The Academy Awards - A Celebration of Caucasian Excellence

The Oscar nominations came out last week, and, what is surprising but should no longer be surprising, is that it is a celebration of whites in Hollywood.  Among the acting categories, not a single person of colour was nominated.  As well, all of the best picture noms were dominated by white casts.

What the hell happened to diversity, I scream to myself.

In 2009 the number of best picture nominees was changed from five to a maximum of ten.  This was done to try and add some diversity to the types of films that would get the noms, allowing genre fare to get recognition when it normally wouldn't.  What is surprising is when you have this total white dominance in a year that there was only eight of a possible of a possible ten best picture nominations.  I have seen six of the eight, and I will say that they are most worthy of the honour.  But what about the two empty slots that could have been filled?

This is where I start to wonder.  Why is it that there were only eight chosen when there were so many other great films this year?  Why couldn't there be some recognition given to non-whites in those slots?

I am not talking about 'pity recognition,' I am talking about movies that truly are worthy of being in the running that didn't make it.  Three such movies come to mind without even having to think too hard.  I don't like thinking too hard, because then I need to take a break.

Straight Outta Compton was released in the late summer, and instantly entered the talk of being a possibility for film of the year.  I don't think there were many pundits who believed that it would win, but there was a great number who saw this as a serious contender for getting a nomination.  What could be the possible problem here?  It was about a music group called Niggaz With Attitudes.  This causal relation between the content and the lack of nomination is pure speculation on my part, but the Academy is almost 95% caucasian.

Now, I don't want to do anything other than speculate.  I saw the film, and it was a great biopic.  It did what it needed to do, and it hit the emotions it was trying to.  Was it the best movie of the year?  Hell no.  Was it better than some of the soapy water biopics that made the list last year?  It sure was.  If The Theory of Everything or The Imitation Game were good enough to to be considered a best picture contender, then there is no way that Straight Outta Compton, which was a lot riskier than those other two overly safe and by the numbers films were, shouldn't be worthy of the same consideration.  I'm sorry about the long sentence.  I am just in that kind of mood right now.

Another possible choice could have been Beasts of No Nation, a movie about child soldiers in Africa. It was a very difficult movie to watch, and there could be a few factors other than just race that kept it from the list.  First of all, the subject material (elevated by the skilled directing and excellent acting) is extremely hard to watch while you smile and eat popcorn.  It is a challenging film that robs the audience of innocence.  That kind of film may not be the top of the list for people to nominate, as they tend to be a little safer in the their picks at times.  Secondly, this was a feature film that was released day and date on Netflix.  It is a true sign of the future, but with 86% of the academy being over fifty, it may be a little too much a little too soon.  Non-traditional release platforms may need to be around for a while before they are recognized, at least in the feature film category.

And hey, in the acting categories as well.  Beasts of No Nation had two standout performances in it, neither of which not nominated.  Young Abraham Attah gave a breakthrough performance, carrying the weight of the film on his shoulders and competently delivering all of the various emotions that the audience was to feel.  No best actor nomination for him.  Idris Elba was a standout as The Commandant, being brutally nurturing and manipulative with the soldiers around him.  No best supporting actor for him.

And then there is Creed, easily one of the best motion pictures of the year.  Sylvester Stallone was nominated in the supporting actor category, but missing out was the lead performance of Micheal B. Jordan.  Heck, even with the amazing cinematography and the epic score, the nomination for Stallone was all this movie has for nominations.  I find it very difficult to understand how this movie isn't worth a best picture nomination.  It's not as though it would need to replace or bump another movie out of the list, because there are two open spots begging to be filled with something.

It is just sad that there is so little representation of minorities in Hollywood recognition.  The problem is amplified by the fact that the representation of talent in movies is mostly white.  There is some notable progress, but it is not enough.  The president of the academy, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, is an African American, but it doesn't seem to move the needle when it comes to what people want to hold up as worthy of recognition.

Boone Isaacs stated that, "in the coming days and weeks we will conduct a review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond."  I think that is a great step forward, but it brings up a reality that really irks me: Why cannot the current academy see past the lines of colour?

Having more diversity in the voters will have a beneficial outcome, but what is it in the human nature that means a bunch of older white men (over 75% of the academy is male) do not recognize diversity?

