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20Jan

Oscar Picks

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Disclaimer 1: I have not seen all of the films generating Oscar buzz. Two films in particular – 127 Hours and Waiting for “Superman” – have given me the slip, so I reserve the right to change certain predictions and preferences after I see them. But I have seen the majority of 2010 movies that give critics like Roger Ebert a 2 a.m. stiffy.

Disclaimer 2: Unlike some critics, I don’t pretend to have in-depth knowledge of the technical categories. I liked the look of The Book of Eli, but I have no clue if those super-cool visuals came courtesy of the art director, cinematographer, production designer, director – or some combination of the preceding. Similarly, I can’t tell you if the bathtub scene in Black Swan is so effective because of great editing, sound effects, or the guiding hand of director Darren Aronofsky. So I am copping out of all predictions and preferences in the technical categories. On the other hand, I feel I am as qualified as the next joker to tell you which movie I thought was best, and which performance, and which story.

Best Picture:

Will Win: The Social Network

Should Win: The Social Network

A boring pick, I know. I think a lot of people could have made this prediction before the film was even released. The Social Network was clearly a matter of the right people tackling the right subject at the right time. Aaron Sorkin, David Fincher, and a film about Facebook – how could it lose? It won’t.

My top five films of the year (alphabetical): Blue Valentine, The Ghost Writer, The King’s Speech, Never Let Me Go, The Social Network

Best Actress:

Will Win: Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

Should Win: Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)

Bening made me forget I was watching a politically correct movie about an “unconventional” family. Instead, I simply appreciated her fleshed-out, highly amusing character. Portman’s emotional arc in Black Swan ranged from concerned expression to worried expression to very-uptight expression. Portman does, however, masturbate in one scene and engage in oral sex in another. That’s the kind of thing, I have read, that impresses Oscar voters as a display of “guts and determination.” Reminds me of 2001, when Halle Berry had to get naked and simulate sex with Billy Bob Thornton for Monster’s Ball – talk about guts and determination. Bening does not have sex in The Kids Are All Right, and she does not have the advantage of 500 close-ups, as does Portman in Swan. But “guts and determination” will carry the day.

Best Actor:

Will Win: Colin Firth (The King’s Speech)

Should Win: Colin Firth (The King’s Speech)

Firth’s main competition is Jesse Eisenberg of The Social Network. Eisenberg was superb – but was he portraying the real Mark Zuckerberg, or Zuckerberg as imagined by writer Aaron Sorkin? I’ve seen Zuckerberg in televised interviews, and he seems nothing like the hostile, antisocial young man played by Eisenberg in the film. But should that even matter? Eisenberg’s intense portrayal was riveting, fact-based or not. But Firth has at least two things going for him: He lost to Jeff Bridges last year (sympathy factor), and he absolutely nailed an acting challenge in The King’s Speech: a convincing stutter.

Best Supporting Actress:

Will Win: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

Should Win: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

I don’t see any performance out there strong enough to top Leo’s scary mother hen in The Fighter. Amy Adams? She was good, but I doubt that I was the only one watching her and thinking: “That’s Amy Adams acting with a Boston accent.” Leo wins, but I think this is a weak category.

Best Supporting Actor:

Will Win: Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech)

Should Win: Christian Bale (The Fighter)

This is a tough call. I won’t be unhappy if either of them wins.

Best Documentary:

Will Win: Waiting for “Superman”

Should Win: Best Worst Movie

If I had to put a label on 2010, I’d call it The Year of the Documentary. There was a period when nearly every week saw the opening of another first-class nonfiction film. These docs fell into two general categories: old-fashioned, “just the facts, ma’am” films (Countdown to Zero, Client 9, Joan Rivers), and a new breed that blurs the line between fact and fancy (Catfish, Exit Through the Gift Shop, I’m Still Here). Most of these movies had serious subject matter. My favorite documentary of the year, however, had ridiculous subject matter: the filmmakers and fans behind Troll 2, reputedly the worst movie ever made. Best Worst Movie is my pick because it has that most elusive of all qualities: charm.

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Will Win: The Social Network

Should Win: The Social Network

Ten years ago, Sorkin was reinventing TV dialogue with his rat-a-tat exchanges in the superb The West Wing. He hasn’t lost his touch.

Best Original Screenplay:

Will Win: The King’s Speech

Should Win: Blue Valentine

I have nothing against The King’s Speech; as a crowd-pleaser it excels. It was Rocky with royalty. Blue Valentine had a tougher assignment: It made depressing material compulsively watchable.

