Category THE OSCARS

            ‘Moonlight’ is a 2016 drama film written and directed by Barry Jenkins, based on the play ‘In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue’ by Tarell Alvin McCraney.

            The film is largely centred around the character of Chiron, and his life in Miami, starting as a shy child, continuing as an awkward teenager, and ending as a hardened adult.

            These stages of his life are presented in three acts, each one named for Chiron’s preferred name at that point: Act i: Little; Act ii: Chiron; Act iii: Black.

            The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning for Best Picture (producers Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner), Best Supporting Actor (Ali), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Jenkins and McCraney).

            Infamously, the movie was subject to the most notorious mix-up in the history of the Academy Awards, as an envelope switch resulted in ‘La La Land’ being announced as the Best Picture winner before its producer Jordan Horowitz announced the mistake.

Picture Credit : Google

 

 

            ‘Spotlight’ won in the Best Picture category at the 88th Academy Awards. The movie is a biographical directed by Tom McCarthy, and written by McCarthy and Josh Singer. The film follows the real life story of the investigative team of the ‘Boston Globe’ (a leading news source) during the early 2000’s, as they researched and released the first major report on child abuse in the Catholic Church, a series which won them the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003.

           The story begins with Marty Baron’s arrival in Boston as the new editor of the Globe, and him assigning the Spotlight investigative team to follow a trail of lawsuits pertaining to a priest accused of child abuse some years in the past. As they dig deeper, meeting with traumatized victims, and complicit lawyers, they discover that the menace of child abuse runs deeper than anyone suspected.

            ‘Spotlight’ won the Academy Award for Best Picture along with Best Original Screenplay from six nominations total, making ‘Spotlight’ the first film from Open Road Films to win in either category.

Picture Credit : Google

 

           ‘Birdman’ is a 2014 movie directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and starring Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts.

            The movie follows Riggan Thomson (Keaton), a washed-up actor best known for playing superhero Birdman in a series of movies, as he tries to revive his career by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story ‘What We Talk about When We Talk about Love’.

            Along the way, he faces various difficulties, both on and off stage, as he battles his own ego.

            At the 87th Academy Awards, ‘Birdman’ won four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. Michael Keaton was nominated for Best Actor, Edward Norton and Emma Stone were nominated in Best Supporting Acting categories, and it also received nominations for Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.

Picture Credit : Google

 

            The movie, ‘12 Years a Slave’ was released in the year 2013. It is an adaptation of the 1853 slave narrative memoir of the same name by Solomon Northup, a New York born African-American man who was kidnapped by two men and sold into slavery. The film was directed by Steve McQueen. The screenplay was written by John Ridley.

            The movie narrates the story of Northup, a violinist in Saratoga. He’s a loving husband, a devoted father, and a respected man of his community.

            His ill fate begins when two conmen trap him and sell him as a slave. He is given a new name ‘Platt’ and thus begins twelve years of misery, agony, and punishing work as Platt is sold from master to master. Still, he desperately holds on to hope that somehow, he will win his way to freedom, and get back to his family.

            ‘12 Years a Slave’ won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Nyong’o, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Ridley.

 

            ‘Argo’ is a thriller directed by, and starring Ben Affleck, and produced by Affleck, Grant Heslov, and George Clooney. It is a somewhat fictionalized account of a real CIA operation in 1980 to extract six Americans during the height of the Iranian hostage crisis.

            The movie follows the storyline as a group of revolutionaries storm the United States embassy in Iran and take a number of staff as hostages. Six employees in a neighbouring building manage to escape, however, and take up refuge in the official residence of the Canadian ambassador. Ten weeks later, exfiltration expert Tony Mendez (Affleck) is asked by the CIA to help get them out of the country. With limited options, and the Iranian revolutionaries stepping up their search for the missing Americans, it’s up to the men led by Mendez and their CIA contact, Jack O’Donnell (Bryan Cranston), to get the six employees out.

            The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won three, for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing.

Picture Credit : Google

 

            ‘The Artist’ is a 2011 French romantic-comedy-drama film emulating the style of cinema in the 1920s. Written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius, and produced by Thomas Langmann, the movie stars Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo.

