If I Picked the Winners: Best Adapted Screenplay 2009

     For this week's edition of "If I Picked the Winners", I will be peering into the recent past: 2009. Being so close to our current time in this never ending story (with no flying dragon-dogs mind you) that we call History, it's hard to say anything profound about the year in cinema that was 2009. The "does it stand the test of time" trial is inapplicable in this case, with at least another two or three years to go before we can even begin to get proper distance for objective judgement, but at this early stage of the game, my own opinion is that history will treat 2009 kindly. It wasn't the stellar year that 2007 was, but still very solid nonetheless. What I especially appreciated about 2009 was the wide variety of high-quality art and entertainment that was offered. Whether you were into sci-fi ("Avatar", "Star Trek"), comedy ("Up in the Air", "Fantastic Mr. Fox", "Funny People", "In the Loop", "The Informant", and for people who like dark meat, "A Serious Man"), family ("Fantastic Mr. Fox", "Up"), drama ("A Serious Man", "The White Ribbon", "The Secrets in Their Eyes", "Precious"),  action ("Inglorious Basterds", "The Hurt Locker", "Public Enemies"), or like myself, a mix of all of the above, then there was some really well-crafted options for you the choose from. Of course, a lot of this is due to some extremely well written scripts (the birth place of all good movies), which will be looking at today.

     Now for most years, it is more likely than not that the stronger batch of screenplays will come from the "adapted" side (movies based on previously published material, which usually means books), but 2009 actually had a stronger year for original material, a rare feet indeed (especially given Hollywood's recent total lack of originality). That doesn't mean the year's adapted screenplays were anything to scoff at. As the year was strong all-around, this meant there were a fair many high merit adaptations, including most of the nominees. Unfortunately, as is par for the Academy, they left off some very worthy contenders in favor of one or two questionable choices. The most egregious error on the Academy's part was their failure to nominate the brilliant Wes Anderson-Noah Baumbach translation of the Ronald Dahl  book, "Fantastic Mr. Fox". Given the Academy's history of under-appreciating the outstanding films of Mr. Anderson, I guess the snub wasn't all that surprising, but seeing as how the film managed a Best Animated Feature nominee, you would of thought the writers might have given the film some consideration. Another film that would have have made my cut, was the Argentine film that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, "The Secrets in Their Eyes". Based on the novel, "La Pregunta de sus ojos" (which I believe roughly translates into "The Question in Their Eyes", by Eduardo Sacheri, the film is one of the best modern day crime/noir films I have seen in quite some time (very reminiscent of the excellent Kurosawa film, "Stray Dog"). Finally, as a replacement for the one science fiction film that managed to get a nomination in the category, I would have preferred to have seen Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's reboot of "Star Trek" among the nominees. I'm no Trekkie, but the film was a superb rendering of Gene Roddenberry television series. So much so in fact that the film's sequel is one of the only (out of numerous) continuations of a film series that I am actually looking forward to, but now let's get down to the actual nominees.

News: Oscar 2012

     I know it's a bit early to be discussing the 2012 (or really 2011) Oscars yet, we did get our first morsel of news yesterday regarding this year's Academy Award show. There had been speculation that the Academy would try to move the show up another month (yet again), to try to add some spice to the show by quickening the pace of the awards season, but this turned out not to be the case. Academy president Tom Sherak confirmed the following Oscar schedule:


Dec. 1, 2011   Official screen credits forms due
Dec. 27, 2011 Nomination ballots mailed
Jan. 13, 2012 Nominations ballots due by 5 p.m. PT
Jan. 24, 2012 Nominations announced at 5:40 a.m. PT
Feb. 1, 2012 Final ballots mailed
Feb. 6, 2012 Nominees luncheon
Feb. 11, 2012 Scientific and technical awards
Feb. 21, 2012 Final ballots due by 5 p.m. PT
Feb. 26, 2012 Academy Awards at 5:30 p.m. PT

In other words, we'll be having a show in late February again. While I personally would like to see some more surprises in the awards show (at least in the major categories, the winners having been painfully predictable), the only way this would be possible is if the Academy was able to circumvent the multitude of preceding award shows, many of which have a heavy crossover with the body of the Academy. Had the Academy moved everything up a month, no doubt all the other award shows would have followed suit (they become absolutely meaningless if their not precursors to the Big Rodeo), so unless the Academy can think of some way to banish all other movie award ceremonies (save the Golden Globes maybe, which do differ from the Academy quite often), it doesn't really matter when the awards are held. They won't get anymore exciting.

