Well, it’s the big day and I’m dragging this thing out to the last minute.  Once again life has gotten in the way and I’ve procrastinated.  But here I am at the finish line and I can’t think of a better film on which to wrap things up.

If Inception made an argument against expanding the Best Picture field, then surely Winter’s Bone must act as a full-throated argument for it.  A small independent film that received little critical attention upon its release, it is a movie that deserves to be seen and its nomination should give it the kind of attention it deserves.  I can’t imagine it will win if only because it is so modest, but I have to think this is exactly the kind of film The Academy had in mind when they sought to include a greater variety of films in the Best Picture category.

Winter’s Bone isn’t the first film of its kind.  American Cinema’s history is littered with small, exceptional artsy-fartsy films that are overlooked due either to their subject matter, their lack of star power or they fall victim to poor timing.  I don’t know why I hadn’t heard of Winter’s Bone until its nomination, but I couldn’t turn on a television without seeing a trailer for Inception last year.

Perhaps its not surprising that Inception has those three elements that Winter’s Bone lacked.  John Hawkes does an incredible job as a very shifty man whose character and intentions are slowly revealed throughout the film in an eerie way that leaves you unsure in the end of what he is capable.  But he ain’t Leo DiCaprio.

Inception sold itself as a psychological thriller that messed with your mind while providing a healthy amount of action and special effects.  All those elements contain mass appeal, but you would be hard-pressed to find someone who wants to lay down eight dollars to hear a story about a back-country hillbilly who skips out on bail after getting busted for cooking crystal meth, putting his home up for the bond, leaving his daughter to care for her catatonic mother and two siblings without a home.  What redemption could possibly exist within such a bleak, depressing story?  And if we are simply seeing a story of a family thrown out of their home, we might as well take up crystal meth ourselves if only to numb the dull agonizing pain that this story reveals as being just another part of life.

Inception’s makers were both skilled and fortuitous in its release.  In these ever increasingly hot summers we find more people flocking to theaters to get out of the heat.  Released in mid-July, Inception was able to capitalize on the lack of competition that made up last year’s weak Blockbuster market, gaining a much wider audience.  If you only saw one movie at the theaters last summer, I am willing to bet it was Inception.

Released a month prior to Inception, Winter’s Bone is exactly the kind of movie you don’t want to see in the heat of the summer.  It is cold and dark, both in subject matter as well as in aesthetics.  My mother used to take my friends and me to movies in the summers after we went swimming and then we’d go to McDonald’s.  Good family fun.  But do you think we would have liked to see Driving Miss Daisy?  Fuck no, we wanted to see Ghost Busters 2. Whoever decided to release Winter’s Bone in the middle of blockbuster season either wanted the film to fail, or was too stupid to do his or her job.

But there is redemption within Winter’s Bone and it is well worth witnessing.  Like the unappreciated art-house films that preceded it, there is beautiful cinematography that brings out the stark beauty of the Ozarks and its mysterious inhabitants.  In its efforts to retain some sense of authenticity, many of the actors traded their wardrobes with the locals and many of the actors were locals.  These are always great stories that accompany films of this nature to give the viewer some validation that what they are seeing is the genuine article.

Whether this films strikes a fair representation of the Ozarks or not, one can’t deny the story’s humanity.  Characters are hardened, a blanketed quality that must exist in a world that is commonly referred to as the Third World Country within the United States.  These people are leery of outsiders and often brutal within their own circles.  Hawkes’ character (Teardrop) practically chokes his 17-year-old niece in an early scene of the film and we never are quite at ease that he won’t try it again.  His motivations are true to his family, but they are reckless, and in the end, self-defeating.

The main character (Ree) tasked with saving the family land and adjoining woods is equally as cold and sharp-tongued as her uncle, but her devotion to the protection of her family is different in approach, though not necessarily in its ends.  Her journey takes her into harm’s way so many times, the viewer can’t help but imagine the horrible things that might happen to a girl of her age in real life.  But she goes in stubbornly, unafraid to ruffle what feathers she needs to find her father.  We see how scared she is and can only imagine what kind of bravery it would take to overcome these fears.

Christian Bale will in all likelihood win Best Supporting Actor tonight, but mention must be made of Hawkes’ performance (again).  An alumni of Deadwood, he has proven to be a skilled and versatile actor whom I think we will be seeing more of in the future.  Jennifer Lawrence’s tight-jawed performance of Ree is also worth mentioning and I will look forward to seeing her in future films as well.

If there’s anything bad to be said of this film, it’s that I wasn’t really sure where the arc of the film was.  It seemed to resolve itself without you even knowing it, and I wanted to know more about Teardrop.  It’s obvious by the end of the film that his days are numbered and his end is left to our imagination with little need for guidance.  But it didn’t seem like enough.  He crashed in and out of the movie sporadically and it seemed in the end like he was little more than a sidekick to Ree, assisting her for his part when a strong male presence was required.  Even writing this I realize I am making a pretty weak argument against this film, but you’ve to play Devil’s Advocate.

So we’ve come to the end of this journey, but this is not the end of our association.  Life is long and there’s a lot out there to cover.  I haven’t changed my opinion in the past month and I am now more confident than ever that The Social Network will be victorious tonight.  It’s been a lot of fun and I feel a little less cynical about the film industry than I did when I started.  I didn’t think Hollywood put out ten good films a year, but despite my varying opinions I feel that all these films are at the very least good movies worth your attention.

