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Dustin’s Take: Oscar Predictions’n'Such’n'As’You’Like

Posted by Dustin Monk on

“What’s that dreadful smell?” you ask, wrinkling your nose. “Smells like campfire and piss and 65mm.” Why, dear friend, that’s the smell of Oscar season! ‘Tis here, ’tis here, and not a moment too soon!

So, then, in the interest of what interests me (predictably), I’ve compiled a list of my predictions. But wait! There’s more. I have picked who I think will win, who think should win, and the ever-illustrious Upset – the nominee who could surprise us all and take the win!

(By the way, I’m totally stealing this format from some article I read a few years either on Yahoo or CNN or something, so if anyone notices, help give me props where props are do, because I can’t remember where and can’t seem to find it…)

On to it then. Yes?

BEST ACTOR:

Bradley Cooper: Silver Linings Playbook

Daniel Day-Lewis: Lincoln

Hugh Jackman: Les Miserables

Joaquin Phoenix: The Master

Denzel Washington: Flight

Who Should Win: Daniel Day-Lewis. Because, I mean, come on. Day-Lewis could be cast as paint drying and I’d be captivated by his performance.

Who Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis. Duh. He played the most famous president in American history. More famous than Washington. More famous than Kennedy. More famous than Van Buren.

The Upset: Hugh Jackman might pull a cat out of the bag. He was truly masterful as Jean Valjean, singing and bearded and sad and whatnot.

BEST ACTRESS

Jessica Chastain: Zero Dark Thirty

Jennifer Lawrence: Silver Linings Playbook

Emmanuelle Riva: Amour

Quvenzhane Wallis: Beasts of the Southern Wild

Naomi Watts: The Impossible

Who Should Win: Quvenzhane Wallis. Has a child actor ever won best actress? I don’t know and I’m too lazy to look it up on Wikipedia, but Ms. Wallis was absolutely outstanding in Beasts.

Who Will Win: Emmanuelle Riva. Full Disclosure: I have not see Amour (to be rectified this weekend), but from what I’ve heard her performance as a woman suffering from a stroke is great.

The Upset: Jennifer Lawrence. Maybe? You never know. You don’t. You don’t know! Jennifer Lawrence is awesome and she should’ve been nominated for The Hunger Games. Speaking of, why the hell wasn’t The Hunger Games nominated for stuff???

BEST DIRECTOR

Michael Haneke: Amour

Benh Zeitlin: Beasts of the Southern Wild

Ang Lee: Life of Pi

Steven Spielberg: Lincoln

David O. Russell: Silver Linings Playbook

Who Should Win: Benh Zeitlin. This being his first feature film, Zeitlin captures so much of post-Katrina New Orleans – no shot is wasted.

Who Will Win: Michael Haneke. I think the Academy will give Haneke the award for making a film mainstream audiences can watch (as opposed to his other films which are most definitely not for your average moviegoer). I’m not saying it’s right; I’m saying it’s what they’re going to do.

The Upset: Steven Spielberg. What??? Spielberg as a Left Field Candidate??? Yes. That’s right. Lincoln was a great film, but directorial-wise, it was no Saving Private Ryan (which Spielberg won the award for in 1998). Still, we’re talking Spielberg here and he is well-loved.

BEST FILM

Amour

Argo

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Django Unchained

Les Miserables

Life of Pi

Lincoln

Silver Linings Playbook

Zero Dark Thirty

Who Should Win: Beasts of the Southern Wild. This post-Katrina fantasy tells the story of a “hushpuppy who lived with her daddy in the bathtub.” It is, at times, difficult to watch because it doesn’t flinch from real emotion and real pain, but it is an incredible story about the survival of a poverty-stricken girl.

Who Will Win: Lincoln. As in-depth as it gets at the busy politicking during the Civil War to pass the 13th Amendment and abolish slavery, Lincoln is masterful and reminds us that we can do good things.

The Upset: Zero Dark Thirty. Despite all the controversy regarding the waterboarding scenes, this one might sneak its way to the Oscar.

That’s all the predictions I’m going to do. (The rest of the awards don’t matter and we all know it! No…I kid, I kid. Kind of.) I am a little peeved that The Hunger Games didn’t get any nods because I thought it was a very good movie – particularly Jennifer Lawrence’s performance. Anyway. I digress.

