Oscar Nominations 2019: Part 1 of 11

Every year I post about each of the films nominated for Oscars (this year there are 33 + 10 short films). I see all of them except for the documentaries (I am just not that interested in documentary film; I'm not sure why).

As always, a large number of the films in my own top 10 for the year were passed over (Vazante, You Were Never Really Here, The Strange Ones, Lean on Pete), but some of them scored a nomination or two (Shoplifters, Into the Spider-verse, Mirai), and this year one was nominated for Best Picture (Roma). In other words, as there is every year, there is something for me to appreciate here, even as I am, as always, impatient with the Academy's choices.

My main complaint – and I am sure this will come up in my commentary in the following weeks – is that Academy voters (and guild voters, too) just don't see enough movies, especially films from other countries. A slate of nominees like the International Cinephile Society's list for 2019 is way better than the one that Oscar made. And I honestly think it's just that the voters in the ICS just see more movies. But I am done expecting the Academy to vote for really, really good stuff. They will always skew toward the mediocre, I think. And that is just how it goes.

As usual with these posts, I will go film by film discussing each movie individually rather than discussing categories, beginning with the movies most beloved by the Academy this year. If the nominee has been nominated for Oscars previously, he or she will be listed next to his/her name in parentheses).

This year's nominees:

Roma

10 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity)
  
• Actress: Yalitza Aparicio
• Original Screenplay: Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Y Tu Mamá También)
• Supporting Actress: Marina de Tavira
• Cinematography: Alfonso Cuarón
• Production Design: Eugenio Caballero (Pan's Labyrinth) & Bárbara Enríquez
• Foreign Language Picture: Mexico (Biutiful, Pan's Labyrinth, The Crime of Father Amaro, Amores Perros, Letters from Marusia, Tlayucan, The Important Man, Macario)
  
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Editing

Director: Cuarón

Cast: Aparicio, Tavira, Nancy García García, Jorge Antonio Guerrero, Verónica García, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta, Daniela Demesa, Marco Graf, Fernando Grediaga, Andy Cortés

I loved this movie. I loved the way that it was shot. I loved the way that it mostly relegated the bourgeois problems of its supporting characters to the background in order to focus on its main character's challenges of life, love, and work. The fact that Roma was made in both Spanish and Mixteco felt really special. But more than all of this, the filmmaking is just superb, and Roma is able to focus on the quotidian and the epic simultaneously, and even more importantly to place the quotidian within the epic with deftness and intelligence. I found Roma a little more intellectually satisfying than emotionally satisfying, but overall I loved it. As for what this movie will win come Oscar Sunday... Cuarón is a lock for director, but I think the amount of love this movie saw when nominations were announced (both acting nominations were real surprises) means that Academy members love this movie a lot more than your everyday Netflix subscriber does. And, I have to say, the Academy is getting this one right. Oh, also, when Cuarón wins Best Director on February 24th, he will be the fifth Mexican director to win in the last six year. The will be the first time Mexico has won the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

Will Win: Picture, Director, Cinematography, Production Design, Foreign Language Picture

Could Win: Original Screenplay

My Rating: #9 out of 66

The Favourite

10 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
• Actress: Olivia Colman
• Original Screenplay: Deborah Davis & Tony McNamara
• Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener)
• Supporting Actress: Emma Stone (La La Land, Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
• Cinematography: Robbie Ryan
• Film Editing: Yorgos Mavropsaridis
• Production Design: Fiona Crombie & Alice Felton 
• Costume Design: Sandy Powell (Mary Poppins Returns, Cinderella, Carol, Hugo, The Tempest, The Young Victoria, Mrs Henderson Presents, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Shakespeare in Love, Velvet Goldmine, The Wings of the Dove, Orlando)

Director: Lanthimos

Cast: Colan, Weisz, Stone, Nicholas Hoult, Joe Alwyn, James Smith, Mark Gatiss

I reviewed this movie here. The Favourite is a hilariously bizarre Lanthimosic version of English history. What's brilliant about it is that it looks like it's a period film, and it is a period film – it's about England's Queen Anne – but then it is also a Yorgos fucking Lanthimos movie, which means that it is also insane. This means that it is very very funny and people continuously behave in ways that surprise and shock the viewer. The worlds Lanthimos gives viewers access to make perfect sense, but they operate on their own internal logics. He's really an extraordinary filmmaker, and I can't wait to see what's next. The costumes simply must win. Powell has 3 Oscars already, but she hasn't won in 10 years, and anyway the Academy doesn't mind giving costume designers additional Oscars. Colleen Atwood won two years ago for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. She's gonna win. Whether anything else can win here, I'm not quite sure, although I think The Favourite will also take home Original Screenplay.

