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Jared and I took in the slate of Animated Short nominees each of the past two years. The 2007 nominees literally put me to sleep but in 2006 it was a pleasure taking in preparations of a singing bird before the big show (”Maestro”), that Ice Age squirrel’s attempt to protest his food (”No Time For Nuts”), and Disney’s wonderful and devastating watercolor take on Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Matchstick Girl.” The winner (and my favorite), however, was a Danish/Canadian entry called “The Danish Poet” with a distinct animation style and a wry look at love and fate.
Youtube is starting a program to feature short films called The Screening Room and “The Danish Poet” was one of its first selections. I highly recommend it. It’s embedded below or click through it to get to a high definition version.
The best films for me to write about are the ones I’m ambivalent about. I feel the need to do justice to the good ones and the bad ones need explanations as to why they were so bad. And then there are those like The Kite Runner which just didn’t click but I didn’t hate. The one adjective I would attribute to it is “interesting.” For a film that was going more for emotion and melodrama, interesting is probably a failure. I was supposed to get caught up in main character Amir’s turmoil, guilt, and redemption, but I was more into seeing what Kabul looked like during various eras. I had a lot more fun learning about the Afghan culture and the time period than caring about the characters’ fates.
Basically, Amir is best friends with his servant’s son, Hassan. There are chasms of race and class between them that rear their ugly heads when an assault occurs, followed by a betrayal. A decade later Amir returns to Afghanistan to atone. The book is regarded as a modern literary masterpiece, but the movie met with mixed reviews and it sounds like it doesn’t really do the book justice.
After the movie struggled, it ended up with just one Oscar nomination, for Original Score. I’d listened to the soundtrack before and enjoyed its Afghan influences. The actual score has some of that, but is mostly the annoying Twangy Indie Guitar Music (or maybe it’s an Afghan version of the guitar). This is a trend that is really beginning to get to me. Honestly, the film is not particularly well-acted or directed. The only standout is Iranian actor Homayoun Ershadi as Amir’s caring but somewhat troubled father.
I didn’t really dislike The Kite Runner, but it didn’t come together well and grab me. Its track record seems to suggest it might not for you either.
Something about Grace Is Gone caught my eye a few months before its release. I guess it was before it became apparent that most of these Iraq movies were going to be critical and box office bombs. I’m also something of a sucker for a well-made tearjerker, plus John Cusack is all-around pretty terrific. Alas, Grace went nowhere during the Oscar season despite buzz for Cusack. It made it to a grand total of 7 theaters in December for just two weekends before disappearing (it then reappeared for two weekends in late January). But even after it bombed it continued to haunt me. Our local arthouse had its poster up well into the spring. It became a recurring theme at Golden Grouches screenings to laugh at how often we’d see the trailer long after it exited theaters.
Finally, finally I was able to see it once it came out on DVD and get that monkey off my back. It’s not superb, but it is better than many of the other War on Terror films that came out in late 2007 like In the Valley of Elah and Rendition. It keeps the story narrowly focused on Cusack’s Stanley Phillips, a man who loses his soldier wife in Iraq. There are no flashbacks, mysteries, or battle sequences- just a solid dose of understated anguish. Faced with telling his two daughters of their mother’s death, he cracks and instead takes them on an impromptu road trip to a Disney World-style resort in Florida.
Yes the tears flowed a little throughout, but there’s a line between earned emotion and manipulation and Grace Is Gone likes to meander back and forth across the line. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, we’re five months into 2008 and no top ten lists for 2007 have appeared on Golden Grouches. I could say I was making sure to catch up on all the films I missed but, while that was indeed my intention, that would be a lie. I’ve had the same three DVD’s from Blockbuster for over a month now. I think we were all sort of done with movies after seeing so many in such a short period and then we entered the dead zone of spring where there was very little of quality released (though I have seen several excellent 2008 films, some of which may appear in my top 10 of 2008 due to be released sometime in 2012). Jared’s been doing his thing but the Oscar part of this Oscar blog has been dormant, understandably.
But not writing a damn thing for this column has meant that it’s been brewing in my ol’ mind grapes for many months. 2007 was a pretty terrific year for film. For our little Oscar project I really only saw a couple movies that I truly disliked; even the underwhelming ones like Atonement were still fairly good. It was a bad year for blockbusters, but the movies that were meant to be good were indeed usually very, very good. That said, it was a year heavy on the “very good” but light on the “brilliant.” Top-heavy but not tip-top-heavy. I can’t help but compare to 2006, the era of this site’s genesis and the start of the lunchroom and barstool conversations between the four of us. Overall quality was much higher in 2007 than 2006, but I don’t think anything came close to touching the best of 2006. I’m going to note some really great films but none beat out my fave five from 2006 of The Departed, United 93, Children of Men, Pan’s Labyrinth, and The Prestige. Several of those films I could even attach the M-word to: I recently re-watched Children of Men and realized I was watching a masterpiece.
2006 found its stride with some weighty films, such as the string of anti-fascist successes (Pan’s Labyrinth, Children of Men, Catch a Fire, V For Vendetta) but 2007’s Iraq/terrorism dramas tended to flop and instead it was a year with great light-hearted fare.
As of this writing I have seen 91 movies released in 2007. The top 11%:
1. Knocked Up. I’m a little surprised that my favorite movie as of June was still my favorite movie 6 months later, but I choose to view that as a testament to Knocked Up’s quality. It’s hilarious, it’s touching, it’s gross, it’s heart-warming. You can read my tome of a post to see my full thoughts, but suffice it to say I found a lot of truth amongst the pot jokes and some sharp points on maturity, commitment, and marriage. I truly cared about the characters and their relationships and I really dug Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd as Katherine Heigl’s sister and brother-in-law. It made me laugh and it made me smile. (Also, the pot jokes are funny.) Read the rest of this entry »
I don’t know how much more there is to say about Juno. Through Oscar season we had the hype, the acclaim, the backlash, the backlash to the backlash… All I can say is that I loved the movie and that it was one of the few films I saw that I immediately wanted to see again.
