So what’s George Clooney in The Descendants throwing that smashes into a million pieces?

It's a teddy bear.

Am I biased towards Wes Anderson? You bet I am.

So what can we expect from 2012? In the immediate future, there’s the delightful French comedy The Artist which is sure to be huge followed by Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady and Fassbender drama Shame. Later, there is Drake Doremus’s acclaimed teen romance Like Crazy that is surely bound to change what you thought of when you read the words ‘teen romance’. Hopefully, the Paul Rudd/Zooey Deschanel/Steve Coogan/Elizabeth Banks/Emily Mortimer/WHO ELSE COULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT comedy Our Idiot Brother will be picked up for a UK distribution and of course Pixar’s dark looking Brave will be out in July along with the bound-to-break-some-records The Dark Knight Rises. There’s also new films from 90s directors Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson and Peter Jackson’s Africa-feedingly expensive The Hobbit: Part 1. Comedy comes in the form of Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest invention The Dictator and Will Smith is back in Men in Black 3. A movie I’m really excited for is Rian Johnson’s time twisting Looper with Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon Levitt, and who could forget The Phantom Menace 3D? See below for an exclusive poster.

Oh, and Prometheus, The Great Gatsby, and Aardman’s Pirates! too. Anyway, without further delay, here are the official nominations for the 1st TRB Awards of 2011!

Outstanding Direction

Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive)

Clearly it would be unjustified for me to give any award for writing as so many screenplays of this year’s films are not published, and even then it’d take a lifetime to read them all. Luckily, after being thoroughly moved by the film, I did get the chance to go through Will Reiser’s excellent 50/50 screenplay. Concisely structured, it’s full of personal touches - realistically detailed & flawed characters and the humour translates well to page, so this is my way of recognising Reiser’s achievement.

Male Lead Performance

Peter Mullan (Tyrannosaur)

Supporting Male Actor

Michael Smiley (Kill List)

Lead Actress Performance

Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia)

Supporting Actress

Olivia Colman (Tyrannosaur)

Outstanding Cinematography

Seamus McGarvey (We Need to Talk About Kevin)

Oustanding Editing

Andrew Weisblum (Black Swan)

Outstanding Documentary

Life in a Day

Best Comedy

Submarine

Best Action

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Highlights for me have been Kill List‘s horrifying ending, Drive‘s visually indulgent style & it’s sublime soundtrack, Melancholia‘s jaw dropping beauty, finding new favourite comedies in the form of Submarine & Beginners, Woody Allen’s return to form with Midnight in Paris, and of course the irrestistible charm of The Artist.

But what are your 2011 film highlights?

TLDR:

In case you forgot what type of film you were watching, the film helpfully begins with a big ole’ explosion – BAM! IT’S AN ACTION MOVIE! – in France, which ace detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) discovers may be related to a series of other explosions dotted around Europe. At the same time as discovering this, Sherlock meets Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris), esteemed mathematician and confidant of royalty. Of course Moriarty isn’t your typical villain. He doesn’t make a sinister entrance, there isn’t dark brooding music playing every time he’s on screen, he isn’t motivated by a hunger for power, he doesn’t have a platoon of dumb minions & a younger sidekick with a special ability, nor does he create an elaborate death trap for Sherlock and explain his plan assuming that he’s about to kill Holmes anyway. Because that would be clichéd. And shit writing. Which this definitely isn’t, ok?

To stop Moriarty, Holmes must first get rid of all the female characters we’ve been introduced to and stop Watson (Jude Law) going on a honeymoon, while enlisting the help of his brother Mycroft (Stephen ‘we-hope-it-does-well-in-Britain-too’ Fry) and mystic gypsy Simza (Noomi Rapace). There are some great three dimensional characters here, for example Downey Jr is just so English in this movie, he even pronounces certain words using the American pronunciation, just to throw us off guard. Fry also excels in his role as a ‘linguistic clever guy’ giving plenty of subtle winks to the camera. For instance, at one point he says ”they’ll be a car in every city in the world 20 years from now”, which actually happened! Ah, characters predicting the future always amuses me. There’s also some witty humour to lighten the mood (SPOILER: LOL, it’s like Holmes and Watson are gay, LOL fat people are fat, LOL old people are old).

Many have noted the sparky on screen chemistry between Downey Jr and Law – in the first one they were either engaging in witty, irrelevant back and forths or smartly investigating the crime scene. Not like Sherlock 2, in which they smartly investigate crime scenes and engage in witty, irrelevant back and forths – it’s good to see these aren’t just the same characters and that they’ve evolved somehow from the previous instalment. But at least Guy Ritchie’s direction is as cerebral as the dialogue. He cleverly shoots objects which may come back later in the story in subtle close ups. This really helps you relax because you don’t have to worry about using your brain to figure out the plot (which would’ve been annoying!) and it feels like the lovely filmmaker is leading you by the hand. More than this, Ritchie’s cinematographer Phillipe Rousselot gives the film a unique, gritty look that doesn’t reminisce at all of Tim Burton’s (Rousselot worked for Burton, so it’s good to see him variate here).

If ‘stories’ aren’t really your thing, then don’t worry movie goers, there’s plenty of SLOW MOTION ACTION, YEAAAAAAH! TREES BLOWING UP, YEAH! And for those who think this film strays too far off Arthur Conan Doyle’s original book series, just look at this extract from the author himself:

As Watson and Holmes dash through the forest, one of the bad guys let’s off a huge motherf*cking gun that totally tears shit up. BOOM! BANG! AAAAAARGH! NOOOO! Other shit of a similar nature then proceeded to go down.

Anyway, I definitely recommend you go see Sherlock Holmes 2 if you enjoy the intelligent, well written blockbuster movies Hollywood seems to have churned out twice a week this year.

By the way, it isn’t opposite day.*

*Which on opposite day, means it is opposite day.

…the ship wouldn’t be right behind him.

133 lists: The Imitation Game by Graham Moore

The story of British WWII cryptographer Alan Turing, who cracked the German Enigma code and later poisoned himself after being criminally prosecuted for being a homosexual.

84: When The Street Lights Go On by Chris Hutton, Eddie O’Keefe

In the early 1980s, a town suffers through the aftermath of a brutal murder of a high school girl and a teacher.

59: Chewie by Evan Susser, Van Robichaux

A satirical behind the scenes look at the making of Star Wars through the eyes of Peter Mayhew who played Chewbacca.

53: The Outsider by Andrew Baldwin

In post World War II Japan, an American former prisoner-of-war rises in the yakuza.

43: Father Daughter Time: A Tale of Armed Robbery and Eskimo Kisses by Matthew Aldrich

A man goes on a three state crime spree with an accomplice, his eleven year old daughter.

33: In The Event of A Moon Disaster by Mike Jones

An alternate telling of the historic APOLLO 11 mission to land on the moon that examines what might have happened if the astronauts had crash landed there.

30: Maggie by John Scott

As a “walking dead” virus spreads across the country, a farm family helps their eldest daughter come to terms with her infection as she slowly becomes a flesh-eating zombie.

30: The Current War by Michael Mitnick

Based on the true story of the race between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to develop a practical system of electricity and sell their respective inventions to the country and the world.

28: The End by Aron Eli Coleite

Four people – a veteran broadcaster in London, a sixteen year old girl and her boyfriend in Ann Arbor, and a devoted family man in Shanghai – each try to make peace with their lives before an interstellar event ends the world in six hours.

27 Beyond The Pale by Chad Feehan

Teenage siblings suspect they’ve been ripped off by the town undertaker, but what they discover is much more sinister than either imagined.

27: Ezekiel Moss by Keith Bunin

A mysterious stranger who possibly has the power to channel the souls of the dead changes the lives of everyone in a small Nebraska town, especially a young widow and her 11 year old son.

24: Grace of Monaco by Arash Amel

Grace Kelly, age 33 and having given up her acting career to focus on being a full time princess, uses her political maneuvering behind the scenes to save Monaco while French Leader Charles de Gaulle and Monaco’s Prince Rainier III are at odds over the princi¬pality’s standing as a tax haven.

24: He’s FUCKIN’ Perfect by Lauryn Kahn

A social media savvy girl who is pessimistic about love finds the perfect guy and decides to use her internet research skills to turn herself into his perfect match.

23: Bethlehem by Larry Brenner

A group of people struggling to survive a zombie apocalypse make an alliance with a vampire, trading themselves as food in exchange for protection since zombies don’t eat vampire.

20 The Three Misfortunes of Geppetto by Michael Vukadinovich

A prequel to the story of Pinocchio in which  Geppetto endures a life of misfortune, war, and ad¬venture, all to be with Julia Moon, his true love.

20: Powell by Ed Whitworth

Based on the true story of Colin Powell questioning the Bush administration leading up to his United Nations presentation where he made the case for going to war with Iraq.

19: The Knoll by Christopher Cantwell, Christopher Rogers

A rookie cop and his potential flame witness JFK gunned down from the grassy knoll on November 22, 1963. Within hours, they’re on the run from the murderers who desperately need them silenced.

For the rest of the list, click here

The Academy Themselves (or white, god-fearing, Republican, middle aged actors)

Most of the voters are actors, which is probably why there is so much bias towards genre at the Oscars. ET: not bad, Raiders of the Lost Ark: meh. Ghandi and Chariots of Fire? Best f*cking film of the year. Yeah, cos people definitely still talk about those films.

Sci fis rarely receive the attention they deserve usually ending up with ‘best visual effects for a tree’. And even then they aren’t guaranteed to get a nomination, like this year the King’s Speech was nominated for ‘best sound mixing’. The Academy genuinely came out of seeing the King’s Speech saying:

”Woah! What a movie! And what about that sound mixing? Way better than that confusing art ‘film’ Black Swan, that’s already got best actress so we can ignore that.”

In the very same year, the most visually beautiful American film of the year ‘Tron: Legacy’ was left off the Visual Effects list. A sci fi rejected in the field it excels more than any other. Another guy, Kevin O’Connell, has been nominated 19 times for Best Sound Editing and has created some of the most imaginative soundscapes ever in sci fi film, but has lost 19 times to movies like period drama Amadeus.

There are few genres which encapsulate the root essence of cinema as entertainment, as escapism, as extraordinary – it’s about time the Academy ditched their prehistoric literary oppression of science fiction.

Behind the Scenes: if there’s a category for costume design, why not…

While you’re at it, why not nominate motion capture actors? Or are they not traditional enough for a film award? But then again, perhaps it’s slightly paradoxical of me to claim the Oscars are corrupt and ignorant and then demand more.

Best Director: they shit on ambition

The greatest living American director Martin Scorsese finally received an Oscar for The Departed after 6 nominations which he should’ve won for Goodfellas, The King of Comedy, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.

Scorsese, Spielberg and Lucas all looked up to a man named Brian De Palma, one of the most influential and stylistic American directors of all time, but, to the Academy, he doesn’t exist.

The most famous directors to be ignored by the Oscars are Stanley Kubrick, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock, because to the Academy they’re good, but not good enough. They’re no Tom Hooper, they’re no Ron Howard, they’re no Mel Gibson.

Most recently Christopher Nolan failed to pick up even a nomination for his stunningly directed film Inception. Instead, the Academy was so overwhelmed by the competence of Tom Hooper and his ability to make no impact whatsoever.

Best Screenplay & Editing 2011

Inception was also snubbed in the Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing categories. Granted, it was nominated for the former category, but Nolan’s multi layered labyrinthine script that gains more on 2nd & 3rd watches was clearly not as original or as good as The King’s Speech. Yes, a screenplay adapted from an unused play based on real events was definitely eligible for ‘Best Original Screenplay’. And how original was that King’s speech?

But the worst crime in recent Academy history has to be the exclusion of Inception’s editor Lee Smith in Best Editing. Was there a more intelligently crafted sequence than the entire ‘van-off-the-bridge’ bit all year? Clearly the Academy were far more impressed by the way The King’s Speech uses the ‘montage’ to show ‘character progression’, innovation at it’s most ambitious.

Visual Effects: they dismiss innovation

The Visual Effects Oscar has been around since 1964, but it’s most exciting artist, Ray Harryhausen, was ignored completely other than a special honorary Oscar (the ‘we’re sorry…’ one). Harryhausen pioneered visual effects, practically inventing the idea that a character could be in the same frame as a monster, or a giant gorilla, or Medusa and paved the way for the next generation of animatronics and CGI. Without Harryhausen, audiences would never have come to expect visual effects in a blockbuster movie; arguably the Oscars wouldn’t even have films to nominate in the category without him.

Eligibility: American cinema is the only cinema

The Oscars are a celebration of American cinema, by which I mean it’s an excuse for the most famous sex objects in L.A. to all be in the same place at the same time. Foreign films rarely ever receive nominations in categories other than ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ because the Academy seems to think that the best thing about foreign films is that they’re foreign, they can bung 4 of them into one neat little category and get on with the ‘proper’ awards. More than this, for a film to be eligible for nominations, it must be shown theatrically in a theatre in L.A. for at least 7 days.

Which basically means whore your actors to photo shoots, millions of interviews and pay $500,000 for an ad in Variety. Some producers cannot afford this, so they’re class-ists too.

It seems for a foreign movie to win more than one Oscar it’d have to be, oh I don’t know, a holocaust film?

Holocaust movies & racism

Believe it or not (do believe it, cos it’s true) but 2011 was the first year for nearly 50 years that not a single Oscar or Golden Globe entry has focused on a Holocaust related movie. Technical achievement has been, and always will be, ignored in the event of a really “eye opening” Holocaust movie. Take Charlie Kaufman, who crafted perhaps the smartest screenplay of all time Adaptation, a story that tore down the idea of a ‘story’, which ignored every lesson told in any screenwriting class and then complied by them in a stunning ‘third act’ that highlighted the immorality and cheap entertainment of the modern Hollywood blockbuster. But it was no ‘The Pianist’. Yep, The Pianist beat what any screenwriter will tell you is the smartest film of the decade. Maybe it’s just me, but the dialogue in The Pianist at times seemed a little repetitive:

Mother: 20 zloty…

That’s all we have left, 20 zolty.

What can I buy with 20 zloty?

I am sick of cooking potatoes, potatoes, potatoes.

Didn’t even name his mother. So Holocaust movies that show what the Jews experienced are always great. But the Academy seem to treat any socially relevant modern film like a dog being shown a magic trick. I can imagine voting day.

Academy Member 1: What’s up for best picture?

Academy Member 2: Well, there’s a substantive narrative on racial tensions and how they can poison the minds of the youth, regardless of colour.

Academy Member 1: *yawns* I see. Anything else?

Academy Member 2: Shakespeare in Lo-

Academy Member 1: Shakespeare.

I vote for Shakespeare.

Again and again and again, I’d vote for Shakespeare in Love a hundred times over and it definitely has nothing to do with the producers spending $2,700 per academy member at that lovely banquet they had.

Just kidding folks, American History X wasn’t even nominated. Did nobody at all notice that Shakespeare In Love was basically Romeo and Juliet, only they changed…well pretty much nothing, it was Romeo and fucking Juliet! Only this time Romeo fucked Gwyneth Paltrow and they lived happily ever cunter. I mean after. Never mind that Saving Private Ryan made every other war film ever made look like Punch and Judy.

Politics: when Michael Moore claimed Bush was a ‘falsely elected president’ in his acceptance speech (which he was), the entire fucking building started booing and he was forced to get off the stage. He even brought on his fellow nominees with him, something that no one else had ever done. Lest to say, the documentary maestro will never be nominated again. It’s enough to shake your jewellery at.

More Racism: Do The Right Thing is perhaps the most potent American film about race and is widely considered the beginning of Black Cinema outside of Africa. The same year, Driving Miss Daisy was released in which Morgan Freeman spends most of the time taking shit from an old racist white lady. Do The Right Thing was an explosion in radical energy with it’s sweltering cinematography; Driving Miss Daisy had the pace of an injured snail race. Daisy got Best Picture for promoting the message ‘rise above it black people, just take the moral higher ground. Let’s just acknowledge that there’s racism in America, but do nothing about it.’ And, after all, racism was a contemporary issue on people’s minds but it was only because Do The Right Thing was released that it was on their minds in the first fucking place! Oh, and it wasn’t even nominated.

Pixar: aren’t good enough for Best Picture

Musicals: we’ll be the judge of when you make a good one (Moulin Rouge was too soon, but Chicago was juuuust right)

Horror: are you joking? Those aren’t real movies, are they?

Documentaries: ‘We’re gonna be honest…we don’t know anything about documentaries. but it’s okay because no one else really cares.’

Nominations: Even when they get the nominations right, they get the next part wrong:

Rocky>Taxi Driver

The English Patient>Fargo

Dances with Wolves>Goodfellas

Kramer vs. Kramer>Apocalypse Now

Ghandi>ET

Chariots of Fire>Raiders of the Lost Ark

Titanic>L.A. Confidential

Forrest Gump>Pulp Fiction

A Beautiful Mind>every f*cking thing

The King’s Speech>Inception/Black Swan

So there you have it. To summarise, 99% of the greatest films ever made have zero Oscar nominations, and if any films do it’s entirely coincidental and insignificant. In no way does an Oscar represent cinematic achievement, ambition, innovation or excellence. Rather it is a statue, made out of veneer gold to counter it’s cheap significance, given to someone for making a bunch of ignorant, unappreciative Hollywood execs clap their hands like the monkeys gaping at a pile of bananas they are.

And don’t get me started on the BAFTAs.

More anti-Oscar stuff:

http://www.cracked.com/article_18460_5-reasons-oscars-matter-even-less-than-you-thought.html

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