Review Special: Oscar Predictions 2013

The show is only a day away! – though when I post this, it will date Sunday, which means it will be on Monday, Australia time – I have divided my predictions into two categories: Most likely to win and Personal choice.

My predictions are based on three points: Those who have won favourably in previous award shows, the Academy’s tendency to be sentimental – a good example of this is when Scorsese won Best Director for The Departed, when arguably, he really deserved to win it for Good Fellas (there are so many examples of this, which I won’t go into right now), and I felt Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu deserved to win that year for Babel – and, lastly, my own gut-feeling.

I’ve only seen six of the nine films nominated for Best Picture – I’m a big believer in Argo and Amour – but I thought, I may as well log in my predictions. It’s all in good fun.

Best Picture

Most likely to win: Argo

Personal choice: Argo

Best Director

Most likely to win: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln (with Ben Affleck out of this race, Spielberg feels like the most likely contender for the Academy).

Personal choice: Michael Haneke, Amour.

Best Actor

Most likely to win: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln.

Personal choice: Joaquin Phoenix, The Master.

Best Actress

Most likely to win: Emmanuelle Riva, Amour.

Personal choice: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook (but only just ahead of Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty).

Best Supporting Actor

Most likely to win: Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln.

Personal choice: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained (Waltz has been a favourite in previous award shows, but if Lincoln isn’t favourite for Best Picture, there’s a chance the Academy are going to favour the film in other categories, much like the Best Director category, and award a great old-timer, like Jones, for his patriotic role).

Best Supporting Actress

Most likely to win: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables.

Personal choice: Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook (I’m pitching for the dark horse here).

Best Original Screenplay

Most likely to win: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained.

Personal choice: Michael Hanake, Amour.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Most likely to win: Chris Terrio, Argo.

Personal choice: Chris Terrio, Argo.

Lincoln

Oscars watch: I'm very certain that I won't be able to watch all nine films nominated for Best Picture before the ceremony (oh well, I'll be trying, and there's always next year). But here's is my review on the sixth nominee.

There has been some negative talk about this film due to few historical inaccuracies. As a foreigner, I am not very familiar with American history (which is, without a doubt, much older and complicated than Australian history), therefore I don’t know a great deal about America’s sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln. All I knew about him was that he was a Republican, he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, and he’s the face on the American five-dollar note. But there is one thing that I’m certain of, and that is, Daniel Day-Lewis gives a damn-good performance as Lincoln – his voice, his body language, I’m not sure what Lincoln’s mannerisms were, but Day-Lewis truly shows the determination and charisma of an old and tired, yet inspirational president.

I haven’t looked into what’s been claimed as historically inaccurate, but, I’m assuming that what has made Lincoln such a popular figure – who’s been dead for 148 years – was his great legacy to America, and maybe, for this film, that’s all that matters.

Steven Spielberg’s, Lincoln, is set during the closing of the American Civil War and the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlaws slavery. This story also explores Lincoln’s personal hardships during this compelling time: the straining relationship with his eldest son, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who’s longing to serve in the war is forbidden by his father and his resilient mother, Mary (Sally Field), whose ongoing grief for the death of their middle child Willie, who died three years earlier, has deeply wounded their marriage.

Spielberg has spent as long as a decade researching on this influential individual and you can certainly feel the passion and curiosity he has for his subject. This superbly aesthetic film (thanks to Spielberg’s entrusted cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski), which is written by Tony Kushner (who also wrote Spielberg’s, Munich), is a courageous attempt on reaching the very soul of Lincoln. This two and a half hour spectacle, is, at first, slow, but once you get a grasp of the characters and the politics, it surely lures you in – and I think part of it has to do with Day-Lewis’s incredible performance, as well as Tommy Lee Jones and a swarm of incredible actors who make up a strong supporting cast – much like reading a great novel, where its dense prose disconcerts you at first, but once you power through the first chapter, you've grown comfortable with its unique style of writing.

