The Oscars

I hear that the Oscars are happening again soon. My interest is only in passing, however, and I'm pretty cynical about the enitre thing. It seems that over the last few years, I've enjoyed the films winning awards in Cannes far more than those winning in Hollywood.

That's fortunate, I suppose - all of the Hollywood stuff is extensively marketed, in all the cinemas, thus if there's anything worth seeing there is plenty of opportunity to find out about it and see it. The films from Cannes tend not to get the same exposure, so the awards there are invaluable as a guide as what to look out for.

I thought last year was among the worst years in recent memory for film releases generally, and this is reflected in the Oscar nominations. (Ironically that they've chosen such a weak year to expand the number of Best Picture nominations to ten films.) That said, while I watch a relatively high quantity of films, there's no doubt that I've missed a few so maybe my perception is mistaken.
There were several releases that I found very enjoyable, but they all had serious flaws, and I can't think of a single one that stands out, or that I'll remember as a classic in years to come. Avatar was no doubt a landmark from a technical point of view. It pushes all of the right buttons to create a sense of wonder, and with the audience firmly behind the main characters, the action is rewarding and viscerally satisfying. But the allegory, along with both the good guys and the bad guys is jarringly one-dimensional, it's all been seen before, and thinking about it in the cold light of day, the 'message' is a lot less enlightened than it would at first seem.
Watchmen similarly was an enjoyable experience, impressively translated from the comic-book, with some striking imagery, an interesting story and characters. But it goes on too long to suspend disbelief and it's all very misanthropic.
Crazy Heart sees Jeff Bridges give a great performance, and he'll deserve the Best Actor award that he's sure to get, but the film as a whole is pretty ordinary otherwise, content to forego a plot of any import to focus on him.
Inglorious Basterds is a deeper film than most give it credit for. Like Tarantino's other work, it's not merely an orgy of violence. It's both an examination of America's national mythology - the old west (note Brad Pitt as a cowboy archetype) compared and contrasted with the ethics of National Socialism and an unsettling reminder of the power of propaganda. (Did you find yourself enjoying it as the Basterds fired their machine-guns indiscriminately at those in the French cinema, just as Hitler had enjoyed the same scenes on his screen minutes earlier? Did you notice how the captured German general was much more honorable than the Basterds themselves, before they murdered him?) But it's again far too long, drags in places and Tarantino will need to regain some of the ruthlessness he displayed in his earlier career if he's to match that level of quality.
What else? The Damned United is an entertaining look at the early career of Brian Clough. Moon is intelligent holds the attention, but the reveal was a bit of a let-down in my view. The Invention of Lying was a refreshingly original satire; one scene in particular is very moving. District 9 is an interesting concept that unfortunately degenerates into a shoot-em-up in the last 40 minutes. Endgame and Invictus are both about the end of Apartheit, and it's the former of these that are better - Invictus is a missed opprtunity.
Finally A Serious Man is a humorous and somewhat offbeat look at Jewish-America culture, with twin themes of fate and morality mixed in, notable for the questions it asks, and the fact that it doesn't give easy answers - or indeed any answers at all. By the end, nothing is "all tied up". Life goes on, just like always. I'm leaning towards this as my Best Film.

The Academy though, if rumours are to be believed, sees the whole thing as a two-way fight between Avatar, and a film that I haven't mentioned yet, The Hurt Locker. That's rather unfortunate, because The Hurt Locker isn't a good film at all. It's set in Iraq in 2004, and somehow manages to completely ignore Iraq, it's people and it's recent history, in favour of a generic action plot focusing on a single particularly reckless member of the US military who is addicted to violence. Iraqis feature peripherally as suicide bombers and sinister onlookers.
It has, admittedly drawn criticism from right-wingers in America, for not being sufficiently gung-ho about the war. But it's only nominally an 'anti-war' film. The war as seen as undesireable because it has damaging psychological effects on (from the perspective of the filmmakers) our soldiers and hurts our families. The damage - many orders of magnitude higher - to those living in the places on the recieving end is ignored. And so begins the rewriting of history in the public consciousness. The Iraq War, like the Vietnam War, before it, is an American tragedy. Pretty sickening.

Let's hope 2010 is better. Terrance Malick's Tree of Life, Chris Nolan's Inception and Ridley Scott's Robin Hood stand out as promising at this stage. And a special mention to The A-Team, likely to be my guilty pleasure.