MADness—the Blog

The big winner of the night, with four Academy Awards including Best Picture, is The King’s Speech.  Not my pick but hardly a surprise, either.  I’m disappointed that The Social Network won only three Oscars; it deserved to win for director and picture too.  The Academy’s taste for good, respectable fare with a British royal and a suitable accent knows no bounds.  The Weinstein brothers, who once lassoed a Best Picture for Shakespeare in Love, were not a team to bet against.

A few highlights from the evening:  Aaron Sorkin, ever the writer, with the most eloquent speech of the evening; David Seidler, the self-proclaimed oldest winner in the writer category; Susanne Bier, just the third woman director to win in the foreign-language category; and the too-brief appearance of Billy Crystal, who gave me the first laugh of the show.  (The best hosts in the history of the show have been the great comedians—Crystal, Hope, Carson.  The show succeeds when it’s funny.  The Academy should find a funny, classy comedian who’s young, if that’s where the Academy is aiming, and if there isn’t one—can’t think of a name off the top of my head—they should find someone older who can provide a bit of entertainment.)

Because you probably cannot find a list of winners anywhere else on the web, I offer one below.  (The * indicates winners that I had predicted.  I finished 17 of 24, respectable—and better than Ebert, for what it’s worth—but not likely a winner in the pool.)

Summary of Oscar wins by feature film:

The King’s Speech — 4
Inception — 4
The Social Network — 3
Alice in Wonderland — 2
The Fighter — 2
Toy Story 3 — 2
Black Swan — 1
The Wolfman — 1
In a Better World — 1
Inside Job — 1

Winners by category:

Best Picture

WINNER:  The King’s Speech

Actor in a Leading Role*

WINNER:  Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

Actress in Leading Role*

WINNER:  Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Actor in a Supporting Role*

WINNER:  Christian Bale, The Fighter

Actress in a Supporting Role*

WINNER:  Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Directing

WINNER:  Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech

Writing (Original Screenplay)*

WINNER:  David Seidler, The King’s Speech

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)*

WINNER:  Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Animated Feature Film*

WINNER:  Toy Story 3

Documentary (Feature)*

WINNER:  Inside Job

Documentary (Short Subject)

WINNER:  Stranger No More

Foreign Language Film*

WINNER:  In a Better World

Short Film (Animated)

WINNER:  The Lost Thing

Short Film (Live Action)

WINNER:  God of Love

Art Direction*

WINNER: Alice in Wonderland

Cinematography

WINNER:  Inception

Costume Design

WINNER:  Alice in Wonderland

Film Editing*

WINNER:  The Social Network

Makeup*

WINNER:  The Wolfman

Music (Original Score)*

WINNER:  The Social Network 

Music (Original Song)*

WINNER:  “We Belong Together,” Toy Story 3

Sound Editing*

WINNER:  Inception

Sound Mixing*

WINNER:  Inception

Visual Effects*

WINNER:  Inception

Name that Best Picture nominee.  Need a hint?  Not likely, but the answer can be found at ForeverGeek, along with renderings of all ten Oscar nominees in LEGO art.  Alex Eylar is the film buff/artist.

You can tell that Oscar campaigns are in full swing when you see front-page articles like this in the New York Times:

Mr. Moore of Paramount stopped short of making Oscar predictions. But he noted that only two western dramas, “Dances With Wolves” and “Unforgiven,” had been major hits in the last 20 years.

“And both won best picture,” he said.

The article asks the burning question:  “As a Hot Ticket, Will ‘True Grit’ Sway the Oscars?”  Good for the Coens that they have their top box office success evah!  Asked if he had any idea why, Joel Coen said, “None at all.”  But it’s not as though the season’s more critically acclaimed films have been flops.

Case in point:

True Grit
Domestic: $89,292,295 (13 days)

The Social Network (95 days)
Domestic: $93,282,159
Worldwide: $196,779,159

And there’s this:

Inception (172 days)
Domestic: $292,571,392
Worldwide: $823,571,392

Besides, wasn’t the question about any box office/best picture connection answered last year?

Avatar
Domestic: $760,507,625
Worldwide: $2,781,132,032

The Hurt Locker
Domestic: $17,017,811
Worldwide: $49,230,726

I don’t recall James Cameron thanking the Academy on Oscar night.

On a separate note, anyone associated with a system that calls True Grit a PG-13 film (killings left and right, dismembered fingers, other bloody behavior) and The King’s Speech an R (one brief flurry of mild cursing that wouldn’t make a nun blush) should be locked in an asylum.  It’s ratings madness.

Much has been made  about the oversights for the In Memoriam segment at the Oscars on Sunday.  Most of the complaints have been about Farrah Fawcett, Bea Arthur, and Gene Barry, all actors who worked in movies but were better known for their TV roles.

