Alex: Yeah it's a sadly predictable lot of Best Pic nominees this year
Serge: Yes, the nominees are: the silent hipster foreign film love letter to silent cinema, George Clooney Runs Straight at the Camera, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Pretentious, the white guilt vote, another love-letter to a certain style of cinema, the Woody Allen, whatever Aaron Sorkin farted out this year, Terrence Malik's most pretentious film yet, and Spielberg's Homeward Bound meets Paths of Glory.
Alex: lol. That sounds fairly on the mark.
Serge Bodnarchuk: Now, that isn't to say that any of those films are bad. I'm just saying, "Of course, Academy."
Alex: Exactly. Which is especially disappointing given how the new Best Picture rules could have meant a more interesting lineup. Instead, it's just the nine most predictable nominees, instead of ten.
Serge: Yeah, when I saw that they left off films like "50/50," "Melancholia," and even stuff like "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," and they DIDN'T EVEN PICK TEN, I was upset.
Alex: Yeah. I haven't seen Extremely Loud etc but it got especially mediocre reviews
Serge: I think that was the worst-reviewed of all the nominees.
Alex: Yeah. It surprised me when it got nominated for Best Picture, because generally (if nothing else), the top nominees are at least generally positively reviewed. And for ELAIC to have gotten more than, I think it was 5% of the vote, really surprised me. I mean, in a normal year it wouldn't be a surprise because oh well it ended up at number 9 or 10 spot just because. I'll blame it on the fact that this year was a strange one for movies.
Serge: It was... my top five couldn't have been weirder. Though, for the record, I recently saw "50/50" and I think it would bump "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" from my top five.
Alex: Yeah I gotta say I wasn't crazy about 50/50, but it definitely deserved nomination over some of the films that got them. I actually expected it to get an Original Screenplay nod, but then I also expected the same of Young Adult.
Serge: I suppose I'd be better-versed on the subject if I had seen more of the nominees... I haven't seen "The Artist," "The Descendants," Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," "Hugo," "Moneyball," or "War Horse."
Alex: I haven't seen ELAIC or Moneyball, but of the others, The Artist was the only one I really liked. But, again, this isn't so much a discussion of the quality of the films as it is a discussion of "WTF, Academy?"
Alex: Well yeah
Alex: Haha by all means. I have a more intelligent reason for liking it now anyway
Serge: I know you liked it, and it's not a "bad" movie per se, but what it does to generate drama and catharsis is just so lazy, so melodramatic, that I can't sit through it. I mean, it DOES get you to feel something by the end of the film, but that's because they pull out everything from the mother with cancer to the random miscarriage to the abolition of racism. My mom watched this movie and she liked it because she sympathized with the help and the white women who fought for their rights and it filled her with a warm mushy feeling to hate on Ms. Hilly. And then she went on a rant about how gays shouldn't serve in the military because they carry more diseases than heterosexuals. She IS Ms Hilly. But, thanks to this film, she gets to FEEL GREAT about it. The movie isn't based on a true story... there was no scathing book that exposed the injustices that the help faced. It's revisionist history; sappy, melodramatic revisionist history.
Alex: And I have no doubt that's the reason so many people like it.
Serge: lol, fair enough.
Alex: I liked it because it showed me something I hadn't seen before. Yes, there are a lot of plot elements (I can't vouch for how many of them are in fact based in reality--I was under the impression it was an autobiographical book but that shows how much I know I suppose) that are as common and typical as can be, but the world was something new. Instead of a straightforward "more white people put down black people and black people would rather they not", there's this idea that even in the racist South there was a strange, unhealthy kind of symbiotic relationship. You have white families who rely on black women to raise their children, and the black women in turn raise those children partially to stay in the good graces of the white families. It was unusual. Perhaps that's just me not having seen enough movies about racism in the 60s, but I liked the different viewpoint. All of that said, I agree that most of the film's fans are most definitely fans because of white guilt. And the Academy is nothing if not a proud displayer of white guilt. (Of course, now I'm curious as to see what percentage of the Academy's membership are non-white.)
Serge: I would've liked to see an examination of the white south's parasitic relationship with the help, but the movie wasn't interested in examination, it was interested in sentiment
Alex: Well yeah. However much it was though, it didn't bother me the first time around. Again, maybe it's something that'll hurt it on further re-watches.
Serge: Maybe it's the very definition of drama, and I just don't like it because of A) 90% of the fans, and B) I can see the strings that the screenwriters use to operate this puppet-show.
Alex: Possibly. Possibly I just have a higher threshold for obvious sentimentality. Hell, I still cried during War Horse, knowing the whole time that Spielberg was playing me. I mean, it was a perfectly solid first half of a movie. Went downhill after that though...
Serge: lol, maybe that's the thing: I really don't like sentiment. The WWI movie that makes me cry is "Paths of Glory."
Alex: Same here. Y'know, the more I think about it, the more I'm not sure about that statement. Sometimes I go for sentimentality, but other times I've seemed to be the only one watching something who didn't buy into it because the sentiment was too strong. Hmmm. For the most part though I'd say that really sentimentality can be all right, but sparingly, and only if it's really earned.
