The 88th Academy Awards: It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Year

For F*** Magazine

The 88^th Academy Awards: It’s a Mad Mad Mad Year
By Jedd Jong

Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant

Best Supporting Actor: Mark Rylance
for Bridge of Spies

The culmination of the 2015-2016 awards season, the Academy Awards ceremony, took place on 28^th February at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The Oscars may be often labelled “stale” and “lame”, but this year, a balls-to-the-wall, high octane, genuinely insane action movie took home the most trophies – an anomaly, to say the least. Mad Max: Fury Road bagged six little golden men, with Spotlight and The Revenant taking two each. And yes, it was sixth time lucky for Leonardo DiCaprio, whose hitherto fruitless Oscar pursuit has finally concluded with rousing victory.

The night contained two significant surprises: a Best Supporting Actor win for Bridge of Spies’ Mark Rylance when it was assumed that Creed’s Sylvester Stallone would emerge victorious, and Best Picture for Spotlight, with The Big Short pegged as the favourite because it won the Producer’s Guild Award. Also unexpected was Ex Machina’s victory in the Best Visual Effects category over the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Ex Machina was by far the film in that category with the lowest budget. Double Negative, the main effects vendor on the film, has a facility in Singapore which was responsible for a portion of the Oscar-winning effects work.

Best Picture: Spotlight

For the first time, a ticker listing the names the winners would like to thank scrolled at the bottom of the screen. The winners who went over time with their thank you speeches were chased off by Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.

Host Chris Rock

The lead-up to the ceremony was fraught with controversy, as fiery discussions regarding the lack of diversity in the acting nominations swirled. Host Chris Rock, who also presided over the 77^th Oscars in 2005, got his chance to address this right out the gate. The majority of his material was dedicated to this issue. After a highlight reel of 2015’s films played, Rock took the stage, opening with “I counted at least 15 black people in that montage!”

He admitted that he thought about quitting after facing considerable pressure to do so, justifying his decision to remain as host with “the last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart!” Rock pointed out that there probably were no black nominees for long stretches of the 50s and 60s, saying “Black people didn’t protest the lack of nominees in the 60s because we had real things to protest at the time. We were too busy being raped and lynched to worry about who was going to win Best Cinematographer!”

“The ‘In Memoriam’ segment will just be black people who got shot by the cops this year,” Rock said to gasps. It was the edgiest he got before backing away from said edge. “Rocky takes place in a world where white athletes are as good as black athletes, so Rocky is a science fiction movie,” he said, dubbing Creed “Black Rocky”. Throughout the ceremony, Rock referenced convicted record producer Suge Knight, with an actor playing Knight wheeled into the hall accompanied by police officers and strapped to a Hannibal Lecter-esque gurney. In a taped segment, Whoopi Goldberg played a janitor who steals Joy Mangano’s thunder in Joy, Leslie Jones replaced the bear mauling DiCaprio in The Revenant, Tracy Morgan was a “Danish Girl” munching on pastry and Rock himself was a black astronaut whom NASA decides to just leave on Mars.

Tracy Morgan as the Danish Girl in a sketch

To say the ceremony was politically-charged would be an understatement. Another taped segment featured Rock visiting a local movie theatre in Compton, California to interview moviegoers, where the predominantly black audiences had not heard of any of the films nominated for Best Picture, but had all watched Straight Outta Compton. In a segment entitled the “Academy Awards Black History Month Minute”, Angela Bassett spoke of an “actor, producer, comedian, musician,” who starred in the likes of Enemy of the State and Shark Tale, with the implication being that the figure in question was Will Smith, who had boycotted this year’s ceremony alongside his wife Jada Pinkett. It was a bait and switch, and she was referring to Jack Black instead.

Taking a more serious tack, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the director of the Academy, said in her speech that “concrete action” was being taken to re-evaluate the membership of the organisation, giving the imperative that “Each of you is an ambassador who can help influence others in this industry. It’s not enough to listen and agree.” She did not specifically explain what said measures were.

Best Original Song nominee Lady Gaga performing Til It Happens to You

In addition to issues of race, sexual assault on college campuses received attention. Vice-President of the United States Joe Biden made an appearance to introduce Lady Gaga, who performed the song Til It Happens to You from the documentary The Hunting Ground, a song she wrote with Diane Warren. As Gaga’s stirring performance at the piano drew to a close, she was joined on stage by a number of male and female survivors of sexual assault. Each had words and phrases such as “It happened to me”, “not my fault” and “survivor” written on their arms in sharpie. The song lost to Writing’s on the Wall, the Bond theme by Sam Smith and Jimmy Napes.

Best Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu,
The Revenant

Noted conservationist DiCaprio slipped an environmental message into his acceptance speech, recounting how 2015 was the warmest year on record and that Global Warming caused the production to venture from Canada to Argentina in search of snow. “Climate change is real, it is happening right now,” DiCaprio proclaimed. “We need to work collectively right now and stop procrastinating.” He encouraged viewers to withdraw their support for big corporations known to be major polluters.

