Oscar Voting Begins! Three Suggestions for Academy Members

And so we've come to it! Oscar ballots go out today and voting begins. That's potentially great timing for The Wolf of Wall Street and (maybe) Saving Mr Banks neither of which have done well in the "precursors" -an awful reductive name, sure, but an accurate one since we're long past the days when awards groups weren't primarily existing to either influence or predict the Oscar race. Both of those late blooming films could still find Oscar favor if voters are taken with them over this holiday break. The timing is also probably good news for American Hustle which is doing strong box office and doesn't have that 'shrugged off' by precursors feeling to overcome. 

But, if early predictions from the vast array of pundits hold, this is going to be yet another year that reminds distributors that October is a really great time to release Oscar contenders (Captain Phillips, 12 Years a Slave, Gravity) and maybe not everything needs to wait until the last week of the year. 

THREE SUGGESTIONS FOR THOSE BLESSED WITH BALLOTS

01 Watch two more screeners before voting. You can do it. For those in the acting branch might I suggest Short Term 12 and Enough Said? For those in technical fields, why not try Spring Breakers or The Grand Master or something else off the beaten path? Sometimes the small, weird or foreign movies that can't afford huge campaigns have incredible performances and brilliant craftsmanship. Gravity doesn't need your votes anyway. It's safe.

Throw in a couple more screeners. You can find 3 and a ½ hours this week.

02 PLEASE STOP CATEGORY FRAUD IN ITS TRACKS. The only cure for this madness is for you, the most important movie awards voters on the planet, to reject it. You have the power. If you think Julia Roberts is brilliant in August: Osage County vote for her in Best Actress. Even the author of that film refers to her as "the protagonist" Remember that when you pretend that leading movie stars are supporting, you are in point of fact, penalizing the hardworking character actors for whom the supporting categories were created in 1936. And with so many great supporting ladies available to you this year (Sally Hawkins, Léa Seydoux, Sarah Paulson are all under-loved and why is that?) why waste one of the five spots on a leading performer. Leading ladies have their own category. Vote for Julia there! 

03 Ignore the precursors. If you want to vote for James Franco in Spring Breakers or Blue is the Warmest Color for anything or, if you're in the costuming or production design branches and really believe in the work that's happening in a contemporary or out of time film like Stoker or Her or The Bling Ring or whatever but you feel like you're wasting your vote, do it anyway! Longshots can win Oscar nominations but they only can when people like you go with your true favorites and not with whatever high profile accomplishments are happening within the presumed Best Picture nominees. 

What three things would you ask AMPAS to consider?

Boston Chooses 12 Years A Slave, Enough Said?

The Boston Society of Film Critics' (BSFC) very first Best Picture prize went to Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980) and over the next 32 years they've mixed smart off the path choices with future Oscar darlings. In the past decade they seem to have mellowed and mainstreamed and unless you count a tie in 2008 (Wall•E shared the prize with Slumdog), it's been well over a decade since that grabby run when they thought outside the box consistently (1998-2001) when they were giving Best Film prizes to great movies like Out of Sight (2 below the line Oscar nods) Three Kings (0 Oscar attention) and Mullholland Dr (1 Oscar nod) which were obviously not going to play big with the Academy. (During that period they were also making interesting calls in non Oscar-baiting performances so something about the membership must have changed thereafter.

This year they've wrapped their Bostonian arms around native New Yorker Solomon Northrup in a big way giving 12 Years a Slave three top prizes. They were also kind to Nebraska and Enough Said which each won 2 prizes. Full list of winners with commentary after the jump

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Interview: Julia Louis-Dreyfus "Wiggles Around" Toward Acting Glory

Not all actors are adept at every platform. Movies, tv and stage can require require different charismas and subtle changes in scale. In the case of bonafide television superstars like Julia Louis-Dreyfus (16 Emmy acting nominations and 4 wins from 3 different hit series) who rarely work outside their chosen platform, there’s every reason to suspect that they’ll stay put... and should! But with Enough Said, Julia Louis-Dreyfus threw us a divine curveball. Though she's never had a lead film role she carries Enough Said with a beautifully modulated mix of comic and dramatic impulses as Eva, a lonely massage therapist who second-guesses her new romance with Albert (James Gandolfini). If she isn't Golden Globe Best Actress nominated on the 12th, I'm planning to riot. 

Despite the warm reviews and indie success, she was modest about this new achievement when we spoke on the phone last week and very gracious when her work was complimented. “It means a lot to me, especially since you saw it twice”. She’d sprained her ankle earlier that same day “I’m such an ass!” but was still in good spirits, with one leg elevated and her inimitable laugh strangely comforting in its familiarity, like someone had left my TV on in the background. The publicist introducing us sounded unusually ominous "You have 15 minutes." which proved a great ice breaker.

"I feel like we have to take an SAT or something," Julia says.

"In 15 minutes, put your pencils down." I counter.

"Right?!" And we're off...

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Female Acting 2013: Embarassment of Riches

You guys.

How am I ever going to decide on my own awards ballots this year? When the Film Bitch Awards begin in late December / early January - hell even before then when I vote at the annual BFCA "Critic's Choice" Awards --  I will have to make a Sophie's Choices and narrow it way down. There are so many fine performances this year. How will I choose??? Oh god, how will I choose. And with a few films still unseen these two fields could even grow.  

