Tag: Cloud Atlas

The 2nd Annual Anti-Oscars

Every year there are great performers and films that for whatever reason do not get the attention they deserve at the Oscars. Sometimes they’re underrated, sometimes they’re critical darlings and sometimes the field is just too vast.

I guess I should be proud that when I did this feature last year, none of the movies or performers I named got nominated. Is that a good thing? Anyway, here again I’ve picked some names that have nary a prayer when the Oscar nominations are announced next Thursday. If it feels like I’m missing a really good one, assume they actually have a shot.

Best Picture

  • Looper
  • The Kid With a Bike
  • The Turin Horse
  • Bernie
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower
  • Rust and Bone
  • The Impossible

I’ll maybe wish I included my four of my Top 10 movies of the year on this list when they don’t get nominated. Those are “The Master,” “Skyfall,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

But the movies I have selected are all just as wonderful and not Oscar bait at all. “Looper” is exactly what clever studio filmmaking should be. “The Kid With a Bike” is such a heartbreaking and darling film about a kid who loves too strong the things that don’t love him back, and it’s only being forgotten because it premiered two Cannes film festivals ago. “The Turin Horse” is so gigantic, epic and hard to watch, it may just be considered one of the best movies ever made years from now. “Rust and Bone” is a daring romance that the Academy simply hasn’t seen. “Bernie” treads the line between comedy, drama and documentary a little too closely for the Academy to care. “Perks” is destined to be a teen classic alongside “The Breakfast Club.” And “The Impossible” should have Oscar bait written all over it, but Academy voters have already booted it out of contention in fields such as Visual Effects and Makeup.

There’s no questioning that the movies that are being nominated for Best Picture are quality films, but some of my picks might hold up in the culture’s eye just a little better over time.

Snubs: “Chronicle,” “The Comedy,” “Oslo, August 31st” Continue reading “The 2nd Annual Anti-Oscars”

Off the Red Carpet: Week of 12/12 – 12/19

‘Tis the awards season for many lists and nominations. I’ve had a lot of fun doing this column, but this is probably my last of this sort. Next week I’ll likely take off because of the holiday, and the following week I’ll put together an article of my final Oscar predictions, charting the ups and downs of certain films based on the preliminary predictions I’ve made each week since.

This is the point when most Oscar bloggers say that all that’s left are the Oscars. The Best of lists have started trickling out, the Golden Globes have been named and subsequently ignored and all the movies have been seen. You and I both know that last bit isn’t true, because I’ll likely miss “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Amour,” “On the Road,” “Not Fade Away,” “Searching for Sugarman,” “Rust and Bone,” “How to Survive a Plague,” “The House I Live In” and “The Gatekeepers” and “West of Memphis” before the year is out, and God knows I’m trying much harder than you to see these.

But nevertheless, I’ll cobble together a Best of the Year list myself along with some other fun features in the next few days. So for the last time, here’s this week’s roundup.

Golden Globe Nominations Announced

The Golden Globes have a tendency to be plain embarrassing. They’ll nominate something “The Tourist” to get Johnny Depp in attendance, and their ridiculous split between drama and comedy or musical means that nothing gets snubbed, except of course for things that are actually interesting. Last Thursday, “Lincoln” led the pack with seven nominations, and the only real surprise of a nomination were the multiple for “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.” Okay, whatever, we’ll let you have that one.

Scott Feinberg’s analysis is by the far the best of them, mentioning what a big deal it is to see Nicole Kidman, Rachel Weisz, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Richard Gere, Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor and Leonardo DiCaprio, although he probably lends a little more weight to the Globes than I do. The biggest, yet predictable omissions included “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “Amour.”

What really piqued my interest in Feinberg’s analysis was one statistic that said people who are nominated for a SAG award, Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe all go on to an Oscar nomination, and he’s got a list of five in the Best Actor race already. Those names are Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, John Hawkes, Hugh Jackman and Denzel Washington. You tell me who’s missing. (Full list via The Race)

Hair and Makeup Category Shortlisted

Here’s the list of the seven films advancing in the newly revised Makeup category that now also includes work for hair dressing.

“Hitchcock”
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
“Les Misérables”
“Lincoln”
“Looper”
“Men in Black 3”
“Snow White and the Huntsman”

The two big snubs here are “Cloud Atlas” and “Holy Motors,” both of which involve characters going through multiple performances and appearances, and “Holy Motors” especially calls attention to its makeup. I also would’ve liked to see “The Impossible” on this list for the amount of blood stained clothes and Naomi Watts looking ghastly that’s in that movie. (via Oscars.com)

ZeroDarkThirty

“Zero Dark Thirty” selected by Chicago Film Critics

Hailing from Chicago myself (I didn’t vote. Don’t flatter yourself), I always find these interesting. Announced on Monday, the Chicago critics selected “Zero Dark Thirty” as their winner for Best Picture while granting it four other awards. “The Master” came in second with four awards. This is an interesting list, one that goes against the grain a tiny bit by selecting “The Invisible War” as Best Doc and “ParaNorman” as Best Animated. The full list of winners is below. (Full list of nominees via CFCA website)

