Our next Best Picture nominee is Dallas Buyers Club.
What I’m doing is posting my five favorite moments from each of the Best Picture nominees. It’s a nice way to take a break from all the Oscar stuff to remind myself (and all of us) that once you take away all the competition and the awards, what we’re left with is great cinema. That’s what it’s about.
Here are my favorite moments from Dallas Buyers Club:
5. The card game.
Probably on the nose, but whatever. It’s a simple way to show how simple prejudice can be overcome. He sees Leto, doesn’t want anything to do with him, won’t even talk to him, and then he goes, “You play cards?” And instantly, he’s like, “All right, let’s talk.” Of course, he wants to play for money, and that’s what seals it, but the fact that he’s playing cards with him is a simple way to show how easily you can overcome a blind hatred for something you don’t know. Like I said, kind of on the nose, but I liked it.
4. The performances.
McConaughey is so fucking good, and so is Leto. The two of them are so committed, and they’re really the driving force of this film. Without them, it doesn’t hold up as well as it does. And the two of them are most likely going to win well-deserved Oscars because of it.
3. The fact that it doesn’t end with him dying.
I hate when movies with terminal characters die. It’s so much easier when it doesn’t end with them dying. Of course, they get the best of both worlds by having Leto die first, so you get that element of it and you get McConaughey at the end. Plus they end with the whole, “Room full of people applauding him,” which is also kind of on the nose. But I’m a huge fan of when terminal characters don’t die at the end, because I’d much rather the on the nose clapping scene over the “death scene designed to make voters emotional and vote for them” scene. It reminds me of this movie The Hasty Heart. Richard Todd was nominated for it in 1949. It’s after World War II, and all the soldiers are in this hospital before they can go home. They all want to go home badly. And Richard Todd is the only one who wants nothing to do with the other men. The rest joke around, and wait to heal, but he’s curt, and pretty much a dick to them. And it’s just because he really wants to get home to his land, and live his life. And then we also find out that he’s terminal, and won’t get to do that. And eventually he lightens up and everything, and the movie is really touching, but what’s best about it is — he doesn’t die at the end. They let him go off with some dignity, and you’re left knowing he’s going to die. Which, to me, is the more effective of the two. So I like that they didn’t just pencil in a scene of him dying. It’s just better that way. You get your cake and eat it too anyhow, since you know he has AIDS. So kudos to them for that.
2. “Shake his hand.”
Basically a pair to #5, but I still like it. You see the character growing. It’s a nice representation of just what the prevailing feelings were at the time (and possibly still, in the right… or wrong… places) about AIDS. So it’s nice to see McConaughey like, “No, fuck you, this is my friend, shake his hand.” Completely on the nose, but this is my article, and I don’t care.
1. In the car, unable to kill himself.
Holy shit, was this a powerful scene. This is the one that should be shown at the ceremony. My god, is he good here. Look at him. No words in the scene at all. He’s just sitting there. And he can’t bring himself to do it. It’s really just a piece of work, and it’ll be the scene you can show people to prove that he did, in fact, deserve this Oscar.
