions,” which just uses its problem as a plot device. If it did, it would probably be the first straight rom-com to win since “Annie Hall.”

But this was a busy week elsewhere, so let’s get down to it.

Joaquin Phoenix calls Oscar season “bullshit,” heads explode amongst people who care about this stuff

Sometimes I’m really disappointed by the media. They have a habit of making a story out of nothing because when one person reports it, everyone else has to spread it around. Joaquin Phoenix said in a terrific interview with Elvis Mitchell for Interview magazine that he thought the whole act of campaigning and comparing people’s performances is “total, utter bullshit.” “It’s a carrot, but it’s the worst tasting carrot I’ve ever tasted in my whole life. I don’t want this carrot.”

That quote alone should give a sense of how batshit crazy and awesome the rest of the interview actually is, but pundits decided to pick out this quote and make a big deal about it, some claiming that he now doesn’t stand a chance at even a nomination.

Well, he’s too good in “The Master” for that. This wouldn’t be the first time someone has put down the Oscars and completely opted out of coming to the ceremony and still won (see: Woody Allen, for one). It’s clear that after two losses (“Gladiator,” “Walk the Line”) he’s tired of the posturing and is seeking a different kind of truth in his performances. So everyone can just calm down. (via Entertainment Weekly and Interview Magazine)

Gotham Award Nominations Announced

The Gotham Awards are significant because they’re the first batch of nominations in this long, long, long awards season. They recognize indie films that would otherwise need a boost amongst the studio fare, and this year they’ve helped put “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild” back into the conversation. “Beasts” didn’t score a Best Feature nod, opting instead for the lesser known “The Loneliest Planet” and “Middle of Nowhere,” but director Benh Zeitlin scored a nomination and could make some surprise waves come Oscar time. Also in the fray is Richard Linklater’s “Bernie.” There is a small but vigorous campaign to get Jack Black nominated for an Oscar, and this is his first step in that direction. (via In Contention)

George Clooney could be first to be nominated in six Oscar categories

Guy Lodge of In Contention observed in a case of severe data overload that if “Argo” is nominated for Best Picture, producer George Clooney would be the first person to ever be nominated in six separate categories, Best Picture (“Argo”), Best Adapted Screenplay (“The Ides of March”), Best Director and Original Screenplay (“Good Night, and Good Luck”), Best Actor (“Michael Clayton, “Up in the Air,” “The Descendants”) and the category he won for, Best Supporting Actor (“Syriana”). Does Clooney sing? Maybe we can get him nominated for Best Original Song next year. (via In Contention)

“Holy Motors” and “After Lucia” take top prizes at CIFF

CIFF doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of the awards season, but I was there to enjoy it, and for “Holy Motors” to win its first major prize, along with an acting prize for Denis Lavant, says something. I’ve even heard people making a case for Best Original Song for Kylie Minogue’s cameo. I’ll remind you that I hated the film and appear to be the only person on the planet who thinks this way, but there’s no denying it’s not exactly up the Academy’s alley. “After Lucia” however is Mexico’s entry in the Foreign Film race, so any recognition is always a good thing. (via Hollywood Chicago)

Best Costume Design for “Django Unchained”?

Some pundits seem almost adamant in declaring that Quentin Tarantino’s latest film doesn’t really stand much of a chance this Oscar season, but I came across this interesting blog that says otherwise in one peculiar category: Best Costume Design. “Django’s” period clothing is done by Sharen Davis, nominated twice previously for “Ray” and “Dreamgirls.” The article also points out that Tarantino is responsible for some of the most iconic costumes in recent memory but has nothing to show for it. (via Clothes on Film) Continue reading “Off the Red Carpet: Week 3 (10/17 – 10/24)”

CIFF Review: Holy Motors

There’s a photographer in “Holy Motors” shooting pictures rapidly and blindly of a lifeless model dressed in gold as played by Eva Mendes. “Beauty! Beauty! Beauty,” he says in complete cartoonish astonishment.

At that moment, a hideous man dressed in a green leprechaun’s suit and no undershirt pushes his way to the front of the crowd and stands silently biting his decrepit fingernails. The man has long red hair plastered to the side of his head and speaks only gibberish. He’s made a scene.

The photographer turns to him and starts shooting photos of him. “Weird, weird. Weird!”

Is this how one should watch “Holy Motors,” the absurdist French drama by the cult French director Leos Carax? It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year and wowed audiences by being completely nutzo and was heralded as an underappreciated cult film because this year’s particular jury led by Nanni Moretti couldn’t possibly “get it.”

