OVP: Picture (2019)

OVP: Best Picture (2019)

The Nominees Were...

Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, & James Mangold, Ford vs. Ferrari

Martin Scorsese, Robert de Niro, Jane Rosenthal, & Emma Tillinger Koskoff, The Irishman

Carthew Neal, Taika Waititi, & Chelsea Winstanley, Jojo Rabbit

Todd Phillips, Bradley Cooper, & Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Joker

Amy Pascal, Little Women

Noah Baumbach & David Heyman, Marriage Story

Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, Jayne-Ann Tenggren, & Callum McDougall, 1917

David Heyman, Shannon McIntosh, & Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Kwak Sin Ae & Bong Joon Ho, Parasite

My Thoughts: All right, we are now finishing off our look at 2019.  As I said, we'll do the "If I Had a Ballot" next Thursday, but this will be the last individual Oscar contest we'll look at, and while I enjoyed a lot of these films, I will admit I'm excited to close this down.  2019's races have dominated much of the pandemic; we've been doing this ceremony for not the whole quarantine, but it's the only year so far where I've been all inside so I'm hoping that by the time we finish our next contest (we'll be kicking it off in the next few days, possibly as soon as Friday) many of you (and hopefully me) will have gotten vaccinated, and perhaps we'll have started to talk about movies I saw in movie theaters, rather than at home.

Weirdly I saw every single one of these in theaters, despite the fact that most of you probably caught Marriage Story on Netflix.  While Roma the year prior had been the first "streaming service" movie to be cited for Best Picture, Netflix came out with a vengeance here, nabbing two nominations for Best Picture, and this is the one that perhaps played just as well at home.  The intimate tale of a marriage falling apart is brilliantly-acted, led by both Adam Driver & Scarlett Johansson (our choices for both lead acting Oscars).  I loved it-it is such a rich film, one that doesn't hide the warts of divorce or try to simplify the feelings when you stop loving another person (or being able to love them the way you did).  It's a sign that you don't need epic stories or grand-scale adventure to make a film feel complete.

But it's not like grand-scale adventure hurts when done correctly.  No film on this list has aged better in my mind than 1917, which takes the huge and makes it universal for the audience.  The point-of-view approach to war has been done before, but rarely has it been done with the cinematographer & director instructing the audience where to turn...1917 uses the approach we get from video games to feel present, but uses the specificity & jumps of movies to ensure you don't feel like we're cheapening the emotion & toll that combat brings.  It's one of the best war films I've seen in the past ten years, and proof that Sam Mendes could, in fact, make a second "Best Picture" even if he didn't win one.

That honor would, of course, go to Parasite in one of the bigger recent upsets from the Oscars, as the Korean film became the first movie not in English to win the top Academy Award.  It would take a truly spellbinding film to break such a streak, and that's what this is.  Parasite melds genres & storylines with sophistication & deftness, never staying on one plot that long, and yet not once feeling chaotic or like it's pulling in the wrong direction.  Bong Joon-Ho issues a damning look at the have's and have not's of our society, and how arbitrary (and cruel) wealth can be.  Parasite is an all-timer, one of those Oscar choices that is always going to look good.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a reminder, though, that Oscar doesn't always change, and it loves nothing better than rewarding itself.  The one film that has the most Hollywood connections, this is also some redemption for Quentin Tarantino after the overlong Django Unchained and the near-unwatchable Hateful Eight.  Hollywood needs editing, and it doesn't quite know how to end the movie (pulling a page from Inglourious Basterds but without the shock false history), but few directors care so much about where their films come from than Tarantino, and you see that in the way he pays homage to films & television that created the movie that we are seeing in front of us.

Little Women is aware of what came before it, of course, though not always in the right ways.  Though I was familiar with elements of the novel, this movie is not for newcomers to Alcott's tale, and as it's played for people unfamiliar with what comes next for the March sisters, it reads as too chaotic in spurts.  A miscast Saoirse Ronan (I love her, but it's true) also hurts the film, but it is saved by a star-turn performance from Florence Pugh (and the continued manic pixie magic of Timothee Chalamet), but it's not a rescue without casualties.  Little Women is good but it never approaches the greatness that we've come to expect from pretty much everyone involved with its creation.

It is not, however, a car wreck in the vein of Ford vs. Ferrari, a film that knows a thing or two about car wr...you get the pun.  Though Christian Bale & Matt Damon are actually better with lighter roles (which this should be), it meanders & becomes an ode to moronic masculinity.  I opined at the time that the script was one of the worst I'd viewed in 2019, and it's true.  Saddled with bad lines, and with the most hackneyed villain role I've seen from a mainstream actor in years (Josh Lucas, what were you thinking?), Ford never even starts on track, much less stays there.

The Irishman could've been in a similar boat.  After all, this is another film about the pressures of masculinity, and it's from a director who can watch his films meander (at 3+ hours long, The Irishman is by-far the longest film on this list).  But it doesn't-this is a movie that feels like the conclusion of the mob genre, ending the stories of Little Caesar and The Godfather with a quick dose of cinema magic (in the forms of three leading man icons), and then injecting dose-after-dose of realism, giving us what it's like to be a man whose family becomes the backseat of his life, devoted to a job that will never appreciate what he gave up to make it successful.

