June Oscar Buzz and Predictions - The Genre Categories

     The Genre Categories (as we like to call them here at TheMovieFrog, are different from categories that celebrate a certain aspect of film making (say, directing or editing) in that they are each like their own little Best Picture category for a certain type of film.  Other than Animated Feature, they are also the most baffling categories to predict, with the most convoluted rules about eligibility, and the most complicated nomination processes.  They also (aside from Animated Feature) are sure to contain the most OBSCURE collections of titles to be found among the twenty-four categories that the Academy deems fit to celebrate.  All that being said (and grains of salt hopefully at the ready), this is what the buzz (and in some cases I) have to say on these six.  As always, the buzz appears first, while my thoughts (where applicable) follow thereafter...


Short Subject (Live-Action)
     In all honesty, it's really difficult to say a lot about ANY of the shorts this far out, but for the sake of completion, I will try.  Two films of this variety have caught my attention: Come and Play and Needle.  Both have had some early film festival buzz and could easily be contenders this year IF they qualify to compete.  In June, that's a big if.


Short Subject (Documentary)
     Completion be damned, I got nothin...


Animated Short
     I feel a little more confident in this category, due to the industry influence of Pixar and its parent company Disney.  Both have strong contenders this year, and I think it's a pretty good bet to call them front runners at this point in the game.
     THE lead horse right now has to be Pixar's The Blue Umbrella. It is currently playing in theaters as the lead in to Monsters University and getting as many raves as the feature (if not more).  Playing in conjunction with a major blockbuster will give the film massive exposure and awareness (for a short) and the strategy certainly worked for last year's Animated Short winner Paperman, which played ahead of Wreck-It Ralph in theaters.
     BUT DON'T COUNT OUT...Disney's Get A Horse, which I believe is going to be released with their upcoming feature Frozen.  The short uses archive voice over work from Walt Disney himself using (very) old style animation and Mickey Mouse character design.  It's still being kept somewhat under wraps but is being quietly publicized in much the same way as Paperman was last year.


Foreign Language Film
     Usually, I would have my own list for this category by June, because there would be a couple of star international directors that I would be willing to go out on a limb for.  Unfortunately, most of the usual suspects for such treatment that have films coming out in 2013 are making them in ENGLISH.  I'm talking to YOU Susanne Bier (Serena), Joon-ho Bong (Snowpiercer) & Jean-Pierre Jeunet (The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet).  Pedro Almodovar coming out with a piece of fluff camp comic relief (I'm So Excited) doesn't help matters either.  I think I'll just offer short commentary on the picks that the buzz has come up with instead.
  1. Blue is the Warmest Color - France...Director Abdellatif Kechiche would appear to be as new of a voice for the Academy as for me, but the film won the Palme D'or at Cannes and that is always a good start.
  2. The Past - Iran...The last film that writer/director Asghar Farhadi gave us was the Oscar winning A Separation, and this picture (which also did very well at Cannes) would be a shoo-in for front runner status if only I felt a little more confident that it will even be submitted. Farhadi's home nation (Iran) boycotted the Oscars last year, and there is no telling if that choice will be repeated.  The film is in French and was produced by that nation, but for France to submit The Past, they would have to pass up Blue Is the Warmest Color, so who knows...?
  3. Child's Pose - Romania...This would be Calin Peter Netzer's first notice from the AMPAS but the film won both the Golden Bear and the Fipresi Prize in Berlin so it would seem to have an excellent shot.
  4. Salvo - Italy...This production from Academy rookie directors Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza didn't get QUITE the attention of "Blue" or "Past" at Cannes, but it did win the Critics Week Grand Prize and the France 4 Visionary Award.
  5. Lunchbox - India...Another Cannes Critics Week hit, this film is by director Ritesh Batra who was shortlisted for a Short nomination for his film Cafe Regular Cairo.  Having international star Irrfan Khan cast in the lead should help to build notoriety.

  6. Me, Myself & Mum - France...This is the freshman feature from director Guillaume Gallienne, and it got good notices at Cannes, but it is difficult to imagine France picking it over its more esteemed competitors.
  7. The Missing Picture - Cambodia...I don't know that there has ever been a film that became a nominee in all three feature length genre categories, but this animated documentary from Cambodian film maker Rithy Panh could possibly do it.  The film won the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes and was VERY well reviewed. Considering the director already has more of an international pedigree than most of the names on this list, and things start to seem even more probable.
  8. Gloria - Chile...Director Sebastian Lelio won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury for this film at Berlin and star Paulina Garcia won the Silver Bear for Best Actress.  Can Chile get a second nod in a row?
  9. Like Father Like Son - Japan...This film won the Jury Prize at Cannes and despite international acclaim director Hirokazu Koreeda has yet to have a film nominated at the Oscars.  Might this be his year?
  10. Heli - Mexico...The same overdue factor could help director Amat Escalante secure his first nomination especially considering that he already won Best Director at Cannes.

     But don't count out...Mood Indigo (Belgium), The Hunt (Denmark), Omar (France), Closed Curtain (Germany), & Le Grande Bellazza (Italy)

Best Documentary Feature
     Actually, I think I'm gonna do exactly the same thing with this category.  I feel too ignorant of the width and breadth of the field to do much more...
  1. The Act of Killing...It's hard to argue with the buzz that Joshua Oppenheimer's film currently holds front runner status in this race.  First, it has the sort of unique premise for a documentary that the AMPAS seems to have taken to in recent years (Exit Through the Gift Shop is a good example).  Second, it currently holds a 92 Meta Score.  Third, it won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Berlin.
  2. Stories We Tell...Director Sarah Polley usually makes narrative films and, as you can imagine, this is another highly unusual concept for a documentary that came about almost like a happy accident.  The film currently holds a 93 at Meta Critic and has already won great acclaim NORTH of the border from the Genie Awards, The Toronto Film Critics, The Vancouver Film Critics...
  3. We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks....Never count out director Alex Gibney, especially when he's delving into such timely material.  It's only sporting a 75 Meta Score at the moment, but who knows...?
  4. Blood Brother...Steve Hoover's tale of AIDS in India won both the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, so it must be considered a serious contender as well.
  5. The Missing Picture...and if you read my analysis of Foreign Language Film you know the triple threat hopes that I'm pinning on this one.

  6. Salinger...Oscar often fails to notice biographical documentaries about artists like this one from documentarian Shane Salerno, but with the Weinstein Company backing it, anything is possible.
  7. Room 237...I would love to think that the Documentary branch could make room for Rodney Ascher's in-depth study of the hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, but it doesn't seem like their sort of thing even with good to great reviews (80 on Meta Critic).
  8. 20 Feet From Stardom...Morgan Nelville's doc on the lives of back up singers did well at Sundance and currently holds an 82 on Meta Critic.
  9. Herblock: The Black and the White...I haven't really heard a LOT about this film that screened at Tribeca but it has garnered a bit of buzz.
  10. Running From Crazy...Documentaries on figures in entertainment don't usually fare well with Oscar, which doesn't bode all that well for this biographical film about Mariel Hemingway from Barbara Kopple.  However, last year's for Searching For Sugar Man win proved that exceptions can be made.

   
Animated Feature
  1. Frozen
  2. Monsters University
  3. Turbo
  4. Ernest and Celestine
  5. Epic

  6. Despicable Me 2
  7. Planes
  8. The Missing Picture
  9. Free Birds
  10. The Croods

     After having a couple of great years with the Academy, independent distributor G-Kids got shut out at the Oscars last year facing an unusually strong field of mainstream competitors.  I'm thinking that they make a comeback this year considering the strength of the field of possible acquisitions that lays before them in 2013.  My list may be some wishful thinking (nothing wrong with that in June) but I think that (likely G-Kids competitor Ernest and Celestine aside) the buzz is going WAY too conventional in a year that offers an unusually varied assortment of candidates...

  1. Monsters University...I doubt that this wins.  That being said, the franchise is well respected and it's Pixar.  Oh wait, maybe it could win...
  2. Frozen...Disney is really trying to rebrand itself.  If this year's effort comes anywhere near the quality that they achieved last year then a nomination seems more than likely.
  3. The Missing Picture...If G-Kids is smart they will snatch this Cannes award winner up and go for the big time!!!
  4. Ernest and Celestine...For a Foreign Language 'toon to have this much buzz early on, that's got to mean something.
  5. The Trick or Treaters...Although the Weinstein company has had difficulty trying to "Bully" their way into some genre categories of late, I think you underestimate this possibility at your peril.

