"Well, there it is."

The target of perfection at which posing, period "Oscar bait" pictures shoot in vain.


Amadeus

I was 9 years old when this movie came out in 1984, and my parents went to see it without me (I would discover it on television soon after). I remember that they dressed up as if they were going to the theater and were appalled that people had shown up to the cinema in jeans and shorts. To see a movie about MOZART, forsooth! They talked rapturously about it with my piano teacher, and I listened jealously. This was a point in my life when I was completely unaware of the Oscars and the honors lavished on this film the next spring. But this has been a very important movie to me for most of my life, and it's a case of a great movie that has only gotten better with age (both the movie's age and my own).

My first vivid memory of the film was always the horror of the Salieri's suicide attempt, which for the longest time I could not watch - a fact that seems hilarious to me now. There are many moments in the film, though, that have lived in my memory for a long, long time. At the center of this fantastic movie are two phenomenal performances. F. Murray Abraham (Salieri) and Tom Hulce (Mozart) would each go on to be nominated for Academy Awards, and when Abraham won, he paid tribute to his co-star and on-screen rival by saying that the only thing missing from the experience was having Hulce standing at his side.



The first thing to note about this film, which was written by Peter Shaffer (who also wrote Equus), adapted from his own 1979 play, is that it is not a biography. It is a highly fictionalized story about real people. Mozart's (and Salieri's) music is heavily featured throughout and is an essential piece of the storytelling. Perhaps more than anything else, though, what it is "about" is the nature of genius and the appreciation of it. It may be a cliche to say that a true genius is never appreciated in his/her own time, but I have to say that seeing this film again in the context of an Oscar season puts a fascinating new spin on it. With all the arguments over what the "best" film of the year is and many people feeling (as if this is anything new) that the frontrunner is merely a sentimental favorite rather than a genuinely great work, I can't help thinking of Mozart and Salieri. One was perhaps the greatest composer who has ever lived but, at least as the film portrays him, he was not the most popular composer of his day because he was ahead of his time in so many ways and because he was not a toady of the Emperor's Court. The other man had musical talent - was quite good in fact - and received many honors and accolades while he lived but was all but forgotten by history (until Shaffer's play and the film brought him back to people's attention). Salieri receives medals and commendations by the Emperor who calls one of his works "the greatest opera yet written." Mozart, on the other hand, sees his own opera, La Nozze di Figaro (arguably his greatest work), pilloried and parodied on the vaudeville stage as if it were part of one of those awful pop culture pastiche movies like Not Another Teen Movie. Mozart obviously got the better deal in the long run, but we can only see that conclusion through the long lens of history.



I won't go through a play-by-play of the film, because there is far too much to say. I will just leave you with my two favorite moments from the film, both of which are key musical moments as well. In the first, we're watching the premiere of La Nozze di Figaro. Salieri, despite his resentment, cannot but marvel at the beauty of the piece. Abraham's narration is absolutely perfect here, putting each word in precisely the right place in the music so that he only adds and never takes away from it. This part of the opera, by the way, is probably my favorite piece of music ever, I'm sure in no small part due to the meaning Abraham gives to it in this scene.



Of course, before we can get too carried away, there is that yawn which changes the tone utterly and irrevocably, followed by another scene that spookily mirrors the film criticism world (to me, anyway). Salieri suggests that Mozart's opera was too long, and that he should have given the audience a big bang at the end of songs to let them know when to clap. I've seen loads of film critics say comparable things about films, to say nothing of snap judging a film because it doesn't have "X" or "Y" in it. Or, you know, snap judging at all (Incidentally, I think Twitter has been the worst thing to happen to film criticism in a great many years - how can you possibly judge something adequately before you've had a chance to think about it?).

And then there is this moment. I don't know how much you may know about sound mixing. I'm pretty ignorant about it myself, but it's really hard not to see how massively important it is to this scene (and the one embedded above, for that matter). Mozart, on his sickbed, is dictating part of his Requiem, specifically the "Confutatis," to Salieri. You hear each piece of the whole by itself, as Mozart dictates, and when he finally looks at the whole thing you hear it all together and can see what each little piece brings to the whole. I've heard this piece of music many, many times since first seeing this film, and I never fail to marvel at all those amazing little pieces.



There is a director's cut of this, which adds a great deal of character development, but which doesn't flow quite as well as the theatrical cut, in my opinion. This is a perfect film in every way. If you have not yet seen it, by all means do so. It is definitely not one of those "eat your spinach, it's good for you" period movies. It is bold and hilarious and moving and is a movie I could watch again and again and again. Even if you have resisted because you don't like classical music, this film could very well make you a newborn fan.

The Oscar Time Capsule

Kristopher Tapley, of InContention.com, is a critic who frequently infuriates me, but who just as frequently allows the clouds of whiny punditry to part and lets the logic shine through. Case in point, this article about the inevitability of The King's Speech's frontrunner status, how that status was decided not just in the last week but at the end of the summer (when it received a five-minute standing ovation at its Telluride Film Festival premiere), and how that status (coupled with disappointment over The Social Network's fading star) is starting an inevitable backlash.

One thing to remember is the difference between these supposed early indicators - the critics groups and the Hollywood Foreign Press who put on the Golden Globes (all of which are pretty small groups of people) - and the real meat of the season - the guild awards and the Academy (each of whose membership runs at the several-thousand mark). The Social Network is an exquisite film that does exactly what it sets out to do, but the buzz around it became built up to the point of hyperbole in the early weeks of campaigning, mostly due to Rolling Stone's Peter Travers and his comment about "defining a generation" (which, by the way, I don't think is true, but that's a whole 'nother post). Meanwhile, if you stepped back from the stats and actually talked to Academy members (obviously, I didn't do this personally, but I've read a great deal of commentary from those who have), upon mentioning The King's Speech, you'd see many, many of them get that far away look in their eyes and gush like a teenager with a life-defining crush. People really love this movie. So do I. The "Camptown Races" bit brings me to tears every --- damn, there I go again.

