OSCAR 2017 - Pre-Show Thoughts & Predictions & Rants

OSCARS 2017 Thoughts and Predictions:

2016 was somewhat of a mixed-bag year for movies (especially for movies in the prestige, Oscar-bait category), which makes this year's Oscars feel slightly underwhelming on paper. The good news? The Oscars finally got diverse this year: movies about minorities are finally being recognized - with fantastic films like Fences, Moonlight, and Hidden Figures getting major Oscar love. In this post-Trump era, in which our government is comprised of white-nationalist, alt-right racists - the diversity represented in film's most prestigious awards ceremony is encouraging and much-needed. That said, the less encouraging thing is that the Oscars still feel too much like a political campaign rather than a pure reflection on what was good and what was great in the past year. Once again, outstanding films that were too genre, too indie, or too under-campaigned-for by big studios were shut out. It's a shame, because I genuinely loved this year's shoe-in favorite, La La Land. But I also get the weariness people feel when it seems like one movie is predestined to win it all. Also - so ... Hollywood has already forgiven Mel Gibson? Come on. This guy spewed the most vile hate-speech this side of a KKK rally, and has done little to make the case for a full exoneration. No major studio should be working with him. Hacksaw Ridge's nomination for Best Picture, in my mind, sours this year's Oscars. Meanwhile, any film fan worth his or her salt knows that some of 2016's best films included the likes of The Witch, Green Room, 20th Century Women, The Handmaiden, Hail Caesar!, Sing Street, and Hello, My Name Is Doris. But ... and this is not all that unexpected, given the Oscars' track record ... those films were snubbed.

Speaking of movies that got ignored ... here are my Top 10 OSCAR SNUBS for this year:

1.) The Witch - Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Anna Taylor Joy), Best Director (Robert Eggers)

- Horror movies have occasionally been nominated for Oscars, but it's still rare. That said, if any recent horror movie felt genuinely "Oscar-y," it was THE WITCH. It was not just a great, bone-chilling horror film - but a meticulously-assembled period drama and a hyper-relevant allegory about paranoia and division. In an age of modern-day witch-hunts, it's a shame that The Witch isn't getting wider recognition (it did, however, win two Independent Spirit awards). Also - Anna Taylor-Joy in this delivers a breakthrough performance ... as much as Hailee Steinfeld did in True Grit or Jennifer Lawrence did in Winter's Bone. She should have been nominated.

2.) Annette Benning - Best Lead Actress for 20th Century Women.

- Annette Benning kills in 20th Century Women, in an absolutely tour de force performance. Did the Oscars really give Meryl Streep a nomination for Florence Foster Jenkins over this? I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the timing of the film's release - but again, this is where the Oscars are fundamentally broken. Let critics and journalists vote on the nominees, not Academy members who only see the movies that have been fed to them by studios long before ballots are due.

3.) Captain Fantastic - Best Picture

- It was nice to see Viggo get a Best Actor nom for this one. But, really, why not a Best Picture nom as well? Captain Fantastic was one of 2016's most affecting, memorable films. It should have been in the mix.

4.) Best Director - Tom Ford for Nocturnal Animals

- Here is why I feel strongly about this: no film sequence in 2016 had me more on the edge of my seat than Nocturnal Animals' harrowing roadside abduction sequence. I could barely breathe. That's some masterful directing by Ford, and it should have been recognized.

5.) Green Room - Best Picture, Best Director (Jeremy Saulnier)

- Classic example of a grindhouse-y genre film that should have been nominated but wasn't, because it was directed by someone other than Tarantino. Well guys, it's time to start talking about Saulnier as a new-era Tarantino. Sure, this is only his second film - but La La Land is Chazelle's second film, so ... In any case, the fact is that Green Room is a master-class in tension-packed filmmaking. It's a white-knuckle thriller that kicks all kinds of ass.

6.) Hail, Caesar! - Best Picture, Best Director (The Coen Bros.), Best Original Screenplay

- The Oscars' biggest bias? Comedy. The Coen Bros make The Big Lebowski, and it gets zero Oscar love. They make No Country For Old Men, and it gets Oscar noms left and right. Both are masterpieces, but for whatever reason Oscar never awards comedy - even when it comes from two masters like the Coens. Hail, Caesar is a great film, a deeply layered film, and another example of how The Coens are cinematic geniuses.

