Oscar 2020 - Predictions

I promised that I'll write a predictions entry, although I'm more and more convinced with each passing year to give up on this habit. I've said multiple times why, so I won't repeat it (I might say it again without intending to later anyway). As usual, I'll stick to the categories where I've managed to see everything = thanks to the Academy for the approachable dispersion rate among the nominees :P

Animated Feature Film - 2019 wasn't a very bright year for animations. "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World" closed the franchise with a sort of GoT finale feeling. Lazy, boring and senseless writing. Doesn't deserve more comments. "I Lost My Body" is a French animation that plays the role of "the something different" for this year, a typical habit of the Academy to throw in a title that looks more "artistic"/mature to save the appearance of a category for kids. In brief, it's the story of a severed hand looking for its owner, which gives us the opportunity to get through the guy's life. The premise is promising, the final result is too pretentious and ends abruptly. Moreover, technically, the animation is not the best - it's done in the classic 2D manner, which is actually a nice thing, but there are parts where the frames are scarce leaving more of a stop motion impression (which I always thought it looks terrible in 2D). To conclude, we're left here with three candidates with some real chance: "Klaus" - a cute version of the Christmas origin story, which actually gives some sense to the gifts tradition and other customs; "Missing Link" - where a Sasquatch looking for a family meets some very unfriendly Yeti; "Toy Story 4" - (aka "The Search for Forky") on which I wrote last summer. All three of these are ok, but I'd say none of them is a memorable piece of animation. So, as much as I'd be fed up with the typical Pixar over-sentimentalism, I guess the latest "Toy Story" is the one that has that something required to move you a bit more than the rest, ergo my bet goes there.

VFX - In the last few years the award for visual effects typically was given to movies including less CGI. Probably because you can't see much difference between the movies relying on that for VFX. So, on this ground I'd exclude the latest "Avengers" and "Star Wars" from the nominees. What's left? "The Lion King" is a "real-life" animation that's not much more than what we've seen in "The Jungle Book" a couple years ago, when it also took the Oscar, the team behind it being the same. So, I'd say it won't happen for a second time. There are many saying that "The Irishman" is the main contender here due to the digital rendering of De Niro, Pacino, etc passing through different age periods. As I was saying in the review I did at the end of last year, for me the result looks almost as hideous as "J. Edgar". So, as final option, I'd go for "1917", which might bring up the question "where are the VFX?". Well, actually in many scenes, and the plus comes from the way these blend in with the rest ;)

Sound Editing & Mixing - In brief editing = effects, mixing = the sound track arrangement. Almost every year the lists of nominees have a single difference (probably to justify splitting in two categories - BAFTA or other awards have just one sound section). This year the single entries are for "Star Wars" on editing, and for "Ad Astra" on mixing. I doubt either has any chance - although the the final track in "Ad Astra" is actually nice. To continue cutting from the common nominations, the first to fall out is "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood", basically here just to fill up the numbers. We're left with three options. "Joker" doesn't seem to have much on editing, but scores better on mixing. I guess though that the final call will be between "Ford v Ferrari" si "1917", which are a on top of the rest. I'd risk to go again with "1917" on both counts. The final track is by far the best I've heard last year. On the editing side is closer to the other one, but well... I might be subjective :-) I was more impressed by the sound variation from the "silence" of the woods to the bombs explosions than by the wheels screeching and engines hurling in the other movie.

Music - Score - As above, for the score I think we're also left with two choices. First, the ones to pass I'd say that are: "Star Wars" - the soundtrack written by John Williams is nice, we have some new elements, but still it sounds a bit too much alike to what we've heard before; between "Marriage Story" by Randy Newman and "Little Women" by Alexandre Desplat I can't decide on the irritating factor (probably the latter), but I might be again subjective - anyway, I find these two repetitive, and a bit too present for the genre of the movies they're supposed to fit. So the choice would be between "Joker" by Hildur Gudnadottir and "1917" by Thomas Newmann. The first is given as favorite by pretty much everybody with a score that amplifies well the tension in the movie. However, I prefer the soundtrack of "1917", which for me brings exactly the needed contrast, where is needed. So, maybe we'll have a surprise here ;)

Costume Design - Usually I'm avoiding this section because I have zero experience for a qualified opinion. Still, this year I'd give a quick one. From what the online says, the main contender is "Little Women". Strictly visual, I'd go for a surprise, which is "Jojo Rabbit", where this part contributes to the colorfulness of the movie. We might go further with some philosophy about the meaning of this colorfulness :-) but let's stay on track. The other nominees here are "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood", "The Irishman" and "Joker".

Production Design aka art direction = location setting + set decoration. To start again by cutting off the outsiders, "The Irishman" is first to drop. "Jojo Rabbit" and "Parasite" probably break even, and what we see there is actually probably a bit above the online favorite here, which is: "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood". I assume the reason for that is to walk out over some movie sets and bringing some variation by doing this. On my side, I see "1917" miles away from the rest of the nominees. Basically, at least half of the movie is built over a perfect integration of the scenery with the camera work. Only the fact that the lengths of the prepared terrain was calculated to sync with the length of the shots is something to count for already. Anyway, the clip below says much more, but its second part is probably more relevant than anything else I could write here.

Film Editing - This is probably one of the most difficult to predict categories of this year. I guess that we can place "The Irishman", "Jojo Rabbit" and "Joker" in a second tier. The other two nominations where I think the battle will be are "Ford v Ferrari" and "Parasite". It's hard to compare the editing of the two movies, since it's directed towards completely different directions. In "Ford v Ferrari" we have fast race scenes, with cuts made to keep you caught in the alertness of the action, in "Parasite" we get a thriller editing with enough moments where you don't know what the next second brings, the fitting of sequences giving a certain rhythm and counting much in the final feeling you get. I'd say that "Parasite" is technically superior, but I might be subjective again. In any case, the clip below provides an excellent analysis, sparring me of any justification ;)

Cinematography - As complicated it is to give a prediction for editing, as simple is to give one for the camera work. There's a clear distance between Roger Deakins and "1917" and the runner-up which I'd say it's "The Lighthouse", followed further by "Joker", "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" and "The Irishman". I wrote already that together with the production design this is where the strength of "1917" lies.

Original Screenplay - From all the nominees here I mostly liked the story & script in "Knives Out", but I have to admit it doesn't have the density of the script in "Parasite", which I see as winner here. There are also chances for "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood", but that's not really Tarantino's best. The nominees list is completed by "Marriage Story", which is a Woody Allen story written by, and "1917" where the script is fine, but not really among the best traits of the movie.

Directing - Again, we have a pretty certain prediction here: Sam Mendes for "1917". We also have here Bong Joon Ho for "Parasite", Scorsese for "The Irishman", Tarantino for "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" and Todd Phillips for "Joker". Compared to other years (and other categories) the level is quite high here; you can feel a consistent role of the directing and a personal touch in all the five movies. Still, I'd say the way Sam Mendes managed to stick together all elements composing "1917" place the directing here in a different league.

Best Picture - Nominations: "1917", "Ford v Ferrari", "Jojo Rabbit", "Joker", "Little Women", "Marriage Story", "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood", "Parasite", "The Irishman". The most important category was a bit of a surprise win at the latest Oscars, maybe with the exception of last year. I wish to not be again the case, because the widely accepted prediction is that "1917" deserves the title of best movie, and I totally agree. I don't want to make this long entry even longer. For most of the above I had a review, and about "1917" I wrote a couple weeks ago. Any result we'll have, "1917" is a win for cinema in general, and that's what finally matters.

Oscar 2019

I was thinking to skip the Oscars completely this year, but I have to admit that there are still some reasons not to do it. Actually, more like one important reason - the nominees list still has good value in pointing out movies that otherwise I would've passed over, like "Green Book", "The Favourite" and "Vice", which I reviewed recently. About the awards... for several years already the politically correctness stance became really destructive. It seems it's completely forgotten that the man, and actually the single criteria that should matter is the one imposed by the nominations category objectively, and not some others related to social issues in everyday life care that have no place here. I'm really not in the mood to debate this too much, even more considering that if you do it you risk being labelled for disregarding racial issues, orientation issues, etc. Above all, I'm finishing this entry a bit too late to be actual more than a few hours, but unfortunately I didn't have an easy day, and what was supposed to be ready at 12:00 noon is after 12:00 in the night... As last year, I'm gonna go just through some categories where I've seen all nominations and point out what deserves attention + my choice, because well... movies without predictions, no fun :)

Best animated feature movie doesn't have the best selection this year, but we had worse. About "Incredibles 2" I already wrote, and I don't want to argue again on how thin/illogical is the story. "Ralph Breaks the Internet" has a bit more sense, but unfortunately the comparison with the first "Ralph" brings it down. "Mirai no Mirai" represents the Japanese animes in this category where the Academy grants a slot from time to time. Unfortunately it's not something to remember in this niche - we have a little boy and his newborn sister; he's transported at pretty much each episode of crying and jealousy for lack of attention, through the interior garden of his house, either in the future, either in the past, either in an universe where the family's dog takes human shape, either in the Tokyo train station where he gets lost, each time for a new life lesson. We have the typical Japanese anime fantasy style, a bit too entangled, and which doesn't reach the level of the best period of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki.

"Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" is apparently the main favorite here. What can I say... The super-villain Kingpin opens an interdimensional gate, which puts in danger all the planet, in order to find a copy in a parallel universe of his deceased wife and child. Spider-Man tries to stop the disaster, but only makes it temporarily, and unfortunately dies in the process. Lucky us, we have parallel worlds, and, therefore, plenty other Spider-Man, or Woman, or Pig. Plus an afro-latino-american kid in the current world who's also bitten by chance by a radioactive spider exactly on time to take over the job. Why that didn't happen with anybody else or why we don't have 2x, 3x, 4x Spider-people in other universes is a mystery, or why each universe has a different impersonation and no two are the same. But that's not a problem as long as we gathered enough racial or sex diversity to avoid anybody saying we're discriminating and to make the movie catchy for everybody. It doesn't matter that what comes after is super-linear and simple as a subject = all super-heroes take on the evil force Avengers style, the problem is obviously solved by the newest and youngest Spider-Man, and that's pretty much all of it. Oh.. we also have some little drama replaying some the origin story, where Spider-Man loses his uncle again, but this time that one is in the category evil guys first, after which he's not any more... In any case, it's the single piece in the story that brings some depth to a character, which funny isn't even one of the bunch of Spider-people. As animation technique is the probably the simplest, overall very cliche, very thin, but also very politically correct = perfect as a candidate for the awards.

"Isle of Dogs" is by far the best animation of the five. I wrote last November about it, so I won't make it much longer. Ironically, considering the subject + the script, it is the same, if not more politically correct than "Spider-Man" - besides diversity & equality, we also have an ecological problem packed here; but it's finer, it's thrown in front of you and doesn't cry "vote me for this". Besides that, what concerns the depth of character is way far from "Isle of Dogs" = we have plenty of dogs with clearly different personalities, unlike "Spider-Man" where the exterior form has some cliche associated with it and that's all (headphones and rap for the black guy, an a la Bogart look for the neo-noir Spider-Man, a hammer for the cartoon character, a robot for the Spider-Man made in Japan). Technically, stop-motion is an art in itself, much more complicated than a 2D animation turned 3D. That's why, besides what's produced by Aardman who are specialized in this technique we don't have many other titles in this niche. More on this below... But well, the Oscar goes to, we'll see...

In visual effects we have "Avengers: Infinity War" and the rest. In "Christopher Robin", we have an immersion of animated characters in a regular movie - was done before = "Paddington" as recent example. Nothing very spectacular. "First Man" seems added here more to fill up the category = we have the space sequences, the Moon and inside the ships, but considering the VFX is light years away from "Gravity" or "Interstellar". "Ready Player One" catches your eye initially, but you realize quickly that what you see is actually half live action movie, half pure animation, which are not really interacting, so with all the motion capture it has, it loses ground due to the clear separation there. "Solo: A Star Wars Story" looks good, but it doesn't stand out with anything compared with what you see in a SciFi blockbuster. The last "Avengers" seems to be the only title here that detaches a bit from the rest. We're moving through plenty environments, from a green Wakanda up to fight in space and deserted planets. Each super-hero comes with his own package of VFX. Even though partially was the job of the guys from ILM who also worked in "Solo", to me it looks better.

In a classical "configuration" - I don't remember when it was last time to have a different case - on sound editing and sound mixing, we have four similar nominations and one exception. And the exception in each category, again, as many other times, seems to have big chances to win. "Black Panther" is a noisy movie, which usually find a spot in both places (especially on editing). Still, we'll probably stop just on the double nomination here. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is also "by design" in the sound world, with plenty of chance in sound mixing where it's considered favorite. My thought on this, is that the part which counts mostly in this category is the feeling the final track gives you = the combination of all that includes sound effects, score, intertwining. Despite the fact that "A Star is Born" is much, much too overrated, my ear tells me that the final mix is slightly better there. Somehow, the problem comes from the script, in "Bohemian" we have lots of music on the background, in "A Star is Born" more often alternations, which also result in something more fluid and more complex - changes in intensity, more mix-ins and mix-outs of different tracks, etc. But let's move forward because I'm gonna start rambling nonsense soon. "First Man", with a double nomination, is considered the favorite on sound editing - where the accent is on effects and how these are edited/merged. Ironically, it seems to me that the fight here is with "A Quiet Place", nominated only on editing, and the irony comes from the fact that both movies are remarkable through their... silence :) Which indeed takes out all the squeezes, screeches, screams, and whatever else you can hear there. For me "A Quite Place" is remarkable regarding this, so again I would choose something else than the popular opinion. We have "Roma" left, with a double nomination, but I don't really know what's with this here...

For makeup & hairstyling I'll stop just a bit on "Vice". Which, continues positively what we had last year in "The Darkest Hour", where Churchill's face was re-created. Even though it's about a nomination that's mostly for a single character and the acting brings in a lot, in this case Christian Bale transforming into Dick Cheney, the result as look is remarkable compared with disasters from a couple years ago (see "J. Edgar"). Other nominations here are "Border" and "Mary Queen of Scots", but I doubt that any of these has a chance.

And since we reached to "Vice" let's also stop at editing. Besides, we also have "BlacKkKlansman", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Green Book" and "The Favourite" here. The latter is the only other which stands out a bit, which is related with the episodic structure. Editing comes packed though with cinematography at least as visual impact for a movie, and "The Favourite" has more advantage on the camera work side. In "Vice", however, the way the scenes are put together and cut basically "makes the movie". It's enough just to mention the fake ending somewhere close to the middle of its running time to give an award here.

