It feels like Alan Bennett has been around for ever, doesn’t it? Well he has…provided, of course, that you have been alive for just a little fewer than a full eight decades. Because he turned 80 at the weekend. 80-years-old, that is, not 80 bananas or 80 cheese graters or whatever some of those most annoying of pedants might excruciatingly jest.
Yet among the throng of awards and honours he’s been swamped with over the last 50 years for theatre (Tonys, Oliviers, Critcis Circles, Evening Standards), screen (film and television Baftas), literature (British Book Awards) and having History Boys voted last year the UK’s favourite play, the Academy has spared Bennett’s no-doubt wobbly mantelpiece by holding back any little gold men.
Alan Bennett at 80 (image courtesy of Callum Bennetts/Rex Features)
The nomination
But, as the above sub-heading suggests, he was once invited to sit uncomfortably alongside the likes of Quentin, Samuel L. and Harvey at 1995’s L.A. glitzfest, for the adapted screenplay of his play The Madness of George III.
In Nebraska, which is released in the UK today, Bruce Dern is set to show that he is more than an inevitable epitaph reading “Character Actor and Father”. He was honoured with the Best Actor garland at Cannes this year and is now, at the age of 77, preparing a mild-mannered assault on the impending Academy Awards. But this will be the second crack of the Oscar whip, after his nomination 35 years ago for Coming Home.
Just like the Liberal Democrats of their own pre-election manifesto and when Weezer made good records, Bruce Dern is pretty easy to forget. The quintessential essence of that old-Hollywood tautology – the character actor – he has spent over five decades and 140 roles (thanks IMDB) ghosting on and off the big and small screen.
Yet for sci-fi fans, he is etched firmly in their cosmic mind tanks as the unhinged yet strangely likeable Freeman Lowell in the cult-classic Kermode over-championed Silent Running.
The role commenced a George Best-like mazy, jinking run of performances in the 70s that included Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, Smile, Hitchcock’s last film Family Plot, Black Sunday and culminating in the thriker of a finish, his Oscar nominated supporting role in Hal Ashby’s Coming Home.
The performance
As Captain Bob Hyde, Dern takes a ride on the tried-and-test anti-Vietnam film narrative rollercoaster. Starting the piece as a war advocate and chomping at the bit to go a-gook-hunting, he leaves behind a loving, if ever-so slightly disconnected wife, played by Jane Fonda on Oscar winning form. He’s bright eyed and bushwacker tailed.
While he’s away doing his patriotic and bloody duty, his abandoned spouse takes little time jumping into bed with a wheelchair stricken Viet vet (Join Voight, who matched Fonda’s gold). Physically and mentally maimed by his service and entirely against the conflict, she is apparently attracted to this complete opposite of her absent husband and commits presumably-treacherous adultery.
Back on leave comes Hyde, and he too has been left shell-shocked by his time in Tết. Emotionally violated and a ticking time bomb of fury, he…well, let’s just say that he doesn’t take the news of his wife’s infidelity so well and the holy triad of cinematic instability – guns, bayonets and nakedness on the beach – are volleyed upon the audience at will.
Dern is undoubtedly an engaging and sympathetic screen presence in Coming Home and his performance more than matches those of Fonda and Voight. Unfortunately, he is let down by the fact that the movie is far from Ashby’s finest. Lacking his usual nuance of socio-political commentary and wit, it plays to modern eyes as a cliché-riddled anti-Vietnam lecture. This manifests in a character that has to play two extremes, with not a lot in the middle. From a militant Elmer Fudd to a broken maniac in the last act who, it seems, is constantly on the verge of erupting into a “YOU AIN’T NEVER SEEN THE THINGS I SAW” meltdown.
As Roger Ebert correctly commented in his surprisingly lauding review: “The closing scenes show the film at its most uncertain, as if Ashby and his writers weren’t sure in their minds how the Dern character should react. And so Dern is forced into scenes of unfocused, confused anger before the film’s not very satisfying ending.”
While Variety was equally as sparing in its gushing for Dern, stating: “Dern’s character is the trigger for certain major events, but there remains enough exposure for him to be convincing as a career soldier disillusioned by Vietnam.” He is an avatar of the hideousness of Vietnam for Ashby, and yet clearly viewed by the director as far less interesting than the main stars.
Another problem is that Dern wasn’t exactly driving this tank for the first time; there are inescapable parallels with earlier roles. Captain Hyde shares the same pushed-over-the-edge psychosis as the aforementioned Lowell and, as Vincent Canby of The New York Times pointed out: “Mr. Dern’s role is a sort of modified version of the nut he played in Black Sunday.”
It’s a shame, because this could have been Dern’s immortalising opus. A celluloid classic. Why, this could have been his Christopher Walken moment. More on which just a little later…
The competition
I’m not the only Brit who wasn’t overly taken with Dern’s efforts. He failed to get a look in at our still-then-Blightycentric awards. The BAFTAs preferred a home-grown personification of mental disintegration; John Hurt’s remarkable turn in Midnight Express (reviewed by Bloscars here), which was also enough to garner the Golden Globe.