Best Picture – Zero Dark Thirty

Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow

Best Actor – Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Actress – Jessica Chastain

Best Supporting Actor – Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Best Supporting Actress – Amy Adams

Best Original Screenplay – Zero Dark Thirty

Best Adapted Screenplay – Lincoln

Best Foreign Language Film – Amour

Best Documentary – The Invisible War

Best Animated Feature – ParaNorman

Best Cinematography – The Master

Best Original Score – The Master

Best Art Direction – Moonrise Kingdom

Best Editing – Zero Dark Thirty

Most Promising Performer – Quvenzhane Wallis

Most Promising Filmmaker – Benh Zeitlin

New York Times Best of the Year Lists

If the New York Times sounds off on anything it’s a big deal, but what I loved about A.O. Scott’s and Manohla Dargis’s lists was the optimism brimming from them about the state of cinema, all this coming from a year where people have been mostly negative. Dargis didn’t rank hers, but Scott picked 25. They’re must-reads. (Dargis’s list and Scott’s list via NYT.com)

Manohla Dargis

Amour

The Deep Blue Sea

The Gatekeepers

Holy Motors

Moonrise Kingdom

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Searching for Sugarman

Silver Linings Playbook

Zero Dark Thirty

A.O. Scott

1. Amour

2. Lincoln

3. Beasts of the Southern Wild

4. Footnote

5. The Master

6. Zero Dark Thirty

7. Django Unchained

8. Goodbye, First Love

9. Neighboring Sounds

10. The Grey

holy-motors-05

New consensus emerges from critic polls

I feel Metacritic’s aggregation is fairly comprehensive in terms of evaluating the best movie of the year, but both Indiewire and Village Voice conducted their own critics polls and selected “Holy Motors” and “The Master” respectfully. It’s almost funny considering that it’s likely neither of those will be nominated for Best Picture (but we’ll hold out for “The Master.”) and the other consensus title, “Zero Dark Thirty,” may just win Best Picture. Indiewire also did a cut and dry determination of what the Oscar nominees would be based on their votes, and of the 10 Best Picture nominees, they selected six potential Oscar nominees. Here are the individual critic poll Top 10 lists:

Indiewire

  1. Holy Motors
  2. The Master
  3. Zero Dark Thirty
  4. Amour
  5. This is Not a Film
  6. Moonrise Kingdom
  7. Beasts of the Southern Wild
  8. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
  9. The Turin Horse
  10. Lincoln

Village Voice

  1. The Master
  2. Zero Dark Thirty
  3. Holy Motors
  4. Moonrise Kingdom
  5. This is Not a Film
  6. Amour
  7. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
  8. The Turin Horse
  9. Lincoln
  10. Tabu

Continue reading “Off the Red Carpet: Week of 12/12 – 12/19”

Off the Red Carpet: Weeks of 10/24 – 11/7

I took a week off last week, despite there being at least one piece of gigantic movie news, perhaps not Oscar relevant, but enough to make nerds on Twitter (myself included) flip out for better or worse.

But with the election now firmly behind us, I can focus on a race with just one president running (“Lincoln”).

President Obama defeats Mitt Romney in Presidential Election

Hey! Guess what? Now funding for “Sesame Street” and PBS won’t be cut and young kids will still like the movies and art for future generations!

Disney buys Lucasfilm for $4 billion, plans to make “Star Wars Episode VII”

“Star Wars” is now coming back in 2015, and I couldn’t be more disappointed. Even if “Star Wars” has become something of a joke since the prequels and having the “Star Wars” name on your product in fact makes it worse, the “Star Wars” series, with George Lucas’s muddy fingers and all, had become bad but never boring.

For Disney, who also owns Marvel, to plan to release “Star Wars VII” in the same year as “The Avengers 2,” is to make it into another tentpole blockbuster and popcorn movie that will be instantly forgotten as soon as people walk out of the theater.

Rumors are now spilling in that Matthew Vaughn (“Kick-Ass,” “X-Men: First Class”) is in talks to direct, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fischer are all interested in reprising their roles, and George Lucas is supposed to still be a “consultant,” whatever that means. These are telltale signs that this is not going to be an interesting film that takes the franchise in a new direction but one that is sheer fanboy baiting. (via Collider)

21 films eligible for Best Animated Feature

The number of animated movies considered eligible each year for the Best Animated Feature Oscar dictates the number of nominees the category will have, three or five, and five will definitely be the winning number this year based on 21 films meeting the Academy’s requirements. This says to me that Disney could very well have three potential nominees this year with “Brave,” “Wreck-It Ralph” and “Frankenweenie.” Expect buzz for “Rise of the Guardians” and one of the Gkids (“The Secret of Kells,” “Chico and Rita”) distributed entries. (Full list via In Contention)

Box office numbers bode well for “Wreck-It Ralph,” “Flight,” “Argo”

