I’m writing this editorial a few hours before the Producer’s Guild of America hand out their award for best picture and at least 24 hours before the Screen Actors Guild does the same thing. For many people this is a lousy time to weigh in thoughts on what can win the Best Picture at the Oscars when we have two predecessors just waiting to be discovered to give us some clarity. This is a strange year for Oscars though (as anyone who watches these races will tell you), so I’m going to buck the trend and make my case for why I think Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” is our next Best Picture winner. And I’m going to be making my case suspecting that “Lincoln” will win the PGA tonight and “Silver Linings Playbook” tomorrow at the SAG.
One of the reasons I feel “Life of Pi” will win Best Picture
is because it has consistently been undervalued as a strong contender
throughout this entire race. Early on
the movie was considered a lock for a Best Picture nomination, but no one was committing
it to win. As the year went on and more
great movies were released it was still looked upon as a sure thing for some
Oscar nominations, but not many. At one
point Sasha Stone of Awards Daily wrote a piece worrying that the film wouldget overlooked in the main awards. Well, come
nominations morning “Life of Pi” made the cut.
Not only that, but the eleven nominations it received were discussed
almost as much as Ben Affleck’s snub for Best Director.
How was a film that seemed to have largely lost its traction
manage to be just one nomination shy of “Lincoln’s” twelve nominations? If “Lincoln” was the undisputed favorite, you’d
think it would have trailed behind with eight or nine nominations like…well,
all the other Best Picture contenders.
But this quite, subtle film had garnered a lot of love in the background
while the discussions were of “Lincoln vs. Argo vs. Zero Dark Thirty.” What sort of amazed me even more though is
that once these nominations were announced everyone jumped on the “Lincoln” winning
everything bandwagon. Then “Argo” won a
few more awards and that got brought back into the conversation.
Now there’s a lot of discussion about “Silver Linings
Playbook” taking the prize because of the surprise Best Director nomination and
the (almost baffling) nomination for Best Supporting Actress. And I ask again; where is “Life of Pi” in all
this discussion. It DOES have the second
most nominations behind it, and it’s a movie that virtually no one hates! The other nominated films (with maybe the
exception of “Argo”) all seem to have baggage with them, ranging from too
boring, too controversial, to too obscure.
Taking this all into account, “Life of Pi” seems to be in a pretty good
spot to get lots of votes and win among movies that are polarizing the voters.
But what about the lack of acting nominations from the
Oscars or the all-important SAG nomination?
First of all, “Lord of the Rings:
Return of the King,” “The Last Emperor,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Braveheart,”
and many more films prior to the nineties have all won Best Picture without
acting nominations, so it’s not like that’s the kiss of death. What’s more, “Life of Pi” is a very emotional
and complicated film. But like “The Tree
of Life” and “Beauty and the Beast,” the acting doesn’t stand out because it’s
not really supposed to. It’s the other
aspects of the film that makes it great.
This is a movie that largely features a boy, a tiger, and not a whole
lot of dialog.
It never really had much of a chance of getting any acting
nominations. Does that mean the actors
hate it though? Not at all! In fact, look at some of the responses the
movie received from actors on Twitter:
By the way, Life of Pi
is amazing. Such a beautiful film.
Anne Hathaway (via WSJ
interview)
I’m so grateful to him
for “Life of Pi.” It’s easily one of my favorite films of all time. He’s
astonishing.
Mark Wahlberg (mentioned
via a satellite interview)
Mentioned that the film
was one of his favorite films of the year.
Jason Alexander
@ljasonalexander
I was blown away by Life
of Pi tonite. Gorgeous, moving film. Ang Lee paints on film and he is a master.
Cast was sublime. This is a winner!
Can't get over Life of
Pi. Maybe most beautiful film I've seen in a decade. I'm going again. Take
someone you love and go.
I saw 'The Life of Pi'
last night. It's absolutely wonderful. I want to see it again and again.
Susan Sarandon
@SusanSarandon
I loved #Life of Pi.
Magical. Lyrical technology jason alexander ?
