Oscar Night

A number of you have commented to me that you miss me publishing my film reviews. Well, there are ten films up for Best Picture at the Oscars and I’ve seen nine of them so you’re about to get a whole slew of film reviews plus my two cents about the new Academy rules.

Sunday night is the 83rd annual Academy Awards. I have never in my life missed them, though I have fallen considerably short of my goal of actually being there. This will be the second year that there will be ten nominees in the Best Picture category. They changed the rules last year to make Best Picture the one category that they would expand from 5 nominees to 10 nominees as they thought this would make the list more representative of the tastes of the general public. The filmmakers opposed the change, and I’m with the filmmakers. After all, this is supposed to be the creme de la creme, as Miss Jean Brodie would have said. If you’re going to expand the list to 10, why not 20, why not 100, why not include every film that anyone anywhere liked?

Surprisingly, the critics liked the change. And the Academy likes the change hoping it will boost their ratings. It’s the reason why big hits like Avatar, District 9, and Up made the list last year when they probably wouldn’t have if the field was only five. But by opening it up to ten, the thing that makes the Oscars unique got lost. The Oscars are the only film awards that are judged by professionals who actually make films for a living. It’s not supposed to be a popularity contest, it’s supposed to be a peer review. There’s really no trick to coming up with a list of the most popular films - just look at the box office charts. But this is supposed to be about what those who make films for a living think are the best. If you’re trying to include popular taste, then why would the Oscars be any different from the People’s Choice Awards or the BlockBuster Entertainment awards, all of which are voted by the movie-going public? The simple answer is - it doesn’t make them different. A little bit of Oscar’s uniqueness has been lost.

But there is one good thing about having ten nominees now. It certainly helps narrow the list of all the films to see before Oscar night. I’m no longer even trying to see all the nominees in the six major categories of Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay Adapted & Original. Since most of these titles now fall within the ten, I can now make my job easier by watching just the ten. Besides which, much to my surprise, it was mentioned on Turner Classic Movies a few nights back that ten nominees used to be the standard up until they started televising the awards in the 1950s. So the argument can be made that the Academy is just reinstating its original policy. This is much the same as the switch from Monday nights back to Sunday nights. The Academy Awards had always been on Sunday nights until the 1950s when theater owners made them switch to the much slower Monday night so that the broadcast wouldn’t hurt the box office. A few years ago, they decided that objection was no longer relevant and put the ceremony back on Sunday night which, at least on the West Coast, makes it a lot easier for working people to see them. When I was in Los Angeles, I always had to leave work early that Monday so that I could see the entire program live.

So there are ten nominees and I have now seen them all except for the one title, "The Kids Are All Right," which has long since left theaters but hasn’t been on DVD long enough to see it. It’s on Netflix now but I can’t get it before Sunday anymore. But I have seen all the others, most recently finally squeezing in "Winter’s Bone" and "127 Hours."

This year the predictions are going to be easy. My money is all on "The King’s Speech." Many of the critics have all their money on "The Social Network," which is also outstanding, but Speech has swept every awards ceremony that’s out there and has been named the #1 film of 2010 by more critics than any other film. It has certainly landed on more Ten Best Lists than any other film.

Speech was this year’s Christmas Day release. The tradition is that the studios release their best films on Christmas Day. In past years, more often than not, whatever film makes Best Picture is almost always one that was released on Christmas night, the biggest movie night of the year. This year, the studios departed from the tradition and released their really big films like Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Social Network, and True Grit in the 3 days to a week prior to Christmas.

In fact, only two films were actually released on Christmas this year. One was the very middling 3D Gulliver’s Travels with Jack Black, which I was thoroughly disappointed with. The other was "The King’s Speech." Nobody except those who read the trades had even heard of it. I went to the 10 p.m. show on Christmas night and there couldn’t have been more than 20 people in the audience. Yet, I chose it because a very quick glance at MetaCritic and RottenTomatoes showed that it was by far the biggest winner of the year. Though so very few of the public had seen it, there was an astounding 88% rating from the critics, beating Black Swan, Inception, The Social Network, and even True Grit. And a grade of 99% from the few public who had already seen it. So there was no contest. Speech was my choice for Christmas this year.

