OVP: Best Picture (2017)
The Nominees Were...
Peter Spears, Luca Guadagnino, Emilie Georges, & Marco Morabito, Call Me By Your Name
Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten, & Douglas Urbanski, Darkest Hour
Emma Thomas & Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Edward H. Hamm, Jr, & Jordan Peele, Get Out
Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, & Evelyn O'Neill, Lady Bird
JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison, & Daniel Lupi, Phantom Thread
Amy Pascal, Steven Spielberg, & Kristie Macosko Krieger, The Post
Guillermo del Toro & J. Miles Dale, The Shape of Water
Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, & Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
My Thoughts: We are at a close! In what has been the fastest Oscar Viewing Project we've ever encountered (we'll continue to make a breakneck speed as I attempt to catch up on all of the backlogged OVP's we have-I have two still on deck and two years that are nearly completed, so plenty of races to go), we are heading into not only Best Picture today but (a new favorite feature of mine) My Ballot tomorrow morning. At this point we've discussed most of these movies, though not all, to the point of exhaustion so I don't know that I have a lot to say about them, but I want to give each its due as we decide who will be our Best Picture favorite. We'll start with the movie we've discussed the least, because it only nabbed two Oscar nominations, The Post.
One of the stranger things about West Side Story for so many film fans is that Spielberg created such a distinctive film when it had been done before...and then the backlash to such people are like "Spielberg's a genius, of course he made a grand movie." That's both true (he's definitely made some of the best movies of the past 50 years), but also not entirely real, as Spielberg hasn't created an out-and-out masterpiece for at least a couple of decades. The Post is handsomely-drawn, but it doesn't have the emotion or cinematic feel of Spielberg's best (or this lineup's best), and the ending is outright bad. It's a good movie (this is one of the better 5+ lineups that Oscar has pulled together), but it is nowhere near the Top 10 of 2017.
Neither is The Shape of Water, the movie we most discussed over the past seven weeks as we counted down this year's lineup. The Shape of Water, like The Post, has some fine moments, particularly the early scenes as Eliza and the creature fall in love, but it cannot handle the weight of its subplots, and the movie isn't sleek & airy enough to function solely as a romance (even though it'd have been better if it had-imagine a 70-minute long Shape of Water). It gains stylistic points on The Post by looking fantastic, but it doesn't have the grandeur of Del Toro's best work (Pan's Labyrinth), and the acting isn't enough to make me subscribe to this as a Best Picture winner.
Lady Bird feels the most out-of-sync with what Oscar picks...after all, how many contemporary comedies about the lives of a teenage girl have been nominated for Best Picture (not condoning, just pointing out)? It's because the movie is so good that it ranks in such a fashion. Gerwig's film gives us one year in the life of a promising, gifted, but still young woman who doesn't understand the richness of this time & how often she'll look at this period of her life through rose-colored glasses. Gerwig captures the sense of endless youth with a knowing eye that it, too, will someday end, without ever feeling like it's giving too many nods or feeling all-knowing.
Get Out was the other major directorial debut of 2017, and as I've pointed out repeatedly in the past few weeks, it's a movie that I respect more than I love it. Peele makes an exact, precise, occasionally too belabored metaphor that feels instantly iconic because it is. The best moments of the movie are the unexpected touches (think Betty Gabriel's "no, no no no no no"...chilling in its simplicity), but by the time the surprise is revealed, you have already guessed what's happening 30 minutes earlier. When a film functions so much off of its twist, it loses its luster for me as I'm watching it, even if I'm not a fool-I know this is good even if it's not working for me.
The same can be said for Phantom Thread, which is another movie that feels like it relies so heartily on its twists and the power that comes from them that the movie feels like it's confined, that it can't explore the best parts of itself. The third act works from Phantom Thread, and unlike Get Out it's not something that you see coming, but it's so unexpected that there are moments in it that feel sloppy, and like the characters have to run too much of an about-face. The weird psychosexual relationship between Alma & Reynolds definitely is shocking, but it's never quite as good as the buildup.
