In my typical OCD-infused way, I've made some ground rules. Top priority are the movies nominated for Best Picture. Then the four acting categories, then the directing and writing categories. If I can squeeze in a couple documentaries and animated films, then more power to me. Movies I won't see are anything involving a subtitle. I know, that makes me a snooty American, but I have a hard time understanding what's going on because I'm so obsessed with making sure I don't miss any words. So, sorry, Amour.
That leaves me with this list, in this order of importance and with those I've already seen crossed out:
Les Miserables
Zero Dark Thirty
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
The Master
Flight
The Impossible
The Sessions
Frankenweenie
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
Brave
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugarman
So. I have some work to do. I did cross two off in the span of about six hours when we watched Argo and Beasts of the Southern Wild back to back on Saturday, and I'm glad we did.
Argo
I wanted to see Argo when it was originally in theaters, but it was a rough time of year with various work tasks and holidays and whatnot. Thankfully, I found a little second-run theater in the next town. Before the movie even started, I knew it would be up my alley. First of all, Ben Affleck directed. After Gone Baby Gone and The Town, I will officially see anything Ben Affleck directs and I will LIKE it an excessive amount. Secondly, it has Bryan Cranston and John Goodman. So, duh. And third, it had that perfect combination of seriousness and humor. But let's backtrack.
For those who have been living under a rock for several months or decades, Argo takes place in late 1979/early 1980. When irate Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy and took everyone they found hostage, they missed six people who snuck out a back door and found refuge in the Canadian embassy, hidden there with the help of the Canadian ambassador and his wife. The trick was getting them out so that the Iranians wouldn't notice.
Ben Affleck plays Tony Mendez, a CIA operative tasked with getting these innocents home safe. With the help of a Hollywood makeup artist (Goodman) and producer (Alan Arkin), Mendez concocts a plan: he and the six hostages are a team of Canadian filmmakers scouting Iran for movie locations. They create the whole movie: they have a script, movie posters, planboards, and publicity, thanks to a public reading. The movie is as schlocky as it comes, about space aliens etc. And it's just crazy enough to work.
The movie is up for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay and Arkin for Best Supporting Actor, which is nice but I think it deserved more. Affleck as Best Director for one; and while Arkin was entertaining as the helpful movie producer, I thought Cranston as the CIA agent organizing the operation from the home base was even better. I feel vindicated about the Affleck thing, since he did wind up winning the Golden Globe last nice and the movie won Best Picture (take that, Lincoln!).
I have to say, I can see why. Lincoln was a masterpiece, but it kind of reeked of the type of movie where everyone says "Oscar buzz!" even before it's finished filming. A legendary director (Steven Spielberg), a heavy-duty lead actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), a nonfiction story dealing with the best President in U.S. history. Instant gold! But Argo was just as impressive. It also was a nonfiction story dealing with American heroes; it had some great acting and great directing; and I felt like the story was more well-rounded and told in a more pleasing way. Don't get me wrong; Lincoln was great. But I can see why the Golden Globes folks favored Argo.
Beasts of the Southern Wild
While Argo was a movie-theater-blockbuster, Beasts was a tiny independent film that relied more on nuance and storytelling strategies than excitement and plot. It tells the story of Hushpuppy, a little girl living in a tiny neighborhood named the Bathtub off the coast of Louisiana with her mentally unstable father. The people in her neighborhood are tight-knit and view the people who live on the other side of the levees in Louisiana as the outsiders. They're also extremely poor, surviving off the land for food and medicine. Their views on the world are equal parts personal experience and mythology, and Hushpuppy's teacher tells her about creatures that live in the icecaps, creating a fantasy that Hushpuppy repeatedly returns to.
Hushpuppy's story centers around two catastrophic events: the arrival of Hurricane Katrina, which drowns the Bathtub and forces everyone to come together, and the deteriorating health of her father. Coming to grips with both is how Hushpuppy starts to grow up.
This was an independent movie if I ever saw one, full of advanced storytelling techniques and symbolism. As the story progresses, the mythical creatures come more and more out of the icecaps before Hushpuppy finally faces them as she faces her own future. Her relationship with her father is such a complicated one; he obviously loves her, but is only capable of doing that in strange ways, like having her live in her own "house," helping her survive the impending storm by sitting in a rowboat wearing inflatable arm floats, and encouraging her to embrace her beast inside by breaking into crabs with her bare hands and beating him at arm wrestling. He tries to ease her mind about the storm by taking a shotgun and shooting up at the clouds. Not exactly Parent of the Year material, but it's sweet and big-hearted in kind of a twisted way.
Beasts is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Benh Zeitlin), and Best Adapted Screenplay, and tiny Quvenzhane Wallis for Best Actress. I don't know if it will be able to topple giants like Lincoln, Les Miserables, Silver Linings Playbook or Argo, and it almost doesn't seem fair. It's like if boxing did away with weightclasses and the best flyweight suddenly had to go up against the best heavyweight. They're not even the same species. But if the sign of a good movie is making me feel like I should have majored in film studies at NYU, then Beasts certainly delivered.
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