It's Crunch Time

Less than a week until the big night now!! I'm so excited. Over the last week and a half I've seen 10 movies up for Oscars this year. Yes, that's right. It's crunch time. The Olympics have ended and now I can focus all of my extra time on the Oscars. This week I'm going to try and focus on a few categories each day and pick my final predictions Sunday afternoon.

First though, I've been remiss at writing about the BAFTAs. They happened a little over a week ago, but things have been busy this past week, plus I was watching a lot of movies. However, I had a few thoughts to share.

1. I always love how adorably British the BAFTAs are. They give out awards for the Outstanding British Film, Outstanding Contribution to British Film, and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. I love that all of these awards are "outstanding" versus the "best". Stephen Fry has been hosting for years and he is outstandingly British in his presentation. It's always hilarious to see the American stars not sure how to react to the British humor. I just want to tell them to loosen up and laugh a little more.

2. The theme of the night seemed to be missing winners having their speeches read by their movie's directors. Youtube the acceptance speeches given by Alfonso Cuaron on behalf of Gravity's Best Cinematography winner, Emmanuel Lubezki, and David O. Russel on behalf of American Hustle's Best Supporting Actress winner Jennifer Lawrence. Both are funny and charming.

3. Lupita Nyong'o  needs to learn how to have a more gracious losing face. She was nominated for two awards, Best Supporting Actress, which clearly she lost to Lawrence, and the EE Rising Star Award. That award is given to an actor or actress who's up and coming in the business and is voted on by the British public through texting, phone calls, and online. Nyong'o looked pretty pissed when she lost the first award to Lawrence, but when she lost the EE Rising Star Award as well, she looked really upset and annoyed. She even leaned over to her companion and muttered something while the kid who did win, Will Poulter (Son of Rambow, We're the Millers) walked up to the stage. Poulter was genuinely surprised and excited that he won and gave a slightly flustered and sweet speech. Nyong'o has won a lot of awards this season and deservedly so, her performance in 12 Years a Slave is heartbreaking, but she's not going to win them all. Her reaction made me start to root against her a little for the Oscars.

4. Cate Blanchett gives great speeches. She, of course, won for her performance in Blue Jasmine, but I think her best performance this Awards Season has been her acceptance. She's been humorous and classy throughout, but this speech made me cry. She accepted the award and gave the speech in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman. This one is worth Youtubing to see an example of a class act.

The Oscar category I want to focus on today is Best Original Song.  This year seems to have produced a lot of "rock stars" as nominees with the exception of one Broadway vet. I've seen all of the nominated movies except for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, however, I did listen to the U2 penned song, "Ordinary Love". I like U2, even if Bono has become synonymous with pretentiousness over the past few years, and the song was a good U2 song, but not quite Oscar worthy. Pharrell Williams is up for his song "Happy" from Despicable Me 2 and it's a delightful song. Pharrell is also on a winning streak right now after his four Grammy wins earlier this month. Honestly, I don't care if he wins or loses the Oscar, as long as he can get the whole Dolby Theatre to clap along because they're happy. The third rock star up for an Oscar this year is Karen O of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs for "The Moon Song" from Her. This was a sweet song and fit in perfectly with the movie. I really love Karen O and think she's fabulous so I would sort love if she won an Oscar. It would be like when Trent Reznor won for Best Original Score for The Social Network in 2010. I'll admit, I yelled with excitement in my living room. Finally, the last nominee for best song is "Let it Go" from Frozen. As I've said before, I think it would be great if Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez won for this song. It's a fun song and has all of the pizzazz of a Broadway hit.

Well, that's enough for tonight. I plan to be back tomorrow with a few more Oscar category thoughts and hopefully a couple more movies seen.

Beating the Winter Doldrums with Three Movies

Sorry it's been a while. The last couple weeks have been crazy personally. Plus, the Olympics have started and I love the Olympics almost as much as I love the Oscars. Despite all of this I did find time to see three movies since my last post; two Oscar contenders and one for fun on a date night with my husband. :)

