Filed under: film
It’s interesting that for the first time in a long while there seems genuine doubt over which film will win best picture tonight. Guild voting says Birdman, Baftas say Boyhood — as did most everything else before the guilds voted. And there is room for reasonably people to have different opinion as to who will win best director and best actor, too.
My understanding of the Academy is far too meagre to allow me to think I can call any of these races. I have some preferences, though.
The Birdman Oscar I think I would most like to see (other than Lubezki’s, which I take to be a done deal) would be Keaton’s. I am old enough to like the idea of an oldest-ever best-actor Oscar, and it is a tremendous performance. Redmayne’s performance is terrific, too, and technically remarkable — but less moving and in the service of a far lesser film.
I’d be OK with Inarritu winning, too, though he wouldn’t be my first choice—as long as Birdman didn’t win best picture too. I think both Birdman and Boyhood are very fine films, but Boyhood is a singular achievement that deserves singular recognition. And beyond the remarkable way in which it was done — though no discussion can really avoid that — Boyhood seems to me to use the precision with which it sits in its setting to say something in a quasi universal way, whereas Birdman is less easily ported to other concerns. I would like to see it win and see Linklater win as director — but though Boyhood is clearly Linklater’s achievement, it seems to me an achievement that goes beyond what it is to direct something. So I’d be OK with Inarritu’s work as a director being recognised.
All that said, I rewatched Grand Budapest Hotel last night. If the way that the voting works sees it sneak up the middle in between the two B-beginning-bi-syllables and take the statue I think I might be quite happy. I think there’s a real chance of it being watched for longer and with more lasting pleasure than anything else on the list.
Update: Tom Shone, who is wiser, more tasteful and better informed than me, prefers Birdman (and indeed Redmayne). And the Predictinator says Guardians for VFX, which I would be fine with
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