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

No matter how innocent you are, or how hard you try, they’ll find you guilty.

The Wrong Man (1956) (SPOILERS) I hate to say it, but old Truffaut called it right on this one. More often than not showing obeisance to the might of Hitchcock during his career-spanning interview, the French critic turned director was surprisingly blunt when it came to The Wrong Man . He told Hitch “ your style, which has found its perfection in the fiction area, happens to be in total conflict with the aesthetics of the documentary and that contradiction is apparent throughout the picture ”. There’s also another, connected issue with this, one Hitch acknowledged: too much fidelity to the true story upon which the film is based.

He’s so persistent! He always gets his man.

Speed (1994) (SPOILERS) It must have been a couple of decades since I last viewed Speed all the way through, so it’s pleasing to confirm that it holds up. Sure, Jan de Bont’s debut as a director can’t compete with the work of John McTiernan, for whom he acted as cinematographer and who recommended de Bont when he passed on the picture, but he nevertheless does a more than competent work. Which makes his later turkeys all the more tragic. And Keanu and Sandra Bullock display the kind of effortless chemistry you can’t put a price tag on. And then there’s Dennis Hopper, having a great old sober-but-still-looning time.

He is a brigand and a lout. Pay him no serious mention.

The Wind and the Lion (1975) (SPOILERS) John Milius called his second feature a boy’s-own adventure, on the basis of the not-so-terrified responses of one of those kidnapped by Sean Connery’s Arab Raisuli. Really, he could have been referring to himself, in all his cigar-chomping, gun-toting reactionary glory, dreaming of the days of real heroes. The Wind and the Lion rather had its thunder stolen by Jaws on release, and it’s easy to see why. As polished as the picture is, and simultaneously broad-stroke and self-aware in its politics, it’s very definitely a throwback to the pictures of yesteryear. Only without the finger-on-the-pulse contemporaneity of execution that would make Spielberg and Lucas’ genre dives so memorable in a few short years’ time.

Another case of the screaming oopizootics.

Doctor Who Season 14 – Worst to Best The best Doctor Who season? In terms of general recognition and unadulterated celebration, there’s certainly a strong case to be made for Fourteen. The zenith of Robert Holmes and Philip Hinchcliffe’s plans for the series finds it relinquishing the cosy rapport of the Doctor and Sarah in favour of the less-trodden terrain of a solo adventure and underlying conflict with new companion Leela. More especially, it finds the production team finally stretching themselves conceptually after thoroughly exploring their “gothic horror” template over the course of the previous two seasons (well, mostly the previous one).

The game is rigged, and it does not reward people who play by the rules.

Hustlers (2019) (SPOILERS) Sold as a female Goodfellas – to the extent that the producers had Scorsese in mind – this strippers-and-crime tale is actually a big, glossy puff piece, closer to Todd Phillips as fashioned by Lorene Scarfia. There are some attractive performances in Hustlers, notably from Constance Wu, but for all its “progressive” women work male objectification to their advantage posturing, it’s incredibly traditional and conservative deep down.

But everything is wonderful. We are in Paris.

Cold War (2018) (SPOILERS) Pawel Pawlikowski’s elliptical tale – you can’t discuss Cold War without saying “elliptical” at least once – of frustrated love charts a course that almost seems to be a caricature of a certain brand of self-congratulatorily tragic European cinema. It was, it seems “ loosely inspired ” by his parents (I suspect I see where the looseness comes in), but there’s a sense of calculation to the progression of this love story against an inescapable political backdrop that rather diminishes it.

What do they do, sing madrigals?

The Singing Detective (2003) Icon’s remake of the 1986 BBC serial, from a screenplay by Dennis Potter himself. The Singing Detective fares less well than Icon’s later adaptation of Edge of Darkness , even though it’s probably more faithful to Potter’s original. Perhaps the fault lies in the compression of six episodes into a feature running a quarter of that time, but the noir fantasy and childhood flashbacks fail to engage, and if the hospital reality scans better, it too suffers eventually.

They literally call themselves “Decepticons”. That doesn’t set off any red flags?

Bumblebee (2018) (SPOILERS) Bumblebee is by some distance the best Transformers movie, simply by dint of having a smattering of heart (one might argue the first Shia LaBeouf one also does, and it’s certainly significantly better than the others, but it’s still a soulless Michael Bay “machine”). Laika VP and director Travis Knight brings personality to a series that has traditionally consisted of shamelessly selling product, by way of a nostalgia piece that nods to the likes of Herbie (the original), The Iron Giant and even Robocop .

You don’t know anything about this man, and he knows everything about you.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) (SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s two-decades-later remake of his British original. It’s undoubtedly the better-known version, but as I noted in my review of the 1934 film, it is very far from the “ far superior ” production Truffaut tried to sell the director on during their interviews. Hitchcock would only be drawn – in typically quotable style – that “ the first version is the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional ”. For which, read a young, creatively fired director versus one clinically going through the motions, occasionally inspired by a shot or sequence but mostly lacking the will or drive that made the first The Man Who Knew Too Much such a pleasure from beginning to end.

That’s what people call necromancer’s weather.

The Changes (1975) This adaptation of Peter Dickinson’s novel trilogy carries a degree of cult nostalgia cachet due to it being one of those more “adult” 1970s children’s serials (see also The Children of the Stones , The Owl Service ). I was too young to see it on its initial screening – or at any rate, too young to remember it – but it’s easy to see why it lingered in the minds of those who did. Well, the first episode, anyway. Not for nothing is The Changes seen as a precursor to The Survivors in the rural apocalypse sub-genre – see also the decidedly nastier No Blade of Grass – as following a fairly gripping opener, it drifts off into the realm of plodding travelogue.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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