“As I speak to you now, the icy water of the ponds and ruins fill the hallows of the mass graves, a frigid and muddy water, as murky as our memory.” These words come from the powerful closing monologue of Alain Resnais’ seminal 1955 documentary short “Night and Fog,” one of cinema’s first attempts to grapple with the Holocaust. It may seem hard to believe from our 21st century vantage point, but there was a time when our culture seemed in danger of turning its back on the horrors of the Nazi’s brutality and ultimately forgetting the sights of the concentration camps altogether.
In the past two decades, films as varied as “Schindler’s List,” “The Pianist” and “Son of Saul” all made cases for how culture and film can help us understand these events by reliving them. Spielberg, especially, pleads for collective remembrance, even going so far as to bleed the fictional representation into a then-present day verité scene.
Atom Egoyan’s “Remember,” as the title implies, is a film about memory. Specifically, it follows Christopher Plummer’s dementia-riddled Auschwitz survivor Zev Guttman as he embarks upon a quest to identify Nazis who assumed the identities of exterminated Jews to sneak into America. The film’s tension comes just as much from the lapses in Zev’s memory as it does from each stop on his cross-country journey to visit the many men assuming the alias Rudy Kurlander.
But in the world created by screenwriter Benjamin August, the act of remembrance is not a central thematic concern. It is the pretext for a revenge thriller. He misses an opportunity to use fading memory as more than a plot device. Remembering what happened in the Holocaust is perhaps more important than ever in a time where a new generation will never personally encounter survivors and a leading presidential candidate wavers on disavowing an unrepentant racist who wants to rehabilitate the image of Adolf Hitler. Many blame genocides in Syria and Darfur on our cultural amnesia. Might it strike again, if we are not vigilant?
August and Egoyan are free to make whatever movie they want. But why bother dredging up such loaded historical material only to produce a standard-issue genre flick? Art can be equal to the challenges of our times. We should not let those works content to stay disengaged off the hook so easily. C+ / 
I’m feeling only six Best Picture nominees this year. (For those who don’t know about the new rules and regulations of the category, the Best Picture field is now an elastic number of nominees between five and ten. In order to be nominated for Best Picture, a movie needs to receive at least five percent of the number one votes.) The top five are very obvious.
The top three are rock solid locks. Woody Allen seems very inevitable given the widespread love for his movie and that the directors have nominated him six times before. The last slot could go any number of ways – Fincher like the DGA picked, Malick like every critic proclaimed from the rooftop, Spielberg if “War Horse” actually makes a strong showing, or maybe even Tate Taylor if they really love “The Help.”
The top three are locked in after getting nominations from the BFCA, SAG, and HFPA. Fassbender can’t be put in the same category since he missed with the SAG, the group with the most overlap with Academy voters, but he seems pretty safe given that the nomination would be a reward for his ubiquity just as much as his performance. In addition, physical commitment to a role always plays well with the actors branch; see nominations for James Franco in “
For the past 15 years, the SAG field has provided a clue to at least 4 of the 5 eventual nominees for Best Actress at the Oscars. The top four in the field – Davis, Streep, Williams, and Swinton – have all scored nominations from the BFCA, SAG, and HFPA. Then, the plot thickens. The way I see it, there are three actresses competing for that final slot. History says go with the SAG nominee, which is Glenn Close in “Albert Nobbs.” But Charlize Theron is also a threat for “Young Adult” after cracking the field for both the BFCA and HFPA.
At once, this is the most solid and the most fluctuating race this year. The frontrunner still is – and has been since June – Christopher Plummer for his incredible turn in “Beginners.” I don’t really think anyone else has a prayer because this is both a sentimental, Lifetime Achievement Oscar (think Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin) and a consensus pick (think Tim Robbins and Javier Bardem). Of course, this assumes that he will steamroll to wins from the BFCA, SAG, and HFPA, a scenario which I think is incredibly likely.
