Why This Year's Oscars Sucked

Finally, the timely follow-up to my Oscar predictions post.

The Oscars this year were, in a word, weird. Well, that’s one word, anyways. I can think of a few others. Predictable? Yeah, mostly. Frustrating? For sure. But I think I’m gonna go with weird, at least to start. Here’s how it went for me. I’m sitting in my room at 1 in the morning (Ireland time is fun!), scanning through internet streams of the broadcast, waiting for the show to start. I’m bored enough to listen to the red carpet interviews while I wait, but not bored enough to actually be interested. Two things pop out at me here. First, we need to lay down some kind of open-hand slapping policy for red carpet reporters who ask the question, “Who are you wearing tonight?” In what other situation would this question be acceptable? Who are you wearing? No, ma’am, I am not Buffalo Bill, but if I were, I would consider putting you in a hole and softening you up, because you’re ugly and annoying like that chick in the movie. Second, a request to ABC regarding the broadcast: for the sake of my sanity, please do not tell me that the awards ceremony starts at 8pm unless the ceremony starts at 8pm. Putting a 30-minute countdown in the upper-right corner of the screen does not qualify as starting the show. If you do this, you are a liar and I hate you.

So, the show finally starts. The opening sequence with Anne Hathaway and James Franco inserted into the year’s nominated films was promising, at least. At this point, the two hosts seem comfortable, and they’re kind of funny. Alec Baldwin shows up in Jack Donaghy mode, which is cool, but it does make me wonder why the show committee didn’t just bring him and Steve Martin back for a second year. After that point, though, a strange thing starts to happen. I had been looking forward to this Oscarcast; I like both of the hosts, I’m interested in the show and the films, I want it to work. But after the first twenty or so minutes of Hathaway’s strained cuteness and Franco’s unsettling detachment, I started to wonder: do these Oscars suck?

And boy, did they ever. I can’t remember a more boring Oscarcast since, well, ever. It started with the hosts, though it wasn’t all their fault. Anne Hathaway tried, she really did; too hard, at times. She probably realized, standing next to the blank billboard that was James Franco, that someone needed to do something about this. Franco, who has made a career out of burned-out stoner humor, just didn’t give a fuck. Normally, that’s his schtick, and it usually works for him. He just didn’t seem to get that, despite what he may have thought, you really do need to give a fuck in order to host the year’s biggest awards show. Strangely, that’s what made Billy Crystal’s appearance so effective. Yes, he was funny, which was a nice change of pace for the ceremony, but he was also honest. His tribute to Bob Hope was warm and genuine and personal, and though it was certainly scripted, it wasn’t forced or pandering.

Crystal wasn’t the only guest who did his part for the show. Kevin Spacey walked onstage with his typical charisma, and though he wasn’t particularly funny, he was at least smiling and apparently happy to be there. Later, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law came out to present the awards for Visual Effects and Film Editing. They were by far the funniest presenters of the night, mostly because they pulled off the whole “let’s make fun of each other for the amusement of the people” thing way better than the show’s hosts. Speaking of which, my two cents for next year: Either Downey Jr./Jude Law or Kevin Spacey for hosts. The potential is staggering.

So yes, the hosts sucked, and the show fell flat on its face and stayed there for a solid three hours. But this year’s Oscars also sucked in far more important ways. We were warned that this would be the case weeks before the ceremony, when the Academy announced that, no, it would not nominate Christopher Nolan for a Best Director Oscar. This is the kind of snub where you immediately go to Nolan’s Wikipedia page, look at his body of work, and wonder what the guy has to do to get some recognition. He’s one of the very few directors working now without a real flop on his resumé. We’ve all heard this argument before, but it’s true. Batman Begins? Good movie. Not brilliant, but damn good, and a huge indicator of the greatness to come. The Dark Knight? Easily the best genre movie of the decade, so good that it has made other superhero movies virtually unwatchable. And now we get Inception, which somehow managed to surpass the absurd pre-release hype it received. In a weaker year for cinema, it would be a real Best Picture candidate without doubt instead of a makeup nomination without any chance of winning. Nolan is one of the two most innovative filmmakers working today, and the Academy barely knows he exists. Stanley Kubrick is chuckling from the grave.

Sadly, Nolan was not the only director to get the shaft this year. I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that in five, ten years at the most, the film community will look back on this year as the year David Fincher and The Social Network got robbed. It’s not that The King’s Speech is a bad film, or that Tom Hooper is a bad director. In this case, everything comes down to subject matter. Hooper did a good job of taking a historically crucial event and turning it into an interesting, if predictable, movie. Fincher, on the other hand, took a (somewhat altered) story of a few computer nerds making a website in their dorms and made it into a fast-paced, thrilling commentary on the changing landscape of technologized society. Even Stephen Spielberg, who presented the award for Best Picture, seemed to know that The Social Network was going to get snubbed, and tried to offer solace in the fact that the Academy has a long history of giving the Oscar to less deserving, less relevant films.

