The charges have been raised: Exploitation! Historical inaccuracy! Quantitatively insufficient acting! Must be Oscar season. Will any of them stick?
This year's Academy Awards nominations were met with a near-universal ho-hum. Critics yawned ("the most dispiriting and beside-the-point Academy Awards race in decades," wrote Richard T. Jameson) and sneered, while pundits anticipated another plummet in the ratings for the televised ceremony.
So, how do you pump up interest in a desultory Oscar year? With Hollywood scandals, of course -- real or manufactured! Here are some of them (with links to source stories):
What kind of an Oscar campaign is Harvey Weinstein running for his dark horse nominee, "The Reader," and does it include secretly badmouthing the others in the race? (And how much stock can you put in a weird, Weinstein-glorifying Entertainment Weekly story that positions "The Reader" as a Slumdog "spoiler," when in once sentence it describes Weinstein as "an unswerving champion of great filmmaking," and in another recounts how he "strong-armed [director Stephen] Daldry into rushing the film into theaters before the end of last year, setting off a power struggle with the film's producer, Scott Rudin, who took his name off the film in protest"?)
At Slate, Ron Rosenbaum accuses "The Reader" of "Holocaust revisionism" for asserting that ordinary Germans had no idea what was happening: "What did they think?" he asks. "The Jews all decided to go on vacation and forgot to come home?"
How much did those non-English-speaking "Slumdog Millionaire" kids really get paid -- and why won't anybody say, exactly? (Jonathan Lapper draws parallels to the charges of exploitation leveled against Paul Simon's "Graceland" album in 1986.) Meanwhile, LA Times Oscar blogger Pete Hammond complains of a "raging conspiracy" against the once-underdog, now-frontrunner, and one that has nothing to do with its merits or faults as a movie that was nearly released straight-to-video. (His evidence: another LA Times story headlined "Indians don't feel good about 'Slumdog Millionaire'.")
Did Brad Pitt do enough "acting" to justify his nomination in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," if that's a digital representation of his face on screen for the first 52 minutes of the film? (See how it was done, and how the actor performed it, here.)
Does "Milk" "castrate its hero" by chopping out the sex? Mark Simpson in The Guardian writes: "Apparently, a bathhouse scene was filmed but ended up on the cutting room floor. I have no idea whether this was Van Sant's call or the studio's, but with that cut Mr. Milk was to all intents and purposes emasculated." Some have argued a similar reluctance to be open about the issue of homosexuality contributed to the passage of California's anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8.
Simpson quotes Milk himself in biographer Randy Shilts' "The Mayor of Castro Street": "As homosexuals we can't depend on the heterosexual model. We grow up with the heterosexual model, but we don't have to pursue it. We should be developing our own lifestyle. There's no reason why you can't love more than one person at a time. You don't have to love them all the same. You love some more, some less and always be honest about where you're at. They in turn can do the same thing, and it opens up a bigger sphere."
And, hey, what about that "Frost/Nixon"? Original F/N interview researcher James Reston Jr. (played in the movie by Sam Rockwell) writes: "For the stage and screen, this history has been compressed a great deal more, into something resembling comedic tragedy.... I've been thinking a lot lately about what is gained and what is lost when history is turned into entertainment."
Now, is that enough to distract you from the lackluster movies themselves until February 22?
I dream of an Oscar show in which both Mickey Rourke and Werner Herzog give acceptance speeches.
The second won't happen, the first is probably 50/50. Other than that, I don't much care and doubt that I'll be watching most of it.
The only thing I'm really torn on is deciding which category is the most embarrassing this year. The Best Editing nominees are appalling.
The Academy continues to define best editing as "the most editing" (Slumdog, Dark Knight) or gives away slots to high profile movies even if the editing isn't particularly noteworthy (Frost/Nixon). I didn't see a better edited mainstream film this year than The Wrestler.
But this year, Best Picture is a close runner-up for worst category. Milk is the only film in the group I liked. The best I can say about the rest is that Frost/Nixon was watchable.
What's the over/under on how many times Mickey Rourke says "balls" if he wins? What about if he doesn't win?
