Oh, My Lord & Taylor: The 91st Academy Awards; or, If I’m Not Back Again This Time Tomorrow, Carry On

Back again, are we?  Haven’t you figured it out, dear reader?  As you may have heard on the streets, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over, and over, and over, and expecting a different result.

Are you here for...information?  You won't get it!

Something about stories with a theme of eternal return have always tickled me.  The Prisoner, The Matrix, Twin Peaks.   This article.  It’s comforting and maddening: a life’s routine routine of days, weeks, months, snubs, flubs.  Round and round they go, until they…don’t.  Or do they?  Therein lies the rub.

The Oscars are one of my favorite recurring dreams, not just because I love the cinema, but because everyone hates them!  They do nothing right.  They’re out of touch.  They don’t matter.  Nobody watches them.  They literally give the wrong people the awards.  They don’t have a host.  (Actually, this is a great idea.)  They are perhaps, in a sense, our civilization’s most elite form of repeated and repeatable failure.  They are the perfect symbol of, well, certain people who blog about the Oscars.  Every year.  And if you’re honest with yourself, dear reader, they might even symbolize you.  Why are you here, again?

You…you want spoilers?!  You got ’em!!

 

Stand By (Thereby Supporting) Your Man

5) Sam, Rock Well — Vice

Pretty good, but it’s such a tiny role.  I’m not sure if it reveals anything about the former president not already revealed by Will Ferrell, etc.  It’s fun!  Sam, weren’t you here last year?  We love you (^_-).

 

4) Mahershala Ali — Green Book

He’s certainly the best and most interesting part of Green Book.  A highly elite ward against littering.

 

3) Sam Elliott — A Star is Birthed

A touching, sweet turn–he cries with the best of them, while wiping away your tears. Is he gonna smooch ya? Does a mustache tickle if you have a mustache, too?  More at 11:00.

 

2) Richard E. Grant — Can You Ever Forgive Me?

A very showy, flamboyant, almost throwback kind of performance.  This is a pristine example of “supporting” in a role, as he’s most certainly not the focus of the film, but informs themes and the main character in interesting ways.  One of the recurring oddities of the Oscars is its struggles in sorting out “supporting” from lead performances, but this role is the definition of the notion.

 

1) Adam Driver — BlackKklansman

Driver isn’t always, say, a subtle actor, but he’s very much so here, and perfectly cast in a film that’s very much about layers.  He does more with posture than any actor I can recall short of Mark Ruffalo.

 

Should Win: Adam Driver

Shall Prevail: Mahershala Ali

 

#Support Women

5) Amy Adams — Vice

Here is a picture of a bird and its little toosh.

Nothing wrong with Adams here, I just struggled to get into the roles across the board in Vice. If verisimilitude is the game here, and I think it is, I just have no frame of reference for the persona or mannerisms of Lynne Cheney, so I can’t judge.  Which is no fault of Adams’.

 

4) Marina De Tavira — Roma

De Tavira nicely unfolds over the course of the film from an unsympathetic rich lady into a fully realized woman and mother.

 

3) Regina King — If Beale Street Could Talk

Radiates support and resolve in a film that is not just about the racial injustices that require those traits, but a celebration of the endurance of those traits through intractable circumstances.

 

T-1) Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz — The Favourite

I just can’t pick a favorite.  The irony is killing me.  Possibly literally.  Say what you will about the film overall, it’s damn well acted.  I feel like the three roles here are inseparable, and if there is genius to The Favourite, it’s in how carefully it balances the screen time and power dynamics between the three leads.  Honestly, I feel like the roles may have been miscategorized, because if anything, the lead here is Stone as the underdog we’re kind of given to root for the majority of the running time, and then, most invested in, as her situation turns.

Anyway, either Stone or Wiesz is a fine choice.  I hope that if one of them wins, the other joins her at the podium.  There can only be two.

 

Should Win: A Favourite 

Shall Prevail: Regina King

 

 

Most Elite and Replete Bouncing Baby Boy

5) Viggo Mortensen — Green Book

We don’t want any chicken, Viggo.  No means no.  ‘Kay?   And it’s going to get everywhere.  This is a rental.

