Oscars! Pre-game Analysis & Fink's Picks!

Let the punditry begin! The Oscars are the kind of bellwether I love to hate, and spectacle I plan on live tweeting throughout. They are imperfect as are year end top 10 lists because as the New York Times points out (a system I argue is driven by too many screens in the West Village) 900 films open theatrically every year in New York. Consider the best movie made last year is probably some movie that may have been hidden away, a masterpiece made in a backyard in Ohio that will never see the light of day because it doesn’t fit X-film festival mold. Haunting, yes – the digital revolution, baby.

So the Oscars are what they are – still problematic in how film qualify (short films have to win a festival award, which seems like a reasonable filter but this year garnered not one nominee from the good ol’ US of A). But let’s get right down to it – my top pic picks this year.

Best Picture – Nebraska

A strong group of nominees, but my pic is Nebraska, a film I’ve now seen twice and each time I turned to my screening companion during the show and said “I love this movie”. It’s simply remarkable and simple, striking a tone that only Alexander Payne can. Nebraska ranks as my second favorite film of last year, behind Fredrick Wiseman’s sweeping At Berkley (which failed to garner a nom in Best Documentary – a travesty).

Best Actor – Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)

This category is rather a rough one to choose – a close call between Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale. Ejiofor pulls off something remarkably psychological here, including his breaking of the 3^rd wall in one sequence. This is a performance of true psychological weight and Ejiofor nails it perfectly.

Best Actress – Sandra Bullock (Gravity)

Gravity despite being a large-scale action film is really an intimate psychological film, it survived by Bullock who gives essentially a solo performance and so very effectively. Runner up: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine).

Best Supporting Actor – Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)

Really any doubt here? I called this once while watching the buzz unfold on the TIFF twitter feed aggregator while in line at the Bell Lightbox. Homeboy delivers, despite the obvious question Indiewire is asking – why wasn’t a transgendered actor cast here?

Best Supporting Actress – June Squibb (Nebraska)

Squibb is hilarious here as a feisty old women, hardly the sane one (in contrast to Will Forte in his second dramatic performance of the year). This is a great performance, although, again this category is a tough call with Lupita Nyong’o’s stunning performance in 12 Years a Slave and Sally Hawkins’ excellent turn in Blue Jasmine.

Best Animated Feature - ** no vote **

I haven’t seen two – Ernest & Celine and The Wind Rises (which is finally getting a US release this weekend). I’ll get back to you on this (but probably The Wind Rises!)

Best Cinematography – Roger A. Deakins (Prisoners)

Prisoners is a stunning film that does so much right – it deserves more nominations (but hey, they did release the movie a few months early for that!). Deakins’ cinematography is the real star of the show, haunting, simple and powerful.

Best Costume Design – Catherine Martin (The Great Gatsby)

Another close call, I’m no expert here but it The Great Gatsby delivers all the sensory overload spectacle you expect from Baz.

Best Directing – Martin Scorsese (Wolf of Wall Street)

Another close call between Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity), Alexander Payne and Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), but Scorsese orchestrates the madness masterfully, he hasn’t slowed down delivering his most frantic and hilarious film yet – it’s one of his best with lots of moving parts that masterfully snapped together.

Best Documentary – The Act of Killing 

The Act of Killing is one of the most important films of recent years (although I admit I missed Cutie and the Boxer and The Square). Co-director Joshua Oppenheimer risked his life, exploring an Indonesia in desperate need of a truth and reconciliation moment. See it. See it!

Best Documentary Short – **on vote**

(I missed this program – sadly they aren’t as easy to see as the live action and animated shorts)

Best Film Editing – Christopher Rouse (Captain Phillips)

Rouse and director Paul Greengrass keep the action flowing and keep us oriented masterfully in Captain Phillips. It is strange that Wolf of Wall Street wasn’t nominated in this category.

Best Foreign Language Film – The Broken Circle Breakdown

Lots of strong work here, including Omar (my review), The Hunt, and The Great Beauty. (Although, The Missing Picture from Cambodia was just that - I have yet to see it!). But….The Broken Circle Breakdown is a masterpiece, a film that would have been on my top ten had I seen it in 2013 (it’s currently playing at the Quad Cinema in New York, where I caught it in January). A powerful non-linear story, this bluegrass infused drama from Belgium is truly special, a riveting and brilliant film with strong performances and an amazing soundtrack. (My interview with thefilmmakers)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling – The Dallas Buyers Club

Sure – why not. Although Jackass presents: Bad Grandpa is also nominated in this category.

