OSCAR foreign film short-list screwed up again

I should have posted this at the time (but you know, the holidays!).

Whittled from a list of 83 submissions this year -- a record -- the Academy has begun the tradition of announcing a 'shortlist' of nine before the actual five nominees are announced. Usually, the list is met with howls of outrage over the significant films that were left off (Anyone remember the controversy surrounding Romania's submission in 2007: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days?) This year is no exception.

Here are the nine that did make the cut:

*Argentina, Wild Tales, dir: Damián Szifrón
*Estonia, Tangerines, dir: Zaza Urushadze
Georgia, Corn Island, dir: George Ovashvili
*Mauritania, Timbuktu, dir: Abderrahmane Sissako
Netherlands, Accused, dir: Paula van der Oest
*Poland, Ida, dir: Pawel Pawlikowski
*Russia, Leviathan, dir: Andrey Zvyagintsev
Sweden, Force Majeure, dir: Ruben Östlund
Venezuela, The Liberator, dir: Alberto Arvelo

*these films are the final five OSCAR nominees.

The overlooked film's from these four countries (respectively, TURKEY, CANADA, HUNGARY and BELGIUM) are described in the following quote:

"Many of the year’s most significant films were left off: Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep, which was this year’s Palme d’Or winner at Cannes, didn’t make the cut. Nor did Mommy by Xavier Dolan, also a Cannes prize winner, taking the Jury Prize; or Kornel Mundruczo’s White God; or the Dardenne brothers’ Two Days One Night." Source: http://www.slashfilm.com/best-foreign-film-shortlist-2015/

I would add to this list of surprising omissions these three films which have had U.S. releases: ITALY (Human Capital); GERMANY (Beloved Sisters); ISRAEL (Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem); and the PHILIPPINES (Norte, the End of History).
I am all for expanding the reach of this category to include the likes of Estonia, Georgia and Mauritania (the country's first submission in this category EVER!), but to ignore the talents of Nuri Bilge Ceylan and the Dardenne brothers (who by all accounts are all at the peak of their creativity) is a damn shame.

To make matters worse, the critically-acclaimed entry from SWEDEN (Force Majeure), which was on the shortlist, did not make the final five. Below I leave you with the mosive poster of MY favorite foreign film of the year.

SELMA

SELMA

(USA 2014)

Directed by Ava DuVernay

I had the same idea as several hundred other Houstonians on the MLK DAY holiday (not on the actual day of his birth, which is Jan. 15th, as Jessica Chastain informed me during her impassioned acceptance speech at the Critics' Choice Awards that night). That idea was to go see the movie "Selma" and I am glad I did. It is an important work of historical drama that everyone in America should see (I bristle at the term "Black History," for this was a transformative moment in "American History.") 

I will defer to the historians to debate the role LBJ played in either stalling or pushing through the Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- like many important movies about U.S. history ("Lincoln"; "12 Years a Slave"; even "JFK") it sparks a debate, which is edifying. (In contrast, Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar" was a travesty of history, sympathetically depicting that monster Hoover while further sullying the reputation of Dr. King. What's next for you, Clint: "D. Cheney"?)

Back to the movie at hand: David Oyelowo was unjustly denied an Oscar nomination for his riveting portrayal of Dr. King. The movie very much rests on his performance, and rather than attempting an impersonation of King (the actor's voice and stature do not resemble King at all), Oyelowo went for a nuanced portrait of his private, reflective self, to contrast the public persona we have all come to know. It works by giving depth to his character, adding weight to his public persona that takes over later in the movie.

Englishman Tim Roth likewise delivers a believable portrait of Southern segregationist Governor of Alabama George Wallace. Englishman Tom Wilkinson doesn't fare as well as Southern President Lyndon Baines Johnson, however. Here, an all-out impersonation would have better served the iconic figure of LBJ, who was in every sense of the phrase 'larger than life.' Having not seen "Lee Daniel's The Butler", I cannot comment on the balance of acting vs. impersonation of the various Presidents (and its effect on the movie), but perhaps DuVernay asked Wilkinson for 'less, not more' in his role?

The movie seems to drag a bit before getting to the March to Montgomery itself (the movie's centerpiece), and much of the dialogue sounds like rehearsed talking points to explain the issues to the audience, as opposed to how people argue in real life. I do appreciate how the movie shines a light on the little-known 'foot soldiers' who gave their lives for the cause: Jimmie Lee Jackson, Viola Liuzzo, and James Reeb: all murdered in racist attacks. 

DuVernay is less assured in orchestrating set pieces -- I will give some examples in the [SPOILER] section at the end of this review. Strictly as a critic, I can see why the director's wing of the Academy passed-over her for the five male directors they did nominate. But it does give the appearance of an out-of-touch Academy. The same can be said of the Actors who voted on the Screen Actor's Guild nominees: "Selma" was shut-out completely!


