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2012 Oscar Race is On!

It’s that time of year again where everyone develops sore hands and sore wrists from typing all these categories and names we’ve never heard of, but to be a true movie junkie, you must follow protocol and deliver to the masses your thoughts on the annual nominations for our golden friend, Oscar.

[The movies marked with a "*" means I have actually seen it. Do not expect to see that much in the Doc Short Subject area, those are usually a crapshoot]

Best Picture:

The Artist

The Descendants (*)

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (*)

The Help (*)

Hugo (*)

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball (*)

The Tree of Life (*)

War Horse

Still no real clue on how the Academy makes its Best Picture nominations and why there is a fluctuating number, but I have some strong feelings about this years list. First off, Drive should absolutely be there and Tree of Life should absolutely not. Drive was a mastery of silence and tension, while Tree of Life caused groups of movie-goers to walk out wondering if what they saw could even be classified as a film. Sure enough, these are polar opposites in terms of filmmaking and should normally not be compared to each other at all, but in terms of being on this list, that’s where my main beef is. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close also really shouldn’t rank here with the superb fare of Moneyball, The Descendants and Hugo (which personally I think also just scrapes itself onto the list). The big money is on The Artist to win, but without seeing it, I can’t really agree or disagree on that yet.

Actor in a Leading Role

Demian Bichir – A Better Life

George Clooney – The Descendants (*)

Jean Dujardin – The Artist

Gary Oldman – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (*)

Brad Pitt – Moneyball (*)

I think this is Clooney’s year. He gave an incredibly subtle performance, showing incredible control over internal struggle and pain versus his usual playful charm. Pitt was great in Moneyball, but his best bud will likely edge him out. Oldman definitely deserves the nomination, but the movie isn’t really great enough to support him taking the win, especially over Clooney. Dujardin took the SAG award and the Globe, but the The Artist was in another category at the Globes and he might get edged out here.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Kenneth Branagh – My Week With Marilyn

Jonah Hill – Moneyball (*)

Nick Nolte – Warrior

Christopher Plummer – Beginners

Max Von Sydow – Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (*)

The word on the street says this is Plummer’s to lose. Between the two performances I have seen, Sydow would get my vote over Hill. I am proud of Hill for moving his comedy career into the dramatic circle and give him amazing credit for wanting to prove himself. It can be an arduous transition and you end up doing double the work just to gain people’s acceptance. Yet, Sydow was the best part of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (all without actually saying one word), making the film just above bearable.

Actress in a Leading Role

Glenn Close – Albert Nobbs

Viola Davis – The Help (*)

Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady

Michelle Williams – My Week With Marilyn

Viola Davis has been cleaning up the awards for her turn in The Help, but Streep and Close have also received tons of acclaim. I still put my money on Davis to close out the season, but either of her legendary competitors could pull the upset.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Berenice Bejo – The Artist

Jessica Chastain – The Help (*)

Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids (*)

Janet McTeer – Albert Nobbs

Octavia Spencer – The Help (*)

McCarthy did get a Golden Globe for her hilarious role in the raunchy girl comedy, but The Help is dominating across the acting landscape and this could fall that way as well. Look for Spencer over Chastain.

Animated Feature Film

A Cat in Paris

Chico & Rita

Kung Fu Panda 2

Puss in Boots (*)

Rango (*)

Don’t really know too much about the first two in the category, but I think the real fight is between the two I actually got to see. Rango is a step forward in animated filmmaking because it was actually shot and treated as if it was a live-action drama that just happened to star a talking lizard. Puss in Boots on the other hand, proved it was more than just a spin-off from the Shrek franchise and provided a heartwarming and quite funny experience that could just slip into the winner’s circle on the big night.

Art Direction

The Artist

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (*)

Hugo (*)

Midnight in Paris

War Horse

While Hugo got nominated for the most awards this year, this is where I think it will actually begin to take some of them home. The train station set was incredible down to the last detail and look to Hugo to bring home a handful of statues due to the beautiful visuals. As a possible other option, The Artist (the next highest nominated) could also begin to flex its voting muscle here.

Cinematography

The Artist

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Hugo (*)

The Tree of Life (*)

War Horse

Here is the only place The Tree of Life should be mentioned. As a film, I really didn’t find it effective in the least, but in terms of pure visuals and expertise in cinematography, it was impressive. I’m not sure it will be enough to win, especially with Hugo and The Artist taking the spotlight, but here and only here could the tree bloom.

Costume Design

Anonymous

The Artist

Hugo (*)

Jane Eyre

W.E.

People love to lean towards the Shakespearean and Victorian flicks in this category, but it actually could go pretty much anywhere. I would give Hugo and The Artist a nudge based on pure momentum, but this will be one of those categories that determines who really wins your Oscar pool this year.

Directing

Michael Hazanavicius – The Artist

Alexander Payne – The Descendants (*)

Martin Scorsese – Hugo (*)

Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris

Terrence Malick – The Tree of Life (*)

Anyone but Malick! Seriously though, he has no shot in this year with Payne doing quite well with The Descendants and Scorsese already taking home the Golden Globe for Hugo. This also could be the place where we see how The Artist actually matches up when not split off into the Musical/Comedy category. It’s nice to see Allen still creating acclaim for himself, but we will have to wait until another time to hear what would likely be an amazingly odd acceptance speech.

Documentary Feature

Hell and Back Again

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

Pina

Undefeated

I’ve heard a lot of buzz around Pina for some amazing visuals, but no real clue here if it enough to overpower the entire category.

Documentary Short Subject

The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement

God is the Bigger Elvis

Incident in New Baghdad

Saving Face

The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

I want to give it to God is the Bigger Elvis just because it is a great title, but a doc about the tsunami could garner a lot of votes from the heart.

Film Editing

The Artist

The Descendants (*)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Hugo (*)

Moneyball (*)

I really need to see Tattoo because something in my gut tells me the editing was amazing here, but in terms of the three I have seen, Moneyball gets my support for being able to pace and balance a fairly dull topic and sculpt it into a tension-laced experience.

