Oscar Nominations 2014 Analysis: Full of Surprises and None

All the Oscar surprises that really weren’t surprises after all

The Oscar nominees rarely satisfy, only surprise and enrage, although never in the way people expect, which I guess is its own surprise.

It was expected that Amy Adams could “surprise” by breaking into the field of Best Actress nominees, but did anyone suspect that it would be at Emma Thompson’s expense? There were predictions that Christian Bale or Leonardo DiCaprio could get into an even tighter race, but both of them? Sally Hawkins was less expected behind perhaps Octavia Spencer and others, but was Oprah really the weak link?

These are the kinds of revelations that both delight and frustrate Oscar pundits. In a way, they were right that the Academy after all did not love “Inside Llewyn Davis” or “Saving Mr. Banks,” but then those prediction tallies never seem to match up.

The fact that there are surprises each year really shouldn’t be a surprise at all. If the Oscar nominations were as easy to predict as picking all the top ranked favorites, then what would be the fun of waking up at 7:38 in the morning to watch them? For instance, why was there doubt that David O. Russell couldn’t lead yet another cast to a sweep of the acting categories like he did with “Silver Linings Playbook” and nearly did with “The Fighter”? That’s one of those “surprises” that people should’ve seen coming a mile away, but no one did.

I guess it’s less of a surprise that Oscar pundits will now all turn around and rationalize the nominations in the way I’ve just done, as though it made sense or was expected all along, but no one “knew” that Thompson would be out, or no one “knew” that “Philomena” was a sure thing thanks to Harvey Weinstein after all. (I did however bet Hanks would get nothing) Continue reading “Oscar Nominations 2014 Analysis: Full of Surprises and None”

The 3rd Annual Anti-Oscars

The movies and the performers that don’t stand a chance of getting nominated this year.

Each year there are movies and performers that don’t just fail to get nominated for the Academy Awards but aren’t even in the conversation. This is where the Anti-Oscars were born.

Blogs, critics and Oscar pundits spend a lot of time discussing what’s in and less discussing what’s out. So although I’ve taken the time to do actual Oscar predictions, hopefully this piece can shed some light on under the radar work while placing it in the context of this behemoth we call the Oscar race.

See last year’s Anti-Oscars

Best Picture

  • Prisoners
  • The Spectacular Now
  • Spring Breakers
  • The Place Beyond the Pines
  • Upstream Color
  • Frances Ha
  • This is the End
  • The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Some of this year’s actual Oscar nominees are as strong as they’ve ever been, and yet it still boggles the mind that the Academy considers there to be nine better movies than “Before Midnight”. That nominee, along with “Blue Jasmine,” “All is Lost” and “Fruitvale Station,” will likely miss the cut, but they were at least on someone’s radar.

Movies like “The Spectacular Now” and “Frances Ha” are those indie gems that never get noticed by the Academy, maybe an Original Screenplay nod if they’re lucky. They represent the modernity and the youth often missing in the Oscars. They’re actors’ films with minimal story but an exploration of a point in life, and they share the style that makes them distinctly cinema.

“Spring Breakers” and “Upstream Color” are on the other end of the spectrum, indies too weird and polarizing to even be considered by the old fashioned Academy, even if their membership is slanting younger. Both utilize excessive style and their directors’ daring vision to create jarring, innovative films, one about way too much and the other arguably about nothing at all. Both however are beguiling, hypnotic mysteries.

In the middle are “Prisoners” and “The Place Beyond the Pines,” both midsize thrillers that were labeled as either too ridiculous or too portentous. They stretch storytelling boundaries with their ambitious screenplays, and they earn major thrills that even some of the likely Best Picture contenders can’t muster.

And last are the two studio movies, “This is the End” and “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” one a bit more massive than the other. These movies are why most people go to the movies, and they’re the ones that almost never show up on Hollywood’s most important night. They combine massive movie star appeal with rambunctious and accessible storytelling. But most of all, they’re fun. If the Oscars can be  self-serious homework, these movies are a different sort of escapism. Continue reading “The 3rd Annual Anti-Oscars”

2014 Oscars Final Predictions

Who all will be nominated for the 2014 Oscars on January 16.

The day has come. Everyone’s had their say, and the Oscar nominations are only days away. In one corner we have strong consensus on some absolute great movies, movies that could sit on any year’s Best Picture list and be stronger contenders than they are here. And in the other corner you have controversy, bitching, stewing and whining that maybe just about all of these are overrated to some degree. I mean, we knew “Spring Breakers” wasn’t about to be nominated, but does the Academy really think there are 10 better movies this year than “Before Midnight”?