I am mulling over my next project, but fear not.  We will be back together soon.  Until next time.

Alouishis

Requiring a significant stretch of the imagination to be able to call myself an outdoorsy-type, I often have a hard time getting excited to watch movies about extreme people in extreme conditions.  The idea of someone out by themselves in nature doesn’t often inspire great story-telling.  I see a lot of walks through scenic settings, soft music in the background.  We are meant to see why these people are where they are, wish we had what it took to forsake our materialistic lives in the name of something purer, a bucolic life.

Maybe its my Pacific Northwest upbringing; a region so varied and beautiful all within two hours’ drive and even within the city, that the idea of escaping civilization seems trite to me.  I’ve never had that problem.

But 127 Hours is one of several films that have proven to be much more interesting than I originally imagined.  Given further thought, I can now see how the appeal to the story might lie in other places than the beautiful landscapes.  What does it take for a man to mutilate himself?  How long must he wait?  Does dementia have to set in, can a person of fit mind really do something like that to himself?

I remember hearing the story when it actually happened, wondering at what point I would break, if I could indeed do such a thing.  But it was a distant thought, something that gave me pause for a few minutes, shaking it off with a quick look of disgust and disbelief.  I didn’t internalized it.  Getting my hand caught in a rock out in the middle of nowhere seemed like a very small possibility, the odds have to be in the trillions, so I never felt the need to concern myself too much with a hypothetical test of will.

So I do have to admire Danny Boyle (writer/director) for taking the time to look into what makes a person like Aron Ralston tick.  Here was a guy who would go out into the Utah desert for days at a time without telling a soul or concerning himself with any kind of emergency contingency plan.  People like Boyle and Jon Krakauer have a gift for looking into what makes people do potentially fatal things, and how they handle the pressure when things do go wrong.

127 Hours turned out to be a great study in what made Boyle tick.  Through flashbacks and hunger-induced hallucinations (a predictable plot device as the audience probably doesn’t want to watch all six days of Ralston trying to escape in a row) we see a life of solitude and alienation.  Ralston ignores his parents and his sister.  We see that he breaks up with his girlfriend (at a Jazz game of all places!) in an Ebenezer Scrooge-like fit of silence, Aron sits through a one-sided argument with his girlfriend wherein he’s too proud to ask her not to leave.  Her final condemnation that he will always be lonely is a summation of the message of the film (laid on quite thickly): singularity is suicide.

But his pride is common among men, and many have found themselves in his situation due to stubborn, dumb-ass pride.  It’s the other edge of the sword in the strong independent male.  They have to be independent, there’s no other way.

As for the film itself, I think it deserves extra points in the Degree of Difficulty category.  The very fact that most people know the story already pretty much guarantees it won’t win Best Picture or get a large audience.  Not because popular stories don’t sell, but because the nature of this story (on the surface) does not lend itself to excitement and attention-grabbing scenes.  I rolled my eyes when I’d heard it was made into a film, and I really wasn’t looking forward to watching it.  I have to figure mine was not the only reaction of that nature, and to make this into something appealing to a mass audience is damned near impossible, not even worth trying.  Boyle did better to stay true to the story and count on a core audience of action junkies and morbid freaks who want to see just how gory the big scene in the end really is (I thought it was pretty fuckin’ raw, personally).  A stomach-churning story of this nature is not born for mass appeal.

James Franco got a lot of credit for his acting, as well he should.  But I don’t believe his role was as challenging as he may have been credited.  His demons were laid out pretty early on and following scenes reinforced them, pounding a lot of nuance and complexity out of his character.

And it is that lack of grace that I feel will cost this film a Best Picture award.  I think Boyle was very upfront with what he was trying to say, and surely it is a message worth delivering.  But it was done in a somewhat clumsy manner, and the viewer is left with little to contemplate, other than whether they would have the guts to do what Ralston did.  I want to put this film in the top three solely on the fact that Boyle was able to make a very difficult story to tell look easy.  But I am having a hard time with that.  I think this film would have received honorable mention in the five-picture era.  But it’s really only a good movie standing up against the great ones of the season.

We’ve got to review one more movie before the big night.  I’m getting knock-kneed.

Alouishis

Having only vague memories of the first Toy Story and absolutely no memory of the second (as I did not watch it), I was interested to see how the third and final (?) installment of the most popular animated series of movies in recent history could be nominated for Best Picture.

I guess it’s not that surprising.  There has been an increasing public outcry from the animated community that their films aren’t getting any respect.  And as one intended result of expanding the Best Picture category to ten films was to include deserving films that might otherwise be overlooked, this seems to be the perfect time.

It helps that the Toy Story trilogy is one of the most popular and well made animated series of all time.  It also helps that it was made by Pixar, seemingly the only game in town when it comes to animated films.  But allow me to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment.  Would this exact same film have been nominated if it hadn’t been the third in a trilogy (it’s not like the plot was dependent on the other two), or was it nominated because it had the most gravitas of the most recent animated films and was chosen as more of a representative of the genre?  Was it simply the Best Animated film and thrown in there to shut up the cartoon gestapo?

There are those who will agree, but it is important to think about what this film was trying to accomplish.  The tear-jerker scene at the end wasn’t meant for people like myself who only saw part or none of the previous two films.  It was meant for those who had invested themselves in the series, in the outcome of the characters whom they’ve seen develop and change over the years.  It was meant to be an acknowledgment of the inevitable passage of time and expiration of life, while reminding us of our ability to look back at times past and remember what we once had, that we might have some version of it again.

