And the Oscar Goes To... · 7:08pm Mar 4th, 2018
It's that time of year again: the Oscars! The awards ceremony where a bunch of out of touch old white men pat themselves on the back for being progressive and not at all pretentious, we promise.
As is my annual tradition, I am doing my annual Oscar blog post! Annually!
So the Best Picture nominees are as follows:
Get Out
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
The Shape of Water
Call Me By Your Name
Darkest Hour
Lady Bird
Dunkirk
Phantom Thread
The Post
I have seen all of them except Call Me By Your Name and Phantom Thread. They both look pretentious as hell and I don't care about either all that much. For the most part the ones I did see were pretty good, though I was majorly underwhelmed by Lady Bird, despite its 99% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The issue with Lady Bird is that it was a bunch of fairly decent scenes mixed in with ones that you wouldn't lose a thing if you cut them out in a rushed yet drawn out story, if that makes any sense. The lead actress was serviceable (and it is cool that she's been nominated for Best Actress twice by the age of 23) but she didn't blow me away. I really liked Laurie Metcalf as her mother, though. It was a layered, complex performance and it's almost a shame she won't win. The actor playing the father did a great job too, but it's mostly because his character was so good. He was the only truly selfless person in the film, despite his flaws.
The biggest problem with Lady Bird, though? I wasn't rooting for the protagonist. She made her hopes and dreams obvious from the start, but she was such a shallow selfish person (until the last 30 seconds of the movie, of course) that I didn't care. My advice? Skip it.
The Post was typical Academy/Spielberg stuff. It ticked off a lot of boxes to get it nominated for stuff, none of which it will win. It was an interesting story with the tension somewhat undercut by the fact that you knew how it was going to end. "Will the Washington Post and New York Times be allowed to publish these things, or will they be shut down?!" Well... considering we still have both papers today... Meryl Streep was good, of course, but maybe not Oscar worthy. But, you know, she's up to 21 nominations now, so... heh. Tom Hanks was Tom Hanks with a raspy voice. People have pointed out to me, and I can't disagree, that Tom Hanks usually just plays Tom Hanks in his films, Forrest Gump and, to a slightly lesser extent, Saving Mr. Banks aside. Overall it was a good story with some good performances, but you knew how it was going to end.
Darkest Hour doesn't work without Gary Oldman in possibly the best performance of the year. Sure he was helped by the flawless hair and makeup, but that's only half of the battle. He's a lock for Best Actor. It's not going to be even close. It would be the biggest upset since... well... I guess last year with Moonlight (still a terrible movie) but I doubt it will happen. As a WWII buff myself, it was really cool seeing more of Churchill. There were a few great scenes that disappointed me that they didn't actually happen (such as the one in the Underground) but I can forgive that. It had its problems as it could lay on the drama a little too thick at times, such as the scene where they show the men at the Calais garrison, but those moments were few and far between.
Speaking of Dunkirk...
Dunkirk was the film I thought would win Best Picture when I first saw it. I love Nolan, and this is easily his best directing work to date. The palpable tension in the air supported by a brilliantly subtle score (which I'd like to win, actually) and perfect editing. You really felt the terror from these men who could be wiped out at any moment and have absolutely nowhere to go. The bits with Tom Hardy as the pilot were excellent as well. The film will win both sound Oscars (unless the excellent Baby Driver takes the awards) and deservedly so. The film cast a bunch of lesser known actors which was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it allowed me to see the character instead of the actor, and a curse because it was hard to tell all of the 20something British people in the same uniform and hair color apart. Also the film doesn't really show the scale of the actual operation. As far as I saw in the film it was 20 boats coming to get 10,000 people. In reality it was closer to 800 boats coming to get 300,000 soldiers off the beaches, which would have had a much bigger impact. I get that that's hard to shoot, but still, it would have been nice.
The Shape of Water was probably the movie that disappointed me more than Lady Bird, because I love Del Toro as a director, with Pan's Labyrinth being my favorite of his, and it has 13 Oscar nominations. Now, tons of nominations don't necessarily show a film's quality (see: La La Land, Shakespeare in Love) but I trusted Del Toro. And the film was... good. I guess. It didn't completely blow me away like I thought it would. My wife and brother-in-law were talking about the film after we'd gone to see it, and we were mostly talking about the film's numerous flaws. Not Sally Hawkins, though. She destroyed it, and she's still very much in the race for Best Actress, and deservedly so. I don't think she'll win, but still... The film looks gorgeous and wonderfully atmospheric, as any Del Toro film would. I'll also always be a fan of Doug Jones, who played the creature, and is a staple of Del Toro, also playing the faun in Pan's Labyrinth. When Del Toro wins Best Director, he'll be the fourth Mexican-born director to do it in five years, with Damien Chazelle as the only outlier. He does deserve it, though. Overall, however? The Shape of Water had some big problems but it could still snag the award.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was the film I was most excited to see, since I'd already seen Get Out a lot by the time it was nominated. I'm happy to say that it didn't disappoint. I kept asking if we were all sure that the Coen Brothers had nothing to do with the film, because it was such a Coen film. The dialogue, the characters, the story, all were very Coen. It was a character-driven piece, which I always enjoy. I liked the fact that there were very few truly good people in the film, other than maybe Woody Harrelson's character. Even the protagonist is really putting the billboards up for selfish reasons and not really caring who she hurts in the process. There were a ton of really great character moments from the supporting characters that made me really laugh, such as the inspired performance from the ex-husband's ditzy mistress and how she finished her sentences inflecting up, and Peter Dinklage as the town dwarf. At first I was wary of his performance because his accent didn't sit right with me, but he proved me wrong in the end. ("Penelope said... begets?") You've probably all seen Get Out, so if you have to watch one other nominee this year, you might want to make it this one.