It’s easy to get exhausted by all the bickering, but then that’s criticism, and that’s the Oscar race. It isn’t every year that we get three, maybe four plausible winners in such a vast field.

I tend to enjoy Oscar nomination morning even more so than Oscar night itself. There are more chances for surprise, for curveballs, snubs and the opportunity to pick the winner. Maybe not everyone is aware that Cate Blanchett’s Oscar win this year will be a foregone conclusion (watch me eat those words), but there’s a lot less certainty when it’s so close to being over.

This year my predictions have gone back and forth, but not as much as you might think. Movies like “Rush,” “August: Osage County” and “Fruitvale Station” have been pushed to the margins as the months have passed, and “Her” and “American Hustle” have emerged as more than gems. But this crop of films that we started with back in October has stayed mostly constant because all of them have been as good, if not better than expected. No amount of prognosticating, statistics and snubs can take all that away.

Best Picture

  1. 12 Years a Slave
  2. Gravity
  3. American Hustle
  4. Her
  5. Captain Phillips
  6. Saving Mr. Banks
  7. The Wolf of Wall Street
  8. Nebraska
  9. Inside Llewyn Davis

This remains a race between “12 Years a Slave,” “Gravity,” “American Hustle” and to a lesser degree “Her,” and it’s most exciting to know that not one is the runaway favorite. “12 Years” may be in the lead, but “American Hustle” pulled the hat trick of being recognized by all three guilds, the DGA, PGA and WGA.

“Captain Phillips” and “Saving Mr. Banks” seem like safe fifth and sixth bets, both studio films but one with an edgy action pulse and the other a family friendly affair full of Old Hollywood nostalgia.

A bigger question mark however hangs over “The Wolf of Wall Street,” the most controversial of all the contenders, and “Inside Llewyn Davis,” which has been hit or miss. Opposite “American Hustle,” it pulled the hat trick of being snubbed by all three guilds, and yet it swept the National Society of Film Critics’ Awards.

The reason I feel both are getting in is the little movie no one is talking about, “Nebraska.” This movie has quietly remained in the hunt despite only mild notices for its actors. Alexander Payne missed with the DGA, and no critics have really come to bat for it. But is there a fear that it can’t scrape together a measly 300 1st place votes? Both “Inside Llewyn Davis” and “Wolf” have that kind of love, despite the hate, and this will be a nine horse race for the third year running. Continue reading “2014 Oscars Final Predictions”

Saving Mr. Banks

There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of Disney nostalgia for “Mary Poppins.”

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a little bit of nostalgia. Some critics seem to think Disney is committing a Cardinal Sin by putting out a movie like “Saving Mr. Banks,” as though it were so shamelessly self promoting of their own golden age in order to further their brilliant marketing schemes. But if the story is strong, I typically have no issues. P.L. Travers’ story with Disney is a good one, and “Mary Poppins” most certainly is, so what seems to be the big fuss?

That said, where Disney steps over the line is in turning what is quite simply a movie into something more than precious and whimsical. “Saving Mr. Banks” can be as melodramatic and straining to be profound as it is frivolous.

The story goes that in 1961 P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) was strapped for cash, was fresh out of ideas for writing books and now had no choice but to turn to Walt Disney Studios’ long standing request to adapt Mary Poppins into a movie. She reluctantly accepts a trip to L.A. to review the script, provide notes and then, only then, will she agree to sign over the rights to her book.

She looks at a mess of plush Disney animals littering her hotel room and notices a Winnie the Pooh doll. “Poor A.A. Milne,” she opines, and fears that she, another British author with a beloved children’s character, might meet the same fate. But Walt Disney himself (Tom Hanks) assures Travers that he won’t do anything to tarnish the story and the creation she cherishes as family. After all, he too was once a kid with only a drawing of Mickey Mouse to his name, questioning if he should sell his work. Continue reading “Saving Mr. Banks”

Very Early 2014 Movie Preview

25 interesting films worth getting excited for at this very early stage.

This time last year I published a list of some of my most anticipated movies of 2013, and although I acknowledged at the time that I really had no clue of the quality of any of the films, let alone what they would even be about, it’s amazing the picks that landed and the ones that didn’t.

In the plus column, I plugged “Inside Llewyn Davis,” “Gravity,” “Prisoners,” “The Place Beyond the Pines,” “Captain Phillips,” “This is the End,” “Before Midnight” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”  Not a bad batting average.

On the minus side however, I talked about “To the Wonder,” “Oldboy,” “Ender’s Game,” “I’m So Excited” and “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III.”