  6. The Congress...If I knew this trippy adult tale from director Ari Folman would qualify, it would knock something out of the top five.
  7. Hell and Back...If I knew this would get released in time, this re-imagining of the Orpheus myth from the creators of Robot Chicken featuring Susan Sarandan would knock something out of the top five.
  8. The Wind Rises...Miyazaki makes this film a contender, the subject matter's connection to the Axis powers make it a tough sell.
  9. Turbo...Nobody knows anything yet.
  10. Free Birds...Ditto

     And of course...Despicable Me 2, Dorothy of Oz, Epic & Planes

     Next time out we go above the line and cover the Adapted and Original screenplay categories...

                                                                                Froggy

  Related articles:  What "Cannes" We Tell So Far?, June Oscar Buzz and Predictions - The Aural Techs, The Visual Techs, If It Ain't Wrecked (Wreck-It Ralph review), Side Smashed by Bully (Bully review)

The Buzz-o-meter & the Final Word!

     For those of you who have never read an explanation before of my methods for accessing buzz, here's a brief rundown.  All year long, I do extensive research and read as much of what critics, other bloggers, the general public, and the industry have to say about the year's films in general and said film's chances for year end awards glory in specific.  I give points based on a scale that I adjust a little each time around.  Because buzz fades over time, several times a year I cut each film's tallies in each category in half, making everything that follows worth twice as much as what came before.  This year I found my buzz rankings to transition a little too slowly, so I will probably cut the buzz in half a little more frequently next year.  This article concerns itself with the final buzz rankings, which are not my final predictions, but which certainly informed them.  It also concerns itself with how I did in my predictions, and a few final thoughts on this year's awards season.  Let's get started...

  Best Picture
1. Argo  41% (WINNER)
2. Lincoln 24%
3. Silver Linings Playbook 8%
4. Zero Dark Thirty 6%
5. Les Miserables 5%
6. Beasts of the Southern Wild 4%
7. Life of Pi 4%
8. Amour 4%
9. Django 3%
    And the buzz did not lie for Picture this year.  Even though it became the first film since Driving Miss Daisy to win the top prize without a corresponding Best Director nod (maybe because of it), Argo reigned triumphant.  I'm glad I listened to the buzz... 1/1 I guessed correctly...

  Best Director
1. Stephen Spielberg - Lincoln   54%
2. Ang Lee - Life of Pi   27% (WINNER)
3. David O Russell - Silver Linings Playbook  8%
4. Michael Haneke - Amour 8%
5. Benh Zeitlin - Beasts of the Southern Wild 2%
     Of course, Argo winning Best Picture meant that it was going to be a year with a split between that category and this one and in such a year anything can happen and the buzz can be all wrong on a major category or two.  Such was the case as Ang Lee brought home his second Best Director trophy with no corresponding win for Best Picture (the first was for Brokeback Mountain).  Unfortunately, I was NOT brave enough to split with the buzz myself, guessing Spielberg, and I got this one wrong...1/2 I guessed correctly...

  Best Actor
1. Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln 68% (WINNER)
2. Hugh Jackman - Les Miserables 15%
3. Joachin Phoenix - The Master 8%
4. Bradley Cooper - Silver Linings Playbook 4%
5. Denzel Washington - Flight 4%
     Sometimes the buzz is so decisive that there is just no arguing the obvious, as was the case here...2/3 I guessed correctly...

  Best Actress
1. Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook 47%  (WINNER)
2. Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty  24%
3. Emmanuelle Riva - Amour 21%
4. Quvenzhane Wallis - Beasts of the Southern Wild 5%
5. Naomi Watts - The Impossible 2%
     In this category, I thought that the split support between Lawrence and Chastain might allow Riva to swoop in and nab the trophy, but I was wrong.  I should have paid attention to the fact that Lawrence had been widening her lead, but alas...2/4 I guessed correctly...

  Best Supporting Actor
1. Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln 42%
2. Robert DeNiro - Silver Linings Playbook 26%
3. Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained 17% (WINNER)
4. Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Master 12%
5. Alan Arkin - Argo 3%
     I suppose that Mr. Waltz's win cannot be said to have come from nowhere, considering his pre-cursor victories, but I really thought that Robert DeNiro would be the upset victory here.  Oh, well... 2 out of 5 I guessed correctly.

  Best Supporting Actress
1. Anne Hathaway - Les Miserables 67% (WINNER)
2. Sally Field - Lincoln 22%
3. Amy Adams - The Master 5%
4. Helen Hunt - The Sessions 4%
5. Jackie Weaver - Silver Linings Playbook 1%
     This was maybe the biggest gimme of the night.  Even I (on my worst year in a long time) couldn't get this one wrong... 3 out of 6 I guessed correctly.

  Best Original Screenplay
1. Django Unchained 34% (WINNER)
2. Amour 29%
3. Zero Dark Thirty 27%
4. Moonrise Kingdom 8%
5. Flight 1%
     Yeah, I predicted Amour to upset here, just like in Best Actress and it worked out just the same... 3 out of 7 I guessed correctly.

  Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Lincoln 42%
2. Argo 40% (WINNER)
3. Silver Linings Playbook 11%
4. Life of Pi 4%
5. Beasts of the Southern Wild 2%
     Whew!!!  At least one time that I went against the buzz, it panned out for me.  I correctly guessed that Argo's WGA and Scripter victories indicated enough support to unseat the presumed front runner, not that it held MUCH of a lead anymore... 4 out of 8 I guessed correctly.

  Best Animated Feature
1. Wreck-It Ralph 40%
2. Brave 27% (WINNER)
3. Frankenweenie 24%
4. Paranorman 8%
5. The Pirates! Band of Misfits 1%
     So far, I haven't really taken much umbrage with who won on Oscar night, whether I predicted their victory or not.  That ends here.  I gave the Academy too much credit, figuring that the Pixar brand alone would not enable Brave to defeat the far superior Wreck-It Ralph (to say nothing of the just as excellent Frankenweenie).  Guess I was wrong...4 out of 9 guessed correctly.

  Best Documentary Feature
1. Searching For Sugarman 54% (WINNER)
2. The Gatekeepers 17%
3. How To Survive a Plague 14%
4. The Invisible War 9%
5. 5 Broken Cameras 6%
     Fortunately, I went with Searching For Sugarman's significant lead in buzz here, rather than counting on the surprising history of upsets in this category... 5 out of 10 guessed correctly.

  Best Foreign Language Film
1. Amour - Austria 69% (WINNER)
2. A Royal Affair - Denmark 13%
3. No - Chile 8%
4. War Witch - Canada 5%
5. Kon-Tiki - Norway 5%
     What I said about Documentary Feature, only more so... 6 out of 11 guessed correctly.

  Best Cinematography
1. Life of Pi 47% (WINNER)
2. Skyfall 31%
3. Lincoln 17%
4. Anna Karenina 3%
5. Django Unchained 2%
     Although I feel sorry for Skyfall's Roger Deakins, having so many nominations and still no wins, I'm glad I went with the buzz, giving me...7 out of 12 guessed correctly.

  Best Editing
1. Argo 51% (WINNER)
2. Zero Dark Thirty 29%
3. Lincoln 9%
4. Life of Pi 7%
5. Silver Linings Playbook 5%
     I expected Goldenberg to win this for Argo from the day that I saw the film in the theater... 8 out of 13 guessed correctly.

  Best Production Design
1. Anna Karenina 39%
2. Les Miserables 27%
3. Lincoln 16% (WINNER)
4. Life of Pi 15%
5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 2%
     Even if I hadn't predicted this one for Anna, I probably would have gone for Les Miserables.  Still, I certainly can't begrudge the winner... 8 out of 14 guessed correctly.

  Best Music (Original Score)
1. Life of Pi 53% (WINNER)
2. Lincoln 22%
3. Argo 12%
4. Anna Karenina 8%
5. Skyfall 6%
     I stuck with conventional wisdom pretty much wherever Pi led the buzz and that worked out to my advantage.,, 9 out of 15 guessed correctly,

  Best Music (Original Song)
1. Skyfall - "Skyfall" 67% (WINNER)
2. Les Miserables - "Suddenly" 24%
3. Ted - "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" 5%
4. Life of Pi - "Pi's Lullaby" 3%
5. Chasing Ice - "Before My Time" 1%
     This one was another no-brainer.  I said that if "Skyfall" qualified, it would be the winner way before it even qualified.  I saw no reason to jump ship at the last minute... 10 out of 16 guessed correctly.

  Best Costume Design
1. Anna Karenina 45% (WINNER)
2. Les Miserables 34%
3. Mirror Mirror 9%
4. Lincoln 9%
5. Snow White and the Huntsman 4%
     I was a little worried that the Academy would end up awarding costumer Ishioka posthumously for Mirror Mirror, but thankfully I stuck with Durrant and Anna...11 out of 17 guessed correctly.

  Best Make-Up and Hairstyling
1. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 59%
2. Les Miserables 34% (WINNER)
3. Hitchcock 7%
     It was difficult for me to care about this category when they honored these three films over at least four others that I felt were more deserving (two of which didn't even make the short list), but thankfully I went with the Best Picture nominee rather than the front runner... 12 out of 18 guessed correctly.

  Best Sound Editing
1. Life of Pi 28%
2. Zero Dark Thirty 25% (WINNER - tie)
3. Skyfall 22% (WINNER - tie)
4. Argo 17%
5. Django Unchained 7%
     In a tight three-way race, the Academy had a rare tie decision.  I had predicted Skyfall, figuring it would go home with a trophy for something other than just Song.  I say that ties are so rare that guessing either of the winners counts as right... 13 out of 19 guessed correctly.

  Best Sound Mixing
1. Les Miserables 57% (WINNER)
2. Skyfall 20%
3. Life of Pi 15%
4. Argo 4%
5. Lincoln 4%
     The innovation of live singing in a movie musical was a risky and (in most of the film) highly effective choice that was sure to win the film recognition in this arena... 14 out of 20 guessed correctly.

  Best Visual Effects
1. Life of Pi 66% (WINNER)
2. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 19%
3. Marvel's Avengers 9%
4. Prometheus 4%
5. Snow White and the Huntsman 2%
     As I said, I usually stuck with Pi in the techs for the most part, and this one was the most forgone conclusion of them all... 15 out of 21 guessed correctly.

  Best Animated Short
1. Paperman 50% (WINNER)
2. Adam and Dog 20%
3. Head Over Heels 16%
4. Maggie Simpson in the Longest Daycare 12%
5. Fresh Guacamole 3%
     This was a really strong crop of short films, but Paperman was clearly the most well known and publicized throughout the season as well as being arguably the most innovative animated work this year.  It had been several decades since Disney won this category, but I'm glad I didn't let that deter me from predicting their win this year...16 out of 22 guessed correctly.

  Best Documentary Short
1. Open Heart 45%
2. Inocente 25% (WINNER)
3. Mondays at Racine 19%
4. Kings Pointe 8%
5. Redemption 3%
     Not having seen these, I had to simply watch the buzz.  Although Open Heart still led at crunch time, Inocente had been surging, so I took a chance. Fortunately, it paid off...17 out of 23 guessed correctly.

  Best Live-Action Short
1. Curfew 41% (WINNER)
2. Buzkashi Boys 19%
3. Asad 18%
4. Death of a Shadow 17%
5. Henry 4%
     Unfortunately, I predicted the same sort of upset for Buzkashi Boys in this category, and it did not come to pass... 17 out of 24 guessed correctly.

     And that was it...my final score was seventeen.  It certainly wasn't my best (I think 19 right is my best tally ever, back when The Hurt Locker won for 2009), but it could have been a lot worse. If I had just stuck with the buzz, I would have only scored 16 correct.  You know its been a weird year when I did better in the Shorts than in the major categories.  Here's hoping that 2013 is an awards season that offers us just as many twists, turns, and surprises.  I know I'll see you then...
                                                                                   Froggy

Related articles: Related Articles:  Oscar Winner Predictions & Buzz: Of Snubs and Triumphs (preview), Musical Techs (Score and Song), Noisy Techs (Sound Editing & Sound Mixing), Pretty People Techs (Costume Design & Make-Up and Hairstyling), Pretty Picture Techs (Cinematography & Production Design), Finishing Touch Techs (Editing & Visual Effects), Toons of Any Length (Animated Feature & Animated Short), Docs of Any Length (Documentary Feature & Documentary Short), Screenplays (Adapted & Original), Supporting Players (Supporting Actor & Supporting Actress), Actor and Actress, Foreign Films (also covering Short Live-Action), Picture and Director, Final Predictions,  "Lincoln" Perks, Best That the Summer Wields? (Beasts of the Southern Wild review),  Acting Master Classes in Private "Sessions", Didn't Quite Take "Flight", Can You "Master" Your Nature?, "Impossible"y Well Crafted, Anna Conundruma (Anna Karenina review), I Think You "Argo"ing to Love It!, Fantasy "Life of Pi"?, Promarlius Kingdom (Moonrise Kingdom and Prometheus reviews), If It Ain't "Wrecked" (Wreck-It Ralph and Paperman reviews), Elena's Brave Law (Brave reveiw), To Rome, Sugarweenie! (Frankenweenie and Searching For Sugarman reviews), The Perfect Para-Killer (Paranorman review), Bernie! On a Ledge of Misfits (Pirates! Band of Misfits reveiw), Surviving the Alps is a Rush (How To Survive a Plague review), Henry's Invisible Arbitrage (The Invisible War review), To Royal Effect (A Royal Affair review), 23? You Don't Play Like a Sequel Over 2. (Skyfall review), The Habit: A Much Expected Returning (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey review), Ted Butters Up the Polisse (Ted review),
Being Margaret's Mirror (Mirror Mirror review), The Best Huntsman's Shadow (Snow White and the Huntsman review), Merchandiser's Assemble (Avengers review)

Final 85th Oscar Winner Predictions

     This doesn't really need a preface, does it?  Cross your fingers (or webbed feet, or whatever) and check out my live tweets tonight during the ceremony.

  Best Picture: Argo
         alternate: Silver Linings Playbook
         wild card: Amour
          should have been nominated: The Dark Knight Rises

  Best Director: Steven Spielberg - Lincoln
          alternate: David O Russell - Silver Linings Playbook
          wild card: Michael Haneke - Amour
          should have been nominated:  Christopher Nolan - Dark Knight Returns (sorry, Mr. Affleck, you were great)

  Best Actor: um...Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln
          alternate:  Hugh Jackman - Les Miserables
          wild card:  Bradley Cooper - Silver Linings Playbook
          should have been nominated:  Richard Gere - Arbitrage

  Best Actress: Emmanuelle Riva - Amour
          alternate: Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook
          wild card: Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty
          should have been nominated: Marion Cotillard - Rust and Bone

  Best Supporting Actor: Robert DeNiro - Silver Linings Playbook
          alternate: Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln
          wild card: Phillip Seymour Hoffman - The Master
          should have been nominated: Dwight Henry - Beasts of the Southern Wild

  Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway - Les Miserables
          alternate: Sally Field - Lincoln
          wild card: Jackie Weaver - Silver Linings Playbook
          should have been nominated: Salma Hayek - Savages

  Best Original Screenplay: Amour
          alternate: Django Unchained
          wild card: Zero Dark Thirty
          should have been nominated: Looper

  Best Adapted Screenplay: Argo
          alternate: Lincoln
          wild card: Silver Linings Playbook
          should have been nominated: The Dark Knight Rises

  Best Animated Feature:  Wreck-It Ralph
          alternate: Frankenweenie
          wild card: Brave
          should have been nominated: A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's
        Graham Chapman

  Best Documentary Feature: Searching For Sugarman
           alternate: Gatekeepers
           wild card: 5 Broken Cameras
           should have been nominated: Queen of Versailles

  Best Foreign Language Film: Amour
           alternate: No
           wild card: War Witch
           should have been nominated: Rust and Bone

  Best Cinematography: Life of Pi
          alternate: Skyfall
          wild card: Lincoln
          should have been nominated: Beasts of the Southern Wild

  Best Editing: Argo
          alternate: Zero Dark Thirty
          wild card: Life of Pi
          should have been nominated: Cloud Atlas

  Best Production Design: Anna Karenina
           alternate: Les Miserables
           wild card: Life of Pi
           should have been nominated: Cloud Atlas

  Best Costume Design: Anna Karenina
            alternate: Les Miserables
            wild card: Mirror Mirror
            should have been nominated: A Royal Affair

  Best Make-Up and Hairstyling: Les Miserables
             alternate: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
             wild card: Hitchcock
             should have been nominated: Cloud Atlas

  Best Score: Life of Pi
              alternate: Skyfall
              wild card: Lincoln
              should have been nominated: Beasts of the Southern Wild

  Best Song: Skyfall - "Skyfall"
              alternate: Les Miserables - "Suddenly"
              wild card: Ted - "Everybody Needs a Best Friend"
              should have been nominated: numerous numbers from Lawless & Django Unchained

  Best Sound Editing: Skyfall
               alternate: Life of Pi
               wild card: Argo
               should have been nominated: The Dark Knight Returns

  Best Sound Mixing: Les Miserables
                alternate: Skyfall
                wild card: Argo
                should have been nominated: The Impossible

  Best Visual Effects: Life of Pi
                 alternate: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
                 wild card: Marvel's Avengers

  Short Film Animated: Paperman
                 alternate: Head Over Heels
                 wild card: Adam and Dog
         
  Short Film Live-Action: Buzkashi Boys
                  alternate: Curfew
                  wild card: Death of a Shadow
 
  Short Film Documentary: Innocente
                  alternate: Open Heart
                  wild card: Mondays at Racine
          

Oscar Winners Predictions & Buzz - Foreign Films

     I tried to wait until I could see the Live-Action Shorts before I did this next post, but I'm not sure that I'm going to have the opportunity (and time is running out before the Oscars).  So (as always) the buzz rankings come first with previous rankings listed in parenthesis.  My relative shots in the dark follow on the second lists...