Foreign Language Film

Bullhead

Footnote

In Darkness

Monsieur Lazhar

A Separation

Lots of good buzz around A Separation, especially after its Golden Globe win for Best Foreign Film. Strong likelihood it will continue along the golden path to Oscar.

Makeup

Albert Nobbs

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (*)

The Iron Lady

What’s more impressive, turning Streep into Margaret Thatcher, removing Ralph Fiennes nose or convincing at least half the public that Glenn Close actually was a man? I’ll go for Albert Nobbs to take this home.

Music – Original Score

The Adventures of Tintin

The Artist

Hugo (*)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (*)

War Horse

Since The Artist is basically all music, you might think this is a shoe-in, but never count out well-known industry names like John Williams (Tintin & War Horse) and Howard Shore (Hugo).

Music – Original Song

“Man or Muppet” – The Muppets (*)

“Real in Rio” – Rio

Not really sure how this category shrunk to only two songs this year, which in itself is a shame, but the highlight is the nomination of “Man or Muppet”, a pure genius chuckle-worthy song from Flight of the Conchords alum, Bret McKenzie.

Short Film – Animated

Dimanche/Sunday (*)

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (*)

La Luna

A Morning Stroll

Wild Life (*)

I have been able to find some of these online for viewing and out of those I would definitely cast my vote for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (awesome title, by the way). It’s an amazingly adorable tale of a man and his passion for books, something to which I am very much akin to. There is always stiff competition when Pixar is involved (they made La Luna), but I’m pulling for the flying books to swoop down and take the gold here.

Short Film – Live Action

Pentecost

Raju

The Shore

Time Freak

Tuba Atlantic

Not a clue here. Time Freak sounds neat. That’s all I got.

Sound Editing

Drive (*)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Hugo (*)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (*)

War Horse

I actually think this might lean towards Tattoo, but the sound was such a beautiful part of the mix in what made Drive so memorable. I also hold a small candle for the hope someone from that movie will accept the award wearing that amazing dragon jacket.

Sound Mixing

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Hugo (*)

Moneyball (*)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (*)

War Horse

Again, Tattoo, maybe because even the trailer had intense sound elements. Transformers could also pull this out, but then we have to walk award saying, “the Academy Award winning film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon” which just plain hurts my ears.

Visual Effects

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (*)

Hugo (*)

Real Steel (*)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (*)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (*)

This is the first category where I have actually seen everything listed, so yay for me! Glad to see Real Steel got in here, because that was an incredibly under-appreciated film. Yet, while that was a fun ride, I would have to say this is a battle between Apes and Potter. Transformers was visually impressive, as always for that franchise, but Potter could win based on the franchise vote here, while Apes might get votes from all those people who feel Andy Serkis should’ve gotten an acting nod. Either way, I’ll likely be happy with the winner.

Writing – Adapted Screenplay

Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash – The Descendants (*)

John Logan – Hugo (*)

George Clooney, Grant Heslov & Beau Willimon – The Ides of March (*)

Steven Zallian & Aaron Sorkin – Moneyball (*)

Bridget O’ Connor & Peter Straughan – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (*)

Another fully filled out category! Here I have much more of an opinion on the outcome. I’m a Sorkin acolyte, so I would love to see him win. Moneyball was tight, crisp and paced perfectly for a story about something so dull, so huge props to that team. The Descendants is my next choice because it was penned with such incredble subtlety and given an amazing ability to breathe. Hugo was great, but really felt like two movies instead of one, so I’m inclined not to see it walk away with this one. The other two were enjoyable, but sadly petered out at the end of the story.

Writing – Original Screenplay

Michael Hazanavicius – The Artist

Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig – Bridesmaids (*)

J.C. Chandor – Margin Call

Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris

Asghar Farhadi – A Separation

Rounding out the list, sadly I have only seen one of these. There is a ton of buzz around The Artist and it could be the big winner overall tonight, but this could be where we get the amazingly awkward acceptance speech from Allen. For the comedy industry as a whole it would be amazing to see Bridesmaids pull it out, but I am not sure the Academy voters are ready for that yet. Maybe next time.

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Inception: Dream A Little Dream In Me

I’m going to win this Dreidel game if it’s the last thing I ever do.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Everyone fears the sophomore curse, when you break out of the gate in any type of popular media with something so unique, so gripping and so monumentally accepted by the ravenous public that you set the bar high into the stratosphere, making it impossible for your second creative effort to even bask in the reflection of that initial glory. It frightens each and every person stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight, but there is a misconception lingering making people feel safe after they are past their second credit. The cold, hard fact is each and every time you release something out to the public it is another audition to the world. If your newest effort becomes known as the best of your career, congratulations my friend, welcome back to the curse. It’s been right here waiting for you. Christopher Nolan felt the sting of the curse after his breakout indie darling, Memento, which he followed with a poorly timed remake of the chilly psychological thriller, Insomnia. Yet Nolan fought onward and grabbed hold of the frayed cape of the Batman franchise and resurfaced with a much more dark and gritty take on the legendary crusader in Batman Begins. This inevitably led to his crowning achievement in the comic book sequel, The Dark Knight, where the world witnessed the true beauty of a director and actor, in Heath Ledger, creating something that will be remembered and talked about for generations. As the accolades for The Dark Knight poured in, Nolan found himself right back in the lap of the curse, plotting his escape, scanning the horizons for a safe way out. Turns out, he found his escape not by looking outside, but by turning in.

Inception is the name given to a procedure where a person with incredibly specific skills and equipment can enter someone else’s dreams and gently plant the seed of an idea, which would then flourish and grow in that person naturally, culminating in the subject doing exactly what you wanted them to. Most believe it can’t be done, but one man, Cobb, says it is not just possible, but he’s done it before. Hired for one last job, Cobb builds a team of people to help him complete his mission and try to win his ticket home to his children.