This is a film purely made for American audiences, which I think is one of the reasons why it’s a favourite at this year’s Oscars – its main rival is Ben Affleck’s, Argo. But I don’t think it has a greater universal appeal which Argo certainly possesses. Lincoln, does primarily focus on the politics more so than on the human spirit, but this is not to say that what President Lincoln did for America doesn't reflect his human spirit, rather, the politics is so vast and overwhelming – and for those who aren't American, the politics is very foreign – in this film, that it loses some of that universal appeal. 2010’s Best Picture winner, The King’s Speech, is a good example of this notion, where the film encompasses English politics and culture, but the human spirit is very much there, with the main character, a royal who has a great personal flaw which happens to disrupt his leadership, though he develops a great friendship with the man who helps him deal with his defect.

This is quite a momentous film to power through, but if you’re game, why not give it a go… nothing stopped President Lincoln from trying.

Zero Dark Thirty

Oscars watch:  This is the fifth film nominated for Best Picture (correcting the fact that there are nine nominees this year, not ten, as I stated earlier). And the ceremony is only around the corner - four more films to go.

I was in Los Angeles, during my joyous U.S. holiday, when Osama Bin Laden had been found and killed. A week later, I was in New York, visiting the site where it all began. I’m not a New Yorker, I’m not an American, and I don’t know anyone who lives in New York, but when I saw the photographs of the people who died on that day, and some of the wreckage that had been preserved at the Visitors Centre on Ground Zero, my heart just sunk, as the rooms were eerily, dead silent.

I was almost fifteen when the two planes crashed into the Twin Towers – I had learnt of the news on the morning of the 12^th, as it occurred in the middle of the night, Australia time – I was having breakfast, getting ready for school, and I was confused as to what was being shown on TV. At first, I thought it was just the one plane that accidently crashed into the World Trade Centre being shown over and over again. But then my mother pointed out: “it was deliberate”. Deliberate? It was then, I realised, that there were two planes, two buildings, two blazing clouds of smoke. Why did these people hijack these planes, and crash them? Who would be that crazy to do that? That day, I learnt a new word: terrorist. I’d heard this word before, from movies and shows, but I had never really seen such real, evil acts of terrorism being played over and over again. It was also the first I had heard about Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks, a man who became the most recognisable criminal in the world, but no one could find him.

Nevertheless, that day came. Travelling through the U.S. during this triumphant time was bizarre, but only for a moment. The night before, I was watching highlights of the White House Correspondents dinner in our hotel room, laughing at Seth Meyers’ jokes on Donald Trump. Then, the next day, Osama Bin Laden is dead. Being at Ground Zero in New York was surreal. I stood there, looking at posters stating congratulatory praise for the Obama administration, and remembering what I had seen on the news ten years earlier. I couldn’t believe that this place was a ghost town covered in mountains of ash. But New York has recovered, perhaps not fully, but it has certainly rebuilt itself.

It took nearly ten years to find Bin Laden. And in those ten years, many of us had carried on with our lives. I was busy growing up, getting educated, doing a little bit of travelling, while, an undisclosed unit was trying to track down Bin Laden.

As you may know, Kathryn Bigelow’s, Zero Dark Thirty, is about the search for Bin Laden. It’s a three hour film that takes us from 9/11, to the London bombings, to the discovery of Bin Laden’s secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and then, the raid and killing of the most wanted man in the world. Jessica Chastain plays Maya, a C.I.A. agent who spends most of her waking hours looking for Bin Laden. Throughout her ten year journey, she finds potential leads that get turned down by her superiors, she loses friends, she witnesses the tortures of suspected Bin Laden couriers, and through all this time we are never given much insight into who she really is: Family? Friends? Love life? Home? Her adult life is consumed by Bin Laden. An obsession for revenge. And we can really feel her obsession and determination.

One of my favourite films in the last few years is The Hurt Locker, in which Bigelow made her historic win (first female to win) as Best Director at the Oscars in 2010, as well as winning for Best Picture. What I loved about The Hurt Locker was that it’s a great character-driven story, a psychological look into these three different soldiers (played by Jeremy Renner, Anthony Makie and Brian Geraghty). Zero Dark Thirty is also a war film, but Bigelow steers it into a different route. She focuses heavily on the events, rather than the characters. But this doesn’t feel like a setback for the film because the performances are excellent. I wouldn’t be surprised if Chastain wins Best Actress at this year’s Oscar – although she is up against some tough competition. Jennifer Ehle, who plays Maya’s friend and diligent colleague, is always charming. Aussies, Jason Clarke and Joel Edgerton are exceptional – although, the latter had a minor, but significant role. And Kyle Chandler (who also stars in another Best Picture nominee, Argo) is excellent as Maya’s superior.

