themoviesnob

ACADEMY AWARDS REVISIONIST HISTORY: Fixing the 1990s

2012-02-14T09:18:00.023-06:00

Last year, I went back through the 2000s and adjusted the Best Picture winners from the decade with the advantage of hindsight. I took the nominees, reexamined them, and picked who should have won. You can check that list out here . This time around, let’s hop back one more decade to the 90s, a pretty solid, pretty groundbreaking decade for film overall. Surprisingly, the Academy awarded the right nominee more than once or twice, a pretty good average for them. But there are some glaring mistakes, oversights, and corrections that need to be made.

1990

WINNER: DANCES WITH WOLVES. This was a loaded year to kick off the new decade, with fairly strong nominees from top to bottom. We all love Dances With Wolves, okay? Let’s get that out of the way. But there is a more deserving film here, we all know this too. Awakenings is a strong film on an emotional level, but not Best Picture caliber. Same thing can be said for Ghost, the box-office smash of the group that couldn’t be denied a nomination. The Godfather, Part III is, of course, a Godfather film so the fact it picked up a nomination in spite of its many flaws speaks more towards the respect of the franchise than the quality of this individual entry. No, this year should have belonged to Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, his entry into the list of the 90s best films. It is one of his best movies, one of the finest gangster films of all time, and should have been recognized as such. Alas, the Academy cannot pass up a good historical epic. CORRECT WINNER: GOODFELLAS.

1991

WINNER: THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. No qualms here. The night the awards were handed out there may have been some shock and surprise that The Silence of the Lambs brought in the big five (Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, Screenplay), but it doesn’t seem out of the question now at all. It is one of the best films of the decade without question. Up against films like Bugsy and The Prince of Tides, The Silence of the Lambs stands apart. Oliver Stone’s JFK was a solid entry into the list, as was Beauty and the Beast, which broke ground becoming the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture. But neither of these latter films carried the impact of Hannibal Lector. CORRECT WINNER: THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

1992

WINNER: UNFORGIVEN. Again, the Academy chose correct in picking Clint Eastwood’s magnificent Western opus. Unforgiven is another excellent picture deserving of the award. The field is significantly thinner for 1992, with Howard’s End and Scent of a Woman seeming less deserving of a nomination these days than they were at the time. A Few Good Men is a tense courtroom drama and probably the most quotable of the bunch. Not deserving of the award however. The Crying Game was a film riding on a wave of controversy at the time, hence the nom. But I challenge anyone to put it in the twenty best films of the 90s. Unforgiven definitely deserved everything it received, and maybe more. CORRECT WINNER: UNFORGIVEN.

1993

WINNER: SCHINDLER’S LIST. The Academy was on a roll in the early 90s, picking right time and again. And there was no denying Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust epic, a deeply personal film that is one of the most unforgettable pictures of all time. Heartbreaking and beautiful, Schindler’s List had no real competition in a decidedly foreign field that included In The Name of The Father, The Piano, and The Remains of the Day. None of these films held a candle to Schindler’s List. The Fugitive, the fifth entry into the group, was the box-office hit of the year and an excellent picture in its own right. But again, there is no way it was going to beat Spielberg’s film. It is a great film; it just came out in the wrong year. CORRECT WINNER: SCHINDLER’S LIST.

1994

WINNER: FORREST GUMP. Boy oh boy, what a year! I’m not sure if there is a correct answer for 1994 when you consider the field. Forrest Gump was the crowd pleaser of the decade, and a great historical film. It’s well rounded and well acted. But look at these nominees. Four Weddings and a Funeral never really deserved the win, but a nomination made sense. And Quiz Show was a small film that has since gotten smaller. But Pulp Fiction revolutionized the film industry at the time, and The Shawshank Redemption is widely considered the world’s “favorite” film according to imdb. My heart wants to go with Shawshank as the correct winner, but my brain is making me go with Quentin Tarantino’s game changer. On an emotional and personal level, Shawshank is the deserving winner; but if logic is to prevail, there wasn’t a more important picture in the entire decade than Pulp Fiction. CORRECT WINNER: PULP FICTION.

1995

WINNER: BRAVEHEART. Here is another year where one film stood above the rest. Braveheart is a stirring battle epic which most assuredly deserved Best Picture. I don’t see anything here that stands on the same level as Mel Gibson’s film. Il Postino was a strange entry into the field, one film that I have still never seen. Babe is a sweet film with wonderful heart, but Best Picture? I think not. Sense and Sensibility, much like Howard’s End, is mostly a forgettable piece of period fiction. Apollo 13 was a rousing adventure based on a terrifying true story, and it continued the run of Tom Hanks’ great films. But, much like Schindler’s List and The Fugitive, Apollo 13 was no match for the power of William Wallace and Braveheart as an epic masterpiece. CORRECT WINNER: BRAVEHEART.

1996

WINNER: THE ENGLISH PATIENT. I have tried to make it all the way through The English Patient, honestly I have. It is a terrible bore. I am with Elaine on this one. 1996 was another thin year for Best Pictures. Shine is forgettable outside the performance from Geoffrey Rush. Jerry Maguire is a charming film, and still fun to watch, but I cannot imagine prefacing Jerry Maguire with “Best Picture Winner.” Secret & Lies is, yet again, a film that has faded from our memories. But then there is Fargo, the quirky crime drama from the Coen Brothers. Fargo is an excellent film, one which is head and shoulders above the field in 1996. It has more staying power than any of the other films, and is a true testament to the freshness and originaly of Joel and Ethan Coen’s direction. CORRECT WINNER: FARGO.

1997

WINNER: TITANIC. There really was no denying Titanic. Say what you will about the film, it deserves the win on technical prowess alone. Titanic is not just the best film of 1997, it is a transcendent picture that will forever be recognized as perhaps more than just another movie. 1997 was a stronger year than the last few, with a handful of deserving nominees. LA Confidential is arguably right behind Titanic on the list in terms of quality. As Good As It Gets is a solid film as well, and was given love with Actor and Actress statues for Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. The Full Monty rode a wave of popularity all the way to Oscar night, and Good Will Hunting introduced the world, formally, to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The Awards were spread evenly throughout the night for all of these films, but I still contend they got Best Picture right. There was no other choice. CORRECT WINNER: TITANIC.

1998

WINNER: SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. I need to try and keep my blood pressure in check while I work through this disastrous year. Shakespeare in Love is a farce, a sham of a Best Picture winner that won on the lobbying strength of its producer, Harvey Weinstein. It is better than Life is Beautiful, no doubt, and more lasting than Elizabeth. But we all remember the two World War II films that came out that year. The Thin Red Line is an excellent ensemble war film from Terrence Malick, better than stupid Shakespeare in Love. But the winner in my mind, and in most people’s minds, should be Saving Private Ryan. What a complete mishandling by the Academy to overlook Spielberg’s masterpiece, his second in the decade. Saving Private Ryan was one of the biggest mistakes Oscar has ever made. Ever. Okay, I have to stop now. CORRECT WINNER: SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

1999

WINNER: AMERICAN BEAUTY. This is a tricky year, because I think the Academy went with the only option it could go with even though I am not quite convinced American Beauty was the best film of the year. It was definitely the most discussed, and it is still a very good picture. It is better than The Cider House Rules, more lasting than The Green Mile, and maybe a better overall film than The Sixth Sense. But still, The Sixth Sense is a good film. Maybe the disappearance of M. Night Shyamalan has ruined it a bit for me. I am going to go with a personal favorite from this year, Michael Mann’s true-life drama The Insider, about Jeff Wigand the whistleblower who took on big tobacco. It is a wonderfully tense and intricate drama, and one I would pick up to watch again before I grabbed my copy of American Beauty. CORRECT WINNER: THE INSIDER.

Safe House

2012-02-13T09:39:00.005-06:00

SAFE HOUSE: Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds (114 min.)

The screenplay for Safe House must have been written one day when there was a fire sale at the spy-thriller division of the cliché company. Here is a movie with not one single new idea, not even in its direction. Now, it isn’t just the worst movie or anything, but I challenge anyone to find an original thought. Or how about an original shot or a fresh look? Find me something, anything, that doesn’t make this film look and seem as lazy as I know it is. If this was a picture without Denzel Washington, relying solely on Ryan Reynolds to carry the action, there would be little hope at all.

Reynolds plays Matt Weston, the eager young CIA agent looking to get his big break. But for the time being he paces anxiously around a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa, burning through lonely hours dreaming of being a real agent. You know this character, believe me. One afternoon Matt gets a call from headquarters in Langley (seen numerous times in the swooping overhead shot we all recognize) informing him he will have a house guest. It is one Tobin Frost (Washington), a rogue CIA agent who is marked as a traitor and has been on the run for almost a decade. So imagine everyone’s surprise when Frost turns himself in to the American Consulate in South Africa. The decision is made to get Frost to the safe house immediately because he might have some bad dudes after him.

From here we get the obligatory bureaucratic speeches from the “command center” back at Langley, where three central characters toss around plot details and exposition on everything without much regard for originality or creative delivery. Frost “tested off the charts” before he “went rogue.” Weston “went to Yale,” and “was picked out of Yale Law School.” Of course he was. I imagined, during these scenes back at Langley, the film being muted and filling in the dialogue myself. I’ll bet I could mute these scenes, speak for the characters, and start the sound back up having not missed one “important” element of the story. What makes this whole side story that much more offensive is the fact these three characters are played by great talent. Sam Shepard is the ambiguous head of the CIA, Vera Farmiga is This Agent Over Here, and Brendan Gleeson is That Agent Over There. Three immensely talented actors shoveling through this thankless dialogue? Say it ain’t so.

Anyways, back to Cape Town where the safe house has been attacked and the team responsible for bringing Frost in is getting mowed down left and right. Weston has to think fast, so he gets Frost out of the safe house and into the trunk of a car while he flees the baddies in a car chase without much originality. And you know the drill from here. Weston sees this as his big break as he tries to get Frost secured at another safe house with the nameless baddies on his tail and Frost getting into his head. We also need to figure out who the traitor is who gave away Frost’s location; but anyone who’s been at least awake so far knows who the turncoat is because, well, it couldn’t be anyone else.

The big attraction here is Denzel Washington as the not-so-bad villain (you have to be able to discern this much from the previews) running circles around Ryan Reynolds’ Matt. But Denzel seems a little bored with his character, like he is too good for this material. And he is. I don’t really have anything against Ryan Reynolds, but I don’t think he has very much as an actor. As Weston, Reynolds spends most of his time fighting back tears it seems, or thinking really hard about things, or trying to look as tough as possible. Whatever he is trying to convey it doesn’t really work. Everyone is just playing a part in a plot-driven thriller without putting any real energy towards their characters’ story.

I grew increasingly less interested in Safe House as the story plodded along to the obvious conclusion. What was the motivation for this film? It must be a quick money grab for everyone. Director Daniel Espinosa saturates the screen with color and grit and fast-moving cameras, I almost don’t believe Tony Scott wasn’t involved in this film somewhere along the way. Everything here is paint by numbers; and it doesn’t matter how rich and deep the colors are if the picture is the same thing you’ve seen a hundred times before in better films.

D+

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: Taking a Look at the week's 2 big trailers: Bourne and Spidey

2012-02-10T08:28:00.003-06:00

* Two big trailers come out this week, The Amazing Spiderman and The Bourne Legacy. We’ll get to the former in a moment, but what about this Bourne film with no Matt Damon?

* When I heard they were working on a fourth Bourne film I was not pleased. The Bourne Ultimatum ended a perfect trilogy and was symmetrical with the beginning of the franchise. Having Damon reprise a role in a story that had clearly been tied together was absurd. But then, the brain trust of the franchise decided to go a new direction, with a new action star: Jeremy Renner.

* The powers that be have clearly figured out a way to keep this Bourne franchise moving forward with energy, life, and grit. The trailer for The Bourne Legacy instills me with great confidence; the supporting players from the original films are back, and the plot seems to explain this shift in character perfectly. Consider me on board.

* Now, as for this Spiderman business. I don’t really know what to do with it yet. Even after this first full trailer, I am conflicted.

* There is a darker tone to the picture. This is not happy-go-lucky Peter Parker from the earlier films. I feel like the story is trying too hard to give Spiderman a dark past similar to Batman. Actually, it couldn’t be more similar: parents mysteriously killed, driven to defend the masses, yadda yadda yadda…

* Spiderman is not Batman. He’s Spiderman.

* I do like the idea of having The Lizard as Spidey’s villain to oppose in this new version. The character appeared in Spider-Man 2, played by Dylan Baker, but his transformation was never addressed. Instead they had to vomit out Spider-Man 3.

* I’ll stay in Camp Skeptic on this one for now…

THURSDAY THROWBACK: The Killing (1955)

2012-02-09T11:11:00.006-06:00

It’s odd to watch The Killing knowing the mind behind the camera. There are certain recognizable traits in this early Stanley Kubrick crime drama, traits which Kubrick would later define all the way to the point where “Kubrickian” is a word accepted in the dialogue of film analysis and theory. Right next to “Hitchcockian.” And yet, it still feels static or undefined when it is considered as a film from Kubrick. He had directed one smaller noir picture (Killer’s Kiss) before The Killing, co-directed another film that was a bit of a disaster, but this is widely accepted as Stanley Kubrick’s movie to get him recognized and get him into the system of Hollywood; to get him to the point where he could call his own shots. As we now know, it worked, but in 1955 The Killing surely must have been an odd film for the general public.

Kubrick’s caper film functions like a machine of plot and technical mastery, where the characters are no more than chess pieces in a match. The board in this case is a horse-racing track, where a group of men devise a plan to nab $2 million cash on one of the biggest race days of the year. Sterling Hayden, who would appear later in Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove as General Jack Ripper, plays idea man Johnny Clay. He has a money man, Marvin Unger (Jay C. Flippin), a crooked cop on his side, and a few contacts on the inside. One of Clay’s inside men is a cashier played by Elishia Cook, a man destined to play cuckolds and fools his entire career. Cook is George, who’s married to Fay (Colleen Gray), a tramp and a money-hungry floozy who runs roughshod over George on a regular basis.

Clay dispatches the plan of the heist which involves a great number of moving parts. Outside of the five main men, Clay has hired individual contractors to pull off various jobs on the day of the robbery, including a sniper shot at a horse and a fist fight with security. The pieces are set in place and put in motion, if only Fay didn’t overhear the planned heist and tell her lover, a hood named Val (Vince Edwards) who plans on making his own luck.

The Killing moves briefly, at an 83-minute clip, as it exists to show this heist in and of itself. There is no time wasted on development, as Kubrick sees these men not as characters but, as I have said, pieces. Puzzle pieces, chess pieces, parts of a whole. The narration is direct, seemingly ripped from the Dragnet TV series as it divulges times and places more than thoughts or actions. Some may see The Killing as strictly robotic, but this is Kubrick’s plan all along. Even in his later career, when he was directing masterpieces more frequently than most directors were making films, Kubrick used his characters more than he allowed them to grow or move organically, outside the restrictions of the narrative. Think about the pitch and tone of Barry Lyndon's voice, or the conversations in 2001. The early use of this mechanical technique Kubrick later mastered is evident in The Killing.

I almost think The Killing ends too quickly, only I don’t know what else there is to say about the story. We have been there, seen the robbery, the aftermath, and here we rest. The pieces have been put into place. Endgame has been achieved.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

2012-02-08T09:42:00.005-06:00

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE: Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Thomas Horn (129 min.)

I definitely had a strong reaction to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Stephen Daldry’s 9/11 drama that surprised everyone by getting the ninth and final Best Picture nomination this year. But it surely wasn’t the reaction the filmmakers were aiming for. There were no tears, only anger. Yes, as I sat watching this drama unfold, I grew increasingly angry with its cloying nature, deliberate manipulation of events, utter ignorance of logic, and occasional bad taste. I sat in awe of what I was seeing, trying to find out if this story was a real thing, something that talented people truly supported and had confidence in throughout production. There is a vast difference between a film that is simply bad and one that is bad on an offensive and pretentious level as high as this.

The film, based on a novel of the same name (I hear the novel is wonderful but I can’t imagine it being the case), focuses on Oskar Schell, a curious young boy who loses his father in the attacks on September 11. His father, seen in steady flashbacks, is played by Tom Hanks who doesn’t bother conveying a single human emotion. He is beyond the Father of The Year. Thomas Schell embodies every perfect human quality and never wavers from the desire to be so very perfect, so very flawless, that it makes his death in the twin towers that much more devastating. Oskar has a mild form of autism; his tests for Aspergers Syndrome were “inconclusive.” So Thomas spent seemingly all his time and energy setting up reconnaissance missions for young Oskar, laying out clues to mysteries which force him to talk to people. These reconnaissance missions send Oskar out into Manhattan where he visits with hobos and street people on a regular basis. Logic flaw number one.

On 9/11, Oskar discovers his father’s fate through a series of six messages which grow increasingly desperate. These messages are milked for all they’re worth throughout the picture. Oskar decides to hide the messages from his distant mother (Sandra Bullock), who apparently has never met her son before. He is consistently vindictive to his poor mom. One evening as Oskar is in his father’s closet he finds a key in a small envelope with the name “Black” written on it. He is certain this key is another clue to a new mission, and he will stop at nothing to find the matching lock for this key. The bellman of his building (John Goodman) suggests maybe Black is a person’s name, leading Oskar to the phone book where he finds 472 Blacks listed in the New York area. So without any regard for his mother – the only time he really speaks to her is to be a hateful shit – or his own safety or any logic, Oskar sets out to talk to all of these people and see if they might have known his father.

And, wouldn’t you know it, the first person he talks to will turn out to be the most important figure in his search. It is Abby Black, a troubled wife played by Viola Davis who does what she can with her ridiculous role. Oskar knocks on the door and talks his way into Abby’s home, where he is oblivious to the domestic troubles between her and her husband (Geoffrey Wright). She cannot initially help him, so he leaves but not before rudely taking a picture of Abby, who is crying and hiding her face. This was the first of very uncomfortable exchanges in the film. Oskar takes pictures of the people he meets with an antique camera and develops the pictures one by one. That would really be tiring I imagine.

Soon, Oskar takes on a companion, a mute living in his grandmother’s spare bedroom across the street, to help him on his search. Take some time to absorb that description, and then tell me this world in which these people live is supposed to be an accurate representation of reality. The mute is played by Max won Sydow, who communicates through a notepad and “Yes” and “No” tattooed on his palms for ease. This type of character might be perfect for literary fiction, but as represented in a film it is kitschy and ridiculous. And there is, I suppose, a mystery surrounding the identity of this man, but anyone who is paying even a little attention should be able to figure it out before the characters.

From the start, there is no room for logic in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I could never buy into the fact that Oskar, a pre-teen with mild autism, would be allowed by his wonderful father and callous mother to wander the streets of Manhattan all day every day, skipping school and harassing a wide cross section of the New York population. The complete disregard for anything true in Oskar’s trek grew increasingly maddening. Thomas Horn, a child Jeopardy champion, is supposedly good in the role depending on where you read. I found him to be a rude little jerk on a regular basis, autism or no autism. And all of his little quirks, counting his steps and using a tambourine for balance (or something) and counting his lies, ring completely false and contrived. None of the performances here ring true in any way, especially Bullock whose character pulls off one of the most audaciously offensive 180s in film history during the third act.

As for the use of 9/11, well, it took just about everything in my power not to walk out when the twin towers, inserted with CGI and the billowing clouds of smoke we all recognize, were used along with some key music to force the audience into a certain reaction. And later, when Oskar shows us pictures he has studied of people falling out of the towers, another manipulative move, I had just about had it. I would say the pictures were the breaking point for me, but I had long reached that several scenes earlier. And, on top of the bad taste and manipulative narrative structure, the film is a terrible bore. When emotionally impacting moments are the foundation of a film and those moments don’t deliver, you are left with a film that does nothing or says nothing. There are worse films, sure, but none that are this bad surrounded by so much recognition. Here is a shameful film. I don’t know what makes me angrier, the fact that this film exists, or the fact that the Academy, paying no attention to general consensus, nominated a movie based solely on the fact that it stars Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, and the twin towers. There’s no accounting for taste, I suppose.

F

Why DRIVE Is, In Fact, The Best FIlm of 2011

2012-02-06T09:06:00.007-06:00

I’m calling an audible on my own Best of 2011 list. Having seen most of the films on my list now more than once, I would really like to toss out my entire list and just leave a floating cluster of films that shift from two to five to ten back to one, depending on my mood. That’s how arbitrary top ten lists are, and it’s why I won’t do anymore. Because now, there is no doubt in my mind what the best, most original, most complete film was in 2011. The Oscars don’t really matter in this case because they aren’t necessarily out to crown the best film, just one of the better films of the year while filling out their list with enough crowd pleasers to draw in an audience for the ceremony. But that is a rant for another day. I say all of this to say Drive is the best film of 2011, with or without any statues to show for itself.

I put Midnight in Paris atop my Best of 2011 list, followed by The Tree of Life, Shame, and Drive in that order. These are all wonderful films, and The Tree of Life might be the best, but I don’t think it’s the most complete. It is a spectacular and organic film, but one with flaws, and it struggles with its bookend structure. Shame is a film with great performances, but nothing I would watch more than once or twice in a blue moon. Midnight in Paris is delightful, no doubt, and I have a hard time putting a movie in front of Woody Allen’s cheery, whimsical salute to nostalgia. But there is no denying Drive anymore. Virtually shut out at the Oscars, Drive is clearly the kind of film Oscar is afraid of, something borderless, something not easily categorized. Seeing it again at home, and having the immediate desire to see it again, I am convinced of Drive’s greatness. I want to highlight a few reasons for my change of heart. I could truly break down the picture scene by scene, and I fully intend to do this in the future. But here, for the sake of time and sanity, let’s just examine a few central reasons.

THE OPENING SEQUENCE

There has not been a better opening scene in a film this year. We meet the driver and we hear him explain his modus operandi: “You have me for five minutes,” explains Ryan Golsing’s driver. “A minute before or after, and you’re on your own. Anything that happens in those five minutes, and I’m yours.” This direct, no-nonsense approach sends us right into the job, a nighttime robbery in downtown LA. The tension of the robbery is enough, but set against the time constraints and the pulsating techno of The Chromatics’ “Tick of the Clock,” every movement is amplified. The techno-pop score serves almost as the heartbeat of the film itself. Once the two masked men get in the car, the driver must navigate through downtown against the pursuit of police cars and helicopters. The driver operates like a magician, staying one step ahead of the pursuit at every turn, pulling off deft maneuvers to evade the spotlight of the police.

This opening scene is vital to the success of the film. It is seamlessly stripped of any excess, unfolding as efficiently as a Swiss watch. It is the lean hook to the song of the movie; it pulls us into the driver’s world in the most exhilarating way imaginable. Once the driver leaves the men in a crowded parking garage and disappears into the city streets, we get a title sequence to rival this opening scene. Against another synth-pop song, “Nightcall,” Nicholas Winding Refn’s camera floats over the Los Angeles skyline, lit up and more engrossing than anything Michael Mann has ever done. It is a hypnotic rabbit hole of an opening title sequence, where we fall into the very small universe of the driver.

THE PERFECT HERO

We never learn very much about the driver, not even a first name. But Gosling’s portrayal is absorbing despite the fact. There is no history, no past or future for the driver, only the present. He is an immediate presence in the film, and this immediacy keeps us engaged. What is he thinking? We don’t know, we never fully now, but there are times or inflection in Gosling’s features which may hint at something dark. And of course there are the eerily efficient outbursts of violence from the driver as he protects Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her son; the driver is hiding from his past, and we don’t need to know any details about the things he might be hiding from.

The characterization of the driver strips him bare of any baggage or narrative to cloud judgment or motivation. He lives to drive, barely stopping in his apartment to drop off bags and get back in his car. This is his only noticeable motivation, and by doing nothing more than show him behind the wheel of the car, Refn allows a layer to develop just beneath the surface of the character. He lives to drive, and anyone like this is absolutely running from his own life. It is just the right amount of layering. Without his own motives – he lives alone, has no family or real friends, and is simply compelled to watch over Irene – the driver exists as a catalyst for the story at hand. Nothing more or less. It makes him the perfect hero.

THE CALM… AND THE STORM

It should honestly be called “The Calms before the Storms,” as Refn has a firm understanding of the power of a quiet, introspective scene. Sometimes crime dramas are all about the action, and that might be the wrong approach. Think about the great crime dramas of the past and they way they function. Michael Mann’s Heat is a great example of a tense drama unfolding while taking the time to calm down and simply observe. Too much action can sometimes numb the sensory output of a film, and Drive understands the dangers of unrelenting violence. But these peaceful interludes in Drive are altogether unique, invoking mood and emotion more than focusing on any sort of character development. They are sometimes dreamlike, as is the case with Irene, her son, and the driver touring the canals and stopping by a creek. The introduction of something so natural in a concrete jungle like Los Angeles settles the picture with a calm that mirrors the rolling waters of the creek.

These moments are strategically placed among the chaotic moments of the film, where sudden outbursts of violence come fast and relentlessly. The double-crossing at the Pawn Shop leads to the central set piece of the film, one of the strongest and most intense car chases I can remember. This makes anything in the Fast and Furious films look as ridiculous as they are. You can feel the energy of these engines and every impact means something. The chase is brief, but breathtaking, like most of the action sequences.

The attack in the elevator and the various scenes where a character is attacked or killed all function on the same level of intensity. The driver is capable of sudden and brutal violence, a defense mechanism of a man hiding his past. The outbursts we understand, but what we never figure out is how and why the driver is capable of such violence. It adds mystery, and forces us to contemplate our hero on more than a surface level.

