As the 2013 Oscar telecast
approaches this coming Sunday, keep this in mind when trying your hand at
predictions: Hollywood is like high school with money, as someone once famously
remarked, and the Oscars are like a glitzier high school popularity contest. The
film which takes Best Picture isn’t necessarily the most artful and profound,
but is sometimes the one by a filmmaker that Hollywood voters simply want to reward
as one of their in-crowd’s own.
With that in mind, most of the nine
films from the Best Picture slate can
immediately be stricken from consideration: the foreign film Amour, because it’s foreign; the
controversial Zero Dark Thirty, because
it has drawn very vocal disapproval from some in Hollywood with its suggestion
that waterboarding might have led us to bin Laden; the magical Beasts of the Southern Wild and the
fantastical Life of Pi, because they’re
a bit too artsy; and Quentin Tarantino’s kill-fest Django Unchained, because it doesn’t suit Hollywood’s newly
acquired sensitivity to gun violence.
Of the other contenders, Silver Linings Playbook features
Hollywood’s two hottest stars at present – Bradley Cooper and Jennifer
Lawrence, both of whom are up for Oscars, as is its director David O. Russell.
But as a quirky relationship dramedy, it lacks a big enough canvas for an Oscar.
On the other hand, the epic Les
Miserables has a sweeping canvas but is a musical, and only one other
musical (Chicago, 2002) has won Best
Picture in the past 45 years.
That leaves the offbeat, tense and
often amusing Argo. But bizarrely, the
affable Affleck was not nominated for Best Director, and there have been only
three times in Oscar history that a film has won without its director being
nominated. My Acculturated colleague Megan Basham points
to this as the reason Argo is a long
shot.
But that was before Affleck won
Outstanding Director at the recent Directors Guild of America Awards. Affleck knows
how to campaign, and his Argo is
overtaking the ponderous Lincoln in
the lesser awards shows – the playoffs, as it were – including the crucial
Golden Globes, which almost always seems to foreshadow the Oscar Best Picture
win. Argo won at that event, and so
did Affleck for Best Director. He and his film simply have all the momentum
going into the final stretch before this weekend.
Another factor in Argo’s favor is that it is a true story
in which Hollywood itself saves the day.
Despite poking fun at Tinseltown throughout, the script depicts moviemaking
itself as the savior of a handful of escapees from the 1979 Iranian hostage
crisis. Oscar voters will be flattered by this without even realizing it.
Which film should win? That’s obviously subjective, but I think everyone can
agree that a Best Picture Oscar should go to a visually unique, emotionally
compelling pic with grand themes and performances. Argo is solidly-told entertainment that never takes itself too
seriously, and its understated acting and directing, like Affleck’s own
performance, don’t draw attention to themselves; he made it all about the
story, which is admirable. But Oscar-worthy? Despite my disinterest in musicals
(the last musical I liked was the hilarious Team America: World Police, and
before that, 1967’s Camelot – largely because it
featured knights), I think that honor should go to director Tom Hooper’s Les Miz this year, and maybe Ang Lee’s Life of Pi as a runner-up.
But Affleck has rightfully established
himself as the kind of congenial Hollywood insider like Tom Hanks or George
Clooney that Hollywood simply wants to win. It’s his time. Put your money on Argo.
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 2/20/13)