 

4) You And Me, We’re F*^#ing Done.  Professionally. — Vice

Has anyone mentioned that he’s doing Batman?  With the voice?  And what does that mean about enacting illegal surveillance, acting beyond the bounds of the law, vigilantism, and so on?

 

3) Rami Malek — Bohemian Rhapsody

In our quest to simulate and revise every “true story”, historical figure, board game, and Saturday morning cartoon ever, Malek is…fun!  As Freddie Mercury.  Charming.  I mostly saw a guy that looked the part, but also had…something in his teeth.  What was the deal with the teeth!  I was a little unclear on the extent to which Malek was ever singing vs. lip syncing, but to the extent he was singing, bravo.  He has a real joie de vivre, even when he’s being sad and contrite.

 

2) Willem Dafoe — At the Gates of Eternity

Willem Dafoe / Vincent Van Gogh:  Iambic.

Continue with the simulation.  Actually, Gates gets a ton of points for being wonderfully impressionistic and non-linear, it isn’t trying to be a Van Gogh biopic at all.  Instead, it’s a tapestry of meditation, color, and texture.

It should be right up my alley… and for the first half or so, it absolutely is.  But it agonizes me to say that Gates buckles in the landing, saddling fun and vivacious imagery with increasingly overbaked dialogue in the back stretch, until, if you’re in an unsympathetic mood, as I’m afraid I may have been, it feels at times in danger of overplaying its hand. At any rate, that’s nothing to be laid at the feet of Dafoe.   Your mileage will vary.

 

1) Brad Cooper — A Star is Birthed

Coop!! Look at you now!  You made me cry, you bastard.  Not to mention Lady Gaga and Sam Elliott.  And then you went and peed your pants.

Should Win: Bradley Cooper

Shall Win: Rami Malek

 

Queen of the Castle

5) Glenn Close — The Wife

In ducks, the man follows the woman.

Nothing wrong with Close’s performance, but as ever, someone has to come in last so the rest of us can survive.  I love The Wife‘s theme and messages.  I also thought it was in Green Book-clunkiness territory.   Speaking of books, I think this is the case of one that may have just been too difficult to translate to the screen.

 

4) Melissa McCarthy — Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Are you really asking?  Then the answer is...yes.  If the price is right.

Hot archival action!  Untold troves of petrified cat poop!  Swindling!  Ladies and gentlemen, this film has it all.  This space/blog is a fan and aficionado of known swindlers, and McCarthy is a pleasure to watch.  In another year, she may have come out all the way on top.

 

3) Olivia Colman — The Favourite

A really strong performance, and really fun, considering how very miserable she is!  The film required an actor to be able to very much engage on both levels at once, which is no easy task, and a favorite activity to behold.  Speaking as a fellow absurd creature, who suffers fools and is a fool.

 

2) Yalitza Aparicio – Roma

Here is the kind of wonderful naturalistic performance that can almost only come from a first-time actor.  It is, in a word, pristine.  Roma is nothing but a pretty formal exercise without her beating heart at the center.

 

1) Lady Gaga — A Singer is Minted

Not a Photoshop.

Is that what you’re telling me?!

Oh yes.  Oh yes.

There’s elite, and then there’s elite.

OK, we’re voting with our hearts here.  Maybe it’s not the most “layered” or “nuanced” or “telephone on the head” performance you’re ever going to see in your life.  But she’s just electric.  Some people just have that infinite gigawatt star power.  How else are you gonna power that telephone on your head?  With love?  Nope.

All kidding aside, such an already successful superstar has no business being this strong at conventional acting. I’m disappointed that the story wasn’t a little more about her evolution as an artist than it was her, you know, “star is born.”  Especially as the film wryly puts her in some costuming and dancing that’s not that far afield from the kind of hyper-styling Gaga is known for in real life.  A Star is Born doesn’t seem to quite know what to do with that angle, instead leaving the vague sense that Ally is maybe selling out, not really, but maybe.

