The 2014 Daves

Welcome to The Daves, my annual, Oscar-style review of the year’s best movies and actors. My choices, in ranked order, are:

Rank	Dave’s Choice
1	Gravity
2	August: Osage County*
3	Philomena
4	Dallas Buyers Club
5	Captain Phillips
6	American Hustle
7	Blue Jasmine*
8	12 Years A Slave
9	American Hustle
10	The Wolf of Wall Street
NR	Her**
	*Not an Oscar Nominee
	**Have not seen yet

I think it’s a travesty that August: Osage County was not an Oscars Best Picture nominee. This is a fantastic movie that I believe should have won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay even though it was not nominated in that category either. I’ll gush more about this movie when we get to the acting awards. For now let’s focus on Gravity.

Normally I’m not much on special effects. I like movies that are driven by interesting, well-told stories that require great acting. In other words, “real” movies about “real” things that could realistically happen to “real” people. As it turns out Gravity is plenty realistic and the awesome special effects make that possible.

Of course, before I saw the movie I had heard all of the hype about the clever special effects. But the interesting thing is that, from the very first scene to the very last, I didn’t think about those special effects as I watched the movie. Instead I fell comfortably into the story of two astronauts dealing with a crisis while in earth orbit. The special effects were so good I didn’t notice them. Instead they unobtrusively built a platform that allowed two talented actors to tell a simple but compelling tale of adventure and high drama. Gravity is a wonderful, crisp, exciting, highly-entertaining movie that is greatly enhanced by the use of ingenious, yet unobtrusive, special effects. It is everything a movie is supposed to be.

I have several gripes about 12 Years A Slave, including the absurd depiction of a Black family in 1840s New York living as the equals of their White neighbors. It is also unrealistic to suggest that a woman of any color during that time – much less a Black woman – would have been able to maintain a nice house like the Northrup’s had for 12 years without the presence of (and income from) a husband. Other incongruities that bothered me include the lack of insects in the Louisiana swamps and the relatively pristine conditions of the slave quarters. Basically, the life of free Blacks in this era was a helluva lot worse than this movie suggested and the life of slaves in the South was, at the very least, marginally worse than depicted. The acting was good, but not great. The story was compelling, but not particularly well-told. It was a decent movie that shone some much-needed light on the darkest chapter of American history. But it was not the Best Picture of 2014, not even close.

In addition to Gravity, Osage County, Philomena and Dallas Buyers Club were all compelling, well-told stories that were superbly acted and each of them would have been far more deserving of the Oscar than 12 Years. While not Oscar-worthy Captain Phillips definitely deserved one of the ten Oscar nomination slots.

The acting in American Hustle was top-shelf, of course. But there was something about this movie that just did not seem to flow quite right. While I had no complaints about the revealing outfits worn by Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence, they just seemed to be a bit too much (or, should I say, too little). In general, the whole 70s shtik was overplayed.

As for Wolf of Wall Street I have only one question; what the #@*% was Scorsese thinking? DiCaprio and Hill did some fine acting but their efforts were swallowed up in the excessiveness of this movie.

(Note: Her has not released yet on Netflix and I likely won’t get around to watching it until sometime this fall.)

Now for the acting awards.

Rank	Actor	Movie
1	Mathew McConaughey	Dallas Buyers Club
2	Leonardo DiCaprio	The Wolf of Wall Street
3	Christian Bale	American Hustle
4	Tom Hanks*	Captain Phillips
5	Chiwetel Ejiofor	12 Years A Slave
6	Bruce Dern	Nebraska

For me, this was a no-brainer. McConaughey was fantastic and his Oscar acceptance speech was one of the best ever. All right, all right, all right. You’ve come a long way Wooderson. Congratulations! My only quibble with the Oscars in this category is that I think Tom Hanks was more deserving of a nomination than Bruce Dern.

Rank	Actress	Movie
1	Cate Blanchette	Blue Jasmine
2	Judi Dench	Philomena
3	Meryl Streep	August: Osage County
4	Sandra Bullock	Gravity
5	Amy Adams	American Hustle

OMG, what a lineup! Blanchette, Dench and Streep all deserved Oscars for their superb performances. In each case, the characters they played seemed to literally inhabit their bodies. This was acting at the very highest level, in demanding roles, in movies that ranged from good (Blue Jasmine) to compelling (Osage County). It just doesn’t get any better than this.

Rank	Supporting Actor	Movie
1	Jared Leto	Dallas Buyers Club
2	Barkhad Abdi	Captain Phillips
3	Jonah Hill	The Wolf of Wall Street
4	Chris Cooper*	August: Osage County
5	Bradley Cooper	American Hustle
6	Michael Fassbender	12 Years A Slave

Leto’s portrayal of a transvestite was disturbingly realistic; truly an awesome performance. Abdi may have been typecast as a Somali pirate but he carried it off beautifully in a role that was crucial to the film’s storyline. My only quibble with the Oscars in this category is that, even though Fassbender was very good in his important role as Edwin Epps, the demented plantation owner, I think Cooper was more deserving of a nomination for his equally important role as the decent but naïve Charles Aiken.

Rank	Supporting Actress	Movie
1	Sally Hawkins	Blue Jasmine
2	Julia Roberts	August: Osage County
3	Jennifer Lawrence	American Hustle
4	Julianne Nicholson*	August: Osage County
5	Margo Martindale*	August: Osage County
6	Lupita Nyong'o	12 Years A Slave
7	June Squibb	Nebraska

This is the category where I have the most profound disagreement with the choices of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

First of all Lupita Nyong’o’s portrayal of Patsey the slave was good, especially for a newcomer. I’m not trying to knock her, but given the competition I don’t think she deserved one of the five nominations in this category, much less the Oscar.

In my opinion there were, at least, three actresses in Osage County that deserved nominations for their supporting roles. One of the several reasons that this movie was so fantastic was the absolutely spot-on casting. Every actor was perfect for the role in which they were cast and each played their part beautifully.

Jennifer Lawrence was electrifying in her role as Rosalyn Rosenfeld. In every role that she has played that I can recall she literally jumps off the screen and absolutely owns her part. And that was definitely the case in Hustle. She has a seemingly effortless commanding presence on the big screen and that was certainly the case once again with her performance in Hustle. She is the Meryl Streep of her generation. And the kiss she planted on Amy Adams? Awesome!

Yet, despite all of my fawning over JLaw, there were only two real contenders for this award.

Julia Roberts portrayal of Barbara Weston and her interplay with her mother (Violet Weston played by Meryl Streep) and Sally Hawkins portrayal of Jasmine’s (played by Cate Blanchette) sister Ginger were crucial to the story lines of their respective movies and to the outstanding performances of Streep and Blanchette in their leading roles. The parts of Barbara and Ginger are classic supporting roles and Roberts and Hawkins played them flawlessly. Both were very deserving of the Oscar and I chose Hawkins over Roberts by the slimmest of margins. It is a travesty that one of these two did not win the Oscar.

My choice for Original Screenplay is Buyers Club but I note that the Oscar choice was Her, a movie I have not seen.