For what it's worth, I have been a champion of Mark's suggestion to have a new category honouring the use of pre-existing music in a motion picture.  It would also reflect the sign of our video-essay/super-cut-making times.

NICK: Joe Reid, a regular Friend of The Film Experience, also suggested this very change in a great article he wrote last week for NPR.  But before we all start rehearsing our most and least favorite Song nominations and performances of the past—and in the process sounding exacting like this year's nostalgia-addicted Academy voters—I suspect our host has other plans for us.  Having taken a quick spin through Oscar's widest roster and quickly agreed that something's very rotten in the state of its narrowest one, where are you leading us next, Nathaniel?  In fact, where are you?

NATHANIEL: I'm not entirely sure. I swear I just left the party for an instant and when I came back the place was a royal mess and none of you had stayed to help me clean up. THANKS. 

But a better question might be "When am I?" since you've all decided to embrace nostalgia (Original Songs!) and futurism (let's add categories!) instead of staying in the now. I can't embrace either impulse. I've discussed Original Song enough this year though I keep coming up with new ways to fix it. Later!

Best Casting sounds like a wonderful idea since it's easily one of the top three most important elements in making a great film. But, like editing, it's an invisible art. We don't know what they had to work with so, like Editing, it would just be a category in which the voters grabbed at well liked movies (my guess is 4 Best Picture nominees + 1 with a huge cast. Most Casting!) and they'd call it a day. It would be largely useless and I'm guessing repetitive, acting wins paired with casting wins each time.

Which leads us to Best/Most Acting. Acting is not an invisible art (obviously) but it's also a mysterious one mixing the role itself, the star persona, collaborative boosts (the right costume, the best lines to deliver, etcetera) all into one package. Of our 20 nominees, who do you think is doing the heaviest lifting -- other than Viola Davis who seems to be a consensus pick as to Someone Who Elevated Her Movie -- and why?

ALI: Brad Pitt is the MVP of Moneyball, and without him, I doubt the film would have worked half as well.  First of all, it is truly an old-fashioned, movie star performance, where Pitt is playing a "real" human being.  It's a subtle, almost mysterious, turn.  His Billy Beane was once destined for greatness, but has always had to make do with being the runner-up (at best).  His frustrations seem to bubble up inside of him, just waiting for that opportune moment to burst.  Also, it's a fun and funny performance; full of, once again, ye olde movie star charm.  You can't keep your eyes off him.  Billy Beane might not be my favourite character of the year (that's probably Smiley), but Brad Pitt is definitely my favourite actor, who turned Moneyball into something truly great.

MARK: I agree with Ali that Pitt is the best of this year's Best Actor candidates, but I think that's because he had to do the least heavy lifting--and that's a good thing. Pitt is supported by a terrific cast (not just Jonah Hill, but beautiful small performances by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Chris Pratt), by a director, Bennett Miller, who really understands actors, and by a screenplay that really understands language, character, and structure. So he can concentrate on the subtleties of his own work--finding just the right notes of brashness and ego and insecurity and middle-aged vanity within a well-drawn character--because's he's in a real movie, not a performance showcase.

I think when we talk admiringly of an actor doing heavy lifting, we're talking, almost by definition, about failure. Heavy lifting of the kind that Meryl Streep does in The Iron Lady or Glenn Close does in Albert Nobbs almost always happens either because the rest of the movie is insufficiently built to support the performance or because it exists ONLY to support the performance. I guess I'm betraying a bias against anything that looks like a star vehicle when it comes to the Oscars, unless that vehicle is so well-designed that it offers a whole set of pleasures of its own.

Kurt OsenlundKURT: I'm absolutely with the consensus that Brad Pitt was just excellent in Moneyball -- the best he's ever been and the most dteserving of the Best Actor crop. I think Mark pretty much nailed my thoughts on how his work relates to the heavy lifting concept, though. To the letter, actually. 

When I think of heavy lifting, the acting contender who jumps out at me, tits first, is Janet McTeer. Albert Nobbs was just so airless to me, and watching McTeer was like plopping down at an oxygen bar. She was the only thing in that movie that hoisted it up to a human level, however over-animated one might consider her performance (a criticism I've certainly heard). Those two performances were like outsized takes on Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar--the relatively content figure of drastic vitality and the drastically tight-lipped closet dweller. This time, though, only one of the two had soul. I don't think this was a matter of the actress consciously elevating the film she's in, but I do think McTeer pulls off one of the biggest acts of movie theft I've seen in a while. 

NICK: I'll co-sign all the love of Brad Pitt and Mark's great distillation of why Moneyball works so well.  I'd duplicate most of the same sentiments as a tribute to Plummer and Beginners, another film that surprised me by having a more ambitious and unusual structure than I had anticipated, supporting its actors in every way a movie can and allowing them to support each other gorgeously, too.  Tree of Life aside, I think Beginners is on a par with A Separation as the best-executed of all the non-documentary films on Oscar's roster.  I'm thrilled Plummer is here for really supporting a movie and not rescuing or stealing one, as this kind of role is often asked to do.

In the spirit in which you asked your question, Nathaniel, I think my answer might be Jean Dujardin.  I like The Artist less than you do and more than Mark does; not sure where Ali and Kurt stand on it.  But by the time we hit the second half, where the visuals get a little more ho-hum and the plotting hits the skids in a lot of ways (and not just with Bejo careening around in that car), the finesse, dexterity, and tremendous good will that Dujardin has gifted the movie make it seem like a much more polished conception than it really is.