To end on a positive note, Documentary used to be one of the worst categories year-in and year-out but now that they've moved away from refusing to recognizing anything other than talking head sociopolitical commentaries, it's become one of the strongest on a consistent basis. This year there are 3 great candidates and 2 I haven't seen, so maybe it's all 5.
Nope.
Not a scintilla of interest. I think the hum-drum response is due to the fact that with each movie (except for The Reader, I hope), you know pretty much what you gonna get ("Life [in movies] is not like a box of chocolates").
Best Picture is certainly a peculiar selection this year. "Milk" and "Slumdog" both definitely merit nominations this year. Fantastic films. But I wonder how so many people thought that "Benjamin Button", while still a very good movie, was more deserving than "The Wrestler"? I understand completely why "Synecdoche, New York" didn't receive a nomination, but that doesn't make it's absence forgivable. I think the same can be said for David Gordon Green's very poignant "Snow Angels".
Christopher Long:
I'm guessing one of the two documentary films you haven't seen is The Garden. I had a chance to interview the director, Scott Hamilton Kennedy, for my humble student newspaper, the results of which you can find here:
http://thelinknewspaper.com/articles/832
The Documentary film category seems indeed to have gotten better. I thought that when No Country for Old Men won Best Picture, we'd see similar results from then on. But it looks like that was the exception and not the new rule.
And Edward G. Robinson wasn't nominated for Double Indemnity.
JE: Or for Fritz Lang's "Scarlet Street" or "Woman in the Window" -- lead performances of even GREATER significance!
Christopher Olson:
Thanks for the link. That's the first real information I've read about this movie. I reviewed OT: Our Town when it was released on DVD a few years ago. It wasn't the most technically polished doc, but it had heart and a good sense of story, so I'm looking forward to seeing The Garden.
More on the Oscars:
There has to be a way to drum up more controversy. Herzog was previously accused of exploiting or abusing dwarfs, native populations, Bruno S. and a camel. I say he drugged that penguin and sent it rushing off to its death.
And Marisa Tomei has surely made a pact with some dark force to get hotter and hotter with each new movie. Or maybe it's some Scientology thing.
Personally, I'd love it if The Reader won. It wouldn't quite as big a laugh-out-loud moment as when Jack Nicholson mugged for the camera and announced "Crash" as the winner, but it would still be a riot. It would surely kick off a whole new cycle of Nazi kink. Perhaps a remake of Ilsa, She Wolf of the S.S.?
Yeah, 2008 was one lousy year for movies. And these are terrible nominees for best picture. We have one decent movie (Slundog Millionaire), a couple OK, historically inaccurate biopics (Frost/Nixon and Milk) and some dreck that doesn't deserve any sort of award (Benjamin Button and Reader).
Does anyone think people will remember or care about these movies a year from now? The best five for 2008 were:
Wall-E
Let the Right One In
Dark Knight (screw you Emerson)
The Wrestler
Synedoche, NY
No one cares about the terrible movies actually nominated. The Oscars continue their deserved slide to irrelevance.
I think Leonardo Dicaprio deserved an acting nomination over Brad Pitt. I think Pitt's performance was too "subtle" and underwhelming. I also wonder why Let the Right One In wasn't nominated in the Best Foreign Film category.
About the "controversy" over the kids' pay in Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle and his people won't release the exact amount in the kids' trust funds because they don't want to the make the families vulnerable to attracting corrupt elements. There is already a story out there about some Almeida guy harassing the family (for money or encouraging them to sue?), the same guy who is suing the film in objection to the use of the term "Slumdog" in the title. I do know the trust fund includes the $15,000 prize the film won at the Toronto Film Festival, and their education is also being paid for.
I also think Weinstein is trying to build momentum for The Reader, merely by saying that his film will win.
Why do we care about the Oscars?
This is an inclusive "we": I watch them religiously, always hold Oscar parties, and pit my guesses against my friends'. But they started as a gimmick to increase publicity, and they've always been a gimmick to increase publicity. I cringe a little when I hear that the Oscars are going downhill, because we can find some bum years throughout its history - the list of never-wons is far more impressive than the wins. Is there anything up for Best Picture this year that compete in awfulness with Greatest Show on Earth, or irrelevance with Around the World in 80 Days, etc., etc. etc. And that's just the Best Picture category.
