They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don’t They?
The Revenant, The Big Short, Star Wars and Oscar
By J. Don Birnam
December 23, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The Revenant: DiCaprio’s Year, Finally?
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman swept the Oscars last year, so that alone makes it improbable that his picture will make it all the way to the top again. But The Revenant is a movie that is at least as great as Birdman, even if it does not have the Academy-appealing story about the challenges of show business in the modern world.
The Revenant tells the story of a frontiersman who is savagely attacked by a bear and left for dead by one in his party. The story follows up with the grueling quest for revenge that the frontiersman embarks upon as a consequence. Somber, sweeping, and beautiful, The Revenant is a relevant story today despite it being set two centuries ago. Iñárritu explores, however subtly, the roots of modern American problems, including guns, race relations, immigration and racism. As violent as it is visually stunning, The Revenant takes place almost entirely in the icy tundra of the mountainous West, and in conditions that must have been nearly impossible to film in.
Stealing the movie, as you likely know by now, is Leonardo DiCaprio’s physically demanding and entrancing performance. At times, he is alone on screen for minutes without dialogue. The physical transformation he suffers, from the attack by the bear to the death-defying revenge rampage, is captivating, and certainly the type that has wowed Academy voters in the past. They love it when pretty boys uglify themselves, so they say. DiCaprio does it, as he usually does, masterfully, and he really makes you sympathize with the plight of his otherwise violent and even obsessive character. Interspersed with his trajectory are delirious, dreamlike moments that tell of his relationship with a Native American woman, with whom he had a child, and the way his love for her has made him appreciate both the beauty of the native American lands and peoples, but also the savagery of the colonizers. Unless Bryan Cranston’s goodwill in Hollywood propels him over DiCaprio for Best Actor, Leo has a more than even chance of finally winning an Oscar.
Also noteworthy is the stunning and gorgeous cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezski, two years running an Oscar winner for his Gravity and Birdman camerawork. Lubezski’s lens completes the love story to nature that is The Revenant, the return to the roots epopee that the movie conveys, by showing the beauty of the landscape contrasted with the savagery of the humans that have occupied it.
In any other year, the masterful Revenant would have a better than even chance of winning it all - it has the tech and the poignancy to support it - but one wonders whether the Academy will want to reward the same individuals two years in a row.
Oscar hopes: Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor (Hardy), Editing, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Make-Up, Art Direction
Joy: David O. Russell’s Best in Years
Meanwhile, David O. Russell’s quest for Oscar glory continues with the latest Jennifer Lawrence dramedy, Joy, which dramatizes the true story of the woman behind a miracle mop and the family challenges she faced.
By far the best thing about the movie, Lawrence once again demonstrates her versatility and talent as a young actress. A nomination seems almost assured, unless the move of Vikander and Mara from supporting to lead bumps her out. But even if she does not yet deserve a second Best Actress statuette, her performance really is the best part of the otherwise entertaining and interesting movie. She’s powerful and determined but also sensitive; she does not take no for an answer, she does not give up, and she is convinced that something great is in store for her. No challenge is too large.
And while I have never responded well to David O. Russell’s hokey over-direction in films like Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, this movie has to be his best shot in years (but not if you read other Oscar prognosticators’ views, anyway). But the movie is the one that is least distracted by obscenely overwrought costumes or wigs (Hustle), overacting (The Fighter), or essentially ridiculous stories and unbelievable characters (Silver Linings Playbook). This time, Russell is more staid, more steady, and, as a result, infinitely more compelling. You care about Joy because she is a strong woman who is following the quintessential American dream. And you are able to stay in the movie because Russell keeps the fantastical sequences to a minimum, and mostly to working levels, when Joy dreams that her life is a soap opera. Allegorical if somewhat overstated, the soap opera works and is much more real than Russell’s past attempts.
The field is crowded for Best Picture, which will make it difficult for it to get in. But I suspect that the movie will find more favor with the Academy than Oscar prognosticators and critics are giving it credit for. They’ve responded in the past to this type of material and David O. Russell is perfecting the strategy. I do not expect it to obtain many nominations, but I maintain that a Picture nod is still a possibility.
Oscar hopes: Picture, Actress, Original Screenplay
The Hateful Eight: Vintage Tarantino
The last major movie to open this weekend is Tarantino’s eighth movie, the almost-Revenant companion Western, The Hateful Eight. Shot in 70mm and constructed with an overture and intermission, Tarantino’s love poem to movies is, at the very least, admirable for that reason alone.
But the movie works on many other levels as well, even if the typical Tarantino ultra-violent scenes are not my cup of tea. Whereas the Revenant is somber and foggy in its color, Tarantino’s film is much more colorful and vibrant, set against the beautiful Rockies in Telluride. And where The Revenant is serious in tone and mood, The Hateful Eight is, successfully, much more a wink-wink kind of picture. The story is of a bounty hunter escorting a dangerous prisoner (the revelatory Jennifer Jason Leigh) to be hanged, and the difficulties he faces when he is stranded in the middle of a winter storm in a Western outpost.