Will Win: Original Screenplay, Costume Design

Could Win: Actress, Film Editing, Production Design
My Rating: #17 out of 66

Vice

8 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Adam McKay (The Big Short)
• Actor: Christian Bale (The Big Short, American Hustle, The Fighter)
• Original Screenplay: Adam McKay (The Big Short)
• Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri)
• Supporting Actress: Amy Adams (American Hustle, The Master, The Fighter, Doubt, Junebug)
• Film Editing: Hank Corwin (The Big Short)
• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: McKay

Cast: Bale, Adams, Steve Carrell, Rockwell, Jesse Plemons, Allison Pill, Eddie Marsan, Justin Kirk, Tyler Perry, LisaGay Hamilton, Lily Rabe, Bill Camp

I really disliked Vice, a dislike I wrote about here. I'm not here to say Vice is a bad film, but it definitely was not for me. I am surprised that the Academy loved this as much as it did. Three acting nominations is a lot, and this is Adam McKay's second best director nomination in just a few years. It's quite impressive. The reason Vice doesn't work, to my mind, is that McKay tried to do the kind of Brechtian historical analysis he did with The Big Short but instead of analyzing a historical moment he tried (half-heartedly) to analyze a man. It didn't work. As for winning Oscars, it looks right now like Christian Bale will take home his second acting Oscar. I don't think he's very good in the movie, but that seems to be a minority opinion. But let's take a moment to talk about Amy Adams, who always seems to get outshone in these movies with Christian Bale. I am not sure I understand that. I feel like this woman – who is excellent in everything, as far as we can tell – should probably be directing movies by now. I have a feeling she can probably do anything. Let's give her a bunch of money and see what she'll do. Also, Vice should probably win makeup and hairstyling. It's the most high profile of the nominees in that category.
Will Win: Actor, Makeup & Hairstyling

Could Win: Original Screenplay, Film Editing

My Rating: #65 out of 66

A Star Is Born

8 Nominations

• Picture
• Actor: Bradley Cooper (American Sniper, American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook)
• Actress: Lady Gaga
• Adapted Screenplay: Bradley Cooper, Will Fetters & Eric Roth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Munich, The Insider, Forrest Gump)
• Supporting Actor: Sam Elliott
  
• Cinematography: Matthew Libatique (Black Swan)
• Sound Mixing
• Song – "Shallow": Lady Gaga (The Hunting Ground), Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando & Andrew Wyatt 

Director: Cooper

Cast: Cooper, Gaga, Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Rafi Gavron, Anthony Ramos, Dave Chappelle, Drena De Niro, Barry Shabaka Henley, Michael D. Roberts, Michael J. Harney, Ron Rifkin, Greg Grunberg, D.J. Shangela Pierce, Willam Belli

I like this movie more now than I did when I saw it. Lady Gaga is a very good singer, and she is good in A Star Is Born whenever she is singing. Whenever she's not, I don't get it. As for Bradley Cooper, I'm actually mad that anyone is talking about any of these other actors. The idea that Cooper lost to Rami Malek at the Golden Globes is actually insane. And I don't understand how a beautiful, sensitive, heart-rending performance like his in this movie could be compared in any way to Bale's stoic cartoon of Dick Cheney. It's really absurd. Cooper is superb in this film. Some people are saying he was snubbed in the best director category... no. He's a brilliant actor and he should be awarded for that. I think A Star Is Born is not going to win Best Picture, although it certainly still might. I think its wins on the 24th will be in sound mixing (it wasn't nominated for sound editing) and best song. And the song is pretty fucking great, I have to say. But it's definitely insane that Hollywood has decided not to give Cooper any prizes for this movie which has made a ton of money and is actually really high quality. This is the most Hollywood of the top four movies this year. They really ought to give Cooper a little gold man.

