Oscar picks: Picking the lint outta my brain

Hurriedly writing here, minutes before Oscars … I realize I omitted several picks in my other posts. So, for the record, just so I can honestly record my score at the end, let me fill in those blanks.

Documentary Short: Loved them all, but my pick is “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life.” Sad that the subject, Alice Herz-Sommer, then the oldest-living Holocaust survivor, died Feb. 23 at age 110 and didn’t live to watch the Oscars, but that makes the film all the more poignant. The only thing I didn’t like was the tone of the narration — it felt like a social studies film. “Facing Fear” — which dissects a brutal hate crime from the perspectives of both victim and perpetrator — has a fighting chance. Also sticking with me: “Prison Terminal.” It tracks the death of a war hero turned murderer — and aren’t all soldiers killers? — in a prison hospice whose caregivers are fellow prisoners. Crocodile tears.  Why sentence the guy to life for killing a drug dealer? His righteous son turned him in. Another fave: “Cavedigger,” about Ra, a 65-year-old artist whose canvas is New Mexican sandstone, from which he constructs fabulous caves — rather than capture space, he creates it. His quotes are almost as life-affirming as Herz-Sommer’s. “Karama Has No Walls,” a firsthand look at the uprising in Yemen, is also gripping and important.

Documentaries, the long and the short of ’em, are possibly my favorite part of Oscar marathoning. A documentary filmmaker is what I once wanted to be when I grew up (you know, rather than ballerina or firefighter). If you really want to get something out of your two hours at the movies, skip the over-budget action movies and become a superhero for change by watching and supporting this genre.

Tom Hollander, as a prisoner who thinks he’s God, and Martin Freeman, as the psychiatrist assigned to evaluate him, engage in a fascinating tete-a-tete in “The Voorman Problem,” my pick for best live-action short.

Live-Action Short. “The Voorman Problem” will win. Awesomely creative and truly SHORT, also with star power (the guy from “Lord of the Rings”). Anyone know why Kevin Spacey was thanked in the credits, though? I am equally partial to the French offering “Just Before Losing Everything.” Important topic: domestic abuse. Its tension raised my BP. And “Helium” (Denmark) was uplifting. I didn’t care much for the Spanish “Aquel No Era Yo” (That Wasn’t Me). Finland’s “Do I Have to Take Care of Everything” is a delightful morsel, but it feels unfinished, pardon the pun.

Film Editing. “Dallas Buyers Club.” All the way!

Animated Feature. “Frozen.” I haven’t seen such a marvelous animated feature since “Beauty and the Beast.” And this is even better. It will make you melt and puddle up.

Original Song. “Happy” will win, obviously. But that’s only because the wrong song from “Frozen” was chosen. It should have been either “Fixer-Upper” or the one snowman Olaf sings. Is it called “Summer”? Don’t even know, I saw the flick only this morning. Even so, a song must truly work with the film to win, and “Let It Go” is a dramatic high point, even if it’s not overly catchy. The song I am most excited about hearing tonight is the U2 song from the Mandela movie, tho.

(If you’re wondering why there isn’t a fifth song nominee, one was disqualified about a week after nominations came out because of inappropriate campaigning. (IMHO “Happy” also engaged in sketchy, if not despicable, marketing.) For the full story on the disqualification of “Alone Yet Not Alone,” click here.)

Let’s review Josh Gad’s performance from “Frozen” — for once a sidekick character in a Disney movie that didn’t nauseate me.

Well, I guess it’s not worthy of best song. It’s not very anthem-like, which is what the Original Song Oscar is all about. Still, “In Summer” and “Fixer Upper” were the songs I left the theater humming. And “Fixer Upper” — in a “Hakuna Matata” vein — ultimately has a positive message as a blueprint for navigating relationships. Seriously, for a Disney movie, it’s a great departure from the Prince Charming brainwashing, telling kids: Hey, nobody’s perfect. It’s all in how you look at them and learn to overlook their faults. Kinda refreshing for Disney.

Original Score. I am envious of my oldest brother, a musical genius who goes to the movies and pretty much memorizes the score. I often forget to pay attention, even though I love music and am known to set images to music as a hobby. I think “Her” may and should win (ugh, that sounds like such bad grammar!), because I definitely noticed its near-futuristic score. But because this category is the only nomination for “Saving Mr. Banks,” I would love to see it win. Its score moved from celestine piano to lush soundscapes of the Australian outback to morose, marauding music for whisky drinking to whimsical Disneyland ditties. A show of versatile virtuosity.

