Stephen didn't have to persuade me to play Lincoln but I had to persuade him that perhaps if I was going do it that Lincoln shouldn't be a musical.

Oscar Winners 2013

I didn’t watch the Oscars ceremony. By all accounts I was lucky, as it seems Seth McFarlane went down like a bag of cold sick (although, "I would argue that the actor who really got inside Lincoln's head was John Wilkes Booth" is quite a good line). Bring back Letterman.

By my reckoning I go 11 picks right out of 24. Pretty piss-poor, though I make no apologies for my randomness and lack of “professional” insight.

Argo seemed to gather up an unstoppable momentum over the last six weeks or so and the Affleck director nomination snub only appeared to spur its underdog status on. My bet on Lincoln was for the Hollywood love of prestige and importance, but I probably underestimated the extent to which many found it slightly dull. That, and Spielberg fatigue. And, Hollywood loves nothing more than films that validate Hollywood (Argo makes them heroes!)

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening was Christoph Waltz’s Best Supporting Actor victory for Django Unchained. I don’t think many thought a return visit to a showy, charismatic supporting part in a Tarantino film would yield further dividends and the actor seemed slightly taken aback too.

Best Picture

Winner: Argo

I called Lincoln. Clooney gets yet another Oscar in yet another category.

Best Director

Winner: Ang Lee

My guess for Spielberg proved significantly out (Lincoln went home with 2, not the 5 I suggested). Nikki Finke would have us believe the Academy hates Steven, although she’s never short of hyperbole. I’ll readily admit to not expecting Lee, mainly because he’s already bagged a statue. Although, looking at the other contenders, who’d have been next in line if Spielberg was ruled out. The other three were definitely outsiders.

Best Actor

Winner: Daniel Day-Lewis

As expected by all and sundry.

Best Actress

Winner: Jennifer Lawrence

Again, as expected. There was some talk of Emmanuelle Riva but giving it to someone because they are old is a fickle as the same decision because they are young. It’s the Jessica Tandy factor.

Best Supporting Actor

Winner: Christoph Waltz

I’d settled on De Niro, although I didn’t think he really deserved it. This category desperately needs a few nominees who aren’t previous winders next time round.

Best Supporting Actress

Winner: Anne Hathaway

Curiously, I’d blanked that I picked Field from this field. I think it was Hathaway saturation (which, in respect of Lincoln, is considered one of the reasons for Argo’s resurgence).

Best Original Screenplay

Winner: Django Unchained

This, I didn’t expect. I went for Amour; I don’t think Flight and Moonrise Kingdom ever seriously had a shot and I ruled out Django for the same reason as Zero Dark Thirty; controversy. I guess Tarantino shut my butt down there.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Winner: Argo

I had it as the runner-up to Lincoln; it’s been accused of the same fast and loose treatment of history as ZD30 but has the benefit of obscurity and comedy.

Best Editing

Winner: Argo

My sole ZD30 pick was this one; while I did have Argo in an editing category, it was for Sound Editing.

Best Cinematography

Winner: Life of Pi

No contention here, and my pick (although I prefer the work on Skyfall).

Best Art Direction

Winner: Lincoln

Wouldn’t you know it? Of all the areas I picked Lincoln, this wasn’t one.

Best Costume Design

Winner: Anna Karenina

A fizzling adaptation as this was, the costumes were very natty (but, then, so was the Art Direction).

Best Make-up

Winner: Les Miserables

Not a lot of debate necessary for this one.

Best Visual Effects

Winner: Life of Pi

Nor this. There’s added resonance to this win, with the issues surrounding Rhythm & Hues problems.

Best Sound

Winner: Les Miserables

Didn’t see that coming. I went for Argo.

Best Sound Editing

Winner: Skyfall & Zero Dark Thirty

TWO winner and I couldn’t get either right!!

