Roundup: The case against 'Argo'
Also: Why black characters still fall short in this year's Oscar crop
John Goodman, Alan Arkin and Ben Affleck in "Argo."
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Yesterday, we led with "Lincoln" being taken to task for its factual infidelities; today, it's the turn of "Argo." Critical screeds against the Best Picture frontrunner are always a dime a dozen at this point in the season -- frankly, a defence of Ben Affleck's film would make for fresher reading right now -- but Andrew O'Hehir's Salon piece on why "Argo" doesn't deserve the Oscar is as cogently argued as any: "I’m less concerned with the veracity of individual details than with the fact that 'Argo' uses its basis in history and its mode of detailed realism to create something that is entirely mythological. It’s a totalizing fiction whose turning points are narrow escapes and individual derring-do designed to foreground Affleck and his star power." Personally, I don't think Affleck's star power is all that selfishly showcased -- but hey, I like the film. [Salon]
Nelson George on why, while many of this year's Oscar-nominated films highlight racial themes, their black characters' humanity is "still hit and miss." [New York Times]
Danny Leigh profiles "Zero Dark Thirty" and "The Master" producer Megan Ellison -- an Oscar nominee at 27, and one of the most exciting names in the industry. [The Guardian]
Jeff Wells, against the world as usual, takes it upon himself to tell us why Emmanuelle Riva is just okay in "Amour." [Hollywood Elsewhere]
The makers of Oscar-nominated doc "The Invisible War" explain how winning the award could contribute to a change in military policy. [Vanity Fair]
The "Silver Linings Playbook" team was honored at the LA Italia Film, Fashion and Art Festival over the weekend. [Variety]
As J.J. Abrams gears up to revive the "Star Wars" franchise, will John Williams still be on board? He's up for it. [Vulture]
Matt Zurcher talks to Alexandre Desplat about his work on an impressive array of 2012 releases, including his Oscar-nominated score for "Argo." [The Film Experience]
Maggie Lange chats to Tom Van Avermaet, director of "Death of a Shadow" -- the best of this year's Oscar-nominated live action shorts. [Thompson on Hollywood]
Tom Shone tallies up the most repeated shout-outs across the archive of Oscar acceptance speeches -- "Harvey Weinstein" and "America" rate equally. [These Violent Delights]
2012-2013 OSCAR PREDICTIONS
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Original Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Costume Design
Best Film Editing
Best Makeup And Hairstyling
Best Original Score
Best Original Song
Best Production Design
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Best Visual Effects
Best Animated Feature Film
Best Documentary Feature
Best Foreign Language Film
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Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupDylanS
February 19, 2013 at 11:01AM EST Reply to CommentI don't think Wells is off base at all with the Riva piece, he was in no way disrespectful to her work, but I tend to agree with his point.
Wells Done I'd actually disagree more with his jaded attitude of the ceremony being "all too predictable." There's quite a few categories this year where it's not 100 percent locked down who the winner will be. It's been a while since the show had this many unknowns.
February 19, 2013 at 12:07PM ESTAnyway, we're at a point where it's hard to take a lot of the writers covering this stuff seriously. They aren't even pretending to be objective. They're openly campaigning for what they think should win and doing smear campaigns on things they think shouldn't. Even if Wells is being objective and giving an honest opinion in that piece, he's been very vocal about his love for SLP so it still feels like he's trying to help "his candidate" by talking down one of her rivals for the prize.
bef His points on her performance is why I'm not wild about the movie "Amour." It is a well-made, well-acted movie that relies too much on the audience casting someone they know (their mother, their mother when they get older, their grandmother, their grandfather, father, etc etc) into her performance. A lot of the honesty in the performance is enhanced when you place a loved one in that position. If someone other than Haneke made it, however, I probably wouldn't look as hard at it for being slightly manipulative. Haneke places his characters in so much more despair than Von Trier, of course his movie about love would be ... when is it ok to let go of the one you love?
February 19, 2013 at 11:26PM ESTHowever, Wells is a bit of a blowhard, it better go my way or I'll scream! writer. To put a number to it, 7 or 8, is a bit silly. She does a 10 with the character, but I agree, the character works better because we all know someone who's died in pain, or is dying in pain, or will die in pain.
Liz
February 19, 2013 at 12:32PM EST Reply to CommentGood article about Megan Ellison, but honestly, what is Sharon Waxman's problem? She seems bound and determined to take Ellison down for reasons that I can't even begin to comprehend. The article that she wrote for TheWrap was ridiculous enough, and now she's horning in on other people's pieces. So Waxman states "I don't think it's healthy for the quality movie business to make movies that won't make their money back." Hello? Is she new to the movie business? Is she outraged each summer by the multiple tentpole flops? Or is she willing to give them a pass because they're produced by major studios, who are obviously more worthy of praise than some outsider who has the temerity to come in and finance movies that she knows won't be four-quadrant hits, even though she believes they'll be good movies? Perish the thought!
bef Sadly, women go after women with sharper claws. I think, more than anything, people's biggest problem with her is that she is an "heiress." There are male heirs all the time in filmmaking, but the females that are born into the business or born into money seem to get a lot more wrath than their male counterparts (for example with directors I don't think there were as many gleeful pans of Jason Reitman as there are with Sofia Coppola).
February 19, 2013 at 11:29PM ESTDefRef
February 19, 2013 at 1:07PM EST Reply to CommentOh, Argo must be punished for playing fast and loose with what really happened when if you look up the real details about pretty much every "based on a true story" movie, they're just as equally guilty of fabricating drama. Case in point, The Social Network. Loved the movie, BUT one should look up how inaccurate it was after viewing it; for example, it's shown that Eduardo Saverin got totally screwed over and sent away nearly penniless when in reality, he cleared over $1 billion. Sure, it's not $10-$20 billion, but with judicious coupon-clipping and shopping at Walmart, he should be able to scrape by.
Here's the problem with demanding historical accuracy from Argo - if they'd stuck to the facts, the third act would've been reduced to a title card: "And they went to the airport and flew home without incident." It's not a documentary, people. Even documentaries aren't documentaries anymore, so what's the grief for Argo about other than hating?
dodds
February 19, 2013 at 1:07PM EST Reply to CommentFrom reading wells for a few years I get the feeling that he wishes that the best actress category should be changed to "best white women with daddy issues who might possibly have sex with Jeff Wells who is under 21 and not fat because fat people are gross like that fat cow Monique who is black and really fat!"
RichardZ
February 19, 2013 at 1:19PM EST Reply to CommentJust who are these people who thinks movies are dramatization of actual events?
Kate
February 19, 2013 at 1:21PM EST Reply to CommentI love the Nelson George piece. He described the problems I had with Django really well. It was really entertaining, but I've been astonished by how many critics took the film seriously as a historical provocation. I generally dislike David Denby's criticism, but his blog about Django was pretty spot-on as well.
The Dude
February 19, 2013 at 10:27PM EST Reply to CommentWells is full of crap- he's just being a shameless SLP fanboy as usual.