2012 Calvin Awards: Best Picture
By David Mumpower
February 17, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The film in question is The Artist and it is our selection as Best Picture for the 2012 Calvin Awards. This means that The Artist has also won Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, a feat that can never be surpassed in the future, only duplicated. What BOP seems to be saying here is that we are against talkies and want to return to the halcyon days of yore when movies were nothing more than title cards and musical accompaniments set against the backdrop of video storytelling. It’s either that or the fact that we have watched too many Michael Bay movies over the years and now the entire concept of movie dialogue disgusts us. Either way, what is clear is that BOP’s staff is utterly entranced by the throwback nature of The Artist, a film that celebrates classic Hollywood in an inimitable fashion.
What do we love about The Artist? Judging from the voting results, the answer is everything. We have championed Jean Dujardin for his soul searing performance as a down on his luck actor seeking to make a comeback. We have lauded Bérénice Bejo for her whimsical take on the old school ingénue; Bejo’s character becomes much more famous than the thespian who accidentally gave her the big break she needed, but she never forgot his kindness to a stranger. In fact, the relationship between Dujardin and Bejo is a fictional implementation of the philosophy that someone should always dance with who brought them, and this is exactly what happens in the denouement of The Artist.
For this effervescent bit of joy, we have director Michel Hazanavicius to thank. The Frenchman looked across the pond to Hollywood and deciphered exactly what he loved about the golden age of cinema. Then, he convinced his wife to portray one of the leads opposite a popular actor abroad who was a complete unknown in North America as recently as six months ago. The Artist is a family affair between this trio and their love of the source material shines through. The only way the project could be more insular is if Jack the dog (real name: Uggie) were in fact the adopted puppy of Hazanavicius and Bejo. Every moment of the film pulsates with love toward the subject matter and we are captivated by the narrative. The Artist is far and away BOP’s favorite film of the year and one of the most dominant performers in the history of The Calvins.
Our second favorite film of the year is The Descendants. BOP oftentimes celebrates our love of smallish indie films that the rest of the world has yet to experience. We see a kindred spirit to such productions in The Descendants. The reason why is simple. If we remove George Clooney from the equation, The Descendants has one of the least famous casts in recent memory. If you do not want to take my word for it, go pull up the cast list and make an argument regarding who the most famous person is after Clooney. Is it Shaggy from the live action Scooby Doo? Beau “The Less Famous” Bridges? Judy “The flasher from Arrested Development” Greer? Robert “Relevant Once a Decade” Forster? This is a small scale film with an unpretentious cast that mitigates its negatives with the single inclusion of George Clooney at the top. And this is why the project works masterfully.
We have certain expectations for George Clooney movies. We expect him to be calm, cool and collected, totally in control of the proceedings. The Descendants strips away all of Clooney’s entitlements and takes him back to the days when he was a bit player on The Facts of Life and Sisters. The most popular actor in Hollywood is gone, replaced by a cuckolded man dealing with twin deaths. The first is his wife’s physical failing and the second is the emotional bombshell that she loved another man after him. Director Alexander Payne sends George Clooney to paradise, gives his character all the money he could ever need, and proceeds to strip his soul of all positives. What is left is an angry, frustrated man who must decide how to do what is right by his wife, his people and his lands as he deals with an unprecedented type of heartbreak.
The Descendants is the type of movie that could just as easily star Peter Dinklage (like The Station Agent) or Mark Ruffalo (You Can Count on Me) and lose absolutely none of its appeal. That is the genius of the project. It structured to make anyone in the lead role seem fallible and largely inept. That point gets lost too much since George Clooney stars. At its base, however, The Descendants is exactly the sort of small scale triumph that BOP has been championing since The Calvins began. It is a film daring enough to take George Clooney and hide him in plain sight in a manner that makes us root for him to find his peace, forcing us to forget that the actor playing the role is among the most popular in the history of the industry. The Descendants is a marvelous character study that explores the nature of confidence, trust and respect and BOP is lost in admiration for what it accomplishes.
Moneyball is our third selection for Best Picture. This is a project that appeared dead in the water when original director Steven Soderbergh dropped out. Unheralded helmer Bennett Miller stepped in as the replacement, but the movie largely fell off our radar in Soderbergh’s absence. The BOP staff’s collective surprise was total when we started watching Moneyball, a smart and savvy film that tethers together a pair of masterful acting performance (our favorite Supporting Actor and our third favorite Lead Actor). Moneyball is a snappy quip machine of a movie that hides its math and statistics in plain sight, thereby taking the focus away from the professorial aspects and putting the focus on baseball results.