Similarly, The Big Short writer Adam McKay exhorted “if you don’t want big money to control government, don’t vote for candidates that take money from big banks, oil or weirdo billionaires: Stop!” McKay and Charles Randolph shared the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay; McKay was also nominated for Best Director but lost to Alejandro G. Iñárritu. The director of The Revenant took home his second Best Director Oscar in as many years.

In his acceptance speech, Iñárritu quoted a line from The Revenant: “They don’t listen to you. They see the colour of your skin.” He highlighted the opportunity to “make sure for once and forever that the colour of skin becomes as irrelevant as the length of our hair.” The last time a director took home back-to-back Oscars was when Joseph L. Mankiewicz won for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950).

The In Memoriam segment, which featured tributes to actors Leonard Nimoy, Alan Rickman, Christopher Lee and David Bowie in addition to behind the scenes figures like cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, composer James Horner and film critic Richard Corliss, was set to Dave Grohl’s acoustic rendition of Blackbird by the Beatles.

Best Actress Brie Larson,
Room

While last year’s ceremony feature a wacky performance of Everything is Awesome from The LEGO Movie as a light-hearted break from the heaviness of hot-button political issues, the closest this year’s ceremony came to that was the appearance of Star Wars droids C-3PO, R2-D2 and BB-8. “Actually, I do not look like him. He happens to look rather like me,” the worrywart Protocol Droid said in reference to the golden Oscar figure. The Minions, and Buzz and Woody from Toy Story, would later take the stage to present the Best Animated Short and Best Animated Feature awards.

BB-8, R2-D2 and C-3PO

When it came to the theme of “comedians keeping it real,” Louis C.K. stated flatly that the nominees for Best Documentary Short Subject would never go on to the fame and fortune of their counterparts nominated for other categories. “These people will never be rich for as long as they live,” he said to laughter. “This Oscar is going home in a Honda Civic…it’s going to give them anxiety to keep it in a crappy apartment.” Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy took home the prize for her film The Girl In the River: The Price of Forgiveness, about the victims of honour killings in Pakistan.

Best Documentary Short Subject:
The Girl In the River: The Price of Forgiveness
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

DiCaprio was not the only winner who had waited a while for his moment of glory. Legendary composer Ennio Morricone, 87, had been nominated five times prior and was presented with an honorary Oscar in 2007. Morricone spoke in Italian, with a translator on-stage interpreting. He gave a special acknowledgement to fellow nominee John Williams. Morricone, who the Best Original Score Oscar for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, has written the iconic scores for films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Mission and Cinema Paradiso.

When the time came to introduce the accountants from Price Waterhouse Coopers, three young Asian children walked onto the stage. “Anyone who’s offended by that joke, just tweet about it on your phone that was also made by these kids,” Rock quipped. Rock also had his daughters’ girl scout troupe going through the audience selling girl scout cookies, in an obvious riff on Ellen DeGeneres’ pizza-ordering bit two years prior.

Sacha Baron Cohen presented in character as Ali G, alongside Olivia Wilde. “how come there’s no Oscar for very ‘ardworking yellow people with tiny dongs?” he wondered aloud in the character’s signature ‘Jafaican’ accent. “You know, the minions!” Ali G also gave props to “The amazing black bloke from Star Wars – Darth Vader!” Introducing Best Picture nominee Room, he remarked “Now check out a movie about a room full of white people!"

Presenters Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali Gi and Olivia Wilde

The night’s one moment of swearing came courtesy of Mad Max: Fury Road sound editor Mark Mangini. “F*** yeah Mad Maxxers!” he cheered.

While the jokes were certainly weighted with political intent and host Rock kept an undercurrent of tension as he attempted to bring the funny, this proved to be a bearable and relatively memorable ceremony. Besides the entire film industry getting a slap on the wrist for failing to be more inclusive, the 88^th Academy Awards will also be remembered as the year a post-apocalyptic action adventure drove away with six trophies and Leonardo DiCaprio clinched that coveted statuette.

THE FULL LIST OF WINNERS AND NOMINEES
BEST PICTURE

Spotlight – WINNER
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room

BEST DIRECTOR

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Revenant – WINNER
Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road

BEST ACTOR

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant - WINNER
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

BEST ACTRESS

Brie Larson, Room – WINNER
Cate Blanchett, Carol

Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies – WINNER
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

Best Supporting Actress Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl – WINNER
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara, Carol
Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

Best Original Screenplay:
Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy,
Spotlight

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Spotlight, by Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy - WINNER
Bridge of Spies, by Matt Charman and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
Ex Machina, by Alex Garland
Inside Out, by Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley; original story by Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen
Straight Outta Compton, by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff; story by S. Leigh Savidge & Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Big Short, Charles Randolph and Adam McKay – WINNER
Brooklyn, Nick Hornby
Carol, Phyllis Nagy
The Martian, Drew Goddard
Room, Emma Donoghue

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

 Mad Max: Fury Road,  Jenny Beavan - WINNER
 Carol,  Sandy Powell
 Cinderella,  Sandy Powell
 The Danish Girl,  Paco Delgado
 The Revenant,  Jacqueline West

