The World According to Cameron

Let me get a few things off my chest before I start talking about "Avatar". First of all, it's practically the only film I didn't get in the mail this year and of course it's like almost three hours long. Fine. I suppose I should see it on a big screen anyway. Next James Cameron has a rep as a megalomaniac and a bit of a tool. Okay, I don't know the man so I don't judge. He probably gives to charity and is nice to puppies. And finally, no film, absolutely no film should cost 400 mill to produce. Every fiber of my being screams that this is just wrong. I will address this issue later.
Okay I saw it, all two hours and forty minutes of it and it is, quite frankly, a sight to behold. This is a world that looked like it took a decade to realize. The money is on the screen in every way except perhaps in the screenplay, which is a little lazy. It ranks with the great fantasy worlds that are created so rarely in film or literature. The Lord of the Rings (both literature and film), Dune, Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, Pern. Cameron borrows liberally and obviously from all of these, especially Dune and Pern.
The great thing about the world is not just the look (which is spectacular) but how both the humans and the indigenous people, the Navi, exist in it. There is a sense that the Navi actually live on Pandora. They move through it as if they are a part of the whole, which is the whole point. People and their environment are part of the same life. It's a philosophy held in our own world by native Americans and those parallels are played up. It is of course not held by the white Americans of European ancestry who seek to destroy their environment rather than live in harmony with it. Jesus, white men just suck. Anyway, the world and people of Pandora are fully realized and just amazing to watch. The beauty of the production design is just jaw dropping. This is not CGI for its own sake, but used as it should be used, to enhance instead of overpower the imagination. There are things that it seems no one but James Cameron can do well, like sinking the Titanic and creating Pandora.
Boats and blue people he owns.
Regular people, not so much. It's like Cameron is way more comfortable when he doesn't have to deal with real people. "Avatar" is no exception. His human characters have none of the subtlety and nuance of the Navi. The results of this shortcoming are cardboard antagonists, bad guys that are cartoony in their villainy. It ALMOST screws up the movie. The last forty minutes of this film we've seen a million times before. The first two hours we have never, ever seen. Now the last forty minutes are okay in a shoot-em up, bang-bang sort of way. Cameron knows his way around an action sequence. But it's like putting that crappy over-sweet icing on the world's most delicious cake. It spoils the effect, but not the flavor.
In the end, Pandora and the Navi, by way of James Cameron's imagination, are one of the coolest places to visit (on-screen) this year, or any other year for that matter. Too bad he has to shoot everything up in the end. White guys really suck.

Me and Orson Wells

Backstage with the Mercury Theater is a place I'd want to be, so I was excited that I got a screener of "Me and Orson Wells". Turns out that according to writer director Richard Linklater ("Dazed and Confused") hanging with Orson and company isn't such a great place to be after all. Zack Efron is the "Me" in question here, a young actor who stumbles into a small role with the hottest players in New York and their cutting edge staging of "Julius Ceasar". I mean hot both in the forties sense (upcoming and popular) and the modern sense (sizzlin'sexy). The girls are smokin' and available and of course Zack is Zack (cue screaming teen girl).
All the buzz here centers around Christian McKay, a young stage actor out of London, a breeding ground for the best in character acting. What a debut. He channels the young Wells--voice, manner, temperament. He's a wonder to watch, but I really wasn't crazy about watching him. That's because he's written as such a manipulative, megalomaniac, horses ass that his genius seems to be a gift poorly given. Was Wells really like that? Maybe, but jeeze I hope not. Not really fun to watch.
But the problem here is old Zack Efron, the real lead. He's been charming in films before but here he's flat and not in the least bit engaging. "Me and Orson Wells" is worth seeing for McKay and the staging of the "Julius Ceasar" stuff and for some of the backstage shenanigans, but overall I was disappointed.

