Tag Archives: Academy Awards

Star Wars was robbed by Academy in 1977

Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon. Lightsabers, droids, Wookiees, and the Death Star are part of our everyday conversations. The Washington National Cathedral is adorned with a gargoyle of what Americans voted to be the epitome of evil: Darth Vader. And almost every single piece of media made in the last decade, in my experience, contains at least one reference to a Star Wars movie.

Star Wars is easily one of the most successful franchises in world history, yet it is so much more than that. The Star Wars films have inspired generations of young people to dream and to fight back against injustice. They taught us to realize our places as individuals, while remaining integral parts of a much larger universe. The original, historic chapter of the film series, however, is the ultimate example of Academy Award oversight.

Each year, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards excellence in film, only one movie can take home the top honor: Best Picture. It’s no secret that the Academy naturally favors a certain type of movie. And that is OK. As much as I love Superbad, it’s certainly not the type of movie that should be named Best Picture.

Often, a tremendous work of art is given the nod, much like this year’s 12 Years a Slave. Sometimes, however, the best film of the year gets overlooked in favor of a Hollywood vanity piece or a good movie that will be forgotten in a few years. But some types of movies — in certain genres or with certain characteristics — seem doomed, however good, right from the start.

Seeing that a few comedies have won Best Picture was actually quite jarring. In my time, every winner has been a period piece or a film that raises awareness to illness. These films are often heart-wrenching masterpieces that did not get the proper box office respect. But the Academy’s love affair with these true, or at least almost true, stories neglects original writing and punishes those who make creative films.

Blockbusters are typically big moneymakers. Recently, Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com identified 11 features that define a film as a blockbuster. Those 388 films are listed here, beginning with number 62, Jaws; how many Best Picture winners can you pick out? You won’t find many. Only three Best Picture winners have grossed over $200 million domestically (in the United States), and only six winners are in the top 200 domestically grossing films of all-time. Does the Academy have a natural aversion to blockbuster films?

Examine the Best Picture nominee list closely. Star Wars is one of only six science fiction films in eight decades to receive a Best Picture nomination. I understand that science fiction does not typically stand out for nuance or impressively written scripts. In a lot of instances, a science fiction film shouldn’t get the honor of Best Picture. Did The Avengers deserve to win Best Picture? Absolutely not. That doesn’t prevent it from being one of my all-time favorite movies. But I have a special affection for hero stories and movies that stretch my imagination.

Other blockbusters and science fiction films, however, are more than blow-em-up spectacles. Unfortunately, I think the prejudice against genre films has led to some egregious oversights from the Academy. Escapism can create movies just as compelling as reflection can. That brings us back to the original Star Wars film. This masterpiece was a victim of the Academy’s predisposition against films about the extraordinary, and was ultimately passed over for the top award. If Star Wars didn’t win in 1977, I have to ask: can a science fiction movie ever win Best Picture?

Star Wars defied conventional Academy practices by actually receiving a Best Picture nomination in the first place. The film even took home seven trophies, primarily for its innovative approach to filmmaking. But at the end of the night, the statuette for Best Picture was awarded to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. Don’t get me wrong. Annie Hall is a tremendous film. The movie is hilarious from beginning to end and holds up even after 37 years. It’s a rare older movie that feels like it could have been made today. And it defies awards expectations of its own as a comedy, which is so rare to see honored with an Oscar. It is also not nearly as innovative as Star Wars.

Consider: which movie has made a greater impact on world culture, Annie Hall or Star Wars? I challenge you to name any movie that has made a larger impact than Star Wars. But again, I understand if you disagree about cultural relevance being a factor in naming Best Picture. That is also an impact that cannot be fully measured for many years after a film’s release. So let’s dissect the iconic film for its specific merits.

In my view, a movie should be graded on plot, characters, acting, world building, creativity, innovation, subject matter, and historical relevance. Annie Hall gets high marks for several of these categories, while Star Wars is superior to most films in nearly every one.

Star Wars is, perhaps, the most technically innovative movie of all time. Sure, it doesn’t look like Avatar, but the original movie was made before computers were even a factor in filmmaking. In fact, the production of Star Wars helped to create the computer generated imagery that made movies like Gravity and The Avengers possible.