Most of the controversy seems to revolve around the script. Is the dialogue too cutesy, are the characters too quirky? I don’t think so. The first five minutes smacked of trying too hard, but throughout I thought it adeptly walked the line to keep it from becoming too precious. Too much time has been spent complaining that Juno doesn’t speak realistically. Um, it’s a movie. No one in a movie talks realistically! Real people don’t have the coherence, dramatic touch, or comedic timing of movie characters. But, honestly, Juno doesn’t talk all that weirdly. Yes she doesn’t talk like a normal teenager, but she does talk like a self-absorbed, know-it-all, cocky, hip teen who thinks she’s awesome… which is exactly what Juno is! A viewing companion mentioned that he couldn’t believe that Juno would think Mark wouldn’t know Mott the Hoople. I think a sixteen-year-old who thinks she knows everything about music would definitely make that mistake. Teens think they’re bees knees and everyone else is lame. It’s a time honored tradition. I think sometimes Juno so frequently plays up how put-together she is that we forget she really isn’t.
The lingo-filled dialogue might have propelled Diablo Cody to a well-deserved Original Screenplay Oscar win, but it’s really the characters that make Juno special. I love how Juno’s layers are pulled back, revealing the self-sure dynamo’s insecurities. Ellen Page deftly lets the emotion peek out, never ever stooping to the melodramatic. Jason Bateman’s Mark and Jennifer Garner’s Vanessa start out looking like one type of couple and shift into something completely different. JK Simmons and Allison Janney as Juno’s father and step-mother are the caring and wise (and witty) parents that movie parents are rarely allowed to be. Read the rest of this entry »
Things We Lost in the Fire is the sort of deliberately-paced, melodramatic family tear-jerker that seems to usually drive the Academy wild. With a bit more cohesion and, more importantly, a lot more box office dollars this film may have gone somewhere.
Which isn’t to say I particularly liked it. I found it decent at best and strangely distant for a film that relies so much on heavy emotion. And I think a lot of that is because almost all of the characters felt wrong.
The film follows Halle Berry’s Audrey, a widow after her husband is murdered, and her two children. It turns out that Brian, the dead husband played in flashbacks by David Duchovny, was pretty much a saint that everybody loved. His childhood friend is Jerry, a down-on-his-luck drug addict played by Benicio Del Toro. Brian has always supported Jerry despite Audrey’s wishes. After Brian’s death she decides to take Jerry in, I guess as sort of a nod to her husband’s kindness.
Jerry ends up becoming like the surrogate Brian to everyone in Brian’s life and the film becomes sort of unintentionally creepy. There’s will they or won’t they tension with Audrey, Brian’s neighborhood pal insists Jerry go running with him like Brian used to, and Jerry gets involved in the children’s lives. Throughout it all I found myself connecting only with unstable, distant, addicted Jerry. With every conflict we’re supposed to be following Jerry’s internal struggle but really all I saw in him was what I was thinking, which was, “This is really weird, right??” Read the rest of this entry »
In the Valley of Elah was a pleasant surprise in that it didn’t completely suck. We all saw the combination of an Iraq War film and Paul Haggis and thought it would be terrible. Instead it was merely bad with a couple of surprisingly good elements.
The film follows Tommy Lee Jones’s Hank Deerfield as he searches for his son, who has gone missing shortly after returning from Iraq. The local police are happy to pass the case to the military police, who are in turn happy to bury it. There is, naturally, an underdog (and female!) local cop who wants to help Hank despite pressures from her department, played by Charlize Theron. The search for Hank’s son is the stuff of Law and Order: dramatic, compelling, and twisty but contrived and unoriginal. You want to find out what happens but you’d rather skip to the end than sit through the journey. The suspects include the son’s fellow soldiers from his tour in Iraq and it’s from this angle we get a lot of Iraq war preaching.
This is the type of war drama/murder mystery where Hank finds his son’s cell phone and a mysterious tech guru only sends him one video recovered from it per day. Each video, conveniently, reveals slightly more than the last. It’s also the type of mystery where the camera lingers obviously over a case-breaking clue that isn’t discovered until a climactic ending and where innocent people act as if they have something to hide when they don’t for no apparent reason. Hank may be deep into the mystery of his lost son but that doesn’t prevent him from telling his wife not to open a package sent from Iraq, in order to “protect” her.
Jones got nominated for Best Actor for this role. It’s a quintessential Jones role: reserved, sharp cop. In that sense I don’t think it was a stretch for him and I liked him better in a similar role in No Country for Old Men. Of course, he gets these parts because he’s damn good at them and he’s good here. I like characters that don’t show a lot of obvious emotion but still manage to articulate so much with small looks and expressions. (For another great 2007 example, check out Ulrich Mühe in The Lives of Others.) In a film that doesn’t understand the meaning of understatement, Jones imparts a lot of emotion very subtly. There are probably performances I would have chosen over Jones, like Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl, but it was no means a bad choice.
In the Valley of Elah isn’t exactly subtle. Soldiers talk of their experiences in a stilted, affected manner like they’re oh-so-troubled actors. We’re treated to some strangely situated and heavy-handed screeds about the evils of war. I guess this is sort of expected from a Haggis screenplay and there is no clever or original insight into the wartime experience.
But just when it looks like the film will play out in an obvious manner there comes some surprisingly well-crafted touches. Read the rest of this entry »
And that’s a strong current considering the crap filling the multiplexes this spring.
The Oscars may be over but Golden Grouches will keep going strong! Well, maybe not as strong as before, but sort of strong. Like a guy who doesn’t really work out but does enough physical activity that his muscles are still kind of toned, y’know?
We’ll continue to add reviews for the films we didn’t get a chance to write about before the Oscars. I know I find it much harder to write about movies I admire so there are some biggies that I never got around to posting about. Also look out for our year-end wrap ups (in March, natch) which will probably take the form of top ten lists.
Depending on our industriousness, we may start to look at some of the films that got passed over last year, from the indie darlings (Control, Margot at the Wedding), to the critically-acclaimed box office bombs (Things We Lost in the Fire), to the early buzz films that turned out to be stinkers (Reservation Road). As last year’s films pass on to DVD, we’re sure to get some readers looking for an understanding of the No Country for Old Men ending or an explanation of what the hell those horses meant in Michael Clayton. And perhaps some wondering if Edith Piaf has a rice dish named after her.
We’ll continue to share with you any great films we see throughout the year. Remember, 2007 major category nominees Ratatouille, Away From Her, and La Vie en Rose were all released in the first half of the year. And we have a couple neat ideas for occasional features that may pop up here and there. Also look out for a reorganization of the site and tags so that Starting Out in the Evening link isn’t cluttering up the front page for years to come.
And come October we’ll be back into it full-swing. We thank you all for reading. This site’s traffic, modest as it may be, is much more than we ever expected. We hope you’ll continue to check in even as multiplexes are full of comic book heroes and sex comedies.
It’s been over a week since the Oscar ceremony and I guess the eerie silence around these parts is an indication that all of us were a bit Oscared out, what with all the movie watching, review writing, predicting, and live blogging. So now that everyone and their mom has chimed in with their thoughts on the telecast, why not us?
I enjoyed it. I know it was the lowest rated Oscars in modern history, but it was fairly entertaining with a great host and good winners. Jon Stewart delivered a funny monologue and did a great job emceeing. He got poor reviews two years ago in what I thought was a fine performance but the reviews seem to be pretty universally positive this time around. He also gets a huge pat on the back for bringing Marketa Irglova back out to give her speech. The tribute to binoculars and periscopes was inspired.
The rest of the montages were pretty weak. On the one hand, we avoided some of the lame montages of recent years (writers on film! all the foreign films to have ever won the Oscar!), but on the other we didn’t get any good ones. These were clearly made in case the strike didn’t end in time and the Academy couldn’t get old movie clips for free, so naturally they used the footage they already owned. Kind of a yawn and self-congratulating. The Oscars presents… another montage about the Oscars!
But let’s talk about the winners. I’m very happy with how it all went down. In the series of articles we posted proclaiming our preferences, my favorite won all but one of the categories (and the one standout, Javier Bardem, is completely deserving anyway). I was happy to see Julie Christie lose and was pleased for the praise lavished on No Country for Old Men. If only their pseudonym Roderick Jaynes had won for Best Editing then the Coens would’ve picked up four Oscars. Tilda Swinton’s win was a very pleasant surprise because you had to think that Cate Blanchett, Ruby Dee, and Amy Ryan all had legs up on her.
Actually, my favorites won much more often than my predictions. And on that note, congratulations to Adam who walked away with the Oscar pool victory. Getting 16 of 24 in this year is a very nice score.
I wouldn’t say there were many upsets, save maybe for Swinton and Marion Cotillard. While the categories were often hard to pick, one of the front-runners generally won. I was a bit surprised to see The Bourne Ultimatum sweep the sound categories and editing. I guess I don’t know much about sound but it seems to me so much of No Country for Old Men was told through sound, while Bourne was more just loud and the editing was merely a case of quantity. The quick cuts sort of made me nauseous. The Transformers shut out was also somewhat surprising. It was a fairly good action flick and it looked really great. And with his loss, Transformers sound mixer Kevin O’Connell lost the Oscar for the 20th time without a win.
No weird shadow performance art this year, which was nice, but some of the song performances sort of fell flat. “Falling Slowly” sounded great, of course, and “Raise It Up” from August Rush came out well, but I don’t think any of Enchanted’s songs translated well to the Oscar stage. “That’s How You Know,” a big, rousing number in the film fell flat on stage. How neat would it have been to see Eddie Vedder or Dewey Cox up there instead?
And so another Oscar season is behind us. I thought it was a terrific year for film with a lot of very deserving nominees. I saw a lot of films for this project and only disliked a surprising few. So here’s to killing our braincells with sports comedies and superhero movies until this fall, when we’ll be back on the lookout for quirky comedies, lush period pieces, and bleak stories about the dark side of humanity full of moral ambiguity.
Why are all these posts concentrating on little categories like “Best Actor” and “Best Director” when what we all really care about is Art Direction and Costumes? In the course of seeing all of the films nominated for the big eight I ended up seeing most of the films nominated for all those other categories they hand out awards to in the middle 2 hours of the Oscar telecast. Since you obviously care about my make-up preferences, please, read on!
Best Song
“Falling Slowly” Once, “Raise it Up” August Rush, “Happy Working Song” Enchanted, “So Close” Enchanted, “That’s How You Know” Enchanted
For some reason I feel like I already covered this category. But since the Academy stupidly ignored my recommendations, let’s take a look at these inferior choices.
The clear winner for me is “Falling Slowly.” It’s the central song in the wonderful musical Once that embodies the heartbreak and loneliness of the main characters. “Raise it Up” is actually fairly offbeat and I imagine it works well in the film, schmaltzy as it surely is. Nothing against Enchated, but if one of its triumvirate wins it better be “That’s How You Know,” a clever take on the Disney fairy tale tune set in modern times. “Happy Working Song” is a cute but uninspiring ditty while “So Close” is a toothless and unmemorable love song.
Snubs: See my breakdown of the eligible songs to find about a dozen songs I liked better than all the non-Once songs. Read the rest of this entry »
I loved the style of Sweeney Todd but little else. It looks stunning, as Tim Burton flicks are wont to do. The sets are gorgeous in their dingy and gloomy splendor. The colors are vibrant, mostly dark but sprayed with red. Some of the scenes are so stylishly gruesome that they made me groan. The score is great. The Oscar nominations for Art Direction and Costumes are well-deserved.
