So, About Those Oscar Nominations…
Every year the powers that be in the American film industry get together and nominate a bunch of movies, actors and production staff (plus some lucky plebs) for commendation in their bloated, self-indulgent and supremely grandiose awards ceremony. And so every year I reflect on what a pointless waste of time it all is and how the best films never win anyway. The Oscars voters are too busy patting themselves on the back by awarding the biggest, flashiest extravaganzas of pandering entertainment to see the true art in other films. Clichéd biopics (usually about famous white men), redemptive sob stories, films that glorify their own industry, serious efforts by major directors and that ol’ chestnut: Based on a True Story. You can tell the movies that are out for glory as soon as the trailers comes out.
But then I step back from those pretentions and am able to admit that there are plenty of superb examples of cinema every year that make it through. And just as the executives who vote may overlook some film or actor or director that I love, at the same time they’re giving recognition to films that changed some other person’s life. What the hell do I know, right? It’s their awards show, they can vote for whoever they damn well want!
Amidst the nominations this year there are some massive snubs and some head-scratching inclusions. There is also a slew of stunning films and performances that shine a light on important subjects and feelings. That capture beauty or profundity in the mundane, the revolting or, yes, the pomposity. The most common occupation of Oscar winning acting performances is ‘English Monarch’. Just because it’s some overblown exploration of a life we will never know doesn’t mean it can’t hit some consonant chords.
So, yeah, the Oscars are dumb and they get plenty wrong. That doesn’t mean they aren’t still necessary in today’s industry. Any single winner is gonna be divisive in some way but the nominations give you a much wider target to hit; the difference between getting nominated and winning is far less than the difference between getting nominated at all or not. So, on that note, about those Oscar nominations…
(Nobody cares about the minor things, so we’ll just look at the actors and directors – the films can have their own thing when I’ve actually seen them all)
BEST ACTOR
Steve Carell – ‘Foxcatcher’ as John du Pont
Bradley Cooper – ‘American Sniper’ as Chris Kyle
Benedict Cumberbatch – ‘The Imitation Game’ as Alan Turing
Michael Keaton – ‘Birdman’ as Riggan Thomson
Eddie Redmayne – ‘The Theory of Everything’ as Stephen Hawking
Man, this is weaker than watered-down beer. For possibly the first time in the history of a notoriously male-driven industry, the Best Actor slot is probably the softest of all the four acting categories. Steve Carrell is a comedic actor playing a creep. That’ll knock you back a little initially and he does a decent job. A decent one. American Sniper’s only just come out which makes it a weird one given how well it’s done here. But if there are two things that Americans love to adore they’re Clint Eastwood and the military. Bradley Cooper becomes the first guy nominated three consecutive years since Wellingtonian (eat it, RC) Rusty Crowe’s Insider/Gladiator/Beautiful Mind run. Coops is riding on the heels of Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle (in which – at most – he was the third best in each). This one’s all him and it looks stupid. Sorry, Clint.
Benedict Cucumberpatch and Eddie Redmayne are both young Englishmen playing famous English geniuses of the 20th century. They cancel each other out (I haven’t seen either – I like the look of Cumbers better but Eddie Reddy has more to work with).
That leaves Michael Keaton as the wide open favourite. His character’s story of ‘older actor, once played a famous superhero, trying to revive his career’ is so meta that it’s almost cheating. But Birdman is a highly metatextual film across the board, from the behind the scenes Broadway stuff to the very odd ending. It’s a film about an actor making a play about a short story. The fact that Keaton’s effort is heightened by audience baggage should count against him but he’s still way out in front of this lot. Plus this is coming at the perfect time for him, when the post-Nolan/Bale fog has faded and 1990s nostalgia is as big as it will ever be (it’s a known thing that nostalgia sets in after 20 years). There are people these days that actually think that Keaton = Batman! (Adam West for the win, no competition).
Guts for Joaquin Phoenix and especially David Oyelowo, who should have been in ahead of Cooper and one of Benny/Eddie. Or maybe Carell. Like I said, it’s not a strong starting five.
BEST ACTRESS
Marion Cotillard – ‘Two Days, One Night’ as Sandra Bya
Felicity Jones – ‘The Theory of Everything’ as Jane Hawking
Julianne Moore – ‘Still Alice’ as Dr. Alice Howland
Rosamund Pike – ‘Gone Girl’ as Amy Elliott-Dunne
Reese Witherspoon – ‘Wild’ as Cheryl Strayed
This set is much stronger. The ageless and ever-immaculate Julianne Moore gets nominated for the fifth time and she’ll almost certainly win. I have zero arguments with that. Moore is one of the very best actresses of the last 25 years, consistently taking challenging and interesting roles and never disappointing in any of them. I mean, she was in The Big Lebowski AND Boogie Nights! This is definitely one of those career achievement wins, but who’s arguing? Moore is one of the rare actors where you see her name on the bill and you think ‘Oh, Julianne Moore’s in this. This’ll be good’. She has 18 different Certified Fresh films on Rotten Tomatoes. That, is impressive.
