2013 Oscar Watch

We're a few years into the expanded Best Picture race and I can safely say that I am not a fan.  On the plus side it does recognize a lot more movies that other wise wouldn't have gotten nominations but on the negative side it includes a lot of filler.  Not that the movies are bad but when everything gets nominated it makes things a little less exciting.  If this were still a 5 movie race you would have 12 Years A Slave, Gravity, The Wolf Of Wall Street, American Hustle (for some reason) and then something cool that wouldn't win like Captain Phillips, Nebraska or Her.  Instead everything gets nominated and it's a little less fun.  The silver lining to all of this is that all the acting nominations came from Best Picture nominees (minus August Osage County and Blue Jasmine) which means I only needed to watch 11 movies for this blog post.
You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

Best Picture

9. American Hustle - My biggest problem with the modern Oscar race is the movies that come out at the last minute and score nominations before the general public has had a chance to see it.  This movie got a limited release at the end of December in order to qualify, it was the last movie that the critics saw before they started voting on their awards and then regular movie goers don't get a chance to see it until mid January, after it has already gotten Oscar nominations that it can include on its poster.  Usually in these cases I already have my top 10 filled out from the movies I've seen during the year and by the time I get around to seeing a film like American Hustle it really has to blow me away for me to care.  I guess my mind works differently than the academy's in which I am able to remember films that came out before November.  Anyway, so when I saw this film in 2014 I didn't like it but I also didn't give it a chance.  5 years later and watching it again I can safely say that I just don't like this movie.  It feels like David O. Russell wanted to make a Martin Scorsese movie so he copied his entire style, all the characters take turns narrating the movie in voice-over, you're never quite sure who's hustling who and it just feels so listless.  I don't know what this says about the movie but my favorite character was the one played by Louis C.K. and he's supposed to be the most boring character in the film.  I didn't like or care about anybody in this movie.

8. The Wolf Of Wall Street - You know how I said that American Hustle felt like David O. Russell was trying to make a Martin Scorsese movie?  This feels like Scorsese is trying to make a Scorsese movie.  Also just like American Hustle, I don't like or care about any of these characters.  Not every main character has to be likable but you need to give me some reason to follow him.  Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort, the real life wolf of Wall Street.  He's a huge piece of shit the whole movie who only cares about himself and money and drugs and knowing that this is based on a true story we know he's gonna go to jail at the end.  So why do I need to spend 3 hours with this guy doing shitty things only to get to an ending I know is coming?  Also, the movie is 3 hours long and very repetitive, Jordan does terrible things over and over and over again until finally the feds catch him.  It is very stylish and kinda fun but way way way too long.  Every time there's a slow motion shot I lost my shit because they could have cut 15 minutes off the running time if they just avoided slow-mo.

7. Philomena - This is a film based on a true story about an old woman looking for the son she lost when he was very young.  She gave birth at a young age and her father sent her to live with nuns, they took the child and sent it off somewhere and she hasn't seen it since.  She's spent 50 years trying to track him down and now she is partnered up with an author who is writing a book about the whole ordeal.  It's a cute movie, Judi Dench and Steve Coogan are both very charismatic but it's not a movie that really needed to be in the Best Picture lineup.

6. Dallas Buyers Club - The performances from Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto are the real stars of the film, the Best Picture nomination was just a little icing on the cake.  McConaughey plays a racist, sexist, homophobic rodeo star who gets AIDS.  He befriends some gay people and starts the titular club where he starts smuggling in medication unapproved by the FDA into Texas.  The thing I like most about this movie is that the main character doesn't change.  He's kind of a piece of shit at the beginning of the movie and by the end of the movie he is still a piece of shit who ends up doing good things.  It feels very real, I can imagine another film maker trying to give McConaughey's character a turn where he realizes the errors of his ways.

