The Importance of Being Oscar

What will we say about 2011 as a year for movies when the potential Best Picture winner quite literally doesn’t say anything at all?

“The Artist” was once the controversial contender for Best Picture. Not since the first Oscars in 1927 had a silent film won, and it was doubtful this French crowd-pleaser would be the one to change that.

The narrative even fit the tumultuous Academy landscape with the lop-sided number of nominees and changing rules in other major categories.

Now however, ‘The Artist” seems like the safe bet, and in just a few weeks since the nominations, the race has lost its energy as obvious frontrunners make their way ever closer to the podium.

The Oscars remain the last important awards ceremony, but the movies nominated need to reflect their significance.

Consider for a moment that of all the films nominated for Best Picture, not one is a dark, feel-bad movie like “Drive,” “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” or “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”

There is also only one film, “The Help,” which grossed over $100 million at the box office.

And of those, only “The Descendants” or “Moneyball” can be called 21st Century films.

There is still something to be said about a silent film winning Best Picture, namely that a movie, in this case a foreign film that would typically be Best Picture poison, can be universal.

But the problem is that “The Artist” will not inspire a wave of silent films from young, aspiring filmmakers. It may temporarily generate some fascination in the silent era, but the nostalgia of Michel Hazanivicius’s film, as well as the many other backwards-looking films in 2011, is fleeting.

If something like “The Tree of Life” could win, heads would really turn. Films like “No Country for Old Men,” “The Hurt Locker” and “The Lord of the Rings” are all masterpieces in their own ways, but Terrence Malick’s film carries with it the aura that still belongs to “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Rarely is such an important film this close to being recognized as such by a populist voting body.

Short of ensuring that the best films always win, I’m struggling to think what the Oscars still need to do to remain relevant.

Many have criticized that the Oscars can seem like an old man’s club, and this year is no exception. The average age of the nominees in the Best Supporting Actor category is 62.6, and even the Best Director field is stacked with aging masters.

The Oscars could very easily slate younger if only they nominated Shailene Woodley, “Bridesmaids” or included performances by “The Muppets,” but part of what makes the Oscars special is that they are distinguished and made to be taken seriously. If the Oscars are anything, they are not the Grammys or the MTV Movie Awards.

There’s the thought to go back to five nominees, but even if nominating “Inception” and “Toy Story 3” meant little in terms of ratings, a changing, broader field of films has kept movies like “The Tree of Life,” “Bridesmaids,” “Tinker Tailor,” “Drive,” “Dragon Tattoo” and even “Harry Potter” or “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” in the conversation for long enough for them to actually be recognized.

Even if the nomination for “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” was infuriating, it at the very least created some buzz and actually got people out to see the damn thing.

Fixing the Oscars may not come easy, but it’s clear that something must be done to address the Oscars’ problems. They’re too important to just ignore.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

On the heels of a much-undeserved Best Picture nomination for “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” I began to wonder how it could’ve appealed to so many Academy voters. On paper, Stephen Daldry’s film is total Oscar bait, but in execution it feels more genuinely hurtful than exploitative, melodramatic and weepy.

Much of that has to do with “Extremely Loud’s” extremely unlikeable lead character, the 9-year-old Oskar Schell. Oskar is portrayed brilliantly by the first time actor Thomas Horn, who carries the film and has a strong assertion over this character’s mannerisms, but Oskar’s irritating characterization, either stemming from Jonathan Safran Foer’s popular novel of the same name, or from Eric Roth’s (“Forrest Gump,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) screenplay, does the movie wrong. Continue reading “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”

2012 Oscar Nomination Analysis

The Academy really shook up the Awards season with their 2012 Oscar Nominations.

When the Academy introduced the new rule for Best Picture nominees, they wanted an element of surprise added back into the Oscar race.

They got it.

It seemed as if we all knew what was coming as soon as the graphic was flashed on screen such that only eight nominees would make it into the Best Picture race, with “War Horse” and “The Tree of Life” being the surprises.

But as if to slap all the Oscar prognosticators in the face for thinking the Academy was predictable and boring, Academy President Tom Sherak announced “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” last, a movie long thought dead in the minds of critics and bloggers. I in fact picked all eight of the other nominees save for “Extremely Loud,” and to see it pick up not one but two nominations was something of a gut punch.

The film was critically panned, and rightfully so. What shocks me is how of all the performers in that film, Max von Sydow was the one to steal the last spot in the Best Supporting Actor category, effectively robbing Albert Brooks of a nomination for his chilling work in “Drive.”

This is the first time in several years I have not seen all the nominees prior to their announcement, but I quickly saw ‘Extremely Loud” the same afternoon. I left flabbergasted into wondering why this not only irritating and cloying film, but one that often is more literally hurtful and painful than it is melodramatic and soppy, not only has enough people who like the film but have more than five percent of people who feel it is the best movie of the year. Continue reading “2012 Oscar Nomination Analysis”