So you see every day, every week, every month and every year of my life, my hero's always 10 years away.

Oscar Winners 2014

That the biggest event of this year’s Oscars ceremony is a selfie probably says it all (and that it’s already been parodied into the ground probably says even more). Until they get a presenter in with enough disrespect for the whole bloated behemoth that passes for evening’s entertainment, Oscar is consigned to being an annual damp squib/endurance test. As with last year I got the big one wrong, but a tally of 16 out of 24 isn’t at all bad. My random guesswork may be improving (only 11 right in 2013).

Best Picture

Winner: 12 Years a Slave

I called Gravity, partly on the grounds of Cuarón being a lock for director. Surprisingly (as in, it’s not that common) the Academy picked a movie that didn’t get Best Director, as per last year. The uber-rich, pampered elite soothed their troubled consciences by giving the gong to a worthy picture this time out, one that can join the ranks of Gandhi, Schindler’s List and er… Crash as really being about something important. It’s the sixth winner since 1990 not to also take Best Picture. Did it deserve the award? I don’t think it’s as remarkable as some attest, but aside from The Wolf of Wall Street it’s probably the closest to a good fit. Also of note, and perhaps a harbinger of things to come, it joins last year’s Argo was a Best Picture winner amassing only three Oscars in total. The only other Best Picture winner since 1976 to share so few is Crash.

Best Director

Winner: Alfonso Cuarón

As noted, a shoe-in. I think his work on Children of Men is more interesting (it helps that it’s a much better movie), but there’s no doubting the virtual virtuoso skill of Gravity’s director.

Best Actor

Winner: Matthew McConaughey

McConaughey’s on a high, and this was an easy call despite the sterling competition. His acceptance speech was quite a feat of self-promotion (along with God-promotion, creating nearly as many column inches), as wittily noted by The Colbert Report.

Best Actress

Winner: Cate Blanchett

The Woody worry didn’t end up losing Cate the title. With two awards she’s probably close to sealing the deal as the new Meryl. Not that the old Meryl’s gone anywhere.

Best Supporting Actor

Winner: Jared Leto

This is one award I expect to do zero for the winner’s cachet. A bit like Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Best Supporting Actress

Winner: Lupita Nyongo’o

Lupita has already gone on to bigger and better things. Exhibit A: Non-Stop. Nice to see Jennifer Lawrence (ain’t she adorable?) having fun with losing too.

Best Original Screenplay

Winner: Her

I was surprised by this (I called American Hustle, which didn’t really deserve it). There haven’t been a whole lot of really great winners in this category in the last decade (exceptions are Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Midnight in Paris, both idiosyncratic tales like this). I should go and watch it I suppose, so I can actually give an informed opinion.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Winner: 12 Years a Slave

Oohhh. Controversial. Not for winning, but for the evident ill feeling between John Ridley and Steve McQueen. Never incur a writer’s wrath. Although, unless you’re writer-director, it’s kind of inevitable.

Best Cinematography

Winner: Gravity

Lubezki’s sixth nomination, so a win is well overdue. I’d have given it to him for The Tree of Life or Children of Men (or both).

Best Costume Design

Winner; The Great Gatsby

Shiny pretty duds won out. Not a great shock.

Best Sound Mixing

Winner: Gravity

What’s to say? Space is a noisy place.

Best Film Editing

Winner: Gravity

Good editing here, even when there isn’t any (like one long, continuous take). I went with Captain Phillips. Big mistake.

Best Sound Editing

Winner: Gravity

For Gravity, see Sound Mixing above. For my pick, see Film Editing above.

Best Visual Effects

Winner: Gravity

But of course.

Best Make-up

Winner: Dallas Buyers Club

A reward for invention on a ridiculously low budget, which is always nice to see.

Best Production Design

Winner: The Great Gatsby

More shiny, shiny, pretty, pretty.

Best Original Song

Winner: Frozen

Apparently smart money was on Bono’s borefest (he looked nonplussed) I thought it would be Pharrel Williams. Instead they went for Disney by-numbers. It seems as if they always bag it, but the last example was Tarzan in ’99 (from baldy Collins no less). Prior to that it was just embarrassingly regular (’89, ’91, ’92, ’94, ’95).