ALI: Having used the incredibly witty epithet The Shartist for Michel Hazanavicius' film in some of my coverage, I have, nonetheless, been an admirer, in general terms, of Dujardin's performance.  I also enjoy Bejo's, even though her general attitude seems slightly anachronistic.  But Dujardin does have panache, and that's probably due to that incredibly expressive face, which works wonders in a silent movie.  I don't believe that he elevates the film in the same way that Pitt does Moneyball, but his performance is crucial to the eventual effect of the movie.  He carries the film, but the film, in return, farts in his face.  I can't get over the utterly baffling cross-cutting in the latter part of the film where Uggie does his best Lassie impression to get Joel Murray's attention as Dujardin fails to realise that the house is on fire (or is he contemplating suicide?  I am hazy about the details, but the gist of my argument remains).

But he seems to have already become a parody of himself: his antics with the dog at the Globes or his singing of La Marseillaise after SAG when he was asked of the possibility of his winning an Oscar.  A performance is different from the performer, obviously, but I wonder if that sort of sub-Benigniesque shenanigans won't have any retroactive effect?

NICK: "Sub-Benigniesque" Burn...

ALI: Nathaniel, I know you are a big fan of The Artist.  What say you about Dujardin?

Nathaniel RogersNATHANIEL: I'm already incredibly tired of defending The Artist. I think it's a special movie and no single film made me happier while watching it this year. People tend to use "feel good" in a derogatory way but I hardly think it's a mark against the film that it's joyous. This is why comedies have such trouble winning awards. They're always dismissed as piffles.

I am actually disheartened each year, right about this time, by the behavior of film critics. Oscar season brings out the worst in people in that it polarizes their opinions instantly. It's the "A" and "F" syndrome when the reality is that 95% of movies fall somewhere inbetween. What would normally be something that delights or annoys  becomes BEST and WORST Thing Ever and I find it lazy and reactionary. Hugo vs. The Artist and Extremely Loud vs. War Horse are perfect examples. The first combo shares a love of silent cinema but fans of Hugo seem to behave as if The Artist is an affront to cinephilia. I can't count the number of cheap shots taken at the film which seem to be operating from an ivory tower of "only the great unwashed masses who've never seen a silent would love it.". I grew up near a revival house and I have seen plenty of silent movies (one of my earliest actressexual obsessions: Louise Brooks) and I love it. Yet Hugo gets a free pass even though it's more problematic in execution.

Meanwhile Spielberg makes one of his most awkward movies yet, that never tries to earn its sentiment or bombast, but just begins as if they're a given, and is rewarded for it. Daldry shows up with a movie that definitely has its bombastic and sentimental moments but he does try to earn them (even if he fails) and he's The Devil. It's just weird to me. I always want to tell people to back away from the movies and breathe deeply. 

KURT: Yeah, I'm going to chime in on The Artist: Nathaniel and I saw that together at NYFF, and we both walked out elated. Like him, I think it's a really lovely, rewarding sit, and like him, I feel the attacks against it in terms of its misrepresentation of the silent era largely miss the point of what it's trying to accomplish. That said, my love for it has cooled a bit with distance, and though I don't begrudge it its awards season performance, I'm having a tough time loving its individual parts. Dujardin, for example, only gets my passing admiration. Ditto all the inevitably nominated visual elements. The industry and technology commentary is what remains the most effective thing for me -- and yet, and yet, I surely wouldn't place it among my own screenplay favorites. So there's that. 

NICK: I honestly don't think any of these movies has gotten a free pass this season, and certainly not War Horse or Hugo.  Nathaniel, I see your point completely about overly emphatic fall-guy arguments, which have been prevalent, but each of the movies on the Best Picture list has had to fight some resistance.  The only break in that pattern, I think, is Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which (I'm aware I'm repeating myself) has the obverse problem of drawing so much vituperation before a lot of people have even had a look at it... or heard its impeccable sound design and impressive score.  

MARK: I'm going to back away from Nathaniel's point, because I think once we start questioning the motives of people who disagree with us about movies, we're in a losing argument. I, for instance, love War Horse and do not find it awkward or bombastic but in full control of the particular emotional language in which it's chosen to tell its story. It doesn't mean I'm a sucker--or that the people who disagree with me are haters, overreacters, or hypocrites. 

NATHANIEL: That's  fair and I shall spend a little time in the corner for my outburst. But haven't you ever felt that something you loved... or even something you only liked but found interesting in its failures... was greeted in a less than fair or honest way?

I've probably been most critical of War Horse and The Descendants of the nominees but I hardly feel like I've advocated setting fire to their negatives. Some of the discussions you overhear this time of year...

ALI: Well, that is interesting.  Do we hate the films during this time of the year, or do we hate the arguments for films we did not like?  I am splitting hairs, I know, but I do write about film.  It comes with the territory.

The reason I believe "The Artist" is absolute piffle has nothing to do with its being a comedy.  In fact, I agree that comedies do get the short shrift when it comes to the Oscars.  For what it's worth, a film like "Bowfinger" deserved a nomination for all the right (funny, well-made) and the wrong (star-studded, navel-gazing) reasons.  The problem I have with "The Artist" is that it claims to be something that it so obviously is not.  It is a pastiche, which is good enough, but it is also the work of an artisan and not an artist.  Its simplicity is its undoing for me, whereas that quality works wonders for others.  In a year that gave us films like The Tree of Life (which didn't work for me) or Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (which I believe to be 2011's best), I find it incredulous to hail this film as the ultimate in the roster.  It does start off well enough, but, man, it crumbles, and the last fifteen minutes are "you-shot-who-in-the-what-now" incomprehensible.

READERS? 

• Do you think The Artist soars or crumbles in its last act?
• Do you believe any movie has been treated unfairly this season?
• If you were at a party with the Best Picture nominees which would you hit on and which would you ignore?

CONTINUE TO DAY TWO