Will Win: Sound Mixing, Song

Could Win: Picture, Actor, Actress
My Rating: #40 out of 66

Oscar Nominees 2014: Page 1 of 14

Every year in the weeks leading up the Academy Awards ceremony, I post my thoughts on all of the nominees, although I exempt myself from the documentaries because I don't really like documentaries all that much. For me that means 48 films this year (5 more than last year). 2013 was a really strange Oscar year, what with Argo's director missing a nomination and then winning Best Picture, but 2014 appears so far to be even stranger. Some of the frontrunners for nominations were completely passed over, and Best Picture appears still to be up in the air. Because my favorite thing about all of this movie hubbub is the surprises, I am once again loving Oscar season.

Most of the films in my top ten for the year were passed over (Blue Is the Warmest Color, Fruitvale Station, The Kings of Summer, In the House, The Past), but some scored a nomination or two (The Great Beauty, Before Midnight) and two were nominated for Best Picture (Gravity, Her). In any case, I am excited for what is going to happen.

Oh, and if you're thinking why does he even care about this? I don't blame you. But I have an elaborate set of reasons for still loving the Oscars that I've explained here.

If the nominee has been nominated for Oscars previously, he or she will be listed next to his/her name in parentheses).

This year's nominees:

Gravity

10 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Alfonso Cuarón
• Actress: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
• Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men, The New World, Sleepy Hollow, A Little Princess)
• Film Editing: Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men) & Mark Sanger
• Original Score: Steven Price
• Production Design: Rosie Goodwin, Andy Nicholson, & Joanne Woollard (Hope and Glory)
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Editing
• Visual Effects

Director: Cuarón

Cast: Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris

Gravity is my favorite of the films nominated for Best Picture. It deserves every one of its nominations. I was overwhelmed by it as I often am with Cuarón's work. It is beautiful, heartstoppingly intense, deeply troubling, and insistently philosophical. (I felt similarly about his 2006 film Children of Men.) Since I fell in love with Gravity, though, I've heard a lot of folks talk about the film's use of symbols. I'm not gonna deny they're there: if an audience member wants to place symbolic value on an image in a movie, that's what images are there for. All I can say about that is that for me the film didn't function on that register – I found the movie to be an intense action movie that also spent a lot of time allowing me to think about being alone, my own desire to keep going while facing impossible odds, and the total vastness of the universe. (I have said before on this blog that I really love the feeling of being completely insignificant and tiny that I get when I stare at the stars.) As for winning Oscars, I don't think this movie is going home with the big man. But Gravity will win nearly all of the below-the-line stuff (except for Production Design).

Will Win: Cinematography, Film Editing, Score, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects

Could Win: Picture, Director

My Rating: #3 out of 72

American Hustle

10 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
• Actor: Christian Bale (The Fighter)
• Actress: Amy Adams (The Master, The Fighter, Doubt, Junebug) 
• Original Screenplay: David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) & Eric Warren Singer
• Supporting Actor: Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
• Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook, Winter's Bone) 
• Film Editing: Alan Baumgarten, Jay Cassidy (Silver Linings Playbook, Into the Wild) & Crispin Struthers (Silver Linings Playbook)
• Production Design: Judy Becker & Heather Loeffler
• Costume Design: Michael Wilkinson 

Director: Russell

Cast: Bale, Adams, Cooper, Jeremy Renner, Lawrence, Elisabeth Röhm, Robert De Niro, Louis C.K., Jack Huston, Michael Peña, Shea Whigham, Colleen Camp

I really liked this. It's a sleeper in a lot of ways: a good hustler movie with not much going for it except a stellar cast and a director who (all of a sudden) everyone seems to really love. The film's luster fades on reflection, which is why I'm betting on it not taking anything home on March 2. Call me crazy, but I just don't see it happening. I think the closest shot this has at gold is the original screenplay ("wasn't it all improv?" you may ask, to which I would say "And isn't that a screenplay?") There's also the possibility of Amy Adams winning, but the Academy hasn't awarded her for anything yet, so it would seem that while they love to nominate her, they don't actually think she's ready to win one. But, look, I could be way off base and everyone might love this film way more than I do and just give it everything: Screenplay, Director and Best Picture. This is also a distinct possibility.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Picture, Director, Actress, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actress, Production Design, Costume Design

