My Award Nominations: Cinematography

This category becomes tougher and tougher for me every year. As mentioned in yesterday's prediction (of Chivo's soon-to-be historic 3rd consecutive win), we are indeed in a golden age for the art of Cinematography. Shamefully, my top five are nearly identical to the consensus formed by the ASC, BAFTA, and Oscar, but I could swap them out for another five and still have a tremendously rich ballot. There's just too much good stuff out there:

One Category at a Time: Cinematography

Many a critic agree that cinematography is experiencing a new golden age, and this year's Oscar lineup is strangely both indicative, and yet not indicative of that truth. One the one hand, the enormous spectrum of tools and technologies lensers have these days to craft breathtaking images is well represented in the potpourri of formats nominated for Best Cinematography, ranging from 16mm to 70mm celluloid to digital and even thermal imaging.

But on the other hand, the equally wide array of fresh and invigorating voices behind the cameras (think Masanobu Takeyanagi, Maryse Alberti, Hoyte van Hoytema, etc.) remains steadfastly locked out of this branch's insular preferences. Perhaps that's why this was one of two categories I anticipated with perfect accuracy pre-nominations; They have their favourites. All five men have been nominated before, three of them have won before, two of those three have won multiple times, and one of them is on the verge of making Oscar history.

Review - Sicario

Cops and cartels, midnight raids and public shootouts, blood vendettas and hidden agendas, and a whole lot of dead bodies literally walled up in a house of horrors. If you told me all of this sounds like it belongs in a trashy detective novel, I'd probably agree. If told me it all sounds like it belongs in a trashy movie I'd say, “Hold the phone! Who says the movie has to be trashy?”

And of course, it isn't. French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve insinuates and executes all of these familiar genre tropes with hitman-like precision in Sicario, delivering one of the most cringe-inducing, butt-clenching, excruciating films of the year... And I mean every one of those in the best possible way.

Working from a twisty screenplay by actor-turned-writer Taylor Sheridan (Sons of Anarchy), Villeneuve has crafted an excellent thriller that's every bit as refined (if not more so) as the glossy biopics and period pieces that angle for adult dollars at the multiplex every fall. Along with 2012's Prisoners and last year's Enemy, Sicario further embosses his reputation as a filmmaker capable of elevating even the pulpiest story material with his surgical attention to form and construct.

Early Oscar Predictions: Cinematography

The thespians aren't the only ones who have to “perform” on set. Camera operators and directors of photography have their own marks to hit and creative decisions to make, working closely alongside the director to capture images that will compose the final product. Since I'm so crazy about cinematography in general, I determined that this category needed its own post.

Chivo Wins Fourth ASC Award for 'Birdman'

The American Society of Cinematographers is a guild that knows the score. They've honoured Roger Deakins three times for some of his richest, most indelible work, and they've awarded Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki four times for Children of Men, The Tree of Life, Gravity, and now Birdman.

One Category at a Time: Cinematography

Twenty-two business days to go until the Oscars; Essentially New Year's Eve for film lovers and award obsessives, both camps into which I fall. How will I ever pass the time?

Why, by continuing my annual tradition of analyzing the various Oscar races in 'One Category at a Time', the very first article series I began back in 2008 when this was just a baby blog. I suppose six years old still seems kinda babyish, but relative to the age of the Internet, I guess that makes this site now more of a disrespectful teenager that wishes it could be more like the grownup websites. That's an appropriate description, I think.

Anyway, back to this year's series, which I will be kicking off (as I did last year) with my favourite category Best Cinematography. This year's race feels eerily similar to last year's, with one inarguable frontrunner soaring well above its competition... and it's the same person too!

Review - Unbroken

Louie Zamperini has an incredible life story to tell. The odds were already stacked against him from a young age, growing up as one of four children of an immigrant family in Depression-era California. In spite of this, he made a name for himself as a competitive distance runner, represented America in the Berlin Olympics, served his country as a bombardier in WWII, survived a plane crash that left him stranded for 47 days in the Pacific Ocean, and lived out the remainder of the war in a Japanese POW camp under the harshest conditions imaginable.