 

Should Win: Lady Gaga

Shall Prevail: Olivia Colman

 

Direction, In a Filmic Sense

5) Adam McKay

In satirizing evil, do we risk trivializing it?  Or is this even satire?

 

4) Yorgos Lanthimos

Easily one my favorite working directors, but his signature blackly humorous and humane touch isn’t as strongly felt as usual here, obviously because he’s working from someone else’s script for a first.  The moments and shots that are clearly his are entirely welcome… but can feel a little tacked on.

 

3) Spike Lee

BlackKklansman is a trip.  While at first I found myself sweating minor plot details–why do they continue to have Ron speaking with the KKK over the phone once they’ve established Flip as the in-person avatar?–the sheer aptness of the premise for a 2018 film on the KKK and its affiliates just bowls you over.  You read about this shit every day.  But where today’s 24-hour news cycle can seem expressly designed to numb, Lee’s ostentatious splicing, deft casting, and whip clever script underwrites ways in which the more things have changed, the more they’ve stayed the same.

 

2) Alfonso Cuarón

I went into the film a bit wary that it would frame its housekeeper protagonist as a symbol, an icon, or a metaphor first, and a person–a servant–second.  While I would be very interested to hear what those who work in similar capacities to Cleo make of Roma, my takeaway is that of legitimate, heartfelt respect and appreciation.

 

1) Pawel Pawlikowski — Cold War

What a keen peach we have here.  Admittedly, perhaps, more to the specifications of the card-carrying cineaste than many.  At eighty three minutes minus the credits, Cold War is a masterclass in cutting all but the essential.  At times it feels like a dream.  And for a sad story, it can be wickedly funny.

 

Should Win: All of the top three are good picks

Shall Prevail: Alfonso Cuaron

 

 

Best Picture of All Time, Forever and Ever

 

8) Green Book

Look, if you’re here for the scorched earth, down the rabbit hole, 5th dimensional razing of the Best Picture caboose, sorry.  It has some merit.  I love how it lampshades Mortensen’s weight gain with having his character participate in (and win) a hot dog eating contest that has nothing to do with the plot.  I believe he ate twenty six.  Can you imagine that?  That’s entirely too many.  It’s absurd, really.

Ali is good, even Mortensen is good, and kind of fun if you are a fan of caricature.  He really goes for it like the future of Middle Earth depends on it.  I think the film’s heart is in the right place.  But they don’t make movies like this very often anymore…probably for good reason.  At least, they avoid scenes like the fried chicken scenario which, even if you don’t find it cringe worthy, doesn’t seem to depict any sort of earthly human interaction.  Any criticism you want to level at it for being a bit of a white savior movie is probably in play.

 

7) Black Panther 

Exciting for obvious reasons, though as Marvel fare goes, I must say it’s otherwise par-for-the-course.  As with any of them, the worst part is the obligatory digital mayhem of the final hour, narratively and visually weightless.  The best part is the James Bond sequence making up the middle act, and Danai Gurira (Michonne of The Walking Dead People: Destination CARL) throughout, very charismatic.

One anecdotal observation about the undeniable positive legacy of the film: kids (of all colors!) in Black Panther costumes this Halloween.

 

6) Vice

It’s not a bad film, though it may be the most surprising nomination this year.  I just don’t seem to be a fertile audience for McKay’s micro-genre of sketch-collection-as-film, and similarly One For the Money was just not my cup of tea.  Or in this case, stack of teacups.  It’s strange because I like sketch comedy, and I really like some of McKay’s comedies–Anchorman and Stepbrothers, especially. It would be one thing if we had a really well staged and scripted plot going on, and then we were constantly breaking the fourth wall as a sort of statement of purpose.  As a thought experiment, what is the best film in this particular mode?  Maybe Natural Born Killers?  Does that hold up?

Here’s a thought: it took me until just now to realize that the title is a play on words.  I am not equipped for this film.

 

5) Bohemian Rhapsody

We’ve got to get more experimental!