I don't think I will ever know for sure the answer to this.  It could be a number of things, but ruling out sub-conscious or conscious racism is not one of them.  Forty acting talents were nominated over the past two years, and all of them were white.  Eight movies were nominated, and all of them were with a predominantly white cast.  Was it really a stretch to keep the highest domestically grossing movie of all time, The Force Awakens, from filling one of those spots?  They put Avatar on the list back at the 82nd Academy Awards, and it had a lower Rotten Tomatoes rating than The Force Awakens.  Oh wait.  The lead actor in The Force Awakens is black.  I guess that answers my question.

The Oscars, And The Great Moments They Left Out

There were some mighty financial triumphs in 2013 in theatres which lead the way to setting some all-time records, including highest grossing year.  A very popular format has crept into movie production where big budgets are thrown around in the attempt of achieving billion dollar success.  This format, while successful for some, has seen failures that have led to massive changes.  Sony, because of suffering from a few flops in After Earth and White House Down has decided to distribute fewer movies in the coming years because of the money they lost.  I find it interesting that they are looking at doing that but not looking at their production format, which is ultimately the issue.

Financials aside, it really was a great year for movies.  Many times I find myself questioning the legitimacy of some Best Picture nominations that have made the list for lack of quality films, but that was not the case this year.  The nominations for the Oscars came out yesterday, and I thought I would take a few minutes to highlight some of the wonderful things that were not able to gain recognition from the Academy.  There were some ridiculous snubs that seemed almost impossible for me to comprehend, but I will only glance briefly at those and spend more time trying to encourage you to check out some content that is Oscar worthy but never had the marketing and campaigning behind them to make the cut.  Trust me when I say this, some of the stuff is every bit as good, if not better than what received nominations (a sad testament to the nomination process).

The Snubs

Three big ones come to mind immediately for me, and shocked me greatly when I read the list of nominees yesterday morning.  First of all, Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips) did not just give a performance worthy enough of a nomination, but one that was good enough to win.  The last few minutes of the film were all in Hank’s hands, and he delivered all of the concluding emotions completely by himself.  Hanks not making the ballot is a major mistake as he performed better than some of the actors who made the cut.

Emma Thompson was the major bright spot in Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks, and whatever issues I may have had with the arrangement of the story, the content, and the delivery, she is undeniable in the fact that she pulled off a high calibre performance.  I love Amy Adams (not like that, my wife reads this), but Thompson delivered a lot more range and was more deserving of the spot.  That being said, I am rooting for Adams and hoping for her to take it home.

The last of the big shocks I had was over Inside Llewyn Davis not making the list for Best Picture.  While the other two that I mentioned happened because their spots got taken by other quality actors, there is no such reason for the Coen brother’s latest movie from being denied.  It was a beautifully shot movie whose visuals, people, and sounds all gave off the feel of a needle hitting the vinyl in a movie about the New York folk music scene in the early 60s.  From the wonderful cinematography to the soul rapturing music, the movie was the complete package of talent.  In the category of Best Picture there can be up to ten nominations, and this year there was only nine which makes the absence of the critically acclaimed Inside Llewyn Davis very hard to understand, because there was an obvious spot for it to hold.

Those are the three biggest ‘snubs’ that I could think of.  There are a number of others that are less blatant, in my opinion, and I won’t really go into those because the primary purpose here is to be positive about the great things from this year that people may not know about otherwise (at the end of the article I talk a bit about a few of the other ‘snubs’).  So let’s first talk about some of what happened this year that is on par (or better) than what got nominated, but was left out of the discussion for whatever reason.

Oscar Quality Martial

Short Term 12 is a movie about a group home for extremely troubled teens and the people who work there.  It follows Grace (Brie Larson), one of the employees at the group home, who through the movie seeks to overcome the demons from her own past as she attempts to do everything she can to lead these kids out of their shadows and towards a quality of life that they could never imagine.  It is a tear jerker, it is a tough watch, but it is also heartwarming and touching right to the core.  The performance of Larson was one of the best female performances of the year, and if the right distributor was behind the movie and campaigning, she should have easily gotten on the ballot.  The movie, as a whole, is definitely Oscar quality and is one of the best of the year.  I whole heartedly recommend this movie with the warning that it does deal with some very hard issues, but not in a way that is to leave people crying, but to win them over to the side of hope and second chances.