But that brings us to the big question tonight: does a film need to stand on its own to be considered for the Big Award?  Or is it okay for a film to sit on the shoulders of its predecessors, a seemingly unfair advantage to the other films?  The answer lies within our expectations of the viewers.  The Return of the King was not the best Lord of the Rings film and wasn’t the best film made in 2003 (the others being Mystic River, Master and Commander, Lost in Translation and Seabiscuit). But it was overpowering in its scope and depth of storytelling when matched with its two predecessors.  To watch The Return of the King without having seen the previous two is to watch a passable action film with great special effects, beautiful cinematography but bad acting.  But our viewer would have no appreciation for the characters’ journeys, the weight of their struggle elemental in what made the last episode so powerful.  The Lord of the Rings trilogy wasn’t really three separate movies, but more like a feature-length version of a mini-series; a continuous story wherein the three sections were dependent upon each other to tell a bigger story.

There is nothing in the Academy’s rules that says a film must stand on its own  (this is actually a blind assumption, I haven’t read the rules).  And perhaps it is best that we do ask that of our viewers.  Times change and making deeply involved stories is a good way to reintroduce nuance and an attention to detail to a generation that hasn’t been reading as many novels as its ancestors.  One need only look at the most popular television shows today to see that long-drawn out plots that evolve over an extended period of time have been succeeding over the Law & Order model where a storyline lives and dies within its 60-minute allotment.

We have also seen that you can’t make a shit series of movies and hope that the fact it is an intricate, extended story gets it any Oscar consideration.  The Matrix trilogy never got that love, and rightfully so.  It consisted of one great film and two awful ones that should have never been made.  The godfather actually achieved the opposite, getting two Best Picture nods, and then forever tainting its legacy with a god-awful attempt at tying up loose strings that didn’t need to be tied.  Go figure.

So where does Toy Story 3 figure in to this argument?  It’s definitely better than the third Matrix film, but not quite as good as Return of the King.  It won’t win because in the end it’s a children’s story and therefore rather simple and at times cheesy.

(This, of course, brings us back to the argument of whether a film’s initial goal is to be taken into consideration.  Toy Story 3 might be the best children’s film there is, and therefore a very good film, but does the fact that it speaks most effectively to pre-adolescents keep it from getting the big award?  It is adults after all voting for the award and the Best Picture, being the last one aired on the big night, is usually aired after bedtime.)

But I do think it’s okay for this last (?) film to be boosted up by its forbears.  It speaks to an attitude that we as viewers should embrace more in the future: that investing more time in a story yields exponentially greater reward.  To understand the nuance of a story, one must be familiar with the details.  And it is in nuance where we find real drama.  We see insecurities, imperfections and infidelities on a much more personal and real level.  Hearing others speak of Toy Story 3 makes me wish I had seen the first two (or at least paid better attention).  I would have liked to appreciate that final scene more.  It could have been  rewarding to truly understand what it meant that this kid had grown up and was moving on with his life, casting away that which he could no longer relate to, but was still capable of appreciating how informative those times were on his life.  I think I would have liked it a lot more.  But there are only so many hours in the day.

I have six days to go, the same amount of time it took my next subject to summon the balls to cut off his own arm.  Surely I will accomplish a feat no less impressive in that time.  Until then…

Alouishis

He may be a royal asshole, but Christian Bale can act.  If he doesn’t win Best Supporting Actor for The Fighter, it will be a crime against humanity.  I can’t specify what it is he does and what it takes to play a convincing character, but every second he is on the screen he seems to be telling me something.  He is such a force that you want to see what he’s doing, even when he isn’t the center of the scene.

Bale’s very convincing because he is able to find a unique and even humorous side to his addition.  Too often we’ve seen characters with drug addictions go through the same motions.  They get a taste, usually after we’ve established their downy innocence.  They descend, alienate their peers, screw over their wives (I can’t think of a female addiction film at the moment) and children and usually end up in jail.  This is not always rock bottom, but it is at the very least in our sights.  There’s a scene, you know it well.  Eyes are winced.  Fists clenched.  Perspiration, lots of it.  They go through hell and come out clean.  There are often flashbacks, voice of a living ghost, demons to overcome, haunting our protagonist in his darkest hour.  He comes out clean.  We rarely see a relapse.  Much of this can be said of The Fighter.  The detox scene is just as cliched as the scene in any other biopic and Dickie seems to triumph over his addiction easier than you’d think.  But the opening scenes of the film are really something special.

We meet Dickie already deep in the throes of his addiction.  He deceives himself into believing HBO wants to make a film about a comeback to his boxing career.  We can see from the get-go there’s something wrong with this picture.  When we learn well into the film the documentary was about crack addiction, you may not have guessed it but you’re certainly not surprised.

Dickie’s addiction is less introverted.  We aren’t meant to see how the drug affects him, but his family.  Mark Wahlburg’s role almost takes a backseat to Bale’s and one wonders at times if his character only exists as a punching back for Dickie’s many drug-addled fuck ups.  The movie could have ended when Dickie delivered the cake to his former crack-head friends and wiped his hands of them.  The ensuing fight where Mickey wins the championship – the scene we thought we were waiting for – feels anti-climactic compared to Dickie’s accomplishments.  There’s a parallel comparison to be made between Bale’s scene stealing performance, and the favoritism bestowed upon the character, Dickie by his mother and sisters.  No matter how bad he gets, he is always overshadowing his little brother.  In his mother’s eyes, Mickey’s career is merely a way for Dickie to get back on his feet.