My List/Their List

Here are the actors and films I put up for nominations for The 16th Annual SAG Awards:

Best Actor:.......................... Best Actress:
George Clooney-Up In the Air..........Meryl Streep-Julie and Julia
Colin Firth-A Single Man..............Gabby Sidibe-Precious
Ben Foster-The Messenger..............Abby Cornish-Bright Star
Jeremy Renner-The Hurt Locker.........Sandra Bullock-The Blind Side
Jeff Bridges-Crazy Heart..............Emily Blunt-The Young Victoria

Supporting Actor:.....................Supporting Actress:
Stanley Tucci-The Lovely Bones........Mo'Nique-Precious
Woody Harrelson-The Messenger.........Paula Patton-Precious
Christopher Plummer-The Last Station..Anna Kendrick-Up In The Air
Alfred Molina-An Education............Vera Farmiga-Up In the Air
Robert Duvall-The Road................Samantha Morton-The Messenger

Ensemble:
Star Trek
Up In the Air
The Hurt Locker
An Education
Precious

Here's who actually got nominated:
Actor:.........................Actress
Jeremy Renner-The Hurt Locker..Meryl Streep-Julie and Julia
George Clooney-Up In The Air...Gabby Sidibe-Precious
Colin Firth-A Single Man.......Sandra Bullock-The Blind Side
Jeff Bridges-Crazy Heart.......Carey Mulligan-An Education
Morgan Freeman-Invictus........Helen Mirren-The Last Station

Sup. Actor............................Sup.Actress
Christopher Plummer-The Last Station..Mo'Nique-Precious
Woody Harrelson-The Messenger.........Vera Farmiga-Up in the Air
Stanley Tucci-The Lovely Bones........Anna Kendrick-Up In The Air
Matt Damon-Invictus...................Diane Kruger-Iglourious Basterds
Christoph Waltz-Inglourious Basterds..Penelope Cruz-Nine

Ensemble
The Hurt Locker
Precious
An Education
Inglourious Basterds
Nine

You'll notice that most of the ones I missed were from films I couldn't stand and wouldn't vote for if my life depended on it like Inglourious Basterds (still a piece of trash) and Invictus.

The Young Victoria

The last weekend before my final vote on SAG nominations, I had pretty much finalized my list. Had it all set. The only performance I had left to see was Emily Blunt in "The Young Victoria". I hadn't seen reviews; the film wasn't out yet. Well, what are the chances, right? No way I'd have to rethink or revamp. I popped in the DVD late Saturday night and couldn't stop watching. Damn. Back to the drawing board.
For a film about a notoriously stodgy and inflexible monarch, this film is anything but stodgy. This is the YOUNG Victoria, a spitfire trapped in convention but with an iron will. The story-telling is clear and forthright, full of political and personal intrigue, and downright interesting for one of those English royal family in distress, drawing room dramas. Emily Blunt forgoes the stiff and formal Victoria often seen in her post-Albert characterizations, for a more spirited and far more entertaining Queen. No stick-up-the-royal-arse Victoria this. Her performance is terrific, even if it did force me to redo my list.
Produced by the former Dutchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, maybe we've actually found an outlet for ex-princesses, making movies about life behind the palace walls. Oh, and I'm glad to see that all those drunken foreign journalists over at the Golden Globes agreed with me. They so rarely get it right. Maybe the Oscar voters will too.

The War, At home and Abroad

1979 was the middle of the first wave of cinematic interpretations of the Vietnam War. "The Deer Hunter" was out (technically 1978)and it was the year of "Apocalypse Now" and "Coming Home". There was some heated debate about which of those two films was a more accurate and honest depiction of the War in Vietnam, or the effects thereof. The Oscar race that year was a hotbed for post-war political analysis. We have the same situation this year with three Iraq War films-two on the homefront ("The Messenger", "Brothers") and one based in country ("The Hurt Locker"). This blog entry focuses on "Brothers".
"Brothers" is a movie full of half measures. It confronts situations then backs off. Toby MacGuire is a good soldier and a loyal son to Sam Shepherd, Jake Gyllenhaal is the black sheep brother, just out of jail. Natalee Portman is MacGuire's wife (the character is underwritten to the point of blandness). The film is really divided into two stories, one belonging to Gyllenhaal and Portman, the other to Toby MacGuire upon his return from the war. The divided plot doesn't give an audience time to really get under any characters skin and the resulting big resolution doesn't seem earned. You're left wondering which character you should have been rooting for all along. MacGuire is fine in a role that requires him to go from mild-mannered to bonkers. It's an awful lot of histrionics, maybe too much. Gylenhaal steals the film with an uneasy understatement. It's the best work I've seen from him but it's really not his movie. In this genre "Coming Home" is still the gold standard. Of the three major Iraq war films from this year, "The Hurt Locker" has the most impact, followed in close order by "The Messenger". "Brothers" pulls up the rear but is certainly worth the watch. All in all, it's a banner year for the War film.

For Oscars, Go Country

Sometimes a film can be powered to greatness (or respectability) by a performance. Case in point, "Training Day". Such a film is "Crazy Heart", whose central performance by Jeff Bridges makes this film work well beyond its modest ambition. Other performances compliment Bridges turn as Bad Blake but they are window dressing. Maggie Gylenhaal is fine but decidedly miscast as Bridges love interest. She is simply to young and pretty to be truthful within the context of the story. But, again the performance is fine. Colin Farrell is way too, well, Colin Farrell to buy as a young country singer, but if that's actually him singing he really has a pretty good country/pop voice. Those are quibbles because it's all about Bridges. Tough and truthful, he manifests the character in subtle strokes, saturating Bad Blake in honesty and booze. You can hear the miles in his voice. He should win the Oscar. He has my vote in the SAG awards.
A word about the music. If you make a movie about a country singer/song writer, you better make sure the song score doesn't sink your movie (see post of "Nine"). They hired T-Bone Burnett. Oscar number two. (with a stipulation, since the music branch of the Academy is almost as looney as the documentarians) "Crazy Heart" is one of the best of the year.

Not a 10

"Nine" is a strange film. Directed with an assured balance that cuts deftly between real life, fantasy and flashback, it's a romanticized portrait of an artistic philanderer who is based on film director Federico Fellini. The film is at its best when Daniel Day Lewis (Guido-the fictionalized Fellini) is struggling with his mistress or wife while battling artistic constipation. It's intriguing when director Rob Marshal faithfully recreates or at least echoes scenes from Fellini's best films. That stuff is kind of cool.
It's the fantasy sequences (basically the musical sequences) that sink this film. They are not extensions of the story but rather interrupt its flow. Marshal doesn't have what he had in "Chicago", namely a quality song score. The songs aren't even close to engaging. It makes for a mixed bag that leaves us as an audience cold and distanced. But if you're a real Fellini fan, you might find enough here to make the film going experience worthwhile. Fellini's "8 1/2" (the source material for the musical) is a great film, but some stories just don't lend themselves to musical adaptation. I felt this way about the Broadway show as well.

Un-Complicated

"It's Complicated" is a fifty-something romantic comedy that's about as interesting as warm milk. Sure, the acting is nice, a good cast led by Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin try to lift this film out of the doldrums but they fail miserably.
This movie doesn't know whether to takes itself seriously or go for schtick so it tries to have it both ways. Sometimes it goes for insight with stodgy heart-string tugging dialogue. Sometimes it gets all Keystone Cops with Alec Baldwin stumbling off of rock walls while peeking through a window or Steve Martin doing his "happy feet" dance that hasn't been funny since 1978.
What's at stake anyway? If Meryl goes back to her husband, she'll have a nice life with her million dollar home and million dollar business. If she doesn't go back to Alec Baldwin I guess she'll have to fill her life with her great kids and soon-to-be-grandkids and luxury and a fulfilling job and maybe travel or adventure. Poor Meryl.
In the end Nancy Meyers wrote a white bread script and directed it with white bread predictability. Blah. When Meryl Streep can't save your movie....

