Oscar Symposium Day Two

Nathaniel R: A note of warning for rabid symposium enthusiasts. This year's symposium is shorter than usual. There's a brief wrap up tomorrow but it was basically a two and half day affair this year due to time constraints and the golden malaise that was well covered in day one.

Where did we leave off, let's see... previously on the Symposium the Academy was deemed a passive and/or reactionary collective. There was handwringing about the terrors of the distribution system and the limited amounts of movies people actually do see. Ed struggled with loving performances in films he hated. Rachel Getting Married proved divisive... no kidding. And Kris felt battered by Harvey Milk's halo. So here we go again.

~ Day Two ~

To give Kris a halo-proof film and to cover all the ground you request Tim, I suspect Milk would have to have been as long as Benjamin Button (The Curious Case of Harvey Milk?) and who needs that? Harvey Milk is such an underappreciated and crucial figure in the history of civil rights and what biopics can't also double as hagiographies? Make a miniseries if you want to cover a whole life. If we must have biopics -- must we? There are so many other genres that would like some face time at the Kodak -- shouldn't they be tightly focused like The Queen and Capote were and now Milk is. And if they're smartly made they can hire a brilliant actor to fill in the blanks of the life before the events focused on and the ones inbetween and the ones you don't have the running time to go into. This is the kind of thing actors should be rewarded for. Not for adequately meeting the demands of a meaty role.

Timothy Brayton: One of the things I noticed looking over the acting nominations is that the two male categories, in my opinion, are substantially stronger than the female categories. In both Actor and Supporting Actor, I love three nominees, and I'm perfectly fine with the other two; in both Actress and Supporting Actress, I actively dislike one of the nominees, two leave me cold, and two are pretty good, but not world-changing. Did anyone else feel the same way? Is this a sign of male screenwriters' perpetual inability to write compelling female characters? Am I just being absurdly picky because my beloved Sally Hawkins was snubbed?

Click for Day Two of the Symposium

Watch the participants dart away from Nathaniel's question about "heat of the moment" errors in judgment (guess he's the only one that makes mistakes!), learn what Iron Man says about stardom, why we're suing Kris, how David Fincher messed with Timothy and Ed's heads, why marketing execs should hang it up post Frost/Nixon, and why AMPAS ignoring public opinion can be a good thing. Plus: more nostalgia for 2007 and unnecessary dreaming about 2009. Return and comment if you'd like to join in...
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Oscar Symposium Lift Off. (But AMPAS Won't Fly)

Nathaniel R: First things first, please welcome this year's Symposium guests (in alpha order just like Oscar do): Timothy Brayton, Antagonie & Ecstasy, Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine, Karina Longworth, Spout, Erik Lundegaard, Eriklundegaard.com and Kris Tapley, In Contention. They were chosen through an elaborate and painstaking ranked balloting system. Only Price Waterhouse employees know who was snubbed for the 4th annual Film Experience event. Pundits suggest that they were invited on the basis of their mad skills with dramaturgy and accents. I'm happy to have these five in my virtual house to discuss the 81st annual Oscars.

But where to begin in a year when the Academy is feeling so passive aggressive? It's almost as if they took a look at the semi daring and pleasingly rangey shortlist of 2007 and thought: 'we simply can't have that again!', beating a hastry retreat back into their bios, Holocausts pictures, and vaguely ambitious epics a good portion of which will be forgotten about in five years time. I'm still unsure, given the ranked balloting system of the Academy, how at least 60% of them managed to get a sufficient number of #1 votes to compete. Who is passionate about them?

The menu was varied but AMPAS would only order the usual. Why's that?

AMC Theaters is hosting a marathon of the Best Picture nominees in several cities the day before the Oscars. I've considered going for the blog fodder but who wants to sit through these five particular films back to back to back to back to back and again for that matter? That's someone's idea of hell surely, or at least one circle of it. There's not even a comedy to break up the 12 hour day. Could you do it? Or would you like to propose a separate marathon. Is there an entire category you could sit through all at once?

Erik Lundegaard: Is the Academy feeling passive-aggressive? Does the Academy feel? All I know is I'm feeling passive and Harvey Weinstein is feeling aggressive. A friend of mine said that 2008 was a bad year for movies but it was really only a bad year for Oscar movies. The blockbusters were great: The Dark Knight, Iron Man, WALL•E, even Hancock which I think is underrated. The Oscars have Milk, which I think should win, and Slumdog Millionaire, which I wouldn't mind winning, but nothing to stir the passions like No Country or Brokeback or The Pianist. At least for me. Anyone else?

