Oscar Nominees 2013: Part 12 of 13

Paperman

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: John Kahrs

This is a really sweet little picture with a very old heterosexual love plot. Content-wise Paperman reminded me of the opening sequence of Pete Docter's Up: it's a whimsical, fantastic little love story with a happy ending and a healthy dose of magic. And the movie has a just-say-no-to-the-9-to-5 attitude reminiscent of Pretty Woman, but really the sentimental idea that our day jobs are keeping us away from true love and having fun is not really restricted to Garry Marshall. In fact, it's a rather widespread sentiment. The animation of Paperman is what I loved. It kept me in mind of last year's Oscar-winner, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Paperman is gorgeously realized and beautifully animated... and it will probably win the evening's Oscar.

Will Win: Animated Short Film

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #3 out of 5

Adam and Dog

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Minkyu Lee

This is the most beautiful of the five films. It's the Biblical Adam and Eve story – the pleasures of Eden, the joys of naming the animals, the fall from the favor of G-d, and the expulsion from the Garden – but Minkyu Lee has added a dog to the narrative and the results are gorgeous. We follow the dog as he meets the animals and explores the forest; we watch the dog learn to fetch and play and love Adam. And when Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden at the end of this short film, Lee finds the dog to be the wisest of all creatures on Earth... and the most generous. The film ends with a moment of grace that I found deeply moving. Adam and Dog really ought to win the Oscar. Its animation is beautiful, its narrative is simple and touching, and I found its mercy and forgiveness profound.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Animated Short Film

My Rating: #1 out of 5

Fresh Guacamole

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: PES

Imaginative and cool, this film is about food and gambling and hipster magic. It is delightful and will make you want to run to the nearest grocery store to pick up some avocados, onions, and jalapeños. At least that's what it did to me.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #4 out of 5

Head over Heels

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Timothy Reckart

This is a sweet story about the ways that we slowly drift apart from the people we love and the difficulties of bridging the chasms between us once they've formed. Head over Heels's answers to these difficulties were a little too easy for my taste, but the storytelling is clever and I loved the metaphor upon which the film is built.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #2 out of 5

The Longest Daycare

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: David Silverman

I didn't get it. I mean, I get the narrative. Little girl learns about caterpillars turning into butterflies and then saves a caterpillar/butterfly from being turned into art. But the beginning of this film is about the ways that our individualistic über-Capitalist culture promotes the well being of some children while leaving others, whom it deems less talented or less special or whatever, behind. The Longest Daycare begins with this sentiment but then gets distracted by butterflies, and I just don't see how the film's two halves go together.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #5 out of 5

Because I Am Procrastinating...

I am supposed to be re-reading Hamlet so that I can teach it next week. But I don't really feel like working, and tomorrow is a day off... at least until rehearsal at 6:00p.

Anyway, a few movies that I have watched recently but not yet written about:

I had been missing Bette Davis. I have seen a ton of her movies (by which I mean twenty-two), and since I usually only rent films I haven't seen before, Bette is generally on my backburner. Still, there are a couple of classics I haven't seen and since I hadn't seen Edmund Goulding's The Great Lie (1941) or Anatole Litvak's All This, and Heaven Too (1940), I rented them and had a mini-Bette Davis fest at my house. Both films are quite enjoyable. The Great Lie is a kind of high society soap opera with a husband who "dies" in a plane crash and a baby who Bette passes off as her own. Mary Astor won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing the "other woman" in the scenario. The film is cute and funny, but Bette's character isn't all that much fun. She's earnest and sweet and always tries to do the right thing. Still, it's a good movie. The leading man is George Brent, and he's appropriately dapper. All This, and Heaven Too is much better. It (of course) is also a soapy melodrama, but All This takes place in France, where Bette is a governess to four children who love her dearly. They are the children of a duke and duchess in France (Charles Boyer [so gorgeous] and Barbara O'Neil [over the top.]) Anyway, Charles begins to fall in love with Bette (he isn't in love with the wife anymore, because she's a total nutjob), but they never act on anything and are always above board and proper about things. Of course, all this is doomed to end in tragedy. The thing is, the tragedy in ll This, and Heaven Too really works. I found it sweet and rather moving. Boyer and Davis are both very good in the film, and the story succeeds on its own merits. I liked it rather a lot, and I think it's worth the rental. Not as good, perhaps as The Letter, from the same year, but still quite good.

Dans Paris (Inside Paris) is a Christophe Honoré film (the guy who brought us Ma Mère). Dans Paris, however, is much more engaging than Ma Mère, and I liked it quite a bit. It's a small film, with not too much to say, but it says what little it has to say with panache and verve. It stars Romain Duris and Louis Garrel as brothers who live with their father and are trying to solve the problems of Duris's depression (which mostly has to do with how much he loves his ex-wife. It's an interesting little story about sadness and parenting and brotherhood. Worth the rental if you're into off-beat French stuff with fairly greasy young men (like I obviously am.)


Michael Apted's Gorillas in the Mist: the Story of Dian Fossey was appropriately dry, melodramatic and rooted in 1980s politics. I was mostly bored but I didn't hate it. It's a serviceable kind of thing that runs out of steam and has nowhere to go. I've seen worse.

Also from 1988, today I saw Beaches. I had never seen it. It's a big movie in gay culture, right? I'm not quite sure why it's such a big movie in gay culture, but I liked it a lot. The direction is absolutely terrible (Garry Marshall wasn't good in the 80s either, turns out) but Beaches is a surefire tearjerker. Let's be honest about things. I was crying way before we got to the end.

I think the reason I was so sensitive to Garry Marshall's inadequacies as a filmmaker while I was watching Beaches was that Ryan and I watched Zabou Breitman's The Man of My Life (L'Homme de Sa Vie) this afternoon and it's just lovely. It's a very showy film in terms of movie-maker's tricks, but also very beautiful. L'Homme de Sa Vie is the story of Frédéric, a man with a wife and little son who is on vacation in Provençe (or somewhere) for the summer but has a long conversation one night with his gay next-door neighbor, and the neighbor just gets under his skin. A bit like that Éric Rohmer film Ma Nuit Chez Maud. But The Man of My Life tells the story sort of backwards. We never see the whole conversation between the men. Instead, we move forward with the story and then as Fred thinks about his life, etc, he remembers the conversation in little bits and pieces. It's quite interesting and I recommend it to anyone who likes showy movies... or pretty movies.

One more flick. After seeing his brilliant George Washington, I rented David Gordon Green's All the Real Girls, and I want to move it to my list of all-time favorites. It's ponderous and sweet. I have been feeling affectionate toward love stories of late and All the Real Girls is a really nice one: very cute but never cloying. And I am totally in love with Paul Schneider. I want him to marry me.

Journeys to Genovia

You rule.

No, you rule.

No, really.  You rule.

Now, I never saw The Princess Diaries, (even though it is a Julie Andrews movie.)  But on the day it opened (i.e. today), I drove up to Valencia and went to a screening of The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. 

Ever notice how the movies that you see for free suck the worst?  This seems to always happen to me.  I saw the movie for free because my lovely friend Madison Dunaway is in the movie.  And good for her!  We were all very excited.  Madison's fiancé, brother, and mother went as well as their brilliant stage-manager friend John Hagen and his wife Sarah (John just got a job at the Boston Court Theatre down the street from me!)

I know you are all running out to buy tickets, and I hate to say it, but the movie is just terrible.  That said, buy your tickets anyway, because Maddie gets royalties.  The more the movie makes, the more my girl makes!

Congratulations Madison!  You rock, baby.

Madison with Anne Hathaway and the re-named Raven (formerly Raven Simone):

Maddie with director Garry Marshall: