If I Was In The Academy
An imaginary ballot for this year’s “Big 5” Academy Awards
Best Picture
The Big Short: Looks like a few more guys are capitalizing off of the public’s financial illiteracy, but this time with a productive outcome. The team behind The Big Short presents complicated material in a digestable way that’s both playful and candid. Lack of cohesion, plot holes, and not enough screentime for the superstars in this film were its fatal flaws. One questions whether the main incentive was to create quality film or to educate — and either is applause-worthy.
Bridge of Spies: A powerful story with a top-notch cast and beautiful cinematography that’s unfortunately done with a formula I’ve already seen, 5 to 10 times, from Spielberg himself. A reminder of how poisonous our racist rhetoric and xenophobic tendencies can be, and timely for that very reason.
Brooklyn: Saoirse Ronan took my breath away as she embodied the universal nerves, confidence, and uncertainty of a displaced young woman finding her independence. The writing was simply delightful and the male lead was as charming as the carefully constructed set design. It will fall short this year because of the more potent subjects that its competitors tackled. However, note that Brooklyn is a timeless movie about writing your own destiny and the belief that the brilliance of living is in the risks you take.
Mad Max: Fury Road: Rarely do you see an action-packed desert race make the list of contenders for Best Picture. Rarely do you see me racing to see a post-apocolyptal revival in theaters. This film had me sitting up straight, eyes wide open, for the entire two hours. Brava.
The Revenant: If you will not cook up great dialogue for a script one must at least serve a visual feast. I was left starving by the end of this, or perhaps lost my appetite altogether. After Iñárritu’s career-altering Birdman, (cinematic perfection,) it was almost impossible to follow with a film of equivalent, yet alone surpassing measure within a year. I applaud his ambition but ask him to take time and care before jumping into a project of this scale with this much talent involved. Quality over opening weekend quantity.
Room: So sublte that you might miss its beauty. Jacob Tremblay will teach you hope, Brie Larson will teach you love, and Lenny Abrahamsson will teach you that fragility and restraint can be louder than crescendoing strings and heavy drama.
The Martian: What you look for in a blockbuster but not in an Oscar contendor. We’ve seen dozens of A-listers miraculously make it home from outer space — I anxiously await an approach to this story as fresh as Kubrick’s 2001, but I won’t hold my breath.
★ Spotlight: Beyond the entertaining experience that comes from watching Spotlight, the film serves to archive a fundamental cultural change that was long overdue. May it be echoed, remembered, and recognized as much as the cruciality of investigative journalism must be.
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
★ Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs: This category is a sea of top talent in which Fassbender as Jobs triumphs like a great white shark amongst tuna. Maybe he was lucky to have Sorkin’s dialogue as his vehicle, or maybe he was possessed by the soul of a person who has left earth but lingers every day in our hands, pockets, and ears. This performance is what I dream of when I think of film.
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
★ Brie Larson, Room: In unexpectedly the most believable performance of her category, Brie convinces us with a deep look in her eyes that she would do anything to protect her child from illness, from physical abuse, or from boredom. There is an understanding with the audience that she, whether as Joy or as Brie, has accepted her present state and is going to survive it for the sake of love. Rarely does acting look more like being, and here she sets an example of it.
Best Director
Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, The Revenant
Lenny Abrahamsson, Room
★ Tom McCarthy, Spotlight: No nominee jumped out at me for this award, but McCarthy’s strategically shadow-heavy fieldwork scenes contrasted with the fluorescent office lighting of the Boston Globe are in essense why this film tells its story the most successfully. He doesn’t play with ambiguity — he knows what he wants to be presented as right and wrong, or in the dark versus exposed and acknowledged. Some might yearn for sudden conclusions and strong musical moments, but, like a journalist, McCarthy cares more about presenting the facts. Although we already know the outcome before stepping into the theater we’re still directed to stumble in the dark, grappling with the gravity of the truth, and then watch in awe as a group of brave people dare to change it.
Best Screenplay
Adapted:
The Big Short
Brooklyn
Carol
The Martian
★ Room: The audience peeks through the window of a deeply disturbing scenario presented with such childlike naivety and positivity that one forgets what you’re really bearing witness to. This is done intentionally and masterfully, teaching us to see circumstance as opportunity rather than fate, and happiness as a choice rather than a result.
Original:
Bridge of Spies
Inside Out
Spotlight
Straight Outta Compton
★ Ex Machina: The most unsettling film of the year — Ex Machina seats you on the brink of hysteria from the moment you’re introduced to its main setting: fittingly, an underground home with no windows and no escape. Power control usually urges uproar, but here, power in the hands of machine manifests in fear while the film serves as an oracle. The uneasy part is that the terror is both deafeningly loud and excruitiatingly quiet.
May the coming year in film bring more strategic subtlety, fewer space odysseys, (unless of the Bowie variety,) and a slew of lines I want to write down in my journal and remember forever.
