Each Thursday until we're caught up, we will be doing a different Oscar ballot to compliment our Oscar Viewing Project, and this week we'll be starting in 2013 (links to all past Oscar contests are at the bottom of the article). The Oscar Viewing Project focuses specifically on seeing & ranking all of the actual Oscar categories, but I will now be ending series with these articles, giving not only who I would have nominated (having now seen a large chunk of each year through the OVP), but also who I would've given the trophies to from a given year. I suspect you get the gist-let's get into 2013!
12 Years a Slave
Before Midnight
The Bling Ring
Blue is the Warmest Color
Gravity
Her
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Inside Llewyn Davis
Short-Term 12
To the Wonder
Gold: Years after the fact, I still lean toward Short-Term 12 of this bunch. Brie Larson's best performance, it features a bunch of then up-and-comers (Rami Malek, Kaitlyn Dever, & LaKeith Stanfield all show up), and just unfolds with a great story & look at human nature.
Silver: Some may scoff in retrospect, but they are fools to think that Gravity doesn't hold up years later. Sandra Bullock uses her movie star prowess to make a film about one woman's journey for survival...and along the way self-discovery.
Bronze: The conclusion(?) of the Celine & Jesse trilogy gives us a look into happily ever after, and what truly comes after as we get a portrayal of a marriage & the loves (and hurts) that endure from giving your life to someone.
Sofia Coppola (The Bling Ring)
Destin Daniel Crettin (Short-Term 12)
Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)
Spike Jonze (Her)
Richard Linklater (Before Midnight)
Gold: I'm going to flip the script here a little bit & not go with my Best Picture winner. Alfonso Cuaron has to manage not only a gigantic, almost alien green-screen that needs to look authentic, but also keep a compelling narrative going with basically just one main character. That's a tricky, gargantuan task & he lives up to the order.
Silver: Again, it's hard not to go with Linklater creating an ending for his trilogy, one that cannot possibly sweep up in the sheer romance of the first two, but provides depth & reality to two characters we've loved for decades.
Bronze: Crettin gets the difficult task of directing a team of extremely talented but inexperienced actors to performances that must read as authentic & true to his film. Naturalism is a hard task to undertake, and he does so gloriously here.
Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
Sandra Bullock (Gravity)
Julie Delpy (Before Midnight)
Adele Exarchopolous (Blue is the Warmest Color)
Brie Larson (Short-Term 12)
Gold: You could make the argument that since her Oscar win for Room that Brie Larson's career has slightly disappointed. You'd only make that argument, though, if Room was validation of her talent, as anyone who saw Short-Term 12 can attest she's the real deal as an actress.
Silver: Cate Blanchett has spent most of the past twenty years batting home run after home run, and so of course she gives one of the best performances Woody Allen has coaxed out of an actor this century as a desperate, washed-up socialite dealing with her own mental illness.
Bronze: Sandra Bullock will never be a Daniel Day-Lewis style performer, but the best movie stars know who they are and how to bring that character out in a perfect script. The All-American starlet of the 1990's brings a quiet steadiness to her astronaut in peril in Gravity.
Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)
Ethan Hawke (Before Midnight)
Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis)
Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station)
Joaquin Phoenix (Her)
Gold: Joaquin Phoenix, frequently so intense in his film work, finds a nerdy, altruistic charm to his everyman in Her, a movie that feels prescient in an era of us trapped in our homes.
Silver: Oscar Isaac came onto the national spotlight with Llewyn Davis for a reason. His work here is worn, never inauthentic as he finds a realistic journey to self-discover while also remaining grounded in who his character is.
Bronze: Speaking of people who broke out cinematically in 2013, Michael B. Jordan's work in Fruitvale Station put him on the map, here with a care about bringing to life a man whose story we only know from an all-too-familiar news byline.
Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)
Sarah Paulson (12 Years a Slave)
Lea Seydoux (Blue is the Warmest Color)
Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station)
Emma Watson (The Bling Ring)
Gold: Octavia Spencer has spent much of the past decade as one of the most indispensable character actresses, and as one of Oscar's favorites. It seems odd to me that for potentially her best performance, playing a mother of a woman trying to hide her own fears (and their levels) that she virtually went unrecognized at awards ceremonies.
Silver: Jennifer Lawrence at this point in her career had proven that she was clearly a good actress, but had yet to have a movie that leaned into that charisma. American Hustle she enters in and totally upends the movie with a kind of once-in-a-blue-moon star power.
Bronze: Speaking of character actors who have proven themselves this decade, few actresses have earned the sterling reputation they now have more so than Sarah Paulson, who shows not only her command of the screen but a simmering hatred below the surface as Mistress Epps.
Colin Farrell (Saving Mr. Banks)
Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave)
John Gallagher, Jr. (Short-Term 12)
Tom Hanks (Saving Mr. Banks)
Ian McKellen (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug)
Gold: Michael Fassbender finally got his Oscar nomination after a long stretch of being one of the best reasons to go to the movies, and it couldn't have come for a better role. Playing a vicious, domineering man with deep-seated insecurity, he creates a menacing, complex villain.
