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 (2001)

OVP: Best Director (2001)

The Nominees Were...

Robert Altman, Gosford Park

David Lynch, Mulholland Drive

Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind

Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Ridley Scott, Black Hawk Down

My Thoughts: We are nearing the end of our 2001 races, and we're now getting to maybe the most maligned Oscar race of my lifetime, certainly the most-maligned Best Director race of my lifetime.  The Oscars have a very specific type of brand, and also a grand history of rejecting major names in directing.  Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, & Ingmar Bergman-all icons of cinema, all nominated for Best Director...all never won it.  In 2001, Oscar decided in a field of no previous winners that Ron Howard was the most overdue for a victory, and to Howard's detriment, only one of the four directors competing against him has won since, making this look like he took the statue from three legends making better films.

I wish I could stand here and say that Howard is being misrepresented or defend the guy, but I can't.  Howard is capable of directing good movies, and A Beautiful Mind is a good movie, but the direction is the weakest aspect of the film.  The additions of the queer narrative at the edges, the way that Connelly's character feels like just a vessel for Crowe to pass through, and the schmaltzy ending all are choices by the director to lean into the sentimental, rather than the compelling or charming aspects of Crowe's leading work.  It feels like a paint-by-numbers approach from a director who had been doing job-for-hire work for nearly two decades come 2001.

While the other three have the chance still to win a competitive Oscar (and Jackson, of course, already took one for this category two years later), the ship has sailed for Robert Altman.  While Gosford Park is not his best movie, it is a very strong film, and one that encapsulates what he does well.  I love the way that the camera feels like a spectator, passing between rooms & catching little conversations in real time.  This is a staple of Altman's style, but it also works particularly well between the upstairs/downstairs angles, where you are catching things that the wealthy crowd missed because they're the ones talking.

Mulholland Drive is not showing up again from Oscar (I'll be talking through it a bit more in the My Ballot), so I want to profess my love of it on record since this was its only nomination.  I think what Lynch does here is genius, giving us the world of a young woman, desperate for fame, and what happens to that young woman when it doesn't materialize.  The way that it's structured is meant to be ambiguous, but it works well.  The movies are about us projecting our insecurities, our desires, our revenges...all of it onto a beautiful pixilated figure coming out of the darkness.  Lynch captures that essence while also showing the dangers of living your life as if it's destined for the stars.

Ridley Scott, a year after coming within centimeters of winning this trophy outright, got something of an afterglow nomination for Black Hawk Down.  I think this is good-the attack scenes are tight, and the balance with what we learn from the other actors when they aren't in action is also good.  I would've liked a bit more perspective, or maybe some sort of mix on the "war is hell" trope that I didn't already see from him, particularly given it's Scott (who we know is capable of such intellectual exercises).  It's a good, solidly-constructed war film, but I want more when we're talking Oscar.

Peter Jackson would win an Oscar two years later for Return of the King, but this is a friendly reminder that with the OVP, you only judge what's in front of you (and not if they'll win a different year), and with Fellowship of the Ring, you get something pretty remarkable.  The preamble is perfectly done, giving us exposition without it feeling that way, and the ending works pretty well too; yes, it's not a complete film like the other four, but it does stand alone too.  In the middle, we get a dozen brilliant characters introduced, a long movie that never feels like it's serving up dishes to spare, and several miraculous performances.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Robert Altman (I didn't remember that either), besting Howard, Jackson, Lynch, Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!), and Steven Spielberg (AI: Artificial Intelligence).  The DGA went to Howard against Jackson, Luhrmann, Scott, & Christopher Nolan (Memento), while BAFTA went to Jackson against Howard, Altman, Luhrmann, & Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie).  Of the crew...it's gotta be Luhrmann, right?  I mean, he also got in with Best Picture and his leading lady was nominated-it screams sixth place.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: Luhrmann's miss here is so bizarre not just because he hit every checkmark headed into the night, but also because he deserved to be there.  Totally robbed, and should've gotten his first (and for my money, only) directing nomination for Moulin Rouge!.
Oscar's Choice: I'm guessing there was at least some movement toward Jackson, but the acolytes for Altman & Scott also deserving trophies probably took some of his support, and Howard nabbed the statue.