* I could go on and on about the wonderful seamless structure and brilliance of Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive, and I intend on dissecting the picture at great length one of these days. This picture captivates me on so many different levels. It is not a film for Oscar’s Best Picture, but rarely is the very best film of the year crowned as such at the Academy Awards. Something daring and new is not the forte of the Academy. And that is fine. It won’t need accolades when all is said and done; it will be able to rest firmly in the knowledge that it is a film unlike any other.

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: Kubrick musings, Buried in a trunk, and Back to the Future

2012-02-03T12:35:00.002-06:00

* Marin Scorsese has had a misfire once or twice. Spielberg has missteps like Always or the fourth Indiana Jones movie. You don’t have to look far to see mistakes in Francis Ford Coppola’s career. But what about Stanley Kubrick? What is his bad movie?

* Don’t tell me Eyes Wide Shut. Go see it again.

* Some critics didn’t care for Full Metal Jacket. I would tell them the same thing… Go see it again.

* Kirk Douglas and Stanley Kubrick are forever linked in the early stages of Kubrick’s success. Who could have imagined the older Douglas would outlive Kubrick?

* From the director of Buried comes Brake, a thriller about a man stuck in a coffin. Wait, he’s stuck in a trunk this time, not a coffin because that would be exactly like Buried. No no, this is something totally different.

* After all, Ryan Reynolds isn’t in Brake too. It’s Stephen Dorf. That should be much better. But it probably won’t be.

* We are three years away from hover boards and Jaws 19.

* The question has been asked, Would you see Back to the Future on Broadway? And the correct answer to this is, yes.

* Back to the Future Part III really does stick out like a sore thumb when held up to the other two.

THURSDAY THROWBACK: Alien (1979)

2012-02-02T10:45:00.006-06:00

Despite three sequels, two spinoffs, and a not-so-direct prequel on the horizon, Ridley Scott’s Alien remains a true original. It stands out from all the other Alien films in the franchise because it is patient, loaded with dread and ominous fear instead of action and special effects. There are effects in Alien, obviously, and there is a bit of action, but the picture isn’t reliant on these elements. James Cameron’s sequel, Aliens, is a great film in its own right; but it’s an entirely different type of experience. It is less frightening and more of a straight action picture. But Ridley Scott’s sci-fi creation is truly a terrifying movie framed in a familiar story and built on the cinematic history of that Thing From Another Planet. It had been years since I watched Alien, and seeing it again recently I realize it has only gotten better with age. In a time where green screens and hyperactivity overwhelm science fiction, Alien stands atop the genre as a masterpiece.

The framework of Alien is a familiar one. A mining ship with a skeleton crew travels to a distant planet, responding to an SOS call. The crew is a cross section of types that are all unique characters. The ship captain is Dallas (Tom Skerritt). There are maintenance men, Parker and Kane (Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton), worried more about getting paid than investigating the SOS. There is the resident technician, Ash, played ominously by Ian Holm. And of course there is Ellen Ripley, Dallas’ second in command played by Sigourney Weaver. These crewmembers of the Nostromo land on this desolate planet and discover the people who sent the SOS are all dead. But what killed them? They investigate further.

One of the men, Brett (John Hurt), finds a bed of large, pulsating eggs. One of the eggs opens and a spiny creature leaps from it and attaches itself to Brett’s face, wrapping its lizard-like tail around his neck. Against the protests of Ripley they bring Brett back on the ship where he lies motionless with the creature covering his face. There is a great early scene where they try and cut the thing off his face and the acidic blood burns its way through the levels of the ship. “A nice defense mechanism” notes Ash. Out of nowhere the creature appears to die and fall off Brett’s face. All seems well once again until dinner that night, where we discover the creature did not die. It gestated in Brett’s stomach, and in the film’s signature scene, it explodes from Brett’s midsection and scurries away to the horror of the crew.

Alien then becomes a cat-and-mouse game between the crew as they try and find the creature while the creature evolves and grows rapidly. From a small, toothy monster it grows until it is as big as its human counterparts. The look of the creature is familiar to us all now, with its narrow head, exoskeleton, and snarling rows of razor-sharp teeth. The most terrifying moments in the film come as the crew hunts the creature through the long corridors and ducts of the ship. These sequences are long and slow and build on the dread that the alien might be around the next corner. While the hunt-and-stalk element of the story is straightforward, the film adds a wrinkle. Ash is a robot, programmed to retrieve the monster and bring it back to Earth; all other objectives, including the safety of the crew, is secondary to retrieval of the alien.

It was a bold stroke by Scott and screenwriters Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett to make Ellen Ripley the hero. Sigourney Weaver was a relative unknown at the time, but she would become the first female hero of this kind of franchise picture. Weaver would go on to star in all the sequels, and would even grab an Oscar nomination for Aliens. Such a thing is unheard of, an action star on Oscar night. It is Ripley’s unabashed hatred of the alien that motivates her character and makes her a powerful protagonist. She has no time to try and understand the creature; she just wants it to die.

Ridley Scott makes a return to sci-fi this summer with Prometheus, a film that may or may not be a prequel, may or may not be something totally apart from the Alien lore. I don’t think the patience of the narrative structure will be there this time around, because this is not how science fiction sells these days. This is a great movie, a horrific and sometimes thrilling experience that will never come around again. Patience is the most wonderful virtue of Alien; even the opening title sequence unfolds in a calm, calculating manner. No matter how many times you see the title card develop, it remains exhilarating, and it sets the tone.

FILM'S BEST YEARS: 1994

2012-01-31T09:36:00.010-06:00

I am not necessarily here to discuss numbers in this new 2012 segment. Film’s Best Years is something which has been rattling around in my head for some time. I wasn’t sure how to approach it; maybe I am still a little uncertain. Every year in film has its own claim for greatness because, well, there are great films out every year. But sometimes retrospective examinations of the past make certain years in film stick out among the masses. Some years have the advantage of bringing about big change, of introducing new important faces, and ushering in a new wave of filmmaking styles. Some years are simply loaded with great and important films.

I thought of this segment with 1994 in mind because it has long stuck out in my mind as a big, important, pivotal year in film, and a year with a strong contingency of greatness. 1994 brought about great shifts in the power of independent film. It also introduced the world to new talent both in front of and behind the camera. A good litmus test for the strength of a year is to look at the Best Picture nominees. If there doesn’t seem to be an outlier in the group, a film that doesn’t belong in hindsight, then you can start there and work your way out. I did this with 1994 and, when compared to its immediate surrounding years, it stands out as something altogether unique.

JIM CARREY CRASHES THE PARTY

When you think about the early rise of Jim Carrey, the way he burst onto the scene in the early nineties as the funniest of funny men, the Jerry Lewis of a new generation, what are the three films one would point to as the defining birth of his career? He started with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, went into the special-effects extravaganza The Mask, and solidified his place as the top comedic actor with Dumb and Dumber, arguably one of the three greatest comedies of the nineties. Amazingly, all three of these films were released in 1994 in the order above. There was hardly enough time to acknowledge what we had on our hands after Ace Ventura was released before The Mask debuted in the summer. By the time Dumb and Dumber hit theaters in the fall, Carrey’s star had risen higher than anyone else that year.

THE RE-BIRTH OF INDIE

The Sundance Film Festival had been around for a few years, picking up steam as it ushered in new faces and techniques of filmmaking by fresh new faces. 1994 reaped the benefits of this new movement, serving as the exclamation point on the strength of independent cinema. Early in the year, Ben Stiller’s small comedy Reality Bites tapped into the angst of the aimless twenty-something and became a small sensation. It was a statement picture about the current malaise of American youth, a fight against the system that ended with no real answers. When you hear “My Sharona,” is there anything you think of before you think of Winona Ryder and company dancing in the 7-11?

Reality Bites was simply the beginning of a long year of independent films that would change the way studios operate. Later that year, the world was introduced to the low-budget talents of Kevin Smith, and his debut picture Clerks. Continuing the twenty-something malaise that drove Reality Bites, Smith’s black and white indie spent a day in the life of small-time clerks in video and convenience stores, working to make a buck and spending their days talking about the strange clientele, labor workers on the Death Star, and playing hockey on the roof. The personal touches in Smith’s work and the realism of the screenplay, which never bothered for grandiose storytelling, was a fresh new approach to the status quo at the time. Clerks birthed the career of Kevin Smith, and it opened the doors for more experimental storytelling which had disappeared in the 80s. There was also a little independent film named Four Weddings and a Funeral that made it all the way to a Best Picture nominee on Oscar night. It may have been the most important independent film had it not been for an eccentric human movie encyclopedia named Quentin Tarantino.

THE DEFINING FILM OF 1994

Quentin Tarantino made waves in 1992 with Reservoir Dogs, the deconstructionist crime drama, but in 1994 that wave grew into an overwhelming tsunami. Pulp Fiction dominated the Cannes Film Festival that year and was picked up by Miramax studios for distribution in the States. Aside from making Miramax the heaviest hitter of the year, Pulp Fiction changed the way films were made, perceived, and considered. The non-linear storytelling, the sharp dialogue, the violence, the humor, the music… Tarantino had delivered the perfect film. It’s difficult to gauge the impact of Pulp Fiction from this distance, but I remember the sensation it caused across Hollywood. Imitators are still trying to recreate the magic of Pulp Fiction and always falling short. Pulp Fiction resurrected the career of John Travolta and took over the awards season with nominations aplenty. But, as Tarantino acknowledged, it kept “getting its ass kicked” by a certain simpleton from Greenbow, Alabama.

THE OSCARS

Pulp Fiction grabbed one of the five Oscar nominations in 1994, and deservedly so. But it was not going to beat out Forrest Gump, the historical crowd pleaser starring Tom Hanks, a star more powerful than just about anyone at the time on the heels of his Oscar for Philadelphia. Hanks would win his second consecutive statue playing Forrest Gump. The picture has its detractors these days, but that is bound to happen with a film that swept awards season and was generally loved by the masses. Sometimes it isn’t cool to like what everyone likes. It may not be my personal favorite from 1994, but I see nothing wrong with a film of such epic scope, full of comedy and sadness and history unlike anything we’ve ever seen, winning the top prize.

Aside from Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, and the aforementioned Four Wedding and a Funeral picking up Best Picture noms, there were two more lucky films. The first is Quiz Show, arguably the finest directorial effort from Robert Redford – miles better than Ordinary People in my mind. And somehow, some way, outside of the revolution of Pulp Fiction and the power of Forrest Gump, 1994 had what is widely considered the favorite film of the general population: The Shawshank Redemption. It is my favorite film, however cliché that may sound, and has been atop IMDB’s top 250 for, well, forever. The Shawshank Redemption is a timeless tale of hope and salvation that has endured and improved over the years. It also jumpstarted the career of Frank Darabont.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

The summer movie season brought about one of the most thrilling action films of the decade in Speed, which subsequently catapulted Sandra Bullock’s career. Tim Burton released his finest, most mature work in Ed Wood, a slick black and white film about the schlock director. Oliver Stone stirred up great controversy with his ultra-violent media satire Natural Born Killers. We got to see Brandon Lee’s posthumous comic noir The Crow, following his on-set accidental death. And James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger teamed up once again for True Lies, a wild action spectacle.

As I said, just about every year has their claim to fame. But once in a while certain years jump out at you. 1994 did a lot to revolutionize the film industry. It birthed the biggest comedy sensation of the decade in Jim Carrey, resurrected careers, jumpstarted careers, and ushered independent cinema into a new age. It takes time to observe a year in film, to look at it from a distance and recognize what it says about the industry as a whole. There have been years before and since 1994 that are as big, as special, and as impactful. We will get one of those next time.

A Dangerous Method

2012-01-30T09:21:00.007-06:00

A DANGEROUS METHOD: Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightly (93 min.)

While Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung may have been the two biggest pioneers of psychoanalytic discourse, the fathers of the twentieth century, perhaps their story is not the most interesting narrative to deliver to the screen. But David Cronenberg does his best. A Dangerous Method suggests something wicked or threatening with a title like that, and although there are certain moments in the picture where you see flashes of the Cronenberg we all know and love, the film as a whole may not entirely resonate beyond a single viewing. Nothing sticks nearly as much as the theories Freud and Jung practiced, defined, and perfected as the calendar ushered in the Industrial Age across the World.

This is a film reliant on performances as it is heavy on dialogue and the tension and evolution within conversations. The three central performances keep the film alive. Michael Fassbender stars as Carl Jung who, as the film opens, has taken on a new patient. Keira Knightley plays Sabina Spielrein, a woman perceived by the primitive medicine of the time as completely mad. Sabina must be carried into the hospital, writhing and screaming and contorting her body against the oppressive doctors and nurses. She screams and she throws her jaw out, almost as if her insides are fighting for escape. Jung decides to try a new practice on Sabina, the “talking cure” introduced by Sigmund Freud a few years earlier. The technique eventually works, Sabina is cured, and she soon works in the university as a colleague. Only her cure brings about certain insatiable sexual desires, and Jung cannot resist temptation despite the growing family he has begun with his wife.

As Jung falls into an affair with Sabina, he visits Sigmund Freud in Vienna to discuss the case. Freud is played by Viggo Mortensen as the measured and level-headed observer he most surely was. Freud and Jung discuss the future of psychoanalysis; where Freud believes they must stick to the theories of sexual repression and the explainable, Jung argues for expansion of the beliefs and introduction of more spiritual, or more coincidental, twists of fate and mystical thoughts. Freud believes this is unsafe as the detractors will surely pounce on any mysticism they introduce. Meanwhile, Sabina is creating her own theories of psychoanalysis and bringing her experience as a patient to the table.

The second half of A Dangerous Method centers on the power struggle between Freud and Jung, and the burgeoning career of Herr Spielrein. Only there is a noticeable lack of any real tension in the film. These two proper men never raise their voice or confront one another beyond epistolary communication. Seeing these men write polite letters back and forth is not particularly compelling. I know this is the way these men communicated in the early 1900s, but it fails to translate into anything meaningful or impacting on the screen.

The performances are very much the highlight of the picture. As Jung, Fassbender shows us a man constrained, whose own beliefs are brought into question by the arrival of Sabina. He feels desires, but cannot act on them because it is against his practices. Mortensen as Freud is all careful measurement and calm, and his confidence works as a threat to Jung’s uncertainty. Knightly is almost too much to handle in the early scenes as Sabina writhes and screams and wails against the established medical practices. But her character undergoes the biggest and most pronounced transformation. The power struggle between these three characters should have been more gripping, but the calmness and rigid social obedience stifles any real tension.

Cronenberg is a brilliant director whose best work focuses on the struggle between the body and the mind within his characters. He feels like the best man for the job. Only the film ties his hands in how freely he can operate in his own techniques. There are flashes of the discomfort and unease Cronenberg pulls off so wonderfully in most of his work, namely in the masochism of the Jung and Spielrein sexual relationship. And yet, A Dangerous Method does not feel as dangerous or tense as it should. The dialogue is handled well but grows tiresome at times. This is a marvelous picture in look and ambition and performances, but when the necessity for tension arrives things don’t quite work.

B-

The Grey

2012-01-28T23:19:00.000-06:00

THE GREY: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts (117 min.)

There exists a subgenre of action thrillers where Man is pitted against Nature in various ways.  These pictures can involve the plight of Man against the harsh elements, a battle against a certain beast, or perhaps both. We all are familiar with these films and have surely seen one or more.  But I have never seen anything quite like The Grey. It is one of the fiercest, most unforgiving, most nerve-rattling thrillers of its kind, a relentless action adventure that is as consistently tense as anything I can remember. But there is something more at work in The Grey.  Somehow, this film manages to slow down the gears of kinetic thrills long enough to touch on philosophical musings about God, death, endurance and the struggle to survive. And it all, somehow, worked for me. Sharp discussions of existentialism and theology are at work against the backdrop of a pitiless environment. That, and a few dozen bloodthirsty wolves.

Liam Neeson, the enduring and late-blooming action hero, an action star as bankable as any these days, stars at Ottway. Ottway lives and works in a remote outpost as a sniper, protecting oil-drillers from wolves, shooting them before they can pounce on unsuspecting laborers. "A job at the end of the World." And Ottway, like most of the rogues gallery of drillers, has left a certain life behind for one reason or another, we aren't quite sure why.  This drilling outpost exists somewhere above Anchorage, Alaska, where the only men who could possibly be looking for and getting jobs are men hiding from something or trying to repair their lives through solitude.  These men board a plane one night headed back to Anchorage, apparently on some sort of leave. But they never make it. The plane crashes and scatter survivors throughout the wreckage.

Plane crashes have been dramatized in film before, but I challenge anyone to make a sequence more visually terrifying than the crash director Joe Carnahan pulls off here. I found myself clenching my armrests, holding my breath as the disorientation overwhelmed the screen. And once the plane settles into the snowbound landscape, Ottway gathers together the survivors to build a fire, check for more surviving passengers, and look for food. And I must say the aftermath of the horrendous crash is no less intense. The survivors are, in part, a cross section of personalities and types like always. There is the African-American, the level-headed sidekick, the argumentative ex-con, the idiot, the weakling... Some of the actors are recognizable, like Dermot Mulroney and Dallas Roberts (keep an eye on Dallas Roberts, I see big things for him). Others not as much. But they each have a character to bring to the story, and they have layers and backgrounds and mannerisms all their own, not stolen from the Supporting Character Five and Dime on a studio back lot. I was fascinated by each in their own way, each at their own time.

The previews show us that Ottway and his men are being hunted by a pack of wolves.  These wolves are relentless and sometimes they seem almost sadistic in their assault on the survivors. The wolves themselves were done through the magic of CGI, understandable because of the things they are asked to do. But Carnahan handles the wolves perfectly, never concentrating of focusing on them quite long enough for their computer generation to be a distraction or pull you out of the film. As these wolves show a pack mentality, so do the men as they fight to stay alive and unfrozen. But there are other things which get these men; they aren't just picked off one by one by monstrous wolves. Don't get me wrong, some of them are, but these characters drop off in various ways. And one of the last to perish does so in a way that is quite daring for a genre film.

There are brave choices all throughout The Grey, namely with the discussions these men have about faith and life and death, and where they stand on such heady subjects. And yet, here they are, on alert constantly and threatened from all sides by vicious canine hunters. It is a tricky balancing act between action and philosophy, but Carnahan nails them both with an intensity and a certain weight to the words of these scared men. Neeson is wonderful in his lead role, but this is an ensemble piece which relies on the strength of the actors around him. I didn't see a weak link in the group.

The philosophical stretches might alienate a Saturday evening crowd, but The Grey is a smart action thriller, the very best of its kind of film. It is a relief to see Carnahan return to his gritty roots, when he was directing Narc instead of Smokin' Aces. He uses the brutal landscape of Northern Canada (where it was filmed) to isolate these men in an oppressive world of violent snow storms, imposing mountains, and dense forests. Grey is most certainly the color of this desolate world. The Grey may seem like your standard Man vs. Wild thriller, along the lines of pictures like The Edge or Cliffhanger, but forget about those films. This is something all its own, something much heavier and more substantial, and not another January release I will soon forget.

A

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: Brief and Very Random

2012-01-27T11:47:00.001-06:00

* You know what would be a good movie to give the 3D treatment? The Neverending Story.

* You know what is going to become a tired trend? Re-releasing old movies in 3D. Especially with Disney. I don’t need Pinocchio’s nose to come out of the screen at me.

* I think I figured out what has been missing from recent Wes Anderson movies: soul. Rushmore and The Royal Tennenbaums had a sweet center and an emotional pull that has since been absent. It was there in The Fantastic Mr. Fox, but not in his live action pictures like The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited. I hope Moonrise Kingdom brings that back.

* Still not happy about the Fassbender snub earlier this week. Same goes for Kirsten Dunst, though I didn’t have her as a shoe in. She still deserved a nomination for Melancholia.

* Sam Worthington is Russell Crowe without talent or intrigue.

* Remember Daredevil? What a dumb movie.

* You know what’s worse than Daredevil? The fact that studio execs thought it was a great idea to spin off a mediocre superhero movie with Elektra.

* Keep an eye out for Ferris Bueller in the Super Bowl commercial breaks.

THURSDAY THROWBACK: Manhattan (1979)

2012-01-26T10:14:00.005-06:00

I have never understood the mindset of people who reject black and white films. These people have a stigma that because a film is shot in black and white it will be dull, uninteresting, or it is too old. They are missing some of the more beautifully composed works of art cinema has to offer. Such is the case with Woody Allen’s love letter to the city of his life, Manhattan. Here is a film which would significantly diminish in quality and impact had it been filmed in color. Cinematographer Gordon Willis paints his black and white canvas of Manhattan with striking imagery and wonderfully sharp contrast. The result is an enchanting ode to the city Allen loves most. The opening montage, voiced over by Allen’s character as he starts and stops narrating, bounces from one Manhattan landmark to the next. We see the Guggenheim, the Carnegie, Greenwich, Central Park, and it is all tied together in a shot of the city under fireworks. All to the tune of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” a melody that is seemingly one in the same with New York City. It is a captivating introduction.

The story he tells involves adults acting as adolescents, with the most mature character of all being a seventeen-year old girl. Allen plays Isaac as an overgrown child, content in his own wit and intellect, using it as a shield. Isaac is dating Tracy, a seventeen-year old played by Mariel Hemingway. His last wife, Jill (Meryl Streep), left him for another woman and is writing a tell all about their relationship. And Isaac spends the majority of his time with Tracy telling her they need to break up, that there is no future for a 42-year old and a teen. Meanwhile, Isaac’s friend, Yale (Michael Murphy) is married but has fallen into an affair with Mary (Diane Keaton), and is scared he has begun falling for her. These characters occupy the greatest hits of Manhattan. Yale leaves Mary, and Isaac strikes up a relationship after breaking up with Tracy at, with all intended irony, a soda fountain. While Keaton’s Mary is less eccentric and flighty than her Annie Hall, you catch glimpses of her energy in Mary. I especially enjoyed their banter early on, when they are each with their initial lovers at an art exhibit and Isaac and Mary cannot agree on which pieces they enjoyed.

The older characters in Manhattan occupy a sort of reluctant adult world where they hide their emotions behind their intelligence. Yale feels like a hopeless wayward adult, Isaac more of a realist. But neither of them have the maturity of Tracy or even Mary. It has always been a credit to Allen’s writing that he creates wonderfully sharp and detailed female characters. It seems a foregone conclusion that a female actress from his films will get an Oscar nomination, and many have won. Keaton in Annie Hall, Dianne Wiest in Hannah and Her Sisters, Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona; here, Marial Hemingway received her only Oscar nomination. Her character carries the most level gaze of all involved.

The star of Manhattan is, as I mentioned, the camera of Gordon Willis. There are a handful of shots that are among the best of all black and white films. They are subtle, as in the shots of Isaac’s sparsely-lit apartment, overt like the scene where Isaac and Mary sit on the park bench under the imposing Brooklyn Bridge. The characters seem secondary to the environment, and their lives feel decidedly defined by the city itself. Allen has been and always will be an acquired taste, but Manhattan is a picture which deserves a look regardless of your opinions on the man himself. Maybe if the naysayers of black and white were to give Gordon Willis’ work a chance, they would change their tune. Maybe to Gershwin.

DVD REVIEW: 50/50

2012-01-25T09:15:00.006-06:00

Sometimes it’s difficult to objectively review a movie when the movie in question affects you on a deeper level than most. Sometimes emotions take over, and you find yourself caught up in the plight of these characters without noticing the nuances and the details of the film itself. It could be the performances, or perhaps it might be that somewhere in the recesses of your own memory you identify with these characters and their situation. This is where I found myself while watching 50/50, the oh-so rare “cancer comedy” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen. This is a film which uses humor as a defense mechanism, and also as a way to pull the audience into the story before the strong emotions of the situation take over. And you find yourself completely lost in the lives of these people and invested to a point where camerawork and style choices don’t matter much. I don’t know if my review of 50/50 is an accurate and objective look at the film as a whole more than it might be an emotional reaction to a film that I fell in love with.

Gordon-Levitt stars as Adam, a programmer for a Seattle public radio. Adam is perhaps the safest 27-year old on the planet; he exercises, he rarely drinks, he doesn’t smoke. Hell, he doesn’t even drive because “it’s the fifth leading cause of death.” So imagine the irony of Adam’s life when he is diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer and given a fifty percent chance of survival. Adam’s best friend since high school is Kyle, a slightly less squared away young man played by Seth Rogen. Kyle is the funny man to Adam’s straight persona, and when he learns of Adam’s diagnosis he has a slight freak out but never abandons his friend. The same thing cannot be said for Adam’s girlfriend, Rachael, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who gradually drifts away from Adam as his disease becomes too much.

Adam begins his chemotherapy and decides to shave his head before it starts falling out. Kyle sees this as an opportunity for the two of them to score girls. He may use Adam’s illness to his advantage out at the bar, but he never comes off as completely selfish. At least to me. Kyle is a good friend, and we get confirmation of this in a later scene. While Adam endures the chemotherapy he strikes up a relationship with two older cancer patients (Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer) and also tries to keep his suffocating mother (Angelica Huston) at bay. All the while, he strikes up a heartfelt doctor-patient relationship with Katherine (Anna Kendrick), a young grief counselor who takes a liking to Adam.

50/50 is a wonderfully comedic film most of the time. Adam uses dry humor while Kyle uses his relentless energy and sharp wit to deal with the fact his friend might die. But as the film works its way into the third act, there is an overwhelming emotional draw that deeply affected me. Nothing is manipulative here; the emotion comes from a genuine place and never tries to make the audience cry. But it still does, a true testament to the screenplay by Will Reiser whose own battle with cancer inspired this semi-true tale. I was reminded of my own friends, my own experiences with cancer in my family, and there is a moment of truth scene near the end that is sweet and quietly devastating.