Best Original Score

Winner: Life of Pi

I found this score derivative, but it repearted its Globes success. Shame Skyfall didn’t get recognition.

Best Original Song

Winner: Skyfall

It didn’t crumb-o at the last hurdle.

Best Animated Feature

Winner: Brave

I went for the safe choice and it proved correct; Wreck-It-Ralph would have been a bit too hip for the Academy.

Best Foreign Language Picture

Winner: Amour

A shoe-in.

Best Documentary Feature

Winner: Searching for Sugar Man

It did seem most likely; popular and uncontroversial.

Best Documentary Short

Winner: Inocente

I hadn’t a clue.

Best Animated Short

Winner: Paperman

The one that had Disney marketing behind it won. Surprise.

Best Live Action Short

Winner: Curfew

Who knew?

Lincoln – 2 (I predicted 5)

Silver Linings Playbook – 1 (predicted 2)

Life of Pi – 4 (predicted 2)

Amour – 1 (precited 2)

Argo -3 (predicted 2)

Anna Karenina – 1 (predicted 2)

Skyfall – 2 (predicted 2)

Zero Dark Thirty – 1 (predicted 1)

Les Miserables – 3 (predicted 1)

Django Unchained – 2 (predicted 0)

Comments

He’s probably paranoid, high-strung, doesn’t like daylight. You know, has a lot of crumbs in his beard, if he has a beard.

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) (SPOILERS) I’d like to report I had a blast with Godzilla vs. Kong . It’s lighter on its oversized, city-stomping feet than its slog of a MonsterVerse predecessor, Godzilla: King of the Monsters , and there are flashes of visual inspiration along with several engaging core ideas (which, to be fair, the series had already laid the seeds for). But this sequel still stumbles in its chief task: assembling an engaging, lively story that successfully integrates both tiny humans and towering titans.

Roswell was a smokescreen, we've had a half a dozen better salvage operations.

The X-Files 1.24: The Erlenmeyer Flask The Erlenmeyer Flask makes for a fast-paced, tense and eventful ride, but does it make any sense? That less than mattered at the time, but revisiting the mythology arc (for probably the fourth or fifth time) reveals increasingly tenuous internal coherence as the various conspiracy elements begin to pile up and the situations become ever-more convoluted. This will become the Chris Carter’s signature: don’t examine the details too closely, go with the flow. Trust Chris implicitly.

It's Dark Age, by Jupiter!

The Dig (2021) (SPOILERS) An account of the greatest archaeological find Britain would know until Professor Horner opened the barrow at Devil’s End. And should you scoff at such “ fiction ”, that’s nothing on this adaptation of John Preston’s 2007 novel concerning the Sutton Hoo excavations of the late 1930s. The Dig , as is the onus of any compelling fictional account, takes liberties with the source material, but the erring from the straight and narrow in this case is less an issue than the shift in focus from characters and elements successfully established during the first hour.

UFO IN MOSSINGHAM?

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2020) (SPOILERS) One might reasonably suggest the recourse of the ailing or desperate franchise is to resort, seemingly out of nowhere, to space aliens. Even Police Academy didn’t go that far (to Moscow, yes, but not to space). Perhaps animators think kids have no skills of discernment and will swallow any old sugar-coated crap. Perhaps they don’t, and they will. Ice Age had been enjoying absurd success until Collision Course sent Scrat spinning into the cosmos and grosses tumbled. Shaun the Sheep has been around for a quarter of a century, but this is only his second movie outing and already he’s pulling an E.T. on us. Of course, this may all be part of the grand scheme, and Nick Park is simply doing his bit to familiarise the tots in time for Project Blue Beam.

You stink, my friend.

Mulan (2020) (SPOILERS) Let that be a lesson to Disney. It’s a fool’s errand to try and beat the Chinese at their own game, no matter how painstakingly respectful – or rather, pandering – you are. Indeed, Mulan ’s abysmal $40m box office take in the country – where it did get a proper release, so no plandemic excuses can be cited – feels like a direct rebuke; don’t try and tell us how to suck eggs. There’s an additional explanation too, of course. That Mulan sucks.