Just that cursory synopsis of his bio is enough to make one wonder why his life story hasn't been made into a major motion picture already, but we finally get one in the form of Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, which arrived on Christmas Day. Zamperini passed away in July at 97 years of age, and while no one wants to rain on the posthumous parade of a man who endured through so much struggle, the sad reality is that an incredible true story does not necessarily an incredible movie make.

Unbroken is just not that good a film; A clichéd exercise that reaches for artificial inspiration while saying very little about the figure who serves as its subject. The problem is not in the story, but in the storytelling, as it fails to shape Zamperini's harrowing saga into any kind of effective structure.

Review - How to Train Your Dragon 2

It's usually hard to get excited about the film franchises of DreamWorks Animation. In order to cling to the pop culture zeitgeist on which so many of them depend, the studio churns out sequels and spinoffs with a rapidity and middling quality that might be better suited to television! One could therefore be forgiven for being pessimistic on the prospects of a sequel to How to Train Your Dragon, a critically acclaimed box office hit that spun the quaint morality tale of how an oddball viking named Hiccup (Jay Burachel) managed to capture and bond with the most unlikely of pets: a wild dragon he named Toothless.

I quite enjoyed that film when it was released back in 2010, and my affection for it has only grown since then. Obviously, my hopes weren't too high for its inevitable follow-up, but this is one sequel for which DreamWorks deserved the benefit of the doubt. How to Train Your Dragon 2 truly delivers, and with fiery confidence to boot. Not only is it the studio's most thrilling adventure to date, but also its most thematically robust and elegantly handled as well.

The story picks up five years after the events of the first Dragon, in which time the once dragon-fearing highland village of Berk has become a more harmonious place where Vikings and dragons happily coexist. Hiccup's father Stoick (Gerard Butler) is intent on preparing his son to eventually succeed him as clan chieftain, but the soul-searching Hiccup naturally has his doubts. He'd rather devote his time to flying around on Toothless, mapping out new lands, outfitted with a tricked-out steampunk wing-suit that allows him to literally glide alongside his winged companion.

Oscar Postmortem Pt. 3: The show

Properly reviewing an Oscar ceremony can be tedious business, so I'm not gonna do it. Not properly, at least. The whole never quite amounts to the sum of its parts (although the Condon/Mark production from 2009 comes awfully close), so it's easiest just to look back and assess those parts at face value. Let's take a look at some moments that stood out (for me anyway) at the 86th Academy Awards

After last year's show hosted by Seth McFarlane came under such harsh critical fire, the pressure was on returning producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron to atone. They made all the safest possible choices, and it started with the selection of Ellen Degeneres to return as host after her first kick at the can seven years ago.

Ellen assures viewers around the world, "We're fine. Thank you for your prayers" in regards to the rain.

One Category at a Time: Cinematography

There are just 22 business days left until the Oscars, and yet it still feels like they're an eternity away. Part of that may have to do with the fact that the Winter Olympics (the only arena in which my home country can even come close to claiming world-power status, so I'll be watching them intently) has pushed the awards ceremony, and consequently the voting period, back a week.

That's an awful long wait, during which an awful lot can happen to affect the race. Gravity stands as the frontrunner at this moment, but we may have plenty of reason to believe otherwise by the time Oscar night is upon us. Heck: we have plenty of reason to believe otherwise right now! But I'll get to that category in due course. Obviously, I tend to start these prediction columns with the categories that are easiest to call, and one of the easiest calls this year is Best Cinematography.

My Award nominations: Cinematography

I'm kicking off this year's award nominees with my favourite of all categories, Best Cinematography. There was a lot of great work to pick from this year, and inevitably I had to leave some excellent work off my final five (some that will probably be Oscar recognized anyway).

Check out my top five below, accompanied by my favourite shot from each.

Seven nominees from ASC!

To cap off the busy day of precursor announcements, the American Society of Cinematographers has had their say. This category has felt for a while now like a tight six or seven horse race for only five slots, and that theory has been proven quite literally by the guild. In a shocking tie for that fifth slot, we have seven nominees for the ASC's top prize of the year, meaning this gives us no help in making our Oscar predictions (except perhaps that we can now relegate Rush to the also-rans).