And a handful, including “The Monuments Men,” “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby” and “Labor Day”  still have not come out. How about that for a prediction?

So which of the 25 movies I’ve picked here will we be talking about at the end of 2014? It could be all of them.

Continue reading “Very Early 2014 Movie Preview”

Much Ado About Nothing

Even William Shakespeare can’t resist the Joss Whedon touch.

Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” says it all in the title. It’s a big fuss of a love story and comedy made out of little glissandos and misunderstandings, and to this day it stings with sexual energy and coy dialogue.

Some might say that a person like Joss Whedon would be primed to take up Shakespeare’s throne, as if the man behind “Serenity,” “The Avengers” and a number of other cult TV shows could do no wrong. His writing too is often sharp, eloquent and filled with double meaning.

But what I’ve always disliked about Whedon is the sense of smugness that pervades so many of his characters, relying on witty smarm to land each joke and each turn of phrase.

“Much Ado About Nothing” is Whedon’s passion project, shot in a matter of days with his team of regulars in-between production on “The Avengers,” and even Shakespeare cannot withstand the Whedon touch. Perhaps some would call this a match made in heaven, but the film has the snooty air of an inconsequential lark, even if the play is about nothing. Continue reading “Much Ado About Nothing”

The Wolf of Wall Street

Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” makes “Spring Breakers” look tame.

Of all the excess bursting from the frame in “The Wolf of Wall Street”, what’s missing is a trip to the normal world. That’s because, who would honestly want to go there? Jordan Belfort certainly doesn’t, but that inability to show the other side of the fence may be part of “Wolf’s” problem.

Martin Scorsese’s film about a real life Wall Street broker who swindled millions from clueless investors in fraudulent stocks and led his firm into a tailspin of sex, drugs and corruption has received a notable amount of criticism; perhaps such a crook doesn’t deserve a wacky, fun biopic based on his life, the critics say.

The question goes, does “The Wolf of Wall Street” glorify the actions of Jordan Belfort? In one way, yes. Jordan’s behavior in the real world is nothing but obscene, and Scorsese gives us three hours to revel in this wild peek behind the curtain.

But in Belfort’s world, this is the norm. The sex romps, the montages and the drug trips all blend together over time, and it provides all the more jolt when in a bizarre twist, something from “fucking Benihana” brings him down.

Scorsese’s film makes “Spring Breakers” look tame in comparison. It languishes on each wild act of depravity and sensationalized moment of mayhem, immersing us in Belfort’s world and his narrative revisionism (“My Ferrari was white, not red,” he barks in narration at the open of the film) without any of the context of the people who aren’t making $49 million a year.

But one wonders what can be gained from a film that shares the same lack of nuances as its perverse characters. Even James Franco’s Alien had some layers to him, but Belfort is all haircut and a sales pitch.

“The Wolf of Wall Street” constantly borders that fine line between exploitation and poignant satire. Like Jordan’s life itself, the movie plays like a mess of outrageous set pieces connected only by their sheer energy. It grasps at the political, psychological and philosophical straws snagged by “Spring Breakers,” “The Bling Ring,” “American Hustle” and even Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” but lacks the specifically distinct aesthetic style all of those films had that would give it an extra kick. Continue reading “The Wolf of Wall Street”

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a paint-by-numbers spectacle with manufactured profundity.

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a family friendly movie about dreaming big, acting spontaneous and being adventurous. That it has a patterned, scientific, literal mindedness to its approach is part of this perfectly coifed film’s problem. Ben Stiller has made a film where the magic and the life lessons are all paint by numbers.

Walter Mitty (Stiller) as described here and in James Thurber’s famous short story from 1939 is a daydreamer, constantly getting lost in the clouds with fantasies of rescuing puppies in a burning building for the girl of his dreams (Kirsten Wiig) or having an epic, super power driven fight with his boss (Adam Scott).

But his real life involves processing film prints for the dying Life magazine, and he finds himself unable to think of anything he’s done notable or interesting as he fills out an online dating profile. When the prized photo intended for the cover goes missing, he sets off on a quest to track down its elusive photographer (Sean Penn). Continue reading “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”

2013: The Year the Movies Weren’t Cool

The movies are no longer the pinnacle of pop culture. How do we make them matter again?

When “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” came out in November, it accomplished something no other movie in 2013 has: it made an impact.

Prior to its release, I saw genuine excitement in my friends and in my social media feeds. Jennifer Lawrence began appearing on just about every late night talk show and proceeded to be generally awesome and meme worthy.