The out and out winner here is the writing. While the directing and acting, which will be mentioned later, are both up to par, the writing of such an intricate, delicate and verbose script is an achievement worth high recognition. People are already talking Oscar race for this film, and while I might be on the fence right now in the Best Picture category (we still have quite a few months to go people), in the arena of Best Original Screenplay, this should be a shoe-in. Nolan is truly at his best when dealing with fragmented and fractured realities, achieving a tender balance between intrigue and confusion that makes the audience think, but not feel stupid if they all come up with different answers at the end. As for the ending, I’ll leave that for later, loudly hidden behind the spoiler warnings.

Moving onto the acting, Leonardo DiCaprio, who played our anti-hero Cobb, once again brims with sheer determination and builds layer upon layer into the role. The only fraction of a flaw in his performance in my eyes is it bordered on being too controlled. At times there felt perfect opportunities to let him fly off the handle or just peel back one more layer, showing his humanity, but the importance of the job and the need for sharp and complete focus kept him tightly wrapped up. Tom Hardy, playing Eames, the wise-cracking master thief of the group, steals many of the scenes not only due to his skill as an actor, but because he provides the only comic relief in the film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as Aurthur, brings back a little bit of his steam-train determination and tunnel-vision drive that he perfected in Brick. Overall all the performances were on point, but in the minority there were two people that I felt were under used and under developed, Michael Caine and Ellen Page. Caine is a tremendous actor that felt totally wasted in a partially unexplained cameo part (he’s mentioned as the grandfather to Cobb’s children, but it is never illustrated whether he is Cobb’s father or his stepfather.) As for Page, while they try with one line of dialogue to cover over her rapid acceptance of the world of dreams and being able to control them, she still ends up feeling rushed into the story more as a person to move the plot than a full fledged character.

***SPOLIER ALERT – SPOILER ALERT – DO NOT READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM***

Now let’s talk about that ending. While I really do enjoy a nice ‘leave ‘em hanging’ closer, I think people are reading way too much into it. Yes, the top was still spinning, and yes the idea was to make you wonder if Cobb is still in a dream at the end of the film, but the theory that the entire movie was all a dream inside Cobb’s mind, showing his own journey to release himself of the guilt of pushing his wife to suicide, well, that just doesn’t sit right with me. The ‘whole dream’ theory robs the movie of all its importance and power and steals all the thunder from the other characters. I prefer to believe the top would have fallen in time; it was just really well balanced.

The End of the Page Recommendation: Nolan is on a hot streak that could see him crowned as one of the greatest directors in our generation, but let’s not pressure him too much, right? Inception is clever, intriguing and everything you want in a psychological drama, even if it draws a little long at the end. Worth seeing, if only for the ensuing discussion you will have immediately after.

What did you think of the ending? Does this top ‘Dark Knight’ for you?

The Book of Eli: Slick Style with Rough Substance

Somewhere out there, there is a snack shack waiting for me.

Rating: 4 out of 10

One type of movies has recently been building in the nationwide queue, Apocalypse films. We stared in wide-eyed wonder at the destruction imagined in 2012, felt the weight of despair in the bleak future of The Road and even the magical CGI-fueled paradise of Avatar can be classified as apocalyptic since that was the reason for the human expansion to Pandora. This week we bear witness to a little twist, a holy light in the gray darkness of the cold and dusty future, a film that suggests in the aftermath of what is to come you can only truly survive by pure and unadulterated faith. Nothing like a good dose of God to add spice to the end of the world.

The Book of Eli is a moral fable about a man, most commonly referred to as “The Walker”, who sets out on a journey west to find the one and only safe harbor left in the world for the precious book he is carrying. He crosses paths with the worst and the best (but mostly the worst) of what humanity has become in the wake of some type of nuclear holocaust. The extent of his survival skills is impressive, but it pales in comparison to his determination and resolve to reach the destination told to him only a voice in his head.  The road gets rougher as he passes through a town where the man in charge knows all too well the power of the book he is carrying and decides to claim it for his own.

Let’s start out with the nice things first, cause that is just the polite thing to do. As you can see from the picture above, there was a clear choice in visual tone to bring about this monochromatic, muted color palette to the world after the war. There was some incredibly stark imagery and compelling wide shots of our main traveler trekking across sheer emptiness and ruined wastelands. I was quietly pleased with that portion of the film, and only that portion, until I was reminded by the ending credits that this cross between Mad Max and The Road was directed by Albert and Allen Hughes, otherwise known as The Hughes Brothers. Looking back at their last film, From Hell, I suddenly put together all the pieces. The Book of Eli succeeded and suffered in the exact same way.

The Hughes Brothers have developed a style of powerful visuals and interesting color schemes, but they seem to forget about the rest of the recipe. The story lingers on in a menacingly slow fashion, broken up by frantic acts of violence, but a real ebb and flow is never truly achieved. Also, I will hold back all inclinations to what the third act twist is, but just know it left me extremely disappointed. I stand by the idea that films win or lose their audiences in the last five minutes and I was not only lost, but banging my head against the wall in order to develop short term amnesia. There were a good handful of ways the story could have ended, but they went with honestly the worst of the bunch.

In terms of acting, I actually thought Denzel Washington had a few really impressive scenes and it was nice to see him a little bit outside of the cocky, tough guy role that he was pigeonholed into over the last decade (like Man on Fire, Inside Man and his oscar-winning turn in Training Day.) Mila Kunis also stepped up for most of the film, yet I lost her when she started to become the rough and tumble chick again. She has a self-assuredness and confidence to her which works really well, but once she starts packing heat and sliding into some femme fatale position (ala Max Payne) she ends up a caricature instead of a character. Lastly there is Gary Oldman, who really has been playing parts like this for years. It’s not his best work by far, but even with that said, he still commands attention when on screen. His performance ended up making me imagine he was playing his same character from Leon, just many, many years older.

The End of the Page Recommendation: Honestly, I love religiously themed movies, especially if someone involved is carrying a crazy sharp machete, but this felt heavy-handed and preachy. A vain attempt was made at the end to balance that out, but it failed to remove the weight left by the previous hours. If you can get a copy of the actual 35mm film, find some of the really pretty shots, blow them up into posters and just be happy with that.

