86th Academy Awards Predictions

Here are my predictions for tonight’s potential Oscar winners, in addition to the films I feel SHOULD be honored (in parentheses below, because I just can’t help myself).  I’m curious to know if they match any of your expectations!  And sorry I’m posting them so late…  Perhaps they’ll still serve some interest.

Disney’s 2013 short “Get A Horse!” pays homage to early Disney cartoons and the history of cinema in general.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT – Get a Horse! (Get a Horse!)

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT – The Voorman Problem

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT – The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – The Square

 

“American Hustle” is a very sexy film, and as such depends largely on its 70s costume design.

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING – Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (Dallas Buyers Club)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN – American Hustle (American Hustle)

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – The Great Gatsby (Her)

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS – Gravity (Gravity)

“Gravity” is a lock for numerous technical awards, as much of the above-earth film was created through visual effects and animation.

BEST SOUND EFFECTS EDITING – Gravity (Gravity)

BEST SOUND MIXING – Gravity (Gravity)

BEST FILM EDITING – Gravity (Gravity)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – Gravity (Gravity)

 

Disney’s 2013 critical and commercial hit “Frozen” is likely to win two awards; one for its song “Let It Go.”

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – Frozen (Frozen  …er, really, The Great Gatsby.  If only Lana got the nomination she deserved.)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – Gravity (Gravity)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – Frozen (Frozen)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM – The Great Beauty (The Great Beauty)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – 12 Years a Slave (The Wolf of Wall Street)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – Her (Nebraska)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – 12 Years a Slave (American Hustle)

Relative newcomer Lupita Nyong’o is likely to win an award tonight for her stunningly raw performance as the slave Patsey.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Dallas Buyers Club (Dallas Buyers Club)

Jared Leto is pitch perfect as Rayon, a beautiful character suffering from HIV/AIDS.

BEST ACTRESS – Blue Jasmine (Blue Jasmine  …would have loved for Emma Thompson to be nominated for Saving Mr. Banks, too.)

Cate Blanchett gives a truly harrowing turn as a deteriorating divorcee in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine.”

BEST ACTOR – Dallas Buyers Club (Nebraska)

Not only did Matthew McConaughey lose weight for his role of Ron Woodruff, he provides a genuinely impressive performance.

BEST DIRECTOR – Gravity (Gravity)

BEST PICTURE – 12 Years a Slave (Nebraska)

Although it’s been a tight race between “12 Years a Slave” and “Gravity,” it appears that the former story about a free man being captured into the slave trade will triumph for the big prize.

Tell me what you think, what your picks are, and we’ll all see how things go!

Fiction Film as Historical Document

Cavalcade (1933)
star. Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook

Frank Lloyd’s Cavalcade, the rarely aired and distributed Academy Award Best Picture-winner of 1933, fares quite well nearly eighty years after its original release.  Like many other literary adaptations and prestige films from Classic Hollywood (this being an adaptation of Noël Coward’s 1931 stage play), the film suffers from some typical pitfalls of early sentimental films.  Modern viewers would be likely to critique it’s exaggerated melodramatic acting, theatrically-blocked mise-en-scène, and sometimes unfocused ensemble plotting.  Nevertheless, this story of one British family’s endurance over the numerous obstacles of the early twentieth century remains substantial well into the twenty-first century.

Jane Marryot (Diana Wynyard) sends her beloved Robert (Clive Brook) off to the Boer War.

Like a vintage version of Downton Abbey, Cavalcade chronicles the stories of the Marryots and the Bridges, their servants, from New Year’s Eve 1899 to that of 1929.  Across these thirty years, which include some of England’s greatest trials and triumphs from the Boer Wars of South Africa and the death of Queen Victoria to the sinking of Titanic and World War I, the two families experience the inevitable diffusion of wealth and devastation across socio-economic borders.  The Bridges, eventually opening a bar and raising a prodigiously talented daughter, rise in rank and soon equal the Marryots in the new twentieth century social structure.  The Marryots, however, are humbled by the great effects of war, the loss of family, and the increasingly “loose” morals of the emergent society.

Ultimately, Cavalcade offers a message much like those of Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) and Mrs. Miniver (1942) from later in the following decade: Supplying an epic narrative of Englishmen’s capabilities to survive, it asserts that Britain has been and always will be a dominant, superior culture.  This attitude was common in American cinema of the 1930s, as literary adaptations and British subject matter provided an air of sophistication to the burgeoning popular art form.

(Left to Right) Herbert Mundin, Diana Wynyard, Clive Brook, and Una O’Connor make up a talented ensemble.

