Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

There are very few films that have me in tears from beginning to end; Precious is one of those films. If you're still complaining about the economy and not being able to go on that holiday vacation, try taking a walk in Precious Jones' shoes. Set in Harlem in the late-Eighties, the film explores the life of Precious Jones, an illiterate, pregnant teenager trying to survive. Physically and emotionally battered by her deadbeat mother, raped by her father, and still in junior high, the sixteen-year old finds solace in her daydreams and at the alternative school she gets reassigned to. Intense and difficult to watch for the first hour, the film shows the bight side of life for a girl living in her own Hell.

Only his second film, Lee Daniels (Shadowboxer) is a marvel behind the camera. Not since Midnight Cowboy has anyone looked at desolation and dreams with such an unflinching eye and carry on a story that echoes the ominous passages of Hubert Selby Jr. One name that is sure to pop up during Oscar time is Gabourey Sidibe. A 26-year-old Psychology major with no experience behind the camera, Sidibe's raw and naked performance as Precious will leave you speechless. Take Joan Crawford, Ike Turner, and Frank Booth and roll it into one role and you have Mo'Nique giving a once-in-a-lifetime performance as Precious' psychotic mother. Mariah Carey not only can break the sound barrier, but give a stunning performance onscreen as Precious' social worker. Finally, the blood of Glitter can be wiped clean off her hands!

If I were to make a list of the best films of this year, Precious would definitely be up there. If you want to feel inspired and have hope, run (Don't Walk!) to Precious.

4 out of 4 stars: ****

Scorsese Recieves Cecil B. DeMille Award

It’s pretty early in the award season to place your bets on any winners, but there’s one person who is already a winner at the 2010 Golden Globes; Martin Scorsese. The Oscar-Award Winning auteur will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award for his 40 year contribution to the world of cinema. Ironically, Scorsese presented last year’s DeMille Award to Steven Spielberg. Scorsese has been honored twice for Best Director at the Golden Globes for Gangs of New York and The Departed, which earned him the Academy Award for directing.

I am a true Scorsese fan; watching his films always leaves me speechless and mesmerized. I remember seeing him finally receive the Oscar in 2007 and shouting with joy as if the Red Sox won the World Series. Now that I got that off my chest, I’m overjoyed that Scorsese is being honored by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. A few months ago, I was eagerly waiting to see Scorsese’s new film, Shutter Island. Unfortunately, Paramount pushed the film back to February 2010. Needless to say, I was livid and my hopes of seeing the film and its filmmaker get nominated were dashed. After hearing today’s news, I exhaled a breath of relief.

In the Sixties, Scorsese channeled the French New Wave filmmakers, mixed with the grit of New York City, with Who's That Knocking at My Door ?, It’s Not Just You, Murray!, and The Big Shave. In 1973, Scorsese looked at the criminal underworld of Little Italy with Mean Streets. Stripping away the operatic structure of organized crime that made The Godfather a success, Scorsese’s tale of street thugs through the guerilla-styled filmmaking became a hit at the New York Film Festival. Scorsese raised the bar on the crime genre with GoodFellas, Casino, Gangs of New York, and The Departed.

Scorsese is synonymous within the world of music with his celebrated documentaries like The Last Waltz, Bob Dylan: No Direction Home, and Shine A Light. As a film historian and lover, he has made it a mission to preserve film and restore it to a new audience. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Scorsese premiered the restoration of Powell/Pressburger’s 1948 classic, The Red Shoes.

Forty years of film and many more, Scorsese rightly deserves the honor of being a recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award.

A Serious Man

When you’re going into a movie theater, you don’t know if you’re going to be watching gold, or watching pure crap. After watching the first ten minutes of A Serious Man, I knew I had struck gold. The next 95 minutes grabbed me by the throat and didn’t let go without laughing or crying. Arguably, the Coen Brothers have topped themselves with this crowning comical achievement. Set in Minnesota in the late Nineteen-Sixties- semi-autobiographical to the Coens- Larry Gopnik, a middle-aged physics professor embodies Job by being pelted with divorce, his job and his enigmatic brother while questioning his Jewish faith. The pain grows with Larry’s self-absorbed teenage daughter and his son, who soldiers through Hebrew school with a handheld radio and a lid of weed.

