OSCAR SYMPOSIUM
with your host Nathaniel and five very special guests
February 2009
intro / day one pg 1 / pg 2 / pg 3 / day two pg 4 / pg 5 / pg 6
Previously on the Symposium we found the Actress categories lacking (in comparison to their male counterparts), we wondered about the paucity and quality of surprises, we got litigious and wondered why the season always feels so long. Finally we hit a depressive spiral concerning the lack of populist appeal for Oscar movies... Would we ever cheer up?
day three ~ the wrap up
NATHANIEL: Since I basically agree with what you all typed up last night about this complex collision of Oscar's incontrovertible preferences and the public's disinterest in movies outside of escapist fare (at least while they're still in the movie theater. There's always Netflix!) maybe the cinema is doomed.
[gulp]The celluloid sky may be falling but this conversation will certainly die before the cinema ever does (it has a way of going on despite numerous death rattles)! In order to not wrap on a downer I want to thank you all for you time and attention for this brief symposium and ask that we go out on a Happy-Go-Lucky note. Leave us a cheery thought about this year's Oscar lineups --something that puts a smile on your face -- or a optimistic hope for future Oscar battles.
Be like Poppy and find a silver lining.
ED GONZALEZ: Nathaniel, I'm sorry to say this but I'm struggling to come up with anything nice to say about this year's Oscar lineups. I guess I'm still stinging over the egregious Sally Hawkins snub, because a day without Poppy is like a day without sunshine. But I was smitten by Poppy's optimism, so here I am looking for the silver lining. How about us critics and Oscar pundits make a resolution to plug more off-the-beaten-path movies, directors, and performers, so this time next year we'll have more Melissa Leos in the running, maybe even get a Steve McQueen nominated for best director? We can do this, but we can only do this if we promise to work together.
So, for your consideration: Joaquin Phoenix for his fantastic performance in James Gray's Two Lovers. Not because it's his presumable swan song. But for the devastating sense of resignation that pulls the character's weight to the ground, the frustrated, checked anger with which he talks to one lover, the childlike sense of wonder and hope with which he talks to the other, his struggle to simply breathe in spite of the pressures put on him by mother and milieu. Talk about notes: Gray brings a plethora of them in the form of mind-blowingly expressionistic quotidian observations, and Phoenix's committed performance makes them bloom with a sense of the real.
KARINA LONGWORTH: The acting nominations for The Wrestler (and probably Mickey Rourke's win) are testament to the fact that Fox Searchlight *can* actually use their awesome Academy manipulation powers for good and not just for evil. Here's hoping their acquisitions team takes the success of this film (not to mention the dual resurrection of both its star and director) as inspiration to take chances on future films that have a bit more to add to the cinema canon than embarrassing slanguage.
NATHANIEL: "Bless them" said in Poppy's not-at-all condescending manner. Yes, Fox Searchlight, let Karina be your life coach. Use those powers of yours for good next year. And Ed, I hear you: I'm already working on a top secret new Oscar punditry system to try and shake things up a bit next year. Stay tuned.Kris, Erik and Timothy. You're up next. 'You can't make everyone happy but there's no harm in trying, is there?'
KRIS TAPLEY: Karina touched on the silver lining for me this year. Yes, Slumdog Millionaire is my favorite film of the year, and sure, there are plenty who wholeheartedly disagree. But Fox Searchlight has been cranking away at the Oscar game for over a decade now. That first bid for The Full Monty seems like ages ago, and this year, it seems like their efforts will finally go rewarded. This is a wonderful group of people from the top on down and to see them finally get their day in the sun is a real treat.
But it is always about the movies, of course, first and foremost. And no matter how pissed I might get at this slate of nominees or that, I keep coming back. There's something to be said for that, for the hope that your favorite might finally cross the finish line. There's something to be said for the obvious gratitude Mickey Rourke is carrying with him this season, what this run has done for him, both professionally and, surely, mentally.
So I look forward to Sunday, certainly with an eye out for surprises, but also with a lot of curiosity. What have Larry Mark and Bill Condon put together? How awesome will Wolverine be as an emcee? Can the telecast grab viewers despite a painfully uninteresting set of contenders? Lots of questions still on the horizon and I live for answering them.
Thanks so much for the invite this year, Nat. We're happy to participate any time. I always look forward to this back and forth and you've put together a smart crop of folks to talk Oscar this year. I'm happy to be the odd man out where that's concerned. ;)
ERIK: Nathaniel, thanks for hosting this shindig, it was fun sharing the room with everyone. I particulary liked the Penn/Rourke back-and-forth, which I mostly stayed out of because I have no strong opinions one way or the other. I'm just happy these two performances exist.
And that's my happy-go-lucky. There's tons of talented people in Hollywood working together to create stories that open and deepen our lives. No matter the obstacles — no matter that they seem to be increasing — these stories will get made. We will leave theaters feeling more alive than when we entered.
Earlier Ed mentioned one of my favorite scenes of 2008 — the young Jamal jumping into the piss and shit so he can get the autographed picture of his favorite Bollywood star. Is it too much to suggest that that scene can be a metaphor for what's going on here? There's a lot of piss and shit, and a lot of it gets on us, but what a joyous moment when we find something worth treasuring.
TIMOTHY: Thanks again to Nathaniel for inviting us all to play in his sandbox, even if it inadvertently turned into one of the saddest three days of my life. "American cinema is dying - discuss!" But even so, it was an honor to debate such a dour topic with a group as smart as you all.
I agree with Ed that it's hard to find the silver lining here. But in a fashion, the mere fact that everybody I've talked to is so angry at the nominees gives me a kind of hope. I've probably had more conversations about the Oscars this year than ever - nearly all of them negative - but they're among the most passionate film discussions I've had in a long time. So I guess, for me, the upside to the 2008 Academy Awards is that they've reminded a lot of people about the best part of being a film buff: getting really pissed off at people who disagree with you. Maybe the Oscars won't improve, but I think that something about this year made the audience a whole lot smarter and more engaged than usual.
NATHANIEL: Now if only the public would turn those engaged smarts toward more discerning ticket purchases ... than we'd really be talking. I don't mean to sound like a total snob when I type this. Lord knows I'll see some genres of movies regardless of quality (musicals, vampires, women's pictures -- yes, I paid to see The Women this year. On opening weekend no less. It was terrible) and I understand that the mythic "public" does this a lot, albeit with different genres prompting those automatic ticket purchases. I just hope that somehow more challenging pictures will start to take root with the public and less familiar styles of movies will start taking root with Oscar. Comfort zones are for wusses. Let's all challenge ourselves next year. I'm going to rent some westerns and noirs (two genres I'm not well schooled in) and maybe I'll go see a horror movie, too.
There's been a lot of discussion in this symposium about quality/seriousness vs. populist fare, but the two can co-exist. They do co-exist. But they can't co-exist if everything is put into a niche by the people in charge, and that feels like what's happening. There's no longer any attempt to embrace the middle ground at any step of the process — creation, production, marketing, distribution — and that's sad but it's hardly news. It's also what you get when you put marketers in charge of studios. The bitches keep putting us in niches.
