With all due respect to critics and members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Academy), how much a film makes, not whether it wins an Oscar, is the generally recognized measure of its success. Especially considering that winning an Oscar is more the result of crass political campaigning than any assessment of artistic achievement. Indeed, it might surprise, if not disillusion, many of you to learn that studios covet an Oscar for Best Picture primarily because – as Sumner Redstone, the owner of Paramount, conceded in a moment of extraordinary candor – it guarantees millions more in box office receipts.
I’m on record stating rather emphatically how much I dislike the annual Academy Awards show. Because I have little regard for preening, pampered poseurs showing off their borrowed frocks and bling-bling as a prelude to a three-hour show — only six minutes of which anyone really cares about (i.e., the time it takes to present Oscars for best supporting actor and actress, best actor and actress, best director, and best picture)…
And, remarkably enough, the host comedians do little to relieve the boredom of the interludes between these carefully spread-out moments.
(“My Review of the 2008 Oscars,” The iPINIONS Journal, February 25, 2008)
- Best Actor in Leading Role
Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club because, like Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, Christian Bale in The Fighter, and Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, the Academy clearly has a thing for men who transform their bodies to extremes for the sake of their art. It’s no accident that McConaughey spent more time during the press junket for this movie talking about his extreme weight loss than about the plot or the character he played. Hell, you’d think just losing the weight was 90 percent of the role.
Bruce Dern in Nebraska deserves honorable mention only because, according to “Inside the Academy” by the Los Angeles Times, the 5,765 voting members of the Academy are 94 percent White, 77 percent male, and 54 percent over 60. Therefore, a significant number of them will vote for Dern not only because he personifies their fading glory in real life, but also because he plays such a sympathetic old White fart in this movie.
Not to mention this rather remarkable take on how easy it is to buy their vote.
It’s 90 percent white men over 70 who need money because they haven’t done anything in a long time. You just need to give them two or three presents and they’re in your pocket. It doesn’t mean anything to me, so I don’t really care if there are women in the selection process.
(Actress Julie Delpy, Huffington Post, March 1, 2014)
Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave also deserves honorable mention, but only because many members will split their race-conscious voting between his movie in the Best Picture category and his acting in this one. In other words, tokenism in Hollywood remains such that it would never occur to them to vote for this “Black movie” in more than one category. I suspect most will opt for his movie.
Indeed, it remains such that members of the Academy seem racially averse to nominating more than one Black movie in any given year, let alone awarding Oscars to more than one. Only this explains why they completely shut out Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. (Well, to be fair, they did nominate Mandela in the Best Original Song category; but this was clearly more because of Bono and U2 than Mandela.) All of which speaks volumes, especially considering that the recently departed Nelson Mandela was being virtually deified in the media in late December when members of the Academy were beginning the nomination process.
This slight against Mandela (or tokenism in favor of 12 Years a Slave) is brought into even starker relief when juxtaposed with the biopic of the only man who could be considered Mandela’s twentieth-century peer, Mahatma Gandhi. For members nominated Gandhi (1983) in 11 categories and awarded it the coveted Oscar in 8, including Best Picture. Enough said?
- Best Actor in Supporting Role
Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club for the same reason McConaughey will win.
- Best Actress in Leading Role
Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine because, with all due respect to her very fine acting in this movie, members of the Academy will welcome this opportunity to pay homage to Woody Allen.
Recall how his ex, Mia Farrow, and her kids openly conspired at the beginning of this awards season to defile his name by regurgitating long-discredited allegations of child abuse against him. And, given that Allen is not nominated for Best Director nor his film for Best Picture, awarding Blanchett, by default, is the best way to show him public love and support.
Amy Adams in American Hustle is getting lots of buzz. Unfortunately, she was too upstaged by Jennifer Lawrence in a supporting role in this film to be worthy of this award.
- Best Actress in Supporting Role
Lupita Nyong’o in 12 Years a Slave because she’s nominated in a supporting role, not a leading role, like Ejiofor. Indeed, chances are very good that you have no idea which actress played the leading role in this film.
Not to mention that she has become such the “It Girl” in the fashion industry that members of the Academy will probably consider the transformation from her look on screen to her look in real life even more impressive than McConaughey’s. Never mind that Lupita is no more the It Girl in the fashion industry than Susan Boyle was in the music industry — until pop tarts like Rihanna, Miley, and Taylor put her back in her place.
In any event, it’s too bad her transformation includes ruining her natural beauty by straightening her hair. Before you know it, she’ll not only be wearing blond wigs but lightening her skin too.
- Best Director
Alfonso Cuarón in Gravity because even real-life astronauts are lauding the uncanny way he managed to take audiences into space without leaving the ground. I’m not a big fan of special effects, but if Ang Lee can win Best Director for the hallucinogenic Life of Pi then surely Cuarón can win for this trip.
What I really liked about Gravity is that it created the right look and feel of being in space and doing a spacewalk. At times, it did remind me or it made me think about my own experiences in a spacesuit. It also taps into that visceral awareness that the worst thing that can happen to you out there is to become detached and thrown off structure by some accident and be tumbling off into space.
(Leroy Chiao, former NASA astronaut and commander of the International Space Station, space.com, February 28, 2014)
- Best Picture
Gravity in one of the rare occasions when members of the Academy show due regard for the natural symmetry between awarding Best Picture to the film directed by the person to whom they award Best Director.
Related commentaries:
2013 Oscars…
2008 Oscars…