Category: Commentary

Oscars 2012: Will Win (Part 1)

See my remaining picks in the major categories here.

Movies are an art, not a science. And yet The Academy, save for a few eye rolling hiccups each year, operates like clockwork. Predicting the winners at the Oscars is as simple as playing the horses at the track, so here’s your betting form for the big race on Sunday night.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Descendants: 40%

“The Descendants” is bound to win something, and because it’s a screenplay that greatly differs from the source material and comes from a director and screenwriter who hasn’t put out a movie in six years, it’s looking more and more certain.

Moneyball: 30%

“Moneyball” is a serious contender in this category for the way in which it adapts a fact based, nonfiction book into a story with likeable and pathos filled characters. It also comes from last year’s winner, Aaron Sorkin and other Oscar fave Steven Zallian.

Hugo: 20%

“Hugo” isn’t exactly a writer’s movie, but Brian Selznick’s children’s book is surprisingly rich and colorful, and somehow John Logan tops it.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: 5%

The Ides of March: 5% Continue reading “Oscars 2012: Will Win (Part 1)”

Oscars 2012: Should Win

“The Tree of Life” leads my picks for who should win at the 2012 Oscars.

When critics write columns detailing who should win at the Oscars, they can be very self-serving.

Mostly, the articles act as a way for bloggers to draw a line in the sand and pick a side, rallying readers who will stand behind them. And in the process we weave an increasingly complex narrative for what a win at the Oscars will mean for our favorite.

It wasn’t enough to have a favorite; we had to be on Team Sandra or Team Meryl. It wasn’t enough to call “The Hurt Locker” the best movie of the year; it had to be a benchmark for 21st Century war films and a victory for female directors.

But none of that matters because the Oscars will act the way they always do and disappoint someone in the way they always have and always will.

My better column on the Oscars focused on the films and actors that were completely forgotten and lost in the shuffle of the Oscar madness. Those Anti-Oscars served as a reminder that there were other good movies this year.

The Oscars themselves are a reminder too, and even if I default to some of the clichés I’ve already mentioned, I plant my flag to recognize quality where it’s due. Most of the nominees are quite good (although some aren’t) and to pick just one is harder than you know.

Best Picture – The Tree of Life

It took seeing “The Tree of Life” only once to recognize it was an important film but twice to see it as a masterpiece. And rarely is a film, least of all an American film this significant, cemented in cinematic history, hotly debated and with this magnificent of a theme, this close to being recognized as such. “The Tree of Life” is not just a work of art that innovates on what cinema can be and make you feel, but it challenged those norms to a wide audience that both embraced and rejected it. Such controversy is always a sign of greatness. Continue reading “Oscars 2012: Should Win”

2012 Oscar Nominated Shorts

The shorts categories at the Oscars are always the most boring part of the endlessly long ceremony, unless you can crack jokes at how the “God of Love” director probably got a B on his student film, didn’t get a haircut and then won a friggin’ Oscar for it.

But it’s not just for the reason that you typically can’t see the films. It’s for the reason that, even if you did track down the films, why when you could only watch them on a junky 360i YouTube screen, would you even want to watch them?

Seeing the Oscar Nominated Shorts in a theater, with an audience, all in a row, you can begin to sense their quality, charm and ingenuity.

Animated

Watching the five animated shorts, I was struck by how clever, artistic, original and purely cinematic they all were.

Only one of the five has dialogue, and only two of the five are entirely computer generated.

I asked myself why Pixar or DreamWorks don’t make films that experiment with animation styles considering how artistic something in two dimensions can actually be. That was until I actually saw the Pixar short, “La Luna.”

La Luna

Pixar has outdone themselves. They make gorgeous films that everyone can agree are gorgeous, and the story of a boy out with his father and grandfather on a boat is cute and affecting in a less exploitative way than fellow nominee “The Fantastic Flying Books.” The family job is to climb up to the moon and sweep some shimmering stars around to form the curvature of the moon each night. Coupled with astonishing images, “La Luna” is a film that encourages exploration, hard work, family ties and individuality, which is likely a lot more than you can say about “Cars 2.” This is the short that should win, and maybe it still has a fighting chance. It would be the first time in 11 years to win since 2001’s “For the Birds.”