The cheesiest and most history-arranging-for-the-sake-of-crowd-pleasing of the bunch, but…I didn’t really mind.  I mean–it’s so far from attempting any kind of real and gritty historical depiction that quibbling is barely even here or there.  I think I watched it at the perfect time; that is, right after the extreme extended downbeat of fellow musical nominee A Star is Born.  This is a film about Freddie Mercury, not really Queen, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but viewed through that lens, Mercury’s unique circumstances, especially his sexual orientation, are sanitized about as much as possible.  But…if you’re here for anything particularly “true” or serious, you’re entirely in the wrong place.  This is about listening to Queen.  It’s a far cry from what the film could have, probably should have been, but it’s tough not to enjoy the music.

 

4) The Favourite 

Definitely the nominee that, on paper, should most be right up my alley.

Lanthimos’ first major project for which he didn’t write is a very solid, unique film.  It’s smartly written, extremely well acted, and it goes places you certainly don’t see every day.  Good places!  Strange places.  Which sounds exactly like a Lanthimos film.

But somehow, it lacks that one indelible mark.  I think the problem is, when you’re going to every Lanthimos film hoping for another Dogtooth, you are always going to be left wanting even more.  This is one of the all-time films where, while it seems like it has absolutely everything I want, as per the illustrious Pee Wee Herman, I liked the movie—liked the movie.

 

3) BlackKklansman 

A good joint, with Lee’s signature exposition (sometimes referred to as a “Greek Chorus”) weaving nicely with the ongoing plot.  Lee’s flitting style here is a perfect example of how to do what I think Vice would like to go for, constantly bolting on context with elliptical asides, and here it adds to theme rather than muddling it.  This is a killer and extremely timely story (based on a true story, naturally).

 

2) Roma 

We’ve been quite harsh towards director Cuarón in the past, especially his technically accomplished but thematically questionable Gravity.

For the first half hour of this film I was decidedly not on its side, it seeming to be another treatise on upper-middle class struggles: woe to these private garage having folks with lovely children, and walls lined with bookshelves, and two live-in maids–and yet they are not fulfilled!

But Roma definitely transcends that, having a lot to say about the time and place, as well as its protagonist, who is given plenty of focus to act as more than just a magical tool by which her employers learn about True Love.  Motifs that stood out: the poop on the driveway, the mud-puddle town complete with martial arts seminar sequence, the brush fire at the party, with the party guests sauntering down to observe, cocktails in hand, children putting out tiny fires with tiny vessels.  The stillbirth is also wrenching, and beautifully connected to the later rescue of a bouncing baby boy.

 

1) A Star Is Birthed

We discussed our disappointment in a certain lack of focus on Gaga’s character arc above, and that is the biggest quibble here.  But even if it’s incredibly draining, you have to give the film points for carrying through all the way on the direction it wanted to go–and carry through it does.  Brad Cooper delivers the best role of his career….for one, how does he do that voice?  Like, physically, what did he do?  Surely some sort of tracheal surgery.  It sounds just like Sam Elliott, and that’s actually a subplot of the movie!

This was the most emotionally afflicting film of the bunch for me, even more than Roma, though it’s obviously and unarguably more exploitative–its detractors may even say “cheap.”  Still, exploitation is a craft you can get right.   For example, I’m a fan of Titanic, perhaps the greatest modern weepie.  And this film, for better or worse, lands in a somewhat similar box.

Like Titanic, it has a somehow mythic quality, no doubt why it’s recurrence would seem to be some sort of generational birthright.  It’s cheesy, it’s predictable, it’s contrived…and oddly, it walks a tightrope such that these are all strengths.  This is a tale of telegraphed doom where the heartbreak is not so much the shock of loss as the horrible, mundane, pitiful inevitability.  Titanic, before the ship sinks, is a romp of adventure and a celebration of life and romance.  This film is…a Titanic that starts when the ship is already just about sunk.  Like a sinking ship, I don’t know how well it’ll hold up, but for now, it’ll inexorably pull you under.

 

Should Win: I mean… probably Roma.

Shall Win: I don’t have the slightest idea.