Best Picture Preview – 2016 Oscars

We have an actual three way race this year.

In recent years, a two movie race has given way late to a singular film that has taken over.

Think Boyhood trailing behind Birdman, Avatar falling behind The Hurt Locker or Gravity losing its grip on 12 Years a Slave.

This year, three films have shifted back and forth in the lead over the final stretch of awards and it may all come down to that mystery component so often referred to as momentum.

Other movies have come an gone, most notably Mad Max: Fury Road, but this race is really coming down to three films based on real events.

What else could have been nominated:

Carol is notable in its absence. Unsurprisingly, a film that wasn’t entirely about straight people got shafted by the Academy, with Bridge of Spies most likely knocking it off the list.

It’s worth noting that the rules allows up to ten films (and no less than five) to be nominated if they garner at least 5% of the overall vote for nominations. From there all nominated films are voted on by all voters, until a winner gets 50% of the total vote and films get eliminated until that is reached.

Early buzz surrounded Joy, Straight Outta Compton, Steve Jobs and The Danish Girl, all of which received other nominations but pretty quickly fell out of the big race.

The Force Awakens and Creed couldn’t capture the same awards buzz as their originals, while Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation was ignored.

Previous award winners Quentin Tarantino, Terence Malick and Cameron Crowe all released movies featuring their writer-director credits, and at least for two thirds of them they were never considered actual films to be watched or taken seriously.

Who was nominated:

The Big Short – Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner

Bridge of Spies – Steven Spielberg, Marc Platt and Kristie Macosko Krieger

Brooklyn – Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey

Mad Max: Fury Road – Doug Mitchell and George Miller

The Martian – Simon Kinberg, Ridley Scott, Michael Schaefer and Mark Huffam

The Revenant – Arnon Milchan, Steve Golin, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Mary Parent and Keith Redmon

Room – Ed Guiney

Spotlight – Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust

The nominees:

The Big Short

Why it will win: Wins that have been crucial in past years such as a Writers Guild Award and a Producers Guild Award usually lead to Oscar success – the last seven PGA winners have won Best Picture – and about a month out from the awards, The Big Short was headed for the big prize. The combination of four legitimate Hollywood stars, a real tale of American tragedy that shook the entire world and some good jokes make this a true contender.
Why it wont win: Those wins, however significant, came in the middle of the awards campaign and not the end. The Big Short peaked at the wrong time and may have ran out of gas. While it is an all-encompassing tale, the visual style may not appeal to all voters, which is a crucial part of winning these voters over.

Bridge of Spies

Why it will win: Speilberg! Hanks! Cold war spies!
Why it wont win: This film was the biggest surprise of the nominations and early on realised it was better suited to putting its awards push behind Mark Rylance in the Best Supporting Actor field.

Brooklyn

Why it will win: The Brooklyn synopsis just spews award winning. A lonely heroine comes to America in period costume and realised what a wonderful and perfect nation it really is. That’s not entirely true, but it sure would appeal to a bunch of voters.
Why it wont win: Much like Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn is more focused on getting Saorise Ronan a Best Actress win.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Why it will win: The Fury Road synopsis makes no sense in award winning. Yet, George Miller’s comeback story has won over a lot of good will in Hollywood. Before the awards race hit complete stride it was the front runner thanks to some major critical awards.
Why it wont win: Critics don’t get votes. While Fury Road is a exhilarating adventure thanks to masterful execution, it doesn’t have the wide appeal to rack in enough votes within all the members.

The Martian

Why it will win: Better than perhaps any other film in this category, The Martian manages to draw together an ensemble cast and create its own world. It cleaned up the comedy/musical section of the Golden Globes, so that’s something.
Why it wont win: But that’s also nothing important. In this century, only Chicago and The Artist have won the Oscar after winning best comedy/musical at the Golden Globes and Birdman didn’t even win that award last year. Listing that it was nominated for Best Picture should help DVD and streaming sales, that’s probably about it for The Martian.

The Revenant

Why it will win: The Revenant has turned down the stretch towards victory with a full head of steam. After taking home the gong in the drama section of the Golden Globes, things went quiet for the gritty survival tale, but down the stretch wins in the Directors Guild Association and the BAFTAs has pushed The Revenant towards the top. More than the other two contenders, The Revenant hits the final day of the season at full speed, making it the favourite.
Why it wont win: Since The Sound of Music warbled its way to the top award, only Titanic has won Best Picture without garnering a nomination in either screenplay category. It makes sense there was no nomination because Leo just drags himself around grunting for a good 90 minutes, but that also speaks to the lack of prestige involved in the project.

