Top Ten: Surprise Nominations

Michael C. here from Serious Film for Tuesday Top Ten.

The great contradiction of awards season is that there is nothing spectators enjoy more than a surprise yet that doesn't stop anyone from doing everything but pick through the trash of Academy members looking for clues that might help in divining their choices. The truth is that film awards, like presidential elections or tomorrow's weather, are not all that difficult to predict once you know a few basics. That's what makes genuine shockers such a rare treat.

So, with the Golden Globe winners suggesting a year of easy calls across the board and the BAFTA nominees giving tiny flickers of hope to a few longshot candidates (particular in the actress categories), let's dive into past out-of-the-blue choices with the ten most surprising Oscar nominations and see if they hint at any rays of hope for this year's long shots.

     Ten Most Surprising Recent Oscar Nominations

Michael Shannon (2008) Supporting Actor

People talk a lot about momentum and popular films having coattails when it comes to supporting performances. There is truth to this, but in the end sometimes it's better to simply give a killer performance. This was the case when those predicting Dev Patel would take this slot due to Slumdog fever turned out to be wrong and the nomination instead went to Michael Shannon's brief, explosive performance in Revolutionary Road. Social Network contenders Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake no doubt hope that their film's frontrunner status is enough to keep any dark horses from sprinting past them at the finish line.

Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) Picture

Part two of Clint Eastwood's WWII double feature (immediately following Flags of Our Fathers) got nominated despite subtitles, minimal precursor attention, and tiny box office. It took the slot universally expected to go to Dreamgirls proving that all the prerelease hype in the world can't land a Best Picture nomination if voters simply don't go for a film - a lesson Clint learned three years late with Invictus. 

Ed Norton (1998) Lead Actor

In this awards race, SAG (the Screen Actors Guild) ignored Ed Norton's intense work in American History X for the more conventional choice of Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love. The switch on the Oscar ballot was undoubtedly an example of Norton doing well with Oscar's system of weighted ballots, with an extremely passionate fan base pushing him over the top of more widely seen choices. Actors like Tilda Swinton or Ryan Gosling with similarly strong supporters might find themselves the beneficiary of this system come the morning of the 25th.

Samantha Morton and Djimon Hounsou (2003) Lead Actress, Supporting Actor

In America was looking like a sentimental also-ran after neither of these actors landed SAG or Golden Globe nominations. Just goes to show that certain late bloomers can hit the Academy sweet spot without making much of a ripple in the early stages of awards season. Hopefully, that means contender's like Another Year's Lesley Manville have more of a shot than the odds suggest.

Troy (2004) Costumes

This entry could just as easily be The Village's Best Score nomination from the same year. It's to the credit of the Academy's smaller branches that they've shown a willingness to stray outside the frontrunners to pick out quality work in otherwise forgettable projects. Are there any standout elements from otherwise off-the-radar 2010 films that could pop up unexpectedly? The nicely realized costumes from Centurion spring to mind.

The Secret of Kells (2009) Best Animated Film

The nomination of this beautiful, obscure Irish animated fable is a strong reminder that when the voters actually watch all the eligible films in a category, the conventional wisdom falls by the wayside pretty quick. Imagine if actors could only vote for Best Actress if they could prove they've seen Blue Valentine, I Am Love and Another Year? I dream, I know. As far as eligible animated contenders this year, I've heard My Dog Tulip is incredibly moving and Idiots and Angels is a feature from beloved animator Bill Plympton, a guy who certainly has some fans in the animation branch. Look out for those two.

The Reader (2008) Picture

This shocker is going to have reverberations for years to come. When Stephen Daldry's sober drama side-swiped The Dark Knight out of its expected Best Picture nod the Academy panicked, expanding the Best Picture field to ensure that small independent films wouldn't lead them down the road to obsolescence. The only lesson to draw from this - Oscar voters still don't dig superheroes, especially when there's a film with Nazis available - doesn't exactly apply this year, although the snub has granted Christopher Nolan "overdue" status that can only help Inception.

Mike Leigh (2004) Director

The lone director slot has become something of an Oscar tradition over the years with the director's branch making sure to recognize deserving auteurs whose films are too out of the mainstream for the big prize. Examples range from David Lynch in '01 back to such icons as Akira Kurosawa in '85 and Fellini four separate times. I selected Mike Leigh because these lone directors are usually not that hard to spot - a couple of people, including Nathaniel right here, saw Almodovar coming in '02 - but nobody picked up on any buzz for Vera Drake outside Imelda Staunton. If voters heard how hard Blue Valentine's Derek Cianfrance fought for years to get his film made he might be the latest member of this very exclusive club.

