Where We Stand: Nine Months in the Multiplex

It is September. We’ve had the Oscars, Cannes and the blockbuster season, and this weekend saw the end of the Venice film festival.  So, most of what was to happen in film this year has already happened. Time for a little overview then.

Last year I kept lists of the best ten and the worst ten films of the year. I’ve done the same thing for this year so far. And to start off on a good note: this year’s worst films aren’t that much worse than last year’s worst films. 2011’s Clash of the Titans was Conan the Barbarian, in terms of noisy nonsense, but Conan still offered some fun. Last year we had a Sex and the City sequel, this year we had the third Transformers movie. Those two cancel each other out. The same goes for Sucker Punch and Prince of Persia, and for Get Low and Fair Game. The ‘worst films of 2011’ list, for all the dreadful terrors that are on it, is not my main concern.

I have two main concerns. The first one is the list of films that should have been on the ‘worst film’ list, but aren’t there, because the list is already filled. I’m thinking of Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter, of the superfluous The Eagle, of the failed Horrible Bosses and the incoherent The Rite (review forthcoming). That these films are now in the large bulk of ‘mediocre’ films is a problem.

My second concern is the ‘best films of 2011’ list. There are films on there that really don’t deserve to be there. Mainly because I am still to stumble upon anything resembling A Serious Man, or The Hurt Locker. True Grit, though good, was nowhere near the Coen’s best work, and Oscar grabber The King’s Speech felt strangely tame and artificial, despite outstanding performances.

So on this year’s ‘best of’ list, so far, we find such films as Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Rango. For a film to be simply exciting (Rise…) or simply funny (Rango), and for it to showcase impressive technological advances (both) is now good enough. Just compare: In 2010 the one animated movie on the list was Toy Story 3. Now it is Rango.

Of course The Fighter was excellent, and so was Black Swan. And Bridesmaids was fantastically funny, despite the excessive vomiting and diarrhea. Source Code is the closest we’ll get to an Inception this year. But it is the closest to it, not a match. Furthermore Bridesmaids doesn’t hold up to Four Lions or Kick Ass. And I am yet to find anything as emotionally charged as Winter’s Bone or El Secreto de Sus Ojos. Harry Potter 7.2 was satisfying, but not much more than that…

Nothing to feel really good about then? Well, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger were not as bad as I expected them to be. They were surprisingly entertaining actually, apart from the action scenes. X-Men: First Class lived up to its expectations, and Fast Five was an outrageous guilty pleasure. These films kinda make up for the big let down of Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides.

But in conclusion, all in all? Quite too many films did not live up to potential or expectations or the sheer common decency of meeting the lowest level of quality you can still get away with. 2011 is just not good enough. Yet.

What’s left to look forward then? Well, the award films will start pouring in, with strong contenders in We Need To Talk About Kevin, Martha Marcy May Marlene, War Horse, The Help, The Iron Lady, We Bought a Zoo and The Ides of March. And perhaps the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo remake. But I’m looking forward most to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which really should see Gary Oldman pick up a long overdue little gold statue.

Best of 2011 so far: Black Swan, The Fighter, The King’s Speech, True Grit, Rango, Source Code, Bridesmaids, Harry Potter 7.2, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Tree of Life.

Worst of 2011, so far: The Green Hornet, The Green Lantern, Paul, Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Unknown, Sucker Punch, Get Low, Conan the Barbarian and The Tree of Life.

Yes. Malick’s is in both categories. Everyone who has seen it will understand.

Strong Melodrama With Excellent Actors – the The Fighter review

Mark Wahlberg really wanted to do this movie. He went from studio to studio and from director to director with the script for The Fighter. He even kept in form for boxing for over five years, so that he’d be ready as soon as production could start. At some point Darren Aronofsky was set to direct the film, but he decided to do Black Swan. Probably a smart move, considering the visual and thematic resemblances of The Fighter to Aronofsky’s previous film, The Wrestler.