And merely looking at all of this was enough for a while, but not entirely. The major problem is that Sweeney Todd is a musical but the songs just aren’t good. They have no melody, nothing to hum as you leave the theater. The music should be a style to tell the story but it’s just inaccessible.
I also didn’t really care about the story. It mostly just made me hungry for a meat pie. And to top it off, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter aren’t very good singers. This would be fine if they merely had to compete with Alan Rickman, but all the children in the film can actually sing! It doesn’t serve the movie well that the supporting cast members blow the stars out of the water when given their chance to sing. Depp’s Best Actor is a pretty weak nomination. Except for the singing voice I liked him fine, but I wasn’t blown away.
So I’m glad I saw it because I’m a big fan of Burton’s style but I doubt I’ll go back for a second helping.
The post title is a question Laura Linney’s Wendy Savage asks someone who read her play. A similar question can be asked about The Savages. Yes, it is a bunch of middle class whining, but it isn’t just that. It’s a comment on modern, distant families. It’s a look at the class of the medicated, over-educated, and self-involved. And it’s absolutely terrific.
Of course that shouldn’t be surprising since it starts Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, two of the best actors in the business today. They play self-absorbed siblings Wendy and Jon who live in New York City and Buffalo, respectively. Both are struggling with their art: she on a semi-autobiographical play and he on a book about playwright Bertolt Brecht. Their distant lives are reunited when their father’s health begins to decline at a retirement community in Arizona. From there they must work together to get him back east and secure him the care he needs.
The magic of The Savages comes through the characters, who are realistic and complex but quite flawed. Jon is a pretty selfish guy who slogs away at his book and teaching theater of the absurd but won’t marry his long-time girlfriend to prevent her from being deported. Wendy is needy for attention, which manifests itself in lying and outbursts of emotion, and is in a relationship with a married man. Both are prone to easing their distress pharmaceutically and both feel stuck in their lives. But these aren’t the type of lost characters-of-a-certain-age we’re used to seeing in the movies. They don’t fit into easy types and they certainly don’t stare out windows forlornly.
So we have these interesting, flawed characters and put them into a heart-wrenching plot. They struggle with what to do with their father as he slides into dementia: they fight each other, they fight the guilt of sending him away, and they fight their demons over helping a man who was rarely a positive influence in their lives. And they also fight because they are very competitive, selfish, stubborn siblings who are in the same general academic field. The film, more than anything, centers on their relationship and it’s one I found to ring very true. They absolutely love each other but their interactions are often combative and both are quick to fling a barb at the other. Read the rest of this entry »
Atonement is a sweeping epic that actually works a lot better before it becomes sweeping or an epic. It’s a melodrama about love torn asunder by a false accusation, an offense that will reverberate through the lives of all involved for a long, long time.
It all begins at a country manor where Keira Knightley’s Cecilia lounges in the garden and James McAvoy’s Robbie is the Oxford-educated gardener’s son. The two are long-time friends who grew apart at university but come back together one fateful day. Cecilia’s sister Briony, a precocious girl of about 12 played by Saoirse Ronan, is a budding writer who stumbles across certain glimpses of Cecilia and Robbie’s lustful relationship: a dirty letter, a teasing incident in a fountain, a tryst in the library. Briony’s imagination runs wild and she begins to think Robbie is a sex-crazed maniac. Later, when something horrific does happen, Briony misidentifies the perpetrator and Robbie is arrested.
I go into detail here because this part of the film, roughly the first third, is very good. In a long, sweeping epic it’s when the story stays focused on a country manor that it really works. Most of it is fairly undramatic, but the film ratchets up the tension by showing us multiple scenes from different perspectives. What looks sinister from Briony’s perspective looks flirtatious from Cecilia’s. The time-shifts and piercing score complement this very compelling segment.
Alas, as the scope expands the film loses its punch. Read the rest of this entry »
The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford has a heck of a climax. You’ll never guess who kills who.
It’s a deliberately-paced, long, slow, film with little action. And I really liked it, perhaps even loved it. It’s not at all a traditional Western despite traditional Western subjects and characters, but much more a study of obsession and idolatry.
It’s late in the career of the James brothers, Frank and Jesse. The gang that rose to fame with them is long dispersed and they have been running with a loose gang of Missouri locals. One last big train heist will signal retirement for Frank and a downshift into a slower life for Jesse. Part of the gang are brothers Charley and Robert Ford. Charley is a full-fledged member of the gang while Bob is more of a support player, hanging back and watching with adoration.
Bob’s the kind of guy who has idolized Jesse James since he was a child. He has a box full of James memorabilia under his bed and can reel of a list of statistics of how he and his idol are alike. Bob’s Jesse James is a larger-than-life hero, the stuff of dime store novels and kids playing in the schoolyard. He’s somewhat dismayed to find the real Jesse doesn’t match the man he thinks he knows so well.
An invitation to Bob from Jesse to hang around at his home after the robbery plasters a smile on his face, even though he’s used for nothing but hard labor. His mind starts cranking, even imagining himself as a surrogate member of the family- until Jesse sends him on his way.
And so the hero image begins to fade. Subsequent interactions with Jesse further erode that image. He’s something of a bully and gets on Bob’s case for idolizing him so much. “Do you want to be like me,” Jesse asks him pointedly, “Or be me?” Over time Bob’s adoration fades, but the obsession does not. If he cannot be Jesse’s sidekick, he can at least be the man to bring him down. Read the rest of this entry »
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is one of those films whose technical mastery I can admire but failed to really grab me.
Julian Schnabel has created and interesting, unique, and innovative film exploring the experience of a man locked into his own mind, able to communicate with only an eyelid. For roughly the first half of the film, we see only what Jean-Dominique Bauby, the unfortunate cripple, sees. This means a limited, often unfocused and confusing view from one eye. It’s a very neat concept and we can really feel Bauby’s initial bewilderment. These are paired with some beautifully-shot fantasy sequences. Janusz Kaminski scored a well-deserved Best Cinematography Oscar nomination for his work. The view from the one eye was probably my favorite part of the movie and I think it lost some punch when eventually the view pulls away and we see Bauby as an outside observer. Read the rest of this entry »
According to this film, the people of northern Wisconsin are either the most tolerant and kind-hearted people on Earth or are really, really bored.