As for Nathaniel's question: I could sit through all the foreign language films, since it's probably the only way to see them all. I'm in Seattle, not a bad city for movies, but only Waltz With Bashir has shown up. The Class is scheduled soon. The others? Lotsa luck.

Karina Longworth: I agree that 2008 was not a bad year for movies. I don't think it was even necessarily a bad year for nominated movies...

Click for Day One of the Symposium

Find out how Sean Penn gave Kris a black eye, who loves Rachel Getting Married, why Slumdog didn't set off Ed's bullshit detector, how France pissed Karina off and which Muppet Frank Langella reminds Timothy of. Return and comment if you'd like to join the convo.
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The BAFTA Nominations for 2008 and The Madhouse Act of 1828

Trivia Time! It's been 180 years since an Act of the British Parliament allowed for the building of mental asylums. The first ever built was the 1st Middlesex County Asylum in West London which opened its doors in 1831. The British invented insane asylums! Who knew? And yet it all makes sense...

177 years later, ancestors of those first Middlesex patients voted on the nominations for the British Academy Film Awards (or BAFTA or "The Orange Film Awards" --make up your minds!) honoring the films of 2008. Gemma Arterton ("Strawberry Fields" in the latest Bond film) and Hayley Atwell (The Duchess) made the announcements which were... _ _ _ _ _ _.

(You saw where that was going I hope. Good.)

Years ago I paid no mind to these particular awards and, scanning over this year's nominees, I think I was probably of sound mind back then. Somewhere along the line, I lost my resistance to them -- I think it was when Kate Winslet won a prize and thanked Peter Jackson for discovering her? (It's all Heavenly Creatures fault!) -- and I have lived to curse my interest in them ever since. I grew deeply suspicious of the Orange Film Awards when they changed their schedule to become an Oscar precursor. Must everything be about the Oscars? You don't see the Goyas (Spain) or the Cesars (France) trying to predict American film prizes! Now I'm not suspicious so much as perplexed.

If you want their full list you can click on the link above but let's just talk Picture & Acting

Best Film

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader and Slumdog Millionaire

Outstanding British Film

• Hunger, In Bruges, Mamma Mia!, Man on Wire and Slumdog Millionaire
  

I list these two categories together because I think it's odd and sad that they have a Best Picture prize and then a sort of ugly stepsister category to honor their own artists. ("Odd" wouldn't be the right word if we're talking more specifically about Mamma Mia!'s nomination. What is this, the British People's Choice Awards?)



Shouldn't the main prize "Best Film" be honoring their own films, the way virtually every country's academy does, responding first to their own productions while making room for the occasional import they really loved? The way their system is structured now they're basically telling you that the only film they made this year as good as an American film is Slumdog Millionaire and that's a) not remotely true since Hunger & In Bruges and the egregiously snubbed Happy-Go-Lucky are all pretty damn good pictures b) curiously self-loathing and c) inversely funny since the American Academy has often been accused of having Anglophilia. The grass is always greener I guess.

Side note 1: Despite's Milk's Best Picture nomination, they showed no real enthusiasm. Only four noms (Pic, Screenplay, Lead Actor and Hair/Makeup)

Side note 2: Has any film in history as unpassionately received as Frost/Nixon been so unanimously embraced by so many disparate awards bodies? It's a head scratcher. I haven't met anyone who hates it and a lot of people seem to think it's good and quite entertaining (myself included) but Best Picture every single time? What's more it has achieved this breezy awards champ status without public support -- It's made less than 8 million at this writing which is very low for an eventual Best Picture nominee, even if you're only looking at box office prior to nominations. (The lowest grossing future BP nominee in the past 2o years was Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima with only $2 million in the bank prior to its nomination. But that was an Eastwood picture and the normal rules don't really apply).

I know, I know... only 10 pictures were actually released in 2008 so I guess the chances for Frost/Nixon were like 50/50 [*snort*]

It gets worse.

Leading Actor

• Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
• Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
• Sean Penn, Milk
• Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Leading Actress

• Angelina Jolie, Changeling
• Kristin Scott Thomas, I've Loved You So Long
• Meryl Streep, Doubt
• Kate Winslet, The Reader
• Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

The best that can be said here is that they've put lead categories into a lead race (imagine that!). The worst that can be said is that the presence of Dev Patel definitely casts doubt on standard American perceptions that British actors are super serious about their craft.