The nominees are:

Barry Ackroyd, Captain Phillips
Sean Bobbit, 12 Years a Slave
Roger Deakins, Prisoners
Bruno Delbonnel, Inside Llewyn Davis
Philippe Le Sourd, The Gransmaster
Emmanuel Lubezki, Gravity
Phedon Papamichael, Nebraska

Sunday Top Ten: Pet Peeves and Highlights of the 2012/13 Awards Season

I decided for this last piece of Oscar coverage to split the difference between stuff that bugged me and stuff that made me happy. I could probably come up with ten highlights and ten pet peeves, but it feels cleaner to go with five of each. I will however acknowledge some things that just missed the peeves list (the Lincoln makeup snub and Global TV's SAG Awards snafu) and just missed the highlights list (Argo making history and Barbara Streisand).

And now, my top five pet peeves, and top five highlights of the 2012/13 awards season:

Deakins wins ASC!!!

Fuck. Yes.

Even though I know his Oscar chances are slim, this consolatory prize for the great Roger Deakins from the American Society of Cinematographers makes me cheer. Skyfall was the best shot film of the year by a country mile in my opinion, and I'm so glad to see that Deakins' peers recognize it for the masterstroke that it is.

Kudos, Mr. Deakins. Kudos.

One Category at a Time: Cinematography

With only 24 days until the Oscars, it's time to run down the categories and make some official predictions. I'll start off with some of the categories I consider fairly settled, and among them is Best Cinematography.

My Award nominations: Cinematography

This is perennially my favourite category, and as it is every year, there was an abundance of excellent work to choose from. The Academy and I match up 3/5 this year. Find out which three they are, and what other two films I included as having the Best Cinematography of 2012 after the cut (complete with my fav shot from each nominee):

Review - Skyfall

It's iterated often in Skyfall that the old fashioned ways are sometimes the best. It's a persistent theme that permeates both the literal narrative and the conceptual approach to the 23rd entry in the storied James Bond franchise. While the story debates the virtue of antiquity in a modern world, the film adheres to Bond tradition as seen through a filter of contemporary dramatic substance for present-day audiences to appreciate. The Bond is old-school (rustically so at times), but the treatment he gets is fresh.

With the theatrically-minded Sam Mendes at the helm, Skyfall indulges us in a sense of detail to character that is uncommon to Bond films. None of the previous 22 have dared plumb the depths of 007's traumatic past and haunted present that this one attempts to – with some success, as well. Nor have any of them explored the practically maternal relationship between Bond (Daniel Craig's third outing) and his MI6 shot-caller M (reprised once again here by Judi Dench). Skyfall puts their connection front and centre as one of the main driving forces of the plot.

Sunday Top Ten - People who need an Oscar... IMMEDIATELY

It's been great to take a nice long break from any Oscar-related discussion. It's mostly a source of negative energy, but I think I've had a sufficient layoff from my awards bitterness to survive an Oscary list. I'll try to put together an Oscar list with a more positive theme one of these days, but this week I'm drawing attention to those poor individuals who, for no good reason, have been unfairly slighted by the Academy a few too many times.

It shouldn't bother me as much as it does. After all, the brilliant work of these people speaks for itself. A rational person shouldn't need the Academy to validate one's admiration of these artists by bestowing on them the title of Academy-Award-winner. But the Oscars are hardly rational themselves, and they certainly bring out the irrational in me. Here, in my irrational opinion, are the ten (or more) people, still working at the top of their game, who need an Oscar IMMEDIATELY.

Sunday Top Ten: Westerns

I've always found the Western a particularly fascinating genre. From its romanticized origins to its later experimental departures, the Western has inspired countless interpretations and styles, making it a rich cornucopia of Americana. Picking ten favourites is not easy, and depending on what mood I'm in, they're quite susceptible to change. Today, I'm feeling like my ten favourite Westerns of all time are:

Sunday Top Ten: Pet Peeves of the 2011 Oscar Season

Here's an early installment of what I hope will be a successful feature on the site this year. Didn't make sense to wait 'til May before unleashing this one. Best get this therapeutic bout of bitching out of the way early, so I can move on to some more positive thinking!

#10: Late releases
Nominees released in 2010 were terribly back-ended this year. True, this is basically the case every year, but there were so many good ones I couldn't see until February, and it just made the awards-watching season all the more hectic.

