The Oscar season is always draining –
emotionally and
physically, given the length of the broadcast – but there's still
one last drop of blogging to be drained from my fingertips before
officially calling it a year: My annual rundown of personal highs and
lows from the season that was. I find it the perfect way to purge any
lingering feelings before psyching myself up for the coming cinematic
calendar, which is sure to have its own slate of travesties and
triumphs.
I'll be posting my top ten in the form
of two top fives. We'll get the ball rolling with the five things
that bugged me most during the 2014-15 film awards circuit:
I defended them the first time (2013)
because the plethora of musical numbers was novel and they were all
so good (and I was slightly drunk). I ignored them the second time
(2014) because the winners list was so satisfying, it was easy to
overlook the show's many deficiencies and miscalculations.
But the time has come to say, “enough is enough”. These two have got to go. Even if you enjoy all the musical performances (and once I can revisit them separately from the tension of Oscar night, I often do), the fact stands that they add nothing to the ceremony itself. This pair has talent, but they waste it on promoting one tiny, not-all-that-popular genre of entertainment with tributes to either A) decades-old movies, or B) more recent projects that they themselves have produced; Chicago, Dreamgirls, Smash...
I know you guys are sore about having your names left off the Oscar ballot for Chicago, and that Smash got cancelled, but it's not all about you! The aesthetic format of their telecasts have grown stale as well. Time to get actual clip reels back together for the In Memoriam segment and the craft categories. No matter how beautifully those animated title cards have been graphically designed (and they were indeed beautiful), they're no match for a swift montage that actually highlights the films we're supposed to be highlighting.
But the time has come to say, “enough is enough”. These two have got to go. Even if you enjoy all the musical performances (and once I can revisit them separately from the tension of Oscar night, I often do), the fact stands that they add nothing to the ceremony itself. This pair has talent, but they waste it on promoting one tiny, not-all-that-popular genre of entertainment with tributes to either A) decades-old movies, or B) more recent projects that they themselves have produced; Chicago, Dreamgirls, Smash...
I know you guys are sore about having your names left off the Oscar ballot for Chicago, and that Smash got cancelled, but it's not all about you! The aesthetic format of their telecasts have grown stale as well. Time to get actual clip reels back together for the In Memoriam segment and the craft categories. No matter how beautifully those animated title cards have been graphically designed (and they were indeed beautiful), they're no match for a swift montage that actually highlights the films we're supposed to be highlighting.
When The LEGO Movie suffered its
bizarre snub on nomination morning, I was more bemused than outraged.
I enjoyed the film well enough, though it was hardly a masterpiece in
my eyes. But had I known it would lead to this, I'd have
kicked up a much bigger fuss. Of the six animated films I saw this
year, Big Hero 6 sits comfortably at the bottom. Obviously I
was biased, but it looked like clear sailing for DreamWorks' How
to Train Your Dragon 2, transparently the superior of the three
American toons in the running (we knew the GKIDS treasures never
stood a chance). But the sharks at Disney smelt blood in the water,
and had the mullah to make a significant phase-two campaign push.
What's most annoying is the unshakable notion that Dragons 2
lost because it's a sequel. If the Academy could have just looked
past the numeral in its title, they'd have seen that it's leagues
more imaginative and dramatically substantial than the oppressively
formulaic BH6; By far the most dubious winner in this
category's young history.
3. The Imitation Game
campaign
Whether Harvey Weinstein's nefarious
tactics succeed or come up short, they still bother the hell out of
me! Be it his passive aggressive “Some movies you feel” campaign
for The King's Speech in 2010-11, or that wretchedly adorable
mutt Uggie walking every red carpet with The Artist team in
2011-12, his PR tricks always smack of manipulation. But this one
takes the cake:
I don't think I've ever hated a modern Oscar campaign tactic as much as this one. (h/t @raysubers) pic.twitter.com/atOAIEUxAZ
— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) February 3, 2015
The suggestion that you could redeem
the wrongs done to Alan Turing by honouring a movie that liberally
fictionalizes his life and skittishly skirts his sexuality is not
only flawed to its core, but outright distasteful. I can sleep well
knowing that Graham Moore would probably still have won Best Adapted
Screenplay without this exploitative advertizing, but that nauseating
billboard will still haunt me.
In a classic example of the Internet
devouring and decrying something it doesn't fully understand, this
hashtag of disapproval for the Academy's most Caucasian nominee slate
since the 90s became the season's defining slogan. This is typical of
an outrage culture dependant on extremist headlines to attract page
hits, but it seems pointedly unfair that AMPAS became the target of
this overly harsh criticism. The nuance of the situation was lost on
all but a precious few who recognized that this wasn't a symptom of
racism within the Academy, but of racial under-representation in the
film industry as a whole. If most of your movies are made by white
males, for white males, and about white males, then it stands to
reason that most of the really good nomination-worthy work is going
to come from white males. The absence of Selma in almost all major
categories can also be attributed to its late entry into the race,
putting Paramount in a tight spot with not enough time to get
screeners out to the guilds. But there is one more non-negligible
factor that played a role in the Selma snubs, and that was chief
among my pet peeves this year...
Historical fiction always faces an
uphill battle when it comes to the sticky matter of “artistic
license”. This is particularly true of good historical
fiction, which must often massage facts or perceptions for the sake
of dramatic construct. But what makes the attacks on Selma's
veracity (specifically its depiction of LBJ) truly aggravating is how
other fact-based Best Picture nominees got off virtually scott free.
Complaints about Chris Kyle's alleged sociopathic sadism obviously
fell on deaf ears as American Sniper shot past $300M at the
box office, while the anachronistic dialogue and fabricated 'eureka'
moments of The Imitation Game led it to an Oscar for, of all
things, writing. What Ava DuVernay does in Selma is warp the lens of
history to show all her characters from multiple perspectives,
arguably a tougher and more artistically justified reason for doing
so than for mere narrative convenience. Mark Harris wrote the best film article of the year on this issue, and I highly recommend
reading it if you haven't done so already. Alas, those wise, artful
liberties may have been what cost Duvernay's film the awards
attention it deserved, and that is nothing less than excruciatingly
unjust.
Phew! Glad I got all that off my chest!
Stop by tomorrow for my top five awards season highlights.