7.) Hello, My Name Is Doris - Best Picture, Best Leading Actress (Sally Field)

- Speaking of comedy ... this film features perhaps the greatest Sally Field performance of her storied career, and no recognition? It's funny, moving, unique - brilliantly scripted by the great Michael Showalter. So where is the love, Oscar? Can no one other than Woody Allen or Wes Anderson get nominated for quirky comedy?

8.) Sing Street - Best Picture, Best Original Song

- Okay, WTF Oscars. Sing Street was one of 2016's most delightful, uplifting, original movies - an infectious 80's-rock inspired musical that had me downloading its original tunes and playing on repeat. AND IT WASN'T EVEN NOMINATED FOR BEST ORIGINAL SONG?! I mean, what?! Did Oscar voters even *hear* the insanely awesome "Riddle of the Model" --?! This one is up there with La La Land for 2016's best musical, yet it got no love. Shame, Oscars - shame!

9.) The Handmaiden - Best Picture, Best Director (Chan-Wook Park) Best Foreign Language Film

- It's weird enough that Elle was nominated for Best Leading Actress but not Best Foreign Language Film. But the real travesty is that The Handmaiden - maybe the best film yet from legendary director Chan-Wook Park - got zero Oscar love. I mean, it's just baffling. The film is gorgeously shot, incredibly acted, and absolutely unforgettable. It's funny too how Hollywood seems eager to remake Park's films (the Spike Lee version of Oldboy, anyone?), but can't seem to nominate them for Oscars.

10.) Edge of Seventeen - Best Picture, Best Leading Actress (Hailee Steinfeld)

- Teen movies are another genre that rarely get noticed, but when they're this good - why not?! Edge of Seventeen is probably the best coming-of-age teen movie since Juno (which did get a Best Picture nom in 2007), but was pretty much ignored by the Academy. Steinfeld is fantastic in this, and the film is funny, smart, sad, and all-around great. Should've been nominated.


2017 OSCAR PICKS AND PREDICTIONS:

BEST PICTURE:

Should Win: Hell or High Water

- It won't win. But Hell or High Water was my pick for Best Film of 2016. It had it all - an amazing script, a great cast, harrowing action, social/political relevance ... I loved this movie. I was glad to see it get a Best Picture nomination, but my guess is it feels too "genre-y" for most Oscar voters.

Will Win: Moonlight

- My sense is it's a two-horse race between Moonlight and La La Land. But I'm going to bet on the slight underdog here. Oscar voters, I think, will ultimately recognize just how unique of a film Moonlight is - a meditative drama about a gay black man trying to rise up out of a broken home and make something of himself? I mean, how often do you see that in an Oscar nominee? I finally watched Moonlight this week, and it truly is the real deal - an amazingly shot, superbly acted movie that shows us the power of films to create empathy and a sense of commonality. I think it will win. And if it does, it will be deserving.

BEST ACTOR:

Should Win: Tie: Denzel Washington (Fences) / Viggo Mortenson (Captain Fantastic)

- Both of the above performances were powerhouses, so it's hard to pick a favorite. Denzel was a force of nature in Fences - it's a theatrical, memorable, earth-shaking turn from the legendary actor. Viggo, meanwhile, was quietly incredible in Captain Fantastic. Such a multilayered, complex role - you both love and hate his hippie character. Not many other actors could have pulled it off.

Will Win: Denzel Washington (Fences)

- Casey Affleck was probably the favorite originally (and he is pretty great in Manchester By the Sea), but it feels like, for various reasons, the tide has turned to favor Denzel. But after seeing Fences, I can't really argue. See above for why.

BEST ACTRESS:

Should Win: Natalie Portman (Jackie)

- I'm not sure why, but Jackie seems to be flying under the radar. It's an incredible film, and it's up there with Black Swan as the best-ever Natalie Portman performance. I've heard people call it a horror film, and it's not a far-off-the-mark assessment. Portman brilliantly plays Jackie Kennedy as a person torn between a need to uphold a specific public persona and a person who knows that that persona is mere facade. This was, perhaps, the single best performance in a film in 2016. And by the way, I say that also having loved Isabelle Huppert in Elle, Ruth Negga in Loving, and Emma Stone in La La Land.