Best Original Score

Winner: Gravity (Steven Price)

Price’s first nom and first win there.

Best Animated Short

Winner: Mr Hublot

Disney didn’t get it! Count me shocked, if I could muster such a response in the animated feature category.

Best Documentary Short

Winner: The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life

Always bet on the Holocaust.

Best Live Action Short

Winner: Helium

The Voorman Problem lost out to heartwarming. Heartwarming’s good, I guess.

Best Documentary Feature

Winner: 20 Feet from Stardom

Fuck knows what happened here. Perhaps the Academy thought they’d done their bit for worthy subject matter and wanted to celebrate something close to their entertainment marrow. Or perhaps they tried to make it through the director’s cut of The Act of Killing.

Best Foreign Language Film

Winner: The Great Beauty

I’ve seen this now, and it very much is the Academy’s idea of a European art movie; an easy choice to festoon with garlands. It is actually very good, though.

Best Animated Feature

Winner: Frozen

Perhaps shockingly, perhaps not (since the award has only existed since 2001) this is the first “straight” Disney winner (rather than Pixar). One in the eye (that would be Mike Wazowski’s cyclopean eye) for Lasseter land, since Monsters University (rightly) didn’t even get nominated.

Comments

Damn prairie dog burrow!

Tremors (1990) (SPOILERS) I suspect the reason the horror comedy – or the sci-fi comedy, come to that – doesn’t tend to be the slam-dunk goldmine many assume it must be, is because it takes a certain sensibility to do it right. Everyone isn’t a Joe Dante or Sam Raimi, or a John Landis, John Carpenter, Edgar Wright, Christopher Landon or even a Peter Jackson or Tim Burton, and the genre is littered with financial failures, some of them very good failures (and a good number of them from the names mentioned). Tremors was one, only proving a hit on video (hence six sequels at last count). It also failed to make Ron Underwood a directing legend.

Here’s Bloody Justice for you.

Laughter in Paradise (1951) (SPOILERS) The beginning of a comedic run for director-producer Mario Zampa that spanned much of the 1950s, invariably aided by writers Michael Pertwee and Jack Davies (the latter went on to pen a spate of Norman Wisdom pictures including The Early Bird , and also comedy rally classic Monte Carlo or Bust! ) As usual with these Pertwee jaunts, Laughter in Paradise boasts a sparky premise – renowned practical joker bequeaths a fortune to four relatives, on condition they complete selected tasks that tickle him – and more than enough resultant situational humour.

Who’s got the Figgy Port?

Loki (2021) (SPOILERS) Can something be of redeemable value and shot through with woke? The two attributes certainly sound essentially irreconcilable, and Loki ’s tendencies – obviously, with new improved super-progressive Kevin Feige touting Disney’s uber-agenda – undeniably get in the way of what might have been a top-tier MCU entry from realising its full potential. But there are nevertheless solid bursts of highly engaging storytelling in the mix here, for all its less cherishable motivations. It also boasts an effortlessly commanding lead performance from Tom Hiddleston; that alone puts Loki head and shoulders above the other limited series thus far.

I’m just glad Will Smith isn’t alive to see this.

The Tomorrow War (2021) (SPOILERS). Not so much tomorrow as yesterday. There’s a strong sense of déjà vu watching The Tomorrow War , so doggedly derivative is it of every time-travel/alien war/apocalyptic sci-fi movie of the past forty years. Not helping it stand out from the pack are doughy lead Chris Pratt, damned to look forever on the beefy side no matter how ripped he is and lacking the chops or gravitas for straight roles, and debut live-action director Chris McKay, who manages to deliver the goods in a serviceably anonymous fashion.

I'm offering you a half-share in the universe.

