Once again, it's that time of year. It's the Academy Awards, and this year was quite the celebration. 2012 started off not tremendously well and for the first few months, there weren't really any superb quality films released until late March or so. As the year progressed, we saw movies such as The Hunger Games, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Argo, Les Miserables, and so many more. These movies made us laugh; they made us cry; they scared us half to death; they shocked us; they made us cheer; they made us think about the world we live in. But most of all, they impressed us and told us why we go to the movies. So, with that said, here are some of my thoughts on the biggest categories of the night.
Best Supporting Actress
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if you've seen Les Miserables, you know that this wasn't a tremendously close race. There was no doubt in my mind that Anne Hathaway would take this award home. She delivers a masterful performance for the 20 minutes that she's in this film. One of her scenes is a single take of her singing an entire song and showing an incredible range of emotions throughout, something that is truly exciting to see an actress with as much talent as her do.
While it may be obvious to me why she won this award, one could easily argue that Sally Field deserved this award for her role as Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. This is a film loaded with incredible acting and Sally Field is part of what makes this film so incredible. She is extremely convincing to the audience that Mrs. Lincoln is not to be messed with.
Best Supporting Actor
It was always clear in my mind from the moment Dr. King Schultz walked onto the movie screen in Quentin Tarantino's latest film, Django Unchained, that Christoph Waltz, the unbelievably talented actor behind the character, would win this award. He delivers his performance with as much poise and energy as he does in an earlier role as Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. It's hard to describe such a performance without simply stating that you must see this movie in order to understand.
This was also an incredibly tough race, one that I thought was tougher than the race for Best Supporting Actress. Tommy Lee Jones is equally awesome as Waltz, playing Thaddeus Stevens, a representative in a gridlocked U.S. Congress in January 1865 in the film Lincoln. Jones puts an incredible passion into this role, and as a result delivers one of the best acting performances of the year. But Christoph Waltz was better, and therefore won this award.
Best Actress
So, Jennifer Lawrence was in two major films this year, but wasn't nominated for playing Katniss Everdeen (sorry Hunger Games fans). In Silver Linings Playbook, she plays a slightly insane character incredibly well. She embodies her character, Tiffany, with passion and seems to have a lot of fun with the role as well. She showed us she was a talented actress in The Hunger Games, but Silver Linings Playbook showed us just how talented an actress she really is.
I had heard so much hype about how awesome Jessica Chastain is in Zero Dark Thirty, but I wasn't quite as impressed with her performance as other people were. I guess the Academy and I have similar thoughts about this. She is tremendous in this film, playing the CIA agent who found Osama bin Laden, but there's really only one scene in the film that I think defines her role as Oscar worthy. It's the scene in which she is scolding Kyle Chandler's character for not giving her the team she needs to do the job she wants done (They played this clip at the awards show). That's what probably got her nominated for this award, but it wasn't a good enough performance to beat Jennifer Lawrence.
Best Actor
This was one of the toughest races of the whole night. It mostly was between Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables and Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln. But, if you've seen Lincoln, it's clear who the winner of this category is. I believe Daniel Day-Lewis is truly one of the greatest actors of our time. He embodies Lincoln as well as anybody ever has. He delivers one of the finest performances of his career, and certainly the finest performance of the year.
I have to give credit to Hugh Jackman. He plays one of the toughest roles I've ever seen an actor play. He's an incredibly talented singer as well as actor and I was saddened to see that a performance as amazing as his didn't get him the Oscar. It's nearly impossible to compete with Daniel Day-Lewis though.
Best Director
I'm probably not the only one who was upset to read the day after the nominations were announced that Ben Affleck hadn't been nominated for this category for his direction of the film Argo. But of the directors nominated in this category, Ang Lee won for his direction of Life of Pi, truly one of the most beautiful and inspiring films of the year. While the film can be somewhat depressing at times, there is a sense of hope throughout the film that the main character, Pi, will make it safely to land. As glad as I am that Lee won the award this year, it still angers me that the Academy didn't even nominate the director whom I think truly deserved the award.