BFCA/HFPA/SAG only agreed on Bejo, Spencer, and Chastain. This is the only category where, to my knowledge, getting all three of these nominations does not ensure a nomination. Last year, Mila Kunis missed for “Black Swan,” and Cameron Diaz missed in 2001 for “Vanilla Sky.” It happens, although I’d say that that was more of a character judgement disapproving of some of their other, non-Academy friendly projects. None of these actresses seem to be at risk for a similar fate.
Here is where I think the surprising “Bridesmaids” love – among the top movies feted by the AFI, SAG, HPFA, PGA, and WGA – will register. It’s a well-written movie where the comedy is so heavily in the dialogue and the plot; while Apatow movies have yet to show up here, there has to be a first time for everything.
“The Descendants” is about to lap the field here; barring a huge surge for “Moneyball” (which would make Aaron Sorkin a back-to-back winner), I don’t see anything standing between Alexander Payne and a second Academy Award win in this category.
While on the path to triumphant Oscar glory last year, Aaron Sorkin made the wise observation that no matter what movie he chose to do next, it would always be seen as “the movie after ‘
If we thought 2010 was a year that people most needed cinema to make them feel good, 2011 looks to be even more so. That’s why it just seems right for a movie like ‘The Artist” to sweep in and take Best Picture. It’s got the happy factor, the B&W factor, the silent film factor, and the nostalgia factor all going for it. I have yet to see it, but even if I were somehow not to like it, I could still be content with this winning Best Picture because it would affirm the power of the prize. When they reward risky, out-of-the-box movies, Hollywood responds by thinking even more creatively. When they reward movies like “The King’s Speech,” studios start focus grouping the hell out of their contenders to perfectly calculate Oscar success.
Here’s where ballot manipulation will start to muddle the waters. Michael Hazanavicius, director of “The Artist,” is largely unknown, but Harvey Weinstein will have him making rounds on the circuit to cure lack of name recognition. He got Tom Hooper a win last year at the expense of widely renowned David Fincher. If “The Artist” appears headed for a sweep, it will have to take this category too.
Can the “he’s a leading man, not a supporting actor” logic prevail to give George Clooney another Oscar? I think that’s going to be the message from Fox Searchlight, and the starpower may be their only weapon to fend off the irresistible Jean Dujardin in “The Artist.” I suspect it may already be down to these two, and wouldn’t it be exciting if we had another showdown like Penn-Rourke in 2008?
My gut tells me that Streep will take the day here and win her first Oscar in 30 years. The role is baity enough, the time is right, we may have never appreciated Meryl more. But the fact that the film won’t open to audiences until next year makes it hard to gain audience support.
I’m counting on big love for “The Artist” to make the unknown Bérénice Bejo an Academy Award winner. Again, she has to battle unknown status, but her biggest challenger will likely be another unknown, Octavia Spencer in “The Help.” Since “The Artist” is much more likely to take home the big prize, I think Bejo is more likely to ride on her film’s coattails to victory. I’d hate to demean her with the term tack-on, but think Jennifer Connelly winning for “A Beautiful Mind” and Catherine Zeta-Jones winning for “Chicago.” To justify Best Picture, maybe voters will decide it needs an acting win as well.
It’s really a shame that even with the number of really impressive original screenplays this year, the Academy will likely settle for standard fare. I’m still counting on golden boy Woody Allen to pull through here, but if “The Artist” is poised for a sweep, I don’t see how it can not take an award for its writing. Only three films in the past decade have taken Best Picture without a win in the Screenplay category.
Scribe Alexander Payne is an Academy darling, winner in 2004 for his adaptation of “Sideways” as well as nominee in 1999 for his work on the script for “Election.” I think until otherwise informed, it’s not smart to bet against him.
It’s a little tough for me to gauge how well the Academy did with this category because at this moment, I have only seen two of the five nominated performances. However, the two that I did see (Waltz and Damon) both made my list.
Marshall and the Movies 
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