Joker wants to be that for comic book films, bringing realism to a world that we know by heart, and making us see it anew.  Alas, Joker is the latest in a long line of movies who confuse dourness for importance.  A misguided lead piece-of-work from Joaquin Phoenix doesn't give it the soul it needs, and the movie is so bereft of anything but cruelty, it has no shading, oftentimes feeling like you're watching a paint-by-numbers snuff film.  There's some beauty in the tech elements, yes, but that can't save it from itself-the only thing worse than a sad clown is a clown that doesn't seem to have a point.

Weirdly while Joker takes a cartoon & fails to make it real, Jojo Rabbit has more success taking a real villain & turning him into a cartoon.  I know that this movie split critics more than maybe any other on this film (save Joker), but I quite liked Taika Waititi's take on Adolf Hitler, as seen through the mind of a young boy obsessed with Nazism.  Jojo Rabbit struggles with good taste, and someone like Rebel Wilson is pretty ill-cast (and the ending is inappropriate), but it's actually funny in parts, features strong performances from the child actors, and Waititi convinces you that he's an actor he should be casting in more of his movies.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split their nominations between Comedy/Musical and Drama, so we have a full ten nominees here.  Drama gave the top prize to 1917, and because of the HFPA rules skipped Parasite (which won Best Foreign Language Film instead), so Sam Mendes instead beat Irishman, Joker, Marriage Story, and The Two Popes.  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood bested the race for Comedy/Musical, here over Dolemite is My Name, Jojo Rabbit, Knives Out, and Rocket Man.  BAFTA remains the only major awards show with only five nominations, and 1917 won Best Picture, over Irishman, Hollywood, Joker, and Parasite, while at the PGA the ten-wide field was a carbon copy of Oscar's (plus Knives Out), with 1917 taking the trophy.  In terms of tenth place finishes, it's honestly a tossup between Knives and The Two Popes...I can see an argument for either.

Films I Would Have Nominated: We'll get to my full ballot next Thursday, but as of now I just want to say that it's a shame that Ad Astra, a cerebral space odyssey, and Transit, a mesmerizing Kafkaesque look at a Casablanca-style romance, didn't end up in this list as they are truly movies for the ages.

Oscar’s Choice: In one of the biggest upsets in modern Best Picture history, Parasite triumphed over the season-long frontrunner 1917 out-the-gate, and considering it won Best Director, it might have honestly been by a decent margin.

My Choice: I will also go with Parasite, here over The Irishman...it's fresher cinema, and a more difficult task.  Marriage Story, 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, Joker, and Ford vs. Ferrari follow, in that order.

And with that, we close 2019, though it will carry on in the comments if you so choose.  I feel like the collective internet prefers Parasite, but does anyone want to make the case for a different film (there are other good movies here-I'll buy the argument)?  If this had been ten-wide, would it have been Knives Out or The Two Popes that got the final spot?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2019?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2019: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2019

Past Best Picture Contests: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

OVP: Director (2019)

OVP: Best Director (2019)

The Nominees Were...

Bong Joon-Ho, Parasite

Sam Mendes, 1917

Todd Phillips, Joker

Martin Scorsese, The Irishman

Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

My Thoughts: All right, we are moving into the final weeks of the 2019 Oscars project.  Today & Wednesday we will be doing our Director & Picture ballots based solely on what Oscar thought.  Though we've normally been doing our "If I Had a Ballot" series on Thursdays we have a special break from that on Thursday, so next Thursday we will conclude our 2019 Oscars with me finishing up with the 2019 ballot.  Between then-and-now, we'll also be kicking off our new year, which will start on Friday.  That's a lot of bookkeeping, but don't worry I've got it under control if you didn't follow, and you can just kick back & start perusing the 2019 Oscar nominees for Best Director.

Let's start with, I don't know...Quentin Tarantino.  Tarantino is obviously a director of great talent, someone who creates genuine visions for the audience that other directors imitate but can't duplicate.  The problem with his films (sadly) since the death of legendary film editor Sally Menke is that they're too long, and frequently overindulge his worst instincts (to stretch scenes that should be cleaner & better-edited).  Hollywood is the best film he's made since Menke's passing, the rare film that feels like it should be as long as he's demanding it to be.  The movie has touches that need trimming, of course (particularly the ending feels bloated), but Tarantino is at home in the world of New Hollywood in a way that he hasn't been since Inglorious Basterds.

Scorsese is also a director who is known for his longtime collaboration with an iconic, genius female editor, and here that relationship is put to the test as Thelma Schoonmaker & Scorsese parcel through a 3+ hour epic film that needs to justify that length.  Scorsese's films don't always do that-something like Casino is a good example, a movie that has quality, but meanders to the point of it becoming a problem through a gargantuan length.  That's not the case with The Irishman.  While the visual effects pose a challenge, the story is riveting, showing the rise-and-fall of corrupt organized labor (and its mob connections), seeming in some ways like a bookend on the mob movies of the 1930's.  We'll have films from the mob in the future (likely even from Marty), but there's a finality here that is profound & a sign of a director who can justify every scene.  Truly visionary work, and a genius, bizarre companion to Scorsese's other 21st Century magnum opus, Silence.

Bong Joon-Ho doesn't entirely dispense with some of his own trademarks in Parasite, but it does feel like they reach another level in the picture.  Parasite is a movie that shouldn't work-it tackles too many genres, it takes too many risks, & it makes too many assumptions about how the audience will consider the characters.  Other directors have used this kind of ambition and failed (including Bong Joon-Ho).  But it does work-great films are borne of risks that actually connect with the audience, and Parasite feels like it is a race car rounding tight mountain corners but instead of careening off, it lands each turn flawlessly, a thrilling take on economic inequality & the untold toils that it inflicts on the "have not's."