Live-Action Short
  1.(1) Curfew - Shawn Christensen
  2.(4) Asad - Bryan Buckley & Mino Jarjoura
  3.(8) Buzkashi Boys - Sam French & Ariel Nasr
  4.(2) Death of a Shadow - Tom Van Avermaet & Ellen De Waele
  5.(6) Henry - Yan England
  Leaving the Rankings: When You Find Me, 9 Meter, The Night Shift Belongs To The Stars, Salar, Kiluna-Kigali
     None of the nominees this year have any previous nominations, so no one gets through because they are viewed as overdue, which makes this a real crap shoot.  Still, I'm gonna say...
  1. Buzkashi Boys...Curfew still leads in buzz by a fair margin, but I sense a change in the air and this film has had the most dramatic rise in buzz in the final minutes of the game.
  2. Asad...Same as above only slightly less exponential increase in buzz.
  3. Curfew...Which isn't to say that the film that has held front runner status since the short list was announced doesn't still have a great shot.
  4. Death of a Shadow...This film's steady decline in buzz would have landed it at number five on my list if not for the appearance of international star Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust and Bone, Bullhead) in its cast.
  5. Henry...Absolutely no one seems to think that this picture is going to win, and its mild surprise of a nomination doesn't seem to have changed that one little bit.


Foreign Language Film
  1.(1) Austria - Amour
  2.(3) Denmark - A Royal Affair
  3.(4) Chile - No
  4.(7) Canada - War Witch
  5.(8) Norway - Kon-Tiki
  Leaving the Rankings:  France - The Intouchables, Romania - Beyond the Hills, Iceland - The Deep
     The more obscure (to American audiences) that the films are in a category, the more difficult it usually is to predict  a winner, and thus the Foreign Film field is often rife with upset potential.  However,  when there is a clear cut high profile front runner without any real competition...
  1. Amour...It is very difficult to imagine that Amour will not win Best Foreign Language film.  First, it is the only contender from a film maker who directed a previous nominee.  Second, it was by far the most acclaimed international player on the 2012 film festival circuit.  Most importantly, however, it has four nominations outside of this category, demonstrating widespread Academy support of the sort that non-English language films rarely enjoy.  In fact, in the last forty years of Oscar history, only 4 non-English language films have garnered Best Picture nominations.  Of those, two films made it through the often capricious Foreign Language Film selection process to a nomination (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon & Life Is Beautiful) also won the category.
  2. War Witch...IF something WERE to upset in this category, it would most likely be something that came out of nowhere, rather than a film that people have been weighing against Amour all year long.  This film, premiering near the end of the major festivals, fits that bill.  In addition, this is Canada's third nomination in a row, with no wins...ever.  This could lead to some sentiment that the nation's film industry is overdue for some love.
  3. No...IF something that has long been considered an "other contender" for this category upset, I think it most likely that it would be No.  The film has been divisive, but those who love it, LOVE IT.  The fact that it earned a nomination over much more generally digestible films, such as France's The Intouchables indicate that enough people fell on the "LOVE IT" side to seriously the race.
  4. Kon-Tiki...We're really getting into the ludicrously small probabilities here.  This film is nearly as much of a tertiary contender now as it was before the nominations.
  5. A Royal Affair...A very good film that inspires more "like" than "love".  It has been thought of for over six months now as one of the films that would probably get the chance to lose to Amour.  Sometimes early buzz is right on.

Related Articles:  Oscar Winner Predictions & Buzz: Of Snubs and Triumphs (preview), Musical Techs (Score and Song), Noisy Techs (Sound Editing & Sound Mixing), Pretty People Techs (Costume Design & Make-Up and Hairstyling), Pretty Picture Techs (Cinematography & Production Design), Finishing Touch Techs (Editing & Visual Effects), Toons of Any Length (Animated Feature & Animated Short), Docs of Any Length (Documentary Feature & Documentary Short), Screenplays (Adapted & Original), Supporting Players (Supporting Actor & Supporting Actress), Actor and Actress, Rent and Honed (Rust and Bone review), Above All, Like a Bullheaded Man (Bullhead review), To Royal Effect (A Royal Affair review)

To Rome, Sugarweenie!

     In today's post we cover a charming if flawed little comedy from an aging master and my current picks to win two Academy Awards:  Animated Feature and Documentary Feature.  It's gonna get a little saccharine in here before the post is through, but we'll ease you in with something semi-sweet...

  To Rome With Love - Well, I wasn't really expecting Woody Allen to pull off something as successful as Midnight in Paris two years in a row, and in all honesty, he didn't.  This is less one feature film than a collection of short films interwoven together with careful editing, but bearing no relation to each other except that they all occur in the city of Rome, Italy  and that themes of fame and infidelity run throughout.  I'm not sure that Woody was even trying to say anything to profound on the subjects.  The picture is really a light comedy.  I'm just going to review each vignette briefly, and then we'll average all the scores together.
      I guess we should start with the narrator character, although he's almost not worth mentioning. He was completely unneeded, added nothing to the film, and was actually quite annoying.  1 1/2 of 5 stars...
     One vignette involved a young Italian couple who come to the big city, both have little "adventures" without each other, then come back together and decide to move back to the small village they came from.  Penelope Cruz is able to elevate the quality of these segments a bit as a prostitute, but this story is a silly sex farce at best that presents an unusually realistic, if questionably optimistic, take on adultery.  Fortunately, this was my least favorite of the four story lines.  3 of 5 stars...
     Next up is a story line in which Alec Baldwin plays a man reliving his experiences from many years ago with Jesse Eisenberg playing the younger version of himself.  Baldwin seems a little stiff here, a little awkward, as does the plot device of his constant presence. Conversely, Eisenberg is excellent as the younger version of
Baldwin/surrogate Woody.  He doesn't try to imitate the director's standard delivery (as many others have done) but somehow gets the feel of it better than any other younger actor I have seen.  I would love to see him play lead in an Allen film.  3 1/2 of 5 stars.
    Of course, no one can do Woody as well as Woody, and his presence onscreen made the scenes that he was in a delight even if the premise of his story line was stolen from an old episode of The Flintstones.  Judy Davis is great as his wife and Mr. Allen saved all his best lines for their interactions.  "I can't unclench when flying.  I'm an atheist."  "That's right.  You have the only brain with 3 ids."  3 1/2 of 5 stars.
     My favorite vignette was the rumination on fame starring Roberto Benini.  Life is Beautiful is one of my all time favorite films, and I felt that this was the first time that I have seen some of the magic of his performance in that film recaptured.  Oh, and I agree Mr. Allen...The Tree of Life was much better than the King's Speech.  4 1/2 of 5 stars.
     Let's just say that this averages out to about...3 1/2 of 5 stars.

  Frankenweenie - In the short history of The Movie Frog I have poked gentle fun at Disney, it is true.  This year, however, they seem to have decided to take back the world of animation in a HUGE way, with three of the very best animated films of 2012:  Wreck-It Ralph, Paperman, and now Frankenweenie.  Of course, Frankenweenie is really a TIM BURTON picture that Disney produced, his stamp and style are all over the thing.  Still, one has to give the company credit for realizing what a mistake they made letting the director get away the first time.
     As for Burton, this is the best thing he's done since Sweeney Todd without question and is something of a return to form, although it remains to be seen if this will translate to a live action film or not.  I credit much of his success here to the fact that he finally made a movie based on his own original ideas, something he hasn't done since Corpse Bride (2005) and Big Fish (2003).  This constant "Burtonizing" of adapted concepts produces very uneven results.  Occasionally you get Sweeney, Batman, or Pee-Wee.  More often, you get Apes, Alice or Shadows.
     There are so many really nice touches in this film.  The constant homages to the classic Frankenstein films (and other classic horror movies) belie the film maker's great love for these early pictures and the genre.  They likely flew over the heads of most children (who ARE the film's primary target audience), but were much appreciated by this viewer.
     The picture is FUNNY, too.  The bit with the precognitive cat is great.  The first time Sparky drinks after he comes back almost made me wet my pants.  I don't want to give away ALL the best jokes, but there are many.
     Of course, it never hurts to have fantastic voice talent attached to a project like this, and this cast had it to spare.  Catherine O'Hare and Martin Short are predictably hilarious and versatile in multiple roles.  Martin Landau plays shades of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood as the spooky science teacher.  Charlie Tahan (the ghost kid from Charlie St. Cloud) leads the cast ably as young Victor.  I've always found Atticus Shaffer to be the best thing about the TV show The Middle and he is PERFECT as Edgar "E" Gore.
     The greatest treat, though, is having Winona Ryder working again with the director who made her the first time.  It brought me back to the first magical glimpses of Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice...sigh...5 of 5 stars.

