Oscar Shutout

damn

The 85th Academy Awards aired last night. I had to work and missed the entire broadcast. Looks like I didn't miss much however, since all my favorites lost in every category. That's right folks, I know how pick em'.

Here's the rundown:

Argo is a damn fine movie, I even said so HERE, but I don't think it was Best Picture worthy. Same deal with Jennifer Lawrence. She's great in Silver Linings Playbook...but Jessica Chastain and Naomi Watts are friggin phenomenal in Zero Dark Thirty and The Impossible. Daniel Day Lewis will always be my homeboy, but Joaquin Phoenix's performance in The Master is, well it's just as uncanny and fearless as Daniel Day Lewis was in There Will Be Blood. Phoenix out DDL's DDL in this case.

Speaking of The Master, Philip Seymour Hoffman was ROBBED. Flat out robbed. Christoph Waltz is Tarantino's new go to guy, and he was great as Hans Landa 2.0 in Django Unchained but he doesn't come close to Hoffman's firebrand performance. Since we're on the subject of Tarantino, he needs to be stopped. I love the bastard and really enjoyed his latest film, but he's just getting out of hand. Winning Best Original Screenplay will only reinforce his bad habits, meaning we'll be stuck with more of his overtly long, bloated and campy films for the foreseeable future.

I wish Helen Hunt, or Amy Adams would have walked away with the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but Anne Hathaway really stole the show with her five minute performance (or so I'm told).  Notice I didn't pick anyone for Best Director. Since Paul Thomas Anderson and Kathryn Bigelow were snubbed in the category I really didn't have a favorite. I'm cool with Ang Lee (he gave me Jennifer Connelly in Hulk, I'm forever thankful), so I can't hate on him.

TLDR:None of my horses came in. Bummer.

*NOTE*
Here's a list of great films that either lost or were snubbed for Best Picture altogether:

King Kong
Modern Times
Citizen Kane
The Wizard of Oz
Rebel Without a Cause
Psycho
To Kill a Mockingbird
Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
The Good The Bad and The Ugly
Bonnie and Clyde
2001: A Space Odyssey
Easy Rider
Taxi Driver
Network
Star Wars
Apocalypse Now
Raging Bull
E.T.
Glory
Full Metal Jacket
Goodfellas
Pulp Fiction
The Shawshank Redemption
LA Confidential
The Truman Show
American History X
The Thin Red Line
Saving Private Ryan
Requiem For a Dream
City of God
Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind
Brokeback Mountain
Zodiac
There Will Be Blood
The Social Network

Fear not Zero Dark Thirty, you're in great company.

Movie Review: Argo

The Town was the first movie I reviewed here at Jim's Fear back in 2010. Although I really enjoyed the film, I was more stoked that it redeemed it's star/director, Ben Affleck, who had spent most of the 2000's pissing me off in really shitty roles . Well, if The Town was Affleck's great comeback, Argo appears poised to be his great victory. It's a hell of movie and has some serious Oscar hype behind it.

cheers: to my comeback...and 70's wardrobe

On paper, Argo sounds like it should have been a horrible movie. It's a period film that's also a historical/political drama, based on actual events that are so insanely far fetched, mostly everyone involved in the real life incident couldn't believe it either. But somehow, someway, Affleck pulls this thing off masterfully.

So the film revolves around the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979. More than fifty Americans were taken hostage when members of the Iranian Revolution stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran. During the chaos, six Americans managed to escape and hide at the Canadian ambassador's residence. The film's plot centers on how the CIA tries to get those six unfortunate souls out of Iran without getting them discovered and or killed by the Revolutionary Guard. Affleck plays the CIA spymaster who proposes that the hidden American diplomats pose as a Canadian film crew scouting locations in Iran. Argo is basically a movie about the development of a fake movie, where Americans pose as Canadians because they're trying to flee the the Iranians...all orchestrated by the CIA and some old Hollywood producers. Again, this sounds beyond retarded, but it actually happened and it worked!

crazy like a Fox

Despite all the craziness I just mentioned, Affleck has crafted a compelling, suspenseful and powerful film. The opening scene, the storming of the embassy sequence, sets the tone for the entire film. Mixing archival news footage with some awesome handheld camera work, Argo achieves an amazing sense of realism. The sets, props, wardrobe (viva those ugly late 70's get ups) and kick ass classic rock soundtrack (Aerosmith, Dire Straits...Van Halen!) made me feel like I'd time traveled back to the Carter years. Everyone in the cast did an amazing job, from the six hostages in exile who slowly start to go crazy, to Affeck's CIA and Hollywood homeboys who back him up throughout the film (Bryan Cranston and John Goodman are great...in everything), even Affleck himself is pretty believable as the CIA's top extraction specialist. I just have a problem with him acting and directing his films. I know he's the director (and now, certifiably a great one at that) so when I see him on screen I imagine him directing himself in the same outfit and it just pulls me out of the movie. At least that's what happened in The Town...not as much during Argo.

That's probably because I was too busy sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time. Yes, I wasn't kidding when I said Argo was suspenseful. As a History geek, I pretty much already knew how the movie ended, yet I was hooked from start to finish. I kept marveling at how Affleck had me by the balls every time I fought the urge to use the restroom. It's really that suspenseful. Go see it.