Twilight – New Moon: New Director, Same Failures

Yes, this is the only facial expression I have. Why do you ask?

Rating: 2 out of 10

At the screaming and preening delight of tweens across the nation, the second installment of the uber-popular Twilight franchise hit the screens at midnight Thursday and proceeded to break numerous first-day records. Leaving Dark Knight in the dust, New Moon separated tween parents from the money in their wallets at a rate of $72 million dollars in the first 24 hours. It slipped a little bit in the weekend total and five-day gross, so in the end Dark Knight and a few other choice films still rank higher, but Summit Entertainment and Twilight fans alike know their precious franchise is very much alive and cemented in cinema futures for the next few years.

For those who might not already know, New Moon takes the love story between Edward and Bella and drops in the ever-so-popular third wheel, Jacob. Edward bails from the gray and rainy world of Forks because he believes he will only end up hurting Bella more and in his absence Jacob grows to be more than just the nice kid form the reservation. She allows him to drag her up from the depression Edward left her in and finds herself caught even more now in the middle of not just a battle for the hearts of two men, but two monsters as Jacob reveals he too is more than meets the eye.

Let me just tell you all up front that after seeing the first Twilight film and finding it to be fairly abysmal, I borrowed all four books from a co-worker and read them over the period of a week. My reason for doing this was I wanted to know if all the blame for the movie’s faults could be laid upon the shoulders of Catherine Hardwicke and her newly famous cast, but I came to realize that not all of it was hers to bear. That shared responsibility continues in this new chapter as the reins got taken over by Chris Weitz, who last graced the screen helming the CGI-cluster bomb The Golden Compass (another example of shared blame between director and source material). So to be fair, the volume of issues there are in this film are not with the movie alone, but with the source material it is born from.

My main and most pounding issue with New Moon is the length. There is no reason for nearly two-and-a-half hours of this. If you cut out even half of the strained dramatic pauses in every piece of dialogue, this could possibly make the cut as a one-hour TV special. Not a single person in the film seems to be able to finish a sentence without stopping and staring at something or someone, forcing unnecessary importance on what they are about to say next. Again, this is inherent in the books, although in that medium, you as the reader can just choose to read faster (which admittedly, these are incredibly fast reads). In the darkness of the movie theater you are trapped, glued by the increasing price of the movie ticket you bought to get in, to stay there and suffer through page after page of visual ellipses.

Secondly, when I was finished with the books I actually had hope for this movie because I felt it was the most enjoyable of the books. The relationship that grows between Bella and Jacob is actually the only relationship in the entire series that you get to witness blossom and actually believe in. Bella and Edward seem to fall hopelessly and endlessly in love with each other from first glance and they spend the next two-thousand pages trying to prove it to each other, but as a reader and audience member we don’t get to really witness that journey. It all feels too heavy without any foundation. Unfortunately, after only one pleasing montage of Bella and Jacob, the super-buff best friend spends the rest of the movie taking on every boring and melodramatic trait of his vampire nemesis. Long stares, brooding glances into the distance, gruff sighs between each and every word. Be still my beating…oh wait, it is still, aw crap, this movie put me in a coma.

Lastly, without dragging this out too long, New Moon actually increases one of the main problems from the first chapter; Bella is not a likable character, not in the least. Without being able to root for her, we can’t honestly route for either of the pseudo-men fighting for her affections. She mopes, whines and is overall gloomy from front to back in this film and she gives you nothing to attach to in order to want her to be happy.

In terms of the acting, it’s patently unfair to critique these people on performances largely hobbled by the books themselves. Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner are all suffering from what I politely refer to as “The Star Wars Prequel Phenomenon.” After those movies, hordes of people walked around tearing apart Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Ewen McGregor and Liam Neeson, but true movie fans knew all along that their horrid performances were not accurate representations of their actual ability. It’s just what happens when talented people are stuck in untalented movies. Kristen was redeeming in Adventureland, Robert got amazing reviews for Little Ashes and Taylor, well, he might not have a ton to his credit yet, but he’s the only one who actually seems to have the ability to shine at all in this franchise, so I expect big things from him once the caskets are finally snapped shut here. Even the addition of an acting prodigy like Dakota Fanning didn’t raise the bar even an inch (although to be fair, she gets approximately four minutes of screen time in this chapter; she’ll be much more featured in the ones to come). The reality of the situation is hidden just beneath the surface during a particular scene where Bella and Edward are in class together and everyone is watching Romeo and Juliet. This is high school melodrama, this is uber-heightened puppy love built up beyond all possible boundaries and while that works for classic stories like Romeo and Juliet, New Moon and it’s associated books fail completely to even dip their sparkly-toed feet into such hallowed waters.

The End of the Page Recommendation: Obviously Twilight fanatics don’t need to read a review to figure out whether or not to see this, but for the rest of the reading audience, if you haven’t read the books, this is not going to bring you anything but confusion as to why it’s making such ridiculous money.

9: A Beautiful Picture Can Still Tell Less Than a Thousand Words

I know you’re the new guy and all, but seriously, do you have any idea what’s going on in this story?

Rating: 6 out of 10

Animation for many years in this country has been relegated to the realm of children’s movies and that fact has happily and successfully been pushed forward by Disney, Dreamworks and the reigning king of cartoons, Pixar. I have nothing against any of these companies in terms of the style of animated movies they create; many of them are personal favorites of mine (I’m looking at you, Finding Nemo), but it’s very rare to find an animated film created solely for the more mature audience. Japan has been doing this for decades with their Anime industry (although they admittedly push this fact beyond my point by stretching into the actual adult or porn industry). These movies tell more dramatic stories, harbor a darker tone and don’t always end up filled with shiny, happy people (or fish, aliens, ogres, whatever the case may be). There are stories that can be told in truly amazing fashion through the art of animation and I yearn for the time when the American market opens itself up to those opportunities. Loading all that responsibility onto the shoulders of one film is surely too much, but I believe each one that lands on the streets of Hollywood helps pave the way for the next one, so let’s take a look at the next brick in that road.