Jack Warden was nominated for his perfectly likeable comedy foil to Warren Beatty in the largely overrated Heaven Can Wait, (while I preferred Charles Grodin’s more weasely offering) and Richard Farnsworth is even more incidental still in Comes a Horseman. With limited screen-time in this humdrum Jane Fonda vehicle, I can only imagine that the former stuntman’s riding skills were the prompt for recognition. He would be nominated 20 years later for a far more compelling performance in David Lynch’s The Straight Story. Jason Robards’s despicable land owner in the same film would have been more worthy or recognition, but three consecutive supporting actor Oscars may well have been too big a deal for the Academy even to entertain.
The deserving winner
Christopher Walken in ‘The Deer Hunter’
I suppose it’s a shame for Dern and Coming Home that the late 70s was rife with other anti-Vietnam movie and one in particular in the very same year; The Deer Hunter. Whereas Coming Home is a rather domestic, personal view of the consequences of America’s crazy quest to tear up Indochina, The Deer Hunter’s panorama is set firmly on the scale of epic.
And yet its show was stolen by a bug-eyed gravity-defying follicled bit part actor, with a red headband around his crown and a gun pointed to his temple with his own finger on the trigger.
To describe Christopher Walken’s performance, one would be excused for thinking that I was describing Dern’s. A life forever defiled by the horrors of the Vietnam war, Walken’s Nick is irreversibly tainted and driven to mad acts finally resulting in the ultimate self-sacrifice.
Yet, there is a certain intangible deadness behind Walken’s eyes that is so indescribably haunting, that he utterly earned the twin accolades of Oscar win and Hollywood icon.
Ever seen somebody jump on a bandwagon? I mean, literally jump on to a bandwagon. And I’m not talking about the new definition of ‘literally’ here, I’m talking about the old trusted one when it literally meant ‘literally’.
Well I bet you haven’t. In fact, I bet you don’t even know what a bandwagon is. And, in all honesty, neither do I.
Despite this fatal semantic flaw. Prepare yourself to watch a film blogger utterly self-servingly do a Fosbury Flop straight on to the Carrie (2013) bandwagon by dredging Carrie’s (1976) body from its early grave and reminding you of the brilliance of Brian De Palma’s oddly satisfying coming of age horror.
0 Wins; 2 Nominations (Best Actress (Sissy Spacek, lost to Faye Dunaway for Network), Best Supporting Actress (Piper Laurie, lost to Beatrice Straight for Network))
The Film
Carrie (Spacek) – she’s the protagonist, believe it or not – is approaching her high school prom, but she’s an unpopular little tyke. An outsider and subject of the vicious mirth of her contemporaries, they take great pleasure from the fact that Carrie suffers the mortification of her first period in the very public forum of the gym showers.
Little do they know, Carrie’s home-life is far from an easy one, suffering as she does at the hands of the every-little-thing’s-a-sign-from-God religious evangelism of her maniacal mother (Laurie).
Mind you, that’s the least of their problems. Turns out, and you’ll never believe this, that Carrie’s also got the power of telekinesis. This doesn’t bode well for the meddlesome young ladies (and, bizarrely, a wet-behind-the-ears and unpalatably hammy John Travolta), particularly when they turn up to the dance armed to the back teeth with pig’s blood and conspire to inflict the ultimate humiliation on “Creepy Carrie” (hey, not my words…the words of ‘Boy on Bicycle’ who, it transpires, was played by De Palma’s nephew).
The nominations
This was the first of Sissy Spacek’s six Oscar nominations to date. Having perhaps unluckily missed out three years earlier for Badlands, she would only have to wait another four to strike gold for playing Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner’s Daughter. And the qualities that Spacek brings to Badlands are turned up way past 11 in Carrie. She carries herself with a striking fragility that seems to transcend the paradigm of age. On the cusp of womanhood, she transmogrifies from tragic helplessness to psychotic empowerment with alarming brilliance.
The result is an iconic performance that even the charmingly precocious talent of Chloë Grace Moretz will struggle to match. I admire Moretz very much, but she doesn’t have the wide-eyed other-worldliness that made Spacek such a perfect fit for the role. Spacek came up against another remarkable turn in Faye Dunaway’s macho television producer in Network, and despite Spacek’s splendour, I think this was one call that the Academy nailed. It is interesting that the two roles are not altogether unalike. Paranormal projectiles excepted, the two are lonely, disassociated from their peers and prove a destructive force when allowed to play with the other kids.
Talking of wide-eyed other-worldliness, you can certainly see where young Carrie got it. Look no further than her mad-as-a-box-of-Mormons mother. I should probably disclose that I am a true sucker for over the top mentalists onscreen, and Piper Laurie’s nutcase of a matriarch is a classic example. At times, the psalm-spewing zealot looks like an abominable porcelain curiosity. It will be rather interesting to see whether Julianne Moore pursues a direct imitation of Laurie or something a little more…well, nuanced.
