Alternate Takes 01.31.09: Oscar Nominations

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 01.31.2009

Alternate Takes looks at the 2009 Oscar nominees and questions some troubling omissions in both this year's picks and those of the past. From Singin' in the Rain to Raging Bull, we look at the movies that got the shaft.



Welcome to Week 37 of Alternate Takes.

This week I am looking at the Oscar nominations and who I feel deserves their nods and who might have gotten the shaft. I'm also going to be looking at some of the past Oscars and the controversy surrounding those winners and losers.

Before I start, I want to point you in the direction of my two latest reviews:
Slumdog Millionaire, my pick for the best movie of 2008 and
The Wrestler, a movie that was great but still ranks fourth on my year end list


Let's look at this year's Oscar contenders.

First up, I'll look at BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR. I am shocked that Sweden did not have a film nominated in this category. I'm not too surprised Let the Right One In was not nominated because the Oscars tend to overlook fantasy in this category (see Pan's Labyrinth losing to Lives of Others in 2007, despite winning three Oscars in technical categories). The Oscars have proven to have a pattern in various categories for certain types of films, which I will mention later in the screenplay category. However, Sweden also produced Everlasting Moments, a film that has all the social significance the Oscars look for. It swept the Swedish Guldbagge Awards, winning five awards. However, neither Swedish film would make the Oscars' final five nominated films. The frontrunners for this award are France's school drama The Class and the Israeli animated documentary Waltz with Bashir. Waltz with Bashir could have been a frontrunner in the documentary category and should have been nominated in the Animated Films category but only received a Foreign Language nomination. Waltz with Bashir will win this award, I guarantee it.



Speaking of BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM OF THE YEAR, why are there only three nominations? Waltz with Bashir director Ari Folman said he believed "the animation nominee is about big studios and big money, and we're not in that game. We had a budget that was exactly 1% of Wall-E." If that is what kept Waltz with Bashir out of this category, it is crap. I'll start by saying Wall-E should win this award no matter who was nominated for 2008 but it is not about the winner, instead it is recognition that comes with the nomination. A movie like Waltz with Bashir could use the publicity that comes with the animated nod since the majority of Joe Public doesn't care about the Foreign Language category. Waltz with Bashir will be getting a wider release over the next month and the nomination could have increased the public awareness of the film. If they needed to have five, they could have included Horton Hears a Who for the purpose of adding Waltz with Bashir. I can't understand limiting the category to three nominations when they could have easily increased it for a worthy one.

Next, I have a beef with the lack of Bruce Springsteen love in the Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song category. How the hell can they not include The Wrestler by Bruce Springsteen in this category? It won the Critic's Choice Award at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards and the Best Original Song at the Golden Globes, yet wasn't even nominated for an Oscar. This is a category that only had three nominations and, once again, excluded a nominee worthy of a nomination. Once again, if you have to have five nominees, throw in a High School Musical 3 song just to increase the limit and let Springsteen in. The Wrestler is a missing nominee that is unforgivable. With the three nominees, I would go with Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire if I had to pick a winner.

I mentioned earlier how certain categories are almost exclusively reserved for certain types of movies. The Best Writing, Original Screenplay categories are usually used to highlight independent efforts. This decade's winners include Juno (2008), Little Miss Sunshine (2007), Crash (2006), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2005), Lost in Translation (2004), Talk to Her (2003), Gosford Park (2002), Almost Famous (2001) and American Beauty (2000). Of those movies, Crash and American Beauty also won the Best Picture award, but even those were smaller independent films. With that in mind, I can only think of two movies that could win the award this year: Happy-Go-Lucky or Frozen River. Looking at Oscar's proficiency at picking the quirky, I would go with Happy-Go-Lucky. FYI, if I could vote, I would choose In Bruges.

Finally, Man on Wire is a lock for Best Documentary, Features. If you are someone who fears documentary films, check out this one. It has all the markings of a thriller and keeps you interested until the very end. It is a great film, much less a documentary.



2008 OSCAR NOMINATED ACTORS

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Angelina Jolie (Changeling), Meryl Streep (Doubt), Melissa Leo (Frozen River), Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Kate Winslet (The Reader)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Taraji P. Henson (Benjamin Button), Amy Adams (Doubt), Viola Davis (Doubt), Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Brad Pitt (Benjamin Button), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Sean Penn (Milk), Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt), Josh Brolin (Milk), Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road), Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder)

There are a number of reasons why a person wins an Academy Award, and only one of them is for their actual individual performance.