Zero Dark Thirty is not a simple film. It’s a very suspenseful voyage with convoluting information which, initially, is unsettling to take in. The first half of the film is indeed convoluting – it assumes that we have followed this story thoroughly from news outlets, and have prior knowledge of the notable figures involved. Understandably, there is ten years’ worth of information to scurry through, which, most of it is manageable to watch, but, there are so many characters involved, that at times, it’s hard to follow who’s who. But the real suspense of the film is the last third, when Maya pushes her superiors to look into the compound at Abbottabad, which she, on a hunch, suspects Bin Laden is hiding in. The raid sequence is undoubtedly intense. It’s a lengthy scene that is skilfully shot with tasteful handheld camera movement and low lighting, which is also aided by night-vision shots. The set of the three-story compound is a replica of the original and was built as is – which means, without the use of a studio, where traditionally, each floor would have been constructed separately – creating a claustrophobic atmosphere, as well as a good visual aide of the maze-like home which is well-guided by quality camera movements and shots.

I had read, prior to viewing Zero Dark Thirty, Mark Bowden’s Vanity Fair article, ‘The Hunt for “Geronimo”’, which is an in-depth account of the infiltration of the Abbottabad compound. The article also goes into the choices and the possible outcomes – discussed by Obama and his administration, the C.I.A and the Navy Seals – about how to go about the raid if the compound is to be Bin Laden’s hiding place. This article gave me a clear view of the operation, and in some way, helped me grasp the story of Zero Dark Thirty (which was written by Mark Boal, who also wrote The Hurt Locker).

There’s no surprise that there has been controversy about this film, particularly the tactics of torture and the supposed misuse of classified information, which Bigelow and Boal had access to. This is certainly an emotional story, and the very last shot of the film gives us a vague insight into what Maya has accomplished personally. And whether you believe the conspiracies surrounding the death of Bin Laden or disagree with the methods of torture, you have to remember that this is a film. A film that does its best to give a fairly accurate portrayal of real events. A film about dutiful characters who are trying to track down a powerful, murderous criminal. So when you see Zero Dark Thirty, leave the propaganda bullshit behind, and just watch the film (or not).

Django Unchained

Oscars watch: Tarantino's masters it again with a re-creation of a classic western, which also happens to be the fourth film nominated for Best Picture.

Quentin Tarantino is a fascinating filmmaker. But my film history lecturer didn’t seem to think so – he briefly mentioned his dislike for him in one of his lectures during my undergrad studies – and I never knew why. He never went into it. My film history lecturer was one of those guys who really admired the earlier pioneers in filmmaking, like Truffaut, Goddard and Welles – much like Tarantino does. Oddly enough, one of the films we had to watch for the subject was 1966’s Django (I wonder what my old lecturer thinks of Django Unchained). I quite enjoyed Django. And I was really drawn to its star, Franco Nero, a rugged Italian with a wide, handsome face and charming blue eyes. And, of course, he makes a brief, “friendly appearance”, as it states in the opening credits, in Tarantino’s spin on the western classic. Nero shares a scene with Jamie Foxx’s Django, where he asks him how to spell his name: “The ‘D’ is silent” Foxx delivers. “I know,” responds Nero. And I must say, at his old age, Franco Nero is still ruggedly handsome.

However, Tarantino’s film is not a remake of the original spaghetti western, which was about a drifter, dragging a coffin, who comes across a feuding town. Rather, this 2012 version is a “borrowing” of sorts – borrowing the name, the filmic style, and the theme song of the 1966 film – where Tarantino has respectfully re-created an old tale for a new generation.