Wahlberg eventually got David O. Russell to direct. Russell had worked with ‘Marky-Mark’ previously on Three Kings. Actors supporting Wahlberg in his turn as heavy-weight boxing champion Mickey Ward are Christian Bale, Melissa Leo and Amy Adams. All three of them got nominated for Oscars, and Bale and Leo deservedly bagged the awards as well.

The Fighter tells the story of the abovementioned Mickey Ward, whose biggest fight is not in the ring, but outside it. There he struggles with a dominant mother, who manages his fights, and the legacy of his older half-brother Dicky Ecklund: a local hero who once knocked out Sugar Ray Leonard but got addicted to methamphetamine and crack. Now Dicky trains Micky and the entire family (including seven hilariously trashy sisters) are supported by the money Mickey makes serving as a stepping stone to better and heavier fighters.

Of course, until a new love – Amy Adams – and a fight with his brother persuade Mickey to take an alternative path to boxing fame. The question is, can Mickey become world champion without the support and love of his family?

The Fighter is an excellent drama, with a superb cast. Wahlberg got robbed from an Oscar nomination. Amidst the mayhem and madness acted out by Leo, Bale and Adams he keeps a cool head. The others may get all the attention with their surrealistic rages, Wahlberg remains the sympathetic, real protagonist without whom the whole picture would descend into absurdist chaos. Which is not to say that Leo and Bale undeservedly won: mother Alice’s pain is felt as she tries to manage and support her white trash family, and Bale is amazing. He physically transformed into a drug addict, with all the jittery manners and nervousness injected into a body stripped from any muscle or fat it does not necessarily need to keep him alive.

The only drawback to The Fighter is that it is not really an original story. It is based on true events, but also feels at times as a remake of, or a tribute to both Rocky and Raging Bull. Although DeNiro’s Jake LaMotta of course became a champion despite himself, and Mickey becomes a champion because of himself, and despite his surroundings.

But even though you know how it is going to end, the fights themselves remain really tense, exciting and suspenseful. Boxing really is the most cinematic of sports, however you feel about the sport itself.

Mini reviews: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Another Year, The Social Network, The Losers

Sometimes I get to watch films faster than I can keep up with in terms of writing reviews. Over the last couple of months I saw four films I haven’t been able to write about yet. So here are some very brief reviews of The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Another Year, The Social Network and The Losers.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (dir. Michael Apted)

This third installment in the Narnia movies series is uncomparable to the previous two films, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian, which themselves are very different as well. The setting and the structure of the narratives are different for each film, as they are different for each of the eight books that C.S. Lewis wrote about the magical country (in contrast with the repetetiveness of the first six Harry Potter books). In this film the youngest two Pevensy kids, Edmund and Lucy, return  to Narnia with their obnoxious cousin, Eugene, to join king Caspian on a nautical quest to find seven noblemen and save Narnia from a mysterious green mist. Disney dropped the series after the disappointing box office take of Prince Caspian, and 20th Century Fox picked up the rights, but made the film on a considerbaly smaller budget. This shows especially in the CGI, which is not up to the current standard. The very episodic structure of the story fo the book does not translate well onto film, but Will Poulter (Son of Rambo) as eugene is a revelation. A wonderful child actor who will hopefully return in the next installment, The Silver Chair.

Another Year (dir. Mike Leigh)

A delightful new dramedy by Mike Leigh (Naked, Happy-go-lucky). Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent play the middle-aged British couple whose dinner parties serve as a safe haven for their more troubled friends and family. Tom and Gerri provide a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on for Gerri’s alcoholic colleague Mary (a stand out performance by Lesley Manville) and Tom’s old (and equally alcoholic) pal Ken. During just another year their son starts a new family, while an older brother of Tom suffers a big loss. Tom and Gerri are there for everyone, without interfering or meddling in others’ business. Heartwarming.