Serge: Fair 'nuff. I liked "Moulin Rouge." *loved
Alex: Haha same here. Maybe *that's* it. I can do sentimental when the filmmakers are in it with me. With Moulin Rouge you get the feeling that the filmmakers cared as much about this story as they wanted the audience to care. It wasn't just a tool, it was (for want of a less cliched phrase) a labor of love.
Serge: So, to come back to the idea that the Academy is as predictable as the tides, the only thing worse than having no dog in the fight is having only one dog in the fight.
Alex: Right yes
Serge: Of all the nominees, I only saw one that I'm actually rooting for.
Serge: Yes. I swear, I'm not gonna watch. I'd rather just watch "Midnight in Paris."
Alex: The one part of the awards I'm really looking forward to is seeing Woody Allen accept Best Original Screenplay. I will watch for that
Serge: Ooooooh. Hadn't thought of that.
Alex: Or rather, I will have it on in the background for that. Apart from that, none of my personal choices for the other awards are even nominated
Serge: I'm told I shouldn't be excited for Billy Crystal hosting, but I'm actually pretty psyched. Sorry if that was a drastic change of subject from whatever you were typing.
Alex: Yeah, I am interested to hear him do NINE best picture songs. Haha nah it's okay. I was searching for a topic.
Serge: One year, there were five Best Picture nominees and four of them had gotten nominated for Best Director. When it came time for Crystal to introduce the one film that didn't get a directing nom, he said "Our next film, apparently, directed itself!"
Alex: Haha that's great. Yeah, he's safe and predictable (the perfect symbolic Oscar host), but he's also funny. If nothing else, there's always a few good jokes to be recounted the following morning
Serge: So next year, the Oscars need to nominate "The Dark Knight Rises," "Prometheus," and "The Avengers," and then get the Avengers to host.
Alex: HAHA YES
Serge: Not the actors who PLAY the avengers, mind you....
Alex: If only I trusted the Academy to be that cool. Haha. I wrote a blog post the other day about how 2011 was the year of nostalgia
Serge: Yeah, I see that....
Alex: I think that probably best describes the attitude of the Academy Awards. The Artist, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, the various other period pieces, the biopics that did and did not (sorry J. Edgar) get nominated, all of them point toward the fact that the industry, and in turn audiences, and just focused on reliving the past. Generally that
Serge: J. Edgar invented finger printing, modern criminal profiling, but all people remember is that he was a rumored cross-dresser.
Alex: Well yeah. And good on Dustin Lance Black and Clint Eastwood for focusing a lot more on the former than the latter
Serge: I didn't see it... *sad face*
Alex: It still wasn't anything more than merely good, but it was good nonetheless. I'll say this though: the past decade of Academy Awards have been surprisingly forward-thinking. I mean, relatively so.
Serge: Well, we got the first woman Best Director, the first foreign-language Best Actress award, etc.
Alex: Last year everyone complained when The King's Speech won that it was such a stereotypical Oscar-bait movie, and that's true... circa the 1980s and 90s.
Alex: Agreed. Even just looking at the Best Picture winners, the trend seemed to favor edgier, more contemporary and personal stories than the prototypical "Best Picture Winner". No Country For Old Men, The Departed, Slumdog Millionaire, The Hurt Locker. Even the big epic Lord of the Rings was the first fantasy film to win Best Pic
Serge: Was it? Wow. I thought maybe "Krull" was at least nominated.
Alex: Haha no. But yeah the closest prior to that was Star Wars, which got beat out be Annie Hall. This new decade though the trend seems to be shifting towards a mix of old-fashioned stories told in slightly unusual or "new" ways. The King's Speech was a historical epic about British royalty... except it was really an intimate quasi-buddy-movie about overcoming personal problems
Serge: Yeah.
Alex: The Artist (which is bound to win this year) is a silent movie about a old-time movie star whose pride leads to his downfall in the public eye... except the very fact that it's silent makes it new and unusual these days.
Serge: Is it? I have no idea how the odds play out. I'm terrible at Oscar predictions. But I agree as to why the Academy would be interested. Plus... SILENT! BLACK AND WHITE! FRENCH BUT NOT FRENCH!
Alex: Haha yep. It would also probably tie for Slumdog Millionaire and The Last Emperor for Most Foreign Best Pic winner ever. Not saying much, but still.... Yeah this was a weird year. There really wasn't a frontrunner at all until November when The Artist starting getting all those glowing advance reviews. Then it came out and everyone was saying, "Well, The Descendants is too small and contemporary and light-hearted; War Horse is too traditional; Hugo is a kids' film; let's just say this is gonna be the winner!"
Serge: lol. Is THAT how Oscar predicting works?
Alex: Haha it seems that way. I mean, really it starts once all the critics groups start naming their award winners
Serge: Long story short: it's 5000 dudes who all vote for their friends. We could all design a more entertaining show, but The Oscars are still the only movie-themed party that anyone shows up to.
Alex: True. Point is, I'm not crazy about the Awards, but I hope Midnight in Paris wins something, and I'll be keeping it on in the background.
Serge: Final thoughts: Billy Crystal rocks, and if you don't think so then you've [obviously] never seen "City Slickers."
--Serge
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