Rating the Oscar films (2013)

37 feature films were nominated at the 86th Annual Academy Awards - not counting the 5 foreign films. I saw 26 of them, and I thought it would be fun to put them all in order, from best to worst, so I've done exactly that...

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THE BEST OF THE BUNCH

This was a great Oscar year. When it comes to Oscars, great equals diverse. The fact that I've got everything on my top list, from documentaries to animated movies, from science fiction to period pieces, is such a big plus in my book. Any time the Oscars can be something other than stale award-begging dramas, I'm good with it.

Gravity was at the top of my Best of 2013 list, so it's no surprise that it made the top of the Oscar list too. As soon as my expectations was scaled down to the proper level I could enjoy this kick-ass ride for what it was. And I've been enjoying it countless (actually 3) times since. I had high hopes for American Hustle, even though I'm not a big fan of the director. It met my expectations to the fullest, and even surprised me a few times. It's such a blast to watch, and not just because of the partially exposed chicks in their flashy garments, no, the story is fun and the movie is a kick-ass ride. And yes, I deliberately use that term again. Good characters, a good story, and good filmmaking can be a kick-ass ride too. I can't for the life of me figure out why some people don't like this film.

Prisoners was something else. A story that could have been dealt with in a 40 minute TV episode, and yet works perfectly in this 2,5 hour long, complex, murder-mystery come character study. The kind of movie that makes you sit quietly in the dark for a few moments after it's over. All is Lost may only work for someone like me - you know, a rough and chiseled adventure-seeking type (that's really funny if you know me) - but so be it. Can you tell a story about a single character, who doesn't speak to anybody, who's stuck on a deteriorating boat for almost 2 hours, and make it entertaining? I say yes.

20 Feet from Stardom was an utterly charming documentary about backup singers. It had laughter, tears, music, and a great historic perspective. Demanding more from a movie would just be diva behavior. Despicable Me 2 was not as good as the first one, but those minions are cute, so leave me alone. Dirty Wars was an angry film about USA's questionable foreign policies, from a reporter with both feet on the ground. Entertaining and enlightening.

1) Gravity
2) American Hustle
3) Prisoners
4) All Is Lost
5) 20 Feet from Stardom
6) Despicable Me 2
7) Dirty Wars

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GOOD, BUT NOT GREAT

I almost gave up on Peter Berg's story about a team of soldiers caught behind enemy lines, before it really got going. Good thing I didn't. Once you get past the opening 20 minutes of bullshit macho military masturbation, Lone Survivor tells a really fascinating and visceral story about survival, and it is SO brutal! August: Osage County is not the kind of film I prefer to watch, but I enjoyed the hell out of this crazy story about a crazy family, and I was able to ignore Meryl Streep's cartoon-overacting and just focus on the many good performances. What can I say, it just worked for me.

Captain Phillips worked too. There wasn't anything wrong with it per se, it just didn't get to me. Sure there was that killer final scene, but everything up to that left me a bit meh. I'll give it another chance soon, though. Philomena was a sweet story. The film has a slightly condescending attitude towards its subject, and perhaps the ending should have had more bite, but the core story worked well, and Steve Coogan and Judi Dench are fabulous in the leads.

Dallas Buyers Club was a good, important story, with great performances, but a few problems. It drags in the middle, and its worldview, which casts the FDA as the bad guys, lacks perspective and insight, and does the struggle of the AIDS afflicted patients no favors. Star Trek Into Darkness was a good-looking, big budget extravaganza, also full of problems. Chief among them: Why waste so much energy pretending it wasn't the Khan story? The Square was fine, but it was out of date, the second it was finished. The Croods had sweet characters, a few clever ideas, and a fun story, but the opening 20 minutes were rough. I tune out when I'm watching this kind of animated movie - it means nothing to me. Luckily The Croods ended up bringing it home.