The combination of the film’s blatant place in this canon of uncontested, biased British politic with its unbalanced blend of genre (traipsing from ensemble drama to wartime epic to melodrama with hints of social issue and semi-doc) ages Cavalcade and targets its inaccessibility to today’s much more cynical audience.  Nevertheless, the film deserves praise for the tenacity of its scope and success of its execution at an early stage in sound cinema.  Moments of striking three-dimensional camera movement between theatrically-staged sequences stand out for enhancing the scale of the astoundingly-dressed and -peopled sets.  And even within the obvious chronology of iconic historical events, Lloyd is able to direct numerous sequences that shock and evoke based on character arc and emotion.

Cavalcade may not amuse many contemporary audiences; but in its act of documenting and humanizing recent history, the film itself serves as a fascinating document of how cinema, the world’s most popular artistic medium, even through fiction has been chronicling and establishing history for 119 years.

A Glimpse of True Shock

Captain Phillips (Oct. 11, 2013)
star. Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi

At first glance, Captain Phillips may appear to be little more than a vehicle for star Tom Hanks’ third Academy Award.  In ways, this is true.  But fortunately director Paul Greengrass delivers so much more, turning out one of the most thrilling films to be seen this year or this decade.

Tom Hanks pictured with the real-life Captain Richard Phillips (left).

Hanks’ role is that of the film’s titular character: Captain Richard Phillips, the tenacious commander of the large merchant ship that was overtaken by Somali pirates in April 2009.  The movie begins with Phillips’ entrance onto the Maersk Alabama and departure for Kenya, then follows the ensuing events that arise when a band of four young pirates hijack the ship, search for the crew, and ultimately kidnap Phillips in a small lifeboat for several days, holding him hostage in hopes of receiving funds from the United States Navy.

The story of the Maersk Alabama’s seizing and Phillips’ capture is incredible.  And what is equally astounding is director Greengrass and screenwriter Billy Ray’s ability to portray such an unbelievable historic event in a thoroughly engrossing and awe-inspiring way through the conventions of the action genre.  But unlike so many contemporary action-thrillers that capitalize on the fantastic and imaginative – I’m talking here of robots, aliens, extreme forms of government corruption, etc. – Captain Phillips is a genuinely exhilarating, adrenaline-induced experience that is founded, and remains tethered, to historic truth and realistic depictions of maritime and hostage procedures.

Newcomer Barkhad Abdi plays Somali pirate ringleader Muse.

The ability to balance realism and thrilling suspense, which many might consider contradictory forces, is found largely in the film’s attention to detail, both physical and thematic, and through its exciting pacing.  Its cinematography, rooted mainly in handheld/semi-docudrama form, and impressive editing create great tension in the dangerous events that befall the crew of the Maersk Alabama and Captain Phillips, specifically.  It is the high-stakes acting, too, between Hanks and newcomer Barkhad Abdi, who plays ringleader Muse, that increases the film’s  visceral intensity.

There are occasional moments within Captain Phillips when Hanks’ performance, in addition to slight pretensions in the film’s depiction of the story or dialogue, seems a bit vain or self-indulgent.  However, these are largely forgotten at close, due to the remarkable and haunting last five minutes of the film.  Without revealing too much, I will simply say that Hanks’ ability to depict genuine human shock and vulnerability in rawest form moved me to tears.  His willingness and accomplishment in abandoning reservation and exploring intrinsic human emotion is quite literally stunning!  And it is during this extreme that you realize how impressive the rest of his performance as the stalwart Captain Phillips truly is.

Tom Hanks is remarkable as real-life hero Captain Phillips!

Faults are somewhat difficult to find in this film, though I was very disappointed not to see what becomes of the rest of Phillips’ crew left aboard the Maersk Alabama after Phillips’ individual rescue, despite that we know they are relieved of any dangers by United States military before the film’s last act.  It also seems that the story lulls slightly once the pirates have dragged Phillips along in the lifeboat, following the pitch-perfect build of all events surrounding the ship’s hijacking.  This resolves, however, during the inevitably climatic resolution, which isn’t impeded upon by the fact that we already know the outcome.  After all, the best suspense comes from knowing what will happen but failing to predict how it will unroll.

Lastly, like last year’s Best Picture-winner Argo (2012), Captain Phillips lacks in subtext, wholly concerned in excitement and emotional evolution.  This makes for a very enjoyable and enthralling first screening, but subsequent viewings of the film are likely to be markedly less satisfying.  Nevertheless, everything about Captain Phillips makes for memorable, visceral cinematic entertainment the first time around!