Will Win: Emma Stone (La La Land)

- I think this is where the La La Land hype will be too strong to stop. I actually think that Emma Stone is awesome in La La Land - how many other young actresses could have pulled off what she did? I also think that, in general, Emma Stone is the real deal, acting-wise. Anyways, though Portman should win, and if not Portman, Huppert, I am guessing Stone will edge them out since she may be viewed as having "carried" La La Land. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

Should Win: Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals)

- Like any film/TV nerd, I'm a huge fan of Michael Shannon. The guy can do no wrong, and he always brings an unparalleled intensity to any part he plays. Actually, it's weird, because he was so great in Midnight Special in early 2016, yet there's another movie that got totally ignored by the Oscars. Anyways, Shannon is one of those guys who should probably *always* be nominated, yet never is. So it's awesome to see him get some recognition for his ultra-badass turn in Nocturnal Animals as a broken-down lawman with nothing left to lose. I mean, he flat-out owns in the movie, and while Aaron Taylor-Johnson was also good, it was baffling that Johnson (and not Shannon) got a Golden Globes nom. The right man was picked here.

Will Win: Dev Patel (Lion)

- This is a tough one to predict. Part of me thinks Mahershala Ali could get it, as the guy has been on an incredible roll lately. But having watched Moonlight, his part just didn't feel substantial enough for an Oscar. And ... I still have not seen Lion. But my sense is that Dev Patel - so great in movies like Slumdog Millionaire - really knocked it out of the park. So he's my pick, but it's a toss-up.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Should and Will Win: Viola Davis (Fences)

- Easiest pick of the night. Viola Davis was fantastic in Fences, and had a couple of scenes that were absolutely chill-inducing. While I liked some of the other performances in the category, Davis here is in a class of her own. Meanwhile, she's a super well-respected and loved veteran who has earned the admiration of her peers. She'll win it.

BEST DIRECTOR:

Should and Will Win: Damien Chazelle (La La Land)

- Chazelle deserves this one. The guy has made two features (Whiplash and La La Land), and both are incredible works of cinema. The guy can direct like nobody's business - and, already, he's a master of combining images and sound to create mesmerizing, kinetic, hypnotic worlds that exist in some sort of hyper-real dreamscape. To me, what separates La La Land from your run of the mill movie musical is its surreal, breathtaking direction. You've got to appreciate it. Chazelle should and will win this one. And I can't wait to see what he does next.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

Should Win: Hell or High Water

- Loved this screenplay. Reminded me of old-school, dialogue-driven movies like Five Easy Pieces. I mean, how about that scene where Jeff Bridges and his partner pull in to some ramshackle southern-fried restaurant and try to order from their cantankerous waitress? Gold.



Will Win: Manchester By the Sea


- My preference is Hell or High Water, but I'll also acknowledge that Manchester had a hell of a screenplay, and that Kenneth Lonergan is a hell of a writer. He makes Manchester sad-as-hell but also gives it moments of raw hilarity. He gives it literary depth but also a stunning realness. He's the kind of autuer writer-director that Hollywood is lucky to have, and so I believe they will reward him for his singular vision here.


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

Should Win and Will Win: Fences

- Maybe Moonlight will take it, but I've got to think that Fences - adapted from a play and dependent in full on its pairing of powerful words and performances - will win here. Fences' dialogue is rich and colorful, full of memorable anecdotes, rants, arguments, and soliloquies.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE:

Should Win: Moana

- Moana was the best traditional Disney animated musical in years - to me, it was up there with the all-time classics. Gorgeously animated, it had memorable songs, an empowering message, and incredible visuals. It was my pick for the Best Animated Film of 2016.

Will Win: Zootopia

- So of course, Moana will not win. Instead, Oscar voters will likely reward the even-more-woke Zootopia, which had an ambitious premise that strove to be an allegory for racial prejudice. But to me, Zootopia overreached and never fully nailed the central metaphor. It was a strange tonal and stylistic jumble. Moana, elegant in its simplicity, was the superior film.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS:

Should Win: TIE: Doctor Strange or Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

- Doctor Strange wowed me with its trippy, Steve Ditko-esque visuals. Rogue One wowed me by having the most life-like CGI'd human character to date, bringing Peter Cushing back from the dead so that Tarkin could torment the galaxy once again.

Will Win: The Jungle Book

- But, given some of the moral questions that including CGI-recreated dead actors in a film inevitably raises, my guess is that Oscar voters will opt instead for the easier-to-praise talking animals of The Jungle Book, which was also one of 2016's biggest box office successes.

