Oscars = Toronto 2008?

Well I’m glad I did get to watch most of the Oscars after all. Cablevision, led by a recovering drug addict with a temper must be great at pissing off its content providers. Here is a corporation with such little regard for its customers, customers whose bills keep going up, that they let it come to this. Most blame ABC, I can’t say I do – I have little brand loyalty for Cablevision who are pushing customers to switch to digital cable by removing stations that we still pay for. If you want to get E! (and who doesn’t want to watch a documentary about Tara Reid acting like Cablevision CEO James Dolan did in the early 90’s – drunk off his ass on a Tuesday night) – you’ll have to pay extra per month, plus a monthly box rental fee, and to further sodmize you without lube – you have pay a fee to rent the remote from those crooks).

In protest I did buy an HD antenna at Target, which couldn’t pick up ABC 7 (CBS looked way clearer than Cablevision’s signal actually). It will be going back to Target tonight.

We saw the major awards anyway and not much of Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, which I hear weren’t funny after all. (The last funny Oscar host was Chris Rock, the Oscars should take notes from the Spirit Awards, but then again they are playing to a safe Middle American type of crowd, you know the people that made The Blind Side a hit and didn’t see A Serious Man or A Single Man.)

The Hurt Locker, a film I saw last January at an Independent Spirit Awards screening won big – two major awards (picture and director, as well as 4 other Oscars). Back then it was a little movie with great buzz from Toronto, Jermey Renner and Anthony Mackie took questions at a Q & A session. Toronto 2008 was a great festival: it brought us two best picture and director winners in a row: last year’s Slumdog Millionaire had its Canadian premiere at TIFF, where it won the audience award (Precious won the same award at TIFF in 2009).

Toronto again is confirmed as a predictor, a festival with great taste, brilliant programmers, and amazing audiences who love film. Audiences make a film festival which is why I’m reluctant to participate in Rebecca’s virtual festival this year, but I may have to, I’m not sure I will get their in person with all the work piling up in March and April (I’ve been commissioned to make two pieces for Hallwalls Models and Artists Affair in Buffalo).

The Oscars contained little surprises, my friends were right: Bigelow did beat her husband and genuinely looked surprised, she made a great film, one that I need to see again very soon (hopefully next week the folks at Dip son Theatres will bring it around again in Buffalo).

Jeff Bridges rightfully won for his amazing performance as Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, which also won for song, which was expected and apt. I’m not sure how I feel about Sandra Bullock winning for Best Actress; I wish it had gone to Gabourey Sidibe for her fearless role in Precious. Also robbed was The Messenger, a powerful film that saw no wins at the Oscars. Christoph Waltz won best supporting actor for Inglorious Bustards as expected, Mo’Nique won finally after being shut out for Phat Girlz.

Hurt Locker won screenplay, upsetting The Messenger, a film that was equally as powerful, but hey – it was a Hurt Locker kind of night. Precious of coarse won best adapted screenplay, I assume it would have been too strange to give the In The Loop the award since I suspect much was improvised.

Then the technical awards: White Ribbon should have won for best cinematography (Avatar won, it rightfully won for its digital Art Direction). Hurt Locker was made in its editing, and it rightfully scored that win as well as two wins for sound. Shockingly the mediocre The Young Victoria won best for costume design over Coco Before Chanel. Make Up is a category I care little about, but Il Divo (unseen by me) looked impressive, it lost to Star Trek. Up won music score and animated film, I wish it had won best picture, it’s a wonderful piece of filmmaking.

So how about the docs? The Cove won, but I wished it had been Food, Inc. However I haven’t seen the Daniel Ellsberg doc yet, or Which Way Home. Nor have I seen the winner for Foreign Language Film, El Secreto De Sus Ojos, this category is nearly impossible to predict.

As for the short subjects, I can’t comment on documentary. I did see the nominated short animated and live action films and agree with both wins. Logorama was a bright spot in an otherwise dull year, save for Wallace and Gromit, but that short went on for a bit too long. As for live action, I’m glad to see The New Tenants won, Joachim Back’s dark comedy written and staring This American Life’s David Rakoff. It was very Danish despite taking place in the US of A.

