My Oscar Predictions 2012/Analysis of Best Song Category

Last year I predicted more Oscar winners than anyone else at the Oscar viewing party. Prepare to be devastated once again, Muncie. Ladies, place your bets.

BEST PICTURE The Artist

BEST DIRECTOR Michel Hazanavicius

BEST ACTOR Jean Dujardin

BEST ACTRESS Viola Davis

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Christopher Plummer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Octavia Spencer

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Midnight in Paris

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY The Descendants

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM A Separation

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE Rango

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY The Tree of Life

BEST FILM EDITING The Artist

BEST ART DIRECTION Hugo

BEST COSTUME DESIGN Hugo

BEST ORIGINAL SONG Man or Muppet

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE The Artist

BEST SOUND MIXING Hugo

BEST SOUND EDITING Hugo

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Rise of the Planet of the Apes

BEST MAKEUP The Iron Lady
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

BEST ANIMATED SHORT Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT The Shore

I am certain about the first 9 predictions. I made a lot of these guesses based on other critics' predictions; obviously this is how I guessed the shorts and best doc. I've seen most of the others or read tons of reviews about them.

The most interesting category this year, for me, is Best Song. I really don't know which one the Academy will go for. I love the fact that one-half of Flight of the Conchords could win an Oscar. Plus, it's a great song. The first time I listened to it, I went around singing it all day. (The Mr.: "What the hell are you singing?") It's sweetly ridiculous and I love how it skewers the usual grand, soaring vocals that the Oscars famously reward (e.g., "My Heart Will Go On", "Beauty and the Beast", "Can You Feel the Love Tonight").

On the other hand, "Real in Rio" has a lot of features that the Academy has awarded in the past. It has a World Music beat that takes off at a sprint, like "Jai Ho" and "Under the Sea". It also has rap, like previous winners "Lose Yourself" and "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp". I like the choir and the Brazilian beat. It's not bad.

I'm placing my bets on "Man or Muppet" because I think it is the better song. I would love to see a song that perfectly balances satire and sincerity win. This is the category I'm really excited about. 

A lot of people are bitching about there only being 2 nominated songs in this category. My response is: At least they are good songs. Here's a list of bad songs that have won: both winners by Randy Newman, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp", "Al otro lado del río", "I Need to Wake Up", "Falling Slowly" . . . At least both songs this year are good. I'd rather have two good songs than 5 crappy Billboard rejects.

*UPDATE: I got 17/23 predictions correct, including Best Song. I'm so awesome. 

The Problem with Hugo

~Here Be Spoilers~

I am not a machine. You cannot find the right key to make me work. You cannot use parts of me to make another person work. You cannot spend enough time on me that will make me work. Again: I am not a machine.

I just finished watching Hugo. It was a little predictable, and I didn't like that the unsavory characters had dialects associated with lower social classes than the protagonists (this is common in films; it is called dialect discrimination), but I have a huge problem with the central message of the film.

In the film, the central protagonist and titular character, Hugo, inherited an automaton (robot) from his father. (Actually, the automaton belonged to the museum the father worked for, but we'll continue in the spirit of he-who-loves-it-most-deserves-it.) He works to restore it, find its key, and make it work.

Enough with the automaton reaction shots!

What bothers me enough to write a blog entry is that the automaton becomes a metaphor for people who have issues. The former antagonist in the film, Papa Georges, makes this clear in his end speech: "Ladies and gentlemen, I ... I am standing before you tonight because of one very brave young man who saw a broken machine and against all odds, he fixed it. It was the kindest magic trick that ever I've seen." The eye contact and reaction shots make it clear that Papa Georges is the fixed machine.

I wish the film had charmed me like it did critics. I wish the moral at the end had been more complex. The simplicity of the solution--it's OK, we found his old films!--though it is historically accurate meant Papa Georges' character flaws were reducible to a single cause. If only that were true in real life! If only we all were broken birds, and all we needed was for a "very brave young man" to pay attention to us.

If you enjoyed this film, wonderful! I wish I had. I expected to like it, but there were a lot of little things that didn't add up for me, and the big message is so problematic it depresses me.

A Separation proves less is more

The Iranian film nominated for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay, A Separation, is rewarding and memorably old-fashioned. It had no CGI, no fancy direction, no shaky-handheld cameras, no narration. It's a drama. It could have been made in 1980 or 2011; the themes are timeless. It has a powerful story to tell about people going through very hard times. The acting was so good I forgot I was watching a movie. The plot was so complex I rewound back to a pivotal moment to watch it again. The direction never got in the way of the story (unlike The Tree of Life, to name an obvious offender).

This young lady broke my heart.