 

 The Social Network (dir. David Fincher)

Much lauded as this year’s film about our time, The Social Network tells the story of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose determined quest to ‘bring the entire social experience of college’ online results in alienation with his girlfriend and former best pal. Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield shine in the central roles, while Arnie Hammer is sensational, playing both the Winklevoss twins. Director David Fincher tells the story with great control in a  non-chronological order, the music is spot on (Oscar winner), the editing is flawless (Oscar winner) and Aaron Sorkin’s dialogues are razor sharp (Oscar winner). But the essence of the story comes down to the punch line: “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies” and nothing more. The real film about what Facebook really is and can do is Catfish. Meanwhile, I don’t really care about these annoying American college kids and their empty self-obsessed lives. The Social Network is an excellent film that is nonetheless instantaneously forgettable.

The Losers (dir. Sylvain White)

This film wins the Jasper’s Take award for the most cliched and pointless action flick of the year. Watchmen‘s Jeffrey Dean Morgan leads a team of betrayed CIA operatives in an attempt to get even with the executive who set them up and to clear their names. Idris Elba (The Wire) gets too little to do with his talents. Zoe Saldana is a redundant skinny girl who is good with guns, but there is much fun to be had with Chris Evans’ (the new Captain America) science nerd Jensen. Jason Patric is the most ridiculous bad guy of the year.  The plot has no surprises after the 5th minute, and the film does not know if it wants to be Mission: Impossible with kills or The Expendables light. It makes perfect sense that this film did not get a Dutch cinema release.

By the way. I got only 11 out of 18 of my Oscar precidtions right. Should I find another hobby?

The Big 2011 Academy Award (that is: Oscar) Prediction List

Tomorrow night some Hollywood people over in Hollywood are going to spend the evening giving each other little gold statues and thanking their mothers. And let’s face it: for a day or so it is the most important happening on the planet. More important than Lybia even, although I do kinda expect an agonizing joke about Aaron Sorkin (the writer of those zingy dialogues in The Social Network) having scripted Khadaffi’s mid-week sort-of-speech.

Over the last months I have named several actors, actresses, directors and films as potential Oscar winners, but here is the final list. It is not complete, as I have not delved into shorts, documentaries, foreign films, or short foreign animated documentaries, but it does feature all the major and technical categories. This is not a list of who I think should win, but of who I think will win. And why they will.

 

Best Film: The King’s Speech

 Because: of what I’ve written in the first paragraph of my review of the film.

 

Best Director: David Fincher (The Social Network)

Because: The Social Network is not winning best film, and this is how the Academy usually makes up for that.

 

Best Leading Actress: Annette Benning (The Kid Are Allright)

Because: the Academy is giving her an oeuvre award at the expense of Natalie Portman and her superior single performance in Black Swan.

 

Best Actor: Colin Firth (The King’s Speech)

Because: he should have but did not win last year for an even better performance.

 

Best Supporting Actress: Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech)

Because: she’s riding the wave of success of this film. And she truly supports Colin Firth in his performance.

 

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (The Fighter)

Because: Geoffrey Rush was comic relief in The King’s Speech, and Jeremy Renner is awesome, but The Town was a bad movie.

 

Best Original Screenplay: Inception

Because: it is the most orginal of the nominees, and this way the academy will make up to Nolan for not even having a Best Director nomination.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network

Because: of those zingy flashy dialogues by Aaron Sorkin.

 

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3

Because: everybody was crying their eyes out under the 3D goggles.

 

Best Original Song: ” We Belong Together”, Randy Newman (Toy Story 3)

Because: everybody was crying their eyes out under the 3D goggles.

 

Best Score: Alexandre Desplat (The King’s Speech )

Because: in a very classic way it tells the story without calling attention to itself. Thus being the polar opposite to Hans Zimmer’s bombastic Inception score.

 

Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins (True Grit)

Because: of all the work he has done with the Coens, and because the movie breathes “Western”.

 

Best Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland

Best Make-Up: The Wolfman

Because: no matter how crappy both films are, these awards have nothing to do with a film’s quality. They are craft prizes.

 

Best Visual Effects: Inception

 Because: that revolving hotel corridor was a REAL revolving hotel corridor, no computer graphic.

 

Best Sound Editing: Inception

 Best Sound Mixing: Inception

Because: of the thundering freight train, the way the sound effects mix with the musical score and that sound of Paris folding ontop of itself.