  Searching For Sugarman - This documentary is about Rodriguez, the great American singer/songwriter from the early seventies.  What?  You say you've never heard of him?  Neither had I.  Neither had  hardly anyone else in this country before this film was made.
      "So what?", you say.  Well...in America, no one had heard of him, but he was a super-star in South Africa, one whose music helped to spark a protest movement against Apartheid.  Only he never knew it.  After two albums, he stopped recording.
     So begins the search for Rodriguez, a story with enough twists and turns to take you places you never expected by the time the journey is over.  The film gives you much to ruminate on.  It is an inspiring story of how a great artist's work will always find its intended audience, whether or not the artist even knows who they are.  While watching the film I couldn't help but marvel at how easily fate can be thwarted or altered, and how it often fights to reassert itself when the time is right.
     I risk breaking my own spoiler rule if I say too much more, but the film packs just as much emotion as thoughtfulness, aided superbly by the soundtrack of Rodriguez's music.  His work is haunting, powerful and poetic.  It is utilized brilliantly to underscore both the thematic and emotional significance of nearly every scene in the film.  I would have loved this picture simply for how it functioned as a video music album, but believe me, there's a lot more going on here.  5 of 5 stars.

Related Articles:  If It Ain't Wrecked (Wreck-It Ralph & Paperman reviews), Oscar Winners Predictions & Buzz: Toons of Any Length (Animated Feature & Animated Short), Docs of Any Length (Documentary Feature & Documentary Short)

Oscar Winners Predictions & Buzz - Docs of Any Length

     Well, I've seen none of the shorts and four of the features as far as our Documentary nominees go, but I'll do my best to size up these always confounding categories.  As always, the buzz comes first with previous rankings in parenthesis.  My best guesses let loose on the second list in each category.

Documentary Short Subject
  1.(1) Open Heart
  2.(4) Inocente
  3.(3) Mondays at Racine
  4.(7) Kings Point
  5.(5) Redemption
  Leaving the Rankings:  The Education of Mohammad Hussein, Paraiso, The Perfect Fit
     I don't really know, but let's play like I do...
  1. Inocente...The genre categories are notorious for come from behind victories (well, maybe not animated feature) and this film seems to have a lot of forward momentum at present. It does not quite have the front runner's buzz yet, but there seems to be a distinct slow down at the top.
  2. Open Heart...This doc has been at the front of the pack pretty much since the short list was announced but I sense that just recently it has been losing steam in that regard.  It still has time to rebound (and no one ever knows anything with the shorts anyway), but for now I'm dropping it to number two.
  3. Kings Point...Like Inocente, this short seems to have some real last minute momentum going, so I'm going to leap frog it in much the same manner.
  4. Mondays at Racine...Like Open Heart, this was an early favorite that seems to be losing buzz.
  5. Redemption...And this one has always seemed like the afterthought.

Documentary Feature
  1.(1) Searching For Sugar Man
  2.(3) The Gatekeepers
  3.(2) How To Survive a Plague
  4.(6) The Invisible War
  5. 5 Broken Cameras
  Leaving the Rankings:  Bully, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, The Imposter, Ai Wei-Wei: Never Sorry, The House I Live In, Detropia
     I feel a little more confidant in my choices with the features...
  1. Searching For Sugarman...It's always risky to pick the obvious choice in this category, but this year feels more like The Cove and less like Project Nim.  The full Academy is in on the voting for the win and probably twice as many of them have SEEN this picture than have seen any of its competitors.  Plus, it's a really excellent documentary.
  2. 5 Broken Cameras...Y'know, this film wasn't even on the radar before the nominations, even after it made the short list.  In that respect it reminds me of that nominee last year, what was it?  Oh, yeah, Undefeated.
  3. The Gatekeepers...As this film filters out into wider release, it just seems to grow in prestige and buzz.  Like "Cameras", it also focuses on the Middle East, which seems to be a big part of this year's Oscar narrative.
  4. How To Survive a Plague...I loved this film, but its buzz has been waning in the last few weeks.  For some reason, I think its out of the running.
  5. The Invisible War...Of the four nominees I have seen (still waiting on Gatekeepers to hit Atlanta theaters), I found this one to be the weakest (although still highly recommendable).  It was an early front runner, but has been steadily lagging further and further behind the leaders for several months now.

     And that is my best current take on the documentaries (although I reserve the right to change everything in my final predictions).  Next up:  Foreign Language Film and Short Subject - Live Action...Froggy


Related Articles:  Oscar Winner Predictions & Buzz: Of Snubs and Triumphs (preview), Musical Techs (Score and Song), Noisy Techs (Sound Editing & Sound Mixing), Pretty People Techs (Costume Design & Make-Up and Hairstyling), Pretty Picture Techs (Cinematography & Production Design), Finishing Touch Techs (Editing & Visual Effects), Toons of Any Length (Animated Feature & Animated Short) Surviving the Alps is a Rush (How To Survive a Plague review), Henry's Invisible Arbitrage (The Invisible War review)

Oscar Winners Predictions and Buzz - Toons of Any Length

     I apologize that this final round of category-by-category analysis got delayed but I was trying to catch the shorts in theaters before I proceeded.  I STILL haven't seen them, but the Oscars are seventeen days away now & I MUST get moving before these articles become obsolete.  As always, the buzz comes first with previous rankings listed in parenthesis.  Then I'll give you a piece of my mind (but please give it back, I'm not sure how many more I can spare)...

Short Subject - Animated
  1(1). Paperman
  2(2). Adam and Dog
  3.(8) Head Over Heels
  4.(4) Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare
  5.(10) Fresh Guacamole
  Leaving the Rankings:  The Eagleman Stag, Dripped, Fall of the House of Usher, Combustible, Tram
     I HAVE actually seen two of these, so I actually have SOME clue, just not much.  Still, if I HAD to hazard a guess (and I do), I'd say...
  1. Paperman...Disney hasn't won this award in a long time but this film has more buzz than all the other contenders combined.  This category usually tries to reward up and coming film makers (always looking to help create the next Aardman Studios), but with Wreck-It Ralph or Frankenweenie poised to take Feature, this might well be the year that the Academy get some serious Disney love going.  Plus, the toon is really magnificent for something so brief and it does show the most innovation in the field of anything the Mouse House has done in ages.
  2. Head Over Heels...However, this category is often won by something that wasn't on any body's radar until nomination morning.  This picture has gone from being an afterthought on the short list to one of the most talked about pictures in this race.  That sort of forward momentum cannot be discounted.
  3. Adam and Dog...This was the early "high brow" favorite contender to challenge Paperman and Daycare, but it seems to be losing that title to Head Over Heels.
  4. Fresh Guacamole...Nobody expects this to win, but I've seen it.  It is so creative and innovative that I can't help but believe it stands a slim chance.  "Fresh" indeed!
  5. Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare...Everybody loves The Simpsons, but if the Academy sees fit to reward a "name brand" short in this category, I have to believe it will be the ground breaking Paperman.

Animated Feature
  1.(4) Wreck-It Ralph
  2.(2) Frankenweenie
  3.(1) Brave
  4.(3) Paranorman
  5.(9) The Pirates!  Band of Misfits
  Leaving the Rankings:  Rise of the Guardians, The Painting, From Up On Poppy Hill, The Rabbi's Cat, Madagascar 3
     I'm gonna go with...
  1. Frankenweenie...Yeah, Ralph seems to have victory momentum at the moment, and Brave was made by Pixar (nuff said), but Frankenweenie is gonna win BAFTA (the British Academy Awards) and this is still a golden opportunity for the Academy to recognize Tim Burton not only for this film, but for his body of work (recent additions notwithstanding).  For the moment, I'm gonna stick to my guns.
  2. Wreck-It Ralph...That being said, Wreck-It Ralph was a really good picture and I will not be at all indignant with the Academy if it wins.  Disney has really had their best year in a long time.
  3. Brave...Yes, it won the Globe and it's Pixar, but it is hardly their best effort.  I may be a fool to go against this one, but I'm betting on the parent company this year.
  4. Paranorman...This film certainly has its fans (I like it better than Brave myself), but it has lost an awful lot of momentum in the last few months and I think it is out of the running.
  5. The Pirates! Band of Misfits...I love Aardman studios but there's no way in hell that they are winning this year.  I still haven't seen the G-Kids submissions, but its hard to believe that this film beat them all out for a nomination.  Maybe four possibilities was too much for the upstart distributor.

