Ntuple Indemnity

With the annual golden statuette announcement coming tonight, here is some obligatory pre-show analysis. For the most part, I will not be discussing predictions; there are other sites who do a far more comprehensive job of predicting Oscars within statistical and socio-political frameworks. As for my judgments on whom I endorse, keep in mind that there are a number of nominated films I have not seen, most notably City of God, House of Sand and Fog and, I am thoroughly ashamed to say, The Triplets of Belleville.

Actor (Leading): This really should go to Paul Giamatti for his note-for-note portrayal of Harvey Pekar in American Splendor, but that was one of a few barely-excusable shafts in the nominee pool. Of the contenders, Bill Murray should receive the prize. His career-best turn in Lost In Translation was subtle, believable, and full of the delicate nuance that was needed to put him on centre stage as an actor playing a washed-up actor.

Actor (Supporting): Tim Robbins. He takes his shivering, guilt-ridden character in Mystic River and runs with it. This calibre of performance should not go unrecognized.

Actress (Leading): Everybody is calling Charlize Theron for Monster, and not having seen that, it is quite impossible to comment. However, where Scarlett Johannson is in all of this is just baffling. Everything that works in Lost In Translation falls on the shoulders of her interaction with Bill Murray’s character. At the same time, it is a pleasure to see Keisha Castle-Hughes recognized for Whale Rider, in what is certainly one of cinema’s great child performances.

Actress (Supporting): Renée Zellweger’s delightful and goofy performance in Cold Mountain was a show-stealer, but was a source of some of the tonal inconsistency that kept the film from being something really amazing. Marcia Gay Harden, however, delivered the best performance of Mystic River amongst an already stellar cast, and in the psychologically crumbling manner characteristic of the entire film. Reward her.

Animated Feature Film: Yes, it’s true that I have not seen The Triplets of Belleville, but unless it’s an undisputed Citizen Kane of animation that revolutionizes the entire medium – and point this out to me if it is indeed the case – there is nothing in the world that should take this away from Finding Nemo, which was already shafted from its deserved spot in the Best Picture final five.

Art Direction: This is a strong category. The Lord of the Rings has yet to win it, having had the misfortune of being nominated beside the gorgeously-designed Moulin Rouge! when Fellowship was nominated. This is not, by itself, the rationale by which it should win. It should win on the grounds of visually emulating the most believable history in any film this year, despite not being a history. In a year without Rings, Master and Commander would have been the clear choice.

Cinematography: Where is Kill Bill, Vol. 1? If it was deferred on the grounds of not being a complete film, that would be acceptable, though Oscar has wavered on this point before (see: The Fellowship of the Ring). These are all strong contenders, however. Ignoring for a moment that my vote would go to the non-nominated Down With Love, I would favour the Depression-era yellows of Seabiscuit or the ocean blues of Master and Commander – leaning towards the latter, as the 1920s look has been done countless times before (the late Conrad L. Hall’s work on Road to Perdition being the most recently awarded, and only one year ago), while few nautical movies have achieved such a consistent tone and feel of being a grand, watery canvas in motion.

Costume Design: See “Art Direction”, word for word.

Directing: Any director who stages the entire Siege of Gondor with such frightening authenticity deserves not only eternal respect, but his first directing Oscar after three consecutive nominations. This statuette should reward vision, and Peter Jackson has shown himself to be a visionary.

Film Editing: Notably missing in action are Kill Bill and Hulk, 2003’s two showpieces of how to cut a film. That said, The Return of the King and Seabiscuit are both deserving for their own reasons. The latter’s transitions between motion picture and sepia still photography add a whole other level of flavour to the piece, and that is not mentioning the exhilirating racing sequences themselves. If Seabiscuit posts a win tonight, it should be in this category, though with the footnote of the two strongest contenders being out of the race.

Makeup: The Return of the King. Pirates is a fully acceptable second choice. Both films do the dead and zombified far better than actual horror movies.

