Jellicles Can and Jellicles Do

I felt compelled to see Cats for reasons I can't quite explain. I've never actually seen the musical onstage, so I have no real emotional history with the show at all. When the trailer first dropped, everyone thought it was so weird, but (I thought) isn't the show weird? Like, there are dancing adult humans in catsuits and cat makeup singing about being cats. It's already strange.

But Tom Hooper's movie version of Cats is so much weirder than I imagined. This movie is really fuckin' unhinged. (Tom Hooper, in case you've forgotten, directed the all-close-ups-all-the-time movie version of Boublil & Schönberg's Les Misérables, the Best-Picture-winning The King's Speech, and the mostly-respectable The Danish Girl.) To treat the movie like an adult, of course, is to break the spell Cats itself is trying to cast – as I say, it's about playing dress-up in catsuits and dancing around like a feline, so you can't take it seriously, or, rather, if you do take it seriously you're just going to start laughing.

But Cats takes itself seriously. Cats thinks it's a very important movie.

And here is (one of the places) where the film's problems begin.

Ok. So, a cartoon car pulls into a cartoon alley and dumps a bag with a kitten in it into a trash heap. The alley cats all deal with the new cat in various ways, and they begin by introducing the idea of "jellicle cats". This is a very catchy tune, and indeed I also think it's kind of exciting, but I've always thought this song was strange because of the way Andrew Lloyd Webber's tune starts off by stressing the first syllable of the word – jellicles can and jellicles do – but then changes it up – jellicles do and jellicles can. Now, I am not sure what a jellicle cat is, and I want to say that this is also a problem. The song is about jellicle cats; it's designed as a song to introduce us to the concept and the world of the show, but it is just not very clear about who these cats are and why they're hanging out together. Furthermore, as far as I can tell, a jellicle cat is ... a cat.

Are they ghost-cats? Like, are they all dead? My impression is that these are dead cats.

Structurally, what happens next is that after the opening number about jellicles we get a second group number that tells us about cats' names – not specifically about the names of any of these cats, mind you, just about names in general. These numbers are led by an (unnamed-in-the-movie) cat named (apparently) Munkustrap, who is played by Robbie Fairchild. The movie tells us nothing about him, and he doesn't have a number of his own, but he is really the lead performer in this show.

Then what happens is that we get a series of numbers – maybe ten? – in which a new cat is introduced and sings about him- or herself. The first one is the weirdest one. Rebel Wilson plays a cat named Jennyanydots who is training singing mice and singing and dancing cockroaches and basically running around like a crazy person. This number is manic and bizarre and (honestly) sort of terrifying. There's an absolutely insane moment in which this cat unzips her own fur like she's Violet Chachki to reveal a dance costume and a new suit of rhinestoned fur. This happens really early in the film, and because I didn't understand the rules of this world, this began to confuse me seriously.

Do the cats have magical powers? Just this one? Do they each have some kind of talent? Can they all unzip?

Rum Tum Tugger can get it

The movie doesn't really have any dialogue at all. It just introduces one cat after another before abandoning it. We meet Rum Tum Tugger, the sexiest cat I've ever seen, and then he disappears. We meet Bustopher Jones, who is constantly eating, and then Bustopher immediately disappears. We meet the tap-dancing Skimbleshanks, the railway cat, and then he, too, disappears. That's four cats, but I'm not exaggerating. This just keeps happening. We meet Grizabella, Asparagus, Growltiger, Mr. Mistoffelees, Old Deuteronomy, Macavity, and Rumpleteazer. Each of them has its own song... and only its own song. And each of these cats only sings about itself. They join in with the other cats' songs occasionally, of course, but each cat sings about itself and then fades into the background. The cats that are around the whole time – to whom the camera returns repeatedly – are Cassandra, Munkustrap, Griddlebone, and Demeter, cats whose names I have had to look up because they have no song for themselves and no dialogue, really, even though they're the ones with whom we spend the most time. We keep meeting new cats, but we don't know the (jellicle?) cats with whom we spend all of our time, and every time we meet a new cat that cat immediately disappears.

The audience can connect with none of these cats.  They're not around long enough for that. Instead – and I think this is the film's biggest problem – Cats consistently assumes an emotional connection with these cats, but it never works at establishing it. The first cats we meet – Rebel Wilson, Jason Derulo, and James Corden – don't want us to connect; they do big numbers that ask for no emotional connection with the audience. And this sets up a pattern. We watch the cats critically from the outside, but we don't identify with the jellicles, and I didn't emotionally connect with any of them.

Wait. I haven't mentioned that they have these very strange CGI faces. This is actually the weirdest part of the movie. These cats are very clearly humans in CGI fur outfits. They have human hands and human feet and they mostly move balletically – except for the railway cat; he tap-dances – and so although they have cat ears and cat tails, they have distinctly human faces. This is so very strange that it never stops being strange, perhaps because we never spend quite enough time with any one cat and so we never really get accustomed to their faces. It looks so weird. Like the Sun Baby who shines down on the Teletubbies. The fur is creepy and attempting to be erotic (I think?) in a way that is troubling. At some point Idris Elba is dancing, and he's naked, and all we see is his (cat) fur suit and his bare (human) feet and hands and face, and it's just so fuckin' weird. Like, that is not how you should look naked, Idris Elba. You should not look like you're covered in sleek fur. That is not what I want to see when you take off your clothes. It's a really disturbing rip-off.

Through most of the duration of this film I was saying (out loud, since I was the only person in the theatre) wait, what the fuck is happening? It's not the first time I've had that thought in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical – I still don't know what actually happens in Phantom. And when Cats ended – it ends with Judi Dench's Old Deuteronomy turning to the new (white, of course she's white) baby cat Victoria and telling her "you are a jellicle cat" – I said That's how it ends? We were supposed to be invested in whether or not this young baby cat becomes a jellicle cat? We don't even know what a jellicle cat is! We also didn't know that Dame Judi had the power to turn cats into jellicle cats. The point is I had no idea what the fuck was happening, and Tom Hooper had no idea how to direct my emotional investment toward the journey of any particular one of these human–feline hybrids.

I have one more very serious complaint (amid so many!) and that is that Jennifer Hudson, who has an incredible voice and who sings "Memory" in Cats, doesn't really sing the song. She spends the whole song acting. This is what I mean by the movie taking itself very, very seriously. What we needed from this musical was for the best song in Cats to blow us out of the fucking water by connecting emotionally, hitting all the right notes, and asking us to soar with it. "Memory" is a legitimately great song, and before I continue, let me just share this version, sung by Heather Headley:

Headley asks you to connect with her story emotionally. You hear everything you need to hear about this character, and you feel with her deeply. That is not what Hudson does. She cries and sobs and her voice croaks and she can't quite get there with the notes because of her very important feelings. (Her nose also runs the entire time in an apparent tribute to Viola Davis in Fences.) Of course Jennifer Hudson can hit the notes, and when she finally does as she gets to Touuuuuuuch meeeeeeeeee, my gay ass snapped in the air and was like yaaaaassssssssss, but this is because I was absolutely desperate for her to get there and when she finally did I was just so grateful. In fact, after she belts that one little section, Hudson goes back to acting instead of singing, and the song falls apart again. This was a fundamental mistake in the movie. And I know I complain about this all the fucking time with Hollywood musicals, but the acting is not the most important thing in a musical. The music is. "Memory" is a perfect example. The story is in the music. The music does the work. Hit the notes and you'll hit our emotional notes in the audience, and we will resonate with you. If you spend time attempting to communicate a bunch of feelings by emoting, it's not gonna work.

In other words, aside from Cats' very weird aesthetic problems, it also has some very serious emotional problems. It is, more than anything else, like watching a children's dance recital when you don't have any children in the performance.

Oscar Nominees 2016: Part 3 of 11

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11.

Room

4 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Lenny Abrahamson
• Actress: Brie Larson
• Adapted Screenplay: Emma Donoghue

Director: Abrahamson

Cast: Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen, Tom McCamus, Sean Bridgers, Wendy Crewson, William H. Macy

I was telling two colleagues about this movie last night and they both started to get tears in their eyes and said that they didn't know if they'd be able to handle it. I liked Room and it's well made. The way the film works, however, is (especially considering its subject matter) a kind of sentimental business, and so I think I liked it less than I might have had the director taken a more hard-hitting approach. Because the film is partially about seeing the world for the first time and the sort of wonders that the material world holds, Room also works in a through-the-eyes-of-a-child Steven-Spielberg kind of way. This perspective is something the Academy (and most everyone, actually) really loves. The world is magical and beautiful, even though sometimes really horrific things happen. This is not my view of the world, and I guess this is what I mean by sentimental vs. hard-hitting. In any case, the acting in Room is superb. Larson (who had her breakout three years ago with a film called Short Term 12), Tremblay, and Allen are aces, and the film is very moving.

Will Win: Actress

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #29 out of 62

The Danish Girl

4 Nominations

• Actor: Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)
• Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander
• Production Design: Eve Stewart (Les Misérables, The King's Speech, Topsy-Turvy) & Michael Standish
• Costume Design: Paco Delgado (Les Misérables)

Director: Tom Hooper

Cast: Redmayne, Vikander, Matthias Schoenaerts, Amber Heard, Ben Whishaw, Sebastian Koch

I surprised myself by really liking The Danish Girl. I think mostly because as much as the film is about gender, it is about confusion and mystery surrounding gender. The acting in this film, too, is quite excellent, and I (who was very skeptical of his showy performance in the tepid Theory of Everything) thought Eddie Redmayne was just wonderful in The Danish Girl. The film still has many problems – it is too long, too weepy, the cinematography almost never makes any sense, and the film (rather conspicuously) seems to ignore sex – but the acting is great, Alicia Vikander is lovable in the extreme, the costumes are exquisite, and the score is lovely. Vikander's nomination in the supporting category is a total fraud – she might even have more screentime than Redmayne, and you come away from the film almost feeling like she might be the eponymous Danish girl – but I'd say that that makes her win more likely, not less. This is especially true because she was memorably stunning in another of this year's nominated movies: Ex Machina.

Will Win: Supporting Actress

Could Win: Production Design, Costume Design
My Rating: #28 out of 62

Brooklyn

3 Nominations

• Picture
• Actress: Saoirse Ronan (Atonement)
• Adapted Screenplay: Nick Hornby (An Education)

Director: John Crowley

Cast: Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Emma Lowe, Maeve McGrath, Fiona Glascott, Eileen O'Higgins, Emily Bett Rickards, Eve Macklin, Nora-Jane Noone, Samantha Munro, Jessica Paré, Emma Lowe

This is a beautiful film. When I recommend it to anyone, I keep reminding people that it is a small film. This is a romantic drama, a story of immigration and coming of age, and it isn't a deep film about the soul or about politics or about world affairs. That is to say, Brooklyn is not at all self important. It knows what it is and simply goes about being itself. Because of this, I fell in love with Brooklyn and fell deeply in love with its characters and their performers. Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, and Domhnall Gleeson are so wonderful in this film, and they are a joy to watch. This kind of simple, beautiful character portrayal doesn't often get as much awards press as this film is getting, and I find Brooklyn to be a delightful anomaly. Julie Walters, I should add, is completely charming. Prepare to fall in love. Side note on Domhnall Gleeson: Is he having the best 2015 of anyone? My friend Tom mentioned this to me a day or two ago and I feel like he is exactly correct. With plum roles in Brooklyn, Ex Machina, The Force Awakens, and what I suspect will be eventual Best-Picture-winner The Revenant, Bill Weasley has surely arrived in Hollywood as a dependable and excellent character actor.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Actress, Adapted Screenplay

My Rating: #21 out of 62

The Hateful Eight

3 Nominations

• Supporting Actress: Jennifer Jason Leigh
• Cinematography: Robert Richardson (Django Unchained, Hugo, Inglorious Basterds, The Aviator, Snow Falling on Cedars, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, Platoon)
• Original Score: Ennio Morricone (Malèna, Bugsy, The Untouchables, The Mission, Days of Heaven)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Bruce Dern, Michael Madsen, Channing Tatum, Dana Gourrier

Ennio Morricone has never won an Oscar, and I say that it is time. So does Harvey Weinstein – in fact, he was saying that back when Morricone was nominated for Malèna fifteen years ago. But let's talk about Tarantino's movie. It is a very Tarantino movie, perhaps the most Tarantino of all Tarantino movies, in the sense that it is distilled. Nine people stuck in a cabin  threatening one another and eventually killing each other. The Hateful Eight is, of course, too long – all of his movies are too long – and this is because The Hateful Eight is also in love with its own cleverness. In truth, all of this is sort of fine. I rather enjoyed the movie. I like all the actors and I had a fairly good time. (Walton Goggins, by the way, is the standout performer here.) But one does have the feeling that Tarantino sort of missed a couple of boats with this movie. At one point, Hateful Eight feels like it might become a mystery film, akin to And Then There Were None, but Tarantino consistently abandons generic conventions, opting instead for his own generic brand. But what is that? What is the Tarantino genre? I know what the style looks like – bloody, pitiless, comic, witty, clever – but what kinds of stories are these? I guess they're Westerns; The Hateful Eight is obviously set in the "west". But I can't help feeling that if Tarantino had been clearer himself about the conventions of the story he was telling, the film would've been better. A last note on black actors and #oscarssowhite: how come no one has brought up Samuel L. Jackson's name as one of the black actors that got snubbed by the Academy? He is the star of this film, but literally no one has mentioned him in this context as far as I can tell. Isn't that a little odd?

Will Win: Original Score

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #26 out of 62

The Danish Girl

As soon as I found out Tom Hooper was going to be directing The Danish Girl, I was skeptical. In my mind, Tom Hooper (The King's Speech and Les Misérables) equals Oscar bait and bad direction. The Danish Girl is not really an exception to this rule, but the script and the acting are good enough that I didn't mind nearly as much as I might have.

Maybe I should start with the costumes. The Danish Girl is set in the 1920s and is, in many ways, about costume – about how what we wear corresponds with who we feel we are. So to begin The Danish Girl is beautiful to look at. It also helps that the gorgeous Alicia Vikander (Vogue has, by the way, pronounced 2015 "the year of Alicia Vikander", even if she is unrecognizable on the cover) is wearing all of these clothes.

