The trouble with "American Gangster"
In this audio interview with The Envelope's Tom O'Neil, N.Y. Daily News film critic and amiable chatterbox Jack Matthews reiterates a basic perception about Best Picture Oscar contenders. Uhm...well, Jack doesn't really explain it as completely as he could so I'll re-phrase it.
The movies that tend to win (or come close to winning) always seem to do one of two things. They say something fundamentally true about life on this planet that most of us recognize (like American Beauty's theme that few of us take the time to appreciate life's small, quiet wonders). Or they make us choke up in recognition of some buried or under-acknowledged emotional truth residing deep in our chest cavities. Or both. Exceptions happen, of course -- The Departed, The French Connection, etc. But mainly the soft, squishy stuff gets the gold.
In this sense, as much as I hate to admit it, American Gangster is vulnerable because it doesn't do either of these two things. I think (hope) it'll be nominated anyway because it's a mesmerizing valentine to '70s cinema and an awfully good textural-procedural in the vein of The French Connection, Serpico and Prince of the City with a sprinkle or two from the Across 110th Street salt-shaker. It's a wonderfully savory NewYork cops-and-bad-guys story that underlines shared values between the hunter and the hunted.
The fact that it lacks ambition by not trying to do much else makes it, of course, unpretentious as well, and much to my liking. But if the Academy hard-cases keep up with the complaints that "it didn't make me cry" and the beef that "it's not really about anything," then there might be trouble down the road.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on October 18, 2007 at 11:55 PM
comment #1
PerfectTommy
says ...
Which explains Chicago's win...um, how?
Posted by PerfectTommy
at October 19, 2007 12:26 AM
comment #2
Kristopher Tapley
says ...
Much as I enjoyed a lot of American Gangster, it still has the laziest third act of any other film this year.
Posted by Kristopher Tapley
at October 19, 2007 12:27 AM
comment #3
Walter Sobchak
says ...
Your infatuation with Oscar I find a bit unusual, Jeffrey. On the one hand, this site seems to be a hang out for serious students of film...a place to talk about the art of the craft and what-not... (i.e. "Fincher's Zodiac harkens to the darker, unresolved narratives found in the 70's films of Frankenheimer or Schlesinger")...
But then you get on this Oscar kick like you're Leeza Gibbons or Mary Hart or John Tesh. "Who will Oscar wink his golden eye towards this year? Will red-hot George Clooney finally get his hands on that ellusive statue? Will Cate Blanchett walk down the aisle with the little gold man or will she once again be an Oscar bridesmaid?!"
It's not even November yet.
Posted by Walter Sobchak
at October 19, 2007 12:35 AM
comment #4
gruver1
says ...
Wells to Sobchak: Oscar season used to be, at most, four months out of the year. Now there are four months out of the year, at most, in which the season is dormant. This is the shape of things, the world as it's come to be, the business I've chosen. All I'm trying to do at this stage is urge the Oscar prognosticating set to wait until December 1st to get into predicting and handicapping the same old blah-blah, etc., and come instead from a place in their own hearts. Can most of them be bothered to do this for a few short weeks? Of course not.
Posted by gruver1
at October 19, 2007 12:50 AM
comment #5
scooterzz
says ...
with all due respect to all involved: academy screeners are ALREADY hitting the front porch... the game is on (and, btw, it IS a game).....from now on, it's all politics so, if you make your living making predictions, put your ear to the buzz and your eye to the mailbox...
wells, you are pissing in the wind asking bloggers to 'wait'.....bloggers don't 'wait' (and you know it).......
Posted by scooterzz
at October 19, 2007 1:18 AM
comment #6
Larry
says ...
The Best Picture Oscar goes to whatever the middlebrows in the Academy believe is "class."
Posted by Larry
at October 19, 2007 1:20 AM
comment #7
Walter Sobchak
says ...
Sobchak to Wells: I hear ya. People love a horse race. What the hell are you doing up, anyway? It's 1:45. Go to bed. Same for the rest of you. Go on.
Posted by Walter Sobchak
at October 19, 2007 1:51 AM
comment #8
silver
says ...
For Matthews' two things to win, that could explain: 2005's Crash (fundamental truth about life: check. buried emotional truth: check)
But how to explain 2006's The Departed which meets neither.
BTW just saw Into The Wild; it meets Matthews' qualifications.
Posted by silver
at October 19, 2007 1:56 AM
comment #9
PerfectTommy
says ...
Okay, all Oscar speculation can stop now. I just saw a Roger Ebert blurb for "Renditiion". It said, "This film is perfect." Surely, the Oscars must go to the perfect film, because I think that is the first time perfection has been achieved in film making.
Posted by PerfectTommy
at October 19, 2007 2:21 AM
comment #10
thevisceral
says ...
I thought the message of American Beauty was that the American middle-class is nothing but a bunch of idiots who can only achieve happiness by reverting to adolescence.
Posted by thevisceral
at October 19, 2007 5:07 AM
comment #11
corey3rd
says ...
I thought that the message of American Beauty is if you don't have sex with the high school cheerleader, God will send his agent of rage to kill your ass.