The second of Laurie’s three nominations, she lost out to another one of Network’s extraordinary ensemble. But Beatrice Straight’s win remains a mystery to me. One of those Dench-esque roles of only minute screen-time and one stand-out scene, but forgettable among the litany of truly great performances that the film boasted (William Holden’s being one of my favourite ever).
Although not Best Picture material, the Academy’s cruelest omission was to deny Brian De Palma a Best Director nomination. True, 1976 was a very strong year; so strong in fact that Sidney Lumet somehow missed out on the big win to Rocky’s John G. Avildsen. Bergman and Paluka were among the other nominees while Lina Wertmüller made history by becoming the first ever woman to be recognised. And De Palma’s rejection was far from the biggest outcry; somehow Martin Scorsese’s achievements for the bona-fide masterpiece Taxi Driver were deemed insufficient.
But De Palma’s original and jaw-droppingly artistic adaptation of Stephen King deserved praise of the highest form. His narrative slaloms between intentionally trivial high school tweenie flick, to psychological abuse melodrama, and stopping off on the way for tea at full on crimson-drenched horror. And all of these aspects work to considerable effect. Somehow, he also manages to project insightful comment on the dangers of religious zeal and the trials and graphic tribulations of puberty as well as the physical and mental changes that go with it. And yet he sacrifices none of his directorial flair – utilising Wellesian shots from above and below to make Carrie and her mother look respectively pathetic and irresistible, and the odd shot of enormous pulverising beauty like Carrie’s eventual meltdown and mama’s climactic Jesus impersonation (check out the below video and brace yourself for spoilers).
It’s just rather a shame that the memorable final scene has been ripped-off and parodied so many times that looking back at it now it lacks its original punch. And also a shame that it puts one in mind of Peter Finch posthumously grabbing out for his Oscar. Well it does for me anyway.
And just a final word for Pino Donaggio, who put together a most bodacious score that also deserved a nomination. As capricious as the film’s plot, it ventures from Grange Hill to full on Bates Motel. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, Bernard Herrman picked up two nominations that year for De Palma’s Obsession and the legendary score to Taxi Driver. Although he was eventually beaten by Jerry Goldsmith’s exceptional work on another horror, The Omen.
If you said that their favourite Starbucks hot beverage is a large half-caff frappuccino with whipped cream and marshmallow dunkers, you’d not only be wrong but you’d also be intruding upon the fringes of acute dimness. Hepburn only ever drank espressos and Jolie naturally prefers Pret.
The actual answer is that come March next year, all three will have the shared denominator of having won both performing Oscars and the honourary Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Impressed? Of course you are. Don’t fight it.
And the best thing about the news of Jolie’s prize is that it’s now an apposite time for me to write a dose of words about the win in 2000 for her supporting role in James Mangold’s Girl, Interrupted(1999, 1 win, 1 nom). Your good fortune truly knows no bounds. Not a one.
Angelina Jolie in ‘Girl, Interrupted’
The performance
Angelina’s manic supporting turn as the cocksure yet irreversibly troubled Lisa is undoubtedly a show stealer (Charlotte O’Sullivan of Time Out astutely noted that the film “wilts” every time she is offscreen) in a movie that is as flawed as some of its institutionalised characters. A swaggering queen-bee in a ward full of ailing stereotypes, she is part cipher, part mentor, and absolute manipulator of Winona Ryder’s vulnerable Susanna.
Jolie’s performance seems to drip with testosterone; she demonstrates a kind of blokey bravura where you are almost waiting for her to let one rip and challenge the nurses to “Get a whiff of that one”. Comparisons to Jacky N in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest were well versed at the time and, although the characters are markedly different (she a knowing been-there-done-that type in full control of her situation if not her mind, he a willing participant yet rapidly sinking out of his depth), such parallels are difficult to disagree with – even for a stalwart contrarian like me.
“The real standout,” commented Nathan Rabin of A.V. Club, “is a riveting Angelina Jolie as the hospital’s charismatic alpha-patient. Her magnetic breakthrough performance has a raw, dangerous, profoundly sad energy. ” While Roger Ebert recognised her inevitable Hollywood shuddering impact on the industry in the 21st century: “Jolie is emerging as one of the great wild spirits of current movies, a loose cannon who somehow has deadly aim.”
It is a sensational performance. Despite the machismo, Jolie also oozes female sexuality. Whether harmlessly seducing an ice-cream vendor for extra rainbow sprinkles or maliciously leading Susanna and the other patients astray, she exploits her animal charm and charisma to get exactly what she wants. She thrives on the toxic power of puppet-mastery – anything to fill the void created by bad mental health and incarceration – and when she’s onscreen it is impossible to take one’s beautiful doe-eyes from her.
After such a torrent of high, sycophantic praise, you’re probably wanting to bear your own witness on this fantabulous, one-of-a-kind (Jack excepted) performance. But alas you don’t have the DVD and are too much of a cheapskate to subscribe to Netflix. If only somebody had uploaded a bowdlerised version of the film featuring only Lisa’s best bits…
Well somebody…somebody did…
Decent, eh?
