Oscar Blog

I know, I have never done one of these before, and if I was going to, shouldn't I be doing it two months from now?

As it is, I have seen more of the nominees than usual, and so that had me a little more interested--not interested enough to watch them, mind you--and seeing some things that others have written, I thought I would weigh in myself.

Actually, I did have a Facebook post earlier that even though I felt like George Clooney had better odds for Best Actor than Brad Pitt, I kind of wanted Brad to win after hearing about their bet. Sure, it would only be for one night, but that's a lot of kids. Anyway, I thought it was most likely that Jean Dujardin would win, and that's what happened, and I have to consider it fair. He had to convey everything with facial expression and body language, and he managed beautifully. And he can dance!

I feel pretty good about The Artist winning Best Picture as well. We loved Midnight in Paris and The Descendents as well, but of those three, I would pick the The Artist. In the case of Midnight in Paris, it just feels a lot lighter, and that lightness is probably deceptive, and also the tendency of more serious films to win may not be fair, but that's just how it feels.

One thing that was great about Midnight in Paris was how tight it was. With the last Woody Allen film I had seen before, Scoop, it was clever and well-written and there were good scenes and acting, but it felt a little loose, and The Descendents had the same issue. It didn't make it a bad movie, and that it did a certain amount of wandering may be appropriate, but as far as cohesion goes, The Artist nailed it.

Because of my love for the other two, I am thrilled with their wins for Original and Adapted Screenplay. Unfortunately, I have not seen Moneyball yet, or read the book, and I suspect that turning a book about using statistics in team management into an enjoyable movie is a pretty slick trick, and maybe they deserved it more, but I am happy for The Descendents.

On the topic of cohesion and tightness, it's time to turn to Hugo. I was disappointed with Hugo. It's not that it was a bad movie. It was a good movie. The reviews tended to make it sound like it was a great movie, and I didn't find that, and I believe it was because of the way it rambled.

Let me be clear that I am totally down with three of the wins that it did get: Art Directions, Cinematography, and Visual Effects. It also won Sound Editing and Sound Mixing, and I don't remember anything special about the sound, but it seems like it may not have been the strongest field anyway. Visually, though, that movie was beautiful. From the blue color palette, the tracking through the secret recesses of the train station, and the opening shots where it looked like a pop-up storybook coming to life, that movie was gorgeous.

However, there is editing to make things visually look good, and there is editing to tell the story well. Hugo went beyond could have been tighter into just sprawling. The dream sequences were completely unnecessary, the scene where Isabelle falls in the crowd really made no sense in terms of how it happened and how it was resolved, and a lot of the chasing was unnecessary. Now, the shots were interesting, and I assume that's why they were included, and there are all these visual connections, where the dream of the train crash corresponds to the early film of the train scaring the viewers, and the climax where Hugo is on the tracks, and when he has to hide on the outside of the clock, it references the film seen earlier. I get all that, but the end result is that instead of getting lost in the film, the film kept losing me.

Add to that the enormous plug for film preservation, and the whole thing felt remarkably self-indulgent. In thinking that, I have to consider that maybe film-making in general is just remarkably self-indulgent, because to decide that some vision of yours is worth all the time and effort and manpower that goes into making even the simplest movie could be kind of egotistical, but then it can be so transcendent sometimes. Maybe the point is that given everything that goes into it, you owe it to the crew and audience to try not to let your ego cloud your perspective. Any good writer has had to cut things that they liked for the greater good of a piece, so maybe that needs to be true with directors and producers too.

I don't think I have strong feelings about anything else. I was supposed to see Pina Saturday, and had to postpone, so if it goes as I hope, I may come away feeling that it was robbed of Best Documentary, but without seeing the others, how would I know?