The Danish Girl is the story of a person named Einar Wegener (played by Eddie Redmayne). Both Einar and his wife Gerda (Vikander) are painters, she a portraitist and he a landscape artist. Through a series of sexy games and little coincidences, Einar starts to become attracted to women's clothing, to wearing it and to dressing as a woman. At a party where he is dressed as a woman, another man kisses him and he (and his wife) both freak out, but gradually he begins to see himself as a woman. Or, to be more accurate – and this is one of the reasons the screenplay really works – he begins to attempt to figure out what is going on with him. Einar, who is sometimes using the name Lili, has not actually made sense of the feelings he/she is feeling.

This journey is the most interesting part of The Danish Girl, and the script spends a good deal of time on this – there is a fascinating sequence where Einar/Lili dresses as a fairy and goes to a library in Paris in order to read about sex perversion and homosexuality. I liked The Danish Girl best during these sequences of discovery and confusion, in which Lili works to become Lili, to find some kind of identity with other people in her world. She is not a homosexual, she decides, she is not a third-sexer, like a fairy; she is a woman, and wants a surgery that will make her a woman.

La Vikander

I liked The Danish Girl quite a bit, but it has its problems, as well. The script is too padded in places. For example, there are at least two separate sequences where someone says "I want to go with you", the other person says "no, I need to do this alone", and then after the person goes alone she immediately decides she didn't want to be alone after all, at which point the person who should have gone with her in the first place shows up after all. This literally happens twice. And there is way too much crying in the movie. Sometimes there are just shots of people crying. Now, there is quite a bit to cry about, of course; times are hard. But I was often confused as to what exactly we were supposed to be crying about at some of these moments. For me the film spent a little too much time on the relationship with Lili and Gerda, too, and not quite enough time on Lili figuring out what was going on with her. We don't for example, get much time at all with Lili and her first male love interest, Henrik, even though this is clearly an important, life-changing period of time for her.

And then there's Hooper's direction. The film is sporadically shot with this odd scoping technique, where the center of the frame is clear and everything around it is slightly distorted. This looks so dumb, and it only happens every once in a while, so that it seems designed to say: Lili is confused, so the world looks slightly confused as well. We know Lili is confused; we're watching the movie. He also does this ridiculous thing where he puts the subject of the camera in an extreme corner of the frame, filling the majority of the frame with blank wall. It is as though Hooper has no idea how to shoot more than one thing at any given time. Extreme close-ups and shots that are mostly empty wall – these seem to be Hooper's standbys. They drove me crazy. I really think he is an awful director.

But the acting in The Danish Girl is great. Vikander is fabulous, and Eddie Redmayne is better here than he was in last year's The Theory of Everything. The film also has an excellent supporting cast – Matthias Schoenaerts, Amber Heard, Sebastian Koch, Ben Whishaw, and Adrian Schiller. There is lots of other great stuff, too. The costumes are beautiful, the score is excellent, the art direction is always interesting, even when it is shot poorly, and the screenplay is mostly very good.

Oscar possibilities for The Danish Girl: a bunch. Best actor, best actress, costumes, score, art direction, adapted screenplay, at least. A cinematography nomination wouldn't surprise me either, even though I thought the photography was awful.

Oscar Nominees 2013: Part 2 of 13

Les Misérables

8 Nominations

• Picture
• Actor: Hugh Jackman
• Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
• Costume Design: Paco Delgado 
• Production Design: Eve Stewart (The King's Speech, Topsy-Turvy) & Anna Lynch-Robinson
• Sound Mixing
• Hair & Makeup
• Song: Alain Boublil, Herbert Kretzmer & Claude-Michel Schönberg

Director: Tom Hooper

Cast: Jackman, Russell Crowe, Eddie Redmayne, Hathaway, Aaron Tveit, Amanda Seyfried, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Samantha Barks, Daniel Huttlestone, Isabelle Allen

I didn't quite hate this movie – I posted about some of Les Mis's good qualities here – but this is definitely one of the worst movies I saw all year, and the love it is getting from people who hand out awards all across the country this season just baffles me. This is going to be mean, but: for me the film version of Les Mis is like watching a community theatre try to put on the show, except that the community theatre is Hollywood and the audience is just proud of these actors for doing their best. It's kind of like if our own six-year-old tried to sing Jean Valjean and we decided to give the little guy an Oscar for trying so hard. Still, people seem to love it. Expect Anne Hathaway to win this year's Renée-Zellweger-in-Cold-Mountain Oscar, and I suspect it will probably win for Sound, as well.

Will Win: Supporting Actress, Sound Mixing

Could Win: Makeup, Song

My Rating: #53 out of 61

Argo

7 Nominations

• Picture
• Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio
• Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming) 
• Film Editing: William Goldenberg (Zero Dark Thirty, Seabiscuit, The Insider)
• Original Score: Alexandre Desplat (The King's Speech, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Queen)
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Editing

Director: Ben Affleck

Cast: Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Arkin, John Goodman, Victor Garber, Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Scoot McNairy, Rory Cochrane, Kerry Bishé, Christopher Denham, Kyle Chandler, Chris Messina, Farshad Farahat, Željko Ivanek

This is a really good movie, and I am expecting it to win Best Picture. After I first saw Argo, I really didn't think it could pull off the big trophy, and I still have my doubts, but somehow I feel like critical consensus is going to form behind this film before all of the voting is done in February. "Argo fuck yourself" is still one of the funniest lines of the year in any movie, and the picture is strong, moving, and filled with tension. I've even put it down as a possible contender in the Best Director category. I've heard that a write-in campaign is afoot, and that folks are trying to get Ben Affleck the Best Director Oscar even though he wasn't nominated. Seems like a longshot, but if there's that much buzz about the movie, it seems to me that the consensus really is forming.

Will Win: Picture, Sound Editing

Could Win: Director (?), Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Score, Sound Mixing

My Rating: #11 out of 61

Amour (Love)

5 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Michael Haneke
• Actress: Emannuelle Riva
• Original Screenplay: Michael Haneke
• Foreign Language Film: Austria (Revanche, The Counterfeiters, '38)

Director: Haneke

Cast: Jean-Louis Trintingant, Riva, Isabelle Huppert, Ramón Agirre, Carole Franck, Dinara Drukarova, Laurent Capelluto

Love love love. For me, Michael Haneke is someone with whom I don't necessarily feel comfortable. I feel very strongly about almost all of his films. I hated Funny Games but I loved Caché. There are a lot of strange and wonderful movies in this guy's oeuvre, and you will be hard pressed to forget the ones that you have seen. The White Ribbon, The Piano Teacher, Amour: these are unforgettable films whether you love them or hate them. Amour is the story of a man who takes care of his wife after she has a stroke. It is a meditation on a true test of love. I found the film powerful and deeply moving, and I wager that most people in the Academy will too. When I saw the movie in December, the audience afterward stood in the hallway of the theatre gabbing about Jean-Louis Trintignant and Un Homme et une Femme (of all things). Amour surprised on nomination morning with a Best Director nomination (which I was expecting) and a Best Picture nomination. It will certainly win for Foreign Language Picture, but I think Spielberg, Lee, and Russell might split the votes here and Amour will also take home the Best Director Oscar. If it does, it will be well deserved.

Will Win: Director, Foreign Language Film

Could Win: Actress, Original Screenplay

My Rating: #4 out of 61

Avenging Angels

It has recently become an Oscar-season tradition for my friend Julie and I to get drunk and watch a bad movie together. Last year we watched the Shakespeare fantasy-action movie Anonymous, and more recently we watched the (actually good) fantasy film Snow White and the Huntsman.