Fruitvale Station is a movie about Oscar Grant, a man who was shot by transit officers in Oakland on January 1^st 2009.  While it is based on a true story, it filled out with a narrative of Grant at a crossroads in his life and having to choose which direction he will be taking, and acting accordingly.  This story gives us a personal attachment to the character, who we know will inevitably die.  Director Ryan Coogler does a wonderful job of building the atmosphere and, even though we know a gunshot will occur, delivers shock and pain with the tragedy that unfolds.  It is a very powerful story that celebrates life and faces the loss of death.  Fruitvale Station could have easily been more seriously in the talks for best picture, Michael B. Jordan’s portrayal of Oscar Grant was worthy of awards attention, Octavia Spencer (who played grant’s mother) is on par with anyone else in the Best Supporting Actress category, and director Ryan Coogler deserved more serious consideration.  The film could have easily fit into multiple Oscar categories, but unfortunately it got lost in the shuffle, possibly because of its earlier release date as well as being over shadowed by some big name talent.

Poor Sam Rockwell, that’s what I have to say.  He always turns in a great performance and is largely underappreciated for his skills.  In The Way Way Back, Rockwell had a career performance as an immature and unlikely father figure to a boy who is suffering under the weight of lack of confidence and under the gun of his mother’s jerky boyfriend.  Rockwell manages to completely steal every scene he is in as well as being able to deliver every emotion needed for his role.  As far as I am concerned, it was easily one of the best supporting actor performances of the year and if his name was Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp, he would be enjoying the elation of receiving an Oscar nomination.  With so much of the talent this year coming from serious fare, Rockwell showed that comedic/heartwarming performances can still hold their own.

The Place Behind the Pines entered theatres fairly early in 2013, and perhaps that is what caused it to be forgotten come Oscar time.  It is a very ambitious (some think to a fault) movie that explores nature versus nurture in the relationships, behaviours, and choices made by three different generations of fathers and sons.  Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper hand out very nuanced and powerful performances, with characters that lay the groundwork for the philosophy and premise of the entire film.  I do believe that if this movie was released in October it would have been in close contention for a number of categories, and is a solid case for the release and marketing games that distributors play in order to give their films the best chances at awards.

Missing from the Lead Actor category this year was the young Tye Sheridan for his performance in Mud, where he plays a rough kid from the southern swamps of America who has his concepts of love challenged.  The movie, which came out in early May of 2013, did extremely well with critics and was one of the better performing limited release movies of the year and was able to make $24 million worldwide.  Matthew McConaughey garnered a lot of the attention for the film (for his performance as Mud), and was rightly deserved of that attention.  However, the real standout performance in the movie was by the young Sheridan who showed multiple abilities and gives hope for great performances to come.  He was supposed to be attached to the next Star Wars movie, but then JJ Abrams wanted to focus more on the older characters and Sheridan was no longer needed.  Even though he missed out this year, I am positive it will not be long before his name pops up in awards and he gets the recognition he deserves.

One nomination that was seemed to be an accepted given was that Before Midnight would be up for Best Adapted Screenplay, which was written by director Richard Linklater, and the movie’s stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.  The script should be a serious contender for winning the award, but even better than the wonderfully realistic and flowing conversations in the movie were the performances by Hawke and Delpy who gave life to them.  As we watch Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) go through the issues of love that has grown formulaic and routine, we grow to accept these characters as real, which is partly due to the script, but also the to ease that their performances are delivered with.  We lose the sense of watching actors on the screen and begin feeling like we are peering in on an actual relationship, an accomplishment that rarely happens and Ethan Hawke and July Delpy are deserving of recognition for their near perfect performances.

Great Things From 2013

Not everything that is great from the year is Oscar worthy, but there is still a lot of amazing things that need a little bit of attention as well.  One of those is Sarah Polley, who has come a long way from her role in Road to Avonlea, and is establishing herself as an Oscar calibre director.  Her documentary, Stories We Tell, was in close contention for a nomination this year, and some people (myself included) are surprised that it did not make the cut.  However, the important fact is that Polley shows amazing talent and that we should get excited and pay close attention to her future projects.

Speaking of female talent, Rooney Mara further established herself this year with three amazing performances in Side Effects, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, and Her.  She has already been nominated for an Oscar, so the world is not surprised by her abilities, but the three stellar roles she has this year go to show that her nomination was not a one-time deal.  She will be back in the awards race again, and she has proven that she is someone that we should be watching as an actress on the rise.

On the male side of up and coming actors (Tye Sheridan aside), Dane Dehaan has emerged onto the scene and could be able to develop into something special a few years from now.  This year he was in The Place Beyond the Pines, Kill Your Darlings, Devil’s Knot (which will see limited release in 2014), and brought life to the fictional narrative in Metallica’s concert film, Through the Never.  His name may not be well known right now, but I am really confident that he is going to keep growing in his talents and exposure and should not be far removed from landing some very key roles.