[SPOILERS (of technique, not plot):
- DuVernay shows herself to be a second-time director with the overuse of slow motion shots to prolong the drama of certain scenes. The scene should be powerful enough without reliance on cheap tricks like that.
- The worst example of this tactic is the scene, early in the movie, of the 16th St. Baptist Church bombing that killed 4 young girls in 1963. A seminal moment in the civil rights movement to be sure, but the director plays it for shock value, then lingers over the resulting explosion with her signature slow motion. The effect is simultaneously too graphic and too artsy to earn the sympathy of the audience.
(Spike Lee did the same thing with his artfully posed corpses in the execrable "Miracle at St. Anna").
- Finally, one quibble with the end credits -- which I loved, by the way, from the John Legend & Common collaboration "Glory", to the original recording of the Selma marchers singing. The movie selectively spotlights the fates of several of the real-life characters in the film -- from the aforementioned Viola Liuzzo to, curiously, George Wallace, only mentioning his run for the presidency in 1972 and the assassination attempt that left him paralyzed, but never pointing out his later apology for his segregationist past and subsequent efforts to heal those wounds. Ignoring that salient fact, while highlighting the act of violence committed against him, is not only a missed opportunity to emphasize the human capacity to change, but also a cheap shot against a man who already had been depicted (accurately, to be sure) as an unabashed racist for the previous two hours. Sic semper tyrannis -- is that the message the filmmakers wanted to leave us with as we exited the theater?

Oscar nominations - 2015

I just read in the New York Times that there is a sub-profession of Hollywood journalists known as "Oscarologists" who predict the nominees a year in advance! It is all based on studio and publicist 'buzz,' so it is just another form of Hollywood navel-gazing, but there are worse jobs in the world.

I don't know how they fared this year, as I can count at least one snub is almost* all the categories for this year's awards.

*excluding Supporting Actor, Costumes, Make-Up, Art Direction (now called "Production Design") and the two Sound categories.

Let me start with the most-egregious omission: BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS. I have no problem with the Academy recognizing the exemplary work done by the great Laura Dern in WILD. She is fully deserving of a nomination, Keira Knightley and perennial nominee Meryl Streep, on the other hand .... are two joke nominees that come courtesy of, respectively, the Harvey Weinstein nomination machine and of the "Meryl can do no wrong" mindset that grips Hollywood every awards season.

They have robbed a spot for these three deserving nominees:
- JESSICA CHASTAIN in "A Most Violent Year"
- NAOMI WATTS in either "Birdman" or "St. Vincent"
- RENE RUSSO in "Nightcrawler"

Other snubs are listed below:
BEST PICTURE - "Foxcatcher" and "Gone Girl"
ACTOR - Jake Gyllenhall "Nightcrawler" and David Oyelowo "Selma"
ACTRESS - Amy Adams "Big Eyes"
DIRECTOR - Ava duVernay "Selma" and "James Marsh "The Theory of Everything"
FOREIGN FILM - the excellent "Force Majeure (Turist)" from SWEDEN
Original SCREENPLAY - J.C. Chandor, "A Most Violent Year"
Adapted SCREENPLAY - Gillian Flynn "Gone Girl" and Nick Hornby "Wild"
CINEMATOGRAPHY - "Interstellar"
FILM EDITING - "Birdman" and "Interstellar"
ORIGINAL SCORE - Antonio Sanchez "Birdman"** (a travesty, especially since Hans Zimmer got a free pass for his bombastic (loud!) and failed attempt to approximate Kubrick's 2001 soundscape for "Interstellar." He gets my John Williams "oh-no-he-didn't" (get another undeserved nomination) prize.
Original SONG - Lorde!
ANIMATION - The LEGO Movie
DOCUMENTARY - "Life Itself" -- about Roger Ebert; far and away, the best doc of the year!
VISUAL EFFECTS - "The Hobbit"

There you have it. Boyhood and Birdman had better sweep this year, to make it up to me!!

**An earlier post mis-identified the composer as Alex Sanchez. Also, I have since learned that hte Academy deemed his score INELIGIBLE, for having too much 'previously-recorded material.' Whatev!

TOP TEN MOVIE LISTS

As you anxiously await my 2014 Top Ten List (I have about 10 more movies to see this month), I need to revisit my list from last year.  I recently watched a movie on the small screen that I neglected to see in the theater: "HER" (Directed by Spike Jonze). I knew as soon as I saw it that it was a Top Ten lock. Well-deserving of its Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and nomination for Best Picture, I think it was the 5th Best Movie of 2013, squeezing out "THE WOLF OF WALL STREET" from the Top Ten.

The adjusted list looks like this:

1. 12 YEARS A SLAVE

2. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS

3. GRAVITY

4. La Grande Bellezza ("The Great Beauty") - ITALY 

5. Her

6. Blue Jasmine

7. Nebraska

8. American Hustle

9. All Is Lost

10 (tie). Mud and Dallas Buyer's Club 

Honorable Mention

The Wolf of Wall Street
The East

The Invisible Woman

Much Ado About Nothing

Philomena

Rush

Stoker