It came as a surprise this year when I was alerted to the Oscar announcements. Normally I can feel when Oscar season is approaching because all the big obvious contenders make themselves known and start announcing their February releases all in one go, and it's usually pretty easy to predict the best picture roster. Now I have been very vocal in the past about how irritating it is that the supposed best films of year (X) aren't formally released until early year (X+1), cheating their release dates to make the most commercial use of the Oscar hype. It's at least somewhat gratifying then that most of the best picture choices this year have aired at sensible times throughout the course of 2018. It's less gratifying, however, to see that besides a couple of genuinely notable films, this year's list comprises a selection of rather underwhelming contenders.
Well, shall we get into it? Time for our usual shtick: the Best Picture Rundown.
Best Picture
Black Panther
Hooo, boy. Where do I start? First things first, I suppose: it should be no surprise to see this film surface here considering the Best Popular Film controversy that the Academy tried to pull earlier this year that thankfully got knocked in the head, as well as the way that no-one could seem to stop talking about it during last year's ceremony, despite it being completely irrelevant to the show. It seems the Academy were hell-bent on shoehorning this film somewhere into the rankings, and if that's the case, little could probably have been done to dissuade them. But I mean really, Black Panther? Best Picture worthy? Seven nominations worthy? Well, no. Of course it's not. What this is is a perfect example of the level of politics that has seeped into the Oscars over the years, no longer about actually trying to award and curate the best that cinema has to offer, but instead for furthering an agenda. Now I want to be crystal clear here, I am not against equality and representation in the film and television industry, or in general for that matter, it is a massive issue of our time and one that needs attention and action, certainly. I also see the value of a superhero film as part of Marvel's official canon that provides representation to an under-represented community such as Black Panther provides to the black community. That, in and of itself, is fine. The problem here is something I have dubbed 'the Ghostbusters effect', where a piece of media becomes completely impervious to any form of criticism purely because it spotlights a minority demographic, and any attempt to criticise the film, regardless of how good it actually is, is immediately dismissed as not liking the film because the critic is racist/sexist/whichever-ist. And let's face it, Black Panther isn't a great film. It might have its moments, maybe, but for me at least it was dull as dishwater. But, because of its 'groundbreaking' representation, it has been showered with praise and accolades and, well, here we are. What I found most insulting is how thinly veiled the insincerity is: it's blindingly obvious that putting the film in the Best Picture category is the Academy's way of saying "Yes, fellow humans, we too care about *checks cue card* the blacks." And while this will probably go down as some momentous occasion in film history, I know there's no way the Academy will actually let Black Panther win, and while everyone will surely praise them for including it anyway, this was not a decision made out of any kind of sincere intent or compassion, this was a move driven purely by attention and money, tapping into the fight for equality as if it's the latest fashion trend rather than a serious ongoing struggle. 5/10, Low Recommendation
BlacKkKlansman
What's even more confusing about the Black Panther nomination is that, yes they're ticking the obligatory black representation box, yet that box was already ticked by a significantly better film, BlacKkKlansman. A funny, smart and very-well made film that, yes, still gets across a message about discrimination, but has so much fun doing it that you can't help but enjoy yourself too. Is it six nominations good? Probably not, I chalk that one up to it being an apparently slow year for the Oscars, but it's certainly worthy of some attention. I don't think it'll win the big one, but then I have been wrong in the past and this one doesn't seem completely out of the question, but I wouldn't consider it a major contender. Still, a very enjoyable film, and with an epilogue that nicely drives home the film's point about the seriousness of the issues, there's a nice balance between entertaining its audience and making them think. 8/10, Medium Recommendation
Bohemian Rhapsody
I've always had a kinda special connection to Queen. Back in my childhood, before I had any interest in music and my MP3 player consisted entirely of Crazy Frog and Bond themes, I still had a liking for Queen's most popular songs, which I was often exposed to by my parents and popular media. While I've never fully explored their discography like I have with other favourite bands (although that is something I plan to rectify in the near future) I've always had that little soft spot for them, and so watching this film was a very enjoyable experience for me (besides the fire evacuation and city-wide power outage that attempted to thwart my viewing, and that's two separate occasions there). I highly doubt it's gonna win best picture, and it's certainly nothing groundbreaking, but what it is is a nicely made music biopic, pretty much exactly what you'd expect but entertaining nonetheless. 8/10, Medium Recommendation