For original script I think we have one of the best years, and it's hard to predict a winner. In "First Reformed" we have the story of a preacher, who slowly gets convinced by the idea of a public martyrdom, and even though the script has some lengths and moves on in a predictable manner, the ending is slightly different than what would you expect. About Cuaron's "Roma" we can talk a bit further, but overall we have a decent script - or better said you couldn't do much more on the subject it has. With "Vice" we're moving into the favorites category - as I wrote in the review a couple weeks ago, the exceptional editing wouldn't be possible without a decent script. But I think the final fight will be between "The Favourite" and "Green Book". The episodic structure a la "Tarantino" and the witty lines, in some of the most unexpected moments would make "The Favourite" favourite. On the other hand, the script in "Green Book" gets much closer to Alexander Payne's style from "Sideways" + "The Descendants" and puts in evidence all the context around the action + it has its own set of witty lines:
Tony Lip: So can I put the, “P.S. Kiss the kids?”
Dr. Don Shirley: A P.S.?
Tony Lip: Yeah, like at the end.
Dr. Don Shirley: That’s like clanging a cowbell at the end of Shostakovitch’s seventh.
Tony Lip: Right, so that’s good.
Dr. Don Shirley: It’s perfect, Tony.

I'm not gonna comment on leading roles, because I didn't see everybody there. On supporting, we have the following: Adam Driver in "BlacKkKlansman", Mahershala Ali in "Green Book", Richard E. Grant in "Can You Ever Forgive Me?", Sam Elliott in "A Star In Born" and Sam Rockwell in "Vice". It's 100% clear and right that the Oscar will get to Mahershala Ali for "Green Book". Unfortunately, for supporting actress, the clear favorite, Regina King in "If Beale Street Could Talk" is not an objective prediction. I'm sorry, but no matter how good you might see her acting, it's far from exceptional, and her presence in the movie is maybe comparable just with Marina de Tavira in "Roma". All the other three nominees: Amy Adams in "Vice", Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone in "The Favourite" have a much, much more solid commitment. Unfortunately the criteria on which all the US critics predict Regina King here is purely racial both for the actress and for the topic of the movie, and has nothing to do with the acting. In BAFTA's she wasn't even nominated. Anyway, neither there I don't know how objective was the award being preferred the British option = Rachel Weisz, considering that Emma Stone makes clearly an exceptional leading role, not a supporting one in "The Favourite". I would even go as far as telling that was better than two years ago with "La La Land".

Finally, the best movie. Options, alphabetically: "A Star is Born", "BlacKkKlansman", "Black Panther", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Green Book", "Roma", "The Favourite", "Vice". Long story short: everybody says "Roma" will win. It's not a bad movie. Visually, it's probably on top of the list, although subjectively speaking I've never been a fan of black-and-white. The story though... It's a year in the life of a maid hired by a family in 70's Mexico. It's a rough year, presented realistically, and which covers plenty not-so-easy subjects: the woman gets pregnant, the father doesn't recognize the child, the child is stillborn, her employer is left by her husband in the same period and she has to deal alone with three kids, we have a civil conflict emerging. However, you don't feel a story... is more like a newsreel. It doesn't have a beginning, it doesn't have an end. Life moved here. This happened. Life moves on. As a movie, "The Favourite" and "Vice" about which I wrote and which left me with a much better impression - the irony is that "Vice" is effectively a documentary, but much more "movie-like". Above all though, call me cheesy, but I really prefer "Green Book" :) Why? Well, as I wrote a couple weeks ago - you have the calm after the storm... in "Roma" you don't know if the storm stopped :) But well, from the perspective of awards awarded in the US, unfortunately the wall with Mexico might have unwanted big implications on the decision here...

Oscar 2018

I said last year that I'll write at most one entry on the topic of Oscar 2018 and I'll keep my word. More, I'll try to just limit myself to some predictions. If these work out = if we won't get again some major surprise awards based on political/social criteria that have nothing in common with the cinema/art factor, maybe I'll resume next year the extended coverage of the event I was typically doing... maybe... But, let's get to the point.

For VFX the Oscar should go to "War of the Planet of the Apes". It's the third time in three movies when we have a nomination for this series and if it still loses I guess this category will also completely lose any credibility it still might have. "The breakthrough" to say it so was made by the first movie in the series, which brought something consistently new in the area of CGI depicting an animal in a movie. Even if the sequels didn't have something as revolutionary on the technical side as the first, the VFX complexity is still on top of the competition, first of all considering the nature of the movie. Unfortunately though, this award was way too much assimilated with the one for cinematography in the recent years, and it's not the same thing (it also happens the other way around...), but hopefully not this year too...

The sound categories of this year - editing and mixing - came with something that didn't happen for quite some time - the nominees list is identical. "Traditionally" four of them were the same and there was one difference. Normally, for editing the award should go to "Dunkirk", but I say that we might get a surprise winner here with "Blade Runner 2049". Again, normally the mixing award should go to "Baby Driver", where the final track mix is absolutely brilliant - and that's the stuff that should matter the most here, but the Oscar will most probably be awarded to "Dunkirk".

On production design = art direction & set decoration, we have a pretty tight competition, but I'd choose "Blade Runner 2049" as winner. For me this part is the strongest technically in the whole movie, considering the feeling it brings = transposing you in the created world, it's at least on par with the rest, and the advantage comes from the variation it brings. And from all this variation, if we just look at the Vegas part is already enough.

It's been long since there was such a tight competition on the score/soundtrack as this year. Even though the favorite movies seem to be others I say there are good chances for a surprise win for Jonny Greenwood and the music from "Phantom Thread". This is also judging based on the way the "ear" of the Academy works, which typically is sort of conservatory on this category. As personal taste I prefer the score of Carter Burwell from "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri", but it's far less likely to have a win here.

If we stopped at "Phantom Thread" let's just stay a bit longer with a certain prediction in this year awards: costume design. Not that I'm an expert on this, but given the topic of the movie I hardly see how it could lose here.

"The Shape of Water" will most probably bring a first Oscar for directing to Guillermo del Toro, which is a bit unfair considering that "Pan's Labyrinth" still remains his best movie. More unfair is that "Dunkirk" will not bring to Nolan a first Oscar for directing, given that, and I'll repeat once more, this man managed to put together and excellently composed piece of cinema from a subject that's hardly fit for a movie.

Generally I avoid talking much about the actor's performances, and this year the awards are anyway pretty predictable here. I'd still have comment on the leading actor where Gary Oldman is considered the certain winner for his Churchill take on "The Darkest Hour". As I wrote in the movie review, despite the character that was built where I can't objectively comment being extremely well studied/acted by the level of gesture, speaking habits, etc. and where the makeup had its share of contribution, I'd still would've found more natural the choice of some other actor who should've been naturally closer to the wanted result. Based on this criteria I would give the Oscar to Daniel Day Lewis, who in "Phantom Thread" has probably his best performance in a movie after the one in "There Will Be Blood". The irony is that he got it for "Lincoln", where he wasn't far from the position where Gary Oldman is this year, so...

I guess I covered enough categories to stop this year's "overview" with obviously, Best Picture. We have two favorites here: "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri" and "Shape of Water", which I say deserve their position in the current selection of nine nominees. As long as we don't have any surprise as in the last years where the title of best movie of the year reaches a production that's somewhere behind half of the rest even on some critics list (the few ones that are still not judging on political criteria), we'll have a step forward. I have blog entries for both movies above so, I'd like to end the Oscar 2018 chapter without more details. I'll just stick to my previous evaluation of the movies = although close, my final vote & prediction goes to "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri".