9 is a post-apocalyptic tale about man versus machine. Artificial intelligence has once again turned against its creator and gone rogue, forcing an all out war between humans and machines, except this time humans got the short end of the stick. The only chance the human race has left rests in the cloth-made hands of nine small dolls, created by an inventor with skills in dark magics and then infused with pieces of his own soul. Each one has its own personality and the whole group must find a way to work together to rid this dead world of the mechanical scourge.

Directed and written by Shane Acker, 9 is a beautiful example of the power of animation. Sprawling landscapes mixed with devastating futuristic imagery makes for an impressive visual delight. Unfortunately, to live up to the dramatic power of the animation, it needed to be backed up by the strength and coherence of the story and that is where Shane fell quite short. Post-apocalyptic stories are nothing new, stretching from Mad Max to Wall-E (yes, it actually qualifies), but 9 brought a new twist to the “world left behind” because it was now seen and acted upon only through the eyes of small living puppets. The initial idea showed great promise, but the execution failed to live up to it.

Right from the beginning, the main character, who is named 9 for the number on his back, runs an illogically rapid pace from waking up in a completely new world to full understanding of his surroundings and making wild decisions affecting the entire group he finds himself with. He stumbles around nearly blind to the consequences of his actions, but he does it earnestly and with conviction so we are supposed to root for him. Unfortunately, you just end up feeling like he is chaos in a small cloth sack. Other characters, such as 1 (the power hungry leader) and 8 (the oafish brute), are also somewhat hard to get behind, even when they try to mean well. On the up side, 3 and 4 (twin catalogers) and 7 (the female rogue adventurer) are quite interesting and come along just at the right time to pick the movie up from the doldrums. As for the remaining puppets, 2 (the curious inventor), 5 (the one-eyed underling) and 6 (the partially crazy artist), they were all done well, but not given enough to do in order to fully draw in the audience.

One obvious way to notice the particular failings in this film is how long it feels despite being so incredibly short (it only clocks in at 72 minutes). Some of that feeling comes from the twisting, jumping and seemingly unconnected leaps of faith the logic makes throughout the film. If the road of understanding breaks underneath the feet of the viewer, they have to spend all the more time finding their way across.

The End of the Page recommendation: If you’re a fan of animation, try to see this in the theater, since it really does deserve to be viewed in the best fashion, but for those not in tune with the world of more adult-themed animated films, I’m sure there is a new episode of CSI: Anytown USA on somewhere.

Taking Woodstock: Missing the Music and the Moment

“Didn’t you kill tons of Nazi’s and go crazy in your last film?”

“Yep, I’ve got what film people refer to as “range”.”

Rating: 4 out of 10

Anytime you step into the world of “based on true events” or choosing to fictionalize a story set inside a real life moment in time, you had better be ready to defend your choices. Real life moments mean real people lived them, maybe not the exact ones being portrayed on screen, but close facsimiles and they love nothing more than relating how many details you got wrong when trying to recreate the feelings and nostalgia from way back when. A great number of movies that fall into this category are saved by the sheer amount of years between now and then, thereby eliminating their detractors, but choosing anything that took place from the 1920s onward and you will likely find someone spinning a tale in direct opposition to your own. And how can you dismiss it? They were there! The danger gets exponentially bigger when you choose something the size of Woodstock, where over one-and-a-half million people descended on this small town to bear witness to the musical representation of peace, love and the new generation in America. It was something parents screamed and railed to keep their kids from going to, yet those kids grew up to tell and retell their own children about why they went and the magic they experienced at one of the greatest music festivals of all time. Many movies have tried to capture the emotional content of Woodstock and no one seemed primed to do it better than the master of mood and emotion, Ang Lee.

Taking Woodstock tells a small story inside of an extremely large moment. Elliot Tiber is the dutiful son, living in the big city, but sending all his money home to his parents and their dilapidated motel. Year after year he returns in the summer to help bring in the meager amount of tourist business, but this particular summer, while on the verge of bankruptcy, Elliot hears of a music festival in desperate need of a location to land. On the run from town after town of narrow minded and fearful locals, the hippie festival known as Woodstock needed a new home and Elliot saw a flower-powered flashlight dancing at the end of his lifelong tunnel.

Ang Lee said in an interview he wanted to tell this story because he was tired and drained by the emotionally heavy subjects he tackled in his recent films, like Brokeback Mountain and Lust, Caution. Lee wanted something happy, full of hope and felt the need to remind us how over a million people came together in overwhelmingly terrible conditions and lived together for three days without a single instance of violence reported. There was an aura over the crowd, a group connection which connected and combined the hearts and minds of those in attendance. Yet he made very clear that this was not a documentary about the music, since those have been done before. This was solely about the people and the effect the concert had on them.

With that intention in mind Lee pulled together a wide swatch of personal storylines, beginning with Tiber, but radiating outwards to include his parents, the locals, old semi-acquaintances from his youth, a politically radical theatre troupe living in his barn, and just to top it all off, a cross dressing ex-marine-cum-personal security officer. Many, but not all, of these were intensely interesting characters and situations, but Lee’s failure was trying to include all in one film. Any of these alone could have been enough to give breadth and emotional focus to Woodstock and the effect it had on that one person, but all together it dragged the film down and created a tangled web of people with no real conclusion or specific journey.

[Minor SPOILER below. And even though it sounds major, it plays out as minor]

In one example where Lee made things overcomplicated is with the main character, Elliot Tiber, where he not only had to deal with his parents odd personalities, their failing motel and the overwhelming stress brought on by trying to host Woodstock, it turns out he was also trying to hide his homosexuality. Something as large as this should have been explored more and brought to the forefront of who Tiber was, but it ended up just another unfinished element in an increasingly congested landscape of characters.

[SPOILER over. Continue reading unafraid.]