Lars is the type of film that had to tread a thin line to be successful. It’s a film about a man who orders a sex doll to be his girlfriend; for most of Hollywood the urge for crassness would be too hard to ignore. But it also needed to stay away from being too heavy, too schmaltzy, too gimmicky. I think it succeeded fairly well.
Ryan Gosling did not get an Oscar nomination for his work here, but he did get a Golden Globe nod. He was a contender though, and he truly makes this film. His performance is restrained, true, and compelling. The character of Lars has to spot on for this film to work well and Gosling nails it. It’s too bad Oscar eluded him this year but he must have been one of the last one or two contenders cut. I loved him here.
When we first meet Lars he’s utterly socially incompetent, unable to make normal conversation with his co-workers, fellow churchgoers, or even his brother and sister-in-law. So Lars does what any normal social deviant would do and orders a sex doll off the internet, names it Bianca, and treats it like his girlfriend. The neat thing is that the film doesn’t treat this as a move of desperation for a pitiful figure but it instead comes off as a proactive and even promising step for the sheltered man, like he’s making a gutsy move to improve his life. Lars may be a messed up guy but the film never mocks him or wallows in his problems. Read the rest of this entry »
I pulled double duty on this one. I felt obligated, writing for a site that every week gets dozens of readers people searching for Outkast lyrics and misspellings of Edith Piaf, to give Elizabeth: The Golden Age due process by first watching its predecessor, Elizabeth.
What a long and baffling prospect that turned out to be. Elizabeth is unfocused, cluttered, and confusing. The Golden Age is a bit tighter but then adds in heaps of silliness. There’s a love triangle! And a rousing speech to the troops in full armor! And a convenient war hero swinging from a mast! And cat fights! And playful but pointed ruminations about love! My eyes hurt from rolling so much.
I probably went into these films at a disadvantage since I haven’t paid any attention to the era since European History in 10th grade, but frankly I should have been able to decipher a bit more. There’s plenty of room for offering tidbits to the Tudor-obsessed, but not by forsaking those of us with barely a passing knowledge. There are too many characters to get to know many of them so all their political and religious motivations get glossed over. The result is their actions often don’t feel justified or well-developed. Read the rest of this entry »
I wouldn’t usually consider myself a fan of musicals. Some I like, some I don’t, but there’s no special affection. Hairspray had me hooked from its first infectious beat. That great opening scene where Tracy walks to school, singing the praises of her city completely drew me in. From there it was a non-stop 2 hour love affair.
Hairspray is just infused with such exuberance and positive energy that it’s impossible to keep the smile off your face. It’s the epitome of a feel-good movie but it’s not schmaltzy or cheesy: it earns its goodwill. It has a simple but well-executed message of tolerance and following your dreams and that music and dancing is toe-tapping and dazzling.
The performances are pretty good and where lacking at least the actors really threw themselves into their roles. John Travolta picked up a Golden Globe Supporting Actor nod, but I didn’t think he was that strong. I did very much appreciate how much fun he had in his cross-dressing role- there was no holding back there. The Baltimore accent sort of faded in and out but I just about fell out of my chair laughing when his first line was, “Would you keep that racket down? I’m tryin to arn in here!” Nikki Blonsky also got the Globes love though again I only found her decent. I’m certainly hoping to see her in more films in the future though. Read the rest of this entry »
If Hollywood is going to make Westerns like 3:10 to Yuma then Hollywood is going to have to make more Westerns. It’s both a thought-provoking morality play and a shoot-em-up good time, though sometimes I think it tortures its logic. The plot is taut, the action thrilling, and the performances terrific.
Christian Bale is Dan Evans, a Civil War vet who volunteers to help escort a prisoner to the prison train, though he doesn’t entirely know why. Russell Crowe is Ben Wade, a cold-blooded killer who connects with Evans, though we don’t entirely know why. The two forge a curious bond, even as Evans tries to send Wade to the gallows and Wade kills the other members of Evans’ posse.
(More after the jump. We usually bury spoilers after the jump, but I warn you that the rest of this post goes into deep detail about the plot, especially the ending.)
All three of our fans may have picked up on the fact that I like the phrase “cute little film.” I use it too much, I know, and it comes off sort of backhanded sometimes, but in this case every word is true. Once is absolutely adorable (for which cute is an appropriate synonym), it is very little in scope and in budget (reportedly $160,000), and - yes - it is a film.
A guy and a girl (we never learn their names) meet cute on the street while he’s busking with his guitar, they play some music together, have some discussions about life, and cut a record. And that’s about it. But boy is it engrossing and emotional. For two characters whose names we never learn, I got utterly caught up in their lives. And the music’s pretty damn great.
I’ve been a fan of Glen Hansard’s band, The Frames, for a bit. They’re a fun, sort of poppy Irish rock band with a knack for writing good, passionate lyrics (director John Carney used to be the band’s bassist). Hansard’s a surprisingly good actor and does a great job selling the distraught starving artist role. Marketa Irglova… well, she’s not as good of an actress but she’s so enchanting on the screen. She’s not just very beautiful but also comes off so sincere. So even as I found her acting to be a bit off she’s sort of the cornerstone of the film and something that really makes it special. Read the rest of this entry »
Remember the heady days when this was anointed the front-runner by the Oscar blogosphere? It was about the time when everyone realized Reservation Road was going to blow so they turned to the Aaron Sorkin/ Tom Hanks/ Julia Roberts film about war and terrorism and thought, “Hey, that looks good.” Then they all saw it and were all, “n/m back to No Country.” Good times.