5. Her - Spike Jonze makes his solo screenwriting debut with this off-beat and off-putting romantic drama.  Joaquin Phoenix stars as a lonely man who forms a sexual relationship with his computer.  It's the near future and a company has created a personal operating system that will form to your personality and talk to you.  It was designed to be a virtual assistant but this guy falls in love with it.  I was expecting this film to be much more funny than it was but it is a straight up drama.  The relationship between Phoenix and the operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johannsson) is so genuine that you completely believe their love.  This movie raises questions like what is love?, what is sex?, what are relationships?, where does the line get drawn? and if it makes you happy, is it bad?

4. Captain Phillips - Paul Greengrass directs this true life story of normal men in an extraordinary situation.  Tom Hanks stars as Captain Phillips who helms a container ship that is taken hostage by Somali pirates.  Greengrass is a master of tense situations with movies like United 93, the Bourne Supremacy and Bloody Sunday so even though we may know the ending it is still exciting.  The main thing I like about this film is that we spend just as much time with the pirates as we do Phillips so we get all sides of the story and there are no clear villains.  The only thing I had an issue with was Tom Hanks and his Boston accent.  It's not that the accent is bad but it is obviously not his real voice that it's a bit distracting.  It's like if Cary Grant played an Irishman.  Is it better to try and fail or not try at all?  I don't think anyone would object if Tom Hanks did not sound like the actual Captain Phillips, who is not a household name.

3. 12 Years A Slave - In 2013 I had a problem with the promotional campaign for this movie.  It accumulated with it winning the Oscar and host Ellen DeGeneres making a joke saying, "You can vote for 12 Years A Slave or you're racist".  That was a joke but it is how the studio made me feel.  If I didn't like this movie, I must like slavery or not care about the struggles of black people in America.  When you do that focus gets removed from the movie itself and put on the subject matter instead.  All of that clouded my view of the film at the time and watching it again 5 years later I can now see the film for what it is.  It is definitely powerful but I was missing character development from the main character.  Solomon Northup ends up being the least interesting character in his own story.  He is a free black man who is mistaken for a slave, sold and lives as a slave for 12 years until he is freed.  There are moments of intense imagery like when he sees his fellow slaves get strung up by their necks or when he is hanging from his neck and left to dangle from a tree while people walk behind him like this is an every day occurrence that is nothing to be alarmed about.  I got a lot of joy seeing him beat the crap out of Paul Dano but got less joy from seeing Brad Pitt come in at the end as a "deus-sexy-machina".

2. Nebraska - Bruce Dern plays an old man who gets a letter from a magazine saying he may have won a million dollars.  He's suffering from the beginning stages of dementia so he takes that as a promise that he is now wealthy and sets off to walk to Nebraska so he can claim his winnings.  His son helps him on his journey and they finally start to bond.  What follows is a slow moving but thoughtful and heartfelt family drama.  Alexander Payne has a way of running you through a gauntlet of emotions.  The film has sad moments, funny moments and moments of fist pounding joy.

1. Gravity - Sandra Bullock is a scientist working on the Hubble telescope orbiting the Earth.  She is joined by astronaut George Clooney.  Something happens, they get separated and Sandra is floating in space trying to find her way home.  This is a visual masterpiece that I first saw on the big screen in 3D but was even more impressed with when I saw it on my TV and the artistry still held up.  It is beautiful to look at but is also a tense survival film that keeps you on the edge of your seat.  It is also the shortest film nominated this year.  At 91 minutes it even trails Philomena in length.  That's because it is all killer and no filler.  There isn't a moment in this movie that drags.

Like Ellen DeGeneres said when she was hosting the Oscars this year, "You can either vote for 12 Years A Slave, or you're racist.".  My favorite film of the nominees was Gravity with Nebraska being a close second.  12 Years A Slave was the most powerful and emotional film but it was missing the character development of Nebraska and the visuals of Gravity.  However, stories about the struggle of African Americans are so often not told or told poorly or ignored that when a good one comes along you can't go wrong with honoring it.  This is reparations for Do The Right Thing and Boyz N The Hood and a hundred other films.  The downside is that the movie is more powerful due to the subject matter and less because of the story itself and it plays more like a movie that should be seen in high school history class than a movie theater but I still can't argue with the decision.