And that brings me nicely to...
Get Out. The best film of the year. One of the best of its genre period. I went into it knowing nothing, and that's the way it should be. I'd seen one screenshot (the main character paralyzed and crying) and that's it. Nothing else. I've seen this movie six times and every time I pick up on something new. It was truly special. I only know Jordan Peele from Fargo, but I think he has a long career ahead of him if he keeps putting stuff out like this. Heck, if he keeps putting out stuff like this he'll be hailed as one of the greatest of all time. Please don't let him be the next Shyamalan... pleeeease! I know a ton of you have seen it, but if you haven't you need to! It's absolutely spectacular, and if by some miracle it wins Best Picture, I will be very, very happy
So, if you want to win your Oscar party's Oscar pool, here are my picks which are guaranteed to help you win! But no promises.
Best Picture: What will win: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
What should win: Get Out.
Best Director: Del Toro for The Shape of Water
Best Actor: Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour
Best Actress: Frances McDormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney for I, Tonya
Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Best Original Screenplay: Get Out
Best Adapted Screenplay: Call Me By Your Name
Best Animated Feature: Coco
I saw this at night then woke up to the news that my grandmother had just passed away. This movie makes me cry now.
Best Original Song: Remember Me from Coco
Yes, that's the part that makes me cry.
Best Hair and Makeup: Darkest Hour
Best Costume Design: Phantom Thread
Best Cinematography: Blade Runner 2049
Best Original Score: The Shape of Water
Best Visual Effects: War for the Planet of the Apes
Should have been called The Great Escape of the Planet of the Apes. Not actually that great of a movie. All of the titles for the series were wrong. The first one should have been Dawn, the second War, and third Rise.
Best Live Action Short: DeKalb Elementary
Best Animated Short: Dear Basketball
Best Editing: Dunkirk
Best Sound Editing: Dunkirk
Best Sound Mixing: Dunkirk
Production Design: The Shape of Water
Best Documentary: Faces Places
Best Foreign Language Film: A Fantastic Woman
Best Documentary Short: Heroin(e)
So there you go. There are several categories I had to do a lot of looking into to see what the odds were, but I think those are what are going to win. There are some complete locks (Oldman for Actor, Coco for Animated Feature are a few) but this is a better Oscar race than usual, I think.
Traditional cute pony pic.
Never underestimate the power of liberals in large groups. Remember, this is the year of the Weinstein, and of the war on the evil gun. I'd be willing to bet that Dunkirk and Darkest Hour get totally blacked out with no awards period, while The Shape of Water cleans up (sorry).
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Possibly, but the Academy loves WWII films and they are about fighting an ultimate evil and good triumphing in the end. Besides, I really doubt that the people voting for the technical awards that Dunkirk will do well in will care all that much, and nobody is coming close to Oldman in terms of performances this year. I'd be really upset if Call Me By Your Name takes home anything other than screenplay, especially if it's Actor.
Honestly, I feel that they shouldn't have snubbed A Silent Voice for The Boss Baby and Ferdinand.
A critically acclaimed film about bullying, depression, disability, and redemption? Beneath notice.
Mediocre to shitty movies running on celebrity power to mask their lack of quality? give that shiz a nomination!
4809888 heck, not even all the way through and I'm already way wrong. Dunkirk won 3 so far. Sound/sound/editing.
If you ever get to London, visit the Imperial War Museum. It's got the smallest of Dunkirk's Little Boats on display- a little rowboat, so small I'd only be comfortable fitting ten people in it if it was on dry land. It's got other stuff, as well. I've not been for a while, so all I can really remember is the little boat, a WWI German zeppelin observation gondola, recovered from the Romney Marshes in Kent, old rifles with hand-carved stocks used by (I think) the VietCong. There's some aeroplanes and vehicles, too, but if you want to look at tanks that's the Bovington Tank Museum. It's got the only working Tiger tank in the world- you've seen it, I'm sure, as it appeared in Fury.
I'll have to see if me and Dad can go visit it again, for my birthday perhaps.