Oscar weekend has arrived, and starting tomorrow I’ll be reporting live from Hollywood thanks to Dolby Laboratories, who is sending me on my first official press junket and Academy Awards experience. I look forward to sharing technology, stars and events here on the blog and will Tweet from my handle @StephenATL.
This is the biggest weekend for the movies all year; and despite the lack of diversity in the nominations, people are expecting to see pomp and pageantry and host Chris Rock to skewer the establishment when televised proceedings begin on ABC Sunday night.
Some of you are likely cramming to see the Best Picture nominees, many of which are on video and on-demand (The Martian, Spotlight, Bridge of Spies, Mad Max: Fury Road) and some that are still in theatres (The Big Short, The Revenant, Brooklyn, Room). Incidentally, Room, The Danish Girl and Youth – one of my favorites – come out Monday, March 1 to view at home.
But the real question everyone’s asking (other than what will Lady Gaga wear?) is who will win the awards? There are many rules when filling out your mock-ballot; and there are always head-scratching surprises, but it’s Friday, so I better commit these to pixels.
Of the movies that are actually nominated, here’s what I believe will win and why — with hyperlinks to my reviews on this blog:
Best Picture
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight
Although my sentimental favorite is the true-life journalism crackler Spotlight, my prediction is The Revenant, because the Oscar voters have just discovered it in the past two months, because it is epic and sprawling and because it looks like it was hard to make. The story behind the story – about director Alejandro González Iñárritu and star Leonardo DiCaprio braving the wilderness to make this passion project on the brink of madness – is just what Hollywood loves. The topical message movies that don’t “appear” as “directed” as the outdoor epic will likely split the vote, and then only cult favorite Mad Max: Fury Road could sneak in as a dark horse. All the rest in this category should consider the nomination their reward.
Best Director
Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Lenny Abrahamson, Room
After winning last year for Birdman, Alejandro González Iñárritu will score for a second year in a row for The Revenant. An epic story well-told and a move well-made by a beloved auteur of Hispanic descent stands out among the smaller dramas. Plus, he makes moviemaking look incredibly exciting! Again, veteran director George Miller is a close second!
Best Actor
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
Matt Damon, The Martian
Although he got to flex his acting muscles even more in The Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio suffered for his art this year and will get his belated Oscar for The Revenant. There’s not even a strong second, although it’s disappointing the superb Michael B. Jordan in the audience and critical favorite Creed or Will Smith as the real-life doctor in the underappreciated Concussion didn’t make the short list.
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
Brie Larson is absolutely the favorite for Room, with no close second, because two of the year’s best actresses are in the supporting category. Brie is great in the role and beloved on the Hollywood scene. Did you know she also played Amy Schumer’s sister in this year’s summer comedy hit Trainwreck?
Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Sylvester Stallone in Creed will narrowly defeat Bale and Hardy for the nifty performances in films released in the past two months. Stallone has one of those classic Hollywood stories, and it’s nice to see him return to his roots and return to form after a multi-decade acting wasteland.
Best Supporting Actress
Rooney Mara, Carol
Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
This is the biggest wild-card race of the night, but It-Girl Alicia Vikander is the likely winner for The Danish Girl. Her role in the film was actually the female lead plus there are many fans of her work in the sci-fi film Ex Machina, also released this past year. She does a lovely, dare I say fierce job in both. This could also be one of those colossally split votes that somehow lifts the ship of Kate Winslet in Steve Jobs to join her Titanic star in the night’s bounty. But Vikander has the edge.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Drew Goddard, The Martian
Nick Hornby, Brooklyn
Adam McKay and Charles Randolph, The Big Short
Phyllis Nagy, Carol
Emma Donoghue, Room
Folks were impressed with the topical dark comedy The Big Short and the ability of a comedy writer/director – Adam McKay – to bring such panache to a story about the housing crash. This could be its only win of the night.
