OVP: Director (2000)

OVP: Best Director (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Stephen Daldry, Billy Elliot

Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Ridley Scott, Gladiator

Steven Soderbergh, Erin Brockovich

Steven Soderbergh, Traffic

My Thoughts: Actors are not allowed to be nominated in the same category in the same year.  This doesn't come up a lot, though there are high-profile situations where it was definitely a factor in the years we've profiled so far (Kate Winslet in 2008, Nicole Kidman in 2001).  Directors, on the other hand, are allowed to be nominated twice in the same year.  There was a time this wasn't allowed, after Michael Curtiz pulled it off in 1938, but the only other time it's ever happened was in 2000, when Steven Soderbergh achieved the seemingly impossible and directed himself to two nominations in the same category.

We'll start with Erin Brockovich, which of the two was the less likely given its subject matter (the directing branch has not only a history of denying women nominations...they're also not wild about films featuring women in the leads).  His work here is solid, though not exceptional.  A lot of the trademark flourishes we associate with Soderbergh (the camerawork, the lingering shots) are gone, and it feels in some ways like a direct-for-hire gig with a great script.  I do think that the ways he frames the monologues are at least solid, giving as much reaction as we get focus on Julia, but while this is decent, I'm surprised it happened given that they could've put a new name into the conversation while still keeping Erin in Best Picture.

On the flip side, Soderbergh's direction of Traffic is really special, and kind of indicative of him as a filmmaker.  I love the way the camera tries to capture the motion of being on drugs in addition to the actual surroundings, the frenetic energy that comes from being out-of-control.  I also think he smartly ties the movie together as the plot lines intersect, taking advantage of the audience's genuine surprise as characters from different stories begin to overlap.  A gifted filmmaker, but (give or take Magic Mike), his finest hour.

Soderbergh's biggest competition at the Oscars was not himself-it was Ang Lee.  Lee's work in Crouching Tiger heralded a new era for the eventual two-time Best Director winner (who had, five years earlier, missed for Sense and Sensibility).  Crouching Tiger is, like Traffic, an achievement of the director.  The way that the film moves, giving us giant, seamless action sequences that are paired with vengeance and romantic backstory, and the way that he captures all of this while also bringing the natural landscape and production design into the story, is extraordinary, giving us this complete, giant epic.

Ridley Scott was also in the hunt for his first Oscar (something that he's still in the hunt for, though Napoleon didn't get him into the conversation again).  Gladiator is one of those movies that reads (to me) like the old Sydney Pollack quote that Hollywood's definition of a director is "damage control expert."  This is just giant, with him trying to scoop up a hefty visual effects budget, wildly different acting styles, and a too-big story into one, specific film.  It's too much, and comes across as messy by the end of it in Scott's hands, even if some pieces of the picture work well.

Our final nominee is Stephen Daldry, whose film Billy Elliot is the only movie we won't be revisiting tomorrow for Best Picture.  Daldry's work here is challenging-he has to wrangle around child actors and have them tell a pretty mature story about lost dreams and how you have to find your moment.  Billy is the kind of family film you realize the dimensions of it a lot more when you're older.  But he does that beautifully, giving us a distinctive English town and the claustrophobia of it, all of which finds an escape every time Jamie Bell stands on-point.  A sentimental film that's never schmaltzy.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Ang Lee, besting Scott, Istvan Szabo (Sunshine), and both of the Soderberghs.  The BAFTA's, usually so contrary, gave the exact same lineup as Oscar (though here they went with Lee as the winner), and the DGA got rid of Daldry in favor of Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous), with Lee winning again.  In sixth place, I think Crowe is a decent guess, as would be Lasse Hallstrom (Chocolat) or maybe even someone like Philip Kaufman for Quills (at the time, Kaufman had been on a long run of "eventually will be nominated" successes that ended after this movie so it's very possible he just missed) or maybe Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away), who was no stranger to Oscar by this point.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: I'm going to be totally honest-I've got a lot of other nominees that I think should've gotten nominated here, but none of them were really on Oscar's radar, and given how strong Lee/Soderbergh are, I'm going to give AMPAS a pass even though this could've been improved.  You'll see my much more esoteric selections on Monday.
Oscar's Choice: Despite Lee's dominance all season, his loss wasn't seen as a huge upset given Soderbergh's historic double nomination.  But Traffic pulled it off for him (Lee would win twice-he's fine).