Maybe 50/50 could be better to some people, I don’t know. Some people may not care for the Rogen character, but I felt like it was just the right amount of Seth Rogen. Not too much, not too little. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt continues to impress as Adam, whose range of emotion is spot on. Maybe there are flaws with 50/50 as a film. But to me, here I was completely swept up in Adam’s story, pulled into the emotions of the film and managing to laugh all the way to the end. It is a crime that Will Reiser’s screenplay wasn’t nominated for Best Original Screenplay, but I don’t imagine it matters much to him. I know it didn’t change my opinion of the film.

A

THE 84TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS: A Look at the Nominees, Suprises, Rants, Thoughts...

2012-01-24T10:03:00.005-06:00

33 out of 44. For the last two years I have been 35 for 45 in my Oscar predictions, so I suppose I am staying close. And yet again, for another year the Academy has decided to stay safe and irrelevant while still keeping us interested just enough to tune in on February 26th. There are some disastrous missteps this year, far outweighing the pleasant surprises.

We ended up with nine BEST PICTURE nominees in this new format, where there could be anywhere from five to ten. I was 8 out of 9, but there should only have been 7 to begin with. War Horse received no other major nominations but somehow picked up a Best Picture nod. This makes no sense. And if War Horse was to receive a nomination, they should have ended at eight. But alas, in a surprising move the Academy pegged Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close for the ninth slot; here is a film with a paltry 48% rating on the Tomatometer. Someone explain this to me. And don’t tell me it’s the Tom Hanks effect, because he’s been in better films.

BEST DIRECTOR is the one category where I was 5 for 5, and I have no qualms about any of the nominations. I only wish Terrence Malick and Woody Allen would show up to the ceremony.

BEST ACTOR is disgustingly baffling and pleasantly surprising at the same time. Three nominees, Jean Dujardin, Brad Pitt and George Clooney, are expected nominees. And then the pleasant surprise is Gary Oldman, receiving his first ever nomination for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. While I didn’t have him pegged as a nominee I am very excited for Mr. Oldman, one of the finest character actors of a generation. Which leads me to the stomach-turning shock of the entire nomination field: Demián Bichir for the small and relatively unnoticed A Better Life. While I am sure Mr. Bichir is solid in his performance, and I do remember rumblings about his performance when the film was released, you will never be able to convince me anything he does in the picture rivals a single second of Michael Fassbender’s performance in Shame.

I simply cannot believe the Academy snubbed Fassbender. Here is the finest performance from an actor all year, and one of the most daring and unsettling turns in several years. And once again, the Academy shows they are frightened of uncomfortable films with edgy subject matter. This is a move of pure cowardice and narrow-minded idiocy by an institution which exists to reward the best of the year in their respective category. Had Daniel Day Lewis been in the role, he would pick up a nomination and immediately be the frontrunner for the award. This is purely unforgiveable. The Shame belongs on the Academy’s shoulders.

I picked 4 out of 5 in the BEST ACTRESS category, missing on Rooney Mara for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I may not have had her but I do think she deserves a nomination. It was a tough role, and Mara disappears into the role. I am pulling for Michelle Williams.

SUPPORTING ACTOR got me at 3 for 5. While I didn’t have Jonah Hill pegged as a nominee, much like Rooney Mara I think he deserves it. The wild card here is Max Von Sydow for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Again, 48% overall rating on the Tomatometer.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS went about the way I expected, as I was 4 for 5, with Janet McTeer surprising me for Albert Nobbs. She doesn’t really have a chance in my opinion, I think this statue belongs to Octavia Spencer.

Some more quick thoughts about the nominations…

* When announcing Best Supporting Actress and Jessica Chastain was announced, the picture was not of her in The Help, but The Tree of Life. Honest mistake, sure, but a telling mistake.

* Leonardo DiCaprio may have been snubbed for J. Edgar, but if her slot was taken by Gary Oldman I am just fine with that. DiCaprio has time and better movies in his future.

* George Clooney looks like the frontrunner for Best Actor, but without Fassbender in the field I am pulling for Brad Pitt all the way.

* Too bad Albert Brooks wasn’t nominated for Drive, but it’s really no big letdown. He was good in a great film, but whatever.

* People are really upset about Drive not getting more than a single sound award. Wake up! Drive was never going to be a contender. It’s far too obtuse for Academy voters.

* Rango should win Best Animated Feature. And it’s the first time in a long time Pixar has been shut out.

* A Separation is the Best Foreign Language winner. No question about it.

CLICK HERE FOR A COMPLETE LISTING OF THE NOMINEES.

Haywire

2012-01-21T16:09:00.001-06:00

HAYWIRE: Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas (93 min.)

Steven Soderbergh has more fun leaping in between genres than any other director around. From big budget heist films, to small experimental films, to social dramas, to remakes and tales small and large in science fiction and reality, Soderbergh is an auteur who cannot be pidgeonholed. His latest venture, Haywire, stars an actress with no formal acting experience. She is Gina Carano, a retired Mixed Martial Arts superstar who Soderbergh saw perform one night and pursued her for the role. With the physicality of such a role you can see why Soderbergh wanted her for the demanding part. It doesn't hurt that Carano is quite beautiful, and can act just enough to carry a film like Haywire, which skirts a fine line between substance and hollowness. Unfortunately, falls on the side of the latter too often to be memorable, despite an amazing cast.

The plot is all too familiar: Carano is Mallory Kane, one of those super secret operatives for one of those fringe government contracting companies where big deals are made and people are "extracted" or "taken care of." You know the ones, just scan the history of these genre pictures and you will see two dozen secret agencies like this one. Mallory is the best in the business, a smooth and incredibly athletic killing machine. Which is what we see her do most. The film opens with Mallory defending herself against Aaron (Channing Tatum, taking the time to use facial expressions for once), another agent who was with her in Barcelona where something apparently went wrong. She escapes Aaron's initial attack and while on the run she delivers the details of her story to the passenger of the car she snagged (Michael Angarano). There was the job in Barcelona, then the job in Ireland where she was double crossed by another agent (Michale Fassbender) and her boss and former lover, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor). Another fight breaks out between Mallory and Fassbender's character, Paul, in a hotel room. These fight sequences are the highlight of the picture as Soderbergh allows them to unfold organically without any background score or accentuated punching noises.

These fight scenes also show Carano's ability to take some heavy hitting. She is a physical specimen who seems to be able to handle any of the men who come at her. Mallory works her way back to Kenneth and tries to figure out who is behind the double cross. Is it Kenneth alone? Or could it be the shady government contact played by Michael Douglas? Perhaps it is the Hispanic big wig without a past - or much of a present - played by Antonio Banderas. The only person Mallory can trust is her father, played by Bill Paxton. This is an impressive cast, one of the best ensembles I can remember, but these players are given so very little to do. Aside from Fassbender and McGregor, these satellite roles could have been played by anyone and it would not have mattered.

The solution to the plot doesn't really matter, and the person behind the conspiracy is a little bit of a letdown because he is the character who has said the least and been on screen the fewest. And, thanks to the Economy of Characters theory where there are no unnecessary characters in any given narrative, once the story reaches the end of the third act the person responsible is pretty much the only one left. Now I have been a little hard on Haywire, I know, because I expect so much more from any Soderbergh picture. But through all the faults of the film I do think it is entertaining and it moves at a brisk clip. Carano is the female answer to Jason Statham, and she can throw her athletic frame around with just about anybody in my opinion. I just wanted something more than a hollow shell of an action film. Let's get to know Mallory a little more, or maybe the villains a little more. Flesh this picture out and give it some heft, and you might have something memorable here. As it is, however, I don't think I will remember it much.

C+

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: John Singleton, Movie Character Names, and New Releases

2012-01-20T08:56:00.002-06:00

* I just realized, John Singleton directed the Taylor Lautner disaster Abduction. John Singleton?!? This guy directed Boyz in Tha Hood…

* I guess John Singleton “the director of Higher Learning” makes sense compared to Abduction. Higher Learning is a terrible, heavy-handed, obvious, cliché-laden movie.

* I think Denzel Washington gets bored and agrees to do generic action films like Safe House in his spare time. Either that or he has a beach house he’s looking to pay off.

* Denzel’s name in Safe House is Tobin Frost? Really? That’s worse than Cameron Poe. Nobody in the universe is legitimately named Tobin Frost.

* Nicolas Cage, aside from having the most insane list of roles in his life, has had the most unrealistic character names. Look at this list: Memphis Raines, Cameron Poe, Balthazar Blake, Yuri Orlov, Castor Troy, Dr. Stanley Goodspeed, Sailor Ripley, H.I. McDunnough… It is an astounding list of quirky names.

* A lot of people think Johnny Utah, Keanu Reeves’ character from Point Break, is a bad character name. I happen to think it is one of the best, right up there with Han Solo and Vito Corleone.

* Red Tails will be the biggest disaster of the year. It kills me when period films use modern music in their trailers, like Red Tails and their use of Dubstep or somebody in the TV spots. Terrible.

* Man on a Ledge? More like… Meh on a Ledge. Sam Worthington has proven to me to have very little as a box-office draw. Or talent.

* If you want a successful January action film, either hire Liam Neeson (The Grey) or get a great director like Steven Soderbergh to direct it (Haywire).

DVD REVIEW: The Ides of March

2012-01-19T10:14:00.006-06:00

George Clooney has a story to tell in The Ides of March, one many may not care to hear. It is about the jaded and cynical world of American politics, where the only thing accomplished these days is double crossing, controversy, scandal, and the sacrifice of morals and values in order to win at any cost. This is the direction many in America are beginning to take as they grow weary of political posturing and smear campaigns in favor of pushing forward with real ideas on how to fix the country, and the characters here represent various levels of cynicism. From the idealist to the morally bankrupt, The Ides of March displays a myriad of players, none of whom arrive on the scene without their own agenda. All of this is framed in a tightly wound drama with a wonderfully metaphorical camera and just enough elements of a thriller to propel the narrative.

The hero of our story is Stephen Meyers, a young campaign assistant played by Ryan Gosling. Stephen works on the campaign of Pennsylvania Governor Mike Morris (Clooney), and Stephen believes in Morris’ words. He has faith in the ideas Morris has for the country and is firmly in his corner. Morris’ campaign manager is Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a campaign vet whose seen just about everything and is much more jaded to the proceedings. Paul’s adversary, working for the other Governor in the Democratic primary, is Tom Duffy (Paul GIamatti), and is cut from the same cloth. These two seasoned veterans have seen so much more than Stephen and understand that a campaign is not about ideas. It’s about the ability to double cross and manipulate.

The battleground is the Ohio primary, where Morris and the opposing governor from Arkansas jockey for position. Stephen feels like Morris has a grasp on the state, but Paul is less certain. Paul wants them to cut their losses and move on. It is about this time Stephen starts a fling with Molly, a bright young intern on the campaign played by Evan Rachel Wood. Stephen and Molly’s scenes are well written, charming, and we soon discover Molly has just as many skeletons in her closet as everyone else. Without giving away much, I will say Stephen becomes compromised as he is pulled in every imaginable direction by Morris, Molly, and Tom Duffy, who reaches out to him with a chance to switch sides and “work for the eventual winner.”

I cannot imagine a better cast for this picture. Ryan Gosling is arguably the finest new movie star in Hollywood, able to move in and out of any role while keeping the traits and energy that make him who he is as a bankable asset. Hoffman and Giamatti never share the screen, but these are two actors whose career and daringness appear to mirror one another. They each get their monologue moments as they lay out the cynical world of political campaigning. Clooney as Morris is not much more than a chess piece for the men who run the show; there is a telling scene early on where Morris is forced to make a decision between standing for what he believes in or accepting the endorsement of a Senator he disagrees with in order to win. It shows how bleak the American political process is when the division between morals and victory is defined. Add in Marisa Tomei as a plucky reporter looking for a scoop, and The Ides of March is a lineup of wonderful and convincing performances from some of the best talent Hollywood has to offer.

Clooney directs The Ides of March not as an epic, but at a briskly paced political drama. Yet he still takes his time, allowing his camera to tell a story on top of the narrative. His use of light and shadow, and a wonderful utilization of a giant American flag at one point, tell me that Clooney has paid attention to the directors of the past. There are any number of beautiful and telling shots here, and the opening credit sequence is a clear throwback to the political thrillers which littered the landscape of seventies cinema. The Ides of March may have a cynical heart, but I fear it is simply telling us all the truth. And maybe we don’t want to hear that right now.

A-

OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2012: Best Picture

2012-01-18T09:17:00.004-06:00

There are but a few sure things in this world from year to year, and this year’s first certainty is the The Artist will be one of the five-to-ten Best Picture nominees. Here is your frontrunner for Best Picture, an art-house picture with a full head of steam heading into the Oscars and a handful of Golden Globes in its back pocket. Hot on the heels of The Artist, lying in the weeds waiting to steal the statue, is Alexander Payne’s family drama The Descendants. I may have issues with The Artist being the leader in the clubhouse, but I have a real problem with Payne’s film sitting in a close second. There are a dozen better pictures out there this year. Alas, it is not my decision, and I can see no way The Descendants is left off the ballot.

And what of this new format for Best Picture where the number of nominees can vary anywhere from five to ten films based on the number of first-place votes? Some reject the idea, but to me it seems the most logical. Sometimes there are only five films, but rarely are there ten deserving of Best Picture status. These last few years – a reaction to The Dark Knight arguably being the sixth film left out on Awards night in 2008 – The Academy opted to have a solid ten nominees. That allowed films like District 9 and The Blind Side to call themselves Best Picture hopefuls. This is the only logical response to a fluctuating medium of quality from year to year. I suppose the best way to try and predict, then, is to list from 1 to 10 the films I think have a chance at a nomination.

Numbers one and two are, respectively, The Artist and The Descendants. After that, it’s anybody’s guess as to who is in and who is out. There is a set number of films with a shot, but only eight possible slots left. I am fairly certain the big crowd pleaser of the year, The Help, will grab a nomination. Alongside The Help will be Hugo, one of the most beautiful films of the year which also happens to have the prestige of one Martin Scorsese in its corner. And I don’t see any way the Academy can ignore The Tree of Life. This is too big a film, too ambitious to be overlooked. This fills out the minimum five slots, but I have a feeling there will be more than just the minimum because of the strong year.

Midnight in Paris should get a spot for many of the same reasons Hugo should. Woody Allen is Hollywood royalty, and he has made a wonderfully charming picture that deserves recognition. And there is Moneyball, the rare sports film handles with class and delivered with prestige. It also happens to be solid entertainment. After Moneyball, however, the field thins considerably. I can see the nominee list stopping at seven. But if the field expands to ten, these final three slots could go in any order of Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, David Fincher’s adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and a whole bevy of films at ten. For the sake of argument, let’s put the comedy sensation Bridesmaids here. If there is to be ten slots, I fully expect a recognizable crowd pleaser with a broad reach to fill out the category and draw in bigger numbers on February 26. That leaves small pictures like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Drive, Melancholia, and The Ides of March out in the cold. Though I wouldn’t expect any of those aforementioned outsiders to have much of a chance either way.

1. The Artist
2. The Descendants
3. The Help
4. Hugo
5. The Tree of Life
6. Midnight in Paris
7. Moneyball (and this is where I see the cutoff)
8. War Horse
9. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
10. Bridesmaids

OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2012: Best Director

2012-01-17T08:50:00.005-06:00

The two sure bets this year in the Best Director category could not be more diverse. The first one is enjoying his first taste of fame, and is an unknown in the world of the Academy. The second is an American treasure, a legendary filmmaker we have come to love for the past forty years. Michel Hazanavicius is the auteur behind The Artist, this season’s breakout favorite to take home a bevy of nominations and awards. The silent film surely took a deft touch behind the camera, and the French director Hazanavicius has done a job deserving of his first nomination. And then there is Martin Scorsese, a long time favorite of the Academy who won his first (and incredibly delayed) statue in 2006 for The Departed. Scorsese’s film, Hugo, is another picture sure to grab several nominations, and Scorsese is a definite lock here.

The next three slots are wide open. Woody Allen, who this year released his best film in decades with Midnight in Paris, has an excellent chance at nabbing this third slot. Allen has found new inspiration filming in Europe, and Midnight in Paris is the summation of his romantic eye for the city and the country. Next in line is Alexander Payne for The Descendants. Payne’s film is another favorite to win Best Picture, so his nomination in this category is the next best thing to a lock. Payne does a great job balancing the family narrative in The Descendants although I don’t see what is so wonderful or unforgettable about the film to be honest.

And here we are, once again, at the fifth slot. And like the acting categories, we have a list of hopeful directors. David Fincher has an outside shot for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, about as much as Steven Spielberg does for War Horse. But a bit of backlash towards both these films hinders their chances. Tate Taylor has the crowd-pleaser card in his corner with The Help. Bennett Miller has the advantage of his film, Moneyball, being both a crowd pleaser and a wonderful film. But if the Academy wants to take this category seriously, and I like to think they do, then this fifth and final slot belongs to Terrence Malick. The Tree of Life is the most ambitious film of the year, one of the most ambitious works in the history of film. Malick won’t win, but he should at least pick up a nomination. That is, if the Academy wants to take themselves seriously.

Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist
Martin Scorsese - Hugo
Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris
Alexander Payne - The Descendants
Terrence Malick - The Tree of Life

Looking back at the GOLDEN GLOBES

2012-01-16T09:47:00.007-06:00

* After last night, it looks like the two frontrunners to win Best Picture this year will be The Artist and The Descendants. I am not a fan of this. I did put The Artist in my top ten, but down at sixth right where I think it belongs. There are a handful of films quite a bit better than The Artist.

* The Artist is a film that will not stand the test of time I fear. Much like Chicago or A Beautiful Mind, its quality doesn’t seem to have staying power. I sit here and say all this but I assure you, I think it deserves nominations. It is good. Great? Not quite.

* Jean Dujardin accepting his award kind of ruins the surprise of The Artist, doesn’t it?

* On to The Descendants. I can see the love for The Artist, but for the life of me I see nothing in The Descendants worth so much acclaim. It’s a nice movie, but frivolous and forgettable. I just do not see what is so great about it.

* There is no universe where George Clooney gives a better performance than Michael Fassbender in Shame. Completely incorrect.

* Clooney is still the best movie star out there though. Walking out with the cane to poke fun at Brad Pitt was great.

* Ricky Gervais was pretty solid. I thought he kept things under control last night but was still just the right amount of offensive.

* Christopher Plummer – “to my wife, whose beauty and bravery haunts me still.” What an awesome line. I hope either Plummer wins the Oscar, or it’s Albert Brooks for Drive. Right now, Plummer looks like the leader in the clubhouse.

* Seth Rogen, regarding Kate Beckinsale, his walk-out partner – “I am trying to hide a massive erection.” Line of the night.

* Nice seeing Jeremy Irons out there last night. It’s been a long time.

* Nice try at making a joke Gerard Butler, but nobody really cares about you.

* I am sorry, I love Kate Winslet – and Guy Pearce for that matter – but Mildred Pierce is unbearably dull.

* I never really have an opinion about the TV winners. I feel like they care even less than the film crowd about these wins. They want Emmys.

* The Lifetime Achievement Award to Morgan Freeman was a fantastic moment in the broadcast. Freeman is so prolific, it’s easy to sometimes forget how brilliant he usually is in his roles.

* Congrats Martin Scorsese. Everything you win, you deserve.

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: Golden Globe Thoughts, January Releases, and Director Style Concerns

2012-01-13T09:39:00.002-06:00

* The Golden Globes are the most fun of all the ceremonies. But the award doesn’t really mean much. It’s very odd, because it isn’t necessarily a clue to the Academy Award nominations or a prestigious award on its own. But still, they do it right. It’s light and loose and Ricky Gervais should be great again.

* I think the Golden Globes need to update their statue. It’s very drab and cumbersome and old fashioned.

* Just the thought of Contraband makes me drowsy. To be in such good shape, Mark Wahlberg really is lazy sometimes.

* Thinking about Joyful Noise completes the task… Right into a movie coma for me.

* Laziness in Hollywood is hitting a new high these days. Now, instead of remaking or rebooting, studios have decided on regurgitating their classics. Beauty and the Beast is back, but look it’s in 3D… This will be the most unnecessary thing until April when Titanic returns in 3D.

* The “community” (which I will now use to encompass movie-related twitter folks, websites, and the like) is abuzz with the new Wes Anderson trailer, Moonrise Kingdom. It looks wonderful, but that doesn’t always make it so with Anderson.

* It’s hard sometimes for directors to keep originality afloat in their films when they have a very specific style and technique and aesthetic directive. Every quirk and signature grows stale. The most obvious case of this is Tim Burton, whose career has been on a continuous loop of Goth remakes now for a decade. This fate could be in front of Wes Anderson, I fear. Directors need a signature style, but they have to diversify within their comfort zone to keep things fresh.

* Look at Scorsese for instance; deliberate style, uniqueness in his films.

THURSDAY THROWBACK: The Night of The Hunter (1955)

2012-01-12T10:03:00.005-06:00

The Night of The Hunter is an exercise in the purity of filmmaking. It is a seamless, beautiful American picture, a taut thriller, full of artistic expression and wonderful performances and moments of striking beauty. But it is often overlooked much like its star, Robert Mitchum, who never received the accolades of his peers like Cary Grant. Mitchum was, often times, the anti-hero in Hollywood who made his career in film noir playing the villain. He was rough around the edges and never carried with him that polished sheen of Grant or someone like William Holden. And yet, here he is in his finest film role playing an enthusiastic man of God, a slick pastor who uses his religion as a mask to disguise his wickedness.

Mitchum plays Pastor Harry Powell, a man who might quote the scripture as he is committing a murder. And after his crime, he might have a conversation with God about why he had to do what he did. This is where we meet him anyway, driving a stolen car speaking to the sky, telling God his reasons for his sin. Before long, the pastor is arrested and sentenced to 30 days in jail for stealing the car. In prison he shares a cell with Ben Harper (Peter Graves), a father and husband destroyed by the depression who kills a man and is condemned to death. Before he was arrested, however, Harper stashed away $10,000 where only his young son and daughter know the location. Pastor Harry gets wind of this and decides to pay Harper’s family a visit once he gets out of prison.

Ben Harper’s family lives in a river town that looks like the inspiration for those Hallmark Holiday village collections. Pastor Harry romances the widow of Ben Harper, Willa, played by Shelley Winters as a tightly-wound window teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Before long, Pastor Harry has married Willa and begun his extended interrogation of the children, John and Pearl, who refuse to tell him the whereabouts of the cash. Pastor Harry’s inquiries start slowly, but they build and intensify. It is no spoiler to say that Pastor Harry kills Willa by drowning her in the river that runs alongside the town, because the reveal of her death is the most memorable shot in the entire picture. The death of Willa sends the children fleeing in a wooden boat, down the river with Pastor Harry tracking them on the banks of the river.

This journey down the river adopts a dreamlike state that has permeated every scene in The Night of The Hunter. Here, the dream takes over, as spider webs and toads and rabbits appear in the foreground like monsters, dwarfing the children in the boat. They eventually make it to the next town and are taken in by Miss Cooper (Lillian Gish) who runs an orphanage of sorts and is a stern, loving mother figure. Gish takes on the Pastor as he arrives in town and tries to work his way into this extended family much like he did with Willa and the children. Mitchum’s Max Cady from Cape Fear began creeping into my head as Pastor Harry tries to smooth talk his way into the family by approaching the eldest of the children under the eye of Miss Cooper.

The Night of The Hunter is a straightforward tale delivered with flashes of brilliance in the cinematography and art direction. The sharp angles and oppressive nature of the house where Willa and the Harper children live creates a certain horror element, and Mitchum’s pastor is the perfect villain for this created world. The knuckles of his hands, the right reading L-O-V-E and the left reading H-A-T-E, have been immortalized by anything from Bruce Springsteen to Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing. As the children fall deeper into the nightmare hold of Pastor Harry, so the elements of the narrative grow more extraordinary until they come out of it on the other end of the river. Where things feel safe again under the watchful eye of Miss Cooper. Her faith is stronger inside than anything the Pastor may offer through lies and deception.

OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2012: Best Actor and Actress

2012-01-11T09:26:00.009-06:00

BEST ACTRESS

In my opinion, the Best Actress race has four locks and another five hopefuls looking to steal that fifth slot. But there are no frontrunners for the win that I can see from this distance. Of the four locks, three of the names are arguably the most familiar of faces. The least familiar of the locks will be Viola Davis, a sure nominee for her role as Aibileen Clark in The Help. Davis deserves recognition, and her strong performance is the real anchor in the film. Michelle Williams, seemingly nominated for an Oscar annually these days, will pick up a nomination for playing Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn. I am not quite sure if it’s her year to win, but if she keeps accumulating these nominations her time will surely come soon.

Of course, most years you don’t get far from the Best Actress pool before you find Meryl Streep. Streep will undoubtedly get a nomination for her role as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, but the weakness of the overall film will keep her from winning; same thing goes for a Best Actor hopeful we’ll get into later. Rounding out the four surefire nominees is Tilda Swinton, a regular these days much like Michelle Williams (though Swinton did break through a few years ago with a win for Michael Clayton). Swinton stars as Eve, the troubled mother who is the focus of a disturbed son in We Need to Talk About Kevin. Swinton is a strong actress, and might very well be the frontrunner at this point.

And now we have a handful of hopefuls with only one slot left. Longshots include Charlize Theron for Young Adult, Elizabeth Olsen for Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Kirsten Dunst for Melancholia (though I wish Dunst had better than an outside chance because she is captivating in the role). Any of these three women would be a surprise nomination. This final slot appears to be a fight between a rookie and a seasoned vet. Rooney Mara may very well grab the fifth nomination for nailing down her role as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. But I do think she will be edged out by cagey nominee vet Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs. It’s astounding Close has never won – she was nominated four times in five years in the 80s – and I think the Academy might sneak her in.

Viola Davis – The Help
Michelle Williams – My Week With Marilyn
Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton – We Need to Talk About Kevin
Glenn Close – Albert Nobbs

BEST ACTOR

If there is ever a category where we get the winner and everyone else, it is the Best Actor category. Daniel Day-Lewis, Jamie Foxx, Colin Firth… most of the time the statue is all but decided by the time the nominations are released. I don’t see anyone head and shoulders above the pack this year. If anyone is like that at this point in the process I would point to George Clooney for The Descendants. Clooney is an Academy darling, and his role as Matt King, the conflicted father and businessman in Alexander Payne’s family drama has gotten the most publicity thus far. I don’t think he deserves to win the Oscar, but that’s for another day.

Clooney’s good buddy Brad Pitt seems to be a sure bet now, playing Billy Beane in the crowd-pleasing Moneyball. Having recently seen Moneyball a second time, I firmly endorse Pitt as a nominee. The Pitt-Clooney dynamic is sure to draw in the bigger ratings, something the Academy struggles to find year in and year out. But for my money, it is Michael Fassbender, the rising star in the field, who deserves both the nomination and the win for Shame. Fassbender exploded on the scene this year with a handful of diverse roles. And as Brandon, a man crippled by his sex addiction and shut off from any true human contact, Fassbender dominates a tough film with a compelling and inwardly dominating performance.

Much like Meryl Streep in the Best Actress field, Leonardo Dicaprio will find himself with a nomination for playing the title role in Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar. But the mediocrity of the film will keep him seated when the winner was announced. I had high hopes for Leo this year; I thought J. Edgar would finally get him the statue he deserves. Alas, the film was a letdown. There is decidedly less mystery revolving around the fifth and final spot here. Gary Oldman has a shot for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, as does Michael Shannon for Take Shelter. But I am certain Jean Dujardin will get the fifth spot for playing silent film star George Valentin in The Artist. This is the film with the most momentum at this point, so he seems to be a safe bet for filling out the Best Actor category.

George Clooney – The Descendants
Brad Pitt – Moneyball
Michael Fassbender – Shame
Leonardo Dicaprio – J. Edgar
Jean Dujardin – The Artist

NEXT TUESDAY LET’S LOOK AT BEST DIRECTOR. NEXT WEDNESDAY, IT’S BEST PICTURE TIME…

OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2012: Supporting Actor and Actress

2012-01-10T09:24:00.010-06:00

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Best Supporting Actress is a tough category this year. What is typically the biggest upset category is usually a little more secure from top to bottom as far as nominations are concerned. But outside of a few sure things – and even those sure things don’t seem as sure as they have been in the past – the bottom two or three nominations look to be wide open. It is either a testament to the strength of the field, or the weakness of supporting female performances. You be the judge.

I expect The Help to take up a nomination or two here. Octavia Spencer’s performance as the fiery Minny Jackson is the type of performance built for supporting actress; I fully expect a nomination. Outside of Spencer, there are a few possibilities including Bryce Dallas Howard and Emma Stone for their respective roles. But I have a feeling Jessica Chastain will get the nomination for playing Celia Foote, the sweet and naïve outsider. This is a bit of a conundrum for me; Chastain has had such a wonderful year, she deserves a nomination. But out of the possibilities (The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, The Help) I think her role here is least deserving. Regardless, she has the best shot with The Help.

Bérénice Bejo, Peppy Miller from The Artist, has a decent chance at being noticed as well. It must be a bit of a challenge to star in a silent film these days, with the need for expressiveness and emotive acting taking priority over method. This leaves two more spots for a bevy of actresses. The Academy often likes to give notice to otherwise invisible films in these supporting categories, especially if they can recognize an actor or actress who many can see as a legend of her craft. This is why I think Vanessa Redgrave may steal a nomination for her role in Coriolanus. It will be the head scratcher that everyone accepts because it is Redgrave getting the nod.

The odd phenomenon circulating right now is the fact that Bridesmaids is resurging into voter consciousness. This groundswell of support for the film could be enough to get Melissa McCarthy nominated for her role as Megan, the crude but lovable part of the quintet of female stars. Comedy is sometimes overlooked, but McCarthy might be that rare exception. I think McCarthy will beat out other possibilities like young Shailene Woodley from The Descendants, Carey Mulligan from Shame, and Janet McTeer from Albert Nobbs (the nomination list for Albert Nobbs begins and ends with Glenn Close).

Octavia Spencer - The Help
Jessica Chastain - The Help
Berenice Bejo - The Artist
Vanessa Redgrave - Coriolanus
Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Best Supporting Actor has significantly less mystery in my opinion. There are still about eight possible performances for the five slots, but the dividing line feels more pronounced. Christopher Plummer is a sure bet here, playing a father who realizes he is gay in the twilight of his life in the small indie film Beginners. Plummer is a well-respected actor who deserves a nod for his charming performance. Right below him, I am hoping, is Albert Brooks as the vicious gangster Bernie Rose in Nicholas Windign Refn’s cerebral thriller Drive. Brooks steals his scenes, a true indicator of a supporting actor deserving a nomination.

The Academy loves to welcome back long lost talent with nominations, and this year that welcome back to form belongs to Nick Nolte. Nolte stars as Paddy Conlon, a reformed alcoholic trying to make amends with his estranged sons in the cage-fighting drama Warrior. The possibility for Nolte as a nominee has grown beyond a whisper in recent days, and by the time the nominations are cast it appears he will be a sure bet. Fourth on the list is Kenneth Branagh, playing Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn. As sure as Nolte seems right here, Branagh seems just as certain to grab a nomination.

There is a little mystery surrounding the final nomination here. Jonah Hill could grab the final slot for his role in Moneyball; the film is trending upwards here in awards season. Ben Kingsley has an outside shot as well for Hugo, though I feel the multiple nominations for Scorsese’s film will go elsewhere. I would love to see Patton Oswalt nominated for Young Adult, because I think Oswalt is a true talent and is the best part of the film. But Young Adult may be shut out. I think this fifth slot belongs to Viggo Mortensen. In A Dangerous Method, Mortensen plays Sigmund Freud, and his chances appear to be trending upward. He could grab the lone nomination for Cronenberg’s period drama.

Christopher Plummer - Beginners
Albert Brooks - Drive
Nick Nolte - Warrior
Kenneth Branagh - My Week With Marilyn
Viggo Mortensen - A Dangerous Method

COMING UP TOMORROW: MY PICKS FOR LEAD ACTOR AND ACTRESS…

JANUARY MOVIE POSTER REPORT CARD

2012-01-09T09:45:00.006-06:00

CONTRABAND - The poster for Contraband has some very specific things it wants to say about Mark Wahlberg’s new action crime thriller. The first thing it wants to do, with the various head shots scattered about in different frames, is make us think of The Departed. Almost every crime thriller without its own merits these days wants to compare itself to the best crime drama in the last decade. Second, with the duct tape and the gray palette, the makers of this poster want to emphasize this is a gritty tale, likely in the seedy suburbs of Boston – the new Brooklyn. The third thing we emphasize here is, of course, Mark Wahlberg. The poster isn’t overly busy, but busy enough. But it’s simply another poster in the expansive group of crime drama posters without much personality. A little flash of color here and there outside of the actor names would have spiced it up: C+

HAYWIRE - I am convinced that orange is the best predominant color for movie posters. 2010’s best poster was for the George Clooney film, The American, primarily orange. But creativity also helps. This poster for Haywire does grit the right way. We have no faces to identify with. Instead, the expansive, impressive cast is listed at the top while a single image dominates the page. The image is vague, but telling of the film; here is a movie about a woman kicking ass. And kicking men’s asses. The fractured font and the sharp angles of the words are great, full of energy and seemingly broken apart by the action. Less is more almost always when it comes to movie posters. If you think of the best posters of all time, they usually have one vague image, not a litany of characters and busy artwork: A

THE GREY - This poster for Liam Neeson’s annual opening year action film follows the theory that less is more, but in an entirely different way than Haywire. Instead of one vague image hinting at the action, we get one very visual actor filling the page completely and almost busting out of the frame. The color palette is much like Contraband, but the singularity of the image makes the accentuated blue of Neeson’s eyes pop wonderfully. I like this poster, but part of me wanted more with this film, about a plane crash and a man forced to fend off a band of hungry wolves. By more maybe I mean more room on the poster, more negative space. Neeson is clearly the draw, but I think this is a film better served by a background of the terrain perhaps. I do think the tagline is great: B+

MAN ON A LEDGE - The poster for Man on a Ledge does a great job of inducing vertigo in a two-dimensional image. The film, one of those gimmicky single-set pictures like Phone Booth, looks intriguing. And the image of Sam Worthington’s character staring down at the city streets below, full of pedestrians and police cars, is striking. But again, I don’t understand the overwhelming need for posters to be washed out in blues and grays. Sometimes it makes sense, as it does with The Grey. But here, I would like color variations. And I have never been a fan of the generic actor panels like the ones below the title here. Just show us the actor names, we don’t need headshots in the most milquetoast way possible. It takes away from the main image: B

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: An Oscar Thought and January Movies...

2012-01-06T09:21:00.000-06:00

* This year’s Best Picture Oscar seems more up in the air than ever. I don’t have a frontrunner in mind, or even a top two. Perhaps when the nominees come out, I will have a better idea.

* I think Elisabeth Shue is a good actress. But I don’t know.

* I don’t understand either the point or the marketing strategy behind this Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah movie, Joyful Noise. What is the point of a film like this? And if the advertising is going to be so scant and brief, I really don’t get the purpose in releasing the movie.

* There seem to be a large amount of action/adventure pictures coming out in January. There is Soderbergh’s Haywire, Mark Wahlberg’s Contraband, and Liam Neeson in The Grey. Is this an attempt to recapture the success of Taken a few years back?

* The Grey looks exciting for sure, but I don’t know about those wolves after Neeson’s character. They seem very human in their anger. Sounds weird, I know, but still… Something seems off about the way they go after him.

* Which begs the question… Does Liam Neeson have a stipulation in his contract that he has to star in an action vehicle sometime within the first two months of every year?

* Twitter was abuzz last night about The Devil Inside, the new “found footage” horror film about an illegal exorcism. Crowds all around the country greeted the end of the film with a chorus of boos. I am officially no longer putting faith in January horror films.

OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2012: The Screenplays

2012-01-04T09:29:00.009-06:00

Ok, here we go. It’s time to start talking Oscars as awards seasons starts picking up steam. The previous two years I have been 35 for 45 in my predictions as I work my way through the screenplays, the performances, the directors, and Best Picture. Here’s to hoping I can break through that barrier and at least get to 36. But this year, the options feel greater, the fields wider. Let’s see how this goes…

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Best Adapted Screenplay feels stronger this year at the top than the field of Original screenplays. It thins out considerably, but there are four scripts I see as true locks. First up is Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Billy Beane’s Moneyball. The book was a smash hit, examining new theories and strategies for building a professional baseball team, seemed like an unfilmable commodity. But Zaillian and Sorkin fill the pages with wit and sharp dialogue. Right behind Moneyball is The Descendants, and the screenplay from director Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon. While the film wasn’t my favorite, there is no doubt it will collect a handful of nominations this season.

The next tier of surefire nominees includes Hugo and The Help. Based on the children’s book by Brian Selznick, John Logan screenplay for Hugo expands on a minimalist story to create a wondrous look at the birth of film. The Help is the crowd pleaser of the year, and Tate Taylor’s screenplay from the novel by Kathryn Stockett is sure to be recognized. This leaves the ever-elusive fifth slot, and a bevy of adaptations looking to grab a nomination.

I would say Steven Zaillian’s adaptation of Stieg Larson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the frontrunner for this fifth slot. The novel is a worldwide sensation and David Fincher’s film is a slick adaptation. But Zaillian’s sure nomination for Moneyball may hinder his chances at a double nod. Other possible chances include Hossein Amini’s screenplay for Drive or George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s adaptation of The Idea of March, but these films feel like long shots for many awards. That leaves Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and the adapted screenplay from Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan. The convoluted storyline and challenging narrative is picking up a little more steam in recent days as the film reaches wide release. It has the best chance to fill out that fifth slot.

Moneyball – Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, Billy Beane (book)
The Descendants – Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, Kaui Hart Dennings (novel)
Hugo – John Logan, Brian Selznick (book)
The Help – Tate Taylor, Kathryn Stockett (novel)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – Bridget O’Connor, Peter Straughan, John le Carré (novel)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

This category feels both wide open and significantly thinner than adapted. I see only one sure bet for Best Original Screenplay, and that is Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, a delightful script and Allen’s best in decades. Right behind Midnight in Paris is, oddly enough, a screenplay for a silent film; Michel Hazanavicius’ story for The Artist is succinct. And I am certain it was quite a challenge to tell a story without the advantage of expansive dialogue. There are very few title cards throughout the film, but plenty of direction needed in the screenplay. After these two surefire nominees, the field expands greatly and the possibilities all seem to be on equal footing for the final three slots.

Terrence Malick’s seminal film, The Tree of Life, surely must have been a challenge, especially given the amount of time Malick worked on the story. A lot of the nominations for the film depend on momentum for the picture, so a nod for screenplay is a 50/50 proposition. Which leads me directly into the next possibility, and a film I feel will be recognized here and only here; Will Reiser’s screenplay for the always-difficult “cancer comedy,” 50/50, should get notice. It is a personal film for Reiser, and has a steady following of admirers that could push it over the top. And again, we are at the fifth and final slot for a nomination.

There are a handful of possibilities once again, and none of them feel like they have a grip on the fifth nomination. There is Thomas McCarthy’s screenplay for Win Win, but I feel like the comedy nomination will be Reiser’s 50/50. There is Mike Mills screenplay for Beginners, another comedy with a slim chance. Continuing this train, there is Kristen Wiig’s script for her crowd –pleasing comedy Bridesmaids, but the film feels too far in the rearview mirror to be noticed. Steve McQueen and Abi Morgan’s screenplay for Shame would be my pick for the nomination, but I have a feeling the film will be rewarded with a Best Actor nomination and not much else. I am going to go out on a limb here and pick Asghar Farhadi’s screenplay for the Iranian family drama, A Separation. This is a film fresh in the minds of voters, and is on many best of lists this year. It could be a dark horse, and I think it could shore up this fifth slot.

Midnight in Paris – Woody Allen
The Artist – Michel Hazanavicius
The Tree of Life – Terrence Malick
50/50 – Will Reiser
A Separation – Asghar Farhadi

STAY TUNED NEXT WEEK, WE’LL TAKE A LOOK AT THE SUPPORTING PLAYERS…

TUESDAY TOP 10: The Top 10 of 2011

2012-01-03T12:30:00.014-06:00

2011 has been, arguably, a great year for a wide array of films. There have been wonderful films of the heavy and the light variety; typically, the good movies are overloaded in the last quarter of the year. But this year, there have been solid films throughout, so much so that narrowing the list down to ten proved tougher than usual…

10) Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – This action opera is everything fans of the genre look for, and the best of the Mission: Impossible franchise since the first one back in 1995. Here is a thrilling adventure film with multiple locales, action set pieces that are breathtaking in their scope, and thrills that never feel forced. No matter how outrageous the events may become, director Brad Byrd manages to keep the audience involved in the immediacy of the proceedings. Tom Cruise is his typical self as Ethan Hunt – that is to say he is as solid as he’s ever been here – but it’s the injection of actors like Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton that solidify the strength of this film.

9) Rango – The best animated film of the year is a cerebral, literate cartoon with a rich film history behind it and references to the Gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson. What else would you expect from an animated film where Johnny Depp is our hero? Depp is silky smooth as Rango, the adventurous lizard who manages to fall into the role of town savior when he stumbles into a desert town in desperate need of some water. Director Gore Verbinski doesn’t take the easy way out here, opting to keep references to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Man With No Name trilogy, and even Chinatown in place in a wonderful cartoon world which still manages to be kid friendly – to an extent.

8) Trust – I haven’t seen this film on many year-end lists, and I see any number of reasons why. This is tricky subject matter, and a film with very limited distribution that few people found. But there is no denying the power of David Schwimmer’s “message” film, about a young girl who is tricked into a sexual encounter by an online predator. While the horrifying events of the encounter are intact here, Trust is more about the aftermath, the humiliation and confusion of the young girl, and the emotional pain suffered by everyone involved. Clive Owen is compelling as the father, Catherine Keener likewise as the mother; but it’s the gripping performance by young newcomer Liana Liberato as Annie, the victimized youth, that carries the emotional weight of the film.

7) Hugo – Leave it to Martin Scorsese to tell everyone he is making a children’s film, and then deliver a beautiful, heartfelt meditation on the history and the origins of film. Hugo is a marvelous cinematic achievement and a touching story about a young boy who spends his days maintaining the clocks in a Paris train station. The screen is filled with sharp imagery and rich characters, including Ben Kingsley as George Méliés, the famous director, and Sacha Baron Cohen as the station inspector after Hugo Cabret at every turn. Hugo is a love letter to the birth of cinema, fashioned as an enchanting children’s adventure. In any normal year this may find its way to the top of my list; but 2011 blossomed into a special year in film, in my opinion.

6) The Artist – From one love letter to another we go, both focused on the early days of films and filmmaking. The Artist is a silent film about the death of silent films, in the face of the new talkies which swept the industry in the late 20s. The picture demands a certain type of performer, and director Michael Hazanavicius finds wonderfully expressive thespians in Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, the two leads on opposite ends of their fame and career. Dujardin, as George Valentin, rejects the speaking films in which Peppy Miller (Bejo) finds her fame. The idea of a silent film may be too much for many people to embrace these days – never mind the horror of black and white! – but given a chance, The Artist might win over even the biggest skeptics.

5) Melancholia – This is where things get tricky as far as listing goes. These next two or three films could really alternate depending on the day or, perhaps, my mood. Today, at number five is Lars von Trier’s meditative look at the end of the world. Melancholia tells a pair of stories revolving around two very different sisters who almost seem to trade personalities in the middle, once a planet is discovered headed for earth and sure to destroy us all. Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg play two sisters approaching grief in different ways, and Kiefer Sutherland, as the husband of the Gainsbourg character, remains optimistic until the very end. There is no better filmmaker to shine a new, different light on the apocalypse. There will be no worldwide panic, no presidential addresses here; just the end.

4) Drive – Nicholas Winding Refn’s minimalist crime thriller has evolved since its various 2011 releases, from one of the best to one of the most overrated films of the year. It just depends on where you pick up on the backlash. Drive is a crime drama on the surface, but a stripped-down character study about the nature of violence. Ryan Gosling’s nameless hero, the getaway driver, is less a person than a device for the action of the story, protecting his neighbor (Carey Mulligan) and defending himself against the seedy criminal element floating around him. The overall vibe of this film is simply wonderful, pure, stripped away and soaked in an eighties vibe of neon pink and synth pop music. And Albert Brooks’ performance is what Supporting Actor noms are made of.

3) Shame – There hasn’t been a braver film performance this year than the one delivered by Michael Fassbender in Steve McQueen’s heartbreaking, unforgettable film about a sex addict whose life is unraveling with every passing urge. Fassbender’ s Brandon is physically incapable of human emotion, and simply seeks out orgasms to ease his pain. This is a drug addict whose narcotic is sex, so it stopped bringing him pleasure quite some time ago. Enter Carey Mulligan as Sissy, his emotionally-ruined sister who reaches outward just as much as Brandon retreats inward. Shame is a film I will not soon forget, and one of the most mesmerizing and stylish character studies in recent memory.

2) The Tree of Life – This is a movie I wrestled with in my mind until I could see it a second time. It, like Shame, is an unforgettable film experience. But where Shame brings a certain range of heartbreaking human emotion, The Tree of Life inspires wonder, produces awe, and it even overwhelmed me a second time as I found myself drawn deeper into the story of the family the second time around. Brad Pitt may get a nomination for his role in Moneyball, but I feel like his work as the father here is much better, arguably the best performance of his great career. The Tree of Life is a film about humanity, surrounded by the beginning and the end in a package of stunning beauty and poignancy. This film challenges notions of what a film can be and what it can do.

1) Midnight in Paris – I remember catching myself grinning about two-thirds of the way through Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, and realizing I had been grinning the entire time. There is a deep message here in Midnight in Paris, one about where we are in life and how we shouldn’t waste all of our time in nostalgia – no matter how thrilling it may be – but the packaging is one of aloofness and joyful filmmaking that feels undeniably wonderful from start to finish. Owen Wilson – maybe the best of all Woody Allen stand ins – is an aspiring great writer who, through unexplained magic, is taken back to Paris in the 20s where he hangs out with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein just to name a few. Midnight in Paris is filled to the brim with richness of detail, humor, and undeniable energy. This stands just slightly above anything I have seen this year.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Moneyball, a well written screenplay of an unfilmable book with great performances from Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill; David Fincher’s sleek and visceral remake of the Swedish film and bestselling novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; the final chapter of the Harry Potter series, The Deathly Hallows, Part 2.

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: Gearing Up for an Exciting Oscar Season

2011-12-30T08:36:00.001-06:00

* I get so tired of seeing top ten lists this time of year. They’re everywhere I look. Lists are tough things anyway, and part of me doesn’t see the point.

* The other part of me will have a top ten list out this Tuesday.

* George Clooney is good in The Descendents, and the frontrunner right now, but the film doesn’t work for me. I will be disappointed if he wins the Oscar. I am looking for new blood this year, perhaps in the form of Michael Fassbender.

* I salute Steve McQueen for sticking with the true vision of his film, Shame, despite the NC-17 rating. He didn’t edit a thing to appease the ridiculous MPAA. But I do think the rating and limited release will hurt the film’s Oscar chances. I can’t imagine McQueen and Co. care about that either.

* War Horse will be this year’s Gangs of New York and True Grit, a film that picks up 6 to 10 Oscar nominations and wins none. And deservedly so, because those other two films I mentioned are light years better than Spielberg’s mess.

* I had Leonardo Dicaprio and Meryl Streep slated as surefire Oscar winners this year for their dueling political biopics, J. Edgar and The Iron Lady. But neither film delivered the goods. The trajectory of these two pictures seems almost identical.

* I had higher hopes for David Cronenberg and A Dangerous Method for Oscar season. But any nomination would be a surprise at this point.

* The Tree of Life is the biggest critical darling this year, but I wonder how it will fare with nominations. Brad Pitt really should be considered for his role here, but instead his best shot is Moneyball. It reminds me of Kate Winslet getting a nomination for The Reader when what she really deserved was a win for Revolutionary Road.

* A silent film really does have a shot at winning Best Picture (The Artist). It’s been 85 years since that happened. Think about that.

* I would just like to say that last year, in my morning after article regarding last year’s Oscars, I said the following:

“As much as I feel the Academy Awards need to be progressive as far as choosing winners, the telecast must stop trying to trick up the hosting duties. Especially if they are going to get a spaced-out, disinterested James Franco and an energetic Anne Hathaway trying to compensate for Franco’s lazy, stiff delivery of absolutely everything. He didn’t seem drunk or high so much as he seemed sedated. And when Billy Crystal came out on stage, he went into his safe, yet effective and funny routine that he was known for so many years at the Oscars. It was like a breath of fresh air. Bring Billy Crystal back, Academy. You know you should. Of course, that means you probably won’t.”

I would officially like to take credit for bringing back Billy Crystal. Thank you and goodnight.

Young Adult

2011-12-29T09:15:00.009-06:00

YOUNG ADULT: Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Wilson (90 min.)

Young Adult is a title which means more than one thing. Like most of the characters and situations in the film, it is heavy on metaphor. It is the genre in which Mavis Gary, the antihero of our story played by Charlize Theron, writes her serialized novels. But it’s also a description of her stunted mental state. Mavis is a lonely alcoholic who moved from her small town where she was super prom queen to Minneapolis, where she shuffles around a messy apartment and usually passes out face first in her clothes. She is a bitter woman who never grew out of her bitchy high school attitude. And when she receives an email from her old high school flame, Buddy Slade, announcing the birth of his new daughter with his wife, Beth, she can think of only one logical plan. She must go back to her small town and rescue buddy from what is surely a miserable existence.

So here is Mavis, traveling back to the birthplace of her poor attitude where she ruled the roost as the most popular bitch in school. She hops in her Mini and listens to the mix tape Buddy made from her in high school as she rolls back into town, where the Chili’s and the Staples and the KFC Taco Bell hybrids make her cringe. Her and her Pomeranian shack up in a Hampton Inn and Mavis devises her plan to win back her beau. But first, she stops in a local dive for a quick drink or four, and runs into Matt Freehauf, a guy she graduated with played by Patton Oswalt. But Matt was a nerd in high school and Mavis doesn’t remember him even though their lockers were side by side. Alas, Matt was beaten severely in high school and is now handicapped and of course Mavis remembers him now. “You’re the hate crime guy,” she says offhandedly, “why didn’t you just say that?”

Mavis tells Matt her plan, and Matt adamantly tries to stop her from ruining Buddy’s life. For all her outward beauty, Mavis is ugly inside. Matt is the opposite of this, another example of the metaphors that are too heavy all the way through the picture. Matt and Mavis spark a genuine friendship and their banter is the best part of the film.

Mavis says most things offhandedly. She finally gets a one on one meeting with her beloved Buddy, who has quietly settled into middle age with his wife and child. Buddy seems happy to have his life, but Mavis doesn’t see it that way. Early on in Young Adult, Travis Bickle crept into my head and stayed there. This is Taxi Driver, or The Searchers, fashioned into an offbeat comedy. Although it isn’t all that funny because Mavis is truly, deeply disturbed. She is alone and confused and consumed by her own thoughts, and reaches out to try and save a person who doesn’t need or want saving. Sound like anyone we’ve seen before in cinema? The fact that Mavis is clearly mentally unstable takes some of the bite out of the humor.

The three central performances in Young Adult are all well crafted, and the screenplay from Diablo Cody doesn’t draw attention to itself, which is always a danger with a Cody script. Theron is at her best when her beauty is not the draw of her character. Mavis wakes up and shuffles about the same way each morning, hung over and her hair in shambles, although she does beautify herself by the time happy hour rolls around. Patton Oswalt continues to impress me as a real actor with distinguished depth in his performance. We need more of him. And Patrick Wilson as Buddy does his thing; Wilson always appears in movies without hurting or helping anything. He has potential, but he needs a meatier role here.

Young Adult didn’t leave an impression on me really. It simply… exists. Jason Reitman has always impressed me, and I think as a director he has his finger on the pulse of what makes a dramedy an effective narrative structure for character study. He does what he can with the material here, which is a fine story but not one with any inventiveness or need to be really. Performances will get a film so far, but without substance or a unique thought the end result will be lacking. Such is the case with Young Adult.

C+

The Artist

2011-12-28T09:14:00.005-06:00

THE ARTIST: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell (99 min.)

I must admit, I have seen only a handful of silent movies. I have seen all your heavy hitters, your Phantom of the Opera, Nosferatu, Wings… I have never taken the time to dive deep into the catalogue of silent films. But I have seen enough about the history and the techniques of silent films to know the tricks of the trade. I imagine most people know about the title cards, the effects, and the importance of expressive faces. Then again, nothing would surprise me in this current landscape of moviegoers. I say all of this to say I do appreciate silent films for their history, and I appreciate and admire The Artist for its uncanny ability to tell a fresh tale in cinema’s oldest format. The Artist does a marvelous job of making an antiquated filmmaking style relevant, exciting, funny, and heartfelt. It would be easy for a film like this to fall into gimmickry and lose its way as a real story; The Artist never falls victim.

Jean Dujardin stars as George Valentin, the most famous silent film star in all of Hollywood, an actor with great expressive eyebrows and a wide smile who never goes anywhere without his companion and co-star, a Jack Russell terrier. Valentin is on top of the world when he discovers, through happenstance, Peppy Miller, an energetic young girl with stars in her eyes. After Valentin places a beauty mark carefully on her cheek one afternoon, Peppy begins to get more and more roles until she becomes the biggest female star in the land. It just so happens that sound in film has been invented right about this time, and Peppy has the pipes and the looks for talkies; George Valentin rejects this new technology.

As George rejects talkies, Peppy embraces them and becomes an icon. George spends all of his own money making a silent film which fails and leaves him with very little. His vacant wife (Penelope Ann Miller) divorces him and takes what is left, leaving him with a ramshackle apartment, prints of his films, and his Jack Russell. If that wasn’t enough, the stock market crashes and George is penniless. Peppy tries to help him, but his pride clouds his better judgment.

The Artist is about the rise and fall and subsequent rise of George Valentin. I don’t feel like I am spoiling anything by describing it as such. This is a classic tale and you know Valentin will find his redemption. The fascination here lies within the seamless execution of a silent film 85 years after Wings became the last of the lot to win Best Picture. People may be immediately turned off by The Artist being a silent film in black and white, but director Michael Hazanavicius fills the screen with wonderfully expressive personalities. Aside from Jean Dujardin commanding the screen as Valentin and Bérénice Bejo as a charming Peppy Miller, James Cromwell plays George’s chauffeur and friend, Clifton and John Goodman is the boisterous film producer, Al Zimmer, never without a cigar in his mouth. All of the actors have faces and expressions for silent film, on top of a certain familiarity that might help a wider audience embrace the picture if only they would give it a chance.

There are two scenes of sound, aside from the musical score throughout the picture. One is a nightmare sequence for George, and the other is the final dance number between George and Peppy. Both moments are vital for the story, and the final scene tells us even more about Valentin which might lead us further to understanding his position on the talkies. The Artist is no gimmick; this is one of the very best films of the year. I understand the apprehension of the modern moviegoer to avoid a silent film in 2011, but I implore you to have an open mind. You won’t be disappointed.

A

Shame

2011-12-27T10:21:00.006-06:00

SHAME - Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan: (99 min.)

There may have been a place in time where Brandon had sex for enjoyment. Most addicts have used their drug of choice, be it alcohol or drugs or sex, for recreational enjoyment at some point in the past. Before their addiction took over their life and began crippling their ability to socially function. This latter stage is where we meet Brandon, the subject of director Steve McQueen’s new film, Shame. Played with quiet intensity by Michael Fassbender, Brandon has a good job – not that the profession matters – a tidy apartment in Manhattan, and a carefully cultivated private life which allows him to indulge in his sexual addiction. Brandon doesn’t seem to have any hobbies or interests other than finding the next orgasm, and not because he wants to. He simply has to, to get his fix. Shame is a spellbinding examination into the mind of an addict, one whose addiction rules his life no matter what he tries to do to control it. It will stay with me for some time.

The opening sequence of the film is brilliant. We see Brandon invite a prostitute over before work, then masturbate in the shower before getting to the subway where he stares, hypnotized by the idea of sex, at a married woman on the subway. The intercutting of these events is compelling, and it tells us all we need to know about Brandon. No matter how good he may be at his job or how well he might get along with his coworkers, there is no way for him to escape his sexual desires for even a second. Even in the restroom at his office. His nights are spent looking at internet porn and seeking out that next orgasm. In many ways he is like a functioning alcoholic. There is the running joke about how many times a day a man thinks about sex, but this is something much more desperate and heartbreaking. Brandon does not enjoy his thoughts; he is simply overwhelmed by them. Even when he throws out his material – including his laptop – in an attempt to begin a real relationship with a woman, he cannot perform sexually. Emotions have gotten in the way.

We learn more about Brandon when his sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan) appears unannounced in his life and asks to stay at his apartment. It becomes clear these siblings share a sad past – explored only through one line of dialogue – that has caused them to react in different ways. Brandon has caved in emotionally, Sissy has gone outward. Brandon wants no emotional attachment, but Sissy needs any she can find. The end result of their pain may lead them to the same result through different emotional paths. This arrival of Sissy upsets Brandon’s meticulously-crafted world of feeding his addiction. Things reach a certain boiling point before both siblings act out in their own ways, and we follow Brandon as he spirals down into seedy satisfaction. What might be considered the climactic moments of the film stirred in me any number of emotions. I found myself watching a train wreck of human emotions in Brandon’s desperate search for a fix.

Of course I understand the true nature of valor in the grand scheme of things, but in a cinematic sense, Michael Fassbender delivers perhaps the bravest performance of his career, of anyone’s career for that matter. This is a film about addiction, but not one without introspection, and Fassbender’s sharp features and deep-set eyes display a range of pain and emotional vacancy at just the right times. The pairing of Carey Mulligan and her cherub-like features with Fassbender’s lean frame is a wonderful visual metaphor for these characters. The most touching moment in the picture involves Sissy doing the saddest, most melancholy rendition of New York, New York I have ever heard. Brandon’s single tear at the sound of Sissy’s outward projection speaks volumes about both characters. Much of the interaction between the siblings is served to show the way they stand on opposite ends of an emotional spectrum and scream for someone to save them. They could find salvation in each other, if only they would allow such a thing.

I use the word emotion quite a bit to describe Shame. And I don’t think there is a phrase more fitting. This is a deeply emotional film that stuck with me and still lingers in the back of my mind. Addiction is a cinematic staple, but sexual addiction has never been examined this closely. Exchange Brandon’s searches for an orgasm, for his fix, with a search for heroin and you have any number of plots to countless films in the past. Though very few films have been as compelling in their execution as McQueen’s. Shame is rated NC-17, and I can see why, though there are films out there which show violence and depravity on a much higher level of intensity than any sexual encounter here.

A

War Horse

2011-12-26T23:06:00.001-06:00

WAR HORSE - (146 min.)

Throughout his long and successful career as an Americanfilmmaking icon, Steven Spielberg has always saved room for those who camebefore him. In 2001, AI, hiscollaboration with Stanley Kubrick became a visual homage to the late greatauteur after Kubrick’s unexpected passing. Spielberg’s finest suspense films, no matter how big the scale, all saveroom for the inspiration of Hitchcock. War Horse, Spielberg’s latest war film, is a full-blown return to thegrand epics of John Ford and Victor Fleming littered with tints of FrankCapra. In this wildly uneven picture,Spielberg comes full force with the sap and the sweeping musical score,overreaching for every tear he can find from the audience. But in between the moments meant to invokesentiment, it is clear there is no better filmmaker out there when it comes toshooting a battle sequence. I may sounda little hard on War Horse, and even doing this makes me feel like a grumpyjerk; that’s how sweet and good-hearted this film is.

The film stars any number of human actors, but this isdirectly a story about Joey, the horse who is adopted at first by a poor farmerand raised by the farmer’s son. Ted, thefather (Peter Mullan), is a decent man who drinks too much to hide scars ofwar, and when he sees Joey at a town auction he spends entirely too much to boyhim when what he needed was a plow horse. Ted’s wife, Rose (Emily Watson) scolds him and fears losingeverything. Their son, Albert (solidnewcomer Jeremy Irvine), an overly-earnest young man, promises to break in Joeyand train him to plow the fields. Andthus an unbreakable bond between man and beast is formed and will carry therest of the film, thank you montage sequences.

It isn’t long before World War I erupts across Europe andJoey is reluctantly sold to passing military troops. The soldier who is to ride Joey into battlepromises to watch him; Albert promises he will see his horse again. This is one of many moments where I began towonder the extent of horse-human relationships, and whether or not Joey evenremembers Albert ten minutes later. ButI allowed myself to suspend these curiosities because this is a movie, ad adeliberate type of movie looking to stir certain emotions. I opened my heart, so to speak.

And so Joey goes into battle and comes out of his first tourwith a new horse friend. He and his newfriend, a black stallion, are found by a young farm girl living with hergrandfather (the wonderful European actor Niels Arestrup) and they live for awhile until the next troop of soldiers come through and take what theyneed. This time, it is the wicked Germanarmy, and Joey is forced into grueling labor for the enemies. This is where I was once again distracted,this time by the lack of German spken by these German soldiers. They all seem to speak fluent English,without even a mix of German words. Ifound this very hard to believe. Wasthis all to avoid subtitles? Because ifso, shame on you Mr. Spielberg.

And so the story of Joey goes until the final grand battle,where things greatly improve for the film. Spielberg, and his longtime cinematographer Janus Kaminski, are marvelswhen it comes to introducing audiences to the disorienting fog of war. While the scenes here are decidedly lessgraphic than Saving Private Ryan for the sake of a holiday audience, there isstill the feeling of being overwhelmed by all of the horrors and brutality ofbeing stuck in the trenches . In betweenthe two lines is where joey find himself, alone, dirty, and tangled up inbarbed wire. The best scene in the filminvolves two opposing soldiers working together to free this “miracle horse.”

War Horse is a collection of inspirational moments aspredictable as night and day, but I suppose that is part of the plan here. Which maybe makes a critique of the film’spredictability unfair. Spielberg ischanneling those films of John Ford, the great Westerns with the sweepinglandscapes and painterly skies. And youcannot tell me that final scene is not a direct nod to Gone With the Wind. But the exercise feels forced most of thetime. And outside of a few solidperformances, none of the human actors feel all that genuine or seem toointeresting. Those battle scenes arethrilling, yet those sappy scenes in between which take up the majority of thepicture are full of characters less interesting than the one with the longface.

C+

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

2011-12-20T23:16:00.000-06:00

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO - Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara (160 min.)

David Fincher’s adaptation of Stieg Larson’s bestsellingnovel The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo toes a fine line – perhaps a series offine lines – better than I could have imagined. I have read the novel, the first in a trilogy, but have never seen the2009 Swedish film version. Fincher’stask, in my opinion, was to trim the fat from the novel, make a slick thriller,and manage to keep the millions of fans of the book on edge even if they mayknow what lurks around every corner. Hesucceeds as only a master could. Fincher’ssynthetic coolness and familiarity with genres of the depraved come together inthis Swedish murder mystery with the precision and functionality of a watchfrom that very region. This is a rarityin the world of book-to-film adaptations, where the film may serve the storybetter than the novel.

The film follows the book from the beginning, where we gettwo separate stories which will undoubtedly turn into one. First is Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), aninvestigative journalist facing public humiliation after losing a libel caseagainst a corporate heavy hitter. Dejected, Blomkvist walks away from the financial magazine he works fordespite the protests of his boss and casual lover, Erika (Robin Wright). It’s about this time he receives a call fromthe attorney of the Vanger family, a well-to-do family of Swedish Aristocrats,Nazis, and scoundrels. It seems the headof the family, Henrik (Christopher Plummer), requests that Mikael come to theVanger family island to investigate the forty-year old murder of his niece,Harriet. It was forty years ago shedisappeared from the island amid the chaos of a bridge accident. Henrik is certain she was murdered by afamily member and implores Blomkvist to give the investigation a look. He promises Mikael it will be worth hiswhile.

Mikael takes on the investigation and begins meeting themembers of the family, a rogues gallery to say the least. This is a British country house murdermystery in the disguise of a progressively gothic noir mystery cloaked insexual deviancy from all angles. Theisland and the homes are mere yards from each other, but the cold isolation,and the tension of the family and the sketchy history make them all seem milesapart.

As Mikael’s investigation unfolds, we are given a parallelstory of Lisbeth Salander, a skilled freelance investigator for a securityfirm. Salander is the best investigatorin the company but she is, well, different. A tragedy in her youth has made Salander socially inept, hiding beneathpiercings, a black shock of angular hair, pale skin, and a wardrobe of barbedleather jackets and combat boots. Terseand unfriendly, Salander’s body seems to wince with every movement under herleather clothing. Rooney Mara disappearsinto the role of Salander and takes her characterization of this fascinatingheroine all the way. Even through thetroubling scenes with her “guardian,” the roughest and most graphicallyunsettling scenes in the film.

Lisbeth did the background check on Mikael for the Vangerfamily, so naturally when Mikael’s investigation begins overwhelming him andthe clues continually add up to loose ends, he requests an assistant and thefamily attorney knows just the person for the job. This leads Blomkvist and Salander together ina scene in Salander’s apartment. What isunsaid between the two might be just as important as the dialogue. Salander notices Blomkvist’s relative easearound her; he is not frightened or uneasy. The relationship between Mikael and Lisbeth is the most crucial dynamicof the story; in many ways the film hinges greatly on the chemistry of thesetwo characters, worlds apart but somehow finding each other. Craig and Mara have a spark together, a sparkwhich rolls beneath the surface of a slick and often startling thriller.

This leads me to the plot, and the intricacies of a story somany readers already know. Fincher pullsoff something pretty bold here, managing to keep the plot turns and twists incheck while still saving a place for a surprise to the fans of the novel. It’s a deft touch and a testament to thewonderful directing of Fincher and – perhaps more so – to the cleverness of thescreenplay by Steven Zaillian. A fewsmall details throughout the film are different from the book, including arelationship between Blomkvist and a family member on the island; this relationshipfelt a bit too much in the novel and, apparently, Fincher and Zaillian felt thesame way. Their addition by subtractionis one of a handful of wise choices. Unfortunately,some of the fat from the end of the novel couldn’t be avoided once Blomkvistand Salander leave the island.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and David Fincher feel likea match made in heaven. This is a smoothand silky thriller with some graphic and disturbing undertones, watched over by a director who is right athome in such a universe. And back (fromscoring Fincher’s The Social Network last year) are Atticus Ross and TrentReznor. Their score is prickly, sneaky,it gets under your skin. Much like thepowerful performance of Rooney Mara. I look forward to the two other films.

A-

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

2011-12-18T11:20:00.001-06:00

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL - Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg (133 min.)

There must be a checklist involved in the birthing of theseMission: Impossible films. There must beat least four exotic locales, at least three gimmicky technologies, and nofewer than two action set pieces that defy the laws of gravity. This latest entry into the M:I franchise,Ghost Protocol, checks all these elements off the list, but it still feelsgenuine and doesn’t ever feel like a film that is going through the motions. This is far and away the best film in theseries since the original, ages ago in 1995. The locales and the gadgets are a step above any of the previous films,and the action… well… these action set pieces are more fantastic and morebreathtaking than anything I remember ever seeing before in any film. If you have the ability to see Mission:Impossible – Ghost Protocol in IMAX format, I highly suggest you do so.

Tom Cruise might have the easiest job here, as far ascharacter development is concerned. Weall know and are comfortable with Ethan Hunt at this point, the skilledmastermind of an agent, capable of entering and exiting any situationregardless of how sticky. And when wemeet him here, Hunt is being broken out of a Russian jail for circumstances ofwhich we are unsure. I decided early onto not get bogged down in plot details, and I must beg you to do the same. If you get caught up in the details and theintricacies of this plot, you are missing the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is something you don’twant to miss.

The members of Hunt’s team are old and new. There is Benji, the computer geek capable ofhacking into any network in the world, played by Simon Pegg in some spot oncomic relief. Benji was a crucialcharacter in the end of M:I III. Thereis also some new blood on the team, first and foremost in Jane, played by PaulaPatton. Outside of the leads here Ifound Jane to be most intriguing. Although Paula Patton may look just about identical to Rosario Dawson, Ifound her much more effective as an actress. Jane is a very emotional agent, but one with an edge, and one who getsto show off her combat skills in a number of fight scenes. The cast is inspired, including Tom Wilkinsonas the secretary in a brief scene.

Hunt and his team are to track down a Russian criminal withaspirations for nuclear war. They also manageto take on a newbie, Brandt, played by Jeremy Renner. Renner is perfect for this role, balancingthe smooth edges of Cruise’s Ethan Hunt with a rougher physique. Brandt claims to be an analyst, but afterthings go awry in Dubai, it is clear through his fighting skills that Brandt ismore than just a numbers cruncher.

Which leads me to the set pieces in Ghost Protocol. First up is an explosion at the Kremlin inMoscow, breathtaking in its own right. But the team then travels from Russia to Dubai, to India, and it is theset piece in Dubai that takes the cake for the action of the film, and for the franchise’sfour pictures. Hunt must infiltrate amainframe from the outside of the world’s tallest building. It has been noted that the adrenaline junkieCruise opted to shoot these scenes himself, on the outside of the 130 storybuilding. And there is no doubt hedid. These scenes are some of the mostoverwhelming and vertigo-inducing action scenes ever captured on film. The entire set piece in Dubai is the mostexhilarating of the film, as Hunt must pursue the purchaser of nuclear codesfirst throughout the building, and then through an epic sand storm. Director Brad Bird, moving from animationinto live action for the first time, has the screws down tight on the actionfrom start to finish.

And now I must deliver a word of warning. I feel like the Mission: Impossible braintrust has to quit while they’re ahead. The gimmicks and gadgets in Ghost Protocol are highly unlikely in thereal world, and that is just fine. But Igrew a bit concerned when Renner’s character donned magnetic metal underwear tofloat around in the mainframe of a computer. The ante has to be upped every time out, and I think the next go roundmight push the gadgets over the edge into farcical territory. The last thing we need here is anotherinvisible car, a la James Bond in Die Another Day.

A-

THURSDAY THROWBACK: Swingers (1996)

2011-12-15T17:16:00.000-06:00

It’s funny the way movies change in our mindsovertime. The movies never changethemselves; the film has been shot and the finished product will never be anydifferent. And yet, audiences changearound the movie, and seeing a movie as a fifteen-year old will undoubtedlyaffect a person in a different way than when they see it a few years later oras an adult. Films can be altogetherdifferent experiences from one year to the next. Sometimes it’s better and more often it’sworse. I can think of no better example,on a personal level, than the 1996 comedy Swingers. I remember loving Swingers when I saw itbecause I thought it was cool. I wantedto talk like those guys; I wanted to live their life. But now, seeing it again, the coolness hasfaded into something a little more pitiful and the comedy is not so much in thedeliberate humor as it is in the atmosphere in which these people exist. I still greatly enjoy and appreciate the film, but on an entirely differentlevel.

Our hero here is Mike (Jon Favreau), a downtrodden twenty-something living in Los Angeles with aspirations of becoming a comedian and an actor. Mike’s and his girlfriend split up some six months earlier, and despite moving across the country he has been unable to shake his feelings. Living in a ramshackle apartment, barely furnished, Mike spends his days talking about his ex and wallowing in his own depression. His closest friend, Trent (Vince Vaughn), is also an aspiring actor and is dead set on breaking Mike out of this funk. As the film unfolds, we find ourselves immersed in a world of twenty-somethings all discussing movies and their goals to become actors. They can see the bright lights, but they can’t get close enough to them. The quiet desperation of these characters is an element of the story I never fully comprehended when I saw Swingers as a teen. But now, as an adult, their desire adds an entirely different level to the narrative.

Trent – or “T” as he is affectionately called – drags Mike out of his apartment and off to Vegas in a first act that seems like a prologue to the film itself. It sets the stage in some great comedic moments. The two friends want to be high rollers, but their three hundred dollars doesn’t get them too far at the blackjack table (which happens to be a $100 minimum bet). They pick up a few waitresses working the graveyard shift and head back to the girls’ house, er, Airstream. T makes his moves on one; Mike pours his heart out to the other. This opening act is rich in character development andhumor, and it is the greatest skill of Vince Vaughn which makes us comfortablewith these guys immediately.

The rest of the movie follows Mike, Trent, and theirfluctuating circle of wannabe actor friends around various parties and coffeeshops and nightclubs in LA. They playvideo games at their friends house, a rockabilly boy named Sue (his dad was abig Johnny Cash fan) before making their fashionably late entrance intowhatever party or scene is readily available. The party starts at eight, so let’s eat dinner at ten and get their byeleven. Midnight at the latest. A running gag is that all the members of thiscrew take their own cars everywhere, arriving in a train of headlights.

I took Swingers on a surface level as a youth. These guys were cool and funny and I likedthe way they said things. Everything was“money” to me for a while afterwards. But as an adult, there is a melancholy air floating around the comedy. It enriches everything for me. These guys are all trying their best to getthat big break. The screenplay from JonFavreau is clearly told from personal experience, and that livens up a storythat would otherwise ring false. Theirony here is that the film was the launching pad for Favreau, the directorDoug Liman, and especially for Vince Vaughn, who would shape an up-and-downcareer around the motor mouth, cocky persona he creates with Trent. Over the years, Swingers has changeddrastically in my mind’s eye, from something of a throwaway comedy romp to afilm about desire and desperation. Because I know that, for the majority of these characters here, theywill never get that big break for which they so greatly long.

DVD REVIEW: Meek's Cutoff

2011-12-14T20:49:00.000-06:00

We meet them first crossing a fairly wide river. The men leading wagons drawn by heavy Oxen,nearly sinking below the river’s surface as they trudge along. The women carrying baskets above their headsas the water raises past their waist. They cross the river, and it is back to the harsh and unforgivinglandscape of the Oregon Trail, where this small band of pioneers battle theonslaught of nature’s cruelest setting: nothingness. There are three married couples, a child, andtheir leader, a grizzly-bearded enigma named Stephen Meek. They are one of countless wagon trains thatset out west in the 1800s on their way to finding the fortune they’ve heardabout so many times. But this land willnot allow them to pass as easy as they would like. Dissention grows among the travelers. Some fear they are lost; others know theyare.

Meek’s Cutoff is a meditative, deliberately isolatedWestern, a story about a journey that begins to test the will of thoseinvolved (and is now on Netflix Instant). I still don’t quite know whatto make of the film itself, except that it is quite brave in its execution and itsdedication to simple observation. Thesetravelers have put their faith in Stephen Meek, played by Bruce Greenwood in abeard and hair that practically covers his entire face. Meek boasts of his accomplishments and hisknowledge of the unseen west, but many in the party begin to question hiscertainty. The most suspicious of thetravelers is Emily Tetherow (Michelle Williams), married to Solomon (Will Patton). Emily is certain they will run out of waterbefore they find any more. The otherparty members include William and Glory White (Neal Huff and ShirleyHenderson), a younger couple, Thomas and Millie Gately (Paul Dano and ZoeKazan), and a young boy, Tommy (Jimmy White).

But the biggest character in Meek’s Cutoff is the mercilesslandscape. The travelers endure heat,cold, and barren isolation. The windblows consistently, throbbing against the soundtrack like an oppressive andunseen force. Director Kelly Reichardt(who worked with Williams on Wendy and Lucy last year) shot the film in the narrow 1:1.33 aspect ratio, not in widescreen. This squared-off vision pushes the cast awayfrom the screen in the standard long and medium shots used throughout. You can feel the desperate trek unravelingwith every cumbersome step. And thesteps seem never ending. As the men meetto discuss whether or not Meek is leading them astray, we stay with the womenas they strain to hear the conversation. This is a rarity in the genre as Reichardt focuses primarily on thewomen hidden deep beneath their bonnets and covered from head to toe in prairiedresses that look and feel like they must be a hundred pounds apiece. The new perspectiveis perhaps the most interesting technique of screenwriter Jonathan Raymond.

The pioneers capture an Indian that had been stalking themfor several miles, and his fate is divided among the group. Meek lobbies to kill him on site, but Solomonuses a clearer head. The Indian isobviously in good shape, is healthy, so he must know where there is water. They try and coax help from the Indian, Meekwith violence and the others with more diplomatic means of trade and favors. The Indian brings about more division andtruly exposes the inexperience of these white travelers. But remember, this is no conventionalwestern. The Indian is calm, inward, andthere is very little desire by Reichardt to show any developing lines of communication. Because this would likely be the case. These people are foreign to this man, andvice versa, and there is no existing line of trust. Attempting to build communication patternswould prove to be fruitless because, without the trust, who knows what is trueand what is a trap?

I found myself longing for a resolution to one or more ofthe conflicts in the end. But the lackof closure also feels like the only true end to the story. The performances hit their marks withprecision, and not once was I not immersed in the plight of thesecharacters. Still, as I bat the eventsof this picture back and forth in my head, it feels lacking to mysensibilities. I wouldn’t ask for anice, tidy bow at the end of the film because the falsity of such an end woulddestroy everything that had come before it. I would have been satisfied with an end to at least one of the means,however. Meek’s Cutoff feels less like anarrative film in the truest sense, and more like a segment of historicaltext. For this, I find no real reason inhanding out a letter grade. Any sort of gradewould undercut the deliberate non-structure of the film itself.

The Tree of Melancholia: Film Existentialism 2011

2011-12-13T18:14:00.000-06:00

The meaning of life is not new territory for themovies. As long as there has beencinema, so there have been films about our place in this infiniteuniverse. Consider the bleak division ofsociety in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, or the exploration into the dawn of man andthe evolution of the species in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001; existentialism can takemany shapes and sizes in film, though most of the time such a subject lendsitself to grandiose storytelling. Andwhile it has been around for ages, the meaning of life in film has never seemedas prevalent an examination as it does here in 2011. And it’s clear to see why. Things are not well across the planet, perhapsmore so than any other time in our history. Dare I say, we are sitting at a crossroads of the civilization and theexistence to which we have all grown accustomed. And two of the most unique films this year tryand shine a light on where we sit as a society, where we came from, and wherewe are going.

It is the duty of true art to reflect the current situationof the time from which it comes, and films are no exception. Of course, the movies are escapism first andforemost. But not always. There is and will always be a need for humorand action and fright on a base level, where audiences can go to the movies andforget about the world outside for a few hours. As much as we need Art House Cinema, don’t we also need Dumb and Dumberor Transformers? I would argue they havetheir place, good or bad. However, onoccasion, it is necessary for films to take a closer look at what makeshumanity tick. Bold strokes exist in allforms of art, and in this visual medium it is the responsibility of thosewilling (and capable) visionaries to take a look at something more importantand paint it with the brush of their imagination. This year, two pictures stand on oppositeends of the spectrum of the human race. While one examines our beginnings, another studies our end.

Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is a meditativeexploration into the origins of life on earth, beginning with a wide focus, thewidest really – the creation of the universe – and narrowing its focus all theway down to a single Texas family and a son searching for the meaning behindhis own existence. Malick’s film arrivesat the conclusion that our lives are the only thing that matters. To us. From the origins of the universe, all the way down to the family unit,the way of nature and the way of grace shape what we know and understand aboutthe world. Without our own lifeexperiences, we have no existence to speak of. The Tree of Life takes the grandest of subjects and individualizes it inorder to show the audience that we are all we know and all we will everknow. Consider the final act, where SeanPenn’s character, the aimless son now grown into a philosophically lost man,finds himself wandering in a desert with all the people of his past. He is confronting the ideas and the peoplewho shaped his own life, and the very notion of such an overwhelming experienceis the only thing any individual can fully comprehend. The universe, as we see it individually, ismade up of what we understand. Nothingmore, and nothing less.

While The Tree of Life may celebrate our very existence,Lars von Trier’s Melancholia observes the end, and where we may be headed. As optimistic and meditative as Malick’s filmmay be to many, von Trier’s film is equally nihilistic and bleak. It is not an observation of the beginning ofour world, but its total destruction, and how everything we cherish means nothingonce the world no longer exists. Our twoguides through this end, sisters Justine and Claire (Kirsten Dunst andCharlotte Gainsbourg), come to understand, in their own ways, that no matterhow the universe takes shape through their own experiences they will meet thesame end. We all meet the same end,regardless of the form it may take, and von Trier’s idea here is to homogenizethe past experiences of these characters into one complete range of humanemotion. Fear, anger, resentment andresignation exist as one arch in two people. When the end comes, we all die the same way. Melancholia shows us the apocalypse in anintimate setting, allowing us not to be caught up in the mass chaos of theworld, the myopic instability of all religions battling against each other’sbeliefs, but to truly consider the finality of such a catastrophe. This destruction of everything we knowrenders everything we cherished – our lives and our ceremonies and our love –as meaningless.

TheTree of Life and Melancholia serve as bookends to an expansive volume ofexistentialist films. There have beenfilms dealing with the origins of life, and even more studying the destructionof it all, but I would argue none explore these obtuse ideas with suchclarity. Von Trier’s vision of the endtimes is the counterpoint to Malick’s idea of the beginning, and vice versa. Whatever questions arise with The Tree ofLife, von Trier has answered with his own opinions. Of course, that was not his intent as thesedirectors were undoubtedly shaping their own films, one without the knowledgeof the other. But I would also argue itis no coincidence that these two very different, but very similar films, haveboth come out now, in the same year. These are times of great uncertainty, and when a society is faced withunrest it is human nature to look inward and find out what anything, andeverything, means in the end.

Melancholia

2011-12-12T11:55:00.001-06:00

MELANCHOLIA: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsboug, Kiefer Sutherland (135 min.)

I find certain delight when I see a film that is unlikeanything I have ever seen before. Theycome along once in a while, maybe five times a year in a good year, and thegreat uniqueness of these films restores my faith in the creative process. In a time where Hollywood movies are churnedout on a conveyor belt of unoriginality, looking to snatch the biggest paydaypossible before rocketing out to home video sales, seeing a film that isoriginal and distinct is like a wonderful breath of fresh air. Even if said film focuses on the end of theworld.

Lars von Trier’s Melancholia is the most captivating film Ihave seen this year, one of the most beautifully unsettling pictures I canremember. I have seen where this filmhas been called a bookend to Terrance Malick’s The Tree of Life, one observingthe origin of life while the other examines the end. But I dare say this film affected me greater,and will stick with me longer. It isjust as bold as Malick’s film, and I can see the comparisons. But make no mistake, this is a uniqueexperience, and trying to tie it in with any other film would be doing it adisservice.

Melancholia begins with an extended prologue, a ten minuteslow-motion sequence set to Wagner’s morose Tristan and Isolde in which we seethe two women of the story in situations we don’t immediately comprehend. This is a bold stroke by von Trier before hesettles into the story, told in two parts. The first part, titled “Justine,” focuses on an all night wedding partyat a lavish country estate which seems to double as a grand hotel. Justine, played by Kirsten Dunst, has justbeen married to Michael (Alexander Skarsgård), and the two newlyweds aretraveling in a stretched limo to the reception at the estate. The estate is run by Justine’s sister, Claire(Charlotte Gainsbourg), and her astronomer husband, John (KieferSutherland). Once they arrive at thereception, it is clear this collection of family and close friends cannotrightly function with one another. Something is seriously amiss. Some of the guests are bitter, others distracted by their own needs,others possibly insane. This includesJustine.

Justine’s estranged parents are the myopic and impossibleGaby (Charlotte Rampling) who doesn’t believe in marriage and sees everythinghere as a farce, and the aloof Dexter (John Hurt), who loves Justine but seemsquietly concerned about her mental state. Justine’s boss, Jack (Stellan Skarsgård), is trying to pull an ad sloganfrom her. Justine appears first as a serenenew bride, but her mood reveals itself as a façade. She is the first person to spot Melancholia,a planet which we will soon realize is headed for an impact with earth and willdestroy the planet, and her observation of the planet as a star in the distanceseems to change her mood just as she walks into the reception.

The entire first half is dedicated to showing the frivolityof such affairs. Melancholia is headedfor earth, so what does a cake cutting or a first dance matter? This mindset slowly overtakes the ceremonialaspects of the wedding and Justine’s mental state deteriorates rapidly as shebegins acting out, despite the best efforts of Claire and John to keep everyonehappy and none the wiser. I got thesense that the planet itself has begun to dissolve the mentality of thesepeople, and as we go into the second part of the film it is clear the impendingdoom has begun to affect the characters.

Part two is called “Claire,” and focuses squarely on thearrival of Melancholia. Justine has nowdeteriorated completely and cannot eat or function. It seems she has become resigned to the fateof the world. Claire has grownpreoccupied by the planet, and is frightened. John assures everyone that the planet will simply pass us by and bebeautiful to see. These three characterstake on the three available reactions to such an event: fear, resignation, anddenial. Of course, Melancholia willimpact with the earth and all will be lost, so it is von Trier’s decision toremain with these characters at this estate until the end. There is no influence from the outside world,and this allows von Trier a certain artistic liberty. The story is decidedly science fiction, butthe lack of outside influence, news reports or presidential addresses orworldwide panic and fear, create a sort of serenity and introspection. A film with different ideas would growconventional.

Melancholia is about the final days of this world, and itexamines an event in ways I have never seen on film. While the second half may focus more on Claire,it is Justine’s story from the beginning. And the way she looms as a presence, much like the planet itself, shehaunts the picture like a ghost. This isthe finest, most daring work of Kirsten Dunst’s career. This is not a film about the science of itall, but about the mood of these characters and their varying degrees ofcoping. It is a film which commands asecond and a third viewing. I feel likediscussing this film having seen it only once is the incorrect thing todo. But I must get some thoughts andobservations out. Because the next timeI see Melancholia I may feel something greater, something larger, something new. This is the sign of a brilliant film.

The Descendants

2011-12-10T17:49:00.001-06:00

THE DESCENDANTS: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller (110 min.)

Matt King, our guide through Alexander Payne’s new film TheDescendants, sets the stage through voiceover almost immediately. King, played by George Clooney, tells us howit really is in Hawaii; “just because we live in Hawaii,” he says, “doesn’tmean we don’t have real problems just like everyone else.” And Matt is having his fair share ofproblems. He makes his living as a realestate lawyer in Honolulu, but he also happens to be the sole trustee of 25,000acres of prime real estate which he plans on selling in a few days. The sale is going to make him and hisextended family very wealthy, but there is the moral conundrum of another pieceof beautiful land being turned into a commercial Mecca of hotels and touristshopping malls.

But Matt’s more pressing issue involves his own immediatefamily. His wife, Elizabeth, has beeninvolved in a boating accident and is in a vegetative state in the hospital,leaving Matt to tend to their two daughters. But Matt was always “the backup parent,” and he and Elizabeth were onthe cusp of a separation before the accident. Their youngest, Scottie (Amara Miller), is a precocious ten-year oldhaving trouble adjusting to her mother being ill. Matt doesn’t know how to manage Scottie, sohe gets their seventeen-year old, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) out of boardingschool to help. Alexandra is a troubledteen, full of resentment for both Matt and Elizabeth. And she also happens to have an important bitof information about her mother. She washaving an affair.

This bombshell sends Matt into a downward spiral of angerand confusion as he tries to track down the man Elizabeth was seeing with thehelp of Alexandra, who demands her friend Sid, a dopey schlub played by NickKrause, come along for the ride. Whilethey try and find this guy, who we soon discover is a realtor played by thelong absent Matthew Lillard, Matt also travels around to family and friends ofElizabeth to keep them abreast of her situation. Elizabeth’s father, Scott, is a cantankerousold man played by Robert Forster. Mattclearly has his hands full emotionally and financially, and the film is a storyof how he balances these plates in the air, trying to make the right decisionat every turn. And a twist in the secondhalf of the film makes the decisions that much more difficult.

Alexander Payne is a gifted writer and director, and heknows how to handle families and men on the brink of breakdowns. But The Descendants doesn’t know what to dowith itself once all the chips are on the table and the story is set. We know of the land sale and the affair, andwe meet his daughters, but the story starts treading water in a heavymidsection. I got the sense of a filmstraining to extend its running time, regardless of whether or not that was thecase. The trouble is, these problems andthese events could have been absolved too quickly. Instead, things are dragged out much toolong. Shots of Hawaii, of Matt staringand at a loss, the search for Elizabeth’s lover, they all feel stretched beyondtheir limit.

That being said, the performances in The Descendants arewonderful and fitting. Clooney has neverbeen stripped down this way, showing a different type of vulnerability from hisroles in Michael Clayton and Syriana. Iexpect a worthy Oscar nomination. Andboth daughters, Miller the younger and Woodley the teen, are excellent. The decision to set this story in Hawaii alsoadds a certain texture unfamiliar to stories of this kind. Everyone wears Hawaiian prints and shorts,spends their time in bare feet, but as Matt King tells us these are merely theelements of a culture. It doesn’t meanthese people are happy all the time, or more than anyone else in the world.

I liked The Descendants. But I didn’t love it. There aresome strong emotional moments here, but consistency in the tone and rhythmupset the overall picture. It is missingthe sharp wit of earlier Payne films like Sideways and Election, or theawkwardness of About Schmidt, and it feels like a 110-minute film with an80-minute story.

B-

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: Musical Resistance, Oscar Thoughts, and The Dark Knight Rises Goes Viral.

2011-12-09T09:40:00.002-06:00

* I think my brain has some sort of chemical that creates a resistance to musicals. I fully understand the purpose of song and dance in a cartoon, like the Disney films, and I embrace that. Even Mary Poppins makes sense to me. But West Side Story? The Sound of Music? These are adult, linear narratives that are shot wonderfully and interrupted by singing and dancing. I recognize the greatness of something like West Side Story, but last night I found myself changing the channel in favor of The Last Boyscout.

* Because The Last Boyscout is better. You know it is.

* I still don’t see a Best Picture frontrunner out there. At least not in this Holiday season. If anything, the Best Picture for me came out in the spring. It’s Midnight In Paris.

* I think even if The Iron Lady isn’t a very good film, Meryl Streep will still rob someone more deserving of a Best Actress nomination. Same goes for Leo and J. Edgar. I guess it isn’t fair to say they don’t deserve it regardless of the movie’s overall quality. But I did.

* I see backlash on The Dark Knight from time to time. This is unwarranted nonsense in my opinion.

* And the viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight Rises has kicked off and is in full force with set photos and all sorts of references packaged as different things. This is vague, but that’s how viral marketing works I guess. Either way, it is a little excessive and it may water down the final product.

* For example, do we need a 6 minute prologue to The Dark Knight Rises coming out now? I don’t think so.

* Of course, there is an easy way to get around all this viral marketing and go into the film as fresh as possible. Don’t pay attention to it.

DVD REVIEW: The Help

2011-12-08T17:29:00.006-06:00

Sometimes a film needs to use broad brush strokes in order to reach wide audiences. There are movies that exist to appeal to a very narrow demographic, but there are those movies where appealing to the masses is key. The Help is the latter, a touching drama that also manages to operate as a safe crowd pleaser. Dealing with such a prickly subject as racism in 60s Jackson, Mississippi opens so many doors to uncomfortable events. Violence, murder, hatred, disgust, and general depravity could be used to describe this time in America, and could be sharp and aggressive points in a film taking place in this era. The Help tends to skirt the tougher issues, opting to show us primarily the social divide between Southern Belles and their maids. There is disgusting behavior in The Help, but it is wisely kept safe enough for fans of the book and general audiences to enjoy a wonderful story without the inconvenience of squirming in their seats.

The film focuses on an outsider coming to understand the plight of the ultimate outsiders in Jackson, Mississippi. Emma Stone plays Skeeter Phelan, a kinky-haired tomboy in a sea of Southern socialites. Skeeter wants to be a journalist and a writer, and takes a job with a local newspaper writing about housekeeping tricks and tips. She lives among a world of stuffy women, led by the wicked and manipulative Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), a devious racist and an Ice Queen who goes out of her way to insult, humiliate, and control the black housekeepers who raise white children and take care of white households while their own lives go unnoticed. Hilly’s friend, Elizabeth, walks in Hilly’s shadow and has no time for her own child either. These bored housewives spend their time looking proper and playing bridge while the housekeepers take care of the ugly things in their lives.

Skeeter yearns to write something important, and as she completely disagrees with her peers, as well as her mom (Allison Janney) who is more concerned with her getting a date than anything else in the world, she decides to write a book about Jackson from the perspective of "The Help." She approaches Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), who is apprehensive at first but is soon compelled to tell her story. Along with Aibileen, there is Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer), a housekeeper as outspoken and abrasive as Aibileen is calm and reserved. The Help then becomes a story about these two women, and they steal the show from the other actresses.

Enter Celia Foote, the wild card played by Jessica Chastain. Celia is a social outcast, a bit of a white trash ditz who isn’t “clever” enough to hate these black women. When she hires Minny to help her figure out how to be a proper housewife, Celia is too naïve to realize it is uncouth to sit with Minny and share lunch. Celia is a special enemy to Hilly, and once the pieces are set into place the film becomes a waiting game, where we wait in great anticipation to see these awful white women get their comeuppance. All the while, Skeeter is learning from these housekeepers and building up her own resentment towards her mother, towards Hilly, and towards the attitude of Jackson altogether.

The Help is a touching and emotionally engaging film loaded from top to bottom with magnificent performances. In an age where female performances are marginalized, here is a film where I could see three or four Oscar nominations. Davis and Spencer dominate the film as the two most prominent housekeepers, and Bryce Dallas Howard is quite good in what must have been a difficult role to play. Hilly is a monster, and Howard’s cold gaze is appropriately heartless.

The look of the film is pristine, and the camera unclouded. The Help is not without some flaws, including needing a little more time in the editing room here and there to tighten the focus, but overall I grew quite fond of the picture as the story unfolded. It may also play it a little safe, keeping the violence and the hate crimes off camera. Some fils would opt for sharper angles to the story, but in retracting its claws it allows the picture to appeal to a broader audience. Sometimes, this is not a bad thing.

B+

ACTOR PROFILES: Michelle Williams, The Best Young Actress in Town

2011-12-06T15:10:00.007-06:00

If you were to turn back the clock to the heyday of the popular teen series Dawson’s Creek, I imagine listing which of the show’s stars would go on to have the most successful film career would not include Michelle Williams. At least not right away. There was the star, James Van Der Beek, and his girlfriend Katie Holmes. Then, of course, there was the popular best friend, played by Joshua Jackson. All three of these stars would have a career after Dawson’s Creek. But out of all the stars of the series, it is Michelle Williams who has transcended the series to carve out an early career challenging even the greatest of actresses. Williams could have easily taken the route familiar to nearly all young actresses, starring in romantic comedies and then attempting to branch out. Instead, after only a few bit parts in slasher pics and throwaway films, Williams began setting her sights on challenging work. And she has no intention, it seems, of changing her tune.

Born in a rural Montana town in 1980, Michelle Williams first gained notoriety on Dawson’s Creek playing Jen Lindey. She gained enough popularity to grab small parts in feature films, including Halloween: H20 and Species. Williams got work where work was available through the late nineties and into the 2000s, but her break came in 2005 when she was cast alongside her late husband, Heath Ledger, in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain. Williams played Alma, wife of Ennis Del Mar, a cowboy who shares a lifelong romance with another man, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. In a film surrounded by such controversy, but one that was arguably the best and most acclaimed film of 2005, it may have been difficult for Williams to be noticed outside the central romance between Ledger and Gyllenhaal. But Williams showed audiences certain heartbreak. Alma knew about her husband’s romance, but as she resisted the temptation to confront Ennis she stood quietly at his side for the sake of their daughter. Williams’ quietly devastating role garnered a significant amount of attention and earned her her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Williams would continue to star in little-seen films, in roles that would challenge her. In 2007 she starred in I’m Not There, the avant-garde meditation on Bob Dylan’s life and evolving career. In 2008, Williams endured personal tragedy as her ex husband, Heath Ledger, died unexpectedly after finishing his Oscar-winning role as the Joker in The Dark Knight. Rather than disappear, Williams continued to challenge herself and carve out her own niche in Hollywood. Later in 2008, Williams starred in the bare-bones production of Wendy and Lucy, a simple story about a wayward young woman with no home who loses her dog. The story is simple, but the performance from Williams is powerful. Wendy and Lucy was too small to be recognized by Oscar, but Williams did pick up a number of other nominations, including an Independent Spirit nomination.

2010 was another significant year for Williams’ evolution as a serious actress. Early in the year she starred in Martin Scorsese’s mind-bending thriller, Shutter Island, in a haunting role as Leonardo Dicaprio’s late wife. At the end of the year, Williams garnered the biggest praise of her young career, playing Cindy, the beaten-down, blue-collar wife to Ryan Gosling in Blue Valentine. The film was another controversial picture, skirting the deathblow of an NC-17 rating after some staunch lobbying by director Derek Cianfrante, and Williams’ performance was yet another devastatingly understated tour de force. She would pick up just about every nomination available, including her second Academy Award nomination.

2011 has been no different for Williams in that it’s been wonderfully diverse and challenging. She starred first in Meek’s Cutoff, a minimalist Western that is as small and independent as films can get. This holiday season, Williams plays Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn. Of course, in typical Williams fashion, her role as Monroe is not a straight biopic, but an examination into a specific place in time in the troubled starlet’s career. I suspect any number of nominations to come Williams’ way once again. Here is an actress who – in a Hollywood where skin, sex appeal, and romantic comedies are the direction the majority of actresses are forced to take – has created a career that will surely go beyond her sex appeal and into a long career the likes of Meryl Streep or Diane Keaton. When her looks begin to fade, Williams’ ability to deliver powerful performances will carry her, and define her as one of the greatest actresses Hollywood has to offer.

FOREIGN CORNER: 8 ½ (1963)

2011-12-05T10:22:00.007-06:00

Sometimes people, for the most part, don’t allow films to challenge them. I understand that most people out there go to a film to shut off their brain and escape for two hours without having to think about much, a technique with which I fundamentally disagree. Sure, once in a while going to watch a stupid comedy or an action film or a “jump-at-you” horror flick can be a great idea; but there is another side of things. Films are an art medium, and sometimes art should be challenging to the senses and sensibilities.

I imagine most people in this day and age would not give Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ much of an opportunity. This is an expressionistic film about filmmakers, where dreams and memories and realities all weave in and out of each other seamlessly, where imagery outweighs narrative thread. Don’t get me wrong, this is a film with a clear path and a finite thread, but told in such a way where reality is blurred. Consider the opening sequence where our hero, Italian director Guido, played by Marcello Mastrioni, is suffocating in a dream. He is trapped in his car, among a sea of cars, and begins choking on exhaust. He escapes the confines of the car and floats along the other cars, flying high into the sky before realizing he is tied to a rope held by his peers. Trapped between earth and heaven, Guido falls to the sea and wakes up before he hits the water.

This sets the stage for 8 ½, a film about a famous director being pulled in too many directions. Guido is on the verge of a big-budget science fiction film which he has lost all interest in, and is being hounded by his disapproving writer and worried producer. He has a wife and a mistress, and has no time for either of them. Guido is stretched thin, and retreats into his mind to evade his life. 8 ½ then thrives on the imagery of Guido’s mind as we travel through a meta-fictional examination of Guido creating his latest film. When things get murky for Guido, his memory or his imagination take over. Consider a scene where he is meeting a Cardinal of the Catholic Church to discuss the film; in the middle of the meeting, Guido remembers a time when he was a youth where he and his classmates visited a buxom prostitute living on the beach and paid her to dance suggestively for them. Much of the picture works as therapy for Guido, as he explores his career and the influence of women in his life. In one famous scene, Guido operates a Harem filled with all of the women in his life both past and present.

Fellini’s camera becomes a character in 8 ½, as his techniques and fluid movement draw attention to the cinematography. Many people may have a hard time deciphering what is real, in the moment, and what is imagined. But they aren’t paying close enough attention. There are clear indicators when Guido’s mind takes over the film, and once you grow comfortable with these moments the film begins to move seamlessly in and out of reality. And many critics argued at the time that Federico Fellini began losing his mojo when he abandoned realism for surrealism and self indulgence. This is a self-indulgent film, make no mistake, but what else does a director have to do other than utilize his own life experiences? Where would Mean Streets be without the life Martin Scorsese lived? And I see nothing wrong with directors veering off course. Had Fellini opted to stay in the real world and direct linear pictures the rest of his life, imagine the wonderful films we would have missed.

The title of the film refers to Fellini’s career; he had directed six features, two shorts (making a whole film), and co-directed his first picture (half of a film) with Alberto Lattuada. Seven and a half. This would make eight and a half films for Fellini. The picture would also inspire the Broadway hit musical Nine. This is a film where imagery supersedes narrative structure, and that is where the challenge comes in for most of the audience. But allowing a film to dominate the mind is vital when seeing films like 8 ½. Look at it unlike you would a Hollywood blockbuster, and things will come into focus. This is not a throwaway picture, but one which must be greatly considered and, dare I say, seen more than once. It’s okay to think about a film from time to time, to be challenged regarding what you think you know about the medium.

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: Daniel Day Lewis and Firing Up The Lincoln Buzz Machine

2011-12-02T09:50:00.003-06:00

* Here is our first look at Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln in Spielberg’s upcoming historical biopic of the sixteenth president. Apparently he is having some pasta or something on a break?

* Daniel Day Lewis is fascinating in his physical appearance. He is distinctively tall and lanky and recognizable, but can disappear into a role. And his features are perfect for a nineteenth century brute. He has that chiseled bone structure and worn façade that fits a Bill the Butcher or Daniel Plainview or Abraham Lincoln perfectly. He looks like he could have lived in a log cabin I suppose.

* Liam Neeson was originally rumored to be Lincoln. I originally thought Neeson had to be involved to make this film work because nobody else could look more like Lincoln. I suppose I was wrong. Should have never doubted you, Daniel.

* With a cast including (to name only a few) Day Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, Jackie Earle Haley, John Hawkes, James Spader, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, with Spielberg directing, if Lincoln does not win a table full of Oscars I think it will be labeled a failure.

* That being said, I have no doubt it will win at least four. Not sure which four though.

* That is, unless Spielberg – in typical Spielberg fashion – decides to have Lincoln live in the end. I am kidding of course.

* Something I did notice while perusing the cast of Lincoln… nobody has John Wilkes Booth out next to their name. Michael Stuhlbarg from A Serious Man and Boardwalk Empire has no character title yet; I could see him in that role.