My Choice: Jackson, for sure...this birthed an entire new chapter in cinema, he deserves credit for that.  Lynch, Altman, Scott, and then Howard follow.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Do you want to join me over in the Shire, or do I dare to ask if Ron Howard has his supporters?  We know Altman's time has passed, but will Lynch or Scott get their trophy (or at least an Honorary) before their time is up?  And why did Baz get skipped here?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2001: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2001

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

The Last Duel (2021)

Film: The Last Duel (2021)

Stars: Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer, Ben Affleck, Harriet Walter

Director: Ridley Scott

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

24 years ago (prepare to feel old), Ben Affleck & Matt Damon won their first Oscars for Good Will Hunting.  This was not the first film that the two men had made together (they'd worked together on 1992's homoerotic School Ties, or at least it was homoerotic for me when I saw it on TBS as a closeted 11-year-old), but it was the breakout role for both.  The years that followed have been, let's say "unexpected" in the direction each men has taken.  Damon was celebrated as the better actor initially, which is correct though while he had movie star success in the past couple of decades, you could make an argument that his filmography is somewhat underwhelming.  There are cult classics, popcorn hits, and he's managed a couple of Oscar nominations, but when you think Matt Damon, don't you still kind of think "Good Will Hunting?"  This isn't the case for Ben Affleck, who became a tabloid sensation due to his romances with Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lopez & Jennifer Garner, then took a surprising left field turn into prestige director, won his second Oscar, had an ill-regarded turn as Batman, and is now back to tabloid sensation for dating Jennifer Lopez.  All of this is to say that when it comes to The Last Duel, I don't really know what to expect from these two as a pair anymore, and under the relatively successful guiding hand of Ridley Scott, this movie attempts to navigate that ambiguity.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is based on a true story about a longstanding rivalry between Sir Jean de Carrouges (Damon) and Jacques Le Gris (Driver) in late 14th Century France.  Carrouges in the film is a rather abrupt, callous man, depending on your viewpoint (more on that in a second) either a solemn man of honor or a dour figure getting into his own way.  Le Gris, on the other hand, is a handsome, charming sort who is also sycophantically kissing up to Count Pierre d'Alencon (Affleck), and in the process taking away much of Carrouges power & wealth for his own, including part of Carrouges' wife Marguerite's (Comer) dowry & the captaincy that Carrouges' father & grandfather had held, and which he assumed he would get.  The film reaches a turning point when Marguerite accuses Le Gris of rape, and as no one will back down, Carrouges & Le Gris wage what would become the last judicial duel, allowing God to decide who was just & who was lying to the king.

The film is notable specifically for its formatting.  We get to see the story, at least heading into the title sequence, from the (skewed) vantage points of Carrouges, Le Gris, & Marguerite, in that order.  This has an unusual effect on the film, in that we see certain scenes with all involved in better light within their own story.  One example of this happens at a party, where in the first story Carrouges offers an olive branch, in the second one Le Gris, and in Marguerite's story, the host of the party offers it with neither man willing to do so.  This has a fascinating effect on the film, as the audience becomes the judge-and-jury, trying to decipher what is truth & what isn't.  I kind of wish that Scott hadn't made an overt attempt to point out that he feels (and, to be fair, historians feel as well) that Marguerite's story was the accurate one (the word "the truth" hovers briefly after the rest of the text in "Marguerite's version of the truth" has left a title card announcing her version of the story, enough so the audience gets the picture that we're about to see what really happened); part of the complexity of the story, and the way that truth can have "versions" depending on your viewpoint (as well as a lie can also have versions)  is the best part of the film.

Well, one of the best parts-the other is Jodie Comer.  Comer, best-known to audiences for her work on the British spy drama Killing Eve (which won her an Emmy), is excellent in the lead role.  This is a tricky part to play, as she needs to play a subtler game in the other versions of the story than the men do, but she nails it.  There's a lot of great moments late-in-the-film where you don't know her motives anymore, and while you never doubt the veracity of her claims, other things about her remain a mystery (specifically her attitude toward her husband & their marriage, and what this duel will do to it).  That's a striking combination for a film to give a character, where she plays an honest, enigmatic central player, but Comer does well with the task.