My Choice: I'm going to continue the precursor trend and also pick Lee over Soderbergh (Traffic), though either was a good decision.  Behind them is Daldry, Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich), and Scott.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Do you think that Ang Lee was already worthy years before he won for Brokeback, or do you think Oscar made the right call with Soderbergh?  I ask this a lot, but seriously...is Ridley Scott ever getting an Oscar (even an honorary one)?  And was it Kaufman, Zemeckis, Hallstrom, or Crowe in sixth place (for the record, I lean toward Kaufman even though no one will probably agree with me)?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2000: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

Past Best Director Contests: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Director (2005)

OVP: Best Director (2005)

The Nominees Were...

George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
Paul Haggis, Crash
Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Bennett Miller, Capote
Steven Spielberg, Munich

My Thoughts: All right-we will finish up our (only once interrupted rundown) of the 2005 Oscars this week, as we address the Best Picture & Director nominees.  I will try not to be redundant, but in 2005 the Academy didn't make that easy for me as the nominees for Best Picture & Director were the same five films.  This isn't very common at the Oscars-before 2005 you have to go back all the way to 1981 to find a Best Picture field that matches with Best Director.  That year had genuine film classics like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reds, and Chariots of Fire in contention.  It also weirdly split the actual winners, something that would also be duplicated in 2005.  But we'll get to that when we address Best Picture.

Our first contender is going to be Munich, mostly because I like the symmetry with 1981 due to that race also including Steven Spielberg.  Munich is modern-day Spielberg, where the technical achievement is all there, but we don't see the passion or creative risk we got with a movie like Raiders.  This is partially because Munich is more concerned about spreading the message of its film than about crafting a truly remarkable motion picture (it feels like it could've been an ace documentary).  The technical prowess of Spielberg can't totally be hidden-we see it in the ticking bomb action sequences, but he doesn't grow characters, and his tendency to stifle female performers is there as we get a sea of wives & girlfriends (and Golda Meir) while the men get more interesting parts.  Munich is therefore mid-level work from him, good but hardly classic.

The same can be said for Bennett Miller in Capote.  This film is sharp, and looks great-it has a cold demeanor, and Miller isn't shy about bringing out tricks that highlight his vision for Capote & the stars of the movie.  However, the fact that Miller can't get Hoffman's mimicry to jive with the chilly motif he's trying to bring to Capote is a big turnoff for the direction, and kind of makes all of the cool touches he drops feel like wasted opportunity more than something trying to elevate the movie.  Capote is entirely dependent on your love for Hoffman's work, and as I was fairly ambivalent, you can't really enjoy anything that it seems to touch, including Miller's mechanical direction.

Ang Lee's work is slightly less reliant on his chief actors, but it's helped that they have performances I can get behind.  The way that he brings to life Brokeback is best when he's showing the passage of time, as we watch these men's lives flee before our eyes, and realize as it goes how precious life is, and how easy it is to waste time.  Lee's direction is stunning: compact, judicious, but never rushed, and he brings a potentially thin initial story to life.  Brokeback works because of its director, and the way he never gives us a spare second (even when we want one).

Paul Haggis, on the other hand, drowns under the weight of his film.  If anyone was going to save Crash, it had to be the director.  This is a multi-plotline film with broad, intersecting stories, so he has to bring out the subtleties that the actors are capable of, and try to make them feel more delicate or complicated than the screenplay is willing to do.  Haggis fails in this-there is little directorial style to his decisions, and oftentimes any sort of direction cedes to the background.  There's a reason that Crash lost this prize while winning Picture & Screenplay-it's because the director is practically invisible in the shaping of the movie, it feels so much an actor's & writer's project.