George Lucas, with very little money available to make his vision come to life, managed to create an entire universe of societies, spacecraft, and sentient beings of peculiar appearance, using only models and costumes. Lucas created the Wookiee, the Jawa, dozens of background alien species, and two legendary droids named C-3PO and R2-D2 without any help from the CGI that would eventually become synonymous with Lucasfilm and its spinoff company, Pixar.

However, these technical leaps don’t necessarily make a film worthy of Best Picture. If they did, Gravity would have been the 2013 winner. Thankfully, it wasn’t, but that’s because the story of Gravity, while interesting, was shallow and lacked any kind of memorable character. That might also be one of the potential weaknesses of Star Wars. Its characters may not be as complex as something from Shakespeare — but they are just as recognizable, if not more so. Are there any movie characters more well known than Luke, Han, Leia, Vader, or the droids?

Again, popularity does not mean a film is necessarily good. I can admit that Obi-Wan never made me cry like Oskar Schindler, and Luke isn’t perhaps as inspiring as Abraham Lincoln. But these characters live in a galaxy different from our own, and yet they still manage to make us feel as though we have joined them on their journey.

Luke Skywalker is offered as a stand-in for the viewer. He is a kid from a simple place looking to leave his world behind him when an unexpected turn of events leads him to the stars. He is motivated by a desire to accomplish something, and he believes the Galactic Empire needs to be brought down. He is a man who longs for his father, aspiring to be like him without even knowing who he was. It is a story familiar to every boy and girl who feels they are destined for greater things.

Luke has to come into his own while learning from his mentor, Ben Kenobi. Ben becomes a surrogate father — not just to Luke, but to those of us who want to believe we can achieve greatness. Ben’s climactic fight with his former protege, Darth Vader, ends with the mentor’s sacrifice before the eyes of his apprentice. Luke then has to rise up and become the new hero the Galaxy needs. It is the advice of his mentor, along with the assistance of his new friend, the roguish Han Solo, plus his newfound faith in his own ability and the world around him that leads Luke to an immeasurable victory as he brings down the planet-destroying Death Star.

Sure, Luke isn’t facing disease or dealing with being a slave, but he’s a young man fighting a literal galaxy of problems, dealing with his inadequacies and yearning to know about his parents and find himself. Perhaps the acting isn’t on par with Daniel Day-Lewis or Gary Oldman (though Oldman had been rumored to be joining the cast of the next Star Wars flick), but there is never a scene in the original movie that takes the audience out of the moment through bad acting or unbelievable sets. What Lucas and the actors did was create an unbelievable world and make it believable. That type of talent should be honored.

The Star Wars films aren’t overtly about the human condition and they don’t raise awareness to some controversial topic, but they do follow a time-honored story structure, one that has been imitated many times since and has been honored in other, non-sci-fi films. Star Wars is about the hero’s journey, a narrative technique that is rooted in ancient mythology.

As explained by mythologist Joseph Campbell, the hero’s journey is the arc that follows a hero from the common to the extraordinary. This hero is often an everyman on an unlikely quest, an epic campaign to overcome the greatest odds. The hero will grow as a person either for surviving the trek or for dying a legend. These stories also often follow the friends of the protagonist as they come into their own and help the hero defeat the great evil. The hero’s journey may not involve human suffering in a way we can always relate to, but that doesn’t make a film any less qualified to be considered the Best Picture of the year.

Perhaps you believe the Best Picture winner should speak to something beyond what appears on the screen. As I said, great movies must have compelling subject matter. A Best Picture winner should teach a lesson and make us think about how we live our lives. Star Wars, with its philosophical underpinnings and questions on war and proper government, accomplishes all of this in spades.

Star Wars is packed with philosophy. Questions of destiny and the great interconnectedness of all life fill the movie from beginning to end. The Force, introduced in the first Star Wars movie, took traits from religions and philosophies across the globe to create a mystical, mythical energy force that binds us and guides us. Fans of Star Wars were inspired by Kenobi to listen to our surroundings and become attuned to the space in which we live. And the Force is just the glue that holds together the enormous world built by Lucas and his crew.