8) Lone Survivor
9) August: Osage County
10) Captain Phillips
11) Philomena
12) Dallas Buyers Club
13) Star Trek Into Darkness
14) The Square
15) The Croods

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NOT GOOD

Iron Man 3 is a Marvel film. That's all I have to say on the subject. Frozen is a musical. I find this kind of film almost unwatchable, so even though it had some spunk, good characters, and a funny sidekick, it also had singing.

Her felt like a passive-aggressive love letter to all womankind, from a little man, who has been burned one too many times. And it's about 40 minutes too long. Having said that it's an amazing story to pull off, and the world is intriguing. The bigger issues bubbling below the surface, deserve a more weighty film, though.

I'm going to sound like a colossal dick now, but I found 12 Years a Slave to be a bore. No doubt about it, slavery was (is) an appalling and ugly chapter in human history, but I know that. It's a history lesson I didn't ask for, wrapped in a guilt trip I don't need. I can't even watch a Tom and Jerry cartoon without wondering about the plight of that large black woman. Trust me, the issue has registered. Perhaps we need some movies that shed light on this subject from a different angle, rather than preaching to the converted, like this movie does.

As cute as Cutie and the Boxer is, I just didn't buy it as a documentary. Perhaps that's unfair, perhaps everything is straight up and legit, and I'm just overly critical. Perhaps not. That doubt is no good when you're watching a documentary.

What the hell were the producers of The Lone Ranger thinking?! Seriously, what were they thinking? How can you spend so much money on something so meh!? The best thing I can say about the film, is that at least it's not Wild Wild West bad. It's quite a bit better than that, actually.

16) Iron Man 3
17) Frozen
18) Her
19) 12 Years a Slave
20) Cutie and the Boxer
21) The Lone Ranger

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QUITE BAD ACTUALLY

The Great Gatsby perfectly illustrates why CGI is not the way to go for everybody. Nothing here looks real. Baz Luhrmann should be painting raw pictures with a ragged brush, not waste his time making something that looks like any other CGI drenched movie. As for the story, the mystery of the first half hour had potential, but when we find out what Gatsby wants the film turned into dullsville.

There's a slight chance Nebraska is just not for me, but I found it endlessly annoying. And I just wanted to run Bruce Dern off a cliff. The Act of Killing just plain didn't work. It was supposed to make mass murderers repent, but it ended up advertising how awesome it is to be a killer and get away with it.

The Wolf of Wall Street, also had moral issues, and also seemed unaware of its own failures. On top of that it was too long, and when it wasn't straight up bad, all it did was copy better films. The Grandmaster was a piece of shit. Now, I know the US version I saw was heavily altered, but I have a feeling it wouldn't make much difference which version I saw.

22) The Great Gatsby
23) Nebraska
24) The Act of Killing
25) The Wolf of Wall Street
26) The Grandmaster

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UNSEEN

There was a handful of titles I didn't have time to get to, or they weren't available to me. These were: Before Midnight, Blue Jasmine, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Saving Mr. Banks, and The Wind Rises.

There was also a few titles I just didn't care about: Inside Llewyn Davis (yes, I know, but I'm not a Coen fan, they get no special favors from me), The Book Thief, Ernest & Celestine, The Invisible Woman, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. Also, I didn't get a chance to see any of the foreign movies. Yes, I'm aware of the irony: One of them is from my own country.

WRAP-UP

That's it. Naturally I reserve the right to change my mind when it comes time to do the 2014 top/bottom lists, but until that sweet time, here are the final words on the 2013 Oscars: It's not rocket science.

Rating the Oscar Films

Not counting documentaries and the foreign film category, 37 feature films were nominated at the 84th Academy Awards. I saw 28 of them. Here they are, divided into four categories, and placed in the correct order. Best to worst. Simple as that.

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MY FAVORITES, REGARDLESS

I wish I had seen Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy last year. It would have made it to the top of my 2011 list. Such a cool, dense, incredibly classy film. And so quiet. You might say its silence is deafening. Speaking of silence, how could you not absolutely adore The Artist? Such a sweet, gentle and perfect film. Sequels get a bad rep, but there was a good story left to tell in Kung Fu Panda 2, and I found the film absolutely charming.