It's always been like this, but here I am again annoyed at the nominations (I enjoyed Slumdog alright, but it's B level Boyle) and will probably be dispirited with some of the wins. Why do pay so much attention to them knowing what we know about them?
All in all, this years' nominees are just boring. It was nice to see some stronger films in the mix last year, between No Country and There Will Be Blood, and I was happy to see Brokeback's almost win (quiet character studies aren't exactly the Oscars' thing), but those + Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, and Crouching Tiger are the only nominees since 2000 that I had any interest in. That's... what? 6 films I loved out of 50 nominees? I think "meh" is more of a default setting when it comes to Oscar picks than not.
First off, Jim, thanks for making your blog a mostly Oscar-free zone.
Fifteen or twenty years ago, back when the Oscars meant something to me, one Oscar show had a fantastic medley of great songs that appeared in movies, but were never even nominated for Best Song. The main one I remember is Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate, and I think Talk to the Animals from Doctor Doolittle was the actual winner that year.
Last year I shook my head in disbelief with the awful dreck that was nominated. What in the world ever happened to You Know My Name by Chris Cornell from Casino Royale, which was exciting and cleverly worked on multiple levels (both as a statement about the plot, but also the predicament that Daniel Craig found himself in as "the next in line" as 007). You Know My Name was the only movie song from the whole year that probably had more than ten downloads. Of course, there was no room this year for the equally clever satire of Pineapple Express.
Song is clearly the category that is the most corrupt, and serves no discernible purpose other than logrolling.
And I still find it laughable that the presenters always say "The Oscar goes to..." instead of "The winner is..." these days. The only possible statement more accurate than the latter (which accurately describes the Oscar popularity contest) would be "And the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Popularity, Politicking and PR by one of the five nominees in the Best Actress category, and the one we think would be the best representative of our impeccable and important values is..."
George C. Scott and Brando had it right all along. If only the Academy had the guts to have Colbert host next year. Although they would sooner use Benjamin Button technology to bring back Jack Valenti and have him give another one of his hack speeches before that would happen.
I actually wanted to see Slumdog this year, until it got that Oscar stank all over it. And that's a stank that never comes off. My mind now associates Slumdog with Annie, and if John Waters ever does a remake of Serial Mom, I would fully expect the Kathleen Turner character to use a curried leg of lamb to beat her neighbor to death while watching the dance number at the end.
"I didn't see a better edited mainstream film this year than The Wrestler."
No kidding! The Wrestler was one of THE BEST films of the year and all it got were acting nominations. These people should have their ballots taken away.
Another category that is embarrassing is Best Adapted Screenplay. Two of the nominees are adaptations from their writers' own stage plays and one is a near-plagiarism from an earlier movie. David Hare completely missed the point of Bernard Schlink's interesting novel and his recognition is bunk. So that leaves Slumdog Millionaire; hardly an inspiring choice but the best of the five. These dittoheads blew the best chance they had to recognize excellent films like Let the Right One In, Tell No One, Gomorrah, Elegy, and Snow Angels with at least a damn adapted screenplay nod. I don't even want to get into the omission of The Dark Knight from that category.
And this is one year after doing so well with their 80th ceremony. Un-friggin'-believable...
In response to Dew, I believe the reason why "Let The Right One In" was not nominated was that its country of origin did not offer it as its official selection to the Academy. More about that here -- http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39752
For what it's worth, I did see it and really liked it, and would have loved to have seen it nominated.
This isn't really the place to post this thought, but I thought I'd sneak it in here instead of on your original "Slumdog" post, since there were about 200 replies.
I finally saw "Slumdog Millionaire", aware of how much many people loved it, aware also of a few naysayers, but perfectly prepared for a moving, fast-paced, somewhat simplistic but still ultimately heartwarming tale. Many of the naysayers who had sniped at "Slumdog" were the same people who continually trotted out "Forrest Gump" to dump on it as an example of conservative, anti-intelligent schmaltz...and damned if "Forrest Gump" isn't one of my favourite films, continually underappreciated for the sharpness of its writing, the universality of its characters, the sting to its satire of American success, and the fact that it's just a really funny movie.