No movie was as thorough as Star Wars in creating an entire universe. Many lines in the 1977 film were carefully crafted to construct a history of this galaxy so different from our own. When speaking to Obi-Wan, Luke casually mentions “The Clone Wars” years before this event would be expounded upon. Obi-Wan’s lines about Luke’s father display an uncertainty that takes on new meaning when the viewer learns the truth in the sequel. What other movie has created lines so rich in content that books could be written for years expanding on just several hours of film?

If a movie is funny, dramatic, original, compelling, and innovative, what else does it take to be given the honor of being called Best Picture? By denying the statue to Star Wars, was the Academy simply making a pretentious statement against a movie that requires such suspension of disbelief? What is the point of movies if not to create new worlds and tell stories that can’t really happen? As much as I am a fan of realism in movies, escapism should not be so marginalized.

Lucas and the folks at Lucasfilm created the world’s most enduring movie, lasting across generations of fans and penetrating our culture in every way. And even if you take away all that has happened since the 1977 release, what you are left with is still a modern myth, a compelling narrative of trial and loss, a rich plethora of characters who take us on a heroic journey to a galaxy far, far away.

Star Wars was the most innovative and influential film of the 20th century. It was unjustly denied its due respect from the Academy by not receiving the award for being the Best Picture of 1977.

Butler, Fruitvale Station snubs show prejudice

In the past 20 years, 120 films have received Academy Awards nominations for Best Picture. Of those nominees, only 17 featured nonwhite leads, and those characters were primarily athletes, entertainers, and criminals.

Is this evidence that a movie starring a white man is inherently better?

Do this year’s nominations mean there was only one good movie made by a black director in 2013?

Can the Academy only nominate one movie with a black star each year?

The answer to the first two questions is obviously, “No,” but digging deeper into that third question may uncover a real problem.

2013 was a good year for movies about the black experience, but it has not translated into Oscars recognition. 12 Years a Slave is likely to win the award for Best Picture tonight, but it is the only nominee in the category featuring any nonwhite lead. Many movie buffs were left shocked at the lack of nominations for two strong films with black lead actors: Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Fruitvale Station were completely shut out by the Academy.

Many argue that the oversight was simply due to the films’ midyear releases. Others, myself included, worry it may be something more. It would appear the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is suffering from the same problem as the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which generated anger by awarding a Grammy to Macklemore over a collection of black artists. In response to the lack of recognition by both academies, some fans of the artists on the short end have cried “racism.”

I disagree. What’s at play here is not a matter of racism. To be racist is to knowingly bear resentment against a person for their ethnicity or the color of their skin. The Academy’s lack of recognition for The Butler and Fruitvale Station is not a malicious action to deny the artistic value of these works, but rather a subconscious prejudice against movies that are harder for these voters to relate to.

To be prejudiced is not to be racist. To have prejudice is not blatant or malicious. Every one of us has some kind of prejudice. The Academy has a prejudice, too. It suffers from a lack of understanding different cultures — a problem that is unavoidable in such an homogenous body: the members of the Academy are 94 percent white. (12 Years a Slave managed to overcome this prejudice, in part, because of its strong white supporting cast.)

Perhaps this is why Fruitvale Station received no love from the Academy. The old, rich, white folks who make up the voting body simply cannot relate to the everyday challenges in the life of Oscar Grant. The film, starring Michael B. Jordan as Grant, was hard for me, a white male, to get into at first. Grant, a 22-year-old man who was believed to have been a victim of police brutality, is shown unknowingly living his last day on Earth. Writer and director Ryan Coogler artfully tells Grant’s story in a raw and real way, showing the everyday life of a good, if flawed, man.

Fruitvale Station is just not the type of movie that I would typically enjoy. It felt almost too real, at times too mundane, and Grant was a man with whom it was difficult to sympathize at first. However, it wasn’t long before I found myself questioning the prejudice that plagued my view of the movie. As a regular movie viewer, I’ve become conditioned to expect certain things in my movies even as I profess to oppose that mentality. It took some time before I was able to look past the fact that the sets were dirty and the people weren’t all beautiful — that the world the characters lived in was my own, and that this story was not going to have a happy ending.