When it finally did come out, lo and behold, it was really good – better than the original by far and fully matching the hype. It even made more money than the original and set records for the November box office. Critics discussed it like it was important, and people talked about and saw it multiple times like it mattered. And it does matter.

Each year a few moments in popular culture seem to define the entire year. They set the world on fire for moments at a time and anyone who’s anyone knows about it and is talking about it.

Pinning down just how they define the year is a bit more intangible, and it’s up to the media to write year-end lists, columns and mashups that weave our culture together when box office receipts and viewership numbers don’t paint the whole picture.

2013 has been an exciting year, as are most years when we look back each December. This year gave us the finale to “Breaking Bad,” one that garnered as many parodies as it did live viewers. It gave us the hilarious and even groundbreaking antics of Kanye West and Miley Cyrus. “Homeland,” “The Walking Dead” and “Dexter” made waves with polarizing new seasons. Arcade Fire and Daft Punk turned heads with critically acclaimed smash hits and tour and marketing choices that were talked about as much as the music. “Grand Theft Auto V” and “Call of Duty: Ghosts” were blockbuster video games that made “Thor” look like an independent film. Jimmy Kimmel pranked the Internet. We learned what the Fox says.

And a few movies came out too.

In terms of quality alone, 2013 turned out to be a pretty great year for movies. You can read my Top 15 list here. Many were moving, original and game changers, and some felt like they could be all time classics.

And for the most part, these movies made money, they got good reviews, and they’ll be here to stay through Oscar season and beyond. People continue to see them, buy them, stream them, steal them, whatever.

But increasingly, they matter less.

No longer is film the pinnacle of pop culture. TV offers more opportunities for experimentation and narrative complexity, music continues to pose discussions about race, femininity and more beyond the music itself, video games demonstrate the greatest chance for growth as a blossoming art form, and all three continue to be infinitely accessible and open to critical discourse.

Film on the other hand can seem to be more selective, more homogenized and harder to access. Filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh and others are jumping ship to TV, the mass marketed movies are losing their zest, the important and groundbreaking films are not available nationwide or in the Netflix canon, and film’s innovations to the medium, namely digital and 3D cinematography, look gimmicky and defensive at worst.

No one is dismissing the work of great artists because there is other entertainment to be found elsewhere, but when everything is to some degree competing for attention, the ability to discuss films and share them widely is waning.

Movies aren’t worse; they just aren’t cool. Continue reading “2013: The Year the Movies Weren’t Cool”

The Best Movies of 2013

Championing a year in cinema and the stories only it can tell

The major theme across the intros to most of this year’s Best Film lists has been that the movies matter. Critics have championed the movies that could only be movies, ones that feel cinematic not because they’re big but because they can be small, because they can avoid “complex narrative” as championed by TV and use imagery and style above all to convey a different sort of complexity.

Here’s Richard Brody on the cinematic squabble:

“The ever-increasing prominence of television is, in turn, sparking a renewed reflection on the part of filmmakers about what cinema is, and what it can be. The conflict between the dependent image and the essential image, between the transparent and the conspicuous, is real and serious…The best movies this year are films of combative cinema, audacious inventions in vision. The specificity and originality of their moment-to-moment creation of images offers new ways for viewers to confront the notion of what “narrative” might be.”

And A.O. Scott:

“It is easy to conclude that movies have surrendered that long-held vanguard position. The creative flowering of television has exposed the complacency and conservatism that rules big-money filmmaking at the studio level… But within this landscape of bloat and desolation, there is quite a lot worth caring about. More important, there are filmmakers determined to refine and reinvigorate the medium, to recapture its newness and uniqueness and to figure out, in a post-film, platform-agnostic, digital-everything era, what the art of cinema might be.”

They seem to say in blunter terms, “Yeah, TV’s good, but fuck that.”

This is cinema. You can hurl around “golden age of TV” all you want, but I can’t imagine any of these stories, some of them with minimal plot, some with no discernable plot at all, being transplanted to TV.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t deeply moving works of art, experiences with beginnings, middles and ends that carry emotions, characters and visceral sensations through their durations.

These are the things you can’t find anywhere else. I don’t know if the movies are blooming or dying (the consensus seems to be both), but they continue to be groundbreaking and frankly amazing.

I’m aware there’s five seasons of “Breaking Bad” on Netflix, but these 25 movies, 15 ranked, eight unranked and two Honorable Mentions, are the stuff that will blow your mind if you gave it the time of day.

Click through to browse the gallery and read each blurb. Reviews to each film are linked in the caption of each photo. Continue reading “The Best Movies of 2013”