The final nominee can't get such a criticism.  George Clooney more than anyone nominated this year crafts a distinct vision in Good Night, and Good Luck, giving us a motif that feels like a secret.  The ways that Clooney moves the camera or stays just a little too long on a singer or a conversation-it would fail in the hands of a lesser filmmaker.  Never before or since has Clooney been able to so well-match his sophisticated style with a film, but that doesn't mean that Good Night doesn't stand as a triumph for the director.  It's a sharp, distinctive movie.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes cheated, so we don't get five nominees from each precursor here as while they gave their trophy to Ang Lee, he beat five nominees to win in it rather than four: Clooney, Spielberg, Woody Allen (Match Point), Peter Jackson (King Kong), & Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener).  BAFTA kept to five nominees, picking Lee as its winner, and replacing from Oscar's lineup only Spielberg in favor of Meirelles.  The DGA wasn't very creative either, giving the trophy to Lee, and picking Oscar's exact lineup.  Honestly-while Meirelles makes the most sense for sixth (he was a surprise nominee in this category just two years prior), I think he was a distant sixth.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: For starters, Terrence Malick is making this list.  The New World gets better with age, and is a truly triumphant comeback for the director after a seven-year hiatus.  I'd also include Michael Haneke, who finds so many creepy moments in Cache, and gives us an entirely modern spin on the concept of celebrity & privacy.  And before you think that I can't get behind popcorn fare, I'd be onboard with HFPA's Peter Jackson nod-this isn't Lord of the Rings, but Kong is epic & ambitious, and it succeeds enough to be spectacular.
Oscar's Choice: Showing few signs of what was to come, Ang Lee won an easy trophy here.

My Choice: Lee, with apologies to Clooney who would've been in the running against a different field.  Spielberg, Miller, and Haggis all follow (in that order).

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Does anyone dare speak aloud a nominee other than Ang Lee, or are we all behind Brokeback in this lineup?  Does anyone want to hazard a guess as to who was in second (for my money, I'm betting on Clooney rather than Haggis)?  And why wasn't there more momentum for Allen or Meirelles to create a split here?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2005: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Original Score, Original Song, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2005

Past Best Director Contests: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

OVP: Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

Film: Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)
Stars: Sihung Lung, Kuei-Mei Yang, Chien-lien Wu, Yu-Wen Wang, Sylvia Chang, Winston Chao
Director: Ang Lee
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Foreign Language Film-Taiwan)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I need to clarify something from last week-I was having a difficult week in my professional/personal life (it happens, and happens more frequently now with Covid...I assume quite honestly the next week will be similar), and I dropped the ball in our week devoted to foreign films, with only The Sea Inside getting the blog treatment.  I plan my viewings in a pretty regimented way, and so I don't have an additional foreign-language film to add to the list of four films that we were going to feature this week, but as luck would have it, we have a backup plan in place.  Monday-Thursday this week, my hope is to have foreign language reviews, and then on Friday, we will do our Official OVP Ballot for the 2005 films, making the theme feel like the quintet I usually bring for weekly reviews.  We're going to start out the week, though, with Eat Drink Man Woman which is an Ang Lee film from 1994 (and, not as 2020 would surely make the joke, a memory test for Donald Trump).

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about three daughters: Jia-Jen (Yang), Jia-Chien (Wu), and Jia-Ning (Wang), all of whom are the children of widowed chef Chu (Lung), whom they live with and have elaborate feasts with on Sunday nights, even though he has lost his ability to taste and is no longer the culinary genius he once was.  The women have their own lives, and are trying to find a way to leave their father, whom they all assume is more dependent on them than he is, and move on with their lives (using their father as an excuse when in reality it's themselves holding them back).  All three women set out on romantic escapades of their own, eventually finding love and/or contentment moving on from their current co-dependence, while also still admitting their familial love for one another.

Eat Drink Man Woman is the kind of movie that occasionally gets nominated for Foreign Language Film that Oscar wouldn't really go for in the United States.  Romantic comedies, especially fluffy light ones like this, might sneak into Best Actress or Best Screenplay, but it's extremely rare that they would feature in the Best Picture Oscar race.  This is a shame, because it ignores a genre of movies that certainly has produced some classics, but Eat Drink Man Woman is not a classic-it's merely a fun movie, that has some admittedly well-constructed twists within its confines, but it doesn't have enough depth or laughs to make it a classic of the genre.

The one distinguishing aspect of Eat Drink Man Woman is the food.  There was a weird period in the 1990's where foreign-language films would have extended sequences that were just essentially what we'd call "food porn" today, where we see the careful, indulgent, almost sensual preparation of gorgeous dishes.  This is easily the most unique aspect of the film upon a modern reviewing of the picture, though without the context of it being a "thing" at the time in cinema, you'd be forgiven for being confused as to why a dumpling being prepared is being lensed as if we're seeing a sex scene.

To 3-D or Not to 3-D

A friend of mine at work was talking to me on Monday about Gravity.  He was asking if I recommended it, and I of course did, and added the caveat, “make sure to see it in 3-D” to which he replied, “no, I hate 3-D, I always see everything in 2-D.”

