Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 2012

The Contenders:

Michael Haneke: Amour
Benh Zeitlin: Beasts of the Southern Wild
Ang Lee: Life of Pi (winner)
Steven Spielberg: Lincoln
David O. Russell: Silver Linings Playbook

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 2012

The Contenders:

Emmanuelle Riva: Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis: Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts: The Impossible
Jennifer Lawrence: Silver Linings Playbook (winner)
Jessica Chastain: Zero Dark Thirty

Oscar Got It Wrong! Best Picture 2012

The Contenders:

Amour
Argo (winner)
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 2012

The Contenders:

Argo (winner)
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook

Watching Oscar: Beasts of the Southern Wild

Film: Beasts of the Southern Wild
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

I don’t quite know how to react to Beasts of the Southern Wild. This film is obviously a piece of magical realism, so in that sense, there’s going to be some story stuff that doesn’t have a standard explanation. I don’t mean that—I can handle magical realism.

Beasts of the Southern Wild takes place in the almost mythic place of The Bathtub. It is here that young Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis) lives with her father Wink (Dwight Henry). She goes to school and evidently learns what it takes to survive in The Bathtub rather than what the rest of us might expect. The area is connected to the mainland and separated from the mainland by a causeway that keeps the people here isolated. Hushpuppy and her father live a life of poverty. Hushpuppy appears to take care of herself more or less because her father is sick, drunk, and often mildly physically abusive.

And then a massive storm, which can really only be Hurricane Katrina comes and floods out The Bathtub. Hushpuppy and her father ride out the storm while many of the rest of the people of The Bathtub leave. After the story, the area is completely flooded; the water stays because of the causeway, which prevents it from draining. A group of townspeople go to destroy the causeway and thus release the water, knowing that doing so will cause the mainlanders to come and take them all to a shelter, which is precisely what happens.