Oscar 2016 - VFX & Makeup

Yup, I know. I'm late with the entry promised for last week. Compensating with a 2-in-1. Sort of. Meaning that I thought there's room for both VFX and makeup today, since anyway we mostly have overlapping titles.

"Ex Machina" starts the nominations series for visual effects. I find it a bit as a "category fill" item here. Maybe I'm subjective, since I found the movie way more pretentious than what it actually delivers. Of course, Ava - who's 99% the subject of the nomination, looks good, but I don't find it groundbreaking in any way. And we have groundbreaking material below ...
"Mad Max: Fury Road" is my prediction for both VFX and Makeup. I won't write again all what I already did in the movie's entry last year. What we have here is a resurrection of "for real" VFX = non-CGI (although we have CGI too, as you can observe below). It's the only movie I've noticed using real staged visual effects at this scale in a long long time. About the makeup, I'm no expert, bt it's clearly the most "visible" among all nominees.
"The 100-Year-Old-Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared" is a pleasant surprise in this year's nominees list. It scored in makeup, and I can say it's a lesson given to some Hollywood titles, such as "J. Edgar" for instance, in respect to "aging" a character. The year passing on a guy's face looks much more natural in this Swedish comedy that's a sort of a northern Forrest Gump, much much colder, and way less serious.
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is seen by many as a VFX winner. I disagree. It looks too ... common for me. It's simply in the same line of recently released movies. Besides the swords, what we see here is not far from what we also saw in "Transformers", "Avengers", etc...
"The Martian" offers planet Mars as a VFX subject. Again, it looks like an entry that stays in the average range of what we typically have here. More I would say, it's even "eclipsed" by last year's "Interstellar" :) ...
"The Revenant" scored nominations on both VFX and Makeup. Unfortunately the clip below is centered on the second, but it's the only I found which displays a couple frames from a scene that I say it makes it the main contender against "Mad Max" for VFX ( and also my wishful winner :) ). It's of course the bear scene, which I think we can consider the next level in CGI, at least from what I've seen by now (maybe "Planet of the Apes" gets slightly close). Well, we'll see where the votes are going ...

Oscar 2016 - Nominations

This year started with deadlines and way too limited time. I said I'll try to cover again the Oscar season, but I think I'll be a bit more restrictive than last times. So I'll start in a total "unprofessional" manner by sending directly to the official site: http://oscar.go.com/nominees , instead enumerating myself the nominations. It's faster, and you also have trailers there ;). What I won't change is the typical order I start with ... = I should be back with VFX next week.

Oscar 2015 - Best Picture

I don't like this year Oscars. I've said that before, right ? I barely have one movie in the nominees list that I really enjoyed. The only positive aspect to say so, is that a couple hours before the show the situation seems to be a bit different (at least that's what critics say), and we don't have anymore a clear winner ... Well, I'll stick to my initial opinion about who'll get it. But I already said too much considering the this year's competition level, so let's get to something more visual ...

"American Sniper" or the perfect example of cliche in a war movie. Starting with the love for country that brings us in the first line of battle (doesn't matter that's on a different continent) up to the best looking girl in the bar falling for an uniform (I'm exaggerating ... but the movie is not far). The worst movie made by Eastwood since "Space Cowboys" ... And I think I enjoyed that one more.
"Birdman" or how to test the patience of the audience for half of the movie so that the 2nd half to seem by contrast the greatest achievement in the director's career (why do you think we have "The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance" as subtitle?). I can't deny that the 2nd part of the movie, and especially the ending are not good (although severely depressing). That's why I can say that I see as a positive aspect the awaking of various guilds (directors, producers) who, through the recent awards given, brought some suspense in deciding this year Oscar winner. Still ...
"Boyhood" or how to test the patience of the audience for the entire movie. And when the movie is 3 hours long, my recommendation is to skip the cinema option. At least you deserve the right to have a pause button. Not that you couldn't skip some 5-10 minutes intervals ... don't worry ... nothing unexpected happens. Maybe that's where the appreciation wave emerged from. Finally a movie where we don't have any suspense on how it's ending. The only surprise would be to lose the Oscar.
"The Imitation Game" or "who's left without a biopic?". If the question isn't clear, count the "real-life based" nominees. Half of them are biopics. In any case, I think Alan Turing has a more interesting story, and also the movie has less cliches than the first entry in the list. Not much chances though for The Weinstein Company. They exhausted their "luck" for an indeterminate time after the "King's Speech" 4 years ago...
"The Grand Budapest Hotel" or the only movie that deserves a Best Picture Oscar this year. Unfortunately it won't get it. Again, I don't think this is the best movie done by Wes Anderson ("Moonrise Kingdom" rulz - here the budget made the difference), but compared to the rest is in a different league. Unlike all other nominees "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is a movie that will be remembered. Even if only for the pink hotel ...
"Selma" or the yearly politically correctness exercise made by the Academy. I have nothing against the movement for black voting rights lead in the '60s by Martin Luther King. But, come on ... The only other nomination "Selma" has this year is for Best Song. By comparison "Foxcatcher" has 5 .. and none for Best Picture. No comment ...
"The Theory of Everything" or "who's left without a biopic? what, nobody? not even somebody still living?". I don't know Stephen Hawking received this movie, but for me it seems a bit strange to do a biopic about somebody's life, when the somebody has still something to say. On the other hand, I assume the result is more truthful (otherwise you could expect protests from the "lead character"). Anyway ... despite the appreciation wave it got, for me "The Theory of Everything" seemed to be a sort of "A Beautiful Mind" more dry, more depressing, and more superficial. I won't spend time now drawing a parallel analysis between the two movies (because I'm talking about the movies, and not the persons), but I think the pluses and minuses are quite obvious ...
"Whiplash" or why the Academy was felt a sudden relief when they found out that "Into the Woods" is not the only musical released this year. Otherwise it would've been hard to motivate adding it among the rest for best picture. Because, if there's one available, we definitely need a musical as Best Picture nominee. Ah, it's not the typical light comedy like "Chicago" or "Moulin Rouge"? It's a drama .. well, even better. I don't know. I'm still amazed by the preference of the public in the States for this genre. And I also don't like jazz ...
That wraps it up for this year. So, let's see who gets it ...