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

This film has been cleaning up animation awards left and right, it’s got a cool looking interactive iPad app to go along with it and it’s got the pedigree of children’s author and illustrator William Joyce to boot. And as lovely, colorful and sweetly saccharine this story about the joy of reading is, the whole film feels like a PSA for reading. It not so subtly illustrates that to read brings books alive, brings color into the world and grows old with you. It’s a message that parents and children will eat up, and so will the Academy. It’s my pick to win.

Dimanche (Sunday)

“Dimanche” is a darkly funny and yet inventively irreverent story of a boy who flattens coins on train tracks. It’s underscored in notoriously simple and exaggerated black and white, pencil drawn, cel animation. In this way, director Patrick Doyon creates a morbidly bleak world where all the adults are monstrous vultures like the obtuse crows crouching over the town’s train tracks. It’s got an almost twisted ending that might keep it away from Academy voters however.

A Morning Stroll

Why did the chicken cross the road? To experiment with animation styles of course. Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe’s film is about shapes, times and perspectives all illustrated through one odd short story of a chicken walking down the street, pecking on a door and disappearing inside. In 1959, the animation is one-dimensional. In modern day, it’s in color and 2D, and the CGI image of 3D 2059 is too hilariously gruesome and disturbing to spoil here. Watching that ending, I’d be shocked to see if it really is Oscar bait. But let me just say this: I want the Zombie Breakdance app.

Wild Life

“Wild Life” comes from former nominees Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, and although it’s set in Canada, it’s a lush, colorful Western. The images are constantly moving oil paintings with a lovingly intimate look. Its initially cute and folksy dialogue evolves into something with actual pathos that is lacking in the other whimsical shorts.

Also packaged with the Oscar nominated shorts were four others that made the short list, “The Hybrid Union,” “Nullarbor,” “Amazonia” and the absolutely drop dead hilarious, viral video worthy “Skylight.” That’s the one you should really try and find on YouTube. Continue reading “2012 Oscar Nominated Shorts”

Oscar Homework

The uninitiated movie goer treats the Best Picture nominees at the Oscars as the must-see list of the year. But this year, that audience might be disappointed with “The Help” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” and confused, if not frustrated with “The Artist” and “The Tree of Life.”

So for those of you looking to get acquainted with this year’s Oscar nominees and the potential winners, here’s a bit of Oscar homework due promptly before the ceremony on Sunday, February 26.

Don’t worry; doing this won’t feel like a chore.

1. Beginners – Nominated for Best Supporting Actor Christopher Plummer Continue reading “Oscar Homework”

David Copperfield World Premiere

I live in Indiana. The chances of me getting to see a World Premiere for any movie are slim to none.

But IU Cinema Director Jon Vickers has granted me that opportunity with a strange, but certainly not unwelcome selection.

The 1922 Nordisk Film adaptation of “David Copperfield” had its World Premiere Saturday with the performance of a student performed, conducted and composed score by IU Jacobs School of Music sophomore Ari Barack Fisher.

The film had never existed in any digital form, had no existing score and may have never screened in America, but the Library of Congress and the British Film Archives provided a surprisingly pristine film print to the world-class cinema Saturday night for the special occasion.

Having reported on the film for the Indiana Daily Student (which you can read here), I knew to expect good things, but I’m now proud to report that “David Copperfield” is a quaint, lush and lovely silent film that now has an equally moving, touching and complex score to accompany it.

Here is a film made in Denmark that has the stunning production values of a Hollywood film, and in that way it is a dense movie full of changing tones and moods. Fisher’s score adheres to that wonderfully. Continue reading “David Copperfield World Premiere”

Beating the modern action movie into shape

“Haywire” looks strikingly different from most other modern action movies. What has the action genre become in the 2000s?

There’s something depressing about watching Gina Carano kick ass in “Haywire” and then watch her lose a fight against Cris Cyborg on YouTube.