It is an unusual film to receive such positive word-of-mouth because it is so different from the films that usually get accolades. Drive had slick, stylized direction and hip stars. The Descendants had Oscar pedigree and quirky characters grieving in their own ways. The Tree of Life has insufferable pretentiousness. The Artist and Hugo have "movie magic." In fact, I think this film is better than The Descendants, Drive and The Tree of Life. The Artist, however, was pretty special, and I haven't seen Hugo yet.

I think the fact that A Separation lacks so many things that Hollywood spoonfeeds us every year could work to its advantage. This humble drama reminds me of The Hurt Locker. Everyone put their money on Avatar. It made movie history! It's so big and shiny! Then the little movie that could, the one that showcased acting and storytelling first and direction and effects and editing second, stole the Academy's hearts. They remembered what people really love in a film: to hear a story and to see real people's faces. I was underwhelmed by The Hurt Locker, but a Best Picture win might have inflated its stock.

Next month, this little gem could be 2012's The Hurt Locker to The Artist's Avatar (for Best Original Screenplay). If so, you heard it here first.

I hate The Tree of Life

It took me 3 days to get through The Tree of Life, pausing and taking long breaks. Sometimes I would resign myself to watch half an hour, then find I hadn't the stomach for it. OMG it's so terrible. It's not that I can't sit through mood pieces. I remember liking The Thin Red Line and Baraka when I saw them in high school. I have since seen many difficult films that rewarded patience and which I appreciated. But The Tree of Life is like a parody of a great art film.

One major problem is that Malick is unconcerned with whether the audience knows what's going on. I was paying attention and even checking my progress in the movie with wikipedia's entry on it, when I realized, Maybe that boy that drowned was the other brother! At first, I thought he was just some kid in the neighborhood; most bloggers thought so too. Then I noticed that the third brother just disappeared. The story didn't just focus on the main character and the blond brother; the third brother wasn't even in the car with the family when they moved. Why wasn't he mourned as much as the other brother? He just dropped out and no one ever mentioned him again. When the blond brother dies at 19, it wrecks the father and mother. The blond brother apparently meant a great deal to the main character. What about the drowned brother? No love for the brother who can't swim.

Another narrative gap which troubles me is: what am I supposed to make of the grown-up main character? Why is Sean Penn in this movie at all? The main character boy grows up, becomes an architect, and contributes nothing to the story whatsoever. He doesn't even wear billowing clothes.

Oh, the treetops with the sun shining through them! Ah, the white billowing curtains being moved by the wind! A man touching another man's shoulder--how tender. Can't you feel the magic? In case you can't there's narration and loud Anglican-style choirs to tell you how spiritual it all is.

Malick insults my intelligence with the voiceovers. I would have understood the film was about God without the simplistic prayers. It's like Malick has so little trust in his audience's intellectual ability to divine themes he has to explicitly tell us the film is about nature vs. grace. I feel like the narration and the bits about the Big Bang and the beginning of life are unnecessary. I would have appreciated the weight of the story without these things. Really. Life is important. I get that. 

Let's explore a more troubling byproduct of Malick's dualistic ideas about the world. The portrayal of the mother as a sinless saint makes me mad. Can we please get away from the goddess-of-the-hearth architype? It's sexist. It teaches young women that they should be perfect angels--a harmful, impossible goal to attain. And Chastain's portrayal of the mother--or possibly Malick's direction of her--annoyed me. She's too soft and "graceful" to say boo to her husband when he hurts their son, or to discipline her children when they terrorize her while the dad is away. Her character is weak. Her self-consciously graceful arm movements, filmed like so many beautiful affectations, exist only in film. No one waves their arms like falling leaves as they lay in the grass. Her scenes are more like magazine photo shoots that have been filmed than real scenes. Real scenes would have, you know, acting.

She charms the butterflies! Submissive feminine perfection!

When the credits rolled I heaved a sigh of relief. Only 2 hours and 13 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. I wish I had known how rough this movie was before I began. I can meditate for a few hours at a time. If I had said to myself, "Ashley, you are now going to watch these images and meditate" I could have handled it. As it was, I thought I was watching a movie. I expected to be challenged--Palme d'Or should mean something!--as well as entertained. I was sorely disappointed.

To all the people who think a great art film needs patience and multiple viewings, I say TRUE but that doesn't excuse the director from incoherence or pandering. One or the other is enough to damn a film. This is a difficult film, but not because Malick thinks the audience is bright enough to analyze it like Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. It's difficult because he thinks you are too stupid to get the dualism or religious themes unless he hits you over the head with it. It's difficult because it sucks. Malick sucks too. This movie is so bad it's bad.