Best Pictures #17: 2015 (88th) Academy Awards, My Pick for Best Picture

by A.J.

2015 (88^th) Academy Awards, My Pick for Best Picture

The 88^th Academy Awards for films released in 2015 was held on February 28^th, 2016 and the night went mostly as expected but still had a few surprises. The 2016 ceremony was mired in the controversy that became known as “#OscarsSoWhite.” From the moment the full list of nominees was announced the two became inextricably linked. No one could mention one without the other, and unfortunately the controversy was completely valid: for the second year in a row there was an incredible lack of diversity among the nominees, especially in the acting categories where all of the nominees were white. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced changes to the requirements for membership in hopes to increase member diversity. What, if any, effect the changes may have won’t be seen until the next batch of nominees are announced in January of next year.  

The eight Best Picture nominees for 2015 covered a wide range of subjects and genres but still encompassed many elements favored by the Academy. The nominees included: three movies based on true stories (Bridge of Spies, Spotlight, The Big Short) and one based on a novel which is partly based on a true story (The Revenant); a sweet, sentimental romance (Brooklyn); an independent, character heavy drama (Room); a thrilling adventure in a faraway land (The Martian); and, most surprisingly, an epic, big budget action movie (Mad Max: Fury Road). Room was the only nominee set in the present day. All of the other Best Picture nominees are set either in the past or the future. The Big Short was the most topical of the nominees with its events having taken place most recently (2005-2008) and the effects of its subject (the housing market collapse and resulting recession) still being felt by many, many people. It’s an entertaining and important film, and I’m interested to see how it will or will not hold up in the coming years. I think that despite winning no awards, the feel good, thrilling science fiction film The Martian will be a movie that audiences will re-watch and rediscover in the future.

Leonardo DiCaprio won Best Actor for The Revenant and while I’m glad he has an Oscar (he’s one of my favorite actors after all), I’m disappointed it’s for a simple one note performance in a rather unenjoyable movie. Alejandro G. Iñarrìtu won Best Director for The Revenant making him the third director to have back to back Oscar wins. The other two directors are John Ford for The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and How Green Was My Valley (1941) and Joseph Mankiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950). I don’t feel like I’m going out on a limb when I say that Iñarrìtu, when included with the likes of John Ford and Joseph Mankewicz, pales in comparison. The Revenant is a technically well-made film, but that is all it has to offer. The films that Ford and Mankiewicz won for are true classics. However, Iñarrìtu will now forever be part of a very small club.

The big surprise of the 88^th Academy Awards involved the big award itself, Best Picture. Spotlight won the Oscar upsetting The Revenant, which seemed as sure as a sure thing can be. The Revenant had won several awards leading up to the Oscars and the odds were heavily in its favor. However, it is a film that no one seemed to enjoy (I don’t recall reading any wholly positive reviews of the film). In the end, the Academy’s preferential ballot may have worked against The Revenant since the second choice of the voters can add up and outweigh the apparent first choice. Spotlight does have the hallmarks of a Best Picture winner (ensemble cast, true story, an important and serious subject) but this shouldn’t diminish its accomplishments or its win. It is undeniably an important film but it is also a solid, well-made, and riveting thriller. Spotlight won the first award of the night, Original Screenplay, and the last award of the night, Best Picture, and nothing in between making it the first film since The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) to win Best Picture with only one other award (the other win for that movie was also for writing).

Spotlight is a great film and I’m glad it won, but my vote for Best Picture would go to…

My Pick for Best Picture 2015: Mad Max: Fury Road

If I picked the winner for Best Picture of 2015 I would have to pick the full throttle feminist action film Mad Max: Fury Road. As much as I loved this movie when I saw it in theaters back in May of last year, I would have thought it crazy that this movie would have been my pick for Best Picture or that it would have even been nominated. Fury Road took home 6 Oscars for the "technical categories" (Editing, Costume Design, Makeup & Hairstyling, Production Design, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing), all of which were well deserved wins. I’ve seen this movie three times so far and each time there is something new to notice or appreciate. This is an era when anything visually spectacular in a movie is automatically assumed to be done by a computer, but this is not the case with Fury Road. The stunts performed in this movie are performed by real people doing exactly what it looks like they are doing. The flame throwing guitar is completely real and works as a guitar and a flamethrower. The War Boys swinging on poles like pendulums to attack our heroes are stunt men really swinging on poles. The stunt team worked on perfecting this stunt to the point that it was safe enough to perform on moving vehicles. Director George Miller (who had my vote for Best Director) was even able to convince Tom Hardy to shoot a few takes on top of the swinging pole, despite his fear of heights.

All of these practical effects and stunts foster believability in this wild, post-apocalyptic world. Max and Furiousa are not superheroes; you believe everything you see these characters do. All of the characters in Fury Road are bound by the laws of physics. They hurt and bleed and have personalities that the movie showcases instead of glossing over. The setting may be a dystopian fantasy and the genre is action, but this is a movie about people. Charlize Theron was not nominated for any awards for her performance as Imperator Furiosa, but it is a great performance nonetheless that carries this movie and gives every action importance. As good as Tom Hardy is as Max, this film would not work without Charlize Theron in the lead.