Saw Life of Pi - it's
stunning! Also, as someone who wrestles with faith and doubt, it was so
meaningful to me
LIFE OF PI is absolutely
beautiful. By turns wild, colourful, fun, poetic, inspiring, expansive,
mysterious and deep. Like the sea.
Ellen Page @EllenPage
Life of cry, I mean Pi
just destroyed me. Amazing.
Rob Lowe @RobLowe
Best Supporting actor of
2012: Richard Parker, Life Of Pi.
LeVar Burton
@levarburton
Oh… I forgot to tell
you, Life of Pi is a visual feast!!! #2thumbsup
Just watched "Life
of Pi". Bravo to Ang Lee and company. A beautiful and inspired piece
of filmmaking.
Kevin Smith @ThatKevinSmith
Holy shit... I loved
LIFE OF PI so much! Ang Lee is a cinematic Jedi! If you haven't seen PI yet,
get eyes on it. It's simply beautiful.
Jenna Dewan-Tatum
@jennaldewan
Life of Pi. Omg go see
it. Run. Now. Amazing
Ricky Martin
@ricky_martin
A movie that you will
never forget "Life of Pi" Outstanding! I see many Oscars #MagicalRealism
Clifton Collins Jr.
@ccollinsjr
Hard to not get Indian
food after watching Life of Pi such an amazing film, leaves one thinking, food
aside
Harry Shum Jr
@iharryshum
Life of Pi was amazing!
Worthwhile 3D movie. Which story do you prefer?
Betty Buckley
@BettyBuckley
Last weekend I saw
"Life of Pi" in 3D. Absolutely loved it! Now I have to read the book.
#LifeofPi Brooke Burke Just saw Life Of Pi. Amazing! Beautiful!!
Tony Parker @tp9network
Life of PI was a good
movie....
Chris Mintz-Plasse
@MintzPlasse
Life of Pi was such a
beautiful piece of film.
Janel Parrish
@JMeilanixo
Life of Pi stole my
heart.
Yessss Life of Pi was
stunning.
Keke Palmer @KekePalmer
PLEASE GO SEE LIFE OF
PI.
Now it should be noted that not all those actors are Academy
voters (if any of them are), but it does suggest there is a strong stealth
support for the movie from the actors branch.
“Life of Pi” is also the movie that makes people feel great
after it’s finished. Yeah other movies
make you feel that too, but this is a movie that just impacts people who see it
and it stays with them long after it’s over.
Could that be another reason the movie got so many nominations despite
being released a couple months ago and wasn’t a huge box office success? Maybe.
If that’s the case I can certainly see some of that staying power
resulting in votes. I also believe that “Life
of Pi” is the one movie above all the other nominees that has people going out
saying to random strangers “Hey! Have
you seen this movie? No? See it!
NOW!”
But what if “Lincoln” wins the PGA tonight? Wouldn’t that kill its chances to win Best
Picture? Not really. Not in my mind. In fact, I sort of assume this is how the predecessors
will go:
PGA: “Lincoln”
SAG: “Silver Linings Playbook”
DGA: “Life of Pi”
SAG: “Silver Linings Playbook”
DGA: “Life of Pi”
As my final argument (for the time being) is “The King’s
Speech” a couple of years ago. And, no,
it was NEVER the frontrunner early on!
For most of that race it was looking like “The Social Network” was going
to win. Then “The King’s Speech” started
picking up awards late in the race and it was over. But that was not a film that was considered
to be a likely winner early on. It was a
small, quiet film. The other nominees
all stood out more. But movies that make
people feel good tend to be sleeping tigers waiting to be woken. Right now “Life of Pi” is the least
intimidating nominee of the bunch and not drawing much attention to itself, but
we may find that is the films secret weapon in disguise.
Either way you look at it though, there are a lot of fine
films that are up for Best Picture this year, and I think we’re going to be
pretty happy regardless what wins. Just
don’t rule out “Life of Pi” so soon.
P.S. As a side note I want to point out that the last time
we had a year this competitive was 2004, where “The Departed” won Best
Picture. Outside of Marty (finally)
winning Best Director though, the guilds were largely giving the top award to “Little
Miss Sunshine,” which shows once more that sometimes guilds mean something and
sometimes they don’t.