Keisha Castle Hughes (2003) Lead Actress

Even if people generally agree that a category designation is false it still tends to stick. My guess is that most voters would rather go with the inaccurate classification than risk wasting their vote by swimming against the current. This wasn't the case in '03 when to everyone's amazement Oscar voters plucked this child actress's performance in Whale Rider out of the supporting category where it was nominated by SAG and promoted it to the big leagues. The parallel to 2010 is all too obvious so I will merely say that the leading ladies should watch their back for a precocious 14-year old armed with her father's revolver and the Coen brothers' dialogue. 

City of God (2003) Director, Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography

These four out-of-nowhere nominations for Fernando Meirelles's Brazilian crime epic are the kind that give hope to followers of the gaudy circus that is Oscar season. They suggest that voters will not only go out of their way to see small films of quality, but will remember them from early in the year and then ignore the frontrunners to vote for them in sufficient numbers to make a difference. It gives free rein to imagine your dark horse favorite isn't totally out of it. Maybe an out-of-the-blue Best Picture nod for I Am Love or Somewhere this year? I wouldn't bet on it, but look at those four nominations again before you tell me it's impossible.

Best of 2010: Nathaniel's Top Ten List

Previously on "Best of the Year"
Honorable Mentions: Scott Pilgrim, Another Year, Winter's Bone, etcetera
Runners Up: A Prophet, Toy Story 3, Rabbit Hole

TOP TEN LIST

10 How to Train Your Dragon (see previous article)
09 The Ghost Writer (see previous article)
08 Fish Tank (see previous article)

Animal Kingdom dir. David Michôd.
[SPC, August 15th]
It begins with a banal static shot of a mother & son watching a game show, all zoned out like couch potatoes. A few seconds later paramedics arrive. Surprise, you've been staring at a dead woman! This is but the first of many chilling upheavals (and, uh, dead bodies). Her orphaned son "J" is soon picked up by his estranged Grandma (Jacki Weaver in an Oscar worthy performances) and dropped right into her lion's den; his uncles are all crooks. Animal Kingdom circles around introducing this testosterone-heavy crime family and then it makes like a boa constrictor. It may be the family that's getting squeezed but you have to remind yourself to breathe. It's the year's best crime drama and a major arrival for first timer writer/director David Michôd.

The Fighter dir. David O. Russell
[Paramount, Dec 17th]
Springing as it does from the extremely tired sports bio, this movie is a real miracle. It's tough to single out a favorite moment or element because it's "squirrely" humanity keeps popping into frame even within standard tropes and traditional scenes. Christian Bale and Melissa Leo and Christian Bale are a perfect exhaustive mother and son but Mark Wahlberg and Amy Adams quieter work as Mickey and Charlene resonates, too. David O. Russell is the movie's MVP. He's not brawling or slugging it out as many directors do. Like Mickey he's picking his punches... "Head. Body. Head. Body". He's an even craftier boxer. You never know where the next punch is landing "Head. Body. Funnybone. Heart".

The rest is in alpha order. 

"No rankings?" you scream in disbelief and protest? See, it's like this. It's late at night and I'm way tired and I kept changing the order and I finally gave up. But I gotta announce my personal Best Picture nominees.  You don't wanna know medals already, do you? (Don't answer that.) We've just begun our annual awardage.

Black Swan dir. Darren Aronofsky
[Fox Searchlight, Dec 5th]
"It's so pink. Pretttttty" Nina (Natalie Portman) says peering down at a grapefruit. What is it with Aronofsky and grapefruit? (See also: Requiem for a Dream). Nina is in some ways a silly girl, terrified of her own shadow, grossed out by sex, at odds with her body, still living in her mother's apartment.  Black Swan is silly and girlie itself, in love with its most histrionic moments, its mad crushes, and always eager to peer over but then retreat from the precipice [Spoiler] until the actual adult moment arrives when Nina dances the Black Swan. So what to make of artistic triumph being a literal fall if not, perhaps, a literal death? [/Spoiler] It's odd that Aronofsky's fifth feature feels so juvenile after his most adult (The Wrestler) but he's clearly having a ball. Nina's not the only one seeing reflections. This is Aronofsky's own funhouse hall of mirrors.

