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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 »
Movie: Born Yesterday
Released: 1950
Stars: Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford, William Holden
Reason for Watching: Friend’s recommendation
I Can Name This Movie In Three Notes: Broderick Crawford is a rat of a junkyard tycoon who, along with his uber-ditzy live-in girlfriend (Judy Holliday), sets up in Washington, D.C. to grease the palms of a corrupt congressman. Crawford wants Holliday to be presentable, and so hires the intellectual William Holden to give her some learning. But be careful what you wish for!
You Should See This Movie Because: Befitting this blog, the movie was nominated for five Oscars: Costume Design, Director, Picture, Screenplay, plus Judy Holliday won for Best Actress. Holliday’s performance really is out of this world, and though her voice can only be described as Megan Mullally-like, I fell madly in love with it by the end of the film.
The gin rummy scene is easily in my top 50 movie scenes of all time. Any description of it couldn’t do justice, but it blew me away. One of the few times I can remember thinking “Wow, this is an incredible scene” while the scene is still going on. Of course, now I’ve ruined it for all of you. And yes, I did like it more than the gin rummy scene from Goldfinger.
The characters were surprisingly deep for what is essentially a morality play. Broderick Crawford may be the embodiment of the rich a$$hole, ordering people around willy-nilly, using his money to subvert the law, and ending every single sentence with an exclamation mark. But though he pushes Judy Holliday around (both literally and figuratively), his sensitive side can’t help but push through. The treatment of domestic violence and female empowerment were unexpectedly modern.
Ultimately, the movie features a crisp, funny, and at times poignant script rounded out by stellar acting all around.
And the shots of DC in 1950 were pretty cool. Oh, and there’s a Rabbit Maranville reference.
You Shouldn’t See This Movie Because: The tacked-on feel of scenes where Holden and Holliday are gallivanting around DC mean the adaptation from successful Broadway play to movie could have been executed a little better.
Holden’s Jimmy Stewart-like naivete/belief in America is charming, at first. But some statements, such as the one about how rare it was to find a Congressman who could be bought might provide a little too much unintentional comedy.
The ridiculous way couples in older movies kiss: The man grabs the woman firms by the shoulders, then they do a modified bearhug while smushing their lips together. OK, maybe that just bothers me.
The Grouches have plowed their way through all of the films nominated for the big eight awards. Now we make the case for which film or performance we WANT to win. Doesn’t mean we think it will win or even have a shot at winning. But if we had a vote on the nominees, here’s who we would pick, and why:
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood tells the story of…well…what, exactly? It isn’t really the story of an oil well/reserve, or the town in which it resides. Though both certainly figure prominently. The easy argument is that it is the story of Daniel Plainview and his relationship to the wells and town. Maybe, but the tacked-on feeling of the ending aside, I’m not quite sure that relationship is ever adequately described. TWBB is a sprawling effort of a movie, and if not for the magnetic performances of Paul Dano and Daniel Day-Lewis, its meaning would have been much more pronounced.
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 »
A third of the way through Atonement, I was figuring out how I was going to make room for it in my top five. But as Robbie went, so went the movie. And instead of praising one of the year’s best movies, I’m here to try and figure out what went wrong. I’m not a fan at all of how the movie was broken into three distinct parts, jumping years into the future each time (as a side note, I’ll mention it later, but I felt There Will Be Blood suffered similarly). I appreciate how it gave a jarring feel to the movie, but those gains were more than offset by the storytelling problems it created.
“Jarring” is a good word to describe several aspects of the movie, it is some sort of motif, if you will. Not really sure anyone could watch the first ten minutes of the movie and see the rape of a girl in the future. Briony peeling back the bandages of that one soldier only to find a good chunk of his head missing. The jumps in time, as I mentioned. And the ending, especially. I haven’t read the book, and I’m going to assume the ending is the same there, but that doesn’t mean the filmmakers had to keep it. And (spoiler warning, as always) that Robbie and Cecilia both die, and we don’t find out after the fact, is incredibly jarring. That’s an incredibly unsatisfying ending, in my mind, in terms of how these movies usually end, but one that I thought suited the movie perfectly. I wouldn’t have changed a thing about that. Also, as a brief response to Brian, I didn’t have any problem buying the love between Robbie and Cecilia. Methinks Brian’s just not a romantic.
Part of me wonders if the reason I’m not higher on this movie is because I’m such a sucker for a love story or mystery set on a British manor, and thus bitter the movie had to move on to a broader scope. Still, the disjointed feel of the movie was a bold choice, but one that ultimately was a mistake. It makes the movie feel more distant. Read the rest of this entry »
I like characters. I like characters more when they actually do something. I like nuance. I like nuance more when it isn’t just for the sake of nuance. I actually think John just about nailed it with his original thoughts - a review I believe he’d now like to recant. Adam must have gotten to him or something.
