The rest of the night I did some more work, made some chicken with Katie, watched some more 24 (nearly done Season 1 and loving it) and just hung out.
As I've said before, on slow days, I will be trying to liven up the blog a little bit. Below are my Oscar Predictions, which turned into quite the enjoyable riff to write. Enjoy it if you wish. If not, skip to the end and continue reading about the minutiae of my day.
--------------------------------------------------------
Your Un-Informed Movie-Goer's Guide to the Oscars
This Sunday the Oscars are coming up. People care about the Oscars. Some care deeply. I am not one of those people. I do enjoy awards shows, however, and the Oscars is the SuperBowl "The Big Game" of awards shows. I tend to watch most award shows for the sole purpose of being entertained by other people who live for this sort of stuff - whether they are the performers/presenters, participants, audience, twitter users, or the people I am watching with. I don't really get riled up if something that "deserved to win" doesn't win. I do, however, enjoy watching people who care deeply about how exactly Hollywood decides annually to pat itself on the back freakout over this stuff. I understand why people get worked up - they want their favorite movies to win and have some sort of arbitrary social gold-star for their very important opinion on what's "good" and, when that doesn't happen, it can be somewhat (or I guess, really) upsetting. For me, I just want to feel like I got my money's worth with a movie and maybe like it enough to watch it again sometime. With that ringing endorsement of the Academy Awards, here are my predictions for the major Oscar categories. Enjoy my arbitrary criteria based on limited information! :
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Nominees: Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Wreck-It-Ralph
Frankenweenie?
ParaNorman? Take your lame portmanteaus somewhere else. This is a
two-horse race between Brave and Wreck-It-Ralph, and it isn't even that
close. I saw both, like the child I am, and definitely enjoyed both. Brave was a
cute, fun, Disney tomboy Princess adventure (seriously, how manly am I right now?) that had a good message and humorous, easy to follow storyline with a few suprising twists. But, it didn't wreck it.
I'm proud to say that I saw Wreck-it-Ralph with both of my younger
siblings, Jimmy (8) and Bridget (17) and found myself tearing up a few
times because of how enjoyably engaging it was. Simply a great movie. I
can't wait to watch it with Jimmy (who loved it maybe more than I did) all summer. Seriously, see it as soon as you can, preferably with someone young who you care about. You won't be disappointed.
Winner: WRECK-IT-RALPH
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Nominees: Alan Arkin (Argo), Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master), Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln), Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)
That's quite
a list of talent and Hollywood history. A few of those guys can (and have) win as
lead actors. I have no idea what The Master is about, but I'll bet
Philip Seymour Hoffman was good in it because he's Philip Seymour
Hoffman. I'm still waiting on a Tommy Lee Jones Oscar for Men in Black.
I really enjoyed Robert De Niro in Silver Linings Playbook - he nailed
any Eagles fan over 50, and was just generally enjoyable. Alan Arkin in
Argo was an interesting combination hysterical, yet admirable as a
cranky producer pulled into a just-crazy-enough-to-work scheme to save
some fellow Americans. I'm sure everyone here did a really nice job with
their roles. But, Christoph Waltz exists.
Winner: CHRISTOPH WALTZ (DJANGO UNCHAINED)
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Nominees: Amy Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), Helen Hunt (The Sessions), Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)
This is probably where
my opinion counts least. I only saw Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings
Playbook, and she did a good job, but wasn't anything special. Anne
Hathaway annoys me - partially because anytime I watch an Anne Hathaway movie, usually at the request of my lovely girlfriend Katie, I am left with a chunk of my youth missing which unfortunately is time that I will never, ever get back. However, people either irrationally love Anne Hathaway or rationally irrationally hate her, making her a lock to win this one no matter how
good anyone else is, if only to make Twitter can explode about the
Oscars even further.