The 2002 Oakland Athletics experienced all of the highs and lows of an amazing season. The team won 103 games, placing them squarely among the finest seasons in the 2000s, yet they struggled in the playoffs yet again and were quickly eliminated. Moneyball chooses to highlight the team’s euphoric moments, particularly the historically unprecedented 20 game winning streak as well as the characters, particularly “Pickin’ Machine” Scott Hatteberg. Some more famous players such as David Justice make their appearance but Moneyball the movie is like Moneyball the book in that the more famous people are less relevant than the unheralded unknowns who are undervalued in their daily assignments. In this manner, Moneyball is a metaphor for life and a fine one at that. It is a refreshing examination of how incorrectly greatness is defined in our society and a damn good baseball movie to boot.
Watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is a bittersweet affair. In fact, our selection for fourth best movie of the year is more than just a swan song. Those of us who had read the novels in advance of the movie knew that portions of it would have the feel of a snuff film. We knew that certain characters would not make it to the end of the Battle of Hogwarts, a hard pill to swallow. Still, like everyone else who has seen any of the movies or read any of the books, we wanted to see how it would end as well as whether there would be creative license taken to distinguish the movie franchise from the novels. In the end, any such changes are in the eye of the beholder (in my mind’s eye, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood wind up together), but the result is still the same. Good suppresses evil once more and a group of people we the world witnessed growing up before our very eyes took their final bows. We will miss everyone in the Potterverse dearly and sincerely hope that one day soon J. K. Rowling will re-consider and return from the land of muggles to create new tales of wizardry for children of all ages. The final Harry Potter film is a tribute to the greatness of her original concept as well as a cinematic masterpiece. We will treasure it for decades to come.
A man drives a couple of strangers to the Staples Center in Los Angeles just as the game winds down. This is the brief description of exactly what transpires in the first few minutes of Drive, our fifth favorite film of the year. Why then does it feel so much richer, so much more robust? The answer is that Drive is able to create tension from little moments in a manner befitting greatness. Whether the sequence is a lap around the race track, an awkward meeting between neighbors or a negotiation about the murder of a friend, Drive constantly surprises and delights us with its ability to elevate the proceedings. An ambivalent tale of the seedier parts of living in a boomtown, Drive introduces a character who possesses tremendous gifts and who also seems to understand that the world is a harsh place where he will never find happiness. In spite of this, we still root for him to do so. The climax is neither surprising nor uplifting in the way we had hoped yet it still somehow manages to satisfy because it stays true to the themes presented. Drive is a challenging film with no clear resolution in the end and that decision is integral to our enjoyment. Drive takes no shortcuts and we respect it all the more for that.
Foreign destinations are the setting for our sixth and seventh favorite movies of the year. Midnight in Paris is the best modern Woody Allen movie and I maintain the finest of his career as well. The setting is Paris (obviously) where a writer is facing that eternal struggle between commerce and art. His fiancée is clearly hoping that art gets its ass kicked by commerce, but she does herself no favors by shamelessly flirting with another man right in front of her betrothed. This causes the writer to go soul searching in the evenings and during these excursions, he accidentally discovers the hidden side of Paris night life, time travel.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol marks the return of super-spy Ethan Hunt and a few of his new allies as they try to prevent a madmen from using ill-gotten missile codes to launch an unprecedented attack on the world. Yes, this sounds like run of the mill spy stuff, at least in terms of premise, but Ghost Protocol is one of the greatest action films of our generation. Whether the setting is the mounting of the world’s tallest building or a tumble down an automated automobile factory, Hunt and his cohorts are in peril from the moment movie starts (a recognizable face dies in the first two minutes) until the very end (a recognizable face returns to make a cameo at the end). When we evaluate the best action movies of the 2000s, MI4 definitely makes the shortlist. It is an instant classic in the genre.
The rest of our top ten for Best Picture are The Tree of Life, Super 8 and Rango. The Tree of Life is challenging work from Terrence Malick that explains the origins of the universe at one point then later explains the way the universe ends as well. There are also dinosaurs involved. No one can say that Malick took any shortcuts on this one. Super 8 is a celebration of the good ol’ days, that bittersweet remembrance we all experience about a simpler time where we understood less yet that made us confident that we knew more. Of course, Super 8 also involves a violent train wreck and an alien encounter, neither of which is a universal experience. Rango is an avant-garde act of storytelling about a pretender of a law enforcement official who somehow fakes it until he makes it. Rango is clearly the best animated movie of the year as well as a triumph of the imagination.
Narrowly missing nomination this year are Melancholia, The Muppets, Source Code, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Hugo, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Help, Shame, 50/50, The Debt, Bridesmaids, Attack the Block, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Contagion, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Warrior and X-Men: First Class.
The Calvins: An Introduction
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Album
Best Cast
Best Character
Best Director
Best Overlooked Film
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best TV Show
Best Use of Music
Best Videogame
Breakthrough Performance
Worst Performance
Worst Picture