There was no excuse at all for leaving off composer Maurice Jarre, who’s featured in the Friday Minute on the front page today.  Not only is Jarre one of the great composers in film history, he’s easily the most honored of all members of the Academy who died last year, with nine Oscar nominations and three wins.

Inexplicable.

There’s not much to say about the show.  The two hosts, Martin and Baldwin, hardly did anything to make the night memorable.  I remember reading stories about Billy Crystal when he was hosting—there’d be four or five months of tireless preparation that went into the show, especially the opening act.  It showed.  It was funny.  Something to remember.  I suppose they don’t do that anymore.

But we’re not tuning in for the show anyway, right?  There are the awards!

The big winner, I was glad to see, was The Hurt Locker, winning Best Picture, Best Director, and six Oscars altogether.  I have lost track of the times I’ve been disappointed at the end of an Oscar show, so it’s gratifying to see the Academy do the right thing.

Tom Hanks, oddly, didn’t read the ten nominees.  Was that intentional, or did he forget?  Or was I nodding?  One other oddity:  the reading of the prize winners was not consistent.  Kate Winslet’s “…and the Oscar goes to…” was a contrast to the reading of other presenters, ”…and the winner is….”  Which is it these days?

The final tally:

6 — The Hurt Locker (Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing)
3 — Avatar (Cinematography, Art Direction, Visual Effects)
2 — Precious (Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay)
2 — Up (Animated Feature, Score)
2 — Crazy Heart (Actor, Song)
1 — The Blind Side (Actress)
1 — Inglourious Basterds (Supporting Actor)
1 — Star Trek (Makeup)
1 — The Young Victoria (Costume Design)
1 — El Secreto de Sus Ojos (Foreign-language Film)
1 — The Cove (Documentary Feature)
1 — Music by Prudence (Documentary Short)
1 — Longarama (Animated Short)
1 — The New Tenants (Live-action Short)

For what it’s worth (not a lot, actually), I was 16 of 24 on my predictions.

It takes three days for the accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers to count all the ballots of Academy voters.  They’ll be done sometime today, at which point exactly two people will know the names of the winners.  The rest of us get the news Sunday night.

In the meantime we can make predictions.  If we didn’t make predictions, we wouldn’t have any surprises.  I hope there might be a few at the big show, but at this time it all looks very predictable.

You can take a look at what I see in my crystal ball, my picks for the Oscars.

Best Picture

• Avatar
• The Blind Side
• District 9
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up in the Air

The winner:  The Hurt Locker
The verdict:  Oscar gets it right!  All the talk is that it’s a two-picture race.  If so, it really shouldn’t be close.  Avatar is technically stunning and visually imaginative, but it doesn’t compare to The Hurt Locker as a complete film.  With District 9 in the running, sci-fi fans have another place to put their vote.  That should help Kathyrn Bigelow’s film.  I’ve read that the new preference voting procedures also will work against Avatar, but I don’t think anybody really knows which film will benefit from the new process.

Best Actor

• Jeff Bridges Crazy Heart
• George Clooney Up in the Air
• Colin Firth A Single Man
• Morgan Freeman Invictus
• Jeremy Renner The Hurt Locker

The winner:  Jeff Bridges
The verdict:  It’s about time!  I can’t seeing anyone else winning, but if there is a longshot winner, it’ll be Colin Firth.

Best Supporting Actor

• Matt Damonin Invictus
• Woody Harrelson The Messenger
• Christopher Plummer The Last Station
• Stanley Tucci The Lovely Bones
• Christoph Waltz Inglourious Basterds

The winner:  Christoph Waltz
The verdict:  A terrific performance and a well-deserved win.  The dark horse is Woody Harrelson.

Best Actress

• Sandra Bullock The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan An Education
• Gabourey Sidibe Precious
• Meryl Streep Julie & Julia

The winner:  Sandra Bullock
The verdict:  Somehow the thinking with Academy voters seems to go like this:  Meryl Streep gave a great performance this year, so let’s give her a nomination—but let’s give the Oscar to someone else.  It’s been 27 years since her last win (she has 16 noms altogether), and there’s no reason to keep her waiting any longer.  Perhaps if they had preference voting for Best Actress (it’s only used for Best Picture, though), Streep would have a third little man for her mantel.  That said, my rooting interest here is for Carey Mulligan.

Best Supporting Actress

• Penélope Cruz Nine
• Vera Farmiga Up in the Air
• Maggie Gyllenhaal Crazy Heart
• Anna Kendrick Up in the Air
• Mo’Nique Precious

The winner:  Mo’Nique
The verdict:  No contest.

Best Director

• Avatar James Cameron
• The Hurt Locker Kathryn Bigelow
• Inglourious Basterds Quentin Tarantino
• Precious Lee Daniels
• Up in the Air Jason Reitman

The winner:  Kathryn Bigelow
The verdict:  The headlines will be:  A Woman Wins (Finally).  Bottom line:  Bigelow deserves it.