The first two thirds of the movie are nothing short of brilliant - the script is taut, the directing is exacting, and Jennifer Jason Leigh’s picaresque, demonic acting delivers a powerful punch and counterbalance to the comedic, serious turns of Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell, among others. The narrative is compelling in true Tarantino fashion and keeps you guessing enough, murder-mystery style, until things get…complicated in the third act.
The final chapters of the movie are more of a (bloody) mess in my taste, in a free-for-all denouement that delivers what Tarantino fans have come to expect from the filmmaker, but that, to my taste, feel more like a copout in story-telling. Still, the visuals are memorable if violent, and overall, the movie delivers. Helped along the way by Ennio Morricone’s (the award-winning composer of memorable movies from the beautiful Cinema Paradiso to many westerns like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) testy and suspenseful score, the picture is perhaps one of Tarantino’s best since Kill Bill or Inglourious Basterds. And, given his popularity with the Academy, it is likely that the movie will find space in the crowded field. After all, his last two movies (Basterds and Django Unchained) have found space in the final Best Picture nominees despite their late release. Although it did not score as well with Globes and SAG, neither did those two. Finally, Leigh’s devil-like performance could propel her to a lifetime Academy Award, particularly if Mara and Vikander vacate some space.
Oscar hopes: Picture, Director, Supporting Actress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Score
The Big Short and Chi-Raq: Urgent, Timely Movies
Already in platform release are two movies that should be Oscar contenders - and one of them really is. The Big Short and Chi-Raq could not seem more different in appearances, but both are almost identical if you look closer: both are urgent, timely movies about important issues, and resort to parody and bombast to explore, almost in frustration, the intractability of the problems they address.
Short, based on the Michael Lewis book of the same name, recounts in enthralling detail the origins of the housing bubble and crisis of 2008-2009, which brought the world economy to the brink of collapse. The hubris of the characters involved outwardly evokes Martin Scorsese’s demolishing of the values and attitudes that permitted these excesses, as portrayed in The Wolf of Wall Street. Steve Carell and Christian Bale, meanwhile, deliver memorable, method-acted performances, while the filmmakers employ breaking-the-fourth-wall techniques to bring the audiences into the harder nuances of the economics at play in the movie. As tongue-in-cheek as it is serious, The Big Short reminds us that unabashed greed, aided by unabashed government and public complicity, leads us down dangerous, self-destructive paths, which are, in the end, somewhat still celebrated. With its SAG ensemble nomination to go with its likely Globe comedy win over The Martian and Joy, The Big Short is close to a lock for a Best Picture nomination.
And perhaps I exaggerated the similarities to Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, which does not have the “it all ends well for the perpetrators” feeling to it, even though the narrative itself does convey that idea. The movie, based directly on the Greek comedy Lysistrata, analyzes the complexity of the gun violence problem in Chicago, and unapologetically lays blame at several sources and feet. It resorts to comedy and parody, as it must, because the topic is otherwise too depressing to take on completely deadpan, and because the filmmaker, understandably, views the entire issue as a comedic, unbelievable mess. Essentially a companion piece to Do the Right Thing, which did not find love with AMPAS, I also do not have high hopes that this difficult movie will find a space at the Shrine. For shame, because Lee has done it again: attacked an important, intractable issue, and used his compelling story-telling abilities to capture the audience.
Oscar hopes (The Big Short): Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor (Bale), Editing, Adapted Screenplay
Star Wars: Contender or Pretender?
Finally, the elephant in the room. The Force Awakens obliterated the box office and captured the imagination of an entire new generation of Star Wars fans. If Avatar, Titanic and The Lord of the Rings found Oscar glory, why can’t Star Wars, the argument goes. Indeed, the original movie won a handful of technical Oscars and scored several above-the-line nominations in 1977, including Picture and Director.
As big as fan of the movie as I am, I just do not see the Academy going for it in any significant way (although, if they care about ratings - and they do - they’d do well to nominate it for Best Picture, of course). The biggest problem with the movie, and the main difference with the other movies people try to compare them to, is that Star Wars does not give the sense that it is breaking any new ground. Spoilers: The movie is basically A New Hope, almost to a tee, told all over again. It is told well, it is acted well, and it is refreshing to see a female lead in a sci-fi space soap opera. But the lack of that oomph that Titanic had (the movie that was supposed to be a failure but enthralled a generation) or that Avatar brought to the table (the new and dazzling effects) are what will doom it. It simply does not have, as the saying goes, an “Oscar story.” The gazillions of dollars it will make are its reward, and both the Academy and the people behind the movie are okay with that, even if fans would like to see it take more crowns.
Again, the movie may find a way in if the Academy awakens to the ratings boon it could be, but I would not count on it and, as big a fan as I am, I doubt it is a deserving picture, particularly in a year so crowded with otherwise innovative, important, or new ideas. The Star Wars franchise will be alive and well, as it should be, without the Oscars.
Oscar hopes: Maybe Picture, Sound Effects, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects
Next week: We look to the Producers and Directors Guilds nominations to sharpen the race.