Best Pictures #16: 2015 (88th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee, Mad Max: Fury Road

by A.J.

2015 (88^th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Mad Max: Fury Road

Over the opening credits of Mad Max: Fury Road, our title character says in gravelly narration, “my world is fire and blood” and he could not be more right. Set in the same post-apocalyptic wasteland as The Road Warrior and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, where oil, gasoline, and water are scarce, but not as scarce as civilization, this adventure finds Max (Tom Hardy—brooding and often silent) as almost a side character to the main narrative. The action really kicks off when Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) smuggles a group of women away from their captor in her massive “war rig” and is pursued by countless bad guys in suped-up weaponized vehicles—and Max is forcibly brought along for the chase. That is about all the plot there is in the screenplay written by director George Miller with Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris, but with a film as well-executed in direction, cinematography, performances, visual effects, and costume and production design as this one, that is enough.

The villain of Fury Road, Immortan Joe, (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who was also a villain in 1979’s Mad Max) is a cross between Darth Vader and Skeletor in appearance. He rules The Citadel with equal parts cruelty and tyranny, giving the people of The Citadel little water to live on and keeping women in a vault as his wives (or, put more bluntly, breeders). When he discovers Furiosa’s betrayal, he sets out with a massive war party, including, most memorably, a barge stacked with amplifiers and speakers and a man whose sole purpose is to play heavy metal riffs on a flame-throwing guitar. Immortan Joe’s minions are shirtless, chalk-painted men called War Boys, desperate to impress their leader and die gloriously on the Fury Road. 

Max, being “a Road Warrior searching for a righteous cause” after all, eventually decides, albeit reluctantly, to help Furiosa, but not until after they have an intense fight in the desert with the war party quickly closing in and Max chained to both a car door and a War Boy called Nux (Nicholas Hoult). However, despite Fury Road being nominally Max’s adventure, it is Furiosa’s mission which drives the story. She is our main character and Theron—who can perhaps be best described as “super badass”—is the real star and standout in this movie. Her performance is quiet, but perfectly measured; and our emotions—yes, there are emotions in Fury Road—are invested with her.

It might seem odd to call the gritty, violent, high-octane Fury Road a feminist action movie, but that argument is not a difficult one to make. Max does his fair share of driving and killing, but he does not swing in to rescue these women—they are equally his saviors. The group of young women led by Furiosa are not damsels in distress and this movie makes each of them feel like a full person and treats them accordingly. Though they are not all experienced road warriors like Furiosa, the women display other strengths like bravery and compassion. When one of the escapees, Capable (Riley Keough), finds Nux in the back of their War Rig, curled up in shame and humiliation at having failed Immortan Joe, she convinces him through gentle conversation to become an ally in their escape. Fury Road is a movie about women rescuing other women from male cruelty.

Though Fury Road is essentially one big, unrelenting chase, Miller finds ways to give the audience moments of respite and a chance to breathe. One of my favorite scenes in the movie happens when our protagonists’ flight comes to a halt. The engines of the War Rig have overheated and must cool down before they can continue, but Immortan Joe’s forces are only getting closer. Max gathers his weapons and begins to walk toward the pursuing villains. Furiosa asks, “What if you’re not back by the time the engines are cool?” Max quietly replies, “Well, you keep moving” and sets out into the blue tinged night. A battle ensues—we hear gunshots, but rather than jumping into the middle of the fight we stay with Furiosa and watch from a distance.

When watching Fury Road, you get the impression that George Miller was mostly left alone with little to no studio interference or notes from the marketing department. There are many unpleasant, grotesque images in this movie, but there are also many fascinating and exciting ones, too. The costume design, production design, makeup and hairstyling, and visual effects are all deservedly nominated for Oscars. Watching Fury Road again I noticed more and more intricate and impressive details. The score by Junkie XL was not nominated for an Oscar, but it is a great nonetheless, and used to perfection. Fury Road feels like it was a true collaboration between all of the people involved with the production both on and off camera.

This fourth installment in the Mad Max series comes 30 years after the third, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and for fans of the earlier films Fury Road does not disappoint. However, you don’t need to have seen any of the other Mad Max films to enjoy this one, since each film has its own standalone story which is explained and changed slightly at the opening of each movie. I was immensely entertained when I saw this film in theaters and again when I saw it on DVD. Everything I had enjoyed about the film the first time still had the same effect on me and my excitement for the film has not waned. This is an epic film of tremendous quality, which is usually not the case with big budget summer action movies or sequels. Fury Road is a full bore, action movie executed with noticeable care and meticulous thought at every turn.

Nominees: Doug Mitchell and George Miller, Producers

Director: George Miller

Screenplay: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nico Lathouris

Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult

Production Companies: Kennedy Miller Mitchell, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, Village Roadshow Pictures

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Release Date: May 15^th, 2015

Total Nominations: 10, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Director-George Miller, Cinematography-John Seale, Editing-Margaret Sixel, Production Design-Colin Gibson, Lisa Thompson, Costume Design-Jenny Beavan, Makeup and Hairstyling-Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega, Damian Martin, Sound Mixing-Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff, Ben Osmo, Sound Editing-Mark A. Mangini, David White, Visual Effects- Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver, Andy Williams