Oscars 2014 Recap: Complete With Tweets!

I really enjoyed watching last night's broadcast of the 86th Academy Awards at the Rialto Theatre (pictured on the right) here in Raleigh. It was the first time showing the program for the 72 year old theater, and despite some lady cackling maybe a bit too much at host Ellen DeGeneres' schtick, it was a lot of fun to be in attendance.

I got my best Oscar predictions score ever, with only three wrong out of the 24 winners. I missed Best Documentary Feature which went to Morgan Neville's fine documentary about back-up singers, TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM, because I thought since a music-centered doc (SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN) won last year, it wouldn't happen this time around. I had thought for sure Joshua Oppenheimer's powerful but hard to watch doc about Indonesian death-squad leaders,THE ACT OF KILLING, would get the gold. Oh, well. Can't win 'em all.

The others I got wrong were the Best Live Action Short (I guessed THAT WASN'T ME), and Best Costume Design, which went to THE GREAT GATSBY (I guessed AMERICAN HUSTLE, which won nothing).

I wasn't that disappointed that one of favorite films of 2013, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, didn't win anything because I didn't expect it to.

As for the rest of the show, here's some highlights from my live tweeting (follow @filmbabble) of the event last evening:

Ellen's monologue - not bad, about as risqué as she can get.

Best supporting actor: nailed it! Leto will next take on Jesus Christ Superstar.

Never caught up with what the hat means - Pharrell Williams-wise. 

2nd win for DALLAS BUYERS - setting it up for a major McConaughey moment.

Yes, MR. HUBLOT! It was the best animated short so I'm happy.

FROZEN - I picked it but still haven't seen it.

GRAVITY's first win for a tech award. There will be more.

Wow - HELIUM. Missed that. Oh well. 

Whoa - 20 FEET FROM STARDOM for best doc. Happy to be wrong here.

C'mon THE GREAT BEAUTY! Yes!

It's about time Tyler Perry got here.

Okay, U2 is U2-ing it up for a movie nobody has seen.

Biggest celebrity selfie ever?

I tell ya - every tech award goes to GRAVITY. 

Best shooter: GRAVITY again, of course. 

Whoopi will set us straight. 

Kelly Preston - still getting it done. @RealKevinBrewer * said that.

In memorial - decent picks n all - gotta end with PSH. 

John Travolta: "there will always be a place in my heart for really unrealistic hair"

Again GRAVITY. Yep. 

Damn, well maybe this bodes well for a 12 YEARS best pic win. 

Is this shaping up to be the most predictable oscars ever? Sure seems like it.

Seems like today everybody else is saying it was one of the most predictable Oscars ever, which it must have been if I got 21 out of 24 right! I was hoping for at least one big surprise, like, say, Jonah Hill or June Squibb winning, but it was a big breezy show that entertained me greatly. Definitely better than last year's Seth McFarlane mess.

* I recorded an episode of my friend Kevin Brewer's podcast, postmodcast, last week in which we discussed the legacy of the recently departed Harold Ramis, and chatted a bit about Oscar predictions. Please listen to it here.

I'll leave you now with my favorite moment from last night's big show:

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Hey Kids! Funtime 2014 Oscar Picks!

It's that time of year again, time for me to post my predictions for the Oscars, which will air on ABC this Sunday night. I'm glad to see that the 86th Academy Awards Ceremony will be hosted by Ellen DeGeneres because she was very funny when she first helmed the show back in 2007.

I thought that last year's Oscar winners were one of the hardest rosters to predict in history, but I actually scored 18 out of 24 right. I seriously doubt I'll get as good or better this go around, but I'm still gonna give it the ole college try.

Oh yeah, I'll be live-tweeting the Oscars too: follow @filmbabble.

1. BEST PICTURE: 12 YEARS A SLAVE

I thought this was a shoo-in when I saw it last fall, but then AMERICAN HUSTLE started gaining major momentum as an awards season favorite. GRAVITY has a lot of pull too, but I'm sticking with Steve McQueen's powerful historical drama. It just seems to have Best Picture written all over it.

2. BEST DIRECTOR: Alfonso Cuarón for GRAVITY

3. BEST ACTOR: Matthew McConaughey for DALLAS BUYER'S CLUB

4. BEST ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett for BLUE JASMINE

5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jared Leto for DALLAS BUYER'S CLUB

I almost want to pick a wild card - say, Jonah Hill for THE WOLF OF WALL STREET - because there's often a surprise in one of the Supporting categories, but I'm still going with Leto.