If there’s an upset it’ll be from Reese Witherspoon. She’s great in Wild, a film based on a true story (check) that she optioned herself because there weren’t enough difficult roles out there for a Legally Blonde actress. Well, Wild’s a wonderful film and Witherspoon is as good in it as she’s ever been in anything. Better than Walk The Line. Witherspoon cashed in on her Oscar for that one but she’s been doing some really good stuff recently. She was in Inherent Vice, Mud and The Good Lie, as well as producing Gone Girl. In Wild she somehow manages to 95% pull off playing a college student in flashbacks, as well as the whole gritty hiker thing. Oh yeah and her character also spends scenes as a heroin addict, a sex addict, a cynical daughter and a grieving one too. Whether you believe all that character arcing or not doesn’t matter – the film wisely doesn’t dwell on it, never feeling the need to connect all the dots. Instead you get it in tiny vignettes. We get a little smartass Reese, but also vulnerable Reese, frightened Reese, angry Reese, exhausted Reese… there are a lot of Reeses. Also she gets a moving monologue over the final scene.
Funnily enough the role she dropped out of to do Wild also gets nominated, with Rosamund Pike in her place. I don’t really care about pulpy crime thrillers enough to watch it, however I know the big twist so I get how this one lends itself to awards nominations. Meanwhile Marion Cotillard is always deserving and she crushed this one out of the park, but in a low-key, foreign film kinda way. She wasn’t expected to be nominated. She was and the list is better for it. Though I get the feeling that voters might hold it against her that her film isn’t in English. That seems like a thing they’d do.
The only one here I’d be genuinely upset about if she won is Felicity Jones. Not because she wasn’t good, I’m sure she was, but because how dumb would it be amongst all these great female roles if yet another actress won for playing ‘The Woman Behind The Man’? Booooring.
It’s nice to see Amy Adams miss out for once. Lovely actress, but oversaturated. Meanwhile Jennifer Aniston got attention for playing a troubled woman her own age in Cake. Her film career is a mixed bag – she’s probably never lived down the fact that she completely owned the character of Rachel Green. Still, that film seemed a sickeningly case of a rich, popular celebrity playing an Ordinary Woman, the kind that draws adjectives like ‘brave’ and ‘courageous’. (To be fair, I’m judging it entirely on the trailer). These Oscars already have one Attractive Woman Goes Without Makeup role and I’m sorry Jen, but Reese beats you on every level. There’s even a scene near the end where Witherspoon’s character stumbles into a beauty parlour and tries on some lipstick, only to be told in a passively-aggressive beautician sort of way that she should probably set her priorities on a shower before worrying about her lip shade. Game, set, match.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Robert Duvall – ‘The Judge’ as Judge Joseph Palmer
Ethan Hawke – ‘Boyhood’ as Mason Evans, Sr.
Edward Norton – ‘Birdman’ as Mike Shiner
Mark Ruffalo – ‘Foxcatcher’ as Dave Schultz
J. K. Simmons – ‘Whiplash’ as Terence Fletcher
Bobby Duvall! The great man! This 42 years after his first nomination for ‘The Godfather’, that’s gotta be a record. I did some research to see if that’s true but the closest I could find is Henry Fonda’s record for finally winning one 41 years after his first nomination. He is the oldest man ever nominated for an acting award though. So, with that knowledge, there’s no evidence that it’s not a record. Ah, but he’s not gonna win because that film was trash and every other candidate was really, really good.
J.K. Simmons will be the favourite. He was genuinely frightening, yet somehow deserving of our empathy. He got to swear loudly. He made Miles Teller cry. When he tells Teller’s character near the end that he knew it was him (no spoilers), it’s a stomach-churning moment of terror as you realise what’s coming. Yet as the victory is hard earned among sweat, blood and jazz, it is Simmons’ face that the film ends on – not quite smiling yet clearly triumphant. His hard-ass methods vindicated by the one student capable of fighting for it. It’s a dangerous message, perhaps, but a superb bit of acting.