Oscar 2015 - Nominations

So .. Let's start the Oscar season for 2015 ;) The nominations:

BEST PICTURE

- “American Sniper”
- “Birdman”
- “Boyhood”
- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- “The Imitation Game”
- “Selma”
- “The Theory of Everything”
- “Whiplash”

LEADING ACTOR

- Steve Carell in “Foxcatcher”
- Bradley Cooper in “American Sniper”
- Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Imitation Game”
- Michael Keaton in “Birdman”
- Eddie Redmayne in “The Theory of Everything”

SUPPORTING ACTOR

- Robert Duvall in “The Judge”
- Ethan Hawke in “Boyhood”
- Edward Norton in “Birdman”
- Mark Ruffalo in “Foxcatcher”
- J.K. Simmons in “Whiplash”

LEADING ACTRESS

- Marion Cotillard in “Two Days, One Night”
- Felicity Jones in “The Theory of Everything”
- Julianne Moore in “Still Alice”
- Rosamund Pike in “Gone Girl”
- Reese Witherspoon in “Wild”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

- Patricia Arquette in “Boyhood”
- Laura Dern in “Wild”
- Keira Knightley in “The Imitation Game”
- Emma Stone in “Birdman”
- Meryl Streep in “Into the Woods”

ANIMATED FEATURE

- “Big Hero 6”
- “The Boxtrolls”
- “How to Train Your Dragon 2”
- “Song of the Sea”
- “The Tale of the Princess Kayuga”

DIRECTING

- Alejandro G. Iñárritu for “Birdman”
- Richard Linklater for “Boyhood”
- Bennett Miller for “Foxcatcher”
- Wes Anderson for “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- Morten Tyldum for “The Imitation Game”

CINEMATOGRAPHY

- Emmanuel Lubezki for “Birdman”
- Robert Yeoman for “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski for “Ida”
- Dick Pope for “Mr. Turner”
- Roger Deakins for “Unbroken”

ORIGINAL SCORE

- Alexandre Desplat for “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- Alexandre Desplat for “The Imitation Game”
- Hans Zimmer for “Interstellar”
- Gary Yershon for “Mr. Turner”
- Jóhann Jóhannsson for “The Theory of Everything”

FILM EDITING

- “American Sniper”, Joel Cox & Gary D. Roach
- “Boyhood”, Sandra Adair
- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, Barney Pilling
- “The Imitation Game”, William Goldenberg
- “Whiplash”, Tom Cross

SOUND MIXING

- “American Sniper”
- “Birdman”
- “Interstellar”
- “Unbroken”
- “Whiplash”

SOUND EDITING

- “American Sniper”
- “Birdman”
- "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies"
- “Interstellar”
- “Unbroken”

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

- “Birdman”
- “Boyhood”
- “Foxcatcher”
- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- “Nightcrawler”

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

- “American Sniper”
- “The Imitation Game”
- “Inherent Vice”
- “The Theory of Everything”
- “Whiplash”

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

- “Ida” - Polonia
- “Leviathan” - Rusia
- “Tangerines” - Estonia
- “Timbuktu” - Mauritania
- “Wild Tales” - Argentina

PRODUCTION DESIGN & SET DECORATION

- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- “The Imitation Game”
- “Interstellar”
- “Into the Woods”
- “Mr. Turner”

VISUAL EFFECTS

- “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”
- “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”
- “Guardians of the Galaxy”
- “Interstellar”
- “X-Men: Days of Future Past”

COSTUME DESIGN

- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- “Inherent Vice”
- “Into the Woods”
- “Maleficent”
- “Mr. Turner”

MAKEUP

- “Foxcatcher”
- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- “Guardians of the Galaxy”

ORIGINAL SONG

- “Everything is Awesome” from “The Lego Movie”
- “Glory” from “Selma”
- “Grateful” from “Beyond the Lights”
- “I'm Not Gonna Miss You” from “Glenn Campbell... I'll Be Me”
- “Lost Stars” from “Begin Again”

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

- “Aya”
- “Boogaloo and Graham”
- “Butter Lamp”
- “Parvaneh”
- “The Phone Call”

ANIMATED SHORT FILM

- “The Bigger Picture”
- “The Dam Keeper”
- “Feast”
- “Me and My Moulton”
- “A Single Life”

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

- “CitizenFour”
- “Finding Vivian Maier”
- “Last Days in Vietnam”
- “The Salt of the Earth”
- “Virunga”

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

- “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1”
- “Joanna”
- “Our Curse”
- “The Reaper”
- “While Earth”

Next week we'll start taking these one by one ;) ...

Oscar 2014 - Best Picture

So .. "the final entry" for Oscar 2014. A bit "faster" than I had planned a month ago, but let's not start with the boring details. Finally, we got to the list of the 9 "best picture" nominees. Where, well .. they might not be actually "the best", but at least are at a level good enough to (hopefully) justify your time spent watching.

"American Hustle" is a movie that I didn't expect to like. I've did a bit of research before seeing it. A quick read about ABSCAM on Wikipedia left me completely cold as interest. A corruption story in New Jersey, in the beginning of the '80s, practically started from nothing. The FBI "invented", by its own will & power, a wealthy "sheik" who tried to obtain a series of favors from various politicians. Otherwise said, a sort of "let's throw a bait, and see if there's fish in lake". Maybe I'm a bit too distrustful in human integrity, but I guess you can always find "fish in the lake". Fortunately, not always the bait is good enough. But, following the rule of "make the bait more & more attractive", I'm afraid that slowly, with patience, you can catch all the fish = with different degrees of tolerance, pretty much every country would need anticipated elections & extra room in prisons. To draw a line, I found the "justice victory" in the presented case a bit "self-justified", and I was expecting an idiot movie that glorifies it without reason. Au contraire .. what I've seen was way different, but I'll hold from spoilers ;) In any case, we won't see the Oscar here, although there might be some chances for the script ...

"Captain Phillips" doesn't need much presentation. A cargo ship attacked by pirates and the resulted problem. Another real-story (dominating as in the last years this category), which in the end .. it's not clear how real it is. Apparently, the crew brought some harsh critics on captain Phillips' handling of the situation. Who knows .. What's certain is that Hollywood likes heroes ;) .. About the movie, it's ok. Not very impressive (at least not for me). A very particular exception is the ending. Where I've seen one of the most realistic depictions of what after-shock panic means and how it's handled (way more accurate than other "disaster movies") ...

"Dallas Buyers Club" shows us how a guy diagnosed with AIDS in the '80s manages to prolong his life expectation of 30 days with about 7 years. Besides the brilliant acting (possible Oscars landing here), it's a very interesting view and critic over the pharmaceutical industry practices of the time. Adding also the direct effects in the patient handling by medical institutions. I don't know how things evolved until this day on drug testing, approval & marketing. However, as I wrote in a previous entry (despite the irony, for who knows me better), I think the movie gets a bit too radical sometimes in its pro self-medication stance. It's always good to get a certified opinion. I have to admit though, that I felt really good seeing a movie that clearly states that you should have some self-awareness and double-check what the doctor prescribes :)

"Gravity" got already enough space on my blog, starting with a full entry last year, so I won't repeat myself. According to my previous posts, it might seem that the best picture Oscar of the year will get here. It's possible, since at least as quantity, it's probably the movie which will nail the most awards. Still, all the predictions in my previous entries (partial exception on directing) are on the technical area. As actors & story, "Gravity" doesn't look good. Despite the metaphor theory, and how much the clip below tries to convince us about this. A metaphor can be appreciated as long as it keeps a certain depth. Here it starts to lose its metaphor status given how often the movie hits you with it (= the depth gets shallow) ...

"Her" is, as I wrote before, I movie I wanted to skip. I can leave aside my whole IT research background ( + security to make it even "worse" :) ) = the objective part which stamps a big red warning on such idea. But even subjectively speaking, a story like "romance between a guy and his OS" is .. I don't know ... disturbing. I could make fun of the movie, and get into ironical comments .. but it would be (partially) hypocritical. It's clearly a bit cheesy here & there, but overall it's ok. I can at least complain about Scarlett Johansson's husky voice ;) not the best choice for "the virtual girlfriend". Term which, as attractively intriguing it might seem, the "scary factor" on the social outcome still looks too bad. And I'm also afraid that "a real version" would lead to a different ending ...