Both Carano’s movie fights and her actual work as a martial artist are gut-wrenching in their skill and toughness, but the stylized minimalism of “Haywire” is really nothing like something you would see in the Octagon.

It got me thinking how impressed I was by the craft and choreography incorporated by Steven Soderbergh. He described his style in an interview with the A.V. Club. (read the full interview here)

“We had people who could really fight, so I wanted the camera to be stationary, and through editing and movement with the camera on a dolly,” Soderbergh said. “I wanted to use wide lenses and looser shots than you’d typically see when you’re shooting action.”

But the more I thought about it, I thought about how far back I’d have to go to actually find a modern action movie that looks or feels anything like it. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?” “The Matrix?” “Enter the Dragon?”

What is the modern action movie, and is it any good? Here I’ve described a few styles and the movies that influenced them, for better or worse.

Lord of the Rings Return of the King Oiliphants

“Lord of the Rings” and The Action Extravaganza

In the 2000s there was one action movie to rule them all, and that was “The Lord of the Rings.” Peter Jackson combined brutal but fun and bloodless PG-13 action with J.R.R. Tolkien’s sweeping fantasy scope and had an instant hit.

The wars in the last two films specifically raged on endlessly to great effect, but movies as diverse as “Avatar,” “Star Trek” and “District 9” took that to mean an epic battle could substitute for a third act. Even dramas like the much-maligned “Alice in Wonderland” seemed to forget how to write a satisfying conclusion without every character fighting a pointless war.

V for Vendetta

“V for Vendetta” and The Style Junkie

“V for Vendetta” didn’t just attain cult status because of its rebellious message. Its hyper stylized aesthetic, one that borrowed from “The Matrix’s” bullet-time effects and incorporated explosions of light, color, CGI and more explosions, was unlike anything anyone had ever seen.

It wasn’t long before Zack Snyder used the look as a template for all graphic novel movies, and even worse copycats started making completely unnecessary and lame CGI universes in something like the undying “Resident Evil” franchise.

“The Bourne Supremacy” and The Grittily Realistic

The first Bourne movie was fun and all, but the series really became popular when Paul Greengrass took the helm on the second and third sequels. His films made use of a handheld camera as a method of conveying dirty, down-to-Earth visuals and jerky, energetic motion. Jason Bourne’s fights were quick and capitalized more on sound than clear visuals to deal the killing blow.

But the queasy cam has quickly gotten out of hand, resulting in hard to process action sequences without a coherent sense of cinematic space. Even Greengrass overused it in his modern warfare film “Green Zone,” and other Iraqi War movies have followed suit. The style has even migrated over into horror movies like “Cloverfield.”

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen

The Bigger Picture

All three of these styles have come to define the modern action movie in one way or another, and it’s strikingly different from “Die Hard,” “Terminator 2,” many of the Bond movies or countless more.

And some movies share all three traits to varying levels of success. When the styles are all combined well, you can get something like “The Dark Knight” or “Inception.” When they aren’t, “Transformers” is the resulting mess.

Superheroes and their batch of special effects driven action are dominating right now, so filmmakers often make a point to distance themselves from those styles. Quentin Tarantino modeled “Kill Bill” off exploitation and Kung-Fu films, “Fast Five” and the latest “Mission: Impossible” go out of their way to avoid special effects, and thrillers like “Drive” and “The Hurt Locker” are occasionally expressions of minimalism.

While some of these films are invigorating reasons to go to the movies, others can be tiresome, so it’s about time someone beat the action film into shape.

2012 Oscar Nomination Analysis

The Academy really shook up the Awards season with their 2012 Oscar Nominations.

When the Academy introduced the new rule for Best Picture nominees, they wanted an element of surprise added back into the Oscar race.

They got it.

It seemed as if we all knew what was coming as soon as the graphic was flashed on screen such that only eight nominees would make it into the Best Picture race, with “War Horse” and “The Tree of Life” being the surprises.