We always marvel (rightly, I'd wager) that most of their stars actually train to act, rather than just show up at auditions hoping to be famous. But this is another reminder that acting well and judging artistic efforts are different skills. I wonder if Dame Judi Dench actually thought Dev Patel gave a stronger performance than Michael Fassbender in Hunger? Blargh!


I just don't have time for BAFTA anymore. At least if Patel gets nominated at the Oscars (likely) he'll be demoted to Supporting where they'll often nominate someone on the sole basis of their cuteness or luck at appearing in a popular film -- it's vaguely expected.

Supporting Actor

• Robert Downey Jr. Tropic Thunder
• Brendan Gleeson, In Bruges
• Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
• Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
• Brad Pitt, Burn After Reading

Supporting Actress

• Amy Adams, Doubt
• Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
• Freida Pinto, Slumdog Millionaire
• Tilda Swinton, Burn After Reading
• Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Oh, BAFTA. Art is subjective so I hate to make crass generalizations but anyone who thinks Freida Pinto is a better actress than Viola Davis probably has no business passing out awards in film excellence. Am I wrong? I mean, if you saw Doubt, what's your excuse?

P.S. I love beautiful people. They're wonderful to look at. I actually think we should have more ridiculously beautiful people in the movies and Pinto's pure loveliness is actually sort of jaw dropping. But hear me out. Just add a "Most Desirable" category like they used to do at the MTV Movie Awards. I mean... since that's how you wanna roll. I think Keanu Reeves is one of the most beautiful men ever projected on the silver screen but you don't see me handing him Best Actor prizes.

Beauty is its own reward. Shouldn't it remain so?

P.S. 2 New readers should note that I am not always this crabby. BAFTA nominations merely make me long for padded cells... (it's safer to bang your head against the wall that way). I promise to be less filled with bile next week. Er... that's when the Oscar nominations come out. Uhhhh, I take that back.

P.S. 3 Oscar Predictions updates are coming tonight.
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The For Your Consideration Corner

Glenn here for another round of For Your Consideration ads before Christmas. All images are courtesy of Awards Daily unless otherwise noted.

As I was perusing the FYC Gallery today I was struck by something. Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon seems to be on the path to a Best Picture nomination, doesn't it? Well if that works out for the team behind the film they will have proven that one does not need a good FYC campaign to win a nomination. Oh sure, the movie has a large collection of ads appearing throughout Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, but this collage I made shows that the studio is obviously saving some coin by not hiring a art designer for their work this year.


The only ad in the film's arsenal so far that don't follow this layout is a Variety cover featuring a prominant image of Ron Howard. The phrase "I could do that!" springs to mind. I'm tempted to open up Photoshop and indeed make one myself just to prove it, but alas I can't be bothered. Aww.

I suppose they think they've already cornered the "omgfranklangellaisrichardnixon" type of voters and that there's no need to try and show off the similarities of Langella's portrayal, but poor ol' Michael Sheen getting routinely relegated to a small side box featuring him looking pensive. Why not use some images from the original theatrical production to show off how long these actors have lived with their characters? Or use images from the original Frost/Nixon tapes (now available on DVD) to show off the work that went into replicating them? Although I guess all those boxes gives off the illusion of televisual transference and speaks to the way one views life as opposed to... oh, I dunno. I can't keep up that amount of pretention for too long.

For Your Consideration Ad of the Week

ANGELINA JOLIE AND THE KINGDOM OF THE GOLDEN STATUE
(A Tale of Bloody Violence in One Act):

ANGELINA:
Give me the statue or I'll eat your face off!

UNIMPORTANT CHARACTER ACTOR:
But please... I'm a character actor!

ANGELINA:
I feed off character actors and spit them out. I need that statue and I need it now!

U.C.A.
But, please, I don't have one and I don't have a hope of ever winning one if you big famous celebrities take all the acting spots for performances that don't deserve it. I've got a family to feed too ya know!

ANGELINA:
CCLLLIIIIIIIINNTT!!

*chomp* *chomp*

Angelina devours the lowly character actor in her destructive path for more Oscar glory and carries on her merry way.

{to be continued}

Deep in the Heart of Texas Critics

Perhaps you've noticed that I haven't posted the results of several film critics awards the second they've come in. It's because there are too many. But I finalized info on my Oscar pages this morning. Texas was the latest thorn in my side. I ask the following in all sincerity: Are there really enough film critics working in the State of Texas to justify three separate critics organizations: Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin and Houston each with their own? Should all these laid off film critics you keep hearing about be relocating to the Lone Star State?

