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Road Rules
In serious artistic-cred terms (as opposed to counting hands in a high-school popularity poll), the Best Picture race has been radically altered by the arrival of Revolutionary Road. It is the new King Shit among the '08 power-punchers -- films that reflect some aspect of the real grit out there and say "this could be about you." As I wrote last night, it's "the strongest heavyweight drama I've seen all year so far...a corrosive and heartbreaking masterwork."
As I also wrote yesterday, "A Best Picture winner has to be a manifestation of someone's idea of a great, drop-dead, grand-or-penetrating-theme art film or it has to get people emotionally in a big way. Sorry, but them's the rules." Revolutionary Road obviously treds familiar ground (the old suburbia-sucks, let-me-outta-here mantra), but without question it's a manifestation of the latter.
The only other film that truly towers over the rest is the film that very few of the elite critics will stand behind because (a) they have eyes but will not see or (b) they lack the cojones to stand up to the conventional wisdom that a film has to be at least semi-commercial to be Oscar-worthy -- Steven Soderbergh's Che. Re-order your thinking on this concept lest you imperil your immortal souls. Choose your heroes and champions based on the criteria of the Movie Gods, not the likes and dislikes of the oafs and serfs who pay to see movies down at the mall....good heavens.
Soderbergh's lack of interest in even beginning to attempt to "entertain" the popcorn-munchers is not a plus sign in and of itself, but critics and smart industry viewers should at least be able to see what's going on here and at least give credit where due. Che is the pure and even made majestic, the telling of a two-act story that could only have been lessened by being shaped into "drama." It is naturalism in the rough, unpretentious verite magnificence, poetry in the details, an au natural hang-out-with-a-legendary-figure presented as a form of truth both literal and eternal. And yet it is so stand-alone "out there" that you can't really call it drama.
Besides these two you have Slumdog Millionaire, a rouser that is obviously getting people emotionally. A fevered and sweeping Dickens tale, but, in the view of some, a bit too manipulative and willfully "extreme" to register alongside the cinematic distinctions of Revolutionary Road and Che. It may be the front-runner right now, and it may win the Best Picture Oscar, but we'll see.
And Doubt, which is exquisite and immaculate on its own stage-play-transferred-into-cinematic-tension terms but isn't quite as jolting or emotionally affecting or profound, even, as (no offense to John Patrick Shanley, Meryl Streep, Roger Deakins, Philip Seymour Hoffman and everyone else involved) Revolutionary Road .
Milk doesn't have the heft or the chops or the emotional pull of Revolutionary Road or Che -- I'm sorry but as strong and earnest and enhanced by Sean Penn as it is, Milk is a marginally lesser film than these two.
Frost/Nixon is a tight, well-written and admirably assembled drama that delivers a metaphor about the tendency of truth to hide its face until all other options and avenues have been exhausted. But it is primarily a performance film by the expert technique and sadness of Frank Langella's Richard Nixon. It's not the stunner and soul-shaker that Revolutionary Road is, and not the majestic "other" that Che is. I'm sorry but there it is.
I have yet to see Gran Torino, Benjamin Button and The Reader so we'll see what happens there.
I will be pledging allegiance and affection for Tom McCarthy's The Visitor from now to Kingdom Come. WALL*E is brilliant but it is the winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar -- it needs to stay on its own side of the Rio Grande. And if they gave an Oscar to the Best Tweener Drama of the Year, Rod Lurie's Nothing But the Truth would win hands down.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on November 21, 2008 at 8:50 AM
comment #1
Chase Kahn
says ...
Wow, putting next to CHE and seperating them from the pack -- you did love it.
Still haven't seen THE WRESTLER huh? I know it isn't a Best Picture nominee, but let's be honest, niether is CHE.
Posted by Chase Kahn
at November 21, 2008 9:54 AM
comment #2
K. Bowen
says ...
Glad to hear it. It seems like a lot of the films that appeal to me this year have been on familiar ground, while the artier ones have left me, personally, a little underwhelmed.
How is Winslet?
Posted by K. Bowen
at November 21, 2008 10:26 AM
comment #3
JohnCope
says ...
Why in the world would The Wrestler not be a possible Best Picture candidate. If it can win in Venice it should at the very least be able to secure a spot in Hollywood. Or are we really supposed to believe Frost/Nixon, Milk or even Che has a better shot?
Posted by JohnCope
at November 21, 2008 11:17 AM
comment #4
VoiceOfReason
says ...
Jeff, do you like Leo performance here better than the one in The Departed?
Posted by VoiceOfReason
at November 21, 2008 11:42 AM
comment #5
gruver1
says ...