My Rating: #25 out of 72

12 Years a Slave

9 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Steve McQueen
• Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor
• Adapted Screenplay: John Ridley
• Supporting Actor: Michael Fassbender
• Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong'o
• Film Editing: Joe Walker
• Production Design: Alice Baker & Adam Stockhausen
• Costume Design: Patricia Norris (Sunset, 2010, Victor/Victoria, The Elephant Man, Days of Heaven)

Director: McQueen

Cast: Ejiofor, Fassbender, Nyong'o, Sarah Paulson, Adepero Oduye, Benedict Cumberbatch, Garret Dillahunt, Brad Pitt, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Alfre Woodard, Michael K. Williams, Dwight Henry, Quvenzhané Wallis, Topsy Chapman, Liza J. Bennett

You can see simply by glancing above that most of the folks nominated for 12 Years a Slave have never been nominated for anything before, and this goes for all of the below-the-line folks (except Ms. Norris). This always makes me want to root for a film, especially when I love everyone involved as much as I do. I wasn't totally in love with this film, but I haven't anything negative to say about it: I just didn't like it as much as I loved McQueen's first two pictures. As for Oscar, 12 Years has seemed to be on a slow decline lately, but my bet – and this is not the most obvious choice – is that when push comes to shove, the Academy goes for this film in the end. I expect it to win Picture and Director. I ought also to say, frankly, that it seems a little nuts to me that anyone is voting for Jared Leto over Michael Fassbender in their category, but apparently Fassbender is not the favorite and Leto is. It's a weird world.

Will Win: Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actress, Production Design

Could Win: Actor, Supporting Actor

My Rating: #15 out of 72

Man vs. Ocean Part 4

There have been a bunch of man vs. ocean movies lately: Life of Pi, Kon-Tiki, The Deep. And now comes J.C. Chandor's All Is Lost, about a man on a small yacht (39 feet, says the Wikipedia page) who accidentally loses power and begins to take on water after crashing into an abandoned shipping container (apparently filled with children's shoes). From there our man is alone in the ocean with little hope of rescue.

Mr. Redford as Our Man

All Is Lost is different from the other movies I mentioned – and indeed unique for this year – in that it has only one character. Robert Redford anchors the movie: is its only character, its only voice. And being alone in the ocean trying to survive he says very little. The fact that he is the only character means we know almost nothing about him.

Who is this man?
Why is he alone?

Who was his family?
To whom would he return?
What does he do for a living?
How long has he been sailing?
What is he doing in the Indian Ocean?

When he writes a letter of goodbye, to whom is he writing?
For what is he apologizing?

In this way, All Is Lost is a mystery as much as it is an adventure story. Because we know nothing about our man, we search his face, his possessions, his every action for answers. Our man, though, is a survivor. That's what he is. Chandor doesn't give us backstory. If our man thinks about his life, his regrets, his loves, we know nothing of it. We see only his face and the things that he does to try to stay afloat, alive, and healthy.

If this is valuable as a kind of pure, ascetic filmmaking (and I think it is), it has its drawbacks, too. The reason I liked Kon-Tiki is because it is about teamwork and sticking it out and dealing with other people in confined spaces. One of the reasons I loved The Deep so much, is that it is a meditation on death and on managing things of which we do not know we are capable. The Deep is also fundamentally about losing other people, about coping with that loss, about getting back to something.  

All Is Lost is about staying alive and nothing else, survival tout court. As I say, this is an awesome, unique way of approaching such a story, but I couldn't identify with our man as much as I would've liked. I wanted to know what he was thinking about. I wanted to be alone with him, the way I was alone with Sandra Bullock in Gravity, the way I was alone with Ólafur Darri Ólafsson in The Deep.

I will say that I like this J.C. Chandor's stuff. I liked Margin Call and I liked this. He has a kind of cinematic austerity and clarity that I really enjoy. I look forward to his next picture.

Gravity

You probably don't need me to convince you to go see Gravity. But, it is great. Cuarón is doing his signature long takes. There's all sort of weightless, awesome tension. Clooney and Bullock are great. And I don't know how they are selling this movie in your town, but Gravity is an action movie. An action movie that is also intensely suspenseful. It also contains themes of hanging on and letting go, evolution, becoming someone new, and the power of willing oneself into action: trying. But the star here is the action itself. Gravity is not some heavy-handed message-y action film à la Prometheus.

