2013 OSCARS: Analysis of the Winners and Losers

Wel, well, well! This year's Oscars were quite a revelation, although they went well over time, locking in well over 3-and-a-half hours, ending after midnight on the East Coast.

Here are some of my thoughts on the biggest surprises and most interesting results of the night:

1. They Really Don't Like Steven Very Much, Do They? Steven Spielberg's Lincoln was the big loser of the night, coming in with 12 nominations and only winning 2, for Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Best Production Design, which really must be considered something of a fluke. It was clear that there was no groundswell for Lincoln from the very first award of the night when a very shocked Christoph Walz won  his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Django Unchained, surprising almost everyone, denying Lincoln's Tommy Lee Jones. When Life of Pi (which came in with 11 nominations and went home with 4 Oscars) continued to pick up wins in the important technical categories like Best Cinematography and Best Score where it was competing against both Argo and Lincoln one really started to wonder about the message the Academy was sending to America's most talented filmmaker. Once Ang Lee won his 2nd Best Director Oscar instead of Spielberg, the message became clear: We Like Your Movies And The Profit You Generate, But Not You So Much! Spielberg's first nomination came in 1978 for Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind (he wasn't even nominated for Jaws, despite the fact that movie invented the notion of a summer blockbuster film). He has since been nominated for Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., The Color Purple, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Munich and Lincoln. A total of 8 times with only two wins. And he has been snubbed (not nominated) for such classic films as Jaws, Empire of the Sun and Minority Report. Now Ang Lee, Clint Eastwood and Oliver Stone have as many Best Director Oscars as Spielberg! It should be noted that only one other person has been nominated more times for Best Director: William Wyler. And only Wyler (3), Frank Capra (3) and John Ford (4) have more wins. I think he is developing a Meryl Streep problem where in order for him to win, it is going to have to be something outstanding compared to his already excellent body of work.

2. Michelle Obama Announces Best Picture Oscar for Argo from the White House. This was a truly surreal moment when just a handful of minutes before midnight 3-time Oscar winner Jack Nicholson introduced First Lady Michelle  Obama who gave a (somewhat trite but inclusive) speech about the importance of the arts to all Americans and then cut back for the announcement of the nine Best Picture nominees. They then amazingly cut back to Obama holding an envelope who then opened it and announced Argo had won. Nicholson was also holding an envelope which he gave to the producers of the winning film: Affleck, George Clooney and Grant Heslov.

3. The Tarantino Effect. For the second time in as many films Quentin Tarantino wrote an amazing part for Christoph Walz and the multi-lingual actor won an Oscar for animating Tarantino's words. The surprising strength of Django Unchained in the big categories was one of the highlights of the night for me with wins in Best Original Screenplay for Tarantino (only his second after his 1995 win for Pulp Fiction) and the 2nd win for Walz. This was another example of the out-of-control Directors' branch snubs (of Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty, Ben Affleck for Argo and Tarantino for Django) resulted in surprising wins as the rest of the Academy tried to ameliorate the damage.

4. It's All About Editing) In the end with 3 wins Argo joins the dubious club of Rocky and Crash of winning Best Picture without a director's nomination and only three wins overall. Interestingly, the unbroken string that every Best Picture winner has always had a Best Editing nomination and that almost every film that has won Best Picture has won Best Editing (including Argo, Rocky and Crash) continues. (Quiz: Which Best Picture winner(s) did not win Best Film Editing?)

5. (Almost) Everybody Gets A Prize! The really big story of the night was the even distribution of the wins throughout the 24 categories. The totals were

4 Wins: Life of Pi (Director, Score, Cinematography and Visual Effects);
3 Wins: Argo (Picture, Editing, Adapted Screenplay), Les Miserables (Supporting Actress, Makeup, Sound Mixing)
2 Wins: Skyfall (Song, Sound Editing), Lincoln (Actor, Production Design), Django Unchained (Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay)
1 Win: Zero Drak Thirty (Sound Editing), Anna Karenina (Costume Design), Amour (Foreign Language), Silver Linings Playbook (Actress)

Films with multiple nominations that went home empty-handed (0 Wins) were Beasts of the Southern Wild (4), The Hobbit (3), The Master (3), Flight (2), Snow White and the Huntsman (2).

