Best Picture

This is the first time in a while that I have actually seen all five films nominated for best picture in a timeframe anywhere close to the Oscars. As such, I feel exceptionally qualified to dish out my opinions on this collection of films like the lunch lady gives out canned peas.

First of all, that I even wanted to see all the films when they came out is noteworthy. It either means that I am getting increasingly gullible and susceptible to marketing, or that the pictures being nominated are actually good. I am hoping for the latter, but not without acknowledging it could be the former.

Second, it hasn't been since Million Dollar Baby that I've been totally repulsed by the actual winner (Thank you, The Departed and Crash). Sadly, that was actually part of a long trend of recognizing films for other reasons than them being the best picture of the year: Return of the King won because it was the last film in a commercially successful trilogy (at least Seabiscuit didn't win), Chicago won because apparently nobody watched Gangs of New York or The Pianist and someone forgot that this was a film award, A Beautiful Mind won because nobody wanted to give Peter Jackson three Oscars in a row, and Gladiator won partly because nobody likes the French or the Chinese.

It is more of the same before that- with the possible exception of American Beauty- with Million Dollar Baby winning because they needed to acknowledge that Clint Eastwood is an amazing director, and they fucked up when they didn't give him one for Mystic River (which they could have if they'd given Peter Jackson one for Fellowship of the Ring).

I belabor the point because the problem needs to be apparent for this to work: The Best Picture is usually not the Best Picture, but rather something else. With that in mind, here are this year's nominees, er winners.

Quite obviously, this year's Award for Best Picture by a Recently or Previously Snubbed Director or Directors goes to: No Country for Old Men. As much as I don't want to admit it, No Country for Old Men was not last year's best picture. It is a technical beauty, and it tells a great story, but how can a movie where you can barely understand one of the primary actors possibly win? Also, for anyone who read the book, the movie is merely an exercise in repetition.¹ To be fair, I can't believe The English Patient won in 1996 instead of Fargo.

Also Received: Best Adapted Screenplay (har har)

Do you know how many movies Daniel Day-Lewis has been in since 1992? You know Daniel Day-Lews, that good actor who's been in all of those movies? Thirty? Forty? The answer, actually, is eight- six of which were nominated for Academy Awards and the other two were nominated for other "lesser awards." By contrast, Phillip Seymour Hoffman (another great actor with three names) was in seven over the last two years and forty-two since 1992. It is no secret that Day-Lewis prefers quality over quantity. He is a serious method actor and he feels he can only give a masterful performance to excellent roles in excellent films (I presume).² Point being, if Daniel Day-Lewis is in a movie, it is probably good. So, the Award for Best Daniel Day-Lewis Movie Since the Last One goes to: There Will Be Blood. Another solid movie, to be sure, but I think that ultimately this movie wants to be more important than it is. By so tediously setting up Daniel Plainview's rise to preeminent oilman, the focus is removed from any larger point Paul Thomans Anderson was trying to make. Actually, I am not even certain he was trying to make one (no, it isn't THAT interesting).

Also Received: Best Blatant Titling to Draw an Audience Who Was Expecting Something Between Shoot 'Em Up and 300.

Over the past year or so, movies like American Pie and Road Trip have grown up into movies like Knocked Up and Superbad, which have actually been legitimately good movies (either that, or my standards are lowering, as above). These movies appeal to a broad range of audiences, and so they are commercially and critically successful. It is probably about time that these movies were recognized, so the Award for the Best Film that Will Make it Seem Like We're Not Just a Bunch of Old Codgers goes to: Juno. I loved this movie, really. But, I also feel like it was a younger, hipper, smarter rehash of Knocked Up and blatantly so.³

Also Received: Best Use of Not Special Effects.

The ultimate purpose of movies is to tell stories. Unfortunately, some times those stories are boring, even if they have an important moral or truth to expose. Some people go the Michael Moore approach, while others take a slightly more tactful and tasteful one. The Award for Best Movie that Seems Like a Documentary or Dramatization of True Events but Actually Isn't goes to: Michael Clayton. Ultimately, what the movie had to say was great, but I would have preferred a documentary so I that I didn't get my hopes up.⁴

Also Received: Best Misappropriation of Great Performances in Supporting Male and Female Roles (Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton, respectively).

I personally don't feel that a movie can really be the Best Picture of the year if it doesn't move the art forward. More precisely, if you think that the Best Picture of the year is one that didn't do anything to make movies better, then you aren't encouraging growth- that seems like bad mojo. If there were Academy Awards for paintings, I am certain this year's winner wouldn't be Baroque. This year's winner would be something fresh, something familiar, but that we hadn't seen before. Something dreamlike. The kind of movie we would want to make. Of the nominees, only one movie really fits the bill. My Award for Best Picture goes to: Atonement. Honestly, I wasn't set on giving any of the films that commendation, but I was stunned by how well-crafted this movie is. The scope of the film careens out of control, but the focus never leaves the proverbial star-crossed lovers. Set against dreamy landscapes (sometimes aided by supremely executed long-takes), even at their most violent, the story takes a lovely shape, and subtly sets up the movie's turn. It also dares to fly against the winds of a traditional love story, while outpacing any that I've seen in recent memory.⁵ It should be noted that I typically find movies about making movies pretentious, and so a movie based on a book about writing the book is way off the pretentious and unnecessarily self-referential charts.

