Oscar Homestretch, Part One

Oscars are breathing down my neck, so it's nitty gritty time. I've already looked at the Animated Shorts, Live Action Shorts, Documentary Shorts, and Documentary Features that are nominated for this Sunday's show, now I'll get to the categories that most people actually had a chance to see. Mostly the Animated films and a few-odd other categories today, finishing up with the big awards by Sunday afternoon.

A quick list of all nominees here. And away we go...

Best Animated Feature
Nominees:

• Brave
• Frankenweenie
• ParaNorman
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits
• Wreck-It Ralph

I only caught the last half of Pirates!, and while I adore Aardman’s bravado and sense of humor, I count it out of the running this year. Like a 6-year old hopped up on Mr. T Cereal I took in all four of the rest in one stellar Saturday.

I hope Tim Burton makes a sunny musical one of these days just so he can reset expectations a bit and I can start to re-appreciate what he does, because it’s frankly getting a little stale. Apart from Martin Landau the voice acting in Frankenweenie falls flat, and despite the many homages to classic horror/monster flicks it never seems like any of the characters are in much danger. Cute, but frustrating.

That said, I have two clear personal favorites in this category: The first, not-surprisingly, is Wreck-It Ralph. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a child of the 80s and old-fashioned when it comes to video games. The first thing I did when I heard about the asteroid near-miss last week was fire up my little triangular ship and start blasting away. Anyway, this is a joy to behold. Fresh, funny, original, and visually stimulating. The King Candy/Ed Wynn character is gold(, Jerry! Gold!) and the attention to detail and non-stop references make it Turbo-tastic!

I must say, though, that I found it a little bizarre that they intentionally designed the four main characters to physically resemble their respective voice actors so closely, and their mannerisms are too acutely tied to personae that those actors have previously exhibited. I guess you could call it on-the-nose casting, but in doing so it risks losing a level of immersiveness; I couldn’t help picturing Kenneth from 30 Rock bouncing around with a hammer trying put the moves on Sue Sylvester.

My second favorite, to my happy surprise, is ParaNorman. Despite a pretty awful title this tickled my funny bone in just the right spot with its non-sequiturs and adult-tinged humor sprinkled throughout, and it brought things home with some really stunning visual sequences. The story revolves around a twisted little witch/zombie curse, allowing it to pickup and run with a broad batch of horror tropes stocked mostly with formulaic characters, but there is enough character arc in a few of them to allow for some growth to wiggle through. Plus, it delivers a strong underlying lesson for the kids. It’s not uncommon for animated films to celebrate “being different” -- come to think of it, ALL of this year's nominees touch on that theme to some extent. ParaNorman ratchets that up another level and reminds us “Hey, bullying is bad, m’kay?” The makers even caused a little extra controversy by having one particular character admit to being gay. It occurs flatly and without fanfare, and marks a first in an animated film (though I always had some questions about the various Prince Charmings, not to mention Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.) Compared to ghosts, zombies and witches, homosexuality is extraordinarily mundane.

Despite my preferences, word on the street is Brave may get the nod, but although the visual style is lush and pretty, it didn't really grab me as anything revolutionary. I like that the strong, independent princess has no need for a prince, making the focus more on the parent/child relationship, but I have some other issues: the story is too classic (read: unoriginal), and nobody seems to really care that bears have been extinct in Scotland for 1000 years before the story supposedly takes place. (Yes, I’m intentionally ignoring the witch/magic angle and only focusing on this one point of non-realism.)

Want to win: A lean to Wreck-It Ralph

Will win: Brave, and I will say, "Ugh, ParaNorman was waaaay better."

Best Foreign Language Film
Nominees: 

• Amour (Austria)
• War Witch (Canada)
• No (Chile)
• A Royal Affair (Denmark)
• Kon-Tiki (Norway)

Amour notching a straight-up Best Picture nod basically makes the Foreign pick a gimme this year, which is good because it's the only one I've yet had an opportunity to see. I'll have more to say when we get to the prime-time categories.

Want/Will Win: Amour

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score

Nominees:

• Anna Karenina - Dario Marianelli
• Argo - Alexandre Desplat
• Life of Pi - Mychael Danna
• Lincoln - John Williams
• Skyfall - Thomas Newman

In my opinion, the best-scored film of the year was Moonrise Kindgom, but since it is relies heavily on Benjamin Britten, Alexandre Desplat's contribution was not considered enough to garner a nomination. He did some other pretty damn good work this year, though, working with Middle Eastern themes and instrumentation in scoring both Argo and the mournful Zero Dark Thirty. 

While you should never count out John Williams, who has his 39th(!) nomination in this category, or the perpetually-fecund Thomas Newman, their work this year owes too much to Aaron Copland and John Barry, respectively. I think Mychael Danna will add to his Golden Globe win with his Indian-flavored score, which nestles beautifully into the remarkable imagery of Life of Pi.

Want: Desplat

Will: Danna

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song

Nominees:

• Chasing Ice, "Before My Time"
• Les Misérables, "Suddenly"
• Life of Pi, "Pi's Lullaby"
• Skyfall, "Skyfall"
• Ted, "Everybody Needs a Best Friend"

After only two nominees last year and an epic win for the Rhymenoceros, the Academy fleshed things out again and let in five from a broad range of films. Shoehorning a maudlin new song into Les Mis was probably a bad choice for a few reasons, but mostly because the song doesn't fit thematically with Valjean's character at that point in the film. "Before My Time" and "Pi's Lullaby" are both beautiful, wistful and much more heartfelt.

Bond themes are a memorable cultural boon (Think Goldfinger, A View to a Kill) but have never won an Oscar and have surprisingly only garnered 3 nominations: Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me ("Nobody Does it Better,") & For Your Eyes Only. In fact, the last Bond to win ANY Oscar was a Special/Visual Effects award for Thunderball way back in 1965! I think it's a pretty safe bet that trend gets bucked this year with Adele’s dark, sultry turn for one of the best Bond films in the 50-year history of the franchise. Ironically, while Seth McFarlane’s ribald Ted takes a jab at Octopussy’s theme, his own loungey, Randy Newman-lite opener will likely lose out to the very franchise he sent up.

Want/Will: "Skyfall"

Best Achievement in Sound Mixing

Nominees:

• Argo
• Les Misérables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Skyfall

Want: Skyfall - While the Best Original Song is the best best to end Bond’s drought, there’s a good chance it will already have ended (perhaps twofold) before all the songs have been sung. An outside chance for Life of Pi, but it’s likely going to the action flick or the musical, so I’m hedging a bit.

Will: Les Mis - I was a bit disappointed in the mix, finding myself lost in the intelligibleness of a lot of the company scenes, but again, there’s a bustle in my hedgerow.

Best Achievement in Sound Editing:

Nominees:

• Argo
• Django Unchained
• Life of Pi
• Skyfall
• Zero Dark Thirty

Want/Will: Zero Dark Thirty, with another chance for Skyfall to get Bond off the schneid.

More picks to come in a day or so...