It will be interesting to see how the Academy reacts to the fact that it changed it's nomination deadline to before many of the Guilds had weighed in so that this led to surprising (some would say, uninformed) nominations that in turn led to surprising wins.

As for the show itself, I thought Seth McFarlane did a very good job, although there was too much singing for my taste, but it was part of the show's theme of a tribute to musicals. For the most part Seth's humor was on point, with some notable exceptions. (Making a joke about the assassination of a President is not edgy or funny, it's just dumb.) Openly gay producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron did an amazing job with the Obama surprise and Dame Shirley Bassey belting out Goldfinger at age 76 was breathtaking.

Other highlights of the show for me: Meryl Streep announcing the Best Actor winner instantly by opening the envelope off camera while the nominations video was playing; Jennifer Hudson and Adele (Adkins) singing; the Best Documentary Short Subject winners for Inocente and Channing Tatum and Charlize Theron (two of the most beautiful people in Hollywood) dancing with McFarlane to open the broadcast; for the first time since the Best Actress tie of 1968 (between Barbra Streisand and Kathleen Hepburn) there was another tie, this time in Sound Editing between Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall--Mark Wahlberg was the announcer and he handled the moment well.

Let the race for the 2014 Oscars begin! (August, Osage County anyone?)

Happy Darwin Day!

Today is February 12, 2013, the 204th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (and President Abraham Lincoln). It is being celebrated as "Darwin Day," a day to celebrate humanity and science.

Darwin Day is an international celebration of science and humanity held on or around February 12, the day that Charles Darwin was born on in 1809. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin — the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, Darwin Day expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.

[...]

Recognizing science as an international language accessible to all individuals and societies, the International Darwin Day Foundation provides a new global holiday that transcends separate nationalities and cultures. Darwin Day can be celebrated in many different ways: civic ceremonies with official proclamations, educational symposia, birthday parties, art shows, book discussions, lobby days, games, protests, and dinner parties. Organizers may include: academic societies, science organizations, freethought groups, religious congregations, libraries, museums, galleries, teachers and students, families and friends. In Darwin Day, we are able to recognize the diversity among us, while celebrating our common humanity and the universal understanding we share.

Happy Darwin Day, "may the odds be ever in your favor!"

FILM REVIEW: Lincoln

The other half and I finally saw Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln over the Thanksgiving weekend, at our usual spot at the Edwards Renaissance 14 theaters in Alhambra. The film has an eye-caching pedigree with the involvement of high-profile talent such as Spielberg himself, of course, along with screenwriter Tony Kushner (openly gay playwright of the Pulitzer-prize winning Angels in America). The cast includes 2-time Oscar winners Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln; fellow Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones as the celebrated anti-slavery activist Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (R-PA); Joseph Gordon-Levitt (from Looper and The Dark Knight Rises) as the Lincoln’s eldest son, David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward and Gloria Reuben (television's E.R.) as free Black woman who works in the White House. The story of the film is adapted from material in the Pulitzer-prize winning Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin; the book is about Lincoln’s cabinet which famously contained many of the same men who he defeated for the Presidency in 1860.

The movie based on the book is focused on a very short 3-month window of Lincoln’s life in 1865, a period when three historic events of significant national import happened: the 13^th Amendment to the United States Constitution discharged from Congress and sent to the States for ratification, the Civil War (“War of Northern Aggression” or “War Between the States”) came to an end, and President Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by a Confederate assassin.