By heaven, I’d thrash the life out of you… if I didn’t have to read the Nine O’Clock News.

The Green Man (1956) (SPOILERS) The Green movie from Launder and Gilliat starring Alastair Sim that isn’t Green for Danger. Which is to say, The Green Man can’t quite scale the heady heights of that decade-earlier murder mystery triumph, but neither is it any slouch. Sim is the antagonist this time – albeit a very affable, Sim-ish one – and his sometime protégée, a young George Cole, the hero. If the plot is entirely absurd, Robert Day’s movie wastes no time probing such insufficiencies, ensuring it is very funny, lively and beautifully performed.

Suspicions of destiny. We all have them. A deep, wordless knowledge that our time has come.

Damien: Omen II (1978) (SPOILERS) There’s an undercurrent of unfulfilled potential with the Omen series, an opportunity to explore the machinations of the Antichrist and his minions largely ignored in favour of Final Destination deaths every twenty minutes or so. Of the exploration there is, however, the better part is found in Damien: Omen II , where we’re privy to the parallel efforts of a twelve or thirteen-year-old Damien at military school and those of Thorn Industries. The natural home of the diabolical is, after all, big business. Consequently, while this sequel is much less slick than the original, it is also more engaging dramatically.

Well, I’ll be damned. It’s the gentleman guppy.

Waterworld (1995) (SPOILERS) The production and budgetary woes of “ Kevin’s Gate ” will forever overshadow the movie’s content (and while it may have been the most expensive movie ever to that point – adjusted for inflation, it seems only Cleopatra came close – it has since turned a profit). However, should you somehow manage to avoid the distraction of those legendary problems, the real qualitative concerns are sure to come sailing over the cognitive horizon eventually; Waterworld is just so damned derivative. It’s a seafaring Mad Max. Peter Rader, who first came up with the idea in 1986, admitted as much. David Twohy, who later came aboard, also cited Mad Max 2 ; that kind of rip-off aspect – Jaws birthing Piranha – makes it unsurprising Waterworld was once under consideration by Roger Corman (he couldn’t cost it cheaply enough). Ultimately, there’s never a sufficient sense the movie has managed to become its own thing. Which is a bummer, because it’s frequently quite good fun.

A subterranean Loch Ness Monster?

Doctor Who The Silurians No, I’m not going to refer to The Silurians as Doctor Who and the Silurians . I’m going to refer to it as Doctor Who and the Eocenes . The Silurians plays a blinder. Because both this and Inferno know the secret of an extended – some might say overlong – story is to keep the plot moving, they barely drag at all and are consequently much fleeter of foot than many a four parter. Unlike Malcolm Hulke’s sequel The Sea Devils , The Silurians has more than enough plot and deals it out judiciously (the plague, when it comes, kicks the story up a gear at the precarious burn-out stage of a typical four-plus parter). What’s most notable, though, is how engaging those first four episodes are, building the story slowly but absorbingly and with persuasive confidence.

Farewell, dear shithead, farewell.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) (SPOILERS) I saw Highlander II: The Quickening at the cinema. Yes, I actually paid money to see one of the worst mainstream sequels ever on the big screen. I didn’t bother investigating the Director’s Cut until now, since the movie struck me as entirely unsalvageable. I was sufficiently disenchanted with all things Highlander that I skipped the TV series and slipshod sequels, eventually catching Christopher Lambert’s last appearance as Connor MacLeod in Highlander: End Game by accident rather than design. But Highlander II ’s on YouTube , and the quality is decent, so maybe the Director’s Cut improve matters and is worth a reappraisal? Not really. It’s still a fundamentally, mystifyingly botched retcon enabling the further adventures of MacLeod, just not quite as transparently shredded in the editing room.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog