Six…months…’til Oscars

Yes, that is correct. It really is only six months until the Oscars shoves it’s fat, obnoxious (yet massively fun, right?) face in to our filmgoing faces. So I’ve taken precious time out of MY schedule to let YOU know ten films that could be competing for the biggest prize of all next February…nope, not the Anglo-Italian Cup, but the 76th Academy Awards Best Picture statue.

It’s rather a mixed bag, don’t you think? We already know how superb Boyhood is, Foxcatcher and Mr. Turner were received in astronomically fawning regard at Cannes and the prospect of films from Paul Thomas Anderson, Christopher Nolan and Iñárritu is always going to be pant-soiliningly exciting.

But fairy tales from Chicago’s Rob Marshall and a City of God rip-off from Stephen Daldry (last seen dodging critical bullets after that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close monstrosity) leave a sourly premature taste in the mouth.

Compare this year’s batch to last time’s for example, and the gulf in quality appears great. Whatever your thoughts were about Gravity and The Wolf of Wall Street (and maybe you’d like to explain why they weren’t exactly the same as mine), it would be obdurate to deny that their respective releases were awaited with breath that was baited and wallets that were profligate. While nor does there appear to be a bonafide classic-in-the-making among this bunch in the ilk of last year’s Best Picture winner, 12 Years a Slave.

But, for once, I’ll let you be the judge. Watch some trailers and tell me how these early front runners look to you…?

 

Birdman: Dir: Alejandro González Iñárritu; Stars: Michael Keaton; Emma Stone; Ed Norton

For Your Consideration: American Hustle

American Hustle (2013)

Hot off the heels of two very hot Oscar favourites in three years, comes red-hot David O. Russell’s hot new Academy-fancied flick American Hustle. Now that’s really hot.

David O. Russell’s American Hustle (MAN, that’s satisfying to say) is a film utterly clad in veneer. It’s very much a haircuts, nail varnish, dodgy accents, more hair, heaving cleavage, aviators, even more hair kind of a movie.

Set in 1970s New Jersey, Christian Bale’s be-toupéed Irving Rosenfeld is a flabby career-conman, making decent wedge from knocked-off paintings and trifling lending scams; juggling his be-bouffanted, haphazard handful of a trophy wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) and be-frizzied soul-mate and partner-in-crime Sydney (Amy Adams). When be-permed, ambitious undercover cop Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) busts Irving and Sydney, he offers them the chance to secure their freedom by bagging him bigger fish in the form of senators, governors and be-pompadoured family man and mayor of Atlantic City Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner).

But despite all the facade and the follicle topiary, you’d be a fool (a fool I say) to labour under the misapprehension that American Hustle hasn’t got depth; it’s got it in volumes.