Best Original Screenplay
Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, Spotlight
Matt Charman, Joel & Ethan Coen, Bridge of Spies
Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley, Ronnie del Carmen, Inside Out
Alex Garland, Ex Machina
Jonathan Herman, S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus, Andrea Berloff, Straight Outta Compton
Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer developed the true story Spotlight without any source material, which is unusual for a film of this type. It is a great film and will at least be rewarded in this category. This will likely be the consolation prize for what was believed to be the Best Picture front-runner for most of the awards season.
Best Foreign Language Film
Son of Saul (Hungary)
Mustang (France)
A War (Denmark)
Embrace the Serpent (Colombia)
Theeb (Jordan)
Son of Saul is a searing masterpiece that could have easily snuck into the overall Best Picture race.
Best Documentary Feature
Amy
Cartel Land
The Look of Silence
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom
Amy, the documentary about Amy Winehouse captured the most acclaim and buzz this year.
Best Animated Feature
Inside Out
Anomalisa
Shaun of the Sheep
When Marnie Was There
Boy and the World
Inside Out, an expected candidate for Best Picture that didn’t make that cut, seems destined to take the animated glory.
Best Film Editing
Hank Corwin, The Big Short
Margaret Sixel, Mad Max: Fury Road
Stephen Mirrione, The Revenant
Tom McArdle, Spotlight
Maryann Brandon, Mary Jo Markey, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Mad Max: Fury Road could actually win the most Oscars as the adrenaline-soaked action spectacular of the year. Its editing was fast and, well, furious.
Best Original Song
“Earned It” from Fifty Shades of Grey
Music and lyrics by Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville, and Stephan Moccio
“Manta Ray” from Racing Extinction
Music by J. Ralph and lyrics by Antony Hegarty
“Simple Song #3” from Youth
Music and lyrics by David Lang
“Til It Happens to You” from The Hunting Ground
Music and lyrics by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga
“Writing’s on the Wall” from Spectre
Music and lyrics by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith
“Til It Happens to You” from a documentary about sexual assault called The Hunting Ground, is the likely winner. It’s chanteuse, Lady Gaga, has become the unlikely celebrant of the awards season.
Best Original Score
Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight
Carter Burwell, Carol
Jóhann Jóhannsson, Sicario
John Williams, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Thomas Newman, Bridge of Spies
Score one for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight with veteran composer Ennio Morricone taking home the prize for the writer/director’s peculiar revisionist western. Star Wars: The Force Awakens will get locked out of all categories, with the billions it has made its consolation prize.
Best Cinematography
Emmanuel Lubezki, The Revenant
Edward Lachman, Carol
Robert Richardson, The Hateful Eight
Roger Deakins, Sicario
John Seale, Mad Max: Fury Road
For wide open expanses, bear attacks and generally amazing cinematography, Emmanuel Lubezki will win for The Revenant. Plus, he will make history as the first cinematographer to win three years in a row after Gravity and Birdman.
Best Costume Design
Sandy Powell, Carol
Sandy Powell, Cinderella
Paco Delgado, The Danish Girl
Jenny Beavan, Mad Max: Fury Road
Jacqueline West, The Revenant
Despite the beauty of many of the period costumes, it’s Jenny Beavan’s renegade post-apocalyptic couture of Mad Max: Fury Road that’s the stuff of pure imagination.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
The ruggedness and bear-inflicted wounds of The Revenant are one-upped by the gonzo desert ampitheatre of Mad Max denizens. Prediction here is Mad Max: Fury Road.
Best Production Design
Bridge of Spies, Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Rena DeAngelo and Bernhard Henrich
The Danish Girl, Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Michael Standish
Mad Max: Fury Road, Production Design: Colin Gibson; Set Decoration: Lisa Thompson
The Martian, Production Design: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Celia Bobak
The Revenant, Production Design: Jack Fisk; Set Decoration: Hamish Purdy
Let’s give another to Mad Max, you know, “because.” I do think the “below-the-line” technical awards will nearly all go to Mad Max or The Revenant, with the slight edge on some to Mad Max since voters know they’re giving Revenant lots of the top prizes.
Sound Editing
Mark Mangini and David White, Mad Max: Fury Road
Oliver Tarney, The Martian
Martin Hernandez and Lon Bender, The Revenant
Alan Robert Murray, Sicario
Matthew Wood and David Acord, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Another for the motorcycles and mayhem of Mad Max!