I’m just struggling to understand why a drama with little to no discernible drama, thrills, or suspense has garnered so much acclaim. Sure, it is an exaggeration to say the plot was entirely linear, there were maybe three kinks in there. Of course, if one of those Kinks isn’t Ray Davies, what’s the point? Ah, British Invasion humor! 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 the big Kahuna, and perhaps the least exciting character, Best Picture:
Brian: No Country for Old Men
Adam: No Country for Old Men
John: No Country for Old Men
Jared: No Country for Old Men
So it took me a long while to figure out first, if I liked the movie, second, how much I liked it, and third, why I liked it. End conclusion: I liked it a lot, but I’m still not even sure why, so please excuse the stream of consciousness nature of this post.
As you can tell from some of my other reviews, I kind of like comparing movies to other movies. Except There Will Be Blood is the most original movie I’ve seen in a long while, and the closest comparison I can make is Citizen Kane, which is unfair to both Paul Thomas Anderson and Orson Welles.
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 »
This was a great movie. I had no idea what to expect going in, but I came out thoroughly enjoying this film. Brian actually had the same sentiment as I did leaving the theater, namely, for what it set out to accomplish it was nearly flawless in its execution. In fact, Brian does a very good job in his review of the piece, so I’ll just jot down a couple of things I also noted during the movie. (Note to self: In future, pick people you disagree with more when writing a blog. Agreeing with people is much less satisfying than criticizing them.)
Best movie of the year. Period. Granted, this statement is made without seeing every movie (or even every movie up for Best Picture) but I feel pretty confident. It would take quite a feat of film making to make me recant. In fact, in our little behind-the-scenes ranking, I gave Juno a perfect 10 – and I stand by that grade. As a testament to this movie’s prowess, I went into the theater with very high expectations (which you should never do) and not only were they met, they were exceeded. So, you might as well prepare yourself because if you plan on reading any further, the rest of this post will exclusively deal with how awesome this movie is.
To be blunt, I really liked this movie. For what it aimed to accomplish, The Savages was close to flawless in its execution. Everything from the writing, the acting, the tone, the camera work, hit the right note, which is somewhat ironic as the music choices were at times bizarre, and thus the only minor criticism I’d make. As two siblings forced to deal with their father’s rapid downward spiral towards death, Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman are so genuine in their conflicted emotions and seem so true to real life.
After throwing John a bone with Talk to Me, I can now criticize his opinions to my heart’s content (that’s how it works, right?). I really liked this movie. In fact, if you have been reading religiously to all the posts (so, really I’m talking to the three other guys who right for this), you’ll notice that it was in my original top 5 movies of the year. I thought it was a great character study with some very memorable performances. And, this is where John and my opinions diverge.
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First off, let me preface this post by saying that I’m not a big fan of musicals. I’m usually fine for a little while, but after about 30 min the constant singing, dancing, and complete lack of plot movement really starts to irritate me. So, I’m going to do my best to objectively review this movie, but probably end up failing miserably.
Atonement pivots around a letter that should never have been written, and I wouldn’t go nearly as far as saying that this movie shouldn’t have been made, but its existence seemed rather irrelevant. Having not read the Ian McEwan novel, I still felt the distinct sense that I was watching a film adaption of a very lyrical novel. Apart from one sequence, which I’ll get into later, I never felt invested in the movie; it lacked the epic qualities I’d expect of a period piece. Not all great stories make great movies, and Atonement is no exception. Read the rest of this entry »
So with yesterday’s killing of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, I was inspired to jot down my thoughts on A Mighty Heart, a film about another episode in the all-too-recent history of terrorism in Pakistan. It would be an understatement to say that I was shocked by how much I liked this movie. After opening to generally positive views, but amidst the clutter of the summer blockbusters, I probably would never have even considered seeing A Mighty Heart had it not been for the Golden Grouches endeavor. But I’ll blame the advertising campaign from Paramount, which as I recall, pushed the film more as an Angelina Jolie drama about lost love than a taut docudrama about the fight against terrorism.
Read the rest of this entry »
When we look back at this year’s Oscar season, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead may well be the representative movie. The characters are largely compelling, but placed in a decidedly not upbeat story that falls just a bit short. The film has received buzz for a nomination is just about every major category save Best Actress, and could receive anywhere from 0-4 nominations. It also features two actors receiving Oscar buzz for other performances (PSH and Amy Ryan).