6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Lupita Nyong’o for 12 YEARS A SLAVE (Wild card: June Squibb for NEBRASKA)

And the rest:

7. PRODUCTION DESIGN: THE GREAT GATSBY

8. CINEMATOGRAPHY: GRAVITY

9. COSTUME DESIGN: AMERICAN HUSTLE

10. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: THE ACT OF KILLING

11. DOCUMENTARY SHORT: THE LADY IN NUMBER 6

12. FILM EDITING: GRAVITY

13. MAKEUP: DALLAS BUYER'S CLUB

14. VISUAL EFFECTS: GRAVITY

15. ORIGINAL SCORE: GRAVITY

16. ORIGINAL SONG: “Let it Go” from FROZEN

17. ANIMATED SHORT: MR. HUBLOT

18. LIVE ACTION SHORT: THAT WASN'T ME

19. SOUND EDITING: GRAVITY

20. SOUND MIXING: GRAVITY

21. ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: HER

22. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: 12 YEARS A SLAVE

23. ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: FROZEN

24. BEST FOREIGN FILM: THE GREAT BEAUTY

Okay, so as you can see - when I was in doubt on a technical award, I just went with GRAVITY.

As usual, stay tuned to see how many I get wrong.

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New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 2/25/14

In case you need to catch up with the Oscar nominated movies before the big broadcast of the 86th Annual Academy Awards this coming Sunday (my predictions will be posted this Friday), you’re in luck today as two of the Best Picture nominees release today on home video. First up, there’s Alfonso Cuarón’s GRAVITY, which is nominated for 10 Oscars, available this week in 3-disc Blu-ray, and 2-disc DVD editions. The extremely entertaining film, which concerns two A-list stars (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) as astronauts stranded in space, comes packaged with such Special Features as a 107 minute documentary (longer than the film!) “GRAVITY: Mission Control,” 37 minutes of Shot Breakdowns, “Aningaaq: A Short Film by Jonás Cuarón” (10 minutes), and a 22 minute mini-doc narrated by Ed Harris entitled “Collision Point: The Race to Clean Up Space.”

The second release competing for the big award is Alexander Payne’ s NEBRASKA, which is also up for Best Actor (Bruce Dern) and Best Supporting Actor (June Squibb) Oscars. It drops today on Blu ray and DVD, but both only have one bonus feature: an almost half an hour “making of” documentary. Though I doubt it’ll win any Oscars (Squibb could be an upsetter – you never know), it’s a fine film that deserves to be seen by a lot more film loving folks. Read my review here.

Nominated for no Oscars (for good reason), Alan Taylor’s THOR: THE DARK WORLD, which I called a Marvel Mess Of A Sorry Super Hero Sequel on this very blog last November, is also out today on Blu ray and DVD. It comes with many Special Features including a 14-minute short “Marvel One Shot: All Hail the King” by IRON MAN 3 co-writer Drew Pearce featuring Ben Kingsley, Commentary (with Director Taylor, cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau, producer and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, and Tom Hiddleston), 32-minute Marvel Cinematic Universe documentary “A Brother's Journey: Thor & Loki,” 8 minutes of Deleted & Extended Scenes, Scoring Thor: The Dark World with Brian Tyler, (5 minutes), CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER Exclusive Look (4 minutes), and a Gag Reel (also 4 minutes).

Oscar nominee Jared Leto (Best Supporting for DALLAS BUYER’S CLUB) stars in Jaco Van Dormael’s epically weird MR. NOBODY, a 2009 sci-fi drama making its first U.S. appearance on Blu ray and DVD today. It’s a visually stunning film that blends elements of DONNIE DARKO and INCEPTION with Philip K. Dick-style invention that resembles a one-character CLOUD ATLAS at times, but it’s a long exhausting watch (the Blu ray features 2 versions – the 139 minute theatrical release and the 157 minute Director’s Cut). A terrific Leto stars as the title character, Nemo Nobody, who as an 118-year old man looks back at his life (or alternate lives), involving a cast including Sarah Polley, Rhys Ifans, and Juno Temple. Special Features: “The Making of MR. NOBODY” (45 min), Deleted Scenes 97 min), “AXS TV: A Look at How I Live Now,” and the trailer.

Greg ‘Freddy’ Camalier’s excellent documentary MUSCLE SHOALS, which I saw last year at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is also available this week. As I wrote back then, “The legendary ‘Muscle Shoals Sound’ gets its doc due in this rock, rhythm, and soul packed film that tells the story of two studios in the small Alabama town and the iconic artists who recorded there.” Special Features: Additional Scenes and interviews, 2 commentary tracks (one with Director Camalier; the other with Rick Hall, Jimmy Johnson, David Hood, and Spooner Oldham), and the trailer.