Margin Call was a big surprise. A taut, yet simple drama, with a killer cast, made by a first time director. Even more surprising was that fact that Roland Emmerich had a serious film in him, but Anonymous was a fascinating story, it made for a stunning film, and sent me home actually thinking about stuff. Never mind that softy Hawaii film, The Ides of March was the real George Clooney film of the year. A fabulous thriller that avoided all the pitfalls of similar political dramas.

I had no expectations for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but I found the film surprisingly touching and effective. Don't know why I doubted it, because director Stephen Daldry hasn't put a foot wrong yet. And finally, there's The Muppets. An absolutely delightful and charming love letter to a lovable bunch of characters we never really forgot.

1) Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
2) The Artist
3) Kung Fu Panda 2
4) Margin Call
5) Anonymous
6) The Ides of March
7) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
8) The Muppets

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I WAS BLOODY ENTERTAINED, BUT

Real Steel is a fairly silly film, but it does what it does very well. Could have gone either way, but it got me, and the effects were spectacular. My only problem with Jane Eyre is lead actress Mia Wasikowska, but everything else in the film actually worked. It was moody, gorgeous, and heartbreaking.

Rise of Planet of the Apes was the sequel/prequel nobody wanted, and we were all stunned when it turned out to be quite good. We still didn't need it, but it turned out alright. We didn't need Transformers 3 either, but getting past that, it turned out to be fair bit better than the silly second film, but I actually missed Megan Fox. Go figure! We end this category with yet another sequel. Harry Potter 7.2 did have its moments, but didn't quite deliver the emotional payoff required after EIGHT FREAKING FILMS.

9) Real Steel
10) Jane Eyre
11) Rise of Planet of the Apes
12) Transformers: Dark of the Moon
13) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

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PROBLEMATIC, AT BEST

I love the mood of Drive, but the story was overly familiar and nowhere near as deep as director Nicolas Winding Refn evidently thought. Hugo is a far superior film. Well, half of it is. Unfortunately the first hour is dull and superfluous, which kind of ruined the perfect film magic of the second part.

I don't care about sports. Luckily Moneyball was more about how the math genius can beat the jock at his own game with simple numbers. That part I loved. Too bad it was about baseball. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo looks the part, but it's inferior to the original Swedish version in every way. I expected more from David Fincher.

I wish I loved Midnight in Paris more, but it was just too simple and obvious for my taste, and Owen Wilson certainly didn't help. My Week with Marilyn was strange. A very light film, close to comedy in some scenes, with a central performance from Michelle Williams who appears to act in a different film. And what the hell is wrong with Kenneth Branagh's face?

A Separation provided an interesting glimpse of a very closed world. Too bad it came across as a trite reality show crime drama, without any real emotional impact. Oh, and there's barely any mention of any separation. And finally Rango. Another film I really wanted to like. I just didn't care, and I hated the visuals.

14) Drive
15) Hugo
16) Moneyball
17) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
18) Midnight in Paris
19) My Week with Marilyn
20) A Separation
21) Rango

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THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER, THAN THIS

A Cat in Paris was sweet, but it was barely a movie, much less an Academy Award worthy one. The Help is so politically correct it'll make you vomit. On top of that it's just a bad film. Equally unbearable is The Adventures of Tintin, and those mo-cap dead faces are just beyond bad. What the hell were they thinking? The Descendants is just a big, dull dud.

War Horse was predictable Oscar-begging material of the kind Spielberg is too good for. Dipped in sugar with sugar on top, and you can basically write the entire story just by looking at the poster. Worst Spielberg film ever? I understand and respect why people like The Tree of Life. To me, it's not a film. I found it to be an utter bore.

But the worst, the absolute worst film, without any competition, was the stupefyingly politically incorrect, insincere and inappropriate whitewashing nightmare that is The Iron Lady. Makes Mamma Mia look like a quality film.

