Now that the 85th Academy Awards have come and gone, Eureka Street's assistant editor and resident film buff Tim Kroenert takes a moment to reflect on the slights and successes of Hollywood's night of nights.
Nice surprises:
Best Director — Ang Lee (Life of Pi)
It was pleasing to see Lee named Best Director for Life of Pi (pictured). (No doubt the outcome was also surprising to many commentators who had thought Stephen Spielberg would win for his impressive yet elegiac Lincoln.) Lee turned Canadian writer Yann Martel's popular 2001 novel about a religiously voracious Indian teenager who becomes lost at sea with a Bengal tiger into a luscious piece of visual art that (especially in 3-D on the big screen) immerses the viewer in the mystical dimensions of this gruelling, transcendent survival tale.
Read full review of Life of Pi
Best Picture — Argo
It was also gratifying to see the 'people's choice', Argo, named Best Picture, especially after its director Ben Affleck missed out on a Best Director nod (despite winning a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for his work). This film about an eccentric CIA rescue mission during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis is a highly entertaining and finely honed thriller (the work done by its editors was rightly acknowledged with an Oscar). The fact that it largely sidelines the cause and character of the Iranians is a significant shortcoming of an otherwise excellent film.
Best Actress in a Supporting Role — Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)
Many favoured Sally Field, who played the emotionally fractured Mary Todd Lincoln in Lincoln, to win in this category, despite a rather overwrought performance. For my part, I had high hopes for Hathaway, and was not disappointed. Despite her too-brief screen time, she was devastating as Fantine, the fallen heroine of Les Miserables, who suffers a series of injustices that erode her hope and humanity and destroy her dignity. Her rendition of 'I Dreamed a Dream' it is not a wistful lament but a gut wrenching howl of despair.
Read full review of Les Miserables
No surprises:
Best Actor in a Lead Role — Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
That Daniel Day Lewis (pictured) would be awarded Best Actor honours for his portrayal of the 16th president of the United States was the closest you could get to an Oscars night certainty. The film was almost universally praised and his performance is the main reason. Day-Lewis deserved to win; this was the kind of portrayal