Only two days left to go until the big night! Time to tackle some more Oscar Categories.
Documentary
Last night I finished watching all of the Best Documentary Feature Nominees. I watched all five within the past week and I found them all fascinating. This year, the documentaries have two distinct themes: art and war.
The first one I saw was Cutie and the Boxer, which highlights the lives of married artists Ushio and Noriko Shinohara. I was expecting a documentary purely about art and was pleasantly surprised to find a deeper, complicated view of marriage and lasting love.
Next up was The Square, a look at the young revolutionaries behind the Egyptian Revolution in 2011. I'll admit that when I'd first read the description of this documentary I didn't have much interest in it, but it was a great film. I hope the filmmakers continue to follow what's going on in Egypt and maybe have a series of documentaries as things progress a la the Paradise Lost documentaries.
Continuing with the "war" theme I next watched Dirty Wars, a film featuring journalist Jeremy Scahill's investigation into the role of JSOC in the War on Terror. This was my least favorite of the documentaries. It's interesting and quite frankly scary to think about the power that JSOC has, but I felt like Jeremy Scahill was the star versus the story being the star. Good documentaries are about the story, not the person telling the story.
My penultimate documentary viewing was 20 Feet From Stardom, a delightful behind-the-scenes glimpse at the music industry's back-up singers since the 50's and 60's through today. I really enjoyed this film and it was a nice change of pace after watching so many bleaker films.
Finally I watched The Act of Killing, which truly married the themes of art and war, with my husband. Both of us sat stunned as we watched the story unfold of "gangsters" (essentially mass murderers) who killed thousands of communists in Indonesia in the mid 1960's. What is so stunning about this film though, is that these "gangsters" are being filmed as they make a movie about how they did the killings; most of them with no remorse at all.
As of right now I'm struggling between whether I think The Act of Killing or 20 Feet From Stardom will win come Sunday night. The Act of Killing is a strong contender and has been sweeping up most of the awards this season, but it has disturbing subject matter and can be difficult to watch. If the Academy ends up swinging towards 12 Years a Slave for Best Picture members may not want to reward another sad, difficult movie. 20 Feet From Stardom would be the answer. It's sparkly, mostly happy, full of singing, and a behind-the-scenes look at show-biz, which the Academy loves. 20 Feet From Stardom also has the best production value of all the Best Documentary Feature Nominees.
Score
Last weekend I finished watching all of the Best Original Score nominees and this is the category that I have the most issues with. I've written before about how great the scores were for 12 Years and Slave and Nebraska and now that I've seen all of the nominees I think they should have been included over others.
The first score I found to be wanting is from Gravity. In fact, I was a little underwhelmed by the whole movie. I didn't see it until it had been out for four months and it didn't quite live up to the hype. Good movie, but not the most fantastic thing ever. For a movie that takes place in a the vastness of space there needs to be a score that can fill part of the void. However, Steven Price's score doesn't do this. It had some high points, which were all featured in the trailer, but beyond that I found it to be rather forgettable. What was more interesting was director Alfonso Cuaron's use of silence in key scenes. (I would trade in Hans Zimmer's 12 Years a Slave score here.)
The other Nominee that I think could have been replaced is Thomas Newman's score for Saving Mr. Banks. The movie was charming (I'm little surprised Emma Thompson wasn't nominated for Best Actress, but I'm not sure who she would have replaced) and so was the score, but not necessarily Oscar worthy. I want more originality out of my Oscar nominated scores and I think Mark Orton's score for Nebraska had more character.
The Nominee that surprised me the most was John Williams' score for The Book Thief. I went into the movie expecting to not be wowed by the score because it seems like some years Williams is nominated because he's "John Williams", not because it's a great score. However, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a nice movie, though the pacing was a bit slow at times, but the score really stood out and kept the movie moving even through the slower parts.
I really like the final two nominees even though they are very different. William Butler (of Arcade Fire) and Owen Pallett's score for Her was fun and quirky. In the past few years the Academy has been rewarding fun, original, inventive scores like A.R. Rahman's score for Slumdog Millionaire and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score for The Social Network. It would be interesting if Butler and Pallett win for Best Original Score and Karen O wins for Best Original Song, not just because they're both nominated for Her, but it would also be a win for the indie rockers.
Finally, I'd be really happy if Alexandre Desplat won for his score for Philomena. I thought the score fit perfectly with the movie and Desplat is incredibly adept at hitting the emotional cues without being showy. He's fast becoming one of my favorite film composers. I listen to his score for Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom in my car all the time and can't wait to see what he's done with Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel in March.
Visual Effects
Best Visual Effects is the Category that tends to include more of the summer tent pole movies and this year is no exception. Iron Man 3, The Lone Ranger, and Star Trek Into Darkness all came out last spring or summer. All three had spectacular effects, but who would have thought last July that The Lone Ranger would be an Oscar Nominee? And it's a double nominee (for Best Makeup and Hairstyling)! The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug also has great effects. They created a fabulous dragon, but there's only one nominee that seems to matter this year. Gravity. Even though I was underwhelmed by the movie as a whole, there's no denying that it's visual effects are dazzling.
Makeup and Hairstyling
As I just wrote, The Lone Ranger was a surprising inclusion on the Oscar Nominee list, though it did have some impressive facial hair. (Not at much as in The Hobbit, though.) However, the Nominee that shocked me the most in this Category was Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa. I'll admit I have not seen this movie and have absolutley no desire to do so. It is very rare that I'll refuse to see an Oscar Nominated movie, but after I was dragged to see the last Jackass movie and had to leave the theatre half way through because I was about to throw up, I swore to never watch another one. I'm rooting for the third nominee, Dallas Buyers Club. It's a great movie and the makeup was done really well. It takes a lot to make Matthew McConaughey look bad and Jared Leto's makeup was fabulous.
Well, that's enough for tonight. I meant to have this up before midnight but that didn't quite work. Also, I was featured in the local paper yesterday in an article about trying to see all of the Oscar Nominees. Check it out here: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2014/02/27/fans-hustle-to-see-top-titles-before-oscars.html
Until tomorrow!
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