And the Best Picture goes to...
One of the trickier things about following the Oscars race around these parts is that so few of the movies are shown in local cinemas before the Academy Awards broadcast on Feb. 22. But, being enterprising movie lovers, Filipinos have come up with their own methods to keep up with the “For Oscar Consideration Only” crowd: pirated DVDs. Of course, now people don’t even have to peruse their local “dibidi” mecca for the latest Oscar picks; they simply download and burn them. Naughty, naughty. But really, how else are we going to make an informed decision about the Best Picture of 2008?
The slew of Oscar nods this year, I must say, doesn’t exactly rock my world much. Catching up on the “best performances” narrowed things down a bit, but after watching the Batch of ’08, I feel about as bored with Hollywood as Joaquin Phoenix apparently does with acting and, more recently, Dave Letterman’s couch.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (director: David Fincher): This is the obligatory “epic” Hollywood film, replete with characters aging (or reverse-aging) across an historical backdrop, and it’s no surprise that it recalls Oscar winner Forrest Gump: same dude wrote it, adapting a (much more disturbing) short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. We can give snaps to Brad Pitt — and his CGI people — for rendering the geriatric Benjamin Button as an arresting naïf: a character learning life’s truths in reverse, while his body trades experience for youth. But the later, younger Brad is simply too bland to engage our sympathies much; a little more time worn into those blank facial expressions might’ve helped. Cate Blanchett is impressive, if less good-looking than her co-star (their most affecting scenes take place when she’s an aged woman watching him dwindle back into infancy and beyond). Decked out with sweeping set pieces (like that old hotel in snowbound Russia), Benjamin Button is aimed toward film greatness, but the Gumpish platitudes (“You never know what’s comin’ for you…”) seem determined to knock audience members over the head with meaning. The movie’s buried agenda is to show how much America, in its youth, had to offer the world — WWII bravery, self-sacrifice, even the music of Gershwin — compared with the “lost” days of Hurricane Katrina and George Bush. But those hummingbirds? Gotta go.
Frost/Nixon (director: Ron Howard): A relatively bare-bones effort from Howard, focusing on two public characters and the words between them. Frank Langella gives a strong turn as Richard Nixon, while Michael Sheen seems a bit waxen as British TV host David Frost, who must figure out how to “get” Nixon on camera before time runs out. Best scene: Nixon drunk-dialing Frost with an obscenity-laced tirade about the “sons of bitches” who tried to stop his rise to power (Langella pulls off the miracle of making Nixon seem almost human, even in scenes like this). It only gets too Hollywood in the finale where Frost must pull his act together at the 11th hour, fueled by hamburgers and a fear of becoming a TV joke.
The Reader (director: Stephen Daldry): Fueled by a focused turn from Kate Winslet (following Ricky Gervais’ advice about “doing a Holocaust movie” to bag an Oscar), Kate will probably walk away with the Best Actress trophy in this bildungsroman that could have been titled First Love, First SS Guard. One struggles to recall a movie in which Kate was not required to shed her clothes in every other scene — Sense and Sensibility, maybe? — but in this one she goes Full Kate. Though the movie almost slips into an ABC Afterschool Special at one point (“Frau Shmitz Learns to Read”), it is affecting on a larger scale than other outings this year, helped by Ralph Fiennes’ tragic turn as the caretaker of a buried memory.
Milk (director: Gus Van Sant): Having seen an earlier documentary, The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, I expected more from this Gus Van Sant-directed biopic. It really should be Van Sant’s turf, but if it didn’t have Sean Penn’s nervy, fired-up performance, the story would get lost in the zoning bylaws and procedural details of being a San Francisco city supervisor. Capturing the broader issues of gay rights, the film somehow fails to eke out an internal conflict for Milk; thus he is depicted simply as a savior, a Christ figure even (don’t forget the bullet entry wounds through the hand, recalling stigmata), when the film could have more deeply explored what drove a leader like Milk in the first place. And Diego Luna nearly derails the film with his stereotypical performance. But then, so does the gallery of ‘70s wigs.
Slumdog Millionaire (director: Danny Boyle): The feel-good, Bollywood dance sequence-pimping movie of the year, this unlikely Hollywood hit should give Filipinos pause: all the juicy, gritty details of life at the lower end of the Philippines have been snatched by director Danny Boyle and thrown up on the screen — begging syndicates, eye-popping squalor, call centers, a love of TV game shows — except it’s all happening in Bombay, not Manila. Surely some local filmmaker could have done a grittier version that reflects Philippine life, with all the humor and sadness that surrounds it. Then it would have been local talent flouncing down the red carpet, instead of Taraji Henson and Boyle. Sayang.
Anyway, those are the official nominees. Kudos must go to also-rans like Changeling (Angelina Jolie is Kate’s biggest competition) and The Wrestler (Mickey Rourke should win, if not “Best Actor” then “Best Animal Performance,” beating out that mutt from Beverly Hills Chihuahua).
But seriously… the Best Picture of 2008? The Dark Knight, of course. Things didn’t get any weirder or grander than Christopher Nolan’s inside-out rethink of the comic book franchise, a film that raised the comic superhero genre bar to unthinkable new heights. Watching it a second time, the nuances of the Nolan brothers’ script make it clear how much more graphic novels have to offer the screen besides iron suits and exploding asphalt.