So why only three stars?  Honestly, it's because The Last Duel is kind of silly.  The film doesn't feel its 140-minute runtime, and weirdly the screenplay handles the three viewpoints well without feeling repetitive.  But the accent work in the film is dreadful (forget the French accents the whole cast should have but doesn't...it feels like Affleck, Damon, & Driver stop in long sequences of the movie doing even the vague British accent they're doing in other scenes).  It's the sort of movie it's hard to take seriously because Damon & Affleck are such a bad fit for the roles.  Both are just such thoroughly American personas that them playing 14th Century French aristocrats...the audience in my theater literally started laughing at the ridiculousness of it in certain sequences.  But Scott delivers in the action, pacing, & Comer brings it well enough that I'm bummed this was a flop...even if I kind of get how that happened.

OVP: Picture (2015)

OVP: Best Picture (2015)

The Nominees Were...

Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, & Jeremy Kleiner, The Big Short
Steven Spielberg, Marc Platt, & Kristie Macosko Krieger, Bridge of Spies
Finola Dwyer & Amanda Posey, Brooklyn
Doug Mitchell & George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Simon Kinberg, Ridley Scott, Michael Schaefer, & Mark Huffam, The Martian
Amon Milchan, Steve Golin, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Mary Parent, & Keith Redmon, The Revenant
Ed Guiney, Room
Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin, & Blye Pagon Faust, Spotlight

My Thoughts: We are finally finishing off our look at the 2015 movies.  While of course there will inevitably be first time viewings of pictures from that year that will be discussed in the future, in terms of our Oscar Viewing Project, we are now complete with this post.  On Monday, we'll be investigating a new year, one that based on the work I've already done it should be roughly a 10-week exploration of 2016, but for now I've made you wait long enough-it's time to discuss the eight pictures that the Oscars deemed the most worthy for its highest honor.

We're going to start with the movie I feel like we've discussed the most in this series, Mad Max: Fury Road.  Recent viewings have actually made me appreciate Fury Road a bit more, understanding just where the Mad Max universe started and how much it evolved through the years.  The film itself is an action-adventure visual smorgasbord, one that doesn't seem to mind its rather routine script because it's so full of a glorious feast for the eyes.  I am more a plot person than someone who can be swept up in the grandeur of what's happening on the screen, but I'm not immune, and by-far Fury Road is the movie with the most distinctive palette of these pictures, and likely the movie that will be best-remembered years from now when other people reassess this field.

The movie that might be the least remembered is the sturdy, but a bit dull, Bridge of Spies.  Late films in Steven Spielberg's career have all been in the sturdy-but-dull mode, in my opinion, visually impressive (he can afford the best production team in Hollywood), but lacking in the same emotional investment that his original works earlier in his career (Jaws, Raiders, ET) were able to achieve.  It's frequently as if he took the wrong message from Schindler and just thought the "historical" nature of the film was what made it great, not the emotional one.  That's clear here, where only the Francis Gary Powers scene above the earth equals anything similar to what Spielberg could make in his heyday, and frequently it's just staid, traditional drama that's elevated by two Oscar-winning performers (Tom Hanks & Mark Rylance).  Good, but hardly memorable.

Good, but hardly memorable is what you'd think I'd say about The Martian, but few films have reminded more that they were better than my old noggin retained than this Ridley Scott picture.  The film is actually quite strong, with solid work by Matt Damon (movie star magic there, his best movie star turn in about twenty years), and a compelling script.  The visuals are strong as well, as we wander through not only Mars, but our more earth-bound dwellings (notice how often it's raining on Earth to underscore the difference), and it's just the sort of fun, escapist fare that used to be a slam dunk over the summer rather than an endless array of dull sequels.  I liked it-it's not a heavy thinking film & it's not a movie that's breaking any new ground, but it's increasingly hard to make popcorn movies dance like this, and Scott was able to achieve just that.

Room is no one's definition of a popcorn movie, but here again I like it as well.  The movie's best half, the technically tricky first half, is mesmerizing; it's hard to get an audience to collectively hold their breaths for some forty minutes, but as we watch Jack & Ma try to escape from a tool shed in someone's backyard, the filmmakers are able to underscore the life-and-death stakes that they are undertaking.  I loved what the film had to say about the momentary celebrities we make of people (particularly women) who are only in that position because of unspeakable tragedy, and how we just as easily dismiss them when we take out our newspapers.  Along with career-defining work from Jacob Tremblay & Brie Larson, the movie is not one you revisit very often, but it's a powerful motion picture.