Foreign Language Film

• Ajami Israel
• The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada) Peru
• A Prophet (Un Prophète) France
• The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos) Argentina
• The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band) Germany

The winner:  A Prophet
The verdict:  It’s a powerful film, but not the kind of material that often wins the Oscar.  I have not yet seen the South American films so I can’t judge, but the buzz for the Argentine entry is strong, and it has an excellent chance to win.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

• District 9 Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
• An Education Screenplay by Nick Hornby
• In the Loop Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
• Precious Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher
• Up in the Air Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

The winner:  Up in the Air
The verdict:  A smart screenplay.  Writing is a lot more than dialogue, but the dialogue is what people remember, and the dialogue in Up in the Air is sharp and reminiscent of Hollywood classics of the past.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

• The Hurt Locker Written by Mark Boal
• Inglourious Basterds Written by Quentin Tarantino
• The Messenger Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
• A Serious Man Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• Up Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy

The winner:  The Hurt Locker
The verdict:  The Hurt Locker by a nose, but don’t count out Tarantino.

Animated Feature Film

• Coraline Henry Selick
• Fantastic Mr. Fox Wes Anderson
• The Princess and the Frog John Musker and Ron Clements
• The Secret of Kells Tomm Moore
• Up Pete Docter

The winner:  Up

Art Direction

• Avatar
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
• Nine
• Sherlock Holmes
• The Young Victoria

The winner:  Avatar

Cinematography

• Avatar Mauro Fiore
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Bruno Delbonnel
• The Hurt Locker Barry Ackroyd
• Inglourious Basterds Robert Richardson
• The White Ribbon Christian Berger

The winner:  The Hurt Locker
The verdict:  I wouldn’t mind seeing The White Ribbon win, but I’m a sucker for black-and-white.

Costume Design

• Bright Star Janet Patterson
• Coco before Chanel Catherine Leterrier
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Monique Prudhomme
• Nine Colleen Atwood
• The Young Victoria Sandy Powell

The winner:  Coco Before Chanel
The verdict:  Everyone in the know is picking The Young Victoria, but I need to be a contrarian somewhere.

Documentary (Feature)

• Burma VJ Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
• The Cove Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens
• Food, Inc. Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
• Which Way Home Rebecca Cammisa

The winner:  The Cove

Documentary (Short Subject)

• China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
• The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
• The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
• Music by Prudence Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
• Rabbit à la Berlin Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra

The winner:  Music by Prudence

Film Editing

• Avatar Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
• District 9 Julian Clarke
• The Hurt Locker Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
• Inglourious Basterds Sally Menke
• Precious Joe Klotz

The winner:  The Hurt Locker

Makeup

• Il Divo
• Star Trek
• The Young Victoria

The winner:  Star Trek
The verdict:  A well-liked sci-fi film (though I was lukewarm) gets its one Oscar.

Music (Original Score)

• Avatar James Horner
• Fantastic Mr. Fox Alexandre Desplat
• The Hurt Locker Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
• Sherlock Holmes Hans Zimmer
• Up Michael Giacchino

The winner:  Up
The verdict:  Michael Giacchino’s score was just terrific.

Music (Original Song)

• Almost There (from “The Princess and the Frog,” by Randy Newman)
• Down in New Orleans (from “The Princess and the Frog,” by Randy Newman)
• Loin de Paname (from “Paris 36,” by Reinhardt Wagner, Frank Thomas)
• Take It All (from “Nine,” by Maury Yeston)
• The Weary Kind (Theme from “Crazy Heart”) (by Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett)

The winner:  The Weary Kind
The verdict:  I’m not sure it was the best song in the film, but it’s the best of the nominees.

Short Film (Animated)

• French Roast
• Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
• The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
• Logorama
• A Matter of Loaf and Death

The winner:  A Matter of Loaf and Death
The verdict:  Never bet against Nick Park.

Short Film (Live Action)

• The Door
• Instead of Abracadabra
• Kavi
• Miracle Fish
• The New Tenants

The winner:  Kavi
The verdict:  Picking winners when you haven’t seen the films is a little like picking racehorses based on their names. 

Sound Editing

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Star Trek
• Up

The winner:  Avatar

Sound Mixing

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Star Trek
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

The winner:  Avatar

Visual Effects

• Avatar
• District 9
• Star Trek

The winner:  Avatar

This is the last day of February, which gives my son great joy.  He got to mark off another day on the calendar and turn the page to the next month.  March has a cool picture of a Mustang.  He doesn’t know what a Mustang is—he’s four—but he’s excited about it anyway.

Expect the excitement to pick up in Hollywood this week.  Next Sunday we’ll know who the winners are, finally.  Which means a week of hype and predictions and office pools and rumors and gossip and loss of all perspective about what it all means.  I’ll try to be careful what I watch and what I read.  It’s the silly season.