Best Director:

Will Win: David Fincher (The Social Network)

Should Win: Roman Polanski (The Ghost Writer)

Polanski has absolutely no chance of winning, and might not even be nominated. That doesn’t bother me much because I’m a Fincher fan. The Ghost Writer, Polanski’s polished political thriller, has a pair of formidable obstacles. First, it was released nearly a year ago, and Oscar voters have notoriously short memories. Second, it was directed by Polanski, whom some people regard as a child molester. But it was smart, smooth, and seething with low-key suspense.

Annual Snub Award:

Inception: I was enjoying this blockbuster until it suddenly turned into a routine shoot ‘em up, resembling nothing so much as an episode of Mannix, circa 1968, and at which point it began to bore the crap out of me. Give this movie a nomination for screenplay, give it an Oscar for special effects, and then give it the brush-off.

Newcomer of the Year:

Noomi Rapace of Sweden’s Dragon Tattoo series gave us the most original female character of the year. If she were nominated for Best Actress, I’d take her over Portman and Bening.

Best Movie I Saw in 2010:

The best movie I saw in 2010 won’t be winning any Oscars this year, because it already has one. Produced in 2009 but not released in the U.S. until the spring of 2010, Argentina’s The Secret in Their Eyes was easily the film of the year.

19Jan

Animal Kingdom

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I’ve never been to Australia, but if there’s another country (or continent, if you prefer) that has more in common with the United States, I’d like to know what it is. Australia and the U.S. share a common history. More so than, say, Canada, we share a “wild west” mentality that lingers to the present day. More so than England, we have prominent gun cultures. Aussies and Americans love their macho, and they love to drink.

So it comes as no surprise that our movies are similar, in particular our crime movies. An armed-robbery gang lives in a blue-collar neighborhood. Loyalty to the gang is paramount, and so is fear and hatred of the police. One young man wants to escape this paranoid world, preferably with his sweetheart. I am describing Boston and The Town, but swap Beantown for Melbourne, and you are watching Animal Kingdom.

Australian actress Jacki Weaver has gotten a lot of attention for her role as mother “Smurf,” the reptilian matriarch of the crime family in Kingdom, but – at least until the final minutes of the film – her part is relatively small. Weaver is good, but this movie belongs to Ben Mendelsohn as eldest son Andrew. Andrew just wants to be helpful, he’ll tell you. Are you gay, but hesitant to “come out”? Sit down and talk to Andrew about it. Having troubles with your teenage girlfriend? Andrew can be your friend and counselor. But beware, because Andrew isn’t always so friendly ….

Animal Kingdom is compelling, but like The Town, it’s not a great movie. Part of the problem, I think, lies with the young protagonist, Joshua. Joshua is a typical teenage boy, full of angst yet shy to the point of being a complete enigma. He is a blank slate, and it’s tough for an audience to relate to blank slates. Grade: B

Director: David Michod Cast: Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, Luke Ford, Jacki Weaver, Sullivan Stapleton, James Frecheville, Dan Wyllie, Anthony Hayes, Laura Wheelwright Release: 2010

Watch Trailers and Clips (click here)

16Jan

Autobiography of Mark Twain

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by Mark Twain

Mark Twain endures, I think, in part because he was a fascinating mass of contradictions. Twain is celebrated for his humor, but read this pessimistic quote from his autobiography: “The main-spring of man’s nature is just that – selfishness. Man is what he is … [he] tarries his little day, does his little dirt, commends himself to God, and then goes out into the darkness, to return no more, and send no messages back – selfish even in death.” And this quote: “These tiresome and monotonous repetitions of the human life – where is their value? Susy [Twain’s daughter] asked that question when she was a little child. There was nobody then who could answer it; there is nobody yet.” The man obviously had dark thoughts.

More apparent contradictions: Twain was a champion of the “little guy,” yet his friends were business titans and presidents. He was a sharp social critic, yet could react petulantly to criticism of his own work. This autobiography, planned for release 100 years after Twain’s death, is at once comforting and disturbing, as is the man himself. Helen Keller described Twain as someone who thought of himself as a pessimist but was in reality an optimist. I’m not so sure about that.

15Jan

Blue Valentine

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The best movies don’t end well. By that, I mean that their fadeouts are bittersweet, ambiguous, or flat-out depressing. Citizen Kane dies, alone and friendless. Rick and Ilsa are separated, apparently for good. Old Yeller gets shot.