What's worse is that these three Texan entities don't have different aesthetics. Oh sure there are disagreements in Best Picture: Dallas (Slumdog), Houston (Benjamin Button), Austin (The Dark Knight). Yet all three of them agree on Heath Ledger as Supporting Actor (The Dark Knight) and Anne Hathaway as Best Actress (Rachel Getting Married). In other categories they have 2/3 agreement. Why not just form one Supersize Texas Association of Critics (STAC) or somesuch? Wouldn't their opinions have slightly more weight that way?

Here in NYC, the publishing capital, we only have 2 film critics organizations that claim a "place" in their title (NYFCC and NYFCO). If in New York, where you can't throw a bagel without hitting a critic, we can only justify 2...

I'm glad New York keeps it simple. Could you imagine? The Bronx Film Critics Association (BFCA -wait that acronym is in use), the Greater Association of Long Island Critics (GALIC), The Upper West Side Film Critics Association (UWSFCA). The Upper West Side Film Critics Association Online (UWSFCAO) Staten Island Critics Circle Organization (SICCO), Washington Heights Hispanic Association of Critics (WHHAC), East Village Association of Critics (EVAC). I mean where does it end? Central Harlem Online Independent Critics Everlasting (CHOICE), Freelancers Union Critics Kircle (FUCK). Exactly!

Madness.

Do you think Houston thinks they can kick Dallas/Ft. Worth's ass? You know Austin thinks itself a total hipster and above the fray. Which it kinda is... but still. It's not like Austin's choices truly rocked the fringes. For that you have to go to Toronto -- Wendy & Lucy as Best Pic. Rachel Getting Married in three categories... Woot!

And while we're filling in the blanks, there's also Phoenix which honored Benjamin Button and Las Vegas which went with Frost/Nixon and not just in Best Picture. All over the place it won. That's its first (and probably last) win for Best Picture. But at least it ain't Frontrunner Millionaire. On a more humorous note, despite the Slumdog SAG ensemble nomination (grrr - a prize for the casting directors ability to find cute children?) the cast is still unknown to many. Over @ MovieWeb for example, they think the great male actor Irffan Khan is actually the pretty if blank female star Freida Pinto and they also think that Frieda Pinto is Frieda Pinto while she is simultaneously Mia Drake. Oops.

In other news... Utah joins Austin in lauding The Dark Knight as Best Picture (with Rachel Getting Married as runner up? Interesting if inconsequential... it's really too bad Rachel has been faring so poorly outside of Anne Hathaway. But history will be kind to it long past the Frost/Nixons). They give director to Pixar's Andrew Stanton for WALL•E. They went totally populist.


updated Oscar pages
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Link•E

Go Fug Yourself this post on Twilight is bound to become a future classic. lol.
Pop Matters Matt looks at the moral ambiguities of The Reader
The Film Experience some updates to the compiling of interesting top ten lists
Aint It Cool has an interview with Michael Sheen of Frost / Nixon
Thompson on Hollywood "Why Australia is a Dud". Good piece on box office/budgets


Planet Fabulon has risen from the dead! Wheeee
The Guardian Nina Foch RIP. How great was she in Executive Suite (1954)? So great
The New Yorker revisiting Revolutionary Road (the novel)
YeinJee's Asian Journal Rain is so shameless. He's now released a bare chested dance rehearsal
The Bad and Ugly on Jim Carrey in the I Love You Phillip Morris trailer
StinkyLulu and his pals take on Supporting Actress 1969. Great choice for winner

And a few for WALL•E...
Scanners I love this "scary parts" post. Don't we all feel empathy for pixels? ...so long as they're in Pixar movie, that is
Movie City Indie How cute! It's WALL•E bento. Although I couldn't find the original source post @ the Bento Factory. [sniffle]
YouTube a request to the Academy to take the animated film seriously
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Now Playing: Nixon Interviewed, Milk Assassinated

Several new films in the marketplace and one week old Best Picture Nominee to be that's significantly expanding (in ascending order of screen count). Links go to trailers

<---Ciao I really meant to write about this rather unusual gay film which is about the hesitant meeting between a grieving man and his late best friend's would be lover. Damn. Perhaps tomorrow I'll buckle down, stop blogging and start churning out reviews proper. Hey, stop snickering out there at your computer.

