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| Spoiler alert: this movie is going to win most of them. |
The 84th Academy Awards draw near. This year's theme is “let's get this shit over with.” For a number of reasons, this year's Oscars arrive under a cloud of grumpy “fuck this shit”ness from large portions of the critical community. Normal people (no faintly condescending “civilians” talk about the Oscars; being a non-civilian Oscar watcher is hardly a badge of honor) are like “oh, the Oscars, yeah, let's get a couple bottles of something tasty and look at the dresses and stuff” and you know? I'm starting to really come around to that way of thinking. There've been years when I'd have let stuff like Albert Brooks not getting nominated for Drive bug me for months and would occasionally rant about it unsolicited for years.
But ya know what? Sometimes something has to happen that's that retarded to really open people's eyes to the lovely, relaxing life afforded to those who don't give a fuck. So much nicer this way. Cuz I mean holy shit. We shouldn't be having Oscars this year without Albert Brooks being nominated. Drive, while not a picture that should have really won anything other than one for Brooks, deserved at least as many nominations as The Tree Of Life (and Tree of Life deserved three times as many as it got). And yet, here they are. Even Led Zeppelin realized that what is and what should be are two different things, and they were on so many fucking drugs a couple songs later on that same album Robert Plant was taking his girlfriend to Mordor on a date. So don't let's stress. Instead, may we all enjoy ourselves Sunday. And now, in the immortal words of Clarence Williams III, “This . . . is what's gon' happen!”:
Best Animated Short Film: no idea
Best Live Action Short Film: got me
Best Documentary Short Subject: fuck if I know
Best Documentary Feature: something about Very Serious Things
Honesty is the best policy. No one knows who the fuck's going to win these. But these are always the ones that have the best speeches, because the people who make these kinds of pictures are nerds who are thrilled as fuck to be there, and kinda crazy to boot, both of which the Oscars need more of.
Best Visual Effects: Hugo
Hugo may have had a wonky structure and may not have given us a reason to care about any of the characters until past the halfway point, but it sure did look cool. And, while if this was an award given out to the movie with the best visual effects, Rise of the Planet of the Apes would win as decisively as Caesar won the revolution, but that's not how things work in Oscarville, so it's Hugo. But this is no tragedy, because Hugo was quite the technical achievement, and for all my bitching about what's wrong with it, it's the work of a master filmmaker and a meaningful work of art.
Best Film Editing: The Artist
This was a tough pick, actually, and I went back and forth on it a bit before realizing that a) I was daydreaming, b) the reason I was daydreaming was because I was cranky that this category wasn't Drive, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Tree Of Life, either Tintin or War Horse because Spielberg, and Hugo, and c) dude, it's going to go to The Artist because The Artist is going to win everything it's nominated for with two exceptions. It's winning this one because people are oohing and aahing that they managed to cut without sound, which I'd find more impressive if that wasn't exactly how I learned how to edit. If all those hours I spent watching 16 mm films of sunflowers expressing the incomparable pain of being an upper-middle-class teenager mean I get to win an Oscar for Best Editing someday, it'll all have been worth it.
Best Costume Design: The Artist
Cuz Dujardin's tuxes and Bejo's dresses were pretty bangin'. Also, The Artist is winning almost everything this year.
Best Makeup: The Iron Lady
It'd be nice if this was the Harry Potter franchise's token Oscar for the fact that it made almost $8 billion. (Ed. Note: Holy fuck, the Harry Potter movies grossed almost $8 billion. That's fucking insane.) But the only people in the industry who like the Harry Potter movies are the people at Warners backstroking naked through cash and British actors, every single one of whom appeared at some point or other in the franchise. So, I guess The Iron Lady people win for keeping Meryl Streep from getting rusty? I don't know, I only care about Best Makeup because makeup nerds give fun speeches.
Best Cinematography: The Artist
Again, if meaning existed in the universe, Lubezki would win for Tree Of Life, but because the assignment of meaning is arbitrary and purpose is widely assumed in the absence of any supporting evidence, he will not. The Artist is winning almost everything this year.
