2012 Oscar Nominees: The Critic's Picks

Yesterday, the nominees for the 84th Annual Academy Awards were announced. It was a great year for film. When I say that, I don't mean it was nine months of filth and three months of quality movies, but it was a nice spread of great films from late spring to the present, which are being honored with nominations. As usual, I'll give my two cents over who should get the Oscar in the categories of acting, directing, and best film whilst griping about who was left out of the category (0r not).

Best Actress in a Supporting Role:

Berenice Bejo- The Artist

Jessica Chastain - The Help

Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids

Octavia Spencer - The Help

Janet McTeer - Alfred Nobbs

The best supporting actor/actresses are usually dead set after the Broadcast Film Critics have made their choices. In this case, Octavia Spencer is sure to win as the rebellious housemaid in The Help as her performance had a mix of sass, attitude, and heart that blended well with the rest of the cast. No doubt that she will get the top honor.

Best Supporting Actor

Kenneth Branagh - My Week With Marilyn

Jonah Hill - Moneyball

Nick Nolte - Warrior

Christopher Plummer - Beginners

Max von Sydow - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Winner: Christopher Plummer gave an incredible performance in Beginners as a widower who reveals to his son (Ewan McGregor) that he is gay on top of struggling with terminal cancer. His performance is calm as his presence is on and off screen. Plummer, whose career has ranged from classic roles in The Sound of Music to The Insider, gives a subtle and heartfelt performance to a film that is luckily getting more recognition since its under-the-radar release last summer.

Who got left out?: Patton Oswalt for Young Adult. Although Jason Reitman's film is flawed in its storytelling, Oswalt gives a dark and funny performance as a former high school student who shares a few glasses of home-brewed bourbon with Charlize Theron.

Best Actress:

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

Winner: Viola Davis for The Help. Davis gave a remarkable performance as Aibileen Clark, a housekeeper to the head of a racist family in Mississippi, circa 1963. She doesn't grandstand, yet sets the tone for a woman wanting respect, whilst holding on to her dignity.

Grips and Tangents: The Hollywood Foreign Press renewed my hatred (what else is new) for awarding best actress to Meryl Streep. She already has two on her shelf on top of the Kennedy Center Honor she received last month for a performance that has British film critics baying over and American audiences squirming over her role as Margaret Thatcher. Don't get me wrong, she succeeded with imitating Thatcher, but Oliver Stone would've made a more bombastic biopic than what was on screens last month.

That being said, the biggest robbery of this year was Tilda Swinton not getting nominated for her stunning performance in We Need To Talk About Kevin. It was bad enough she didn't get praise by the Broadcast Film Critics or the Golden Globes, but could the Academy have given some clemency for giving Swinton the nomination?

Best Actor:

Demian Bichir - A Better Life

George Clooney - The Descendants

Jean Dujardin - The Artist

Gary Oldman - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Brad Pitt - Moneyball

Winner: Its boiled down to either Clooney or Pitt in the eyes of those who didn't hit the independent theaters last month (No offense to the performances they gave on screen). However, I think Gary Oldman deserves the Oscar for his chilling portrayal as George Smiley in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Oldman's timbre has ranged from being Sid Vicious, Dracula, to a drug dealer who thinks he's black, yet has not received one nomination. The subtlety and intonation in his voice sounds like he's reciting Shakespeare, rather than John le Carre. If anything, Oldman deserves the honor rather than the aforementioned actors.

Best Director:

Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris

Michael Hazanavicius - The Artist

Terrence Malick - The Tree of Life

Alexander Payne - The Descendants

Martin Scorsese - Hugo

Winner: If only they awarded all the nominees for the great films they've produced this year. If I had to chose, its a neck-to-neck race between Hazanavicius and Scorsese for both films paying homage to the origins of film history, an age before sound came into the picture. If Scorsese wins, I'm sure The Artist will win Best Picture and vice versa. Either that, or it could be clean sweep. However, in my hearts of hearts, it would be nice to see Malick in the flesh holding an Oscar.

Best Picture:

The Artist

The Descendents

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

The Tree of Life

War Horse

Winner: It can boil down to either The Artist, which would be the first silent film (well, almost silent film) to win an Oscar for Best Picture in over 80 years, or Hugo. There is no dead set winner in this category since the blend of nominated films have been worthy of the praise each has received.

Well, tune in on February 26th to either agree or disagree with my picks, or write your choices for the illusive statue; the stuff dreams are made of (or damaged).

Top 5 Films of 2011

As the year draws to a close, its a time to look back and reflect on what I think are some of the best films of the year.