In the American south, a couple of years before the civil war, Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a German dentist turned bounty hunter, buys the freedom of an African-American slave named Django (Foxx), who can help him identify three brothers who are wanted for murder. After completing their mission, Schultz offers to help Django rebuild his life as a free man, and asks him to be his partner in a bounty hunting spree. They travel across America, killing the most wanted criminals, and hoping, that by the end of their journey, they will reach Mississippi, where Django believes his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), has been sent to, as they were separated as punishment for attempting to escape from their former owners. They learn that Broomhilda is working for a charismatic plantation owner named Calvin Candie (Leonardo Di Caprio), who proudly calls his estate, Candieland. Thus, Schultz and Django pose as potential business buyers to try and win Candie’s attention and save Broomhilda.

This is certainly an enjoyable film. I’ve enjoyed all of Tarantino’s films, but this film is not one of his best. Simply, this is an overly lengthy film with mesmerizing characters and plenty of violence – a signature Tarantino film. Tarantino mentioned in an interview with Craig Ferguson that he intended to make this film into a mini-series made for television (the decision to make it into a feature film instead was influenced by fellow filmmaker, Luc Besson), and I must say, it felt that way. Tarantino is great storyteller – he knows how to make a story flow really well, even with the abundance of characters, which can be tricky – he’s one of those gifted filmmakers who can hold your attention for two hours or so. But there are some moments in Django Unchained where it felt cluttered and disjointed, particularly towards the end, where I felt that the ultimate climax of the story wasn’t as clever as I expected it to be. And Tarantino is very good at constructing a clever ending. Perhaps a mini-series or two-parter films (like what he did with Kill Bill) would have been a rather interesting approach.  

I consider Tarantino’s previous film, Inglorious Basterds, a film which also dabbles with history, as one of his better films – I’d argue that Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are his best. With Basterds, I felt Tarantino upped his game again, as I wasn’t too crazy about the Kill Bill films, but Django Unchained doesn’t amount to the ingenuity of Basterds, nonetheless it is equally entertaining. Re-casting Academy Award winner, Christoph Waltz, who, again, gives a brilliant performance, is a great element in this film, as he plays such an admirable figure to the helpless Django, a stark contrast from his role as the evil Col. Hans Landa in Basterds. The casting of Leonardo DiCaprio as the villain is another positive for this film, as well as for DiCaprio, who has yet to play a villain in his prosperous career, and, he indeed, fits the wicked and beguiling mould of Calvin Candie. As well as Tarantino regular, Samuel L. Jackson, who plays Candie’s entrusted slave, Stephen, who, in a way, is like a member of the Candie family, as he has also tended to Calvin’s father and grandfather. Jackson sports bolding, rimmed white hair and aging make-up to play the old and ailing Stephen, a strangely conniving character who knows his place as a black man in Mississippi. Furthermore, I thought Don Johnson was impressive, who has a brief and humorous role as Big Daddy, a wealthy southerner and leader of the KKK.

Tarantino is certainly a very intelligent and passionate filmmaker, and it’s always exciting when he has a new film, whether it’s really good or moderately good, his films are innovative and they always have audiences talking. Tarantino has had ongoing criticism for the excessive violent content in his films, as well as his repetitive use of the N word, not only in Django Unchained, which is arguably appropriate due to the film’s subject matter, but in his other films. The media have plagued it as Tarantino’s “obsession” or “love affair” with violence. Indeed, this classy filmmaker has a knack for violent content, but many filmmakers have a niche – eg. Wes Craven and horror films, George A. Romero and zombie films, or, to go the other way, the Farrelly brothers and toilet humour – and it’s quite irritating when an artist like Tarantino is blamed for the world’s problems, like violent behaviour (most notably the shooting massacres that occurred in America in the past year).

It’s always bothered me that my old film history lecturer wasn’t a Tarantino fan. And, yes, we all have our own opinions, but I never asked him why, and I’m sure he has a valid reason for it. My guess is that Tarantino does have the tendency to borrow material from other films, which can be seen as un-pioneering, but I see it as paying homage from one filmmaker to another.  I admire Tarantino, not only for his innovativeness, but also for his energy. It’s not cockiness. It’s passion. A passion for such a wonderful art form that is filmmaking.

Amour

Oscars watch: Valentine's day is coming this week, and I've now seen three of the ten films nominated for Best Picture (seven more to go!). And this third film happens to be a love story (as you can tell from the title).

