It’s that time of year again. Oscar season is among us. A time when all of Hollywood’s finest get together for a night of unimaginable pretentiousness. Where else could one find repetitious back patting, feigned flattery and mindless self-congratulations all rolled into one lavishly extravagant party?
Despite my above sarcasm, I don’t actually loathe the Oscars; in fact, I secretly relish them. Ever since I was just a little kid, the Oscars telecast has been a highly anticipated event in my household—well, for the most of the household that is. My dad, for one, was not the least bit interested in such “foolery.”
He was more preoccupied with more manly things, like football or Nascar. Where as he awaited the hoisting of the Super Bowl trophy, I awaited the announcement of best picture winner…if my mom let me stay up to see it.
The years have zipped by and the esteemed event has only gotten older (and longer), but my keen interest has stayed intact. So when on Tuesday, Feb. 24th, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences officially released their nominations for this year’s show, I bet you can guess what was the first thing typed into my Google search that day.
After feverishly skimming the picks, one thing became clear: you can always count on the Academy to make some genuinely great choices, but also to royalty screw it up. I’m here to tell you all about it.
According to analysts, the nominations went largely as expected. Heavy favorite The Artist, the silent film set in the 1920s, garnered an impressive 10 nominations, including best picture. What’s not so expected is The Artist not leading the pack in total nominations.
That prestigious honor went to Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, which collected a whopping 11 nominations. The film did well among audiences and critics alike, but nobody expected just how sumptuously the Academy would reward the film. As Roger Ebert put it in his editorial for The Chicago-Sun Times, “Scorsese’s triumph was not unexpected, but the scope of it was.”
Hugo marks Scorsese’s first attempt at a family film. A year ago the phrase “Martin Scorsese family film” was a definite oxymoron and welcomed with riotous laughter and vile retorts, but today that laughter has turned into applause and the retorts into genuine complements.
With Hugo, Scorsese has proven once again why he is considered one of the best in the business, an Auteur in the purest sense of the word. The Academy got it right with Hugo, a film that provided the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a long time and is quite possibly my favorite film of 2011.
Predictably, most of the surprise (and outrage) this year came from the coveted best picture category. The nominees in no particular order are as follows: The Artist, Hugo, The Descendants, Moneyball, The Help, Midnight In Paris, The Tree of Life, War Horse and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which is a sure-fire bet to take home the “Most Unnecessarily Long Film Title” award. This selection would have been an outstanding one if it not for those last two blunders. It is the Academy’s honoring of these films which keep critics up at night and are a pestering thorn in the side of Oscar enthusiastseverywhere. What was the Academy thinking?
War Horse had the sentimentality slathered on so thick you’d need wiper blades to see past it. I had to keep reminding myself I wasn’t watching a Hallmark channel sappy movie marathon. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is even more of a gaffe. Granted I have not seen it, but you don’t need to take my word for it, just listen to the experts. In his review, critic Jackie Cooper showed his sheer distaste for the film by renaming it “Extremely long and Incredibly Bland,” and Detroit News critic Tom Long called it “the kind of movie you want to punch in the nose.” This is a film that couldn’t even climb above a measly 50 percent on film review site RottenTomatoes, a feat even Real Steel managed. Now that’s just sad.
The Academy did something else peculiar in the best picture category. They only picked nine. Why nine? You might as well pick one more and make it an even 10. I bet you’d even find one that’s a thousand times better than War Horse or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
They certainly can’t blame it on a slim selection. Last year, a copious 598 commercial films hit theaters. With that kind of figure, it surely isn’t saying much for the quality of work coming out of Hollywood if the Academy could only come up with a meager nine films out of possible 598.
Through these 598 films, a common and reoccurring theme is established. Moviegoers have embraced films evoking a sense of long-forgotten nostalgia and have flocked to theaters to see films conjuring life from yester year. A few among them: The Artist and Hugo, which elicited a genuine nostalgia for the dawn of cinema. Midnight In Paris gave audiences a glimpse of Paris in the golden era, and J. Edgar transported viewers back to the days when John Dillinger ruled the crime syndicate and Charles Lindbergh ruled the skies.
A few surprises arouse from the best actor and supporting actor selections, as well. Demian Bichir, for one, received a best actor nomination for his work in A Better Life. This didn’t surprise Oscar watchers as much as it bewildered them. Has anybody actually seen A Better Life? I rest my case. Jonah Hill also caused a stir with his supporting actor nomination for Moneyball.
Jonah Hill is a great actor and seems like a great guy but calling his performance Oscar worthy is a bit much. He was, for the most part, just being himself, which can’t really be called acting—or at least not award-winning acting.
The nomination of Gary Oldman for his performance in the British spy thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy caused a stir not among Oscar enthusiasts but with me. It is not the fact that he was nominated that irks me, but rather the untimely nature in which it occurred. A little backstory will help. Film aficionados will be the first to tell you just how downright important of a man Gary Oldman is to the world of cinema.
This is a guy who has been in the business for 30 years and counting, an acting veteran with versatility that is often mimicked, but never duplicated. He has played the likes of Sid Vicious, Lee Harvey Oswald, Ludwig Van Beethoven and even Dracula himself. Brad Pitt describes him as his acting “God” and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy co-star Colin Firth described him as “a candidate for the title of ‘greatest living actor’.”
Despite the numerous accolades and endless flattery, I am appalled to write that Gary Oldman, the Gary Oldman has never won a single Academy award.
He’s never even been nominated, so for the Academy to finally nominate him, three decades later and for an acting performance that is miles—no light years away—from being his best work is more of an insult than an honor. Shame on you, Academy, shame on you.
If after putting up with my ramblings and outbursts you still for some reason want to watch the Oscars, then be sure to tune in Sunday, Feb. 26 at 8 p.m. It should be a good show. I just hope James Franco and Anne Hathaway aren’t there to screw it up.
Eric Duffert can be reached at eduffert@aol.com.
Laughter.
One thing you seem to forget in your disappointments with the oscars.
It’s the film industry honoring it’s self.
It’s kind of a kin to the litterati praising something written by one of their choosen. It matters not whether the purchasing public buys the book, just as long as it’s full of words no body understands and has a conclusion that fits what ever is the Politically Correct point of view of the moment.