Best Art Direction: Hugo
Here's why I've been prefacing “everything” with “almost” when talking about The Artist. This award was fucking invented for work like what Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo did on Hugo. So it wins.
Best Sound Mixing: War Horse
Best Sound Editing: War Horse
Lumping these two in together because most people who don't really pay attention to the particulars of sound design do too. Which is why, as Mark Harris pointed out, War Horse wins because cannons. (You'll also note a lot of my picks are the same as his because he's really smart and knows a lot of stuff and even such a sage as I knows when to listen to superior wisdom.) It takes both because no one gives a fuck except sound people. Though it would have been rad as tits if The Artist was nominated for these so it could win both these too and the TV could just cut to Harvey Weinstein giving the finger and laughing his ass off.
Best Original Song: “Real In Rio,” Rio
Everyone's picking “Man or Muppet” because it's a better song, but that's not how this works. And someone needs to be kicked repeatedly in the balls for there only being two nominees and for “Life's A Happy Song” not being one of them.
Best Original Score: The Artist
Everyone who noticed that massive chunk of the Vertigo score that Ludovic Bource ganked is going to shit kittens all over again (full disclosure: I've seen Vertigo, Vertigo's great, and the music in Vertigo is great, but I had to have it pointed out to me that The Artist straight up Puffysampled it [Puffysampling, if you remember 1997-9, is when you take a whole fucking song and call it a sample] because I am not, contrary to what my many lovers and copy editors may protest, perfect.) And while I feel for their blood pressure, I'd just like to calmly propose we either drop the “original” from the title of this category or add a second one that's just “Best Music” or “Bangin'est Tunes” or “Damn, That Shit Was Dope” or some such, that covers music that existed prior its use in the given movie. Not that anyone's ever going to do this, because it makes too much sense. But it'd sure solve the kitten-shitting epidemic in the critical community.
Best Foreign Language Film: In Darkness
I forget whether my winning streak in this category is four or five years long (which probably means it's ending this year) but in layman's terms, the reasoning goes like this: the picture you've heard of in this category never wins. And this year, A Separation is the movie everyone's heard of, and whoa baby is A Separation good. It's tremendous. But its chances of winning are about .00000001% this year because a) anti-Muslim and anti-Iranian fucktardery but more importantly, b) everyone's heard of it and a lot of people have even actually seen it, which is the death knell for a Best Foreign Language Film nominee. Remember how in Hitchhiker's Guide, they realized that the one guy who was making the decisions about literally everything in the entire universe was an Asperger's case living alone on a deserted planet with only his cat (or was it his dog? it's been a while) as company? Some time in the next five years we're going to find out some eccentric old person in Los Angeles is the only eligible voter in this category (there's a complicated procedure by which you have to prove you've seen all five movies by the voting deadline to even cast a vote) and has been deliberately fucking with us ever since Luis Buñuel died, out of grief. Just watch. Oh, and by the way, when one of the four movies no one's ever heard of is about the Holocaust, it's the prohibitive favorite. Also it'd be nice if Agnieszka Holland wins because she directed a bunch of episodes of The Wire. Not that that has anything to do with anything, but it's the same kind of thinking Academy voters do when voting, so it's fitting.
Best Animated Feature: Rango
The sleeper pick for the most secretly lulzy dramatic subplot in Oscar history: they're going to have to give an Oscar to the guy who directed the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Oh, that's gonna be great. Gore Verbinski should just read his resume as his acceptance speech: “Who'd have thought the guy who directed The Mexican, the American remake of The Ring, and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies would ever win an Oscar? America's the greatest country in the motherfuckin' world!” At which point Morgan Freeman should join him on stage and say with a huge smile to the universe in general, “You have been trolled.”
Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants
Of all these picks, this is the one of two that's most likely to be wrong. So instead of fucking around, I'll “show my work” as they used to say in math class: Moneyball is the best adaptation in the bunch, because even though it wasn't easy and Steve Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, and director Bennett Miller put that fucker together like Frankenstein's monster, they still managed to put together a pretty damn good script (the fact that none of the stuff with the daughter had anything to do with anything, and her presence being actually a net loss for the movie because that damn song she kept playing on the guitar hadn't even come out yet at the time the movie took place, was ultimately forgivable; think of Hollywood like an addict, and things like giving the protagonist a superfluous kid as like a former smoker having one late at night while drunk) from one of the most apparently unfilmable books like ever. But no Oscar voters read books, so scratch that. And scratch Hugo, because if it was winning a bunch of other Oscars it would get this one too because all the Hugo voters would just be going Hugo Hugo Hugo all down the line, but they're not because Hugo's only going to win two. If I was voting for any of these five, I'd have gone Tinker Tailor because Tinker Tailor was tits and if you don't like it you can blow the mole on top of the circus who's been there for years. This one:
But The Descendants winning ain't no problem at all, because The Descendants was great. Anyone with a stick up their ass about Alexander Payne at this point, just knock it off. Seriously, just don't even. When you dis Alexander Payne, you dis yourself. Motherfucker.
Best Writing – Original Screenplay: The Artist
The Artist is taking almost everything this year, volume 5. They're not giving this to Woody because they know he's not going to be there (which is dumb, because Midnight In Paris was awesome), and they're not giving this to Kristin Wiig and Annie Mumolo because girls don't write, you silly (which is also dumb because Bridesmaids was also awesome, and moreover fuck Hollywood in the face for its sexism). A Separation is the best-written movie in the category, but it's not getting the Almodóvar lose-for-foreign-win-for-Screenplay Talk To Her treatment because Iran is scaaaaaaaaaaaary (seriously, it'll be to the entire world's benefit once America is toilet-trained . . .) That leaves Margin Call and The Artist. One movie that's about how a bunch of Evil White Guys In Suits crashed the economy, and one movie about a really handsome guy who looks good in a tux and is a really good dancer and the plucky drop-dead gorgeous girl who looks good in a dress and is also a really good dancer and how they both are adorable. QED byetches.
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help
I'm a little confused as to how Bérénice Bejo slipped through the cracks of The Artist's near-sweep, but these things happen. Also, Octavia Spencer put in a tremendously charismatic performance with a bunch of different layers, each one of which she executed marvelously. So, no complaints here. And, in any case, none of The Help's problems were anything to do with the cast. It helps (Ha! See what I did there?) that the Oscars have so little to do with movies, because as infuriating and painful as The Help was to sit through, I like being able to openly root for Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis to win Oscars for the sake of their careers (and because they were both legitimately awesome) without it being an endorsement of the movie they're winning them for. To clarify, I'm both rooting for her and rationally think she's going to win, although there's considerable precedent for weird shit happening in this category. Don't be surprised if Melissa McCarthy pulls off an upset, or if Bérénice Bejo makes it a clean sweep for The Artist, but the odds-on favorite (call it like 5/2 or thereabouts) is Octavia Spencer.
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Speaking of infuriating and painful movies. But I come not to bitch about Beginners, I come to praise Christopher Plummer. Sure it's a “for services rendered” Oscar, but they give those out all the time, and to far less awesome actors. So what if this should be Albert Brooks' victory lap? “Should” doesn't count for much with Oscars, and it's a shifting quantity anyway. Of these five dudes, there's no overwhelming reason anyone other than Plummer should take it, so just sit back and enjoy the awesome speech that's virtually guaranteed when he wins.
Best Actress: Viola Davis, The Help
Along with her castmate Octavia Spencer, this is why it fits nicely that the Oscars are during Race In Cinema Month here at Movies By Bowes ™. Viola Davis should win Best Actress because she's awesome and has “paid her dues” (which is dumb but a real thing in Oscarology, just like the belief that Billy Crystal is still funny) and her performance was so good it made a movie I didn't like completely engrossing whenever she was on screen. That's why she should win. The fact that she'd be only the second black Best Actress is cool concomitantly. But it's still really cool. I think she edges Meryl Streep, in no small part because of the secret Masonic oath the Academy apparently took in 1983 that Meryl Streep would never win an Oscar again after her first two.
