Showing posts with label andrew haigh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label andrew haigh. Show all posts
16 February 2019
Lean on Pete
02 February 2016
Oscar Nominees 2016: Part 5 of 11
1 Nomination
- Actress: Charlotte Rampling
Director: Andrew Haigh
Cast: Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James, Dolly Wells, David Sibley, Sam Alexander, Richard Cunningham
I loved 45 Years. It is one of my favorite films of the year. It still hasn't been released everywhere, so this means it is coming to a theatre near you soon. Make sure you get out to see it. It is deeply, deeply troubling. This film follows a (straight) couple who, a week away from a big 45-year-anniversary party that they're planning, gets a letter that says the authorities found the body of a woman the man loved before he met his current wife. They've been married 45 years, but the man is deeply affected by this discovery, and the woman doesn't really understand. Slowly more and more information comes out (or at least seems to come out), and both characters begin to unravel. Charlotte Rampling is astounding in this movie. It is probably the best performance in a film by anyone this year. Rampling has gotten awards buzz a couple of times – for Under the Sand and Swimming Pool – but it is a little odd that an actress this good and this dependable is only now getting her first Oscar nomination. But it is a well-deserved one. I've been thinking that maybe Rampling could actually win this award; I figured that once people saw the movie they were just going to need to vote for her. I don't think that is really true anymore – it's Larson's to lose – but hopefully this nomination does mean that Rampling gets more roles like this one and we get some more great performances in the future. It's worth noting, by the way, that Tom Courtenay, who plays her husband is also superb in 45 Years, and Andrew Haigh, the director also does an excellent job. This was in my top ten for the year: it's a great movie, not just a vehicle for a single actor.
I loved 45 Years. It is one of my favorite films of the year. It still hasn't been released everywhere, so this means it is coming to a theatre near you soon. Make sure you get out to see it. It is deeply, deeply troubling. This film follows a (straight) couple who, a week away from a big 45-year-anniversary party that they're planning, gets a letter that says the authorities found the body of a woman the man loved before he met his current wife. They've been married 45 years, but the man is deeply affected by this discovery, and the woman doesn't really understand. Slowly more and more information comes out (or at least seems to come out), and both characters begin to unravel. Charlotte Rampling is astounding in this movie. It is probably the best performance in a film by anyone this year. Rampling has gotten awards buzz a couple of times – for Under the Sand and Swimming Pool – but it is a little odd that an actress this good and this dependable is only now getting her first Oscar nomination. But it is a well-deserved one. I've been thinking that maybe Rampling could actually win this award; I figured that once people saw the movie they were just going to need to vote for her. I don't think that is really true anymore – it's Larson's to lose – but hopefully this nomination does mean that Rampling gets more roles like this one and we get some more great performances in the future. It's worth noting, by the way, that Tom Courtenay, who plays her husband is also superb in 45 Years, and Andrew Haigh, the director also does an excellent job. This was in my top ten for the year: it's a great movie, not just a vehicle for a single actor.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: Actress
My Rating: #8 out of 64
1 Nomination
- Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, Winter's Bone)
Director: David O. Russell
Cast: Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, Isabella Rossellini, Édgar Ramírez, Dascha Polanco, Bradley Cooper, Elisabeth Röhm Jimmy Jean-Louis
This movie is a lot like David O. Russell's other recent films, American Hustle, The Fighter, and Silver Linings Playbook, which means that it is poorly scripted but delightfully character-driven, so that we don't really mind that the movie isn't about anything because we're having so much fun with the characters and their different goals. There are two very big differences between Joy and these movies, though. First of all, Joy is really only about one character. It seems like we are also going to follow Bradley Cooper's character and Édgar Ramírez's characters, but then we don't. We only really follow Joy herself as she makes, what seemed to me, ridiculous move after ridiculous move. The other big difference between Joy and other David O. Russell movies is that this one is no fun at all. Everyone in it is miserable for the entirety of the film. To be fair, he cast the always-serious-in-films Jennifer Lawrence, and she plays the role like every role she plays, as though she's never had a happy day in her life. I also can never shake the feeling that Lawrence is playing dress-up in movies. She never seems to relax into a role. She's never ever had a confident performance. I always get the feeling she's hoping we won't notice something. In the final (absurd) scenes in this movie, which has jumped forward many years, Lawrence is supposed to be a confident businesswoman and executive who has tons of power and money, but she still plays the part as though she's terrified she's gonna get chosen for the Hunger Games. Her total inability to relax, and the fact that she looks nothing like a fifty-year-old executive would have made this last sequence in the film laughable if it weren't so boring. I am not being hyperbolic when I say this, so take me seriously: I honestly think that every adult part played by Jennifer Lawrence in the last four years or so would have been played better by an actress like Kate Hudson, someone who has a lot more of a range than Lawrence, an actor who only seems able to frown. (This convinces me that Lawrence really should do a romantic comedy. Maybe she'd loosen up in one of those.) In any case, Joy is one of the worst movies of the year. Avoid.