And that’s really what sucked the most about the Oscars this year. By either design or coincidence, the Academy chose this year to try to update its image, the year that also saw the release of a generation-defining film in The Social Network. The Academy had this perfect chance to prove in a meaningful way that it is not completely out of touch, not content to lean back on safe formulas and tired models of success, and it failed miserably to do so. As Spielberg said, The Social Network now enters a category that includes many of the greatest films of all time, those films that were ignored on the awards stage but remembered far beyond their competition. It’s hard to find the consolation prize here since this was such a huge opportunity, but time will show, as it always has, where excellence lies.

2011 Oscar Award Predictions (Hugh's Version)

With the Oscar Awards a little over a week away and with me having sprained my ankle, I thought it a good time to write the Oscar blog I've been meaning to get to.  Also, although I didn't finish writing reviews for all of the movies over winter break, I did manage to see everything I wanted to and then some.  The only movie I haven't seen that is nominated for Best Picture is Winter's Bone and I expect to watch it before Sunday.  Now, Colin and I are both planning on writing both who we think should win and who we think will win for all of the major categories.  I can't speak for Colin as to which awards he'll be talking about, but the ones that I'm going to write on are as follows: Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role, Actress in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, Directing, and Animated Feature Film.  I'll be going in reverse order because I want to.  (Note: all statistical information is taken from Metacritic's Predicting the 2011 Oscar Winners in Key Categories Article)

Animated Feature Film

Who Should Win
In the past decade or so, Disney-Pixar has dominated the category of Animated Feature Film winning five out of the past ten awards.  More often than not, Dreamworks never seems to come up to the level that Disney-Pixar does, winning only twice in 2001 for Shrek (the first year the award made an appearance) and 2005 for Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (a year in which Disney-Pixar didn't even release a movie).  This year when Dreamworks released How to Train Your Dragon I thought they may actually win once again.  How to Train Your Dragon is a wonderfully original, fresh concept, and if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend you do.  Dreamworks tends to have more of a trademarked look than Disney-Pixar does, but regardless the idea was great and for once Dreamworks didn't have a talking animal as it's main character.  What was best about it was the amount of history Dreamworks created: the town was full of life with each child striving to be a dragon hunter, each and every dragon has its own strengths and weaknesses, and what's best is how different each and every dragon looks.  I fell in love with this movie the first time I saw it and I strongly recommend it to anyone who has an opportunity.



Who Will Win
I came out of How to Train Your Dragon dead set that it was going to win this year.  I knew Disney-Pixar was coming out with Toy Story 3, but I was sure it was going to be a flop.  In my mind the series had run dry and the third one was Disney-Pixar running out of fresh ideas.  Unfortunately, I came out of Toy Story amazed and emotionally moved (I have to confess that toward the end of the movie I almost teared up).  Disney-Pixar really hit it out of the park with Toy Story 3.  I didn't think it could be done, but Toy Story 3 will be a favorite among this generation's youth as the original Toy Story was for me when it first came out in 1995 when I was six years old.  If How to Train your Dragon had come out this year and went up against the upcoming Cars 2, I think it would be a shoe in winner.  Going up against a better than expected sequel to the original Disney-Pixar classic Toy Story, it doesn't look like it has much of a chance.

Directing

Who Should Win

I sort of have a thing for Darren Aronofsky, so this may be more of a "Who I Want to Win."  In terms of direction I really think he did the best out of all of the nominees.  Not only was the direction incredible, but the overall vision and complete compilation of the movie was constantly engaging.  Aronofsky not only managed to take an incredible actress like Natalie Portman and push her to the limit, but helped Mila Kunis become a stupendous, dark counterpart.  He has a strong likeliness to win seeing as how first-time winners often have a stronger chance than past winners, but that doesn't help much seeing as how the Coen brothers are the only ones that have won in the past.