Elizabeth Taylor stated on numerous occasions she disliked the film BUtterfield 8 (1960) and the only reason she won the Oscar was because of her recent illness rather than her performance. One of the women she beat out for the award was Shirley MacLaine in the Billy Wilder classic The Apartment.

Who can forget the 1992 Academy Awards where no one could believe it when presenter Jack Palance (75 years old at the time) called out the winner for Best Supporting Actress, Marisa Tomei? Pundits claimed he made a mistake and called out the first name on the list instead of the actual winner. In a recent interview, Tomei still showed anger because the Academy wouldn't step forward to publically clear up the controversy.

Many times there are better choices at the position then the winner would indicate. Seventy-nine year old Melvyn Douglas (Being There) took home his second Oscar in 1980 instead of Robert Duvall (Apocalypse Now). Cher took home the gold for Moonstruck instead of Glenn Close for her intense role in Fatal Attraction. The incomparable Katherine Hepburn won an award for her work in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner over more deserving turns by Faye Dunaway (Bonnie and Clyde) and Anne Bancroft (The Graduate).

Don't even get me started on Paul Newman's nine Oscar losses, only to finally win it for Color of Money. Not to take anything away from his performance in that movie, but to lose for performances in The Hustler, Hud and Cool Hand Luke, it seems like his 1987 win was just making up for the Academy's past indiscretions. The same thing might have happened in the director category with Martin Scorsese (seven losses before finally winning in 2007).

This year the biggest error seems to be Kate Winslet getting a nod for The Reader instead of Revolutionary Road. Winslet won an award for The Reader at the Golden Globes, but it was in the supporting actress category. She swept the Golden Globes, also winning for Revolutionary Road in the lead actress category. At the SAG Awards she was beat out by Meryl Streep (Doubt) for best actress (Revolutionary Road) but won another supporting actress award for The Reader. I guess I am confused as to why both the Golden Globes and SAG consider her performance in The Reader a supporting turn but the Oscars consider it a lead role. She already lost to Streep at the SAGs for Revolutionary Road and I don't see her beating Streep here for The Reader. If she does win, I believe it would be the same reason Newman won for Color of Money. This is Winslet's sixth nomination and has yet to win.

Doubt is the movie to beat all around, with four nominations in three of the categories including Philip Seymour Hoffman for lead actor. I can't see Brad Pitt winning an Oscar regardless of his good performance in Benjamin Button. Although I thought the Golden Globe win would propel Mickey Rourke to Oscar gold, his loss in the SAG ceremony made me realize the uphill battle he faces. The Oscars love a unique performance and Sean Penn delivers that with his portrayal of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to a public office. 71-year old Frank Langella also has a chance to win based on reputation alone. I don't see Rourke reaching that plateau here.

I mentioned the Marisa Tomei controversy earlier but if she wins this year (The Wrestler), no one should be surprised. This might be the Academy's chance to make up to her for not standing up for her before. She has as good a chance as anyone here since Kate Winslet has been removed from competition after winning at both the Golden Globes and SAG awards for The Reader. Doubt faces the problem of splitting votes with two candidates making Penelope Cruz the only other favorite for this gold. However, my personal favorite is Taraji P. Henson, who supplied the best performance, male or female, in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Henson was the heart and soul of the movie and has proven to be someone to watch in the future. I would love to see her win here but has an even steeper hill to climb than Mickey Rourke.

The final actor award will go, almost certainly, to a man who possesses what I referred to earlier as reasons outside of his actual performance. That may not be a fair statement, because Heath Ledger delivered a performance greater than almost anyone in movies this year. However, because of his untimely passing, I see Ledger getting the nod because of that fact more than anything else. I love seeing Robert Downey Jr. being nominated for his comedic performance in Tropic Thunder but he has the least chance out of everyone to win this award. Both Josh Brolin and Philip Seymour Hoffman turned in great performances in their respective films but neither will beat Heath Ledger. It is one of the few times there are ulterior motives for the pick but the overall performance is just as deserving.


