TIME is ticking, yet Best Picture is an unknown
The 87th Academy Awards ceremony will start at 20:30 in Los Angeles on 22nd February 2015. For friends in the UK, this means GMT 01:30, 23rd February; and for family and friends of filmAEO in HK, this is HKT 09:30, 23rd February.
The Best Picture race is still provoking arguments in which each perspective has its own grounds and supportive statistics. This year is unlike what we saw on knowing
12 Years A Slave from last year or
Argo from two years ago were clearly the Best Picture frontrunners. There are many possibilities this year and up till this ticking moment, any one can be a frontrunner. The strong ones are
Boyhood,
Birdman and
The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Academy voters revealing their choices
This is the period of wait and see what will happen on Sunday night, as members of the Academy have submitted their votes. Some have already reviewed their grounds to film critics, and the general impression is that popularly acclaimed films like
Boyhood,
Birdman and
Whiplash can put off a minority of Academy voters. Interestingly, in filmAEO's opinion, these three films are truly cinematic, yet their endings are either rushing off or not clearly established to the audience.
Voters can have a broad range of taste and preferences, but what they ultimately look for is a Best Picture that is special to endeavour, so the tone of the movie can either be heavy (e.g.
No Country for Old Men and
12 Years A Slave) or light (e.g.
The Artist and
Forrest Gump). The definition of 'special' can be viewed as when people look back into the past winners 12 years or so later, they could still remember the significance of those Best Picture winners. This is why we define Best Picture winners like
The Godfather,
Gone With the Wind,
Casablanca etc. as cinema 'classics'.
Therefore, there must be some dominating factor that would draw voters to a conclusion that moviegoers will remember the significance of the 'Best Picture' for a while, and extending its legacy to future generations to become classics. What is the factor this year? Could be...... LOVE.
Love and Hugs
What are the huggable Best Picture nominees then? Still
Boyhood, with additions from
The Grand Budapest Hotel and
The Theory of Everything.
Boyhood has the love factor of humanity in which the audience and voters would find resemblance to. Linklater's masterpiece on capturing
Boyhood's characters over 12 years and reminding us the fact that we had innocent, good and bad times in our childhood (Boy's perspective). Then, getting old enough to accept the truth that age and time go forward when you start to hold responsibility for your family and parenting the 'Boyhood' of your children (Mum and Dad's perspective).
Since March of 2014,
The Grand Budapest Hotel has kept its momentum in winning awards here and there throughout the year. Not many acclaimed films released early in the year could do so to remind the Academy voters, not even
The Lego Movie. Budapest is funny, colourful, rich and many other words to describe when one can develop so much feeling for this film. Critics, voters and the audience have been mentioning this film all year round, thus it has made it to the Academy Awards and it should receive the technical awards from its 9 nominations. However, to be a remarkable Best Picture, Budapest is a risky choice. The situation is like
Hugo in 2011, when it won many technical awards, but not Best Picture and Best Director (Martin Scorsese). If
Boyhood and
Birdman did not exist as contenders, Budapest would have an easy win on Best Picture, so as its director and visionary Wes Anderson. The world and vision of Wes Anderson have always been surrealistic and quirky, but he makes the audience believe silly characters and funny stories could happen. Budapest has made the peak of Wes Anderson's career and filmAEO hopes he will make another peak in the near future to earn his position for a 'Best Director' win.
My Left Foot,
A Beautiful Mind,
Rain Man,
Dallas Buyers Club etc. are emotional films that possess passion and make the audience to feel for the character when he has to overcome some physical or psychological barrier. This is also evident in
Theory of Everything when the grand mind and life of Professor Stephen Hawkings is portrayed by Eddie Redmayne who also happens to be a fellow from University of Cambridge. Following the trend of Screen Actors Guild Awards to Best Actor wins at the Oscars, Eddie Redmayne should receive 'Best Actor', as Matthew McConaughey did for
Dallas Buyers Club and Daniel Day Lewis for
My Left Foot. Moreover, Felicity Jones' performance as Jane Hawkings has supported Eddie's role and solidified the underlying messages of the story. With a very likely win for 'Best Original Score' based on the orchestral creations by Johann Johannsson,
Theory of Everything is a pleasant win for Best Picture and any of its other 4 nominations.
Stranger than fiction?
Boyhood and
Birdman are the frontrunners of Best Picture and they are both original. Originality and creativity of the plot have made an impact this year because two other Best Picture contenders,
Whiplash and
The Grand Budapest Hotel, are produced originally and their characters are all fictional. However, a point to note is that
Whiplash is categorised and nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Boyhood,
Birdman and
The Grand Budapest Hotel are all nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and they are seen as the strongest 3 contenders for Best Picture, with
Birdman being the strongest after Producers Guild and Directors Guild Awards (PGA and DGA).
For the remaining contenders
American Sniper,
Selma,
The Theory of Everything and
The Imitation Game, they are all non-fictional and are based on real life stories. All, except
Selma, are nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. However these 4 films are seen as weaker links to Best Picture.
The year is dominated by creativity rather than published works or real life stories, and the critics and audience have taken in these new perspectives which
Boyhood,
Birdman or
The Grand Budapest Hotel offer. Voting for Best Picture is preferential, however it is more likely that the number one choice votes would go to a nominee that has an original story.
Split vote
The question is how Birdman could possibly overtake Boyhood, or the other way round, to win the ultimate title. Let us comment about the pros and cons for these two films:
Birdman
Pros
- Different, creative, dramatic, entertaining
- Great cast
- A story about the show business (Earns the heart of voters and critics)
- Great cinematography as if the film is done in one single shot
- Director is a visionary
Cons
- Ending is open-ended and unclear
- Too quirky for some audience
Boyhood
Pros
- First film ever to actually film the life of actors/actresses over 12 years
- Simple and beautiful blend among the casts
- Love factor
- Great film direction and editing
- Thought-provoking on love and life
- Feels like an important film
Cons
- No climax throughout the film
- Comes to the point when you feel it is more like a documentary rather than a feature film
- Too long, nearly 3 hours
- Lack of entertainment
Both films have their unique aspects that deserve a Best Picture win, yet they have no historical importance at all. It is a battle between human emotion (Boyhood) and the weird love for show business (Birdman). If one does not get Best Picture, there may be a chance for the director to win Best Director. This was what happened consecutively for the last two years:
2013, 86th: 12 Years A Slave (Best Picture) and Gravity (Best Director)
2012, 85th: Argo (Best Picture) and Life of Pi (Best Director)
However, statistics over the past have shown that Best Picture would come with Best Director. Would we predict the trend which would call for a split of wins in Best Picture and Best Director, or follow the powerful statistics over the history? This is down to your call. If you fancy the quirkiness of
Birdman, it will fly off to be a different Best Picture than previous years.
Boyhood are for those who are conservative to honour a 'Best Picture', yet knowing the greatest cinema of all time requires patience and simplicity.
Here are some surprising or peculiar choices that the Academy honoured 'Best Picture' in the past:
2007:
No Country for Old Men
2005:
Crash over
Brokeback Mountain
2003:
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Fantasy/Sci-fi film winning)
2002:
Chicago over
The Pianist
1998:
Shakespeare in Love over
Saving Private Ryan
1980:
Ordinary People over
Raging Bull and
The Elephant Man
1956:
Around the World in 80 Days over
Giant
Will Win, Should Win & Could Win
filmAEO has not officially announced the final 87th Oscars predictions yet, but we will release them tomorrow in the form of 'Will Win', 'Should Win' and 'Could Win', as it is an open race for many categories. Stay tuned, keep calm and enjoy the Oscars which happens once every year.