Playing first-mate aboard the Coen’s Cruiser is cinematographer, Roger Deakins. Deakins captures the monotony of Midwestern suburbia that echoes American Beauty with an approach that would make Hitchcock grin, along with towering angle shots and drug-infused sequences that mirror Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday. Carter Burwell’s romantic, yet haunting, blend of piano and strings flows throughout the film’s damned protagonist as he cycles around through id and superego. On top of Burwell’s score is an unforgettable blend of Jimi Hendrix and, primarily, Jefferson Airplane.

Michael Stuhlbarg has pounded the floorboards of New York reciting Shakespeare for the past decade. After seeing A Serious Man, you will be talking about Stuhlbarg’s intense, brooding, and funny performance as Larry Gopnik; this is a performance worthy of speculation and adulation. Richard Kind takes his comedic shtick from “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and gets darker as Larry’s deadbeat brother. Amy Landecker adds another weight onto Larry’s back as a seductive neighbor who plagues his mind with the sexual energy and gravitas of Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson.

If you want cheep laughs and thrills, this is not the film for you. If you want to be philosophically and theologically mind fucked, than get as close to the screen as you can. A Serious Man is, seriously, the best film of the year. The Coen Brothers have created their cinematic Sgt. Pepper that will have the religiously devout or true agnostic reeling with laughter and self-loathing.

4 out of 4 stars: ****

The Damned United

I am not a sports film fan; I don’t even like sports, but what I do like are brilliant performances and images being captured on camera. After viewing The Damned United, I gained a strong appreciation for soccer and those behind the scenes. The film is loosely based upon the life and exploits of Brian Clough, the flamboyant football manager who went from coaching the working class County Darby League to heading Leeds United in the early stages of the 1974 season. The driving ambition and headstrong attitude brings Clough into becoming both a stubborn man destined to win for the sake of winning and an icon in English Football.

The Damned United is directed by the damn-brilliant Tom Hooper (Elizabeth I and John Adams). Hooper’s use of close-ups and static camera captures working-class England with an eye similar the social-realist auteurs of the Nineteen-Sixties, like John Schlesinger and Ken Loach, blended with stock footage that doesn’t leave you with the impression that you’re watching a documentary. Peter Morgan has had a series of successful screenwriting credits (The Queen, Last King of Scotland, and Frost/Nixon) and continues with his use of comedy and revealing telephone conversations, which flesh out the characters.

Michael Sheen can be the sweetest guy you ever saw, or the biggest jerk you ever laid eyes upon. Either way, he still leaves you smiling when the credits roll and his portrayal of Brian Clough is of no exception when he portrays him as a family man, a coach, and lover of the press. Timothy Spall delivers a stunning performance as Clough’s long-time friend and partner, Peter Taylor, who enjoys the fun of the game and the work he does. Rounding up the stellar cast are Colm Meaney and Jim Broadbent with their subduing, yet fierce, performances.

The Damned United is a fresh sigh of relief that segues from the discontented autumn of generic Halloween films and not-so-funny weekend flicks and entering the most ambitious time of year, awards season.

Stanley Kubrick: 10 Years Later

On March 7, 1999, Stanley Kubrick died at the age of 70. 10 years later, the myth, mystique and the man who created 13 epic films in the course of 40 years lives on. My venture into the world of this perplexing visionary started when I was just starting high school. At that time, I was fascinated with the subversive literature and beat poets like Ferlinghetti and Jim Morrison, and when I heard about "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess, I read it like there was no tomorrow.