Winner: ANNE HATHAWAY (LES MISERABLES)
DIRECTING
Nominees: Michael Haneke (Amour), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Ang Lee (Life of Pi), Steven Spielberg (Lincoln), David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
Big names here
(Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg) both fell victim to making movies that
everyone was supposed to like end up somewhat underwhelming (Life of Pi, Lincoln). I can
make a claim like that because I didn't see either film and just am talking based on gut and friends' opinions
I definitely saw both of those films. Even if Lee's or Spielberg's
films were as-good-as-advertised, David O. Russell's Silver Linings
Playbook was probably the most unexpectedly interesting film I have seen
in quite sometime. What on the surface looks like a typical
romantic-comedy soon delves into the human psyche and explores various
mental illnesses or personality quirks or crazed passions in a warm,
funny, humanistic way that is unfortunately rarely associated with those
who exhibit them. That's a good for an Oscar in my book.
Winner: DAVID O. RUSSELL (SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK)
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Nominees: Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln), Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), Denzel Washington (Flight)
The only one I saw out of these five studs was Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook. Great performance, entertaining, and an absolutely a re-watchable-on-TV-this-summer movie, but it never struck me as an "Oscar Worthy" performance (whatever that means). Denzel is easily my favorite actor out of the bunch and had I seen Flight, maybe I would have given it to him. However, anybody can be a pilot. Or a derranged Eagle's fan (look no further). Or a poor French dude. Or whatever Joaquin Phoenix was. There are few people I would pick to be Abraham Lincoln, but none would be a better choice than the one and only Daniel Day-Lewis.
Winner: DANIEL DAY-LEWIS (LINCOLN)
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Nominees: Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Naomi Watts (The Impossible)
This is between Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence for me, as I didn't see any of the other movies. Coolest name award easily goes to Quvenzhane Wallis, whose parents deserve kudos for setting their child apart with a killer first name from her other-wise common last name. Well done. If I hadn't seen any of these, that might be enough to win. But I saw Jennifer Lawrence. And she killed it in Silver Linings Playbook. Chastain did a great job, but her movie and role was already fairly interesting to begin with. Lawrence MADE Siliver Linings Playbook. Lawrence in a landslide.
Winner: JENNIFER LAWRENCE (SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK)
BEST PICTURE
Nominees: Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty
There are nine nominees for
best picture this year. That seems like a lot, doesn't it? Could it be a marketing
ploy, a way to be able to call your somewhat-decent film an "Oscar
Nominee"? Nahhh... I digress. For me, this is between Argo, Django
Unchained, Silver Linings Playbook and Zero Dark Thirty. Sorry, Les Mis
and all other musicals-turned-movies, but you've been done before...I
need something creatively new to be my "best picture". I regret not
seeing Lincoln, but probably not as much as Spielberg regrets not
putting the assassination in the film. I don't know much about movies, but that seems kind
of important to me.
Sorry,
back to the contenders. Silver Linings Playbook was really good, but it was
essentially a beautiful, dark, twisted, super-interesting rom-com. Rom-coms can't win
unless they also double as something other than a rom-com. I hate this because I loved this movie. Alas, my hands are tied by this unfortunate rule for best picture. Look it up,
its really not a rule. I didn't like Zero Dark Thirty as much as I think I was supposed to. I think it's because I knew what happened.
It felt like a poor man's Homeland crossed with the
"lets-watch-extremely-recent-history-and-think-about-it-deeply-NOW!"
demands of the The Newsroom (both which I enjoy, by the way). Argo, on the other hand, was
an awesome film with all the right ingredients - compelling start to
finish, serious, action-packed, good use of humor and suspense, bearded
Ben Afleck. The only thing it didn't have? DJANGO.
Winner: DJANGO UNCHAINED
Django Unchained was simply the most memorable, enjoyable, humorous, controversial, intriguing, and (often times) uncomfortable movie I have seen this year and maybe ever. It's an experience, to say the least. An instant classic from Quentin Tarantino. If you haven't seen it yet, go see it. I definitely plan on seeing it again in the near future.
P.S. Maybe I care about the Oscars more than I'd like to admit - even though they are silly.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow, I will be doing class work and preparing for a weekend overnight in Brighton with fellow BC students! I'm glad the school week is nearly over.
Til then - Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment