Making the Case for Moonrise Kingdom

Stevee Taylor started a blogathon named "Making the Case for" recent movie that probably won't get any Award recognition. Well, when I looked through my predictions I understood that Moonrise Kingdom could be this year's most underestimated film.

As for now, the only nominations for Moonrise Kingdom looks like to be Academy Award Best Original Screenplay and Golden Globe nom for Best Comedy/Musical. The first one is led, I don't know why, by the Master and the last one - we all know why- by Les Miserables.

Best Picture

The moment I watched the movie, I was pretty sure that this was one of the best candidates for Best Picture nomination. But now I look at predictions and see the list without Moonrise Kingdom. That is not fair. Academy has honored numerous family comedies with nominations, including most recent the Kids Are All Right and Little Miss Sunshine. Wes Anderson's film has everything a best picture nominee needs: outstanding story & screenwriting, one of the best casts this year, beautiful sets and a whole charm.

Best Cinematography

This year's most predicted films for this category use blue color palette for cinematographer work, except Life of Pi, which I have to admit to be a total winner in this nomination. But still Moonrise Kingdom deserves a nod for most colorful and beautiful scenes that make the whole movie spectacular.

We all know that best cinematography nomination is mostly led by historic, fantasy or other theme movies and that contemporary films rarely manage to win. But as long as cinematographer not only deals with lights but also s/he captures the movements, images and scenes, I believe that Robert D. Yeoman nailed it.

Best Director

Maybe it is hard competition among Spielberg, Affleck, Hooper and Bigelow, but there is still one spot left and I believe Wes Anderson deserves this. He made an extraordinary tale about childhood, memories, falling in love and life in the best way any director could. I know that the movie lacks a lot technical complexity that usually makes directors work more valued, but Wes does not need it, I guess.

Best Assemble (SAG Awards)

This nomination is fairly led by Les Miserables, and also includes Argo, Lincoln, The Master and Silver Linings Playbook, followed by Django Unchained and Anna Karenina. All those films present strong dramatic performances, accordingly the comedy acts are missed in the recent predictions. Except the huge names listed in the Moonrise Kingdom credits, their tremendously excellent work shall make final list.A great characters of Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and young Jared Gilman & Kara Hayward are unique and really worth to be included in Best Assemble top five.

Other

Best Original Score nomination is overwhelmed competing numerous bright names like John Williams and Alexander Desplat, though there are some freshmen. Music for Anderson's masterpiece was composed by Desplat and Hank Williams, who also adopted Benjamin Britten's classic music. Any of those two deserve to be included in best score list.

Best Comedy Actor nomination is well deserved by Bruce Willis on Golden Globes (sorry to charming Channing Tatum). We remember not many comedy performances of him and this is definitely the most memorable one.
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I tried to make it short and I hope my predictions of missing Moonrise Kingdom in the final lists will not be as precise as it mostly used to be.