Oscar nominations tomorrow

So I've looked into my crystal ball and it tells me the following shall be nominated for Best Picture...

Slumdog Millionaire
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
and, controversially, Wall*E

Everyone else is saying The Dark Knight for that last slot. I have two problems with that. One: it's a comic book film, and however well received it was, comic book films don't get nominations. And two: it wasn't that good. I think a lone directing nom for Nolan is as likely as a best picture nom for the film, but of course I'm not exactly going to be surprised if the Bat does sneak in. I personally would like to see The Wrestler (almost certainly my film of 08 - review imminent) make it but alas it seems Mickey Rourke will be flying the flag on his own.

The other nom I am looking out for is Kristin Scott Thomas for Best Actress. Never did I think it would be possible for her to miss out but it seems that it might be. The favoured five seem to be...

Winslet, Streep, Hathaway, Leo and Jolie.

I cannot believe it, but KST may miss out yet again. A real shame.

All will be revealed at insane o-clock Pacific time in the States (around 1pm in the UK I think.)

The Baader-Meinhof Complex

Germany's entry to this years foreign film Oscar race is the ambitious retelling of the early years of the West German terrorist group the Red Army Faction. The RAF were responsible for at least 34 deaths and many more injuries during its existence, many of those coming in the group's early years as depicted in Uli Edel's film.

Screenwriting 101 will tell you to define your main character and to define his or her need - the desire of the character will drive the story forward. Think of the classic screenplays and you'll be able to work out quite easily who the protagonist is and what they want. Clarice Starling needs to find the senator's daughter, TE Lawrence wants to help the Arabs lead a revolt against the Ottoman empire, Rocky wants to be a heavyweight champion, LB Jeffries wants to discover whether a murder has been committed across the courtyard. Well for the life of me I couldn't work out either either who the main character in this was in the Baader-Meinhof Complex, nor what he, she or anyone in the film wanted.

Ostensibly the RAF want to establish themselves amongst the plethora of revolutionary and radical groups. They want themselves to be heard, for people to take notice, for American to pull out of Vietnam. The pledge to prevent what they see as the rise of fascism once again, to fight West Germany's capitalist establishment and to "annihilate, to destroy, to smash the system of imperialist domination, on the political, economic, and military planes." But what on earth motivates such a group to commit heinous acts? Vandalism, theft and murder are all within what the groups sees as acceptable acts, but the viewer never gets a sense of how they came to this conclusion. Perhaps there isn't an easy answer to this question, and perhaps it is not in the remit of a screenplay to explore such motivations, but after 2 hours 45 minutes you do feel shortchanged when such an unfocused, overloaded film leaves you knowing nothing more about the RAF than you did when you went in.

There are saving graces. The Baader-Meinhof gang, as they were known initially, come across as a rather morally bankrupt bunch of hypocritical, senseless extremists and not the courageous, activists that I feared they would. This is after all a gang of indiscriminate murdering, vandalising thugs, and not some misunderstood intelligent politically savvy left wing crowd. Hard to believe reports that a high percentage of Germany's youth sympathised with the gang, but apparently it is so. Fortunately Edel resists any temptation to glamorise the gang but despite this, there is still some concern that any film focusing on the now disbanded organisation would give them some unnecessary coverage and only serve to upset the many victims of the RAFs attacks. This controversy upon its release in its homeland did little to help ignite it at the box office, as might have been expected and in fact it flopped quite badly - a severe blow to Uli Edel and his team who reputedly made the most expensive German film in history. It seems likely then that it may also be the German film industry's most expensive bomb.

Why then has it been entered in the Oscar race by a country who must surely have had others films to choose from? Perhaps this may play better overseas where the controversy very clearly doesn't exist. Few people will be at all familiar with the RAF and fewer still with the key individuals within the organisation that are portrayed here. The film has technical merit, screenplay aside. Edel is more than competent with his direction, the acting is impressive and the production values are strong.

Yet if you, like me, find you learn nothing from a film that has sacrificed plot and narrative for character study you have to chalk this one up as a pretty sizable failure since those characters reveal very little about themselves in the entire duration. A very noble failure no doubt, and one that has some very large plus points, but a failure nonetheless.

C

Oscar Reaction

Little late with this but...

The Good:

Tilda Switon winning Best Supporting Actress. Good speech too.

Javier Bardem showing a lot of class whilst accepting Best Supporting Actor. I prefered Casey Affleck but I'm not complaining at all about Bardem's win at all since he was outstanding.

Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen 'filling in' for Halle Berry and Judi Dench. That bit was funnier than anything Jon Stewart managed, aside from the pretend snide 'so arrogant' remark about Glen Hansard's Best Song win.

Marion Cotillard showing how much she cared about her Best Actress win but not breaking down in hysterics a la Halle Berry.

The Bad:

Why invite The Rock aka Dwayne Johnson to present an Oscar? Rubbish.

Why invite some girl no-one's ever heard of to present an Oscar? Double rubbish.

Me correctly predicting an upset in Best Actress but picking the wrong upsetter. I went for Ellen Page but Marion Cotillard got it. I actually predicted she'd win just before it was read out but too late to count.