Oddly enough, it was difficult for us to think of something awful to watch this year, both of us having already seen Ted, but Julie alighted on The Avengers and her instinct was spot on. It's a long film, so the dialogue does go on quite a bit. And we tend to ramble, as well. But I've put some images next to our chat in case you're feeling as though you want to skip to a more interesting section of the conversation.

Aaron: Yo yo yo!
Julie: Sup!
Aaron: Just pouring my beer. What are you drinking?
Julie: I am going to pop my corn and grab a drink........... RED BEER, 'course! you?
Aaron: This is a White IPA from Harpoon. Fancy stuff and so delicious.
Julie: But is it too fancy for a cheesy comicbook flick? At least the color of my drink is fitting.
Aaron: Well, I thought I'd begin with the good stuff and let it devolve. This movie is long.
Julie: Ugh, these Marvel previews.
Aaron: Oh my god, there are a million. Is Spiderman Turn Off the Dark being promoted?
Julie: Aaron, SPIDER-MAN is not a Marvel character.
Aaron: Oh hahaha. It isn't? [Julie is actually wrong about this.]
Julie: Neither is Superman or Batman. Clearly, Marvel has all the shitty characters no one cares about. Like The Hulk (poor Ang Lee). 
Aaron: Seriously. Poor Ang Lee. And that movie made money, so I don't know why everyone acts like it was a big failure. Also, remember when Sam Mendes directed a Bond movie and everyone loved it?
Julie: Yeah, what was that about?
Aaron: And remember when he directed a movie about abortion and the 1950s and no one loved it? Hahaha.
Julie: HAHAHA. Yes.
Aaron: Is this Transformers?
Julie: I hope it is... I love me those Transformers.
Aaron: I do too! Those are ridiculous.
Julie: Who doesn't? Such fun. Such good sound. But you know that Joss Whedon directed this, right?
Aaron: Oh did he? I get Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams confused.
Julie: P.S. Why are we watching this? I forget what it is nom'd for.
Aaron: Special Effects. Of the Visual variety.
Aaron: I love this actor. With the glasses. He makes me smile.
Julie: Oh, I thought you loved Sam Jackson. I mean, who doesn't? P.S. this character was written with him in mind! (Don't you love that I know these things now? I am a comic geek!)
Aaron: I love him. So this character is not from the comic books? He's just from the movies?
Julie: No, he's from the 'books. But the later ones. So they wrote him for Sam, basically. Which is obviously the best thing ever.
Aaron: It is! Also, could he have been more genius in Django Unchained?
Julie: He could have, and then perhaps he would've been nom'd.
Aaron: Julie!
Julie: No, I loved him! I'm saying the Academy sucks! Also, I have no idea what's going on... I haven't been listening.
Aaron: This thing – which is called a tesseract – is "misbehaving". It's a gateway to another world or planet or something. Maybe like in Thor? Jeremy Renner just said "It's a door right? Doors open from both sides."
Julie: Yes! Thor is going to show up. Chris Hemsworth. I am excited. This is his evil brother, by the way.
Aaron: Tom Hiddleston is the villain from Thor. I saw Thor.
Julie: Of course you did. *eyebrow raise*
Aaron: What? I thought it was a lot of gay fun. There was glitter and rainbows. And Tom Hiddleston is like a gay villain or something. I love a gay villain.
Julie: It makes me think of Adventures in Babysitting. I do hope you've seen that. It is a staple of our 80s youth.
Aaron: Don't fuck with the babysitter.
Julie: YES! Nobody leaves here without singin' the blues.
Aaron: I wasn't reading the Bible the whole time I was a child.
Julie: But I thought you didn't know what a TV was until you went to college?
Aaron: I watched TV beginning at age 11. Sam Jax just got shot!!
Julie: So much good TV happened before '92, Aaron. I am sad for you. SLJ will be fine. Motherfucker doesn't know how to die.
Aaron: And I am sorry that you missed Dark Shadows and Dallas.
Julie: Well, Dallas has been remade, so I shan't miss it.
Aaron: haha.
Julie: So far I think The Dark Knight Rises (or whatever it was titled) had better visuals than this. What was that blue mess?
Aaron: It did. I wonder why they snubbed The Dark Knight Rises.
Julie: They were mad that it otherwise sucked.
Aaron: Seems odd. They liked the last two so much. Oh that was a cool effect!
Julie: I missed it. I was thinking about Tom Hardy.
Aaron: Sam Jax just jumped from a crashing helicopter. Who is Laura Dern's younger lookalike supposed to be?

Julie: Cobie Smulders?
Aaron: You just said a name I do not recognize.
Julie: She is an agent. No one likes her, though she's super-competent (i.e. boring.)

Aaron: I see. You are a wealth of knowledge.
Julie: How I Met Your Mother. Neil Patrick Harris. I am a fountain.
Aaron: What does that have to do with How I Met Your Mother?
Julie: She's in it. And so is NPH.
Aaron: Oh. TV. You know I don't care about TV.
Julie: Ohh... Scar Jo. Two days ago I saw you as Maggie the Cat... and now you're basically CatWoman. How the mighty have fallen.
Aaron: Haha. She is playing Maggie the Cat? How is she?
Julie: Eh... ok. She's the best part of the show, which is pretty sad (for Rob Ashford). She is not a good redhead.
Aaron: Speaking of how the mighty have fallen.
Julie: Who?
Aaron: Rob Ashford.
Julie: Yes, he got really bad reviews for this show. My heart is sad for him. Oooh, that was a fun flip.
Aaron: That one too!
Julie: This guy she's talking to is not in the books
Aaron: That's the one I like!
Julie: He is written in here to represent the Everyman, i.e. he has no cool powers. Mark! The Hulk! Where's Ang?
Aaron: I didn't see the Hulk movie. But I think I saw all the other ones. Who directed the second Hulk?
Julie: There was a second Hulk?
Aaron: Oh yes. I think Edward Norton was in it.
Julie: Louis Leterrier or something. Never heard of him.
Aaron: Hm.
Julie: At least Ang came back from the Hulk. Eric Bana never did.
Aaron: Poor Eric Bana. What a hottie.
Julie: Right?
Aaron: He was great in that bad Judd Apatow movie. I still think he's good.
Julie: He was in an Apatow movie?
Aaron: Funny People.
Julie: Ohhh. Yeah, didn't see that mess.
Aaron: That was wise.
Julie: Mark is looking a little schlubby here. Remember when he was hot?  
Aaron: Mark Ruffalo was never hot. You are misremembering.
Julie: Hmm. Really? I saw him in person once. He looked pretty hot.
Aaron: I mean I think he's hot, but he has always looked a little worn. Remember he became famous in You Can Count on Me.
Julie: I never saw that either!
Aaron: Oh! It's so good!
Julie: Stop referencing things I don't know about. I want to feel smart.
Aaron: Hahaha. That was the 2000 Oscar season. What were you doing with your life?
Julie: What was I doing with my life? Freshman in college = mess.
Aaron: It's Captain America! Yay. Did you see that movie?
Julie: Hahaha, no. Absolutely not.
Aaron: It's really bad. Haha. Thor is way better.
Julie: I wish Green Lantern was in this. I love me some Ryan Reynolds.
Aaron: I missed that one. The effects looked so bad I didn't think I could stomach it.
Julie: Shit, he was a DC character. See? None of the Marvel characters is fun. Yeah, it was supposed to be pretty wretched. But Ryan!
Aaron: They are fun! Iron Man?
Julie: Blech. Overrated.
Aaron: Sam Jax just bet Captain America 10 bucks. And I laughed out loud.
Julie: Sam Jax always wins. And he should always wear an eyepatch.