The competition
And although the likes of Tom Coates of the BBC gushingly opined that the role was “played with a passion and insight that deservedly won Jolie an Oscar”, I disagree (see, I told you I was a contrarian).
It is probably desperately mean-spirited to say it, but the problem is that Jolie self-admittedly enjoyed playing Lisa. This transparently comes across to the viewer, who Jolie is as desperate to seduce us as Lisa is her own sorority. For every wisecrack, wink and witty retort there betrays a young actress who is having a whale of a time. While there should undoubtedly be a fascination and even charm about Lisa, she should also scare the bejesus out of us. There should be an underlying volatility and almost sinister presence. Instead, Jolie gives us somebody who would be ace to enjoy a rowdy Friday night out with. A bloody good laugh when she should be a bloody nightmare.
Now I would in no way endorse Chuck Rudolph’s ludicrous verdict in Matinee Magazine that her “rantings and ravings are so studied and predictable that her work here is truly one of the worst performances of all time”, it is a fact that Jolie took home the little golden fella in a remarkably strong year for female supporting performances.
Despite having already been crowned with the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Globe honours, it would be remiss to regard Jolie as a shoe-in for the Oscar. The clutch of fellow nominees – who were all, like Jolie, first time nominees – included Chloë Sevigny and Catherine Keener. In distinct ways, both were denied the chance to wow Oscars voters because of the sheer quality of their co-stars. The former was rightly upstaged by Hilary Swank’s career defining, gender defying lead in Boys Don’t Cry; the latter was one brilliant cog in the surreal and wonderful machine that was Being John Malkovich. That isn’t to say that Keener isn’t individually superb as the sardonic and manipulative Maxine, but there is so much to enjoy from Spike Jonze’s masterpiece that independent glory would somewhat betray the product as a whole. Cameron Diaz was also a victim; having flown away from the comfort of her sexy pigeonhole, she chirped out a career-best performance that impressed Bafta, SAG and the Hollywood Foreign Press, but to which the Academy flicked the bird.
Somehow, The Sixth Sense remains Toni Collette’s one and only Oscar nomination to date. A consistently exceptional performer, I suppose it is difficult to recognise particular performances as distinctly more award-worthy than others. Playing Mrs My-Son-Sees-Dead-People-No-Seriously-Oh-Come-On-You-Must-Have-Seen-That-Clip-Of-Him-Saying-I-See-Dead-People-You-Haven’t?-Well-I’m-Shocked-I-Thought-Everybody-Had-Seen-That-And-It’s-Been-Parodied-So-Often-Too-Oh-Well-I-Guess-You-Live-And-You-Learn, her work is…well, it’s kinda…I mean, she is absolutely…erm…just watch this.
In the unfortunately no longer observed tradition of Bafta showing brazen and blatant bias towards the Brits, Dame Maggie won their award for her supporting role in Tea With Mussolini. With two statues under her petticoat already, the Academy ignored her this time, along with the two youngsters from Best Picture winner American Beauty, Thora Hird and Mena Suvari. Cate Blanchett (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Natalie Portman (Anywhere But Here) and Julianne Moore (Magnolia, and who was nominated for Best Actress for The End of the Affair) were also nominated elsewhere, but not invited to the Kodak Theatre to compete for the prize with Jolie.
Samantha Morton in ‘Sweet and Lowdown’
The deserving winner
But it is the fifth Oscar nominee that, in my unwaveringly correct view, deserved to fly back across the Atlantic with the gold.
The verbal dexterity that litters Woody Allen pictures have long given scope for his casts to shine, reaping 6 Oscar wins from 16 nominations, including one nom himself for Annie Hall. Yet conversely, it was Samantha Morton’s silence in Sweet and Lowdown, that should have made it 7 (which is exactly what Blanchett will do next March). In Allen’s re-imagining of Fellini’s La Strada, Morton plays a “goddamn mute orphan half-wit” who becomes besotted with Sean Penn’s Django Reinhardt wannabe.
In the constraints of mimehood, Morton’s remarkable talent shines. Her face is the script; everything, every emotion, idea, opinion and attachment is shown as clearly through blinks, half-smiles and nods as they would have done in reams of Allen script.
It is a truly staggering performance, a genuine one-off (except, obviously, that by Giulietta Masina), and for all the fun and swagger of Jolie’s Lisa, Morton should have had the chance to finally break her silence to give the acceptance speech at the 2000 Oscars.
The revered honour that binds this decemvirate of self-satisfied poseurs is that each has earned themselves two performing Oscar nominations in a single awards season. And don’t they just know it.
But I’ve got news for the ears and egos of the aforementioned farrago, because their ‘achievements’ fade into insignificance when mentioned in the same thespy breath as Barry Fitzgerald.
Barry Fitzgerald
Today is the 125th anniversary of the Irish character-actor’s birth; the only person in Academy Award history to earn two nominations in the same year…for the same film…for the same role.
By a now defunct quirk in voting, Fitzgerald picked up nods in both Lead and Supporting Actor categories for his role as fusty Father Fitzgibbon in 1944’s Going My Way.