With the issues inherent in the script, I found it hard for the actors to really reach their full potential inside these roles. Demetri Martin, someone I think is single-handedly pushing the forefront of comedy, gave a decent performance, resting comfortably in his inherent awkwardness, but he didn’t grow with the character and failed to end the movie a believably stronger person than when he began. Emile Hirsch, one of the strongest actors in his age range, also portrayed a nice mixture of pain and longing from the vantage point of someone only recently returning from the Vietnam war. Unfortunately he also suffered from never truly being explored and remained only a tertiary character on the sidelines of the story. The one person able to actually break through the haze of character cross-pollination was Liev Schreiber, who actually got one of the most odd and at first seemingly insignificant characters in the film, Vilma, the cross dressing ex-marine. Schreiber became the voice of reason, the old wise man/woman inside this drug-induced wonderland of freaks and flower children. He also seemed to pull through because he was the only person who had a real sense of self and a solid belief in what they wanted out of life. Understandably you can’t have the main character like that because there would be no drama, no conflict, no confusion, but it was a welcome relief to have at least one person on a clear path through the wilderness of the Sixties.

The last thing I want to mention is Elliot’s parents: An old world couple which originally played nicely against his modern-sixties lifestyle in the big city and the commonplace fear of the oncoming hippie generation. While the father gets a small arc and gains some much needed perspective on the world, the mother not only fails to learn any type of lesson throughout the film, but remains an irredeemably negative influence on Elliot. Both actors, Henry Goodman (dad) and Imelda Staunton (mom), play their parts quite well, but the failure to allow them to amount to anything holds back any true appreciation.

The End of the Page recommendation: I still remain a fan of Ang Lee and feel he is a master at creating mood and environment, but here he proves that those elements become moot without a compelling and satisfying story to pull it all together. For those looking for a feel-good movie about the effects of a generation of music, try Almost Famous or Velvet Goldmine.

Paper Heart: A Fake Story About Real Love

Did you just use the words “serve and obey”? Seriously?

Rating: 8 out of 10

Love. When we don’t have it, we want it. When we have it, we struggle to hold on to it. When we lose it, we blame it. Yet we always come back around to the beginning again and feel the need to bring it into our daily life. For some people it is a lifelong quest to find the kind of love only talked about in movies and books, while for others they are content with a much more temporary version of the emotion. Then there are those few and far between who for one reason or another can’t seem to find the connection to that world-driving feeling. This is the story of one such girl.

Paper Heart is a quasi-documentary starring Charlene Yi as a young girl who questions whether or not she believes in love. She drives across the country from Los Angeles to New York with a small film crew conducting interviews with a wide cross section of the American populace. Along the way she meets fellow actor, Michael Cera, and she finds her search for the meaning of love becomes increasingly internal instead of external. The arc of the documentary contours to the arc of their relationship and we witness her take that journey first hand.

[Minor spoiler ahead. Be warned]

There are two main things this movie has going for it. Firstly, when talking about the film, Charlene, who was also the co-writer and producer, and director Nick Jasenovec make no illusions about the fact they scripted the relationship storyline with Michael Cera. You begin to feel throughout the movie that things were just too perfect to all happen on film and it makes you doubt the authenticity about what you’re seeing. Yet, with the filmmakers completely and freely admitting those portions were created specifically as a throughline and emotional pathway for the film, you can relax and fully appreciate how well it was crafted. Secondly, Charlene herself is a joy to watch. It is refreshing and relieving to see her as herself, or a close facsimile thereof, instead of a ninety-minute movie about the diminutive stoner girl from Knocked Up. In Paper Heart, Charlene is adorable, honest, intriguing and at times nearly heartbreaking. She walks a very thin line between lovable and painfully awkward, but on this occasion she keeps her balance with rare precision.

Kudos also must be given the director Nick Jasenovec who also helped to craft the story and bring in the Charlene on-camera idea. If this were to have been crafted solely as a documentary about love it would have felt incredibly slow and long-winded. Being able to follow Charlene on her personal and poignant journey gave the audience a respite from the real-life interviews and personal stories from those outgoing and kinetic Americans along the road. Also, even though the director in the film following Charlene is named Nick, he is not actually the director. The softly toned performance of Nick was actually given by Jake M. Johnson and the crux he found himself in between creating a true and meaningful documentary and doing unnecessary damage to the growing relationship between Charlene and Michael felt incredibly honest and true.

Michael Cera himself does deserve mention as well. He has a very unique and particular charm to him and this role did nothing to detract from that. He is very easily pigeonholed into one small character type, yet I find nothing wrong with continuing to give us more when he does it so well. It was interesting to see him here acting as himself, but my personal favorite of his so far is still Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist (my deepest apologies to the legions of Arrested Development fans out there).

The half-documentary genre is a hard one to get right. The balance of the real world and the fictional one needs to be nearly invisible, but not to the point where the audience is feeling duped or lied to. Paper Heart moves along the line with rare confidence, especially for a creative team with such little previous experience. I was completely unsurprised to hear Nick and Charlene are working together again and developing a project for the near future. A narrative voice emerged in this film and I look forward to hearing what oddly funny and touching words will flow from it next.

Recommendation: If you find Charlene adorable, the film will touch you. If you find her too awkward to enjoy, the movie will most likely miss its mark. Also, at the screening I went to we made bets on the number of “awwww” moments from the audience. I bet seven (I missed by one, we got six.).

The Taking of Pelham 123: Slides Off The Rails

Go ahead, mention “Battlefield Earth” one more time. I dare you!

Rating: 3 out of 10

Remake, rehash, reboot; call it what you want, it all boils down to the same thing, this story has been seen before. Now that doesn’t imply automatic boredom or even a certain level of quality, all it means right off the bat is the audience will be coming in with a particular expectation set by the previous version of the story. How big the expectation is will depend on how popular the original film was and how recently it was in the theaters. Most second chances at the silver screen come more than ten years after the original version, but that gap seems to be closing in the last decade. Maybe it’s a statement about our national attention deficit disorder or it could be a comment on there being a complete lack of new and original ideas.