22) A Cat in Paris
23) The Help
24) The Adventures of Tintin
25) The Descendants
26) War Horse
27) The Tree of Life
28) The Iron Lady

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FINAL THOUGHTS

I missed nine films this year, some of them because I just couldn't care any less. They were: Albert Nobbs, Beginners, A Better Life, Bridesmaids, Chico & Rita, Puss in Boots, Rio, W.E. and Warrior . The only one I plan to catch up on is Beginners.

As always, some of the most popular films turned out to be worthless, while a few of the really criticized ones were actually pretty damn good. That's just the way it goes. It wouldn't be Oscar if they were all good and the best ones won, right?

The problem with the short film categories

EXT. BATTLEFIELD - DAWN

You'll recall that a while back I posted my ideas about how the Academy Awards could be improved (How can we save the Oscars?). I'm glad to see at least one of my suggestions were taken to heart (Billy's back!), but as we're approaching the 84th award show, I'd like to take the opportunity to reiterate one of my original pet peeves. It's about the short films.
 

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The Definition

First, let's define what we're talking about here. There are three short film categories:

• Best Live-Action Short
• Best Animated Short
• Best Documentary Short

A short is defined as a film, with a running time of 40 minutes or less.

To qualify for the awards a movie must adhere to a few general rules: They can't be shown on TV first, they can't be edited versions of longer projects, and so on, basically the same rules all the feature films must follow.

A Live-Action or Animated short is eligible, if one of these conditions are met:

a) The film has a 3-day paid public exhibition i LA.
b) The film has won an award at a film festival (from a specific list).
c) If it's a student film it can qualify by winning in the Student Academy Awards competition.

For documentaries only one rule applies:

a) The film must have a 7-day commercial run in a theater in LA or Manhattan.

These are the basic rules the shorts must follow.

The Purpose

To the uninitiated it might seem that a short film is merely that. A short film. A film that's short and not long. The reality is, though, that short films and feature films have little in common.

No one watches short films and no one cares. They're rarely shown on TV or at the cinema, the newspapers and film magazines don't cover them, and only a fraction are released on DVD, so it's fair to ask the question... Why are they made?

Well, it's simple, really. They are made, to earn the filmmakers the right to make feature films. That's it. They are the means to an end.

The Quality

I'll admit I don't watch many short films. On the rare occasion, when I get a chance to watch one of the Academy Award nominated ones, I'm often appalled at how bad they are. There are some good ones among them, even a few brilliants ones, I dare say, but by and large these films are shit.

Every year when the nominations are announced I look at each of the short categories and ask (often out loud), are these REALLY the five best shorts films of the year? The best of the best? No. Hell no. Unequivocally no!

I guess the same critique could be leveled at the feature film categories. Depending on your personal preferences they rarely represent the best of the best either, but at least the feature film choices always make sense, when you know the Academy's taste.

When it comes to the shorts, the choices seem erratic, borderline insane. This is especially true for the animated shorts, some of which are so defiantly bad, you'd be forgiven for suspecting that the Academy members are actually trying to sabotage the category, so it'll go away.

The Selection

The big problem is the way these films are selected. A feature film can quality by being shown in LA for a week for a paying audience. That's seems simple and fair.

Like I explained earlier, shorts can qualify in different ways. If you have the right connections, and an amenable theater owner, you can qualify simply by paying to have your film shown. A film can also qualify on the strengths of its artistic merits, by winning an award. So the message is, either make a good film, or buy your way in. That's not a level playing field!

I don't know what goes on, when the short film committee selects the nominated films. In light of the utterly incomprehensible final choices, I would not presume to guess what you have to do to get through the eye of that needle, but it must be illegal in at least 40 states.

Once the nominees are found, the winner is selected by only a few hundred people. Those who bother to show up at an official Academy screening to see the films in an actual theatrical setting - you can't sit at home and watch screeners if you want to be a part of this.

The shorts are nominated side by side with the feature films, but they are not treated equally in any way. It's bad enough that you allow feature films to get a nomination with a limited one week run in LA, but some shorts can be nominated, hell even win, without ever being seen by a single member of the general public.

This is a muddled scene. It's not transparent, it's not fair, and it should not be a part of the Academy Awards.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Hundreds of interesting shorts are produced each year. Some are never really released, some are shown on TV, or as part of a short film festival, some of them go straight to YouTube.