Silver: Tom Hanks is the nicest guy in Hollywood, and he brings that twinkle to his Walt Disney, an admittedly sugar-coated version of the filmmaker, but one that fits beautifully with the story of two PL Travers (young & old) admitting their spot in a crossroads.
Bronze: You couldn't have Tom Hanks excellent "father figure" role without a counterweight in Colin Farrell, a man with the same magic that an older Walt provides, but one whose issues with alcoholism prevent him from ever being the success young PL Travers wants him to be.
Blue Jasmine
Enough Said
Frances Ha
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
Gold: Predicting the future should not win you Oscars, but if it did, the world where we are reliant upon our phones as our best friends & confidantes that Her inhabits surely would take the statue. A better reason to give it this Oscar would be that it's a thoughtful, judgment-free look at love, loneliness, & our desire to make a connection (wherever it may lead).
Silver: The Coen Brothers know how to write...this is not a secret. But here they meld their quirkier dark humor with a sense of adventure, as our Llewyn becomes an unconventional Jack Kerouac, ready to bring his music (bitterly) to the world.
Bronze: Few films have better captured the younger Millennial experience (optimistic, limited worldview, perpetually cash-strapped) better than Greta Gerwig's Frances Ha script. Honestly this deserves this trophy for the weekend-in-Paris idea alone.
12 Years a Slave
Before Midnight
The Bling Ring
Blue is the Warmest Color
Short-Term 12
Gold: Linklater, Hawke, & Delpy create a concluding chapter worthy of the series by not just extending our complicated romance, but giving us a tough, fair, but rewarding final installment of the Celine & Jesse trilogy.
Silver: A movie with great quotes & authentic dialogue, Short-Term 12 gives us heart & true ensemble characters as different plot lines interweave seamlessly.
Bronze: While Greta Gerwig tried to find the best of the Millennials with Frances Ha, Sofia Coppola goes after their worst-a movie that shows the problem when everyone needs to be a star (no matter the cost).
Ernest & Celestine
Frozen
The Wind Rises
Gold: This is honestly a race I wrestle with, as there are days where I reverse this because I don't think that the hype was quite what it was meant to be at the time (and the sequel didn't help matters). That being said, I still think I'd pick Frozen for this trophy as it's such a wintry & well-planned animated feature.
Silver: So close behind it is The Wind Rises, which was meant to be Miyazaki's swan song but turns out to be just a movie before a long sabbatical (if rumors are to be believed), would've been a fitting & moving end to the director's complicated, challenging filmography.
Bronze: One of those gems that Oscar brings to your attention through a surprise nomination, Ernest & Celestine is such a charming movie, filled with impressionist-inspired animation & it occasionally feels like you've fallen into a storybook.
Gravity
Inside Llewyn Davis
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Lone Survivor
Man of Steel
Gold: Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity kind of stands apart as its own creation when it comes to the tech categories. With its Sound Mixing, it finds most of its power in silence, giving us long stretches of deafened quiet to underscore the loneliness of space.
Silver: Musicals are always making a play in this category, but just cause the songs are catchy doesn't make the sound work stellar. Llewyn Davis, though, finds a beautiful timbre for its thoughtful, melodic music-it almost feels like you can hear it bouncing off of the wood floors.
Bronze: Few war films this decade have had the kind of specificity with their work as Lone Survivor did in this movie-giving us as much tension in a cascade of bullet fire as it does the crinkling of a tree branch against the ground.
Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Lone Survivor
Man of Steel
World War Z
Gold: The crashes in Gravity seem to burst from the silent air, a constant rush of adrenaline coming after a heartbreak-inducing lull of calm...it plays like a horror movie with petrifying aural jump scares.
Silver: Lone Survivor may have a problematic, he-man storyline, but the Academy got it right when they found this picture for its sound awards. The relentless attack, even during the more subdued scenes, gives us a sense of realism that you rarely get from a war film of this styling.
Bronze: While there are the fights at Mirkwood that make you take notice, it's really the entire sequence with Smaug & Bilbo that wins this nomination for me, a coin-clicking, fire-breathing achievement in sound design.
12 Years a Slave
The Book Thief
Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Short-Term 12
Gold: Films like Short-Term 12 rarely need the kind of instantly iconic score to accompany them-they feel complete without something melodic soaring through the background. But here the film gives us a sparse, piano-driven score that feels like an essential companion to our young stars.
Silver: A traditional score, but one with flowing, elegant dramatics that back up what the movie needs-a movie that will give us action motifs without ever stepping on the sound design that can make the film so terrifying.
Bronze: I am still mystified why Hans Zimmer didn't get nominated at the Oscars for this movie, his best work in at least a decade that gives us a thick, rich score that goes just off-the-beaten-track enough to give the film a depth of uniqueness.
"Atlas," The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
"Best Song Ever," One Direction: This is Us
"Finding North," A Place at the Table
"I See Fire," The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
"Let It Go," Frozen
Gold: Eight years later, and it still has a place in both pop culture & in our collective Disney imagination-"Let It Go" is a great anthem within the movie & outside, totally defining a character in a few minutes.