If I Picked the Winners: Best Picture 2003

     When I look at the slate of Best Picture nominees from 2003, it appears to have been a true high-water mark, or a crescendo if you rather, for the industries' "epic" films. While we still suffer from the aftershocks of Hollywood's obsession with "the epicness of epicdom" (two made up words, I know, but that's just how self-consciously epic these films are, ordinary words from the English language do not adequately describe them), in 2003, the tone still felt new and fresh, which not only allowed for successful box office receipts, but high critical praise as well (thus the Oscar nominations). In the years following, while the box office receipts may have remained consistent, Tim Burton's dreadful version of "Alice in Wonderland" is a prime example of this ongoing monetary success (thank you world for continuing to encourage this sort of garbage), the grades from critics and enthusiasts have slowly fallen away as the genre has become increasingly stale. In 2003 though, we had mostly good films from the genre in our rearview mirror ("Gladiator",  the first two "Lord of the Rings" films, and to a lesser extent, "The Patriot"), so the potential for the genre was promising and people were ready to bite on anything that had the slightest whiff of saga. This is why you see two films ("The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" and "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World") among the nominees with a colon in their title (a surefire sign of how epic a film is), and while "Mystic River" and "Lost and Translation" exist well outside the boundaries of the "epic" genre, I am tempted to throw in "Seabiscuit" into the "epic" mix as well.

     There may be no swords, bow and arrows, or large battle scenes in "Seabiscuit", but tonally it carries a lot of similarities to these films. The heavy use of cliches and conventionalities without the slightest sense of acknowledgment or self-deprecation, blatant ploys to smother the audience in sentimentalities, and exaggerated finales where everything comes down to "this one moment", plague all three of these films. This should really come as no surprise, seeing as how the "sports" genre and the "epic" genre are really parallels of one another (is a "game" not just a low stakes version of a "battle"?), and the tone of the modern day sports film has seen the same shift to overwrought drama that the epic has experienced in the last few years, which is why I include "Seabiscuit" in the group of epic films.

     Were there any superior alternatives to these epic films though? For any one year (including 2003), there is always a growing list of films from that year that I still wish to see, so while I haven't become the expert of "films in 2003" that I would like to be, I still feel I am able to answer this question with a definitive, "Yes"! As you may have ascertained from the opening paragraph, I am a tough critic of Tim Burton's recent films, but in a decade of average to sub-par work, the one shining exception to his recently abysmal output is 2003's "Big Fish", a delightful return to form about a son and his dying father's "tall tales", and a film superior to almost all of the Academy's nominations. Another film that I would have preferred to see as a Best Picture nominee over most of the actual nominees, is my favorite auteur's film, Quentin Tarantino, "Kill Bill Vol. 1". Other possible substitutes that I would have preferred over some of the nominees include the Harvey Pekar biopic, "American Splendor", the Jack Black rock comedy, "School of Rock", the small little dramedy about the life of a dwarf (pun absolutely intended), "The Station Agent", and the true story of the journalistically fraudulent life of Stephen Glass, "Shattered Glass". As always though, we must come back to reality, so let's get down to ranking the nominees.