The first movie up was The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. This was the date night with my husband. I thought is was a fun little movie about a man who daydreams so much that he's a bystander in his own life, until he's inspired by a coworker/love interest to go on an adventure to find a lost negative for the final cover of Life magazine. I've always liked Ben Stiller, who pulled double duty as both director and the title character, Walter Mitty. This was a departure from the straight comedies that Stiller is known for directing (Zoolander--which is one of my all time favorite comedies--and Tropic Thunder--also brilliant). Overall, I feel Stiller balanced the drama and the comedy well, minus one bizarre daydream sequence involving "Benjamin Button" disease. Personally, I think Stiller's humor is great and laughed during the scene, but from a critical standpoint I can understand that it was absurdest and may have lost the general audience's connection to the story. One thing I was not expecting from a Ben Stiller movie was that the cinematography was stunning. Oscar nominated cinematographer, Stuart Dryburgh (The Piano, 1993), does a wonderful job, especially in the scenes in Iceland involving a skateboard. My favorite part of the whole movie, though was the awesome soundtrack featuring Jose Gonzales and Junip (one of my favorite bands). 

I hope that someday there will be an Oscar for best soundtrack. Yes, there are already statues handed out for Best Original Song and Best Original Score, but a a soundtrack can make or break a movie. Even though the songs/music may already exist there's a true talent in being able to put the right song to the right scene. If you've seen Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, you'll never hear Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle with You" without envisioning the ear cutting scene. Or Enya's "Orinoco Flow" has a new meaning when put over a scene in David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. On the less chilling side of things, would the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou? have had the same impact without it's stellar soundtrack? Probably not. Putting together the perfect soundtrack is as much an art form as writing the perfect score. Hopefully, the Academy will eventually see that.

The next movie that I saw was Frozen with a group of friends including someone seeing it for the third time. Frozen is up for two Oscars including Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song. I have to say I had an enjoyable time seeing the movie. Disney does have a way of making movies seem magical while you're watching them--and this movie even has magic. Audience reaction to this film has been astounding, thus my friend seeing it a third time. There are sing-along showings already in theatres. As I said I enjoyed the movie, but I don't quite understand this overzealous reaction to it. It was fun, but not the most amazing movie ever. The story is sweet and having two sisters myself, I like that the sisters' love story is as important as the romantic story. However, I'm a little tired of computer animated movies. I miss traditional animation. At this point it will probably win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature but I'm rooting for HayaoMiyazaki's The Wind Rises in that category even though I haven't seen it yet. As far as the music goes, I think Frozen featured fun songs. Not surprising considering the songs were written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Lopez already has two Tonys for Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon. I'm hoping he wins Best Original Song for "Let it Go" because then he'd have three of the four awards needed for an EGOT (he also has a Grammy for Book of Mormon). 

Finally, I saw Nebraska by myself. Part of the reason I waited so long to write this post is that I needed more time to process this movie. I loved it and I think that one sign of great art is the ability to elicit an emotional response from someone. This movie effected me emotionally on many levels. It's the story of an elderly man, Woody Grant, convinced that he's won a million dollars and his exasperated son, David Grant, who takes Woody on a road trip to claim the "prize". My grandparents are getting older and both have major health issues. Watching Bruce Dern play Woody Grant was like watching my own grandfather minus the drinking problem that Woody has. Both are Korean War vets that don't talk about the horrors they endured. And both are cantankerous, stubborn and determined, yet you can't help but love them. Nebraska was such an emotionally charged movie for me to watch, I'm glad I saw it alone. I wouldn't have known how to explain to a friend in the moment why I was crying throughout. 

Alexander Payne (nominated for Best Director) is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors. Some people have said that he depicts the people of the mid-west in a not very flattering light in Nebraska. However, I would argue that he just shines a light on how people truly are. I've grown up in the mid-west and while I live in a large city I have family that live in small towns and Payne hits it on the nose. Families worry and argue and about money. People hold grudges and gossip about things from 40 plus years ago. Two years ago I felt that Payne's The Descendants was the Best Picture over The Artist and this year I don't know if Nebraska is the top movie but it's a close second to 12 Years a Slave. 

Nebraska is up for six Academy Awards, all deservedly so, however I think it should have been included in two more categories. Just as I felt with 12 Years a Slave, I think Nebraska had an awesome score that should have been recognized. It was not your traditional John Williams style sweeping score featuring more french horn solos than anyone needs, but had more character and uniqueness. I also think that Will Forte should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor for portraying David Grant. He gave a great subtle performance that I think was better than Bradley Cooper's flashier performance in American Hustle.

Alright, I've got to get back to watching Olympics and get ready for the BAFTA Awards tonight. I'll be back with my thoughts on the BAFTAs later this week. Until then...