Awards, in a way, are silly to begin with, and awards for making movies are even sillier.  I understand the need for champions in sports; there you have competitors whose sole focus is to win.  Movies operate in a very different realm.  A movie isn’t made to beat anything else but to engage and entertain its audience.  Yes, some movies do that well and some don’t, and I appreciate the need to recognize excellence.  Some effort goes into making the Oscars about quality, but there are so many other factors at play, and the nature of determining what’s best is so inexact anyway, that the awards are often, if not usually, about something else. 

The Oscars started as a p.r. campaign for the industry, and it’s been a very effective one at that.  The Oscars are the best promotion that the film industry has ever dreamed up.  The Oscars get people’s attention, even people who don’t go to movies often.  I’m glad for that.  I’m glad the movie business gets three or four hours of prime-time TV to promote itself.  Even when the show stinks, it’s still a great advertisement for the movies. 

I wish somehow the awards didn’t mean so much.  But since they do, I wish they’d pick better winners.  I’d like to say I take it all with a sense of detachment, that I don’t take it too seriously.  I should know better.  How often have I been disappointed.  But this is what happens.  I start reading stuff.  I start thinking:  this year they’re gonna get it right.  This year—yes, this year, at last!—they’re going to do the right thing and agree with me! 

You’ll have to excuse me.  If I didn’t get excited, it wouldn’t be the Oscars.

This front-page article in today’s L.A. Daily News says, “The future is finally here.”  Sounds like somebody’s watch is running fast.  I think the future is still in the future.  But this is not about time, or time travel.  It’s about video-on-demand, or how we can watch movies and be more lazy than ever before.  Never again will we need to go to the theater, or the video store, or even the mailbox.  Welcome to the world of VOD.

Actually, I like going to to the theater.  Though, I admit, it’s not always convenient, especially with a four-year-old at home.  So I’m all for the idea.  Sort of.  Day-and-date (VOD and theatrical opening the same day) is likely to be only for independent films for some time, not the big Hollywood releases, and I don’t blame the studios.  They don’t want to cannibalize their own business.  And I don’t want the theaters to go out of business, either.  As I said, I like going to them.

Here’s your Oscar trivia question of the day:  What’s the first day-and-date release to be nominated for an Academy Award?

Your Oscar trivia answer here.

Hendrik Hertzberg has this week’s Comment at the New Yorker with an interesting piece on the new voting procedures for Best Picture.

To forestall a victory for some cinematic George Wallace or Ross Perot, the Academy switched to a different system. Members—there are around fifty-eight hundred of them—are being asked to rank their choices from one to ten. In the unlikely event that a picture gets an outright majority of first-choice votes, the counting’s over. If not, the last-place finisher is dropped and its voters’ second choices are distributed among the movies still in the running. If there’s still no majority, the second-to-last-place finisher gets eliminated, and its voters’ second (or third) choices are counted. And so on, until one of the nominees goes over fifty per cent.

What’s it all mean?  It means we need to bring back the Electoral College!  (Oops.  That’s a different sort of voting.)  It means the Academy system now favors a consensus pick for Best Picture and with Avatar a more polarizing film than The Hurt Locker, the Iraq War drama should have at least one edge to counter the many other advantages the sci-fi flick has going for it.  That’s what Hertzberg thinks. 

Me?  I dunno, really, but I’m willing to believe anything that gives the advantage to what I think is the movie of the year.  I don’t get to vote, but because of the mighty clout this website has with thousands of Academy members, I’m throwing my full support behind the Kathryn Bigelow film.  C’mon, folks, vote The Hurt Locker!  Even if you don’t make it your first choice, make it your second.  That ain’t so hard, is it?

Patrick Goldstein:

Both the recording and motion picture organizations are made up of respected industry professionals, presumably eager to reward the best work in their respective fields. Yet the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences almost always opts for seriousness over comedy, artistic heft over youthful innovation.

On the other hand, the Recording Academy has increasingly given itself over to mainstream commercial taste.

[...] the Grammy telecast was a glimpse of the future, not just for the Oscars, but for all awards shows.

God help us if that’s the case.

The Oscars are far from perfect and I’m sure I could come up with a list of things I’d like to see done differently.  But I find it very odd that anyone would suggest the solution for the movie awards is to be more like the music awards.

The awards are supposed to be for artistic merit.  That’s not the way it always works, but it’s at least a pretense worth preserving.  It would be a disaster to abandon quality for commercial considerations.  There was rebellion a year ago when At the Movies tried Ben Lyons as host.  I think that says something.  Movie fans want to hear from people they can trust.  They want awards to go to the best work, not just the most popular.  The movie industry is not the music industry.  Patrick Goldstein, please wake up.