The Favourite
The first of the serious contenders this year (of which there's maybe three?) and it's one that I thoroughly enjoyed. Having seen Dogtooth and The Lobster, and with plans to watch The Killing of a Sacred Deer sometime soon, I've had a bit of a casual interest in Yorgos Lanthimos' directing career over the past few years, and he shows a lot of promise. Of the three films of his I've seen thus far, this is definitely my favourite (wow, these jokes write themselves). The dark, yet somehow light-hearted sense of humour is spot-on, and the drama is brilliantly acted and very compelling. There's also a nice mix of artistic presentation, which adds plenty of character and unique identity to the film whilst never feeling pretentious. I've heard some comments about the distracting use of fisheye lenses, and while I can't say I didn't notice them (studying film for this many years renders me incapable of not noticing these things to be honest), they didn't really annoy me the way other people seem to have been, although I can completely understand why someone would be. This would probably be my front runner to win best picture, but even if it didn't it's definitely gonna be walking away with some awards. 8/10, Medium Recommendation
Green Book
Ah, the first contender that I haven't seen. Only two films this year, which must be some kind of personal record. I'm going to miss my usual rush to see the candidates before the ceremony, but hey, at least I can write some actual valid criticism in this post rather than my usual baseless conjecture. That being said, who wants to read some baseless conjecture? Ok, so from reading the IMDb blurb for Green Book, I'm getting an inverted Driving Miss Daisy kinda vibe with a musical touch. I can't say I'm thrilled by the prospect but hey, it doesn't look that bad. It'll probably be the kinda thing I see if it's convenient, but I can't see myself going out of my way to chase a screening. Will it win? Possibly. We've got the race angle again (that seems to be a bit of a theme this year, eh) and it's got that sort of Oscar-bait-y vibe to it, although nowhere near as overbearing as it normally is. Let's say, it wouldn't surprise me if it won, but it's not where I'd put my money.
Roma
If the Black Panther comments above weren't controversial enough, I'm afraid I'm about to dig the hole further: I don't love Roma. Pitchforks away, please. I do like Roma but I don't think it's quite the masterpiece everyone else sees. The cinematography is absolutely beautiful and by far the film's best feature, as well as some fantastic performances from the cast which are allowed to fully play out in the film's many long takes. It reminded me very much of the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, in terms of its slow pace, poetic tone, and focus on visuals. The problem for me is while the plot and structure of Tarkovsky's films are normally quite clearly defined (despite how complex they get), Roma's story is a bit too loose for me to get fully invested. A mother goes through a breakup whilst trying to hide it from her kids and the family maid tries to deal with her pregnancy, but really that's about the limit of the story: these events occasionally come up but for the most part it just seems like episodes in the life of a Mexican family (probably due to being inspired by director Cuarón's own childhood), and while none of this is really bad, a bit more of a structure and sense of progression would have helped tie the whole thing together and make it a cohesive story. It seems that Roma is geared up to be one of the Academy's favourites for the year, and I expect it to be competing with The Favourite and our next film for Best Picture. While I did prefer The Favourite, I wouldn't have any qualms with Roma winning and I can see this film being talked about for many years to come. 7/10, High Recommendation
A Star Is Born
Hmmm. Now here's a perplexing case: here we have a film where seemingly the only thing noteworthy about it is the fact that it is considered noteworthy in the first place. Keep digging that hole, Nick. I don't think we're at the Earth's core yet. You can tell this was the
EDIT: Wow, turns out A Star Is Born is even older than I originally thought
Vice
The only other film on this list that I haven't seen yet, although several of my friends have, and the response seems to be mixed. The most apt comparison I've heard so far is to The Big Short, which makes sense since its the same writer/director Adam McKay and it's similar in it being a dramatisation of events from recent American history, focusing on politics this time instead of economics. Unfortunately, I saw The Big Short recently and found it very difficult to stay engaged with the film. My slightly more detailed thoughts can be found here but the gist of it is while I could tell there was passion behind the film, no matter how hard they tried it was difficult to make the economic subject matter really engaging (or to an economics virgin like me, comprehensible) and resulted in a kinda boring mess. From what I've heard, it seems that Vice is a bit better and more coherent, but still not fantastic. I doubt I'll see this one in the cinema, although I might give it a chance on home media someday. There's certainly a little whiff of Oscar-bait to this one, and while I expect will take home a few awards, I don't think Best Picture will be one of them.