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Mad Max: Fury Road, production design by Colin Gibson; set decoration by Lisa Thompson - WINNER  Bridge of Spies, production design by Adam Stockhausen; set decoration by Rena DeAngelo and Bernhard Henrich
The Danish Girl,  production design by Eve Stewart; set decoration by Michael Standish
The Martian,  production design by Arthur Max; set decoration by Celia Bobak
The Revenant,  production design by Jack Fisk; set decoration by Hamish Purdy

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

Mad Max: Fury Road, Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin - WINNER 
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared,  Love Larson and Eva von Bahr
The Revenant,  Siân Grigg, Duncan Jarman and Robert Pandini

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Revenant, Emmanuel Lubezki - WINNER 
Carol, Ed Lachman
The Hateful Eight, Robert Richardson
Mad Max: Fury Road, John Seale
Sicario,  Roger Deakins

BEST FILM EDITING

Mad Max: Fury Road, Margaret Sixel - WINNER
The Big Short, Hank Corwin
The Revenant, Stephen Mirrione
Spotlight, Tom McArdle
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey

BEST SOUND EDITING

Mad Max: Fury Road, Mark Mangini and David White - WINNER 
The Martian, Oliver Tarney
The Revenant, Martin Hernandez and Lon Bender
Sicario, Alan Robert Murray
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Matthew Wood and David Acord

BEST SOUND MIXING

Mad Max: Fury Road, Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo - WINNER 
Bridge of Spies,  Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Drew Kunin
The Martian, Paul Massey, Mark Taylor and Mac Ruth
The Revenant, Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Randy Thom and Chris Duesterdiek
Star Wars: The Force Awakens,  Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson

Best Visual Effects: Ex Machina

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Ex Machina, Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett - WINNER 
Mad Max: Fury Road,  Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams
The Martian,  Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence and Steven Warner
The Revenant,  Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith and Cameron Waldbauer
Star Wars: The Force Awakens,  Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Bear Story,  Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala - WINNER 
Prologue,  Richard Williams and Imogen Sutton
Sanjay’s Super Team,  Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle
We Can’t Live without Cosmos,  Konstantin Bronzit
World of Tomorrow, Don Hertzfeldt

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Inside Out,  Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera - WINNER 
Anomalisa,  Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson and Rosa Tran
Boy and the World,  Alê Abreu
Shaun the Sheep Movie,  Mark Burton and Richard Starzak
When Marnie Was There, Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Yoshiaki Nishimura

BEST DOCUMENTARY, SHORT SUBJECT

A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness,  Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy - WINNER 
Body Team 12,  David Darg and Bryn Mooser
Chau, Beyond the Lines,  Courtney Marsh and Jerry Franck
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah,  Adam Benzine
Last Day of Freedom,  Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Amy, Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees - WINNER 
Cartel Land,  Matthew Heineman and Tom Yellin
The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen
What Happened, Miss Simone?  Liz Garbus, Amy Hobby and Justin Wilkes
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, Evgeny Afineevsky and Den Tolmor

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM

Stutterer,  Benjamin Cleary and Serena Armitage - WINNER 
Ave Maria,  Basil Khalil and Eric Dupont
Day One,  Henry Hughes
Everything Will Be Okay  (Alles Wird Gut),  Patrick Vollrath
Shok,  Jamie Donoughue

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM

Son of Saul, Hungary - WINNER 
Embrace of the Serpent,  Colombia
Mustang,  France
Theeb,  Jordan
A War, Denmark

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

Writing’s on the Wall from Spectre - WINNER
Music and lyric by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith

Earned It from Fifty Shades of Grey
Music and lyric by Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville and Stephan Moccio

Manta Ray from Racing Extinction
Music by J. Ralph and lyric by Antony Hegarty

Simple Song #3 from Youth
Music and lyric by David Lang

Til It Happens To You from  The Hunting Ground
Music and lyric by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

The Hateful Eight, Ennio Morricone – WINNER
Bridge of Spies, Thomas Newman
Carol, Carter Burwell
Sicario, Jóhann Jóhannsson
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, John Williams

Photo credits: A.M.P.A.S.

Thanks to HBO Asia 

87th Academy Awards: A Birdman In the Hand is Worth Two In The Bush

For F*** Magazine

THE 87^TH ACADEMY AWARDS: A BIRDMAN IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE BUSH

By Jedd Jong

The 87^th Academy Awards took place on February 22^nd 2015 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance) and The Grand Budapest Hotel bagged four wins each, with Whiplash clinching three. Both Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel were the most-nominated films of the evening, with 9 nods each.

Neil Patrick Harris hosted the ceremony for the first time. Having been the master of ceremonies at the Tony Awards four times and at the Primetime Emmys twice, NPH is no stranger to strutting his stuff in front of showbiz A-listers. His opening number, titled “Moving Pictures”, was a joyous tribute to cinema, the lyrics weaving in references to everything from The Godfather Part II to Basic Instinct to Back to the Future as well as all the Best Picture nominees that night. The song was penned by Robert and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, the pair behind the songs in Disney's Frozen. Anna Kendrick, clad in her Cinderella gown from Into The Woods, joined Harris for a duet, working in a spoilerific jab at his role in Gone Girl. The two were interrupted by Jack Black in full Tenacious D mode, Black giving voice to critics of the Oscars and the current state of movies in Hollywood.