Sound Mixing
Benjamin A. Burtt, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Ben Osmo, Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff, Mad Max: Fury Road
Mac Ruth, Paul Massey, Mark Taylor, The Martian
Chris Duesterdiek, Frank A. Montaño, Jon Taylor, Randy Thom, The Revenant
Drew Kunin, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom, Bridge of Spies
And how Mad Max blended breakneck noises into one of the most singular sonic soundscapes of the year!
Visual Effects
Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett, Ex Machina
Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams, Mad Max: Fury Road
Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence and Steven Warner, The Martian
Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith and Cameron Waldbauer, The Revenant
Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
We loved the practical sets and stunts of both the Star Wars and Mad Max sequels, but Mad Max gets the edge as the “artier” choice.
Best Short Film, Live Action
Basil Khalil and Eric Dupont, Ave Maria
Henry Hughes, Day One
Jamie Donoughue, Shok
Benjamin Cleary and Serena Armitage, Stutterer
Patrick Vollrath, Everything Will Be Okay (Alle Wird Gut)
Let’s go with Stutterer.
Best Short Film, Animated
Bear Story
Prologue
Sanjay’s Super Team
We Can’t Live Without Cosmos
World of Tomorrow
Let’s go with Bear Story. Some voters will think this is about The Revenant too.
Best Documentary, Short Subject
Body Team 12, David Darg and Bryn Mooser
Chau, Beyond the Lines, Courtney Marsh and Jerry Franck
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah, Adam Benzine
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Last Day of Freedom, Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman
Let’s go with Body Team 12 since the subject of the Holocaust is already covered in Best Foreign Language films.
Expect pedigreed delights Carol, Brooklyn, The Martian and Bridge of Spies to go home empty-handed. The earthier epics and modern message pics appear to dominate!
Hope you have a great time catching up on Oscar movies and tune in Sunday night for the ABC telecast. Many of you will likely be watching online and all weekend, so thanks for making my blog part of your ritual!
One of the most acclaimed Hungarian films in recent years tells the tale of a father endeavoring to bury his son, but there’s so much more to the story. László Nemes’s chilling you-are-there style Holocaust drama Son of Saul (A-) takes viewers deep into horror and chaos where a heroic dad’s singleminded mission to provide a proper burial for his offspring is complicated by his role as a Jewish prisoner inside a WWII Auschwitz Concentration Camp where he serves as part of the “Sonderkommando” unit that disposes of the dead. Told within stifling quarters over the course of less than two days in 1944, the story is focused on Saul’s leviathan task while he fends off SS-guards and smugglers in his midst as the burial and even overall escape becomes either elusive or imminent. Much falls on the shoulder of lead actor Géza Röhrig, and he is magnificent in a muscular role requiring few words. Nemes’ direction often relies on tight close-ups and sound effects that prompt viewers to fill in an even more terrifying complete picture. Told with the propulsion of near-constant motion, it is an extraordinarily effective glimpse into history. Due to some of the labyrinthine plot details that undergird the narrative, the emotional core occasionally gets short shrift. It is essential viewing in this historical sub-genre and a harrowing, insightful experience.
As both a cinema and technology enthusiast, I am thrilled that Dolby Laboratories is sponsoring my trip to cover The Oscars in Hollywood the weekend of February 27-28, 2016 culminating in the February 28 ABC telecast. Here are some technology trivia facts — and links to my reviews – for some of the most celebrated films of the past year. These are the films nominated for Academy Awards,using Dolby technology:
Where To Invade Next (A-) is a strange misnomer for writer/director Michael Moore’s most eye-opening and consistently accessible documentary to date, which is only tangentially about the military. In the film, the on-screen auteur stages a series of mock infiltrations into some of the great global societies to steal and stake claim to brilliant ideas and bring them back to the U.S. Sometimes a land grab and occasionally a grab bag, Moore’s trenchant travelogue transports us to schools in Finland and France, prisons in Norway, CEO roundtables of Iceland and the halls of government in Tunisia, to name just a few of his eye-opening encounters. The intrepid iconoclast of the progressive persuasion challenges all sorts of cultural assumptions and delivers plain-spoken innovations and surprising belief systems. The film is a spiritual sequel to his 2007 film Sicko in which Europeans frolicked in the bliss of their universal healthcare; but this movie is much more engaging and entertaining. Using his trademark humor and everyman interview style, he arrives at a profound thesis that many of the world’s great ideas did come from America; they just got lost a little bit on the journey. Moore speaks a little softer and carries a slightly less pulverizing stick, and it’s an entertaining and insightful lark. Those who choose to hear the provocateur’s message will be rewarded.