Sam Mendes is not Scorsese, Joon-Ho, or Tarantino.  While the latter three directors have visual motifs & story flourishes that you can instantly recognize, Mendes sometimes feels like a brilliant director-for-hire.  Films like American Beauty, Revolutionary Road, and Skyfall all have vision & care (they stand among my favorite films of each of those years), but they don't feel made by the same director.  But that also makes his movie more expressive & freeing-1917 doesn't feel the burden to put an auteur stamp on it, and instead becomes a point-of-view struggle through the trenches of World War I.  Mendes' best touches on the movie are the ones that feel like they leave no fingerprints, letting the audience connect with the work on a more personal, individualistic level.

Which brings us to Todd Phillips.  It feels mean in some ways to end with Phillips after four great directors, all of whom are giving really good movies to the audience, but that's what the Academy did to me.  Joker is a bad movie, one that has a perspective that never pans out, and is indulging the story's most masochistic angles without ever considering plot or even the characters at its center.  It's a good example of "just because it's somber doesn't make it good," and Phillips direction does nothing to add life or dimension into the picture itself.

Other Precursor Contenders: We'll be traveling back further in time for our next Oscar profile, which is exciting as I want to get to an era where the precursors didn't feel so uniform.  That was the case with the Globes, who went with a carbon copy of the Oscar lineup, though they favored Sam Mendes.  The BAFTA Awards went with the exact combination-a lineup that mirrored Oscar while giving the trophy to Sam Mendes.  The DGA also went with Sam Mendes, but here they skipped Todd Phillips for Taika Waititi.  Obviously Taika is the only new name here, and considering his screenplay win I have to assume he was sixth place over potential nominees Greta Gerwig (Little Women) & Pedro Almodovar (Pain & Glory).

Directors I Would Have Nominated: Phillips aside, this isn't a bad list at all & is actually one of the more forgivable group think efforts of 2019.  That said, I'd still have made room for Christian Petzold's Casablanca on LSD take in Transit, Terrence Malick's return-to-form in A Hidden Life, and James Gray's space odyssey Ad Astra.
Oscar's Choice: In the biggest upset of the night (at least until Best Picture), Sam Mendes was trumped by an historic win from Bong Joon-Ho.

My Choice: I will also copy Oscar, though I do so with apologies to Martin Scorsese, who comes very close to winning.  The rules of the OVP are ironclad that I need to pick the person who made the best film of the lineup (and not consider, say, that one director is making his best film while another is making his fourth or fifth best)...keeping that in mind I still think I lean more on Joon-Ho's originality over some of the minor flaws of Irishman (but it's tight).  Behind them is Mendes, Tarantino, and Phillips way in the back.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Are we all kind of on the same page that the Joon-Ho upset was totally worth it, or does someone want to make the case for Sam Mendes?  Is Taika Waititi going to be able to make another movie that hits with Oscar in the same way as Jojo and get a directing nod, or is this as close as he'll get?  And how did Parasite buck so much history to win this trophy?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2019: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2019

Past Best Director Contests: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

OVP: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Film: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Al Pacino
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Oscar History: 10 nominations/2 wins (Best Picture, Director, Actor-Leonardo DiCaprio, Supporting Actor-Brad Pitt*, Cinematography, Costume Design, Production Design*, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Quentin Tarantino, at this point, is one of those directors who has a blank check from me as a viewer, because even when I'm going to see something terrible, it'll at least be interesting, and with films like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Inglourious Basterds, he's proven he can make truly spectacular movies.  Few directors working today (save, perhaps, for Martin Scorsese) are as in love with the process of moviemaking as Tarantino, who frequently indulges in filmmaking techniques that pay homage to the most minute of film references.  We saw this a few years ago with the excruciating The Hateful Eight which still looked great in 70 mm even though the imagery couldn't save the story, but here it's more apparent in recreating the indulgent art decor of 1960's cinema and television.  The strangest thing about Hollywood, though, isn't that it pays such careful homage to this era's entertainment, but instead that this feels like the least stylistic of Tarantino's pictures, perhaps even his attempt (until the ending) to make a movie that might be downright...pleasant.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on 1969, a year in Hollywood where television has largely replaced movies as the national past time, but not the allure of movie stars themselves.  We see two fictional figures of the era, former TV star Rick Dalton (DiCaprio), who has fallen on hard times & is largely reduced to guest roles on TV rather than getting his own lead, and his stunt double Cliff Booth (Pitt), who is Dalton's caretaker but has never enjoyed the glimpse of success that his boss did. Dalton lives next door to Sharon Tate (Robbie), who at this point has just completed Valley of the Dolls and is one of the most famous women on the planet, a star far greater than Dalton had ever hoped to be, even though she's largely ancillary to the plot and just there to look pretty.  Much has been made for Robbie's part being underwritten, and it is, but there's something sort of fascinating about watching Robbie, possibly the most beautiful woman in pictures today, giving us the lonely take of Sharon Tate, who was once the most beautiful woman in pictures.  Robbie has become a marvelous actress at this point and so she manages to make the isolation of being such a famous figure compelling.  Tate's need for validation and warmth gives her a proper character path with limited screen time, and as a result while criticism that Tarantino seemingly forgets the stories of women might be valid in other films, Robbie's Sharon is a solid creation & shouldn't be a subject of this ire.  There's a great scene where Tate watches a largely forgettable performance in the Dean Martin flick The Wrecking Crew, and seems overjoyed in her anonymity to find that the audience enjoyed her work-this is smart, careful moviemaking.  Tarantino should instead be raked over the coals for once again prominently inserting three of his actresses' (Robbie, Qualley, and Fanning) feet pervertedly onscreen for no apparent reason other than his own fetishes, but leave Robbie's role out of it.