This is simply not the case for the other film that is trying desperately hard to be "serious and important," The Revenant.  Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, one year after his breathtaking and career-best work in Birdman, somehow finds a way to throw out all of that goodwill with The Revenant, a dull (but beautiful) look at an early 19th Century fur trapper and the brutal life he chooses to lead (and the revenge he undertakes for a wife we as an audience barely get to know).  At different parts sexist and occasionally just torture porn for the audience, the film seems more inclined in watching its characters suffer than letting us get to know them, and while it's surely a physical feat for lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio, we don't give out Oscars to marathoners just because someone set up a camera in front of the race.  The movie indulges all of the worst of AGI's impulses post his Oscar victory lap, and the collective universe was too busy screaming "Give Leo an Oscar" to notice that the movie he was winning it for was lousy.

The Big Short is going to be one of those movies that probably looks horrendous in hindsight if Vice is any indication, the way we all kind of collectively have downgraded our opinions of Inglourious Basterds somewhat in the wake of Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight showing that Tarantino has lost what made his first films so special.  The movie itself, though, is relatively good so don't let future failures confuse that fact.  The movie in the first two-thirds manages to find a way to make a complicated problem (the housing crash) come to light in a way that a thousand Vox articles almost certainly wouldn't, and there are some solid performances here.  The problem is that McKay's lack of self-awareness as a white, liberal millionaire who wants to make sure all of the white millionaires in the film that aren't clear villains are recused tanks the final third, when he tries to make Steve Carell & Ryan Gosling's characters seem like nicer guys than they actually were, while still getting to keep their entire fortune.  That problematic political angle was an indication of how badly-handled someone like Dick Cheney, a far more nefarious (and murderous) topic would be in McKay's hands, but we'll ring him over the coals for Vice when we get to 2018.  For now, I say mission (mostly) accomplished.

Brooklyn feels sort of out-of-place among these pictures, the sort of movie that was nominated for an honor like this twenty or thirty years prior to 2015, rather than today when we want more intimate biopics or male-driven ensembles.  Brooklyn feels like the type of film that would have played well with Merchant-Ivory, but perhaps it's a testament to how good it was that they still decided to include the film despite it having "gone out of fashion."  This is certainly because Brooklyn is a breathtaking movie, one that is gorgeous but also honestly felt, particularly by lead actress Saoirse Ronan, fully coming into her own as an adult with a mesmerizing Eilis.  Love triangles are the backbone of movie epics, but this one feels more urgent because you genuinely, even as the film ends, don't know what Eilis would have chosen left entirely to her own devices, and underscores how much technology plays a role in the way we interact with family and romance from a distance.  Understated, but masterful.

The final film that we'll highlight I chose to be the actual Best Picture winner, Spotlight.  The movie's studious devotion to journalism, showing how it can truly change the world, feels very different just a few years later, with Donald Trump routinely beating on the press, and the left frequently (and accurately) lambasting organizations like CNN and The New York Times for not being prepared to handle such a monster taking power in the United States.  One can only imagine what Spotlight would have done with such a story hanging over it in future years, but we have the film as it is, which is pretty good but nothing earth-shattering like All the President's Men.  We see largely nameless, personality-less performances from the journalists as they pour over decades of abuse, giving us insight into the process of a group of reporters investigating one of the most powerful organizations on the planet for decades of criminal activity (and coverup).  The film doesn't do as well when it takes the lens off of this reporting, which is fascinating and thrillingly methodical, trying to also morally grandstand (it seems weird that super-liberal actor Mark Ruffalo, a fine thespian, isn't the right choice to underline the importance of their work, but he isn't and nearly throws the film off of its rails).  The sort of Best Picture winner that won't embarrass the Academy, but one that few people will remember ten years from now.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split their nominations between Comedy/Musical and Drama, so we have a full ten nominees here.  The Drama categories went nearly with a full Oscar lineup, having The Revenant triumph over Fury Road, Room, Spotlight, and (the snubbed) Carol while comedy had Oscar nominee The Martian best The Big Short, Joy, Spy, and Trainwreck.  The BAFTA's also went with The Revenant for their top prize, having it best The Big Short, Carol, Bridge of Spies, and Spotlight, while the PGA Awards (which go ten-wide) found room for all of Oscar's contestants save for, well, Room, and threw in Ex Machina, Sicario, & Straight Outta Compton.  Considering the SAG Ensemble (not a Best Picture nominee, so I'm only listing it in context of the ninth place because many people frequently treat it as such) also included Compton, one has to assume if they'd been ten-wide that Carol and the rapping biopic were the last two contenders, and it still feels odd that Carol didn't eventually make it into this race.