Posted by corey3rd
at October 19, 2007 7:02 AM
comment #12
buckzollo
says ...
This non-science favors INTO THE WILD at least as a nomination.
Posted by buckzollo
at October 19, 2007 7:40 AM
comment #13
Josh Massey
says ...
The same Roger Ebert who reviewed "Crash" apparently reviewed "Rendition." I miss the other one.
Posted by Josh Massey
at October 19, 2007 7:50 AM
comment #14
le corbeau
says ...
I still hold with Gebert's Law of the Oscars, which was very true in the 90s, somewhat less true in the 2000s: the movie that will win is whatever would have been nominated in 1957.
Thus we had two Spartacuses (Braveheart and Gladiator), two westerns (Dances With Wolves and The Unforgiven), A Night to Remember (Titanic), Pal Joey (Chicago), The Three Faces of Eve (A Beautiful Mind), Judgement at Nuremberg (Schindler's List), Doctor Zhivago (The English Patient). Along with a couple of 60s ringers-- Tom Jones (Shakespeare in Love) and The Graduate (American Beauty).
It's a little harder to say more recent winners such as Return of the King, Crash or The Departed fit that paradigm (nobody ever nominated The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad for Best Picture), but still, I'll be well short of surprised if a big British weepie like Atonement, say, wins.
Posted by le corbeau
at October 19, 2007 8:28 AM
comment #15
christian
says ...
I thought that the message of American Beauty is that it's important to quit your job, smoke some killer government weed, buy your dream car then die. I approve of this message.
Posted by christian
at October 19, 2007 9:39 AM
comment #16
transmogrifier
says ...
Yeah, fuck the Oscars. Who gives a shit? I have a theory that anyone truly invested in the Oscar race couldn't give a shit about movies; they are in it for the cold comfort of a "I told you so" when one of their objectives guesses is validated. Wells, I expect better.
Posted by transmogrifier
at October 19, 2007 10:01 AM
comment #17
arch451
says ...
The many frivolous "best pictures" that nobody watches or enjoys anymore and the masterpieces that were never even nominated, such as Vertigo, show that the Academy Award voters are inept. However, the point of the Academy Awards is for the motion picture industry to award itself. The real problem is that the Academy Awards carry so much prestige. The various critics' awards are more meaningful. What should happen is that the critics should organize their own awards ceremony to compete with the Academy Awards. Time will prove the critics' awards to be the greater honor.
Posted by arch451
at October 19, 2007 10:05 AM
comment #18
cshideler
says ...
Desert Bayou is another documentary I've been hearing a lot of Oscar buzz about but isn't mentioned on the list below. It's opening in LA on October 26th at the Laemmle Sunset 5 with Q&A sessions after the 7:30 showings on the 26th and 27th with the director, Alex LeMay.
The Village Voice review sounds interesting: "Alex LeMay's Desert Bayou makes a fitting sequel to Spike Lee's opus When the Levees Broke. The film opens by reprising the indelible and shameful tableaux of horrors that unspooled in the days following Hurricane Katrina, but then quickly moves on to depict the plight of several African-American evacuees...a poignant indictment of a social disaster that began long before New Orleans' poor, black, and elderly citizens were abandoned to die."
Posted by cshideler
at October 19, 2007 10:12 AM
comment #19
BurmaShave
says ...
It's not anything approaching a great film, but Guest's FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION skewered the Oscar race so brutally that I can't take it seriously anymore. It's amazing what a little buzz can do in this town!
Posted by BurmaShave
at October 19, 2007 10:19 AM
comment #20
christian
says ...
The Oscars represent a certain magic of Hollywood aura but anybody with a love of film does not take them seriously, unless you're nominated.
Posted by christian
at October 19, 2007 10:28 AM
comment #21
Zimmergirl
says ...
Christian, bingo. Everyone acts above it all until they get a little taste of it and suddenly, it's respectable. Wells says "American Gangster is vulnerable because it doesn't do either of these two things." Oh really? Is that why? Is that the ONLY reason you can think of? Anyway, nice job backing off your too-assured prediction of this or any other movie. But as to Mr. Matthews or anyone else who thinks they know kinds of movies win Oscars, there is no hard and fast rule because the Oscars are a reflection of time and place and since things and tastes always change, so do the Oscars along with them.
"I have a theory that anyone truly invested in the Oscar race couldn't give a shit about movies; they are in it for the cold comfort of a "I told you so" when one of their objectives guesses is validated."
From my experience, that couldn't be farther from the truth. In fact, those who are invested in the race usually are because they care passionately about a film. The ones who don't seem to care are people who don't think the Oscars matter - WAKE UP CALL needed. The Oscars can often determine the preservation of good films over shitty ones.
Can you imagine the film industry without the Oscars? Just try to imagine it for a minute. Whether you like it or not, pal, most studios are in the business to make money. Those who are in it for other reasons count on the Oscars to help fund their current and future prospects. The Oscars are a great publicity campaign for small, meaningful films - actors can take risks on projects like Before the Devil knows You're Dead knowing that it may pay off come Oscar time.
Posted by Zimmergirl
at October 19, 2007 12:31 PM