For most of the show, Harris’ joke delivery style was that he knew the lines were silly and revelled in it. A notably painful pun was his introduction of presenter and Best Actress nominee Reese Witherspoon: “This next presenter is so lovely you could eat her up with a spoon.” Hur hur. The claws did come out for a few more digs – after the Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour clinched the Best Documentary Feature prize, Harris mentioned that the subject of the film “could not be here for some treason”. “American Sniper focuses on a soldier with 160 kills, or as Harvey Weinstein calls it, a slow morning,” Harris quipped, referring to the notorious producer.

For a parody of Birdman, Harris pretended to be locked outside his dressing room, running onstage wearing only his underwear before declaring “acting is a noble profession”. The bit paid homage to the jazz drums soundtrack of Birdman as well as Whiplash, with Whiplash star Miles Teller drumming backstage, Harris jokingly interrupting him with “not my tempo”. An extended bit in which Harris drew attention to his Oscar predictions being kept in a locked box, repeatedly reminding Octavia Spencer to have her eye on said box, was not so successful. The pay-off was that the envelope contained humorous recaps of the happenings at the ceremony which couldn’t have been written before the ceremony began, allowing Harris to show off a spot of magic. Harris also drew flak for cracking a joke about the “balls” that decorated Best Documentary Short Subject winner Dana Perry’s dress – right after Perry dedicated her win to her teenage son who had committed suicide.

There was no shortage of emotional moments during the acceptance speeches. J.K. Simmons, winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as a hellish music teacher in Whiplash, showed a much softer side than he did in the film, exhorting “if you’re lucky enough to have a parent or two alive, call them. Don’t text, don’t email. Call them. Listen to them for as long as they want to talk to you.”

“I’ve heard it said that winning an Oscar means you live five years longer. If that’s true I want to thank the Academy because my husband is younger than me,” Julianne Moore quipped after winning the Best Actress Oscar for her role as a professor fighting early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in Still Alice. Many feel this is a long-overdue victory for the prolific actress, who also paid tribute to Still Alice directors Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer. The co-directors are married and Glatzer is battling ALS, which likely inspired the honest, moving depiction of illness in Still Alice.  

Eddie Redmayne took home the Best Actor statue for his turn as physicist Stephen Hawking in the biopic The Theory of Everything. The English actor was visibly and quite endearingly flabbergasted. “I’m fully aware that I am a lucky, lucky man,” he said, dedicating his Oscar to ALS sufferers around the world. “It belongs to one exceptional family, and I will be its custodian and I promise you that I will polish him, and wait on him hand and foot,” he said of the shiny statuette. For many who had pegged Michael Keaton to win for what is being called the role of his lifetime, Redmayne’s triumph was something of an upset, though not completely unexpected.

John Legend and Common, taking home the Best Original Song award for “Glory” from Selma, spoke on racial harmony in the United States. “Once a landmark of a divided nation, the spirit of this bridge now for all people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or social status. This bridge was built on hope and welded with compassion,” Common said, recounting his experience performing the song on that same bridge in Selma, Alabama on which Martin Luther King Jr. marched. When Legend stated the United States was the most incarcerated country in the world, an awkward cheer came from an unidentified member of the audience.

Patricia Arquette, named Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mason’s mother Olivia in Boyhood, brought attention to wage equality for women. She proclaimed, “To every woman who gave birth, to every citizen and taxpayer, it’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women of the United States of America!” Meryl Streep reacted by pumping her fist in the air. Arquette also mentioned the ecological sanitation charity project she is involved with.

Alejandro González Iñárritu, named Best Director for Birdman, tempered the serious with the funny in his acceptance speech. “Maybe next year the government might impose some immigration rules on the academy. Two Mexicans in a row is suspicious,” he quipped, in reference to good friend and fellow Mexican Alfonso Cuarón’s Best Director win for Gravity at last year’s ceremony. Speaking about Mexican immigrants in the US, Iñárritu added ”I hope they can be treated with respect of the ones who came before and built this incredible immigrant nation.” Commenting on the competitive nature of awards ceremonies like the Oscars, he said true art and individual expression “can’t be compared or labelled or defeated because they exist, and our work will only be judged by time.”

Of course, the ceremony had its moments of outright, unabashed fun. The LEGO Movie may have been shut out of the Best Animated Feature category and it lost Best Original Song to “Glory”, but the flick based on those colourful construction toys made its presence felt with an exuberant live performance of “Everything is Awesome”. The immensely catchy ditty was sung by indie pop duo Tegan and Sara with musical comedy group The Lonely Island. They were joined by break-dancers dressed as construction workers, while dancers dressed as cowboys and spacemen handed out Oscar statuettes made out of LEGO to audience members - including a particularly thrilled Oprah Winfrey. Composer Mark Mothersbaugh had a keyboard solo, Questlove of The Roots was on drums and Will Arnett put the cherry on top by performing as Batman, complete with the Bat-symbol on his costume built out of LEGO bricks.