In a big surprise, Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph” trounced the weekly competition by raking in nearly $50 million on its opening weekend, double that of Robert Zemeckis’s “Flight,” a number that’s really nothing to scoff at. “Argo” also performed well in its third week by making $10 million, proving that this is a movie generating money by word of mouth that has the legs to go all the way to a Best Picture prize. Doing less well was “Cloud Atlas,” which in two weeks has only brought in $18 million of its over $100 million budget. (via Box Office Mojo)

“Hitchcock” premieres at AFI Film Fest

Film buffs are eagerly awaiting the movie “Hitchcock,” for obvious reasons, and early reviews of the movie say that although Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren provide their characters with range and depth, first time feature director Sacha Gervasi’s film is a lightweight entry that feels clunky at times and goes against the grain of what people actually know about Hitch. They also now have HBO’s “The Girl” to compare it against, which likewise received poor reviews by painting Hitchcock as little more than a peeping tom.

European Film Awards and British Independent Film Awards announce nominees

“Amour,” “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” “The Intouchables,” and “The Imposter” are all among the nominees in two of Europe’s smaller award races, the European Film Awards and the British Independent Film Awards. The former nominated films that won’t get an American distribution this year and the latter nominated films that got American distribution last year. See the full lists here and here. (via In Contention)

Week 4 Predictions Chart

This week I’m adding in some preliminary Screenplay predictions since the rest of the field is unchanged in my mind.

Continue reading “Off the Red Carpet: Weeks of 10/24 – 11/7”

Cloud Atlas

“Cloud Atlas” opens with an old man muttering under his breath, talking about the juju o’ the bayou, or at least that’s what it sounds like. It’s a super close-up after looking down from the stars, so it feels a little profound, a little silly, a little captivating. Then you realize it’s Tom Hanks with really good makeup, and you realize very quickly this movie is bananas.

“Cloud Atlas” is a wild mess of a movie. It tells six stories over countless centuries, sharing actors and thematic structure, but only just barely narrative. So at times the whole thing is pegged to be philosophical and thought provoking, and then Jim Broadbent learns to drive an SUV and runs over Hugo Weaving wearing drag as they escape from a nursing home.

Whether or not it’s actually about anything is beside the point. It has the same transcendent, sci-fi possibilities and mumbo-jumbo that “The Matrix” did, which was also directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski (the siblings have paired up with “Run Lola Run” director Tom Tykwer), but at the end of the day it’s a fun journey through time with just as much visual imagination.

Describing how the plot functions is an effort in futility, but the movie itself actually does it best. “Each thing is understood moment to moment, but at any moment it could be headed in a different direction.” This may just be the movie accounting for its own jumbled narrative, but that is how “Cloud Atlas” feels. It flits in time, but none of it is particularly dreamlike or even surreal. Each of the six stories, if you broke them apart as they are, are presented linearly.

The only confusing part is the excessive crosscutting that the Wachowskis and Tykwer employ. They may jump from a barbarian attack scene in the dystopian future to the performance of a sonata in 1932 to a sex scene in the 22nd Century to a sight gag or punch line in modern day London. The brilliant thing is that they’re often edited as though they are one scene, completely different in terms of even the mood we’re supposed to feel, but fluid in their pacing and action. At one point when Halle Berry crashes her car off a bridge and plummets into the water, the movie leaves her hanging for nearly 20 minutes before we see her making her escape. To have it happen when it does, a theme of rescue seems to permeate throughout all the other story threads.

“Cloud Atlas” is all about its themes rather than concrete ideas. We start with each character sharing in an unlikely encounter. We see them experience feelings of escape, rescue and discovery, and before long they’ve all suffered loss and hardship, if not action. Voice over narrations, the image of a comet shaped birthmark and miniature Easter eggs connecting the stories suggest that our lives are not our own, that our spirits carry through generations, but because the stories never truly intersect, do they mean anything beyond wispy ideas?

I don’t think it matters much, because the movie’s lushness sweeps us up in its visuals and ideas. We see futuristic cityscapes, treacherous mountain ranges, majestic long shots on the high sea and colorful rooms that materialize with possibilities right before our eyes.

On a technical level alone, “Cloud Atlas” is a remarkable achievement. The running time is nearly three hours, but because the stories are so out of sequence we’re not checking our watch awaiting the next one to start. We’re mystified by the makeup that makes Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving and Hugh Grant at times unrecognizable. We’re moved by the complex and exuberant performances of Jim Broadbent and Doona Bae, a South Korean actress who fully owns a rare lead part for Asians in a big budget movie.

Something that was more art house would also be more metaphorical in its ideas and imagery. The Wachowskis and Tykwer however put all their brainstorming right into the mouths of their characters. So moment to moment we get a line that resonates on an intellectual level, another that comes from a crazed Mad Hatter and seems laughable and another that is intentionally laughable. These ideas would be a slog if it jammed them down our throats, but perhaps like the way the filmmakers think the world operates, these possibilities are released like spirits floating in the movie’s universe.

I imagine I’ll see “Cloud Atlas” again very shortly, not because it’s a dense movie that needs to be unraveled, but because it’s a magical movie that makes it fun to be insightful.

3 ½ stars