Blue Valentine is that kind of movie, and that’s a good thing. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play (superbly) a married couple that would seem to have it all. Young, bright, and white in America – if these two can’t attain the American Dream, what hope is there for anyone?

Director Derek Cianfrance films his romantic tragedy in a documentary style, which is both a strength and a weakness. The sense of eavesdropping on private moments lends credibility and depth to the proceedings, and yet ….

Movies similar to Blue Valentine in the past – I am thinking specifically of Days of Wine and Roses and Two for the Road – relied heavily on melodrama. Alcohol was a major culprit in Roses; infidelity reared its ugly head in Road. There are no such obvious trappings in Cianfrance’s movie. Two nice people run up against something much more mundane: dashed expectations about married life.

I’m sure that mirrors reality for many people, and it suits the realistic tone of the film. But I wanted something more. I was watching, after all, a product of the Hollywood Dream Factory. Where was the stirring soundtrack, emphasizing dramatic highs and lows? Why were there no villains – human or otherwise – for me to hiss? Instead of emotional catharsis, I left the cinema with this feeling: shit happens. Grade: B+

Director: Derek Cianfrance Cast: Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Faith Wladyka, John Doman, Mike Vogel, Marshall Johnson, Jen Jones, Maryann Plunkett, James Benatti Release: 2010

Watch Trailers and Clips (click here)

10Jan

The Big C

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No good roles for women of a “certain age” in Hollywood? Balderdash. You just have to avoid the local Cineplex, which has become the domain of the teenage boy, stay at home and turn on your television. One of the best shows in any medium is playing on Showtime: The Big C, a comic drama created, written, and informed by women.

Laura Linney stars as Cathy Jamison, a Mary Tyler Moore for the 21st century. Like Mary Richards, Cathy lives in Minneapolis, has a career, and is the neighborhood “good girl.” But unlike Mary, Cathy has cancer – and some unorthodox ways of dealing with her crisis that would likely horrify Mr. Grant.

This is a smart, smart show. Cancer is always lurking in the background, of course, but what makes the series sparkle are its wit and unpredictable characters. Cathy at first glance is what you might call a spunky “soccer mom,” but she is surrounded by friends and family straight out of the booby hatch. In other words, her support network consists of realistic human beings. And, as someone famous once opined, we all know what bastards they can be.

One of the joys of the first season (the show returns with season two later this year) is the introduction of these goofballs, each of them a comic delight: Sean (John Benjamin Hickey), Cathy’s dumpster-diving, politically savvy brother; Paul (Oliver Platt), her emotionally stunted husband; Marlene (Phyllis Somerville), a modern-day Ma Kettle who lives across the street; Rebecca (Cynthia Nixon), her promiscuous ex-college roommate … and on and on. All of these characters are obnoxious on the surface; all of them are addictively watchable.

I’ve said before that the test of a great show is if it can transcend its target audience. I’m pretty sure I’m not in The Big C’s primary demographic, which would probably be those women of a “certain age,” but I recognize great writing when I see it. Unlike Mary Richards, Cathy makes a lot of really bad decisions – but we always understand why, and we’re always on her side.

Creator: Darlene Hunt Cast: Laura Linney, Oliver Platt, Gabriel Basso, John Benjamin Hickey, Phyllis Somerville, Reid Scott, Gabourey Sidibe, Cynthia Nixon, Idris Elba Premiere: 2010

Watch Clips (click here)

08Jan

True Grit

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I was washing up in the men’s room at the movie theater when I noticed another man, roughly my age, doing the same at another sink. “Which movie did you like better,” I asked him, “this one or the old one?”

He hesitated a moment, looked up and said, “I think this one.”

“I think I prefer The Duke,” I said.

We had both just watched the Coen brothers’ remake of True Grit, the classic John Wayne western. I understood why the man in the restroom had hesitated. It’s hard to distinguish between the two films, one produced in 1969 and the other just released. Hard to distinguish because if ever the word “remake” applied to a motion picture – aside from Gus Van Sant’s ill-conceived carbon-copy of Psycho – this is the time.

To say that Joel and Ethan Coen pay respect to the 1969 film is an understatement. The dialogue in the two films is frequently twin-like, the story, except for its ending, is the same, and some of the settings (I am thinking of the dugout scene) appear identical. But the Coens enjoyed an advantage with their version of Charles Portis’s novel: a bigger budget and superior production values.

In that respect, the Coens’ True Grit is the better movie. But watching it is an eerie, déjà vu-like experience. Ethan Coen has said that his and Joel’s film is more faithful to the spirit of Portis’s book than it is to the Wayne movie. I don’t buy that for a second. The new film is the old film but with different actors and better art design.