Overall, there's nothing really bad about Hollywood, especially when it comes to the actors.  DiCaprio and Pitt are both great.  Though I don't want to get hyperbolic here (both actors have been better before), but they land their scenes with an ease & delivery that's genuinely fun.  DiCaprio is always better at lighter roles than serious ones, and Rick Dalton gets moments of levity, particularly opposite Pitt as well as a young actress whom he is starring with on a fictionalized TV show (played by American Housewife's Julia Butters).  DiCaprio is fun in this part, and now armed with his much-sought-after Oscar, gets back to what he's best at-playing a handsome man who is frequently his own downfall, but man do you want to root for him.  Pitt is even better as Cliff, a man who came within an inch of fame, and has some inner-demons that are only hinted at (it's implied but never confirmed that he murdered his wife on a boat, perhaps an homage to a different famous Hollywood death, Natalie Wood), but who is still very good at his job.

Pitt has a long, extended sequence where he visits Spahn Ranch with Margaret Qualley's Pussycat (not an actual member of the real-life Manson Family, but instead a character inspired Kathryn Lutesinger) that is terrific, and the most "Tarantino at his best" moment of the picture.  There's a tension here, since we don't actually know that Cliff (who is fictional) will need to live through his time on the ranch, but that certain people like Dakota Fanning's Squeaky Fromme and Austin Butler's Tex Watson will live since they still have crimes to commit.  It's not often in a movie where you know the hero might die, but that the villains have to survive, and I liked the juxtaposition.  Tarantino spares Cliff, and eventually totally messes with history (this is a fairy tale, and as a result Sharon Tate and the other residents at her Cielo Drive home live while the likes of Tex Watson & Susan Atkins die in over-the-top violent deaths), but the suspense here is mesmerizing, as is the way that Tarantino plays with our expectations (having Bruce Dern's George Spahn get mad at Cliff rather than the murderers who are fleecing him, is a nice touch even though Cliff is looking out for his own interests while Squeaky is just using him).

The film's ending is a bit of an eye roll.  We've already seen Tarantino's willingness to screw over history with Inglourious Basterds, and the shock simply isn't there this time.  We know the second that Watson & Atkins decide to go into Rick's house rather than Sharon Tate's that this is going to be a different ending than real-life, which feels appropriate (I didn't think I could handle watching a very pregnant Tate get butchered onscreen, and I suspect Tarantino realized that even for a director known for violence this was a bridge too far), but it also feels super predictable and kind of tired for a director who seems to have lost the ability to craft violence creatively.  Hollywood is best when it's going for nostalgia (like the scenes with DiCaprio & Robbie) or with atmosphere (like the scenes with Pitt on Spahn Ranch or the one scene featuring Damon Herriman's Manson, a sequence that hangs over the rest of the film, especially since it's our only glimpse of the monster behind all of this madness).  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is that rare Tarantino movie that's good up until the ending, and as a result I'm going with 3 stars even though it's a 4-star picture for most of the movie (I'm someone who gets annoyed when the execution on the back half is sloppy).  Note that this downgrade has nothing to do with the movie's length, which actually feels about right for what he was going for, but entirely due to the ending feeling like it missed the mood of the best moments of the picture.  This is an interesting departure for the director, though, and has enough strong elements that I'd recommend you see it.

The Worst Films of 2015

As a general rule, I tend to avoid seeing particularly awful movies.  After all, I'm not a paid critic (but am interested if you have any jobs or openings-please contact me!), so I get to be very selective about what films I end up seeing in the theaters or at home.  Unless a film is going to be nominated for an Oscar, in fact, I won't see it unless there's some sort of morbid curiosity about the film or I was somewhat curious to begin with, but this year I managed to still hit movies that I considered bad, awful even.  They didn't include some of the leading Razzie contenders (I was smart enough to avoid Pixels and Fifty Shades of Grey is more nominated there because of the uncomfortable anti-woman aspects of the Razzie Awards in general as it's really not that bad of a picture and Dakota Johnson is actually relatively good in the movie), but they all include films you should make a point of avoiding as you peruse your Netflix queues trying to find something new to watch.  Without further adieu, the five worst movies of 2015 (in alphabetical order):

The Gift (dir. Joel Edgerton)

Joel Edgerton's directorial debut is a jumbled mess of ideas.  We get a story with an unnecessary villain, cheap script tricks that undermine the audience's intelligence and reek of lazy writing, and central performances from Jason Bateman and Joel Edgerton that are uninformed and drawn in completely 2-dimensional shades.  The fact that this film randomly got raves on Rotten Tomatoes makes me wonder if most critics have never seen a good horror film so they don't have a touchstone.

