OMG Oscar noms! Also, Ted Mosby, Architect

[jlh]

Before I get into the Oscars, I want to note that How I Met Your Mother continues to delight and amaze me and while it's a hit (having gotten a boost from the CBS Monday night lineup of hit comedies) I wish it got more critical/awards attention because it's as solid a show as any of the others.

Which segues nicely into the Oscar nominations that were announced this morning. I'm usually pretty bloodless about awards; other than a small box office/DVD sales boost and occasionally bringing someone from indies to the "big show" they end up not meaning much. I think anyone looking at the list of Best Pictures as a DVD viewing list would say, nice place to start, but you're missing a lot—which is why even though you can also say that about all those AFI lists, put them all together and you've got a really great bible of American film of the twentieth century.

There are also internal politics at work at the Academy. For example, the directors vote for best director, so those folks are almost the same people as the members of the Directors Guild, who have always had a hate on for Scorcese, so you can play "is this his year" but you know, it almost never is. Just like the Grammys, and unlike critics lists, the Oscars also subtly reward movies that make money, because they know that an Oscar will lead to a lot of copycats.

As for Best Picture, there are four ways to get there that I can see:

• Big and Epic. Think Lawrence of Arabia or Gandhi. Think movies that you know after seeing them will win Best Cinematography. These often have a central actor or actress, often are some kind of biopic (veiled or not) of a driven personality.
  
• (Doomed) Lovers Against a Backdrop of Events Bigger Than They Are. Think From Here to Eternity or The English Patient. These films are nearly always up for Best Adapted screenplay because they're taken from an enormous book with the plot streamlined to just the doomed lovers and the historical events unfolding around them. Usually only one of the pair of lovers is nominated, almost always the woman because there are fewer good female parts after all, and the actor noms are full of people doing boy movies, but the woman often doesn't win anyway so it's academic.
  
• Small Tragic Story of People Who Run Into Circumstances. Think Leaving Las Vegas or any movie starring Hilary Swank. Often they play opposite an actor who gets a lot of attention and may or may not win a Supporting Acting award. Also they are often an indie, or started that way until a Big Director or Big Actor got involved because they could see Oscar written all over it.
  
• The Movie Everyone Just Kinda Liked Because Everything Else That Year Was Kind of a Bummer and It Still Was Awfully Good. Think Shakespeare in Love or even It Happened One Night. These are seen as upsets, but usually what's happened is that all the bummer movies cancelled themselves out, as in 1998 when Shakespeare in Love was against Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Elizabeth and Life is Beautiful. Also more possible if the big movie could just be thrown a Best Director, as Spielberg was that year.

Which is the lead up to, why did Chicago win Best Picture while Dreamgirls wasn't even nominated? Well, I think at least part of it was that it was a big ensemble, part of it was that it wasn't riding a Broadway revival so it didn't feel as "new", and part of it was that there wasn't a lot of script between the songs, which is often where musicals fall short for Oscars. In Chicago, the songs were "non-diegetic"; that is, they were nearly all dialogue that had become song, in that way of people in musicals bursting into song, and therefore they were more obvious in how they moved the plot forward. In Dreamgirls, the songs were often diegetic, that is, they were self-conscious performances, and while they did move the plot forward it was in a subtle way. I think that the interplay of diegetic and non-diegetic music in Dreamgirls is its strength as a musical and what makes it feel modern, but note that Hollywood isn't interested in modern. Chicago still broke out with the big production numbers, and that's actually what they're looking for. I'm disappointed because I think Dreamgirls deserves the nomination, but it's made good box office so far, and that means more much of the time. At least Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy were nominated and both will be singing at the show.

Me, I'm going to continue to be not that involved this year in the awards. No picks here, and I'm not really that excited to run out and see the nominated films I haven't seen yet. I'll be watching and commenting from the sidelines, and I'm not sure why this is such a "whatever" year for me, but I don't have a horse in this race. Well, except for Little Miss Sunshine, which won't win but which I'm so pleased was nominated. Go you!

Comments

[locumtenens.livejournal.com]

In Dreamgirls, the songs were often diegetic

Okay, I get that, and the fact that I haven't actually watched Dreamgirls yet obviously distorts my view of things... But really, Little Miss Sunshine?! I had to stop and make sure it was the same movie L & I watched last week (it was). I mean, it was good and humorous in a Royal Tenenbaum kind of way, but... oh, right. The Oscars *do* love that kind of movie, don't they?

Sigh. I just wanted more for Dreamgirls, I guess.

Also, I'm crossing my fingers for Leo to win this year.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I don't think Little Miss Sunshine got in instead of Dreamgirls; most were predicting that movie to get in. There are other things that seem to be more of a surprise. That said, and I saw Dreamgirls, Little Miss Sunshine may well be my favorite movie that I saw in 2006. I loved the characters, and all the little character notes, and the things that happened were so organic instead of "and now we will fuck with the character in this way!" and that sort of thing, and I just thought it was fantastic from start to finish.