Ben Affleck has often been impressive in front of the camera as an actor, but not nearly as impressive as he was behind the camera in Argo. This is not only a thrilling story on so many levels, but it's a really great tribute to Tony Mendez, the CIA agent who got six American hostages out of Iran during the Iranian revolution and the person on whom the film is based.
Best Picture
So, the Academy has redeemed itself in my book this year for acknowledging Argo in this category and giving the film this most prestigious of awards. Argo was not my favorite film of the year, but I think it's even better that it got this award over the other films nominated because it indirectly highlights the true talents of Ben Affleck as a director.
My favorite film of the year and my pick to win this award was Les Miserables because it was an all around excellent film. I enjoyed watching a musical that was almost entirely singing. It's also easy to follow the story, even with the lack of dialogue. A more detailed review of the film is still to come, so I won't talk about it too much more.
Overall, I enjoyed watching the awards ceremony as I do every year, even though I wasn't quite as enthusiastic about the nominees or winners as I was last year. I thought the Academy made better choices last year than it did this year. I thought that Seth McFarlane was a decent host for the first few minutes, but as the night went on, his jokes got worse and more offensive. It seemed like Ricky Gervais was hosting the Golden Globes again. He still made the show extraordinarily entertaining in between the announcements of the awards. The Oscars showed that Hollywood has begun to start thinking about advancing the art of film this year, and it showed in the films that were nominated. These films were all very different from most of the mainstream films released in 2012. While many of these films might not have been blockbusters like The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises, these films certainly stray from much of the mainstream, even though these films are still pretty mainstream. My hope for 2013 is that more films will depart from this mainstream style of filmmaking and will further advance the art of film. I hope there will be fewer films that will be simply mindless entertainment and rot our brains and more films that will have us talking long after we leave the theater.
2012 was an exciting year for the movies that drew millions to the theaters and broke box office records. From the trailers that I've seen so far, 2013 looks to be quite promising as well. I hope that many of these new movies coming out soon will get us to think deeply about them and what they say about our world.
So for now, the Oscars are in the books, but it will be exciting again next year. There will be many interesting movies between now and then and the Review Corner will be here with a review of many of them.
Best Supporting Actress
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if you've seen Les Miserables, you know that this wasn't a tremendously close race. There was no doubt in my mind that Anne Hathaway would take this award home. She delivers a masterful performance for the 20 minutes that she's in this film. One of her scenes is a single take of her singing an entire song and showing an incredible range of emotions throughout, something that is truly exciting to see an actress with as much talent as her do.
While it may be obvious to me why she won this award, one could easily argue that Sally Field deserved this award for her role as Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. This is a film loaded with incredible acting and Sally Field is part of what makes this film so incredible. She is extremely convincing to the audience that Mrs. Lincoln is not to be messed with.
Best Supporting Actor
It was always clear in my mind from the moment Dr. King Schultz walked onto the movie screen in Quentin Tarantino's latest film, Django Unchained, that Christoph Waltz, the unbelievably talented actor behind the character, would win this award. He delivers his performance with as much poise and energy as he does in an earlier role as Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. It's hard to describe such a performance without simply stating that you must see this movie in order to understand.
This was also an incredibly tough race, one that I thought was tougher than the race for Best Supporting Actress. Tommy Lee Jones is equally awesome as Waltz, playing Thaddeus Stevens, a representative in a gridlocked U.S. Congress in January 1865 in the film Lincoln. Jones puts an incredible passion into this role, and as a result delivers one of the best acting performances of the year. But Christoph Waltz was better, and therefore won this award.
Best Actress
So, Jennifer Lawrence was in two major films this year, but wasn't nominated for playing Katniss Everdeen (sorry Hunger Games fans). In Silver Linings Playbook, she plays a slightly insane character incredibly well. She embodies her character, Tiffany, with passion and seems to have a lot of fun with the role as well. She showed us she was a talented actress in The Hunger Games, but Silver Linings Playbook showed us just how talented an actress she really is.