Best Editing: 127 Hours

Because: of the way it mixes regular images with hallucinations and home video recordings.

So, the take: The King’s Speech and Inception both walk away with four Oscars, but those of The King’s Speech have more gravitas, so that film will be the evening’s big winner. The Social Network gets two statues, but nice ones, so they won’t feel like losers. Toy Story 3 picks up two as well, because everyone cried their eyes out under the 3D goggles. Other awards are neatly divided between the other best film nominees: The Fighter, The Kids Are Allright, 127 hours and True Grit get one each, just as The Wolfman and Alice in Wonderland for awards that say nothing about the quality of those films. The big loser will therefore be Black Swan, which should win Best Director, Best Leading Actress and Best Editing, and for me was even the Best Film of the year. But, as with Pi and Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky is just too much of a  radical pessimist for the Golden State.

Awards Bait Sure, But Disappointing Melodrama – the The King’s Speech Review

Let us first just get the Oscar thingy out of the way: If you make a British film about British royalty in a wartime period setting, with big British (stage) stars in major and supporting roles, featuring a (socially) handicapped person who overcomes this handicap in order to serve his nation, whilst developing a special friendship with someone from a completely different social order, you’d do a bloody bad job if you would not get nominated for at least twelve Oscars.

Colin Firth obviously did not take a single risk, having lost out as leading actor to Jeff Bridges last year. Bridges’ award for Crazy Heart can be seen as the usual ‘oeuvre’ award; the stereotypical situation in which someone gets a deserved prize for just the wrong film (see also Scorsese and The Departed). This year Firth cannot miss, having already won all the minor awards for his role as the stammering king George VI. Paradoxically, he should have won last year for A Single Man, and then see Bridges pick up his career prize for True Grit this year.

But that’s the Oscar rabble, brought in to highlight how, occasionally, awards hipness does not reflect film quality. I mean, it is not the case that The King’s Speech (dir. Tom Hooper) is a bad film. It is altogether quite acceptable. But it does not at any moment stand up against Black Swan, True Grit, or even Inception or Toy Story 3.

The story of the film is quite straightforward. British prince Albert stammers and, persuaded by his wife (Helena Bonham Carter), he tries to get rid of this problem by seeking the aid of unconventional Australian speech therapist  Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush, unrecognizable to those who only know him as Barbosa from Pirates of the Carribean). The abdication of his playboy brother and the looming war with Germany put an extra urgency on the success of the therapy, and a stress on the developing friendship between the monarch and the antipode.

The King’s Speech plays out as common melodrama, but for the first hour there is plenty to enjoy. During this hour the action is confined to small rooms: bedrooms, car interiors and Logue’s practice. This bears the risk of turning the film into a ‘televisional’ product, but the opposite happens. Through smart cinematography and wonderful set design (the wallpaper in Logue’s practice is hilarious) the feel of the film is utterly cinematic. This hour also contains all the initial battering and smart talk between the flamboyant Logue and the aristocratic prince which provides the film with most of its laughs.

But when the second hour moves the action into palaces, ballrooms and Westminster Abbey,, this effect gets lost and the looks of the film seem clichéd, tired and – pardon the Latin – quite cheap. It is also then that you lose the interest in and empathy for Albert. Sure I’m glad for him that he overcomes his stammer, but by abandoning the comfort of little rooms and bringing in the wider social context and real world international politics, Bertie’s stammer suddenly seems very, well, irrelevant. And when he finally is able to deliver that rousing wartime speech I feel uncomfortable: at the same time I’m supposed to delight in Bertie’s victory over himself, but his happens at the onset of the greatest tragedy of the 20^th century, while so much still had to be sacrificed, and not by the royals mind you, before one could speak of a real victory.

A final little issue-thingy: To cast as Winston Churchill the despicable Wormtail (or better: Timothy Spall, who played the weak traitor in the Harry Potter films) is a regretful miss, one that takes you even further out of the story.

But of course The King’s Speech is going to win those Oscars, and Colin Firth will win his deservedly for just the wrong film.

