Leave Oscar Alone

The start of a new year means one thing for film enthusiasts. Not an overambitious list of empty self-promises, underscored with the fantastic cliché ‘New Year New Me’. No, January comes around every year and with it a selection of the most daring and interesting film choices, all vying for the appetizing array of awards on enough, most alluring of all the Golden Baldie itself, the Academy Awards. Stars aplenty litter the billboards, journalise taglines like ‘This year’s Gladiator’ or ‘The Godfather meets American Beauty’, and indeed the ubiquitous ‘predictions’ flutter in by the thousands, a rite of passage for film buffs, and one I’m sure will appear soon on this page. It seems, however, that the Oscars are not as popular as they once were: on the contrary, the annual nominations announcement, and indeed the ensuing ceremony, is always followed by a compulsory ‘Oscar bashing’ in the film community. Complaints that the obvious choices are always made, that the winners reflect the patriotic narrow-minded sentiments of the Academy, and that any clear controversy gets ousted from the offset, in order not to offend the more sensitive of viewers. Mr Oscar, we can see, is not the man he once was.

And it is more than easy to see why the ceremony gets bashed year after year. We only need look down the timeline of film history to see that some of the most critically acclaimed films, celebrated directors, and nuanced performances have been snubbed by the Academy, without any clear explanation why. Citizen Kane, proclaimed by the American Film Institute as the greatest film of all time, lost out in the Best Picture category in 1941 to ‘How Green was My Valley’, a film which we have of course all seen. Al Pacino, delivering the performance of a lifetime in The Godfather Part II, practically carrying the film considering the amount of screentime he has, was snubbed in 1974. None of this amounts to the atrocity committed against the Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock, widely heralded as the greatest director of all time, did not receive a single win in his more than impressive vast filmography, including classics Vertigo, Psycho, North by Northwest, Rear Window, and The Birds. And, as if they hadn’t offended him enough, the Hitch was offered an Honorary Award in 1968 as a pathetic admittance of their errance, a gesture which was less than appreciated by Alfred in his now famous acceptance speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2zjm79Esq4). The list goes on and on and on.

But like any other awards ceremony, the Academy Awards is not without mistake. Indeed, we cannot expect them to be faultless in their actions. The Only Way is Essex took home a BAFTA in 2011 for heaven’s sake. In a body that large, with such a broad range of members, including a noteworthy collection of those from the olden days, we must expect a certain amount of tradition and conserve in the Academy’s decisions. It would grossly ignorant for us to expect some of the older members to sacrifice their own personal taste for what we might call brave new developments in film. The recent shock at the Academy screening of Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street resulted in the hurling of abuse at the director and his cast: but can we condemn this abuse, for a film which arguably glorifies a distressing process which one would imagine many of these members lived through. It would be hypocritical for us to celebrate the achievements of these older members, while simultaneous insulting them by questioning their taste in film.

Hindsight, furthermore, is a beautiful thing. I would not be the only one in admitting that we look back on our past actions with frustration and anger, only dreaming of what might have happened had we taken an alternative course of action. Why should the Academy be exempt from this basic feature of human nature? Yes, Forrest Gump was a sweet, heartwarming film, but no, it wasn’t better than its rivals The Shawshank Redemption or Pulp Fiction, and as Kirk Lazarus in Tropic Thunder so brashly says, ‘No one goes full retard’. Even last year, in a hotly contested Best Picture category, Ben Affleck’s flag waving Argo won out against the magnificent Life of Pi, not only an immensely enjoyable film, but a break through in 3D technology. We should not, however, attack these decisions of the Academy on the grounds that they were bad films: rarely do the Oscars award a real turkey of a film, instead perhaps making a slightly wrong decision with regards to the better film. Hindsight, as a said before, is a beautiful thing, and one which all of us has befallen.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), to use its full name, is not a faultless body. Indeed, everyone is entitled to criticize, and I would perhaps be one of the first to write a anger-fuelled Tweet at 3 am along the lines of ‘OMG wot iz wiv da Oscaz dis year theyre well shit’. Let us not forget, however, the hordes of fantastic decisions the Academy has made, celebrating the cutting-edge, the controversial, the brutal, and even the weird. I hope maybe you’ll think twice before throwing out that standard conversation starter ‘God, did you hear about Tom Hanks this year’, and maybe feel some sympathy for Mr Oscar and his hairless friends. 

If you do nothing else in 2014...

2013 brought us many things. It told us that we need not fear the third dimension, that it is not synonymous with gimmicky tricks and objects flying out of the screen towards the outstretched hands of the gullible viewers: through the poetic beauty of Life of Pi at the start, and the mindboggling majesty of Gravity at the end, we saw a third dimension free from blue skinned aliens and cartoonish CGI. It taught us to expect the unexpected, from an outrageously audacious twist in the surprising Iron Man 3, the return to form of low budget horror in You’re Next, or indeed the reinvention of the ‘Disney princess’ in the powerful and punchy Spring Breakers – mirrored perhaps in the simultaneous transgression from innocent Hannah Montana to full badass Miley Cyrus. And indeed it showed us the sheer brutality of the Hollywood box office, claiming the otherwise fantastic The Fifth Estate, and alternatively the not-so-fantastic The Lone Ranger, with shockingly low box office returns. But, as one might say, its all in the past: while the wont might be to dwell on the success of the preceding year, I select instead to throw up the best of what, I believe, the new-fangled 2014 has to offer. From the looks of it, its going to be a good one, but who knows…should we expect the unexpected?