Blue Valentine dir. Derek Cianfrance
[Weinstein Co., Dec 29th]
Hundreds of stories announce their resolution straightaway and use the 'How did we get here?' hook as they circle back to kick off the story. Blue Valentine doesn't do this exactly, but you can soon compare and contrast the start and finish line. The film shows us the courtship and the breakup of Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) simultaneously on linear tracks. Cindy and Dean are out of sync even in their happiest moments but the actors are brilliantly in sync. The genius of the telling is not, I think, in how it starts or how it ends but in all the tiny details that point you towards that vacuum in the middle. Notice the gap. As for the film's own middle? Perfection. Shortly after we've seen that Cindy don't wanna dance with Dean no more ("You and Me") she happily dances for him ("You Always Hurt The Ones You Love"). The songs are in the wrong order.

The Kids Are All Right dir. Lisa Cholodenko
[Focus, July 30th]
This dramedy is so effervescent that its easy to miss the depth and the detail as you're laughing. Though it's light on its feet, Kids is grounded in multi-dimensional characters, smart specific dialogue and structural beauty, too. It takes place in that wonderfully vital summer between adolescence and adulthood and so does the movie, toggling between the two as Joni and Laser (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson) cope with growing up and their moms (Julianne Moore and Annette Bening) cope with marital trouble and Paul, the new man in all their lives (an exceptional Mark Ruffalo). Paul himself is caught between adolescence and adulthood albeit in a different way. The family expands and constricts and expands and constricts as all families do, experimenting with their own dynamics as life rolls on. Paul may be an interloper but then, so are we. We're just happy to have shared our summer with them.

I Am Love dir. Luca Guadagnino
[Magnolia, June 18th]
In I Am Love, a ravishingly operatic melodrama, Tilda Swinton, that prized jewel of the movies plays Emma, the prized jewel of a wealthy Italian family. The storytelling is in the images and oh, what images. (I Am Cinema would be an appropriate alternate title.) In fact, the film might reveal itself more readily without the subtitles. The secret key to its divisive ending (if you ask me, she's not being punished as some angry readings go) is to notice that it's not just her husband who wants her locked up. Even her beloved servant cocoons her with curtains, shutting out the world. Her son, too. She's never to be lost or shared or stolen or even changed. Whenever Emma escapes, there's sudden rushes of feeling, sunlight, flavor, curiousity, beauty.

The Social Network dir. David Fincher
[Columbia, October 1st]
Not many movies feel like new classics while you're watching them. And as early as the first scene, too. Most need time to settle. Not so with The Social Network which just speeds through, all synapses firing with rich performances (Jesse's best) inspired direction (Fincher's best) and handsome production values (many people's best?), until... "wait, it's over?" When that ending comes (spoilers: Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook, got sued, is a gajillionaire) you want to click "refresh" yourself. Project that bad boy again! Here's why I know it's a new classic: second viewing, ending comes "wait, it's over? Refresh!"; third viewing, ending comes "wait, it's over? Refresh!"; Fourth viewing, ending comes "wait, it's over? Refresh!"

Wow! Luise Rainer is 101

Happy birthday to the oldest living Oscar winner, Luise Rainer

"The Good Earth" and "The Great Ziegfeld"May she live to be as old as she wants to!

Luise was the first actress to become a double Oscar winner (36/37) and the first thespian to do it back-to-back though Spencer Tracy repeated her trick immediately (37/38); Katharine Hepburn (67/68), Jason Robards (76/77) and Tom Hanks (93/94) followed suit.