Jon Stewart as host. Not bad per se but just not in the league of Steve Martin who anyone with taste must recognise as easily the best host of recent years.

The Ugly:

The cinematographer Roger Deakins has been nominated 7 times in his career. He's yet to win. He was nominated twice on Sunday and still couldn't win. His The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford work was the best of the year. How on earth was he snubbed yet again? This was a complete travesty. When Robert Elswit's name was read out Deakins just nodded as if to say "thought so". The man's cursed.

Lust, Caution

Ang Lee specialises in films that explore love and intimacy. His best work explore these intangibles from all angles: the lack of affection between a middle aged, quite unhappily married couple in The Ice Storm; the repressed but deeply held intimacy between two men in Brokeback Mountain; the interwoven, requited and unrequited love in Sense and Sensability. All these films are superb examples of how to bring to life a relationship and convincingly portray it on screen. His latest effort is arguably his most convincing and most satisfying yet. It concerns the intensely intimate relationship between a government official and a resistance fighter and it can be described as nothing short of ground breaking.

This is Ang Lee's first film in his native tongue since 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and it is fascinating to see him work again with great Asian actors. One of these is Tony Leung, an actor who is all over my colleague's movie years ballots, and after seeing this it’s not hard to understand the appeal. I’ve seen Leung before, in Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love. That’s a highly regarded film and one that features a widely acclaimed performance. But I’ll be damned if he’s not so much better here. Starring opposite him is an actress with none of Leung’s years of experience, but one who betrays such youth with a performance that matches Leung in every way. Tei apparently saw off literally hundreds of other applicants for the role. It was one well worth fighting for and for Lee and his casting crew, such a meticulous auditioning process has paid off.

Wang Tei plays a student in Japanese occupied China, who's recruited by a group of idealistic, patriotic youths determined to resist the oppression thrust upon them. They begin their opposition through theatre but quickly become frustrated with the impotency of their efforts and soon gradate to more brutal methods. They hatch a plan to murder one of the key Japanese collaborators in the region (Leung) and plot for Tei to first befriend then seduce him.

Ang Lee has really taken a chance in this film, filming the most graphic love scenes ever seen in a movie intended for mainstream audiences. However these scenes are not only the most graphic they are also the most convincing. Perhaps there’s a correlation between the two, but it is not just the nudity that makes these scenes so effective. Lee handles the camera with absolute precision. Every movement, every shot so thoughtfully planned and note perfect in execution. The acting is a tour de force and this fascinatingly complex relationship is brought to life, and to a certain extent is told through their love making. It’s a relationship that evolves in unexpected ways throughout the course of the film and it is rare that we see character development as effective as this.

Leung and Tei are perfect. Leung plays a man who shows very little emotion for 90% of the time, and then an explosion of ferocity and passion for the rest. This stark contrast and the intensity of the emotion displayed, nearly all of which is reserved for the love scenes between himself and Tang Wei, is completely riveting. Wei begins the film as a naïve student who can barely overcome her shyness enough to appear on stage, and ends the film as a key figure within the resistance able to deceive one of the most paranoid and cautious men in China. Her transformation is utterly compeelling; she’s superb.

Lust, Caution was disqualified as Taiwan’s entry for foreign language film at the Oscars due to having to large a percentage of cast and crew coming in from outside Taiwain. It’s a real shame as it will almost certainly not find itself shortlisted in any of the other categories* and this is a film that deserves more attention. Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography deserves notice, although it has to be said there’s an embarrassment of riches in that particular category this year so one cannot complain too much if he is overlooked. The score by Alexandre Desplat is certainly award-worth as well, but the greatest behind the camera achievement is undoubtedly that of Lee’s. This may very well be the best directed film of the year and the greatest directorial achievement in his illustrious career.

A-

*and indeed it wasn't. Nominees were announced earlier today - I wrote this review last weekend.

Oscar Reaction

Nominees announced today - head over to Oscar.com for the complete list. Here's my reaction to the best and worst...

The great:

6 nominations in the major categories for Michael Clayton: film, director, actor, supporting actor and actress, screenplay. That's the best of any film. Totally deserved.

Viggo Mortensen for Eastern Promises

Casey Affleck for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Roger Deakins’ cinematograpy for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Marco Beltrami’s brilliant score in 3:10 to Yuma.

The not:

No love for The Lookout (totally expected though) including no love for the best score in recent history by James Newton Howard.

No love for Lust, Caution – was disqualified for foreign film but still deserved notice especially for Tang Wei who would have slotted in nicely instead of Cate Blanchett who’s been nominated for that character before and the film was, by all accounts, awful. Total non-surprise that Ang Lee’s film was shut out but I’ll moan anyway.

Zero love for the excellent Zodiac. Again, no surprise but that doesn’t make it right!

No Gordon Pinsent in Away from Her, despite him delivering the best performance in the film. Julie Christie’s nomination was deserved though and it was good to see Sarah Polley recognised for an excellent debut (she was nominated for adapted screenplay).