One Category at a Time: Best Director

Splits between Best Picture an Best Director have a weird arrhythmic history at the Oscars. They seem to crop up in bunches before to returning to long stretches when it never happens. We seem to be in the middle (or perhaps the end) of one such bunch, which has seen these two top categories go different ways in three of the last four years. Whether or not this is a blip on the radar or a more mainstaying result of the current Best Picture voting mathematics might require a few more years to suss out, but this year it appears that things will return to the status quo.

My Award Nominations: Director

Tomorrow the DGA will bestow its yearly honours for the year's best direction in television and film. Barring some kind of earth-shaking upset, we can expect to see Damien Chazelle and Garth Davis take home prizes for Best Director and Best First-Time Director respectively. Best Documentary Direction is a bit more up in the air, but I'm betting it'll be Ezra Edelman for O.J.

My own ballot for Best Director follows:

Loving the Arrival of Strange Trolls

The first half of November is well in the books, and brought with it were a handful of releases that could figure into the Oscar race, albeit in limited ways.

Loving was a mainstay on many prediction lists for most of the year, even after the soft though respectable impression it left at Cannes. But having now been seen by a greater number of domestic press and audiences, it's looking more like a fringe contender. Jeff Nichols' telling of the story of interracial couple Richard and Mildred Loving -- who fought and won a groundbreaking Supreme Court case to have their marriage recognized in Virginia in the 1960s -- eschews the obvious Oscar-bait hooks of its premise and takes a far more low-key look at their shy personal lives.

My Award Nominations: Director

My final official nominee announcement this year is Best Director. Rather than similarly highlighting just my five Best Picture nominees, I'll be publishing my top 20 pics of the year in two lists on Tuesday and Wednesday. But for now, the five helmers whose storytelling most impressed me in 2015:

Last minute FYCs, and thoughts on H8teful, Saul

Oscar nomination balloting closes this Friday, and even in a season as scattered as this, it feels like some highly deserving contenders are still getting the short end of the stick. Dig deep, Academy! Lack of consensus is only exciting if you get imaginative instead of voting in default mode. You could do a lot worse than giving this handful of long shots a good hard look:

Creed for Best Picture

I was actually saving this FYC for Sicario, but after a strong guild showing thus far, I figure I should send my wishes to a more needy but equally deserving contender. This is one of the most satisfying mainstream entertainments of the year, and for it to have been overlooked by the Globes, BFCA, and PGA (where I had harboured hope for it) is disappointing to say the least. But it's not too late for the Academy to do right!

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.

One Category at a Time: Foreign Language Film

I've only been able to see three of this year's nominees (one of the disadvantages of living in Southern Ontario - not exactly the cultural hub of the country), and of the two I haven't seen, one is the likely winner. Figures.

Said likely winner is Susanne Bier's In A Better World. Having won the Golden Globe over higher-profile nominee Bituiful has given the Danish drama some valuable exposure. Apparently it's a stirring examination of the consequences of revenge, which has received strong reviews from nearly every festival it's played.

Of course, so has it's biggest competition, French-Canadian Denis Villeneuve's Incendies (which I have seen). It's a terrific bit of storytelling with dramatic heft and the weight of important history going for it, but the nonlinear chronology might not be to the voting membership's liking. But then again, last year's winner, The Secret in Their Eyes, also used liberal flashbacks. I'll be rooting for it (Go Canada!).

It may be a coin toss between these two, although I suspect Algeria's Outside the Law could have an outside shot, being a slick period drama and all.

As for the quiet, existential Biutiful and the bold, absurdist Dogtooth (the other two nominees I've seen), I imagine they just won't tickle this branch's fancy.

Will win: In A Better World
Runner-up: Incendies

Should win: Incendies
Should have been nominated: The Illusionist

My Award nominations: Foreign Film

My picks for the Best Foreign Film of the year are always subject to change because so many of them don't even get exposed in North America until much later. But as of the moment this was typed, my five are:

All That I Love (Jacek Borcuch):
Poignant coming of age for the youth of 1980s Poland as seen through the eyes of a budding punk rock music movement. Wonderfully captures the tumultuous thoughts of both the nation and the individual characters.

Biutiful (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu):
A densely depressing existential essay, told with sure-handed restraint and tact by Inarritu and his star Javier Bardem. It's beautifully shot throughout, creating a beautiful sense of place with textured, carefully composed shots.

Dogtooth (Yargos Lanthimos):
If nothing else, Dogtooth is at the very least a hard film to forget (for better or worse). Lanthimos' style is simple, intimate, gives proper focus to his actors, and features some really sumptuous cinematography.

I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino):
A fervent but ultimately pessimistic interpretation about the dangers of succumbing to your passions and exploring beyond the societal norm, framed as a stylish melodrama. Tilda Swinton owns it.

Incendies (Denis Villeneuve):
Denis Villeneuve's back-and-forth chronology may bother some, but I think it succeeds at highlighting the passage of time and the values that differ as a function thereof. Performances are strong, as is Villeneuve's confident direction, which is unafraid to jar or disturb us.