"Nebraska" is a sort of road-trip movie, which "stumbles" in a small town where nothing happens, located, obviously, in Nebraska. As more extended summary, it's a bitter comedy centered on the relation between a drunk old alcoholic father, and the son who decides to "play along" and grant him a wish = the road-trip in the attempt to claim a non-existent prize in a cheap lottery. The movie is good, but it doesn't shine (and it's not about being in black & white). It has enough comedy moments to relax it .. but for some reasons, I still found it sufficiently depressing to stop here the discussion.

"Philomena" is a bitter story, based on a real case of a an Irish woman who got split from her son while residing in a nun convent. After 50 years, she finally decides to search for the lost child. For this she gets help from a former high-profile political journalist, who got fired and is in a position that leaves him no choice than to accept apparently more "tame" stories. I'll hold from more spoilers. The movie though, would deserve its own separate blog entry, but I'll try to wrap up here. It's a superb example of how to handle a harsh subject in such a manner that it's not only digestible .. but it also gives a lesson saying that life moves on, and you should take it lightheartedly. Sometimes, although it doesn't completely heal the wounds, it helps a lot bearing them. That's as base main message. In another more particular sense, the movie makes a clear difference between organized religion and just simple faith. Position taken quite critically, sufficiently enough to be probably labeled as anti-catholic (although the idea is more general). Not the least, it's the first movie where I found Steve Coogan's acting actually good, and the chemistry between him and Judi Dench is delightful (despite the fact that there's no romance involved = just pure friendship). It's impossible that this movie ends up as winner, but I really hope it will get at least a chance for adapted screenplay, because it deserves it.

"12 Years a Slave" is the nomination which has probably the highest chance to nail the award for 2013's best picture. But this year it's hard to predict. It scores in many areas. Yet another real story, of a free black male from the North, kidnapped and sold in the South where he's kept as a slave for 12 years. The movie has a sort of a particular "epic factor" in it, maybe a bit hard to define, but relying on the harshness of the drama and the length of the persecution, still ending well. Besides that, we have a good directing, a decent script, an impeccable casting, and also a nice sound mixing which was though skipped in the nominations. The problem is, that despite having a full range of qualities to target best picture, it looses on almost each piece of the ensemble in front of other different movies. And this brings up some questions. We'll see the outcome ...

"The Wolf of Wall Street" is the latest movie by Scorsese, and as said last time a good one, but still sort of unpolished. I can say though, that I'm pleased of seeing him getting back to the usual themes after "Hugo". Or to what Scorsese knows to do best, digging into the deep dark corners of the human character. It's done though with a comedy note this time, based on (again) a real case of a broker, not very orthodox in his business practices. It's debatable if you can call a happy-end for the story, but what's certain is that the story is sometimes so unlikely in how it develops that it really deserved a movie. I don't know how much is true and how not, but the sequence of events in the second part of the movie is a sort of proof that if you play with fate, the fate might play back with you, in twisted & creative ways ;)

That's it ... This year is the first since I started this blog when, for various reasons, I couldn't manage to cover at least the sections where I've seen all the nominations. I had to make a choice, and I gave up on actors, on actresses (although I still should see a movie there, and anyway I'm too subjective = Amy Adams & Sally Hawkins don't stand a chance), on scripts ... I also decided to carry on a small boycott on soundtracks, given that Hans Zimmer didn't get a nominee neither for "12 Years of Slave", nor for "Rush" (even though the first is a bit self-plagiarizing, and the theme of the second is sort of close to "Rains of Castamere" from Game of Thrones by Ramin Djawadi).

I said it before, that the predictions I make in these entries are just "for fun". The real purpose is to discuss a bit some good movies, and parts that get less visibility. But still, for this, at least the list of nominees has to be decent. When we have a "Rush" which is completely ignored = nothing for editing, nothing for sound, not even supporting actor .. a "Prisoners" which hardly manages to get one single nomination for ... cinematography .. and I think I can add more titles to the list .. I'm sorry but I have to admit that it starts to see a tendency to get "political" in the nomination process (and this isn't new but was not as bad as now).

Fortunately, good movies are still made, and there will be independent of any taken award. And with all the lacking lists, I still managed to point some titles to be watched I guess. Which might be sometimes better than a weekly blog entry with an average "3 out of 5". So, if fate smiles & time allows, who knows .. maybe we'll do another round next year ;)

Oscar 2014 - Nominations

So .. here we go again :) Since last year I managed to recover a bit on the prediction matching, I'm not giving up this unhealthy habit of dedicating almost two blog months for Oscars (although, looking at the 2014 nominations, I doubt I can repeat the accuracy rate). In any case, the motivation is, as usual, less awards related and more to stop a bit on a movies selection which on average is above average :) + to dissect some details that are typically lost behind the "big picture" .. well, in my own "expertise" limits = expect the usual risks for nonsense ramblings (especially if the entries are written late enough). I won't re-re-restart the blah-blah on "why for Oscars, and not for Globes or smth else ?". In brief, the reason for that relates to the voting system, which remains pretty much the most balanced among all (maybe excepting the BAFTAs). So, let's cut it short, and check out the nominations for this year:

BEST PICTURE

- “American Hustle”
- “Captain Phillips”
- “Dallas Buyers Club”
- “Gravity”
- “Her”
- “Nebraska”
- “Philomena”
- “12 Years a Slave”
- “The Wolf of Wall Street”

LEADING ACTOR

- Christian Bale in “American Hustle”
- Bruce Dern in “Nebraska”
- Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street”
- Chiwetel Ejiofor in “12 Years a Slave”
- Matthew McConaughey in “Dallas Buyers Club”

SUPPORTING ACTOR

- Barkhad Abdi in “Captain Phillips”
- Bradley Cooper in “American Hustle”
- Michael Fassbender in “12 Years a Slave”
- Jonah Hill in “The Wolf of Wall Street”
- Jared Leto in “Dallas Buyers Club”

LEADING ACTRESS

- Amy Adams in “American Hustle”
- Cate Blanchett in “Blue Jasmine”
- Sandra Bullock in “Gravity”
- Judi Dench in “Philomena”
- Meryl Streep in “August: Osage County”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

- Sally Hawkins in “Blue Jasmine”
- Jennifer Lawrence in “American Hustle”
- Lupita Nyong'o in “12 Years a Slave”
- Julia Roberts in “August: Osage County”
- June Squibb in “Nebraska”

ANIMATED FEATURE

- “The Croods”
- “Despicable Me 2”
- “Ernest & Celestine”
- “Frozen”
- “The Wind Rises”

DIRECTING

- David O'Russell for “American Hustle”
- Alfonso Cuarón for “Gravity”
- Alexander Payne for “Nebraska”
- Steve McQueen for “12 Years a Slave”
- Martin Scorsese for “The Wolf of Wall Street”

CINEMATOGRAPHY

- Philippe Le Sourd for “The Grandmaster”
- Emmanuel Lubezki for “Gravity”
- Bruno Delbonnel for “Inside Llewyn Davis”
- Phedon Papamichael for “Nebraska”
- Roger Deakins for “Prisoners”

ORIGINAL SCORE

- John Williams for “The Book Thief”
- Steven Price for “Gravity”
- William Butler & Owen Pallett for “Her”
- Alexandre Desplat for “Philomena”
- Thomas Newman for “Saving Mr. Banks”

FILM EDITING

- “American Hustle”, Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers & Alan Baumgarten
- “Captain Phillips”, Christopher Rouse
- “Dallas Buyers Club”, John Mac McMurphy & Martin Pensa
- “Gravity”, Alfonso Cuarón & Mark Sanger
- “12 Years a Slave”, Joe Walker