Best Original Score – William Butler and Owen Pallett (Her)

A beautiful film highlighted by a stunning music score including The Moon Song (see below).

Best Original Song – The Moon Song (Her)

Soulful and haunting – much like the movie.

Best Production Design – K.K. Barrett & Gene Serdena (Her)

The minimal look of the future, representing some thoughtful attention to detail (filmed in both Los Angeles and Shanghai) creates a realistic, yet undefined world. The production design team went above and beyond creating a beautiful sense of space through minimal architecture: every detail feels accurate creating a believable emotional complexity as Theodore Twombly’s every emotion is curiated by technology and architecture.

Best Short Animated Film – Possessions

Directed by Shuhei Morita, this was a highlight amongst a rather blah year (strangely Pixar’s The Blue Umbrella didn’t make the cut). Possessions is full of light and dark, reminiscent of Miyazaki.

Best Live Action Short Film – Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me)

Directed by Esteban Crespo, this Spanish production is a brutal, powerful and uncompromising short set in an anonymous African country. Two doctors representing an NGO entering a contested region run by a Joseph Kony-type figure. A disturbing and violent story ending in redemption this one left an impression.

Best Sound Editing – All is Lost

All is Lost is a gripping and stunning film requiring an excellent sound system for full emersion. Sound becomes another dimension as we share the struggles of our hero – Robert Redford named only the script as Our Man. This movie worked for me (it apparently didn’t for the couple in front of me – following a near empty screening at an 18-plex in the Buffalo suburbs the man turned to me to confirm his feelings, needless to say I diplomatically dissented while thinking to myself there was probably a dumb action movie playing in another auditorium he would have liked).

Best Sound Mixing – Gravity

I should default to Michael Bouquard, my sound mixer, on this one. This is a technical category that relies on just how good your theater is. In fact, I’d like to pre-nominated Stalingrad for next year’s award.

Best Visual Effects – Gravity

It’s simply the best film in the bunch – it worked for me. But again, this is a category celebrating a lot of great professional work – good job, ya’ll.

Best Adapted Screenplay – Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope (Philomena)

Philomena and I share a strange relationship – for very uninteresting reasons (mostly to satisfy a lady friend and then my mom) I saw this movie three times in theaters. It’s not the best film of the year, but Coogan and Pope have constructed a truly brilliant script, funny, angry and sad – often within the same scene. A light and entertainment treatment of truly dark material, Philomena is a movie I didn’t mind seeing three times for sure.

Best Original Screenplay – Bob Nelson (Nebraska)

I’m not sure what exactly was 100% on the page and what Alexander Payne brought to Bob Nelson’s original screenplay, but tonally this is a wonderful, complex and truly moving film. Hilarious and reflexive, filled with wonderful moments of reflection, Nelson’s screenplay (and Payne’s film) balance and handle many tones like no other film this year. I simply love this movie.

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And now for an additional rant, every year there are always movies that don’t make the cut – my top 50 list is littered with them! Some missed out due to the rules of qualifying – some are still without distribution which is ultimately a travesty. VOD, it should be noted complicates matters even more – some very good films go right to VOD or have minor runs (that apparently piss off the New York Times). I say bring it on, content will still be produced – just look at the ecosystems of micro budget non-union movies that are produced regionally. Somewhere a masterpiece is being made and released completely under the radar. I’m sure the best mumblecore kind of film made was one that never even came to the attention of a programmer at SXSW – now that’s something to keep you up at night!

First, the movie I called “the one that got away” – the beautiful and masterfully told The Broken Circle Breakdown, why it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture is beyond me, likely politics. Tribeca Film gave the film a modest push in the important cities, but if you’re sitting say in Buffalo, NY – you’ve gotta wait for VOD.

I’d rather not rehash my top 50 list – my #1 film of last year evaded the Oscars as expected (Fredrick Wiseman’s 4-hour At Berkley, a fascinating and entertaining 4-hours about an awful lot, even if it offers a hauntingly limited look at UC Berkley. A complete picture would require 1800+ hours of film, and at 2-hours a piece that equals about as many films opened in New York City last year).