The Hateful Eight (dir. Quentin Tarantino)

What would happen if you took one of the most visionary and cinematic directors of the past decade, cast a plethora of talented character actors, and stuck them in a snow-surrounded cabin for two-and-a-half hours?  Before you answer, remember we're going to fill the movie with weirdly anti-feminist ideals, repetitive unfunny sight gags, conversations that go nowhere and have a weirdly plain cadence, and then have the plot go the exact way you'd expect despite over an hour of expository dialogue trying to convince you otherwise.  If your answer was the awful Hateful Eight, you are correct.  Unfortunately that makes you the only winner involved in this situation.

Jurassic World (dir. Colin Treverrow)

A truly awful cinematic experience, Jurassic World is, to quote myself, "the worst thing to happen to a classic movie since Indiana Jones 4."  This film literally takes the original movie, and subtracts all of the charm, character work, and quite frankly realistic special effects and tosses them in the garbage.  When even Chris Pratt and Judy Greer are turning in terrible performances, you need to rethink how you're re-launching a beloved franchise.

Pan (dir. Joe Wright)

I had read the reviews, but quite frankly I couldn't believe them.  Joe Wright, the guy who made Atonement and Anna Karenina, didn't seem capable of making a truly terrible movie, particularly not with Garrett Hedlund and Rooney Mara at the helm.  However, he did to the point that the JM Barrie estate should consider a lawsuit, as the film is atrociously gaudy and bloated, with everyone involved giving shoddy performances.  Plus, that Nirvana music number still makes zilch sense to me.

Stonewall (dir. Roland Emmerich)

I'm not ranking the films on this list, but know that if I was this would be the worst.  Spectacularly homophobic, to the point where everyone involved owes an apology letter to GLAAD, the film is also defiantly anti-sex, as well as filled with a complete disregard for history and one where the entire plot feels created without any sense that the audience has a brain.  Truly one of the worst movies I've seen in years.

There they are-the worst films of 2015.  Do you agree with my assessment, or were you hoping that I'd have something like Woman in Gold (know it was one-spot away) or another film that I perhaps didn't see (Aloha, Paul Blart 2) that showed up?  Share your worst cinematic experiences of 2015 in the comments below!

OVP: The Hateful Eight (2015)

Film: The Hateful Eight (2015)
Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walter Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Channing Tatum
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Supporting Actress-Jennifer Jason Leigh, Cinematography, Score*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I don't really care that Quentin Tarantino is more-than-likely insane.  Honestly, I kind of love it.  Actors and entertainers are so hyper-sweet and polished these days that having an admittedly very talented individual like Tarantino out there in the world, completely rocking the internet with views that even I'm not always behind is exhilarating.  He sits there alongside the likes of Lars von Trier and Spike Lee as a provocateur whose filmography can back him up.  After all, this is a man who has made brilliant movies like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Inglourious Basterds.  There is no question when you are sitting in a Quentin Tarantino film, and since I was old enough to see them, I've never missed a single one of his pictures.  That was true, of course, for The Hateful Eight, but about an hour into the film I began to regret my excellent track record, and wondered perhaps if Tarantino may need to start backing up his art more before he continues at riling up the collective Twittersphere.  The Hateful Eight is a long, pointless endeavor focused entirely on Tarantino's signature, violent motifs, but it is lacking his sharp wit and panting homage to the likes of Kurosawa and Leone.  Instead what we have is easily the worst film he's ever made, and considering his relatively infrequent pit stops at the movies, the year's biggest disappointment.

(Spoilers Ahead) Where to begin on a review I never thought I'd write (giving a Tarantino film 1-star is a stab in the heart)?  I think I will commence with the first two hours, which could be summed up in about five sentences, which is appalling in a time-wasting way.  We see Jennifer Jason Leigh violently beaten, casual epithets and a long and pointless story about rape played for shock value, and while none of this is particularly out-of-place in Tarantino's world, usually it's met with a sparkling amount of "what will happen next" and incredibly funny and odd dialogue.  That's all missing from this film, which frequently mines the same joke over-and-over again, such as a running bit where the door needs to be nailed shut to not let in the cold air, which could be funny in a Marx Brothers style, but it isn't (even the first time), and not once in the entire run of this gag did the packed audience in my theater laugh.  In fact, that was true for almost the entire movie-despite consistently having moments that are clearly meant for laughter, there were only a few sparing moments of humor that caught on with the audience (usually involving Daisy, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, getting a random aside in at the expense of her captor Kurt Russell) and not once did the entire audience laugh or even react together, unheard of for me in a theater that crammed.

The film doesn't really know anything about pace, and the first two hours move along with literally nothing happening except random characters getting introduced over and over to each other in random circles.  The names are purposefully ridiculous, but unlike other Tarantino films that doesn't really seem to matter-the names just sort of sit there, with the actors who play them not really matching up to the sharpness of the characters.  No one in this film is giving a strong performance, even though Samuel L. Jackson and Walter Goggins have been cited by other critics as good examples of strong Tarantino performances.  You compare this to Jules Winnfeld or Elle Driver or Mr. Pink and suddenly you're realizing how desperately we're relying on the memory of other great Tarantino films to try and justify sitting for yet another forty minutes as we watch a bloodbath endure in front of our eyes.  Quite frankly by the end of the film the main characters, played by Jackson and Goggins, have become such horrid human beings, frequently disparaging the only female character in a way we didn't see them do to any other male characters (sexism is alive and well here), that the fact that we have to watch them be celebrated in the "Lincoln Letter" finale makes me grimace with disgust.  About the only thing that recommends itself is Ennio Morricone's score, but Ennio Morricone could make your broken radiator sound good so that's pretty much the free space in bingo.