1 Nomination
- Actor: Bryan Cranston
Director: Jay Roach
Cast: Cranston, Michael Stuhlbarg, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, David James Elliott, Louis C.K., Elle Fanning, John Goodman, Stephen Root, Christian Berkel, Dean O'Gorman, Richard Portnow
And just slightly better than Joy but still awful: Trumbo. I have already written about how terrible this movie is, so I'll let you read that rather than reproduce it here. We should all be glad, at least, that this movie only got this one nomination – the Academy ignored its art direction, script, costumes, and the absurdly phoned-in performance of Hedda Hopper by Helen Mirren. But even this Bryan Cranston nomination is too much. Cranston's nomination squeezed out much more deserving performances by actors this year: Abraham Attah in Beasts of No Nation is only the most egregious example, but while I'm talking about this I want also to mention Géza Röhrig, who is amazing in Son of Saul, and Michael B. Jordan in Creed. Any one of these three actors belongs in this slot; Cranston, who is actually quite a good actor, does not. If you don't need to see Trumbo, trust me, you do not want to. Avoid.
Will Win: N/A
And just slightly better than Joy but still awful: Trumbo. I have already written about how terrible this movie is, so I'll let you read that rather than reproduce it here. We should all be glad, at least, that this movie only got this one nomination – the Academy ignored its art direction, script, costumes, and the absurdly phoned-in performance of Hedda Hopper by Helen Mirren. But even this Bryan Cranston nomination is too much. Cranston's nomination squeezed out much more deserving performances by actors this year: Abraham Attah in Beasts of No Nation is only the most egregious example, but while I'm talking about this I want also to mention Géza Röhrig, who is amazing in Son of Saul, and Michael B. Jordan in Creed. Any one of these three actors belongs in this slot; Cranston, who is actually quite a good actor, does not. If you don't need to see Trumbo, trust me, you do not want to. Avoid.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #61 out of 64
21 January 2012
Weekend
I really liked Andrew Haigh's Weekend – I had read other gay internet commentators say that they loved it and so I definitely wanted to check it out.
Weekend is a realistic relationship movie about two gay men who begin an intense love affair that lasts over the period of a few days. It captures so much of the way I understand my interactions with other gay men, and for my money it portrays these men in a realistic, generous, and fleshed-out way, that struck me as honest.
I didn't quite love the film. I thought it conventional in many ways, but I really enjoyed it, and I liked it a great deal. Weekend is a film that believes in love, in the ability of people to truly connect in a very short span of time, and in the power of honest, open communication. Weekend believes in love, though, not in a rom-com kind of way where we know what will happen at the end of the film and the heroes (in this case) kiss sweetly and walk into the sunset as the credits roll. Instead, Haigh's movie manages to understand baggage and the sacrifices we make for those we love, and the complications that real life places upon the notion of love conquering everything. Love does not conquer all in Weekend, and that's because it doesn't always conquer all in our real lives.
One thing that I completely loved about Weekend is its camerawork. When the two men are in public together, chatting or riding the bumper cars or on the tube, Haigh shoots them from the perspective of other people in the public place. Frequently our view of the two is slightly obstructed. Sometimes we only slightly hear what they say to one another. The effect, here, is one that communicates that these two men are always being watched. What I love about this is that gay relationships that move in the public sphere are always spectacular relationships. The men are literally always being watched by the camera, and when they are in public, they know (and we know, too) that they need to watch themselves because other people are watching them. This double watching is simply a fact of gay relationships (both male and female) and it factors into the way that these men fall in love. How can it not? Their behavior with each other is constrained by the fact that they are in public and people are watching them. It is a bold and fascinating choice for the director to make, and I appreciated it.
At any rate: it's totally worth seeing if you're a gay man. If you're not... you probably won't be into it.
Weekend is a realistic relationship movie about two gay men who begin an intense love affair that lasts over the period of a few days. It captures so much of the way I understand my interactions with other gay men, and for my money it portrays these men in a realistic, generous, and fleshed-out way, that struck me as honest.
I didn't quite love the film. I thought it conventional in many ways, but I really enjoyed it, and I liked it a great deal. Weekend is a film that believes in love, in the ability of people to truly connect in a very short span of time, and in the power of honest, open communication. Weekend believes in love, though, not in a rom-com kind of way where we know what will happen at the end of the film and the heroes (in this case) kiss sweetly and walk into the sunset as the credits roll. Instead, Haigh's movie manages to understand baggage and the sacrifices we make for those we love, and the complications that real life places upon the notion of love conquering everything. Love does not conquer all in Weekend, and that's because it doesn't always conquer all in our real lives.
One thing that I completely loved about Weekend is its camerawork. When the two men are in public together, chatting or riding the bumper cars or on the tube, Haigh shoots them from the perspective of other people in the public place. Frequently our view of the two is slightly obstructed. Sometimes we only slightly hear what they say to one another. The effect, here, is one that communicates that these two men are always being watched. What I love about this is that gay relationships that move in the public sphere are always spectacular relationships. The men are literally always being watched by the camera, and when they are in public, they know (and we know, too) that they need to watch themselves because other people are watching them. This double watching is simply a fact of gay relationships (both male and female) and it factors into the way that these men fall in love. How can it not? Their behavior with each other is constrained by the fact that they are in public and people are watching them. It is a bold and fascinating choice for the director to make, and I appreciated it.
At any rate: it's totally worth seeing if you're a gay man. If you're not... you probably won't be into it.
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