The other notable musical performance of the night was a tribute to The Sound Of Music, performed by Lady Gaga and a string ensemble. Julie Andrews took to the stage afterwards to thank Gaga and speak about the tremendous legacy of the film, which commemorates its 50^th anniversary this year. John Travolta’s flub, in which he infamously mispronounced Idina Menzel’s name as “Adele Dazeem”, remains one of the most memorable moments of the 86^th Academy Awards. This year, Travolta presented alongside Menzel as the two poked fun at the gaffe. We’re also pretty sure that this is the first time anyone has thanked their dog in an Oscars acceptance speech – Birdman co-writer Nicolás Giacobone expressed his gratitude to his canine pal, Larry.

The full list of winners and nominees follows:

BEST PICTURE
Birdman – WINNER
American Sniper
Boyhood
The Imitation Game
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

BEST DIRECTOR
Alejandro González Iñárritu - Birdman – WINNER
Richard Linklater – Boyhood
Bennett Miller – Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum - The Imitation Game

BEST ACTOR
Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything – WINNER
Steve Carell – Foxcatcher
Benedict Cumberbatch - The Imitation Game
Bradley Cooper - American Sniper
Michael Keaton - Birdman

BEST ACTRESS
Julianne Moore - Still Alice – WINNER
Marion Cotillard - Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones - The Theory of Everything
Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon - Wild

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
JK Simmons – Whiplash – WINNER
Robert Duvall - The Judge
Ethan Hawke - Boyhood
Edward Norton - Birdman
Mark Ruffalo - Foxcatcher

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Patricia Arquette – Boyhood – WINNER
Laura Dern – Wild
Keira Knightley - The Imitation Game
Emma Stone – Birdman
Meryl Streep - Into the Woods

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Birdman - Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo – WINNER
Boyhood - Richard Linklater
Foxcatcher – E. Max Frye, Dan Futterman
The Grand Budapest Hotel - Wes Anderson, Hugo Guinness
Nightcrawler – Dan Gilroy

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Imitation Game – Graham Moore – WINNER
American Sniper – Jason Hall
Inherent Vice – Paul Thomas Anderson
The Theory of Everything - Anthony McCarten
Whiplash - Damien Chazelle

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Big Hero 6 – WINNER
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Ida (Poland) – Paweł Pawlikowski – WINNER
Tangerines (Estonia) – Zaza Urushadze
Leviathan (Russia) – Andrey Zvyagintsev
Wild Tales (Argentina)– Damián Szifrón
Timbuktu (Mauritania)– Abderrahmane Sissako

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Citizenfour – Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, Dirk Wilutzky – WINNER
Finding Vivian Maier – John Maloof, Charlie Siskel
Last Days in Vietnam – Rory Kennedy, Keven McAlester
The Salt of the Earth – Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, David Rosier
Virunga – Orlando von Einsiedel, Joanna Natasegara

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 – Ellen Goosenberg Kent, Dana Perry – WINNER
Joanna – Aneta Kopacz
Our Curse – Tomasz Sliwinski, Maciej Slesicki
The Reaper – Gabriel Serra
White Earth – Christian Jensen

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM
The Phone Call – Mat Kirkby, James Lucas – WINNER
Aya – Oded Binnun, Mihal Brezis
Boogaloo and Graham – Michael Lennox, Ronan Blaney
Butter Lamp – Wei Hu, Julien Féret
Parvaneh – Talkhon Hamzavi, Stefan Eichenberger

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Feast – Patrick Osborne, Kristina Reed – WINNER
The Bigger Picture – Daisy Jacobs, Chris Hees
The Dam Keeper – Robert Kondo, Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi
Me and My Moulton – Torill Kove
A Single Life – Joris Oprins

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Alexandre Desplat – The Grand Budapest Hotel – WINNER
Alexandre Desplat – The Imitation Game
Hans Zimmer – Interstellar
Jóhann Jóhannsson – The Theory of Everything
Gary Yershon – Mr. Turner

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Glory” from Selma – Lonnie “Common” Lynn, John Legend – WINNER
“Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie – Shawn Patterson
“Grateful” from Beyond the Lights – Diane Warren
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You” from Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me – Glen Campbell, Julian Raymond
“Lost Stars” from Begin Again – Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING
American Sniper – Alan Robert Murray, Bub Asman – WINNER
Birdman – Aaron Glascock, Martín Hernández
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Brent Burge, Jason Canovas
Interstellar – Richard King
Unbroken – Becky Sullivan, Andrew DeCristofaro

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING
Whiplash – Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins, Thomas Curley – WINNER
American Sniper – John T Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, Walt Martin
Birdman – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Thomas Varga
Interstellar – Gary Rizzo, Gregg Landaker, Mark Weingarten
Unbroken – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, David Lee

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Grand Budapest Hotel - Adam Stockhausen, Anna Pinnock – WINNER
The Imitation Game - Maria Djurkovic, Tatiana Macdonald
Interstellar - Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis
Into the Woods - Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock
Mr. Turner - Suzie Davies, Charlotte Watts

ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
Birdman - Emmanuel Lubezki – WINNER
The Grand Budapest Hotel - Robert D. Yeoman
Ida - Lukasz Zal, Ryszard Lenczewski
Mr. Turner - Dick Pope
Unbroken - Roger Deakins

ACHIEVEMENT IN HAIR AND MAKEUP
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Frances Hannon, Mark Coulier – WINNER
Foxcatcher – Bill Corso, Dennis Liddiard
Guardians of the Galaxy – Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou, David White

ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN
The Grand Budapest Hotel - Milena Canonero– WINNER
Inherent Vice - Mark Bridges
Into the Woods – Colleen Atwood
Maleficent - Anna B. Sheppard

Mr. Turner – Jacqueline Durran

ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING
Whiplash – Tom Cross – WINNER
Boyhood – Sandra Adair
The Imitation Game – William Goldenberg
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Barney Pilling
American Sniper – Joel Cox, Gary Roach

ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS
Interstellar – Paul J Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter, Scott R Fisher – WINNER
Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Dan Deleeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill, Daniel Sudick
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett, Erik Winquist
Guardians of the Galaxy – Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner, Paul Corbould
X-Men: Days of Future Past – Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie, Cameron Waldbauer

A Song Sung Blue (and Green): The Plight of the Visual Effects Artist

As published in F*** Magazine issue 39

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A SONG SUNG BLUE (AND GREEN):

THE PLIGHT OF THE VFX ARTIST

by Jedd Jong 

Oscar night has come and gone, and there was the usual buzz about the winners, the excited discussion over who took home the night’s biggest awards, chatter about the glamourous red carpet outfits, and debate over whether the host was funny or just plain offensive. As usual, those who emerged triumphant in categories deemed “minor” or “miscellaneous” by many went largely unnoticed. It’s certainly understandable, as audiences at large love the movies for that sheen of glitz and escapism, not for those who slave tirelessly behind the scenes.

However, some have begun to pay heed to a cry in the dark from those in the visual effects industry.

Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan de Boer and Donald R. Elliott were honoured with the Best Achievement in Visual Effects Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, for Life of Pi. However, just two weeks before the ceremony, Rhythm & Hues Studios – the visual effects house that helped to create the lifelike Bengal tiger in the film, among many other effects – filed for bankruptcy and laid off over 250 employees. Just a few blocks away from the opulent Dolby Theatre where the ceremony was being held, hundreds of current and former Rhythm & Hues employees pounded the pavement in protest, wondering what happened to their “piece of the Pi”.

 Inside the Dolby Theatre, Westenhofer attempted to draw attention to the situation, saying “Sadly, Rhythm & Hues is suffering severe financial difficulties right now, and I urge you all to remember...” It was all he could manage before his microphone was cut off and he and the other recipients of the award were chased unceremoniously off the Oscar stage with John Williams’ ominous theme from Jaws. The Oscar producers claimed that the speech had run over time, at 44.5 seconds long. However, the next recipient (Life of Pi cinematographer Claudio Miranda) spoke for 60 seconds without being played off. Something was amiss.

It was a moment that was probably quickly forgotten by most in the theatre that night, but not by visual effects artists everywhere. Many turned their profile pictures on social media sites into a solid green square in a show of solidarity, as green (along with blue) is the colour most often used in digital chroma key compositing. Without the work of visual effects artists, most blockbusters would appear as a sea of green, instead of an alien landscape, a vast open ocean, a magical forest or 19th Century Paris.

Computer-generated effects are used in almost every film and television show these days, and many times the impact isn’t as noticeable as in films like Life of Pi, The Avengers or The Hobbit, but no less integral. Techniques like background replacement can seamlessly make a scene appear as it if was shot on location, instead of on a soundstage or the studio lot, cutting down on potential logistical issues for the production crew. The visual effects community feels under-appreciated at a time when the industry is becoming more and more centred around the work they produce, and it has become clear that visual effects have never been as important to Hollywood, as popular with the filmgoers, or as uncertain a business as they are today.

 “What I was trying to say up there is that it’s at a time when visual effects movies are dominating the box office, but that visual effects companies are struggling,” Westenhofer said later that night. "I wanted to point out that we aren't technicians. Visual effects is not just a commodity that’s being done by people pushing buttons. We're artists, and if we don't find a way to fix the business model, we start to lose the artistry. If anything, Life of Pi shows that we're artists and not just technicians."

The bankruptcy filing came after a prospective buyer, India-based Prime Focus, failed to come up with the financing required to purchase Rhythm & Hues. The budgets for visual effects in major movies are not as large as they appear - and the main place to put pressure on said budgets are the artists, who will regularly not be paid overtime, even when working 15 hour work days and weekends. There is also the notable absence of a visual effects union in Hollywood, when every other film trade has one – but it will be hard to establish one in the midst of the financial difficulties faced by the industry. It has also become easier and more cost-efficient for studios to outsource the production of visual effects to foreign countries.