The violence itself seems repetitive and uninventive.  Tarantino once again watches a man be castrated onscreen, trying again to play it for comedic effect (but no one is laughing), and the explosive blood that made something like Kill Bill so staggering is now old-hat in his world.  I actually looked away when surprise guest star of sorts Channing Tatum has his movie star mug exploded before our eyes because what's the point of that image without some level of artistry to back it up?  The intensity of the scenes are lessened both because we have done this before, but also because the movie is insanely predictable.  For a director that could once surprise us intensely with his clever scripting (look at something like the "Kiddo" aspect of Kill Bill) there's no surprise you don't see coming.  The fact that Jackson and Goggins win after a pretty lame showdown with the rest of Daisy's gang or that Tatum, the movie star slumming in a supporting role, quickly watches his part disappear before we learn anything about him is something you see coming, and reeks of lazy writing.  Tarantino might have had Last Year at Marienbad or something in a long-and-languid inspiration during the early scenes, but The Hateful Eight is never that profound or captivating.  It's just a bloody, gory bore.

December Oscar Predictions: Directing and Writing

Earlier this week I went through the acting contenders at this year's Oscars, and so now we move into the writers and directors, those men and women that are, as of late, coasting a bit off of the Best Picture lineup.  Ever since the field expanded from five to whatever the Academy deemed worthy this year, the race for these categories has been a bit looser, even when something like Bennett Miller randomly making it for Foxcatcher last year happens.  Let's see if that's the case again this year, shall we?

Best Director

There are a lot of legendary directors in the running this year for this award, including one who has been in contention thrice for this trophy and never actually won it.  Ridley Scott has helmed major movies for decades, and his The Martian is surely his best shot at this trophy since Gladiator.  Were Scott to be nominated this year, he would tie Peter Weir for the most-nominated living director without a win, and that may be something the Academy would want to rectify-it does seem strange that Ridley Scott, one of the most lauded directors of our era, hasn't won, and at 78 he'd be the oldest person to win the trophy if he were victorious.  While it's not a guarantee that all of these factors would add up to him finally holding his own little gold man, it's enough to ensure that he's a nominee.

The rest of the field is harder to predict.  Thomas McCarthy's Spotlight hasn't won a major critics prize just yet; still, the actor-director is the sort of person that can sneak in on a prestige film on his first real try, so he's a decent guess.  It remains to be seen whether relative unknowns Lenny Abrahamson (Room) or John Crowley (Brooklyn) can be equally as lucky.  Todd Haynes, on the other hand, is someone who has been trying to break into this field for years with little-to-no success.  Carol is rocking out with critics, and has Harvey Weinstein behind it, but it's hard to tell if a film with two female leads will make it in a category that famously skips out on female-driven films even if they're competing for Best Picture.  In addition to Scott above, there's also Steven Spielberg (Bridge of Spies), Quentin Tarantino (The Hateful Eight), and last year's Oscar winner Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (The Revenant) in the legends category, but it's difficult to know where these movies stand.  AGI, it's worth noting, is not someone that the Academy had taken a penchant to in the big categories and it's not clear whether they suddenly will (though he could also have the luck of David O. Russell whom they can't stop nominating, it seems, and who could be back for Joy), whereas Spielberg and Tarantino are always threats at the Oscars, but Spielberg's film may be too old news, and Tarantino's third outlandish western in a row may seem been there-done that.

We end, therefore, with two contenders who seem in most senses completely out-there, but on-paper could make some sense.  Ryan Coogler (Creed) has a bona fide populist hit on his hands, something that is definitely worth noting and that could get him into the race, particularly if people were paying attention a few years ago with Fruitvale Station (it's also worth noting that Coogler would be both the third African-American director to be nominated for an Oscar and arguably the sexiest guy in the Dolby if he showed up).  Meanwhile, George Miller, who randomly won Best Animated Feature a few years ago but shockingly has never been nominated for Best Director, could be the Foxcatcher of the year with Mad Max: Fury Road.  It sounds crazy, but there's a lot of split decisions here at the moment, and it's hard to imagine the precursors coalescing around five specific directors this year (plus, Miller seems like the random nominee that scores a DGA citation, which always helps).  It's not something I'm quite ready to pull the trigger on, but Fury Road is mesmerizing and gaining steam after the National Board of Review-wouldn't this be wild?

My Predictions: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Todd Haynes, Thomas McCarthy, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg

Original Screenplay

If I were forced to predict one winner this far out for Oscar night, it would surely be Inside Out for Animated Feature-I mean, that's the Free Space in Bingo this year.  However, close behind it would surely be that Thomas McCarthy is going to win the Oscar for Spotlight, a film that is clearly a writer's film, and its screenplay is arguably its showiest asset.  Its nomination is guaranteed in a way few others are, and I think we'll be seeing other films sort of making a play to amp up their nomination count here, because an actual win is no longer in the cards.

One of those films could well be Inside Out-Pixar hasn't been a threat in this category for a few years now (last nominated for Up), but the inventiveness of Inside Out and its clear play at ingenuity will be an easy reward, especially in a year where this category feels a little bit slight.  The Hateful Eight, penned by Quentin Tarantino, also feels like an easy victory-Tarantino has won this category twice and even if this film doesn't sell as well, it's hard to see him missing once again.  And speaking of directors that keep getting cited here, David O. Russell's Joy is also a strong contender even if he can't quite crack the Director field, and he brought along with him this cycle Annie Mumolo, who was Oscar-nominated a few years back herself for Bridesmaids.