BEST ACTRESS - MY LONGLIST BALLOT
in no particular order 

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Shutdown Movie-Thon (Week Two!)

The Government Shutdown is Over! But our previously furloughed friend Lynn Lee (once reader spotlighted) was kind enough to complete her movie binge diary for us. - Nathaniel

"Filmgoing Adventures of a Furloughed Federal Employee"

Previously on Part 1: Gravity (in 2D), Rush, and Mr Smith fantasies

DAY 8: Museum Hours is the film that’s been eluding me for the past month, and the only place it’s still playing at locally is the Avalon, on the border between D.C. and Maryland.  The Avalon is one of those old-school theaters with a balcony in the main theater but creaky, decidedly non-stadium seats, and a more cramped secondary theater that can only be reached by a set of steep, narrow stairs.  Still, the place has a certain rickety charm, and offers my last chance of catching this movie before it leaves theaters altogether.  So there I go, feeling more than ever like I’m playing hooky because this time I’m solo.  It’s just me, one older woman, and two senior, clearly retired couples who I’m pained to watch ascending those awful stairs with difficulty.

I can’t speak for them, but for me the film turns out to be well worth the trip.  Ostensibly about two strangers who meet and forge a platonic connection at an art museum in Vienna, at its heart it’s about the connection between art and life, and the human instinct to capture the fleeting beauty of ordinary people going about their lives—whether as an observer, an artist, or both.  It makes me suddenly aware of how little we see of random passers-by just doing their thing in most movies; whenever our attention is drawn to a person, it’s for a very specific, plot-driven purpose.  Museum Hours lacks that narrative compulsion, and while it may feel aimless to some, to me it feels like a revelation.  I walk down the arthritis-baiting stairs in a strangely exalted state of mind. 

DAY 9: Lazy day after a late night out.  Ponder on Museum Hours and decide it’s on the short list for favorite film of the year so far.  Also ponder whether to see Gravity again in 3D.

DAY 10: Another day, another schlep to Maryland—this time Bethesda, to see Short Term 12, about a temporary group home for troubled kids and the barely-older adults who work there.  It’s a dreary rainy day, Bethesda is far, and I’m tempted to wait for the DVD.  But I resist the urge, and once again, the film rewards my journey.  It isn’t perfect; some of the character arcs feel a little overdetermined, and the conclusion just a little too neat.  Yet emotionally, it feels completely organic, thanks in large part to the terrific acting, and it may be the only movie I’ve seen all year that actually deserves to be called “heartwarming.”  My fellow audience members—another smattering of older couples—seem to agree, even the man who kept asking his wife in what he probably thought was a whisper what the characters were saying.

DAY 11: Lunch with four fellow furloughed work friends—aka Ladies Who (Normally Don’t) Lunch—at which Congress gets thoroughly skewered, followed by a matinee show of Enough Said, the Nicole Holofcener rom-com in which a fortysomething divorced woman (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) strikes up a relationship with a nice, age-appropriate divorced man (the late James Gandolfini) only to discover that he’s the ex-husband of her new client and BFF (Catherine Keener). 

The film’s less screwball comedy and more a ruefully funny, surprisingly poignant look at the difficulties of moving on to a new stage of life.  I find myself tearing up towards the end, and am glad to find my friends similarly afflicted.

DAY 12: The AMC theater two blocks from my place was recently refitted with cushy reclining seats - perfect for watching a movie as tense as Captain Phillips, Paul Greengrass's white-knuckle take on the true story of the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama by four Somali pirates in 2009. Tom Hanks is his usual capable Everyman self as the captain, though he's nearly upstaged by the actors playing the hijackers. Turns out all of them are friends and first-time actors from a Somali community in Minneapolis, but they fully inhabit the fierce, desperate lives of the pirates; Barkaad Abdi is the standout as their diminutive but strong-willed leader. Last third of the movie could have been shortened up a bit, but the prolonged waiting does underscore the agony for everyone involved.

DAY 14: I finally see Gravity in 3D IMAX. Verdict: you should see it that way if you can; but if you can't or have already seen it in 2D, don't worry, it's the same essential movie. It's not so much the big, scary action set pieces that benefit from the 3D as little touches like Sandra Bullock's tears, instead of falling down, rolling up into a bubble and floating towards you. I still find the last scene with her and Clooney kind of clunky; but the one right before that, when she's about to give up, is one of the best scenes I've seen in any movie all year. It loses no punch the second time around, even knowing what follows.  

BACK TO WORK: Gravity turns out to be the last film I see in theaters before Congress finally does what it should have done two weeks ago and passes an appropriations bill that reopens the federal government. I can't say I'm sorry to go back to work, but I also can't help thinking a little wistfully of how much I enjoyed all those afternoons at the movies. Of course, given that the current bill only funds the government through mid-January and the ongoing dysfunctionality of Congress, I may well be back in the movie theaters a few months from now, getting a head start on all the Oscar contenders. Here's hoping it doesn't come to that - but I know what to do if it does!