I am something of an Oscar nut, and I have lots of Oscar trivia at my fingertips, but I have never been a very good predictor of the winners. My guesses usually result in winners only about 2 out of 3 times. I think the reason is that I get too emotionally involved. I get very wound up about this stuff. And this year's nominees is among the worst batches of cold leftovers I have ever seen. So I'm just going to use this space this year to praise the year's best, gripe about the mediocre and awful stuff that slipped in there thanks to canny marketing, and mention the great stuff that was ignored. And, yes, I'll hazard a guess as to the winners, but don't take my choices to the bank.Best PictureOut of nine nominees, two of them actually deserve to be here. Zero Dark Thirty was, for me, the year's best film, and Lincoln was among the top twenty. As for the other seven? Even the James Bond film Skyfall would have been a better choice. Argo is perhaps the best of those remaining seven, though it's an example of a great three-star, movie, a terrifically entertaining popcorn movie. It has the illusion of depth because it's "based on a true story" and includes some shaky-cam, news-like footage of a powerful event. But just because it's not the year's best film doesn't mean it's not really good. I'd recommend it to anyone. Next up would be Django Unchained. I'm a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, but this is his flabbiest, shallowest work outside of Grindhouse. It's far too long, with far too many dead spots and an uninteresting protagonist. But what's left has many moments of greatness... it's a good small film, trapped within a mediocre big film.
In fifth place, I'd put Life of Pi, from Ang Lee, a hugely overrated director, but a very nice one whose films do have their moments of grace and intelligence. This is one of his better efforts, but still narratively sluggish, too long, and with a dull middle section. Yet it has some absolutely breathtaking visuals -- far better than Avatar's -- and viewers are often impressed enough by visuals to forgive any lack of story. Silver Linings Playbook is about half of a good movie, with a pretty tense first half and then a very goopy second half.
Now we're getting down to the dregs: Beasts of the Southern Wild was one of those Sundance indie hits that sailed through on a wave of smart advertising and hype. Its poster suggests some very strong imagery, but what we get instead is junky, hand-held camerawork that continually draws attention to itself rather than the images. Add some suggestions of Hurricane Katrina to make things feel important, and a deathbed plot, and you've got an easily marketed winner. Worse is Les Misérables, a giant-sized musical that tries to make the stage play more "intimate" by toning it down. Instead, it sucks all the power out of the material and turns it into a three-hour slog that completely runs out of steam by the midpoint. Lastly, there's Michael Haneke's Amour, which is being mistaken as a "sympathetic" work about old people getting sick and dying, when, instead, it's a cold, cruel, mean, hateful movie about old people getting sick and dying. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone.
This would be a good time to bring up Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, which I admired for certain reasons, but was not among my favorites of the year. However, it was very definitely a favorite of most other critics. Yet the movie failed to show up at all, save for a few sporadic acting nods. For me, I found that David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis, which came out around the same time, was equally intelligent and ambitious, but far more artistically and emotionally successful -- though almost all of my colleagues would disagree with me.
Now... what to make of this batch of mixed nuts? I had once predicted that Argo would be the winner, and it still might, if it has momentum through the rest of awards season, but for some reason the Academy neglected to also nominate its director, Ben Affleck (see below). Lincoln has a good shot, being highly respected and also with a parallel nomination in the director category for Spielberg, but with such a random selection of movies, it seems like a good year for the Academy to make a split.
The (Possible) Winner: ArgoShould Win: Zero Dark ThirtyDeserved to Be Nominated: Cosmopolis, The Deep Blue Sea, Killer Joe, The Avengers, Moonrise Kingdom, Skyfall, The Master, The Dark Knight Rises
Best DirectorThese two awards go hand in hand, though they are now out of sync, with nine Best Picture nominations and only five Best Director nominations. Unfortunately, four of the five director nods went to the bottom half of the list. Nothing for Affleck or Kathryn Bigelow or Tarantino, and whether these snubs were for reasons political or intellectual, it hardly matters. The only possible, remotely logical choice remaining is Steven Spielberg, the only one on the list to actually turn in a good film. See above for comments about the work of Ang Lee (Life of Pi), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), and Michael Haneke (Amour).
David O. Russell is a good, interesting, maverick director, normally, and I wouldn't have minded him winning for Three Kings or even The Fighter, but Silver Linings Playbook is such an uneven movie, that I'd balk at an award for him... he will probably be here again, and better to wait for a stronger film. (That Silver Linings Playbook is even nominated is, once again, a testament to the persuasive power of the Weinsteins to get people to fall in love with mediocre movies.) The only good news in this category is that Tom Hooper (Les Misérables) also failed to get nominated, which is as it should be.
The Director's Guild Awards this year are entirely different, with Affleck and Bigelow deservedly turning up, and with Affleck the likely winner, they won't be much of a measuring stick this year. (It makes me wonder... were this year's Oscar nominations tallied the wrong way? Was there some math error?) The Oscar winner just has to be Spielberg. It just has to be.
The (Possible) Winner: Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)Should Win: Steven SpielbergDeserved to Be Nominated: Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), Ben Affleck (Argo), David Cronenberg (Cosmopolis), William Friedkin (Killer Joe), Terence Davies (The Deep Blue Sea), Bela Tarr (The Turin Horse), Richard Linklater (Bernie), Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom)
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