And The Oscar Goes To...
(If Cinespective Had The Final Say)
Out of the the exisiting nominees for 2016's Academy Awards, here are the choices for the main awards I would make. Of course, if I had my way, instead of a Foreign Language Film section, there'd be a Hollywood Film Section with 5 nominees. Get it? Because Hollywood sucks compared to most foreign cinema? Anyways, carrying on... Some of these choices are realistic, some are not. It's just, like, my opinion man.
Best Picture
The Revenant
The Revenant is the clear winner for me. Out of all the nominated films, it is the most daring, most brilliantly executed and most importantly: it's the one that contributes most to the art of cinema. In my eyes, an Academy Award should be awarded with foresight to the film that is the worthiest addition to the cannon of cinematic history.
Iñárritu & Co. had an idea, a vision and they went with it, all caution thrown to the wind. It paid off in the form of a film which addresses topics like race, violence, man and nature in a poetic and spiritual way.despite the long runtime, the film flies by and engrosses the viewer in the lives of these very different people.
Actor In A Leading Role
Michael Fassbender
Of course, many would argue that Leonardo DiCaprio deserves the award, but a difficult shoot plus grimacing and screaming and foaming at the mouth does not necessarily equate to "good acting". What Michael Fassbender did in Steve Jobs was pure acting, through and through.
It's a crime Michael Fassbender wasn't nominated for his performance in Macbeth, which was stunning. Fassbender keeps on proving that he is one of the best English-language male actors in the world. His skill does not only come out in friendly, Hollywood productions, but in films like Shame, Frank and Slow West. In Steve Jobs, he embodies the spirit of a cruel genius, becoming him in the eyes of the audience despite little to no physical resemblance. It's about time for Fassbender to get his Academy Award.
Actress In A Leading Role
Brie Larson
Brie Larson has had a very varied career up until this point, concerning the quality of the films she has been in. Despite this, she has always shown great character and individuality in the crowded mess that is the film industry.
It was her performance in the wonderful little indie film Short Term 12 that it seemed something clicked - this is what she's supposed to be doing. Films with emotional heft, characters with baggage. In Room, she is singlehandedly the driving force behind the film. It is important to recognise and encourage young talent, and so, Brie Larson comes out on top.
Actor In A Supporting role
Tom Hardy
This is by far the easiest decision out of all the categories. Mark Ruffalo comes second for his performance in Spotlight, but it's Tom Hardy's complete and utter transformation in The Revenant that takes the cake. Makeup and hair have a lot to do with this of course, yet his frontier accent is effortless and his eyes have a mad glint hitherto unseen in his past performances (yes, even in Bronson). Hardy demonstrates a respect for his character, playing the most interesting man in the film with great nuance and dedication to the unethical if not sound thinking of his character.
Actress In a Supporting Role
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Another nigh impossible choice to make. Rooney Mara comes close, with Alicia Vikander even closer, especially considering her excellent in Ex Machina the same year. However, Jennifer Jason Leigh with her first Oscar nomination during a career spanning decades should take home the award for her madcap performance in The Hateful Eight, pulling all the male characters into a maelstrom of violence around her. She makes for an entrancing character onscreen, and despite the film nearly three hour long runtime, every moment she is onscreen one cannot help but pay attention.
Directing
The Revenant
Despite how much I hated Birdman, I could not deny that Alejandro G. Iñárritu is a great director. In difficult and time-sensitive shooting conditions, it requires a strong head and trusted leader to pull a film together with such a singular vision. To squeeze out the performances that he did, Iñárritu demonstrates that he is the one guy an actor would like to have behind the camera.
Cinematography
Sicario
Though at first glance, this award looks like a tough call, it really isn't. Sure, The Revenant had great "Lubezki doing Lubezki" cinematography, but after Bridman and Gravity, he better start learning new tricks or his work will look old real fast. I would love to say Carol or The Hateful Eight deserve it, since they're repping celluloid, which I love, but... There's really only one choice.
