Veterans outshine newbies in Oscar derby
STREEP. Will she reprise her Golden Globe victory?
LAST Jan. 24, we joined other film buffs in watching the cable TV announcement of the official nominees for the US Film Academy Awards or Oscars for the best cinematic achievements in 2011.
There were many highlights and sidelights that marked the brief announcement, but the biggest “breaking news” report broke the hearts of Leonardo DiCaprio’s fans on point of ommission—because he wasn’t on the list of Best Actor nominees! Obviously, Academy voters had been less than astounded by his controversial screen portrayal of US FBI boss, J. Edgar Hoover. —Well, we’ll be sure to watch the film now that it’s just opened in town, to see for ourselves if the Academy was right.
Clear victory
Another highlight of the announcement was the clear victory of veteran talents over relatively new actors. Age means experience, which translates into depth of thespic insight, which is why the seniors ruled the day—by a wide margin!
In particular, film buffs over 30 are hoping that Meryl Streep reprises her Golden Globe victory and romps off with the Oscar, as well, next Feb. 27, when the Academy Award winners will be revealed.
Streep represent everything that’s rich and vital about so-called “senior” stars, and in fact is sliding into the best and most productive decade of her career. If she’s this great now, can you imagine the performances she’ll be coming up with when she’s 75?
A third highlight was the number of movies deemed exceptional enough to vie for the Oscars’ Best Picture plum. This suggests that creativity and artistry in US movie productions are at an all-time high.
It also indicates that different schools of thought now variously dominate the film scene, with some jurors batting for good mainstream movies and others voting for even better “indie” or experimental productions—hence the number of motion pictures that were deemed to “deserve” at least a crack at the Best Picture award.
A sad sidelight, in the animated feature category, was the absence of “Tintin” among the nominees. A possible explanation could be that Steven Spieberg’s film was regarded as a 2012 production, and thus will be cited next year. If this isn’t the case, however, its absence is a great disappointment, because it was clearly the best animated feature we watched late last year.
A happier note was struck when Academy officials confirmed Billy Crystal’s participation as host of next month’s awards show. He’s the best Oscars host ever, so it’s a bafflement why they don’t get him to do what he does best every year!
Finally, the list of foreign-language film nominees again does not include the Philippine bet, “Ang Babae sa Septic Tank.” When will we realize that even just being nominated for an Oscar is a pipe dream for local producers? It’s not just a matter of ability or quality—hundreds of US Academy members select the nominees, so you have to be popular enough to have the numbers to qualify.
So, let’s focus instead on making it in film competitions with only, say, 10 or 12 jurors, and we’ll have a much better chance of coming out smelling like roses—which is precisely what a number of Filipino filmmakers have accomplished.
