Oscar Winner Predictions 2014

Despite my unintentional hiatus from this blog, I'll always come back to offer my Oscar predictions.

It's another interesting year in that most of the races seem fairly straightforward, except for the two big ones - Best Director and Best Picture. While the last two years have seen those two awards split between two different films - and indeed, many pundits are predicting either a Linklater/Birdman or Inarritu/Boyhood scenario this year - it's still enough of a rarity that I'm never confident splitting the vote that way. I'm counting on this year seeing a regression to the mean.

Still, that leaves a decision between Linklater/Boyhood and Inarritu/Birdman, and it's no simple choice. But while Boyhood is clearly the critics' favorite, I'm going to go with Birdman, mostly due to its immense industry support. Not only did the Directors Guild and the Producers Guild choose Birdman for their top awards, but almost all of the other guilds gave it something - it nabbed the SAG Ensemble award, plus accolades from the Art Directors, Cinematographers, Costume Designers and Sound Designers. Even the Visual Effects Society gave it a trophy.

For the rest of the categories, I've stuck with the safe choices and one thing has become apparent. Whatever happens, it seems clear that no single film is going to sweep the awards this year. Boyhood, Birdman and Grand Budapest will likely win multiple awards, but then the other five Best Picture nominees could take home exactly one each. It's going to be a nice spread.

So, without further ado, behold my fortune-telling prowess and feast your eyes on my predictions for the Oscar winners of 2014.

Oscar Nomination Predictions 2014

I'm writing this from sunny (and often partly cloudy) Cabo where I'm enjoying a week-long vacation with my family. The internet here is patchy but not one to ruin a tradition, I've hastily put together my predictions for the Oscar nominations, scheduled to be announced tomorrow morning. I'm not entirely happy with these selections since I didn't spend as much time on them as I normally do, but I'll stand by them nonetheless. Let's see how I go...

1987 - The Last Emperor

Yes, I'm still alive.

Obviously, I've had a lot going on these last few months. The play I mentioned in my last post (over four months ago - yikes!) has come and gone. The Club was our theatre company's final show in New York City (read about it here) before Kat, Charlie and I packed up and moved out west to Los Angeles. It's been a couple of months already so we're settled in now and are not even remotely missing the New York weather.

I figured I should try to squeeze one more review in before the end of the year, so yesterday I watched the film that would take the top prize in the 1987 Best Picture competition...

The Last Emperor
Director:
Bernardo Bertolucci
Screenplay:
Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci
(based on Henry Pu-yi's autobiography "From Emperor to Citizen")
Starring:
John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ying Ruocheng, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Maggie Han, Ric Young, Vivien Wu
Academy Awards:
9 nominations
9 wins, including Best Picture and Best Director

The monarch of the film's title, Pu-yi (Lone) is a political prisoner in a China he no longer recognises. While his captors interrogate him about his perceived war crimes, Pu-yi remembers his life, from his coronation at the age of two and his confined upbringing inside the Forbidden City where he befriends his British tutor Reginald Johnston (O'Toole) to his association with the Japanese who allow him to return to power as the emperor of occupied Manchukuo.

Without a doubt, The Last Emperor's biggest draw card is its stunning visual style. With luscious production design, lavish costumes and evocative cinematography - including the now iconic shot of a young Pu-yi running towards a billowing yellow curtain (pictured below) - it's no wonder the film won Oscars in almost every design category. Of course, the spectacular locations didn't hurt its cause. Shooting inside the actual Forbidden City certainly lends an air of authenticity.

And while Bertolucci's direction is masterful, his script with co-writer Mark Peploe is perhaps the one element of the film that is lacking. The story itself is incredibly well-structured with its simultaneous past and present storylines but - and I know this is a recurring theme in my reviews - the dialogue is rather basic and straightforward. I'm a sucker for clever dialogue and, unfortunately, the words here are a little uninspired. Then again, the film also won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, so what do I know?

The performances seem somewhat stilted, but only because the actors are given such banal things to say, preventing them from really making the words crackle. The Academy perhaps agreed with me since the picture received no acting nominations, which as it turns out, indirectly helped it achieve the rare feat of winning every category in which it was nominated. Nine Oscars from nine nominations - equalling Gigi's identical take and topped only by the 11-from-11 haul by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Interestingly, neither of those films claimed any acting nods either.

1987 - Fatal Attraction

Who'd have thought raising a baby would take up so much time? Between looking after Charlie and getting things together for our theatre company's next play (more on that soon), movie-watching opportunities have been negligible. On top of that, we're also organising our imminent move to Los Angeles, so things are busy, to say the least.

I finally found a spare couple of hours to look at another 1987 Best Picture contender...

Fatal Attraction
Director:
Adrian Lyne
Screenplay:
James Dearden
Starring:
Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Anne Archer, Ellen Hamilton Latzen, Stuart Pankin, Ellen Foley, Fred Gwynne
Academy Awards:
6 nominations
0 wins

Dan (Douglas), Beth (Archer) and their six-year-old daughter Ellen (Latzen) are the picture of a perfect family. But when Beth and Ellen take a weekend trip to the country to scope out the new family house, Dan throws matrimonial bliss out the window and shamefully has a brief affair with a work acquaintance, Alex (Close). When he tries to end it, Alex won't take no for an answer and it soon becomes clear that she's far from the fun-loving gal Dan thought he was fooling around with. After trying to manipulate him to stay by slitting her wrists, she eventually takes to stalking Dan and his family, threatening to tell Beth everything.

