Here's a quick Oscar-preview article I wrote for this week's issue of SEE Magazine, the alt-weekly I work for here in Edmonton. The tone has a little more of that snappy-snarky Entertainment Weekly tone than I usually like my pieces to have, but if nothing else, I thought readers of this blog might be amused by some of my choices... and perhaps inspired to offer their own picks in the comments. (I'm not sure why I chose to use the "royal we" throughout this thing... maybe I was unconsciously distancing myself from it even while I was writing it?)* * * * *
You want Oscar predictions? Here’s some Oscar predictions: Slumdog Millionaire, Mickey Rourke, Kate Winslet, Heath Ledger, Penélope Cruz. Boom! Oscar predictions are easy — and, truth be told, a little boring.
What’s more interesting is to talk about Oscar’s shadow self, the negative image of the glitzy ceremony that will take place this Sunday evening in Los Angeles, the nominees that should have been and shouldn’t have been. Accordingly, here’s our roundup of the five major categories in what you might call the Alternative Oscars — our choices for the most undeserving actual nominee, the most obvious snub, and the nominees who we’d like the Academy to have recognized, although we know they would have only gotten nominated in the Bizarro-World Oscars.
BEST PICTURE
Most Undeserving Nominee: Like a grotesque affirmation of the old axiom that any Holocaust-themed movie is sure to score big with Academy voters, THE READER tells the story of a Nazi prison guard whose soul is redeemed when she learns to read while serving a life sentence for allowing a barnful of Jews to burn to death.
Most Obvious Snub: Jonathan Demme’s rich, humane, technically daring RACHEL GETTING MARRIED. The dialogue seems so effortlessly naturalistic that screenwriter Jenny Lumet probably got cheated out of a Best Screenplay nod too.
In Our Dreams: WENDY AND LUCY, starring Michelle Williams as a young woman standing on the very precipice of poverty, is heartbreaking antidote to the (admittedly enjoyable) feel-goodisms of Slumdog Millionaire. And who says a documentary can’t be nominated for Best Picture, especially one as thrilling as MAN ON WIRE?
BEST ACTRESS
Most Undeserving Nominee: ANGELINA JOLIE’s character in Changeling has been conceived as a saint, the very embodiment of virtuous motherhood — and that’s the only level on which she seems interested in playing her.
Most Obvious Snub: Why so serious, indeed! Did any actor, male or female, create a more original, impish characterization in all of 2008 than SALLY HAWKINS did as the unfailingly upbeat Poppy Cross in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky?
In Our Dreams: Between Gregg Araki’s straight-to-DVD pot comedy Smiley Face and the watered-down crowd-pleaser The House Bunny, ANNA FARIS established herself as arguably the most inventive, irrepressible female comic in movies today.
BEST ACTOR
Most Undeserving Nominee: It’s not just that BRAD PITT’s performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button relies so much on CGI effects for its impact; it’s that he makes the character such a dull, opaque blank even when he’s not wearing any makeup at all.
Most Obvious Snub: CLINT EASTWOOD’s shamelessly entertaining work as a grouchy, racist retired auto worker in Gran Torino is the kind of career-capping turn that the Oscars were made to honour.
In Our Dreams: Shouldn’t the various blurps and bleeps that BEN BURTT devised for the title character in Wall•E — so lovable, so amazingly expressive, despite their seemingly limited range — count as acting too?
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Most Undeserving Nominee: Actually, these five performances are all pretty terrific. But if we had to boot someone out of the category, we’ll go with Doubt’s PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN — if only to give someone who hasn’t won an Oscar already a chance.
Most Obvious Snub: Well, it’s obvious to us, anyway, that the best BRAD PITT performance of the year was not as Benjamin Button, but as the chowderheaded gym rat and would-be blackmailer Chad Feldheimer in the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading.
In Our Dreams: Our sentimental choice is THE INSANE PENGUIN from Werner Herzog’s Antarctica documentary Encounters at the End of the World, but if we’re restricted to human choices, we’ll go with DAVID STRATHAIRN as the self-pitying alcoholic cop (but excellent tipper) from Wong Kar-Wai’s underrated romantic fantasy My Blueberry Nights.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Most Undeserving Nominee: TARAJI P. HENSON, a likable performer saddled with a one-note role as Brad Pitt’s adoptive mother in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Most Obvious Snub: Anne Hathaway has all the flashy breakdown scenes in Rachel Getting Married, but ROSEMARIE DEWITT's subtle work as her exasperated (and exasperating) older sister is the key to understanding her behaviour.
In Our Dreams: Two terrifying maternal figures: JANE LYNCH, as the demented founder of a Big Brothers-style charity in Role Models, never missing an opportunity to work her former cocaine addiction into the conversation; and ANN SAVAGE in My Winnipeg, a figure to haunt Guy Maddin’s nightmares... and our own.
* * * * *
UPDATE!
In a wacky screwball-comedy blogosphere coincidence, the proprietors of one of my very favourite film blogs — Dennis Cozzalio, of Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule fame — wrote an enthusiastically pro-Faris post for his site at pretty much precisely the same time I was concocting mine. I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find myself echoing Dennis' opinions; his passionate, engaged essays have certainly coloured a lot of my reactions to films over the last few years. You can certainly see Dennis' influence in my rave review of Speed Racer this summer. So even though I technically posted my Anna-Faris-for-Best-Actress argument a couple of hours earlier, I think in a truer sense, Dennis really got there first. If you're not regularly visiting SLIFR already, it's time to get on the case!
0 Yorumlar