Missing from the documentary list is Jason Osder’s Let theFire Burn, a film I found to be very important and underrated as well as Medora. Sure, Blackfish might be timely – it’s a very good film, but one I had expected to contain a little more psychoanalysis than it did. For what its worth, it was just scratching the surface. It may win in an overall popularity contest (that is if my Facebook friends were voting – they all continually recommend it), but that would be a shame – Act of Killing is far better.

Also missing from the screenplay category strangely is Nicole Holofcener’s wonderful Enough Said – which was my favorite romantic comedy of last year. Other pics, including a few film festival films that have yet to come out will hopefully appear next year – including one of the best Nicholas Cage films of all time, David Gordon Green’s Joe and Nils Tavernier’s The Finishers (a French film still without a US Distributor).

Joe will open soon from Roadside Attractions (In fact I saw the trailer for it before Robocop the other day) while The Finishers should be the kind of movie Harvey Weinstein or Sony Classics should pick up and turn into a family hit. I saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival in the largest theatre at the Bell Lightbox and there was not a dry eye in the house when it was over, the audience also applauded throughout. The film, about a father-son team (the son is a quadriplegic) that completes the Ironman France marathon was an inspiring drama that deserves to be absorbed with a captive audience. VOD has proven to be a threat to this experience especially in smaller markets like Buffalo, NY where the commercial art screens are dominated by good films from Sony Classics and Fox Searchlight. IFC, for instance has given up which is really a shame. The cost of disturbing films has dropped tremendously – alternative content has yet to come into its own.

It is the best and worst of times to be a film fan: Netflix had thankfully replaced the limited selection of Blockbuster, while VOD has diminished the impact of a film’s ability to play theatrically outside of a contractual obligation at the IFC Center, Quad Cinema or Cinema Village. This type of thinking is fine for some films, but for others it is a travesty. Exhibitors and distributors ought to step up and – shall we say – grow a pair. This could include limited sneak previews in the form of events like Alternative Content along with Oscar qualifying runs for deserving films.

While the rules of certain categories have been reformed (including Documentary) in recent years, I still believe the Best Live Action Short category to be a little problematic. The category requires films to qualify via a film festival award process (certain festivals are considered and advertise themselves as “qualifying” festivals) – this year not a single American film made it to the top 5. While many were excellent it underscores the need for – and I know this will anger many – more state funding for emerging filmmakers in the USA to make powerful shorts that can compete with other state-funded film enterprises. Monetizing a short in the US also difficult (perhaps IFC and other networks can assist in this capacity) – but it is what it is.

One has to believe the best do float to the top – the Independent Spirit Award system is perhaps even worse than the Academy Awards as whole IFP voting chapters will have little to no access to many of the smaller titles in time for voting. New York IFP members and LA Film Independent members have access to screenings, but when movie that played widely in commercial multiplexes (known as “smart houses”) like The Dallas Buyers Club or (the big winner) 12 Years a Slave sweep the awards, you know why.

The Agony of Year End: Top and Bottom Lists

The Broken Circle Breakdown - perhaps "the one that got away"

I’m not slacking off, nor am I procrastinating. I’m at the point where I truly believe the remaining films I’ll see this year and in early 2014 – including August: Osage County, Dhoom 3, Justin Beiber’s Believe and Walking with Dinosaurs 3D will fall into that neither here nor there category. That isn’t to say I won't later see the one that got away - but at a certain point I should be selfish: if I had not been presented the opportunity to reasonably see a movie, should that be my problem?

Yes and no. A few that got away came recommended by friends (I had solicited feedback on Facebook) they included Dan Mecca’s (co-founder of The Film Stage) suggestion I seek out The Broken Circle Breakdown, a Belgian film that I missed at Tribeca (as well as other screening opportunities). I imagine the picture is bleaker if you’re someone like Jeff Simon, our film critic in Buffalo (who briefly covered Toronto) – especially if you have to recommend films that will only be showing in Buffalo.

Still I remain slightly haunted – and so are others. Following Alamo Drafthouse CEO and Founder Tim League (the company just announced in 2013 they’ll be showing 100 essential films – favorites of their programming team) it becomes challenging to see everything, he’s been posting his progress on Facebook. This year I closed out a new record, 300 in theaters – including festivals - perhaps another 50 more when you consider screeners and Netflix. (Bill Graham – a Texas based correspondent for the Film Stage wrote in with Drug Wars, which was an excellent action picture, but narrowly missed my top 50).