One of the great movies of this year was The Way Way Back, which was able to stick out as a quality, heartwarming comedy when there has been a lot of serious, ‘based on real life’ content dominating headlines.  I would never say that the movie itself is of Oscar quality, but it succeeds in delivering all of the emotions that it sets out to, and shows the script writing and directing talents of Jim Rash and Nat Faxon.  It is a film that a wide range of audiences could really enjoy, and I find it to be winner of my ‘Gem of the Year’ award (if such an award existed), following in the fun and touching footsteps of last year’s winner, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Last year also saw the emergence of Lake Bell, and all of the talent that she has to offer Hollywood with her parody comedy, In a World… which is based on the very competitive world of voice overs.  Bell wrote, directed, and starred in the movie, which carried with it a lot of comedy, fun, as well as being able to deliver a message of female empowerment, something that is pretty much missing from most movies.  This was the first feature film directed and written by Bell, who was able to create a solid character for herself, as well as develop some very entertaining and interesting supporting characters.  Plus, the film has an old-school music montage of people training and prepping their vocal chords which is one of the parody moments from the year that I will remember most.  It is an all-around solid film that, like The Way Way Back, should be enjoyable for most audiences.

Shane Carruth, the director of Primer (a 2004 independent science fiction film) returned and delivered Upstream Color, a movie with science fiction elements woven into a relationship tale of healing from a traumatic experience.  That’s what I get from it, at least, as it is a film that could be interpreted so differently from everyone who views it.  Turn off the phone, send the kids to bed, and leave nothing of distraction in your life as you will need all of your brain power for this movie that tells you very little and leaves everything up to you to figure out.  There are aspects that I am not sure about from this movie, but it was just so nice having to figure my own way through a quality movie as opposed to how most movies feel the need to over inform you of everything and treat the audience like they are too stupid to figure anything out on their own.  It also had a wonderful performance from Amy Seimetz, who I am hoping will have a breakthrough performance soon so we can see her in more films.

Another great thing from this year that I would love to talk about is the performances of first time actors Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) and Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave).  They were both awarded with nominations for their performances, which kind of disqualifies them from this article, but I could not resist by bring them up.  Both were able to perform onscreen with well-established talent and marvellously held their own.  They are both interesting stories that add some humanity to the Oscars, especially considering Abdi’s profession prior to his Oscar nominated performance was driving taxis.

A Brief Look at Some of Those Left Out of the Nominations

As I had said earlier, the point of this was to reflect positively on the year, but I do want to mention some of the contenders that were on the edges of nomination that did not receive their glory.  The documentaries Stories We Tell and Blackfish were both ones that I had easily assumed would be able to make the cut, but shocked many people by having been left off of the ballot.  The real interesting story of the documentary category is The Square, which is pushed by Netflix.  The online streaming company made ground with having their first Emmy nominated original programing in 2013, and it is possible that they may soon have an Oscar to add to their credentials.

 While I enjoyed Lee Daniel’s The Butler, I was not shocked that it did not come up with a best picture nomination.  I was, however, shocked that Oprah Winfrey did not secure a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her portrayal as a multi-dimensional wife of the White House butler.  She had received a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild (the people who would be able to vote her to an Oscar nomination), but ended up losing her spot to Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) who had not received a Screen Actors Guild nomination, but seemed to have some momentum building around her lately.

Left off of the Lead Actor nominations list was Robert Redford who was the one man show in All is Lost, a movie where his sailboat faces disaster in the open ocean.  There are no other actors in the movie, and Redford’s performance has been widely praised.  It was not to be, though, as he did not end up with the nomination.  Redford figures that the reason for that happening is due to the lack of promotion and campaigning by Roadside Attractions, the North American distributor for the film.

A few snubs that happened in the Best Foreign Language Film category happened before the nominations were even announced.  Two movies that were expected to be nominees never ended up making the voter’s short list for the category.  Missing out was Wadjda, the critically acclaimed movie from Saudi Arabia, which was not only the first Saudi film ever made, but it was also directed by a female.  Also missing from the short list was The Past, directed by Asghar Farhadi who had directed A Separation which won 2012’s Best Foreign Language Film.

Missing out was Daniel Bruhl, who was in the running for a Supporting Actor nomination for his role in Ron Howard’s Rush.  His performance was extraordinary and received a nomination for the Golden Globes.  Because the Golden Globes are nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, it was not surprising that they nominated the Spanish actor.  The real surprise was when the SAG nominated him shortly after, giving real weight to his chances of getting some Oscar loving for his depiction of Austrian Formula One driver, Niki Lauda.