But of course, once a film starts to become the more obvious frontrunner, people will try to knock it down. It already happened with The Social Network, back in those heady days of its reign atop the prediction lists. If it's not historians or the real people involved complaining because it isn't a documentary and leaves things out (e.g., Bertie's support of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement and whether or not Mark Zuckerberg had an "Erica Albright" in his life when he started Facemash), then it's the screeching commenters claiming that if the movie wins (just talking about King's Speech now) it will be a blight on the Academy's history, which ... really, now. Rotten Tomatoes is probably not a completely objective measuring stick, but it's probably as good as we've got, and while The King's Speech doesn't have quite as high a rating as three of its Best Picture competitors - The Social Network, Toy Story 3, and Winter's Bone - at 88% fresh it is still "better" (whatever that means) than 2008's Best Picture Slumdog Millionaire, 2002's winner Chicago, and 2004's winner Million Dollar Baby. I mean, it's not like we're talking about the embarrassment of 1956 known (sadly) as "Best Picture winner Around the World in 80 Days," for crying out loud!

As exciting as the race is to watch, it doesn't ultimately mean anything, other than that whichever film wins will possibly make a bit more money - or, in the case of The Hurt Locker, maybe not. (Side note, loosely related: Harvey Weinstein, sensing victory in the air for The King's Speech and hence more money for the studio, is trying to edit the film to get a PG-13 so that more people will see it. Director Tom Hooper, for his part, has no intention of cutting anything, and his DGA plaque could give him some pull there. But they may add ... bleeps. *facepalm*)

The Oscars are a time capsule. They are, to paraphrase Amy Poehler's genius deadpanning at the SAGs, the opinion of a certain group of people at a certain time. The Academy is not five guys in a room somewhere, nor are they some all-ruling Taste Police. Was Rocky really the best film of 1976? I don't think so, but it caught the collective cultural consciousness that year in a big way even if history would grow more respect and affection for its stellar competitors Taxi Driver, Network, and All the President's Men. Was Titanic really a better film than L.A. Confidential and Good Will Hunting in 2007? I say no to L.A. Confidential, actually, unless you cut out that bullshit ending, but who cares, really? Loads of people (not just Leo fangirls but people in the industry) LOVED that movie. Personally, I really love that the Academy so often votes with its 6000 or so hearts rather than with its heads.

I do think there's something to Matt Damon's old suggestion that you really can't properly appraise a film's merits until it's at least 10 years old (though I disagree that we should wait that long to give awards). But hey, let's try it. Let's take a look at what was up for Best Picture 10 years ago...

Chocolat
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Erin Brockovich
Gladiator
Traffic

Dudes, I love Chocolat as much as the next red-blooded gal, but it had no place on that list. Nor did Erin Brockovich, if you ask me. Of course, if we were really doing this proper, those same five films would probably not be the final five in contention now. So let's look at some of the notable films that might or might not make that list if we were to make it today.

Almost Famous
American Psycho
Amores Perros
Battle Royale
Before Night Falls
Best in Show
Billy Elliot
Chicken Run
Croupier
Dancer in the Dark
In the Mood for Love
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Memento
Nurse Betty
O Brother, Where Art Thou
Quills
Requiem for a Dream
Sexy Beast
Unbreakable
Wonder Boys
You Can Count on Me
Sunshine

At a glance, I see at least a few among those titles that might get in due to their directors having done excellent work over the last decade and bringing new appreciation to their 2000 films. Specifically, I see the films of two current Best Director nominees, Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky) and O Brother, Where Art Thou (Ethan Coen and Joel Coen). Plus a third film by a director many feel should have been in that mix this year - Memento (Christopher Nolan). Two of those three could respectably replace Chocolat and Erin Brockovich in a list of 5, and if we're going for 10, let's throw in all three. Billy Elliot should probably be in there too (its director, on the other hand, probably wouldn't be in the Directing slate if we were doing this now). I'd round the 10 out with Almost Famous, Quills, and Wonder Boys. But that's just me. Those movies have, I think, stood the test of time and people enjoy and respect them as much as, if not more than, they did during the films' original releases.

I'd better not go further than that, because man, can you imagine how different the movie business would be if we waited that long to give out awards for a particular year? Not just to movies but to actors and craftspeople as well? I mean, you could stage a comeback off an "Oscar bump." That is, if the Oscars still had as much prestige and pressure around them if they were ten years behind the times.

But then again, I kind of like the way it is now, being able to look back over Oscar history and see, with pleasure or regret, the films that were loved and revered at the time. It's certainly nice to have your affection for a film validated by an award show like the Oscars. I mean, who among us LOTR wonks could forget the anxiety and excitement that accompanied the 2003 Middle Earth Oscar ceremony (and the subsequent laying down of crowbars after Return of the King's clean sweep)? But the films we love should be the films we love, regardless of what some voting body declares is awards-worthy.

One of my favorite things to read between last year's Oscar season and this one has been a column called "Life Without Oscar," also on InContention.com. Chad Hartigan went through each Oscar year and picked one film that didn't receive a single nomination and highlighted it as an example that the Oscars are not the be-all and end-all of what a great movie is. There's a good deal of snooty arthouse fare among his posts, but there's also "Kindergarten Cop" and "What's Up, Doc" - just to give you a feel of the range of titles. :P

Not that it matters, since I don't get to vote on the Oscars, but my Best Picture pick of the ten nominees THIS year would be Black Swan, with Aronofsky as Best Director. Obviously, I always knew there'd be no way in hell my FAVORITE movie of the year would be in the race, even with ten nominees. :P But hey, you love what you love. Don't let any stupid critics or award shows (or me, of course) tell you what's worth admiring.