Tonight
TCM is airing interviews with Luise

OLDEST LIVING OSCAR NOMINEES

1. LUISE RAINER (two time Best Actress winner), now 101.
2. NORMAN CORWIN (nominee, wrote Lust for Life) is 100 1/2.
3. DOUGLAS SLOCOMBE (3-time nominee, shot Raiders of the Lost Ark) is 98 next month.
4. ELMO WILLIAMS (Oscar winner, editing High Noon) is 98 in April.
5. OSWALD MORRIS (Oscar winner, shot Fiddler on the Roof) recently turned 95.
6. OLIVIA deHAVILLAND (two time Best Actress winner and featured in fav actresses gallery) is 94
7. KIRK DOUGLAS (Michael Douglas pappy and 3 time nominee) just turned 94.
8. ERNEST BORGNINE (Best Actor winner, Marty) turns 94 this month. He was last seen in the action comedy Red (2010).
9. CELESTE HOLM (Best Supporting Actress winner for Gentleman's Agreement which we were just discussing and the best thing about a million movies, don'cha think?) is 93.
10. JOAN FONTAINE (Best Actress winner, Suspicion) is 93.

lots more here though I can never decide if the keeping of this list is too morbid or appropriately celebratory of longevity. Wouldn't it be great if they asked ANY of them to present an Oscar this year? Nah, they'll probably ask Miley Cyrus again instead, DAMNIT.

Best of 2010: Prophets, Toys, Fish Tanks and Rabbit Holes

Previously: Honorable Mentions
(Short on time so the second half has to wait. Apologies.)

Part 1
The Film Experience loves nothing more than being transported by the movies. The year's top dozen (a baker's dozen) took us deep inside French prisons, soared over Viking villages, danced into British projects and stumbled into Australian crime dens. This year's best films wandered 'round places both far flung (wealthy Italian estates) and right next door (New York City's Lincoln Center wherein a certain ballerina frets and pirouettes and transforms).

Wherever the year's best took us, we wanted to go. In fact, we're ready to go again. Just let us grab that unpublished manuscript and a treasured childhood toy for the journey. And, oops... just -- updating facebook status. Okay, now we're ready. Let's go!

[mild very vague spoilers on The Ghost Writer and Fish Tank]

RUNNERS UP

Un prophète dir. Jacques Audiard
[Sony Pictures Classics, Feb 26th]
Last year's shouldawontheforeignoscar contender treads excessively familiar ground patiently, biding its time. Malik (breakthrough sensation Tahar Rahim) may be a criminal savant but Jacques Audiard is the alpha dog in this dank dangerous racially charged prison (and outside of it as well). The French auteur's always expressive cinematic voice makes full use of both image and sound. They flicker and pulse as if in whispered conversation, haunting each other with their most awful details. Malik's horrifying character arc from remorseful killer to skilled death-dealer is so gradual that you're as surprised as he when you fully grasp the new criminal ecosystem when exiting this prison.

Toy Story 3 dir. Lee Unkrich
[Disney/Pixar, June 18th]

This latest and hopefully last Toy Story adventure expertly capitalizes on nostalgia for itself. (Please don't make another one Pixar as you'll taint the beautiful full circle affect of this one.) Scene for scene TS3 is maybe both the best comedy and the best tearjerker of the year.  The only reason it's not in the top ten -- shush, I realize it's supposed to be -- is that its deep comforts and emotional potency are inarguably the product of 15 years of other movies and cozy familiarity with the characters. Its considerable charm and four hankie finale is not exactly derived from this movie itself. In other words, it's got an enormous advantage over practically everything else that came out in 2010. It's like when everyone declared the end of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith so epic and moving and pretended that the movie didn't suck while it borrowed its emotional affect from the Force being with us for 30 years. The difference here (he quickly adds) is that Toy Story 3 is a marvelous movie in its own right: inventive, hilarious, beautifully staged.

Rabbit Hole dir. John Cameron Mitchell
[Lions Gate, Dec 17th]
This is a refreshingly unhistrionic portrait of grief and those are rare beasts. Its unassuming strengths, and maybe that hushed release in the noisiest of movie seasons, might be the thing(s) preventing it from breaking out. Which, come to think of it, is reflective of Becca herself (a great Nicole Kidman) as she's always getting in her own way. David Lindsay-Abaire's expert screenplay gets so many things about grief right. It understands that those most in need of comfort often push it away, it gets the way righteous anger leaks out as freeform hostility, and it sees that strangers can offer clarity and windows to healing that loved ones, with their messy intimacies, cannot. This might not sound like fun but it's sometimes bracingly funny. Rabbit Hole begins with a shot of Becca opening a bag of soil while she tensely gardens. Mitchell's sensitive direction and the fine cast do the work, but they trust you to notice their eventual flowering.