The film swept the 17th Academy Awards, stealing Best Picture, Director, Writing (Story and Screenplay) and Original Song. And it really was a theft, in a year when Double Indemnity‘s powers of alchemy were sorely lacking, managing to fail in converting any of its 7 nominations into gold.
Going My Way is a pleasant enough 121 minutes. Bing Crosby – at the height of his powers – is likable as Father Chuck O’Malley, in a departure from his usual saccharine appearances. As per the New York Times’s review on release, it was “Mr. Crosby’s first picture with a comparatively serious dramatic theme, and also the first in which his singing is not heavily depended upon.”
O’Malley is a young Catholic priest, drafted in to a small New York parish by the bishop who fears that Father Fitzgibbons’s inability to modernise will see the church foreclosed by an unforgiving mortgagee. The two men of the cloth overcome their initial friction, to (inevitably) keep the money men at bay and allow Fitzgibbon’s belligerent religioso to retire happily. There’s nothing ground breaking here and, at a shade over two hours, it drags the action out too long; but there are some genuinely amusing lines and the reluctant relationship between Crosby and Fitzgerald is nicely observed and played.
The men would be at odds off screen too – on Oscar night. Somehow, Fitzgerald managed to impress sufficient peers to sneak in to both acting categories. Crosby eventually took the award (Fred MacMurray, criminally, wasn’t even nominated) and Fitzgerald had to settle for a Best Supporting Actor win.
Barry and Bing compare statues (I could have saved you some time boys…they’re identical)
But, that would have suited the Dubliner, who never sought fame like Bing’s. As the NYT’s Fred Stanley reported in a splendid feature in 1945, fame wasn’t for Fitzgerald:
“He finds it all rather bewildering. He resents the disruption of his previously inconspicuous private life. He can’t even browse in Los Angeles book shops or join in a discussion with strangers at some out-of-the-way barroom or drug store without being tagged as Father Fitzgibbon. His old clothes and cloth cap, which once kept him inconspicuous, now make him a marked man.”
And, after Academy voting rules were changed to stop the rather embarrassing anomaly from recurring, Barry Fitzgerald’s name will continue to live on after death, as a perennial question in Oscar trivia quizzes every year.
In the indie spirit of not wanting to follow in the grotesque footsteps of the the fickle crowd, in this season – this Oscar season – where award fans like to look ahead to the film awards and which awards will be awarded to which award winning filmmakers to be, I’ve decided to take a look back back, deep deep into the eyes eyes of the Ghost of Oscars past.
This semi-regular feature is called ‘New Country for Gold Men’, which is a self-admittedly phenomenal drop of punnage.
A great film with an excellent, yet tough to recall, title, The Assimilation of Jimmy Jim by the Idiot Bobby Whashisname is the account of Jesse James’s’s last year and a half. The legendary wild west outlaw (soberingly played by Brad Pitt) is no longer the man that carved a cult from his train robbing, moidering antics. In his mid-thirties – but looking double that, with unhealed bullet wounds and gammy eyes – he knows that he and his infamous gang are coming to the end of the dusty road.
Time to settle down with his family perhaps, but not before plucky, fresh-faced peckerwood Robert Ford (Affleck) begs and nuisances his way into the mob. Having grown up hero-worshiping James, he worms his way into his idol’s affections, before becoming disillusioned with the outlaw and his ways which are, primarily yet not exclusively, outside of the realms of the law. The temptation of the law enforcement dollar soon becomes too appealing to resist and the titular cowardly assassinating soon kicks in.
The nominations
First things first, Casey Affleck’s performance is utterly splendid. In his thirties when he played the role, he captures the bewilderment, vulnerability and reckless ambition of a nineteen-year-old entering an overwhelming community, with bags of believability. When he whines like a recalcitrant toddler, you want to give him a clip round the ear and send him to bed without any gruel. When he pines, with misty eyes, about his dream to be James’s heir-apparent, one swells with pride. And he has a look in his eyes, when being humiliated at the expense of the older gang members, that makes you want to give him a big old hug and tell him that everything will be all right and that he’s double the man that they’ll ever be.
(Spoilers, man)
This is Affleck’s opus, and it is difficult to imagine him making such a significant impact in a film again, for he is in virtually every scene.
And therein lies my issue with his nomination…how can one possibly suggest even for a minute that he is a supporting actor. This film is about Robert Ford, pure and simple. His name’s in the title, for cripes sake. It’s an injustice to Affleck and to all other potential nominees for the studio to suggest that his role is anything but a lead one, and I am delighted that his happened to coincide with one cinema’s iconic performances, Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh.
This isn’t the first time this has happened (see Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain for a recent parallel) and it won’t be the last. It’s a blatant grasp at awards that, in this instance, saw the likes of Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood), Max Von Sydow (Diving Bell and the Butterfly), J.K. Simmons (Juno) and Sacha Baron Cohen (Sweeney Todd) miss out. True supporting roles, each more deserving of a spot in the category than Affleck.