Unless what you love and admire is Twilight, in which case ... I don't even.

I am woman, hear me roar

[Side note: Was there anything tackier than the orchestra playing that Helen Reddy anthem as Bigelow walked off the stage with her Oscar?]

I've seen a lot of comments about this, and I'm a bit weary of everyone's obsession with Kathryn Bigelow's gender, too. But it's a significant milestone nonetheless.


Bigelow, on the set of The Hurt Locker
The directors branch of the Academy is notorious for being a boys club. Not just because it only awarded men up until last night, but because it's members are this small, exclusive, tight group made up entirely of men. The directing Oscar is Hollywood's thickest glass ceiling, and to see it shatter last night was a HUGE deal. To illustrate, lemme tell you a little story about the woman who handed Bigelow that Oscar last night (and hilariously asked if she could keep it), Barbra Streisand.


Streisand, on the set of Yentl
Say what you want about Babs, an honest look at her career as a director (even the amazingly self-obsessed The Mirror Has Two Faces) shows that she has a true gift in that arena, regardless of her sex. When she made her first film, Yentl, she showed it to Steven Spielberg. The media would later distort this exchange into Spielberg giving her "advice" (a distortion that led to her refusal to give interviews for a decade), but the only advice he gave her was, and I quote, "Don't change a frame." Streisand would go on to WIN the Golden Globe for Best Director for this film, but when Oscar nominations were announced, her name was noticably absent in the directing category. In 1991, she directed The Prince of Tides, which went on be nominated for 7 Oscars, including Best Picture. Streisand was also nominated for the Directors Guild award for that film. Yet she was shut out again for the Directing Oscar (Billy Crystal ribbed the Academy for this in his opening number - "Did this film direct itself?!").


L to R - Lina Wertmueller, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola
There has been a decided gender bias in Hollywood, and not just at the Oscars. Women filmmakers are consistently ignored, not just for awards, but by the studios and media as well. Where once upon a time 25% of screenwriters were women (writing ultimately half of the films that were actually produced), now it's more like 6-7%. It is the fondest hope of mine - and I mean this seriously, as a woman who hopes to break into the movie business - that Bigelow's win will draw more attention to female filmmakers. I'm not saying give them awards and movie deals just because - quality should always trump gender politics - but don't keep ignoring them, because they're not going to go away.

Oscar Post-Mortem

That may be the last time I try to liveblog an award show, or at least the Oscars. I was trying to do way too much last night and it was a bit stressful.

Thoughts on the ceremony...

- It may have been my overexcited state, but I thought Martin and Baldwin did just fine. Some of the jokes fell flat, but since when is that something new? I thought the opening number with Neil Patrick Harris was very fun (I guess he was the surprise that got translated as "secret third host" in the rumor mill).

- I was excited that they were doing a tribute to John Hughes (who never won an Oscar), and it was great to see Molly and Matthew and the other Hughes "kids" on stage, but I thought this was a bit out of place. And since the BFCA Critics Choice Awards did basically the same thing, it felt a little superfluous.

- Did anyone notice the little Kanye moment with the man and the woman accepting for Documentary Short? I wasn't paying close enough attention to what was said, though I did notice that the woman seemed to be interrupting the man. There was apparently some legal drama with their film, and these two had not spoken to each other for a while (not even to work out who was going to speak if they won). And the man's mother held her cane out to keep the woman from getting to the stage too quick, to give the man more time (or perhaps all the allotted time) to speak. Wow.

- I thought the dance number to the nominated scores was HORRENDOUS and a very, VERY poor exchange for what might have been some great musical performances of the song nominees. Odd that the reason given for nixing the performances was that they wanted to treat that like all the other categories. And yet the musical scores got their own dance number. Shenanigans!

- I liked the montages of clips for the acting categories (as opposed to single scenes) - you get a better idea about the overall performance - but I don't understand why they did supporting different from lead (lead nominees being the only people to get the "eulogy" treatment). Nor why they trotted the lead acting nominees out on stage, like those are the two most important categories of the night.

- While I really loved the five previous winners presenting each category last year, I did NOT like the way they did it this year, where five people connected to the nominees came out and gushed about them and THEN the previous Oscar-winner in the other-gendered category opened the envelope. Very disjointed, and the producers clearly did not get what worked or what was so special about what was done last year.

- I made a joke about the Ghost reference being kind of tacky to start the Memoriam segment with, but I'd forgotten that Demi and Swayze were in Ghost together (probably Swayze's greatest performance), and he was the first person to show up in that clip. That was sweet. And I'm very glad that everyone learned from last year's fiasco that what we want to see in this segment is the SCREEN, with the IMAGES and the NAMES. Not someone performing a song on the stage.

- I loved that they did a segment on horror, and I could not care less if it was pandering. I was giddy as a schoolgirl throughout. EXCEPT for the films that were not even remotely horror, notably Twilight (the other one people mentioned was Edward Scissorhands, but that's much closer to being horror than Twilight). Also, fail for the drivel writer who said the Academy hadn't honored horror since The Exorcist in 1973. I don't personally define Silence of the Lambs as horror, but most people do - and, yanno, they used several clips from it in the horror montage. As well as Misery, which the Academy honored the year before that. And The Omen, which won Best Original Score three years after The Exorcist. A little research never killed anyone.


Thoughts on the winners...

- No surprises in the acting categories, of course. I think it's kind of brilliant that Sandra Bullock collected a Razzie for Worst Actress and an Oscar for Best Actress in the same weekend. I'm glad Mo'Nique used part of her speech to address all the hoopla over her non-campaign. Christoph Waltz was charming, as usual. And the Dude abides, man.