Our prejudice influences our immersion into movies. It’s only natural that we try to latch onto the character who is most like us when watching a film. We like to see ourselves as Captain Phillips or Dr. Ryan Stone as we wonder how we would handle the difficult circumstances these characters face. We find it easier to live vicariously through Jordan Belfort as he behaves extravagantly because it’s what any one of us would love to do if there were no consequences.

It is harder, though, to become engrossed in a film that is about a real life, not like our own: a tragedy, out of our hands, depicting someone who might not look like us. Perhaps it’s more difficult to watch when we realize the unthinkable story of Fruitvale Station took place as recently as 2009. Maybe watching that film made members of the Academy uncomfortable, unwilling to nominate it for a major award.

The Butler, however, had all the benchmarks of the type of movie the Academy would regularly reward. With beautiful cinematography, an all-star cast of actors both black and white, social commentary on the 1960s and 70s, and a true story about mistakes made by white people set right again by more white people. So why did Lee Daniels get snubbed?

My prejudice was no factor in thoroughly enjoying The Butler from beginning to end. Based very loosely on a true story, much like American Hustle, The Butler tells the story of Cecil Gaines, a White House domestic servant, as he leads his life and family through the tumultuous 20th century and the early years of the 21st.

Unfortunately for history fans, the most intriguing angle of The Butler was a complete Hollywood concoction. In order to show the changing social conditions in the United States from the 1950s to the current millennium, the movie also follows the story of Cecil’s son, Louis, as he joins the Civil Rights movement, the Black Panthers, and later, the Democratic Party as a nominee for Congress. Unfortunately, Louis Gaines was never a real person.

Eugene Allen, the man upon whom Cecil was based, was an actual White House butler for over 34 years. But unlike Cecil, Allen only had one son, who fought in and survived Vietnam. The character of Cecil is the father of two children, with the younger boy leaving to fight in Vietnam during the course of the movie. Still, these sorts of liberties are taken in many movies and can’t possibly be held up as an excuse for snubbing the film when American Hustle followed the same formula.

Obviously, not every movie can be nominated for Best Picture. Still, it seems like a slight against these two magnificent movies that neither was nominated when realistic stories about white men, like Nebraska and Captain Phillips, received their recognition from the Academy.

I am not arguing that either Lee Daniels’ The Butler or Fruitvale Station deserves to be awarded Best Picture. Neither was on the same level as 12 Years a Slave. Both movies, however, certainly deserve to be recognized ahead of some of the other Best Picture nominees.

While I don’t believe the Academy made malicious, racist decisions, I have to conclude that the slights given to these two movies were based on a subconscious prejudice that influences all of us. The diverse perspectives that can be brought together when a group of about 6,000 people vote on the best films of the year should counterbalance those prejudices. But that outcome is impossible when the Academy is 94 percent white, 77 percent male, and very old.

The true, important story of Dallas Buyers Club

The film Dallas Buyers Club tells the true story of Ron Woodroof, a Texas rodeo enthusiast, electrician, and occasional con man adapting to a shocking HIV diagnosis in 1980s Texas, where the disease and its sufferers were shrouded in confusion, homophobia, and hopelessness.

The Best Picture nominee has been a film over 20 years in the making. Screenwriter Craig Borten spent hours interviewing Woodroof prior to the AIDS victim’s death in 1992. The film had several false starts, as the bleak, difficult subject matter put off financiers. Borten found the constant rejection pushing him into self-destructive behaviors. Even after the project was finally green-lit, it nearly came to a screeching halt when financing fell through just seven weeks before filming began.

In the end, enough money came through to create a stirring film, driven by stellar acting and a surprising, touching friendship between two people seemingly as different as night and day.

Woodroof, played by Matthew McConaughey, struggles not only with the physical ravages of HIV and AIDS, but also with the paranoia and prejudice exhibited toward AIDS sufferers. There are the fears and misunderstandings of how HIV is contracted: even Woodroof’s so-called friends didn’t want to get too close to him, for fear they may contract the disease as well. Plus, there is the misconception that to have acquired HIV, Woodroof must be gay — an unacceptable condition in Woodroof’s “macho” circle. His friends all turn their backs on him when he needs them most.

Much of the buzz around Dallas Buys Club concerns McConaughey’s performance as Woodroof. With this role, McConaughey attempts to step out of the shadow of the stereotypical goofy, stoner characters he has been typecast into and take on a much more serious and dramatic role.