Roger Deakins, on the other hand, fully deserved his nomination. TAOJJBTCRF is a remarkably good looking film. While the sweeping Missouri landscapes are breathtaking, the low-lit night scenes (see below) amplify the paranoia of the characters. That said, for me, the choice to switch randomly between gorgeous ochre palettes and black-and-white was inexplicable and jarring.
2008 saw Deakins pick up his sixth and seventh Oscar nominations (he now has nine, somehow without a single win), as his similarly impressive work on No Country for Old Men also garnered a nomination. In any other year, either one of these films would surely have been sufficient for the award, but Robert Elswit’s incredible looking work for Paul Thomas Anderon’s There Will Be Blood was deemed better.
And the presence of the two behemoths No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood are probably the reason why TAOJJBTCRF failed to get any further recognition. There is an argument that it should have found a spot in the top-five as a Best Picture nominee, a suggestion that I’m sympathetic to on the basis that the stink-fest Michael Clayton was included and, despite the weight of NCFOM and TWBB, 2007 was a fairly weak year. Only The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Gone Baby Gone would have been its only other contenders, and under the new rules I imagine all three would have qualified.
A quick word for Brad Pitt too. After winning the prize for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, he may well have considered himself worthy of a Best Actor in a Lead Role nod (and I am not suggesting that his role was a supporting one). Although his depiction of James – as a decaying has-been swinging between cool control and mania – would never have got close to touching Daniel Day-Lewis’s winning turn in TWBB, I do not think that Sweeney Todd was really a performance for which Johnny Depp needed a nomination.
I know what you’re thinking. I honestly do. But it’s not only because of the psychic powers that I possess. Of course it isn’t that nonsensical baloney is clearly nonsensical baloney. No, the reason I know precisely what you’re thinking is because of my arch arrogance.
Now you’re thinking something different. Now you’re thinking: “Go on then, prove it, poindexter”.
Firstly, maybe you should join the rest of us in 2012. Nobody’s used the insult ‘poindexter‘ since 1950’s (except if you count films set in the 1950s like Grease).
Secondly, I will prove it then. I will. You were thinking: “What the what? Why the hell is this poindexter bashing on about the Gotham Awards when the winner of the London Film Festival’s Best Film award was announced last night in…you know…London, which is…you know…where he lives? At best it’s perverse. At worst, it’s a prurient indulgence of anti-jingoism gone mad”.
On a side note, you were also thinking about what a devilishly clever pun I came up with in this post’s title, but that’s another compliment for another day.
And now you’re thinking: “Hold tight, I didn’t even know I knew the words ‘prurient’ and ‘jingoism.” But of course you did; it’s within all of us to be so grandiloquent. You just need a poindexter like me me to help you discover that.
The answer to your subconscious query, by the way, is that the LFF still hasn’t shown itself to be a sayer of any seuths with regard to the Oscars (Best Film winners of the last two years being How I Ended This Summer and We Need To Talk About Kevin). Furthermore, this year’s winner, Rust and Bone, is unlikely to crack the canard, being a French language film that has been pipped as France’s Best Foreign language entry by Untouchable.
Bank on me commenting at some point in this post on the irony that The Dark Knight Rises hasn’t been nominated
Conversely, the Gotham Awards have earned a reputation for throwing erstwhile unlikely films straight into the Academy mixer.
Following a big double win at both ceremonies for The Hurt Locker, in 2010Winter’s Bone built on its momentum from Berlin and Sundance to take the top prize. It would go on to be included as one of the Academy’s ten Best Picture nominees. Black Swan and The Kids Are All Right were also among both Gotham’s and Oscar’s top clutch, and Blue Valentine, too nominated in New York, scored Michelle Williams a Best Actress nomination.
>Something amusing about Debra Granik Winter’s Boning the rest of the competition<
Last year, The Tree of Life and Beginners shared Gotham’s top prize; the former being in Oscar’s top nine while the latter allowed Christopher Plummer to become the Academy’s most elderly acting winner. Gotham also favoured Alexandra Payne’s The Descendants, while Margin Call, which featured in one of Gotham’s other categories, was a surprise Best Original Screenplay nominee this February in Los Angeles.
So which of this year’s Gotham nominees will be a joker (gerrit?) in the pack come next year’s ceremony?
Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master for one. A sprawling look at Scientology-but-is-it-really-about-Scientology-yes-it-is-no-it-isn’t, the film made waves at Venice Film Festival and has had critics falling over themselves to hero-worship Mr Anderson as if he were the second coming of Dirk Diggler. Despite the fact that it has already been subject to the inevitable backlash, there is little doubt that The Master will be one of the favourites to take the big prize, especially after the incredible There Will Be Bloodlost out to No Country for Old Men in 2007.
Wes Anderson (no relation to my knowledge but, if I’m wrong, Ander must feel so proud of his boys) will also feel buoyed by Moonrise Kingdom’sinclusion. Of course there will be the mandatory Best Original Screenplay nod to look forward to, but Anderson has never had a film nominated for Best Picture. Although heralded as a return to form after the apparent flops of The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited, I actually think that Moonrise Kingdom is weaker than the aforementioned duo. Further, its release date (back in May) doesn’t bode well for an Oscars push, but I would welcome Wes Anderson’s name to be bandied around during the awards season.