Music (Score): Howard Shore’s work on The Lord of the Rings has been recognized, but the score to The Return of the King is a great listen, and one of the great symphonic scores. It is a distinctly fresh composition as well, not only building minor themes introduced very briefly in the first instalment and developing them to grandiose fruition, but having several thrilling cues to call its own, an exemplar being the Shelob sequence. However, Thomas Newman delivers a Celtic score in Finding Nemo that even upstages the work he did in Road to Perdition, and is one of the supports that make the movie the masterpiece it is. It should be noted that both composers have won in the past two years, and may fall shy of the podium on that account; this would be a shame.

Music (Song): Here is the worst omission of them all: “Here’s To Love”, Ewan McGregor and Renée Zellweger’s duet at the end of Down With Love, the kind of original musical number this prize was essentially created to award. This category has little legitimacy in the first place, but absolutely none if such clear winners are going to be consistently overlooked. As for the rest, it is a hard one to call, though I would not give it to The Return of the King. “Into The West” has the consonance of a fitting conclusion, but is musically weaker than “May It Be” and “Gollum’s Song” before it, largely due to harmonic oversimplicity.

Best Picture: The Return of the King, with the asterisk that for the real version comes out on DVD next year. Someone please tell me what any of the other four are doing here in Finding Nemo‘s place.

Short Film (Animated): I cannot comment on who should win, but the one to watch out for is Destino, the Walt Disney / Salvador Dali collaboration that went unfinished for decades until Roy Jr. resurrected it. The Michael Moore Moment of Oscar 2004 is what happens if Roy indeeds get the win, but Jim Hill explains it far better than I can.

Sound Editing: Three aquatic movies, all of which handle the ocean in a very unique and sonorous way, make this a close one to call. I’d go with Finding Nemo, for the whale.

Sound Mixing: The Return of the King.

Visual Effects: Incredible – The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions got the Attack of the Clones backlash treatment. Let’s see The Lord of the Rings pull off a one-two-three in this category like Star Wars did twenty years ago.

Writing (Adapted): As biased as I am in favour of The Return of the King, and as likely as the tight and thematically cohesive Mystic River is to win this, this should really go to American Splendor – a movie about a movie about the life of a guy who writes a comic about his life, and done well. As far as concept screenplays go, it is this year’s Memento or Adaptation.

Writing (Original): Lost In Translation, though I would jump up and down in joy, or at least swim around in circles in joy, if Finding Nemo were to be recognized. In all seriousness, though, Lost In Translation is a piece that – as dependent as it was on the strength of its leads – had to start somewhere, and this is where its success begins.

I did not cover the Documentary, Foreign Language and Live Action Short categories, being grossly unqualified to comment on them this year. Stay tuned for a review – or more likely, a few brief remarks – about The Passion of the Christ… for which I am now late. Never mind – expect it later this week.

Whenever reading year-end summaries, a lot of people seem to have this fetish for reverse enumeration. This only works some of the time, given that the best films of a given year are typically polar opposites in one respect or another. However, an impetus for a comparative ranking system still remains, for the purpose of honouring the very best pieces as being truly superior.

As a compromise, I will do this in tiers.

The oh-my-God-that-was-the-best-movie-ever! tier: Finding Nemo, The Return of the King. I openly admit to both these films bringing me to tears. In fact, I am proud of it. Both of them are pinnacles of modern cinema to be celebrated five, ten and a hundred years down the road. It should be noted, however, that the current theatrical edition of The Return of the King is subject to the same reservations as was the case with the two preceding instalments: the promise of a superior Extended cut on DVD. For this reason, it is impossible to weigh one of these two masterpieces over the other.

The heart-fluttering-in-love-and-excitement tier: Kill Bill Vol. 1, Down With Love, Lost In Translation. The first two – or one and a half, rather – are masterful emulations of style with note-perfect directorial precision, but on a more general level, are just oodles and oodles of pure fun at the movies. Both are celebrations of the art of cinema itself. Lost In Translation is a mood piece that, by some imperceptible magic woven by Sofia Coppola’s mad filmmaking skills, captures on a screen the exact feeling of being lost or just bored in a big foreign metropolis, and does so with admirable subtlety and grace. All three are worth treasuring, and while none of them will be right for everybody, they remain must-sees.