And it is easy to see why.  While goofy, and often the butt of jokes he doesn’t see, Dickie nonetheless outshines his brother, endearing himself to everyone around.  While Mickey sits in the background, brow furrowed, arms stubbornly folded, Dickie is in your face cracking jokes, forcing you to laugh, making you happier than you were before he entered the room.  When his mother digs him out of the crack house he is living in and the horror of what her son has become is thrown in her face, he knows just which Bee Gees song to sing, lifting her spirits and the terrible train wreck that is his son – stark evidence of her failure as a mother – are swept away in an instant.  Back to the Dickie and Alice show, a nonstop force, sisters in tow behaving as a twisted methed-out version of a Greek chorus line, capable of bulldozing Mickey into…whatever makes it so they can continue to bully him.

It took Wahlburg something like ten years to get this film made.  Numerous false starts and crew changes kept him in impeccable shape over the years as he was always able to see the film at the end of the tunnel, ready at a moments notice to play a professorial fighter, never knowing what obstacle would be thrown in his way.  I really admire that dedication, and you know there’s something about this story that he felt was really important.

Wahlburg has become a really great actor in the past decade and in The Fighter he gives another solid performance.  He plays the perfect straight man to Bale’s over-the-top version of his bigger brother.  But you want more from him.  He doesn’t have to be a complex person, boxing is not a complex sport (there are 13 rules to boxing, compare that to the NFL rule book), I just wanted him to be a little more human, maybe develop a little over time (even in the end he was giving in to his mother and brother when they got in his face).  In the end his triumph seems staged.  You’ve seen this ending before and while the journey may be the important part of this film, there’s no drama to its resolution.  He just wins.  I found out later that the fight he won was a monumental performance by both boxers in real life.  Mickey takes a beating and is able to muster the strength to win.  But I didn’t feel the magnitude of his comeback in the film.

I heard somewhere that since Rocky was first released, Hollywood has released boxing films on average of one every year.  They aren’t all winners, but there’s been enough successful films to justify the genre’s existence.  Something about the sport will always get us to the theaters, even when the amount of actual boxing fans is in decline.  I think The Fighter is one of the better boxing films I’ve seen, but what made it unique didn’t seem to play out through the entire film.  As time went on we felt more and more like we’d seen this movie before.  The end was anti-climactic to the extent that it seemed to happen too fast. In the end, I think it lasted too long, go figure.

Whenst next we meet, I’ll tell you the tragic inevitable story of how I cried watching a fucking cartoon.  Enjoy this lovely holiday weekend.

Alouishis

Before we officially begin, I have a bone to pick with the plot: am I the only one who felt Mark Rufallo’s character (I think it’s Paul, so we’ll just go with that) got a raw deal?  I don’t think when he was jerking off into a cup at Dr. Schweinberg’s sperm donor clinic he ever had any desire to see the possible product of what he was projecting twenty years later.  But these kids had legitimate questions about where they came from and he tried to make it work.  He certainly fucked up and it was probably most likely best for all parties involved that he stay away from them, but he didn’t need to be cast aside so easily.  He was a major force in the story and his issues with his “children” were unresolved.  I wanted more for him, even if he didn’t deserve it.

And here we begin with a question: what was this story about?    Was this to be a film about a man thrown haphazardly into the modern world of gay couples and the unique complications that come with it?  The movie isn’t of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner quality, but a comparison can be made.  Times change and issues must be modernized not only in their content, but also in the manner with which they are dealt.  As good as Spencer Tracy was, he comes off now as unrelatable.  As time has gone on and gays, blacks and all other strange creatures of the Earth are mixed in the big boiling pot of the American Experience, forced to live similar lives in similar settings, dealing with the same issues, it would be unrealistic for Paul to react to his unique situation with the same shock and ignorance as Tracy did his.  Paul is reticent, off guard and obviously in over his head.  One gets the feeling if he were ever honest with himself, he wouldn’t approve of homosexuality, but his reactions are indicative of the modern era, a reticent acceptance and willingness to roll with the punches.

But that is not what this film is about.  It is an example of a new modern family drama we will be watching for years to come.  As homosexuality becomes more accepted and more gay couples adopt children, we can expect to see films that deal with unique situations like this.  It’s nothing wholly new, but more of a progression in main stream acceptance of non-traditional families that mirrors a progression of our society in general.  But looking just a little closer at the film, you can see the same themes pop up that one would see in most dramatic films about families: adultery, parental alienation from children, adolescent peer pressure, the pressure of a career on a marriage, etc…

Within the scope of this unique family, Julianne Moore (Jules) and Annette Benning (Nic)’s characters play very traditional roles.  Nic is a doctor who is married to her job and constantly belittles whatever job or scheme masking as a career Jules is working on at the moment.  She takes Jules for granted and when Jules gets fed up with Nic’s condescending remarks, she accepts an offer to landscape Paul’s back yard more out of spite than an actual desire to work.  The scenes, while slightly off kilter, lend themselves to the same kind of humorous situations that all family dramedies have.  There’s an awkward discussion about sex where Nic and Jules have to explain to their son why they like gay male porn.  When Paul spends an afternoon with the son and his horrible friend, he gives a very awkward lecture to his “son” about how this guy is a bad influence.  He’s basically an estranged father trying to establish some paternal authority, but you can’t get over the fact that he’s only father by artificial insemination.  Jules and Paul start an affair and the sex scenes are awkward and more comical than erotic.  A lot of the scenes in the film end up feeling awfully familiar, even if they are within an unusual context.  But it’s okay.