5) Bridesmaids

Kristen Wiig of Saturday Night Live fame co-wrote and leads this laugh-out-loud comedy on the virtues and insanity of planning a wedding. The film has a feminine surface with a raunchy layer proving that comedy is not always in the hands of men who know how to fluff it up (case in point, Hangover 2) as it gives the lazily drawn wedding films, like Bride Wars and 27 Dresses, a stiff middle finger with hilarity and earning a spot as one of the most surprising and funniest films of the year.

4) The Adventures of Tintin

Steven Spielberg gives just service by adapting Herge's classic comic books of the young journalist, his dog, Snowy, and the inebriated Captain Haddock uncovering the secrets of a lost treasure. The 3D animated adventure emphasizes Spielberg's staying power as one of the great blockbuster filmmakers and compensating for the loss of his last venture into adventure with the fourth Indiana Jones movie.

3) We Need to Talk About Kevin

Lynne Ramsey's third motion picture and one of her most praised films about the struggle and acceptance of evil in society as a mother (Tilda Swinton) attempts to move on after her son committs a school shooting. Swinton gives one of the best performances of the year, as well as Ezra Miller giving a chilling performance as Kevin. The Oscar is definitely in Swinton's favor for Best Actress.

2) The Tree of Life

Seeing a Terrence Malick film is like seeing a meteor shower; it happens very rarely and hits you when you least suspect it. Tree of Life focuses on the life of a family in 1950s Texas whilst segueing into a stunning look at the beginning of life and the cosmos that is as visually and aurally intoxicating as Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain give exceptional performances as the polarizing parents raising their three sons, while Sean Penn plays the older version of one of their sons reflecting on his troubled childhood. It may be overwhelming at first glance, but so is 8 1/2, Doctor Zhivago, and other masterpieces that have tested audiences and critics.

1) Hugo

Martin Scorsese takes a giant leap from the mean streets of gangsters and into the world of 3D with his adaptation of Brian Selznick's story of a young orphan (Asa Butterfield), who lives within the walls of a Paris train station, trying to complete a robot first developed by his demised father. Whilst building the robot, Hugo and his literary friend, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), try to discover the private life of Isabelle's guardian, Georges Melies (a stunning Ben Kingsley), and the legacy of films he had left behind. Scorsese's film is not just a step forward into the world of 3D filmmaking, but a history lesson for all ages on the birth of cinema and how the past should never be forgotten as the medium advances into new territory. It is this blend that makes Hugo one of the best films of the year.

Hugo

When the phrase, “kid movie” comes to mind, especially during the holiday season, it’s easy to groan at the perpetual fluff being unleashed in the theatres (Alvin and The Chipmunks, Arthur Christmas, etc.). However, when you notice that a kids’ movie is directed by Martin Scorsese, you think that he’s lost his mind. But with Hugo, Scorsese has created his first family-friendly and heart-warming film about the history of the movies.

Based on Brian Selznick’s award-winning book, Hugo tells the story of a French orphan (Asa Butterfield) living in the walls of a train station in Paris, circa 1931. When Hugo is not fixing the clocks in the station, he is trying to fix a machine his father (Jude Law) was working on before his untimely death. Fixing the mysterious device becomes difficult when Hugo encounters Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley), the bitter owner of a toy shop who catches Hugo stealing his tools and the cold-hearted Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) who arrests children without their parents to save them. Helping Hugo along the way is Georges surrogate daughter (Chloe Grace-Moretz), an adventure seeking girl who helps Hugo unlock the secrets of Georges’ descent into misery.

Asa Butterfield and Chloe Grace-Moretz give incredible performances as the bright-eyed wanderers venturing in and around the elaborate train station. Kingsley’s emotional performance as the passionate filmmaker-turned-miserable store owner Georges Melies adds to the roster of some of his best performances (Gandhi, Sexy Beast). Cohen adds the laughs to the film as the bumbling inspector, with his Borat mustache and high-brow antics toned down for the audience.

I’m not a huge fan of 3D movies. When I saw Toy Story 3, I couldn’t help but take my glasses off to enjoy the brightness of the film rather than the dim and tinted glow of the screen. However, it was still a good movie and I had that same attitude before I saw Hugo. However, within the first minute of the movie, I was stunned by visual designs of Dante Ferretti, the sharp lighting by Robert Richardson and slick camera work helmed by Scorsese. In essence, my preconceived notions of 3D films withered away during this 120 minute love note to cinema. Scorsese, the polestar of film preservation, manages to introduce to younger audiences the work of a bygone era (Griffith, Porter, the Lumiere Brothers) mixed with homages to Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton with state-of-the-art cameras. Despite the ebb and flow of films as an art form, Scorsese’s Hugo manages to create the perfect marriage of art and entertainment as he has successfully done for over 40 years.