            The movie tells the story of George Valentin, a star of the silent screen in 1920’s Hollywood whose career goes into decline with the Great Depression, and the advent of talking pictures. He falls in love with a young actress named Peppy Miller, played by Berenice Bejo, whose Hollywood career arc is the exact opposite of Valentin’s.

            The movie is completely shot in black and white. At the 84th Academy Awards, ‘The Artist’ received ten nominations, winning five awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Hazanavicius, Best Actor in a Leading Role for Jean Dujardin, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Score.

            At the 65th British Academy Film Awards, the film won seven awards, including Best Film, Best Actor and Best Screenplay. At the 69th Golden Globe Awards, the film won three.

 

           ‘The King’s Speech’ won in the Best Picture category at the 83rd Academy Awards. It is an extraordinary period film, directed by Tom Hooper and starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham-Carter.

            The film depicts the early years of Prince Albert (Duke of York), the man who would be King George VI of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The movie follows his struggle with a severe speech impediment that kept him from carrying out public speaking engagements. His wife Elizabeth, Duchess of York (Bonham-Carter), enlists the services of a failed Australian actor turned speech therapist Lionel Logue (Rush) to help her husband. Logue’s unconventional methods do indeed begin to make some progress.

            At the Academy Awards, ‘The King’s Speech’ won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director (Hooper), Best Actor (Firth), and Best Original Screenplay (Seidler). The film had received 12 Oscar nominations, more than any other film in that year.

Picture Credit : Google

 

            ‘The Hurt Locker’ is an American war movie, released in 2008. The movie is set in the second year of the Iraq War.

            Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the movie chronicles the lives of three US soldiers in Iraq: Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner), Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Eldridge (Brian Geraghty).

            The trio makes up an Iraq war explosive ordnance disposal team, basically a bomb squad. The movie does not address the ever-controversial politics of the war, instead focusing on the day-to-day lives of the characters.

            For the film, Bigelow sought to immerse audiences into something clearly realistic and raw. It was nominated in nine categories at the 82nd Academy Awards, and won in six: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original, Screenplay, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Film Editing.

            Kathryn Bigelow also became the first female director to win Best Director.

            ‘The Hurt Locker’ received universal acclaim, with Jeremy Renner’s performance receiving praise from critics.

Picture Credit : Google

            ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is a British dramatic film, released in 2008. The movie was directed by Danny Boyle. Set and filmed in India, the movie was loosely based on the novel ‘Q & A’ by Vikas Swarup. It’s a Western movie made in Mumbai. It does, however, have several references to Indian culture and Bollywood movies.

            The movie tells the story of Jamal Malik who is on the verge of winning 20 million rupees on the Indian version of ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’. There’s just one problem: he is living in a slum and working at a minimum wage job, and nobody can see how he knew any of the answers. As they go through each question, he shows how events in his childhood and life contributed to his knowing almost every single one.

            The movie won eight out of ten Academy Awards for which it was nominated, including the Best Picture and Best Director. Composer A.R. Rahman collected two Oscars for original score and original song. Gulzar shared the award with A. R Rahman for original song. Resul Pookutty also won the Oscars for Best Sound Mixing, along with Richard Pryke, and Ian Tapp

Picture Credit : Google

 

 

            ‘No Country for Old Men’ is unique among the Academy Award winning movies. The movie was based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy. It was written and directed by the Coen Brothers.

             When a Vietnam veteran discovers two million dollars while wandering through the aftermath of a Texas drug gone horribly awry, his decision to abscond with the cash sets off a violent chain reaction in a stripped-down crime drama from Joel and Ethan Coen.

             The film was honoured with numerous awards: it received three British Academy of Film awards, two Golden Globes, and Academy Awards for Best Picture (Ethan and Joel Coen), Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay (the Coen brothers), and Best Supporting Actor (Bardem). Many regard it as a masterpiece, as well as one of the classics.

            The American Film Institute listed it as an AFI Movie of the year, and the National Board of Review selected the film as the best of 2007.