The also-pretty-good “honourable mentions” tier: Master and Commander, The Matrix Reloaded, Seabiscuit, American Splendor and X2: X-Men United. I will elaborate on my thoughts regarding Master and Commander and Seabiscuit in my hopefully-forthcoming Oscar analysis. Meanwhile, The Matrix Reloaded is the best of the trilogy (a view knowingly shared by few), and Splendor and X2 are the highlights of the post-Spider-Man renaissance of comics on film.

Then there are the slightly more special awards. Seeing as how there are no contenders for “Best Use of a Cow” this year, the conventional ones will have to do.

Biggest waste of my time: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and this is why.

Most crushing disappointment: The Matrix Revolutions, which botched the resolution of pretty much every good idea in Reloaded. Somewhere along the line, the Wachowskis must have thought emulating Star Trek: Voyager was a good idea. Never has a promising multi-film saga devoured its own head with such enthusiasm.

Most improved: X2, which sets a new world record for an increase in quality from the first instalment of a major franchise to its sequel. Everything that was wrong with the first X-Men – and believe me, it was a lot – suddenly got up and fixed itself. I suspect super mutant powers at work here.

Most underrated: Down With Love, the most inventive and polished romantic comedy of the year (Lost In Translation does not quite fall into this category), disappeared from cinemas with only $20 million in the bank and a mixed audience reaction. Apparently, most people just didn’t get it.

Most overrated: This one is a tough call. It’s easy to pick out Mystic River or Cold Mountain, both heavily awarded yet not included in my favourites above, but at a basic level they are still very strong pieces with some of the best ensemble acting in recent memory. It is tempting to pick on The Last Samurai for being the lacklustre movie it is, but it was never that universally praised to begin with. If one reads through the movie reviews of 2003 pumped out by professional critics and amateur audiences alike, the film actually least deserving of the degree of praise it has received is the original Matrix.

More ranting and raving will be coming in short order, though there is an election forum to attend in half and hour, and I need to go prepare some loaded questions for the candidates.

One would think that December would be the zenith of this online record, given the sheer volume of material to discuss; unfortunately, the overwhelming quantity of happenings – for good or ill – ultimately mitigated the publication of anything useful on this here page.

Based on the unlikely assumption that the entire readership has, in fact, not abandoned this page and left it for dead like a Students’ Union VP on Khao San Road, some updates are in order.

First things first: No, I have not seen Cold Mountain, Master and Commander, The Last Samurai or Lost In Translation. This abnormal deficiency of Oscar-season movie criticism, or any criticism at all, will hopefully change over the weekend. One must remember, however, that Laziness Conquers All – a certainty as physically entrenched as the Law of Ropes.

Yes, I did see The Return of the King, albeit only a single-digit number of times. Apparently there was an expectation that after surviving the marathon known only as Trilogy Tuesday, I would immediately write a detailed scene-by-scene analysis of the entire film – geek’s prerogative, one might say. I actually did this; immediately after returning from the cinema, I wrote two comprehensive analyses on the Entmoot forums – some rambly general first impressions and the rather more comprehensible adaptation notes. It has been suggested that I post these more permanently and prominently. This may or may not happen.

Coming up soon, should I have time to do it this weekend amidst catching up on the current state of cinema and editing the next UADS newsletter, will be an annotated photo album detailing various misadventures in Inchon and Bangkok, followed by the World Universities Debating Championships in Singapore.

Eventually I will do some kind of 2003 wrap-up, which will quite predictably be full of praising The Wind Waker and Finding Nemo and determining whether or not they compensated for an otherwise pretty bleak year. Don’t hold me to this.

If you have noticed the conspicuous absence of any entries in the past week – and if you are one of the handful of people who lurk here without telling me – three things: a) I know you’re out there by way of third-party information, b) the “Annotate” link is there for a reason, and 3) you are probably wondering what I thought of The Matrix Revolutions.

Regarding the film, I have drawn the conclusion that I cannot formulate an adequate assessment until a second viewing. My initial impression is one that lacks fulfilment. This is a movie that needed to provide both plot resolution and thematic resolution, and save for the best exchange of dialogue in the entire trilogy during the final fight, the second was distractingly incomplete. Plot-wise, there was the appropriate balance of denouement and ambiguity. Theme-wise, some ideas were swatted away rather than provided with appropriately soft landings.

