The Envelope Please...
I've been seeing a lot of movies lately, and all I can say is that I'm glad I don't have to vote for the Oscars this year. Each of the last four films I've seen could legitimately contend for Best Picture, but how exactly could you choose between them?
· Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: Perfectly-realized fantasy epic, succeeds brilliantly in every respect and makes the difficult middle entry of the trilogy utterly compelling, coherent and complete.
· Far From Heaven: Perfectly-realized postmodern deconstruction of a 50s melodrama, exploding the mythologies that fuel the sickly-sentimental view of that era (mostly by political conservatives), powered by the best female performance of the year (from Julianne Moore).
· Gangs of New York: Sweeping, ambitious historical epic by America’s best-regarded director, featuring spectacular art direction and a wild, over-the-top performance by Academy favorite Daniel Day-Lewis.
· The Pianist: Stark, unsentimental story of survival during the Holocaust, flawlessly conceived and executed from start to finish. Jaw-dropping acting by Adrien Brody, who is in every scene of the 2-1/2 hour film, and the crowning achievement in the 40-year career of director Roman Polanski.
Plus, my dark horse (accent on the dark):
· Minority Report: Steven Spielberg’s incredibly bleak view of the future, somehow smuggled into the heart of the Hollywood mainstream – it even stars (a competent) Tom Cruise. Think it has a happy ending? Watch it again. The irony runs several layers deep.
In addition, there are a couple I haven’t seen that I have heard are worthy of consideration, including Adaptation, About Schmidt, Chicago and Ararat. I’ve even seen Robert Altman’s outstanding Gosford Park on some people’s lists, although I thought that came out in 2001. How exactly do you compare these films to each other and arrive at a winner? And how do you deal with the fact that the weakest of these entries could have won Best Picture in practically every year of the 1990s?
9:37:37 AM 
|