I know I'm in the minority here, but I think Darkest Hour is a great movie. I have to constantly remind myself of this because it's so against my normal film tastes (biopics are not my wheelhouse), but it works well in a classical sense. Oldman's central performance is riveting, and the way that it counts down every step toward ultimate victory for Britain in World War II is well-done, a realistic but ultimately escapist epic that feels out-of-fashion but when done well can land jaw-dropping & at-home on the big-screen. Joe Wright, whose best films are drawing room movies that take no-way-out turns (specifically Atonement) feels comfortable taking his budget to the next level with Darkest Hour.
That said, I still favor Dunkirk amongst the World War II movies nominated in 2017. This is not a typical Christopher Nolan movie (there are no twists, no jaw-dropping special effects, no suspensions-of-screenplay-logic) but it captures the best parts of him as a filmmaker-his directorial vision, and the way that he can make it feel immersive & "you are there" without ever needing gimmicks to get that across. The longer you stay away from it, the better Dunkirk becomes, as you understand that the anonymity of the characters, almost playing people without names, is precisely what you need to make war feel real-it needs to be about no one so that it can be about everyone.
Call Me By Your Name does not have the same level of universality, but it also makes you realize the quickness of time regardless of if you see your first love the same way that Elio does. Guadagnino takes a 130-minute movie and makes it feel half of that, every second, every song, every glance adding up to all of the interactions that we can expect from these two screen lovers. Elevated by bravura acting (particularly the performance-of-a-lifetime work from Timothee Chalamet), CMBYN is the kind of movie that defines a career. Guadagnino likely will never make anything this good again...but few filmmakers before him have.
We pivot to Three Billboards for our final film, a movie that probably reads as better while you're watching it than afterward when you think about it. Solid performances from Frances McDormand & Woody Harrelson can't make up for the fact that the plot is rife with holes, and the ending, where a racist cop is exonerated because he wants to embrace vigilante justice, is gross. I am not at all a subscriber to the theory that every character needs to be a hero (there are bad people in life, and not all of them resemble Snidely Whiplash), but the film is so reliant on you forgiving Sam Rockwell by the movie's ending that if you don't...no amount of style or acting chops are going to get you to love this movie.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their categories into Drama and Musical/Comedy so we have ten movies in the running, with Drama favoring Three Billboards against Call Me By Your Name, Dunkirk, The Post, and The Shape of Water while Comedy/Musical went with Lady Bird atop The Disaster Artist, Get Out, The Greatest Showman, and I, Tonya. BAFTA only does five, so it picked Three Billboards as well against CMBYN, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, and The Shape of Water while PGA went eleven-wide & mirrored Oscar's pick of The Shape of Water against all of the Oscar lineup save for Phantom Thread & Darkest Hour (instead adding in The Big Sick, I, Tonya, Molly's Game, and Wonder Woman). In terms of tenth place I think it's easily I, Tonya-the other contenders in this lineup just don't feel in Oscar's wheelhouse, and that Editing nomination was a sign that AMPAS was feeling this movie.
Films I Would Have Nominated: All will be revealed tomorrow!
Oscar’s Choice: A close race between The Shape of Water and Three Billboards, and Oscar decided to make it a two-fer for Guillermo, gifting both the top prizes.
My Choice: Call Me By Your Name is my favorite movie of the decade, and so it's an easy win for me. Behind it I'll go Lady Bird, Dunkirk, Darkest Hour, Get Out, Phantom Thread, The Shape of Water, The Post, and Three Billboards, the latter being the only one of the bunch that feels like a giant bust in terms of quality (eight out of nine thumbs up is a much better track record than Oscar usually gets from me).
And there you have it-another OVP in the books. Tomorrow, we'll get to my Ballot, but in terms of Oscar lineups, where do you land? Do you still pine for Elio & Oliver, or are you all about Eliza like Oscar? And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2017? Share your comments below!
Also in 2017: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2017
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