A Great Western With Touches of the Coen-esque – the True Grit review

People should stop proclaiming the western dead. Really. It is just weird. Every time a new western comes out, people proclaim the genre dead and see the arrival of the new film as an incidental or ‘short-lived’ revival. Or a tribute. It’s like going to your grandfather’s 87^th birthday and telling him that the fact that he still lives is (co)incidental. Apart from pretty weird this is actually really rude.

Of course, westerns do not get made as much as in the golden age of the genre, the 1930s and 1950s. But then again, after the introduction of film sound in the late 1920s people thought westerns would not be made anymore, as location shooting (basically the right of existence of the genre) had become difficult and expensive. Yet the western persisted. And in the 1960s, when the genre supposedly reached its climax with the spaghetti-westerns of Leone (he made five of them in total), Sam Peckinpah and John Ford were still making (their best) films. And John Wayne finally got his long-deserved Oscar, for the 1969 adaptation of Charles Portis novel ‘True Grit’.

Since then westerns have always been made, be it with lesser frequency. We’ve seen Eastwood’s Unforgiven, the remake of 3:10 to Yuma, Seraphim Falls, Appaloosa, the comic-book nonsense of Wild Wild West and Jonah Hex and more contemporary fare as Brokeback Mountain and No Country For Old Men. And later this year we will still have the genre cross-over Cowboys & Aliens.

So, the western is not dead, and the Coen Brothers’ new version of True Grit is not a tribute or an incidental film. It is a frickin’ good film. A great western. Not a typical Coen film, but filled with enough bizarre details, in-your-face violence and remarkable dialogue to be recognizable as a Coen product.

Jeff Bridges stars as Reuben ‘Rooster’ Cogburn, the ‘Dude’ filling the boots of the ‘Duke’ (John Wayne) with ease and charm. He is a drunk, disgusting US Marshall, but a man of ‘true grit’. Therefore he is hired by 14 year old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) to arrest or kill Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the man who killed her father. But this Chaney is being pursued by Texas Ranger LaBeouf (Matt Damon) as well, as there is a bounty on his head for another murder. The three of them pair up and venture into Indian territory in a pursuit of justice and/or vengeance.

All the attention surrounding this film has gone to the Coen brothers, of course, and to Bridges and Steinfeld, who got Oscar nominations for their roles. But the real stand-out performance here is Matt Damon’s. He is nigh unrecognizable for those who recall the Bourne films, with his fancy manners and his big greasy moustache. He is at first an unlikable, full-of-himself macho, but in the second half of the film he opens up and shows a humanity and righteousness that is truly moving.

True Grit is a great western. The films looks gorgeous, the achievement of cinematographer Roger Deakins. The snowy winter landscape of Oklahoma-to-be has a barren-ness that is the absolute opposite to the sun-drenched Monument Valley of the classic John Ford films.

Touches of the Coen-esque can mostly be found in the old-fashioned, razor sharp dialogue (for instance in the scene in which Mattie outwits a horse trader) and in some absurd appearances of minor figures, like the dentist covered in a full bear fur, including head and teeth. The brothers don’t shy away from rough violence either. But unlike so many other action films, Coen films make the violence hurt, badly. There is no glory or ‘cool-ness’ about it. The Coens show the Old West as it was: a dangerous, violent and sometimes outright scary place.

Mind you: this film is no A Serious Man or No Country For Old Men. It is not one of the films that define the Coen borthers as film makers. But it is a very good film, and it is good to see the brothers develop and change themselves, still, after more than twenty years of film making.

Oscar nominations 2011 – No Big Surprises

The Oscar nominations for 2011 are in, and there are few surprises so far. There is a lot of love for The King’s Speech (12 nominations), because it is a British film about royalty with a handicapped protagonist who overcomes his affliction whilst developing an unlikely friendship with a social outsider. I mean, come on… The Town did not receive the much attention, despite a well-deserved nomination for Jeremy Renner as supporting actor.