The sound is great, Emmanuel Lubezki's photography is stellar as always. The special effects are insanely good. And the whole thing is pretty terrifying. I saw it in 3D IMAX and I kind of want to see it again in exactly the same way.

I have lately been drawn to these one-lonely-person-against-nature kinds of stories. I recently loved the Icelandic film The Deep, as well, which involves one lonely guy swimming in the North Atlantic for six hours as he tries to get back home. (How anyone could stay alive in that freezing-cold water is a still-unsolved mystery, but it is a true story.)  Perhaps it is my own introversion that makes a film about someone by herself battling against her own will and spending time with her own memories and pain and fighting to stay alive that appeals to me. I tend to like a film like this much, much more than, say Life of Pi or even Kon-Tiki, which I liked so much. Just this one person, alone, trying to make a go of it, and not knowing whether anyone else cares and knowing for a fact that nature itself does not care. This appeals to me as a narrative. I recognize something in the struggle of my own life, something that makes a kind of sense to me – trying to make things work without really knowing why I am bothering... but doing it anyway.

P.S. in regard to Gravity and its Oscar chances, I think we're looking at 7 total – maybe more. Picture, Director, Actress, Cinematography, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, and Sound Editing, at least.

Some More Spring Break Movies

I liked Marc Forster's The Kite Runner better than his last film Finding Neverland, but like that film, The Kite Runner is also rather a sentimental mess. Mind you, I cried about six times. It's a sad story, but it isn't moving, if you know what I mean. It's a kind of surface sadness based on situations. I haven't read the book, but I bet it's really good. Not to stray too far from my thesis topic, too, The Kite Runner contains a scene of male rape and the film's villain, in addition to the Taliban, is a kind of homosexual pervert who looks like an Afghan John Lennon. I should mention that I loved two things about the film: the credit sequence, which is beautiful, and the score (which was Oscar-nominated) by Alberto Iglesias, which is complicated and intelligent as well as very pretty.

Pascale Ferran's French film Lady Chatterley of D.H. Lawrence's novel John Thomas and Lady Jane is a long one (2 hours 40 minutes) and a rather boring one. The most interesting thing about the film is the way that it subvert's the male gaze. This is a film made by a woman about a woman and I'm not sure I can explain exactly why but it feels like it. Everything is from Lady Chatterley's point of view. This is not a film where the central female is still an object. Lady Chatterley is a sexual subject. Still, the filmmaker makes a lot of bad decisions: title cards to show passage of time and to tell us things she can't figure out how to show us. She also yadda-yaddas what could have been a beautiful sequence in the film, Lady Chatterley's trip to Paris and Italy. The director uses a kind of hand-held home video camera to relate this period in the book and it makes her journey abroad seem unimportant in her transformation. It's a very bad decision. The performances are good in Lady Chatterley, but this is not a very exciting movie.

I really, really liked Paris, Je T'aime, though. This film consists of 21 short films by world-renown directors (the Coen Brothers, Olivier Assayas, Gérard Depardieu, Gus Van Sant, Alexander Payne, Tom Tykwer, Richard LaGravanese, Gurinder Chadha, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Christopher Doyle, you get the drift) all about Paris, and the film stars about a million people you know and love: Gena Rowlands, Juliette Binoche, Willem Defoe, Nick Nolte, Gaspard Ulliel, Miranda Richardson, Steve Buscemi, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Natalie Portman, Javier Cámara, Hippolyte Girardot, Bob Hoskins, Fanny Ardant, Ludivine Sagnier, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Elijah Wood, Emily Mortimer, Rufus Sewell, Alexander Payne (as Oscar Wilde), Ben Gazzara. I pretty much loved almost every sequence, and none of them lasts very long. The best short film among the troupe is Oliver Schmitz's sequence Place des Fêtes about a would-be romance and tragedy. It's a perfectly contained little story and it's excellent. Anyway, this one is definitely a renter: romantic, lovely, filled with good miniature movies.