Aaron: Gwyneth Paltrow is in this? How delightful.
Julie: Sarcasm? I hope?
Aaron: You don't like Gwyneth Paltrow?
Julie: Ew. She's the worst. Her ridiculous blog makes me want to kill myself.
Aaron: I love her. I think she's adorable. And I love her bangs. I am not following her blog. Does she, like, talk about her kids and shit?
Julie: She is all, like, pretentious about food and stuff that she has no authority to be pretentious about.
Aaron: You are mean.
Julie: People have regularly made fun of it, A-ron. I cannot believe you have not heard of this.
Aaron: I am sure she's not prententious She's lovely.
Julie: She's awful. Stop defending the bitch.
Aaron: Bitch? Julie!
Julie: Aaron! Everyone thinks so. Where have you been? P.S. I am out of beer. Are you keeping up?
Aaron: Well I like her. I am keeping up. I promise.
Julie: That's because you like bitches. Hence, our friendship.
Aaron: HAHA. Facts. We are 30 minutes in.
Julie: Oh my god, I'm going to be so drunk.

Aaron: Oh my god, this is homophobic.
Julie: What just happened?! I was getting beer!
Aaron: Well they have Phil saying things like "I watched you while you were sleeping" and then Captain America like raises his eyebrow like "are you a homo?"
Julie: Perhaps the actor is a homophobe.
Aaron: And then Phil is talking about how he redesigned Captain America's costume.
Julie: With nipples? Like the Batman suit?
Aaron: Dear lord I hope so.
Julie: Who is this Darth Vader wannabe?
Aaron: I don't know.
Julie: This looks like Tron. Which was decidedly not nominated for Visual Effects.
Aaron: Wasn't it? Tron did get some nominations, didn't it?
Julie: Only Sound Editing.
Aaron: Oh yeah! Haha. Poor Tron. It really was very bad. But I rather liked it. The art direction of this film is absurd. It looks like Transformers.
Julie: slash Tron!
Aaron: See! More homophobia. They're making Phil into a pseudo-gay character.
Julie: Am I homophobic for not catching any of the homophobia?
Aaron: No. Just not used to hearing it like I am, probably.
Julie: Now it looks like Battleship! Which was nominated for a bunch of Razzies, by the way. We should totes watch it.
Aaron: No thanks. There are a lot of good things I want to watch.
Julie: Oh, you're no fun.
Aaron: Lot of white people on this bridge. Hahaha. Sorry. I can only handle so many bad movies. And I watched The Man with the Iron Fists.
Julie: Why would you do that? (Without me?)
Aaron: Hahaha. To put the F-U in Kung Fu.
Julie: Oh dear.

Aaron: Mark Ruffalo is talking about science. Gamma rays, spectrometers, anti-protons.
Julie: He is basically Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day. Oh, I get it! This was Renner's warm-up for Hansel and Gretel!
Aaron: A horrible reference. May I never think of Jeff Goldblum.
Julie: Jurassic Park!
Aaron: Are we about to have some action, finally? It has been 40 minutes. That eye thing was cool.
Julie: I think these effects are pretty lame.
Aaron: They are. This won't win.
Julie: You're right: Snow White will.
Aaron: Haha. I wish! Life of Pi is going to win Visual Effects.
Julie: Probably. But Prometheus was really pretty – though it had absolutely nothing else going for it.
Aaron: Not much, no. But the effects were really cool in Prometheus.
Julie: Why does his gold suit go away? I'd wear it all the time.
Aaron: He was surrendering. But I'm with you. If you have a fabulous outfit, you wear it as often as possible.
Julie: Right? If nothing else, that's what we learned from the Evil Queen Charlize.
Aaron: She has many lessons to teach us.
Julie: So true. Like how to suck her albino brother's lifeblood/soul/something. 45 minutes in. I'm drunk.
Aaron: Oh I like this emotional brother scene. Thor was a big glittery business. You missed out. It was even directed by Kenneth Branagh.
Julie: I am not sure I did. Now I'm positive I didn't.
Aaron: Hahaha. I just laughed out loud again.
Julie: But why? Hahaha.
Aaron: "I'm listening." That was a good joke. SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK?!??! Bahahaha.

Julie: Thor's hair is almost as good as our crimped friend's from Anonymous.
Aaron: I am just glad there is more action happening.
Julie: I am glad you are finding humor in this mess. I am not.
Aaron: This is, admittedly, a terrible film. But I have laughed three times. So all is not lost.
Julie: It's really bad, right? If nothing else, the visuals should be good, and they are not. This is most unfortunate.
Aaron: As usual in a Marvel film, too. These people have a million awesome technologies for killing each other and yet all they do is trade punches.
Julie: Ooooh he's flying.
Aaron: He jumped.
Julie: Fly-jumped. Whatever.
Aaron: Like Michael Jordan.
Julie: Hahaha! Just like.

Aaron: His hair really is fabulous. You're right. This movie is directed so weirdly.
Julie: Thank you. I'm trying to focus on the good.
Aaron: The styles differ so widely!
Julie: I think it's 'cause they don't know whose story it is. Right? Everyone's a star.
Aaron: Yeah. Which is weird, because it's Loki's story, right? And yet that's Tom Hiddleston. Not one of the stars.
Julie: No, he's the bad guy. It can't be the bad guy's story in a comicbook movie.
Aaron: I think the star is actually Chris Hemsworth's biceps.
Julie: Oh my god, his hair! offically my favorite thing. after sam's eyepatch.
Aaron: Samuel L. Jackson. He is so much fun.
Julie: Always. Though I'm afraid he's a bit crazypants. Then again, most actors are.
Aaron: Like in real life or just in this movie. I laughed at another joke.
Julie: In real life.
Aaron: "He's adopted." Good joke.
Julie: Also, his twitter is incoherent. Is it really him? I'm not sure, but I had to unfollow him.
Aaron: Are you watching The Avengers?
Julie: I am bored by this film.
Aaron: Yeah. So much talk!
Julie: Transformers was way more fun.
Aaron: Yeah, Transformers always had giant motherfucking set pieces. This has a lot of talk, a lot of morality, and Captain America's earnestness.
Julie: Yeah, so much earnestness. Blah.

Aaron: He's hot though, Chris Evans, don't you think? I loved him in Sunshine.
Julie: Also, why is the cinematography so muted? These colors are dull. I want my superheroes to be bright and fun.
Aaron: That's what I was saying when we were on that ship!
Julie: Sunshine... did we see that? I have a vague recollection of being in that student life cinema
Aaron: Yes! It was. I love that movie. Danny Boyle.
Julie: And Cillian Murphy! I don't remember it much, though.
Aaron: Samuel Jackson should be in this movie more.
Julie: Truth.
Aaron: He should be the lead.
Julie: Well, he kind of is, right? Because he's in charge of them all.
Aaron: Yeah, but the film isn't as interested in him as it is in the others.
Julie: That's because he's black. This film is racist! Also, he has the best name. Nick FURY.

