In Contention

Tag: Trouble the Water

  • You were right, I was wrong: Guy’s final predictions

    (Expanded thoughts and reasonings on yesterday’s list of predictions.)

    It’s years like 2008 when I throw my hands up and admit (albeit with great reluctance) that my family and friends have been right for the last two decades. Carla, Tom, Kim, Auntie Mavis: I give up. I am insane to care as much as I do about the Oscars. They are stupid. They don’t matter, and I really should find something more important and rewarding to care about, like, oh, needlepoint classes or professional darts championships.

    But who am I kidding? I will always care about the Oscars, even in years like this when the race is so dry, and its significance so questionable, that I take great care in not caring. In a year when so few of my personal favourites have cracked the contenders list, it has at least been interesting to sit back and watch the furore unfold over the Academy voters’ spectacularly self-sabotaging antics this year.

    I’ve been wrong about a lot of things this year (Kris scoffed at my naive suggestion back in July that “Happy-Go-Lucky” could be a Best Picture nominee, and he was right to), and right about … well … “Milk’s” nomination for Best Costume Design. (Hey, let me salvage some glory from this year’s meagre spoils.) I don’t expect to be a hell of a lot more successful with the following predictions, but you never know. It’s still been a lot of fun riding out the season with you this year – here’s to a better slate of contenders (and a lot less grousing from me) in 12 months’ time.

    BEST PICTURE
    Apart from the fact that it is the most imaginative and entertaining of this year’s feeble clutch of nominees, the reason “Slumdog Millionaire” has a stranglehold on this category is because it’s the only one of the five that has any discernible relationship to contemporary cinema. The other four all feel to varying degrees like the finely-tooled Best Picture winners of decades past, but the younger, more curious Academy members have been moving away from such self-consciously packaged ‘prestige product’ in the past few years – even if they need a lot of pointing towards what to reward in its stead.

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  • Oscar underdog ‘The Garden’

    I was just listening to this NPR piece on documentary feature nominee “The Garden,” an affecting film with a gut-wrenching conclusion that I’ve already said could be in the thick of the hunt for an upset with literally all the other contenders.  But what really caught my eye was this comment on the NPR page:

    Dear Carrie, I listened to this segment today and I was blown away. What’s more, I was surprised the story blew me away. I’m not much into the Oscars, but learning about the plight of these immigrant farmers in SoCal really opened my eyes. You are a skilled and talented story teller. I will listen more intently for your segments in the future. Thank you!

    And it made me remember just how much of an important and, keyword, LOCAL story this really is.  The doc has some celebrity appearances, since it was such an activist issue, so maybe there’s some industry support for the film lying in wait.  Just keep an eye on that category, that’s all I’m saying.  At least one person seems to be taking a dive for “Trouble the Water,” so who knows…

  • How did ‘Man on Wire’ become the favorite in a field of superior documentary features?

    Man on WireIt often seems that when there isn’t an obvious, populist pick in the Academy’s documentary feature category (such as “Bowling for Columbine,” “March of the Penguins” or “An Inconvenient Truth”), the field is rife for an upset.  Last year a number of awards watchers were sure that either “No End in Sight” or “Sicko” would walk away the winner, while maybe five of us new the power of “Taxi to the Dark Side” would prevail.  “Born Into Brothels” caught a few by surprise in a year that a great many thought would see “Super Size Me” take the gold.

    “Murder on a Sunday Morning” over “Children Underground,” “One Day in September” over “Buena Vista Social Club,” it seems there is always something of a surprise waiting to happen here, and I think it’s because the groupthink always takes such a vigorous hold in a category with little precursor clues as to what the actual film industry thinks of the field.

    This year, it’s a foregone conclusion that the critically acclaimed “Man on Wire” will win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.  The film has nearly swept the circuit.  Only “Trouble the Water” (also nominated) and Guy Maddin’s “My Winnipeg” have popped up with this critics organization or that.  But I submit that, not only is “Man on Wire” quite vulnerable, but it may be the least likely of the nominated docs to win the Oscar in a little less than two weeks’ time.

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  • Academy shortlists 49 original songs

    High School Musical 3… and 11 of them (count ’em) are from “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.” That’s over a fifth of the contenders, so I’m guessing the folks at Disney will be pretty mortified if at least one of them doesn’t make the final five.

    And hell, one of them should. I’m not too snobbish to admit that “HSM3” is an immaculately produced entertainment that succeeds squarely on its own terms, and the same goes for its song score. Those songs are certainly a lot more integral to the film than, say, Peter Gabriel’s track for “WALL-E.” Credit where it’s due.

    Otherwise everything that you’d expect to be on the list is there — including the tracks from “The Wrestler,” “Slumdog Millionaire” (nice to see “O Saya” listed as well as “Jai Ho”) and “Synecdoche, New York,” which I know has a lot of fans (myself included) on this site. Elsewhere, I’m happy to see Jenny Lewis’ cute ditty for “Bolt” contending alongside Miley Cyrus’s composition — though to be honest, I’m just happy to see Jenny Lewis in any context.

    Some will be surprised by the exclusion of Jennifer Hudson’s “Sex and the City” ballad “All Dressed in Love,” but it was closing credits filler, and godawful at that.

    As for predictions, one must bear in mind that the Academy has frequently gone its own way in this category over the last few years, nominating songs that weren’t on anyone’s radar, much less any precursor lists. (Think “Raise It Up” last year, or the French-language “Look to Your Path” in 2005.)

    I’m thinking Norah Jones’ pretty, easygoing “The Story” from the otherwise ill-fated “My Blueberry Nights” will be right up their alley: throwback sound, credible middle-of-the-road artist, story-serving song from a film with a strong musical theme. Bullseye.