So grinches be damned, I thought, I'm going to love "Slumdog Millionaire" too. I mean, I really loved Danny Boyle's film "Millions", and this looked kind-of similar.
And BOYYYYYYY was I wrong. I can't think of a film I've disliked this much since "The Polar Express" (well, "Running Scared" and "Crank", but I shouldn't have ever seen those). I'm dreading going into work tomorrow because I know all of my friends, who loved the movie, will want to know what I thought of it...and frankly, I just don't have the energy for one more conversation in which I'm accused of being a contrarian just for the sake of it. It makes you seem like such a killjoy to dump on a movie like "Slumdog", but that's part of what makes it so detestable.
I'm so glad you called out this film, because if it wins Best Picture, it will officially mark the zenith of the Age of Obviousness in film storytelling (one that already has many good representatives, including "Crash", "The Dark Knight", and pretty much anything recent by Clint Eastwood...and hell, I like Eastwood's films). Not once during "Slumdog" was I ever surprised...I always saw the machinations of its cuteness, the straining to be loved (that is, if I COULD see what was going on, what with Boyle's insistent whip-panning and fuzzy focus). In a way, the film is like the group of child beggars near the beginning of the movie, manipulating their targets for maximum effect (carrying a baby? You earn double. A blind singer? Triple). I don't mind being manipulated...all films are manipulative. The problem is when it doesn't win you over, and all you're left to do is stare in disgust at the technique.
That picture at the top of this post? That's pretty much how I felt after seeing the film: covered in s---.
Am I the only one who thought Let the Right One In was kinda lame? It just seemed like typical Hollywood fluff (complete with a bullied youth who finds the inspiration to fight back) disguised as something Artistic and Important. If it was in English and starred Dakota Fanning, but was otherwise unchanged, I have to wonder if people would be drooling over it quite so much.
I am about to leave the flat to see Waltz With Bashir, the prospect of which excites me more than any of the best picture nominees.
I saw Benjamin Button and Bedtime Stories yesterday. I don't mind telling you that I preferred the latter. It had a CGI guinea pig with gigantic eyes for god's sake!
But, you are so on the money about this year's selection. I wrote a piece on it on my blog last week - I can't remember another year that was so meh! Drivel, the lot of them.
"what is gained and what is lost". That instantly reminded me of 21 Gramms :)
The only category I'm really interested in is Best Original Screenplay, because it places two of my favorite films (WALL*E and In Bruges) of the year against one another in a category they both excelled at. They'll probably give it to Milk just to spite me.
Yeah, a lame group of nominees. I've still seen only two, with "Milk" being the one of the other three I'm interested in. It still hasn't come to my town. Strange. So for the moment my choice is between "Slumdog" and "Benjamin Button". Ugh. I guess I have to pick "Slumdog" as The Best Nominated Picture.
I think everyone can admit, though, that however many good non-nominations are out there, there isn't a real strong consensus on many that got wide releases. Maybe just "Dark Knight", "Wall-e" (which has been segregated to that other category) and possibly "In Bruges" (which was a long damn time ago)? Or is this just in my town? Far fewer decent movies than normal showed in my town and although I'm willing to drive the 45 miles down to Detroit for a near sure thing there weren't enough of those either. So I did a lot of "Hmmm, better wait for Netflix." I think the one movie I saw that I thought was both really good *and* likely Oscar material was "Happy Go Lucky".
So I would say the year was as desultory as the nominations. The odds of something interesting actually happening at the ceremony have little to do with what the nominees are, though.
Why do critics care about the Oscars? Why do critics spend so much time either discussing or attacking the Oscars? I get it, if your boss requires to for your newspaper or magazine. I get it, that the populace is interested in how satisfied or dissatisfied the critic is with nominations/winners. But seriously? The Oscars are merely self engrandizement by an industry. Its akin to an office party where people give out awards to the funniest employee of the year, or some inane BS like that. Subjective, popularity votes.
Alex Murillo-
There's some humor in that in your complaint of Slumdog's supposed cloying for attention, you felt the need to post a full review of the film, complete with a thank you to Jim Emerson, in a thread devoted to an entirely different topic.
