This
post collects a review from Joseph Goldstone of the Bakeoff Screening
and my response from Facebook. Neither Joseph nor myself are members
of the Academy Visual Effects branch, although Joseph does a lot of
work for the Academy and will no doubt be a member one day in my
estimation.
Joseph
knows Rob Legato from Digital Domain and I know him from Robert Abel
and Associates. Thus Rob represents a homeboy and local favorite to
us. Rob is visual effects supervisor on Jungle Book.
Joseph
Goldstone writes:
I
was unprepared for how good Jungle Book was; the creation of a
virtual environment and the interactive lighting was just
extraordinary. Rob Legato consistently pushes the state of the art,
about once every half-dozen years.
Passengers
was another surprise; it's one of the few features I would actually
WANT to see in 3D, given the design of that colony ship.
But
the big surprise was how convincing the effects were for Deepwater
Horizon. I was completely gripped.
If
I were looking for another high point I might pick Peter Cushing's
synthesized performance in Rogue One, which I found much more
impressive than their one-shot of a young Carrie Fisher.
The
BFG just left me cold. As for Captain America: Civil War,
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Doctor Strange, and
Arrival, the execution was superb, but (except perhaps for the
astonishing visual weirdness of Dr. Strange, as if Escher was
a moviemaker) the content was not novel. Kubo and the Two Strings
is beautiful, and might make the final four just because there's
something about the level of investment that stop-motion animators
make over two solid years of knocking out 3 seconds a week that just
shows tremendous heart. It showed last, which is the best place to be
when you're asking for a sympathy vote.
Talking
and singing animals are really not my thing, but damned if I wouldn't
give my top-rank vote to Jungle Book, based on it having
pushed the envelope harder than anything else.
As
always, the VFX branch acts as a filter for quality and novelty of
the work itself, and then the general membership undoes that by
voting for cuteness. Sorry, I will never forgive the general
membership giving the award to Babe and passing up Apollo
13. Never.
Global
Wahrman replies:
Regarding
Apollo 13 and Babe, I remember being struck by that
award as well. When I saw Apollo 13 I was amazed at how
seamless it was and that it might present a problem when the awards
came because the general membership might not realize they were
seeing visual effects. I was approached for Babe but could not
take it at the time (big mistake I suppose, although I think Scott
definitely did a better job than I would have).
I
think that the issue with Dr. Strange was that neither you nor
I are fans of the comic and that if we were we might be more
impressed with the imagery. I loved the Cloak of Levitation, best
part of the movie for me.
As
for Arrival, I could not get beyond the fact that an alien
invasion movie *must* contain more gunfights, car chases and Jeff
Goldblum. I am joking.
Generally
stop motion does not do well at this level because there are so few
stop motion people in the visual effects subsection.
I
did not understand why Capt America Civil War was even on the list,
unless they felt they had to pad it. Yes, there was a lot of it.
Yawn.
It
is odd how movies show at this screening. The year of Cast Away
I was shocked at how good that showed at the screening. And how
badly, for example, Gladiator did, even though Gladiator
was obviously a really interesting film. If you get the chance, read
the NY Times Magazine article on Deepwater Horizon, it is a great,
great story. I would not be surprised if the movie was not based on
that article.
As
for Rob Legato, I know him from Abel's and one night he was working
on an Eastern Airlines commercial on camera 2 all by himself in the
middle of the night. The man deserves the best just for enduring
that. Ive only seen bits and pieces of Jungle Book, but it
looked great. It should be the winner.
Cushing
vs Leia, in terms of impact, I am told that Leia wins hand down. This
is perhaps because that movie is so grim that it needed an upbeat
moment. We can not separate the visual effects from the emotion and
content of the film, much as some would like.
At
the end of the day (or in this case, a very long night), the problem
with the visual effects bakeoff is that they only show visual effects
films. (sarcasm alert) I was disappointed that Independence Day
Resurgence was not there. Was there another movie this year as
stupid as that? How about a fight between giant robots? Is visual
effects losing its touch with the common filmgoer?