K.M. Soehnlein: Get Out Your Oscar Ballot

The Oscar ballot has become kind of moot, even -- especially -- if you're the kind of fan who gives lots of thought to who will take home the Academy gold. Almost every single winner feels predetermined -- this year, if you're not putting Slumdog Millionaire down for everything and betting the bank on Kate Winslet and Heath Ledger, then you're just not paying attention. The glut of so-called precursor awards -- the Globes, the SAG awards, the BAFTAs (that's in England, yo), and all the various guild prizes in the weeks leading up to the Academy shindig -- have come to cement the conventional wisdom into foregone conclusions. Best Animated Film? Why that would be WALL-E. Foreign film? You don't have to have seen Waltz With Bashir to know it's going to win. Despite a few seemingly too-close-to-call races -- Sean Penn's Harvey Milk vs. Mickey Rourke's Randy the Ram; Penelope Cruz's crazy-lady versus Marisa Tomei's hooker-with-a-heart-of gold -- most of what will happen on Sunday February 22 ... well, it is written. (If you didn't catch it, that's Slumdog-speak. You better get up to speed.)

Still, watching the Oscars, for all the rewarding-of-mediocrity, for all the Hollywood-patting-itself-on-its-corrupt-back, remains a pleasurable sport, and not only because actual jump-off-the-couch surprises can still happen. (Remember how great it was last year when Tilda Swinton won for Michael Clayton and wound up talking about George Clooney's nipples in her acceptance speech?) No, the best thing about watching the Oscars with a small group of dedicated moviegoing friends is the chance to shout your opinion at the the TV set for three hours.

Yes, it's true that the movies in question are too often forgettable prestige pics like Frost/Nixon or over-praised blockbusters like The Dark Knight. (Let's face it, with the average Academy voter being age 60, it's not exactly a body that has its finger on the pulse.) But still, for that span of time -- which in my opinion, never "drags on" too long -- everyone is talking about movies. And for that, I'll keep coming back.

This year I'm only really rooting for one film: Milk. It's the only film of the nominated bunch that I've seen twice (and am contemplating seeing again during its return engagement at the Castro Theatre). When I think of all the ways the film could have gone wrong -- cliché bio-pic...too-campy marginalization...somber & sex-free -- and then think about how right it turned out -- not only full of great acting from Sean Penn, James Franco, Josh Brolin and Emile Hirsch, but also humorous and humanizing (thanks to Dustin Lance Black's script) and visually eclectic and engaging, thanks to the the underrated and vastly imaginative cinematography by Harris Savides -- I get warm all over, in a proud, hometown sort of way. I'd love to see Gus Van Sant take home the best director award. It might be possible (but then there's Danny Boyle, Slumdog's half-helmer, so...forget it).

The other film that I like a lot is one that everyone seems to be hating on, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Yes, it's too long, and perhaps it's too pretty for its own good, but it's one of those films that makes me happy Hollywood exists at all. The thing is fucking magical to behold, not only for the waaaay convincing aging makeup (and how exactly did they get Brad Pitt's face on that midget-old-man's body anyway? it's absolutely seamless) but for the gloriousness of the art direction, cinematography and costuming. If you haven't seen it, see it on the big screen and ENJOY the gift of cinema. Director David Fincher, whose entire career has been devoted to the dark side of humanity (Se7en, The Game, Panic Room, Fight Club, Zodiac) proves with Button that he can apply his mad skills to a love story for grown ups. And yeah, I do think Brad Pitt deserves his best actor nomination -- his Benjamin is more than a pretty face, he's a man trapped in a legacy he can't control but refuses to feel victimized by. Pitt's scenes with Tilda Swinton are some of the best of the year. (That's two Tilda references so far! Yes!)

I haven't seen The Reader yet but based on the its-her-year logic, I'm imagining that Kate Winselt is going to get -- and deserve -- the best actress trophy for her role as a former concentration camp guard who falls into a relationship with a teenage boy. I say deserve because what haven't you loved Kate in -- Heavenly Creatures, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Little Children (sorry, I won't utter the T-word)? If you saw Revolutionary Road you know how brave an actress she is, way more than she has to be with her flawless Anglo face and comely bod. (And speaking of Revolutionary Road, when is Leonardo DiCaprio going to get his Oscar? The dude delivers again and again. Give him the statue before he runs out of steam.)

OK, that brings me to the front runner and likely Best Picture winner, Slumdog Millionaire. Big sigh. What can I say, I just think it was weak. Yes, I liked the first third. The child actors were perfection, the scenarios were unforgettable (diving in the toilet, escaping the eye-burning orphan-exploiters), and the depiction of slum life was both upsetting/sobering and envigorating/life-affirming -- not an easy mix to pull off. But the film was one long downhill trip. The mid-film adolescent storyline brought us into familiar gangsterism, and the adult storyline brought us into money worship and an I've-loved-you-forever formula that nearly made me leave the theater. I groaned through the cell-phone life-line climax, and even the musical number that capped the film off left me underwhelmed (I mean, the lead actors didn't exactly move around during their dance-moment, right?) If this film were set in the slums of Detroit or Miami, would we be applauding its sugar-coated happily ever after vibe? No, we'd probably see it as offensive. Slumdog in the end depressed me. It's a colonial exercise that will embarrass all of us in ten year's time.

So what's left? I guess I'll leave my final shout-out to The Wrestler, which aside from its fantastic acting also featured one of the most revealing and remarkable scripts of the year (setting aside its one indulgent flaw, the corny father-daughter reunion sequence, and even that had the fantastic pea-coat-gift moment). The portrayal of life on the wrestling circuit was one of the most humanistic portraits in any film this year -- you loved these guys you've never taken seriously before. The Wrestler's cinematography, by Todd Haynes' alum Maryse Alberti (who's also shot a number of great documentaries, like Crumb) was like nothing else all year long -- handheld, subtle, constantly surprising without being unnecessarily flashy. The film winds up seared on your eyes -- a series of images that won't go away. Alberti and director Darren Aronofsky created a true visual wonder, something hard to watch and impossible to turn away from. I wish it had been nominated for at least five more awards.

But that's always the case with the Oscars. The films you really love are rarely nominated and almost never win. So take all that annoyance and anger and aim it at the TV screen on Sunday evening. Enjoy the catharsis. Reinvest yourself in the movies.

PS: If you've gotten this far, then maybe you want more. So check out The Film Experience's annual Oscar Symposium, featuring a quintet of smarty-pants film lovers arguing what they loved/hated, led by Nathaniel Rogers, the best film blogger of them all.