This article is perhaps a little late in some people’s opinion. It’s been over a week since the nominations were announced but, I wanted to make sure I was able to see a majority of the films nominated before I gave my thoughts on them and how much they deserve it. After all, doing it otherwise is just ignorant and I hate ignorance. Don’t you?
This is the first piece in a series covering the 85th Annual Academy Awards, to be hosted by Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, Ted) and airing on ABC on Sunday, February 24, 2013. This one is just some tidbits regarding either the “lesser” (not meant as an insult as each category is important to making good films, they’re just the least interesting categories) categories or ones in which I do not have an extensive knowledge of.
Best Animated Feature
One of the newer categories of the event, this category isn’t one of the least interesting categories but it is one that I really have no knowledge of. I’m a good 2-3 years (if not more) behind in terms of animated films as they’re usually just not my thing but from all accounts, it would appear that Brave is the front-runner It recently won Best Animated Film at the Golden Globes and while the HFPA (Hollywood Foreign Press Association) and the Academy have grown more and more apart in recent years, Brave was the only Pixar film released in 2012 and is generally considered the best animated film of the year. Wreck-It-Ralph could steal it but Brave winning a Golden Globe likely means it’s going to win here too.
Best Foreign Film
Amour likely has this in the bag. After all, it’s even nominated for Best Picture and foreign films that are nominated there tend to win in their specific category as well. No or A Royal Affair could steal it because they both benefit from having actors (Gael García Bernal and Mads Mikkelsen respectively) that are also known in the US but it’s not very likely. It’s not something the Academy would go for and I don’t think it’s even eligible because it started on the festival circuit in 2011, but The Raid: Redemption would’ve been an awesome nomination.
Best Achievement in Cinematography
This should be Roger Deakins’ to lose for his work on Skyfall but the fact that Claudio Miranda won at the Critics Choice Awards for Life of Pi could mean he ends up with it, which would be a shame. Deakins is one of the best cinematographers in the game, having been nominated for an Academy Award 10 times now but he has yet to win the award, despite deserving the award on many of those occasions. For example, he was nominated twice in 2008 and really should’ve won for either of the films (No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). Robert Richardson is another possibility for his work on Django Unchained but the film’s controversial subject matter could work against him (and is likely why Quentin Tarantino wasn’t nominated in the Best Director category).
Best Original Song
This has to be Adele and Paul Epworth’s for their Bond theme “Skyfall”. They won the Golden Globe and she’s a high profile artist so the odds are stacked in their favor quite a bit and deservedly so. The lyrics are a bit non-sensical but it’s a good song overall in general, let alone one made for a film.
Best Visual Effects
I would imagine that The Hobbit is a lock for this. There’s been some debate as to how successful the use of 48 frames per second was but people are talking about it and it’s an innovative concept which definitely makes it the front-runner. The visual effects for The Avengers were great and is probably the next likeliest film to win for this category but it’s doubtful it’s even that close.
I’ll close this piece with the fact that I find it a bit odd that The Dark Knight Rises was shutout completely from the event. I get that they want to distance themselves from the tragedy in Aurora, and to his credit, Christopher Nolan chose not to make the awards rounds in support of the film because of that, but the fact that it didn’t get any nods for any sort of technical achievement (where it does deserve the recognition) is slightly puzzling. Obviously, paying respect to those affected by such a tragedy should come first and foremost but not acknowledging the hard work that went into making the film seems a bit shortsighted to me. And while using the event for political purposes could be in poor taste, it would also provide another platform to talk about gun control and mental health, two issues that need to be talked about more, even if they’re already being covered extensively.
Anyways, enough with the rant about things unrelated to movies! Stay tuned for my next piece on the screenplay categories, both original and adaptation!
Author: ConceptsbyKJR