I saw it in a sold out screening at the Chicago International Film Festival Sunday night, where it was received by an audience that was half stunned and confused and half ecstatic.

I found myself in neither crowd, frustrated by this repugnant mishmash of a film that either has no point or all too much of one. If you’re going to make a surrealist masterpiece, my advice would be to not be disingenuous about it.

Luis Bunuel or David Lynch Carax is not, try as he might to put his star in a wig that shares the bizarre Lynchian swoosh. He’s made a film that revels in its own spontaneous style, modeling its half-baked ideas and genre spoofs only for us to gawk. The result is a series of avant-garde and art house shorts that have no commonalities, with the exception that its hero seems to smoke in every one. For every moment of “Holy Motors” that is tearful, erotic, giddy, suspenseful or chilling, Carax almost always has a way of ending each with a cheap visual gag. For all its visual flair and profundity, these segments resound as little more than stylized forgeries.

The film does not have a conventional narrative, if any at all, but it does have a protagonist, Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant). We first see him walking out of a mansion and into a limo where he is followed by bodyguards in black sedans. His driver, Celine (Edith Scob), informs him he has nine appointments today.

In preparation for these, he dons wigs, face putty and makeup in front of a brightly lit dressing room mirror. When he steps out of the car, he has made a complete transformation into another person.

First we see him as a hobbled street beggar, unrecognizable and hopeless. Next he dons a black motion capture suit and performs martial arts for a dark, empty room full of infrared lasers. A tall, slender, faceless woman walks out and is bathed in red by the lights, and the two slide across each other’s bodies in sexual acrobatics. The resulting animation is two snake-like monsters having sex. In another segment we meet the leprechaun, who kidnaps Eva Mendes and takes her to a cave, gouges at flowers and her hair, tears her clothes to make a gold burka, then strips down himself to reveal a full on boner and falls asleep to the sound of her lullaby.

Now after all this, is there any part of you that could believe a segment with Oscar picking up his daughter from a party and driving her home in disappointment could be considered genuine?

Don’t all these dramatic segments, like when he’s talking to his daughter on his death bed, or when he’s dragging himself helpless to the limo after being stabbed in the neck, feel like a lie? Maybe all movies are kind of a lie, which leads to what I think “Holy Motors” is actually about.

Now, let me preface this analysis by saying that “Holy Motors” may not be about anything. If watching Bunuel has taught me anything, it’s that two images back to back might not have anything to do with the other, and that anyone tying their brains into a pretzel to figure it out is either embarrassing themselves or projecting.

What I gathered is that this is a movie about performances. It’s about cinema and actors, and Denis Lavant should be applauded for tackling and embodying so many roles so convincingly. Here we have a guy who is such a method actor that for a moment he quite literally becomes someone else. If he were the same person when he got in and out of that limo, then each appointment would be impacted by the one that came before it. He’d be tired, if not dead several times over.

But that’s a plot analysis. The film’s opening shot is of a darkened movie theater audience, acting almost as a mirror looking back at us. This immediately makes us consider our own voyeurism and establishes the implication that it’s all a movie where anything can happen. Carax also includes glimpses of footage from the birth of cinema, like a naked man stretching or a hand clapping, to reference a time when the camera was so omnipresent that actors were aware of their performance, enabling them to embody anything on screen because there was no clear definition for what cinema was.

There are more subtle hints as well. One segment references names like Theo and Vogan, both of which are used in earlier appointments, suggesting that Oscar is an actor who has past traits seep in to his work. Each segment also seems to reference a particular genre, be it character drama, melodrama, gangster, art house or musical.

Maybe I’ve unlocked the film’s riddles and its brilliance, but it doesn’t excuse quite a lot. It doesn’t excuse the fact that it’s a mean spirited movie where violence and sex seem to occur without reason. It doesn’t lend for future viewing where more details can be unlocked because certain moments like the accordion ensemble, Celine’s green mask or the film’s final shot, are nothing more than one-off absurdist jokes, if not just Easter eggs. And it neglects the fact that directors like Bunuel and Lynch have a much stronger control over the tone of the audience. You know if you’re being duped, you know if a moment is supposed to be heartbreaking or beautiful and you know how you feel even if you don’t know what you’re seeing.

Carax’s film misses these marks. It often puts more exotic things on screen than actually compose them in a dynamic way, and Lavant’s performances should not be overstated because the film doesn’t give us much of a base ground from which to gauge his transformation.

I think claims that Carax’s film will be remembered as a classic years from now are exaggerated. It’s a movie that stands out only for its weirdness and little else.

1 ½ stars