This is a sentiment that has run pretty rampant through movie-watching audiences ever since Avatar brought back the popular 1950’s format and modernized it in a way that only James Cameron can.  This past summer, for example, Despicable Me 2, a hit by all standards, charted a record low 27-percent of its opening weekend sales through 3-D.  This has been mimicked with stunning regularity with otherwise solid hits like World War Z, Monsters University, and The Great Gatsby, all of which had strong theater counts for 3-D movies, but only saw 30-35% of their ticket sales from the medium.

The question becomes why is 3-D trending downward and is there any way of saving it?  The first question is easy.  For starters, not a lot of people enjoy 3-D.  I wear glasses, and so for me it’s always a bit of a struggle.  The 3-D glasses are recycled and frequently smudged and the additional “dimension” doesn’t add much in most films.  I don’t feel like seeing Despicable Me 2 in 3-D theaters would have improved my opinion of the film, though the extra cost from minimal special effects (one or two sharks coming at you is hardly worth the extra $7) probably would have stopped me from enjoying it.

Cost, in an economic downturn, has to be considered perhaps the biggest issue for most moviegoers.  Movie tickets aren’t that expensive if you know where to look (or if you live somewhere aside from Manhattan-my NYC friends, I don’t know how to fix this one), but 3-D is always expensive.  When you throw that onto multiple tickets, you end up spending $60-80 at the movies, and it’s hard to argue that a night at home with a DVD for $10 isn’t a fairly strong cost-benefit compromise.

I don’t know enough about the costing and the margins on 3-D for movie theaters and distributors, so I cannot speak to whether they can lower the price of 3-D without sacrificing profit.  However, if you subtract the cost aspect of the argument, and focus on simply that it doesn’t add anything to the picture, I think that studios, directors, and filmmakers can definitely find a way to win back the 3-D audience.

James Cameron spoke about this decline in Mexico City this past summer, and agreed that he didn’t think that Hollywood was using the 3-D effect properly, and this is partially the problem.  Just as throwing more visual effects or more songs or more actors into a film doesn’t necessarily add to the overall film, and can in fact take away from it, 3-D is also a tool that should only be used when appropriate.  Studios seem to want to put it onto every major film that they release to drive up profit, but this is the equivalent to a television studio adding multiple nights or seasons of a singing competition show just to cash in on it.  If you don’t respect your new toy, people are going to tire of it rapidly.

To prove my point, I thought about all of the movies I have seen in the past five years in 3-D (quite a few) and how many actually were worth the price of the 3-D, and came up with five: Avatar, How to Train Your Dragon, Hugo, Life of Pi, and Gravity.

What stands apart for these three films is a couple of things.  For starters, none of them are terrible movies-no amount of 3-D is going to save Wrath of the Titans, for example.  All of them are very special effects driven, but they also have effects that really cater to the 3-D.  It’s clear with all of the films that they were made with 3-D in mind.  It isn’t just a movie where 3-D was tacked on at the last minute.  Instead, the editing in all five films is specifically geared toward the audience viewing the film in 3-D.  While the films lose none of their potency in 2-D (I’ve seen both Life of Pi and Avatar in that format and been fine), the 3-D certainly adds to the epic element, the immersive quality of the pictures, and you see 3-D buzzing everywhere in the film.  The 3-D immerses you more fully into the picture.  It’s not just there for a gimmick, and it’s not only relevant when there’s an effect happening onscreen.  Every frame is spurring with life and effects, and you find yourself more clearly experiencing the world.

In the case of four of these pictures, it helps that they’re at the hands of a true world-class filmmaker.  You’d be hard-pressed to find a group of men who understand the cinema and its dreamlike appeal more than James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Ang Lee, and Alfonso Cuaron, and perhaps that is what is most evident in why 3-D works for them.  They didn’t use this just to make a lot of money (well, if they did, it wasn’t the only reason).  They did it because 3-D enhanced their picture and gave us a better insight into their artistic vision.  It’s hard to fathom any of these men just tacking 3-D onto their picture without putting much thought into it (and before you say it, the Titanic 3-D with James Cameron was pretty solid, in my opinion, though not approaching these five movies).  Instead, these men made a creative decision to build a picture around their new tool, and as a result, it was worth the expense.

So while I have not been a huge fan of 3-D, I don’t want to see it go away entirely.  We just need filmmakers, like we always do, who are focused more on their story and vision, rather than just making an easy buck.  And since one of those filmmakers is Alfonso Cuaron, do yourself a favor and see Gravity on the biggest, most dimensioned screen you can find.