The Criterion Collection has a bunch of choice titles debuting on Blu ray this week: Abdellatif Kechiche's 2013 lesbian love story BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR, Steven Soderbergh's Depression-era drama KING OF THE HILL, Jean Luc-Godard's 1960 French New Wave classic BREATHLESS, and Roman Polanski's 1979 Oscar winner TESS (it won for Best Cinematography, Art Direction, and Costume Design). Note: BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR and KING OF THE HILL are available streaming on Netflix Instant.

The final new release I'm highlighting today is Bob Dylan - 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration, a re-mastered re-release of the all-star tribute concert that went down at Madison Square Garden on October 16th, 1992, appearing on Blu ray for the first time in a Deluxe Edition. It's a colossal collection of music including three rock icons who are no longer with us, George Harrison (who would've celebrated his 71st Birthday today), Lou Reed, and Johnny Cash, who join an amazing roster of artists including Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Roger McQuinn, Eric Clapton, and Neil Young to perform a showcase of the music of the greatest songwriter ever (imho). The man being honored himself performs a few songs at the end including ensemble versions of “My Back Pages” and “Knockin' on Heaven's Door.” Special Features: 40 minutes of previously unreleased material including behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage, and interviews. This might be the most rewarding release this week.

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Matthew McConaughey & Jared Leto Make DALLAS BUYER’S CLUB Worth Joining

Now playing at an indie arthouse near you:

DALLAS BUYER'S CLUB
(Dir. Jean-Marc Vallée, 2013)

Because of his strong performances in BERNIE, KILLER JOE, MAGIC MIKE, and even THE PAPERBOY, last year I tweeted: “I think 2012 may go down in movie history as the year Matthew McConaughey started to give a shit again.”

I stand by that statement, as the man puts in some of his finest work yet here as Texan Ron Woodroof, a real-life AIDs victim who distributed alternate illegal medication through a homegrown buyer's club in the mid '80s to early '90s.

When we first meet the scrawny mustached Woodroof, we see that he's a redneck who's all about rodeo, that is, when he's not working his day job as an electrician. The Texan (as is McConaughey) is livin' it up with cheap booze and cheaper women, until one day where he gets electrocuted on the job and wakes up in hospital and is by told that he's HIV-positive.

Woodroof, furiously complaining that this is a mistake because he's not a homosexual, throws papers at his physicians (Jennifer Garner and Denis O'Hare) from their charts around the room, and angrily storms out after saying: “I got a newsflash for y'all, there's nothing out there that could kill Ron Woodroof in 30 days!”

After doing some research and having some effective flickered flashbacks about just how sordid some of his partying was with intravenous drug use and all, Woodroof accepts his predicament and goes looking for treatment. He learns through the help of a disgraced doctor in Mexico (an almost unrecognizable Griffin Dunne) that the only AIDS drug legally available at the time, AZT, is poisonous, so he begins the business of transporting unapproved anti-viral meds across the Mexican border.

Speaking of almost unrecognizable, Jared Leto, in feminine makeup and tacky '80s tramp garb, shows up as a transsexual AIDs patient named Rayon, who forms an unlikely friendship with Ron. Well, actually it's pretty likely in an indie film context like this.

Both McConaughey and Leto both put their all into their roles, including the loss of 80 pounds between them to inhabit these characters, but the narrative isn't well served by choppy plotting and one too many throwaway scenes.

In one such scene, McConaughey's Woodroof tries to masturbate using the visual stimuli of photos of woman on the walls of his makeshift hotel room office only to get pissed off at a picture of T. Rex rock star Marc Bolan that Leto's Rayon taped up.

Or another in which McConaughey spies an attractive woman in line for treatment at his office, checks if she's HIV-positive, then it cuts to him having sex with her in the bathroom. This was more amusing but just as expendable, as these scenes do nothing by confirm what we already know - our protagonist is still not queer. These bits would be better as deleted scenes on the later Blu ray/DVD release, not cluttering up the storyline.

But overall there are enough weighty moments and excellent acting (even Garner brings a touching well-placed poise I've never witnessed from her before) to satisfy most movie-goers and create some deserved award season buzz.

With a more focused less erratic screenplay, DALLAS BUYER'S CLUB could've had a lot more power, but alongside a well chosen supporting cast McConaughey and Leto's invested performances shine through the movie's muddiness.

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