Who Will Win

This may be the hardest winner to predict.  The two strongest front runners are Tom Hooper for The King's Speech and David Fincher for The Social Network.  Why it's so hard to predict is because both movies were incredible and were easily the top two movies to be released this year.  To distinguish between the two, the true winner according to the statistics should be David Fincher:  He has won the BFCA (Critics Choice Award),  the Chicago Film Critics Association Award, the Southeastern Film Critics Association Award, among several others.  Winners of those awards have anywhere from a 70-80% chance of winning the Oscar.  Combine that with the 90% chance that a first-time winner wins, he has a pretty good chance.  Despite all of that, Tom Hooper still seems to be the favorite even though he has won fewer awards than Fincher.  However, he did win the DGA Award and 80% of the time the winner of the DGA Award wins the Oscar.  Hooper would also be a first-time winner, so he has a good chance in concerns to that as well.  The overall decision seems to come down to a stalemate, but I have to be confident in the fact that the Academy will go with the right choice and give it to David Fincher.  He's clearly more deserving than Hooper and has been recognized by critics across the board as being this years best director.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Who Should Win

One of the biggest reasons I wanted to see The Fighter was because of the supporting cast.  Christain Bale was supposed to give a great performance, but so was Melissa Leo.  I can say without doubt that after seeing the Fighter I knew she should win.  She plays a maniacal, controlling, over protective mother whose selfishness is only matched by her refusal to see her son Dicky (Christian Bale) in any sort of negative light.  Leo won both the SAG Award and the Golden Globe, both of which significantly increase her chances.  Unfortunately, the only statistical advantage she has is being nominated along side her other cast members, but that also applies to every other nominee except for Jacki Weaver (Supporting Actresses where other actors were nominated from the same film won 80% of the time in the past ten years).  

Who Will Win

This one is also pretty tough to call.  I still think Melissa Leo will win seeing as how I'm still confident that she's a favorite.  However, another possible winner is Hailee Steinfeld from True Grit.  Helena Bonham Carter is a dark horse for the award as well.  I personally don't think that Steinfeld has much of a chance.  While she did deliver an incredibly witty performance, especially coming from someone her age, I don't think she stands much of a chance against the other nominees.  Helena Bonham Carter has a chance statistically (having won the BAFTA Award), but in actuality I don't think she should win.  While her performance was good, it wasn't nearly as taxing or emotionally profound as some of her other nominees such as Melissa Leo, Amy Adams, and Jacki Weaver.  The strong winner for me is still Melissa Leo and I think she's most likely take home the Oscar.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Who Should Win

Again, the main reason why I wanted to see The Fighter was because Christian Bale was supposed to deliver an outstanding performance. The opening scene in-and-of itself speaks volumes beginning with a sunken eyed, skin and bone crack addicted Bale, the former pride of Lowell.  Not only does Bale play the part well in terms of adopting the unique dialect and mannerisms of Dicky Eklund, but he conveys the twitches and jitters of a hopeless addict.  Bale won the Golden as well as the SAG Award which significantly increase his chance of winning the award.

Who Will Win
Christian Bale is still a standout favorite to win the award, however, Geoffrey Rush poses as an ominous contender for his role in The King's Speech.  A supposed dark horse is John Hawkes, although I haven't yet seen Winter's Bone (if he ends up winning, I'll give you a synopsis as to why he won).  Overall, however, Bale seems as though he's an almost guarantee to win the award with the winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor having won 80% of the time in the past ten years.

Actress in a Leading Role

Who Should Win

This is possibly the easiest category to predict this year.  Without doubt Natalie Portman will win this award.  Not only did Portman deliver an incredible performance pushing the boundaries of insanity, but the competition that's stacked against her isn't incredibly hard hitting.  Portman most likely delivered the performance of a lifetime and (if you read my review of Black Swan) she more than deserves to win the award, not only for herself, but in my opinion, for Darren Aronofsky and Mickey Rourke who I still think got robbed in '09.

Who Will Win

Already you should know that Natalie Portman will win, but let me give you a few other reasons as to why she's going to win.  The actress who wins the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress wins the Oscar 90% of the time.  Portman won the award for Actress in a Drama, but Bening also won the award for Actress in a Comedy which gives her an equal chance to win the award.  Between the two, however, Portman still has a leg up for a couple of reasons.  First off, Portman also won the SAG for Lead Actress which has garnered the same winner an Oscar 70% of the time in the past ten years.  While Annette Bening is a possible upset winner over Natalie Portman, on a personal note, I don't think it will happen.  While Bening did give a wonderfully emotional performance in The Kids Are All Right, Portman's performance still seemed to be the more taxing of the two performances.  Look for Portman to be the winner, but Bening and Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone) are also likely contenders.

