Best Pictures #39: 2016 Academy Awards, My Pick for Best Picture

by A.J.

Best Pictures #39: 2016 Academy Awards

My Pick for Best Picture

The 2017 Academy Awards ceremony for films released in 2016, held on February 26th, will go down in history for its unprecedented, weird, wild twist ending. La La Land, with its 14 nominations, was the front runner in nearly every category according to betting markets, critics, insiders, and amateur prognosticators. The night started out with some surprises, most notably Hacksaw Ridge winning two Oscars for Editing and Sound Mixing--giving veteran sound mixer Kevin O'Connell his first win after a record 21 nominations without a win. Though it took home the most awards of any film at the 89th Academy Awards with a total of six, La La Land unexpectedly underperformed and, most surprising of all, did not take home Best Picture.

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were the presenters of the Best Picture award at the end of the night. Beatty opened the envelope looked at the card, looked confused, then checked the empty envelope again, hesitated for a moment, then checked the envelope again. After a long awkward moment, he handed the card to Dunaway who read: La La Land. Two of the three producers of La La Land had gotten through their acceptance speeches and the third was about to speak when there was commotion on stage. The expressions of people on stage in the background were of confusion and disbelief. It was La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz that announced to everyone that, in fact, Moonlight had won Best Picture. Some of the La La Land cast and crew on stage were visibly, and justifiably, upset, but Horowitz was the epitome of class and dignity and graciously turned over the Oscar to the producers of Moonlight. 

The accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers counts all the of Oscar ballots and tabulates the winners, which are placed in the official envelopes and put in a locked briefcase handcuffed to a representative from the firm. For practical reasons, there are two sets of envelopes. Should anything happen and an envelope is missing, there is a backup. A close up freeze frame of the envelope in both Beatty and Dunaway's hands reveals that category on the envelope is: Actress in a Leading Role.

They were simply handed the wrong envelope. Beatty said that he opened it, it said "Emma Stone-La La Land" and he didn't know what to do, so when he showed it to Faye Dunaway she just read the name of the movie. Host Jimmy Kimmel tried graciously to take all the blame for the mix up saying that it was his fault and he won't be back next year. In reality, Kimmel was one of the best and liveliest hosts the Oscars has had in quite some time.

Early on in the night I thought: wouldn't it be nice if an independent film with no big name stars, about a troubled gay black man wins over the big Hollywood musical about the greatness of Hollywood? Then it didn't happen and La La Land won...then it did happen! I would not have voted for La La Land, but it would by no means be the Best Picture winner with which I most disagreed. It is a fine movie, but, frankly, I've seen it before, and I've seen it done better before. La La Land is simply another musical. Moonlight is filmmaking that approaches poetry. It takes a step back from the events happening to its main character, Chiron, allowing you to experience what he is experiencing. Moonlight is an art film, but it is open with its emotions and thus engaging. It is a special film that I've grown to like more and more.  

I'm very glad that Moonlight won, but it is still not the way I would cast my vote...

My Pick for Best Picture of 2016: Arrival

I didn't respond to any of the 2016 Best Picture nominees the way I responded to Arrival. It's rare that a science fiction film actually focuses on science instead of using the genre as a more interesting background for an action/fantasy story-- exactly what is the science in Star Wars? And, too often, when a science fiction film does focus on science it is to the detriment of the human aspect of the story. This is not the case with Arrival. It is a science fiction film brimming with pathos and thought provoking ideas.

There's so much to enjoy in Arrival: a new take on alien invaders, solid and even restrained filmmaking, and an excellent performance from Amy Adams. I was just as moved when I saw this film a second time as I was the first time I saw it in theaters. Perhaps the main reason for that is Adams' performance. The written language of the aliens is inventive and intriguing, as are the ideas it raises about language and time. The ideas it presents are interesting to ponder and move the story forward. Arrival is a serious science fiction film but it is also very entertaining. Genre conventions and references to other sci-fi movies are in the background, not the foreground, letting audiences enjoy this movie without constantly being reminded of other films in the same genre. Director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Eric Heisserer have crafted something poetic and profound.

Best Pictures #35: 2016 (89th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee, Arrival

by A.J.

Best Pictures #35: 2016 (89^th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Arrival

We’ve been lucky enough to have had some excellent science fiction films recently—Interstellar in 2014, and last year’s Best Picture nominee, The Martian in 2015—and Arrival is among them. Those films, like Arrival, are not just fantasies, they are pro-science. The main characters are scientists or science minded people that use available information and resources to solve incredible problems. To borrow a phrase from NASA, they “work the problem.” This is what Amy Adams does as Louise Banks, a world-renowned linguist tasked with figuring out how to communicate with recently arrived alien beings. She doesn’t have much time, as the mysterious alien spaceships have appeared all over the world and world governments are nervous and frantic to figure out why the aliens are here.

You’re likely to be reminded of other science fiction films about “first contact”: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (in which François Truffaut also tries to communicate with aliens), Contact, and The Day the Earth Stood Still to name a few. The alien spaceships might even remind you of the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The aliens themselves look like creatures from the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. But Arrival is far from derivative; it is the perfect example of what should happen with a new entry to a well tread genre. We’ve seen movies about aliens arriving on Earth before, but we’ve never seen one quite like this.

There are of course visual effects and computer generated images, but this film does not center around effects or spectacle. At the heart of Arrival is an incredible performance by Amy Adams that was inexplicably not nominated for Best Actress at this year’s Academy Awards. Adams excels at using small facial expressions and her eyes to convey clearly, but quietly what her characters are thinking and experiencing and that’s exactly what she does here. Her performance makes the character of Louise relatable and grounds the entire film in genuine emotion even as it moves into heady sci-fi territory. We have no trouble believing that Louise is the foremost authority on language and are frustrated when military and government officials (played by Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg, respectively) stand in her way or won’t listen to her conclusions. We are with her every step of the way, even if we don’t know what it all means.

Even though Arrival does not go out of its way to simplify or explain itself, it never becomes inaccessible and only becomes more intriguing and entertaining as the story unfolds. Did I understand the intricacies and logic of Arrival’s climax? I think so. Regardless, I understood what was happening well enough to be thoroughly satisfied and moved emotionally. The Oscar nominated cinematography by Bradford Young and score by Johann Johannsson contribute greatly to the movie’s tone and along with skillful direction by Denis Villeneuve, a smart screenplay by Eric Heisserer, and, perhaps most of all, an amazing performance by Amy Adams elevate Arrival from just another science fiction film to something profoundly affecting.

Nominees: Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Aaron Ryder, David Linde, producers

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Screenplay: Eric Heisserer, based on the story “The Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang

Cast: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker

Production Companies: Lava Bear Films, 21 Laps Entertainment, FilmNation Entertainment

Distributor: Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Releasing

Release Date: November 11^th, 2016

Total Nominations: 8, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Director- Denis Villeneuve, Adapted Screenplay-Eric Heisserer, Cinematography-Bradford Young, Editing-Joe Walker, Sound Mixing- Bernard Gariépy Strobl, Claude La Haye, Sound Editing- Sylvain Bellemare, Production Design- Patrice Vermette (production design) Paul Hotte (set decoration)