I was not at all disappointed. This was such a terribly moving story, the story of a king with a severe speech impediment who is thrust into the limelight and forced to take leadership of his country at a time when the very existence of England was very much in question. Hitler was quickly conquering Europe and had declared England his next target. There was a great deal of doubt that the one-thousand year old nation would survive.

Anyone who has seen "The Miracle Worker," the story of Helen Keller, will love this film and it is the closest thing I can compare it to. Except that the stakes in The King’s Speech are so much higher, so much more dramatic. In the case of George VI, he was trying to save an entire country, an entire empire really, all while being plagued by a handicap that could have easily destroyed his ability to lead England out of the war, certainly would have destroyed any lesser man attempting such a monumental task.

So my votes all go to "The King’s Speech." I can only say that it is extremely satisfying to me to see that it is finally finding its audience and is being shown everywhere now. It still enjoys an astounding 88% rating from the critics and a whopping 8.4 out of 10 from the public.

Having said that, here are my capsule reviews of the other eight nominees I have seen:



"Black Swan"
This completely devastating portrait of the cutthroat world of ballet and the descent of one ballet star into insanity is certainly not for everyone’s taste but there do seem to be a whole lot more critics and a whole lot more public that love it than hate it. It is interesting that everyone does seem to either love it or hate it. Natalie Portman, who was not exactly overweight to begin with, lost an astonishing 25 pounds to do this role and she does look frighteningly like a stick in it. I do think she has a real shot at the Best Actress Oscar.

"The Fighter"
True story of Boston boxer Mickey Ward and his amazing comeback to win the welterweight championship in the 1980s with the help of his older brother Dicky with whom he has a tumultuous love/hate relationship, to put it charitably. This was the story of Rocky Balboa, only better. Were it not for the fact that Rocky was made ten years before Mickey Ward’s comeback, I would have sworn that Stallone based the Rocky character on Ward. And I loved the Rocky films, but this was a far more penetrating portrait of the world of boxing with far more realistic and dimensional characters than Rocky ever was. Like Natalie Portman, Christian Bale lost a frightening amount of weight in order to play the drug-addled older brother who coaches Mickey all the way to the championship. He’s definitely my #2 choice for Best Supporting Actor but I do believe that Geoffrey Rush’s amazing performance as George VI’s highly unorthodox speech therapist will take the prize.

"Inception"
This incredibly complex story about dreams within dreams within dreams (I think I counted a total of seven different layers in the film as it was unfolding, and truly a challenge keeping it all straight) has been enormously popular with the public and critics alike. This film about the ultimate nightmare scenario for industrial and political espionage requires the viewer’s most intense attention in order to comprehend and appreciate. Unfortunately, I was very fatigued when I saw it and closed my eyes for a few seconds at the very beginning. The film opens with DiCaprio washing up on a beach in China and being hauled off by Chinese agents to a very crude interrogation facility to find out if he’s a spy. I closed my eyes for a few seconds during the interrogation scene. When I opened them, it was still the same room, same characters, same dialogue. Only now, the room was in pristine condition and the agents and DiCaprio were all wearing business suits. I have no idea what transpired during that brief interval and, except for following the most superficial elements of the story, I was never able to catch up. This is one I must see again, even though I’m pretty sure I at least figured the secret of the spinning top. (Those of you who have seen it know exactly what I’m talking about.)