It's a big and wondrous world out there, millions of stories and fascinating ideas make their way to short films every year, but in the hands of the Academy, shorts are reduced to a sticky unidentifiable substance stuck under your shoe. We use the short categories for pee break, when we watch the show, for God's sake! And when it's all over we never hear from them again, and we can barely remember the titles the next day.

The shorts deserved to be treated with respect, to have their own space, and frankly the further away from the Academy Awards they are, the better off they'll be. I used to think that there was a way to fix this, but I've changed my mind. So, Dear Academy, please drop all three short film categories from the show.

You'll be happier, they'll be happier, and the audience will never know the difference.

FADE TO BLACK.

The images are from the following shorts: Presto (2008), Królik po berlinsku (Rabbit in Berlin) (2009), Logorama (2009), Grisen (2009) and Ryan (2004).

Dear Academy,

I'm glad to see that you're listening.

Now, fix the other things we talked about.

All the best

- David

How can we save the Oscars?

INT. BORING OFFICE - MAGIC HOUR

The 82nd Academy Awards were held two weeks ago. Having just finished more than three months of Oscar madness, and feeling absolutely fantastic about it, I'm ready to take stock.

The first question on my mind is: "Do the Oscars really need saving?" The legitimacy of the original question notwithstanding, I'm getting a little tired of people complaining about the Oscars. Sure there are some things about the Oscars we could fix here and there, but it seems to me that most of the stuff people complain about are things you just have to accept about award shows in general. Yes, some categories are more interesting than other. No, your favorite will not win every single time. Yes, the show is long. No, you can't drop the boring speeches, everyone gets to talk. And so on, and so on. Despite this I do think it's reasonable to discuss the Oscars and try to improve the quality of the show. So let's do just that.

Now, what can we do to fix the Oscars, if we assume for a moment that they are in fact broken?

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Diversity is the key

We need a better variety of films.

This year was a great example of how it should be done. Avatar was the most successful film of all time, The Hurt Locker was loved by all the critics, Up was loved by everybody, the geeks loved Inglorious Bastards and District 9, the Jews loved A Serious Man and overweight black people loved Precious. There was something for everybody. Almost all the films made money, meaning that people actually saw them.

The previous year The Dark Knight was famously snubbed from the Best Film category, which was more or less the reason 10 nominees were selected this year. That was a good decision, stick with it.

A show comprised of obscure indie yawns, dry dramas, and films with virtually no box office take simply won't work. Don't get me wrong, those films should definitely be there, if they're good, but so should the popular films. Box office success should be something that qualifies a film for the Best Picture race, more that being something that disqualifies it.

The 365 rule

One of my pet peeves is to find a way to make sure that you can release quality films the WHOLE year, and not just the last two months. The release schedule is more polarized than ever, it's hurting the cinemas, it's hurting the audience and it's hurting the Oscars.

Although there are countless examples to suggest it doesn't matter when the hell you release a film (Silence of the Lambs, Crash), studios are still hesitant to put out a serious adult drama during the first 10 months of the year, opting instead to cram them all into a few months, which means that some will inevitably fall by the wayside.

One far out solution that I'd be curious to test, would be to create a sort of semi finale. 10 films would be picked, from EACH quarter of the year, and the 5 or 10 Best Picture nominees would then be found among these 40 titles. This may not be practical, but I'm just racking my brain, trying to find an antidote to the polarized release schedule.

More Glamour

The Oscars are, more than anything else, about glamour. We need famous people. Hot people. Classic actors. Young talents. We need them all. Not just the ones who show up to pimp a new film, or the ones who are there anyway to present an award. The Oscars must once again be a place you go to be seen, if you want to be something in Hollywood.

More fun

The show needs to be more fun. It has to be big, it has to be glamorous, but it also has to be fun. Stop bringing out stars who are too nervous or uninvolved. Drop the ones who just read the TelePrompter, or the ones who look like a deer caught in the headlights. Get people up there who'll make it look fun, who connect.