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Brad Pitt is the victim of people in the Academy being lumpen little fucking assholes about The Tree Of Life. If it had gotten 15 nominations like it should have (yes, I know this is stupid, I'm at least kind of kidding), he would have been the runaway favorite because Jesus Hieronymous Christ was he good in that movie. In Moneyball, he's great and he holds it down and, sure, if he won it would be fine, but he's not going to. George Clooney was tremendous in The Descendants, and if it was the movie that was winning everything this year he'd be a shoo-in. But it's not. Demián Bichir, I can't tell you about, because I haven't seen that movie, but neither have most of the voters. Scratch. Would that the reason I listed the nominees in this order was because I had any kind of basis for saying it was between Gary Oldman and Jean Dujardin, but no. Gary Oldman has no shot, despite being soooooooooo good as Smiley. Nothing would make me happier than Gary Oldman finally winning an Oscar. (Okay, that's hyperbole, but it would own.) But don't get me wrong, I have no beef with the fact that Jean Dujardin is going to win this. Dude's a straight-up for-real movie star, and he was great in that movie. And his acceptance speech is going to fucking rock. Fuck the Francophobes.
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Meh. Not thrilled about this one, but it's inevitable. If only Terry Malick won and he sent the dinosaur to accept it for him. Then again by this point I'll be drunk enough that I'll think that's what's happening anyway.
Best Picture: The Artist
So, okay. Here's the deal. I can't speak for every film critic, blogger, or pundit out there, nor would I dream of doing so. All I can say is that the way I read the situation is this: the reason all those people are bummed out about The Artist sweeping this year is that we were never given a choice. This isn't like last year when The Social Network was all good in first place and the Academy went “waaaaaaaitaminnit” and remembered there was a Weinstein Company picture in the race and gave everything to The King's Speech, a mediocre movie at best. The Artist actually is good. And, at least formally, it's a little adventurous, being an almost entirely silent movie. It is the kind of movie to which it's paying homage: a big, emotional crowd-pleaser that doesn't entirely hold up to close scrutiny.
Which is the thing about the Artist bitching in the blogosphere: the kind of people who scrutinize movies closely and found the handful of things wrong with The Artist are flummoxed as to how anyone could possibly vote this as Best Picture. The thing about The Artist is, and this is backed up by a lot of anecdotal evidence of people I know who've seen it, when you just sit back and watch it, it washes over you and it's an absolute delight. The people who told me this are people who love movies, who see a lot of them, who know a lot about them, but who don't necessarily approach movies analytically all the time. They fucking love The Artist. And, to a certain degree, I went to The Artist back in November as one of those people. I wasn't on the hook to review it for anyone. I could have decided to review it for this blog, but I just wasn't feeling it that day. I went to BAM for like a 2pm show or something, and it was me and six or seven old gay couples and we spent the hour forty happily crying our eyes out and not giving a fuck. I enjoyed that experience of seeing the movie enough that I don't want to go back and go over it with a fine-toothed comb, because I'll just notice more ways in which Hazanavicius blew the pastiche and things like the “natives” in the jungle movie-within-a-movie would annoy me—as my pal Isaac Butler so aptly put it, they're literally spear-chuckers—and I'd end up being all pissed off and disillusioned and probably mad at myself for being a sucker for not giving a fuck the first time. But why do that if I don't have to?
This (obviously) isn't an artistic justification for The Artist to win Best Picture. But there's a fine line that needs to be drawn, that explains a LOT about the Oscars: they're not about film. They're about The Movies. Film is a medium that affords ambitious artists opportunities to make profound personal statements through the confluence of moving visual images, the juxtaposition of those images, sound, and the interplay between image and sound. The Movies are things people go to to laugh and cry and be awed. Film is something experienced proactively. The Movies are things experienced reactively. Both use the same equipment and techniques, and there's plenty of overlap in the resultant motion pictures, but the Oscars are about The Movies. This is why it has to be The Artist, in a triumphant landslide, because it's a movie about The Movies that is The Movies. It doesn't even really have all that much to do with Harvey Weinstein. The Artist is exactly what this whole Oscar thing is about.
So have fun on Sunday. Suspense about who's going to win is not, by any means, the whole show.
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