"127 Hours"
They expanded the Best Pic category to ten nominees to include more pictures like True Grit. Instead, this little independent art film that probably would never have gone anywhere otherwise, made the list. I have to hand it to director Danny Boyle for being able to make this film work at all. Its subject matter is gruesome in the extreme and the entire story takes place within the confines of two square feet. This is the true story of hiker Aron Ralston who gets trapped behind a boulder in a remote Utah canyon and must cut off his arm as the only way to save his life. Reportedly, people have passed out watching this film, and even gone running screaming from the theater. Having seen it, I must now assume that this is more studio publicity than truth. Though Boyle certainly milks the story for all its worth from the perspective of showing just this single character with his arm pinned behind a boulder for nearly two hours, I was somewhat suprised that, given the extraordinary dramatic potential here (after all, what is more dramatic than watching someone slowly waste away from severe fatigue and dehydration, all while knowing the gruesome thing that’s coming – there’s been no secret about what happens, everyone going to to the film knows it’s about this hiker cutting his arm off), I was surprised at how incredibly low-key it was. Again, you have two square feet to tell your story in. And except for a few flashbacks where James Franco, as the hiker, reflects on his life, the whole story does more or less unfold in this very confined space. Anyone who’s ever done black-box theater knows how challenging it is to sustain an audience’s interest in a confined space with just one or two characters and almost no set pieces. In film, it’s much more difficult to sustain interest than in theater, but Boyle does manage to sustain interest. Despite all the warnings about how difficult this is to watch, I found it quite the opposite. Just to relieve everyone’s anxiety, I’ll clarify that the amputation scene takes place almost entirely off screen, but of course just imagining what he’s doing to himself is enough to make one queasy.

Still, incredibly enough, Boyle’s direction is remarkably lacking in drama. And the amputation scene, for all its build-up, only lasts about 40 seconds, again almost entirely off camera. Still it is a tale that lasts 127 hours, and Boyle makes us feel what Ralston is going through during all 127. He is very resourceful, especially considering he has only one free hand and only the items in his pack to work with, but nonetheless cleverly invents one strategy after another to try to extract himself. After 127 hours, it becomes obvious that he either must do what he must do or he will surely die and soon. Roger Ebert said it best – he does the unthinkable, something none of the rest of us could. Oh yeah? Ebert concludes - of course we could do it. For when it’s a question of doing something horrible or dying, it’s amazing what most of us can bring ourselves to do.

My only criticism is that, if this weren’t a true story, I wouldn’t have believed it. He damn well should have died from shock during the amputation. If not that, the loss of blood would surely have killed him as it’s damn near impossible to effectively apply a tourniquet with just one free hand. Yet, he doesn’t die of shock, he doesn’t bleed to death, and even manages to scale a 65 foot cliff and walk eight miles before he is rescued. It’s a true story, and I still don’t believe it.

"The Social Network"
This is the slam dunk favorite to sweep the awards Sunday night if The King’s Speech doesn’t. This saga of a social misfit who, as a Harvard undergrad, invents the computer network that will become Facebook is entertaining in the extreme and just about the most compelling portrait of corporate intrigue and boardroom backstabbing that has ever been put on film, right up there with classics like "Wall Street" and "Executive Suite." What is particularly effective about this film is Jesse Eisenberg’s laser-beam portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, a social misfit if ever there was one but Eisenberg makes you actually like and admire the guy. Even when he’s betraying his best friends, he makes you understand why and you come away agreeing it was the right move. The central premise that it all started because a young lady dumped him (the precursor to Facebook was his sophomoric attempt to win back her affections; it didn’t work), was a bit of a stretch dramatically. Even if it was true, it didn’t seem credible. It takes a great deal of people skills and maturity to build a major organization. So how does someone this socially inept and adolescent succeed in building the world’s greatest social network? Like 127 Hours, it’s a true story and like 127 Hours, I didn’t believe it. Unlike 127 Hours, it was a huge amount of fun.

"Toy Story 3"
If you’ve seen TS1 and TS2, you know what you’re getting. Clever story, lots of fun, tons of witty dialogue. All three films hugely popular. There’s only one thing to say beyond all that. This is one of the "popular" titles that would likely not have made the list if it hadn’t been expanded to ten.