BEST FILM EDITING:

- Should and Will Win: La La Land

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:

- Should and Will Win: La La Land

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN:

- Should Win: Hail, Caesar!
- Will Win: La La Land

BEST ANIMATED FILM SHORT:

- Should and Will Win: Piper

BEST DOCUMENTARY:

- Should and Will Win: 13th

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT:

- Should Win: ?
- Will Win: Watani: My Homeland

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT:

- Should Win: ?
- Will Win: Silent Nights

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:

- Should and Will Win: Tony Erdmann

BEST COSTUME DESIGN:

- Should Win: Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them
- Will Win: La La Land

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING:

- Should and Will Win: Star Trek Beyond

BEST SOUND MIXING:

- Should Win: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Will Win: La La Land

BEST SOUND EDITING:

- Should and Will Win: Arrival

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE:

- Should Win: Jackie
- Will Win: La La Land

BEST ORIGINAL SONG:

Should Win: How Far I'll Go (Moana)
Will Win: Audition (The Fools Who Dream) (La La Land)

So, there you have it. I'm always hesitant to do the whole "Should Win / Will Win" thing, because I'd rather just root for my favorites, and not speculate too much on how things will play out based on politicking, etc. My guess though is that La La Land, Moonlight, and Fences will dominate most of the major awards - though who knows, there is always the chance for a curveball or two. As always though - remember that the Oscars are not the end-all, be-all of films. They are fun to watch, and fun to speculate on - but ultimately you can't buy too much into the backlash for the winners, and you also have got to look elsewhere to find a lot of the best films from a given year.

ZOOTOPIA Is Thematically-Ambitious Animation That Deals In Messy Metaphors

ZOOTOPIA Review:

- ZOOTOPIA is one of the most thematically-ambitious animated Disney movies ever made. It's a dense film with *a lot* to unpack from its narrative. Some will watch it only on a very surface level, ignoring the socio-political overtones and choosing to simply enjoy the film as standard-issue Disney fare. And certainly, many (kids in particular) will be too busy admiring the film's eye-popping, colorful world and fantastically-designed characters to read too much into the text. At the same time, the movie's social commentary is pretty overt and hard to miss. The film exists in a fantasy world filled with anthropomorphic animals - but the parallels to our world are very much apparent. In theory, I want to give a lot of credit to a movie bold enough to have this much on its mind. And in many ways, ZOOTOPIA works. The movie feels "important" in a way that your average Disney movie doesn't. But I also came away unsure that the movie's message entirely makes sense or holds up when looked at through a real-world lens. By trying to tackle so many issues, themes, genres, and narrative threads ... I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps Zootopia, for all its strengths, bites off a bit more than it can chew.

What works best about ZOOTOPIA is its core narrative - the story of plucky Judy Hopps - a young rabbit who decides to leave her small-town farm life to try to make it in the big city of Zootopia - becoming the first ever rabbit cop. Judy is diminutive as compared to most of the rest of the police force, but what she lacks in size she makes up for in drive, determination, and can-do attitude. Judy grew up in an environment where there were still residual tensions between the two dominant types of animals: predators and prey. Even though predators had long stopped hunting and eating other animals, there was still tension between the two groups. However, Zootopia was supposed to be a place where those tensions evaporated - lost in a big-city melting pot where anyone can be anything. But when Judy finally arrives there, she realizes that the city is not quite the tension-free paradise she'd imagined. Other animals still prejudge her for being a rabbit, constantly calling her "cute." Bigger animals still prejudge her for being a smaller animal. And all the while, tensions mount between predators and prey. A new drug on the streets has been causing some predators to "go savage" and attack prey.

So yeah - there's *a lot* going on here. Even just genre-wise, ZOOTOPIA is in turn a small-town/big-city fable, a police drama, a neo-noir crime story (yes, really!), an action movie, and a parable about racism and prejudice.

But through it all, the likability of Judy Hopps keeps the movie's momentum strong. And again, when the film focuses on Judy's personal journey, it really soars. Ginnifer Goodwin provides Judy's voice, and she's great - helping to make Judy really come to life. Ultimately, what makes Judy so interesting is that she isn't just a perfect protagonist. She falls prey (no pun intended) to some of the same prejudices and misconceptions as other characters in the movie. As her arc progresses, Judy has to learn some hard lessons about her own misguided preconceptions about other animals.

