Shortly after embarking on the journey that is this website, my day job took a turn for the remote. As it stands, I travel to work on a helicopter and my shift lasts three weeks at a time. My isolation is so extreme that these posts are submitted on an unreliable satellite internet connection. With these restrictions, watching movies has become rather difficult. As a result, for the first time in years I am way behind in my award show preparation. Of the many movies nominated, I have only managed to see a select few. With the Academy Awards approaching, I would be a poor film writer if I didn’t at least address them.
The Oscars have become Santa Claus to me. When I was younger, I got excited about them and couldn’t wait to see the results of their momentous visit. Now, I don’t believe in them, and it’s the season that I find more exciting than anything else.
I’m not going to try to predict the results; I gave up caring a long time ago. I’m not going to harp on my favourites or what I think should win over everything else; I simply haven’t seen enough of them. I’m just going to share my opinion on some of the films nominated, and some that weren’t but satisfied me anyways. Coincidentally, my remote location will ensure that I don’t get to see the Oscars, but I’ll leave some milk and cookies out for them.
Best Picture – I hate waiting to the end of an article to find Best Picture talk. Let’s start with it this time. I managed to see seven of the ten films nominated and I’ve got a serious bone to pick. I loved ‘Up.’ If there wasn’t a “Best Animated Film” category, I would champion it’s nomination. One problem though – there IS an Animated Category! This is a no-brainer; get it the hell out of Best Picture and get ‘Moon‘ in there. Done. Everything else is as expected, I guess. The simple fact that more people have seen ‘Avatar‘ than every movie combined means it’s probably got a better chance than it should. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it, but I loved it on a different level than a “Best Picture” film. It didn’t have the whole package. Visually stunning, technologically amazing, but weak in writing and acting, it should be seen and appreciated but not crowned as the best movie of the year. As a complete package, my tastes lean more towards ‘District 9,’ ‘The Hurt Locker,’ or ‘Up in the Air.’ Oh yeah, or ‘MOON!!!!!!!!!!’
Best Director – This one is where I think Cameron should get his nod. This was his movie. Every single thing that people loved about this movie, myself included, was a direct result of James Cameron. I enjoyed the other movies, but if ever a movie was defined by one person, ‘Avatar’ is the film embodiment of James Cameron, and the world (critics included) ate it up and demanded seconds.
Animated Feature Film – Ok, this may be the dominating logical side of me coming through, but if only one animated movie gets nominated for best picture, does that not mean that it has already been deemed better than the rest? I loved ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox‘ and ‘Coraline,’ but ‘Up’ surprised the crap out of me and had me pretending not to well up after only 10 minutes. That says something if an animated film can punch you in the gut like that and still walk away reeking of Disney. I haven’t seen ‘The Princess and the Frog‘ or ‘The Secret of Kells,’ but they better be damn good if they edged out ‘Mary & Max‘ for a nomination. Even if they are, I highly doubt that I’d agree on M&M’s absence.
Best Actor – Again, I only managed to see a few of these and I feel a little torn. I would have loved to have seen ‘Crazy Heart,’ as I’ve always pulled for Bridges. Renner was almost good enough in ‘The Hurt Locker’ to make up for his recently failed TV show, ‘The Unusuals.’ Clooney I have trouble with, only because he is somehow his own worst enemy. He plays his characters so well that it becomes who we think he is. As a result, it becomes hard to notice him giving a standout performance because he just seems like he’s playing himself. I enjoyed ‘Up In The Air’ so much more than I was expecting, that I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that he and his character were made for each other.
Best Actress – Every year I run into the same problem: the standout female performances are rarely from the standout films. It is an unfortunate by-product of Hollywood filmmaking that the best female roles are often from movies that I have to go out of my way to find and see. I only managed to see ‘An Education,’ and cannot in good conscience pass any semblance of an informed opinion on this category. I am making an effort to see the other contenders (with the exception of the nauseating Bullock), and hope to be more on top of it as the awards get closer.
Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz. Wow. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: No matter what flaws Basterds may have had, Waltz was unbelievable. Tarantino’s dialogue is only as good as the person who delivers it, and Waltz was born for this role. Even when the movie took some ridiculous turns that had me wondering if I liked it at all, Waltz grabbed me by the throat and softly calmed me into submission only so that he could strike and rip out my jugular as if I was starting trouble in ‘Road House.’
Best Supporting Actress – As mentioned above, I’ve only seen a couple of these performances (and they were both in the same movie). Between the two of them, Kendrick kind of annoyed me (although that was probably just her doing her character justice), and I’ve always hoped that Vera Farmiga would get her chance. It’s not really fair to pass judgment without seeing all of the contenders so I’ll hold back. (Muttered under a fake cough – Gyllenhaal’s always weirded me out, ‘Precious‘ has an unnecessarily long title that just pisses me off, and Cruz has always been meh to me.)
For the remaining categories, I’m not going to pretend to be hip and up to date enough to know what’s going on in all of them. I couldn’t really care less about the technical or musical awards (I’ll never understand nominating two or more songs by the same artist in the same category; it’s like nominating a screenplay for it’s first and third acts…… we get it, you like Randy Newman). I usually bend over backwards to catch every foreign nomination that I can, but this time my seclusion has really cut me off and it looks like I’ll only be able to see ‘Un prophète‘ (if I’m lucky). Documentaries have suffered the same fate as foreign films this year for me. So please, if you have any suggestions as to what I should move heaven and earth to see, let me know. Also, if anyone has a good reason as to why ‘Moon’ was left out, I’d love to read it, and then watch you get interrogated by Christoph Waltz while he drinks fresh milk.
– Pig