Doctor Who Season 8 – Worst to Best I’m not sure I’d watched Season Eight chronologically before. While I have no hesitation in placing it as the second-best Pertwee season, based on its stories, I’m not sure it pays the same dividends watched as a unit. Simply, there’s too much Master, even as Roger Delgado never gets boring to watch and the stories themselves offer sufficient variety. His presence, turning up like clockwork, is inevitably repetitive. There were no particular revelatory reassessments resulting from this visit, then, except that, taken together – and as The Directing Route extra on the Blu-ray set highlights – it’s often much more visually inventive than what would follow. And that Michael Ferguson should probably have been on permanent attachment throughout this era.

Why don't we go on a picnic, up the hill?

Invaders from Mars (1986) (SPOILERS) One can wax thematical over the number of remakes of ’50s movies in the ’80s – and ’50s SF movies in particular – and of how they represent ever-present Cold War and nuclear threats, and steadily increasing social and familial paranoias and disintegrating values. Really, though, it’s mostly down to the nostalgia of filmmakers for whom such pictures were formative influences (and studios hoping to make an easy buck on a library property). Tobe Hooper’s version of nostalgia, however, is not so readily discernible as a John Carpenter or a David Cronenberg (not that Cronenberg could foment such vibes, any more than a trip to the dental hygienist). Because his directorial qualities are not so readily discernible. Tobe Hooper movies tend to be a bit shit. Which makes it unsurprising that Invaders from Mars is a bit shit.

I hate natural causes!

Body Bags (1993) (SPOILERS) I’m not surprised Showtime didn’t pick this up for an anthology series. Perhaps, if John Carpenter had made Coming Home in a Body Bag (the popular Nam movie series referenced in the same year’s True Romance ), we’d have something to talk about. Tho’ probably not, if Carpenter had retained his by this point firmly glued to his side DP Gary Kibbe, ensuring the proceedings are as flat, lifeless and unatmospheric as possible. Carpenter directed two of the segments here, Tobe Hooper the other one. It may sound absurd, given the quality of Hooper’s career, but by this point, even he was calling the shots better than Carpenter.

What's a movie star need a rocket for anyway?

The Rocketeer (1991) (SPOILERS) The Rocketeer has a fantastic poster. One of the best of the last thirty years (and while that may seem like faint praise, what with poster design being a dying art – I’m looking at you Marvel, or Amazon and the recent The Tomorrow War – it isn’t meant to be). The movie itself, however, tends towards stodge. Unremarkable pictures with a wide/cult fanbase, conditioned by childhood nostalgia, are ten-a-penny – Willow for example – and in this case, there was also a reasonably warm critical reception. But such an embrace can’t alter that Joe Johnston makes an inveterately bland, tepid movie director. His “feel” for period here got him The First Avenger: Captain America gig, a bland, tepid movie tending towards stodge. So at least he’s consistent.

You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster?

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012) The final finale of the Twilight saga, in which pig-boy Jacob tells Bella that, “No, it's not like that at all!” after she accuses him of being a paedo. But then she comes around to his viewpoint, doubtless displaying the kind of denial many parents did who let their kids spend time with Jimmy Savile or Gary Glitter during the ‘70s. It's lucky little Renesmee will be an adult by the age of seven, right? Right... Jacob even jokes that he should start calling Edward, “Dad”. And all the while they smile and smile.

Call me crazy, but I don’t see America coming out in droves to see you puke.

The Hard Way (1991) (SPOILERS) It would probably be fair to suggest that Michael J Fox’s comic talents never quite earned the respect they deserved. Sure, he was the lead in two incredibly popular TV shows, but aside from one phenomenally successful movie franchise, he never quite made himself a home on the big screen. Part of that might have been down to attempts in the late ’80s to carve himself out a niche in more serious roles – Light of Day , Bright Lights, Big City , Casualties of War – roles none of his fanbase had any interest in seeing him essaying. Which makes the part of Nick Lang, in which Fox is at his comic best, rather perfect. After all, as his character, movie star Nick Lang, opines, after smashing in his TV with his People’s Choice Award – the kind of award reserved for those who fail to garner serious critical adoration – “ I’m the only one who wants me to grow up! ”

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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