Oscar Winner: 12 Years A Slave

My Vote: Gravity

GABBY Winner: Short Term 12

Best Actor

5. Christian Bale - American Hustle - Christian Bale got all fat and shaved his head for this film which was really...unnecessary.  He could have padded his shirt but he's Christian Bale, he doesn't do that, he likes to gain weight, lose weight, chop his foot off, grow it back, whatever it takes.

4. Chiwetel Ejiofor - 12 Years A Slave - Ejiofor does everything he needs to do in the role of Solomon Northup but the part just isn't that strong.  I never got a sense of who Solomon was, but that's the script's fault, not his.  He mostly just reacts to the horrors around him throughout the movie.  You do see a lot of pain and suffering on his face though and he is pretty fantastic.

3. Leonardo DiCaprio - The Wolf Of Wall Street - I have a love/hate relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio.  He is either perfectly cast in a film and great or horribly miscast and terrible.  This is one of the good ones.  He is the perfect person to play vain hedonist Jordan Belfort.  I absolutely hated his character, which was exactly the point.

2. Bruce Dern - Nebraska - Dern gives a crotchety but sweet performance.  He's an old man who is confused most of the time and has no problem speaking his mind.  When asked by his son if he ever wanted children he bluntly says, "I like to screw and your mother's Catholic.  You figure it out.".  He doesn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, he just tells it like it is.  I've known so many people exactly like this and Dern has a resume filled with terrific roles that it's a shame he comes in 2nd on this list.

1. Matthew McConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club - I'm usually not impressed with physical transformations.  Yes, it is hard on your body to gain or lose weight but with discipline, anyone can do it.  If Tom Arnold wanted to lose a bunch of weight to play an AIDS patient he probably could do it, but could he effectively play the character?  I was astonished with how McConaughey looked in this film.  He is emaciated, he lost 50 pounds for the role and he looks deathly ill.  He's also incredible in the role.  He plays Ron Woodroof, a rodeo cowboy who contracts AIDS.  He is a bigoted man who hates gay people and starts a club to sell unapproved medication to AIDS patients.  He's not doing this to do the right thing, he's doing it to make money and that's what makes the character interesting.  And unlike Bale and DiCaprio he is an unsympathetic lead but we still care about him because of McConaughey's performance.

It stinks that I can't vote for Bruce Dern but this was indeed the McConaissance and I can't ignore Matthew McConaughey.  He is fantastic in every moment of the film and this was his career upswing.  He got tired of being in forgettable romantic comedies like Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past and decided to take a few years off to focus on his craft.  He came back with roles in The Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, Mud, Killer Joe, Magic Mike, True Detective and this.  This was a combination win for a great performance and a terrific comeback story.

Oscar Winner: Matthew McConaughey

My Vote: Matthew McConaughey

GABBY Winner: Matthew McConaughey

Best Actress

5. Meryl Streep - August Osage County - Meryl has a southern accent and cancer.

4. Amy Adams - American Hustle - I did not like this performance but then again I didn't like much of anything about this film.  Amy Adams is an actress I normally really enjoy but she didn't do much for me here.

3. Judi Dench - Philomena - Why oh why did they give Judi Dench the Oscar for Shakespeare In Love?  She wins for 7 minutes of screen time and then spends the next two decades turning out great performances that you can't vote for because they already gave her a bullshit Oscar.  It's the same reason Paul Newman couldn't win after The Color Of Money.  It doesn't matter how great you are we already gave you an Oscar you didn't deserve, you can't have a 2nd.  None of this is her fault, she's Dame Judi God Damn Dench, she's one of the best actresses working today and she's great in Philomena as a woman looking for the baby she gave up years ago.  I just can't vote for her because the academy screwed up in 1998.