Wells to VoiceofReason: There's more ache and vulnerability in his Road work, so if I had to choose I'd say yeah, I prefer this one. But I loved him in The Departed also. Just a different kind of deal.
Posted by gruver1
at November 21, 2008 12:17 PM
comment #6
YRG
says ...
I think Slumdog will win best picture... Hollywood has been rewarding filmmakers and actors outside the mainstream lately-- Diablo Cody for Juno last year and Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls the year before-- as a nod towards new media as alternative avenues for content (Cody representing blogs and the internet and Hudson representing reality TV and American Idol). If Slumdog is the reigning success promised by the critics, the "Hollywood film" may become just another genre under the umbrella that is world cinema. "Foreign films" as a category may go the way of "Best Original Story" and be retired (making room for "Best Comedy"?).
The alternative is that Hollywood could give the award to Milk to send a message to the California electorate who passed an anti-marriage proposition that seems to be going backwards in terms of the culture.
Full disclosure: I have not seen either of these movies.
Posted by YRG
at November 21, 2008 12:21 PM
comment #7
clancy
says ...
Jeff- You do have to be admired for your advocacy. "The Visitor" and "Nothing but the Truth" are both fantastic films and both beautifully acted. In fact, I think both are better than "Revolutionary Road," at least in terms of how both have remained in my brain after seeing them. In fact, "Truth" has the best and most turn-on-its-head ending of any film in a very long time. The film is worth it for the last four lines of dialogue alone. Some may not get it- but those are people who have their brains on autodrive.
Posted by clancy
at November 21, 2008 2:30 PM
comment #8
bluefugue
says ...
>it needs to stay on its own side of the Rio Grande.
As many times as you insist this divide exists, I will insist it doesn't. A movie is a movie is a movie, from Melies to Griffith to Disney to Fellini to Kazan to Miyazaki to Kubrick. There is no good reason to ghettoize whole segments of the cinema.
Posted by bluefugue
at November 21, 2008 4:16 PM
comment #9
Leslie
says ...
Jeff,
Do you think Leo is a solid bet for a nomination?
Also, is there anything else you could add about the strength of his performance? I'm particularly interested. And I appreciate what you have shared so far. As a huge fan of his performance in The Departed, I'm happy to read what you said in a previous comment.
Thanks in advance.
Posted by Leslie
at November 21, 2008 5:37 PM
comment #10
Zimmergirl
says ...
Leo has to be a solid bet - this is the performance of his career so far. Ditto Kate Winslet. Will not be surprised if both win. But Mickey Rourke...tough to beat him. He's taking it. Kate Winslet will probably win. She's magnificent. Michael Shannon will give Heath a run for his money. Che is going to freak out the Academy. It will seem like a self-indulgent, masturbatory exercise in futility.
Slumdog
Frost/Nixon
Revolutionary Road
Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Doubt
Milk
Still a big question mark:
Gran Torino
It will probably be some variation of those above. Winslet could win Actress (up against Meryl Streep), Rourke could win Actor (Langella his main competition). Picture is still up in the air - could be Benjamin Button, could be Revolutionary Road.
Posted by Zimmergirl
at November 21, 2008 7:41 PM
comment #11
LuckyWilbury
says ...
It's hilarious how Jeff is unable to see the hypocrisy
of condemning critics for lacking backbone, while
at the same time demanding that they bend to his
bullying tactics over his favored films.
Last year, Zodiac. This year, Che and now Revolutionary
Road. Anyone who dares disagree with Jeff's obsessions
must submit to his ridicule and brow-beating.
Posted by LuckyWilbury
at November 21, 2008 7:44 PM
comment #12
The InSneider
says ...
Revolutionary Road may play very well to an older Academy crowd but personally I was disappointed. It was very good and the performances were all excellent but it was missing something. I thought American Beauty was better but there are plenty who feel that film hasn't aged all that great. I'm not one of them. DiCaprio and Winslet are fantastic but personally I was more riveted by the Streep-Hoffman and Langella-Sheen duos. I don't think it's one of Leo's more memorable characters, and I thought he was actually better than Winslet. I don't see either of them winning. I think DiCaprio is one of the 10 best working actors on the planet but there are still times when I see a boy when I should be seeing a man. This is one of his richer performances but I'm not sure how passionate voters will be about it. It's not in competition with Rourke, Langella or Penn, however. And there were moments when I wasn't sold on Winslet's performance but that may be because the character is so inconsistent. I think I'd appreciate the film more and the leads' repression if I were married or ever had been married. It's a very good film, as T.M. wrote, but it's not a great one, and I don't think it's really in the hunt for Best Picture. David Harbour, by the way, was excellent as Shep.
Posted by The InSneider
at November 22, 2008 1:30 AM
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