No mention of the saucy text that Mickey wrote about Penn doing an okay job of acting and being a homophobe?
I didn't fault the film for "cloying for attention"...it has my attention, I'm in the movie theater! If you're going to point our ironies, at least quote me correctly.
As far as my attempt to get attention...well, it was either post it here (with the photograph from Slumdog, so it's not totally unrelated) or bury it in the comments section of Jim's previous Slumdog post.
Either way, you clearly love the film, and that's fine, but taking shots at a film's detractor doesn't really do much except make my case for the film's bullying, "love-me-or-else" style.
Yeah, last year when we were discussing "No Country" versus "There Will Be Blood", that qualifies as a good problem to have. I even liked "Michael Clayton" better than any of these movies and I thought Clayton had its share of problems.
Where was the innovation this year? Where the filmmakers who were at the very least *trying* to put something new and different on the screen? (Disclaimer: I haven't seen Synedoche or Bashir, which could fit this bill)
Honestly, I think the Razzies have more ambitious, interesting, and original films on its list than the Oscars. Maybe this is always the case and I never noticed.
Jerry Lewis is being given several minutes to address the world he's confident loves him and the Academy he's convinced hasn't loved him enough. That's enough to get me to tune in.
He's right on both accounts, but this could be epic.
Great discussion. I finally saw "Milk" this weekend, and I was underwhelmed to the point of almost leaving the theater. I only stayed to attend a second feature. I found "Milk" to be a string of heartwarming cliches bound up in lackluster filming and some pretty lousy acting (Emile Hersh, are you listening)? Sean Penn was the standout in the film, so I can see why a nomination made its way to him. I thought the Dan White character was woefully underdeveloped to the point of caricature. I did enjoy James Franco in the film, and I'd probably give him a nod also. I remember these events vividly-- I was in my early 20s went it went down-- and, while the film did a decent job of recreating the political and cultural context (particularly the Anita Bryant idiocies), I don't think rose above the Lifetime movie presentation of the overall story. Well meaning but entirely bland. Hard to believe coming from Gus van Sandt. My near walkout point point was the follow-up call from the wheelchair-bound young ex-Minnesotan. The oozing sentimentality was smothering. OK, I guess I'm a heartless bastard.
I noticed the item about which of his greatest performances Edward G. Robinson was not nominated for in 1944. In fact of point, the former Emmanuel Goldenberg was -- sad but true -- never nominated for an Oscar. At. All.
I can give an answer as to why I care about the Oscars: despite the bad picks, despite the hijacking by fashion-obsessed news whores, despite the cloying sense of self-congratulation, the Oscars is the one time in the year when the movie industry genuinely tries to reward those who have focused on artistic quality instead of popular acclaim. It's the one time a year when the mainstream sees movies as art in addition to entertainment.
I know they often screw up. This year's nominees are embarrassing in almost all categories. That's disheartening because the Oscars do matter, as validation of the idea that some movies are more important and endearing than others. Because I think that we'd all be better off if genuinely artistic movies won Oscars, it stings when they don't, which admittedly is most of the time.
Those too-cool posters who profess their complete apathy for the Oscars don't help things. We get it; you're too smart to care. But if people did care, then maybe eventually the trend would change.
slumpoop.jpg - Hee.
Living in Denmark, I have not seen many of the nominated films. Just now Frost/Nixon and Milk is in the theaters but now I don't have time to watch them before the Oscars. I did however see Benjamin Button, and reviewed it for a danish website and was really surprised at how much I hated it. It will no doubt end up on my list of the worst movie of the year. It was pretentious, boring and mind boggling banal. It was unfunny when it intended to be funny, and down right laughable when it tried to be deep or sincere; if it wasn't for the fact that it was so tedious, that is. This movie doesn't deserve an Oscar it deserves a Razzie. Brad Pitt could go and pick it up along one for himself.
The Oscars are fun because it's celebrating the movies. Not necessarily the best movies, or the best people involved in them, but still it's a night entirely about them, and a bit of grandiose spectacle is entirely appropriate even when it sometimes takes itself too seriously.
Also, nitpicking their selections is fun.