Let Them Chirp Awhile an indie relationship comedy about 20somethings in NYC

Frost / Nixon Ron Howard hits a middlebrow bulls-eye of a sort. I think the subject matter and source material, a compressed look at David Frost's historic 1970s television interview with disgraced ex-president 'tricky Dick' is straightforward enough that it's hard to mess up. Entertaining if not particularly resonant... I probably wouldn't even include that modifier but for the abundant Oscar nominations it will soon receive, thereby giving it a lasting place in history which is, you know, overdoing it a little a lot. [geez, somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. -ed.]

Black Balloon An Aussie film which Glenn @ Stale Popcorn has been covering a bit about a teenager with a mentally disable brother whose family has relocated. With Toni Collette, Rhys Wakefield and Gemma Ward.

Milk Another one I keep meaning to write about. You know what it's about. Is it in your city yet? If not probably next week when it expands again.


Cadillac Records Beyoncé plays/sings Etta James in this musical set in 1950s Chicago. I hear it's TV movie ish but hopefully the music alone makes a ticket worthwhile. Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright and Gabrielle Union.

Nobel Son A kidnapping comedy/thriller with an all star cast which happens to be the sophomore effort from Bottle Shock director Randall Miller. Starring Alan Rickman, Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman, Shawn Hatosy, and Danny DeVito. But can we talk for a minute about Bryan Greenberg (the kidnapee) ...first he gets to bed Uma Thurman in Prime and now he gets nookie from Eliza Dushku? What did he do to deserve this?

Punisher: War Zone Ray Stevenson takes over for Thomas Jane in the role of the vengeful antihero. Will people care? I mean... more than they did the first time?

How is/was your weekend?
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Oscar Predictions? Not Again!

I've decided that updating Oscar predictions immediately prior to the week of abundant critics awards and Globe mania is foolish. So I'm not going to revise until December 13th. Normally I would do it because when it comes to awards season, I am something of a masochist. I always want it even when it hurts.

• If awards season was an empty pool, I would dive in anyway.
• If awards season was a vampire, I would eschew turtlenecks and garlic and crosses.
• If awards season was a slasher flick, I would follow trails of blood into dark rooms asking "who's there?"
• If awards season was a stack of sugary sweets and I were diabetic, I would...

Well you get the picture. I would venture to guess that most mentally balanced people are interested in the Oscars only when films or performers they love are in play. Not me. I care about the whole even when I don't care a whit about the parts... which is probably going to be the case this year. Almost every film likely to be left standing on nomination morning is a somewhat underwhelming experience (for me) -- hence so many "B"s in my grades.

Benjamin Button -a true technical marvel but (for me) not an emotional bullseye
Slumdog Millionaire -exciting to watch but not (for me) all that interesting
Revolutionary Road -very handsome and well acted but (for me) a little too "easy" Ooh, repressed people in pristine suburbia in the 1950s. You don't say! When it comes to stories about homogenized repression I much prefer these stories told with either abundant layers and subtlety (Mad Men) or great stylization (Far From Heaven) on account of it's been done hundreds of times before. That said, Leo & Kate are smashing (and not just each other's self-esteem)
Frost/Nixon -entertaining and well acted but also lacks a certain heft... is this because I am too young to bring anything to the table that's not there in the movie? I rarely get to say that I'm "too young" anymore so I enjoyed typing that last sentence quite a lot. Mmmm, yes I did.
Doubt -a great(ish) play but definitely not a great movie... too much overkill in the telling: tilted cameras, thunderclaps, you name it... tricks! tricks! tricks! Calm down Mr. Shanley, your actors know what they're doing)

If you've been reading you'll know that I'm rooting for Milk which will make it and also a bunch of movies that probably won't even if I suspect they'll have pockets of devoted fandom within the AMPAS voting body: WALL•E, Rachel Getting Married and The Wrestler. I'm even rooting for The Dark Knight which I don't particularly love but here's the thing: If you hand me two Oscar candidates that are essentially the same ballpark of quality... say, Revolutionary Road and Dark Knight for an semi-random example: I will almost always side with the non-baity genre film to be included in the mix. It's important for the Oscars --and by extension any group involved in awards and recognition -- to not operate on auto-pilot. The award is called "Best Picture" not "Best Dramatic True Story or Period Piece". And if more voters understood that then Rachel Getting Married and WALL•E would be major players this year, now wouldn't they?

In other news: I think I'll collect interesting year in review / online top ten top ten lists again this year. On account of interesting (for me... maybe you, too?)
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