McConaughey dove in with such dedication that he lost more than 40 pounds for the movie. His appearance is so skeletal, he’s nearly unrecognizable; only his voice is distinctly his. The way his skin clings to his body makes him look almost mummified. The physical transformation makes it easy to set aside any preconceived notions you may have about McConaughey himself and just see the character.

What many people have forgotten over the last few years, as McConaughey has taken on more and more chick-flick roles and become the brunt of many jokes in Hollywood, is that the man actually has talent. The problem is that talent is all too often squandered on films like Failure to Launch and Magic Mike (in which he coincidentally plays a character named Dallas). But every so often, McConaughey puts on a performance like this one that reminds everyone how good he can be.

As Woodruff defiantly resists treatment for his illness, he finds himself rushed to the hospital, where he shares a room with Rayon, a transgendered AIDS patient. Rayon is a composite character, distilled from a number of individuals the real-life Woodruff came to know. Rayon is played by Jared Leto, the Thirty Seconds to Mars front man, who is brilliant in his first film role in four years.

Rayon, who identifies as a woman, helps balance out and smooth over some of Woodroof’s rough edges. She is a perfect foil for Woodroof, and it’s through Rayon that Woodroof begins to let go of the bigotry he harbored before being diagnosed with HIV. One of the best aspects of this film is watching the friendship that develops between Woodroof and Rayon. Woodroof starts out as a homophobic cowboy with all the same prejudices as his friends, but ultimately Rayon becomes the only true friend he has.

As the HIV/AIDS pandemic exploded in the 1980s, unauthorized “buyers clubs” opened across the United States to provide experimental and alternative treatments for the symptoms of a disease that was poorly understood and often willfully ignored because of its association with so-called immoral behaviors. Before long, Woodruff and Rayon form a partnership to open a buyers club of their own to sell medications to other AIDS patients.

In doing so, Woodroof raises the ire of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A drug called azidothymidine (AZT) was fast-tracked through the testing process and given FDA approval. AZT was then administered in high doses, which damaged patients as frequently as it helped them. Eve, another composite character, is a crusading doctor at the hospital where Woodruff and Rayon are treated. Eve’s loyalties lie with treating her patients, occasionally bringing her into conflict with hospital administrators and Big Pharma.

Despite the potential for the character, Jennifer Garner is underwhelming in the role of Eve. Compared to the other Oscar-worthy performances in this film, Garner’s effort felt stiff and somewhat awkward. Despite having worked with McConaughey previously, there didn’t seem to be as much chemistry there as one would have expected. Garner is a decent actress; however, she doesn’t seem to have the range of her contemporaries. Quite often, her characters blend together and it feel like she’s always playing the same role.

Leto and McConaughey’s fantastic performances, though, made up for any shortfalls with the rest of the cast. Yet there still seemed to be something lacking in the telling of this story. The filmmakers’ financial struggles forced them to sacrifice some shooting locations and lighting to save money. Director Jean-Marc VallÃ‡e said this may have worked out better, as it ended up being more in the spirit of the characters. Nonetheless, the film felt rough or uneven at times; it was hard to tell how much of this was an intentional choice and how much was a result of the sacrifices that had to be made.

In the end, though, the cinematic inconsistencies within the film do not detract from the overall plot and the performances of its lead actors. Dallas Buyers Club is the fascinating story of one man’s refusal to die quietly and of his determination to fight for the right to use whatever drugs he saw fit to keep himself alive.

Captain Phillips illustrates humanity on all sides

If you asked three people to tell the same story, chances are you would hear three different versions of the same event. Each would be tinted a different shade by the assumptions and preconceptions of the narrator.

The director of a movie based on real-life events is handicapped by those same storytelling challenges. By being on a worldwide stage, though, the director has a responsibility to expand the camera’s perspective beyond individual biases, to tell as complete a story as possible.

Captain Phillips is director Paul Greengrass’s recounting of the MV Maersk Alabama hijacking. Greengrass, with the help of extraordinary acting, deftly weaves a narrative from the viewpoint of the American crew of the freighter, while honoring the story of the Somali pirates who took over the ship, and he does it in a way that reminds us even the “bad guys” are the heroes of their own stories.