Best Performance in Directing

David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon), Gus Van Sant (Milk), Stephen Daldry (The Reader), Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)

There are two glaring omissions in this category of films that have received a complete lack of attention overall in this year's Academy Awards. In this category I see a man who adapted a stage play, most of which takes place in one room, into a compelling feature presentation (Ron Howard). I see a man who took a period piece from the seventies and created a film that would drive its lead to a deserved Oscar nomination (Gus Van Sant). I also see two men who took difficult ideas and transformed them into amazing motion pictures that remain two of the best films of the year (David Fincher and Danny Boyle).

I also see Stephen Daldry who, while a solid director, created a film that was nowhere near as accomplished as the two other men who deserve to be mentioned here - Darren Aronofsky and Sam Mendes.

Aronofsky used a grainy, handheld look to emphasize the documentary feel of The Wrestler. He also went to great painstaking detail to paint the action in the ring as realistically as he possibly could. During the shoot, he would attend actual wrestling events and run his actors in between matches to shoot sections of the film with the live crowd in the background. He accurately demonstrated the true feeling of a professional wrestling match on the Indie circuit. The camera was as much a part of the film as the actors and developed a life of its own during the movie.

The direction was top notch and for Aronofsky to not receive recognition for his final product is tragic. That Marse Alberti was ignored for her cinematography work, Andrew Weisblum for his editing work and Brian Emrich for his wonderful sound design is also criminal. I'm happy the movie got recognized for its actors but the technical aspects of this film are severely lacking in appreciation at this year's Oscars.

As much as I am disappointed in The Wrestler's snubbing, a movie that completely shocks me with its absence is Revolutionary Road. Sam Mendes took a different route in creating the look of his picture, which takes place in the fifties. "One of the great dangers of period design in movies is that for many of us, our notion of how something looked in the ‘30s or ‘50s is a received notion based on what we've seen in movies," Mendes said in an interview with American Cinematographer magazine. Because of this misconception, Mendes relied on various still photographs from the era as well as the Saul Leiter book Easy Color.

Working with Roger Deakins, who was co-nominated for The Reader, the two put together a visually dynamic picture that never allows the actors to be overshadowed by an overbearing camera. It is Revolutionary Road that Deakins, who was also nominated for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and No Country for Old Men, should have been nominated for. He creates a claustrophobic film here making the viewer relate to the feelings of the characters in the film. It should be a huge disappointment for Mendes, who has not been nominated since his debut film American Beauty. The three nominations his film received (Supporting Actor, Costume Design and Art Direction) were a step up from his war movie Jarhead, which was completely shut out of the Oscar race. However, his previous films were heavy Oscar favorites with Road to Perdition receiving six nominations, albeit only one win, and American Beauty earning eight nominations, winning five of them.

To say that The Reader, which has earned Stephen Daldry his third directorial nomination in three attempts, deserves to be nominated over Mendes' picture is ridiculous. I would go as far as to say Mendes and Aronofsky should both be in ahead of Daldry and possibly even Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon).

I would like to take you back to March 31, 1981. Robert Redford was just announced as the winner of the Best Director Oscar for work on his now forgotten film Ordinary People. I will name two people he beat out for the award: David Lynch for his period drama The Elephant Man and Martin Scorsese for a little known flick called Raging Bull. Robert Redford would be third on the list if you look back at those films now but for Scorsese to lose with Raging Bull is, to put it simply, bull.

Was this the biggest director snafu? I think it is pretty close, but contenders include Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey) losing to Carol Reed (Oliver!), Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather and Apocalypse Now) losing to both Bob Fosse (Caberet) and Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer) or an un-nominated Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo) losing to Vincente Minnelli (Gigi).

This is the Oscars and it is always easier being a Monday morning quarterback, but looking at the exclusions this year of both Aronofsky and Mendes, I can't help but think we will look back and wonder what could have happened if one of these two men got in. As it is, it will come down to David Fincher and Danny Boyle. I would love to see Fincher win based on my appreciation of his impressive filmography but it will be a close race. That will make this a very exciting race as both are first time nominees and both did a fantastic job with their respective movies.


Best Motion Picture of the Year

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire

If that list looks familiar, it should. In a case of complete unoriginality, it is the exact same as the choices for Best Director. In this list I see three movies that deserve to be there, one that is a bubble movie (Frost/Nixon) and one that doesn't deserve to be anywhere near the eventual winner (The Reader). I shouldn't be surprised because the Academy has never been the best selector of great movies. Then again, it is proven we are not the best judges either. One of the most discussed Oscar ceremonies took place on March 27, 1995.

Forrest Gump would earn 13 nominations at the Oscars, including one for Best Picture. It would clean up in the major awards categories, with wins for Best Picture, Best Director (Robert Zemeckis), Best Actor (Tom Hanks) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Eric Roth). The movie also proved to be a commercial success earning close to $700 million worldwide. Finally, it was also a critical success with Roger Ebert calling it "a magical movie" and giving it 4 out of 4 stars.

However, fans cried out in despair when their beloved Pulp Fiction was nominated for seven Oscars but would take home only one (see my Best Writing, Original Screenplay criteria above). It would lose the categories for Best Picture, Best Director (Quentin Tarantino), Best Actor (John Travolta), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Uma Thurman) and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Samuel L. Jackson). For years I have heard the Internet fan base cry that Pulp Fiction was screwed over at the Oscars and should have won at least the Best Picture award. Rolling Stone Magazine named it one of its Fifty Essential Maverick Movies of the Rolling Stone Era, saying "it's the movie that galvanized audiences and other filmmakers to shake things up again. Like Easy Rider in the sixties, Pulp Fiction leaves you with the exhilarating impression that a new rebel storm is brewing and anything is possible."

So, the question remains which movie deserved the award that year, fan favorite Pulp Fiction or critical darling Forrest Gump? History tells us neither of those films deserved the clear cut win because if a film's true value is the test of time, there was another unsung film from that year's nominees proven to be just as good, if not better then either film.

The Shawshank Redemption was nominated for seven Oscars that year and wouldn't win any of them. The film lost three major awards including adapted screenplay (Frank Darabont), lead actor (Morgan Freeman) and Best Film, all to Forrest Gump. The outcry was still for Pulp Fiction to be the movie more deserving of awards, but The Shawshank Redemption sat back and quietly became a revered modern classic.

The readers of IMDB rank The Shawshank Redemption as the number one movie of all time (Pulp Fiction stands at #6 while Forrest Gump sits at #46). The critics at Rotten Tomatoes scores Forrest Gump at 72% fresh, Pulp Fiction at 96% fresh and The Shawshank Redemption at 89% fresh. If you were to choose a winner now, almost fifteen years since that Oscars ceremony, which movie would you give the golden statue to? I would argue it would not be Forrest Gump. The winner between the other two films remains a tossup.

The Shawshank Redemption is not the only movie to stand the test of time and prove to be more worthy than originally given credit for. Citizen Kane would lose in 1942 to How Green Was My Valley. Orson Welles would also lose the directing gold to John Ford for his minor western.

At least, The Shawshank Redemption got nominated for an award. In 1953, Singin' in the Rain did not even receive a nomination for Best Picture. The film is ranked #79 by IMDB readers and is ranked 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. I dare you to find one person who honestly doesn't think this is one of the greatest movies of all time, yet it was snubbed by Oscar. What did the Academy find more worthy? Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth. It would beat out High Noon, The Quiet Man, Ivanhoe and Moulin Rouge. I argue that, of those movies, only High Noon compares to Singin' in the Rain as a true masterpiece. Yes, Citizen Kane is considered one of the biggest Oscar snubs of all time, but nothing compares to the lack of respect Singin' in the Rain received.

This leads me to this year's ceremony. Many people argue The Wrestler deserves recognition on this list, and I would be hard pressed to disagree. Forget the fact that the film is about professional wrestling, it is much more than that. The film is about a man at the end of the line, someone who has lost everything he ever cared about and knows he can never fix it. It is a tale of a broken man that Oscar usually loves. I truly believe it is the professional wrestling aspect of the picture that earned it the snub. The Academy loved Rocky, but boxing was a respectable sport. The Wrestler deserves much more respect than it is receiving, and deserves this spot much more than a movie like The Reader.

My perfect list would be to remove The Reader, Frost/Nixon and Milk and replace them with The Wrestler, Revolutionary Road and Doubt. None of that would influence the ultimate decision because there is one movie on the list that deserves the Best Picture award over all the others by a landslide: