Dallas Buyers Club by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack

Dallas Buyers Club by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack

Took several years too long to get made but worth the wait and efforts. Great script.

 

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Oscar for Best Original Screenplay: Heart and Head Picks…

There was plenty of originality this year and by virtue of the screenplay Spike Jonze wrote and conveyed for “Her” and its futuristic view on relationships and their unfortunate continual difficulties Mr. Jonez seems to be the front runner. I have accepted this but it certainly wasn’t my favorite screenplay of the year. “Blue Jasmine” is Mr. Allen’s Tennessee Williams contribution of the 21st century. If they can make a musical out of “Bullets Over Broadway” they sure can make this a dramatic juggernaut on the great white way! There were two scripts which had several lives and incarnations and stops and starts, “Dallas Buyers Club” and “Nebraska.” The former for several production turnovers and the latter for Mr. Alexander Payne’s insistance on shooting the film in black and white or not at all. They gave the foundation for great performances. Mr. Bruce Dern waxed poetic about the simplicity of Mr. Bob Nelson’s script. Every single word held weight. The script I had thought would be the one to beat was “American Hustle.” It was a madcap, twist of a roller coaster ride and it incorporated some truths about a totally different era, the 70’s. My heart says “American Hustle” and my head believes “Her” will be Spike Jonze’s first of many Oscars to come.

The Oscars: Best Picture Prediction of My Heart and Head!

Oscars: Heart and Mind Picks

The Golden Globes do one thing perfectly year in and year out; they encourage winners for films in a specific category. The Emmys sometimes get the nominations miscategorized between comedy and drama but they also encourage more winners. The Oscars encouraged more nominations for the Best Picture statuette but what they have really done is create the possibility for more losers. It would be ideal if the Oscars took the longtime lead of the Golden Globes and categorized them into comedy and musical and drama. But, they haven’t and they probably won’t. Change is hard to introduce to a membership that feels like they have the best awards year after year.

So, sometimes there are a few closely contested races and if we use last years nominees as an example “Lincoln” seemed to be the favorite going in and Ang Lee won Best Director for “Life of Pi” and “Argo” due to tremendous momentum coasted to a win and may have been the result of Ben Affleck’s glaring snub for director.

This year there is a familiar tone to the race. I believe it’s a four horse race with the possibility of an upset between the following films: “12 Years a Slave,” “Gravity,” “American Hustle” and the momentum film and latest released “The Wolf of Wall Street.” “Dallas Buyers Club” is a film that may have won any other year and “Frozen” should have been nominated and may not win its animated category.

“12 Years a Slave” was a tremendously amazing film to watch in quiet horror in a dark theatre but what it did for me was beg the question: “Was it better than last year’s “Django Unchained?” I don’t think so. “Gravity” seemed more real than the footage shown of actual space missions and it was such a groundbreaking film technically it will earn its place in Hollywood history but at an hour and a half was it too short for its own good? David O. Russell will win an Oscar someday it just may not be this year. The film was an epic’s length and it was another back to back Oscar trivia answer for at least one nomination in all the major categories which hadn’t been done since Warren Beatty’s “Reds” in 1981 and Mr. Russell is an actors director and that should mean more than it does at Oscar time. However, the elephant in the room is the momentum of “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Martin Scorsese is going to be remembered for directing some of the best films in American history about American periods of history. His lone win for “The Departed” a film unworthy of a second look compared to : “Raging Bull,” “Good Fellas,” “Taxi Driver” and “The Aviator” to name a few. ‘Wolf’ captured the time period it was about perfectly. It is a long film and does have nudity and curse words but the core of the picture was the accurate depiction of American greed and I wish people had been more mindful of the times and loosened up a little.

My heart picks “The Wolf of Wall Street” and my head picks “Gravity.”