VES Handbook of Visual Effects released
The VES Handbook that I contributed to is now available for purchase. Hopefully, you will find it both interesting and useful.
Contest Season
Blogging has taken a serious third seat to both ongoing major production projects at my day job, and the travails of prepping rewrites and new scripts for Contest Season. But now the season is winding down (by the end of August). I will follow-up soon with one or more post-contest-season articles with my opinion about contests in general, and also my thoughts about a number of contests in particular.
Oscar Thoughts 2010
Time for my annual thoughts on the Oscars. I don’t make many predictions, I mainly write what I think about the various categories.
Short Animated Film
Nothing wrong with the other entries, but — Wallace and Gromit! Nick Park deserves to win it. It is, however, a crying shame that Peter Sohn’s Partly Cloudy was not nominated. It is very sweet, original, and, of course, excellently crafted.
Original Score
I’d love to see Michael Giacchino win, but I suspect this is another category where the Avatar juggernaut will roll on unstopped.
Original Song
As is usual, I don’t care for any of the songs on the list.
Make-up
No opinon.
Sound Editing and Mixing
It doesn’t seem like the nominating committees tried very hard on these two. It’s all the big films, and will probably come down to more Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker. I think I’d go with The Hurt Locker, because I loved the way the sound was used to create both a sense of place, and emotion. While also excellent, Avatar was mainly overwhelming, which with sound I think is easier than being subtle.
Foreign Language Film, Short Film, Documentary, and Documentary Short
I never manage to see all the foreign, documentary, and short films before the actual Awards, but that’s fine with me. Every year I get to hear about numerous excellent films to go check out that I might otherwise not, and almost always several of them are both excellent and also something I personally can find interesting and/or entertaining.
Film Editing
I thought the cutting in District 9 was quite excellent. Same with Avatar and Hurt Locker, but I’d throw down for D9 on this one because I felt the editing was a strong component to making the world seem real. More than Avatar, D9 gave me room to slip into my own imagination and allow me to forget I was watching a fictional film. Hurt Locker did, as well, but that’s a bit easier with a realistic drama.
Costume Design
Nothing wrong with the other contenders, but I’d pick The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, mainly because I prefer to see the craft awards go to the shows where they weren’t simply flat-out recreating a particular historical era (unless some recreation work is just so outstanding as to rise above all else — which I don’t see this year).
Art Direction
I’d be keen to see this go to Parnassus also, mainly based on the “rooting for the little guy” ethic, but I suspect Avatar will take this one. In terms of creating a comprehensive, visually rich world, Avatar would be a well deserved choice. Frankly, I’d probably vote for Avatar for this myself, and lie about having voted for Parnassus in order to support the littler guy. Or maybe I really would vote for Parnassus. Doesn’t matter much, I suspect Avatar will scoop this up, too.
Cinematography
Avatar or The Hurt Locker. I could go either way.
Visual Effects
Avatar and District 9 are both quite worthy of their nominations.
Avatar will certainly win, but District 9 cost a reported $30M, whereas Avatar was $240M (both according to IMDb Pro, though some reports claim Avatar was closer to $400M). In my opinion, the District 9 crews did an amazing job at creating a convincing world with less than 20% of the budget Avatar had (budget for the whole film, who knows what the percentages of budget spent on F/X only were like between the two).
On the other hand, the Avatar crews created some incredible environments, and the scope and scale of the work is awe inspiring. Both D9 and Avatar animators did a great job making characters whose designs are awkward at best really come alive. I didn’t expect to empathize with either the insectoid Christopher Johnson, or the blue, catlike Neytiri, but I actually did. Both are quite worthy.
Star Trek was decent enough, but was the work really better than Terminator 4, 2012, or Transformers 2? It’s hard to say. All four of those films had good work and bad, though as an actual film, Star Trek is certainly more worthy (but that’s not what the nomination is supposed to be about).
Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress
Precious all the way. I thought Mo’nique and Gabourey Sidibe were both amazingly good in that film. If you haven’t seen that film, you should, though be warned: it is a very difficult film emotionally.