     I'll be back in short order with the documentaries...Froggy

Related Articles:  Oscar Winner Predictions & Buzz: Of Snubs and Triumphs (preview), Musical Techs (Score and Song), Noisy Techs (Sound Editing & Sound Mixing), Pretty People Techs (Costume Design & Make-Up and Hairstyling), Pretty Picture Techs (Cinematography & Production Design), Finishing Touch Techs (Editing & Visual Effects), If It Ain't Wrecked... (Wreck-It Ralph & Paperman reviews), Elena's Brave Law (Brave review), The Perfect Para-Killer (Paranorman review), Bernie! On a Ledge of Misfits (Pirates! Band of Misfits review)

Henry's Invisible Arbitrage

     In today's round of DVD reviews we cover a Best Documentary Feature nominee, a disappointing quirky comedy, and a fantastic drama with a beloved actor's career best performance.  Might as well get to it...

  Arbitrage - Richard Gere has never been my favorite actor.  He's just always faded into the background a little bit for me.  Not in any sort of "Please, God, not the movie with Richard Gere" kind of way.  I was never turned away by his appearance in a film, but it didn't encourage me to watch it either.  Looking back at his filmography, I find four or five glaring examples of pictures that I would have expected myself to have seen, most shamefully I'm Not There and Days of Heaven.
     In most of my favorite Richard Gere films, it's his co-stars who have stuck with me long after the lights came up.  Pretty Woman is about Julia Roberts.  Primal Fear is about Edward Norton (boy howdy).  Chicago is about, well, damn near everybody but him.  So I wasn't really anticipating being as blown away by Arbitrage as many critics had been.  Sometimes I love being wrong.
     Arbitrage is a GREAT little movie, and for once, Gere's performance undeniably rules the day (and it's not like he didn't have any competition, more on that in a bit).  His performance as Robert Miller stands as one of the best that I have seen this year.  He's captivating, with great depth and nuance.  He is a man full of contradictions and conflict.  I have always found talk of Gere being "overdue" with the Academy to be a bit hyperbolic in the past, but I think they missed the train on this one.
    And then again...there is Susan Sarandan.  Susan was one of my first love affairs with an actress's career.  Thelma and Louise, The Witches of Eastwick, Dead Man Walking, Bull Durham...I could go on and on.  She was undeniably one of the most sought after and respected actresses in Hollywood through the seventies, eighties, and nineties.  The twenty-first century has shown something of a decline in the quality of rolls she has been offered (but never in her talent, her work on TV's Rescue Me has been some of the finest of her career).  I''m hoping that Cloud Atlas and now Arbitrage are precursors of her next big era as a movie star.  Here she is clearly the sort of fiery, vital, intelligent, strong, and yes, gorgeous lady of retirement age that the world has only come to know in this new century.
     The cast is actually a very strong ensemble, with Tim Roth and Nate Parker obvious stand outs.  And then again...there is Brit Marling.  Ms. Marling first caught my attention in Another Earth, then blew me away in Sound of My Voice, but I'd only really watched her act in that special little Brit Marling world that (as the screen writer) she could create in those two films.  Think of it as a melancholy suburb of Wes Anderson (Moonlight Kingdom, Royal Tennanbaums) world with sci-fi overtones and you'll sort of get what I mean.  I am happy to report that she can play a character in a more realistic setting quite adeptly, and holds her own well here.
     I've focused mostly on the actors partially to avoid saying too much about writer/director Nicholas Jarecki's marvelous script.  I'm still not sure whether you could say it had a happy ending or not, and that's as much as I'm giving you.  As a directing debut, this was absolutely outstanding.  5 of 5 stars.

  The Invisible War - In all honesty, I hadn't even made up my mind if I was going to watch this film until the Oscar nominations were announced.  I spent the first thirty minutes or so watching interview after interview with victims of rape within the military, feeling that it was all very sad, but that not much effort or creativity had been put into the formatting and compilation of the documentary itself.
     As the film continued, however, the women (and one man)'s stories began to draw me in more and more.  The film was actually quite skillfully plotted and edited together to slowly captivate the viewer in just this way.  The interwoven interviews approach to documentary film making has certainly been done a million times before, but at least it is done very well in The Invisible War.  By the film's end, I had been taken on a bit of an emotional roller coaster, and I think that most people would have the same experience.
     This is my first exposure to the work of director Kirby Dick (although I quite wanted to see This Film Is Not Yet Rated when it came out) and I was reasonably pleased.  You'll have to watch the picture to get the full story, but The Invisible War gets extra credit for actually changing the situation it was designed to illuminate in a direct manner.  4 of 5 stars.

  Jesus Henry Christ - Oh, boy...If Brit Marling world is like a melancholy, sci-fi suburb of Wes Anderson world, then Dennis Lee world is like a rundown part of Wes Anderson world that all the characters from Ace Ventura: Pet Detctive have moved into.  Weird indie sensibilities are intermarried poorly with bursts of bawdy comedy and uninspired chaos.
     Toni Collette is wasted here.  Young stars Jason Spevack and Samantha Weinstein do evince some potential talent, but the lack of quality inherent in the material is too much to transcend.  The child actors' performances were the only element that kept this film from being graded even more harshly.  2 of 5 stars.

Related posts:  Cloudy Connections (Cloud Atlas review), Another Young Project (Another Earth review), The Sound Hope Sparks (Sound of My Voice review)

If It Ain't "Wreck"ed...

      I am usually leery of scripts written by committee.  Wreck-It Ralph has FOUR credited writers: two on story (Jim Reardon, and director Rich Moore), Jennifer Lee on screenplay, and Phil Johnston on both.  I am quite pleased to say that for once too many cooks didn't spoil much of anything.  Occasionally, the "throw everything against the wall and see what sticks" method actually DOES produce something worthwhile.
     There are so many great little moments and concepts in this world they have written up.  Just a few:  the use of the Diet Coke and Mentos effect, the handling of the "first person shooter", Felix fixing his own face, Felix attempting to break his bars, Turbobug (somehow reminded me of Judge Doom at the end of Roger Rabbit), the Game Central Station concept.  Maybe it took a whole handful of writers to come up with this many clever ideas.
     Of course, my reaction to this film may very well be influenced by some degree of nostalgia.  I was a kid during the eighties when the video arcade was the most magical place in the world.  It was a place just for kids and teen-agers, where we could enjoy this new pass time, one that belonged only to us, our parents had not had electronic gaming of this nature.  From the first time I saw Pong at the home of one of my cousins, I was hooked.  There are so many blasts from the past for my generation.  From Clyde turning blue when Ralph shocks him at the Bad-Anon meeting, to "Q-Bertese" to Ralph muttering "I thought this was gonna be like Centipede!" when he sees what Hero's Duty is all about, the golden age of gaming was well represented.
     Of course, this only lends fuel to the fire of the argument that Disney seems to be trying to appropriate the qualities of Pixar's brand (who have always been lauded for making 'toons that appealed to both kids and adults), while slowly making Pixar's films a little bit more "Disney-fied".  The idea that they are trying to make Disney proper's films a little more adult is supported by the choice of Rich Moore as director.  He is certainly experienced with animation, having been the primary director on TV's Futurama, but that show was certainly not intended primarily for younger audiences.   In addition, the video game reality of Wreck-It Ralph certainly seems like the sort of reality that Pixar revels in creating, while the princess-led coming of age tale Brave seems firmly in the parent company's wheelhouse.
     What's really interesting to note is that the two films share a primary theme.  Merida's constant refrain in Brave is that she wants to "change her fate", and take her destiny into her own hands, rather than fulfill the expectations she was born to.  Ralph's quest is the same, but his status as a "bad guy" complicates matters and widens the breadth of the film's thematic reach.  What makes someone good or bad? Can someone with a "bad" job to do, be a good person?  I'm imagining auditors and former military interrogation specialists who took their kids to see a cartoon and received a catharsis that they weren't anticipating when they bought the tickets.  Especially if they got a Vanellope sized hug from said children afterwards.
     One of the most brilliant things about Wreck-It Ralph is the voice casting, particularly of the four primary characters. John C. Reilly is the world's greatest lovable schlub as usual.  Sarah Silverman gives Vanellope the perfect flavor of snarky but infectious enthusiasm.  Who could play Sue Silvester with a gun better than Jane Lynch, or make Felix as mindlessly cheerful and optimistic as Jack McBrayer?  One almost has to believe that the dialogue was written with these actors already firmly in mind.  The animation department's character design certainly must have been.  Other apropos casting choices included Alan Tudyk, Dennis Haysbert, and Edie McClurg.
    (As a side note: Director Moore has now worked with Ed O'Neal after working with Katy Segal for years on Futurama.  Should we expect a Christina Applegate voiced cartoon from The Mouse House in the near future?)
     After the AMPAS forced me (with their nominations) to endure Tangled and The Princess and the Frog in recent years (to say nothing of War Horse), I've developed a certain set of expectations from their brand.  Suffice it to say that Ralph wrecked them.  My only complaint is that they couldn't give even a token shout-out to Frogger (unless I missed some of the characters in the Game Central Station scenes).  4 1/2 of 5 stars.
 