- Biggest surprise was Geoffrey Fletcher winning the screenplay award for Precious, making him the first African-American to win a writing Oscar. I'm not sure it's terribly deserved, as the actors are what really make that movie work, but I can understand people going down their ballot and wanting to support the film in another category. I think In the Loop was robbed, though.

- There will be countless debates as to whether Avatar should have won Art Direction and Cinematography, but I suspect in ten or twenty years, the Academy will seem strangely prescient here.

- Very glad that Up took another prize besides animation, a well-deserved win for Michael Giacchino and his loving musical score.

- I still wonder if the seeming incongruity of a woman directing a gritty war film made people see The Hurt Locker (NOT the direction, which is a separate thing) as better than it is. Nevertheless, I do feel that Kathryn Bigelow's directing win was richly deserved. That movie is an absolute director's showcase, and the main reason it works is because it's so skillfully shot.

- While The Hurt Locker is a fine film, I don't think it was the Best. A lot of prognosticators and critics are patting themselves on the back for shepherding this thing to a win, despite its miniscule box office returns. I have to ask one thing, though. Why were these same people whining about predictability, "echo chamber"s, and "safe" choices this year when this outcome that they're so happy about is all three of those things? I would have loved to see a surprise for Best Picture, but I guess those just don't happen anymore. And can't, with the press analyzing every detail and event of the season.

In the final analysis, I have to wonder how meaningful it is to follow all this so closely, as I have this year. Part of me loves having the inside info and knowing pretty much what to expect, but in a way I kind of prefer getting attached to what I want, without that filter of "never gonna happen."

As regards the show, I have to say that Adam Shankman's and Bill Mechanic's efforts were not really a success. The entire evening felt disjointed and there was more stuff that didn't work than did. I liked Steve and Alec more than most people liveblogging, it seems, but I agree that their schtick would have worked just as well, perhaps better, with one host. The best moments last night were the unscripted ones, and maybe there would have been more of those if the orchestra hadn't been so ruthless about playing people off.

Oh, and Best Dressed - definitely Sandra Bullock.

Seriously, Oscars?

Oscar nominees told to prepare two speeches. Producers are suggesting that people use their 45 seconds on stage to talk about what winning means to them and save their specific "thank you"s for backstage, where they can record another speech on the Academy's Thank-You Cam, videos from which will go up on the Oscars website.

First of all, it's a bit presumptuous to tell people what they can and can't do with their time on stage. I say as long as they don't streak like Robert Opal in '73, they should be able to do whatever the hell they want. It's THEIR NIGHT, for crying out loud!

The second thing that's wrong with that is that the whole point of thanking individuals in your speech is THAT IT'S GOING OUT TO A WORLDWIDE AUDIENCE. No one cares about the clips on the website, unless they're clips of something you missed that actually happened on the broadcast. When Meryl Streep won in 1983 for Sophie's Choice, she said "I have a lot of people to thank, and I'm going to be one of those people who mentions a lot of names. Because I know that two seconds ago my mother and father went completely berserk, and I'd like to give some other mothers and fathers that opportunity." I don't care if it's boring. I would MUCH rather hear someone speak genuinely to at least some of the people who are responsible for them being up there than to blather on about themselves as if it's all their doing.

They give a similar admonition about laundry lists of names most years, and I'm pretty sure it's been several years since anyone - aside from the tech people who are not writers or actors and should not be expected to burst forth rhapsodic up there in front of Jack Nicholson and everybody - actually did one of those. I hope at least one of the winners this year, though, draws attention to how wrong it is to ask someone to cater their speech to the damned television audience.

Look, I think anyone who has watched the Oscars more than once knows that the ceremony is going to be four hours long. It just is. Sometimes you get a three-and-a-halfer, but that's lucky. So stop acting like the world's most self-congratulatory award show is really about all those shlubs watching at home with their box of wine. That's disingenuous, to say the least. And it's a slippery slope when you only allow certain people to be recognized on television. I fear that by the time I get to go to the Oscars, the writing awards will be relegated to the non-televised portion because they're boring.

Speaking of "boring," though ... who needs all these silly suggestions when you can just bring out Will Ferrell and Jack Black to drown out the droners? ;-)

It's Nomination Eve!

With the Oscar nomination announcement just hours away, I'm going to throw out some last minute predictions for who's definitely in, who's probably in, who might squeak in, and who's so not in that I'll slap my grandmother if they actually are. [Note: I have no grandmother, so that claim is kind of empty. It sounds impressive nonetheless.]

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) practically has his name engraved on the trophy, so no guesswork is needed there. I'll also be rather shocked if Woody Harrelson's name doesn't appear for his fine work in The Messenger. The rest of the field is not so clear. Likely fellow nominees are Christopher Plummer (The Last Station), for whom this would - amazingly - be a career-first nomination, Alfred Molina (An Education), and Stanley Tucci (I'm rooting for Julie & Julia, but his Lovely Bones performance is more likely - hmph). A possible wild card, who has been largely overlooked this season, is Anthony Mackie for The Hurt Locker. A nomination for The Hurt Locker means something else, too - a more general support for that film, which would seem to boost its chances for Best Picture.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Like Mr. Waltz, Mo'Nique (Precious) is a foregone conclusion. Also pretty much guaranteed to hear their names called are Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga (both for Up in the Air - if they only pick one, I'd say it's Kendrick). Julianne Moore (A Single Man) seems another safe bet. Given her SAG nomination, Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds) is a strong possibility; less so (and criminally, in my opinion) is fellow Basterd Melanie Laurent, who might suffer from confusion over whether she belongs here or in the lead actresses' field. A wild card might show up here as well, in the form of Rosamund Pike (An Education), or Samantha Morton (The Messenger). Also, don't count out last year's winner in this category, Penelope Cruz (Nine).