I had heard so much hype about how awesome Jessica Chastain is in Zero Dark Thirty, but I wasn't quite as impressed with her performance as other people were. I guess the Academy and I have similar thoughts about this. She is tremendous in this film, playing the CIA agent who found Osama bin Laden, but there's really only one scene in the film that I think defines her role as Oscar worthy. It's the scene in which she is scolding Kyle Chandler's character for not giving her the team she needs to do the job she wants done (They played this clip at the awards show). That's what probably got her nominated for this award, but it wasn't a good enough performance to beat Jennifer Lawrence.
Best Actor
This was one of the toughest races of the whole night. It mostly was between Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables and Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln. But, if you've seen Lincoln, it's clear who the winner of this category is. I believe Daniel Day-Lewis is truly one of the greatest actors of our time. He embodies Lincoln as well as anybody ever has. He delivers one of the finest performances of his career, and certainly the finest performance of the year.
I have to give credit to Hugh Jackman. He plays one of the toughest roles I've ever seen an actor play. He's an incredibly talented singer as well as actor and I was saddened to see that a performance as amazing as his didn't get him the Oscar. It's nearly impossible to compete with Daniel Day-Lewis though.
Best Director
I'm probably not the only one who was upset to read the day after the nominations were announced that Ben Affleck hadn't been nominated for this category for his direction of the film Argo. But of the directors nominated in this category, Ang Lee won for his direction of Life of Pi, truly one of the most beautiful and inspiring films of the year. While the film can be somewhat depressing at times, there is a sense of hope throughout the film that the main character, Pi, will make it safely to land. As glad as I am that Lee won the award this year, it still angers me that the Academy didn't even nominate the director whom I think truly deserved the award.
Ben Affleck has often been impressive in front of the camera as an actor, but not nearly as impressive as he was behind the camera in Argo. This is not only a thrilling story on so many levels, but it's a really great tribute to Tony Mendez, the CIA agent who got six American hostages out of Iran during the Iranian revolution and the person on whom the film is based.
Best Picture
So, the Academy has redeemed itself in my book this year for acknowledging Argo in this category and giving the film this most prestigious of awards. Argo was not my favorite film of the year, but I think it's even better that it got this award over the other films nominated because it indirectly highlights the true talents of Ben Affleck as a director.
My favorite film of the year and my pick to win this award was Les Miserables because it was an all around excellent film. I enjoyed watching a musical that was almost entirely singing. It's also easy to follow the story, even with the lack of dialogue. A more detailed review of the film is still to come, so I won't talk about it too much more.
Overall, I enjoyed watching the awards ceremony as I do every year, even though I wasn't quite as enthusiastic about the nominees or winners as I was last year. I thought the Academy made better choices last year than it did this year. I thought that Seth McFarlane was a decent host for the first few minutes, but as the night went on, his jokes got worse and more offensive. It seemed like Ricky Gervais was hosting the Golden Globes again. He still made the show extraordinarily entertaining in between the announcements of the awards. The Oscars showed that Hollywood has begun to start thinking about advancing the art of film this year, and it showed in the films that were nominated. These films were all very different from most of the mainstream films released in 2012. While many of these films might not have been blockbusters like The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises, these films certainly stray from much of the mainstream, even though these films are still pretty mainstream. My hope for 2013 is that more films will depart from this mainstream style of filmmaking and will further advance the art of film. I hope there will be fewer films that will be simply mindless entertainment and rot our brains and more films that will have us talking long after we leave the theater.
2012 was an exciting year for the movies that drew millions to the theaters and broke box office records. From the trailers that I've seen so far, 2013 looks to be quite promising as well. I hope that many of these new movies coming out soon will get us to think deeply about them and what they say about our world.
So for now, the Oscars are in the books, but it will be exciting again next year. There will be many interesting movies between now and then and the Review Corner will be here with a review of many of them.
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