The remainder of the field seems a bit of a wasteland.  Unless something dramatic happens, Oscar also-rans like Suffragette and Sicario seem unlikely to score, and Straight Outta Compton feels too outside the Academy's wheelhouse.  Son of Saul if it is a strong enough player in the Best Director field could sneak in (foreign films have a solid history in writing categories), but it needs to make a big mark late-in-the-game.  Youth would be a strong guess if it were doing better, but right now it feels more like just an actor's game, while Ex Machina if anyone remembers it would be a clever play here.  However, I think your best bet may be to go with yet another pair of multiple time Oscar-winners in Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote Bridge of Spies (did you know that?), a film that I feel may be being underestimated from a technical standpoint considering the Academy's strong history with Spielberg even if they don't always reward him everywhere.

My Predictions: Bridge of Spies, The Hateful Eight, Inside Out, Joy, Spotlight

Adapted Screenplay

Best Adapted Screenplay frequently is the Best Picture lineup playground, and that is no exception this year.  Like Best Director, The Martian seems like a solid bet here, though not quite as assured (space odysseys don't always make it here, but if it's a frontrunner in Best Picture it'd be hard to deny).  I suspect that we'll also be seeing Todd Haynes name as well, as Carol has both the Weinsteins and the critics behind it, and Haynes being double-stated as both a director and a writer seems a likely reward (the branch seems to favor more and more the writers who also direct).  That could help Ryan Coogler with Creed or Alejando Gonzalez Inarritu as well, though the former film isn't really a writer's movie and the latter may feel like overkill (lest we forget, AGI just won three Oscars-how much are they going to go for his film again this year?).

Novelists seem to be a pretty big deal this year as well.  Emma Donoghue is going to be hoping she can outdo the likes of Gillian Flynn and Helen Fielding by turning her bestselling novel Room into an Oscar nomination (the Academy is weirdly unkind to women who adapt their own novels to the big screen).  Nick Hornby won an Oscar nomination six years ago for An Education, and may be back with another Best Picture contender/female coming-of-age movie.

There's also playwrights and more traditional screenwriters in the mix, with Lucinda Coxen getting her first real shot at Oscar with The Danish Girl, though I do think that film may have slipped a bit in terms of buzz and that could be costly if it's trying to get into a tough category like this.  Charlie Kaufman is always a threat for writing (he's a three-time nominee with a trophy), but is Anomalisa coming too late in the year and will this branch nominate two animated films in the same year?  Perhaps the best chance of a big-name screenwriter scoring another nomination would be Aaron Sorkin, though his Steve Jobs seems to have fallen on some hard times in terms of buzz (still, Sorkin alone could land a nomination here).

My Predictions: Brooklyn, Carol, The Martian, The Revenant, Steve Jobs

We'll get into some of the other tech categories later this weekend, but in the meantime please share your thoughts on these races-are there any films you're hoping to see pop up?  Any you're dreading?  And please post your predictions in the comments!

OVP: Director (2009)

OVP: Best Director (2009)

The Nominees Were...

Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

James Cameron, Avatar

Lee Daniels, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

My Thoughts: The thing I remember most about the Best Director race of 2009 was how uniformly locked-down it was.  I find it absoulely bizarre that the year that they launched the Top 10 system for Best Picture was one of those years EVERYONE knew who the true Top 5 were.  In years since, you couldn't quite feel out the split (since usually one director didn't get a Best Picture nomination), but here there was no quibbling over it-these five grabbed the five biggest Academy movies of the year, and just sort of ran with it.

There's something deeply claustrophobic about the films of Kathryn Bigelow's career renaissance.  Both The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty are desperately reliant on building a closing wall around their principle characters.  I love the way that she tightens the scope throughout the movie, frequently having us get inside of the characters shifting worlds.  We've discussed this film to death I feel at this point (I realize this every OVP, but the Academy as a general rule over-nominates certain movies and as a result other interesting work in different films gets left in the cold), but I haven't talked too much about the way that Bigelow builds tension.  There's something very clean and clear about this movie-every scene isn't revolving around escalating drama with rising music and "the next big fight with the bad guy," but instead it's getting inside of our slowly deteriorating main character.  Bigelow juxtaposes quite wonderfully William James with the action around him, making tension rest in how we handle war and not simply what happens next to the character.  It's a neat trick, and something she used to even better effect three years later with Zero Dark Thirty.

Everyone in the known universe with a magazine, blog, or newspaper commented at the time about Bigelow fighting against her ex-husband, and so I will do that right now as well (mostly because we'll almost certainly never see something like this ever again), and the real fun was that even though Bigelow was winning in a blow-out, Cameron was certainly her biggest competitor.

Cameron's films frequently suffer from stilted dialogue and occasionally the overindulgence in editing, but from a director's perspective, he has few equals.  The way that he handles some of the action scenes (like Jake's first flight), so well-timed with the music and perfectly shifting the camera angles, it's a complete thrill ride.  Cameron also has the good sense in Avatar to know when to pull back on the love story (this is really a story about Jake's (and our) immersion into the world of Pandora, and not quite about him falling in love, though that's the catalyst), and the visual spectacle of the film has no equals-the film hasn't aged particularly well in the collective pop culture memory (very few people talk about it today in a way you'd expect for the highest-grossing film of all time), but it's an absolutely stunningly paced, well planned movie, mostly because of Cameron behind the wheel.