Top Ten List 

How To Train Your Dragon dir. Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders
[Dreamworks, March 26th]
Here's to happy miracles. When was the last time you saw a movie boy rewarded for using his smarts and intuition and accepting his peaceful nature? When was the last time the hero of an epic was a pacifist rather than a warrior? I won't hold my breath waiting for the answer. (Gandhi?) How to Train Your Dragon figures out how to have it both ways of course (this is mainstream cinema) and like Tangled, it trips on nervous bids at popularity: why do the kids speak with modern American snark while all the adults have Scottish accents? I haven't a clue! But its flight sequences are as magical as Avatar's and Toothless, the dread Night Fury is a brilliantly executed character. This is a personal choice but this movie arrived in my life right when I needed it. Our top tens ought to be a personal, else why make them? Dragon might be the best hug-your-pet movie since Babe (1995); it's not perfect but that'll do.

The Ghost Writer dir. Roman Polanski
[Summit, March 19th]
We never learn the name of the ghost (Ewan McGregor) hired to shadow and write about a politician under investigation (Pierce Brosnan) and why should we? The movie also plays it coy. Polanski's amazing sleight of hand alternately flashes us a political satire, a nihilistic comedy, a murder thriller and maybe even a drama about having a really shitty job for which no rewards or public acknowledgement will ever come. The Ghost Writer has memorably sinister interiors filled with sharp angles and splashes of blood red color. The exteriors are no safer as the endless stormy weather, slick streets and bodies washed ashore portend. Can a whole film be a red herring? It all builds towards the year's most brilliant ending, a vanishing act, a negation.


Fish Tank dir. Andrea Arnold
[IFC Films, January 15th]
Arnold's sophomore feature follows an angry British girl Mia (Katie Jarvis) around in her grim daily life as she hates on her family, picks fights with the neighbors, crushes on her mom's new man (Michael Fassbender, predictably excellent), and dreams of becoming a professional hiphop dancer. There are plentiful movies about downtrodden inarticulate characters each year but few this acutely observed. Even when Fish Tank risks going off the rails by willfully slamming into metaphor (the horse) or veering towards the edge of genre territory (an abduction) it works a peculiar beguiling magic. Just when you think the movie can't possibly resolve the gangly awkward impulses of its teen protagonist towards any satisfying conclusion, it stages a farewell dance that's both perfectly surreal and absurdly mundane. Wow.

..CONTINUE TO THE COMPLETE TOP TEN

Best of 2010: Honorable Mentions

Before we begin, new readers take note: This is but the beginning of The Film Experience year-in-review kudos. It goes on for some time because we're giddy and OCD like that when it comes to recognizing great work. The "Film Bitch Awards" title is misleading and an old joke from college. We don't look down at the movies through our noses, but look up at the silver screen in reverie.

Here's a quick overview of well-loved films outside of the top ten (make that a top thirteen, coming tomorrow). Don't we all ♥ more than ten films a year?

Best Documentaries
I don't include documentaries in my top ten -- a personal quirk since they're a different artform with wildly different goals -- but if I did include them, please note that the Kimberly Reed's trans identity essay Prodigal Sons [Netflix Instant Watch] and the Chinese migration family drama Last Train Home, both released theatrically in 2010, would be in the mix. They might be the two best docs I've seen since Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man which you'll understand is the highest compliment I can pay them. I was also intrigued by Catfish, but then I saw it long before it was possible to have it "spoiled."  It's arguably exploitative take on online relationship and virtual identity works whether it's staged or real. And the scene that gives the film its name? Wow.

Exit Through Joan's Gift Shop

Quite by accident I saw more documentaries this year than I ever have. The two other true keepers among the batch were laugh-out-loud goodies: Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop and Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work which both stare straight at the lunacy of celebrity and artistic success, one with twinkling eyes and amused disbelief, the other with trembling lip and defiant survival.

Movie I Feel Bad About Missing
I shan't bore you with the details but please know that I did try to see Dogtooth -- most people I trust have urged me to see it -- but was thwarted in my attempts. One for the future. For what it's worth I also missed: For Colored Girls,  Robin Hood, and the French romantic comedy Heartbreaker which was an international hit, finishing in the top 100 globally. How did I miss that one? Grrrr.

The Movies I Can't Count
There is an argument out there that in this new millenium, theatrical release is more or less meaningless and shouldn't be a factor in year-end honors. But, without some sort of structure, how can there be community in movie discussions?

Click to read more ...