‘The Tree of Life’ and Terrence Malick Nab Unexpected Oscar Nominations!

by Sam Juliano

     Yeah the Oscars are a sham and many of the voters are wankers.  Artistry escapes them, and politics and commercialism rear their ugly heads definitely.  When Crash beat Brokeback Mountain in 2005, many tuned off for life, unwillingly to even engage in the fun.

     Allan Fish, Maurizio Roca and Jamie Uhler are classic Oscar bashers as well as they should be.  I choose to engage in all the guilty pleasures it afford, and have hosted a party with an Oscar pool since 1978 at my home.  it’s fun to discuss the omissions and the dire rules each and every year and to make predictions.  It’s also fun to acknowledge that rare unexpected time when the voters by luck or a rare moment of inspiration make some right choices.  While the masterful The Artist will be taking home the Best Picture prize on February 26th (it received 10 nominations to Hugo’s 11) the naming of The Tree of Life in the nominations for Best Picture, and Terrence Malick for Best Director is surely one of those great moments that are reached even as Allan Fish states, ‘they have to get it right sometimes.’  War Horse also got into the Big Show in the main category.  Here are the nine films that are in for Best Picture:

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Senna – Extended Version – 2010/2011, Asif Kapadia

by Allan Fish

(UK 2010 166m) DVD1/2

Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose

p  James Gay-Reese, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner  d  Asif Kapadia  w  Manish Pandey  ph  Jake Polonsky  ed  Chris King, Gregers Sall  m  Antonio Pinto

In the introduction I recall mentioning how up until a certain age movies didn’t mean much to me.  As a youngster, sitting down to watch anything for over two hours meant it was either a football match, a Saturday afternoon’s racing or a Formula One Grand Prix.  I’d grown up with it.  I even used to do my own commentaries, amusing myself for hours using bits of card with the drivers’ names on.  Invariably, one driver always won…Alain Prost.  He had the same name as me, after all, and he was called The Professor. 

            There were two camps, of course; you were either for Senna or for Prost.  At the time I was for Prost.  Prost had retired in 1993.  By that time, I was beginning to move away from watching Formula One.  Schumacher was emerging on the scene, Mansell had retired.  Yet if someone were to ask me what turned me away from Formula One to the point where I no longer watch it at all and haven’t done or a decade, it’d be the events of 1^st May 1994.  I don’t really remember where I was when Prost won any of his four World Titles, but I remember where I was when the news of Senna being declared dead was announced; at my grandmother’s an hour or two later. 

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