Cont’d from PART I
2010
Winner: The King’s Speech
Nominees: 127 Hours, Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter’s Bone
Thoughts: Is The King’s Speech handsomely-made and well-acted? Yes. But did it have any memorable dialogue that The Social Network had? Did it make you gasp at its visual feats like in Inception? Did it leave you still talking about it almost eight years after it won? If you can answer all three in the affirmative, then The King’s Speech deserved to win. If not, then you know this was one of those (many) times where the Academy was on the wrong side of history.
Should Have Won: The Social Network. It deserved to win for that opening scene alone.
2011
Winner: The Artist
Nominees: The Descendants, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, War Horse
Thoughts: This presumably only happened because Hollywood still tolerated Harvey Weinstein who campaigned hard to win. The Artist is a loving tribute to silent films and all, but since winning, it seems to have faded from memory. Like most silent films. How ironic.
Should Have Won: Hugo or The Tree of Life
2012
Winner: Argo
Nominees: Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty
Thoughts: At the time, I was all for Argo winning. But now that I look back, maybe it’s because I thought Ben Affleck deserved it for missing out on a Best Director nomination to cap off a spectacular career comeback, as a director no less. Again, it’s a well-made film but with time, somehow it has disappeared quietly into the night.
Should Have Won: Lincoln. It’s Spielberg’s most mature film since Schindler’s List, and the dialogue in Tony Kushner’s script is pure poetry.
2013
Winner: 12 Years A Slave
Nominees: American Hustler, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, The Wolf of Wall Street
Thoughts: You could almost hear Hollywood congratulating itself and patting themselves on the back for their ‘progressiveness’ by voting 12 Years A Slave as the Best Picture. This isn’t to take away from the excellent work done by the cast and crew, but it’s very Hollywood-esque that in this true tale of Solomon Northup, a free man kidnapped from the North and sold into slavery in the South, there is a ‘good white man’ character in the form of Brad Pitt. And while Steve McQueen’s absolutely harrowing portrayal makes the film uncomfortable viewing and Michael Fassbender is vile as the plantation owner, there’s an argument to be made that the real villains are the white people who knew that slavery was wrong, yet continued to make use of it. I’m looking at you, Benedict Cumberbatch’s white character.
Should Have Won: Despite my qualms, I’d still give it to 12 Years A Slave, although Gravity was more entertaining.
2014
Winner: Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Nominees: American Sniper, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, Whiplash
Thoughts: I liked Birdman more for its parts than the whole (the movie’s one-take cinematography and its spectacular performances by Emma Stone, Edward Norton and especially Michael Keaton in a role that single-handedly resurrected his career). But I still feel Boyhood was more deserving, though that might be because I’m a major fan of Richard Linklater. That or The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Should Have Won: The Grand Budapest Hotel or Boyhood
2015
Winner: Spotlight
Nominees: The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room
Thoughts: Where other contenders were better crafted (Mad Max: Fury Road and its 80-year-old director putting young action directors to shame), more originally executed (The Big Short making finance actually interesting!) or bolder (The Revenant), Spotlight might seem like one of those Oscar safe bets. Yet the subject, I feel, was anything but. It was about the power of journalism done right to bring attention to a topic that had been kept hidden for too long while the perpetrators and enablers were dragged out into the light. Although the film is about the Catholic Church covering up scandals of priests abusing boys, and while it definitely evokes All The President’s Men, I also see it as a premonition of Harvey Weinstein’s downfall by the stalwart reporting by The New York Times and the New Yorker, and the conversations it prompted in Hollywood when the dirty secrets of other popular Hollywood figures were brought out. With that in mind, Spotlight was an important- even urgent- win.
Should Have Won: If not for the subject matter, I’d have picked with Mad Max: Fury Road.
2016
Winner: Moonlight
Nominees: Arrival, Fences, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, La La Land, Lion, Manchester by the Sea
Thoughts: Where were you when the wrong winner for Best Picture was announced? Where were you when Moonlight’s win signalled a harbinger of change to white-old-male Hollywood? La La Land was the perennial favourite to win as a celebration of Hollywood and chasing your dreams. But Moonlight’s signalled that the entertainment industry was in for a slow shake-up.
More importantly, though, Moonlight was a beautiful and touching film about identity and love. Tenderly made and damn-near poetic in its imagery, the win for Best Picture sent a clear message: films that were daring in its material could now actually stand a chance at nabbing the prize!
Should Have Won: Moonlight. No question about it.
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And what about the 90th Academy Awards? It’s really hard to say because there are so many deserving nominees, any one of them could win. But if I had to predict:
2017
Nominees: Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
Thoughts: Despite wins at the Producers Guild, Writers Guild, Directors Guild, and Screen Actors Guild, everything is still up in the air. It’s quite likely that the fight will boil down to The Shape of Water, Get Out and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; with a potential dark horse candidate in Phantom Thread (after all, everybody was surprised that the film got so many top accolades since they feared that it might have slipped the radar). The Shape of Water won the Producers Guild Award; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri won the Screen Actors Guild Award and the BAFTA award for Best Picture; while Get Out is still dominating the conversation. Get Out might win Best Picture if Guillermo Del Toro wins Best Director- for four out of the last seven years, the ceremony has split the Best Director and Best Picture awards between different films. Don’t be surprised if the trend continues this year, too.
Should Win: I’ll be happy if any of them win, really. But if I had to pick, it’d be between Get Out and The Shape of Water.
The Snarky Quill 