So to conclude, here's my ranking of the most likely Best Picture contenders;
Best Actor
Can we talk about Bradley Cooper quickly? Specifically in A Star is Born. Did anyone else find him just completely and utterly unlikeable? Yes, I get that the point of the film is he's an abusive drunkard and whatnot, but I literally felt no sympathy or compassion for him really at any point. He was either being creepy or an arsehole or both, and then when we reach the end of the film (those who've watched it will know what bit I mean) and we're supposed to feel bad for him? I didn't feel a goddamn thing. Of course, some portion of that will be the writing but there are two possibilities here: either he was supposed to be that unlikeable in which case the writing is to blame and the acting is pretty decent, or Cooper's performance has serious issues, which I think is the more likely. Meanwhile, my pick for the winner is probably Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury. In relation to what I said a few years back about the Best Actor award, Mercury is a daunting role to play, with both an iconic voice and physicality that need to be done just right, but Malek nails both of them. A career-defining performance to be sure.
Best Actress
Yalitza Aparicio's performance as Cleo in Roma was one of the film's strongest aspects, and it's hard to believe this is her acting debut. Despite this, I think the award is more likely to go to Olivia Colman for her performance of Queen Anne in The Favourite, and to be fair, I think it's high time Colman got some Oscar attention. With the sheer number of films and TV shows she's featured in, and the range of roles she's played across them, I think she's one of the most underrated British actors of the moment, and it would be awesome to see her get some international recognition. Besides, her performance in The Favourite was probably one of her career bests, both emotional and comedic, delightfully neurotic and working very well off of her co-stars.
Best Supporting Actress
Speaking of which, it's interesting how life imitates art: first Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz play characters in a film who are directly competing to be the Queen's favourite, and now the actresses are, in real life, competing to be the Academy's favourite for the Best Supporting Actress award. It's also interesting to note, as a friend pointed out to me, that Emma Stone has been nominated as a supporting actress even though she is the clear protagonist of the film. Maybe it's for this reason, I'm not really sure, but I think I'd give it to Rachel Weisz. Again, I can't really say why, maybe being the antagonist captures my interest more, and there was something quite interesting about the infuriation her character goes through as she has everything stripped from her through absolutely no fault of her own and no matter how hard she tries can't convince anyone of Abigail's ulterior motives. Either are deserving winners to be honest, but considering the comparison of the Academy to Queen Anne, I'm very intrigued to see which one they'll pick (or maybe they'll choose someone else entirely, that's also possible...)
Best Animated Feature
For once we've actually had a pretty decently balanced turn out for Best Animated feature this year, with the exception of Ralph Sucks Off Disney's Media Conglomeration which also had one of the cringiest trailers I've seen in a while (oh and there's Mirai which I haven't been able to see yet but I'm sure is good). I never really realised how good a year 2018 was for animation. While Incredibles 2 was great, I think Pixar can afford to take a break from its annual monopoly of this award. Besides, those who read my top 5 will know that Isle of Dogs was my favourite film of the year and so naturally it's my choice for Best Animated. However, I have got to give credit where it's due to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. A complete breath of fresh air after the slog of dull repetitive superhero flicks, Spider-Verse injected so much energy and creativity into the format, with it's deliciously self-aware, tongue-in-cheek sense of humour, like something halfway between Deadpool and The Lego Movie. And since this is the animation category, let's talk about the animation: it takes the concept of 'comic book style' to a whole new level, with everything from panel layouts and exaggerated proportions down to a pop-art styling and what I can only describe as a split line effect for out of focus areas. Additionally, the film's so goddamn colourful, it's just all round a great demonstration of what can be done with animation and I'm glad to see it getting (at least a bit of) Oscar attention. I'm afraid Isle of Dogs still wins out for my favourite, but Spider-Verse is definitely a worthy winner too.