2. Sandra Bullock - Gravity - Doing a one person show is usually a surefire way to get an Oscar nomination.  Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, James Whitmore and Dan O'Herlihy are just some of the actors who have been nominated for almost single handedly controlling their films.  Bullock plays a scientist in space who gets separated from her astronaut guide and has to find her way home.  For most of the film she is by herself and you are watching her struggle and succeed on her own.  I wish she hadn't have won for The Blind Side because this is the performance that should have gotten her the Oscar.  My rules for voting on Oscars are simple though.  If you win an Oscar for a performance you shouldn't have then you need to be the absolute best in the category in order to win a 2nd.  If you win for a good performance, your 2nd Oscar needs to come from a better performance.  This is definitely a better performance than her work in The Blind Side but they already gave her an Oscar for a lesser role so it's gonna be a while before I can consider voting for her again.

1. Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine - This is Woody Allen's take on A Streetcar Named Desire and Blanchett is the modern day Blanche DuBois.  She was married to a Bernie Madoff type shady business man who lost all their money and she is forced to move in with her sister who she used to lord over with her wealth and decadent lifestyle.  Blanchett is wonderful in this film.  She is a woman crumbling under life's pressures.  Her husband killed himself in prison, her son no longer talks to her, she doesn't know what to do with her life, she's learning computers so she can take an online course in interior design.  Her whole world is crashing down and she has no idea how to live in this world.  She is also prone to fits of talking to herself on the street.  This is an incredible performance that ranks up there with Vivien Leigh as the original Blanche.

I talked about my rules for voting when I talked about Sandra Bullock.  If you already have an Oscar you need to give a better performance to win your 2nd.  Blanchett won a deserved Oscar for The Aviator (unlike Bullock who won in a weak category and because the Academy seemed that she was owed one) and tops herself completely with Blue Jasmine.  Her first Oscar also came in the supporting category so this is her first lead Oscar.  When it comes to a 2nd Oscar I have to weigh the category as well.  I don't want giving someone another win if it gets in the way of giving someone their first.  Here, Meryl's already got 3 so she's out.  Judi and Sandra already won for performances they shouldn't have so that leaves Cate and Amy Adams.  I hated American Hustle and didn't care for Amy in it so Cate is my obvious winner.

Oscar Winner: Cate Blanchett

My Vote: Cate Blanchett

GABBY Winner: Brie Larson for Short Term 12

Best Supporting Actor

5. Barkhad Abdi - Captain Phillips - Abdi plays one of the Somali pirates who takes control of Captain Phillips's ship.  When you first see him he sort of blends into the background but then he gives Tom Hanks a steely, ice cold death stare and says, "I'm the captain now" and he becomes a terrifying villain.  I can't vote for him because this is his first movie.  He was working as a limo driver when he auditioned for the film, got cast and ended up an Oscar nominee.  It's a cool nomination in the way that it makes it look like Hollywood dreams can come true but he's an untested talent and I would rather an actual actor win.  Not saying he's not a real actor, but you know what I mean.

4. Bradley Cooper - American Hustle - Cooper plays the cop with a perm who is going after Bale and Adams and getting involved with them.  He's one of the more interesting characters in the film but that's not saying much.  Have I mentioned that I did not like this movie?

3. Michael Fassbender - 12 Years A Slave - Fassbender makes a captivating villain in 12 Years A Slave.  He is a slave owner but also a God fearing man, not only is he completely evil but he's justifying his actions to make himself seem less evil in his own eyes.  He sees these people as his property and uses the bible to make his actions seem right.  When he whips his slaves he's not doing it because he's a mustache twirling madman, he's doing it like he would kick the tires on his car.  Fassbender makes him a much more interesting character by never playing him as a villain.  Don't get me wrong, he's a villain, he's evil, he's a terrible excuse for a human being but nobody ever sees themselves as a villain.  Human beings justify the worst of our actions or else we wouldn't and hopefully couldn't do them.

2. Jonah Hill - The Wolf Of Wall Street - Jonah is a scene stealer in The Wolf Of Wall Street as a desperate hanger on to Jordan Belfort.  He has teeth that are too straight and white to properly fit in his mouth, does drugs, openly berates his employees and married his cousin.  He walks the fine line between character and caricature.  He's almost a cartoon but he pulls back ever so slightly so he still remains a grounded character.  He stays consistent through the whole film so no matter how unbelievable this guy is you still believe him.  It's a hard act to pull off and Jonah does so admirably.  I also liked him in This Is The End from this year.

1. Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club - Leto plays Rayon, an HIV positive trans woman who "befriends" Matthew McConaughey.  The two of them work as business partners where McConaughey smuggles the drugs into America and Leto drums up business through her contacts with the gay community.  Leto did his usual method thing where he lived as the character through filming and I have no idea if that makes a performance better (in my opinion, it's bullshit that actors do to make themselves seem more important) but he is very believable in the role.  I really liked his chemistry with McConaughey but I felt the movie lost a little focus when it followed his character.

Other than Barkhad Abdi this category is a no lose situation.  All of these are actors I respect and have liked in multiple films.  I'd rather not have Cooper win because I hated American Hustle but Fassbender, Hill and Leto would all be good choices.  I'll go with Leto just so he and McConaughey can win together, so much of the movie rides on their chemistry so it's nice that they both got Oscars.

Oscar Winner: Jared Leto

My Vote: Jared Leto

GABBY Winner: Sam Rockwell for The Way Way Back

Best Supporting Actress

5. Jennifer Lawrence - American Hustle - Jennifer Lawrence won last year so we can skip her here.  Also I really disliked her performance.  Her accent is inconsistent, she has the energy of the character but I never truly believed her as the character.  Also, I really disliked this movie if I hadn't mentioned that before.  I did like her much better here than I did in Silver Linings Playbook so if she didn't win for that but won for this it wouldn't have been a total travesty.

4. Julia Roberts - August Osage County - This is based on the Tracy Letts play that was all the rage.  You don't see much of these types of film adaptations anymore, seeing as how the hot Broadway show is mostly a thing of the past.  It feels like a play because of how the dialogue flows, even though they open up the action a bit so it's not all in one location.  Roberts plays Meryl Streep's daughter.  She has a daughter of her own and she is coming back to her childhood home for a funeral and that family is all dysfunctional.  It's a fine performance.  Sometimes I forget that Julia Roberts is capable of acting.  I would never consider it for a vote in this category, she already won and the next three actresses are more deserving.

3. Lupita Nyong'o - 12 Years A Slave - Lupita plays a fellow slave named Patsey.  She's the favored slave of Michael Fassbender's character.  Not only can she pick more cotton than anyone else on the plantation but she is repeatedly raped by her master.  Fassbender's wife suspects this and tells him to sell her but he refuses and this accumulates into a whipping scene where Lupita gets whipped within an inch of her life in one unbroken shot.  It's the most powerful and memorable scene in the film.  Other than that, she doesn't do a whole lot in the film but her character is still important because of that one scene.

2. Sally Hawkins - Blue Jasmine - Blanche DuBois would be nothing without her put upon sister Stella.  That's the role that Hawkins fills in the story.  She grew up idolizing her sister, Cate Blanchett married wealthy while Sally Hawkins married Andrew Dice Clay.  She is now divorced with 2 children and starting a relationship with another Stanley Kowalski analog played by Bobby Cannavale.  She gets a little overshadowed by Blanchett but still has many great moments in the film.  I remember her being a bit of a surprise nominee but she definitely deserved to be here.

1. June Squibb - Nebraska - Squibb plays Bruce Dern's foul mouthed wife and every line that comes out of her mouth is pure gold.  She's even more stubborn and opinionated than Dern and has absolutely no filter.  She talks about how she hates her husband right in front of him, she flashes a gravestone to show the dead man what he could have had but she never plays the part crass or crude.  She's completely real in the role and sweet and funny and all around endearing, even though she's not the nicest woman.

I like that Lupita Nyong'o won because the Oscars should be honoring actors of different races and her performance was worthy.  I don't like that she won because this is her first movie and she's an untested talent.  Oscars should be a capper for a great career or an honor given to an actor who has proven themselves in other films.  I like to see a bit of range before I start handing out statues, she may have just been perfectly cast in this one role.  That's how you get Oscar winners like Miyoshi Umeki.  It also gives her nowhere to go.  If you win an Oscar for your first film, what are you gonna do to top that?  Now, arguably my choice isn't much better in that department.  June Squibb is definitely older than Lupita but it's not like she's a star.  The only thing I've seen her in before this was About Schmidt where she dies pretty quickly into the film.  If I was voting strictly on career I would pick Sally Hawkins but June was my favorite performance so I'm casting my vote for her but I'm perfectly happy with a Lupita win.