It all comes down to this: Whom do you prefer as Rooster Cogburn, Jeff Bridges or John Wayne? The man in the restroom preferred Bridges; I believe I prefer The Duke – but only by a whisker. Grade: B-

Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Cast: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Dakin Matthews, Jarlath Conroy, Paul Rae, Domhnall Gleeson Release: 2010

Watch Trailers & Clips (click here)

06Jan

Catfish

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Years ago, I read James Frey’s controversial book A Million Little Pieces. By the time I picked it up, Frey’s “nonfiction” memoir had been exposed as a partial hoax, so I knew what to expect. But you know what? Had the publishers simply marketed Frey’s book as fiction, I think it still stood a good chance of becoming a bestseller. It was that good.

Similarly, Catfish is documentary that has fallen under intense media scrutiny. Is the film real, or an elaborate prank? Either way, it’s a gripping detective story and an insightful examination of the new social media.

Catfish depicts the strange odyssey of young New Yorker Nev Schulman and his Internet relationship with a mystery woman living in rural Michigan. As the movie progresses, it becomes apparent that a gigantic con game is afoot. But who, exactly, is being conned — cocksure Nev and his two pals, who just happen to be making a movie? The audience? There is something disingenuous about the New York boys, who were the beneficiaries of some amazingly good luck and coincidences in the course of making a seemingly mundane film.

The Social Network is the buzzed-about film of the year, and it’s often referred to as the “Facebook movie.” It is not. It is a film about business, friendship, and betrayal; the Internet is merely the background to the story. The real “Facebook movie” is Catfish. Every facet of new technology comes into play: GPS, text messaging, Facebook, and cell phones. But so does the dark side of our brave new world: identity theft, digital alteration, and the loss of face-to-face communication.

The irony is that while the audience watches someone getting his chain yanked in Catfish, it has to wonder if it’s being played itself. Or, as Ariel Schulman says to his brother Nev, “We don’t know how much of it’s bullshit. And they don’t know how much of it you know is bullshit.” Grade: B+

Directors: Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost Featuring: Yaniv Schulman, Angela Wesselman-Pierce, Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost Release: 2010

Watch Trailers & Clips (click here)

03Jan

Love Scenes (1984)

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Important Note: They say that a film review is often more about the reviewer than the movie itself, so I want it “on the record” that I had nothing to do with the following review. I didn’t write it; somebody else is responsible for the words and opinions that follow. I didn’t write this introduction, either. In fact, I strongly disapprove of this review, just as I disapprove of this introduction.

Anonymous Review of Love Scenes

There was a time when my pecker was perpetually primed, presumptuous, and problematic (I won’t say pretty), and it was all I could do to placate said pecker by preemptively programming the TV. In other words, we (my penile pal and I) watched “Cinemax After Dark.”

On one such occasion, my persistent protuberance demanded that we view the 1984 movie Love Scenes.

Love Scenes is the story of film director Peter and his lovely wife, movie star Val. Peter and Val have a boring sex life, so Peter decides to spice things up by casting Val in his latest project, a steamy potboiler co-starring the odious Rick, a preening prick who is, unaccountably, irresistible to women.

During one particularly steamy scene in Peter’s production, Val’s character is seduced by Rick’s character in the back room of an art museum. (This scene occurs in an art museum because Love Scenes is a classy movie.) Things get out of hand for the two actors, and they wind up having actual sex.

“I screwed Rick with everybody watching — the whole damned crew!” says Val, just in case we missed it.

Rather than get jealous, Peter gets turned on, and so did my phallic friend. Peter pens more sex scenes into the plot for his wife. He decides to insert a scene in which Val has sex with an old fart, a famous art collector named Count Orlando, while she lies rope-bound to a bed.

In other words, in choosing his next kinky fantasy for Val, Peter picks a pickled pecker.

Count Orlando makes his brief, wrinkled, full-frontally nude appearance, enjoys his time with Val, and exits the scene.

All of this sex and nudity is puckishly perverse, and my pesky pulchritude was plenty pleased with all of these perversions. But at times the film’s brilliant dialogue — sparkling with wit and sophistication — intrudes upon the more important elements: sex and nudity.

Val: “Peter, you’re my man. Don’t forget it.”

Peter: “Sounds like a line from a movie.”

Peter and Val: (smiles and giggles)

When all was said and done, my penile projection was placated, although an Internet interview with star Tiffany Bolling cast a pall on my perceptions.