The real tragedy is the way The Hurt Locker was of coarse released. It made $12 million dollars in theaters, perhaps the lowest sum of any Oscar nominated film many years (Slumdog pulled $120M), I’m not blaming Summit Entertainment but it’s a victim of collapsing release date windows between a theatrical release and DVD, had they not done a DVD release they could have opened it wide next weekend and it could have gone on to make over $100M at the box office. DVD sales and rentals, of coarse should be brisk starting today.

Expanding Best Picture to 10 allowed the academy to still pick the best picture of the year, others seemed like filler. Had it only been 5 I suppose we would have been Hurt Locker, Avatar, Precious, A Serious Man and Up as the nominees. This year we also got District 9 (I don’t understand that pick, but okay), The Blind Side (a hugely popular film with middle America, it’s made 250M), An Education (a very well made coming of age story), Inglorious Basterds (a solid film from a brilliant filmmaker), and Up In The Air (fun, but I suppose this is more of a celebration of who was in it and who was making it). Hurt Locker is second lowest grossing of the films (A Serious Man has only pulled in $9M, but its truly an original trip that recalls the strangest of the brothers Coen – reminding me of Lebowski).

With all this said, 10 proved to yield the same result: it wasn’t a popularity contest, or at least a popularity contest of the mainstream. Hollywood is still, by this measure out of touch with the mainstream, if this were the people’s choice awards I bet The Blind Side and Avatar would dominate, but those are the kinds of films they are. The Oscars choose No Country for Old Men a few years ago, a lot of people hate the lack of closure it ends on. This essay will end the same way.

10 in 2010

A surprising move came today as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Oscar folks will now nominate 10 films for Best Picture, up from five. The New York Times reports this reason: The Dark Knight. It was the most popular film of the year, well reviewed - whereas a majority of the Best Picture nominees (including The Reader) weren’t nearly as popular. Then again they all didn’t have Batman.

The Dark Knight is a fine picture representing the very best of Hollywood storytelling ripe with emotion, it was a strong work. Slumdog Millionaire rightfully won, it was an energetic, vibrant and amazing film, also a crowd pleaser. I saw it at Toronto last September and knew it was going to be huge. On the eve of its Best Picture win I saw it again in Paramus at Garden State Plaza, with a sold out audience, it received an equally enthusiastic reception, it was no fluke.

The fact that The Dark Knight wasn’t nominated, some proposed, meant that the Academy was out of touch the public. I would propose that the Oscars are not the people’s choice awards, however they are Hollywood’s awards. Film snobs like me have the annual listings in Film Comment, which I am in synch with it appears, they also gave the top honor to Wendy & Lucy, whereas two years ago the magazine and the academy agreed on The Departed.

10 has its benefits. For starts Pixar has been overlooked time and again in the Best Picture category - it would be shocking if Up, a masterpiece is overlooked. For me, I’m hoping the Academy will dive into the truly overlooked films that come close to vanishing into obscurity. Sadly IFC Films, who releases some great films and Magnolia disqualify themselves with VOD releases prior to theatrical.

VOD to its credit has introduced audiences to new filmmakers and IFC to its credit did give Hunger an Oscar Qualifying run, it wasn’t successful which is a shame since it was a powerful film. Then again there are only so many movies and so little time, choosing 10 seems hard, I have a problem doing my top 10 list and I see a great deal of films throughout the year. 

This year could also see some other films, but it feels, knowing of the criticisms of AMPAS that the move is meant to include more popular films. Paul Blart: Mall Cop may be the most popular film of the year, and it was pleasant enough - but we’ll have to wait and see what sort of diversity is in this set of 10. Hopefully, if anything, those films will all be well deserving, critically acclaimed, and released throughout the year. If anything Paul Blart has the January opening working against it.

What does deserve a nom, thus far? Glad you asked:

Up

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Treeless Mountain

Goodbye Solo

Adventureland

Knowing

Watchmen

Coraline

Memorial Day

The Hurt Locker

Medicine for Melancholy

Of Time and the City

*Out of those UP is the only one, that stands a chance.