UPDATE AFTER OSCARS BROADCAST: All told, I missed 10 predictions — got 14 right, for 58% — mostly because I underestimated Gravity‘s hold on folks’ imaginations. Missed two because I failed to see The Great Gatsby and missed one for not caring enough to see The Great Beauty. Great mistakes. My big miss, of course was over Miss Amy Adams. I wanted to see an upset in the leading lady category to add a little drama to the proceedings. As phenomenal as she is as an actress and as a person, Cate Blanchett was starting to act a little smug this awards season, and none of us likes going completely with the crowd favorite. Besides, being on the verge of a nervous breakdown is not a huge stretch for any woman, right, gals? Especially those of us inclined to binge on Oscar-nominated movies.

Look for my sequel in 2015.

Advertisement

Oscar picks: Writing

Ironic that one of my favorite categories is getting the short shrift on the writing end (*she does the test for proper usage of “irony”) …

Anyway, with just a half-hour to go before the festivities begin, I must get it down on record.

The nominees for Original Screenplay

American Hustle

Blue Jasmine

Dallas Buyers Club

Her. This is the cool, hip flick of the year, and I loved the concept and the production design (I kinda want it to win for Production Design). But the script went downhill for me three-quarters of the way in. Spoiler alert: HOW is Joaquin Phoenix’s character supposed to get a book published of the letters he writes when his job is ghost-writing those letters for other people?! Isn’t that some sort of lawsuit waiting to happen? That bugged me so much that I was disgruntled over the story’s resolution.

Nebraska

My pick: Nebraska

My prediction: Her

In “Her,” Joaquin Phoenix’s character works for a letter-writing service — he ghost-writes personal, handwritten letters for people too busy or inadequate to do it themselves. What’s weird is: His OS publishes a book of the letters on his behalf. Kinda defeats the purpose of being a ghost writer and ruins his character arc, in my view, for him to become a successful author. Bad writing?

I didn’t see all of the nominees for Adapted Screenplay — still missing “Before Midnight” — but I am rooting for “12 Years a Slave.”

The nominees for Adapted Screenplay

Before Midnight

Captain Phillips

Philomena

12 Years a Slave

The Wolf of Wall Street

And no, I haven’t read any of the books or seen the original the sequel is based on.

In “12 Years a Slave,” the Solomon Northup character also crafts a letter — using a whittled stick and berry juice. Amazing to think this man went on to write down his story to enrich our lives 150 years later.

Hmm. I’m thinking next year the only way to fairly judge these categories is to read all the books.

OH NOOOOOO! WHY is February the shortest month?!?

Oscars 2014: A film odyssey

It’s a wrap: my month of trying to cram in all 42 Oscar-nominated feature films and 15 shorts before the awards ceremony.

For the third straight year, I humbly concede defeat. My tally stands at a paltry 31 features and 15 shorts.

I ended quite appropriately at around 4 p.m. on Oscars day with “The Book Thief” (up for Music-soundtrack).

And isn’t that what movies are? Little book thieves? The fear, anyway, is that watching too many movies might turn our heads to mush and make us forget about reading. Although more often than not, the movies are based on books that, typically, if you’ve read them, are FAR superior to the movies.

Har-har-har. I laugh when people compare these two vastly different art forms. “It didn’t do justice to the book.” IT CAN NEVER BE THE BOOK. It’s the movie!!

Still, ending with this Nazi-era tear-jerker, in which we watch Hitler youths’ faces redden reflected against a bonfire of crisping, curling books — “intellectual dirt,” they called it — was more than fitting. Far from a perfect adaptation of what I’m told is a magnificent read, it certainly didn’t suck.

Besides, it brought me back to the Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse, a venue I had boycotted for more than 15 years because it lacked clearly designated parking and was prime hunting grounds for enterprising, likely unlicensed tow truck companies. The week we bought our 1998 VCR-loaded, Nintendo-ready flashy green-gold Dodge Caravan LX, we went to see a movie there and it was towed lickety-split and held hostage for $150. We blamed the theater at the time because we figured someone must be getting a kickback.