But as if to slap all the Oscar prognosticators in the face for thinking the Academy was predictable and boring, Academy President Tom Sherak announced “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” last, a movie long thought dead in the minds of critics and bloggers. I in fact picked all eight of the other nominees save for “Extremely Loud,” and to see it pick up not one but two nominations was something of a gut punch.

The film was critically panned, and rightfully so. What shocks me is how of all the performers in that film, Max von Sydow was the one to steal the last spot in the Best Supporting Actor category, effectively robbing Albert Brooks of a nomination for his chilling work in “Drive.”

This is the first time in several years I have not seen all the nominees prior to their announcement, but I quickly saw ‘Extremely Loud” the same afternoon. I left flabbergasted into wondering why this not only irritating and cloying film, but one that often is more literally hurtful and painful than it is melodramatic and soppy, not only has enough people who like the film but have more than five percent of people who feel it is the best movie of the year. Continue reading “2012 Oscar Nomination Analysis”

2012 Golden Globes Recap

“Ricky Gervais’s monologue is over, and we’ve heard all we need to about Jodie Foster’s Beaver. Can I stop watching the #goldenglobes now?”

So I tweeted roughly five minutes into the ceremony. I did watch the entire evening, and because they kept Gervais locked in a cupboard (or occupied at the bar) all night, it never reached that same level of amusement, but it at least did not sink to absolute wretchedness and languish the way last year’s Oscars did.

But what the evening lacked was a clear winner or any convincing surprises that would give us a deeper insight into the Oscars. Continue reading “2012 Golden Globes Recap”

2012 Oscar Nomination Predictions

My predictions for the 2012 Oscars have eight films being nominated for Best Picture, including “The Tree of Life” and “The Artist.”

1/21 Update: I’m going to stick to my original predictions that I said I had set in stone less than two weeks back, but already with the Golden Globes, the DGAs and a variety of other nominations and awards being announced within days of one another, the field has changed somewhat drastically. Films thought dead are now serious contenders, and some considered front runners are now on the bubble to even be recognized. I detail all my new changes and thoughts in bold and italics below, but the long and short of it is that “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and “Bridesmaids” have some momentum, “War Horse” has tripped on the last furlong, and “Drive” and “Young Adult” were perhaps always too hopeful of picks on my part.

Welcome to Oscar season, where an analysis of which period pieces will be nominated for Best Costume Design can make a bracketology advocate during March Madness look sane.

This year’s race is closer than the Iowa caucuses (and most of the candidates just as mediocre) and the new voting system is more confusing than the BCS Championship.

But I’m here to coach you through what will happen when the nominees are announced on Tuesday, January 24. Continue reading “2012 Oscar Nomination Predictions”

The Anti-Oscars

In “The Anti-Oscars,” I make a list of the Best Movies and Performances of the Year that don’t stand a chance at getting nominated.

This article will not help you win your Oscar pool.

On this Oscar Nomination ballot, you will not find any Streeps, Clooneys, Plummers or Spielbergs.

No, this is the Anti-Oscars! This is the opposite of what will happen when nominations are announced on Tuesday, January 24.

I’ve made picks in five of the six major categories, but while these certainly don’t reflect what will happen, they aren’t even necessarily what I think should happen. The Academy gets some things right some of the time.

Rather this list is my personal ballot dedicated to the not-even-out-of-the-gate contenders that were marvelous in 2011 but for whatever reason will not receive the attention they deserve at the biggest award ceremony of the year.

I’ll also use this space to discuss why they are not in the race and what that means for the actual contenders. So if any of these names are in your predictions, rethink your decisions now, and watch me eat my words when I predict the real ballot next week.

 

Best Picture

  • Drive
  • Beginners
  • Super 8
  • Incendies
  • The Skin I Live In
  • Certified Copy
  • Weekend
  • Melancholia

If there’s one thing the Best Picture hopeful lineup is missing, it’s a good dose of darkness. Is “Moneyball” really the darkest movie this year’s Oscars have to offer? My list, which conveniently resembles all eight films in my Top 10 list not solid contenders for nomination (the other two being “Midnight in Paris” and “Hugo”), shows a much more even split of heavy and lighter entertainment. Continue reading “The Anti-Oscars”