Foreword: One year, these Oscar posts are going to have a consistent format. 2017 is not that year. Apologies if this upsets you for whatever reason.
Updated Viewing
So since my previous post a month ago, I have seen a further two films from the Oscars roster, and I feel the most appropriate thing to do format-wise would be to give each of these a mini-review before diving into the results.
First up, Hacksaw Ridge. Starting off, this felt like a pretty standard, run-of-the-mill war drama (you know: small rural village, young lad wants to fight the war, ripping off the first half of Full Metal Jacket). But once the plot moves to the titular Japanese battleground, things really pick up. Honestly, these are some of the best action scenes I've seen in any war film: on par with, if not better than, the opening of Saving Private Ryan. It's utterly brutal, but this second half is where the film's strengths truly lie, and it even becomes pretty inspirational. Definitely worth a watch, as long as you don't let its slower first half put you off. It can be quite difficult to stomach at times; partially because of the graphic injury detail and partially because of the couple noisily making out and talking throughout most of the first half in the cinema I was at. Seriously, even the most vaguely romantic moment seemed to set them off. Who goes to see a gritty WWII film for a romantic liaison?! Otherwise, I'd strongly recommend a cinematic viewing, provided it's still playing. 8/10, High Recommendation
Secondly, Moonlight. And before I go any further, why is this film such a ball ache to see in the cinema? My regular cinema up here was explicitly advertising it all over their lobby, yet come release day (which apparently was the 17th) and it's nowhere to be seen on their timetable, or any timetable for that matter. I was only able to see this film because the Vue spontaneously decided to show it on Saturday with only about a day or so of warning. Come on, guys. This is one of the highest rated best picture candidates and we're in the height of award season. Why hasn't this seen a proper wide release yet? Instead, the cinemas are currently dominated by other important and wholesome films like, to pick a completely random example, Fifty Shades Darker?
Why are you telling the film-going public that a piece of Hollywood trash that glorifies abusive relationships and misrepresents an already misunderstood sexual community is more worthy of their time and attention than an indie film that explores issues of sexuality and race, addressing and representing two neglected minority groups in traditional cinema simultaneously and providing them with a much-needed voice? What the fuck kind of message are film distributors trying to set?!
But I digress.
Moonlight was certainly an interesting viewing, although I think my experience of it was maligned slightly by the unreasonably high expectations set for me by the 99 metascore and the overwhelming amount of gushing from the Letterboxd community. It follows the story of a black boy as he struggles through the three stages of growing up, dealing with an abusive mother, bullying, and his own sense of identity and sexuality. It's a reasonably quiet and reflective film, surprisingly more lax than I was expecting, but I wonder if that may, in fact, be its weakness. The narrative conflicts never seem to completely justify the entire film: it feels like an array of B-stories, and I was left waiting for a great big A-story that would provide the biggest conflict for our protagonist to overcome, but there doesn't really seem to be one. Now, that may have been an artistic decision, and fair enough if it was, but it does mean this film isn't quite as engaging or satisfying as I feel it could be. For this, I am going to give it a slightly lower score, but I feel this film's very existence seems to be its own reward (something I'll explain in a little more detail later), so I still highly value it as the milestone in cinematic representation that it is. 7/10, High Recommendation
And now, the Oscars.
Best Animated Feature
So Zootopia did win, as I expected. I still haven't managed to see Kubo and the Two Strings so I can't really comment properly on it, but despite how much I liked Zootopia, it would be cool if Kubo got it: just for the sake of saving the dying art that is stop-motion animation, as well as for not giving it to the Disney-affiliated property all the time. I'm kinda getting tired of how predictable this category ends up being.
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
I just wanted to note that Suicide Squad is now officially an Oscar-winning film. Suicide Squad has won an Oscar. "The award-winning Suicide Squad". A sentence about as absurd as "The moon is covered in jam" or "Donald Trump is the President of the United States"
Best Costume Design
Despite the cavalcade of awards going to La La Land, I do feel like this was one it also should have received. Mia's varying array of coloured dresses throughout the film were a central part of the film's aesthetic, and one of the most memorable visual elements. Fantastic Beasts on the other hand, seemed pretty standard for a period piece. At least the Harry Potter franchise finally has an Oscar. I guess.
La La Land
Speaking of La La Land, I think it might be easier with this format to just talk about all of its Oscars in one go. I was proud to see Damien Chazelle win for directing and Emma Stone for actressing. I'm also glad for the cinematography win, although I did really enjoy Moonlight's as well. In terms of music, this seemed like a no-brainer, and I did really enjoy La La Land's musical numbers (my fave is 'Another Day of Sun'), and despite it depriving Lin-Manuel Miranda of being the youngest person to complete the EGOT, I am still happy to see it win. One thing, production design. As cool as La La Land's production design was, I'm not sure if it was the best one of the nominees. I actually may have gone with Passengers in all honesty.
So maybe La La Land didn't quite sweep the technicals, but it cleaned up pretty well, even if it did miss the top spot...
...Best Picture
Well, what can I say? I don't think anyone can deny it was close this year, after what will probably go down in history as one of the most memorable and talked-about Oscar gaffes. For those who haven't heard, this is the shocking moment when after La La Land was declared Best Picture, the producer's acceptance speech had to be cut short to reveal that someone had screwed up, and Moonlight was the real Best Picture. Firstly, as memorable as this moment was, I can't even fathom how embarrassing this must have been for the hosts, and while they were great sports about it, it must have been a downer for the La La Land team (not that they hadn't had lots of other successes that night), I mean, how often does someone get an award as prestigious as an Oscar only to have it all be a big misunderstanding and having to hand it over to someone else. All I can think is thank god it didn't happen to an individual, especially for an acting award.
But hey, when I said it was going to be close between La La Land and Moonlight, I wasn't wrong, was I? And this did result in one of my favourite Oscar tweets, from M. Night Shyamalan claiming to have written the twist ending of the Academy Awards. But put all that aside and let's look at Moonlight as the Best Picture winner. Personally, whilst I liked La La Land a lot more, I think Moonlight is the more deserving winner, if not only for it being a milestone in cinematic representation of minority groups, something that I imagine this film will be long remembered for as the start of what will hopefully be a long line of films concerning lesser represented groups. See, despite what I was saying earlier about the narrative and engagement of Moonlight, I don't think those kind of criticisms are even particularly relevant when discussing whether this film deserves a Best Picture nod. And I'm not saying this film, nor any other, is excluded from criticism, but that to focus on the storytelling aspects and other critical elements in this case would be to miss the main point of why this film deserves Best Picture. Because it represents a step forward for equality: the most revered film institute possibly in the world has honoured Moonlight, an indie feature about representation of minority groups, with one of their highest awards, instead of, say, La La Land, a film with a mostly white cast that reminisces about the golden age of Hollywood. It's about looking to the future of a more diverse cinematic landscape, rather than focusing on the traditional white-washed western cinema of the past.
Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it.
Either way, that wraps up another year of Oscars. As a challenge, I'm going to try and do one post per month this year, so hopefully I shall return at the end of March with a good ol' discussion of a rather misunderstood, yet vital concept to the viewing of cinema. See you then.