Room

Why it will win: Brie Larson is going to win, so that might help, I guess.
Why it wont win: Because it’s a perfectly average film and it hasn’t won anything. Room is making up the numbers.

Spotlight

Why it will win: Spotlight took home a Writers Guild win and the all-important Screen Actors Guild award for best ensemble, historically a good indicator for this award. With the SAG win, Spotlight found itself in the lead in this category and the film topic is a harrowing one that hits home for a lot of people around the world. It’s still right in the hunt and may have just been overtaken by The Revenant, but it might be the best film in this category.
Why it wont win: Like The Big Short, Spotlight doesn’t enter the pointy end of the season with momentum. Without a known director, the studio has had to do a lot of the legwork in making Spotlight visible and may have struggled to maintain the rage.

Who could win: The Big Short, Spotlight
Who should win: Spotlight
Who will win: The Revenant

The Revenant – Review

“My heart bleeds…but revenge is in the creator’s hands”

Despite the now infamously near impossible shoot, despite the isolated and slow moving story line, despite the almost unrelatable timeline and despite the confusing beards, The Revenant is a triumph.

So much could have gone wrong in the creation of this film, yet somehow Alejandro González Iñárritu crafts a near masterpiece, a breathtaking visual delight with enough character building and great performances to keep things ticking.

Encapsulating the wilderness with incredible artistic flair and some clever choices, Iñárritu confirms his status as an A-grade filmmaker, blending a revenge fantasy with a self-reflecting conversation about faith.

It’s in his direction that Iñárritu truly succeeds. While his previous work, Birdman, was innovating, it’s with The Revenant that he shows a clear maturation as a director and performs even better.

The single-take style in Birdman was cool and fun and all of that, but with time it felt like a bit of a gimmick and entering The Revenant I held some fears that Iñárritu would overreach and try to capture a survival/revenge film in one take.

There are one take scenes but they are kept to a handful of action scenes, leaving the result truly breathtaking when they are brought out.

The opening sequence – a scene-setting battle between Native Americans and pioneering Americans who are out to harvest/steal pelts (which from what I can gather means animal fur) – is astonishing.

On par with Saving Private Ryan‘s incredible opener, the first 12 minutes don’t take time to draw breath and produce the most remarkable fight.

Iñárritu inhales this scene with sensational decision making and the way his camera follows and also create the action is something completely unique to his personal style.

The audience seems to travel all at once from spot fire to spot fire as fighting crashes between guns and bow and arrow to fistfighting to knife on knife.

While the movie is certainly not dull from then on, it’s in the first 12 minutes that The Revenant makes its mark in the memory.

Of course there is more to proceedings, as Leonardo DiCaprio’s troop of Americans, reduced in number by that opening battle, escape and begin to plan their way out of this predicament.

DiCaprio’s protagonist Hugh Glass, traveling with his mixed race son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) following the death of Hawk’s mother (Grace Dove), is the nature expert and charged with leading the expedition back to base.

Things get tricky when this group of men are together taking verbal shots at each other, as all aside from Hawk and the young James Bridger (a mature and sharp Will Poulter) wear beards, long hair and look scruffy.

Four or five of these men are unrecognisable and are left in the background. That’s fine because they aren’t really essential characters, but it get’s grating when it is so hard to tell who is who and where they stand regarding Glass.

It’s clear where the dastardly John Fitzgerald stands. Portrayed by Tom Hardy, Fitzgerald is a villain from the top shelf – clear with motives, genuinely dark and evil, yet making decisions that really aren’t that silly.

Hardy nails it, again and outshines DiCaprio. Forget him being the next James Bond, Hardy is the next great Bond villain. Him in the Sean Bean–GoldenEye role is the best possible outcome in terms of Hardy in the 007 universe.

In the wilderness, money driven Fitzgerald pokes at the merits of carrying a teen aged Hawk with the group, to the chagrin of Glass and the semi-annoyance of group leader Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson, who has quietly put together an exceptional run, with Ex Machina, The Force Awakens and Brooklyn alongside The Revenant as an outstanding 2015).

When Glass inexplicably goes for a walk in the woods and gets molested by a bear he lands on the brink of death and becomes dead weight for the limited group of men.

Understandably Fitzgerald doesn’t want to bother lugging Glass up and down icy mountains with Native Americans lurking behind every tree, so in a round-a-bout way he manufactures a way to devoid himself of Glass and make some money.