With that said I attempt to walk into theater with an open mind and heart – sometimes it’s not so easy to leave one’s baggage at the door and submit. 2013 had been a rather interesting year geographically for me – spending it divided amongst three locations – Edinboro, PA (outside of Erie – with a 17-plex that may occasionally show a Focus Features/Sony Classics indie and a weekly film society screenings), North Jersey/New York Metro (where you can see anything you want), and Buffalo, NY (limited but some weekends we'll see as many as 6-7 new movies if we’re lucky between our art houses, multiplexes, micro cinemas and local screenings). What I’m most haunted by is regional filmmaking which can be a little like folk art – I’d like to think film festivals serve communities well but like any exhibitor its about putting butts in the seats.

Too many don’t take risks. I will specifically call out the Teaneck International Film Festival (Teaneck, NJ) for this one – they quite frankly programmed films that were widely accessible – some with theatrical and video releases - without the courtesy of notifying filmmakers who were not selected to screen. Festivals that are not transparent with regards to their selection process including how they define themselves are the worst kinds of gatekeepers – the Teaneck community would be best served by a weekly screening series.

The best film festivals still are political – I applaud the programmers at Toronto for acknowledging what is largely unknown to amateur filmmakers (we’ll address those in a moment). Programmers are often tracking films in production, produced by friends, contacts, etc. It still comes down to quality. At Toronto it’s acknowledged who had brought the film to the programming department’s attention (normally a talent agency). At two of the 20 screenings I attended this year, programmers acknowledged seeing works in various states of rough cut before inviting them to the festival – in one instance the filmmakers worked on the film for over a year in post.

The gatekeepers continue to exist at a time when distribution costs have in essence skewed down to zero. If you consider that inevitably a hidden masterpiece made by a kid in Iowa who never attended film school likely exists on YouTube, you’ll be kept up at night. Therefore we need some rules – what makes a “2013 film” a real “2013 film”? (The Independent Spirit Awards struggle with this every year). So here are my rules – imperfect as they are. I had to have seen the film in 2013, the film had to be have been in a finished state and accessible to those willing to pay for it (at a screening, festival, etc). Still this is not everyone’s rules and films morph over time – I was blown away by Spring Breakers in 2012 when I saw it at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) and it’s power grew when I saw it in 2013 in an Erie, PA multiplex.

With that said where does Buffalo’s local film stand up? Painfully I have debated myself as to whether or not one local film deserves a spot in my bottom 25 – is it fair? Is it politically a good move for me? Yes – I paid to see the movie, but was it really a movie? Did it have the same characteristics of a professional movie with a large budget made with bad intensions or was it more of a hobby? I respect when people with full time jobs come together on weekends to make something happen but it really wasn’t very good or ambitious? Then again should my film – Brandonwood join it on the bottom 25 (I don’t think so but I certainly cringe when I think what I could have done differently, and frequently – then again I’ve seen the film more than anyone else because I lived with it for two years)? I just don’t know, this is all a gray area.

In closing, access remains an issue – my life experience and geography is different than others so I shouldn’t feel bad. Nor should I pretend year-end top and bottom lists are perfect – some critics will even see films twice to measure if their impact still holds up (sadly that’s not always an option – and besides “ain’t nobody got time for that”). At 300 films in theatres this year I feel like I’m a pretty well informed consumer, few films blew me away, some films last forever, and others fade.

My process is this – I assign each film I see a star ranking (that may change in my mind over time as I process – I normally like to reflect on a film a week after I see it). Those that achieve 3 ½ (of 4) are put on a list; those that achieve 4 are given a star on that list. Those that achieve 1 ½ or lower are on the “naughty” list. One film, which will be my worst film of the year (thankfully also reviewed at Film Stage) achieved zero – it was awful, mean spirited and above all not funny (no, it wasn’t produced in Buffalo).

Then the magic happens – is Nebraska a better film than Wolf of Wall Street? Enough Said is brilliant in its own way but does it stand up to the ambition of Fredrick Wiseman’s At Berkley. Joshua Oppenheimer’s Act of Killing stuck with me – but how does it rank against Nils Tavernier’s The Finishers, a film I saw at TIFF that left not a dry eye in the house (it should be picked up by Harvey Weinstein and made into a global hit)? Those difficult decisions will be finalized tonight and tomorrow.