If I Picked the Winners: Best Actor 1967

     After covering a category from my favorite year in cinema (2007) last week, this week I keep the good vibrations going by covering a category from what is probably my second favorite year in cinema, 1967. Being before my time, to say 1967 is my second favorite year in cinema may sound a bit peculiar and random, like it was drawn out of a hat in a raffle, but this couldn't be further from the truth. The late 1960's was an interesting time in the world of cinema, just as it was in almost everything else. The radical shift in culture opened up the medium to more experimentation, as well as the ability to go places and do things that the moral norms would not have allowed before. For instance, "The Graduate", one of my favorite films of all-time (which we will be discussing more about later in this article), tells the story of a young man having an affair with his neighbor's wife, a woman who is very much his senior. Not only does the film tell this sordid perverse tale of seduction and robbing from the cradle, it does so in a humorous manner, which makes the film the inimitable classic that it is, but would also have been too offensive to the sensitivities of the populace just a few years earlier. Previously, a story about such outrageous promiscuity would only be told in the utmost dour, melodramatic fashion ("Peyton's Place" anyone?), but being a new time and era, Mike Nichols and company were brazen enough to push the genre in new and exciting places (like Robert Altman would do for war films three years later with "M*A*S*H"). Another example from 1967 of the deconstruction of the old norms in favor of the establishment of new ground rules is the film "Bonnie and Clyde". The film caused and enormous stir for its (at the time) graphic depiction of violence. Formerly, while there was definitely a lot of violence in films' plots, when it got down to the real action, the violence was mostly implied or sanitized. "Bonnie and Clyde" took this trick and spun it, causing a ruckus in the short-run, but creating a whole new language of cinema and paving the way for countless films down the road (like almost every Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino film).

     It's this sort of radical thinking about the conventional practices of cinema that endears 1967 to my heart (the only year with two films in my Top 10). It also makes deciding between nominees very difficult, especially for this Best Actor category. It is a truly impressive lineup (probably one of the greatest single categories in Oscar history), with every nominee being a household name giving one of their signature performances. It truly is ridiculous the amount of talent displayed in this category. I don't say this often, but you have to give credit when credit is due, so to the Academy, big kudos for the Best Actor nominees of 1967. It may be your masterpiece. In fact, I don't really have any viable substitutes for any of the nominees. Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" I guess could be two possible candidates, but the movie was released in 1966 in some countries, so I'm not really sure of their eligibility for the year. The only other possible nomination-worthy performance that comes to mind is Lee Marvin in "The Dirty Dozen", which, had he been nominated over my fifth ranked performance in the category, would have been fine by me, but I wouldn't necessarily call it an improvement. Before I get into the rankings, I would like to stress one more time how difficult the process was this week. In particular, deciding between the top two performances was incredibly agonizing, as both performances rank up there with my all-time favorites. In the end, I made a decision for better or worse, because I don't believe in wimping out and doing a stupid "tie" like too many critics do on these sorts of lists. Just know that the difference in my mind between the first and second ranked performance is miniscule, microscopic, infinitesimal, as they both rapidly approach the limit point known as perfection.

News: R.I.P Sidney Lumet (1924-2011)

     Today came the regretful news of the passing of director Sidney Lumet. The auteur had a long and prolific career, including many films that have left their unmistakable mark of pop culture and cinematic history. His most famous work includes films such "Network", "Dog Day Afternoon", "12 Angry Men", "Murder on the Orient Express", "Equus", "The Verdict", and "Serpico". Lumet got his start doing television around the dawn of its ascendence into the American household during the 1950's, and his style as a filmmaker remained very influenced by norms of the medium even as he graduated into making full-length feature films later in his career. His debut effort in the world of cinema was amazingly "12 Angry Men", putting him with the likes of Quentin Tarantino for best debut film for a director, which earned him an Oscar nomination on his first time out. He would go on to receive a total of five Oscar nominations, four  Best Directors ("12 Angry Men", "Dog Day Afternoon", "Network", "The Verdict") and one Best Adapted Screenplay ("Prince of the City").

     Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of Mr. Lumet's work that I have seen, although I am ashamed to admit I have yet to see what are probably the two most famous films in his filmography, "Network" and "Dog Day Afternoon" (both films are very high up on my "to watch" list though). The reason why I am not an ardent admirer of his work as some seem to be, is because, undoubtedly due to his background of working in the small screen, all his film's have a "made for TV" feel to them. Some of his more famous and well regarded work, such as "Serprico" and "Murder on the Orient Express", are overrated in my book, mostly because of their stylistics similarities to television norms. Even my favorite Lumet film, the great "12 Angry Men", has a television-like quality from a stylistic standpoint. The amazing acting by a superb cast though, along with a good premise, put the film miles ahead of any drama you could catch on TV at the time (and most of the dramas that are on television today too for that matter). This ability to get great performances out of his cast was probably Mr. Lumet's strong suit, as even in some of his flawed films, he was still able to draw out great performances from his actors. Though I have some reservations with his stylistics choices, Sidney Lumet will be missed, and his legacy will live on in his movies for as long as their are people interested in watching them.