Also Received: Best Use of Accents. Best Unexpected Use of Keira Knightly as an Actress Rather than a Sex Symbol.

Lastly, a few Snubs.

For doing a better job at what Michael Clayton tried to do, American Gangster got supremely snubbed. How can you snub Russell Crowe AND Denzel Washington, two of the most Oscar friendly actors ever, at the same time?!

For a lifetime of snobbish snubbery, The Darjeeling Limited. Wes Anderson still gets no Academy Love, and should have been where the Coen Brothers were.

I really can't see how 3:10 to Yuma didn't get a nod. Mind boggling.

Notes:

1 I am not one of those people that believes movies should be strictly true to their source material. Movies and books are two different things, and No Country for Old Men proves that a straight transition from book to movie is often very boring.

2 I am not saying here that Phillip Seymour Hoffman has low standards, just that Daniel Day-Lewis has really high ones. I also realize there is a bit of contradiction in gauging a film's goodness by how many awards it has been nominated for or won, but I don't think I am being irrational.

3 Sure, it dealt with different issues, but I also feel that if someone blatantly ripped off something so closely after it came out, and in the same Oscar year, it really shouldn't be considered.

4 My hopes were really high when I realized we were going to see some Tranatino-esque non-linear story-telling coupled with two guys losing their minds. Throw in a movie about a fixer, and I was hooked. Hooked!

5 Not that I've seen many.

Three Little Birds

1.

Last year, I taught a student who seemed like a smart kid who had some issues. I feel as though he was over-medicated, under-motivated, and socially awkward. I also feel that, in many ways, he had a wider view of things than other students. All the same, he struggled through my class as he struggled through many other classes, and by the end of the year it was of great concern whether or not he would pass the requisite classes and graduate.

During that second semester, the student came to the idea that he should perhaps enter into the military and one of the other faculty members encouraged him. In some respects, I agreed that the structure and order would be of great benefit to this particular student. On the other hand, and as the aforementioned faculty member said so... delicately.., "if you enlist now, you are getting sand in your boots."

It became an interesting dilemma to me thinking about the situation where this particular student was close to passing my class, but perhaps fell a little short. The ethical question that arose was both fascinating and disturbing: "Do I pass this student, who is marginally undeserving, so that he can go into the army and have a decent chance of getting killed (I am not certain that they give you Ritalin there if you say you need it), or do I fail him, because that is the grade he earned, which is potentially ruinous, but may ultimately save his life."

In the end, I didn't have to make the decision because he came through and brought his grade up to an appropriate and non-borderline level.

As I am walking up from my classroom today, I walk past this brand-new bright-blue, BMW (it rhymes! I am so ecstatic) while simultaneously walking past one of the deans. Sad to say, BMWs aren't uncommon on the campus, and the dean and I are taking about other things, but still standing next to it. A few minutes go by and another faculty member shouts something to the dean, and I don't quite understand what it is. The dean says "OK," then turns to me and then proceeds to tell me that the BMW is the student who barely passed my low-level math class last year. He just finished some sort of milestone in the army, earned his $40,000, and promptly bought a car.

2.

There is a breezeway that separates my building from a set of faculty apartments. I live on the third floor and, luckily, the breezeway is blessed with windows running the full length on both sides. Some of the windows have screens over them, and some do not, just like some of the windows are sometimes opened and sometimes closed.

I was walking through the breezeway to a friend's apartment an afternoon this weekend, and when I arrived, he asked if I got attacked by the bird. Frankly, I didn't know what he was talking about and I said as much. He explained that a bird had flown in through one of the open windows and couldn't get out (bird intelligence appears up for debate).

Later, I make a quick run back to my apartment, and lo and behold, there is a bird sitting there (I believe it to be a mourning dove). As soon as I entered the breezeway, the bird become frightened and started flying around, banging against the glass. I decided that I should try and get it out of there, since it was obviously having trouble, so once it settled down, I tried to slowly move in behind it. It took flight again, and after we had repeated the process several times, it eventually became stuck in-between a window and a screen. After some effort, I eventually settled its wings with my hands, and carried it over to the ledge.

The dove sat there for quite some time, and after I while I feared that it was hurt (either because it had been banging against the windows and been stuck several times, or that I had somehow hurt it). So after my fourth or fifth time checking on it, I moved in close for visual inspection, and it took off, singing as it went.

3.

In case you hadn't heard, my Jayhawks are in the Final Four.