Our Take On The Biggest Snubs Of This Year's Oscar Noms
By Scott Lucas in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 22, 2014 4:45PM
Adele Exarchopoulos in Blue Is The Warmest Color/Courtesy of Sundance Selects
Last Thursday, the Gene Siskel Film Center hosted its annual panel discussion on the Academy Award nominations featuring five of the city's more notable filmgoers, and the result was like watching a petulant hipster indie band play at the MTV music awards. Most of the questions asked by moderator Betsy Steinberg were greeted with shrugs and a feigned disinterest in the films being discussed, even though nearly every panelist's favorite film from last year was represented by the Academy's list of nominees (with that contrary rapscallion, Ignaty Vishnevetsky being a notable exception). This "why are we here" attitude wasn't lost on the audience; I overheard several people around me actually ask each other that very question. Not that we were much help in advancing a lively debate—the first query from the audience was "Where was Lincoln?".
But there were a few things to be gleaned from the panel: Alison Cuddy really loves 12 Years A Slave, J.R. Jones really hates speaking in public and Vishnevetsky and Capone from Ain't It Cool News went a long way toward advancing Stephanie Zacharek's theories about Her. The Tribune's Michael Phillips scored the most points with his spot-on remarks about the Academy only being interested in box office grosses and what that means for its live telecast, but lost them all when he stated that he thinks fiction films are "kind of over," a statement that was not only dunder-headed but a bit disingenuous considering Phillips' own top ten list contained only three movies that were documentaries, while his top two (Her and 12 Years A Slave) are both up for Best Picture.
What's my point? That critics are cooler-than-thou dicks? O.K., no surprise there. But even if the Oscars are basically bullshit, that shouldn't prevent you from getting a little worked up about what is or isn't on display in this year's crop of award hopefuls. Why not use the whole awards season sham as an excuse to passionately argue cinema? What's with all this "oh well" affectation?
So in the interest of building more glass houses for other people to throw stones at, let's take a look at everybody's favorite Oscar topic: The Snubs. To keep it fair, let's keep it to snubs that would exist in the real world—there's nothing too left-field here and these are movies and performances that I would have thought actually had a shot in the middlebrow universe of the Academy. And just to show you that I'm well aware the Oscars are not really about film excellence and all that jazz—these are picks that could also pep up that telecast. Maybe wind up in a highlight reel or two.
And finally—I promise not to mention Before Midnight.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Oprah Winfrey, Lee Daniels' The Butler
No one on the panel seemed to be very enamored with The Butler, but I don't see how anyone could miss the brilliance of Winfrey's grand performance. She manages to hit those histrionic highs ("Everything you are and everything you have is because of that butler!") while also making room to send up her own public image (she's constantly sharing recipes)—and yet she never loses sight of the flawed and earthy humanity of her character. She's terrific. Plus, it's OPRAH! Come on, man. You wanna talk star power? You wanna talk ratings? Maybe the omission is karmic payback for her endless campaigning behind Crash in 2004, which I still maintain is the reason why Brokeback Mountain lost for Best Picture. If that's the case, then this is one snub I'm okay with.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: James Gandolfini, Enough Said
Not only did the Academy miss out on a chance to honor the late Gandolfini outside of the "In Memoriam" montage (think about it—there wouldn't have been a dry eye in the house if his name was called), they also blew an opportunity to recognize a performance that doesn't devolve into hysterics, violence or wearing a dress. Gandolfini's work here is honest, un-showy and light years away from Tony Soprano. It also could have saved us the torture of having to sit through another insufferable acceptance speech from Jared Leto.
BEST ACTRESS: Adele Exarchopoulos, Blue Is The Warmest Color
O.K. So she's not a star. She's not even an American, dude. But forget qualifiers like "male" or "female", this is the performance of the year. No question. She's at the center of nearly every shot in this three hour humanist masterpiece from France and it's impossible to imagine the movie without her. It would also give the Academy an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is when they talk that guff about cinema being an international language spoken around the world.
BEST ACTOR: Robert Redford, All Is Lost
Talk about carrying a movie—Redford is the only actor in the entire film AND he doesn't get to say anything on screen other than a "help" here and a "fuck" there. Forget The Artist, this is real silent movie acting. Sandra Bullock was nominated for essentially doing the same thing in Gravity, but she did it with reams of clunky expository dialogue and a much bigger assist from the bells and whistles provided by the special effects department.
I'll be more than happy to watch McConaughey win, he's been kicking non-stop ass for the last few years, but to not even nominate an indisputable member of Hollywood royalty for a career best performance seems like a glaring oversight to me. Or maybe it's just more karma for all that anti-Hollywood Sundance talk.
BEST PICTURE: Blue Is The Warmest Color
The obvious snub in this category (and even more obvious in the Original Song category) is the Coen brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis, but let's just assume that the Academy, like F. Murray Abraham, didn't see any money in that film and go back to Blue Is The Warmest Color. The Palme D'Or winner was shafted in the Best Foreign Language category because of some arcane Academy rule about foreign films being submitted by October 1 (um, why?), which begs the question: How the fuck are you going to talk about foreign films in 2013 without talking about Blue Is The Warmest Color? This has happened before—the same fate befell City Of God in 2002—but why disqualify the one movie that has engendered the most conversation and exposure in its given category? Shouldn't that be the objective here? To get people interested in something outside of standard big-star, Hollywood fare?
Alright, Academy. You wanna be a stickler for the rules? Then do what you did last year with Michael Haneke's Amour and put Blue Is The Warmest Color in the Best Picture category. Only nine films out of a possible ten have been nominated this year, so why not? This film is certainly as good as anything on that list. And not to mention (even though I sort of already did), it was awarded the top honor at Cannes by a panel that included none other than Steven Spielberg, Ang Lee, Nicole Kidman and Christoph Waltz—all members of the Hollywood elite with a slew of Oscars between them. What? You think you know better than Spielberg?
Maybe the Siskel panel was right. Screw the Oscars.