While it contains several inspired performances, droll dialogue and impeccable period detail, Joel and Ethan Coen’s send-up of Hollywood Hail, Caesar! (C+) doesn’t come together with quite the finesse of the brothers’ typical efforts. It depicts one day in the life of Hollywood in the golden years, but the result is far from vintage. James Brolin is sturdy but impenetrable as the film studio executive protagonist who must simultaneously contend with a playboy movie star (an enjoyable George Clooney) kidnapped by a group of screenwriters during the filming of a biblical epic, dueling gossip columnists (both played with tart delight by Tilda Swinton) and an array of minor subplots with stars ranging from a sassy Scarlett Johansson to a debonair Ralph Fiennes, chewing the scenery. While the tone is broadly comedic, both the scope of the plot and the reach of its impact are often protracted and diminished, as if the auteurs knew this was a lark and just didn’t really give it all they’ve got. It’s not enough of a satire of filmmaking or a skewering of the studio system or an examination of storytelling or the changing times to really stand out. Channing Tatum and Alden Ehrenreich are underused gems; both of their short-changed characters could be in a much more interesting movie. But like middlebrow Woody Allen films or pizza, even when it’s mediocre, it’s still pretty good. So let it be with the Coen Brothers’s Caesar.
I saw David O. Russell’s Joy (D+) so you don’t have to. Loosely based on the life of a divorced mom who transforms herself into the entrepreneur of the Miracle Mop empire in the early days of television home shopping, this maudlin seriocomedy takes roughly 90 minutes before it gains a pulse. By the time the story stirs any momentum in a prolonged TV studio sequence, Russell has already failed to generate any consistent tone or believable characters. Bits of the inspirational loosely true story and some facets of Jennifer Lawrence’s occasionally compelling performance as the title heroine (Mother of Invention? Mopping-Jane?) are the only components that bring any life at all to the proceedings. The auteur’s usual repertory ensemble including Robert DeNiro and Bradley Cooper are painfully dull and inconsistent in their roles. The final reel unspools unceremoniously to the finish line but can’t compensate for the inert narrative that led us there. For a film about a magnate of retail, the writer/director fails to make the sale.
A Felliniesque fantasia on life, love and art, Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth (A-) is an answer to cinephile prayer. There will be many who dismiss this Swiss Alps resort set comedy-drama as pretentious drivel or avoid the film altogether for fear of glacial pace; but those seeking an appropriately contemplative requiem on the choices made in the sunset of life will treasure the movie’s nontraditional narrative structure, formalist art direction and unconventional approach to character development. Giving late career-best performances as an aging composer, filmmaker and actress, respectively, Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel and Jane Fonda (in a potent extended cameo) are a master class trio bearing wisdom and fortitude. They’re also really funny in their wry honesty. Rachel Weisz and Paul Dano are both strong as generational counterpoints. David Lang’s music, especially the work he created for Caine’s fictional composer, is sheer bliss. Sorrentino captures a grotesquerie of fascinating people against gorgeous backdrops in conversations that comprise a protracted art house aria. Like the film’s spas, green pastures and alpine wilderness, the film leaves room for characters to breathe and discover one another in harmony. Some may argue there’s very little plot, and they’d be pretty much right. But the film is impeccably perceptive in peeling back the layers of humanity and stripping its characters bare of the familiar. The wit and wordplay devised by an Italian writer/director is stunningly universal; and despite its older stars, this autumnal film beats with a youthful heart.