With a solid place in pop culture, Fatal Attraction is most definitely a thriller, but director Adrian Lyne also imbues the film with many shades of film noir, particularly evident in the steamy lighting and cinematography. And to go one step further, I suspect he was also giving a subtle nod to Hitchcock and his most famous psychological thriller, Psycho, when in the concluding moments of the film, we see close ups of a shower drain, taps and water flowing, followed a few moments later by a knife cutting through the shower curtain.

Despite these homages to cinema classics, the film begins with a distinctly more modern aesthetic. There are several seemingly improvised scenes of casual conversations, creating a very naturalistic atmosphere. This eventually gives way to all the gratuitous thriller tropes, the most frequent of which is the sudden shock as the villain appears "unexpectedly." We even get treated to the old wipe-the-steam-off-the-mirror-to-reveal-a-knife-wielding-maniac-standing-behind-you trick. Although, I must say, even though many of these moments are tired clichés, they're still so effectively creepy ... which probably explains why they get used so often.

In fact, watching the film with the knowledge of what's going to happen (due to both the film's fame and the fact that I've seen it several times before) surprisingly does not diminish its powerful impact. There is a constant dreaded feeling that something bad is about to happen, and even if you know it's coming, the anticipation remains excruciating.

If I had to pick one element which doesn't quite gel, it would have to be Maurice Jarre's score. Perhaps it's simply a result of the uncool 1980s sound, but the legendary film composer seems to have opted for the melodramatic and the obvious, an orchestration that leaves no doubt that we're watching a thriller.

One never expects an intricate plot from a genre whose main goal is ostensibly to thrill, but nevertheless James Dearden's script is mostly engaging, buoyed by the aforementioned extemporisation from the cast. Still, there's a slightly empty feeling when the film abruptly ends after the main thriller plot is resolved. It's almost as if I wanted to see the resolution of the subplot, but then I realised there was no subplot. I'd even say it was a missed opportunity to actually explore the effect this whole debacle had on Dan's marriage. You know, a bit of substance to go with the thrills.

But what the script lacks in substance, the cast more than makes up for with emotional power. Both leads are utterly superb. Michael Douglas delivers an excellently natural turn as the initially charming, then gradually frustrated and finally fed up adulterer. And it's hard to imagine anyone else but Glenn Close (pictured) in this now iconic role. She is nuanced and intense, vulnerable yet psychotic, the portrait of a disturbed mind. I also enjoyed Stuart Pankin as the jolly best friend. Plus, look closely and you'll see Jane Krakowski as the babysitter in a very brief scene at the beginning of the film.

1987 - Moonstruck

This past Sunday was Father's Day here in the United States and, indeed, most other countries around the world. Obviously, it held particular significance for me since it was the first Father's Day in which I was actually a father. Interestingly, however, Father's Day is celebrated in September in Australia - another one of those odd differences between our nations. Even more interestingly, Mother's Day is celebrated on the same day in May in both countries, so since our now international family will do things both the American and the Australian way, Kat will only get one day of honour every year, while I will cheekily receive two.

Let's take a look now at one of the contenders in the Academy's race for Best Picture of 1987...

Moonstruck
Director:
Norman Jewison
Screenplay:
John Patrick Shanley
Starring:
Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis, Danny Aiello, Julie Bovasso, John Mahoney, Louis Guss
Academy Awards:
6 nominations
3 wins, including Best Actress (Cher) and Best Supporting Actress (Dukakis)

Superstitious Loretta (Cher) just got engaged to her humdrum beau Johnny (Aiello). He has promised they'll get married when he gets back from visiting his dying mother in Italy. In the meantime, he asks her to get in touch with his estranged brother Ronny (Cage) to patch up their five-year feud and invite him to the wedding. Unfortunately for Johnny, Loretta finds Ronny far more appealing and, more importantly, exciting.

Moonstruck is a comedy, that's clear. But there's something incongruous in its execution of that comedy. Much of it is larger than life - Nicolas Cage's histrionics, for example - yet so many of the scenes are languid in pace, a trait more often associated with subtle independent comedies. An interesting combination that doesn't quite mesh, in my opinion.

Perhaps consequentially, it's also rather difficult to accept the sudden attraction between the two leads. Well, let me rephrase that. Loretta is perfectly attractive in many ways and it's easy to recognise why a man would fall in love with her. But Ronny is so wildly insane that it's hard to imagine any woman being interested in him so quickly, particularly considering the lunacy he displays when he first meets Loretta. Nonetheless, this is a movie, after all, and suspension of disbelief aids greatly in forgiving the initial conceit, making way for a relationship that is reasonably endearing. However, no amount of disbelief-suspending can alleviate the hastiness with which Loretta's mother forgives her husband's indiscretions. Without really confronting him about it, such abrupt forgiveness is hard to swallow.

Cher is disarming in her starring role, offering warmth and humanity, and very much deserving of her Best Actress Oscar win. The same can't be said of her leading man, Nicolas Cage, who is just plain strange and somewhat obnoxious, which doesn't help with the aforementioned believability issues. His is not the only exaggerated performance, however, with a large portion of the supporting cast depicting a host of Italian-American caricatures. Thankfully, Cher isn't the only one to keep things subdued. Olympia Dukakis and John Mahoney also deliver more subtle portrayals, establishing the most affecting rapport in the film. And in case this film didn't have enough Italian-American pedigree, keep a keen eye out for Martin Scorsese's mother in an incredibly brief cameo.