Ultimately, I don’t see the Academy bestowing any Oscars on the movie - the right move, in my opinion. To me, one mark of a great movie is transcending its genre to become relevant to people not fans of that genre. I don’t feel that’s the case for Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. I think it is a botched heist movie with loftier pretensions. Don’t let the ending fool you. Read the rest of this entry »
Chuck Klosterman once wrote something along the lines of: “It is much harder to explain why you liked something than to explain why you didn’t like something.” And I’m finding that to ring true as I’m going through the Oscar movies and not only trying to pick out my favorites, but explain why they are the best of the bunch. Juno will end up being one of my favorite movies of the year, if not my most favorite. And I’ll try (and probably fail) to express why that is. But perhaps the simplest thing I can say is that of all the 2007 movies I’ve seen so far, Juno is the only one I’ve felt comfortable and confident recommending, no matter the person asking for the recommendation. Read the rest of this entry »
Yeah, the title of this post is a When In Rome reference. You wanna make something of it?
I forgot this movie pretty much as soon as I finished watching it. I’m writing this recap a few weeks after watching the movie, and I think I can vividly remember maybe five scenes. One, of course, is the bathroom fight scene. Which is notable not just for the extent of the nudity, but for the dichotomy of badassitude and sensitivity it bring to the table. I would not be surprised in the least if they filmed the scene first and then hired a scriptwriter to make up a story around it. Or at least sold the backers based on the scene. It will, without a doubt, be one of my favorite movie scenes of the year. Read the rest of this entry »
Ah, finally. I’ve been waiting oh so long to take Brian to task. He writes in his No Country post how “endings aren’t that big a deal to [him].” He then goes on to some tortured math, equating the final Sopranos scene and the closing shots of The Departed to 10% of a movie. Dear oh dear. I think even the argument that each X percent of a movie should be weighted equally is flawed, though I’m not fervently opposed to it.
A somewhat appropriate analogy might be a gymnastics routine. Like the floor exercise, a movie can be filled with Celine Dion songs and flips and never ever leaving the mat (oh, and if you are Brian, 15 year old girls), but if you don’t stick the landing, the judges are going to dock you like crazy. Oh, um, I might be a bit of an Olympics junkie. 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.
I’ll probably be repeating some of the themes we discussed at Dremo’s, so bear with me, but my main problem with Into the Wild was that Christopher “Alexander Supertramp” McCandless was so obnoxious and irredeemable that I was rooting for his inevitable death throughout. Maybe its because I have an anti-hippie streak in me, but I had no empathy for his character’s “F— the World” mentality.
I wrote a much longer post, in which I detailed what I liked and didn’t like about the movie. After I was finished, I realized that all I was doing was re-hashing what my “esteemed” colleagues have already stated. So, instead of critiquing the movie, I’ve decided to scrap my earlier draft (just assume it was ridiculously well written and insightful) and critique my blog-mates’ posts (which I’m sure they’ll all love and end up falling all over themselves inviting me to do other blogs with them).
Had I been completely ignorant of Oscar hype going into this movie, I’m not sure i would have pegged anything about it as Oscar material. Nothing about the movie struck me as particularly ambitious. The subplots (e.g. all the family issues) onto which I would have imagined Oscar latching weren’t particularly developed or stark. As much as I loved The Girl Next Door, Emile Hirsch didn’t seem all that special in the movie. The directing and cinematography seemed subpar to me, especially considering the material. And while I liked the supporting crew, I personally didn’t see anything memorable. That’s not to say I didn’t like the movie. I just found it, like American Gangster or Eastern Promises (generally speaking, at least), a movie enjoyable enough, but I’ll likely mostly forget it in a few months, and not really miss much.
The Eddie Vedder songs were pleasant enough, though I couldn’t remember them by the end of the night. And I don’t think the Abita Purple Haze had anything to do with that. In a vacuum, I’m not opposed to one getting a nomination, I can’t say for sure yet whether I think it would be in my top five.
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 »
I’m going to throw this out there to start things off: endings aren’t that big a deal to me. I see a movie’s ending as just one small part in the larger sum in weighing whether or not I liked it. I think Signs is a great movie; it’s thrilling, funny, and has shades of Hitchcock’s The Birds, which I also love. But I understand when people say the ending sucked…and while I half-heartedly agree with them, I really don’t care that much.
Brian, I look forward to thoroughly taking apart your specious arguments and wrong impressions about this year’s Oscar contenders. Unfortunately, that won’t be the case here. I find it interesting that you reference so many movies in your post. You probably take more time discussing other movies than American Gangster. By the way, just because a movie is under two hours, that doesn’t make it “taut.” French Connection may be a classic, but that doesn’t mean it is a good movie.
To me, I think you are referencing other movies in an attempt to underscore American Gangster’s plainness.
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