BEST ACTOR
At least three locks for this category - Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), George Clooney (Up in the Air), and would-be-first-time nominee Colin Firth (A Single Man). Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) is also extremely likely, as is Morgan Freeman (Invictus). Spoilers here could be Matt Damon (The Informant!), Ben Foster (The Messenger), Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man), or Viggo Mortensen (The Road). In the "crazier things have happened" department, I wouldn't be that surprised to see Brad Pitt here as well for Inglourious Basterds. Another nomination that, like Mackie's, would indicate a general support for his film.

BEST ACTRESS
Each of these, if omitted, would be HUGE snubs at this point - Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia), Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side), Carey Mulligan (An Education), and Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) - so I fully expect to hear all four of their names tomorrow. There are several options for the fifth slot, but the likeliest is Helen Mirren (The Last Station). Other possibilities include Emily Blunt (The Young Victoria), Penelope Cruz (Broken Embraces), and *maybe* Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds). Again, there's category confusion for her, but she *ought* to be considered a lead. Sadly, probably the most deserving performance of the year - Tilda Swinton (Julia) - will likely be overlooked. I'd be overjoyed to be wrong. (It's also possible that her film is ineligible, but I'm not sure.)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
I'd be shocked to not see The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds, but the other slots are harder to predict. I'd be surprised not to see Up recognized here, as well as 500 Days of Summer and A Serious Man (not to be confused with the Colin Firth movie with a very similar title). And I'd say Avatar has a pretty good shot (as much as it might annoy some people). Another possibility - *sigh* - The Hangover. Look, I love it, but I'm boggled at the Oscar coverage it's gotten. It's like talking Oscars about Porky's, yanno?

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Up in the Air, Precious, and An Education all seem like locks to me, and probably District 9 as well, I'd love - LOVE - to see In the Loop included. And Crazy Heart would be a good choice here, too.

BEST DIRECTOR
I fully expect this to line up with the Directors' Guild nominees. Meaning Jason Reitman (Up in the Air), Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), Lee Daniels (Precious), James Cameron (Avatar), and Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds). A possible wild card could be Lone Scherfig (An Education), who would make an unprecedented second woman in the directing race. In the "it'll never happen, but wouldn't it be awesome" department, I'd jump for joy if Pete Docter (Up) was honored here. Ain't gonna happen, but I can dream.

BEST PICTURE
Oy, here we go. Okay, there's five titles you'll definitely hear - Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, and Up in the Air. I'll be quite shocked if any of those are left out. The other five slots are a bit murkier, and the debate among prognosticators seems to be whether the expansion to ten nominees will favor more populist fare or indie stuff. My (ignorant) guess is a little of both. I'd be surprised not to see An Education show up. I'd also be surprised, not to mention very disappointed, to see the animation curse keep Up from being considered for the big prize, especially with twice as many slots. A Serious Man will probably be included, with many feeling it's the Coens' finest work since Fargo. District 9 is also quite a strong possibility. And despite its lukewarm reception from critics, the Academy's Eastwood-love could very well squeak Invictus onto the list. Other possibilities are Star Trek and The Messenger. In the "Winter Olympics in Hell" department, The Hangover. Seriously, just no. I'm not even going to bold the title for you. :P

So there we have it! Tune in tomorrow to find out how wrong I was!

On your mark, get set...

This is something I’ve been meaning to write about for a few Oscar seasons now, about how wrong it seems for a movie to lose out on Best Picture because of overhype or because people are tired of hearing about it. I definitely agree that it’s surprisingly short-sighted to let the ebbs and flows of your enthusiasm for a film direct a vote that decides something fairly longstanding (if not necessarily that significant in the long run). It’s one of the most infuriating things about the Oscars, but it’s also what makes following the race so fascinating.

Because that’s what it is – a race.

Right now, over a month before the Oscars for this year will take place, the Sundance Film Festival has just closed and given out its awards and people are already starting to look ahead to next year’s Oscars (The Kids Are Alright and Cyrus are supposedly the Oscariest ones, if you want to start next year's scorecard). Last year at Sundance, there was a little movie called Push (later to be called Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire) that blew almost everyone away who saw it. Taking the Special Jury Prize at Sundance, and gaining the attention of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry who wanted to make sure as many people saw it as possible, it quickly became an early (very early) favorite for Oscar – not only for the devastating performances of Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibe, but actual Best Picture buzz. Another Sundance film that got this very early Oscar buzz was An Education, an outstanding film that deserves a spot on any year’s Best Picture list, with a lead performance by Carey Mulligan that most viewers felt sure would earn her a ticket to the Oscars.

Then summer came. The Hurt Locker got a lot of attention from critics, and I remember thinking to myself after I watched it “You know, if it hadn’t come out so early it would definitely be a Best Picture contender.” Next, the Academy dropped a bombshell. The Best Picture field would be widened to ten instead of the traditional five – something that had not been seen in an Oscar race since 1943 (the Casablanca year, incidentally) and something which is widely (nay, universally) seen as amends for the snubbing of The Dark Knight (which I *STILL* don’t see as a terribly spectacular film, other than Ledger’s performance, but whatevs). People started throwing around ridiculous, near-apocalyptic visions of how this would ruin the prestige of the Best Picture brand – including the preposterous notion that The Hangover could actually find itself among The Ten (I can’t wait for the nominations to be announced so people will FINALLY stop saying it – errr, assuming they’re wrong, of course).

A couple of months later was the Toronto Film Festival, where lots of people fell hard for a film called Up in the Air and pronounced it the new frontrunner of the Oscar race. Precious was still in the game, but it had been around since late January and people were ready to talk about new things. Inglourious Basterds had a surprising amount of critical success, but nobody really took it seriously as a Best Picture contender – Best Supporting Actor, sure, and possibly Original Screenplay, but not the Big One. After all, it was no Pulp Fiction (whatever that means, but people said it). Some sci-fi films – not typically Oscar’s favorite genre – got a lot of audience and critical love (two loves rarely bestowed on the same films) and we saw District 9 and Star Trek enter the conversation.