It also could resonate in our current economic climate as a safer bet in the eyes of the studio. The film has a built in audience, which at least a portion of them will certainly be curious enough to come out and see it in an updated fashion. But, beyond the financial aspect, someone in the studio, whether it be the director or the writer or whomever, must think they have something new to add, some new take on the tale to make it worth all the time and energy to return it to the screen. On occasion they do follow through and allow us to see some entirely new dimension we previously looked right past, but in a number of examples the new version just proves to be flashier CGI and more contemporary actors, nothing at all to do with the story. In the end, the eternal question, looking past the bank accounts, is “Was it worth it?”

In today’s example, I would say not.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is an action/thriller about a random New York City subway controller who gets unwillingly pulled into becoming a hostage negotiator when a ransom plan for a carload of subway passengers is hijacked underground. It’s a psychological tug-of-war between a devious and determined kidnapper and a seemingly moral citizen who can’t help but try and do the right thing. Each step along the way leads to bigger consequences as lives are lost and the money in play skyrockets until the whole world is tuning in to see how it will all end.

The original version of this was released in 1974 starring Walter Matthau as the unassuming hero and Hector Elizondo as one of the gang of hijackers. There was also a TV movie version in 1998 that tossed in Edward James Olmos as the good guy and Vincent D’Onofrio and Donnie Wahlberg as members of the gang. This new millennium version posts Denzel Washington in the hero role and counterparts him with John Travolta as the leader of the gang. The early versions were much more based around tension and intrigue, while this one went after it with more action, fast editing and hyper-kinetic camera tricks to infuse energy into the story. One of the other main differences was the hijackers were originally only named by color (possibly the inspiration for the same decision in Reservoir Dogs), but this version skipped out on that plot point altogether.  Tony Scott, the director of this installment, definitely retained his current style of loud noises, quick cutting and washed out coloring to instill a raw, edgy reality to the universe, but it didn’t feel like it added anything new to the story. I appreciated his visual stylings much more in Man on Fire, with Domino a close second.

As for the performances, Denzel Washington rarely disappoints. He is near the top of any list when thinking about an ordinary character put into extraordinary circumstances. He really embodies the everyday man having to rise up and take on situations way beyond his normal expectations. Even when playing the bad guy, as in John Q., he still relies on his ability to connect with the blue-collar movie watcher and portray that reality on screen. Yet, with all that said, being the best part of this film doesn’t give him a huge boost. On the other side of the punch card is John Travolta, who turns in a slightly less than believable performance as the criminal mastermind. Some of his issues can’t be discussed without giving away plot twists, but let’s just say he doesn’t fit the bill once the story is unraveled. Also, I’d have to go back to the other versions to see if this was present, but Travolta made an unusual amount of references to the attractiveness of Washington, both in person and over the phone. At a certain point in the film I wondered if Travolta would switch the ransom demand from large amounts of cash to a single date with Washington. I can easily and happily give Travolta his due credit when his performances merit it, as in Michael, Pulp Fiction and Face/Off, but this time out he pales in comparison to his co-star and borders on the ridiculous.

Recommendation: Not a great outing for Scott, Washington or Travolta. Avoidable on most accounts. Maybe catch it on HBO someday if you don’t feel like getting off the couch and you’ve already drained your TiVo.

Adventureland: Carnies in Love

Wait, you’re not actually a vampire, right?

Rating: 9 out of 10

When an ad campaign continually blasts, “Brought to you from the director of Superbad!” you might find yourself wondering exactly how many crass terms for random pieces of anatomy can be filled into ninety minutes or what quota will be reached for on-screen vomiting. In this particular case, surprisingly only one of those is really taken into account (on the down side, it’s the on-screen vomiting). Following up a mega-comedy hit like Superbad can be a tough ride, but director Greg Mottola came back with something subtle, touching and heartwarming, while still holding onto some of that raw and youthful comic edge. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon of today’s raunchy comedy tidal wave, Mottola reaches back into the archives and gives us something much more in tune with John Hughes and the date movies of the 1980s.

Adventureland is the story of James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) who instead of spending the summer in Europe with his wealthy friends as planned, ends up working at the local amusement park to try and save enough money for grad school in New York next year. Beyond his family’s money struggle, James also is dealing with his own private struggle in still being a virgin after college. His die-hard romantic notions which kept him fairly untouched before are taken to task once he meets fellow carnie, Em Lewin (Kristen Stewart). Damaged and dark, she becomes the willing target for his romantic quest, but along the way he ends up breaking much more than he fixes and learns that being the nice guy all the time isn’t all that easy.

There is a lot of tone and pacing carried over from Superbad, but while that movie saved the depth and meaning until deep into the third act, Adventureland plays out with much more intelligence and heart right off the bat. It might be easy to write off the main character of James as a carbon copy of Evan (played brilliantly by Michael Cera), but the characters really only share their social awkwardness and lack of success with women. James goes deeper into a real tumultuous place of pain and love and the mysterious moment when those two emotions meet. Seeing that on the page, Eisenberg was a perfect choice to play the role. While Cera and Eisenberg could make a great buddy comedy about two guys who struggle at trying to be cool, Eisenberg displayed a depth in Adventureland which Cera might have a hard time reaching at this point in his career. Eisenberg’s portrayal of James never comes off as a caricature or comedic statement on youthful longing; instead it is filled with minuscule moments of honesty which bring the audience closer to him. This movie marks another great performance in his already critically lauded career, including Roger Dodger and The Squid and the Whale.

Now, in terms of following pace with career performances, Kristen Stewart made a distinct about face here. Coming off of a terribly directed and painfully weak performance in the vampiric soap opera, Twilight, Kristen reminds viewers exactly why she still gets work. During numerous scenes in the movie she displays a vulnerability and fragile nature with barely a single movement in her eyes. Her painful and troubled stare through the windshield of her car is enough to make any caring person want to fix anything and everything wrong in her life. That special spark is exactly what allowed her to even steal scenes away from Emile Hirsch in Into the Wild, who honestly had the performance of his career. Personally, I am looking forward and hoping for this same raw intensity in her upcoming biopic of Joan Jett, where Stewart takes on the punk rock queen herself.