It’s been nearly 10 years since Richard Linklater has knocked on the Academy’s door, when Before Sunset saw him nominated for his screenplay. Bernieis a black comedy about the murder of a Texan millionaire by her gay employee, which is immediately some way off the ideal Oscar palate. But in a year when Seth MacFarlane is set to host and one of Bernie’s stars, Matthew McConaughey, is the talk of Tinseltown, it will be interesting to see if it will tickle the arthritic funny bones of the Academy high command.
The Loneliest Planet comes from Russian-born director Julia Loktev and has performed well at Toronto, London, Gran Canaria and Istanbul festivals. It stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg as betrothed backpackers who embark on a nightmarish trip through a Georgian mountain-range. Loktev has formally enjoyed Cannes buzz with her previous feature Day Night Day Night and there may be a similarities drawn with Winter’s Bone. However, it seems that the film’s theatrical release came in 2011 and so there may be doubt over the film’s eligibility anyway.
Perhaps most unlikely of the nominees is Middle of Nowhere, a story from Ava DuVernay about a wife of an imprisoned man, who drops out of medical school in order to campaign for his release. Precious, Winter’s Bone, True Grit, and The Help are examples of recent Best Picture nominees with determined, heroic women at their centre and to which comparisons could be derived. DuVernay was also honoured with the U.S. Directing award at this year’s Sundance, but that has not formally been benchmark for success at the Oscars.
So the current list of those movies throwing their hat in to the ring for 24th February is emerging nicely:
Toronto may or, indeed, may not be the city of Mounties, Bryan Adams, maple syrup and Greg Rusedski.
Irrespective of the correctitude of the above already equivocal assertion, Toronto is also – presumably by sheer serendipity – home of the Toronto International Film Festival or, if you’re cool like me, TIFF.
“Exactly how cool are you?” you may well rudely ask. Well, let’s put it this way: I wear the face of my watch on the inside of my wrist and sprinkle cinnamon on my Starbucks latte…at the same time (sometimes). That cool.
See, told you ‘TIFF’ was cool. It’s on an orange background, for cripes sake…
I’m also sufficiently cool to know that TIFF is the true starting pistol for the annual Oscars race. Forget the false starts of Cannes and Venice, whose top prizes – respectively the Palme d’Or and the Golden Lion – have only once in 110 attempts gone to the eventual Best Picture winner (that being the Ernest Borgnine comedy Marty(1955, 4 wins, 8 noms) which won at Cannes).
To drag the athletics/Olympics/athletics at the Olympics analogy to its inevitably West Indian limit, the Usain Bolts of recent years that have gone on to break the Oscar finishing tape in first place are The King’s Speech (2010, 4 wins, 12 noms), Slumdog Millionaire (2008, 8 wins, 10 noms) and American Beauty (1999, 5 wins, 8 noms). Chariots of Fire (1981, 4 wins, 7 noms) fittingly completes the golden quartet over the course of the last 34 awards.
Perhaps more interestingly (if you can imagine such a thing) is the fact that of the 20 TIFF winners that are English-language cinematic non-documentaries, 20% of the time they have gone on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. This is a pretty good strike rate, considering that the Oscars ceremony is still five months away, particularly when compared to the lousy 1.6% and 0% conversion figures of Cannes and Venice respectively.
Throw in the likes of Precious (2009, 2 wins, 6 noms), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, 4 wins, 10 noms and former BTV Film of the Week), Life is Beautiful (1997, 3 wins, 7 noms), Shine (1996, 1 win, 7 noms), Places in the Heart (1984, 2 wins, 7 noms) and The Big Chill (1983, 0 wins, 3 noms) and of all Toronto’s cinematic non-documentary winners, a third earn nominations for the big one. Bear in mind that in the vast majority of those contests, the category only allowed five nominees instead of the new system allowing up to ten, and Toronto’s victor now probably has roughly an even chance* of being nominated.
[* Note that this reasoning has been scientifically proven using the empirical measurement known as the ‘Hunch’]
So what does this mean for this year’s TIFF People’s Choice winner Silver Linings Playbook? I should imagine that it means that director David O. Russell and star Bradley Cooper are permitting themselves broad, somewhat smug, grins…
Cooper could almost see the $ signs as Russell described the concept for his Stuck on You sequel (Credit: Chris Opalla (but only for the photo…the joke was all mine))
It also means that it becomes an immediate front-runner for inclusion in the final showdown in February. David O. Russell’s name will be fresh in the hazy memory of the even the eldest of Academy members; a couple of years ago his The Fighter (2010, 2 wins, 7 noms) picked up two Oscars (a pair of supporting actor gongs (a.k.a. a “brassiere”?) for Christian Bale and Melissa Leo) and a further five nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Throw in the hottest thing in Hollywood , Jennifer Lawrence, who herself picked up a nomination two years ago for Winter’s Bone (2010, 0 wins, 4 noms), Jacki Weaver, who lost out to Melissa Leo two years ago, and Robert De Niro, and Silver Linings Playbook – whose plot revolves around two people with ‘problems’ who seek solace in each other’s weirdness – has a great chance of filling the ‘quirky-yet-philisophical’ comedy nomination that the likes of Jason Reitman and Alexander Payne have thrived on over the last few years.