Films I Would Have Nominated: As I hate when people have a laundry list of snubbed films for the big prize, I'll try to only include movies here that I would have included in my Top 8 (since that's all Oscar allowed) even though this stands as one of the better cinematic years of the decade in hindsight.  It will still be a lot though as I'd only for sure keep two of Oscars' nominees.  For starters, Carol is a magnum opus & certainly deserved to be included on such a lineup (I still don't get why Oscar didn't have it there considering the universal praise & precursor support, not to mention the support the film got in various AMPAS branches).  I also would have found room for the under-seen romantic epic Testament of Youth, the cerebral acting drama Clouds of Sils Maria, the marital discord take of 45 Years, and the movie that made me laugh harder than any this decade, Spy.  For the final nomination, it's hard to debate between Fury Road and Ex Machina, both even in the Sci Fi/Fantasy sort of realm, but about as polar opposite in their approach to their subject as you can get.  Perhaps like the Oscars (which surely should have included Carol) I'd go with the ninth nomination option (which is sitting right there) and break my rule to include both, something the Academy should have considered.

Oscar’s Choice: Looking at the precursors, this was actually a bit of a tossup (if you count SAG Ensemble, Spotlight, The Martian, The Revenant, & The Big Short had all won major awards going into the Oscar race).  In the end, the Academy split the difference and gave this to the conventional Spotlight, a victory few people are going to remember but will play better in hindsight than some of the other options.

My Choice: Easy call for Brooklyn, a beautiful, tender love story that looks effortless in a way other people who tackle this genre simply cannot achieve over Room, which was a breathtaking acting triumph and by no-means a guaranteed nomination so well-done to Oscar for singling it out for the top prize.  I'll follow with Fury Road, Martian, Spotlight, Bridge of Spies, Big Short, & The Revenant.

Yes, we're done with 2015, but you can still join me for a discussion of the year in the comments.  Were you with me that Brooklyn was the best of this bunch, or are you more with Oscar & Spotlight (or more likely, picking films like Fury Road or Revenant which had more champions at the time)?  Was it Straight Outta Compton or Carol in ninth place?  And who ended up with a better lineup for Best Picture-Oscar or me?  Share your thoughts on anything 2015-related below!  We go into 2016 on Monday!

Also in 2015: 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, Production Design, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Documentary Short, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Previously in 2015

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

OVP: Director (2015)

OVP: Best Director (2015)

The Nominees Were...

Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Revenant
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road

My Thoughts: This morning we discussed the original Mad Max film, so it felt fitting that we show what that eventually culminated in due to one of the strangest journeys in Oscar history.  George Miller's bare-budget action film that catapaulted the career of Mel Gibson, one that could have so easily have been disposable & forgettable, ended up launching a franchise that eventually became only the eighth sequel to ever win an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, and won Miller his first citation in this category.  Considering the time it took to get to this citation, I won't make Mr. Miller wait any longer and so we'll start our discussion with him.

Mad Max: Fury Road is not what you'd consider a writer's film or an actor's film, though there are elements in both of these camps that might deserve praise-it is completely a director's picture.  The movie unfolds with mesmerizing action sequences, and this is really why it was hailed as a landmark when it initially came out; George Miller deserves most of the credit for creating such a spectacle.  It takes a lot to be able to guide a film that has a host of ardent, obsessive fans of the previous installments while also creating something accessible to a new generation of moviegoers (myself included) who saw the picture without any grounding in the previous installments.  Miller's giant desert spectacles are mesmerizing, and I love the way that he creates a distance between this world and our own, but never a particularly giant distance to our own world, his environmental message very much on-display.  A roaring achievement, and one that more than earned its place here.