DIRECTOR SPOTLIGHT: Is it Now Or Never for Cameron Crowe?

2011-11-30T10:02:00.010-06:00

As much as I complimented Cameron Crowe yesterday for his directing work on Pearl Jam Twenty, I feel like Crowe, as a true film director, has reached a crossroads in his career. After a dozen years directing films which tapped into a certain consciousness of both Crowe and audience, it has been a much more difficult road this last decade. Crowe reached the height of his powers in 2000, on the heels of a decade of critically acclaimed work that managed to cross boundaries and appeal to the masses. As a director, he has helmed a surprisingly small amount of feature films; as a writer he is much more prolific. But something has been lost in translation in his last two features, making his upcoming Christmas release an important turning point.

Crowe’s early life and career has been well documented, both through the work he accomplished at such a young age and his own semiautobiographical take on his youth in 2000. As early as fifteen, Crowe was submitting music articles to Rolling Stone magazine, and just a few years later he would have his first screenplay turned into a cult classic. Fast Times at Ridgemont High was the launching pad for the teen comedies of the 80s, but it was a much more cynical take on those formative years. It may have been an inspiration for the onslaught of great John Hughes pictures in the decade, but Fast Times feels like the antithesis of those movies. Crowe would also meet his future wife, Nancy Wilson, the lead singer of Heart who had a small role in the film.

In 1989, Crowe made his mark as a director with Say Anything, another teen comedy that has much more to say than any typical teen romp. Starring John Cusack, Say Anything was a smash hit in 1989 and opened any and all doors for Crowe as an auteur. We all know the iconic moment where Cusack’s character holds the boom box over his head, blasting Peter Gabriel. What is forgotten, at least in my opinion, is the way the film stalls in the second half under the weight of a corporate lawsuit involving Ione Skye’s father, played by John Mahoney. It really divides the picture into two parts, with the first half being infinitely more interesting.

Three years later, Crowe would shine a spotlight on the swelling music revolution in Seattle with Singles, a film with an all-important passion from the mind of Crowe. Four years later, Crowe’s work reached a new level. Jerry Maguire was a sensational hit for audiences and critics alike. Because of its tie to the sporting world, Jerry Maguire was able to pull off a romantic plotline and appeal to both male and female audiences. Jerry Maguire collected a handful of Oscar nominations and earned a win for Cuba Gooding Jr. (which would subsequently end his career, but that’s for another day). Crowe’s star was on the rise, and in 2000 he would direct the first masterpiece of his career.

Almost Famous is a film which any number of superlatives would fit in describing it: delightful, heartfelt, passionate, funny, charming, wonderful. It is a semiautobiographical take on Crowe’s early career as a teen writer for Rolling Stone. Crowe’s alter ego was William Miller (Patrick Fugit), a young, sheltered boy who goes on a year-long journey with an up-and-coming rock band whose inner strife takes center stage over their talent. Almost Famous had the benefit of knowledge, from Crowe’s own mind, and the love and attention to detail and a firm grasp on time and place elevated the picture. It also showed us that Kate Hudson, when she has the right role, can be a fabulous actress. Crowe would win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and have the world in front of him as a director. But his next two films were huge missteps and have seemed to tarnish his star a bit.

The first was Vanilla Sky, a mishandled remake of a Spanish film, Open Your Eyes. Starring Tom Cruise as a jaded millionaire, Vanilla Sky attempted to explore what it means to be happy, and in the face of great adversity what people were willing to try or do to find peace. While I do enjoy the synth-pop feel of Vanilla Sky and am less hard on it than most, I do see its shortcomings and its lack of focus. Things get strange in the film, but feel unwarranted. I think the problem is Tom Cruise, who is greatly miscast in the role. Four year later, Crowe would hit bottom with Elizabethtown, a clumsy and altogether dull take on a family drama. Starring Orlando Bloom – another missed casting choice – and Kirsten Dunst, Elizabethtown came and went without much recognition and showed a true chink in the armor of Cameron Crowe. Vanilla Sky was decent but mishandled in spots; Elizabethtown was simply a bad film.

Which brings us to this holiday season, and Crowe’s recent directorial effort, We Bought A Zoo. Based on the true story of a father who bought and renovated a struggling zoo with his family, We Bought A Zoo sports a promising cast of Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, and Thomas Hayden Church, but the previews are absolutely saturated with schmaltz. I can feel the sap on my hands after I watch a trailer for this film. The PG rating doesn’t help matters. Now I am willing to give this film a real chance at reviving Crowe’s career, but this is dangerous ground. Elizabethtown collapsed under melodramatic sappiness, and I worry this picture could do the same. Perhaps I am wrong, and perhaps the film will be truly inspirational, but it would be very easy to overdo it. Regardless, I feel like this is a pivotal film for Cameron Crowe, who could rebound from a few flops and come back strong. Then again, he could fall into directorial purgatory and lose all of the shine he once had.

DVD REVIEW: Pearl Jam Twenty

2011-11-29T09:26:00.006-06:00

The early nineties changed a lot of things about the music business, and they were my formative music years. I remember hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit as a young teen and immediately identifying. I bought the flannel, I grew my hair out, I tried to listen to every Seattle rock band I could find. Bands like Alice in Chains and Soundgarden floated like grainy, inspirational rock satellites around Nirvana and another band that was picking up steam about that same time: Pearl Jam. For years I would rotate Nirvana’s Nevermind in my Discman with Pearl Jam’s Ten, trying to figure out which one was more “important.” And make no mistake, they were important.

It is well documented that director Cameron Crowe got his start as a writer for Rolling Stone, then turned his love for music into a film career. His ode to the Seattle grunge revolution was Singles, a film that didn’t have an audience until Nirvana and Pearl Jam changed the landscape of music. Crowe has spanned two decades of a filmmaking career and has arrived now with Pearl Jam Twenty, celebration of the last band standing from that all-important Seattle rock scene that took the hairspray out of rock and roll. Pearl Jam Twenty is in depth, it is captivating, and it is appropriately fond of its subject. From the birth of the band in 1989, to its emergence as the Pearl Jam we all know in 1991, to where the members find themselves today, Pearl Jam Twenty leaves no stone unturned.

I will spare the history lesson of Pearl Jam because the film does a wonderful job of showing us the birth of the band and should be seen rather than read. In awe of the raw and early footage, I had no idea of the band’s early days with a different singer, the name changes, and the discovery of the soulful lead singer Eddie Vedder. Vedder was the key component of the band, composed of two lead guitarists, Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, bass guitarist Jeff Ament, and a comically rotating crew of drummers. There are early scenes of the band playing in small Seattle clubs, and countless arena and festival venues. The energy of the band in their concerts was explosive in the early days, and Vedder’s tendency to climb to the top of the rafters and fall backwards into a crowd of eager hands is one of the most jaw-dropping moments of this early footage. He should have died a number of times.

We follow Pearl Jam through their early years, to the well-documented conflict with Ticketmaster, to the tragedy at Roskilde in 2000 that claimed nine lives and shaped their second decade as a band. There is also a funny bit of footage from 2004 involving a George Bush mask and a cigarette; that’s all I’ll say. Access is important in a documentary like this, and I can’t imagine someone having more than Cameron Crowe (who cast a young Vedder in Singles for a brief scene). Something else that is vital in a documentary presentation is a passion for your subject, and Crowe’s dedication to this band and their staying power throughout the boy band craze and the changing culture of music is undeniable in the overwhelming energy of the picture.

Maybe the Seattle music revolution is before or after a time in your life. For me, it was in my wheelhouse, where I began to discover music beyond what my parents played. To see these early moments, where Pearl Jam and Nirvana interacted and where Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder formed their unbreakable bond, I was warm with nostalgia. I have always liked Pearl Jam, but now I have found a different level of understanding and a new found respect for what they have accomplished in their storied career.

A

Take Shelter

2011-11-28T09:51:00.007-06:00

TAKE SHELTER: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Shea Wingham (120 min.)

Take Shelter is a film based on modern American fear, where your job and your livelihood and your family might be taken away by catastrophe, the catastrophe in this case being of the natural disaster variety. Films and filmmakers sometimes tap into the national consciousness and exploit fears to expose a certain public mindset; consider the alien invasion films of the fifties as a substitute for Communism, or the surge of apocalyptic films in this post 9/11 era. This is not a new trend. Take Shelter examines the current malaise in this country, all over the world for that matter, in a chilling metaphorical look at a man who feels his sanity slipping.

Michael Shannon plays Curtis, a family man with a steady construction job, a co-worker who is his best friend (Shea Wingham), and pretty much everything he would need to be happy for the rest of his life. His wife, Samantha, is played by Jessica Chastain (who is having a stellar year with The Tree of Life and The Help already to her credit this year) and is a loving companion with a side job selling homemade drapes and pillows at the local farmer’s market. Curtis and Samantha have a young daughter, Hannah, who is hearing impaired but showered with love and affection by mother and father every day. Here is an idyllic portrait of Middle America. But something is wrong with Curtis.

He has been having nightmares, horribly vivid nightmares. He imagines rain as an oily substance falling out of massive thunderclouds. People attack his car and steal his daughter. The nightmares begin to seep into his daily life; in a nightmare the family dog attacks him and bites his arm and it takes the rest of the day for the pain in his arm to dissipate. He hears lightning on cloudless days. And yet, Curtis doesn’t approach these visions with any heightened level of stress. He considers his mom’s battles with schizophrenia as a possible reason for his impending madness. Only the dreams don’t get better, they intensify and Curtis soon has an unflinching need to renovate and expand the storm shelter in the backyard. He takes out a loan and threatens his job, his health insurance (which is vital to get his daughter a surgery she needs), and the family expenses in general.

As his madness puts a strain on his family, Curtis begins to hear the talk in town about his illness until everything explodes at a community center. The explosion is warranted, and the ferocity of Shannon’s performance in this moment pushes the events of Take Shelter over the edge. Curtis has reached a point where he may not return. A storm does come, and I won’t tell you the events of the final act; I will tell you there is a powerful and tense moment inside the shelter where Samantha forces Curtis to confront his fear.

Michael Shannon is an actor with one of the most unique faces in modern cinema. His gaze hints at madness boiling just below the surface. If you consider his previous performances in Bug and Revolutionary Road, it is clear Shannon is an actor of great intensity and command of the screen. But we mustn’t overlook the acting of Jessica Chastain here. Samantha is desperate to keep her family together and to save her husband, and her desperation ranges from sadness to fear to anger seamlessly. The performances in Take Shelter must remain grounded in the face of fears which are both imagined and very real. The nightmares may not indicate truths, but the repercussions affect the family in very real, economic ways.

Director Jeff Nichols handles the material with calmness and a firm grasp on the subjects in his picture. These are working class folks with real problems, not accentuated characters looking for melodrama. The picture falls into a rhythm in the second act where events grow somewhat repetitive. It loses steam as the visions take a back seat to Curtis and his thoughts. Nevertheless, Take Shelter is a film of our time. There are thriller elements at its heart, but the effectiveness of these events is how they affect health care and job security. In a time where everything has been pulled out from under families across this country, these may be more frightening notions than any oncoming storm.

B+

Hugo

2011-11-27T11:35:00.008-06:00

HUGO: Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Sasha Baron Cohen, Chloe Grace Moretz (126 min.)

Like most people, I found it strange that Martin Scorsese would be directing a “children’s” film when the announcement was made last year. But upon seeing Hugo I realized two things: 1) Martin Scorsese is a living legend, arguably the best American director of all time; he can direct any genre he would like, and 2) Hugo is anything but your typical children’s film. This feels like a picture Scorsese has wanted to make his entire career, a love letter from Scorsese to the birthplace of movies, and a spotlight on his lifelong crusade for film preservation. But Hugo also happens to be a warm and emotionally engaging picture about a young boy who – if I had to guess – is not much different than the young Martin Scorsese himself.

Hugo is played by Asa Butterfield, a young boy with soulful, sky-blue eyes. Hugo is an orphaned child who lives within the walls of a Paris train station, always keeping the many clocks wound, nabbing food from the cafés when he can, and avoiding the clutches of the station inspector, played with wonderful energy by Sacha Baron Cohen. This Paris train station functions like a small village inside the romantic French city. Within the station is a small toy shop run by a sad old man named Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley) and his granddaughter, Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz). Hugo is caught stealing small toys for their parts and is forced to work with Georges and Isabelle. He is stealing the parts from these toys, intricate little gears and cogs, to try and restore an automaton his father left behind. The automaton is a small human-shaped device that Hugo believes holds a message from his late father (played by Jude Law, seen in flashbacks).

Certain elements are set in place for Hugo to become a family adventure film, but those expecting mishaps and comic relief, overt special-effects spectacles and talking animals, will be disappointed. Hugo goes inward when Hollywood would want to make any lesser filmmaker project outward. But this becomes a film of Scorsese’s own heart. Young Hugo, always observing these trains coming in and out of the station, never has the means to go on one his own; I couldn’t help but think of an asthmatic young Scorsese watching his New York streets from an apartment window. And Hugo has a great love for the movies. He has seen several because, as he claims, they are “like dreams coming to life in the daytime.” These sound like the words of a young Marty who fell in love with the silver screen while his peers were out playing in the streets.

Thus, Hugo becomes a story about the birth of films and filmmakers as we discover certain secrets and other truths about Méliès and his early career. We are transported back to the turn of the century, when audiences ducked in fear of a train coming towards them on a screen and thought a rocket truly did hit the eye of the man in the moon. While we get to see these wonderful early scenes of movie sets and the way films were created before the advent of sound, we also begin to connect pieces of the puzzle in the Paris train station involving the automaton and its rightful place. There is also a subplot involving the station inspector and a florist that would feel wrong in any other film if another director was in charge; here it fits.

Hugo is an engaging film, and a heartwarming story that never feels manipulative. There will not be a more beautifully-composed picture all year; the screen is rich in colors and saturated in beautiful blues and browns. Sometimes, you can feel the passion of a filmmaker in the frames of a story; Hugo thrives on the energy and the emotional attachment of its director. People may ask why Scorsese would direct Hugo; my answer would be he is the only one who could have done it.

A-

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: Black Friday Edition

2011-11-25T10:59:00.001-06:00

* This is the only day Jingle All the Way ever crosses my mind. Remember Sinbad? How he wasn’t funny, ever?

* I am surprised there hasn’t been a movie centered around the ridiculousness of Black Friday yet. Jingle All the Way is close, but you could definitely do a comedy or a horror flick. You already have the title for the horror flick right there…

* I’m pretty sure Hugo will nab an Oscar nomination. Could Scorsese? And could he possibly win? The reviews are pretty overwhelming.

* I wonder if The Muppets has a chance to… Nevermind. Let’s not get carried away.

* It seems odd to me there is no adult-themed film coming out in wide release this weekend. After all, grownups are the ones who will be out running themselves ragged buying toys for kids. They need some time off in a nice adult movie.

* That sounds wrong… you know what I mean.

* Having to wait for A Dangerous Method’s release to broaden irritates me. Stop doing that!

* It seems like there are more limited-release films this year than in years past.

* I want to change Black Friday to National Die Hard day.

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: Twilight Fatigue, Conspiracy Theories, and The Last Boyscout

2011-11-18T12:16:00.001-06:00

* It will be a better day when these Twilight movies are over.

* I wonder if Taylor Lautner has another career lined up once the last Twilight movie comes and goes. Cleary he doesn’t have a future in acting. Remember Abduction? Yeah, me neither.

* Enough hostility. Tarsem Singh has suddenly become a busy director. When did he turn into such a good filmmaker? I am all for The Cell, but Immortals? No thanks.

* Guess I wasn’t done hating.

* It seems the Natalie Wood case has been reopened. She was found floating dead in the water back in 1981, off a yacht occupied by her husband Robert Wagner and… Christopher Walken? This is a fascinating case, and apparently a new tip has piqued investigator interest. I love a good mystery.

* Speaking of mysteries, I recently finished reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I haven’t seen the Swedish versions of the trilogy, but I feel like David Fincher’s version will improve the novel.

* I think it’s about time to watch Oliver Stone’s JFK again. Tuesday will be 48 years.

* I have this bad feeling that Ridley Scott may have directed his last good movie in 2007 with American Gangster. Everything since then has been pretty poor. I don’t have a good feeling about Prometheus, and I hope I am wrong because Michael Fassbender is involved.

* I never realized the similarities between Charlton Heston’s Two-Minute Warning and the climax of The Last Boyscout. I guess because I had never seen Two-Minute Warning until today.

* The Last Boyscout = Underrated.

THURSDAY THROWBACK: The 25TH Anniversary of BLUE VELVET

2011-11-17T10:20:00.008-06:00

It has now taken me about a decade to come around on David Lynch. For years and years, ever since my film consciousness matured late in high school, I knew David Lynch was a director I needed to seek out and take in. Over a decade later, I still could not see what made him such a profound filmmaker. I had created an impenetrable wall between my own film sensibilities and the career of David Lynch, and for some reason I found this troubling. Lynch has always been celebrated as a visionary and a daring director with a keen, original eye and a willingness to test the limits of viewer endurance. These descriptions of his work are what kept me coming back and keep me trying again. Ask me what makes Darren Aronofsky so great and I could go on for an hour. If you want me to tell you why I think Paul Thomas Anderson is the greatest modern filmmaker, I can do that. I recognize the greatness of other American directors like Scorsese and Stone, but the fringe ideas of David Lynch and his nightmarish realities just would not take. It grew frustrating to want to like and understand Lynch, but not have the capacity to do so and not understand why. David Lynch had become my white whale.

At least once a year I will revisit a film from Lynch’s catalogue, and get the same results: boredom, confusion, frustration. But over this last year, as my own film catalogue has expanded exponentially and the dedication to reading everything I can regarding film theory has intensified, I decided it was time to give Lynch one more chance. It just so happens that Blue Velvet, Lynch’s illustrious American masterpiece, is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year. It seems like a sign of sorts, as Blue Velvet reaches the ever-important threshold of twenty five and can now be considered a true classic, that I should give it, and Lynch, one more shot. And besides, despite the shock value of Blue Velvet, it is arguably one of Lynch’s more accessible films as it does not veer off course into dreamscapes.

I tried to watch Blue Velvet twice before. The first time I turned it off. The second time, I found myself doing dishes while it played in the background. This time I focused. I studied the picture, examined every scene, and everything began to fall into place. I could see, right there in front of me, the genius of this man who had been such a frustrating nemesis of my film life! This is exactly what people have been talking about this whole time; Lynch has his finger on the pulse of something most directors never even consider. Blue Velvet exists to shock us, and to make us feel uncomfortable about everything we know to be true in Small Town, America. Imitators may have diluted Blue Velvet over the years, but consider this film in 1986 and you will see its power.

For all of its complexities, the visual artistry of Lynch displays the stark division of suburbia right at the beginning. Blue Velvet opens on an idyllic suburban city, Lumberton. This is a charming, peaceful little suburb where the sun shines all day, dogs bark, flowers bloom, and lawns are perfectly manicured. Lynch plunges us into a Norman Rockwell portrait of Middle America. But as we sweep along these wide suburban streets, we stop on a man watering his yard. The man suddenly has a seizure of sorts and falls to the ground wincing in pain. From this accident Lynch pushes his camera into the manicured lawn beneath this man, deep under the blades of grass and into the dark recesses of the soil. Here is a land of creeping, crawling bugs as big as monsters on the screen, devouring each other. Very rarely is the opening shot of a film the best, but in Blue Velvet Lynch sets the stage with a brilliant metaphor right from the start.

The son of the man who suffered the attack is Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle McLachlan), who upon leaving his father’s hospital room discovers a severed human ear in a nearby field. He takes the ear to the police, who feebly attempt to locate the owner of the ear. On his own accord, Jeffrey and Sandy (Laura Dern), a high school girl with a crush on him, begin doing some amateur detective work. Their gumshoe investigation leads them to “the other side of the tracks” in town, to an apartment building where a lounge singer named Dorothy Vallens lives. Jeffrey decides to get his way into her apartment to try and uncover the mystery of the ear. On his second visit he is caught snooping by Dorothy, who turns the tables on Jeffrey in some odd and unforeseen ways.

Dorothy, played wonderfully in a daring and immodest performance from Isabella Rossellini, is being threatened by a man named Frank Booth, a sadistic, gas-huffing sadist who is holding her son and husband hostage so she will be his sex slave. This is the fulcrum in Blue Velvet, where things begin taking a strange turn and the façade of suburbia is ripped off its hinges. Jeffrey develops a strange and sad relationship with Dorothy, but it isn’t long before Frank Booth discovers Jeffrey at her apartment and takes him on a joyride into the bizarro underbelly of Lumberton, USA.

Booth is played by Dennis Hopper in a role which would revive his stagnant career. As a stark-raving madman, there is no better actor than Hopper. Booth takes Jeffrey and Dorothy to his friend’s house, where things somehow, some way, get even stranger. His friend, Ben, is played by Dean Stockwell, and is a madman on the other end of the spectrum from Frank. The room is full of characters in the background, a bevy of overweight women inexplicably sitting motionless on couches, and when Ben goes into a lip-synched rendition of a Roy Orbison tune, you realize Lynch has created a certain type of nightmare, a hell of his own creation. Barriers are broken in this scene and the film gels under the certainty of Lynch’s peculiar vision, where we suddenly feel as if anything is possible and nothing is off limits.

Blue Velvet was a celebrated film in 1986, earning Lynch an Oscar nomination for Best Director. Of course, the film itself was far too strange to nab any statues (not much has changed in that department over the years), but has since been recognized as an important film in the pantheon of American cinema. It is a dark and challenging film that is not for everyone – not for most if you want to get right down to it – but for those willing enough it is a powerful and steadfast example of Lynch at his strongest. It is a wonderful moment when the light bulb goes on, where I suddenly realized Lynch’s films are to be taken on their own merit. They belong on no list, in no category other than their own.

It is most definitely time to go back through Lynch’s work.

DIRECTOR SPOTLIGHT: The Soft-Hearted Cynicism of Alexander Payne

2011-11-15T09:48:00.008-06:00

Alexander Payne is among a field of directors who shine a microscope on suburbia, on retirement, on everyday lives and situations. Sam Mendes, Jason Reitman, and Noah Baumbach operate in this filmmaking world, where the most compelling stories unfold under our noses with our friends and family. Alexander Payne may have the best understanding of these worlds, and he tells his stories with just enough cynicism to avoid melodrama or overt comedy. Payne has made his career directing films about high school, the isolation of retirement, and the journey of lifelong friends, all with the awareness and sharp wit of a cynic. His latest film may take him in slightly different directions but I guarantee you it will remain true to the observations Payne makes in all of his films, keen observations about human nature and the way we all struggle to communicate.

Constantine Alexander Payne was born to Greek restaurant owners in Omaha, Nebraska in 1961. Unlike many filmmakers out there, Payne did not study film in any capacity throughout high school or his time in Stanford, where he majored in both Spanish and History. It wasn’t until 1996, at the age of 35, when Payne wrote and directed his first feature film, Citizen Ruth. Starring Laura Dern as a mess of a young woman caught in the middle of an abortion debate surrounding her own child. While it was small and relatively unseen, Citizen Ruth opened up those proverbial “doors” I often speak of for Payne, who would follow up with Election, a film which would find its way on a number of top ten lists in 1999.

Election stars Reese Witherspoon in a star making role, playing the high-energy Tracy Flick, a high school presidential hopeful. But the true star of the show is Matthew Broderick, the hapless principal dead set on ruining Flick’s campaign chances. Election is a sharp satire on high school politics, and it is a template for Payne’s entire career. Broderick’s performance is understated, steep in nuance, and pitch perfect. His principal McAllister, mired in a pathetic love affair, would serve as the rough outline for Payne’s protagonists in his next two films.

In 2002, Payne directed Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt, Nicholson’s latest Oscar-nominated role. Nicholson plays Warren Schmidt, a square Omaha businessman who, upon retirement, loses his wife and discovers almost simultaneously she had been having an affair with his best friend. About Schmidt is a quirky road picture, where Nicholson writes to a young African orphan, and travels in his new RV to try and stop his daughter’s wedding to a doofus waterbed salesman. Much like Election, About Schmidt takes the ordinary and the inane lives of Middle Americans and thrusts them into a cynical, and often times hilarious journey of self discovery. Payne had established himself as a director with a voice and a thematic model, once which he may have perfected back in 2004.

Sideways was the sleeper hit of 2004, a small picture with a big heart and a film which may have singlehandedly ruined Merlot sales for a year or two. The film starred Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church as Miles and Jack, two lifelong friends traveling throughout the California wine country on the cusp of Jack’s wedding. While Jack is looking for one last fling, Miles is struggling with his recent divorce, with the fleeting hopes his fledging novel being published, and with the overwhelming sense of disappointment permeating his life. The film was a hit with critics and audiences alike and snapped up Oscar nominations all around. Payne would win Best screenplay. This is a beautiful and intimate film, one with great humor and great heart that, in hindsight, is arguably the best film of 2004.

Now, Alexander Payne sets his sights on Hawaii, and a new dramedy surrounding a dysfunctional family living in paradise. The Descendants stars George Clooney as a recent widower struggling to reconnect with his children while discovering his wife may have been having an affair. This sounds like standard Payne material, and with a new setting I fully expect Payne to explore the Hawaiian Islands with a different lens than most directors. Payne has a clear vision, and the clarity shines through in his wonderfully heartfelt cynicism. Many directors out there try and shine a light back on the audience in one way or another; Payne may have figured out how to pull this off better than any of them.