The filmis released in the U.K. on 21st November and, until then we’ll have to make do with the rather annoying trailer (below). But don’t let that put you off; The Kids Are All Right had an annoying trailer too and that turned out to be a brilli…actually, on second thoughts, forget that train of thought.
A multitude of 20th Century music’s most recognisable and revered names (those ones above; they’re the ones I’m talking about) have picked up dozens of Oscar wins and even dozenser of Oscar nominations over the years.
Elton John and Tim Rice have 4 wins, 8 nominations and 7 hair transplants between them. Tim Rice has had 0 hair transplants.
After the embarrassment of only two suitable nominees at this year’s ceremony, Oscar has put his fictional foot down and called in the big changes. The analysis goes like this (and I know that it’s accreate because I’ve copied it directly from the BBC website):
“Academy members will receive the submitted works and a DVD of song clips. After watching the clips, members will vote in order of preference for up to five choices.
However, if there are fewer than 25 songs on the longlist, the final category will be limited to three nominees and if there are only nine songs on the longlist, it is possible that no award will be given at all for that year.”
It will be interesting to see if this helps to raise the standard of song back from, the frankly forgettable, winners from the last few years to the glory days of the 80s winners (‘Take My Breath Away’, ‘(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life’, ‘What a Feeling’, et al).
As well as the musical legends (and Bon Jovi) above, the Academy has also chosen some more unlikely nominees in the last few years. Here are one less one than half a dozen of them:
Talk to any…whataretheycalledagain…that’s right, girls, and they will tell you that South Park is a childish cartoon series with rubbish animation filled with fart jokes and unnecessary cursing.
Well these so-called ‘girls’ are about a million country miles away from the truth, because South Park is actually a childish cartoon series with rubbish animation filled with fart jokes and unnecessary cursing and is among the most consistently funny satirical comedy shows over the last 10 years.
Perpetually lampooning celebrities, politicians, major international religions and, generally, Mel Gibson, the cartoon provides some of the most incisive and cutting criticism of any television programs on either side of the Atlantic today.
At the height of its popularity in 1999, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker released South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Not high on subtlety, the thrust of the story revolves around a love affair between Saddam Hussein and Satan.
As is typical of the television series, the film allowed Trey Parker demonstrate his expert art for musical parody, with songs such as “Kyle’s Mom’s a Bitch“, “Uncle Fucka” and the Oscar nominated “Blame Canada“, which was performed live at the ceremony by Robin Williams.
So if you honour young Marshall at the Oscars for 8 Mile then you’re going to put a smile on this easily impressed little urchin’s face.
To recognise a rap song was a surprisingly bold step for the Academy to take, but “Lose Yourself” does exactly what a Best Original Song winner should do, by evoking the spirit, mood and artistic direction of the film (as well as citing vomiting up mom’s spaghetti which, to my tiny mind, should also be a prerequisite).
Following 8 Mile – like a Chevy-full of gangbangers mercilessly pursuing a jive sucker – only three years later another hip-hop outfit obtained the gold statue.
The understandably little known Three 6 Mafia wrote “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” for the criminally little watched Hustle & Flowin 2005, in which Terrence Howard (who was also nominated for his male lead) plays down-on-his-luck rapper Djay, trying to make it to the big time from his home made studio.
Their performance at the Oscars ceremony was, as I’m sure some elderly member of my family would label it, lively:
Who could possibly be a better choice of pop star to vocalise the pain, desperation and gut wrenching (or, indeed, arm wrenching) tension of James Franco’s rather sticky predicament (i.e. he was stuck) in Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours than paint dried, dullier than thou, butter wouldn’t melt (because the butter was so bored), almost as bland as this blog, Dido?
I don’t know. The Lighthouse Family? Simply Red? David Gray? Des’ree? Enya? (Ad infinitum citing all of the cds in my mother’s collection).
Still, at least none of them has ever received an Oscar nomination.
I’m not going to use this blog space to toady the brilliance of Flight of the Conchords (notwithstanding its unfortunate slump in the second series).
However, I think I’m entirely justified in decrying the Academy’s ludicrous decision not to requisition the Best Original Song nominees (for only the third time in Oscar history) to perform their competing tunes at the ceremony. For the first time in years, the Academy had the opportunity to showcase a genuinely original song, but Brit’s “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets was refused the chance.
To console yourself, watch Brit picking up his well-earned prize here. OH MY GOD, isn’t he just soooooo adooooorable.
His name's Adam Marshall and he LOVES talking about himself in the third person. He thinks he's an expert but the truth is that he probably just likes talking about the films and the Oscars and the such.
I hope...that is to say, he hopes...that you like the words that are written down.
Bloscars 