"True Grit"
This latest Coen Brothers epic is claimed to be not a remake of the original 1969 John Wayne classic (which earned Wayne his one and only Oscar), but a totally original production based on the novel and supposedly much more faithful to the novel. So it came as quite a surprise to me when the film unfolded almost scene for scene and shot for shot just like the original. For instance, I thought for sure that the spanking scene in the original had been plugged in specifically for John Wayne as it was almost obligatory that Wayne spank his leading lady in most of his films, especially his comedies. As Frank Capra wrote in his autobiography, it was a formula that Wayne’s fans ate up. Capra was not one for formula. He was set to direct a John Wayne film in the mid-60s but backed out when the producer insisted on keeping these formulaic conventions.

So I was really quite surprised that they kept the scene where the Texas Ranger (Matt Damon) spanks the young Mattie (Hailee Steinfeld), and kept it almost shot for shot. Gee, I guess they didn’t throw it in for John Wayne after all, it must have been in the novel. And that’s the way it went scene after scene, the only divergence from the original being the epilogue. Since the new film is so huge, they’ve been playing the original a lot on AMC so there’s been plenty of opportunity for comparison.

So I don’t know what the deal is. If this was a faithful rendition of the novel, then so was the original. But that doesn’t diminish anything. The Coens have done their usual masterful job of updating the story and creating a western that is the equal of any other great western, and there have been a lot of great westerns. The young Steinfeld was magnificent and has a real shot at Best Supporting Actress. Jeff Bridges gave his usual superb performance recreating the John Wayne role as Rooster Cogburn, the retired marshall with "true grit." But Bridges has already won his Oscar so I still say that Colin Firth as George VI is going to beat him out on Sunday night.


"Winter’s Bone"
Another little tiny independent art film that was quite all right but hardly Best Picture material. It’s another one that I don’t think would have made the list if it was only five. This very simple story of an impoverished teenager living in the Ozarks who must find a way to support her young siblings and disabled mother after the drug-addled dad goes on the lam is very lovingly told and is laden in such exquisite detail that it almost qualifies as a National Geographic special about the culture of mountain poverty. Like 127 Hours, it is a handful of characters in a limited space and, like 127 Hours, the drama is played out in such a stiflingly understated fashion that it almost negates itself. And there really should have been a lot of drama here. The story opens with the sheriff informing 17 year old Ree that her drug dealing dad, under arrest and awaiting trial, has put their house up for bail, and then fled. She has just a few days to either find her dad or produce his corpse or her family will be evicted and homeless.

So starts an oddyssey in which she goes from neighbor to neigbhor trying in vain to find out where he’s hiding from the law; she must convince him for the sake of the children to come back for his trial, believing the charges will be dropped since they have no proof. She gets one door slammed in her face after another. Her own uncle is hostile when she inquires about the drug lab and her dad’s whereabouts. She is warned to stop asking questions and when she persists is kidnapped and beaten to shut her up.

Yes, lots of drama here. So why does director Debra Granik take such a low-key approach to the story as to practically put us all to sleep? Besides which there’s a whole lot of this story that just doesn’t wash. In such a close-knit community where everyone knows everyone, why would the sheriff have allowed a drug addict to put up his house for bond when children’s welfare was at stake? And if this whole mountain community is in the crystal meth business, a highly profitable enterprise, why are they so dirt poor? For that matter, if the dad is such a successful meth maker, why does he need to put the house up in the first place? And if the secret of the meth operation is so valuable, you’d think these mountain families would be a little more clever than to try to keep this 17 year old from finding out by terrorizing her, especially when they know she’s just trying to protect her family? No, there’s a whole lot of this story that just doesn’t wash. How it got nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay is beyond me.

Nonetheless, Jennifer Lawrence as the 17 year old Ree does a wonderful job and one of the great strengths of the film is not only the wonderful acting but the fact that most of the roles were played by non-actors who actually live in the Ozarks. Jennifer Lawrence got a well deserved Best Actress nomination but I don’t see her beating out Natalie Portman.


So that’s it. Truth will be told Sunday night. If there’s one thing that’s wonderful about the Oscars is that there are always surprises. It’s been a month since I’ve posted anything. I have missed writing this blog, something I need for stimulating my other writing. I will try to do it more regularly from now on. And keep those reviews coming.