The Nominees: Part III of VIII

LITTLE CHILDREN

3 Nominations:

Best Actress: Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Iris, Titanic, Sense and Sensibility)

Best Supporting Actor: Jackie Earle Haley

Best Adapted Screenplay: Todd Field (In the Bedroom) and Tom Perotta

Director: Todd Field (In the Bedroom)
Cast: Patrick Wilson, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly, Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville, Jane Adams

This movie was predicted as one of the big prestige pictures of 2006. A screenplay nomination is a very big deal, so it still looks as though a lot of people paid attention to and liked this film, but it seems like reception to the film is overall more cool than anything else. This is to be expected for a film that worked hard to create distance from its audience. Still, three nominations is a lot of love and the Jackie Earle Haley nomination was a welcome surprise on nomination morning. This is Kate Winslet's fifth Oscar nomination. Make a note. She has yet to win.
Will Win: N/A
Might Also Win: Best Supporting Actor
My Rating: #51 out of 69

CHILDREN OF MEN

3 Nominations:

Best Adapted Screenplay: Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mamá También), David Arata, Mark Fergus and Hawk Otsby

Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki (The New World, Sleepy Hollow, A Little Princess)

Best Film Editing

Director: Alfonso Cuarón (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Y Tu Mamá También, Great Expectations, A Little Princess)
Cast: Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Julianne Moore, Claire-Hope Ashitey, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Charlie Hunnam, Pam Ferris

This is my favorite movie of the year. Blame its weak showing at the Academy on a too-late release date (this is Universal's fault) and on subject matter (sci-fi is not usually their thing.) But a film this good doesn't need a whole lot of Oscar nominations. People are going to be talking about how great this movie is for years to come. At any rate, Emmanuel Lubezki deserves to win in his category hands down. Hopefully by then, members of the Academy will all have seen this gem.
Will Win: Best Cinematography
Might Also Win: Best Film Editing
My Rating: #1 out of 69

APOCALYPTO

3 Nominations:

Best Sound Mixing

Best Sound Editing

Best Makeup

Director: (Crazy) Mel Gibson (The Passion of the Christ, Braveheart, The Man Without a Face)
Cast: Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernandez, Jonathan Brewer, Morris Birdyellowhead, Carlos Emilio Baez

This is a good movie, for the most part, though its subject matter and director obviously make it a tough pill for Hollywood to swallow. Still, The Passion of the Christ got Oscar nominations and so did this film. Winning anything is a different story altogether, and the presence of Pan's Labyrinth in the makeup category means Apocalypto will go home with nothing on Oscar night. That said, the makeup in this film (as in Gibson's last film) is extraordinary and the nomination is well-deserved.
Will Win: N/A
Might Also Win: N/A
My Rating: #26 out of 69

UNITED 93

2 Nominations:

Best Director: Paul Greengrass

Best Film Editing

Director: Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, Bloody Sunday, The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, The Theory of Flight)
Cast: David Alan Basche, Cheyenne Jackson, Christian Clemenson, Trish Gates, Khalid Abdalla, Lewis Alsamari, Omar Berdouni, Jamie Harding

These nominations are a big surprise. Critics loved this film, and clearly so did the Academy's director's branch, which is—in general—more discriminating than the body as a whole. But audiences didn't seem to take notice of this movie, despite critical enthusiasm about it. I personally loved the film and it sat at my number one spot for almost the entire year. It's a superbly directed film. I can't wait for Greengrass's next offering: The Bourne Ultimatum.
Will Win: N/A
Might Also Win: Best Film Editing
My Rating: #2 out of 69

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA

2 Nominations:

Best Actress: Meryl Streep (Adaptation., Music of the Heart, One True Thing, The Bridges of Madison County, Postcards from the Edge, A Cry in the Dark, Ironweed, Out of Africa, Silkwood, The French Lieutenant's Woman; she has Oscars for Sophie's Choice and Kramer vs. Kramer but hasn't won in 24 years.)

Best Costume Design: Patricia Field

Director: David Frankel (Miami Rhapsody)
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, Adrien Grenier, Simon Baker

The Best Actress nomination was a given, but the Best Costume Design nomination is a big surprise. The Academy usually likes to nominate period films and fantasy films in this category. Contemporary costume work usually gets left behind. This bodes well for the future. Streep hasn't won an Oscar since 1983. It is time to hand her another trophy, people! Her work is always stellar, never even slightly sub-par, and it always feels like you never knew her before when she's onscreen.
Will Win: N/A
Might Also Win: Best Costume Design
My Rating: #47 out of 69

Four More

My favorite movie so far this year is Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men. I caught it on New Year's Eve at The Grove (which is, I guess, the only place it's playing right now). It's a sci-fi piece set in 2027, in a sort of post-apocalyptic Britain. It stars Clive Owen and it--more than anything else--is ostensibly a genre piece: an action/road movie with lots of guns. But it's also a movie about the end of the world, the miracle of birth, and humankind's capacity for both cruelty and generosity. I completely loved it. It's funny and imaginative and brilliantly scripted, not to mention beautifully shot by Emmanuel Lubeszki. Go.

