With the Academy Awards nearly upon us,
and me being a massive film nerd, I thought it was the perfect time
to do a blog about this year's Oscars.
If I have one problem with the Oscars
(and I don't, I could go on but I'm sticking with this one) is that
whenever there's a biopic about royalty, a standard biopic or a World
War 2 movie (or all three), they seem to be nominated for heaps of
awards, regardless of whether or not they deserve it. Case in point,
last year's nominations of The Social Network and The King's Speech
(while it is indeed a very good film that I have underrated from the
start, I stand by the point I am about to make). I have seen The
Social Network and while it's a good film, its a story that didn't
really need to be told. Seriously, if someone told you the plot of
the movie was ”guy makes Facebook and gets sued”, that's basically
what it is. It's spoiler-free, you know he's going to create
Facebook. Now, I know that many aspects go into making a film and
that story is one of them, but I can't see what else would lead
people to think this is some shining beacon in film making.
The King's Speech is similar: while
it's a better film, and I understand the importance surrounding the
events of getting a member of the royal family to overcome a stammer
for the sake of maintaining a strong image, it's not exactly The
Queen (OK, I haven't seen it but come on, a title like that and you
know you're in for important events) or Elizabeth (which I have seen
and that was a very good movie, the sequel was OK). Just because it
has a member of the royal family doesn't mean it gets a free ride.
The same goes for World War 2 films, too. Yes, obviously it was
something we'll never forget (and never should) but it's also a cheap
way of getting an emotional response from your audience. If you keep
shoving it down our throats, we're going to become jaded to the
messages you're trying to display.
Let's look at the Best Picture nominees
from 2010: 127 Hours, Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids
Are All Right, The King's Speech, The Social Network, Toy Story 3,
True Grit and Winter's Bone.
Save for Winter's Bone, I have seen all
of the above films (though I am keen to see Winter's Bone) so I can
comment on what chance they would have had compared to the
aforementioned biopics.
Toy Story 3 and The Kids Are All Right
I didn't expect to win. They would have deserved it, most definitely,
but Toy Story 3 being animated basically meant it was put in with the
others just to avoid people complaining and The Kids Are All Right
just didn't seem to have that many people in its corner. Having not
seen Winter's Bone, I can't suggest what prevented the win (besides
the point I'm getting to), but I reckon it would be something similar
to The Kids Are All Right. True Grit is the second adaptation of a
book, with the first garnering some nominations, so that could factor
in for why it didn't win. And despite how simply amazing Inception
and Black Swan are, that one big thing that'll be explained shortly
is probably what denied their rightful Oscar.
So, that leaves 127 Hours and The
Fighter, which fits in with the biopic angle. But, and this is also
why The Social Network had to take second place (I say that because
if they were ranked 1-10, second place is easily guessed), they
weren't period pieces from a much earlier point in time, involving
the royal family.
It makes me wonder why they even
bothered with ten films, seeing as how this and The Social Network
would have been in the cut either way. It's almost like you can
announce a film about a prince walking down a road looking at his
pocket watch as the war begins and the voting committee will say
“Take as many Oscars as you want!”
But this year, things seem to be
different. Not a royal film in sight, unless War Horse has an
extended subplot with members of the royal film. I have to be honest,
of the Best Picture nominees this year, I've only seen two of them
(Hugo and The Descendants, both of which I have reviewed in blogs to be re-uploaded), so a lot of them I know little about. Part of that is I don't
care about some of them, the others are either new down here (we tend
to get some of the nominees late, since we're apparently not
important enough to be considered for big films unless they're a
franchise) or I have yet to see on DVD and I don't even know if
they're on DVD yet.
This year, the nominees are: The Artist
(I'll go over this in a little while), The Descendants, Extremely
Loud And Incredibly Close (this one too), The Help, Hugo, Midnight In
Paris, Moneyball (I still have no idea what the bloody Hell this is
about), The Tree Of Life and War Horse.
Yeah, not exactly enthusiastic about
this crop. This year, it seems the latest suck-up fad to take over
royal films is “the silent era”, with The Artist and Hugo leading
the charge. Much like the royal films, it seems to say “Hey, Oscar
people, love us, you're old and white so you know this stuff!”Now,
I'm not saying these films are bad on their own merits (again, I
reviewed Hugo and I deemed it very good), but the fact that they're
both in the latest Academy Awards doesn't sit well with me.
Also, if there is one film I do not
want to win at all, it's Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close. Why? In
the trailer, you see Tom Hanks and a child who I honestly thought was
a girl at first (and I'm not being mean, I'm serious, I actually
thought the character was female) being all “super happy fun
family”, I was groaning at how cheesy it was. But then... it turns
out, Tom Hanks' character died in the 9/11 attacks and it was at that
point I wanted to punch that movie in the face. That just seems cheap
and exploitative. Yes, it's a huge tragedy and there are bound to be
tons of stories to come out of it, but like the Holocaust, the more
you incorporate it into stories, the more you lessen the effect. So,
no, I don't think it deserves a win based on cheap, emotional
manipulation.
So, what am I hoping will win? Well,
despite having not seen it, I'm rooting for Midnight In Paris, which
I really want to see. I've never hated any Woody Allen film I've seen
and Match Point is spectacular, with Deconstructing Harry and Melinda
And Melinda offering some interesting ideas too (and also, The Curse
Of The Jade Scorpion is frickin' hilarious)
What WILL win? Well, War Horse didn't
seem to generate a lot of buzz, so I don't see that pulling in the
big one. Honestly, I'd say The Tree Of Life or The Artist, with Hugo
also not being ruled out, due to Scorsese.
Now, to prevent this from getting too
long, I'm going to shorten the rest of the nominees of the big
categories.
Best Director- Scorsese/Allen (want to
win), Alexander Payne (probable win)
Best Actor- Gary Oldman (want to win),
Jean Dujardin (probable win)
Best Actress- Rooney Mara (want to
win), Meryl Streep (probable win)
Best Supporting Actor- Christopher
Plummer (want to win), Jonah Hill (probable win, only because he's in
Moneyball. Otherwise, he'd have no shot in Hell and he doesn't
deserve it)
Best Supporting Actress- Melissa
McCarthy (want to win. The fact that Bridesmaids got a nomination in
some way, especially for one of its best characters with McCarthy's,
is fantastic in and of itself), Berenice Bejo (probable win)
Sorry to have cut it short but again, I
could go on all day. So, hopefully some of the people I want to win
will have their talents recognized. But I'll have to wait a little while to find out
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