Silver: Peter Jackson's sextet of songs throughout his Middle Earth journey are all winners, each giving an atypical summary of what we've just seen onscreen. Ed Sheeran, during the early precipices of his fame, totally nails the climactic quest of Desolation of Smaug.
Bronze: Sometimes, what we love is not entirely logical. I'm aware there are other "technically" more proficient songs both in this lineup & outside of it, but in terms of transporting me back to a movie & a place/time, I cannot deny the quick buzz of "Best Song Ever."
12 Years a Slave
The Conjuring
Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Saving Mr. Banks
Gold: Sometimes sequels that are nominated for the tech categories rely entirely too much on the worlds that they've already created. That isn't the case with Desolation of Smaug, though, which gives us the gorgeous frozen city of Esgoroth, one of the most impressive spots in the entire 6-film series.
Silver: The genius of 12 Years a Slave's production design is in the way that it feels like this set has existed for decades. The worn furniture in the Epps' manor, the way that the houses look like the wood is sweating from the heat...the attention to detail is magnificent.
Bronze: Gravity initially feels like an unusual movie to nominate here (it's in space-where is the design), but the hyper-realistic look to the space stations, the confining, emptiness of it all, compliment the movie itself beautifully.
Cinematography
12 Years a Slave
The Bling Ring
Gravity
Inside Llewyn Davis
To the Wonder
Gold: It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between cinematography & effects with a movie like Gravity, but Lubezki is clearly in the driver's seat during key moments in this film that require a world-class cinematographer, particularly in the 12-minute initial take of this movie (a precursor to his long shots in Birdman the following year).
Silver: Lubezki goes 1-2 in this category with To the Wonder, a film largely forgotten in the Malick pantheon, but one that finds beauty in everything from a herd of bison to a Sonic drive-in.
Bronze: Sometimes cinematography isn't about just making something beautiful-it's about instructing the audience in ways that don't give away the film's ending. This is the case with the well-lit, but utterly vapid shots of closets & cookie-cutter mansions in The Bling Ring.
12 Years a Slave
The Bling Ring
Blue Jasmine
The Great Gatsby
The Invisible Woman
Gold: Like its production design, 12 Years a Slave gets its genius from the atmosphere of the movie, with you seeing the sweat & heat coming off of the clothes, and the wear-and-tear of not having quite enough money to make things look trim-and-tailored (this isn't Tara).
Silver: It's rare you come away from a period piece convinced that it was the menswear that was the best-in-show, but this was the case with The Great Gatsby, with brilliantly-lined clothing (and one knockout pale pink suit) becoming the star.
Bronze: Like 12 Years a Slave, The Invisible Woman knows how to get across the differentiations of class not through the script, but through the costuming. The rigidity of what we're seeing Joanna Scanlan in (almost as if she's overwhelmed by the outfits, just like she is her marriage) is particularly well-constructed.
12 Years a Slave
The Bling Ring
Blue is the Warmest Color
Her
Gravity
Gold: All of these movies have strong editing. Only one of them, though, lives or dies by that editing-Gravity doesn't work unless you feel like you're in the film, overwhelmed alongside Sandra Bullock. That requires rapid-fire skill from the cutting room, and that's what we get here.
Silver: The Bling Ring might feel like an unusual choice here, but hear me out. Name another movie of this style that both captures the onslaught of celebrity that happens to these characters (as if we are the paparazzi looking in), and plays with long & short scenes to give us a sense of danger at each heist.
Bronze: Editing a film like Her is tricky-you have Joaquin Phoenix onscreen without a visible scene partner for long periods of time, and you have to make it feel like he's not just talking to himself. Her never makes it feel that our titular character isn't real (even if she's just a computer).
Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
The Lone Ranger
Man of Steel
Pacific Rim
Gold: I mean, is there an option of going somewhere other than Gravity? The film is arguably the most influential special effects film of the past ten years, focusing on hyper-realistic space travel that only adds to the movie's relentless action.
Silver: In virtually any other year the creature of Smaug would've been impossible to deny. While there are countless effects throughout the movie that are worth our adulation, Smaug, terrifying, present, & shifty is an incredible achievement.
Bronze: No, Pacific Rim is not a good movie. But its visual effects are splendid, taking where Transformers left off & giving us bursts of color & steel in every corner of the screen.
American Hustle
The Great Gatsby
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Lee Daniel's The Butler
The Lone Ranger
Gold: Bizarrely left out of the Oscar lineup, American Hustle is a solid look at how you can make hairstyling be a part of a character's personality without ever letting it overwhelm (or mock) the larger-than-life figures onscreen.
Silver: The Hobbit continually does strong work with its makeup, here having some of the standouts be Stephen Fry's Master-of-Laketown and the decaying Lee Pace's Thranduil.
Bronze: Spanning decades, The Butler not only has to adapt to period makeup & hair trends, but it also has to make sure that we never stray too far from the conventions of its characters. In a movie that frequently feels "too much," its work here feels just about right for the tone Daniels is setting.
Also in 2013: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2013
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