Best Supporting Actor
I loved Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds, but on the other hand his characterization, as enjoyable as it was, was a reflection of some of the very strong criticism I have about that film (about how it eschews character in favor of gimmick, and how the most compelling elements of the story are thrown away or ruined during the climax in order to make room for spectacle rather than story).
Therefore, I’d pick Christopher Plummer in The Last Station.
Best Actor
George Clooney or Jeremy Renner. I thought both were quite excellent in their respective films. I’d probably go for Clooney, but it’s damned close in my mind.
However, I am picking from the available options. I also happen to think it is a crying shame that neither Sam Rockwell (Moon) nor Sharlto Copley (D9) were nominated. Both were amazing. Both were integral to their films. Without those actors, those films would not have been as excellent as they are — in fact, the films may not have worked at all with different actors — a criteria I’d think would be essential to this nomination. It goes to show the fact that acting, not VFX, is what makes a truly great Sci-Fi film continues to be woefully ignored by The Academy.
Writing, Adapted
What a difficult choice. In different ways, Up In The Air, District 9, and Precious are all quite excellent. In The Loop is also quite worthy (I’ve not yet either seen or read An Education). I suppose, in terms of sheer artistry of writing, I’d have to go with Up In The Air (though I’d love to see a sci-fi like D9 actually win a story-centric award).
Writing, Original
I am reassured that Avatar is not nominated in this category, because the writing was far and away the weakest element of that film. It’d be interesting to see Up get this, because animated films don’t win writing awards very often, but being up against The Hurt Locker, The Messenger and A Serious Man doesn’t bode well for Up.
In terms of just writing as an art and craft, I’d probably go with A Serious Man. And as for Inglorious Basterds, it has some really great stuff in it, and some stuff I really feel doesn’t work, so for me it’s not a serious contender. I’m disappointed that Moon was not nominated instead.
Animated Film
I’m impressed that The Secret of Kells made the nomination list. Talk about a great victory for the little guy: Kells is a six and a half million euro production out of Les Armateurs in France, and is quite an excellent film to boot. That it got notice amongst the giants of American animation goes to show that sometimes folks at The Academy really do “get it”. I actually liked all of the nominees that I’ve seen (I haven’t seen The Princess and The Frog). All that said, of course I’m rooting for Up. I think Up is excellent, and would even if I were not a Pixar employee.
Directing
As far as I’m concerned, this should either go to Katherine Bigelow or Jason Reitman. I think I liked Up In The Air somewhat better overall, but I think the material and conditions of making The Hurt Locker were much more difficult. I’d vote for Bigelow.
Too bad Duncan Jones was not nominated for Moon.
Best Picture
Expanding it to ten films has really made things interesting. To start with, there is only one film on the list I don’t particularly care for — Inglorious Basterds (I haven’t seen The Blind Side or An Education). And even Basterds had moments of sheer brilliance, and it’s dialog is certainly far better than Avatar, I just think it went far enough off the rails to plunge out of contention in my mind.
Choosing for this category calls into question what the award is supposed to actually be. If one takes to heart that the award goes to the Producer(s), then perhaps it could be seen as a “most incredible act of filmmaking” award. From that perspective, Avatar would be a shoe-in. It’s hard to fathom that that thing actually got made. The sheer audaciousness of it is in itself award-worthy, but to pull it off so successfully is truly an epic act of filmmaking.
If one looks at the award as an award for “most culturally resonant film”, then Avatar is also a lock. Having made a zillion dollars at the box office, and already inspiring legions of LARP-ers and Cosplayers to create their own Avatar worlds, there is no dobut about Avatar’s cultural significance. On the other hand, popularity alone would lead to some very unsatisfying Best Picture awards.
However, if it is best use of all the elements of filmmaking to tell a coherent, entertaining (or thought-provoking) story in a compelling manner, then the field is wide open. Any one of the nominees that I’ve seen, save for Basterds, is worthy in my book. Avatar is one of the weakest in terms of traditional Best Picture components — acting, dialog, story depth — but not so weak that it winning would be offensive.
And the only film I can think of off the top of my head that I feel should have been nominated but wasn’t is Moon. I literally couldn’t decide if it were up to me.
But it isn’t up to me, and I think Avatar is going to overcome being one of the weakest of the lot in terms of acting and dialog, and win anyway.