Arguably the person with the most similar challenge to Miller's is Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who also has to create a universe that is entirely action-driven, one that doesn't rely in a meaningful way on plot, and instead is an action-adventure (though Miller has to do so within the confines of a specific filmic universe that already has three pictures to its name).  AGI doesn't equal Miller in any capacity other than getting out of the way of the cinematographer, though, as his film feels too-often directionless.  The opening sequences and the scene with the bear notwithstanding, the director's choices to limit our exposure to Leo's Hugh Glass as a person are poor, making the movie seem more like a nature documentary...that somehow wants you to invest personally into the travails of its main characters.  The film is occasionally stunning, but I give that credit more to Lubezki than Gonzalez Inarritu.

Another challenge, though on a different scale would be the one encountered by Lenny Abrahamson. Particularly the first half of Room requires in an incredible amount of intricacy, as we have to see the world from both the eyes of Joy and Jack.  Abrahamson does this very well, with an astute amount of technical prowess, showing us (without underlining it) the actual reality of living in a shed in the backyard of a kidnapper, and the expansive world that Jack has created since he knows nothing of what lies beyond it.  The film's second half isn't nearly as technically impressive, and it shows as the movie doesn't overwhelm with the possibilities of this new world in the same way that it did with the finite one, but that's only a small knock on Abrahamson's achievements, as the picture certainly wouldn't work without his care in the first half.

Care is not a word that one attributes to Adam McKay very often.  The Big Short is a movie that is loud, bawdy, and oftentimes too clunky.  There are moments in the movie that work (I stand behind the asides by Margot Robbie & Selena Gomez explaining to the audience in entertaining, layman's terms what is happening through a fourth wall-breaking trope), but the back half of the movie shows a complete lack in interest to what "McKay the Writer" was trying to achieve in the first half of the movie.  The film doesn't really have an interesting directorial achievement here, and it feels like the type that just happened because it was nominated for Best Picture (and was an option to actually win that trophy), so the Oscars just went with it here too.  A deeply misguided ending & a lack of originality other than the fourth well-breaking makes The Big Short arguably the biggest waste of a nomination here (at least AGI was creating something beautiful).

The final nomination in some ways is also a "well, we nominated it for Best Picture so let's put it here" and perhaps a little bit is a nod to the Directors' Branch's weird obsession with actor-directors (McCarthy you recognize up top from his parts in films like Meet the Parents, Syriana, The Lovely Bones, and Duplicity, as well as his recurring roles on Boston Public and The Wire).  However, I don't think this is entirely the case for Spotlight (which is also a better film than The Big Short or The Revenant).  He does a very strong job of unfolding the story here, methodically showing us the intricacies of the journalistic process without it ever feeling boring or like a lecture.  That's harder to do than you'd think, and while the film's back half never maintains the tightness of those earlier scenes, it's still an achievement, and Oscar has done a lot worse than honoring someone who makes a prestige film have at least something of an artistic angle.

Other Precursor Contenders: Best Director is one of those rare fields where the Globes, Guilds, and BAFTA awards all have the same number of nominees (aside from the supporting actor races, this is the only OVP category where this is the case).  The Globes gave their trophy to Inarritu, while replacing McKay & Abrahamson with Todd Haynes (Carol) and Ridley Scott (The Martian).  The BAFTAs went with Inarritu as their winner as well, but also found room for Haynes, Scott, and Steven Spielberg (Bridge of Spies), with only McKay joining Inarritu from Oscar's lineup.  The DGA's were the closest to the eventual AMPAS list, this time only skipping Abrahamson in favor of Scott (with Inarritu completing the trifecta).  Scott was almost certainly in sixth place, and quite frankly I am still stunned how he didn't get nominated considering his position in the directing branch as one of the few truly living (English-language) legends who has never taken home an Oscar.  I think, had he been nominated, he would've been the only person who came close to spoiling it for Inarritu.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: I'd honestly chuck most of this lineup and start from scratch.  Surely Todd Haynes deserved mention for Carol, as few people could have put such a distinctive style on a previously-written novel (and made it so beautiful).  I'd also throw in Andrew Haigh's specific work in 45 Years, and John Crowley's epic love story of Brooklyn.  Finally, I'd go with Oliver Assayas, one of the most interesting filmmakers working today, who created a cerebral mind game that still is a damn compelling movie in Clouds of Sils Maria.
Oscar's Choice: AGI dominated the precursors, and without the sentimental pull of Ridley Scott finally getting an Oscar (he's now in his 80's-there won't be many more opportunities to do this), his closest competition was likely George Miller (which is to say there wasn't much competition at all).