Aaron: Truth. I don't think it's about racism. I think it's about not knowing how to direct a movie. This is directed like television ought to be directed.
Julie: Well, he is all about the TV. And he does it well.
Aaron: Switching between stories, not having a main character.
Julie: Perhaps we should just drink more.
Aaron: This is good TV, but movies don't work well like this. I am drinking. Tom Hiddleston is great.

Julie: Sam wearing a blue tooth?
Aaron: Black people love bluetooth.
Julie: hahahahaha
Aaron: My sister never takes hers off. THIS CINEMATOGRAPHY. This is fucking awful.
Julie: SO BAD. What the fuck is happening?
Aaron: They're fighting and I think that little sword thing like knows or something.
Julie: Why did we go upside down?
Aaron: Now we're seeing everything in closeup! It's like Les Mis! Are you hoping they sing, because I am.
Julie: Nothing is like Les Mis, A-ron. Nothing. Captain America really wants to burst into song.
Aaron: Nine is like Les Mis. (Mark Ruffalo is a great actor. For real.)
Julie: No, Nine had Daniel Day-Lewis. Les Mis had Russell Crowe.
Aaron: Those are equivalent.

Julie: I just want you to know that this cinematographer did We Need to Talk About Kevin.
Aaron:  What? That movie is shot in an interesting way!
Julie: And Anna Karenina.
Aaron: And Anna Karenina is shot gorgeously.
Julie: I'm just telling ya the facts.
Aaron: This is the director's fault, clearly.
Julie: Hahaha. I like to blame directors, too. Let's go with that. HULK! I wish Ang Lee was with us in this moment. He's good, that Ang. And so damn cute.

Aaron: Isn't he? I totally agree. Samuel L. Jackson is saving this film right now. These effects, Julie. They look so fake! Did you like Life of Pi?
Julie: I thought it was pretty.
Aaron: Oh this Hulk is what the Visual Effects nomination is for, I guess.
Julie: There was too much god going on in that film, though.
Aaron: Right?
Julie: Between that and Les Mis, I was godded out.
Aaron: And it is unrelated to the plot.
Julie: Precisely.
Aaron: The novel (as you know) has way more god. As does the 1935 film with Fredric March.
Julie: Like Jane Eyre! at least adaptations of that book always cut out the god crap. I don't know why novelists love the god so much.
Aaron: They were old.
Julie: Life of Pi is not old!
Aaron: Oh, Yann Martel isn't! Hahaha. If we can return to The Avengers for the moment. We have totally departed from the actual plot of the film. And now we're watching a set piece. So I guess that's something. I think there's another hour left.
Julie: Hahaha. What beer are you on?
Aaron: I am 2 IPAs in. High alcohol content. Going to open another one now.
Julie: I am also almost done with my second red beer. for some reason, this drink makes me drunk quickly. Perhaps because it tastes like fruit juice.
Aaron: Sensible.

Julie: This is so bad. Remember Hugo? That film was pretty.
Aaron: It was. But also boring.
Julie: True. But this film is boring and ugly. Killer combo.
Aaron: How did Thor get inside the cell that was supposed to be holding Loki?
Julie: He is magic. Magic hair.
Aaron: I love both of their hair.
Julie: I don't know. His bro's is quite greasy. Oh no! Everyman died!

Aaron: Phil. Phil-in-the-blank. Gay characters always die. These effects really are embarassing.
Julie: Oh, he didn't die after all. So this film isn't homophobic!
Aaron: Um. I think it still is.
Julie: And I think it's racist. So we'll have to agree to disagree.
Aaron: The two are hardly mutually exclusive. As you know.
Julie: Oh, he died. So you are right.
Aaron: Everyone is having a lot of feelings about this guy. We're learning plot information now.
Julie: Poorly crafted exposition.
Aaron: This should be an act three monologue, but there are 50 minutes left in the movie.
Julie: Who wrote this mess? Oh, Zak Penn who wrote every other terrible superhero movie. That explains things.
Aaron: What else did he write? Mark Ruffalo is naked now! Nice.
Julie: The Incredible Hulk. Elektra. X-Men.
Aaron: Oh. Bad shit.
Julie: Fantastic Four, too.
Aaron: Yikes.
Julie: Yeeeahhhh. COLOR!
Aaron: Why would they even hire him.
Julie: I wish the whole movie looked like this. Oh, it went away. What the fuck was that?
Aaron: That hypercolor was a welcome change.
Julie: That lasted 2 seconds. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Aaron: Seriously. I am drinking more. Jeremy Renner is looking good.

Julie: That is because of the alcohol. Although his hair is nicely gelled.
Aaron: Sometimes I like arms.
Julie: As in biceps?
Aaron: Yes. What was the other option? Arms and the Man? What am I, George Bernard Shaw?
Julie: Well it was such an odd comment, I thought it best to clarify.
Aaron: He just called Loki a diva. This movie is getting gaaaaayyyer. This white girl really is very boring. No wonder all the fanboys hate her.
Julie: Scar Jo is white. She is boring too.
Aaron: Yeah. She is.
Julie: "I have an army."
Aaron: "We have a Hulk"
Julie: "I have a Hulk." BAM. hahahahaha
Aaron: Bam? It's so boring.
Julie: I know. I was being sarcastic.
Aaron: These jokes. Performance Issues?
Julie: You like them, remember?
Aaron: Only, like, 1/3 of them.
Julie: That is still way more than is appropriate for a film of this caliber, A-ron.
Aaron: Well I am drinking. It leads one toward generosity.
Julie: And I'm clearly not drinking enough.
Aaron: Well no one is drinking enough to think these special effects are good. I think the war is starting to happen. And not a moment too soon. 100 minutes in.
Julie: There is only... THE WAR. Ahahahahahaha
Aaron: I mean, they look like they're standing in front of a green screen.
Julie: Right? The worst.
Aaron: They're gods from another planet. So they punch each other. They literally must have no access to technologies of any kind.

Julie: What the hell is that?
Aaron: Megatron?
Julie: It's kind of Transformers-like... I like it. Hahahahahahaha
Aaron: I love Chris Hemsworth's British accent.
Julie: Thor better not die!
Aaron: It really is like Shakespeare in the Park. He will not die. He has to go back to Natalie Portman.
Julie: Haha
Aaron: It really is shocking how few people of color are in this. You are so right about how racist it is.
Julie: Yes. Sondheim should've scored this.
Aaron: Bahahaha!
Julie: Are there any black comic book characters though?
Aaron: Plenty! Who did score this?
Julie: Alan Silvestri.
Aaron: Seriously? The Forrest Gump guy?
Julie: Forrest Gump. Blech. And Beowulf! AHAHAHA
Aaron: Where's your feather theme now, bitch?
Julie: And Lara Croft! He is good.
Aaron: He actually is.

Aaron: I just laughed out loud again. "So... this all seems... horrible."
Julie: Oh, Aaron. You and your jokes.
Aaron: Are we alone in thinking this is bad? I think people liked this movie.
Julie: I think they did too. I don't get it.