OVP: Picture (2012)

OVP: Best Picture (2012)

The Nominees Were...

Margaret Menegoz, Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, and Michael Katz, Amour

Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, and George Clooney, Argo

Dan Janvey, Josh Penn, and Michael Gottwald, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin, and Pilar Savone, Django Unchained

Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, and Cameron Mackintosh, Les Miserables

Gil Netter, Ang Lee, and David Womark, Life of Pi

Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Lincoln
Donna Gigliotti, Bruce Cohen, and Jonathan Gordon, Silver Linings Playbook

Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow, and Megan Ellison, Zero Dark Thirty

My Thoughts: And so now we have come to the end of the line, the top of the heap, the cream of the crop-the nine films that received nominations for Best Picture.  Each of these films we've spent the past summer dissecting, looking through, and now it's time to figure out which one I (and you, if you post in the comments) most supported for the top prize.

I'm going to start with Silver Linings Playbook, because I feel I need to find some peace with the film. The movie is oddly good and terribly bad, and I think that I should first try and explain what I do like about the film.  The movie tries to cover a topic that is oddly underutilized in film: mental illness affecting normal, regular families.  Jennifer Lawrence, when she was doing all of the awards press junkets, frequently talked about ending the stigma of mental illness, and if this film did that just a little bit, that would have been a noble cause, if not necessarily one that deserved an Oscar nomination.  I think that the cinema does have that power to change the national conversation about a particular topic (look at movies like Brokeback Mountain for example).

But Silver Linings Playbook doesn't do that, because in real life, without some sort of medication and persistent work, mental illness is not cured by the love of a good woman.  This is not the doldrums of being dumped-Bradley Cooper's Pat has a real medical condition, and while his life going better may momentarily change his state of being, it won't permanently do so, as the ending implies.  David O. Russell, and I've said this several times, wants to have his cake and eat it too.  He wants to have a story that's about something pressing in the national dialogue, but also something that's cute and fun and a great date movie.  Both of these topics can be the source of excellent filmmaking-anyone who poo-poos this film because it's a romantic comedy doesn't get the point at all, as we are in desperate need as a cinematic audience of strong romantic comedies.  The problem is that these two don't cohesively meld in the way that Russell hopes them to, and as a result, you get a fine, enjoyable, but unsuccessful film.

Les Miserables will go next (because the two films have so many things in common, obviously).  I just checked my list of my rankings of all of the 2012 films, and I have this one oddly low compared to some of the others (including the two films trying desperately to take the top prize).  I think the biggest fault with Les Miz is that it has so many ups-and-downs.  You are given such a great start with Anne Hathaway's character and performance, easily the best part of the film-Hathaway's Fantine is a tragic, heartbreaking creation, and she sells it to the rafters.  Part of what makes a movie musical so appealing is that the sky is really the limit-you've already forgone reality by having people randomly sing in the streets, which, much to my chagrin, no one does in real life.  As a result, you can have a dramatic moment with this woman and believe that such a good person can have such a rotten life.

But the film never recovers from her leaving.  This isn't necessarily the baser story's fault: Jean Valjean, Javert, Eponine, Marius-this is a musical with a lot of interesting characters, but the performances are so all-over-the-map that when you don't have the unstoppable force of Hathaway's performance to distract you, you are pulled in many different directions.  The only work in the movie that equals Hathaway's is Eddie Redmayne's.  Sometimes I even feel that Redmayne, with that lyrical quiver in his voice (I just took a ten-minute break to listen to "Red and Black" and sing Don Ju-An multiple times) might be a better fit for the film that Hathaway.  But he can't save it when you have two lead performances that are bad for the story, and everyone else having too-limiting of characters.  The film is great for the stage, where these sorts of small character developments are more easily forgiven, but in a film they're fatal flaws that obscure the movie too deeply, even though there are definitely things to recommend seeing the movie.

Django Unchained is in a similar situation, with a lot of great pieces that don't seem to fit together.  I think the problem with Tarantino films at this point, and it's a growing problem, is that he's starting to lose the ability to shock and even surprise the audience.  No longer are we stunned when he puts together a brilliant song-score, or when he willingly kills off most of the main characters, or when the entire screen is doused in blood (it'd be a nice change if he went back to the nastiness of his first couple of films instead of the Sergio Leone-obsessed nature of his later films, at least for a picture or two).  His movies are too good to ever be called bad, but when a director can no longer thrill the audience, he needs to develop some new tricks (even Woody Allen has learned this, though he occasionally forgets it for years at a time).