Beyond these two stellar performances, I need to give credit one more time to Greg Mottola for everything he did in creating slice of life in the mid-eighties and balancing in the perfect amount of generational references, from the constant blaring of “Rock Me Amadeus” out of the park speakers to the wardrobe selections filled with that classic mixture of muted over-washed t-shirts and neon high-waisted jam pants. How any of us grew up in through those years without being scarred as fashion misfits for life is a miracle in itself.

Recommendation: While not a shocking laugh riot like Superbad, the warmth and meaning of this film should guarantee you come out with a smile, both on the outside and inside.

I Love You, Man: The New King of Bro-mance Comedies

Just describing this picture sounds like the beginning to an old-timey joke: “Two straight guys are riding on a Vespa…”

Rating: 9 out of 10

For years we’ve had movies showing female best friends whose relationships are rich, fulfilling and often surprisingly lacking in naked pillow fights, but nonetheless still satisfying. In the past few years though a trend has emerged, the “bro-mance” flick, a platonic romance genre where the two main characters are guys just trying to figure out how to express themselves inside the civil war-era social norms of daily society. Women have forever been not only allowed, but encouraged to wear their emotions on their sleeves, but men have been told since birth to “suck it up” or “act like a man”, which is somewhere defined as “stoic, rigid and bearing the emotional capacity of a petrified tree”.  Now those walls are starting to break down and Hollywood is riding that wave of acceptance. Pineapple Express is another example of these male-bonding, Hallmark-shifting scenarios, but here on the “Vespa of manliness” this film powers through to say what it needs to say in a meaningful way while being distractingly funny.

I Love You, Man is the story of Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) who is pleasantly happy with his life for good reason. He has a great job as a real estate agent, on the verge of working his first big celebrity house sale for Lou Ferrigno and he’s hoping to parlay that money into an even bigger commercial land deal, which would secure not only his future, but that of his brand new, nearly perfect fiance, Zooey (Rashida Jones). With wedding plans being put together, a small fissure in his perfect plateau begins to open when it is pointed out to him, by his own family, that he has no real male friends and therefore no one to be his Best Man. Peter is forced to jump into the incredibly awkward male “friend dating” scene and along the way he stumbles across Sydney Fife (Jason Segel), a man who is still living the man-child life Peter never got to experience. Social regression ensues as Peter finds out what it means to have a male best friend, but it comes with the downside of finding himself stuck between being a child with Sydney and being an adult with Zooey.

Balancing the tone of a film like this is a tricky situation. It has to be spitfire funny on a moment-by-moment basis, yet still follow the beat structure of a typical romantic comedy, completely ignoring the fact that your two main characters are both men. Once you block out that fact from your mind, I Love You, Man is a wholly traditional fit in the romantic comedy field and works brilliantly. John Hamburg directed this with a pure-hearted sensibility and really let the scenes develop naturally. He stayed far away from preset notions of what should happen to make the movie funnier and just let the script and the actors play with the reality of what would happen in situations like this. Case and point, if you have a person in his mid-30′s who owns a decked out garage which he calls “The Man Cave”, that person would without a doubt have a jack-off station out in clear view. No doubt about it. Sometimes people forget that comedy relies just as much on honesty in storytelling as drama, possibly even more. As the classic saying goes, “It’s funny ’cause it’s true.”

Yet, no matter how honest the script may be written, the performers have to deliver in a big way and Paul Rudd and Jason Segel did not disappoint. Right now you can’t find another actor like Paul Rudd. He is the king of the awkward everyman role and plays it with such tenacity and confidence that you have a hard time believing he isn’t exactly like that in real life. He also refuses to pull back from scenes other actors might approach in a more over-the-top comedy fashion. Rudd brings heart and class to even the most immature moments and that’s where his key to the kingdom lies. Accompanying Rudd on this yearning journey for friendship is Jason Segel, who plays the more outlandish and uncontrollable foil for Rudd’s straight arrow. Segel dives into his character unabashedly and manages to hold himself together even in the face of utter ridiculousness and embarrassment. He is quickly challenging the throne of Seth Rogen as the lovable schlub, which is made even more amusing by the fact both actors started together under the tutelage of R-rated comedy guru, Judd Apatow, back on the short lived TV show, Freaks and Geeks. Now more than ever, I’m convinced something was in the water back there on the craft service table that made everyone from that show incredibly talented and funny. (Wonder if they bottled any of it? Hmmm…)

Dancing in the wings of this two-man show is a whole slew of great actors. Jon Favreau and Jamie Pressly play a married couple that we all know too well, the ones who love to fight, love to make up and absolutely love each other in a fashion no one else understands. Rashida Jones, as Zooey, continues her stride towards epitomizing the perfect girlfriend, which she started when she appeared on The Office as Jim’s girlfriend, Karen. She’s witty, adorable and really shines in the deadpan comedy styles she’s chosen recently. I’m hoping it all continues well for her as she co-stars with Amy Poehler in the upcoming show, Parks and Recreation (made by the same producers of The Office). As many people have already said in other online reviews, the only downside you can scratch and claw to find is the painfully tiny amount of Andy Samberg, who plays Rudd’s gay younger brother, who is in turn much more masculine. Samberg is leading the new wave of young, out-of-the-box comedians and the more of him you include in your projects, the more successful you are bound to be.  I also appreciated J.K. Simmons who seemingly walked right off the set of Juno, where he played her dad, and onto this one, where he plays the dad once again. I guess if you do something well, keep on truckin’.

Recommendation: The audience I saw this with was a packed house and I missed a good handful of lines of dialogue because people, including myself, were laughing too loud and too long. The combo of Rudd and Segel is just too good to miss. Even though the movie might seem immature at times, there is heart and honesty in there that I think many people, male and female, will relate to.