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”

Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)

“They think because they are afraid. To be afraid is to understand nothing.”

Hungarian director Bela Tarr’s perplexing masterpiece “Werckmeister Harmonies” is rightly terrifying, both as a challenging, endurance-testing art film and as an awe inspiring, devastating expression of filmmaking. It’s enormity, its profundity and its artistry provide for the film an immense metaphor for existence with no parallel.

Simply watching it is a captivating endeavor. Discussion of Tarr’s films always begin with mention of how few shots compose its running time (this one has a mere 39 at nearly two and a half hours), and watching its gradual dance in the most serene black and white cinematography is enchanting.

And yet understanding the gravity of Tarr’s metaphor is its own endeavor. “Werckmeister Harmonies” uses the appearance of a whale as part of a travelling circus as a way of equating third world war and rebellion with the tumultuous anarchy of the end of the world and such an occasion’s effect on the human psyche.

This is the sort of film that would make “The Tree of Life” haters reconsider their meaning of the word pretentious.

But the cinematic bravura of the film’s elegant opening sequence alone will soothe skeptics. The local paperboy Janos (Lars Rudolph) arranges three drunks in a pub to represent the movement of the Sun, the Earth and the Moon. He halts them in the position of a solar eclipse and laments the stopping of the world, of life and of light. And when all the drunks begin again in their celestial ballet, we realize the grace and tranquility of existence.

The scene is lovely. A gorgeous score by Mihaly Vig makes the moment wholly resounding. The camera captures close-ups, long shots and multiple perspectives without so much as an edit or a quick motion.

Tarr’s minimal editing and lengthy shots is common of Eastern European cinema, but his camera is mobile and stealthy. It hardly even resembles American filmmakers who experiment in extended takes, with the motion being contained to small rooms so that the camera can wonderfully embody the entire space rather than evade endlessly into a growing landscape.

And Tarr uses this confinement to his advantage in conveying his message. Consider the film’s third shot inside the home of Janos’s uncle Gyorgy (Peter Fitz), in which the camera begins and ends in the same living room as it follows Janos through daily routines of life. Like the Earth completing a revolution around the Sun, life goes on and the camera completes its own natural rotation.

But for all its stunning photography, “Werckmeister Harmonies” is a harrowing film. As the massive whale arrives in this small town, beaconing rumors of theft, disappearance and local turmoil, its gigantic container invades the entire frame as though blocking out the sun that would allow life to continue.

The activity in the town from here on out comes to a stand still, with crowds aimlessly flocking to the town square to be overwhelmed and confused by the whale’s purpose in their town. The bleak, foggy lighting of the film makes every moment seem monstrous and threatening, from a disturbing couple dancing at gunpoint to two children chillingly embodying their own anarchy as they shout and bang drums.

I confess that I did not grasp all of the film’s themes along with their images, but such moments like one of the film’s longest in which a mob invades and trashes a hospital, are some of the most immensely powerful singular shots I have ever seen, regardless of their meaning.

The one last thing I have still not attempted to explain is the film’s title. A Werckmeister harmony refers to a German composer who first imagined the idea of an octave, which the film argues contradicts with natural tonal progressions in the world. The character Gyorgy studies this intently, and his deep and complicated argument boils down to the idea that all the established principles of modern art are wrong.

Such can maybe also be said about Bela Tarr and “Werckmeister Harmonies,” a film so polarizing and resolutely different than most films ever made, it defies explanation in envisioning what a film can be and can evoke.

Rapid Response: Deliverance

 

“Deliverance” is the sort of chilling thriller that would today resonate with action fans, torture porn enthusiasts and even critics and liberals. It’s light on story but heavy on atmospheric tension, and some of its themes of inbred psychopaths using nature to battle invading city slickers would be mighty relevant in today’s film landscape.

Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight were already stars when this movie was released in 1972, and they’re rightfully bad ass in their roles. The image of a very young Reynolds is just awesome: ripped biceps, leather vest with no shirt, dark chest hair and of all things a bow and arrow. He encourages his three friends to canoe down a river set to become a lake, only to be harassed by sadistic, rapist hillbillies.

Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox on the other hand, were not stars. Beatty had his acting debut in ‘Deliverance,” and for him to be raped so gruesomely in such an intensely cinematic moment is a stark debut.

So much of the film is shockingly and carefully paced and photographed by John Boorman. From the opening shots we get a sense of some oddly unsettling natural landscapes. The famous dueling banjos scene sounds peaceful, but the disturbing framing is anything but. The camera loves to frame all four characters in the shot at once, and we get a sense of how this unified party will quickly be at odds with one another. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Deliverance”

The Muppets (2011)

2011’s “The Muppets” is bursting from the seams with self-aware cameos and nostalgia.

2011 was the year of nostalgia, and for college-aged students like myself there was no movie more nostalgic than “The Muppets.”

And even though the movie is notoriously self-aware, in awe of its own nostalgia and acts as a love letter to a group of fans I do not subscribe to (I have a much greater penchant for “Sesame Street’s” Grover), “The Muppets” is the sort of insanely irreverent, goofy and goodhearted movie that belongs in our pop culture lexicon.

They also deserve to be performers at the Oscars, even though that’s for sure not happening. “The Muppets” has the sort of random, viral video presentation that would make it perfect for an awards ceremony. Continue reading “The Muppets (2011)”

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”

Rapid Response: Dracula (1931)

Bela Lugosi, as iconic as he is in the role of Dracula, has not helped this early ’30s film age any better than its horror counterparts.

Tod Browning’s “Dracula” from 1931 is a classic and leaves a much needed legacy of Old Hollywood horror as the basis of the myths and lore we carry about some of popular culture’s most favorite monsters. What’s more, Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula still remains the template image for the way people envision the classic vampire (none of that “Twilight” shit) and Dracula himself, in the same way Boris Karloff still is the model for the Frankenstein monster.

And yet the film is horribly dated and overrated. It’s a much maligned classic that is beyond cheesy and feels long even at 75 minutes.

The opening scene is riddled with a bad sense of spatial continuity and painfully thick foreshadowing. The character Renfield (Dwight Frye) hardly even gives a reason for venturing to Dracula’s decrepit castle before blatantly accepting the fact that its riddled with cobwebs and phantom stagecoach drivers. And Lugosi’s iconic line, “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make,” which still remains chilling, comes so soon in the movie I was tempted to turn it off right then. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Dracula (1931)”

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

I hate “Law and Order.” I hate how identical it feels week to week with its dense, ridiculous plots and minimal visual intrigue. It’s almost completely soiled me on crime procedurals.

But Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has made a peculiar crime procedural by oddly making “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’s” story more mundane and its artistry more remarkable.

It’s the story of a group of detectives out searching for a body after two men have confessed to a murder. They were drunk when they committed the act and can’t remember where the body is buried, so their search for it is intentionally slow and arduous.

But the entire time Ceylan transports us to another world full of darkly captivating natural splendor. The long, winding roads through the hilly Turkish countryside are painterly tapestries in the camera’s eyes, and Ceylan slowly glosses over them in deliberately expressive shots. So often he challenges us to scour the lush landscape, and we become enchanted by the subtle motion of cars rocketing like fireballs as they gracefully penetrate the image. Continue reading “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia”

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”