#9: The King's Speech marketing
Oh, that Harvey Weinstein. This is the third season in a row his Best Picture pony has irked me by its mere inclusion in the lineup. Granted, The King's Speech is far better than Inglourious Basterds and The Reader, but the type of advertising campaign it got was way beneath it, from that lame, poorly photoshopped poster to this hammy trailer that "reminds us we're all human".

#8: Dull show
I was so miffed by the 2010 Oscarcast that both it and its producer Adam Shankman soared to the top of last year's list of seasonal pestilences. But that didn't give this year's show a free ticket, and indeed, producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer managed to disappoint. Some of the blame could be laid on the predictability of the winners, but lazy writing, poor hosting, and a severe lack of focus ensured that this year's Oscars were a snooze.

#7: Spousal snubs
In a year that saw some terrific tandem acting from performers playing husband and wife (or wife and wife), it was such a shame that only one half of each whole was represented by the nominations. Julianne Moore was sidelined all season long (save for the Golden Globes) in favour of her Kids Are All Right costar Annette Bening, Aaron Eckhart gained no traction whatsoever despite giving a gut-wrenching performance opposite Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole, and Blue Valentine's Ryan Gosling was tragically left out of the Best Actor race while Michelle Williams eked into Best Actress. There's just not enough room for all the greatness.

#6: Lee Smith snub

There's one every year. Two years ago it was the rude exclusion of Bruce Springsteen's “The Wrestler” from Best Original Song, last year it was the unjustifiable omission of District 9 from Best Makeup, and this year it was the unfathomable snub by the editors branch of Lee Smith for arguably the finest film editing achievement of 2010, Inception. What can I say? It's nothing less than a complete and utter embarrassment.

#5: The Social Network vs The King's Speech, offline
I tell ya, it's kind of uncomfortable sitting down to Christmas dinner with your entire extended family and being the only person at the table who didn't LOVE The King's Speech. I liked it, sure, and yet nearly everyone I've talked about it with has accused me of damning it with faint praise, simply because I wasn't as over-the-moon as they were. Conversely, being the only person around the water cooler who thought The Social Network was the year's best movie made it an awfully lonely season out in the real world.

#4: The Social Network vs The King's Speech, online
Normally, I take comfort in the fact that if my regular human contacts don't share the same taste in cinema as me, at least there's an enormous community of film aficionados on the Internet with whom I can commiserate in The Social Network ultimately falling short to The King's Speech. And yet, what I found online was far uglier and more oppressive than the one-sided but polite discussions that vexed me offline. Depending on who you read, you may have avoided some of it, but the noise of Social Network fans cruelly and unfairly besmirching The King's Speech was still deafening.

#3: Melissa Leo

One of the season's biggest talking points by far. Some people found her crazy award show antics endearingly eccentric, and that's their right. Just like it's my right to find them vain and tacky. From her self-centred acceptance speeches to her gaudy personal ad campaign to her accidentally-on-purpose use of the dreaded F-word on Oscar's stage, to me, it all reeked of arrogance. And to be honest, I thought the performance was good – not Oscar-good. Costar Amy Adams would have made a much more deserving and welcome winner.

#2: Alice in Wonderland
Somebody shoot me in the head. I hated this movie as soon as it hit the 30-minute mark when I first saw it last March. I wrote a quick pan and prayed that I wouldn't have to write about it for the rest of the year. Apparently, that was too much to ask. Its overcooked, uncoordinated, domineering, in-your-face design elements had no problem coasting through the season by sheer “virtue” of their retina-battering conspicuousness, eventually scooping two Oscars (a number infinitely more than it deserved), reinforcing the theory that the Academy is almost always more impressed by quantity than they are by quality.

#1: Deakins still Oscarless
Months ago, when the trailer for True Grit came out, certain bloggers boldly predicted that this would finally be Roger Deakins' year. I wanted to believe them, and I was even convinced to the point of predicting it myself after nominations, but deep down I knew their premature predictions had jinxed it. So here's a prediction for you:

Roger Deakins will NEVER win an Academy Award.

If he can't get one for the most typical of movies to win Best Cinematography, what's it going to take? The worst part is, I really want to be happy for Wally Pfister, who himself was overdue, but not by nearly as many years as Deakins. I was unable to enjoy what should have been a reason to cheer. This year's Oscar ceremony was ultimately a night I wouldn't mind forgetting, and this early catastrophe certainly set the appropriate tone.