Oscar

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Does Oscar Need Prozac?

Best Picture Nominees Make People Reach for the Tissues

Oscar. Just the word “Oscar” brings red carpets, celebrities dressed to the nines, and bad Billy Crystal jokes to mind all at once. This year, the Academy Awards’ five best-picture nominees had one major thing in common: they made me leave the theater in tears.

I do not like the idea that a depressing movie has more substance than a non-depressing one, but it seems to be a trend that is catching on. I know I go to the theater to be entertained; if I wanted to be depressed, I’d call my mother and talk about my life choices. Still, all of best picture nominees have something working in their favor, and most are even worth watching at least once.

The best of the nominees is definitely Sideways. There was nothing about this movie that could have been improved upon; it is perfect as it is. Paul Giamatti gives an exceptional performance as a failed writer on a road trip with his college roommate. They drink their way through the wine country and an exceptional ensemble cast of characters. With standout performances, an engaging storyline, witty dialogue, realistic characters and a heart on its sleeve the size of Texas, Sideways is easily leads the pack, and Giamatti’s exclusion from the best actor category will go down in Oscar history as one of the greater injustices.

However, the most important thing about this movie is what it does to the viewer during and afterwards. Sideways is just one of those movies that changes your perspective on life as you watch it. As an aspiring writer myself, I could especially relate to the messages and themes presented about failure at a chosen profession. Wine was effectively used as a metaphor to describe what happens to people as they get older and reach their peak before declining. Without being heavy-handed, the movie took people on a path worth walking, but like life, it has its ups and downs and can leave you feeling small.

The least memorable movie of bunch is Finding Neverland. This is a weepy and sentimental period romp about the family that inspired J. M. Barrie to write Peter Pan. Johnny Depp plays Barrie with an understated sweetness that would have been cloying and saccharine on anyone else. Barrie is married to distant social climber, and finds the time to let out his inner child around a young widow, played by Kate Winslet, and her four boys.

Winslet and the children all seem to act with the philosophy that being doe-eyed is a replacement for real emotion. Mostly, they felt distant to me. It could be the restrained nature of the period of piece, but mostly I think it is just an effort to make the family’s plight more melodramatic. I do not want to give away the ending, but this is not the feel good movie of the year. I did not like the movie, but I was still moved by it enough to need a box of tissues.

Million Dollar Baby is the most annoying of the five flicks up for best picture. Hillary Swank gives literally a knock-out performance as a poor woman struggling to become a professional boxer. Clint Eastwood is her gruff and reluctant trainer who takes her to the top of the boxing world. While Swank and Eastwood both give amazing performances, both feel like performances we’ve seen before. Swank has been the tough female from the wrong side of the tracks with huge obstacles to overcome. She won an Oscar for it in Boys Don’t Cry. And when has Eastwood ever been anything but gruff and reluctant?

Still, the most perturbing thing about this picture is the political message. At its best, Million Dollar Baby is a propaganda piece for the right-to-die movement. Politics aside, it was hard to sort out the message. It could be because I don’t agree with the stance the movie took, but I’d like to think it was because the movie wasn’t much more than its message. It is a long movie that had one note it repeated over and over again until it literally hurt to watch.

The main theme wasn’t helped by the underlying conservative political messages, which included myths about welfare and poverty, squarely placing the credit or blame for success or failure on the individual, regardless of their circumstances. I particularly don’t appreciate anything that perpetuates the lie that people on welfare are lazy trash who abuse the system rather than work for a living. However, the realistic portrayal of the boxing world almost saved the movie, but it is still not worth wasting nine dollars on, let alone an Oscar nomination.

Uncompromising, amazing, flawed, and human are the words that best describe Ray Charles, and the movie, Ray, captures his essence in a way that the other biographies nominated this year could only dream of doing. Jamie Foxx is nothing short of a revelation in the title role, embodying and almost seeming to channel Charles out of every pore.

While Ray is sympathetic to its subject, it does not hide the drug addiction, adultery, chauvinism, or any of the other things that made Charles unlikable, keeping him at an understandable and human level. Perhaps because of his flaws, instead of despite them, Charles comes off in a positive light. Deep down, there is good inside the man, and Foxx lets that shine through the exterior, making his performance endearingly internal and external. Ray highlights the best and worst of Charles’ personality and career and just how much he changed the music scene and the world. And with an excellent supporting cast, including the ever exuberant Regina King, Ray is worth every one of its five stars.

Following the trend of historical biographies in this year’s batch of nominees comes The Aviator. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Howard Hughes with an alarming intensity, highlighting Hughes’ famous bouts with mental illness. The movie never shies away from presenting Hughes as someone who is in desperate need of medication or an asylum, unlike the rest of the world, which excused his insanity as eccentricity because he was rich. Still, DiCaprio was a hard sell as Hughes because of his electric blue eyes and unlike the other nominees for best actor, I never quite believed he was anything but Leonardo DiCaprio. Not to mention the fact that the movie was easily an hour too long.

The Aviator is the movie with the most Oscar nominations. Given that it’s a period biopic with excellent performances by DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett, and directed by a legend, Martin Scorsese, who has yet to win an Oscar, this is the movie with the best chance of taking home the statuette. Hollywood loves to anoint people with Oscars for worthy work they’ve done in the past, even though their current movie isn’t necessarily up to snuff. Still, I wouldn’t count out Ray or Sideways just yet, because they are both flat out better movies.

If the vote were entirely up to me, Sideways would beat Ray by just the slightest bit. Sadly, when it comes to the other three movies I can easily think of better choices for best picture nominees, including Garden State, Kill Bill: Volume 2, and The Incredibles. But the Oscars are what they are, and it’s rare that everyone has the same opinions about movies. Still, I know I’ll be watching with crossed fingers hoping my favorites take home the gold when Chris Rock hosts the Academy Awards on February 27.

Sideways: 5 out of 5 Stars

Ray: 5 out of 5 Stars

The Aviator: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Finding Neverland: 3 out of 5 Stars

Million Dollar Baby: 2 out of 5 Stars