Actor in a Leading Role

Who Should Win

This may be easily the hardest award to pick because each and every actor is incredible in their own right.  I have seen every single movie for each nominee except for Javier Bardem's performance in Biutiful, but regardless I still can't forget how stupendous of a job he did in No Country for Old Men, which is convincing enough.  Each and every other actor did an incredible job: Jeff Bridges, Jesse Eisenberg, Colin Firth, and James Franco.  It took a lot of deliberation for me to decide who should win this award.  At first I couldn't believe how well Jesse Eisenberg did, but then I realized that his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg wasn't too far removed from his actual personality (at least in terms of mannerisms).  Then I was convinced about Bridges because he seemed like he was both invincible and about to die as Rooster in True Grit, not to mention how simultaneously funny and vulgar he was.  What it ultimately came down to was Franco and Firth for me and even now I'm still torn between the two.  I am, however, going to have to stick with my original gut feeling and say that James Franco should win the award.  As I've been doing more and more research this has been hard for me to stick to because he doesn't seem to be on anyone's list of contenders or even a dark horse.  However, Franco's performance was easily the most taxing of all of the nominees.  Franco is even quoted as saying "there was a lot of physical pain" and even that he "had bruises, scars... and there were some shots of my bare arm, and it looked like track marks... So I had plenty of scars" (The Huffington Post).  Confined in a small space unable to use one of his arms and executing one of few scenes that has ever made me squeamish so convincingly, Franco deserves to win the Oscar.

Who Will Win

Luckily for me, the winner of the Oscar is most likely to be the other actor I was torn between, Colin Firth.  Colin Firth may not seem to have delivered a terrifically incredible performance on the surface, but the amount of work he put into it just comes off naturally on the silver screen.  Colin Firth mimics a speech impediment to a 'T' according to various reports and does the disability justice.  Firth evidently went through speech training in order to perfect his character.  Statistically Firth also has the best chance having won the BFCA (Critics Choice Award) as well as various other awards.  Although Firth still manages to stand above the rest as an obvious favorite, Jesse Eisenberg and Jeff Bridges are also noted as strong contenders this year (if Bridges does win, he'll be only the third actor in history to win two years in a row, joining Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks).

Best Picture

Who Should Win

This category was a little tough to decide as to who should win as well.  Each and every movie was more than justified of a nomination, but only a few really standout as a contender for the award.  For me I knocked it down to three movies: The King's Speech, Black Swan, and The Social Network.  I'm going to go with the least likely to win and say that Black Swan should win.  Out of all of the nominees, I have to say that Black Swan had the greatest impact on me.  The direction, the cinematography, the acting, the score, everything about it flowed together more impressively and more creatively than any other movie I have seen this year.  The vision of the movie, while not as much of a mind game as had I anticipated, still managed to have a fantastic twist ending.  Natalie Portman's performance has easily scored her an Oscar and Aronofsky stands to possibly win one as well.  The only thing holding Black Swan back is the mixed feelings it has gotten intermingled with the rave reviews.  While I know this is noticeably a long shot for Black Swan to win, I would love to see it happen and think it has a solid shot as a dark horse.

Who Will Win

Who will actually win the award comes down to two movies: The Social Network and The King's Speech.  The Social Network was a movie I didn't want to stop:  The cast delivered an incredible performance, Trent Reznor's score had me in a trance for months, and the advertising campaign and art design were among the best I've ever seen.  However, The King's Speech was almost too staked with an incredible cast not to be a great movie: Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, Geoffrey Rush, Guy Pearce, and Michael Gambon just to name a few.  On top of that, the cinematography was significantly more creative than what I expected for a movie dealing with its time frame and the score was impressive enough to garner an Oscar nomination.  Deciding between the two has become almost exhausting: one defines our generation while the other defines a great moment in history; one has a stacked cast of veterans while the other has a great cast of up and coming stars; one has a contemporary, electronic score and the other has a more classical, orchestral score.  Both executed their respective picture equally well and, for me, deciding between the two is impossible.  Whenever I chose one to be the winner, I couldn't help but think that the other was more deserving.  Each statistically has a great chance of winning.  Both films' director was nominated for an Oscar, as well as being nominated for either screenplay awards and film editing, an indicator of the Best Picture winner 100% of the time in the past ten years.  The King's Speech director won the DGA Award, but The Social Network won the BFCA Critics Choice Award, both an Oscar indicator 80% of the time.  The Social Network's screenplay won the WGA Award and The King's Speech's producer won the PGA Award, both a 60% Oscar winning predictor.  For me it's a tie between the two and it really is a toss up.  The King's Speech seems to be a favorite, The Social Network is a close contender, and look out for The Fighter as a dark horse.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my long, rambling account of who should win and who will the Oscars.  Let me know what you think about my picks and my predictions.  Also, let me know who you think will win Best Picture on the poll on the right.  The Oscars air on ABC next Sunday at 5 o'clock pacific time.  Enjoy the show and I'll see you afterward.