Four out of Four Stars

We Need To Talk About Kevin

We Need To Talk About Kevin is one of the most chilling and haunting films of the year. Based on Lionel Shriver's novel, the non-linear tale focuses on Eva (Tilda Swinton), a grieving mother recollecting the life of her eldest son and his dissent into violence when he orchestrates a school shooting. Trying to move on with her life by working as a desk clerk, Eva fears being seen in public and bearing the label as the woman who brought another Charles Whitman into the world. Her home is smeared in red paint and she attempts to wash it off like a modern day Lady Macbeth.

Tilda Swinton gives a harrowing performance of a woman giving unconditional love and receiving internal pain. Her gripping performance leaves one wondering when she will reach her breaking point. One scene that stands out is when she is visited
by a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses and she tells them that she is going to Hell. From first frame to last, Swinton gives an Oscar-worthy performance as a self-destructive woman, who tries to redeem herself in any way she can, even if it means visiting her son in prison.

Ezra Miller's performance as Kevin is phenomenal with his nuances of a young Hannibal Lecter in the guise of a self-destructive kid. Even as a baby, you sense a certain evil looming in the film as Eva pushes him in a Rosemary's Baby pram. Take the calmness of Woody Harrelson's serial killer in Natural Born Killers with the rhetoric of Charles Manson and you get one of the most frightening performances of the year. John C. Reilly takes a break from the comedic roles he's played in the past with his performance as Franklin, the naive and doting father who underestimates Eva's ever-growing concerns over their son.

Mixed with the deep-seeded philosophies of Foucault and the media saturation rhetoric of Octavio Paz, Lynne Ramsey directs a powerful adaptation of one of Britains' most controversial novels of recent memory. She has only made two films throughout her twelve-year career; the working-class drama Ratcatcher and Morvan Callar. Her third film is as equally gritty as Ratcatcher mixed with a harrowing melodrama in the style of Lars Von Trier. We Need To Talk About Kevin is a film that will leave you taking after the credits roll.

3 1/2 out of 4 stars

Rampart

Los Angeles, 1999: A city that is in a cycle of gangs, drugs, and corruption perpetuated by one person, a member of the LAPD. Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson) is a dirty cop; no if's, and's, or but's about it. When he is not using the 4th Amendment as toilet paper when he's getting information on a drug ring, he's using his baton like one of the cane-swinging Droogs from A Clockwork Orange. After being videotaped beating up a black driver who crashed into his cruiser, Brown faces racial discrimination accusations and abusing his power leading him into a downward spiral of endless booze and sex. His saving graces are his ex-wives (Anne Heche and Cynthia Nixon) and his two daughters as he tries to redeem himself for those he has isolated from. Brown's attempts of being a loyal semi-father figure are tested by his rebellious daughter (Brie Larson) who keeps pushing him away into obscurity.

Oren Moverman is no stranger to looking at the rough exterior and soft center of men in positions of power; such as the case in his 2009 emotional powerhouse, The Messenger. In Rampart, he continues leading us to look at the rough edges obscuring a soft interior with a script co-crafted by James Ellroy. Ellroy's jazz-like prose from his novels (American Tablod, L.A. Confidential) is present on screen, as well as his look at the gritty and hedonistic underbelly of Los Angeles. However, the dialogue begins to get preachy when the issues of due process and excessive force are as repetitious as if one is reviewing the Rodney King footage. As predictable as the content is, whether or not you have seen Dirty Harry or Serpico, it is difficult not to be absorbed into a turbulent look at law and order.

What keeps the film from running on empty is Woody Harrelson, as he gives one of the best performances of his career by combining the seductive charm and violent streak he displayed in Natural Born Killers with the emotional depth exemplified in The Messenger. His performance as Dave Brown and his descent into hell is as powerful as Nicholas Cage's Ben Sanderson in Leaving Las Vegas and as equally as corrupt as Denzel Washington's Alonzo Harris in Training Day. Adding to the fiery mix of Brown's warped life is Robin Wright as a lawyer and Brown's bedfellow as she is swayed by his charm, while she adds emotional desire to her soulless lover.

When all is said and done, you are uncertain to pity Harrelson or damn him for his actions as he proclaims in a climatic pool scene, "I'm just a Cop! An expendable soldier!" In an environment where trust is null and void and justice is blind, how is one to protect and serve a city when they cannot protect and serve their life?

3 out 0f 4 Stars

Ken Russell (1927-2011)

Ken Russell, one of the most controversial and surreal filmmakers of Post-war Britain, died Sunday at the age of 84. Russell, dubbed the enfant terrible of filmmaking, made some of the most audacious films throughout a career that spanned over 50 years. In 1969, Russell received his only Oscar-nomination for his adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s erotic tale, Women in Love. His Freudian imagery and no-holds bar look at the male and female form was revolutionary at a time when sex in the cinema was commonplace after the strain and censorship of the Hayes’ Code.