Quentin Tarantino, like Cameron, has a distinctive style that few could confuse with any other filmmaker.  You always know when you're watching a Tarantino film, and while his movies are always insanely watchable, he frequently needs to find a balance between what he is so good at (crisp, vivid characters, extended conversations filled with rich dialogue, elaborate action sequences) and what he can't balance (putting himself in the movie, too much tongue-in-cheek, annoyingly elaborate action sequences that take you out of the movie).  Tarantino's best film will probably always be Pulp Fiction, which is different than most everything he's done since, but in the new world of his movies, Inglourious Basterds reigns supreme.  I love the way that this film always feels essential-there are no scenes that aren't well thought out, and each act seems to link quite nicely to the next, while always having its own distinct flavor.  There isn't a lot of excess (the penultimate scene in the theater aside being the only exception), and he keeps his actors from washing each other out with over-the-top performances.  There's finesse in what he's doing, but unlike something like Django three years later, there's restraint there too-the only major scene with indulgent violence happens in the theater, even though there's opportunity for it in most other scenes.  It's a film that takes a drop from early Tarantino but mostly focuses on his larger-scale later work.

Jason Reitman also suffers from the occasional over-winking at the audience.  Think of something like Thank You for Smoking, a clever film that has something legitimate to say about the tobacco industry, but occasionally finds itself a bit over-in-love with its own script.  That's not the case with Up in the Air, a movie that could quite easily fall into the trap of just oozing adoration for George Clooney's Ryan Bingham, but instead decides to say something a bit bigger about the culture of layoffs and how much of our love and soul go into our careers.  Reitman's work isn't quite as revolutionary as some of his competitors, admittedly; there's nothing here that's particularly cool or outstanding (the empty offices seem to probably be the most jarring thing you see in the film, but that's not a directorial choice that anyone else would have made), but I do like the way that he treats his characters, particularly Ryan, never giving us over entirely to liking them but still making us invested that they are in fact people.

Lee Daniels is occasionally ridiculous (this really was a sea of five directors who have a sharp vision in their films).  Watching something like The Paperboy is a lesson in what-the-fuckery, with excess shooting out from every angle the film (that movie, while fascinating, was in desperate need of a better editor).  Precious, in the light of The Paperboy and The Butler, seems hauntingly restrained and though I love the idea of Lee Daniels, his later films haven't worked for me so I still cling to the tight, trapped Precious.  The movie's best asset is Mo'Nique as Mary, and Daniels is smart enough to make her a true supporting character, shoved away at the sidelines for scenes at a time (he knows that, like Precious, she stays and haunts us even when she's not onscreen).  He also knows when to puncture the film with a gut punch (think of the scene where Mary tells Precious that she doesn't have HIV because they never had anal sex-I remember the entire audience gasping at her ignorance), and to keep the film grounded in reality even when the performances seem so large and almost Shakespearean.  It's a wonderful way to find a balance between the excesses of the film and the hauntingly brutal and life-inspired moments of the movie.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes love themselves an actor-turned-director, particularly if your name is Clint Eastwood, and so he managed to score the only change in the Oscar lineup here over Daniels (it's worth noting that James Cameron ended up winning and not Bigelow if you thought you remembered her blowing out the entire field).  The DGA Awards, like the SAG Awards that year, were completely in-line with Oscar, both with the five nominees and the eventual winner.  The BAFTA Awards also skipped Precious (apparently Lee Daniels was in fifth place), but also Reitman's very American Up in the Air (instead, they went with the far more international Neill Blomkamp for District 9 and Lone Scherfig for An Education).  Kathryn Bigelow won the award, however.  This now begs the question of who was the sixth place finisher.  Common sense would dictate the AMPAS-friendly Eastwood, but Invictus missed in the Best Picture race, showing it had a lack of support.  The Coen Brothers are normally a good bet, but A Serious Man was obviously in tenth place in the Best Picture race.  John Lee Hancock is too cookie-cutter, Lone Scherfig probably too little known, and animated films don't get Best Director nominations for some reason.  Therefore, I'm going to guess that it was Blomkamp, who could have been in a Paul Greengrass sort of position here, but missed due to the solidarity of the main five nominees.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: It's worth noting that there's not a "bad" nominee in this bunch-all things considered, Oscar put together a pretty strong list of achievements.  I would have substituted in Michael Haneke, though, for sure, with his brutal and chilling White Ribbon, and I was SO onboard with the excess that was A Single Man that I think I would have put in Tom Ford on his feature film debut.

Oscar’s Choice: I think that Barbra Streisand was going to give it to her no matter what it said in that envelope, but no matter who presented the trophy, there was no denying that Kathryn Bigelow, glass-ceiling shatterer, was winning that Oscar.

My Choice: I'm going to side with the Globes here and give it to Cameron.  There's a lot of great work here and something to appreciate for all five, but Cameron's towering achievement is the most impressive of the bunch.  I'll follow him with Tarantino, Bigelow, Daniels, and finally Reitman.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Where did you stand on the Bigelow v. Cameron battle (or did you side with the other three)?  Do you also think it was a year that would have been a 5/5 matchup with Best Picture?  Who was the sixth place finisher?  And what was the best directed of 2009?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2009: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Film, Animated Feature, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2009

Past Best Director Contests: 2010, 2011, 2012