What we're left with is a film that has razor-sharp dialogue, a few solid performances, but drags ferociously in the final third (why the hell does Tarantino keep casting himself, when he's seemingly the only person he can't get an improved performance out of?), and frequently finds offensive things to say without enough substance behind it.

Life of Pi has became one of the movies that, along with Silver Linings Playbook, was a punching bag throughout this OVP series of write-ups.  I have a harder time with this, because A) I like Ang Lee better than I like David O. Russell and B) there are moments in Life of Pi that are sheer bliss.  The visual effects in the film are of a caliber you rarely if ever see, coming as close to that "change the industry" sort of quality that you saw in Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and Avatar as you can get without fully pulling the trigger (I was very happy to give it the OVP for Visual Effects).  The movie is beautiful, and the whales and islands and whimsy that comes from the film are all terrific.

But the film gets a sucker punch from the ending.  I know that the book ended largely in this way, with you forced to encounter reality in such a harsh avalanche, and normally I like a sprinkle of melancholy in my movies, but here it reads as a slap to the viewer.  It's not just that the police decided to believe his tiger story, it's that we all know he was lying, and they just went along with him to make everyone happy and to neglect the ugliness in the world.  That's probably the point of the story, but it seems so artificial and lazy to have so much magic dashed.  The ending of this movie has ruined my opinion of this film-when you have months and dozens of articles to write about a sole picture, its flaws and high points come further into focus, and that has forever marred my opinion of Life of Pi.

Amour is that rare film that has done neither for me.  My opinion of Amour has stayed stunningly neutral for a movie with some things to offer and that critics lapped up with a spoon.  It might be that I don't connect with the film in the way I'm supposed to, and I don't think that's because I'm sixty years younger than the characters (I have seen what it's like for one spouse to be affected by a stroke and the other to have all of their faculties).  It's just too clinical for me, it's too matter-of-fact.  The little touches are what I loved in the film-the Haneke touches.  I'm still stunned by the final scene, with Huppert walking through the apartment: the loneliness and foreboding in that scene is stunning.  Huppert doesn't give an Oscar-worthy performance, but her character is perhaps the most interesting in the movie.  She hasn't stored love for the future.  If there would have been more of that biting attitude, I probably would have sunk into the film more.  As it is, it is to be admired, but not necessarily to be interacted with, and doesn't quite hit me.

Lincoln is the film of the bunch that I wish I liked better.  It's grown on me slightly-the way that they combine all of these great Spielbergian staples; the man has one of the best tech crews in the business.  But like Amour, I just cannot connect with the source material in the way I'm supposed to, and here I know why.  I just don't buy characters that are saints, and not just because saints don't exist in real life, it's also because saints aren't very interesting.  Day-Lewis is far too strong of an actor to not give a quality performance, but I see in his work a legend that also happened to be a person, but he doesn't disrupt a saint that also happens to be a flawed person (Lincoln was only human, of course).  I also hate whitewashing history (couldn't David Derickson have at least shown up at some point), but I more so hate when history has been retold dozens of times while other just as interesting stories lay on the back-burner.  From a director as important as Spielberg I suppose this film will remain the definitive Lincoln, but couldn't we have picked a subject that has been less covered already in cinema?

Beasts of the Southern Wild, of course, is the bravest and probably most unique film of the bunch, and that is always something to celebrate.  One of the interesting things about the nine or ten wide Best Picture races is that you get a film like Beasts (or Tree of Life or District Nine or Up!) to compete when they otherwise wouldn't be able to (I maintain that 2012 would have been that rare year like 1995 or 2001 where we would have gone 3/5 for the directors, and Les Miz and Argo would have completed our nominated set).

The film works so well because Benh Zeitlin allows us to get lost in the world of Hushpuppy, a world that is both real (we all can tell that this is Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana) and of her imagination, and true to the wonder of cinema, Zeitlin never lets us know which is fact and which is fake.  Zeitlin's newness behind the camera is evident when he spends too much time on rebuilding the father-daughter relationship (and relying too heavily on first-time actors, a tactic which does give you a great freshness, but also gives you too many staged emotions, particularly from Dwight Henry).  The movie is a promising start to a hopefully interesting and long career, and I'm glad Oscar made the investment.