Andrew Nackman’s 4th Man Out (B+) is a funny and naturally charming comedy about a 24-year-old small-town everyman auto mechanic (Evan Todd) who comes out as gay to his entourage of three very heterosexual bros, played by a pack of TV comedy actors Parker Young, Chord Overstreet and Jon Gabrus. The dynamic of revealing his pent-up news to stunned, unsuspecting straight guys is rich territory for comedy and pathos, and the first-time filmmaker successfully delivers an indelible tale. Todd and Young in particular create a marvelous bond as they maneuver through the machinations of manhood and as the quartet redefines the rules of their relationships and routines. Hockey viewing, clubbing and poker night all take on a different lens with the hapless trio meaning well but hitting some awkward notes. Also compelling is Todd’s earnestness as he portrays a man trying on his newfound identity for size; he is a revelation in the role and carries the film’s emotional weight powerfully. Most of all, it’s frank and funny and plumbs an often unexplored dynamic. It was fun to watch a film evocative of some of my ’90’s favorites Chasing Amy and The Brothers McMullen.
The 1950’s New York City of Todd Haynes’ Carol (B+) is gorgeous to behold. A stardust fantasy inked in pinks, draped in lavender and spiced with holiday peppermint sticks, it is also home to a burgeoning forbidden romance between an unhappy housewife played by Cate Blanchett and a timid shopkeeper played by Rooney Mara. Haynes films key sequences of this slow-burn drama via raindrop covered glass panes, through architectural lines that separate characters from one another and in front of mirrors that reflect tender love blossoming amidst the suffocating funhouse of a society in transition. The lead actresses are note-perfect in their commitment to characters and provide a fascinating portal into the sometimes too formalist unfolding of the proceedings. Haynes may be the ideal director for this austere work, skilled at keeping his heroines and the audience at safe distance from their surroundings and capturing the longing of outsider protagonists hoisted in space and time to alien earthly environments. If folks are left wanting a bit more, well, that’s sort of the point.
The central gimmick of Lenny Abrahamson’s Room (B) – of mother and son imprisoned in a secluded shed for many years – peaks early; and after the inevitable escape attempt, there’s nowhere else to go as the plot plumbs the psychological aftermath. Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay give breakthrough performances as a family forged in trauma, and the close bond they form is a highlight of the film. The heavy-handed symbolism of the early sequences that feel virtually in utero (is the room actually the womb?) versus a wider expanse of the great big world as its own mental prison never gather the intended gravitas. Still, much of the film is gripping, and the performances are fresh and affecting. Once the central duo is expanded to a more established stunt-casting ensemble including Joan Allen and William H. Macy, it just doesn’t get more compelling. The film simply continues to long for the confined spaces and finer acting of the mysterious opening moments.
Like The Insider and Erin Brockovich, Peter Landesman’s Concussion (B+) depicts an individual’s courage in standing up against a real-life institutional cover-up. In this case, it’s an immigrant pathologist versus the National Football League in terms of who knew what and when on the issue of head trauma to players causing specific and unusual side effects at a relatively early age. It’s a film the NFL doesn’t want you to see. Despite its takedown of one of the nation’s pastimes, it is nonetheless a film about faith and the American dream. Smith’s sensitive doctor communes with the dead through his job at the Philadelphia coroner’s office, and his perpetual attention to detail prompts him to look deeper into the case of a famed football center who lost his mind before dying. From there, his findings escalate. Lifting this effort above its message movie trajectory is an absolutely exemplary performance by Will Smith that plumbs notions of science, spirituality and destiny. Like Liev Schreiber’s character in the recent Spotlight, he’s the outsider it takes to reveal an inconvenient truth. Albert Brooks and Alec Baldwin are strong as unlikely allies, but it is Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the female lead who helps anchor the film’s emotions brimming under the surface. Her character as well as Smith’s reflect an admirable stoicism against the odds they face, rendering the powder kegs that threaten to pierce their armor all the more dramatic. The film doesn’t break much new ground in its cinematic storytelling, but it will definitely color the way you watch tackles in football if the mounting facts over the past years haven’t altered your perceptions already.