Fall, which is typically when studios trot out their Oscar hopefuls, was surprisingly light on new Oscar buzz. Films like An Education and A Serious Man and The Road, which most critics had already seen on the festival circuit and which therefore had already been in the race awhile, began to trickle into actual theaters. Audiences were seeing these films for the first time, but they had already been chewed through by critics and awards prognosticators for months. The verdict seemed to be that An Education was still in the race, but not enough people saw A Serious Man and The Road was not as impressive (to many) as expected. Soon, Precious made its huge splash at the few theaters where it was available for viewing, and it was looking like a race between Precious and Up in the Air for Best Picture, with The Hurt Locker as a dark horse. The Hurt Locker, which had already left most theaters, had not made a great deal of money. You might think, given how “boring” many Oscar winners might seem, that obscure movies are favored, but a movie that made as little money as The Hurt Locker has not been in a frontrunner position (much less actually been a winner) in many, many years. So money still matters. Precious was getting a lot of attention in November and early December, with the folks orchestrating Up in the Air’s campaign happy (or at least willing) to cede the spotlight for the moment, presumably confident that they would be able to wrest the momentum from Precious later in the season, when it would matter more.

There were still four films, yet to be released or even screened, that Oscar-watchers were keeping an eye on, expecting a few or even all of them to potentially change the landscape of the race – Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, Eastwood’s Invictus, Rob Marshall’s Nine, and the one whose Oscar chances people mostly half-indulged because the last film its director made (twelve years before) had done rather well for itself - Avatar. For about five minutes, it looked as if none of these films would have any impact on the race at all. The Lovely Bones was savagely (and in my opinion, unfairly) trashed by critics, and was considered out of the race for good – not even an undeserving benefactor of the expanded field of the Ten nominees. Eastwood might have some loyalists, but Invictus was not well received; it might slip in, but only if there was not a lot else to fill out the Ten. Nine was uninspired, too derivative of Marshall’s earlier ingenuity in the genre, and a financial flop. And though it hadn’t yet been seen, no one took Avatar as seriously as they pretended to, and a huge thud was fully expected from Camp Cameron and his weird blue people.

Critics started to give out their awards, and it looked like Up in the Air had indeed benefited (at least with the critics) from the slow and steady start. The Hurt Locker appeared on more critics’ Top 10 lists than any other film of the year; people had definitely not forgotten about it. Precious, however, was losing steam – still a sure thing for the Ten, and even one of what was being called the “top tier” of the Ten (i.e., it would be a Best Picture nominee even if there were only five). But no longer a frontrunner. It had peaked too soon.

Then people saw Avatar. And behold, it was good/not terrible/awesome-beyond-belief-and-don’t-you-want-to-die-because-Pandora-isn’t-real. There was a special screening for the Academy, who ate it up with a spoon, and it was suddenly the frontrunner. The classic December surprise. Golden Globe nominations came out, and no matter what people say about them, they do indeed shape the race, even if the awards themselves don’t amount to much. Between the Globes and the Screen Actors Guild nominations, a summer movie that had been all but counted out started to come up from behind and enter the conversation. Inglourious Basterds.

Meanwhile, other guilds announced their nominations. Eyes were especially fixed on the Directors Guild, who gave weight to the “top tier” theory that placed its nominees’ films - Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, and Up in the Air - at the front of the Oscar pack. Five more will be on Oscar’s Best Picture list, but it’s widely believed that they’ll just be lucky to be there and won’t stand a chance at actually winning. I disagree rather strongly with that, by the way, because of the new preferential system of voting. But I’ve gone on enough about that already.

Here’s something hilarious (perhaps only to me). There were three big award shows over the course of just over a week recently. The top prize went to different films for each. The Broadcast Film Critics chose The Hurt Locker, the Globes chose Avatar (and The Hangover, but I still say no way it’s in the race), and the Screen Actors Guild went with Inglourious Basterds (which is actually for ensemble cast, but it’s their equivalent of Best Picture). Just a couple days later, the Producers Guild named The Hurt Locker their Best Picture. This was indeed a stunner, because they usually go with a box office hit, but you’d think from the blogs and other prognosticators that Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead. Suddenly, The Hurt Locker was “back in the race” – um, when did it leave? It won the BFCA not much more than a freakin’ WEEK ago! I mean, I know it’s a race and the littlest thing can make or break a film’s stride, but the fake drama and OMG surprise is a tad much.

So the Oscar race really is a race, with frontrunners and pulling ahead and surprising up-from-behind finishes. There’s a pacing to it, so that a studio has to be careful that its film doesn’t peak too early and lose its momentum. And yes, if people are sick of hearing about a movie, they are likely to forget all about how they loved it once upon a time.

The acting categories can be even more like this, by the way. In the summer, everyone was talking about how the race would be between Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan (Gabourey Sidibe, while a shoe-in for a nomination, would be unlikely to win for her first film – it may have happened for Jennifer Hudson on her first film, but she wasn’t nominated as a lead, and that matters). Now, Sandra Bullock is in the mix. For real, in the mix, and it looks very likely that she'll pull a Julia Roberts “everyone loves her, and this is probably her best shot, so let’s just give it to her” victory. I don’t mean that in a flippant way, by the way, but I do think (and I think Sandra is aware of it as well) that all these voting bodies are expressing their love for her as much as that single performance. And at this stage, something as small as an acceptance speech at another award show can affect how Academy members feel about casting their vote for an actor or actress.