Aaron: I can't believe The Avengers got this nomination, actually. I liked John Carter's effects better.
Julie: We could probably name at least 5 films that had better effects.
Aaron: I think so too!
Julie: The Academy is ridiculous.
Aaron: As we know. This year is definitely the weirdest year ever, though. Since Driving Miss Daisy and Do the Right Thing, surely. Sam Jax just said "stupid ass decision". I love him.
Julie: Me too. 1990 was a weird year, you are correct.

Aaron: The weirdest year. But 2013 might be weirder.
Julie: I do not like this year. It is making me upset.
Aaron: Oh I am a fan. But, then, I like surprises. As long as I have surprises I'm happy.

Julie: Was Stellan Skarsgård always in this film?
Aaron: Hahaha. From, like, the first 2 minutes.
Julie: Whoa. I might as well have not watched any of this. I clearly am retaining nothing.
Aaron: Whenever I crash through glass somehow I manage not to bleed, as well.
Julie: Well, that makes sense.
Aaron: There are another 20 minutes in this flick.
Julie: Indeed. Totally necessary. There's Stellan again! How fun.
Aaron: I can't believe you have missed him this whole time. In act one, Loki converted him to his side like he did with Jeremy Renner.
Julie: Dude, it's the red beer. I blame the red beer. And this film's badness. Oh, whatever. I'd rather be watching him in Dragon Tattoo. Remember that one? Why am I so nostalgic for last year. What a horrible year.
Aaron: Haha. Stellan was not good in Dragon Tattoo. You need to release your love for last year. This year is better. Just weirder.
Julie: I LOVED lots of films this year, but they are all getting backlash now. So I am bitter.

Aaron: Actually I do think last year was better than this year. Well, I think there will be reverse backlash. I am predicting Zero Dark to take a bunch. ("Please tell me nobody kissed me". Gotta get in one more homophobic joke!)
Julie: A bunch? it was only nom'd for five.
Aaron: Well, I think it will take more than Life of Pi.
Julie: I think it will get actress, that is all.
Aaron: You are wrong.
Julie: I don't know, Pi has lots of technology that looks and sounds pretty.
Aaron: Well, I think Zero Dark comes back. Like Black Hawk Down.
Julie: Black Hawk only won 2.
Aaron: Black Hawk made a huge comeback. It was the talk of that year! What was that, 02?
Julie: Yes.
Aaron: I think Zero Dark makes a similar comeback. I could be wrong, obviously, but I think so.
Julie: That's not much of a comeback. It was a slap in the face not to nominate her. Even Ridley got a nom. Oh my god, it's over. What happened?
Aaron: Allegedly there is another 10 minutes in it, though. Must be a button at the end of the credits. There usually is with the Marvel movies.
Julie: Oh I am so excited. And I still have half a beer.
Aaron: So do I!
Julie: I feel we can remedy this.
Aaron: Oh my god so there will be a sequel.
Julie: That was stupid. Of course there will be a sequel. It's a comic book! There will be TEN sequels!

Aaron: Hahahaha. This song was not nominated.
Julie: I don't see why not. It is equally as good as the one from Ted.
Aaron: You exaggerate. The lyric of this song is "Like the sun we will live to rise again"
Julie: "Like the sun we will learn to rise... AGAAAAAAAINNNNNN." HAHA. These lyrics are the best They are definitely equal to those of the Les Mis song.
Aaron: Like the sun we will live to rise. / Like the sun we will live and die.
Julie: Like the sun we will live and die.
Aaron: ???
Julie: HAHAHA
Aaron: The sun dies?
Julie: It seems so.
Aaron: This movie sucked. But, Julie: Was it better than Les Mis?
Julie: Oh. I don't know, actually. They were both wretched. And at least this one had Sam Jax. So I think it was better.
Aaron: Like the sun we will live to rise again.
Julie: Again......
Aaron: Hahahahaha.
Julie: Well, I wish I could say this was a pleasure... but I'm not sure it was. Wait. There is more! Seriously, what the fuck was that?
Aaron: That was a bunch of white people having burgers.
Julie: I hate this film. Well, I finished my beer, so I suppose that really is the end.

Ten Facts about Magic Mike

1. This film is directed by Steven Soderbergh not Bruce La Bruce. It is in no way pornographic. It is, in fact, hardly even prurient. With all of the lens flares, however, it does occasionally look like a film directed by J.J. Abrams.

2. Magic Mike is an unremarkably conventional narrative that involves an older "expert" teaching "the ropes" to a noob (this one is conventionally named "the kid"), whom he has "discovered". This narrative progresses precisely how you think it progresses. The expert begins to see himself in the noob. It's fun at first, of course, and then he sees how the young man is falling prey to this fast-and-loose lifestyle. He sees how this lifestyle will eat this boy alive and (what's more!) that it has already consumed the expert himself. But it's not too late! He will turn his life around. Make a change. You know the drill. Magic Mike, however, because of how well it is made, often feels like something other than the narrative I just described.

3. Is Magic Mike better than, say, a film like Savages? No, it isn't. Is it better than The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? It is.

4. Channing Tatum is fantastic. He is so good. In a review of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints once many years ago, I described a scene in which Channing Tatum made me gasp with a bit of acting he did. He did something similar in Magic Mike in two separate scenes. I think he is great in this.

5. Matthew McConaughey's singing in Magic Mike is, in all probability, better than Russell Crowe's in Les Misérables. You be the judge.

6. This film is kind of homophobic. I mean, there's a lot of bro stuff happening here. A lot of half-naked men around each other at all times. A lot of "I love you man"s being thrown around. None of them ever has sex with one another, of course, and none of them is into dudes or anything. The whole thing is queerly inflected, but none of it is ever actually queer. Not that I was hoping for some kind of "There's nowt as queer as folk" moment like the one in The Full Monty, but I was kind of expecting a little more queerness from the movie and a lot less "no homo" bullshit, which is there in spades.

7. I totally cried. Not till the end when Channing is crying, but still.

8. If I had to choose one of the guys, I'd go for Alex Pettyfer.

9. McConaughey is pretty good in this. He's always interesting, totally wild, and a bit unhinged, actually, when it comes down to it. Truth be told, the acting is fairly good across the board – particular kudos to Olivia Munn, whom I loved.

10. Hidden somewhere inside this film is a very interesting film about class, about the sex-service industry (which includes male strippers), about the shortage of livable wages in Florida, about the ways in which middle-class people pay working-class people to sell them their bodies in various ways, and about the ways in which the middle class then later excludes people who work in such industries from its own ranks. We don't want your cash, thank you so much; unfortunately it's all one dollar bills and we know where that money came from. Magic Mike is neither this conscientious nor this intelligent, but it is passable stuff.

The Miserable Ones

This is not a review of Les Misérables; it is actually a famous excerpt from Lee Edelman's No Future. Still, because it is the first thing I think of when I think of Les Misérables, and because it is such a famous piece from queer theory, I will ask it to express at least a little of how I felt about Tom Hooper's total mess of a film:

Fuck the social order and the Child in whose name we're collectively terrorized; fuck Annie; fuck the waif from Les Mis; fuck the poor, innocent kid on the Net; fuck Laws both with capital ls and with small; fuck the whole network of Symbolic relations and the future that serves as its prop.