What I probably liked most about this movie was its ability to seamlessly go beyond the I’m alright with the Gays message.  You don’t watch this film to pat yourself on the back for being okay with homosexuality, this movie takes it for granted with neither an apology nor a pat on the back.

That’s why I don’t mind the predictability of this film.  It is almost unpredictable in its ordinariness.  My original bone to pick is actually indicative of this.  Paul represented in the film a consciousness of the unique situation we were in.  The odd man out looking in, by casting him aside so casually the director (Lisa Cholodenko) is saying we needn’t concern ourselves with the outside world and how this situation might look to an outsider.  The story is self-contained and those who matter are those who are in the middle, living the story.  The situation is not unique to them.  The kids are so great because there isn’t one scene where we see them dealing with their parents’ homosexuality.  They don’t get picked on, even the son’s jerkoff friend takes this situation as a given.  Issues and conflicts are long since dealt with.

So now we get to the Why This Isn’t Going to Beat “The Social Network” part.  I know I just spent three paragraphs praising this film for being a standard family drama and you will probably be pissed that I fault it for the same reason when it comes to the big prize.  While I like that it’s a traditional family comedy, I must remind you again that we are not looking for solid or admirable films.  We are looking for the exceptional, the cream of the crop.  The Kids are All Right probably wouldn’t have been nominated two years ago.  It’s a good film and I give it an enthusiastic go-ahead, but it certainly had its faults; mainly the ending.  The film falls apart after Jules and Paul’s affair is exposed.  Dialogue goes downhill, the story fades along with the writing and by the end you’re ready for it to end.  I think the acting could have been better as well.

Well we have less than two weeks and four films.  I’m going to need to freebase some crack to get through the next two weeks.  Thankfully I learn how to do that in our next film.

Alouishis.

You know Hollywood is running low on ideas when this year’s Most Inspirational Film is about a member of British Royalty with a stutter.  So bravely did this man overcome the horrible impediment cursed upon him by God with nary but the assistance of a humble man from humble beginnings was he able to rise up to the greatest tyrant the world has ever known and single-handedly defeat him by speaking in complete sentences.

Michael Oher and Forrest Gump are very disappointed, your highness.

But I kid.  This is a vast over-simplification and while there might be something humorous about the idea of a member of royalty having to overcome something so mild as a speech disorder (especially since it wasn’t  a result of inbreeding), such disability is greater than anything I’ve ever had to deal with.  So who am I to talk.

In the couple of weeks since I have endeavored on this journey, The King’s Speech has risen to become the favorite (by some accounts, who can really tell) for best picture.  The film does have all the makings.  the foreign intrigue and obscure historical references give the story a very artsy feeling.  The acting is superb and the cinematography is mesmerizing.

There is a way the characters are framed during extended conversations that adds an air of antiquity and gravity to the scene.  A similar method was used in the John Adams biopic on HBO a couple of years ago.  The camera frames the characters in the opposite third of the frame.  They are generally shot slightly further back than usual, including the upper abdomen and sometimes even the waist.  They often sit in empty rooms, sometimes nothing but a desk or small table beside them.  They are displaced from whomever they’re speaking with.  The result gives the viewer a feeling that they are seeing a portrait speak.  The effect lending the historical relevance of the characters to what you’re seeing on the film.  You are reminded that these are ancestors memorialized throughout our nation as the fathers of our nation.  Their influence on us is felt to this day and to literally put them on pedestals as we often do, it is easy to separate the man from the myth.  John Adams (the series) brings those two back together in a visually stunning manner.

The King’s Speech uses similar techniques, but gets a different result.  Much of the film is of a discussion between two men not entirely comfortable in each others’ presence.  The result of this awkward relationship is shown in the way the framing of the characters is away from one another.  The camera angle is not natural to the traditional idea of the 180 degree imaginary plane.  The camera acts as a manifestation of their desire to be apart from one another.  This is in only a few scenes, but it is a brilliant way to show the desire of two characters in a world that traditionally forbids any kind of outward emotion.

I don’t mean to harp on this one point because the cinematography in all aspects is noteworthy.  It is dramatic and stark and the viewer is delivered a breathtaking image of life in London before the second great one.  Whoever did the set and costume design also deserves an award.  The film was visually gorgeous.  Geoffrey Rush’s suits appeared as if they were fashioned from the same substance as the musky walls of his immense office.  Brown is the theme of this film, and it shows everywhere, providing a sepia-toned element to everything.  I think The Coen Brothers have a rare competitor for these two categories in which they’re normally a favorite.

So why doesn’t it win?  There aren’t a lot of reasons, but the story is definitely not the greatest ever told.  Despite my demeaning little introduction, the story does much better as a story about friendship.  The climax of the film wasn’t that the King was able to give his speech, but it was in the way he and his therapist were able to work together after a tumultuous relationship to achieve a remarkable goal.  It may not be fair to say I was disappointed in the modesty of the story.  There may be a great effect one can derive from such an intimate relationship set within a palatial setting, but I didn’t feel it.  The film felt more like a vehicle for Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush to show what great actors they are.  And don’t get me wrong, they are.  But I feel like their talents are better suited to loftier endeavors.