J. EDGAR

2011-11-14T10:22:00.006-06:00

J. Edgar: Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts (137 min.)

Certain films come loaded with prestige and promise before anyone involved ever films a scene. The pairing of director Clint Eastwood, one of the most prolific and reliable filmmakers in the last decade, and Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the hardest working and dependable actors of this generation, should be enough quality to propel a film into the heart of Oscar discussion. Combine this pairing with the story of J. Edgar Hoover, the enigmatic father of the F.B.I., and this picture feels unbeatable from its conception. But the final result is missing a thing or two. J. Edgar is a beautiful film with a wonderful central performance, but the picture falls short in a number of categories, and grows long in running time as we fight to connect to its central figure and those closest to him.

DiCaprio plays J. Edgar both young and old. The film is framed around the elder Hoover dictating his autobiography to a number of scribes as he tells of the early days of the F.B.I. Sporting makeup which reminded me of Orson Welles as the old Charles Foster Kane, DiCaprio manages to fight through the distracting latex to make this older version of Hoover believable. The opening act revolves around the shaping of the F.B.I. and takes us into the heart of the Lindberg kidnapping case. We meet two of Hoover’s most trusted lifelong companions. The first is his devoted secretary, Helen Gandy, played by Naomi Watts. Gandy is devoted to Hoover for his entire career, and is in charge of those infamous “top secret” files Hoover was so quick to start on anyone and everyone. But Hoover’s closest lifelong companion is Clyde Tolson, a handsome young man played by Armie Hammer (The Social Network). Clyde spends his life at Hoover’s side as well; the two men have dinner together each and every night, they take trips together, and as Eastwood shows us they clearly have an attraction for each other. But Edgar can never bring himself to break the façade he has created as the staunch mastermind of the F.B.I.

We also meet Edgar’s mother, a controlling and manipulative woman played by Judi Dench. Edgar lived with his mother until she died, then remained in the home for the rest of his own life, never marrying and never leaving Clyde’s company. The people who shaped Hoover’s existence help to explain his life, but it is Hoover himself we see struggling with his own sexuality and forcing respectability upon his career. He had never fired a gun, served time in the military, or even made an arrest, so how was he the director of the F.B.I.? When you see the confidence in his speaking as he sits before congress and demands more funding, you can see how.

Eastwood balances the career and private life of J. Edgar Hoover better than can be imagined. As he grew older and more paranoid, we see the truths of his life manipulated in his own mind. There has forever been the rumor that J. Edgar, aside from being a closeted homosexual his entire life, was also a cross dresser. Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black – an Academy Award nominee for his Milk screenplay – approach this subject gingerly, with a tragic scene which shows what his motivation may have been for dressing in women’s clothing. Alas, the entire operation feels much too clinical or procedural to have any sort of impact at a level beyond a history lecture. It begins with momentum and gradually loses steam beneath the weight of information. The central relationship in the film is between Hoover and Clyde Tolson, though I never felt emotionally invested in their lives enough to care about their hidden love for one another. Hoover was famous for being an inaccessible man, and DiCaprio’s performance absolutely nails the most well-known traits of the man and his character. But since Hoover is inaccessible, his story reflects these character traits.

I am not sure how else to tell the story of J. Edgar Hoover without showing him as an old man. I am sure there isn’t a way around it. And to be fair, DiCaprio’s makeup is not a distraction. But Watts’ makeup is murky and noticeable, and poor Armie Hammer looks like the old men in the Jackass films when Spike Jonze and Johnny Knoxville dress up. Hammer’s makeup as an old man, and his forced mannerisms, are cringe-worthy and they completely took me out of the picture.

As I mentioned earlier, J. Edgar looks wonderful. Eastwood always knows how to manipulate light and shadows at the right moments. The picture creates shadow almost as another character, in a film about a man who lived in so many shadows himself. But the cinematography is not enough to keep the film from running out of steam considerably, especially after the case of the Lindberg baby is finished. Here is a man who kept his private life and his emotions secret for his entire life, so it would of course be difficult to tell his story in a way that doesn’t keep the audience at arm’s length. Right where Hoover kept even his closest companions.

C+

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: An Oscar-Intensive Edition

2011-11-11T09:21:00.002-06:00

* Brett Ratner withdraws from the role of Oscar producer after his insensitive remarks. My question is, why was this guy in charge of it to begin with? The Oscars are about the best of the movie industry, not about what some hack can do to pimp out the ceremony.

* Rehearsing is for “Fags” Ratner? Really? That explains a lot about your films.

* On the heels of that news, homophobic Eddie Murphy withdraws from the hosting duties in support of his homophobic buddy, Brett Ratner. To this I say, again, good. I am tired of hearing about Murphy’s “comeback.” It isn’t going to happen.

* Following the timeline here, the Oscars have gotten Billy Crystal to come back and do the hosting. This is great news. For years they have been trying to trick things up with dual hosts and not very good hosts (I’m looking at you, Franco and Hathaway). Billy Crystal, the Bob Hope of this generation, is the best host the Oscars have ever seen.

* I wish Drive had more of a chance at nominations.

* If Leo DiCaprio finally wins his much-deserved Oscar for J. Edgar, it will be a bit of a letdown if he wins Best Actor in a film that isn't getting good reviews.

* I wonder if they have already sent Meryl Streep the statue for her role as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. No need in waiting until March.

* I wonder what chance David Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has at Oscar. I mean, it is a remake of a remake of an adaptation… That’s a long road of “been-there-done-that” to get past for the Academy.

* Hopefully, the Academy won’t be afraid of The Tree of Life when time comes for nominations. I could see Brad Pitt, the screenplay, and the direction all getting nods. And there’s an outside shot at Best Picture.

* I think I would hand the Best Picture statue to Midnight in Paris as of right now.

THURSDAY THROWBACK: The 25th Anniversary of SOMETHING WILD

2011-11-10T09:54:00.005-06:00

The 1980s was a decade where the yuppie became king, and certain films and filmmakers worked to expose the underbelly of success and straight-laced suburbia. Martin Scorsese tried his hand with After Hours; David Lynch took a darker look at suburbia with Blue Velvet. Jonathan Demme gave us Something Wild. Something Wild is a film with a perfect title. As it bounces from one genre to the next, from whimsy to danger to humor to sincerity, Demme’s overlooked 1986 gem unfolds with delightful energy and splashes of brilliant color. It is a road picture, a comedy, an action film, and a romance. And throughout the narrative twists and turns, Something Wild never loses any steam.

Jeff Daniels stars as Charlie Driggs, an uptight tax attorney, a square with a wife and two kids who has just been made Vice President at his firm. Everything appears on the up and up for Charlie. But when he takes a small dare one afternoon in a Manhattan diner and tries to skip out on his check, he is spotted by Lulu, a raven-haired eccentric played by Melanie Griffith. Lulu, clad in dozens of colorful bracelets, bright red lipstick and quirky blue shades, confronts Charlie who immediately wilts in embarrassment under the scrutiny. In a fit of rapid-fire dialogue, Lulu lures Charlie into her car, a Technicolor joyride, and the two are on the road. At first glance it seems irrational that Charlie would want to abandon all that he feels is safe and get in the car with Lulu. But as the narrative unfolds we discover he may have been secretly yearning for Lulu to sweep him away.

Lulu and Charlie hit the road, headed for her hometown in Pennsylvania. Along the way Lulu seduces Charlie in a motel with lingerie and handcuffs, gets him drunk, and systematically loosens the grip of his boring necktie. Charlie is a willing partner in Lulu’s escapades, so when she arrives at her mother’s home and introduces Charlie as her husband, he gladly plays along. This is also the moment where the narrative and the tone of the film take a sharp left turn. Lulu appears from her bedroom with a short blonde hairdo, in a modest dress, as Audrey. The two of them hit the road again, this time to Audrey’s class reunion in a barn outside of town. The shift in tone is seamless, and Demme accompanies the changing story by employing a softer color palette to represent the Middle America in which we are immersed.

All is well at the reunion until we meet Ray (a sharply seductive Ray Liotta in his first film role), Audrey’s ex husband. Or perhaps he is still her husband. Ray is an ex-con, a small time thief, and as he latches on to Charlie and Audrey he takes them along on a robbery. Something Wild becomes something altogether different, a darker and more dangerous picture where Ray materializes as a real threat. Ray is a charmer, but a dangerous man. And when he steals Audrey away, Charlie realizes what he is made of. He is not a stuffed suit, but an adventurer who has been shown the other side of his own personality, and he decides he wants Audrey in his life.

Something Wild is, quite simply, a joy to experience. It would be easy to take an adventurous film like this one and fill it full of empty dialogue and brainless escapades, but Demme’s picture looks at its subjects a little closer. We learn about Charlie as he learns about himself, and we get swept up in the aura of Lulu/Audrey right along with him. Melanie Griffith has never been an impressive actress to me, but here she hits all the right notes. It is hard to see how Demme went from this film to Silence of the Lambs, until you consider the tension of the final showdown. Demme shows in one film his ability to bounce from genre to genre, and he gets the very best from his actors in Something Wild.

FOREIGN CORNER: Hunger (2008)

2011-11-08T10:33:00.007-06:00

Films sometimes exist to test boundaries and to push buttons. Not all pictures can be blockbusters or crowd pleasers or romantic comedies. Those films have their place, as do the films which carry the viewer out of a certain comfort zone to show them something they may not have understood about the human condition. Hunger, Steve McQueen’s debut film, is a visceral experience within the confines of a horrific prison, a compelling piece of history told with an unflinching eye; yet, there is a certain beauty to the images McQueen composes. The film tells the story of IRA prisoners in Northern Ireland, and of Bobby Sands, the IRA prisoner who led a hunger strike in the spring of 1981 until he died 66 days later. I am telling you this not giving anything away, this is understood once Sands (Michael Fassbender) declares his decision to a priest (Rory Mullen) in a long, gripping, intimate scene shot almost entirely in a daring single take.

Bobby’s goal was to have he and his IRA brothers within the maze prison in Northern Ireland recognized as political prisoners of war, granting them certain rights under the rules of conflict. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, heard in a few brief statements off camera in a radio address, would not grant the prisoners this label; she deemed these men criminals, so they were treated as such. Hunger then tells three narratives within the prison yet seemingly detached from one another. The first act focuses on a prison guard (Stuart Graham) who is tortured by his work. Each morning as he heads off to work he checks under his car for explosives; he must keep an eye out for IRA assassins constantly. His hands are bruised from routinely abusing the prisoners. In an early scene, we see the guard standing in the snow smoking. The scene is eerily quiet, like many in the film, and says a million things without an ounce of dialogue or musical influence.

The second act shows us two prisoners (Brian Milligan and Liam McMahon) refusing to wear prison attire or bathe. These men use their bodies as protest, covering the prison walls in their own waste and pouring their urine out into the hallway. The idea of this is hard enough to comprehend, and McQueen handles the misery of their situation without emphasis on the horrific; the idea of their protest is enough to drive the point across without a need for shock value. The plight of these two men leads us directly into the final piece of the narrative, to Bobby Sands, and to the conversation between him and the priest.

The conversation is the only moment of extended conversation in the picture. This is a quiet film, relying on images and moods more than exposition, which in turn adds a certain extra weight to these men discussing Sands’ fate. As I mentioned, the scene is shot in one long unbroken take, a medium shot where both men are hidden by shadows and lit only by the sunlight shining in from behind them. They discuss the impact a hunger strike may have on the situation, and the priest remains pragmatic. He does not discuss the religious implications of suicide, rather he points out to Bobby that he will never realize whether or not his protest will affect the situation as he will be dead. Bobby’s goal is not to be known forever as a revolutionary; his protest is something deeper, something almost impossible for most people on this planet to comprehend. The patience of the scene is a bold stroke from McQueen, an effective set up for when we get close shots of these men. We see Bobby, beaten and bruised and already too thin, but we still see life in his eyes. It is the life and the energy he needs to go through with this hunger strike.

Thus, the third act is Bobby’s final attempt at protest. We see him starve, suffer from bed sores and writhe in pain as his organs systematically fail. We see his parents, not trying to step in and save him as they watch their determined son refuse to give in. And yet, as these events unfold, the scenes are filmed with an ease and a beauty which allows us not to be caught up in the horrific but in the humanity. There is no music to emphasize pain or anguish; we see enough of that. Hunger is about the length of the human will, about how men this determined will use their last resource, their own body, as a weapon against oppression.

Fassbender dropped nearly forty pounds to play Sands in his final days. It is a dedicated performance. After Sands eventually died, nine more men would die in the hunger strike before Thatcher, The Iron Lady, would grant these IRA prisoners the status they desired. Though she would never formally acknowledge her decision. So we are left at a standstill after the protest; it worked to an extent, but was it worth it? That isn’t necessarily the point. It is no coincidence the events in Hunger mirrored the Guantanamo Bay controversy of the time, yet McQueen does not preach. He shows us the events, and allows us to form our own opinions about the persons involved. Hunger is a deeply affecting movie from a visionary new director, one which tests the boundaries of the film-going experience by showing us the endless limits of the human will.

ACTOR PROFILES: We Need More Laura Dern

2011-11-07T11:18:00.006-06:00

We see too much of some actors. Some we don’t see near enough. Laura Dern is the latter, an actress who never disappoints but doesn’t work near enough for my tastes. Dern is an actress I liken to Philip Seymour Hoffman, a performer capable of carrying a film admirably but a performer more comfortable in important supporting roles. Dern has carried a number of films, and tends to work well in fringe cinema; just consider her long history with the enigmatic David Lynch. It feels like she may be on the precipice of a career resurgence as we sit here today, citing her recent lead role on the HBO comedy Enlightened. Nevertheless, my feeling is the more Laura Dern we get the better we will be.

Born in February of 1967, it was clear Laura Dern had an acting career ahead of her. Born into an acting family, Dern’s father is the great Bruce Dern and her mother the fantastic Diane Ladd. Dern knew from an early age acting was her calling, finding success as a teenager in Adrian Lyne’s 1980 film Foxes alongside another successful teen star, Jodie Foster. Foxes would allow Dern to work steadily through her teenage years, nabbing bit parts and supporting roles in films most of us have never seen. Dern’s first role to garner some recognition came in 1985 when she played Diane Adams, a blind girl who falls for the disfigured Rocky Dennis in Mask. From Mask, Dern would find doors opening for her in larger roles and with more distinguished directors, including David Lynch.

In 1986, Lynch released Blue Velvet, a polarizing masterpiece examining the dark side of suburbia before Sam Mendes got his hands on the subject. Blue Velvet is a deeply disturbing cult film that has become an iconic piece of American filmmaking. Dennis Hopper’s turn as the sadistic Frank Booth is arguably the most notable performance in the picture, but Dern’s Sandy Williams, the curious amateur sleuth alongside Kyle McLaughlin, was vital in keeping audiences in tune with the bizarro wolrd of Lynch’s vision. She was one of the regular people, embroiled in this seedy underworld of sexual masochism. A few years would pass and Dern would work in smaller roles on lesser-known films before teaming up with Lynch once again in Wild at Heart.

Wild at Heart was another polarizing film from Lynch, an ultra-violent road picture where Dern played Lula Fortune, the lover of the dangerous Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage). Never one to shy away from the bizarre, Lynch’s film was a lightning rod on the festival circuit, picking up equal amounts of praise and disdain from critics worldwide. Regardless of the critical divide, the performances of both Dern and Nicolas Cage – who would go on to make a very strange career out of playing over-the-top nut jobs – were recognized as strong turns, and both actors would find new life in their careers and new opportunities. And even though Dern would never stray far from her roots as a fringe-cinema star, she showed her abilities in robust blockbusters as well.

In 1993, Dern played Dr. Ellie Sattler in Jurassic Park, one of the biggest and most celebrated summer blockbusters of all time. Dern would reprise her role in the ill-conceived Jurassic Park III a decade later, but her performance in the original showed new range. That same year, Dern played Sally Gerber in the smaller, more intimate film A Perfect World. Directed by Clint Eastwood, A Perfect World is a hidden gem in the nineties landscape. Dern’s Sally was a fresh-faced police psychologist who helped add layers to the escaped convict, Butch Haynes, when we couldn’t get it from the action of the narrative. Dern would fill out the rest of the decade with roles both big and small, and her penchant for independent cinema has defined her career ever since.

In 2006, Laura Dern took on her most challenging role, working once again with David Lynch in Inland Empire, the three hour mind trip shot all on digital film. Dern would play a number of characters, all as the same person; trying to describe the direction of Inland Empire is a futile process. But Dern met the challenge head on and handled the material better than I think any actress could have done. Lynch asks much of Dern in this role, and campaigned for her getting an Oscar nomination that year by sitting out on Hollywood Boulevard with a poster and a live cow. Yes, a live cow. Any actress willing to repeatedly accept the challenges of a director like Lynch deserves any special notice she can get. Sadly, the campaign fell short.

Dern’s unique roles lend themselves to her unique appearance. She is tall, gangly, and quite expressive, a spitting image of her father, Bruce. She can show anguish just as easily as jubilation, and her facial expressions are quite elaborate. Dern has been getting rave reviews for her role in Enlightened, and perhaps her next career resurgence will be on the small screen where she has spent much of her time in the past with guest spots. But I still hope she has some time to star on the big screen, where her presence is always felt, albeit not nearly enough.

FRIDAY SCATTER-SHOOTING: Best Actress is Over, Adam Sandler is Washed Up, and PTA is Taking Too Long.

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* Leo Dicaprio looks like the old Charles Foster Kane in his J. Edgar makeup.

* Michael Fassbender is carving a pretty significant path in the movies these days, but am I the only one who thinks he looks just like Christian Bale?

* I just cannot, for the life of me, make sense of Adam Sandler anymore. Now, I don’t expect him to go heavy into drama because of the promise he showed in Punch Drunk Love and Reign On Me, because he is a comedian at heart. But mix it up a little. And when you make comedies, try making them funny again. Big Daddy and Mr. Deeds are silly and juvenile, but they are funny. This recent run he is on is embarrassing.

* Denzel Washington is in Safe House, a new action thriller with a February release. This guy somehow manages to be an action star and a true thespian all at the same time. And not even in separate films. Safe House looks ridiculous, but Denzel looks great in it. Confounding.

* Meryl Streep’s is portraying Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady… guess we don’t have to worry about sorting out that Best Actress pool.

* Paul Thomas Anderson’s, The Master, will not be released until 2013. This is depressing news. It feels like it’s been ages since There Will Be Blood. Six years between releases is just too long for me to handle.

* Why is it that geniuses like Anderson and Darren Aronofsky take so many years to direct their films, but Michael Bay has one ready to go every other summer? Oh yeah, money.

* Am I really excited for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol? Or is Eminem tricking me into being excited about it?

* I haven’t seen Jack Nicholson in a while. Oh yeah, the NBA strike…

HOLIDAY MOVIE PREVIEW: DECEMBER

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What could arguably be one of the best films of December will be one not many in this country will be able to see, thanks to the skewed, antiquated absurdity of the MPAA. Shame (Dec. 2), the new film from the promising new director Steve McQueen and starring a surging Michael Fassbender, has been strapped with the NC-17 rating, ensuring it will be released in only a handful of theaters across the country. The story – about a struggling sex addict who must deal with his sister moving in and his world unraveling – has been deemed too much by a board of soccer moms who don’t appreciate the art of film, so Shame will not find the audience it deserves. Fascism indeed, but I am getting off track.

The following week is a mixed bag of sorts, with the spy thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Dec. 9) going up against another one of those all-star-casts-taking-a-paycheck-in-a-holiday-themed-crap-movies, New Year’s Eve (Dec. 9). Tinker, Tailor has been getting mixed reviews, and I feel like New Year’s Eve won’t have any reviews before its release. Those films typically aren’t screened beforehand. That same week, the Jonah Hill comedy The Sitter (Dec. 9) and the indie drama We Need to Talk About Kevin (Dec. 9) starring Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly (who will have a big month. More on that later) will try and find audiences before the heavy hitters flood the multiplexes the next week.

December 16th is all about two franchises duking it out for box-office supremacy. First up is Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Dec. 16), the sequel to his successful 2009 action film once again starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson. I found very little to enjoy in the first Sherlock Holmes film, mostly because I don’t agree with the portrayal of Holmes as John McClain, so I don’t hold much hope for this one. The second big gun belongs once again to Ethan Hunt. Tom Cruise returns as the super agent in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Dec. 16), the fourth installment in the franchise which is seeing its fourth director. As much as I have reservations about Tom Cruise, and about the fourth installments in film franchises, I must say the trailer has me intrigued. I think it’s a good idea to infuse the new blood of Jeremy Renner into the franchise as well. That same week, parents will be discouraged to find out there is another Alvin and the Chipmunks (Dec 16) coming out. But there is also a new Roman Polanski film, starring John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, and Christolph Waltz. Carnage (Dec. 16) appears to be a curious black comedy about two couples in a cottage for a day. I have a good feeling about this one as a dark-horse contender for Best Picture, but we shall see.

The rest of the December films are looking to draw in the Christmas crowds. Steven Spielberg has two films in this race, the animated Adventures of Tintin (Dec. 21) and what looks like an inspirational epic adventure, War Horse (Dec. 25). Despite the sappy tone of War Horse, I must say the trailer has pulled me in. And speaking of sap, Cameron Crowe returns this Christmas with his film We Bought A Zoo (Dec. 23), the true story of a widower (Matt Damon) who tries to reunite his family after buying a rundown zoo. Crowe has always been a master of tugging at the heart strings that perfect amount so as to not go overboard, but this may be his biggest challenge yet in that department. The other big Christmas release is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Dec. 25), another melodrama about a young boy whose father (Tom Hanks) died in 9/11 and has perhaps left him a hidden message somewhere in Manhattan. This might be the top crowd pleaser of the season.

In the middle of all this sap and this inspiration lies a sinister film from a director at home in the land of the sinister. David Fincher will release The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Dec. 21), the American adaptation of the International Bestseller, and the beginning of a trilogy. Buzz has been following this film since last year, in the heart of Fincher’s success with The Social Network, when he cast Rooney Mara in the lead role. The trailer is intense, and the subject matter seems ripe for Fincher to place his stamp on the story. Last year, Fincher aimed for Oscar and fell short; this year, he is aiming for the franchise he has never had.

HOLIDAY MOVIE PREVIEW: NOVEMBER

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When I was younger, I greatly anticipated the Summer movie season. I couldn’t wait for the big explosions and superheroes and CGI. Nowadays, I find myself anticipating the Holiday movie season in that same way, only now instead of explosions and superheroes I am anticipating heavy dramas and Oscar bait. There have been a handful of Oscar-worthy films released thus far in 2011, as there usually are, but these last two months are overloaded with Academy hopefuls. That’s not to say there aren’t some fun ones coming up this holiday season as well. There are big fun films, and big serious films, but look in the cracks if you want to see those smaller pictures with Golden dreams.

Little time will be wasted this month. We get big and dumb and big and dramatic right off the bat. First up is Brett Ratner’s latest attempt at filmmaking with the star-studded Tower Heist (Nov. 4). The familiarity of the villain, a Bernie Madoff doppelganger played by Alan Alda, adds some awkward timeliness to the story of his employees trying to steal from him given the recent interview with Madoff’s troubled wife on 60 Minutes. Ratner can be a fun director, but don’t expect anything memorable here. Oscar season may be officially kicking off next week when the Clint Eastwood biopic J. Edgar (Nov. 9) is released. Starring the great Leonardo Dicaprio as the enigmatic father of the FBI, Eastwood and Dicaprio are clearly aiming for the sky here. The makeup on Dicaprio as he portrays the old J. Edgar Hoover seems questionable, but I feel that may be the quick trailer shots deceiving me. I have thought, in the past, that makeup looked shoddy on TV spots but turned out quite convincing in the film itself.

Somehow, Adam Sandler has found a November release date for one of his dreadful-looking “comedies” that have passed their prime. Jack and Jill (Nov. 11) stars Sandler as a brother and sister. Hilarity ensues, though I seriously doubt that. Sandler has to be the most disappointing actor around today. In limited release will be Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia (Nov. 11), the science-fiction romance spectacle starring Kirsten Dunst. The picture picked up steam this year at Cannes thanks in part to the film itself and in part to the Hitler-sympathizing comments of the director Von Trier. The following week, George Clooney’s shot at a second Oscar comes out in the shape of Alexander Payne’s The Descendants (Nov. 16) a family drama set in Hawaii. Payne is a masterful writer and director, a symphonic auteur of the offbeat, whose Sideways was arguably the best film of 2004. And buzz is building for Clooney’s performance here. He will have Dicaprio to contend with.

Then Twilight comes out but right before Thanksgiving we will be treated to a nice slate of family films and one very unique experience for sure. First is the much anticipated return of The Muppets (Nov. 23), Jason Segel’s passion piece after Forgetting Sarah Marshall showed off his spot on puppeteer skills. That same day, The Muppets must battle Hugo (Nov. 23), Martin Scorsese’s children’s film debut starring Ben Kingsley and Sacha Baron Cohen. Based on the children’s book Hugo Cabret, the trailer shows off Scorsese’s wonderful color palette and richness of detail. While these both may be considered children’s films, they seem to be aimed at slightly different age groups. The third film is The Artist (Nov. 23), a silent film. Yes, a silent film, about a silent-film superstar bucking the oncoming trend of “talkies.” This may seem to be a gimmick, but The Artist is one which is building quite a bit of steam and should be at least fascinating to see on the big screen.

Finishing out the month may be my most anticipated of the season, a film from one Mr. David Cronenberg. A Dangerous Method (Nov. 23) stars Viggo Mortensen and the rising star Michael Fassbender as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, respectively, whose sexual and psychoanalytic studies on an emotionally unstable subject (Keira Knightley) draw them into her spell. Mortensen and Cronenberg have begun a working relationship not unlike Scorsese and DeNiro, and the results thus far have been quite wonderful. Cronenberg is a master of the psychological thriller; a film of this kind almost feels like the genesis of all other Cronenberg features.

Check in tomorrow where we run through the December lineup.