The Hobbit (3 stars)

Posted by Dustin Monk on

Expectations:

I wasn’t impressed from the trailers for the prequel to The Lord of the Rings. In fact, I laughed during the dwarves’ song because it was just too much. We’ll see how the movie plays out. I do not have high hopes.

Review:

The good thing about The Hobbit is that it has moments of awesome; the bad thing is, in a movie two hours and forty-six minutes long, those moments are rare. It is clear, though, that Peter Jackson loves Middle-Earth and had, at least cinematography-wise, a strong desire to return viewers to that lush, realized world. Whether or not Middle-Earth can itself withstand three more three-hour films is another thing.

The Hobbit, as a story, just isn’t as epic as The Lord of the Rings. It is a more mundane, and in a lot of ways, more human story; filling in the tale with multitudes of flashbacks and footnotes of Middle-Earth will not make the telling stronger nor more interesting. Indeed, The Hobbit suffers greatly simply because it just doesn’t get to the point soon enough: forty-five minutes goes by before Bilbo finally finally finally decides to get on this little adventure with Gandalf and the dwarves. It felt like Jackson was reintroducing viewers to a world that was already familiar.

That familiarity is part of the problem, too: to much of the time the heroes’ journey through panoramic scenes of snow-capped mountains and lush forests and grasslands felt too much like Frodo’s journey in LOTR, in look and scope. Again: this should not be a sick-epic film. It is The Hobbit. Treating it as if it had the world-crushing epicness of LOTR robs the film of its tension, and of its smaller-scale heroics (i.e. Bilbo mercifully letting Gollum live.) The nods and winks to the previous films were a little much too.

All that said, The Hobbit isn’t a total waste of time. Martin Freeman as Bilbo captures perfectly the hobbit’s hopefulness and heroics, but it is Andy Serkis as Gollum who steals the show in the eight minutes he has on screen. The riddles scene between Bilbo and Gollum is glorious – both funny and terrible.

The Hobbit isn’t a great film and, as far as prequels go, it relies too much on the same visuals of the LOTR films to feel fresh or to keep the viewer interested for three hours. Its good moments, however, are worth the watch and, though I go into the next two films even more warily, I still go.

Killing Them Softly (4 stars)

Posted by Dustin Monk on

Expectations:

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is one of my favorite recent-ish films. The tone, the cinematography, the music (my god, the music!), and the performances of both Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck were just fantastic. Andrew Dominick gets my benefit of the doubt for this gangsterish film. (Sidenote: he’d get it anyway because I freaking love gangster films, so yeah, I’m really excited to see this!)

 

Review:

Killing Them Softly is violent. Not just violent in the beat-the-shit-out-of-you-sorry-Ray-Liotta-way; it is violent in the way aren’t-we-all-just-capitalist-pigs-is-that-ham-I-smell-way. And, if you’ll pardon the expression, it tends to really hit you over the head with it too.

When criminals are so dumb that they say things like “We’re not the only smart ones around” you know things aren’t going to end well for them. For the two losers who rob a card game played by members of a corporate mafia, well, it’s pretty clear from the get-go somebody is gonna pay. Cue Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt who, unsurprisingly, is kickass): he takes care of things when things need taking care of.

So that’s the gangster element. And it’s awesome and violent and hilarious and messy.

The other part of the film is also as interesting. First of all, it is a gangster film set in New Orleans. This new setting – as opposed to say, ahem, Boston (Scorcese, I’m looking at you!) – is a breath of fresh air. The film plays out at the same time of the 2008 presidential elections, and hearing speeches from Barack Obama as well as earlier speeches from George W. Bush is a poignant reminder of where this country was four years ago, where we are now, and where we might be headed.

Killing Them Softly isn’t afraid of meandering either – another new angle on the gangster film. Perhaps the best performance is put in by James Gandolfini as Mickey, a depressed hitman hired by Cogan to do some of the dirty work. Mickey – a mean, raging alcoholic – rambles on about loneliness, doing hard time, having nothing, etc., and it is absolutely captivating to watch him fall apart.

Although it isn’t quite as masterful or engrossing as The Assassination of Jesse James…, Killing Them Softly is another high mark for Andrew Dominick and crew and a fine addition to the gangster film.