Finally, we come to Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, the two films that I've championed the hardest throughout this process.  Except, have I?  I don't feel like I've given enough credit to the excellent Argo.  Perhaps this is because Argo is the sum of its parts-it's similar to the gymnast who can't win a gold in any of the individual competitions but grabs it in the all-around.  The film just works-the humor, the acting, the suspense-Affleck may take some historical liberties, but he at least tells us a story we didn't already know (are you listening, Mr. Spielberg?), and pushes a political narrative without ever sacrificing entertainment.  That is a difficult task to undertake, and the film is littered with terrific scenes-that great finger-biting scene in the airport, for example.  It takes a lot to get a jaded and movie-educated audience to succumb to the idea that this group won't be successful.  I feel like Argo is going to be maligned a bit in Oscar history because it won the trophy for the wrong reasons, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a super movie that deserved to be amongst the best of the year.

I recently reread my review of Zero Dark Thirty to understand why I gave the film four stars rather than five stars, because some of its best parts (Chastain's performance, the exhilarating final third of the movie) have improved my opinion of it so dramatically.  I do feel correct in stating that the side characters in the film, Jennifer Ehle and Jason Clarke in particular, don't give us enough background.  Maya is supposed to be a universally, abnormally, almost psychotically driven force-of-nature, and she doesn't need a background, but Ehle's Jessica and Clarke's Dan don't have that tunnel vision.  We should learn more about what keeps them going back for more; this would, if nothing else, give us a contrast to Maya's determination.

But that being said, Bigelow has created the darker flip side of Argo here.  They are oddly similar stories, with both focused on a single person going up against political bureaucracy to succeed in a seemingly impossible task (and both had reluctant Democratic presidents who took a major risk that paid off).  Bigelow's version is more of a Dante-like descent for her character, while Affleck's is an uplifting tale of the human spirit.  It depends on which direction your specific cinematic passions swing that makes you cast your vote for one or the other, but I maintain these are the two best nominees of the bunch.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes, having split their categories into Drama and Comedy, didn't find room for Amour or Beasts of the Southern Wild, though they did fit in Moonrise Kingdom, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and in one of the oddest moments of the 2012 awards season, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (Les Miz and Argo won).  The BAFTA Awards, which still maintain just five nominations, put their winner Argo over Les Miz, Life of Pi, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty.  And finally, the PGA Awards skipped only Amour (which did win the Palme d'Or, so don't feel too badly for it), giving their final two nominations to Moonrise Kingdom and Skyfall (handing the trophy over to Argo).  It's a hard tell over what was in tenth place.  I know historically people will scoff that a James Bond film could get this close to the top trophy, but I think if we had had the mandatory ten-wide field, we would have seen Skyfall stunningly top Moonrise Kingdom, The Master, and Flight.
Films I Would Have Nominated: I've discussed at length my desperate need for The Master and Magic Mike, both films that continue to grow every time I view them, to be included in this field.  However, neither was my favorite film of 2012.  Nor was Argo or Zero Dark Thirty.  My favorite movie of 2012 was the little hidden sapphire that was The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  I cannot tell you how I, who favors the epic scope when picking my favorite film of the year, went with a movie about teenagers, but Stephen Chbosky's tale about such realistic youths, trying to find their way through a period of their lives when they think they know more than they do, and somehow also know more than they think, is a challenging and wonderful opus, with three superb performances from Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, and our hero of heroes, Logan Lerman.  It's a wonderland of a movie, and my 2012 favorite.

Oscar’s Choice: Oscar loves a bandwagon, and it was very easy to jump on the Argo train, considering they had a movie star's face to put on the snub.  Lincoln was likely in second (though Life of Pi could also have been there), and it's still worth mentioning the massive success of this lineup of films: six of these movies made $100 million domestically, and we didn't have to include a superhero film to do it.  Thanks for showing adult dramas and comedies can make money still, America.

My Choice: Obviously a race between Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, and I'm going to succumb to my gut and give this to Bigelow's tale of war and obsession.  In third place is Beasts, followed by Django, Lincoln, SLP, Life of Pi, Amour, and Les Miz.

And that, my friends, was 2012.  It was a long, great journey, so I'm going to leave it to you-what was the best film of 2012?  What OVP wins did you most (or least) agree with?  What AMPAS wins did you most (or least) agree with?  And with six films remaining to be viewed by moi for 2009, whose ready to encounter that race later this month?

Also in 2012: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2012

Past Best Picture Contests: 2010, 2011