Oscar Winner: Lupita Nyong'o

My Vote: June Squibb

GABBY Winner: Vanessa Redgrave for Unfinished Song

Best Director
Like I said earlier, I'm glad they gave 12 Years A Slave the Best Picture prize but they made the right decision by splitting up Best Picture and Best Director.  Instead of Steve McQueen winning for 12 Years A Slave they went with Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity who created the most visually creative movie of the year.

Best Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay
Spike Jonze wins Original Screenplay for the inventive and definitely original Her while John Ridley wins for adapting 12 Years A Slave.  For me, Original was a toss up between Her and Nebraska and while I'm cool with 12 Years A Slave winning I would have liked to see Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater win for Before Midnight.

Best Animated Feature Film
With no Pixar film to contend with (Monsters University was their eligible film this year which was not nominated) Disney wins for Frozen over the forgettable Despicable Me 2, the fun and enjoyable The Croods and Hayao Miyazaki's final film The Wind Rises.

Best Documentary Feature
One of my favorite films of 2013 was Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary The Act Of Killing.  The film follows the leaders of the death squads in Indonesia whose love of film makes them realize the horror of their deeds.  The Academy nominated that and overlooked the also great Blackfish about the plight of whales at Sea World and instead went with 20 Feet From Stardom for the win.  This movie is about background singers and is just fine.

Best Original Score/Original Song
The score to Gravity is really good but I prefer the music in Her better.  I also liked Thomas Newman's score for Saving Mr. Banks, even though I really didn't like the movie.  For Best Original Song there was no beating Let It Go from Frozen.  That song was inescapable at the time and continues to be a standard for Disney fans and children.  I prefer the non-nominated For The First Time In Forever from the same film.  My favorite nominated tune would be the incredibly catchy Happy from Despicable Me 2.  One of my favorite Oscar trivia moments happened in this category.  The song Alone Yet Not Alone from the film of the same name scored a nomination before quickly being revoked.  Turns out the guy who wrote the song used to be president of the Academy's music branch and contacted all his friends to vote for it.  This was considered inappropriate behavior and they took the nomination away.  Something smelled fishy because nobody had seen or even heard of this movie and it somehow managed an Oscar nomination.

Best Sound Editing/Sound Mixing
Gravity rightfully wins both categories.  It's closest competition would have been Captain Phillips but Gravity was in a league all by itself.

Best Production Design/Costume Design
Baz Luhrmann's decadent and dull The Great Gatsby is by no means a good film but it does have impressive production values.  It wins both of these categories over American Hustle.  I'm glad American Hustle went home empty handed but I'm surprised it didn't win one of these awards just because it seemed to have some support, at least enough support to get 10 nominations.

Best Cinematography/Film Editing
Gravity wins both of these categories.  While both the cinematography and editing are superb I always have an issue when an effects heavy movie wins in these technical categories.  How do you tell how much is the camerawork and the editing and how much is CGI in post-production.  I would have liked to see Bruno Delbonnel win for the cinematography in Inside Llweyn Davis or Roger Deakins win for Prisoners.  The editing in a Paul Greengrass film is always the star so I would have liked Captain Phillips to win in that category.

Best Makeup And Hairstyling
Dallas Buyers Club wins the category where you vote for the best movie.  It was up against Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa and The Lone Ranger, what would you vote for?  Not sure why any of the following movies weren't nominated, American Hustle, Blue Jasmine, Gangster Squad, The Great Gatsby, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Oz the Great and Powerful, Star Trek into Darkness or Warm Bodies.  All would have been better choices than slapping some Native American makeup on Johnny Depp or putting some cheap old age makeup on Johnny Knoxville.

Best Visual Effects
Gravity wins a no contest decision.

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