I will say that THE WRESTLER is the one case this year of a film not getting the Best Picture nod where I can't quite put my finger on why. WALL-E was an animated movie, DARK KNIGHT was a superhero movie, those are tough sells to Oscar voters, okay. But... what precisely is not respectable about this? What did Darren Aronofsky do to anger the Academy voters? And what did happen to the song?
Well, Evan, though it's a character study, The Wrestler takes place in the world of professional wrestling, which is considered lowbrow, even if the film itself isn't. That might answer your question.
As for Springsteen's song, I believe it was disqualified because he chose to include it on his album, which is against the rules the Oscars have set, where the song is only to appear on the soundtrack of the film.
JE: I thought maybe there was a new rule about a song that appears only in the end credits, but that's pretty much the case with the nominated "WALL-E" song, too. Here's what the LA Times says about the Springsteen song:
http://tinyurl.com/bktxm6
Unbelievable. I'll admit I thought it was a pre-existing song when I first heard it, which would have made it ineligible. But those music branch committee members are supposed to know that kind of thing before they vote.
Is there any particular reason why such a complex system exists?
JE: I honestly don't know why they do what they do in the song category. Usually they make rule changes to fix things that resulted in previously embarrassing nominations. I have a hunch we'll be seeing more rule changes from the music branch next year after this fiasco...
Now, if that remake of "Serial Mom" had Kathleen Turner beating DANNY BOYLE to death with a curried leg of lamb, I might go back to the movies again. 'Til that happy day, I'll catch up on my reading. The rabid success of "Slumdog Millionaire" has totally put me off film. It makes me physically ill to think of Danny the Spastic Hack up for so many awards....
I loved 3 of the best picture nominees: The Reader, Milk & Slumdog Millionaire. Sean Penn gave an amazing performance & he ought to win for Milk. Kate Winslet is stunning in The Reader. The backlash against The Reader (I wonder if I somehow saw a different film? Or if the anger and hostility is because viewers are COMPLICIT and can't deal with it in their own lives). The point of the german characters inability to acknowledge their complicity was the point of that part of the movie! I only loved Cate Blanchett & Tilda Swinton's performances in the otherwise ridiculous Benjamin Button; and Frost/Nixon does have a great performance: Michael Sheen, not Frank Langella, who has zero resemblence facially or emotionally to Nixon.
The Wrestler is an idiotic movie, unmoving, with a terrible central performance. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Heath Ledger belong in the lead actor category; I hated The Dark Knight & Ledger's performance & out of who is nominated I'd pick Josh Brolin for Milk. Amy Adams deserves - and won't get - the supporting actress award. (I predict: Taraji P. Henson, since I hated her performance & they will give B.B. something in a major category).
Overlooked: The Class for best picture, best director and best actor! Body Of War for best documentary, Sally Hawkins (who won most of the critics prizes) and Kristin Scott Thomas for best actress, Dev Patel for Slumdog, David Kross for The Reader.
The Oscar race is undoubtedly abysmal this year. The Academy isn't exactly known for distributing awards to the best and most deserving movies, still we movie viewers love to beat a dead horse. So in that spirit, my particular complaint:
The Band's Visit - Just because the movie is quiet, sensitive and tender about the loneliness that divides all humans and not explosive and 'controversial' (what in the world does that indicate aside from cheap, uncreative ad executives nowadays?) doesn't mean that it shouldn't be rewarded. And the Academy's frivolous excuse against this gem of a movie (a short observation: the cuts to close-ups of the three faces during the Chet Baker performance by Khalid and back to the painfully concise framing of the three along with the single extended shot of Khalid's seduction course were among my favourite moments in film this year) were pathetic and reeked of underexposure to the film.
Also I have no idea whether Waltz with Bashir is eligible for any of the awards but it certainly deserves something (by which I mean an award).
JE: "The Band's Visit" (a wonderful film) was ruled ineligible for a "Foreign Language Film" nomination in 2007 because more than half its dialog was in English. This year "Waltz with Bashir" is nominated for "Foreign Language Film" -- though the Directors Guild nominated it for best documentary, the Writers Guild gave it a best documentary screenplay award, and other organizations (including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association) have honored it for best animated film of the year.