Help Haitian Film Students
Haitian film students who survived the earthquate are attempting to make a documentary of the tragedy from a Haitian perspective — about Haitians by Haitians. Not only will this help them continue to live their lives, and pursue their dreams, it is also a positive action they can take to help their country recover.
Their current project can illustrate the power of film to tell the story of underrepresented people, and underscore how filmmaking can be a part of the response to a major disaster in terms of both short-term awareness building, and longer-term documentation that both tells an important story and assists in the analysis of how to better prepare for future disasters.
These students study at The Ciné Institute, based in Jacmel on Haiti’s southern coast. The school was completely destroyed in Tuesday’s earthquake. The Ciné Institute provided Haitian youth with film education, technical training, and media related micro enterprise opportunities.
If you’d like to donate money or equipment to help them keep shooting, and rebuild their school, click here.
(I heard about this opportunity to help Haitian film students through an e-mail sent by Peter Marshall of actioncutprint.com.)
Holiday Films
I’ve been so busy wrapping-up stuff at Pixar before a 2 week vacation, gift buying, travel planning, working on a couple of screenplay projects, and dealing with end of year financials that all the exciting Indie Auteur blog posts I thought I had on-deck are languishing due to lack of mental space. So here’s a round-up of my favorite Holiday films, ones that I think are fine examples of filmmaking craft and storytelling as well as merely being enjoyable.
This is the best holiday film ever made, in my opinion. A Christmas Story captures both the joy and chaos of the holiday season, and is one of the most accurate depictions of both family dynamics and the mind of a kid I’ve seen. The style and cadence of the writing, directing, and editing is brilliant, creating an homage to the classic Christmas movies of the old studio system, yet at the same time it takes the piss out of them with a much more realistic (and ultimately much more charming) view of the holiday. Even though I’ve seen this film probably a hundred times, it still makes me laugh.
Bad Santa is a good study in how to make a seemingly despicable character likable, or at least empathizable. It’s got a very clear character arc, and the juxtaposition of Christmas and the very inappropriate behavior of the main character is absolutely hilarious. It’s both heartwarming and incredibly obnoxious — a combination I can appreciate.
Scrooged is my favorite adaptation of Dickens’ classic story, one which is quite unfaithful to the letter of the original but very faithful to the spirit. Everyone already knows the story, so the success of this film is based on how well it was adapted to modern sensibilities, and great performances (the most memorable being Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present).
Most people don’t think of Die Hard as a Holiday movie, but it does take place during Christmas, and there is an undercurrent of redemption and reconciliation beneath the action film veneer. It’s also one of the most compelling action films ever made, due in large part to the personality Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman put into their characters (and their great on-screen rivalry).
The Ron Howard / Jim Carrey version of The Grinch is a mistake that filmmakers should learn from: the canonical remake rule is that you should take something that had a good idea at its core, but wasn’t excellent in its execution, and make it better. You shouldn’t take a beloved holiday classic and turn it into a smartass version of itself that relies on visual advances made since the original was produced, and cheap gags.
The original is only 26 minutes long and made for TV, but it’s narrated by Boris Karloff and the animation helmed by Chuck Jones, for Pete’s sake. Nothing was gained by making the story longer and goofier, and the short 1966 TV version is the one worth watching. It’s a great holiday classic, one set in the amusingly surrealistic world of Dr. Seuss, that’s neither too saccharine nor too silly.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a musical fairy tale told in a classical style, but with the surrealistic twist found in all films by Tim Burton and/or Henry Selick. It’s ultimately a film about learning to love oneself and not be jealous of others, like The Grinch. In addition to a simple, albeit compelling and enjoyable story, it also has great set pieces and character design.
Finally, I wish there were some good non-Christmas Holiday movies out there to put on this list, but I just couldn’t think of any. If you know of a very good or better movie about the Winter Solstice, Chanukkah, Kwanzaa, Eid al-Adha, or any other December Holiday, post a comment.
But all of the films listed above are quite secular in nature, which suits a non-religious person like me just fine, and should also be enjoyable for anyone of any religious background who isn’t a judgmental zealot.
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