“The nudity bugged me, like in Love Scenes, and I would never do a film like that again,” Bolling pouted. “The bottom line to it was that there was a lot of nudity in it, and a lot of simulated sex scenes … I don’t want people coming in and getting a joyride off of me trying to get my work done.”

To that, my pulsing pal and I say, “poppycock!” Grade: A

Director: Bud Townsend Cast: Tiffany Bolling, Franc Luz, Julie Newmar, Jack Carter, Daniel Pilon, Britt Ekland, Susan Benn, Carol Ann Susi, Laura Sorrenson, Monique Gabrielle Release: 1984

Sorry, No Clips Available

02Jan

The Fighter

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I’m sorry, but I don’t care if The Fighter is “based on a true story” – it’s a tired, tired tale. If your idea of a good time is Turner Classic Movies at 2 a.m., watching Pat O’Brien as the good cop and James Cagney as the bad guy, two childhood friends who took separate paths in life, then by all means knock yourself out and buy a ticket to The Fighter.

Every boxing-movie cliché is here: the colorful neighborhood residents, the training montages (jump rope, anyone?), the sparring montages, the overkill of period music. Delete an F-bomb here and there, and we are right back at The Roxy watching Pat and Jimmy flicker on the silver screen. But I suppose I shouldn’t blame director David O. Russell and his team of screenwriters for digging this plot out of mothballs. If this formula has worked in so many movies past, why not dress it up and try to shovel in some fresh cash?

There’s been a lot of talk about the acting in this film. Christian Bale, as bad brother Dicky, is fine. Melissa Leo, as tough-as-nails Mom (she smokes – always the sign of a villain these days), is fine, although she was better in 2008’s Frozen River. And Amy Adams shows off a fine Boston accent and looks great in her see-thru black bra and panties.

But all of this fine acting is brought down by that tired, tired story, and by an unconvincingly happy ending – even if it is based on a true story. Grade: C+

Director: David O. Russell Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo, Mickey O’Keefe, Jack McGee, Chanty Sok Release: 2010

Watch Trailers & Clips (click here)

31Dec

Dead Again (1991)

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I don’t often get nostalgic, but if pushed I might get a bit sentimental about, oh … let’s say the year 1991. That was the last time my favorite baseball team won a World Series (or even played in one). I was on the verge of getting married back then, and buying my first house, and it was a year in which my future wife and I often went to the movies. One of the films we saw in 1991 was made by a young married couple making a big splash in Hollywood. They were considered the most glamorous film combo since Dick and Liz.

“Our modern equivalent of Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh,” gushed the New York Daily News, referring to Irish actor Kenneth Branagh and his English wife, actress Emma Thompson. (For you youngsters, Branagh and Thompson would go on to play Gilderoy Lockhart and Sybil Trelawney in the Harry Potter films.)

The Branagh-Thompson collaboration that we saw, Dead Again, is a silly film with a preposterous plot involving hypnosis, reincarnation, and an evil boy with a nasty stutter. But if you buy into its premise – some mumbo jumbo about a 1940s murder and its resulting bad karma – the movie is a lot of fun. Classically trained actor Branagh, who also directed, took a clever script by Scott Frank and delivered something special: an entertaining puzzler with lots of thunder and lightning – even though it was filmed in sunny Los Angeles. Watch the film twice if you can: There is an excellent twist, and not until The Sixth Sense came along ten years later had a movie so rewarded second viewings.

But try not to weep (or laugh) at the ironic dialogue. Says young Branagh to young Thompson: “[We’ve] become two parts of the same person. Nothing can separate [us], not even death.”

“So we’re stuck with each other?” she replies.

Alas, apparently not. Branagh and Thompson divorced in 1995, and so did my wife and I. My baseball team has not returned to the World Series. There is, however, one thing unchanged since 1991. Actor Derek Jacobi, who in Dead Again plays a scoundrel with a speech impediment, is still acting in films about stutterers.* Grade: B+

Note: Smokers, beware of this film. I am a smoker and I’m not likely to quit anytime soon. Having said that, there is an infamous scene in Dead Again featuring actor Andy Garcia that is so nauseating that it almost makes me want to chuck my smokes.

* Jacobi plays Archbishop Lang in The King’s Speech.

Director: Kenneth Branagh Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Andy Garcia, Derek Jacobi, Wayne Knight, Hanna Schygulla, Robin Williams, Campbell Scott, Jo Anderson, Christine Ebersole Release: 1991

Watch the Trailer (click here)

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