Rhythm & Hues is far from the only casualty: major industry player Digital Domain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September 2012 and was acquired by a joint venture between China-based company Galloping Horse and India-based Reliance MediaWorks. Also, Asylum and Café FX number among the California-based visual effects companies that have shut down in the past few years. Eric Roth, director of the Visual Effects Society, said he hopes that “the understanding that something is wrong has potentially reached a critical mass” and warns that if a couple more VFX vendors like Rhythm & Hues find themselves in trouble in the next few years,  “that would make it difficult for the studios to get what they want.”

We at F*** Magazine tip our hats to the men and women working in visual effects, for without them Bruce Banner wouldn’t be able to Hulk out, the T-rex would be unable to pursue Dr Alan Grant and company through Jurassic Park, Optimus Prime would never transform, Neo and Agent Smith would never tangle in bullet time and yes, Richard Parker would never roar.

Please visit the tumblr Before VFX to have a look at what some of today's biggest films would look like without the work of armies of visual effects artists. 

Zero Dark Thirty

For F*** Magazine, Singapore

ZERO DARK THIRTY

Director:	Kathryn Bigelow
Cast:	Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong
Genre:	Action, Thriller
Run Time:	157 mins
Opens:	24 January 2013
Rating:	NC16: COARSE LANGUAGE AND VIOLENCE

What happens after the most wanted man in the world is killed? Apparently, there’s still a lot of “wanting” to go around. The public wants details, answers – the world was instantly clamouring for the top-secret truth behind the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. Anonymous sources came forward with their stories, and naturally books and movies would follow. Director Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, both Oscar-winners for their previous effort The Hurt Locker, seem ideal candidates to put the story to film.

Zero Dark Thirty centres on the woman behind the manhunt: a young CIA officer named Maya (Chastain), who has dedicated her entire life to hunting Osama. The film opens with Maya accompanying fellow officer Dan (Clarke) to a CIA black site where a detainee is being held. Maya bears witness to the torture and humiliation Dan carries out. It doesn’t get any easier from there as Maya spends the next eight years buried in her quest to track down Osama as she survives brutal attacks and chases down leads, eventually leading to the raid on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan by SEAL Team 6.

Considering the subject matter at hand, it was inevitable that Zero Dark Thirty would attract its fair share of controversy even before the cameras started rolling. Everything from classified information allegedly being made available to the filmmakers to the movie’s stance on torture was called into question. While this reviewer can’t vouch for how closely the film hews to actual events – nor can many others, really – he can say that the film seems to be an honest and earnest portrayal. It’s noticeably devoid of Michael Bay-esque rah-rah, flag-waving, chest-thumping patriotism, and is a thoughtful portrait of men and women simply doing their jobs.

Chastain is convincing in her subdued turn as a career woman whose job is more dangerous and has more at stake than most. Maya is a woman who, in Chastain’s own words, is “trained to be unemotional and analytically precise” – and yet, we don’t get a flat, uninteresting robot. Bigelow is subtle enough not to thrust a “girl power” agenda in our faces – as the first woman to take home a Best Director Oscar, she well could have. There are the expected moments where it’s made clear that Maya is “a woman in a man’s world”, but these don’t stray into cliché and it is to Chastain’s credit that we believe that yes, this person could have spearheaded the biggest manhunt in history.

While Zero Dark Thirty doesn’t feel as much like a documentary as The Hurt Locker did, it carries over that film’s sparse, no-frills style. “Zero Dark Thirty” is a military term meaning “thirty minutes after midnight”, in reference to the secrecy surrounding the decade-long manhunt.  Bigelow does a a good job in convincing the audience that condensed though the lead-up to Osama’s death may be, it probably did happen in a similar fashion, and the result is anything but sensationalistic. This can be chalked up as much to the lack of visual and stylistic embellishment as it can be to research. However, this is something of a double-edged sword as in spite of the gripping proceedings, the film sometimes drags its feet and audiences may be twiddling their thumbs, impatiently anticipating the SEAL Team raid.

The raid only actually happens during the last thirty minutes of the film, but thankfully, it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a nail-biter of an action sequence even though we all know the ending and it isn’t slickly-staged or artfully choreographed – but that’s exactly how it should be. Between the shaky-cam and the sickly green of the night-vision lenses, there’s a sense of uneasiness and urgency inherent in the scene, which is heightened by some good acting on the part of Edgerton, Chris Pratt and the other actors portraying the SEALs.

All that said though, is it enough of a payoff after nearly two hours of heavy dialogue and sometimes-unsettling depictions of torture? Just about. Zero Dark Thirty certainly could have had a chunk trimmed off its running time and been pumped with more adrenaline, but that would most likely be at the cost of the solemnity and gravity required to tell the story it does.

SUMMARY: Though sometimes a little heavy-handed and weary, Zero Dark Thirty always feels credible, realistic and thoughtful in its account of the manhunt for Osama bin Laden.

RATING: 4 out of STARS

Jedd Jong

Grandpa Oscar's New Car

83^rd Academy Awards ceremony mixes old-school with too-cool-for-school, and overly-jumpy girl with too-sleepy guy. 