Of course, if you’re going to leave Leo for dead, make sure he is actually dead, because Glass rises from his grave and begins a trek back to seek revenge.

This middle act, of Glass returning to camp is kept alive by some clever dream sequences that help remove the audience from suffering and cold for brief respites.

One particular sequence, set in a dilapidated church is stunning and the sound work of Bryce Dessner, Carsten Nicolai and the great Ryuichi Sakamoto plays a big part in keeping the tempo going.

Problems arise with The Revenant as Glass goes through turmoil after turmoil. While he survived the real life version of this, it becomes increasingly hard to hold the suspension of disbelief as he fights more and more battles.

It certainly feels like too much when his horse goes off a cliff and he is left to go to Hotel Luke Skywalker, and time could have been shaved off by removing a couple of those speed bumps and a portion of the mostly unimportant Native American-French subplot.

Things don’t drag on that havily, as Iñárritu’s excellent direction makes sure the film is enthralling and things keep moving.

As the finale lurches to its natural conclusion, and the film goes dark it is clear that The Revenant provides a moving an brilliant experience.

So much could have gone wrong here, yet what is left is a near perfect piece of cinematic art.

If you missed it, I have a new rating style. Read up on it here.

Direction/cinematography

As part of the swirling rumours about the shoot, it is believed that in an effort to capture the natural conditions of the setting, Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki only shot in natural light.

This adds to the beauty of the setting and speaks of the commitment behind capturing a seriously good picture. In that awesome opening sequence, the sun is seen setting and that visual glory makes for an even more beautiful experience.

The camera feels like it is going with the characters and a part of proceedings, not just capturing them, as evidenced during a horseback chase, where the camera is left to hover over the conclusion.

At one point the camera is encapsulated by the breath of DiCaprio and fogs over, leading to a cut showing impending fog. While that sounds a little gimmicky on this screen, the cut is so well put together that is allows the audience to breath a little.

This a perfectly captured film, and I pray that Iñárritu makes a war film soon to display that action nuance that is so glorious.

2/2

Screenplay

It feels wrong to contrast The Revenant with Birdman because they are such separate films, yet in the screenplay it is obvious that The Revenant doesn’t have that same dialogue pop.

That’s ok, this film clearly isn’t about dialogue, yet some lines come out cheesy and forced.

The ideas imparted though, in particular one scene where Glass befriends a traveling Native and is left to ponder his place before God hits hard at religious motifs, particularly as it follows Glass literally walking out of water when he couldn’t walk properly before, hinting at evolution.

This ideas and propositions are kept to a minimum so as not to interfere with the adventure, yet are positioned well enough to leave some deep thinking.

On the other hand, things do go on for a little too long.

1.6/2

Acting

Has there ever been a more contrasting set of back-to-back films from a superstar actor than The Wolf of Wall Street and The Revenant?

From the hilariously fun and brilliant performance in Wolf to switch lanes into a deep, slow burning, pain-ridden role in The Revenant is an achievement unto its own.

DiCaprio doesn’t hit the same must-watch heights of performance in The Revenant as he did in his previous film, but he doesn’t really have the chance.

Because of the situation of the film he is left to spend a good 90 minutes grunting, wheezing and straining through pain and physical obstacles, almost in a long version of the Lemmons scene.

DiCaprio is good though, in a way that only he can be with such engaging presence.

Hardy bests him, mostly because he has more to do. He really is just great in everything, good on you Tom.

Gleeson and Poulter provide strong supporting roles, and Poulter is particularly impressive in a mature turn. His role could easily have slipped into petulance but he holds firm.

1.8/2

Re-watchability

This a tricky one in so much that sitting through the entire film is a bit of a battle.

Don’t get me wrong, The Revenant is plenty engaging, but at a certain point the bodily harm against Glass makes it difficult to slug through.

Tuning into the opening and closing sections of the film would be a better option, and it does have memorable bookends making it definitely re-watchable.

1.5/2

Zeitgeist

It’s hard to peg this one as well.

So much of how this film will be remembered hinges on awards, where a major couple of wins will make this film instantly recognisable for years.

It’s not DiCaprio’s finest performance, but it fits into a genre that is rarely mined with quality films.

The Revenant is probably the most memorable survival flick in years, particularly considering Everest came and went very quickly.

If Iñárritu continues to make quality pictures The Revenant will be given a boost as part of the must-watch directors collection, so there are high hopes.

1.7/2

The Revenant – 8.6/10