In 1971, Russell made his most controversial and gothic masterpiece, The Devils. Based on Huxley’s tale of the tug of war between the Church and State in 17^th century France, the film shocked audiences, became the target for scrutiny by religious organizations, and was severely edited for international distribution. In particular, the ten-minute “Rape of Christ” sequence was edited due to its content that involved masturbation and ritualistic orgies within a church. It has since been restored and shown on bootleg copies, yet it hasn’t been restored for legitimate distribution.

Sex was not only on Russell’s roster as he combined the flamboyance and decadence of the rock stars of the seventies mixed with the lives of some of the most celebrated classical composers from Tchaikovsky (The Music Lovers), Mahler (Mahler), and Liszt (Lisztomania). In 1975, his filmed adaptation of The Who’s rock opera Tommy received two Oscar nominations and has since been praised as one of the great rock movies. Throughout the late-Seventies, Russell’s career waned with forgetful films, like Valentino, and successful thrillers like the sci-fi film, Altered States. In 1984, Russell reemerged with his campy and sexually charged Crimes of Passion, starring Kathleen Turner and the original Norman Bates, Anthony Perkins.

Russell’s last major motion pictures included The Lair of the White Worm and Whore. His prospects were not just directed at film, as he also directed staged productions on both sides of the Atlantic and directed the 2008 off Broadway production of Mindgame. In addition, he directed music videos for Bryan Adams and Elton John. His family collaborated with him on his films; his first wife, Shirley, designed costumes for Russell's earlier work before receiving Oscar-nominations for her clothing in films like Agatha and Reds. His daughter, Victoria, appeared in a few of her father's films, such as The Music Lovers, Tommy, and Crimes of Passion.

In my opinion, Russell was a sensational filmmaker, who pushed the envelope regardless of the size of his audience and managed to become a direct/indirect inspiration for filmmakers like Tim Burton and Darren Aronofsky. His work stands as profoundly shocking as it is beautiful. Before his death, he was in the early stages of working on an adaptation of Moll Flanders, and his demise leaves one wondering how he would have shocked or tantalized his audience once more. This year has been a sad one, in terms of the loss of great filmmakers, like Tim Hetherington and Sidney Lumet, and Ken Russell joins that list.

The Adventures of Tintin

I'm not usually fond of comic book movies, and I'm the first to admit that. However, films like Iron Man (Who doesn't want to see Robert Downey Jr. kick ass and not get arrested for it?) and The (overblown) Dark Knight were passable. Another film to add to that list is Steven Speilberg's animated adaptation of Hergé's classic comic series, The Adventures of Tintin. In case you haven't read the comic books or watched the short-lived animated series, Tintin is a Belgian reporter who risks life and death at unraveling mysteries and going on transcontinental adventures with his dog, Snowy, and his nautical, inebriated friend, Captain Haddock.

The film mixes together three of Herge's comic books within the series as Tintin (Jamie Bell) stumbles across a model ship that becomes the key to untold dreams and nightmares, as a malicious millionaire (voiced by a sinister Daniel Craig) stops at nothing to get it. Along the way, Tintin comes across Captain Haddock (voiced by a stellar Andy Serkis) as he, half-soberly, teams up with Tintin to seek vengeance as equally obsessive as Ahab's quest for Moby Dick by traveling land, air, and sea to get what is rightfully his.

Being Speilberg's first animated film, and being backed by Britain's exceptional screenwriters, like Edgar Wright, the voices were proved by some of England's top-notch actors. Jamie Bell is no stranger at playing young men satisfying their curiosities, either through dance (Billy Elliot) or through struggling with Oedipal issues (Hallam Foe), and his role as the adventure-loving Tintin was made for him. Andy Serkis has taken us to the dark side of fanatical greed as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and continues to stand out by playing the high-seas sailor, Captain Haddock, who drools for whiskey like Gollum drooled over the "precious" Ring. The comedic relief is provided, only shortly, by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as they play the Thompson Twins, the dimwitted duo who couldn't find a crime if they were standing next to a dead body and a bloody knife. A far cry from their previous work in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

Either in 2D or 3D, the film is a fun-packed adventure as the camera is always moving and not taking any breaks. The downside of that is that there is minimal emotions displayed by Tintin or any time for expansive dialogue making one wonder if the screenwriting team of Edgar Wright, Steven Moffat, and Joe Cornish are selling themselves too thin. In any case, Tintin is sure to please both kids and adults during Christmas as the film is nothing short of another Spielberg blockbuster that is desperately needed after the disappointment of the fourth Indiana Jones film and the painful War of the Worlds.

3 out of 4 stars