I liked Charlie’s, didn’t love it. It’s genuinely funny and very clever. The characters are fairly well fleshed out and the plot is engaging. It never really congealed into something special, however. I’ve never been much of a Sorkin fanboy, though I’ve liked a lot of his work. The dialogue here feels very forced at times. Not necessarily unnatural, but more ill-fitting. Incidentally I watched a bunch of Sorkin’s Sports Night over New Years weekend and sort of found the same thing (and SN is a show I used to adore).
But if you look past that, there’s a lot to enjoy. Even if it sometimes hits the wrong notes, the script is smart and clever. There are a lot of funny moments and the characters are fun to watch, from Hanks’s playboy-Congressman to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s sharp-tongued CIA analyst. I enjoyed the DC scenes and all the back room political wrangling. And it’s simply a great story, full of relevance for today’s times with a pretty powerful ending, giving a hint about what we hath wrought.
Charlie Wilson’s War managed a bunch of Golden Globe nominations but just one from the Academy: Best Supporting Actor for Philip Seymour Hoffman. That’s probably about right and Hoffman is terrific as always, stealing a lot of the focus and laughs in every scene he’s in.
The biggest surprise is clearly Tommy Lee Jones’ nomination for In the Valley of Elah. He got absolutely no recognition for that role from critics groups or the SAG. And now Jared has to watch the latest Haggis film, which I admit amuses me some in a mean sort of way.
The only real big surprise is Surf’s Up taking the third Animated Feature Film slot. The Simpsons Movie was my sentimental choice, but I’d admit that the surprisingly sweet and trippy Meet the Robinsons was even better. Surf’s Up looks absolutely terrific, which might have given it a big boost. You feel like you’re surfing with those penguins. Plus the creators pioneered a new way of “filming” animation. The scenes were animated in 3-D and then a “cameraman” “walked” through the scene (really an empty space with motion sensors) “filming” the action, allowing it to really feel like a documentary.
But it’s not a very good movie. It’s like they spent all their time on the style and not enough on story or characters. Minus the spectacular imagery it’s mostly a big yawn.
I’m most upset that I spent all that time breaking down the Original Song contenders just to have such a bad list of nominees. It’s not even that the songs are bad, but that the list is so unoriginal. Three songs from Enchated? Are you kidding me? Pick one, sure, but three? Then after the requisite Once pick (and at least they got that right) and the three Enchanted songs they squeeze out Eddie Vedder’s awesome work for Into the Wild for an August Rush song? I do like “Raise it Up” and can give the Academy some credit for choosing a song outside the usual mold, but it’s nowhere close to Vedder’s work, which felt like another character in the film.
Ruby Dee popped up from mid-pack with her SAG nomination but we clearly missed the boat since not a single one of us mentioned her in our reviews.
I was very happy to see Laura Linney get nominated for The Savages. She got a “YES” and a fist pump when her name was announced (the only other nominee to get the same treatment was Juno for Best Picture).
Sad but not particularly surprising to see Knocked Up shut out of Original Screenplay, though it’s nice that Lars and the Real Girl got some love. The Adapted Screenplay nod for Away From Her was mildly surprisin.
Jared thinks the disqualification of the score from There Will Be Blood is a joke. Maybe it’s a joke that the decision only came out a day before the nominations, but it’s not a joke of a decision. Significantly less than half of the score was composed by Greenwood and he also relied heavily on a BBC-commissioned work he created a few years back. It’s called “Original” Score for a reason, otherwise everyone could just throw on some Beethoven and collect their trophy.
Anyway, it’s a good spread-out year this year (just one film - Michael Clayton - grabbed more than one acting nomination) and I’m looking forward to catching up with the films I’ve missed.
Best Original Song is a category I like to follow. About half the years we get a set of songs that have some mainstream success and the other half it’s five mediocre tunes by no-name artists. I think this year we have a fairly decent list of eligible songs and I’ll go through them to point out some of the best and the worst.
To be eligible, a song must be an original composition with lyrics, made specifically for the film. It must be played during the film or be the first song over the end credits. The nomination committee screens the songs as they appear in the film, so a song that fits particularly well within the film may get leg up over a better song that’s incongruous.
The Academy has released its list of 59 eligible songs. When you really listen to a bunch of movie songs in a row, they sort of sound all the same. For the most part they are either bland, inoffensive tunes to blend into the background or more upbeat tunes for montages (with the occasional tune from a musical). But some are good despite that while others bring some uniqueness. Let’s dive into them after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
I write this in mid-January. We’re in the midst of a hot Oscar season after a terrific year for film. Quirky comedies, British period pieces, and foreign imports are slaying critics and cleaning up at the arthouses while new works by major directors are being hailed as masterpieces. And yet I am here to proclaim that a summer sex comedy is still (thus far) my favorite film of the year.
Knocked Up wears many hats. It’s a sex comedy, a buddy movie, a stoner comedy, a chick flick, and a marriage comedy, but it is wonderful in all its forms. Knocked Up is the type of film that I have several specific problems with but I love all the parts that I love so much that I can easily gloss over its deficiencies. Under a veneer of pop culture references and potty humor (all funny on its own) is a story with a lot of heart containing characters we really grow to love.
We are introduced to Seth Rogen’s stoner/slacker Ben and Katherine Heigl’s career-minded Alison, who meet under alcohol-influenced circumstances and have a one night stand (with Rock Lobster playing in the background). Long story short, she calls him weeks later with a little surprise - she’s preggo! - and Ben and Alison see if they can make a relationship work. He’s an unemployed stoner living off an accident settlement! She’s a hard-working, practical, rising TV star! They’re an odd couple!
Okay so this is all pretty standard movie fare. In fact, Alison and Ben’s courtship - and inevitable dramatic split - is very much a straightforward romantic comedy. A top-notch romantic comedy for sure, but not the type of thing that’s going to top any favorites list.