    I’ve also been predicting for months that the rousing title song from “Trouble the Water” will surprise in this category, so I’m chuffed to see it crop up here. It’s a terrific hip-hop track with a great story behind it — it’s by Kimberly Rivers Roberts, the struggling rap artist whose remarkable personal narrative, overcoming the horrors of Hurricane Katrina, forms the heart of the film. It’d be pretty damn inspiring to see her perform on the Oscar stage come February, and I have a hunch the Academy’s music branch (who have become more receptive to hip-hop in recent years) will feel the same way.

    Full list after the cut.

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  • ‘Frozen River’ continues its run at Gothams

    “Frozen River” is really turning into one of the surprise packages of this admittedly young awards season. Just yesterday it had a superb showing in yesterday’s Independent Spirit nominations, where it beat the more hotly fancied likes of “The Visitor” to a Best Picture nomination, only two days after landing an unexpected nod in the top category at the Golden Satellite Awards (fending off even heavier opposition, principally “Benjamin Button”).

    Now its dream week continues after taking the Best Feature award at last night’s Gotham Awards, as well as a Best Breakthrough Actor gong for Melissa Leo. Not bad going for a film that was only being talked of in Best Actress circles a few months ago.

    If it continues to emerge as this year’s indie Cinderella story, I’ll be interested to see what notice the Academy takes of it. I sense a Best Original Screenplay nod for Courtney Hunt is a genuine possibility considering the dearth of heavyweights in that field. At the very least, however, the more momentum the film gains, the more I like Leo’s chances of a well-deserved Best Actress nod.

    Moving on to the rest of last night’s awards, I’m glad to see that “Synecdoche, New York” jointly triumphed in the Best Ensemble category, tying with “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” — with a scattering of Spirit noms too, at least Charlie Kaufman’s widely misunderstood masterpiece isn’t getting completely shafted this awards season.

    Meanwhile, Lance Hammer unsurprisingly took the Best Breakthrough Filmmaker award for critics’ darling “Ballast,” while sentimental favou Sitrite “Trouble the Water” emerged victorious in the Best Documentary category.

    The cutely named Best Film Not Playing At A Theatre Near You citation went to “Sita Sings the Blues,” while Penelope Cruz, Gus Van Sant, Melvin Van Peebles and documentary vet Sheila Nevins tooks home tribute awards.

  • The docs you aren’t considering

    Whenever an awards shortlist is announced, people will inevitably spend as much time, if not more, pondering its omissions as they will its inclusions. And so it has been this week, in the wake of the Academy’s announcement of the 15 titles shortlisted for Best Feature Documentary.

    Some are curiously kvetching that Bill Maher’s sporadically amusing but ultimately pedestrian “Religulous” got slighted, instead of commending the Academy for looking beyond the obvious. Others (including yours truly, admittedly) are puzzled that the excellent “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired” didn’t make the cut, while some are surprised that last year’s winner in the category, Alex Gibney, was frozen out this time. (Well, had “Gonzo” been half the film “Taxi to the Dark Side” was, he might not have been.) And then there’s “American Teen” and “Bigger, Faster, Stronger” and … well, you get the idea.

    The conclusion to draw from this is twofold. First of all, in this category, name recognition isn’t always a deciding factor. Second of all, and more simply, the shortlist is, even with these high-profile exclusions, a markedly strong one. Boiling it down to fifteen titles was clearly a harder task than one might have guessed.

    I’m not sure enough people are recognising the breadth and the depth of the competition in this category. Amid the various reactions I’ve read to the shortlist, I’ve noticed the same small handful of contenders coming to the fore: “Standard Operating Procedure” from previous champ Errol Morris, “Encounters at the End of the World” from the long-slighted Werner Herzog, Sundance victor “Trouble the Water,” and the film widely deemed the one to beat, “Man on Wire.”

    I’m less convinced. Yes, they’re all highly acclaimed conversation pieces. (Well, almost — Morris’ film appears more polarising than the rest.) Yes, they all have enjoyed comparatively prominent releases. But, like the notoriously wilful Best Foreign Language Film category, this category doesn’t always reward a high profile. For every time they’ve embraced a populist frontrunner like Michael Moore, they’ve ignored a supposed shoo-in. Just ask, well, Errol Morris and Werner Herzog — both previously snubbed for some of their most lauded work.

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  • ‘Ballast’ tops list of Gotham Indie award nominees

    BallastThe Gotham Independent Film Award nominees have been announced (note the change in moniker this year), and Lance Hammer’s Mississippi drama “Ballast” leads the pack with four nominations.  Six films received two nominations apiece, including Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York,” Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married” and Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

    One film that might have popped up had it been eligible was Gus Van Sant’s “Milk,” but the film was not ready to screen for IFP in time.

    These are the first set of film awards nominations of the 2008 season, kicking off the campaigns for more than a few potential Oscar contenders, including actresses Rosemarie DeWitt, Melissa Leo and Rebecca Hall, each of them nominated in the Breakthrough Actor category.  The documentary race also includes a number of Oscar hopefuls, “Man on Wire,” “Trouble the Water” and “Encounters at the End of the World” among them.

    The frontrunner at this point is probably the bread-winner of the nomiantions process: “Ballast.”  But I have a feeling “The Visitor” could spark enough support to surprise in the end.  Also nominated for Best Feature is Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” the film’s only mention.

    The awards will be held on Tuesday Decmber 2 at New York’s Cipriani Wall Street.

    (Full list of nominees after the jump.)

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