Watching this mix of actors, designers and director must have been what it was like watching the US invade Grenada.  The mightiest military in the world was certainly not a perfect fit for the task.  The Boston Police Department would have been a better use of our resources.  I will probably watch The King’s Speech again because it is so visually beautiful, but I imagine my interest in the outcome will be just as indifferent.

Next up we see how effective Mark Ruffalo is at curing this seemingly unending scourge of lesbianism that is sweeping across the country.  Until then…

Alouishis

One would have a hard time finding a genre in which to fit Black Swan.  Indy drama, while a fitting title when viewing a trailer of the film, simply won’t do when one actually sees the drama in this film is quite unusual.  You could try to mark it as a horror film.  There is definitely blood, shock value and some very disturbing images.  But to call this a horror film would diminish the message the movie is trying to convey: the nightmare one lives when dealing with obsession run amok.

Natalie Portman does a great job as the frigid, tight-ass white swan of the film who is struggling to release her darker side.  What’s at stake?  The leading role in the second most well-known ballet there is.  Mila Kunis also does well as the supposed black swan.  But you expect a little more competitiveness from her, and don’t get it.  There’s no backstabbing, sabotaging or really any kind of negative energy cast in the direction of the always paranoid Portman.  On the contrary, Kunis spends the movie trying to show us just how much of a problem she doesn’t have with Portman’s character.  For being the black swan, she isn’t much of a bitch.

But the film doesn’t leave much to the imagination in utilizing the light/dark aspect of the ballet.  If there is something bad to be said about this film, it’s that you don’t get to draw the parallels for yourself. It’s not as obvious as Star Wars, but it’s not far off.  The comparison is right there in front of you, forcing to you acknowledge it.

But it should be noted the main theme of the film was not good v. bad, so one wants to forgive this bludgeoning cliche.  Where the movie is really great is inside the mind of Portman’s character (okay, I’ll look her name up, it’s Nina.  I’ll call her Nina from now on).  Having dabbled very lightly with obsessive-compulsive behavior, I really enjoyed seeing a visualization of the absolute nightmare experienced by Nina throughout the film.  Nina’s horrors were manifested several ways including self mutilation, hallucination and eventually losing all touch with reality and creating a self-destructive mind-set that would be her undoing.  Fear was the driving force of the movie.  Before Nina even got the part she was scared of her competition, scared of her mother and mostly scared of failure.

Driving this fear was what seemed at times to be a living ghost, Nina’s predecessor.  Having slipped over the edge herself, Winona Rider’s character, Beth, seems intent on ruining any enjoyment Nina might get from her dancing.  But Nina doesn’t seem to understand what’s good for her.  Her morbid fascination of Beth’s emotional decline keeps Nina from shutting Beth’s negative energy out for good.  It’s as if she can see exactly what direction she’s heading toward, but is too obsessed with her drive for perfection to do anything about it.

It is never clear whether Nina gets the part because she’s the best, or because the director was trying to quash a possible sexual harassment suit.  The viewer is left to hypothesize as to what her ability really is.  There is no doubt she is a technically sound dancer, but her psyche as well as her inability to shut out her emotions are her biggest enemy.  By the end of the film, she is such a wreck that you wonder if she’s even capable of completing a single performance.

The violence in the film has been criticized as gratuitous, but it was necessary to show how these emotional problems can come through in physical form.  I hate metaphor as much as the next red-blooded American, but those physical wounds were representative of Nina’s damaged interior, culminating in the final moments when she stabs herself in the stomach while hallucinating.  The obsessiveness that got her the perfect performance she wanted so bad also got her killed (or did she make it?  I can’t remember now).

So, where does this behavior come from?  Why, the parents of course.  In this case, it’s just the mother, but as a strict Freudian I believe it’s important that we all find something about us that is wrong and blame it on our parents.  In this case, it is obvious to see where Nina gets her behavior.  Her mother’s portraits of her daughter as well as her violent mood swings (including an attempt to entrap her daughter when she feels Nina has strayed to far) lends a creepy reality to this kind of cyclical behavior.  Through her mother, we can already see where Nina will be in thirty years.

So to sum things up, I give this a definite go-ahead.  I doubt it will win best picture because it did seem to lay things on pretty thick.  But if you can stomach it, I highly recommend this film as a great example of a damaged interior to a beautiful body.  Oh yeah, and there’s a great lesbian scene.

Whence I return we will discuss how the world was saved from the clutches of Hitler by a foppish Aussie with a crooked nose.  Until then.

Alouishis

I like a good mind-fuck movie.  Charlie Kaufman is one of my favorite authors and I’m probably one of the few people who thinks Vanilla Sky was a good movie.   So I was quite disappointed to get halfway through Inception with my mind still unmolested.  It wasn’t until there was about 30 minutes left in the film that I realized what this movie was: a solid action film with a cool premise.

It’s probably important at this point to remember what our goal here is; to pick the best picture of the year.  The bar is set higher and had I left it at its usual height, Inception would receive the go-ahead as an entertaining, visually awe-inspiring, all around well-made film.  But we are looking for the best.  Not just the best action film, but the best film, period.