And now, five things I actually liked about Les Mis:

1. Aaron Tveit! Finally someone who can sing is in the movie!
2. Little Daniel Huttlestone who plays Gavroche.
3. Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfried, both in good voice and both rather charming.
4. Because there are two people in the sequences with Thénardier and his wife, Tom Hooper can't shoot their scenes in the extreme-close-up style he uses in all of the other sequences. So: thanks, Thénardiers.
5. Russell Crowe, not for his voice (god help us), but because he is an excellent actor, and he understands that acting oughtn't to look like it is hard work.

I have complained before about the state of movie musicals since Chicago, so I won't go over all of that again. Suffice to say, that I think that what movie musicals need is singers, and until producers start feeling comfortable casting singers in movie musicals, we will continue to be forced to watch movies like Les Misérables, Sweeney Todd, and Nine.

Telluride at Dartmouth #1

One of the perks of working for a College that is a thriving arts institution is that I get to see a few films from the Telluride Film Festival before they are given a nationwide release. I had no idea this kind of thing happened at schools like this one. (I have clearly gone to public school for too long. It is fancy here.)

The first movie I got to see here was Roger Michell's Hyde Park on Hudson which stars Bill Murray as Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Honestly I don't actually think that there is much more to say about this movie.

If you look to the poster at left you will see that the movie is plainly a comedy. And it is a comedy, of the whimsical, fast-and-loose-with-history type. FDR is reimagined as a charming womanizer who also manages to be the generous, forgiving father we all wish we had. And life at Hyde Park on Hudson (which is a kind of summer home for FDR) is portrayed as identical to life in a fairy tale.

All of this, of course, got on my nerves, although the film does have one really beautiful moment where the King of England (George VI, at this time, who was most recently played to great acclaim – and with lots of sentiment – by Colin Firth in The King's Speech) gets really frustrated by his stutter while talking to FDR. Goddamn this stutter, he says. And FDR thinks for a beat and says, What stutter? It brought tears to my eyes, and it's a lovely moment.

But upon reflection, this bit of fantasy felt to me as phony as the rest of the movie. I mean, it's a lovely thought, but it's hardly realistic. The film is narrated by Laura Linney's character Daisy, and neither this character, nor anyone else in the President's retinue, could have known what FDR said to King George.

The movie's larger problem is Roger Michell's direction. He is never sure whether what he's directing is a comedy or a drama. In Hyde Park on Hudson's more serious moments, one feels awkward, as though the laughter suddenly stopped. And Michell doesn't know how to feel about FDR, either. Is he a bad man? Is he a great man? Are we supposed to understand that even great men are "human"?

There is a lot of hilarity about the King and Queen eating hot dogs, and Olivia Williams' Eleanor Roosevelt is the butt of countless jokes which felt to me both unkind and rather misogynist. Samuel West and Olivia Colman are both great as the King and Queen, and I loved Elizabeth Marvel, who plays the President's assistant. Mostly, however, I was unimpressed. It was like a candy-coated historical drama in the vein of The Help or a Lasse Hallström movie. Not my cup of tea.

So Foreign

Last year I didn't manage to see all five films that were nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. This happens not infrequently, obviously, as many films don't find a release in the United States even if they do manage to snag an Academy Award nomination. So, last night I finally saw the last of the five and I thought I would cover these films briefly.

I rated Biuitiful my favorite film of 2010. I found it deeply moving, with a central performance by Javier Bardem that is simply incredible. This is another of 2010's films about parenting, and like the others (The Kids Are All Right, The Illusionist, Mother and Child) I felt like Biuitiful really connected to me in terms of where  I see myself right now. Biutiful is very similar in tone and style to Alejandro González Iñárritu's other films, but where those films don't quite work all the way, Biutiful works in every way. It has a sense of the mystical about it, the interconnectedness of things on a spiritual plane, but even more importantly – though both part of Iñárritu's project – a sense of the global, that the small choices we make can affect profoundly the lives of others. Biutiful manages to be about Chinese migrant workers and Senegalese migrant workers at the same time as it is about dying of cancer, discovering one's relationship to one's father. It does all of this extremely well. I have heard that this film is hard to sit through for some. I had precisely the opposite experience. I found the entire thing exhilarating.

I am not sure what Dogtooth is about any more than you will be if you get to watch it. It's incredibly violent, but it's also, well, frankly, bizarre. I found it very, very interesting. And if it didn't quite make sense to me in terms of plot or theme or whatever other so-called Aristotelian aspects a narrative is supposed to have, Dogtooth made for compelling viewing and I would definitely watch this again before watching, say, The King's Speech again. I've written more about this movie here, so I'll shut up about it now.

Hors la Loi is a movie by Rachid Bouchareb starring his usual trio of Sami Bouajila, Roschdy Zem, and Jamel Debbouze. I don't think I'm ever going to be very interested in Jamel Debbouze (I guess I'll never get his performance in Amélie out of my head), but Roschdy Zem is great in this and I am a little obsessed with Sami Bouajila. I think he is just brilliant. Hors la Loi is about the fight for Algerian independence on French soil. I didn't know this before the film, but during the Algerian struggle for independence from France, an Algerian party also planned and executed many terrorist attacks on French soil itself. This is what Hors la Loi covers. The trouble is... Bouchareb can't help but make everything sentimental. The movie spends long periods of time attempting to pluck at the heartstrings instead of simply trying to tell the story. The movie wants to be a kind of neo-noir gangster film at many points, and it is here where Hors la Loi works best. But Bouchareb is constantly distracted by a desire to also make an inspiring historical epic that has a giant emotional impact. So he romanticizes and sentimentalizes and by the end of the film I was mostly just frustrated at all of the emotional manipulation the film manages to do. The men creating the revolution aren't sentimental, so why must Bouchareb continually look at them with a sentimental eye?

I thought Incendies was a bit of a fail, as well. It is well acted, and I was with the film for about its first hour. The movie jumps back and forth between Lebanon in the 1970s and Canada in 2009, when a pair of twins is trying to figure out what happened to their mother a quarter of a century earlier. Incendies is based on a novel that I haven't read, but my main thought about this film is that it misses the story of the mother because of its need to include the story of the children. Every bit of the mother's story in Lebanon in the 1970s is utterly fascinating. Every bit of it. And every time the film jumped back to the twenty-first century I felt myself fidget in my seat. Villeneuve also makes the film into a mystery. We do not know what happened, so we must figure it out. But mysteries only work if you hide what happened well enough. Because the film jumps back and forth, we frequently know what happened before the onscreen detectives figure it out. This simply does not work, and I couldn't help but think that there was a really interesting story in here somewhere if only the novel had been adapted differently.

I loved this movie. In Another World is a Danish film by Susanne Bier (she has made at least one English-language movie now), and, like her other films, this film packs a huge emotional wallop. The movie is about violence in Africa and in Denmark both. In Denmark, the film follows the violence of adolescents as they try to figure out how to seek revenge or end a chain of violence. The film asks all kinds of interesting ethical questions about how we train our children, how important it is to be "strong" in front of them, and how best to respond to violence committed against us. This is a film about parenting, too, of course (there I go again), but even more importantly it is a movie about being a responsible citizen of the world - in the same way that Biutiful is, really. In Another World is a real achievement; it's compelling from start to finish; and it manages to unpack all sorts of questions about domestic terrorism, violent impulses, and revenge. Definitely worth seeing.