The Road

This is the film that I most looked forward to this entire year, actually two years because it was due out last year and was delayed. I am an unabashed fan of the Cormack McCarthy novel. I think it's great modern literature even though I do not consider myself an expert in the field of modern literature. It did of course win the Pulitzer so maybe that corroborates my view. Anyway I couldn't wait. Do I sound like one of those Twilight teenyboppers?
Expectation is a bitch. Your favorite book very seldom becomes your favorite movie. In the case of "The Road" this holds true for me. It doesn't have the impact of the extraordinary novel. But it ain't bad.
This is a post-apocalypse road picture. A father and son, two "good guys", travel south searching for scarce food and scarcer security and trying to avoid the "bad guys" along the way. Sound trite? Not a bit. Those bad guys are lawless scavengers who survive by cannibalism. They'd just as soon eat you as look at you. It's a vicious, unforgiving and bleak world. But believe it or not, it isn't bleak enough. Had director John Hillcoat been more ruthless in his vision this might have been a masterpiece. A masterpiece that no one would watch. He's taken the edge off and provided a bit more audience accessibility. The result is that he has sacrificed the sharpness of the allegory for watchability. The novel is mankind's journey through darkness toward the light of salvation (religious or not). This movie, as it is, is more about humans than humanity.
Still, this is a damn fine film if you can take it.

A Single Man

You know when you meet someone at a party and they seem to expect to be the center of attention, like they want you to hang on every condescending syllable they utter? "A Single Man" is an entire movie like that. Every lingering look, every slow motion shot, every enigmatic line of dialogue is filled with self importance.
Colin Firth is a college professor circa 1962 who's long time lover, Jim, has died in a car crash. He's not even allowed at the funeral. His neighbor and ex-lover Charlie (Julianne Moore)tries to comfort him but really has her own heterosexual agenda. It's a slow march to suicide for Mr. Firth until the prettiest boy in the whole school gives him the time of day. (And I mean pretty in a Woddy Allen-esque, wish fulfillment sort of way) A lot of conversation dripping with subtext ensues. My neighbor Justin hit the nail on the head. He said the trailer looked like a Saturday Night Live send up of this kind of film. Julianne Moore's character is a forerunner of the that English redhead from "Absolutely Fabulous" without the satire. Colin Firth is excellent in the role but it can't save the film. This one you can skip.

Don't Shoot The Messenger

Somewhere in this blog I mentioned that the great thing about Independent Film is that it tells stories that aren't made for mass consumption and goes places that aren't always easy to see, places and stories that might otherwise be ignored. "The Messenger" is a classic example.
Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson play two soldiers on the Army's Casualty Notification Team. Their job is to inform the loved ones of fallen soldiers of their demise. The reactions are powerful, unpredictable and always break your heart. But it's the relationship between Foster and Harrelson that brings the story its sense of humanity. This film, when looked at with other powerful independent films from this year like "Precious" and "The Hurt Locker", make for a stellar year for the Independent Film Movement. Think 1939 in the Studio System era.
Ben Foster's performance should be recognized as one of the best of the year and Woody Harrelson finally puts forth some effort in a film that matches his talent. The result may be an Oscar nod.
Just a quick word about another co-star of "The Messenger", Samantha Morton. She is truly the most underused actress in film today. She's a major talent, clearly one of the best of her generation. In "The Messenger" she turns what might have been a wishy washy character into one you'll remember, honest and full of emotional complexity. See this film. It's one of the best of the year.

The Romantics

You know those English drawing room dramas that get all the attention around Oscar time? Sometimes they can be quite beautiful if you give them a chance. Other times they cure insomnia quicker than Ambien. I have to be in the mood for one these flicks. "Bright Star" put me in the mood.
This passionate yet chaste story tells of the romantic love and tragic end of poet John Keats who died at 25. That's not a spoiler if you where paying attention in your High School English class like you should have been. The lyrical love poems he wrote to his beautiful neighbor are the basis for his reputation as one of the greatest of the Romantic Poets.
But here the real artist is director Jane Campion. This is a story that needs a sure hand and Campion provides it, against her instincts, I think. She is usually a director with a rougher, almost gritty edge. "Bright Star" is told with much gentler brush strokes. It's the romantics after all. There is a stillness to her camera that allows for the boldness of her characters without adding to it.
And her characters are bold. Abby Cornish plays Keats' muse Fanny Brawne with restrained power. Ben Wishaw's Keats is ethereal and poetic without being, well, a wussy. These two don't really match physically but there is no doubt about the chemistry. 19th century sizzle. Next time love is messin' with your head, gather the kleenex and a pint of Haagen-Daaz and have at it with "Bright Star".
Oh and Abby Cornish is under serious consideration for my Best Actress list.