Another Mexican film I saw recently is Guillermo Del Toro's El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth), which is an imaginative fantasy/horror story set against the backdrop of 1944 Spain. The story follows a little girl who escapes from the tyranny of her stepfather by imagining (or is he real) a giant faun who assigns her magical tasks to complete and tells her she's really the daughter of the king of the underworld. It's a magical, beautiful movie full of spectacle and gore. I totally dug it.

Last night I also caught Bill Condon's Dreamgirls. Now, you probably know that I love this musical (the original production was on Broadway in 1982), and while I was very excited for the film version, I wasn't too excited about the way it was looking from all of the clips and interviews I watched about it. The film is pretty much all I expected it to be. Jamie Foxx, as the film's headliner, is near terrible; he is the focus of the film and its empty heart of a center. He pouts and sneers his way through the movie and comes across as unlikeable and frustrated. The character is odious, of course, by the film's end, but it would have been nice had the character had a bit of a journey. Foxx picks a note and keeps playing it for two hours. Eddie Murphy is fantastic as James Thunder Early. He gives a fierce, enjoyable performance that's sure to get awards play with the Academy (about time, too, if you ask me). Beyoncé Knowles is excellent as superstar Deena Jones, and looks gorgeous in the film, almost impossibly so. I forget how beautiful this woman is. She also had a song written for her for the film. It's called "Listen" and she sings it in act three with power and vehemence (it's a touch earnest, but her only real belt number). The person everyone will be talking about after this movie, though, will be Jennifer Hudson, the lead of the film and the person with the biggest voice. She has an extraordinary singing voice and her performance as Effie is a great tribute to the original Effie, Jennifer Holliday. Her two huge numbers are showstopping film moments--the movie's worth it just for her. The film itself is a bit of a mess, I'm afraid. I found myself bored quite a bit. Dreamgirls takes a lot of time focusing on Jamie Foxx's character, and he's so dour that he just can't hold interest. Condon, too, has crafted a musical (the same way he worked Chicago) where the singing doesn't happen organically as a part of the narrative, but happens during specific "singing" moments. He makes the music a realistic part of the story. I thought this technique was sort of clever (though unnecessary) in Chicago, but it doesn't work at all in Dreamgirls. Condon has cut songs and parts of songs in order to force the musical into this construct, but he is compelled to keep certain numbers, particularly the act one finale "And I Am Telling You," and so the musical jumps in and out of Condon's reality in a way that rings false. I'm not sure why Condon tries to make this work in the first place. If the audience will buy the actors singing to one another at certain points, then why not all the time? And we know audiences don't really mind singing as an integral part of the show--pretty much everyone I know enjoyed Moulin Rouge! and it's musical number after musical number--so why does he bother? Anyway, I liked the movie alright, but it's the music that's the star of the show here, and I could probably survive by just listening to the soundtrack over and over again and not revisiting Condon's film.

One more: The Oh in Ohio is a little indie with Parker Posey and Paul Rudd. Parker Posey is a seriously frigid wife who Rudd can't make cum. The film is set in Cleveland (although the Walt Disney Concert Hall makes an appearance) and also stars Mischa Barton, Danny DeVito, Keith David and Liza Minelli. I pretty much rented this because I love Parker Posey, I think Paul Rudd is hot and I wanted to see Liza (she plays a sex therapist who says "vagina" about fifty times.) This movie's fairly stupid and almost totally plotless. It's funny briefly. It was good to see Liza, Paul Rudd is still hot, and Mischa Barton gives a horrible, boring performance as a student who seduces Rudd. Posey and Rudd work hard and provide honest, interesting acting, but there's just nothing happening in this film. It's harmless, but a waste of time.

Happy New Year!

I spent the new year with my dear friends in California, running around visiting everyone and seeing as many movies as I can see before I return to the hustle/bustle of grad school and the black hole of cinema that is Tallahassee.