Ratatouille is probably the most atmospheric of Pixar’s films. I look back and think of the film’s style, its charm, and its ability to bring the experience of food and cooking to the screen more than I think about the plot or the characters. I felt immersed in a stylized Paris; I could swear I could taste, feel, smell the food and hear the sizzle. To me it’s the best Pixar film since Finding Nemo. Read the rest of this entry »
With all the awards and nominations rolling in, the Grouches decided to look at the 8 big categories, predict who we think will win the Oscar, and jibber jabber a bit about the nominees. Next up is Best Director.
These predictions were made before the Golden Globes.
Brian: Paul Thomas Anderson
Adam: Tim Burton
John: Joen and Ethan Coen
Jared: Paul Thomas Anderson
With all the awards and nominations rolling in, the Grouches decided to look at the 8 big categories, predict who we think will win the Oscar, and jibber jabber a bit about the nominees. Next up is Best Actress.
Our picks:
John: Julie Christie
Brian: Ellen Page
Adam: Ellen Page
Jared: Julie Christie
Some disagreement here. Read the rest of this entry »
Subtitled: John has figured out how to capture frames on his DVD player.
Here’s the problem with Breach: Ryan Phillippe isn’t convincing as a person so how could he fool Robert Hanssen, a man who can sniff out a lie a mile away? I don’t think Phillippe’s a very good actor and he wasn’t very good here. So when his character manipulates Hanssen I’m thinking, “I’m not even falling for this, how are you??”
With some early buzz Chris Cooper got for his work as Hanssen I went back and rewatched Breach. I found him to be really terrific in this, especially as I was able to really take in his performance instead of worrying about the plot since I’d seen it already. Hanssen is a very guarded man and Cooper manages to convey a lot of emotion with a quick frown or furrow of the eyebrow. The guy is also a total creep and a jerk and Cooper gives us the right level of creepiness and jerkiness. I’d be surprised if there isn’t a Best Actor nominee I find inferior to Cooper.
Despite this being my second viewing, it held my attention surprisingly well. I also enjoy a movie set in my hometown so seeing all the DC scenes was fun. The Memorial Bridge: as seen in Breach! And Laura Linney can do no wrong.
So back to Phillippe. A warning: I’m about to point something out that may ruin every other Ryan Phillippe movie for you for the rest of your life (if he doesn’t do so already). Read ahead at your own peril.
I should clarify that, despite this post’s title, I enjoyed Waitress. It’s a cute film with a lot of sweetness and some funny moments. But it reminded me a lot of Juno - and not just because they’re both about accidental pregnancies - but the comparison is not favorable. Both are very quirky with a lot of clever, pithy dialogue. The characters are somewhat idiosyncratic and both films use cute gimmicks (the track team in Juno, Jenna’s pie fantasies in Waitress). With so much quirkiness, a film must walk a tight line to avoid becoming too enamored with its own cleverness. Juno absolutely nails it; Waitress does not. And it’s hard to explain why. I guess in Juno there’s a sincerity in the way Ellen Page and her cohorts deliver their lines, even the most hipster and ironic lines. There’s a depth to the characters that’s subtle. In Waitress the actors seem like vessels for self-consciously clever dialogue.
Read the rest of this entry »
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is bleak as hell. The plot is depressing and the characters unlikable. While I neither demand positive plots or likable characters, in this case I was left wondering, what’s the point?
I really enjoyed Philip Seymour Hoffman as the conniving, colder older brother Andy. I’m halfway through PSH’s terrific work this year and both of his performances I’ve seen (this and The Savages) are Oscar-worthy. Andy is ruthless but also desperate and delusional and Hoffman nails it. The other performances are good here too: Marisa Tomei, Ethan Hawke, and especially Albert Finney. Looking at it from an Oscar perspective, all of them appear to be long shots but I would welcome a nomination for any of them. While I merely liked the film, it was interesting and unique enough that I hope it gets at least one nomination somewhere.
I had a hard time explaining what I thought of Eastern Promises. Then I went back to watch the review from Ebert and Roeper and they summed it up perfectly as a “weirdly formulaic genre piece.” There’s a lot of great stuff here, including the performances by Viggo Mortensen and Armin Mueller-Stahl and some stylish scenes of graphic violence, all trapped in a very straight-forward Russian mob genre flick.
Read the rest of this entry »
I guess there’s a reason there aren’t many movies about literary criticism. It’s a very niche audience. And not terribly exciting.
Anyway, I didn’t hate it but I didn’t like it. I wasn’t particularly bored but I didn’t care at all. Frank Langella is getting the buzz for his role. I’m just indifferent. Whatevs.
I really liked A Mighty Heart for what it was, but I sort of think what it was (and what I liked it for) was not the intent. It is a thrilling and engrossing procedural but comes off strangely clinical. For a movie that was meant to showcase Angelina Jolie there’s a surprising lack of emotion.
The story of reporter Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping and execution in Karachi, Pakistan is well known by now. His widow, Mariane, has become an international symbol of love, strength, and tolerance. The film spends little time setting up the relationship; they are saying their final goodbye about 5 minutes in. Much of their love is shown through flashbacks. If there’s one thing that ruins more movies for me than anything else it’s unbelievable relationships. This film goes about halfway in that their relationship is totally believable, but not very well founded so that we don’t have much of an emotional connection to it.
Much of the film follows the hunt for Danny: tracking down leads, tracing IP addresses, interrogating suspects, etc… All this is very good. Despite knowing how the search would end up I was completely engrossed. Mariane plays a surprisingly small role in the middle third of the film. Read the rest of this entry »
I thought Talk to Me was okay, marked by some good acting work, a couple powerful scenes, and a neat look back into my city’s past.
Don Cheadle got some early awards buzz for his portrayal of Petey Greene, a DC talk show host in the 60s and 70s. Petey is a fast-talking, take-no-crap, calls-’em-like-he-sees-’em, ex-con who talks his way into a radio DJ gig then onto TV and a stand-up career. Chiwetel Ejiofor is Dewey Hughes, the station manager who first gives Petey his break and then acts as his manager. Taraji Henson is Petey’s loud and long suffering girlfriend.