Inception is the best action movie I’ve seen this year.  But when compared to films from all categories, it makes a strong argument against having ten best film nominations.  Merely a solid movie isn’t what belongs in the best picture category, we must be reaching higher than that and rarely does a year goes by when there are ten exceptional films.  Despite what you may have heard, there are fewer major motion pictures made nowadays than there were fifty years ago.  If the number of total films is decreasing, increasing the best picture nominess will introduce mediocrity to the award and drag the truly deserving films into a muddled group wherein voters are forced to spread their limited focus amongst a greater amount of films.  The idea of a nomination is to narrow focus in order to give a better opportunity to judge each subject.

The idea behind expanding the number of best picture nominees was to create more interest and viewership by including the kinds of films that are usually left out of the running.  Animated films are the most commonly used example of this.  Because of the expansion, Toy Story 3 was able to sneak in to the pool.  But this doesn’t fix what I agree is a problem within the nominating process.  Inception’s nomination only makes it very slightly more likely it will win.  The problem lies in what we define to be a great film, or that we have one at all.  Too often we see the same formula used in a best-picture-nominated films.  Familiar stories of triumph in spite of the odds and overcoming one’s personal demons have been packaged differently over the years.  But they’ve all been made with one goal in mind, to win best picture.

So why not Inception?  Am I treating it unfairly because I feel I was deceived as to what the actual nature of the film was supposed to be?  I will admit I was ready to write off the film halfway through when I realized it wasn’t what I was hoping for, but I think I rebounded quickly enough to give it a fair shake.  I also think it warrants a discussion on trailers creating false expectations, but that’s another discussion for another time.

In the end the problem is the film has no lasting power. The plot is fine and there is a great tension build-up that resolves itself well in the end.  But the acting left something to be desired, and I don’t think the characters were developed in a way that made me care about them.  Their fate is tied in with the fate of the film.  If you don’t care what happens to the characters, why the hell are you watching?

I also think the writer and director left a lot on the table in dealing with the possibilities one encounters in the dream-state.  I got the feeling the director was primarily interested in the ways the physical world could be twisted in using the in-dream premise, as if it served solely as a device for creating cool visual effects (don’t get me wrong, they were really cool).  But what it really felt like was a bunch of actors standing in front of a green screen.  They were too self-assured in their dreams.  Everything was so well defined, both visually and situationally.  There wasn’t that feeling of uncertainty and inherent fear one gets while dreaming.  It might not be possible to emulate such a sensation whilst driving the plot of the film.

Maybe that’s why the most successful dream sequences don’t enhance a story so much as they give context and insight into the subject’s frame of mind (for a great example of a dream sequence doing both, I point you to the second season finale of The Sopranos).  I give the director credit for his efforts.  Perhaps Mr. Nolan did get robbed in the best director category.  There are certainly a lot of people who disagree with my assessment.  But to me, Inception had all the feeling of a $200k Mercedes that only ever gets driven to pick up the groceries; great premise under utilized.

I’ll be back, if you’ll have me.  Next up, my life long dream of becoming a ballerina is crushed by the brutal reality of a relentless, winner-take-all blood sport.

Alouishis

True Grit lacks the quirkiness of most of the Coen Brothers’ movies, making it almost unrecognizable as an officially stamped, 100% certified, Coen Brother approved film.  But one only need look a little closer to see all the other elements of this film are what you’d expect from them.

Simply put, Coen Brothers films are more skillfully crafted than anything else you’re likely to see nowadays.  You will not see a Western made in the past 20 years that is better than True Grit.  What makes their films better is the Coens’ uncanny ability to create something authentic, and use those constraints to their advantage.  Authenticity often comes when things aren’t spelled out for the viewer.  Voice overs can come off as hokey and characters explaining a situation within the film often sound staged.  By not laying everything out for the viewer, dialogue is much more natural, adding to the overall tone of the film.  Authenticity can also breeds humor, often dark and dray; capturing those awkward moments in life that one can only truly appreciate through the narrowing scope of a camera lens.

True Grit is no exception.  Opting to draw inspiration from the original novel by Charles Portis instead of the John Wayne movie (one need only watch a few minutes of the movie to understand why), the Coens’ found a more genuine dialect between more authentic characters.  Jeff Bridges’ Rooster Cogburn is a much saltier dog in comparison to the Duke’s watered down version.  Mattie Ross is only likable because we know we will never have to deal with her personally.  In looking for someone with grit, she is really looking for a version of herself who has the physical size to act out her will.  Matt Damon’s Texas Ranger is as creepy and off-putting as any “protagonist” you will ever see ,and Tom Chaney isn’t so much a devious criminal as a homicidal buffoon.

These unique qualities add a weight to the story that would otherwise be lost when trying to mold these very human characters into something a little more traditional, a little easier on the eyes.

I am also grateful for this film because it has made me realize that Jeff Bridges is not only a likable actor, he is an exceptionally talented one as well.  His past roles have come so naturally; his portrayal of his characters always felt as if they were just different versions of himself.  Rooster Cogburn didn’t contain the inherent likability that goes with most of his characters.  That isn’t to say he wasn’t likable, it just didn’t come the same way.  Watching this film has forced me to look back and admit there is more versatility to Bridges than I ever credited him.  He is much more than the dude (though never better).

I said in my review of The Social Network that it was the only film I actually wanted to see.  I forgot about True Grit.  It is hard to choose between these two (thankfully I have a couple of weeks) and it may end up coming down to which genre I prefer, which would go to The Social Network.