SOUND MIXING

- “Captain Phillips”
- “Gravity”
- “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”
- “Inside Llewyn Davis”
- “Lone Survivor”

SOUND EDITING

- “All Is Lost”
- “Captain Phillips”
- “Gravity”
- “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”
- “Lone Survivor”

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

- “American Hustle”
- “Blue Jasmine”
- “Dallas Buyers Club”
- “Her”
- “Nebraska”

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

- “Before Midnight”
- “Captain Phillips”
- “Philomena”
- “12 Years a Slave”
- “The Wolf of Wall Street”

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

- “The Broken Circle Breakdown” - Belgium
- “The Great Beauty” - Italy
- “The Hunt” - Denmark
- “The Missing Picture” - Cambodia
- “Omar” - Palestine

PRODUCTION DESIGN & SET DECORATION

- “American Hustle”
- “Gravity”
- “The Great Gatsby”
- “Her”
- “12 Years a Slave”

VISUAL EFFECTS

- “Gravity”
- “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”
- “Iron Man 3”
- “The Lone Ranger”
- “Star Trek Into Darkness”

COSTUME DESIGN

- “American Hustle”
- “The Grandmaster”
- “The Great Gatsby”
- “The Invisible Woman”
- “12 Years a Slave”

MAKEUP

- “Dallas Buyers Club”
- “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa”
- “The Lone Ranger”

ORIGINAL SONG

- “Alone Yet Not Alone” from “Alone Yet Not Alone”
- “Happy” from “Despicable Me 2”
- “Let It Go” from “Frozen”
- “The Moon Song” from “Her”
- “Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

- “Aquel No Era Yo”
- “Avant Que De Tout Perdre”
- “Helium”
- “Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa?”
- “The Voorman Problem”

ANIMATED SHORT FILM

- “Feral”
- “Get a Horse!”
- “Mr. Hublot”
- “Possessions”
- “Room on the Broom”

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

- “The Act of Killing”
- “Cutie and the Boxer”
- “Dirty Wars”
- “The Square”
- “20 Feet from Stardom”

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

- “CaveDigger”
- “Facing Fear”
- “Karama Has No Walls”
- “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life”
- “Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall”

As usual, we'll start next week to "browse" the categories, as many as I'll have time for. Probably breaking the ice with VFX, as in the previous years ...

Oscar 2013 - Best Picture

I think I start to get tired doing this "coverage" and I also don't really like how it gets out (I'm mostly referring to the writing because the prediction rate is anyways going down), so I'm wondering if I should cut the talking completely and limit only to posting clips next year. If not skipping completely the "event". In any case, the subject today are not my endless laments, but the nominations for best picture. Let's see ...

"Amour" is Haneke's movie about which I've written when discussing direction. An Austrian production, with a French cast and a German director. The result is indeed very European as feeling, strongly anchored in everyday life. A grim and slow drama, hard to digest. Especially if you had some relatives that went on the other side slowly when they got old, and if you don't it has all the chances to make you anxious about how it would be. But it is a drama told in a way that makes me except it from my own rule that I see a movie mainly to take me out from reality. And that's because, despite the appearance what's below is not that dark.

"Argo" is one of the two title fighting for the Oscar this year, and I think (I actually hope against the other one) that it will get it. I wrote enough on other categories, so I won't replay. But it must be said that it's a rare movie. Rare due to the fact that you don't have many subjects with a real basis, but so out of reality that look like fiction. And even more, with a happy-end. So, it must be appreciated that somebody thought to use the material for the scree. Maybe others will start to look for some stories like that too.

"Beasts of the Southern Wild" is the American way to tell a drama. Not that rough as the European one above, and dressed in a story told by a little girl in a monologue, and taking it a bit further from the real tension. And it's ok, I've always liked that version :) I already said before that I prefer a movie as "escape" and not "drive me back to hell", at least not completely ;).

"Django Unchained" comes apparently as a sequel to an "alternate history", but not that alternate, after "Inglorious Basterds". Or at least that's the rumour, that Tarantino would like to continue the series with something else beside prematurely ending WW2 and freeing a black slave that ends up dealing the law in the middle of the cotton plantations. I hope that the rumor has a basis and I wait to see what "supporting" role will Christoph Waltz get.

"Les Miserables" is probably the most lame adaptation of the novel that I've seen. Well, I said it. I'm sorry but I can't be objective here. 1. I don't like the genre 2. I said myself to be open to it, but it still was hilarious to see Hugo's novel in singing from one end to the other. The only dramatic part was Russell Crowe trying to find his voice. I could say that from a certain point of view the movie was entertaining in the comic sense. But this sort of misses the scope. For who wants an adaptation that's something different I fully recommend the French version from '95 directed by Claude Lelouch and which got a Golden Globe. That really deserves your time.

"Life of Pi" is the movie that should get the Oscar but I don't think we'll have that surprise. I've finished what I had to say about it in the December entry, and also on the other categories. Probably I would have the chance to find something else if I would see it again. For sure there must be another metaphor hidden somewhere in the tiger's fur which I didn't get yet :) And that makes a clear difference from the rest of the nominees. And it's not because the rest don't have tigers in the cast ;)

"Lincoln" is the other title fighting "Argo" for the Oscar. I don't have anything against Spielberg. My childhood was positively marked from what he made :) But, with all the respect, I totally disregard with "Lincoln" as best movie. It's an ok biopic, but it doesn't have anything special as a movie (Daniel-Day Lewis actually had better roles than here), and it's killed by the amount of cliche. For real = I still can't get out of my head that after the assassination we still get another patriotic speech from the crowd gathered around the corpse. No comment.

"Silver Linings Playbook" is the comedy present here this year. If I look behind though and I see "The Descendants", "A Serious Man", "Juno", "Little Miss Sunshine" and the list could go on ... well, this is decent as light romance, but I don't have to ask myself why it's highly overrated and doesn't belong here - because it just doesn't.

"Zero Dark Thirty" alphabetically ends the list. Maybe if there weren't for the controversies about the practices of CIA this movie would have had better chances. On the other, hand if it would have been politically correct probably wouldn't have been as good as it is, and also not get much success on the public. This doesn't mean that's a masterpiece, but clearly at least for me is above "The Hurt Locker" ( as a movie, for the historic accuracy I'll be reserved :) ).

That's pretty much about this year's Oscars. As in the other years I hope I didn't bore to much :) Next week, back to the regular movie entry ;)

Oscar 2013 - VFX

As in the other years I start with the VFX, not that I have any specific reason, but again it's the only category (up to the present moment) where I've seen all the nominations. Even that after all it doesn't really matter who wins (the Oscar season is just a reason to watch some decent movies), what we have here could be probably split in 1 favorite, 2 average chances nominations, and 2 outsiders. Let's see quickly who is who, until my current cold teleports me to bed (talking about effects ...)

"The Avengers" is as it's probably known a story with a bunch a super-heroes, one piece super-villain (a bit lame the balance of forces to be honest) and many many visual effects if we're at this part ... I repeat myself saying that I'm still not impressed by this genre, but we had a bit of variation though from the classic story (the one with "very bad mentally deranged evil guy"+"good guy with life issues.. & superpowers, that finally beats the issues.. & the bad guy"+"some damsel in more or less distress around"). A variation of something like 3 lines from a synopsis of 5 (to be critic all the way :P). What can I say, overall an entertaining action movie. And as effects is somewhere in the middle of the nominations.