I used to work in one of those island café’s in a shopping centre, where most of the customers were of the elderly. In the two years I worked there, I served some of the most delightful people. They were happy, wise and peaceful. Though, some of them relied on walking sticks, walking frames and scooters. Some of them needed me to pour water into their glasses for them, and unscrew the bottle tops of their soft drinks. Most of them ate with their husbands and wives. And then, one day, after weeks without seeing them, they solemnly ate alone. You can feel the heartbreak of their loss, as they sat alone, across from an empty chair. Micheal Haneke’s film, Amour, brought me back to these elderly people that I used to serve, who, from many of them, I felt, were content with the life they had built, much like the two main characters, Georges and Anne, a married couple in their eighties, who are played by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva.

In the film’s opening scene, firemen break into an elegant French apartment. The men cover their noses and open the windows, and find the dead body of Anne in the master bedroom, lying peacefully on her side of the bed, surrounded by flower petals. Then, in the next scene, a shot of a theatre audience, which is shot from the stage, as audience members seat themselves and wait for the concert pianist to take the stage. Georges and Anne are seated in the audience – this is how their journey to the end begins. The next day, Georges and Anne are having breakfast. Suddenly, Anne appears frozen, like she’s staring into space, and unfazed by her husband, who places a wet towel to her face and is trying to communicate with her, with no response. But once Georges leaves the room, Anne breaks out of her trance and resumes her breakfast. Georges is baffled, as his wife doesn’t recall being unresponsive. They learn that Anne had a stroke, which has left one side of her body paralysed. George is now Anne’s carer, who is confined to a wheelchair and incapable of clothing, bathing and cooking for herself. Whilst Georges is patiently tending to his wife, Anne is struggling to cope with her condition, and fears of completely losing her independence.

As I watch this film, I get the same feeling I get every time I see an elderly couple going for a walk in the park, holding hands and looking relaxed. Although, Amour isn’t a feel-good film, it is certainly a romantic one. The way Georges selflessly nurtures his wife, as Anne stubbornly reassures him that she doesn’t need constant care, is beautiful. Anne is indeed stubborn, but you can understand her. You can imagine that losing the ability to care for yourself and others would be frustrating and humiliating.

For most of the film, we are stuck in the apartment, the world that Georges and Anne are alone in, with the exemption of a few visitors, which include their daughter, Eva (Isabelle Huppert), and Anne’s former student, Alexandre (Alexandre Tharaud), whose concert they attended earlier in the film, and whose visit seems melancholic – there’s a scene where Georges plays Alexandre’s CD, and Anne instructs him to turn it off, like it’s painful to listen to, a passion she can no longer re-ignite. Georges and Anne’s home, an well-designed apartment with a classic Parisian feel, is itself like a third main character, and it gives us so much insight into the lives of Georges and Anne, particularly the beautiful grand piano and the endless shelves of books in the large study room. Though spacious, clean and open, the home is an enclosure for the elderly couple, as the closed doors keeps their secrets hidden. Even their daughter Eva is occasionally locked out of their world.

What I really like about this film, like any genuinely good film, are the fine visual details. I mentioned closed doors, the doors are certainly thematic throughout the film, as the film opens with the locked doors being busted open, and the film ending with all the doors in the apartment open, allowing the home to breathe in new life. The doors surely represent the secrets and opportunities, the entrances and exits, which this old couple faces in the closing chapter of their long journey. Indeed, this is what this film is, the final chapter, we are witnessing the final chapter of Georges and Anne. But director, Michael Haneke, gives us the ending before giving us that last journey. The film beginning with the discovery of Anne’s body suppresses the inevitability of the story, and rather creates a curiosity of how this woman died and why was she left like that.

I’ll admit, I don’t know much about Michael Haneke, but I do know that he knows how to move the camera. Haneke uses a lot of long shots and medium shots, which gives us the feeling that we’re observing, looking into the lives of these people. And Haneke establishes that with that shot of the audience at the concert, ensuring us that we are the watching audience.

This is certainly a good, bitter-sweet film, which won the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Both Trintignant and Riva are fantastic and endearing in this film, with Riva earning a Best Actress nomination at this year’s Academy Awards. Riva starred in one of the most influential films, Hiroshima, mon amour, back in 1959, which I haven’t seen, but I’m certainly going to have a look at it.