First off, I should always stick to the predictions I make back in December, before I get swayed by the late-breaking memes. Just Friday I made two big switcheroos in the office pool, picking Mickey Rourke over Sean Penn and Viola Davis over Penelope Cruz. Both of which I had right (along with the other top seven awards), but feet of clay, baby. Same thing happened the year that Alan Arkin won Best Supporting Actor for Little Miss Sunshine -- I had switched close to Oscar time thinking Eddie Murphy might pull it off.
The mistake is to think emotionally in making predictions, because the Academy is so much more geriatric than, say, even the General Electorate, that emotion is slowed down anyway. Or maybe there's a long view. But the Oscars are all about how Hollywood wants to be perceived by the world, and Mickey Rourke just ain't that, not yet. Not with a skanky blonde hairweave and half a dozen staples in his back.
Sean Penn won because Milk was nominated for both Best Picture and Best Director, and because Penn brilliantly brought to life a respected, if controversial in his time, historical figure. And, on the emotional side, Hollywood was shocked by the passage of Prop. 8 last year, and the film contains an admonishment to the equality side that they should have shown their face, not hid in the closet. So bravo to Penn and Gus Van Sant for creating the breakthrough gay biopic, and the Academy is approving the mainstreaming of gay cinema (the unabashed sensibility that's so refreshing about a movie coming from a studio), which is kind of the Academy's job.
Rourke has had plenty of opportunities to make speechs -- the Golden Globes and, more entertainingly, the BAFTA's last week and the Spirit Awards yesterday. I mean, these are classic:
And on Charlie Rose, all in all probably enough.
I have yet to see The Reader (is it like reading, maybe a "chore"?) as parodied in the opening number, but I do think Kate Winslet is winning for her other values, not just the role or the movie. It's not just her body of work but it's her work ethic, how she makes the journals and inhabits the characters, hitting different notes with every role and all of them good. When I think about her in Eternal Sunshine of the la-di-da I just smile. Yes I do.
It was the innovative presentation of the acting awards tonight that reinforced the notion of Oscar as club, elite. One imagines it won't be repeated every year -- would they end up running out of 5-a-pop presenters and have to start in with repeat appearances? But it worked as a soulful way to congratulate each nominee no matter their chances. And it made it seem like a very warm and accepting club -- once you're membership worthy.
The only real upset was that Waltz with Bashir lost not to The Class but to Departures, a Japanese pic that nobody has seen, except for 80-odd Academy members who see all five Best Foreign Picture nominees, meaning that a winner might have only 20 votes. I have no idea if the deserving film won, and maybe the two favorites split the vote, but I doubt it has successfully invented a new genre in such a timely fashion as Ari Folman.
As for Slumdoggie Zillionaire, I'm all for it. The best story of all the nominated pix, well executed and full of life. The Academy, like our new President and Secretary of State, got a great opportunity to go global this year, An Inconvenient Truth-type Best Picture for our new era, migrated into the light.
Like the song says:
Jai ho.
No comments:
Post a Comment