The Pitch:
Steven Spielberg takes on a new war.
Follow a horse
through different parts of WWI.
Believe it or not,
I haven't been a big Oscar fan for that long. Granted, it's all a matter of
degrees and perspective. Even at my most Oscar-indifferent, I followed it
closer than the average person. However, what I'm referring to is that there
was a time when I couldn't name all the Oscar categories, I hadn't seen many of
the movies, and I wouldn't catch the Oscars ceremony on ABC every year. I've
only been an award show obsessive since 2011. That's the first year I saw all
the Best Picture nominees. It's the first year I blogged predictions for it.
It's the first time I paid attention to Oscar campaigns and precursor awards.
And I kind of have War Horse to thank.
The story is long,
convoluted, and circumstantial, but the short version is this: I remember
reading an article about War Horse being the sight-unseen front-runner
in 2011, and for some reason, that's the moment that inspired me to really,
in-depth follow the Oscars. In a roundabout way, this whole blog exists because
of War Horse*.
*I should caveat
this by pointing out that I was already writing Movie Reactions and making Emmy
picks before this point. I assume this was all an inevitability. There's nothing
inherently special about War Horse. It just happened to be tied to this
memory.
War Horse also comes from
that window of time when I wasn't writing Reactions about everything I saw.
That makes it, until now, one of the newest movies I've seen that I haven't
written anything about. There are a number of movies from the class of 2011
that I need to write about. It's one of my favorite movie years.
In the end, War
Horse wasn't an Oscar frontrunner. It got 6 nominations but no wins. It
made a modest $79 million at the box office. The critical response was overall
mixed. They were higher on Spielberg's other film that year: The Adventures
of Tintin. War Horse ended up being a relic. Further proof that what
was Oscar-bait in 1985 or 1995 wasn't as successful in 2011. Instead, it was The
Artist that ushered in a new era in which "Oscar bait" meant any
movie that was about how great movies or Hollywood were (Also See: Argo,
Birdman, La La Land).
You know what
though? I really liked War Horse at the time. The end, after the auction
for the horse, had me as close to actually blubbering in a theater as I've ever
gotten (The fact that Richard Curtis shares a screenplay credit hasn't gone
unnoticed). It's a handsomely-made movie. I was surprised to see it has listed
production cost of only $66 million. The John Williams score is good. The large
cast has more than a few gems. It has both Tom Hiddleston and Benedict
Cumberbatch before they were names*. War Horse isn't a subtle movie.
It's treacly and sentimental. It makes its points loudly and obviously. I think
that's a strength though, because that's exactly what it intends to be. Most
impressive is how rarely it feels like it was based on a play. That's mainly
just in the dialogue. Otherwise, it's quite an expansive movie.
*OK, Hiddleston
was in Thor earlier that year. Cumberbatch already had Atonement, The
Other Boleyn Girl, and a season of Sherlock under his belt. War Horse
got them right as they were cresting though.
In short: Thanks War
Horse. You made me like this. You are an underrated movie but not a
forgotten classic.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
No comments:
Post a Comment