About "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" I wrote already not very long ago, and I don't see any reason to repeat myself. Maybe just the part that we have a lot of the screen time taken by the battles vs. orcs and vs. goblins => a solid quantity of CGI => pretty equal chances with the above nomination here. And let's not forget about Gollum, even if his presence is relatively short. I don't know why, although some of the opinions have sense, the clip below left me a sort of bitter taste. And I'm thinking that it did it also to the make-up team (which by the way - has a nomination also, but about that maybe on another entry).

And we get to the potential expected winner here, namely "Life of Pi". Again, I've written about the movie not very long ago, so I'll summarize now what I don't remember to have said (unless my memory is not shorter than I think ..). More exactly, the tiger as many others from the boat and besides the boat are CGI. Yup, although maybe not very believable (considering how good is the result) the scenes are CGI .. well not 100%. As additional info to the clip below, what I've found out is that they used three tigers when filming, but not in the film context. Probably you wouldn't want to share a boat with a tiger, no matter if you're a young Indian actor wishing for an international breakthrough on the big screen :) ..

I also wrote about "Prometheus" sometime last summer, and not very nicely if I remember well, so I prefer not to remember much. The effects though I remember that were a good part of this movie. The chance makes that not long ago to be able to visit the H.R.Giger museum (the original "Alien" designer) and to realize how well resisted in time the concept art from the first movie, which is heavily used in the la production from last year. Unfortunately though, that's sort of a minus part for the innovative ( it already got an Oscar in '79 :) ) and I don't think that as general complexity the rest has any chance to compete with any of the titles above.

And like that we get to the last entry on the list, last alphabetically, last as effects, last generally speaking, the last: "Snow White and the Huntsman". What's to be said here ... it's probably one of the most boring movies that I've seen last year. I won't ever bother writing about unnecessary lengths, cliche lines, and a messy result for an idea that actually is relatively decent as a classic story adaptation. Not even the effects aren't enough the give some soul to this movie that looks like it bit the apple at the first frame, and the only thing that saved it from time to time, ironically, is the evil queen = the acting of Charlize Theron.

That's it for VFX. Next week, other category..

Oscar 2012 - Nominations

Like I said a couple of days ago, I'm back with the nominations for this year's Oscars. I won't spend time on babbling about the reasons I'm dedicating February for this topic (= next weeks I'll detail some of the categories below, not to many because I don't have the time). I brought arguments last year, so if somebody wants a reason .. search my blog. I could do the same for BAFTA but by chance the Oscars are better placed in the calendar for my agenda. So, despite the fact that I was pretty lame in predictions last year :) I'll go on. The whole point here is another one (again, detailed last year). For the beginning, let's start with the nominations then (IMDb links included):

Best Picture:

• The Artist
• The Descendants
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
• The Help
• Hugo
• Midnight in Paris
• Moneyball
• The Tree of Life
• War Horse

Directing:

• Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris
• Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist
• Terence Malick - The Tree of Life
• Alexander Payne - The Descendants
• Martin Scorsese - Hugo

Actor in a Leading Role:

• Demián Bichir - A Better Life
• George Clooney - The Descendants
• Jean Dujardin - The Artist
• Gary Oldman - Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy
• Brad Pitt - Moneyball

Actress in a Leading Role:

• Glenn Close - Albert Nobbs
• Viola Davis - The Help
• Rooney Mara - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady
• Michelle Williams - My Week With Marilyn

Actor in a Supporting Role:

• Kenneth Branagh - My Week With Marilyn
• Jonah Hill - Moneyball
• Nick Nolte - Warrior
• Christopher Plummer - Beginners
• Max von Sydow - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Actress in a Supporting Role:

• Bérénice Bejo - The Artist
• Jessica Chastain - The Help
• Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids
• Janet McTeer - Albert Nobbs
• Octavia Spencer - The Help

Best Animation:

• Une vie de chat
• Chico & Rita
• Kung Fu Panda 2
• Puss in Boots
• Rango

Original Screenplay:

• The Artist - Michel Hazanavicius
• Bridesmaids - Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo
• Margin Call - J. C. Chandor
• Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen
• A Separation - Asghar Farhadi

Adapted Screenplay:

• The Descendants - Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash
• Hugo - John Logan
• The Ides of March - George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon
• Moneyball - Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, Stan Chervin
• Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy - Bridget O'Connor, Peter Straughan

Best Foreign Language Film:

• Bullhead - Belgium
• Footnote - Israel
• In Darkness - Poland
• Monsieur Lazhar - Canada
• A Separation - Iran

Cinematography:

• The Artist - Guillaume Schiffman
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Jeff Cronenweth
• Hugo - Robert Richardson
• The Tree of Life - Emmanuel Lubezki
• War Horse - Janusz Kaminski

Film Editing:

• The Artist - Anne-Sophie Bion, Michel Hazanavicius
• The Descendants - Kevin Tent
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter
• Hugo - Thelma Schoonmaker
• Moneyball - Christopher Tellefsen

Art Direction (Production Design & Set Decoration):

• The Artist - PD: Laurence Bennett, SD: Robert Gould
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 - PD: Stuart Craig, SD: Stephenie McMillan
• Hugo - PD: Dante Ferretti SD: Francesca Lo Schiavo
• Midnight in Paris - PD: Anne Seibel SD: Hélène Dubreuil
• War Horse - PD: Rick Carter SD: Lee Sandales

Music - Score:

• The Adventures of Tintin - John Williams
• The Artist - Ludovic Bource
• Hugo - Howard Shore
• Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy - Alberto Iglesias
• War Horse - John Williams

Music - Song:

• "Man or Muppet" - The Muppets - Bret McKenzie
• "Real in Rio" - Rio - Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown, Siedah Garrett

Sound Editing:

• Drive - Lon Bender, Victor Ray Ennis
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Ren Klyce
• Hugo - Philip Stockton, Eugene Gearty
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Ethan Van der Ryn, Erik Aadahl
• War Horse - Richard Hymns, Gary Rydstrom

Sound Mixing:

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, Bo Persson
• Hugo - Tom Fleischman, John Midgley
• Moneyball - Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, David Giammarco, Ed Novick
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush, Peter J. Devlin
• War Horse - Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson, Stuart Wilson

Visual Effects:

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 - Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler, John Richardson
• Hugo - Robert Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann, Alex Henning
• Real Steel - Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Danny Gordon Taylor, Swen Gillberg
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes - Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White, Daniel Barrett
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew E. Butler, John Frazier

Costume Design:

• Anonymous - Lisy Christl
• The Artist - Mark Bridges
• Hugo - Sandy Powell
• Jane Eyre - Michael O'Connor
• W.E. - Arianne Phillips

Makeup:

• Albert Nobbs - Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnson, Matthew W. Mungle
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 - Nick Dudman, Amanda Knight, Lisa Tomblin
• The Iron Lady - Mark Coulier, J. Roy Helland

Short Film:

• Pentecost
• Raju
• The Shore
• Time Freak
• Tuba Atlantic

Short Animation:

• Dimanche
• The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
• La Luna
• A Morning Stroll
• Wild Life

Documentary:

• Hell and Back Again
• If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
• Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
• Pina
• Undefeated

Short Documentary:

• The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement
• God Is the Bigger Elvis
• Incident in New Baghdad
• Saving Face
• The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

Ok, that's it for the moment. The first entry for something from above, next next weekend (this means the one from next week) ;)