After reading the book, I rented the movie. At first, I thought it was going to be a cheesy sci-fi film; I was dead wrong. When I saw Malcolm McDowell staring at me with those Cagney eyes and drinking a glass of milk, I knew I was in for a trip like no other. 2 hours later, I was shocked and stunned as I asked myself, "Who the hell directed that?" The answer: Stanley Kubrick.

After Googling his name and reading the list of the movies he directed, I sampled each of his films one by one. At first glance, 2001 and Barry Lyndon left me lethargic. After watching these films again and again, I had nothing but full appreciation for the style, imagery, and tenacity of Kubrick and how he shot some of the greatest and unforgettable images in the history of film. Who else could have used NASA lenses to shoot the candlelit scenes in Barry Lyndon, or recreate the Vietnam War from the English countryside in "Full Metal Jacket"?

From a film critic's perspective, Kubrick made me look beyond the face value of the film. The different camera shots, regal (yet surreal) interior shots, music, all of that made me look at film with a more observant eye for detail and to embrace his obsessive compulsive style, rather than be turned off by it. There are so many words to describe him and the body of work that still remains as intoxicating and unflinching since it first appeared on the silver screen. Just saying his name amounts to the plethora of adjectives used to personify who he was and what his work meant to anyone who has dared to watch his films.

Oscar Predictions

Tonight is the 81st Annual Academy Awards, which means its the last chance to shout out those Oscar picks before running to your local bookie. So, there are my choices in the six major categories; Best Supporting Actors, Best Actors, Best Director, and Best Film.

Right off the bat, the Best Supporting Oscar will go to Heath Ledger. He gave a balls-to-the-wall performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight and despite his untimely death, his penultimate performance will be awarded this weekend. If I had to choose a runner up in the category, it would be Josh Brolin for his performance in Milk.

Best Supporting Actress will probably go to Penolope Cruz for her role as the icy wife of a highly sexual painter in "Vicky Christina Barcelona." Mind you, I haven't seen the movie, but Cruz is sweeping up as many awards as she can get for her work in Woody Allen's sexual farce. My runner up choice would have to be Marisa Tomei and her stunning performance in The Wrestler.

Best Actress will hopefully go to Kate Winslet and her performance as The Reader. She has been snubbed 5 times for an Oscar and she's only 33 years old! The vulnerability and complexity in her performance as a Nazi Concentration Camp worker has been getting a lot of attention and a lot of awards. With respect to the fellow nominees- Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Melissa Leo- I think this will be Kate's year unless the Academy wants to tease her with another nomination and another loss like past legends like Al Pacino (8 nominations until he finally got one) and Peter O'Toole.

The category that has me sweating is the Best Actor category. Its going to come down between Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke's performances in "Milk" and "The Wrestler." Both performances were so incredible and astounding that I cannot choose between the two of them. I'm just going to predict a Hail Mary by hoping that another tie be given at the Oscars. Exactly 40 years ago, Barbara Streisand and Katherine Hepburn were the first actors to win for the same category. I'm hoping that this once-in-every-40-years chance comes along for Penn and Rourke.

I am 99.9% positive that "Slumdog Millionaire" will pick up Best Picture and Best Director for Danny Boyle. The film was simply remarkable! Boyle's intense camera picks up the story of a kid from the slums of Mubai, India and how he is steps away for winning a fortune on "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?" As simplistic as the story sounds, it is an astounding work of art that deserves all the recognition and praise it deserves.

Okay, here's the recap of winners and tonight's awards will either be a huge sigh of relief for my choices, a succession of surprise slaps in the face, or a night of fury and anger (as if I'm not already angry over Peter Gabriel boycotting his performance and Springsteen being snubbed!).

Best Picture-Slumdog Millionaire
Best Director- Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Actor- Sean Penn"Milk" /Mickey Rourke "The Wrestler"
Best Actress - Kate Winslet "The Reader"
Best Supporting Actress - Penelope Cruz "Vicky Christina Barcelona"
Best Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger "The Dark Knight"