Best Cinematography
Roma wins, hands down. By far the best part of that film was it's beautiful monochrome images and some really great composition, with often quite minimal movement (reminds me of the kind of thing 18-year-old-me would have wanted to shoot if he knew what he was doing) I can't comment on Cold War or Never Look Away, but A Star Is Born's cinematography is, as previously mentioned, unimpressive and The Favourite's, while great is nowhere near the calibre of Roma's. This is a surefire win.
Best Sound Editing/Mixing
I've expressed before my perplexion on how these two are somehow two separate Oscar categories, especially when other departments like cinematography or editing aren't split in a similar fashion and especially especially when the list of nominees are nearly the same in each. But this year, like a catheter bag stuck in a refurbished lift, the piss is being taken to all-new levels. The lists for both categories are the same, except for one entry. While A Quiet Place has a nomination for sound editing, it loses its nomination for sound mixing to A Star Is Born. So, let me get this straight: A Quiet Place has Oscar-worthy sound editing but not mixing, and A Star Is Born has Oscar-worthy sound mixing but not editing. Do you see how fucking bonkers this is? In terms of winners, since A Quiet Place was a film about the danger of sound, where every noise spells potential death for the characters, I'd go for that. And mixing? I don't know, how about First Man?
Best Costume Design
"Nick, what are you doing? You've already pissed off the entire population of the planet by talking shit about Black Panther, why are you continuing the crusade?"
Well, arguably this isn't quite the right place to talk about it, but I wanted to take a moment to discuss Black Panther's suit. Not the design of it, that was basically fine, I'm talking from a writing side. So let me get this straight: this suit absorbs all kinetic energy directed at it, without passing any of it on to the wearer, but also somehow storing it as potential energy that can then be released. Putting aside the scientific acrobatics needed for that to make any goddamn sense (it's sci-fi/fantasy and its a superhero film, I can let that bit slide), this might be the most OP fucking gadget in the history of fiction. The wearer of the suit is literally invincible: ANY kinetic energy imparted on it is absorbed, that means literally nothing can even move the suit, let alone penetrate it. You could launch a nuclear warhead directly at it and nothing would happen. Hell, heat is a form of kinetic energy so Black Panther could stand on the surface of the sun and be a-ok. So if our protagonist is completely invulnerable, how can we possibly feel any sense of tension for him during his action scenes? Thugs are shooting at him: oh well, even if he's hit he just soaks that sucker up. What about all the fast-moving cars? Nope, not an issue. People care about Batman because he can be injured, and often is, it makes for tension where we see him overcome peril. Here, there is no peril, so how can we get invested? Which leads me onto the climax. "Well gee, since Black Panther can't be harmed, how are we going to make a perilous climax?" "Don't worry, we'll have him fight someone in an identical fucking suit so that neither of them can be harmed!" Oh and good luck keeping track of who's who during said fight, by-the-by. "But then how's he going to defeat the evil panther?" "Oh, we'll just engineer a needlessly complicated scenario to do with some kind of Vibranium deactivation field and a train(?)" This is the point one would usually start re-writing. And just as a note, even if this is how the suit worked in the comic, that doesn't matter: if it doesn't work in the film you change it, it's an adaptation, that's what adaptation means!
Sorry what? Costume Design? Oh, I don't know give it to The Favourite or something.
Well, that concludes part one of this year's Oscar special. Make sure to come back this time next month for part two. See you then!