Roger. Deakins.
13th time lucky? Seriously - the greatest and most consistent cinematographer alive still hasn't won an Oscar? Well, hopefully this will change with Sicario, as his mastery of light is on full display here, shooting unbeliveable scenes with wide-lenses and an insanely small amount of natural light to create a cohesive style and tone for a great film.
No contest.
Animated Feature Film
Anomalisa
Refer back to the rave review this film got from Cinespective for a full explanation why this film deserves the award. For those with shorter attention spans, Anomalisa beats the excellent Shaun The Sheep and Inside Out because it is more... remarkable, unexpected, beautiful, brutal and poetic. The fact that it's animated is besides the point, it's what the film is about and how it's expressed that marks it as a winner.
Film Editing
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
This one seems to be a tight contest, but in reality is a no-brainer. Sure, The Big Short is basically what it is because of it's editing. Sure, Mad Max: Fury Road had phenomenal editing for elaborate action sequences and a simple storyline. The thing is, The Force Awakens was a big film as soon as it was announced, and the lead-up to the film was almost part of the whole cinematic experience. That's from the audience's perspective - from the editor's perspective, they were facing their most terrifying task: editing together a film that will establish a new set of characters and locations as well as not disappointing die-hard fans that may or may not kill them if they fail.
And boy, did they not fail. The Force Awakens is a tightly edited film and flies by despite it's long runtime. That's because of excellent pacing constructed in the cutting room, courtesy of Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey.
Music (Original Score)
Sicario
Wait, what. The Revenant was basically nominated for everything but not for Original Score? Ryuichi Sakamoto would have instantly won this award for his remarkable and nuanced construction of a musical soundscape that reflects the themes and tone of the story.
Instead, the Oscar goes to Sicario. Why not John Williams for his beautiful reworkings of his previous themes? Why not legendary Ennio Morricone? Simply because their original scores contain elements of previous scores they have composed, and so therefore are not entirely "original". Instead, it goes to the underrated minimal Jóhann Jóhannsson who constructed a soundtrack that only made a masterfully tense film even tenser.
Writing (Original Screenplay)
Ex Machina
If Shakespeare and Hitchcock had a baby and it grew to be into cerebral science fiction, it very well could have written this script. Instead, Alex Garland wrote it. Ex Machina is a film which some people may mistake it's simplicity as a weakness, but, when has simplicity ever been a weakness?
Alex Garland's screenplay consists of three sharply defined acts, and three sharply defined characters, demonstrating that character and plot are not separate things but two sides of the same coin. Each character follows their own agenda, and the audience is left to figure out what it is as things begin to spiral out of control. This is a tightly written script that could have easily been executed no matter what the budget, or director or even actors.
(Of course, Inside Out comes extremely close to second.)
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
The Martian
Andy Weir's original book surprised the world when it became such a hit, a bestseller - until the world then read it. The hard scifi elements of the book did not distract from an engaging and tense battle of survival between man and planet. When it was (inevitably) announced tht the book was going to be adapted into a film, everyone who read the book had little to no faith in the adaptation.
However, with a Best Picture nomination, it worked out for the better. Drew Goddard did a phenomenal job of adapting an 'unadaptable' book into a tight and smooth script, leaving little, if anything at all, in translation.
Costume Design
The Revenant
This is a tough one. Carol narrowly misses out on this category. The costume design in that film is gorgeous, and more than mise-en-scene - it represents the characters and their emotions themselves. The Danish Girl likewise. For crying out loud, Mad Max: Fury Road misses out in this category.
However, the creative minds behind The Revenant did not skimp nor underestimate the power of great wardrobe on a film such as this. It would be easy to dismiss effort in this department as it''s chiefly about a guy in rags rolling around in the snow. However, the attention to detail and authenticity are crucial to the audience's suspension of disbelief. The detail put into the Native American, French and English wardrobes respectively never underplayed the realism that the film set out to achieve.
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