The film was enjoyable nonetheless, though the intelligence and visual audacity exhibited by The Matrix Reloaded was not improved upon. The biggest problem with Revolutions is that next to the first two films, it feels all too conventional.

The laziness-business dialectic axis prevents me from elaborating any further at this time, so do not take this as a full review.

Another release that deserves some comment is the debut of Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars series of shorts by Genndy Tartakovsky, perhaps the flag-bearer of this generation of expressionistic animation, a generation without a Friz Freleng or Chuck Jones at the helm. The first episode is on the Cartoon Network website, but is inaccessible for anyone outside the United States. File-sharing is a Canadian’s best friend – except hockey, that is.

Chapter 1 is, more than anything, a tease of what’s to come. So far, it looks good. The best part about it is that it does not yet show any signs of falling victim to the stock conventions that make the Expanded Universe so unbearable. It’s slick, it’s stylish, and even though it isn’t at all like the style of the films, it possesses a dynamism that somehow feels right. Chapter 2 is due out tonight, so we will see how this develops.

As for what occupied me all weekend: I was debating in the University of Alberta’s home tournament, the Hugill Cup, Friday through Sunday. That’s right – Sunday. For a variety of reasons, among which was the ineligibility of a rubber duck named Bismarck, I made it into one of the two semi-final rooms and won an exquisite set of coasters. Unfortunately, I botched my secret mission from uncharted space to break into public speaking finals right in the very first round. Next time, Gadget, next time.

Check out the results. And if you see one of Misters Crossman or Tse, buy him a well-deserved drink, and ask him to show you that snappy champions’ pocketwatch.

The big news this weekend – besides the fact that Thailand’s Panupol Sujjayakorn cleaned house at the World Scrabble Championships in Malaysia – was this Aint-It-Cool News rumour about how Revolution Studios has greenlit the David Hayter Watchmen project, and John Cusack might even be attached to play Dan Dreiberg, the second Nite Owl.

If this is true – and that’s a big If at this point – I have some serious concerns.

First of all, if the unmitigated disaster that was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is any indication, people should really think twice before touching something by Alan Moore. Especially when it’s the something by Alan Moore.

What are we toying around with here? It’s not run-of-the-mill comic book material. Even though I am relatively new to the medium, it did not take me very long to realize that Watchmen is the Lord of the Rings of comic books. And as with The Lord of the Rings, although I am concerned with faith to the source material, the top priority is on pulling it off with the artistic, cinematic merit it deserves.

Right now, Watchmen is a wildcard for one reason alone: David Hayter has never directed a movie.

Hayter’s record so far is as the screenwriter behind the two X-Men movies. I do have considerably greater faith in his ability to adapt a working screenplay after seeing X2, but no matter how many chances I give the first film, I still can’t like it. It’s not horrible, but lukewarm at best, and a lot of it was just plain sloppy. However, this is only one concern.

If Hayter is seriously intent on directing the project, my advice would be thus: follow the panels. Watchmen, the book, had a certain mastery of layout worthy of much comprehensive analysis on sites like Watching the Detectives. Follow it. Learn some lessons from the composition and juxtaposition that made it such an exemplar of the graphic novel medium.

It’s a well-known fact that Terry Gilliam wanted the project once, but would only do it if it were in twelve one-hour sections, which no executive in his right mind would consider theatrically releasable – but is a really great idea. Gilliam was the right man for this project, just as he was the right man for Harry Potter and the definitive man for Don Quixote. Lord knows he tried to do Don Quixote. And nobody but Gilliam should be coming within twenty miles of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

As for John Cusack – this is actually a pretty good casting choice. Put him in a big pair of glasses and dress him up in those conservative Dreiberg clothes, and the look is apparent.

Everybody can rattle off their dream cast list for Watchmen, kind of like how people were speculating Sean Connery for every conceivable role in The Lord of the Rings back in the roaring nineties. Everybody recognizes that Dr. Manhattan is the stumbling block. We’re hearing people shout for Sean Penn to play Rorschach, Tom Selleck as the Comedian, Val Kilmer as Ozymandias. At this point, I’m more worried about the script.

But we’ll see. For the time being, I’m going to reclaim my spot in line for The Incredibles.