Dr. AC's 2013 Oscar Rundown

2013 Academy Awards Nominees

Just in the nick of time, here is my completely subjective take on the Oscar race.  These are not in any way to be seen as my handicapping, so don’t blame me if you don’t walk off with the office pool.  Who does win is completely out of my control.  Who I feel should win?  That’s another story, and I’ve noted my picks with an asterisk (*). 

Read on…

Best Picture

LOOPER (2012) movie review

Looper (2012) (1st viewing) d. Johnson, Rian (USA)

An intriguing time travel flick that turns into an apocalyptic sci-fi nightmare about 2/3 of the way through…which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a shady assassin that gangsters of the future hire to kill and dispose of their enemies by zapping them back to the past, a career choice that takes a nasty turn when his future self (embodied by Bruce Willis) pops up in his sight on the appointed cornfield tarp.

TATTOO (1981) movie review

Tattoo (1981)  d. Brooks, Bob (USA)

Before taking another visit to the inkman, you might want to bust out this studio-endorsed bit of exploitation, directed by one-off offender Bob Brooks and scripted by Joyce Bunuel (daughter-in-law to Luis). Bruce Dern turns in another committed nutbar performance, this time as an obsessive tattoo artist who sets his sights on fashion model Maud Adams. When she rejects him, he resorts to abduction, then proceeds to use her unconscious body as a canvas for his increasingly intricate designs.

56 UP (2012) movie review

56 Up! (2012) d. Apted, Michael (UK)

Apted’s astonishing cinematic experiment, checking in with a disparate group of 14 British individuals every seven years, enters its eighth installment and like its subjects remains fascinating even as it settles into a more even keel and acceptance of life. There are still plenty of ups and downs, but we’ve passed the stage of young adult angst and mid-life crises, and entered a stage where one’s children’s problems become more a concern than one’s own. It’s an odd observation considering the entire series is structured upon reflection, of at once looking forward and backward, but this chapter feels more introspective and contemplative than any of its predecessors. Still, it’s exciting to see Peter Davies, who bowed out of his involvement after 28 Up, back on screen and entering a new chapter in life as a member of a new folk rock trio, The Good Intentions.

LAST DAYS (2005) movie review

Last Days (2005) d. Van Sant, Gus (USA)

Talk about your wildly swinging pendulums. On the one hand, we have the Gus Van Sant that made the edgy My Own Private Idaho and Drugstore Cowboy. On the other, we have the Hollywood conformist of Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester. (And we won’t even get into that wackjob who remade Psycho.) File this psuedo-docudrama about the imagined final days of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain under “edgy Van Sant.” You can also file it under "nearly impenetrable," thanks to the stylized mumblings of Michael Pitt in the lead role (I actually flipped on the subtitles at times, just to see what we might have been missing).

HATE (aka LA HAINE) (1995) movie review

Hate (aka La Haine) (1995) d. Kassovitz, Mathieu (France)

When Kassovitz’s bracing 1995 feature won the Best Director prize at Cannes, it divided critics into two camps: Those who found it a dazzling, urgent piece of new French realism, and those who dismissed it as slick, Hollywood-influenced attitudinizing. La Haine covers a day in the life after a riot, this one sparked by the hospitalization of an Arab teenager due to police brutality.

ATLANTIC CITY (1980) movie review

Atlantic City (1980 d. Malle, Louis (Canada/France)

Few actors had Burt Lancaster’s sense of masculine grace, and in his aging years, he gave us a couple of wonderful swan songs to remember him by (Local Hero and Field of Dreams come to mind). But Louis Malle’s ode to a city in transition and little people with littler dreams served not only as a showcase for Lancaster as a sad and lonely numbers runner in the titular township, but also provided Susan Sarandon with her first Oscar nomination (not to mention an incredibly memorable opening sequence. I doubt anyone who sees it will be able to slice another lemon the same way again.)

THE LADY EVE (1941) movie review

Lady Eve, The (1941) d. Sturges, Preston (USA)

Preston Sturges works his magic once again in this madcap tale of Pike’s Pale Ale fortune heir/snake aficionado Henry Fonda running into radiant con lady Barbara Stanwyck aboard an NYC bound cruise ship. Duplicitous mayhem and hilarity ensue, aided by a superlative supporting cast that includes Charles Coburn as Stanwyck’s affable and conniving father, the bombastic Eugene Pallette as Pike the elder, and William Demarest as Fonda’s grouchy, irascible aide-de-camp Muggsy.

SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS (1927) movie review

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) d. Murnau, F.W. (USA)

Oscar’s first – and only – winner of the “Best Unique and Artistic Picture” Award. (Wings would take the official “Best Picture” honors, starting the Academy Awards off on their merry history of handing out the top prize based on Hollywood politics as opposed to actual merit - sure, those flying sequences are pretty cool but the rest of the movie? Come on.) Married farmer George O'Brien falls under the spell of The Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston), who tries to convince him to drown his devoted wife Janet Gaynor. With this relatively simple, almost fable-like plot as his canvas, F.W. Murnau (Faust, Nosferatu) unleashed a bevy of groundbreaking techniques that continue to amaze 80 years later.

JARHEAD (2005) movie review

Jarhead (2005) d. Mendes, Sam (USA)

American Beauty director Mendes presents a vivid look at what it was like for US Marines involved in the Desert Shield/Storm engagement with Iraq in 1990-1991. At least, I am guessing that this may have been what it was like, as only those who were there could say for certain. The script by William Broyles, Jr. is adapted from one such Marine, Anthony Swofford. As played by Jake Gyllenhaal, Swofford is a gung ho regular Joe who sits firmly in the middle ground between the macho frat boy killers and intellectual protesters against the madness who seems to make up his onscreen battalion.