I feel terribly lazy doing all of this vacationing. (Heaven knows I should be reading plays by Euripides or somesuch, but instead I'm reading a deliciously sexy and brilliantly written novel by Alan Hollinghurst--what can you do?)

AND I think I saw my favorite movie of the year. Hint: it's by a Mexican director and it ain't Babel. I'll write more soon.

Much love for 2007
Aaron

And I am making a resolution this year; two, in fact. I will keep them to myself for now, so as not to jinx them.

Three to Go

Tonight I saw A Very Long Engagement (Un Long Dimanche des Fiançailles), the new film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Jeunet uses the same tactic he used in 2001's Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulin, which is basically giving us loads and loads of information ancillary to the central story in order both to show the interconnectedness of all life and to add emotional weight to his tale. I thought that Cuarón did something similar with Y Tu Mamá También to great success. This storytelling device worked splendidly in Amélie, which I'm sure everyone has seen. The additional information made the story even more charming than it already was and served to point out how we can often take small, very precious things for granted. This tangential information serves pretty much the same purpose in Engagement and has an equally successful effect. Engagement is a charming film in its own way but is as far from a comedy as genre gets. It's a war movie through and through. It's also a fascinating mystery and an intelligent, gripping, love story that is never schmaltzy or sentimental.
This is a film that is never boring, incredibly charming, though surprisingly sober, and still manages to show the horrors and evils of war. It's not All Quiet on the Western Front and it doesn't want to be, but it's also an excellent film about World War I. Definitely recommended.

All that is left are The Polar Express, The Merchant of Venice and Hotel Rwanda.

HP3

So after work I worked with Brittney for a little over an hour and then headed to my folks' house.  I hung out there for a while by myself until Dad got home.  The folks and I had dinner and then I went to the Evil Monkey show. 

After the show, we all (most of us) headed to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Covina.  I managed to piss off Elizabeth, but also managed to beg forgiveness once I figured out she was pissed.  (Note to self: be a little less of an ungrateful motherfucker.)  Good things about HP3: 1) Buckbeak is beautifully created, 2) hilarious knight bus sequence worthy of any Cuarón movie, 3) Emma Thompson's brilliant impersonation of Linda Bisesti, 4) the whomping willow marking the seasons, 5) Julie Christie, and 6) a spot-on ending.

Slightly bad things about HP3: 1) Cheesy bridge sequence with Harry and Lupin, 2) Fudge's outfits' lack of panache (I expected limes and aubergines and other bright colors), 3) patronus not as cool as I would have liked, and 4) total cheese sequence at the end with Harry and Sirius that just rang hollow and Columbus-y.

Great things about HP3:  Well, obviously Cuarón is the main attraction here.  He knows how to create the mystical world that exists in these books, and so Hogwarts comes across as a place that is full of wonders, a little bit scary, and extremely mysterious.  He knows how to tell us kids are having fun (animal noise sequence early on was fucking brilliant).  His visual style is so interesting and clever, and it serves the movie very well, never detracting from the humanity of the tale.  The Buckbeak/Harry flight at the beginning is stunning and engrossing.  The best thing that Cuarón does, though, is fixing the problems that made HP1 and HP2 such utter snores.  Cuarón's successes on this front are numerous, perhaps countless.  What he does with Grint, Watson, and especially Radcliffe is nothing short of miraculous.  I cared about them, wished them success, and even loved them.  Radcliffe, in the first two films, is, in my opinion, just plain awful.  In this movie, he's fascinating to watch and entirely loveable.  Grint, in the first two films, harps on that single string of mock shock/horror.  In this movie, he's much more the real sidekick he is in the books.  Cuarón also dispenses with this idea that the other people in the world are more important than Harry, Hermione and Ron.  Thankfully, Professors McGonagall, Snape, Hagrid and even Dumbledore are reduced to very minor characters in HP3.  And thank heaven for it!  This gives us more time to focus on Harry's own journey as he grows from a young, beleaguered boy into the fierce wizard we all know him to be.

I cried this time, although I should have known I would.  This is the introduction to Sirius Black, Harry's only living relation, and his last link with his parents.  As he said goodbye to Harry at the end of the film, I couldn't help but think of Order of the Phoenix...

Thank you, Alfonso Cuarón.  Thank you for saving this movie franchise and reminding me how much I loved this book.