Jedd Jong 1/3/11

At the grand old age of 83, Grandpa Oscar is getting on in years. The hired entertainment at Grandpa Oscar’s birthday last year were two actors who, while both funny, were indeed catching up to Gramps. This was, perhaps, the reason that there wasn’t as big a turnout to Grandpa Oscar’s celebration as his family would’ve liked.

So, in an effort to help Grandpa Oscar keep up with the times and perhaps turn in his Model T Ford for in favour of a Ford Focus, we have younger blood. This year’s ceremony continued the trend of having two hosts, and I’ll say it was done much better this year. Anne Hathaway and James Franco are both extremely likable, and can match each other in comic timing and pulchritude. However, it was plain to see that Hathaway’s hyperactive antics were compensating for Franco’s “I’d-rather-cut-off-my-own-arm” demeanour that couldn’t help but leak through sometimes. 

This year’s Academy Awards ceremony, for me, struck a good balance – it didn’t veer too far from the formula (when doing so had previously proved ill-advised at times), it embraced old Hollywood glamour, but added a fine contemporary touch. It was, as if The King’s Speech met The Social Network.

But just as Geoffrey Rush and Jesse Eisenberg would seem odd bedfellows (a hundred apologies for planting that mental image in your head), it wasn’t easy pulling this one off. Many would say the ceremony was too saccharine, a good-natured and respectful atmosphere established from the start, with many an acceptance speech including a heartfelt anecdotal thanks to the recipients’ mothers. 

However bad aspartame may taste, I would prefer it over no sweetening at all.

The stage design easily evoked the days of Tinsletown yore, with basic proscenium arches reminiscent of the Hollywood Bowl. An added touch was that each of the arcs also functioned as projection screens – helping to add an interesting atmospheric effect to the standard video tributes to classic/landmark films. A computer-simulated Bob Hope spouted some of his famously funny lines, before introducing presenters Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr for the Achievement in Visual Effects category, for example.

Hathaway and Franco were more goofball chums than screwball romantic partners and Hathaway saved the day despite looking like she had one intravenous caffeine shot too many. The opening sequence echoed those Billy Crystal employed in the past, and kicked the show off on a fantastic note. The two hosts, with help from Inception’s Leonardo DiCaprio, enter the dreams of Alec Baldwin (one-half of last year’s tag-team) to steal tips on how to host – and along the way find themselves in the worlds of Best Picture nominees including True Grit, Black Swan and The King’s Speech – Hathaway quick to remind her audience in Second-World-War era England that microphones in the future will get smaller. And then, Billy Crystal turns up for all of three minutes, completely stealing the younger hosts’ thunder. It feels as if all the material was great - it just was too much for Hathaway and Franco to juggle.

 In stark contrast to Ricky Gervais’ limits-testing turn as Golden Globes host, Hathaway and Franco stayed mostly respectable and well-behaved even as they worked in some hilarious soundbites – more like a frosty malt than Gervais’ sour grapefruit juice (yet another horrific mental image for the bank) Hathaway bemoaning that she was not nominated for an Oscar even though she had appeared nude (in Love and Other Drugs). The craziest that things got was Franco cross-dressing, wondering about the calls he received from Charlie Sheen earlier in the evening. 

Like the rest of that night’s ceremony, the results were mostly sponge cake, but with a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar when needed – the crowd was definitely glad that Christian Bale and Natalie Portman both took home their much-deserved little bald statuettes.

It’s no secret that the Academy often snubs big-budget blockbuster epics, even when they do merit attention. While Inception was passed over for best original screenplay (director Christopher Nolan not even getting a Best Director nomination), it received a good number of technical achievement awards.

In several categories, it seemed as if The King’s Speech was neck-and-neck with The Social Network. But the Academy voters clicked the “like” buttons on the British film’s page instead, stealing the thunder with Tom Hooper snagging best director, Colin Firth for best actor and of course winning Best Picture. The Social Network was able to squeeze in Best Adapted Screenplay, best film editing and best original score edgewise – all (particularly for Aaron Sorkin’s blisteringly clever script) all well-deserved. 

The jaded would bemoan the packaged and manufactured nature of the evening’s proceedings (Celine Dion singing Chaplin’s Smile for the emotional “In Memoriam” segment should be proof enough), but I really enjoyed the ceremony – mostly because it wasn’t so much a ceremony as a college reunion of sorts. Nods were given to the old, as glances thrown forwards at the new –and I actually didn’t find one moment boring.

So, while Grandpa Oscar’s hybrid vintage-modern speedster/sedan may draw some funny looks – and sometimes it works, while at others it doesn’t.

Postscript: I'm sorry that I haven't been posting more reviews and articles. It's not that I've not been watching movies - on the contrary, Royston Loh, the editor of F*** magazine, very kindly offered me some writing assignments. It's not a paying job, but I'm so excited. When the reviews are published in the magazine, I'll be able to put them up here. Look forward to reviews of Unknown, The Adjustment Bureau, Morning Glory and the Singaporean film Forever.