If I Picked the Winners: Best Supporting Actor 2007

     Among film critics and film historians, 1939 is commonly cited as "The Golden Year" of cinema. You had all-time classics such as  "Gone With the Wind", the film that sold more tickets than any other movie in history, to "The Wizard of Oz", which may be cinema's number 1 fantasy film, to "Mr. Smith Goes Washington", my personal favorite from the year and maybe the most passionate and beautiful argument in favor of democracy in the history of mankind (with all due respect to Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" and Thomas Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense"). As great as the year 1939 was for movies though, it is not my own "Golden Year" of cinema. No, if I had to pick one year to stand atop all others in terms of cinematic output, it would not be 1939, but 2007 (which had a grand total of six films appear in my "Top 100" list, more than any other year). Now being very recent, this means 2007 has an advantage in that I could actually see many of its films as they came out, which wasn't the case for say 1976, to pick a year at random, and as I catch up with films from years that preceded my birth or at a time when they were not "age appropriate", my "year of all years" my change. In all honesty though, I'm not sure how much of advantage this really is, because there are many recent years in cinema that a look at with much disdain. In particular, 2005 stands out as possibly the worst year at the movies since the early days of sound, when filmmakers were still finding their feet on how to properly incorporate this new technology. In other words, the fact that 2007 was just four short years ago should not diminish the amazing accomplishment that the year was for films.

     In line with the achievement that was 2007 for the film industry, in the Best Supporting Actor category, the Academy put together a great lineup of performances. Out of the five nominees, there is really only one that I have negative words for. Having said this though, being such a great year also means there were many great performances the Academy failed to acknowledge. For supporting actors in 2007, the non-nominated performance that seemed most awards worthy in my mind is probably Robert Downy Jr. in David Fincher's "Zodiac". Playing an alcoholic reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle (which could be any of their reporters, am I right folks?) who is driven mad by the case, Downey Jr's manic madness draws the audience into the world of the newspaper business, and perfectly illustrates the large radial impact of serial killings. Downey Jr.'s costar in the film, Mark Ruffalo, playing the detective in charge of catching the Zodiac killer, is another prime candidate for "missed opportunity" Oscar nominee. Others that I would have considered as well include Tommy Lee Jones in "No Country for Old Men" (Josh Brolin in "No Country for Old Men" would be my first choice of anyone, but I believe his performance would qualify for lead), Paul Dano and Dillion Freasier in "There Will Be  Blood", Adrien Brody and Jason Swartzmen in "The Darjeeling Limited", Nick Frost in "Hot Fuzz", and if not considered a lead performance, Kurt Russell in "Deathproof". Like I said though, the list of nominees is actually pretty decent, so let's break the category down.

Review: Sucker Punch

     Have you ever watched a movie and thought to yourself, "Yeah, this is okay, but the stupid plot keeps getting in the way of the action. I don't care about character development, I want to see a bunch of soulless goons get killed by the good guys in flashy stylistic fashion. And to be honest with you, I really don't want the action sequences to move the narrative forward at all either. I want pure action for the sake of action, uninhibited by the traditional adherence to the outdated notions of 'story'". If this is you, then don't worry, Zack Snyder hears you and feels your pain. In fact, he's a made an original movie just to satisfy these demands. It goes by the name of "Sucker Punch".

     Now I'm not sure if the title is meant to ironically humorous, but after exiting the theater at the end of the film I could not think of any more apropos saying than "sucker punch" to describe how I felt. In fact, I would be tempted to consider the whole film an elaborate commentary on the state of the modern action movie in the Hollywood studio system, but then I remembered Snyder is the director of the movies "300" and "The Watchmen", so unless his whole career is to be considered some grand conceptual art piece, I'm afraid I am going to have to take the film at face value. Before the jump then, for any of the lazy readers of this blog who don't take the time to read anything beyond the breaks, I feel compelled to give you a warning right here and now. DON'T SEE THIS MOVIE!