Ethan Hawke is the closest rival, he was at his very best in Boyhood, finally ending the Hawke vs Matt Dillon rivalry once and for all (not sure if that’s a real rivalry, but I choose to believe it is). Mark Ruffalo was great in Foxcatcher (far better than anyone else in that film, Carell included) but he suffers in comparison to the rest of these nominees, not the least reason being that he was consciously playing second fiddle in his scenes. It’s a generous and honest portrayal. Which probably harms his chances. The other supporting fella is Edward Norton who was just brilliant in Birdman. Completely brilliant. Except that his screen time basically falls of a cliff in the last third of the film as it goes all in on Keaton. Josh Brolin was pretty much snubbed for his work in Inherent Vice but so was everyone else in that film and he can’t have too many complaints given those that beat him. A grain of salt, he’d have been next. And at least we’ll always have this image.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Patricia Arquette – ‘Boyhood’ as Olivia Evans
Laura Dern – ‘Wild’ as Barbara "Bobbi" Grey
Keira Knightley – ‘The Imitation Game’ as Joan Clarke
Emma Stone – ‘Birdman’ as Sam Thomson
Meryl Streep – ‘Into the Woods’ as The Witch
There’s this moment in Wild where Reese Witherspoon has a right go at Mother Dern over her life choices as Dern giggles and hums and sings and slaves at the kitchen. Specifically her alcoholic, abusive ex-husband (and father to Witherspoon’s character*) and Reese says something like: Did you even know what you were doing!?
Dern turns, suddenly solemnly, to her daughter and says: I knew exactly what I was doing.
It’s such a perfectly delivered line, subtly heart-breaking, and the former Mrs Kravitz is a worthy inclusion and possibly even a long shot winner.
*Having Laura Dern play the mother of Reese Witherspoon despite only an 8 year difference in actual age seems weird. It’s not, Dern only appears in flashbacks where Witherspoon is meant to be in her very early 20s, so it’s Dern that’s cast for her accurate age while Reesey tries (pretty well) to recapture some of that Freeway (1996) spunk.
Patricia Arquette is the heavy favourite though. The whole 12 year filming, real time aging thing is unique, as is that she worked with a young, untrained actor. But most of all it’s that for long stretches, Boyhood didn’t even feel like a film. It was something else entirely. Truth. A suburban odyssey. Something. And Arquette is the motherly heart of it all.
As for Knightley and Stone, meh. Stone does some good stuff mixed in with her just being herself imitating Lindsey Lohan and that last scene is… odd. Knightley is usually solid, she can have her nomination but she ain’t gonna win. Jessica Chastain can be a little aggrieved after getting snubbed for her Pfeiffer-channelling role in A Most Violent Year. That film was friggin’ awesome.
Oh, and Meryl Streep gets her usual nomination on account of she’s Meryl Streep and she was in a movie this year.
BEST DIRECTOR
Wes Anderson – ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’
Alejandro González Iñárritu – ‘Birdman’
Richard Linklater – ‘Boyhood’
Bennett Miller – ‘Foxcatcher’
Morten Tyldum – ‘The Imitation Game’
Hmm. Bennett Miller seems like a lucky boy, especially with Selma’s Ava DuVernay undeservedly missing out. That movie shot itself in the foot with its late release, as well as some historical inaccuracies that some folk took a disproportionate level of exception to (basically that President Johnson was very supportive, if hamstrung, of Dr King’s mission). Morten Tylum too, I assume, although I never watched the film and don’t intend to. I don’t care about paint-by-numbers ‘genius succeeds despite the odds’ films. That’s probably completely unfair but whatever. There are better nominees anyway. Like Linklater and Iñárritu. It’s pretty much a Mexican shootout between the pair. TGBH was still distinct and celebratory ‘Wes Anderson’. Therefore as good as he was and always is, he won’t win since it wasn’t a RISK or a STATEMENT. Gotta bag that statue before your stuff becomes definable or else you risk waiting a Scorsese-length of time before they give you one more as a career achievement award than anything.
I’m one of those dedicated ‘Paul Thomas Anderson is the Greatest Director of His Generation’ types, if you hadn’t already gathered, so obviously I think he and Inherent Vice (written by the greatest literary mind of his generation, Thomas Pynchon) were boxed out. It’s a difficult film, I get that. Personally I actually thought it suffered in comparison to the book, but then how many industry bigwigs you think actually read? At least PTA got a nod for adapted screenplay for the previously unthought-of task of adapting Pynchon for the screen. Nobody’s ever doing a better job with it.
Damien Chazelle deserved better for Whiplash, Clint Eastwood failed to become the oldest nominated director ever (rightfully, but I still love the lad) and a smoky long-shot was Jean-Marc Vallée for Wild. He’s an actor’s director (who managed to get Jared Leto an Oscar) and his film suffered by the level of control that Reese Witherspoon seemed to have. All good, the eggs were in a single basket and she got her reward.
Linklater wins this one. He deserves it.