Best Actor is another interesting case, of course. After Colin Firth won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, it was between him and George Clooney for the win. And then Fox Searchlight went and dropped Crazy Heart into the mix and Jeff Bridges instantly became the man (excuse me, the Dude) to beat.

Interesting how far we can come in a year. Precious and An Education are both still highly respected films, still getting plenty of buzz (as they have all year), but neither of them is a frontrunner. One is on the bottom rung of the “top tier” and one is … probably going to be in the Ten, but who knows. Obviously, opinions inevitably change as people see more films over the course of the year, but – as crazy as it may sound - momentum matters every bit as much as quality.

All that endless piffle to say that the Oscars, while often remembered long after they are given out, are largely a product of their time, the results of months of work done by people who had nothing to do with the actual making of the movies awarded. They’re horses in a race, and if they don’t pace themselves and protect themselves from injury or attack, they’re not going to get the roses. Having an excellent jockey obviously helps as well, as no one rides a horse to victory quite like Harvey Wenstein. Which is perhaps a better reason than any other to take Inglourious Basterds very seriously. ;-)

The Myth of the "Best Editing" Oscar

I've gotten more deeply entrenched in the Oscar race this year than in any previous year. It's been at once fascinating and infuriating, because 1) the level of politics and the whole concept of this being a "race" (which I may post about soon) is rather astounding, and 2) because this has been one of the most interesting and unpredictable Oscar races in recent memory - and the nominations haven't even been calculated yet! Even though some contenders (Jeff Bridges, Mo'Nique, Christoph Waltz) practically have their names already engraved on a statue, other races may actually be impossible to guess until the envelope is opened on March 7. And one of those is, amazingly, the Big One.

But pundits do like their little predictive tools, and I've heard more than one person say that we'll know Best Picture when we know who wins Best Editing.

*screeching brakes sound* What?

That may be gobble-dee-Na'vi to you, but this has been a long-standing myth in the Oscar race. I remember James Cameron saying back in 1998 that he'd know if Titanic was going to win Best Picture if it took the Editing award, because since everyone votes on every category for the final vote, most voters don't really know what goes into editing and just vote for whatever they're voting for for Best Picture. That made sense to me at the time - the editing nominees are actually decided only by other editors, but the winner is voted on by everyone, so there might be some favoritism at play rather than an honest look at what's the best in that field (which is probably why a lot of Best Pictures rack up so many total awards). But I don't think it's true that it's always (or even often) just a blind vote. First of all, I think actors - the biggest voting branch in the Academy - are VERY well aware of how editing works, because the editor is the one who decides how much of their performance ends up on screen. This is why one of the secrets of good screen acting is to make nice with the editor. Second, people in general just know a lot more about how editing affects a movie. Most of you have seen those re-edited movie trailers, where for instance The Shining is re-cut with different music to look like a family comedy. People aren't that stupid.

But there are still Oscar pundits who point to historical data. Data which I have to assume they are pointing at without even looking at it, because the history is NOT on their side in the Editing = Picture argument. Let's look at the past 20 years and see if it's really held up by the facts, shall we?

2008 - Editing: Slumdog Millionaire, Picture: Slumdog Millionaire - MATCH
2007 - Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum, Picture: No Country for Old Men
2006 - Editing: The Departed, Picture: The Departed - MATCH
2005 - Editing: Crash, Picture: Crash- MATCH
2004 - Editing: The Aviator, Picture: Million Dollar Baby
2003 - Editing: Return of the King, Picture: Return of the King - MATCH
2002 - Editing: Chicago, Picture: Chicago - MATCH
2001 - Editing: Black Hawk Down, Picture: A Beautiful Mind
2000 - Editing: Traffic, Picture: Gladiator
1999 - Editing: The Matrix, Picture: American Beauty
1998 - Editing: Saving Private Ryan, Picture: Shakespeare in Love
1997 - Editing: Titanic, Picture: Titanic - MATCH
1996 - Editing: The English Patient, Picture - The English Patient - MATCH
1995 - Editing: Apollo 13, Picture: Braveheart
1994 - Editing: Forrest Gump, Picture: Forrest Gump - MATCH
1993 - Editing: Schindler's List, Picture: Schindler's List - MATCH
1992 - Editing: Unforgiven, Picture: Unforgiven - MATCH
1991 - Editing: JFK, Picture: The Silence of the Lambs
1990 - Editing: Dances With Wolves, Picture: Dances With Wolves - MATCH
1989 - Editing: Born on the Fourth of July, Picture: Driving Miss Daisy

So in the last 20 years, 11 Best Picture winners have also taken the Editing prize, while 9 have not. A majority, but barely. And in the last 10 years, it's been split exactly in half, five-for-five. In the last 5 years, it has matched 3 times and not matched twice.

The Screen Actors Guild's equivalent of Best Picture (Best Ensemble Cast), meanwhile, which most Oscar pundits dismiss as an actual predictor, actually has a (very) slightly better record at predicting Best Picture. 6 of the last 10 Ensemble winners at the SAGs went on to see their movie win Best Picture at the Oscars. The record in the last five years matches the Editing statistic. I can't go back 20, because the awards only go back 15 (and the Ensemble award for movies only 14), not counting this year's, of course. And yet next to NO ONE is predicting Inglourious Basterds to take Best Picture after last night's SAG win.

What does all this mean? Diddly-squat, probably. All I'm saying is that, in a year with 10 slots for Best Picture and preferential ranking votes (as opposed to just one vote for the winner) for whichever of those 10 movies gets the crown, the Best Picture could very well be an upset. Who knows - even my beloved Up might find itself on the pages of Oscar history.

[Pictured above, Thelma Schoonmaker, winner of three Academy Awards for Editing - for Raging Bull, The Aviator, and The Departed.]