Well, our car and the theater survived, and today I was reminded what a cool place it is. Movies are just $6.50 (cash only, be forewarned), and it’s not just beer and pizza on the menu —  I had a pretty decent spinach-walnut salad with raspberry vinaigrette, and their drink menu is entertaining in itself, featuring specialties like the Pulp Fiction (grape vodka, creme de cassis, Sprite and Blue Curacao), Pirates of the Caribbean (Malibu rum, pineapple and orange juices, Grenadine and cherry) and the Big Lebowski “The Dude Abides” (vodka, Kahlua and cream).

As has been typical on this month of crisscrossing the metro area, I made a couple of quick friends, other movie mavens who see the season as a sort of March Movie Madness (technically, February Madness). It’s not about the endgame, it’s about the odyssey.

My record stands at seeing 74% of all the movies nominated in every category, because you can’t predict winners with any authority if you haven’t see all the contenders. And the distributors, the weather, the theaters, plus life in general put plenty of obstacles in my way, which added to the drama. (Ask my husband about the morning I was rushing to see a 10:20 a.m. matinee before work, spilled coffee on my GPS, then discovered GPSes don’t like that and won’t work, so I went the wrong way and missed the showtime, including the 15 minutes of previews and had to abort the mission.)

That was “Frozen,” the animated feature I am sure will win tonight. I can’t fully say, because I didn’t see “Ernest & Celestine”— scratch that, couldn’t — because it isn’t yet available in the States. A dirty, dirty trick played by the Academy, handicapping all of us Oscar marathoners.

There were a few other titles like that, such as the foreign film nominee “The Missing Picture” (Cambodia), which doesn’t come out until March 19.

What other pictures am I missing? I’ll give you the Big Picture. Some of these 11 flicks I spent the month chasing, but somehow never managed to be in the right place at the right time. Others I simply didn’t care enough about to rearrange my world for. The latter category includes this first one (horrors!):

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Unfortunately, by not seeing this behemoth, it rules out THREE categories for me to safely judge: Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects. I wanna say “All Is Lost” for Sound Editing, “Lone Survivor” for Sound Mixing and “Gravity” for Visual Effects, but I cannot, not in good conscience.

Star Trek: Into Darkness & Iron Man 3. These two titles I wouldn’t have minded at all seeing, but because they weren’t easily available and I wasn’t gonna see “The Hobbit,” anyway, I didn’t bother. That leaves me only having seen two of the Visual Effects contenders: “Gravity” and “The Lone Ranger.” But no matter, “Gravity” will win.

Before Midnight. This omission makes me saddest of all, because the writing categories are among my favorites. It is available on Blu-ray, but I refuse, refuse, refuse to hoard any more movies. Technology will make them all refuse (clever!). Something I learned this year: Any sequel up for a screenplay award is automatically entered into the Adapted category, even though it’s as original as sliced bread. The Academy considers it based on the movie(s) that came before it.

The Great Gatsby. No great loss, I’m told. Except by not seeing it, I can’t vouch for the two categories it is nominated for: Costume Design and Production Design.

The Invisible Woman. I’m not a fan of period pieces, and because “Gatsby” was handicapping me, I decided not to spring for the rare chances I had to see this. I hate the Costume Design category, anyway. I have no clue. But I’m rooting for “American Hustle.”

Ernest & Celestine. Already covered, but I kept calling it “Ernestine & Celeste” in my mind. That’s what you get, zero name recognition!

The Wind Rises. This came out only last week. Shame on you, Oscar! Not only was I handicapped, it was handicapped.

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. I wanted to see this, nominated for the U2 song. But WHERE was it? Couldn’t they have brought it back when Mandela died? Somebody missed their opportunity.

The Great Beauty. Up for foreign film, it looked like the Italian version of “The Wolf of Wall Street.” But I’m pulling for “Omar,” that haunting Palestinian film of betrayal and freedom-fighting youth set in the West Bank. If it wins, people can stop with the Jewish-Hollywood jokes, OK? Hollywood will have proved itself totally inclusive. (UPDATE: It didn’t win. On with the jokes.)

The Missing Picture. The missing commentary.

There you have it. My missing pictures. Everything else mentioned tonight I saw. I still have to pick/write about four more categories, but I’m starting to think I’ll blow my deadline. You’ll trust me if it’s not on record, right?

So enjoy the show tonight … and even though I’m not Catholic, I think I’m giving up films for Lent.