The vast majority of the film’s duration is spent depicting the events around the first of these events. In fact, some people have really said the movie should be called The 13^th Amendment instead of Lincoln. The 13^th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States and thus insured that the Confederate way of life that included profiting from the involuntary servitude and dehumanization of millions of people would cease to exist once the Civil War came to an end. As someone whose skin color would mark me as a slave if I had been born in 1818 instead of 1968, I appreciate the significance of the 13^th Amendment and am pleased that Hollywood found this topic a subject for a major motion picture released (deliberately) in the heart of the year-end gauntlet known as Oscar season. As a dilettante of American history, I am somewhat chagrined that almost no mention of the 14^th Amendment is made, although its penumbra can be seen in one of the critical moments of high drama in the film. If you know the historical context or understand the legal implications of the crucial debate between the main proponent and opponent of the anti-slavery measure on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives right before the vote, the rhetorical decision made (to accept formal equality between the races versus actual or social equality) has a particularly piquant resonance.

That being said, although Lincoln works as a educational history lesson about important topics that all Americans should know it doesn’t really work as a movie, i.e. filmed entertainment. Day-Lewis is astonishing as Lincoln, he completely embodies the part and almost eerily looks like history come to life. However, at its core Lincoln is about politics and the men who practice it. The passage of the 13^th Amendment clearly would not have happened without Lincoln’s insistence, cajoling and persuasion. But the film also shows that the end of slavery in the United States was also accomplished through appeals to sheer greed, political cowardice and blatant bribery. I believe this unsanitized view of history is a good thing, but I’m sure there are others who will object that it tarnishes the legacy of the person who by universal acclaim is one of the Top 3 Presidents of all time.  

Lincoln demonstrates how presidents can use their powers to do good and that perhaps in politics the ends do justify the means. (It is particularly interesting to view Lincoln in the context of our current political partisan moment since back then the Republicans were the party fighting for the rights of the minority and the Democrats were the party staunchly committed to maintaining the saliency of white privilege—oh how things can change in a century!)

Going to see Lincoln is something that you should go do, and you will be edified for doing so. I’m just not so sure how many people when they are making their weekend’s entertainment plans think to themselves “I think I want to do something edifying this weekend!”

Title: Lincoln.
Director: Steven Spielberg.
Running Time: 2 hours, 29 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage and brief strong language.
Release Date: November 16, 2012.
Viewing Date: November 24, 2012.

Writing: A.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: B+.

Overall Grade: A/A- (3.75/4.0).

Happy Juneteenth! Should It Be A National Holiday?

Today is Juneteenth, the day that African Americans have been celebrating the news of the Emancipation Proclamation and the legal ending of involuntary servitude (a.k.a. slavery) in the United States since 1865.

I was unaware until today that there is a campaign to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. I am very well aware that there is only one federal holiday (Independence Day on July 4th) between Memorial Day at the end of May and Labor Day on the first Monday of September. That's pretty rough going for people like me who work for the Federal Government.

Today  U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) introduced legislation to have the federal government recognize Juneteenth:

June 19, shortened to the unique date Juneteenth, has become the symbolic anniversary of the freeing of the slaves. The Juneteenth Independence Day observance would be similar to Flag Day or Arbor Day; institutions would not be closed, but the event would have national recognition.

"By observing this day, our nation will honor the role that Juneteenth has played in African American culture in Texas and throughout the country, and it will remind us that, in America, we are all blessed to live in freedom," Hutchison said in an e-mail.

Hutchison's staff, not authorized to be quoted by name, says the legislation is not controversial and they do not expect any opposition.

The bill is another step in a movement to bring Juneteenth into prominence. Forty-one states have passed bills establishing a state observance of Juneteenth, almost half of them since 2007.

On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas, to declare that the Civil War had ended and that all enslaved people were free. General Order Number 3, as it's known, was read by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger. The declaration came more than two years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which he issued Sept. 22, 1862, to take effect Jan. 1, 1863.

Hmmm, well I am glad that the process for federal recognition is moving along.