Dear Oscar pundit whiners

Why, oh why, do you continually complain about how predictable an Oscar race is? Your job, ESPECIALLY if you work for a site that focuses on the Oscars, is to look at all the factors that go into who gets nominated and who wins in the attempt to figure this out in advance. To make educated guesses in the hopes of being vindicated by the results.

No one reads your Oscar predictions because they want to know what you think SHOULD happen. They want to know what you think WILL happen. If someone truly wants to be surprised by nominations and winners, I'd suggest they not follow the race too closely. The Oscars are just like anything else - the more you know, the more you investigate, the less likely you are to get something you're not expecting. Someone who doesn't obsessively follow all the critics and guild awards has no idea what to expect on February 2, much less March 7 (nomination day and awards night, respectively, for you Oscar non-wonks who might be reading). Many of these people love following the Oscars and the nominations, just not the now exhaustive lineup of precursor awards.

I've been an avid follower of the Oscars since 1991. Since 1995, I've either been up watching the announcements live or (more recently, as websites got faster about putting them up) refreshing my internet browser to see the Golden Globe and Oscar noms as soon as they become public. Since those early years, I've become more in tune with things like momentum and backlash and overhype and all the ingredients, political and precursory, that go into those lists of nominees and winners. Yet instead of bemoaning predictability, I feel a nice sense of calm going into the awards season, having gained through the course of the long prediction game a fairly balanced, realistic look at what might actually happen, as opposed to pinning all my hopes on something that doesn't have the odds in its favor. I don't know if this is why other people follow such things, but it's why I do.

It frustrates, nay, angers me to see posts like this, and the comments that go with them, complaining about how "safe" the guild choices (or whatever we're whining about this week) are. The whole reason you look at something like the Directors Guild nominees is because you want to know/confirm - especially in this possibly less predictable Year Of The Ten - who the frontrunners are for Director and Picture Oscars. Right? It's not an earnest and singular curiousity about this body's opinion, completely divorced from its place in the Oscar race. If it were, you wouldn't be yammering about all the "frontrunners" who were deemed ineligible for the Writers Guild awards. You can look forward to the unpredictability of the WGAs all you want, but you know as well as anyone else that the absence of so many of the established frontrunners makes it fairly useless as a tool for predicting the Oscars.

So yeah, the DGA went with what you already guessed were the "frontrunners." Go you! You're one step closer to having been right about Oscar night! Yet instead of being happy about this, you moan about the predictability of the race.

Sweethearts, if you don't like predictability, you should really get out of the predicting business. Because, again like many things, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Excuse me if I don't pat you on the head and say "Poor thing" for doing exactly what I expect you to do when I read your articles.

Critics, I am putting you On Notice

That goes for you too, compiler of Entertainment Weekly's "Must List." Please, please do not use the word "Oscar" about any film or performance before the month of December. You guys are supposed to be the ones who understand how it works better than we plebes, and you're showing a SHOCKING amount of gullibility, which many of you do HABITUALLY at this time of year and into September, when the first wave of award-bait pictures washes over us all.


Let me tell you a story. I have a worn out VHS tape of Bravo network's "100 Scariest Movie Moments." I watch it way too much, and I've grown weary of the old commercials that I have to fast-forward through. Celebrity Poker Showdown ... Bravo's own "Why We Love TV" Reunion Week ... that horrible Hummer commercial where a clay-Godzilla-type monster mates with a robot and has a Hummer carbaby. But perhaps the most annoying commercial is for a film called Shopgirl that was coming out at the time. Claire Danes, Steve Martin (who'd written the novella on which the movie was based), Jason Schwartzman. I've never seen this film, possibly because of this commercial. There were all kinds of accolades listed for the movie, but the big one was about Danes, saying "She'll be hard to beat at Oscar time."

"Dude, where's my Oscar?"

Know what's wrong with that? October, when this movie was coming out and this comment being made (and for all I know, and I can't be arsed to look up when exactly this comment was published, the critic was seeing the movie weeks, perhaps months, ahead of time) is not Oscar time. It's not even when the studios trot out the films they really intend to push at the real Oscar time. I hardly need add that Claire Danes' performance, while I'm sure it was quite good, not only did not go on to win an Oscar, it was not even distinguished with a nomination. (I hope no one thinks, by the way, that I believe Oscar wins and nominations are actual indicators of a film's or an actor's/performance's worth. They absolutely are not. I'm just saying "she'll be hard to beat" is kind of an embarrassing comment to have made about a performance that turned out to be apparently quite easy to beat.)

The "100 scariest" tape goes into heavy rotation every year during the month of October, which happens to be when a lot of TV spots for award-bait movies air, most of them with at least one quote from a serious, respected critic who proclaims it or some actor's performance to be "the one to beat." I don't expect to hear such piffle this early in the year, but I've already heard it about one performance this year (funnily enough, regarding Claire Danes' fiance Hugh Dancy). And as I picked up my copy of this week's Entertainment Weekly, I turned to the "Must List" to find Meryl Streep in the number one spot for her charming turn as Julia Child in Julie & Julia. I smiled, having just seen the film myself, until I read the blurb and these famous last words - "It's her Oscar to lose." I rolled my eyes, even though, being Meryl Streep, she tends to be the exception to the rule, and even though she's on my own shortlist of Oscar contenders. But my list has only just begun; there are tons - TONS - of movies coming out in the next five months with doubtless hundreds of excellent performances in them. And while attaching the word "Oscar" to a review or a comment no doubt sells tickets, it also contributes to getting people - those who care about such things anyway - invested in them coming true.

This is something that I feel seasoned critics and industry insiders should already know, without a newb like me having to tell them, but apparently this is a lesson that needs learnin', and if no one else will step up, I will. Calm the heck down, people! There's plenty of time to make boneheaded and sure-to-be-shafted predictions after we've seen all the movies 2009 has to offer.