My Choice: An easy crown for Miller, who is the only one doing work that feels worthy of inclusion in such a list.  Follow him with Abrahamson, McCarthy, Gonzalez Inarritu, and finally McKay.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Are you with me on it being Miller or does AGI have his ardent admirers here?  At one point does the fascination with Adam McKay wane or is he destined to win this one eventually?  And how the hell did Ridley Scott not get nominated here?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2015: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Documentary Short, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Previously in 2015

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

OVP: Blade Runner (1982)

Film: Blade Runner (1982)
Stars: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Darryl Hannah, Edward James Olmos
Director: Ridley Scott
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Art Direction and Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Approaching a classic film is always a challenge.  Approaching a classic film that also doubles as a cult film, a picture so frequently referenced that it approaches you knowing nearly the entire film by the time you actually see it is something else entirely.  I actually dreaded in some ways finally encountering Blade Runner, a science fiction epic (arguably my favorite genre outside of detective noir, which this film also borrows from heavily), as I knew that I was either going to love it or find it lacking in so many ways, hoping that the film would give me its best but preparing for the worst.  My eventual opinion somehow landed in-between, a combination of both duly impressed but also wanting more after so much promise.

(Spoilers Ahead) For many of you the spoiler alert isn't necessary, but for the rest of you let me at least indulge for a second.  The film follows Deckard (Ford) in 2019 (the future is always disappointing when you compare it to what actually ends up happening isn't it...though if Trump gets elected maybe the apocalypse is in fact upon us).  Deckard is charged with "retiring" (killing) four different replicants (essentially advanced artificial intelligence creations) who have escaped and are now on Earth illegally, essentially hoping to have their lives extended.  Along the way, he falls in love with a replicant named Rachael (Young), who helps him retire one of the replicants that is trying to kill him.  Slowly-but-steadily the four replicants are killed by Deckard, who knows they only have a night or so to live without having some sort of technology that will extend their lives.  He ends with Roy Batty (Hauer), the leader of the robots, in a strange act actually save him, just to watch him die as his life expires.

The film combines a lot of elements of noir, and it's close enough to something that Stanley Kubrick would dream up that the film never lacks in terms of direction or suspense.  While it's clear that Hauer's Roy Batty will be the final remaining character, each of the different robots has their own personas and especially with Pris (Hannah) she's such a strong fighter that you half expect her to lay out Harrison Ford or at least run away from the contest.  The movie is spectacularly good at world-building-there's little confusion over the rules of this filmic world and everything feels authentic.  It's kind of staggering the film never had a sequel, and quite frankly a movie like this couldn't be made today without one on the docket (actually, a movie this original couldn't be made today, period, unless Christopher Nolan had stumbled across the Philip K. Dick novel and developed a penchant for it), but it gains so much by never answering some of the critical questions at the end of the picture.  The film exists unto itself, and with such distinctive characters and sets, it's easy to see why this became a cult movie classic.

My problem with the film is that the story, while complicated, never really gives us enough character to go with it.  Yes, the actors and sets are distinctive, but we never really get to know the robots enough to know what their motives are, and why they exist the way they do.  This wouldn't be a problem for the audience, except that Deckard is clearly assumed to be a robot himself, one who doesn't know it yet but is likely going to have a shut-down period in the near future.  The film is littered with hints of this, particularly the newest version of Ridley Scott's picture (this is a film with MANY different iterations).  By not exploring this a little bit more fully, we don't get to see the ways that Ford's Deckard ticks in comparison to those androids he's hunting down.  I'm fine with ambiguity in the ending (and man did Inception copy from that finale), but if you're going to leave a question that open-ended, you need to give us more from the characters (save perhaps Roy Batty) than just a truly awesome Halloween costume idea.

Those are my thoughts on this particular picture, which received two well-earned Oscar nominations (seriously-these were the exact categories this film deserved to be nominated in), but as this is a widely-celebrated cult classic I'd love to get inside of your head.  I plan on eventually seeing the film again, and while I engaged mostly at a surface-level, what a surface level to engage in-overall it's definitely a film that I'd recommend, even if I don't think I'll ever love it the way that other people did.