In April 2009, the Maersk Alabama was supposed to be on a simple business trip passing around the Horn of Africa. The vessel, which contained tons of valuable cargo, was targeted by a group of young Somali pirates. The story of what transpired was told from Captain Richard Phillips’s perspective in his 2010 book A Captain’s Duty, and was adapted for the silver screen by Billy Ray.

In the film, which is nominated for Best Picture at the 86th Academy Awards, Phillips is portrayed by Tom Hanks and is shown as a man prepared for this harrowing situation. Using experience acquired over 30 years, the captain does whatever is necessary to keep his crew safe from harm.

The inclination for American audiences is, of course, to root for the safe passage of the American crew. A lesser movie would demonize the pirates, stripping them of all humanity and denying the viewer any reason to empathize with their plight. Instead, the backstory and motives of the Somalis are brought to life by some excellent actors, new to Hollywood, and with incredible stories of their own.

Acting across from Hanks is Barkhad Abdi, playing the role of Muse. Muse is a young man who aspires for more than Somalia can offer. With the Maersk Alabama in the pirates’ possession, Muse stood to gain much. He believed he would be able to ransom the ship for enough money to allow him to move away to America and begin a new life.

Abdi brings much to the character of Muse. A Somali himself, Abdi left his native country at seven years old, eventually reaching the United States. His is an all-too-rare success story from that troubled nation, having now been nominated for an Academy Award in his first major film role.

Abdi rises to the unenviable task of holding his own on-screen with Hanks. Their characters engage in an intriguing game of chess. The captain offers Muse and his crew thousands of dollars in cash to leave the ship alone. Muse sees through the play, knowing that the a ship the size of the Maersk Alabama can yield a much higher payout, and counters by refusing the deal. Phillips sets a plan in motion that puts his side in control, but the Somalis soon trick the crew and take the captain hostage on a lifeboat.

As the U.S. Navy mobilizes to free Phillips, the captain continues to negotiate with his captors on the lifeboat. He learns much about his captors and even seems hopeful he can change their minds before any blood is shed. This is where the director and actors truly excel at giving voice to the pirates’ story.

No one is going to argue the virtues of piracy, even if Johnny Depp makes it look so drunkenly hilarious. But what Captain Phillips does so well is portray the pirates as men on a mission — and for them, it is a righteous mission. The movie shows that the pirates themselves were victims of the horrid situation in Somalia. One pirate in particular has been swept up in the tide of a hopeless life that has led him here, where his innocence and kindness lead him to the verge of forging a friendship with the American captain.

The problem with the cinematic successes of the movie up to this point is that it makes the viewer wish for a peaceful resolution. A part of me hoped to see the pirates make it home with their ransom, raising the standard of living of their native land and saving Somalia from the pits of post-colonial hell. Of course, that didn’t happen, and Somalia is still considered among the most failed states in the world.

That reality made the conclusion of the film difficult to watch. The United States was right, of course, to pursue the safe return of its citizens. But the juxtaposition of the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. Navy with the desperation of four men armed with guns brings into relief the imbalance of power and wealth across the globe. The outcome of the conflict also raises important questions about what constitutes a proportional response in such a situation.

Captain Phillips is a beautiful tale from the perspective of Phillips himself. Hanks’s acting ability alone elevates the movie into Best Picture territory. He portrays Phillips as a crafty sea veteran who was prepared to handle an impossible situation. At the end of the movie, Hanks gives another career-defining performance in a scene wrought with pain. Hanks, even without an Oscar nomination this time, again establishes why he is one of the great actors of all-time.

Phillips’s thoughts are also never far from his family, which is a poignant reminder of the flip side of the story. The movie is a tragedy for the four pirates involved. If you are like me, you may find yourself questioning the decisions of the U.S. Navy and lamenting the way the real-life events played out for the Somali men.

Ultimately, this is a film with a rich depth of perspective, challenging the viewer to consider his or her own unconscious biases. Captain Phillips artfully demonstrates the principle that both sides can simultaneously be fighting the good fight, even while employing tactics that may betray those principles.

12 Years a Slave stresses Gettysburg’s significance

curiata

provoke your curiosity