I have been trying to acquire a taste for Westerns for a few years now and it is starting to take, but only a very little bit.  It is rare that I come across a Western I like this much and I doubt anyone could pull it off as well as the Coens.  Westerns are still made at a surprising rate and the romance of the Wild, Lawless West will probably capture our interest for years to come.  But like most genres that deal with a certain epoch or theme there seems to be more poorly made crap than good stuff; most likely because there’s an assumption by the film makers that people are going to see the movie for the genre, not the writing or cinematography.

It’s a testament to the Coens’ talent that they so consistently make genre films that are also unique and of exceptional quality.  They are once a once in a lifetime duo and they only seem to get better.  I think No Country For Old Men will be seen as being ahead of its time and will one day be viewed as one of the greatest films ever made.  I can’t loft such praise on True Grit, but it ain’t bad for a Western.  Next up, Leo DiCaprio is dreamy.

Alouishis

So here we go…

I’m going to review the movies in the order in which I’ve seen them, the first being The Social Network. I saw it long before I saw any of the others because it’s the only one I actually wanted to see.  This brings me to a disclaimer (not the last):  I firmly believe everything Aaron Sorkin does is brilliant.  He probably took a shit yesterday, and I bet he did it in a more clever way than anyone could even think to do it.  So I will probably end up voting for this one if only because of who wrote it.  For the purposes of this entry, I’ll just say the writing was exactly what I’d expected (brilliant!) and we can move on from there.  You have been warned.

Starting with The Social Network right after I announced my departure from dealing with reality might send mixed messages.  If there has been a driving social force of the past ten years, it’s been Facebook.  To paraphrase the movie, Facebook takes the experience of college and puts it online.  The attractive part is that one does not need to attend college to benefit (anymore).

But there have been complaints as to the accuracy of the movie, mainly that many of the details of the story, some larger than others, are fabricated. A good example: Mr. Zuckerberg has had the same girlfriend since college, a very inconvenient fact for Sorkin in light of the main theme of his story being Zuckerberg’s alienating all around him including his freshman year girlfriend whom he never got over.  That’s a big one, though there are other facts and instances that were left out of the story or changed, either because it didn’t go with the main theme of the film, or it just wasn’t necessary.

Sorkin’s script was based on a book about Zuckerberg called The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich.  Mezrich fed Sorkin chapters while he was writing it.  In an effort to gain reader interest, Mezrich wrote a glamorized version of this story about a Harvard geek who doesn’t relate well to people (how unique!).  He threw in drugs, drinking and the fucking over of best friends to make it sexier.  He consulted with Zuckerberg’s one time partner and current nemesis Eduardo Saverin (the guy who almost punched Justin Timberlake at the end) in an effort to give the book some credibility – and to their credit – some accuracy.  But Saverin cut ties to Mezrich after settling financially with Zuckerberg and Mezrich was left to write what he wanted, much of which was false.

So has Aaron Sorkin betrayed his fans and integrity?  That is for each person to decide his or herself.  For Sorkin’s part, he has readily admitted his version of the story was based on a book of questionable integrity and he has made no claims to either its, or the film’s accuracy.  But basing a story on a person, fictional or not, is a tricky situation.  Even films creating hypothetical instances around a real public figure are playing with a human life, someone who has to live with the consequences of the movie, book, song of which he or she is a subject.

And more often than not, the artist telling the story forgets how stupid and ignorant people can be.  It is easy for anyone to see a film about a celebrity and take it for fact.  Everyone knows there is no such thing as a 100% factual film (especially in Hollywood) but the viewer can too easily be seduced into the game of fact selectivity.  A conversation on a subject can go from “I know it isn’t 100% real, but…” to “and in the movie, he…and then he…and after all that, he still has the balls to…  What a prick!”

One only needs to view some of Sorkin’s work to realize that he is exactly the kind of person to have too much faith in his viewer’s ability to discern fact from fiction.  His characters are unapologetically intelligent, and the content of his stories demand the reader to think critically about subjects one doesn’t deal with in day-to-day life.  There’s a reason everyone wants President Bartlett to be their president, it’s because he lives in Lake Wobegon where everyone is above average.  If the country’s population really was as intelligent as it is in Sorkin’s world, it would surely be a better place.

So there it is.  Judge Sorkin if you will, but not for the quality of story-telling.  For all its shortcomings when compared to the real world, The Social Network soars above its competitors in most other areas.  A friend mentioned to me that perhaps the success of the story is that it doesn’t over-reach as films about social phenomena often do.  Sorkin and David Fincher (director) were not out to put their finger on the pulse of America’s youth, they were out to tell the story of the person who created this phenomenon.  Limiting the scope of the story to just Zucerkberg and those around him spare us of many clichéd scenes wherin Fincher would be forced to attempt to illustrate the impact of Facebook by rushing us through dorm rooms, living rooms and anywhere else one can update their status.  It would have added 30 useless minutes to the film and instead of weighting the impact of the website on society today, it would have deflated and undermined whatever happens when a billion people are brought together by a single entity.  One need only look around him or her to gauge the impact by Facebook on today’s society.  No film can measure something like that.

I have yet to watch all ten Best Picture nominees and I am going to keep an open mind, but I believe the bar has been set high with this film.  This is not a year of blockbusters (thank God!) and The Social Network sets a good tone for what we have coming.  Don’t think that because I chose to focus on the fact v. fiction aspect of this film that it doesn’t have everything it takes to make a great film.  I do not intend to cover every aspect of the films I review, but rather comment on whatever is interesting to me, and I will try to pick areas that aren’t being covered excessively by other reviewers.  Next up, True Grit!

Alouishis