1.     Inside Llewyn Davis

Combining the lyrical splendor of O Brother Where Art Thou? and the stunning choreography of No Country for Old Men, the Coen Brothers are back on fine form with this fascinating insight into the 60s music scene of Greenwich Village. The trailer came fluttering in like a marvelous sepia toned angel from heaven, sampling what seems to be a magnificent soundtrack, heavily featuring the protagonist Oscar Isaac himself, and the sharp quick-fire screenplay for which the Coens have become so lauded. To me, this looks like a fantastic exposition in the siblings consistently strong filmography, and a much-welcomed return after a distinct absence following their 2010 Western-homage True Grit. The praise speaks for itself, winning the much coveted Grand Prix at Cannes, and hotly tipped for success at the Oscars. Star Oscar Isaac, meanwhile, looks to finally be rewarded with a main role following a handful of strong supporting slots, while Carey Mulligan looks to hit it out of the park after what might be called a less than impressive 2013. Needless to say, when this hits the cinemas, I’ll be first in line.

2.     The Wolf of Wall Street

The uncompromising style of a Scorsese film is something unrivalled in the history of cinema. Never one to shy away from exposing the full detail, blood and all, of a matter is a common theme in the films of the man behind the glasses: Travis Bickle’s revenge induced bloodbath in Taxi Driver shocked millions, the stark contrast between comedy and extreme violence in his masterpiece Goodfellas, and the shocking exposition of Howard Hughes’ debilitating obsessive compulsive disorder in biopic The Aviator, just to name a few. Scorsese doesn’t buck the trend, neither, with his latest work The Wolf of Wall Street, a pseudo-sequel, as proposed by Little White Lies, to his other works Goodfellas and Casino. From the gripping trailer we see the director’s trademark flourishes and cutting edge cinematography in this examination of the extravagant lifestyle of the Wall Street banker, and the resultant destruction it leaves in its wake. DiCaprio looks to put in a career best turn, following several Oscar-based disappointment for his outstanding work in The Aviator and the recent Django Unchained, as multimillionaire Jordan Belfort, a performance which has been lauded as well as offended: a recent Academy screening resulted in the hurling of abuse at the star and director. Regardless, like a greedy investor drawn to stacks of money, the pair have drawn me in like a bee to honey.

3.     Nymphomaniac Parts 1 and 2

Controversy is a word which has become synonymous with director Lars von Trier. His career, one might say, resembles a massive two-finger salute towards Hollywood, in an attempt to dismantle and discredit all of our preconceptions about what a film should be. His Dogme 95 movement revolutionized the way film could be made and viewed, his 2009 film Antichrist shocked viewers with its graphic depiction of genital mutilation, and his appearance at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival appalled the film community, after a supposed joke resembled Nazi sympathizing and anti-semitism. So when he announced he was embarking on the production of a 5 and a half hour long (now divided, in order to be cinema friendly, into two parts), softcore porn epic, needless to say no one was that surprised. Only upon the arrival of the fairly graphic trailer, and the accompanying orgasmic poster campaign, were we really hooked on what the Danish director had to offer. Reports that stars engaged in full intercourse on camera, as well as the explicit content of the actual film, added to this anticipation. This isn’t one I’ll be going to see with the parents.

4.     The Grand Budapest Hotel

Arguably a spot of easy viewing compared to the outrageous, graphic, and depressing content of the aforementioned three, Wes Anderson’s newest feature still looks like an absolute must-see among the perhaps more heavy-going of films. Having assembled a team mightier than 2012’s Avengers and 2013’s X-Men Days of Future Past, Anderson’s The Great Budapest Hotel has a cast of superheroically comic proportions. Offering up the main role to the ever fantastic Ralph Fiennes, and welcoming back regulars Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman, we see Anderson back on fine form with his distinctive dead pan screenplay, and his almost caricatured personalities. All this, of course, set against his trademark cinematography, sets looking like they’ve been built with Playdough and spray painted with the boldest shades from the Dulux paint range, it certainly looks beautiful if not anything else. With his mesmerizing Moonrise Kingdom in 2011, Anderson has shown no signs of deterioration, and that we can be sure of one thing: he’s not going away anytime soon. Watch this.

5.     Interstellar

Given that Christopher Nolan’s work is now pretty much gospel, its no surprise that his latest project has garnered a particular amount of buzz. After scrambling minds in 2010 mindblower Inception, and practically reinventing the superhero genre, Nolan has turned his Midas touch to the sci-fi genre, the mysterious Interstellar. Retaining the expected amount of secrecy as most of his projects do, all we know about the film is something to do with space, wormholes, and energy. More exciting, however, is the extravagant cast, starring former collaborators Anne Hathaway and Michael Caine, and at the centre hot property Matthew McConaughey, currently midway through his remarkable transition from rom-com bad boy to fully fledged, Oscar worthy thesp. His recent turn in The Dallas Buyers Club has been unanimously praised, and Nolan looks to channel this heat into Interstellar. A particularly teasy Teaser introduced themes of regeneration and space exploration, while leaked images of Hathaway in a space suit set the tone for what looks to be the most exciting project of 2014. Be prepared, and expect great things.