Where things become strange though is in the way the movie tries to have its cake and eat it too. Aside from Judy, the other main character here is Nick Wilde - a sly fox voiced by Jason Bateman. When Judy first meets Nick, he's revealed to be a con-artist criminal running various scams around Zootopia. In other words, he's exactly what one would expect a fox to be. But Nick's arc is about overcoming the limitations of what you were always told you were supposed to be, and becoming something more. Nick was always told that foxes behaved a certain way, and so he did. Only with Judy's urging does he realize that he can be more than just a con-man and scam-artist. As he helps her solve the mystery of what's happening to Zootopia's predators, he becomes a better person. What strikes me as a little off though is how, on one hand, the movie is about these animals transcending the stereotypes that they conform to - but on the other hand, having a lot of fun with showing animals 100% playing out those stereotypes. Even as the movie takes pains to show us how there's more to Judy and Nick then just being, respectively, a rabbit and a fox, it also gets a lot of jokes out of animals acting exactly according to preconceptions. Wolves being wolves, mice being mice, sloths being sloths, and even a gang of animal mobsters ripped straight out of The Godfather. ZOOTOPIA really is an anything-goes salad bowl of made-up, real-life, and pop-culture stereotypes. But at times, the movie is having too much fun playing *to* those stereotypes to remember that it's supposed to be about characters defying them.

The film also drops in a lot of moments clearly meant to invoke real-life instances of racial and cultural tension. There are moments that evoke prejudice against African-Americans, against Muslims - and moments that similarly evoke the ways politicians play on those kinds of fears of the "other" to amass supporters and power. It's pretty remarkable that this sort of stuff made it into a Disney movie. And again, I give ZOOTOPIA a huge amount of credit for daring to take on this kind of weighty stuff head-on. But the desire to mix all of these sorts of real-life examples of prejudice together, and to do so inside a fantasy world with its own backstories and "rules," can make things very messy. Without harping on this too much, the clearest example of this messiness is in the film's central conflict between predators and prey. On one hand, the film clearly and visibly will equate this conflict to the kinds of real-world cultural conflicts that are visible today in American society (and Zootopia itself, no question, is a fantasy version of America and its melting-pot ideals). But on the other hand, in Zootopia's universe, there was a time when predators did in fact hunt and kill and eat prey. So as much as predators in the present have disavowed this behavior ... is it really that unreasonable, if you're prey, to fear animals that at one time were genetically programmed to hunt and eat you? It makes for a dicey metaphor. Now, I don't think the animals of ZOOTOPIA are meant to have a one-to-one correlation with any particular real-world races or religions. But the inclusion of so many moments that do evoke our reality muddy the waters.

So does ZOOTOPIA work simply as a movie about following your passion and not listening to artificial limitations that people might place on you? Yes. But there is more on the movie's mind than just that, and the more layers it adds, the more muddied the message becomes.

Thematic issues aside though, ZOOTOPIA is sort of amazing in terms of how far it strays, genre-wise, from a typical Disney adventure story. The movie, on the whole, is pretty dark. It's got plenty of scenes that will potentially scare the crap out of young kids - a nightmarish moment that shows captured predators being experimented on in a prison-like lab. Moments where animals go savage to horrifying effect. Not to mention, the movie's got lots of pretty adult references - a direct nod to Walter and Jesse's meth-cooking on Breaking Bad, the aforementioned mafia-movie call-backs, and an extended scene at a hippie commune (led by a stoner yak voiced by Tommy Chong) where clothes are discouraged and the animals proudly flaunt their nakedness. As Judy and Nick work their case, the movie takes on the trappings of a classic film noir - with the two encountering one shady character after another. It's like a mix of Inherent Vice and a 90's-era LucasArts adventure game. The movie relentlessly genre-blends. There are big, gorgeously-directed set-piece action sequences - which range from Judy pursuing a crook through various parts of Zootopia to her and Nick evading bad guys through a lush rainforest. There are moments of police procedural, moments of slapstick comedy, pop-culture references and parodies aplenty, and moments that take the form of a storming-town hall social-justice passion play. Like I said, this movie is nothing if not ambitious.

It also looks amazing. The animation is some of the most vibrant and detailed I've yet seen, and the character design is top-to-bottom awesome. The diversity of the movie's various environments is also pretty mind-blowing, and they all, in their own way, look fantastic. There's the gleaming cityscape of Zootopia, the sprawling fields and open sky of Judy's farm-town, the overgrown vegetation of the rainforest district, and the list goes on.

ZOOTOPIA is so jam-packed with characters, ideas, and ambition that it's easy to lose sight of the movie's (very well-done) core. Like I said, it works extremely well at its most basic level - as an eye-poppingly colorful parable about how anyone can be anything. That basic message resonates, and it's a simple yet powerful one for kids and adults alike. And Judy Hopps is the perfect combination of likable, capable, and flawed to deliver it. But I do think that the movie shoots for the moon, but misses the mark. It's a very good movie that badly wants to be *great.* It just doesn't have the clarity of vision to get there. Still, you've got to give ZOOTOPIA props for aiming high.

My Grade: B+