Remember the past

Remember the old Hollywood and the old films. Show us montages of past winners, get previous winners to present the awards, not just those from last year, but from ten years ago, twenty even! The quality of the golden age of Hollywood is unbeatable. Use it!

Fix the categories

Why have two awards for sound? Nobody knows the difference! And we don't have two awards for music, one for writing the score and one for recording it, so why should sound get two categories?

The opposite argument could be made for other categories: It would make a lot more sense to split makeup into two awards. Regular make-up and special effect makeup are two very different jobs, and that way nobody has to consider if The Young Victoria is better that Star Trek. And what about a new category for Contemporary Costume Design, so the big boring dresses don't win every year?

Deal with the length

Yes the show is long. Deal with it. Or not...

A radical idea would be to split the whole thing up into two shows. You could deal with the tech awards in a smaller show the night before the big show. Fewer people would see this, sure, but now everybody uses those categories as bathroom breaks anyway, and they drag the whole show down in ratings. Personally I would prefer one big show. It could last 6 hours for all I care, but I'm sympathetic to those who can't deal such a big chunk of awesomeness.

Drop the short films

Actually I would phrase it like this: Show 'em or drop 'em.

Let's be clear: Short films are calling cards for directors, nobody is making any money off these things, so just show them for free. Very few people vote in these categories, because few people have seen the films and nobody.... NOBODY watching at home have ever heard about any of them, because they are not available to the general public. Furthermore, those years when I've actually managed to track down and see the short films, I'm flabbergasted when the winner is announced. There's no accounting for personal taste, of course, but right now we have a situation where, if you want to predict who's going to win the Best Animated Short Film, you just have to PICK THE UGLIEST ONE! True story.

So get the films out to everybody. Make the selection process more transparent. Make sure more people vote in these categories. Do that, or drop the whole thing.

86 the documentaries

Drop 'em. You heard me, drop 'em completely. They have no place among the stars and the glamour, nobody cares about them, and (again) nobody has seen them. They deserve to be treated with respect and get their dues, so make sure that happens, but on a separate occasion.

Singing and dancing

There should be no singing and dancing. I'm going to say that again. THERE SHOULD BE NO SINGING AND DANCING. Period.

The hostest with the mostest

The host should be the center of the evening. Having the host come out, do a 5 minute stand-up routine, and then disappear for half an hour is not good enough. The host is the glue of the evening, if I don't see him for 10 minutes I'm going to assume that something is wrong, or that I'm the target of a practical joke and the real show is happening elsewhere.

The first year I watched the Oscars was 1990. It was also the first year Billy Crystal was host. He was spectacular. In the following years he did the classic opening montages, he arrived in Hannibal Lector mask, he sang the opening song, which had references to the nominated films, and a few jabs on behalf of the overlooked ones. He had the crowd going crazy before the show had even begun.

Go back to one host. Get somebody good. Get the same host every year. In short: Get Billy back. Whatever it takes.

Find a way and find it quick

I'm all for experimenting and trying new things, but there's a limit. From handing out awards in the middle of the audience, to inviting all nominees on the stage, a wide range of experiments have been conducted in the last couple of years. It's been frustrating.

I understand the need to update the show and keep it current, but why do we - the audience - have to be the guinea pigs? Are you telling me the gigantic organisation behind the Oscar show can't lock themselves in a room and figure out what works and what doesn't? Is it really necessary for them to test their ideas live on a billion viewers?

The producers of the Oscar show must get their act together. Fix the cracks in the foundation. Get the show back on track. Fast.

Final thoughts

I belong to a select group of people who adore the Oscars, who think that Oscar Night - or Big O Night as we call it - is the biggest night of the year, easily surpassing Christmas, birthdays and all other important days. I LOVE the Oscars and for the better part of three months they occupy my time and my thoughts to an almost unhealthy level.

So dear Academy, whatever you do to my beloved Oscar, find something that works, find it quick, and stick with it. It shouldn't be this hard. You've got 11 months.

FADE TO WHITE.