  Paperman - A little bonus to the cinematic experience of Wreck-It Ralph is that it was preceded by Best Animated Short nominee Paperman, just like the cartoons that I VAGUELY remember them playing as lead-ins to movies when I was REALLY little.  This film utilized an innovative hybrid of animation techniques to create a look that was slick, wholly original, and slightly surreal.  Add to that a creative storyline with more  clever bits and moments than seven minutes should be able to accommodate and I have to say that John Kahr's directorial debut is easily the best animated short I've seen since Logorama... 5 of 5 stars.

Related Posts:  Elena's Brave Law (Brave review)

To Royal Effect

    Danish screenwriting duo Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg are probably best known on this side of the pond as the pair who adapted the script for the first version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  Here they take their work more firmly into their own hands (Arcel also directs) and prove to be as adept in the world of courtly intrigue as they were in the world of ultra violent cyber espionage.  The film is a little talky in places, but overall it is a tightly written script, realized by a whole ensemble of fine performances.
     The film fits nicely into one of this year's thematic niches:  the acknowledgement of and fight for human rights, especially over the course of history.  These issues resonate through Cloud Atlas, Lincoln, and Django Unchained, and they predominate in A Royal Affair as well.  The politics at play here are every bit as vicious and partisan as in our time, or any of the time periods touched on by the other films.
     A Royal Affair is also a love story, though, and a rather unconventional one.  It is a story of forbidden love, fully realized.  It is the story of the love a man and a woman can have for all the people of the world.  In places, it is a tale of self-love, taken to abhorrent extremes.  It is also, and this is the part that got me, the love of a man for the one man who treats him like a friend (although a friend that he treats pretty poorly), rather than like a king.  It is a story of betrayal, yes, but also of forgiveness and acceptance.
     As I said, the acting in this film is tremendous.  Alicia Vikander's face is just made for the camera.  She is such a captivating presence onscreen.  She has an instinctual knack for emoting just enough to make you empathize with her without ever pushing the matter in a way that looks like she's trying.  Of course, it doesn't hurt that she's absolutely gorgeous.  Mads Mikelson first really caught MY attention in Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, but general American audiences are more likely to have seen him in Casino Royale or Clash of the Titans.  His chiseled face, like Vikander's, can convey so much emotion with the slightest shifts of expression.  Their onscreen chemistry is searing, perhaps all the more so because by necessity it must exist mostly behind a veill.
     The performance that sticks with me most, however, is that of Mikkel Boe Folsgaard, as the slightly unhinged King Christian VII.  He gives the foppish monarch such depth of personality, so many sides and layers, that he becomes one of the most fully realized characters that I have seen in film this year.  Fear, courage, love, lust, loyalty, resignation, and every other extreme of human emotion are at play in a performance which takes the king through phases of hedonism, growth, regression, and defeat.  Maybe my favorite Supporting Actor turn of the year thus far.
     The film is also very impressive technically.  The camera work by cinematographer Rasmus Videbaek is interesting and mostly quite beautiful.  The sets are excellent;  Manon Rassmussen's costume design is actually much stronger than a couple of the current Oscar nominees.  But the best part about this film is that it is not flashy, but is highly effective.  It relies on story, characterization, and mostly understated drama to keep the viewer's attention.  It had mine.  4 1/2 of 5 stars.

Related Posts:  Cloudy Connections (Cloud Atlas review)
     

The Perfect Para-Killer

     With today's DVD reviews we will be covering an Animated Feature contender at this year's Oscars, a dysfunctional family drama with religious overtones, and a backwoods bloodbath.  A triple feature should start with a cartoon...

  Paranorman - This is the first feature presentation from writer Chris Butler, and I must say that it shows a lot of promise.  The basic premise is nothing terribly revolutionary.  It's the typical awkward child coming of age story told through the metaphor of supernatural powers that make the youngster misunderstood and ostracized.  As he comes into his own, the boy (Norman, naturally) must stop some threat that only he, by virtue of his own "otherness" can stop and save the town.  At which point, of course, everyone believes/accepts him not despite, but for ,his uniqueness...blah, blah, blah...we've ALL heard this one before from Buffy the Vampire Slayer through The Sixth Sense.  The thing is, the story is told so well, with so many interesting little bits of humor and original touches, that it doesn't really matter.
     This was also Mr. Butler's freshman effort as a director, although he shared those duties with more experienced hands, attached to Sam Fell, who previously directed both The Tale of Despereaux and Flushed Away.  The pair seem to work together well, creating a more unified and singular vision and tone for their film than many a solo director is able to pull off.
     They certainly coaxed some great voice work out of the actors.  Kodi Smit-McPhee (the kid from The Road and Let Me In) is great as Norman, never falling into the predictable sing song patterns that often characterize voice over work for child characters.  The supporting cast is also uniformly impressive, including such familiar names as Anna Kendrick (as Norman's older sister), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (as Alvin, the bully who hounds Norman), Leslie Mann (as Norman's mom Sandra), and Elaine Stritch (as Norman's ghostly grandmother).  The notable stand-out is John Goodman as Norman's Uncle Pendergrast.  Argo,
Flight, now this...the man's had a great 2012 body of work.
     Before I go, I simply HAVE to mention that this film was just nominated (in addition to Best Animated Feature at the Oscars) for GLAAD's annual media awards, becoming the first PG rated film ever to receive such a citation.  (WARNING: SPOILER)  This is due to the inclusion in the central cast of an openly gay character in the form of local jock Mitch (played perfectly by Casey Affleck).  The best part for me is that not only is the character an atypical representation of a gay man, you never even know or suspect that he IS gay (although he does ignore an awful lot of advances from Norman's sister), until right at the end of the movie.  As far as I know, Mitch is the FIRST openly gay character in any mainstream, animated family film anywhere ever.  So, on a personal note, thank you for writing Mitch, Mr. Butler, and for writing him well.
     The best animated film I've seen so far this year.  Unless you're allergic to cartoons (I'm usually okay if I take a Benadryl first, myself), I highly recommend checking it out.  4 1/2 of 5 stars.

  Killer Joe - It's been a looooong time since director William Friedkin made The French Connection and The Excorcist.  His latest, Killer Joe, seems fresh, contemporary, and appears to be the rare film that people can find almost as shocking today as they found The Excorcist back in 1973.  This white trash thriller may not be anything TOO ground breaking or innovative, but you would certainly never guess that it had been helmed by a seventy-seven-year-old man either.
     Killer Joe benefits from what so many "ultra-violent" films seem to forget, subtlety.  Sometimes less is more, at least for a while.  The violence in Killer Joe is insidious and oppressive, but is only expressed physically in occasional spurts and starts for most of the picture.  But you never doubt that the entire film is about violence: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and fiscal.  It is about the violence we do to others and the violence others do to us.  It is about the violence that we let loose into the world everyday in ways great and small.  More than anything, it is about how violence begets violence in an exponentially escalating vicious cycle until it truly boils over, and when it boils over it erupts.
     Matthew McConaughey is superb.  I think this is my favorite performance of his entire career thus far.  He commits totally to the character.  He reminded me a little bit of Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers, which was the film in which I first glanced just how versatile an actor the Cheers alum was going to prove to be.  McConaughey's Joe is almost an archetype of the word sinister, but manages to skate just on the edge of going OVER the top, JUST keeping Joe within the realm of credibility.  I can't wait to see Mud, I can't wait to see Mud.
     The whole cast is great, actually.  Juno Temple is the stand out, I suppose, for her total commitment to the part of Dottie.  Just astounding.  Gina Gershon is deliciously treacherous.  Thomas Haden Church's effortlessly simple delivery makes one wonder how Dobber would have turned out without Coach around to keep him out of the trailer park. (Shivers!)  And Emile Hirsh was the perfect everyman of his environment.  I don't know how to say it better than that.
     This film is GRAPHIC.  It is not suitable for children.  I'm not entirely sure that it's suitable for adults either, but I kind of liked it.  4 of 5 stars.

  The Perfect Family - This little family drama from a writing and directing trio whose prior experience was mostly in short films (director:  Anne Renton, writers:  Paula Goldberg and Claire V. Riley) mostly serves two functions:  as a story of a family accepting a lesbian daughter, and as an acting vehicle for Kathleen Turner, surrounded by a cast that won't bring the film down, but won't outshine her.  It functions pretty well on both levels, and Kathleen is pretty fabulous, but the film as a whole is not terribly memorable.  3 1/2 of 5 stars.

Related posts:  I Think You "Argo"ing to Love It!, Didn't Quite Take "Flight"

Of Snubs and Triumphs

     Okay, so the Academy's nomination announcements were far more shocking than usual.  Best Director alone almost gave me a heart attack.  Forgive me for not posting some immediate reaction, but it took me a minute to get my head back on straight.  I decided to attack these nominations in the most traditional manner, regardless of what an unconventional race it has turned into.   So...without further ado, here are thirteen winners, seventeen losers, and one who did  both.  Let's get hoppin...