The story follows Petey as a hesitant and petulant rising star while Dewey tries to guide him and keep him in line. It’s a story that’s been told in some form a thousand times before made somewhat unique by Petey’s big personality. There are some interesting components here, particularly looking at race relations. Despite playing soul and Motown and aiming towards a black audience, the station is owned and run by whites. Martin Sheen is the station owner and represents the powerful white man even though he’s probably the most progressive white boss in movie history. There’s also tension between Petey and Huey as Petey thinks Huey acts white. All in all fairly interesting but also fairly forgettable. Read the rest of this entry »
The post title is the name of Edith Piaf’s biggest hit. It means “No, I regret nothing” and if she truly regretted nothing in her life she wasn’t paying close enough attention.
I, however, do not regret seeing this film. Adam thought this was a great performance buried in a bad film. I’m a little more charitable in that I think it’s a great performance in the middle of a flawed but still decent film.
First thing’s first, Marion Cotillard is terrific. This is one of those full-bodied, larger than life, meaty roles and she really throws herself into it. Piaf is something of a tragic figure in that her own flaws inevitably bring her down, but she’s not very sympathetic. The role requires Cotillard to play a mean drunk probably 50% of the film. Piaf is a self-centered, addiction-prone, and just generally mean character but she’s a hell of a performer. Substance abuse, arthritis, and a series of injuries ages her beyond her years so that she looks elderly in her late 40’s (and even then she manages to bark at her nurses). Cotillard plays all but the young child versions of Piaf, from the brazen street singer around 20 who gets her big break, to the top of the French pop scene, and back down to infirmity. She nails it. Even though I understand she does not do her own singing she still knocks the performance scenes out of the park. Piaf was a dynamo under 5 feet and could spellbind an audience of thousands and Cotillard brings that all to the screen. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m Not There is nonsensical, unintelligible, and pretentious. Dylanologists will get a kick out of it but I couldn’t wait to get out of the theater.
On the face of it, I’m Not There has an interesting concept. It’s a Bob Dylan-themed movie, not a biopic, and explores the different stages, versions, and aspects of Dylan’s life. Six actors play six (or is it seven?) different Dylan-like characters, an intriguing technique and one that actually does not fall flat. But nothing particularly interesting happens to the characters. They talk at you. And talk. And talk. In that incomprehensible Dylan style of talk. 140 minutes of that is very hard to take.
Gone Baby Gone is a film I liked a lot and it’s one of the best police procedurals/crime thrillers I’ve seen in a while. That said, I can’t help but think that I could limit my comments here to, “If you’ve seen Gone Baby Gone you probably wouldn’t be considering it for an Oscar.” But I’m a verbose jerk so I won’t. (Note: this post is intentionally vague to avoid spoilers. That’s not the case for most of these posts, but feel free to click through.)
I see it having potential in two categories: Adapted Screenplay and Amy Ryan for Supporting Actress. Almost every big movie this year is an adaptation so I can’t imagine Gone Baby Gone sneaking in in that category. Ryan was pretty darn good as the mother of a kidnapped girl (and oh yeah a drug user and all around scumbag) and she has nearly swept the early critic awards, but I’d be surprised if there aren’t 5 supporting performances better than hers. I don’t think the movie handles the important question regarding her character very well so that whatever brilliance she might show in the role gets sort of lost. So not a bad choice- I wouldn’t mind her getting a nod and I’ve loved her work on The Wire, but I think it may be a case of too much love for perfecting a Dorchester accent. Read the rest of this entry »
I can understand why someone wouldn’t like Into the Wild but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes it’s long and yes it’s slow-paced and yes it’s at times full of itself. But I was pulled into it and didn’t feel its long runtime until the very end.
The film walks a thin line between glamorizing McCandless and disapproving of his attitude and journey. He’s romanticized prominently but the negative aspects are more subtle until the end. Occasionally you think throughout the film, “man this guy’s kind of a dick” but by the end there’s no doubt. “Yes,” you say, “he’s definitely a dick.” I still felt for the guy at the end, but he is exposed as a naive, stubborn kid whose flaws did him in. The glamor is completely gone at the end as he realizes he’s eschewed a major part of the human experience - social interaction - in his deluded search for truth.
Brian summed up my thoughts on American Gangster perfectly when he wrote that it “lacked sizzle.” I don’t think I can find a specific fault in the film. All the components were at least good if not great, but the sum of the parts did not add up to something that leapt off the screen and grabbed me.
Denzel Washington’s Frank Lucas was certainly more compelling than Russell Crowe’s Det. Richie Roberts. His brilliant and ruthless consolidation of power and smart business moves to both rise to the top and remain hidden from the authorities make for an exciting story. Lucas has the makings of a classic evil genius character: very intelligent, always one step ahead, and brutal, like an entrepreneurial and less cannibalistic Hannibal Lector. He doesn’t quite make it to that level, but it is fun to watch along the way.
Read the rest of this entry »
Michael Clayton is another in a long line of films this year that I liked but didn’t love. It’s billed as a legal/ mystery thriller but in reality it’s more of a character drama. If anything the film is too character-driven because the plot is distressingly straight forward. But as a film that depends heavily on its characters it’s getting buzz for acting nominations for Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, and George Clooney and all three would be fine choices. Read the rest of this entry »
Away From Her seemed to be the Little Critical Darling That Could from this summer. It centers around Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona (Julie Christie), a long-married couple in Canada. She is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and they struggle with the decision to put her in a nursing home. When she does eventually enter, the home’s rules prevent Grant from visiting for the first month while Fiona settles in. When he does visit, she is distant towards and had made friends - or more? - with another resident. Even more than a film about Alzheimer’s this is a film about marriage. It’s revealed that their marriage has not always been smooth and Grant feels like he may be paying for past transgressions when Fiona slips away from him.
Away From Her is about 40% great. The first part is tremendous. Fiona has more and more episodes and Grant anguishes letting her leave to go to the home. Their love and pain is incredibly moving.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t keep it up. Read the rest of this entry »