13 Big Winners

  13.  Kon-Tiki - This Norwegian adventure flick was ranked about eighth in buzz out of the nine films on the Academy's Foreign Language Film short list.  It still doesn't have a chance in hell of beating Amour, but the nomination is a triumph in itself.
  12. The Sound Team from Argo - The film was considered an outside shot for either sound category, and it managed to score nods in both.  The movie needed SOME good news this week.
  11. Pirates!  Band of Misfits - This Aardman studios production managed to squeeze out both Rise of the Guardians and all four G-Kids movies to grab the fifth slot in Animated Feature.  Maybe AMPAS was trying to correct themselves for snubbing the far better Aardman film Arthur Christmas in this category last year.
  10. 5 Broken Cameras - This was one of the lowest profile documentaries still eligible for a nod.  Many a documentary that flies below everyone's radar up to the day of nominations turns around and wins it all, so who knows.
  9. The Snow White Story - Not only did Mirror Mirror grab a half expected nod in Costume Design, but Snow White and the Huntsman snagged quite unanticipated recognition in both Costume and Visual Effects.  Gooo Snow!
  8. Jackie Weaver - It's not like she unseated some presumed lock to get her nomination, but she was far from the most buzzed about contender.  Still, I had a sneaking suspicion that this could be a possibility, leading me to place her in my Best Supporting Actress Wild Card slot.  This is the Australian actress,s second nomination, having come out of nowhere the first time for Animal Kingdom.
  7. Anna Karenina - Mixed critical reception may have killed this movie's Best Picture hopes early on in the game, but it still managed to pull off four tech nods, which should still be enough to at least give DVD returns an "Oscar boost".
  6. John Gatins - The Flight scripter managed to squeeze out a nod ahead of more buzzed about (and, in my opinion, stronger) scripts for The Master and Looper.
  5. The Silver Linings Playbook - Everyone expected this film to do well with Picture and Screenplay nods in addition at least a couple of acting nominations, but FOUR acting nominations plus Director and Editing were real wish fulfillment for the picture's fans, making it one of the presumed Best Picture front runners.
  4. Joachin Phoenix - Everyone was holding their breath to see if the Academy would hold Phoenix's big mouth against him and leave him out of the Best Actor race this year.  Thank goodness they didn't, because his performance was definitely one of 2012's best.  His comments about the awards race HAVE probably dashed any hopes he had of WINNING, but at least he's (mostly) been forgiven.
  3. Amour - It's been a long time since a Foreign Language Film broke into the Best Picture race, but pundits have been playing with the idea that director Haneke's latest would do just that, and it did.  Not only that, it secured nods for Director, Screenplay, Actress, and Foreign Language Film.
  2. Steven Spielberg and Lincoln - With Affleck and Bigelow both out of the running, it would seem that Spielberg's win for Director (and, most likely, the film's for Picture) are all but assured.  However, it is still early, and Life of Pi is looking stronger all the time.
  1. Benh Zeitlen and Beasts of the Southern Wild - After the snubs at SAG and the Globes, every prognosticator and their brother began to slowly but surely eliminate Beasts from ANY consideration at the Oscars this year.  Not only did it pull out the Picture, Actress, and Screenplay nods that I and a few other true believers never stopped predicting, but it pulled out a Best Directing nomination that even I had totally given up on.  I have never been happier to get one of my predictions WRONG!  Granted, I would have loved to have seen the film receive much deserved recognition in Score and Cinematography, but I'll take what I can get in the year of...

Seventeen (mostly) Regrettable Losers
  17.  A bevy of Best Supporting Actress Hopefuls - The fifth slot in this race was WIDE open, but by my tabulations, at least five other ladies were ahead of Ms. Weaver in buzz.  They were...Maggie Smith - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Nicole Kidman - The Paperboy, Ann Dowd - Compliance, Samantha
Barks - Les Miserables, and Judi Dench - Skyfall.  While I'm sure none of these ladies were counting on getting into this highly competitive race, they still have my condolences.
  16. Hitchcock - No one was expecting this movie to be an awards juggernaut at this point, but I'm sure they were hoping for SOMETHING beyond Make-Up and Hairstyling.
  15. Nepotism - Bryce Dallas Howard (offspring of Ron) failed to secure a Best Live Action Short nod for her shortlisted piece:  When You Find Me.
  14. The Master - I suppose it could have been a lot worse (Phoenix did get his actor nod), and we all suspected that a picture nod was out.  Still, there were a host of technical nods (score, costume, production design, etc.) that this meticulously made film missed out on.
  13. Cloud Atlas - We all knew that above the line nods were probably out of the question, but nothing?  This was one of the most ambitious films of the year, and it was technically sound no matter what else you thought about it.
  12. Sharen Davis - It must hurt to have your worthy costuming work on Django Unchained passed over for the overly showy outfits of Mirror Mirror.  If your name was erroneously leaked to the press as a nominee, it must be even worse.
  11. Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson's little mini-masterpiece may have landed a screenplay nod, but I'm sure they were hoping for a little more (like the Best Picture nod they must have JUST missed).
  10. Rian Johnson - Looper might have been the best screenplay of the year period, and this young auteur lost a nod to Flight?
  9. Marion Cotillard - She is rapidly becoming one of those actresses that everyone predicts every year, who never gets nominated.  Rust and Bone did not  break this trend.
  8. The Songs of Brave - With Skyfall and Les Miserables in the hunt, no one was expecting a win here, but everyone was expecting an Original Song nod for Pixar.  Didn't happen.
  7. The Intouchables - This was supposed to be Amour's top competition in Foreign Language Film:  top U.S. and world box office, backed by the Weinsteins...not to be.
  6. G-Kids - This Indie animation distributor has managed to slip into the Animated Feature race at the last second for two years running.  That streak is now broken as From Up On Poppy Hill, The Painting, The Rabbi's Cat, and Zarafa all failed to make the cut.
  5. Leonardo DiCaprio - Like Cotillard, he is turning into the perpetual bridesmaid of the Oscars.  Still, they had to go with five guys who are already former winners over Leo?
  4. Katherine Bigelow - Yeah, she just won Best Director last time out, but she has won the MOST accolades from critics groups and didn't even get a nomination here.
  3. John Hawkes - So, everybody knew that we had six strong contenders for Best Actor and only five slots.  However, if there was one performance (outside of Day-Lewis in Lincoln) that everyone thought was a lock in the category, it was John Hawkes in The Sessions.  It just goes to show:  nobody knows anything.
  2. The Dark Knight Rises - This is one of the year's best films.  We had all accepted the fact that it was probably out of the running for anything above  the line due to its subject matter and unfortunate connection to the Aurora shooting, but come on Academy!  No tech nods?  A TOTAL shut out?  Someday we will look back and laugh at Oscar on this one, I promise you.
  1. Ben Affleck - I don't even know what to say.  I was still predicting Mr. Affleck to WIN best director this year.  Sorry, Ben, better luck next time.

And One That Did Both
  The Weinstein Company - WIN:  Two Best Picture slots and half the Acting nominations.
                                           LOSE:  Documentary, Foreign Language, Song (for Lawless), and most of the tech awards.

     Stay tuned for analysis and handicapping of all the major categories starting soon and running right up to the big day.
                                                                                       Froggy

Related Posts:  Nov/Dec Oscar Buzz and Predictions: It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (preview), Musical Techs (Score and Song), Noisy Techs (Sound Editing and Sound Mixing), Pretty People Techs (Hairstyling and Make-up & Costume), Pretty Picture Techs (Production Design and Cinematography), Finishing Touch Techs, Toons of Any Length (Animated Short and Animated Feature), Docs of Any Length (Documentary Feature and Documentary Short), Screenplays (Adapted and Original), Supporting Performances, Actor and Actress, Foreign Films (and Live Action Shorts), Conclusion (Picture and Director), I Think You "Argo"ing to Love It!, Bernie! On a Ledge of Misfits (Pirates! Band of Misfits review), Being Margaret's Mirror (Mirror Mirror review), The Best Huntsman's Shadow (Snow White and the Huntsman and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel reviews), Can You "Master" Your Nature?, Twist Until You Are Loopey! (Looper review), Best That the Summer Wields (Beasts of the Southern Wild review),
23? You Don't Play Like a Sequel Over 2! (Skyfall review), Cloudy Connections (Cloud Atlas review),
Promarlius Kingdom (Moonrise Kingdom review), Elena's Brave Law (Brave and Lawless reviews), Acting Master Classes in Private "Sessions", The Dark Knight Transcends, Final Pre-Nomination Oscar Predictions