Other films much featured are: True Grit (10), Inception (8), The Social Network (8), The Fighter (7),  Black Swan (5) and Toy Story 3 (5). In the best picture category I put the Dutch release dates of films not yet shown here.

The Oscars will be awarded during a ceremony February 27^th.

Best Picture
Black Swan (3 February)
The Fighter (24 March)
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech (17 February)
127 Hours (unknown)
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit (10 February)
Winter’s Bone

Best Director
David O. Russell – The Fighter
Tom Hooper – The King’s Speech
David Fincher – The Social Network
Joel And Ethan Coen – True Grit
Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan

Best Actress
Natalie Portman  – Black Swan
Annette Bening  – The Kids Are All Right
Jennifer Lawrence  – Winter’s Bone
Michelle Williams  – Blue Valentine
Nicole Kidman  – Rabbit Hole

Best Actor
Javier Bardem – Biutiful
Jeff Bridges – True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Colin Firth – The King’s Speech
James Franco – 127 Hours

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams – The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter – The King’s Speech
Melissa Leo – The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit
Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale  – The Fighter
John Hawkes  – Winter’s Bone
Jeremy Renner  – The Town
Geoffrey Rush  – The King’s Speech
Mark Ruffalo  – The Kids Are All Right

Best Original Screenplay
Another Year – Mike Leigh
The Fighter – Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Keith Dorrington
Inception – Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right – Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
The King’s Speech – David Seidler

Best Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours -  Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 – Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich
True Grit – Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter’s Bone – Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Best Animated Film
Toy Story 3
The Illusionist
How To Train Your Dragon

Best Foreign Film
Biutiful (Mexico)
Dog Tooth (Greece)
In A Better World (Denmark)
Incendies (Canada)
Outside the Law (Algeria)

Best Score
How to Train Your Dragon – John Powell
Inception – Hans Zimmer
The King’s Speech – Alexandre Desplat
127 Hours – A.R. Rahman
The Social Network – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Best Song
Coming Home from Country Strong – Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
I See the Light from Tangled – Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
If I Rise from 127 Hours – Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
We Belong Together from Toy Story 3 – Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

Best Cinematography
Black Swan – Matthew Libatique
Inception – Wally Pfister
The King’s Speech – Danny Cohen
The Social Network – Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit – Roger Deakins

Best Costume Design
Alice in Wonderland – Colleen Atwood
I Am Love – Antonella Cannarozzi
The King’s Speech – Jenny Beavan
The Tempest – Sandy Powell
True Grit – Mary Zophres

Best Art Direction
Alice in Wonderland – Robert Stromberg, Karen O’Hara
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 – Stuart Craig, Stephenie McMillan
Inception – Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias and Doug Mowat
The King’s Speech – Eve Stewart , Judy Farr
True Grit – Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh

Best Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland –Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 – Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian
Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
Hereafter – Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
Inception – Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
Iron Man 2 – Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

Best Sound Editing
Inception – Richard King
Toy Story 3 – Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
Tron: Legacy – Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
True Grit – Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
Unstoppable – Mark P. Stoeckinger

Best Sound Mixing
Inception
The King’s Speech
Salt
The Social Network
True Grit

Best Documentary Feature
Exit through the Gift Shop
Gasland
Inside Job
Restrepo
Waste Land

Best Live Action Short Film
The Confession
The Crush
God Of Love
Na Wewe
Wish 143

Best Animated Short Film
Day & Night
The Gruffalo
Let’s Pollute
The Lost Thing
Madagascar

Best Documentary Short Subject
Killing In The Name
Poster Girl
Strangers
Sun Comes Up
The Warriors Of Qiugang

Best Editing
Black Swan
The Fighter
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network

Best Make-up
Barney’s Version
The Way Back
The Wolfman

Did Ricky Gervais go too far? Or was he just funnyas hell?

“I’m not going to do this a second time anyway.” Ricky Gervais delivered a spicy opening monologue, and some brutal introductions, when he hosted the Golden Globes in 2010. They weren’t gonna ask him back for a second time, right? Wrong.

 

Much has been said about Gervais’ over the top performance last week, but fact of the matter is, the HFPA (Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organizers of the Golden Globes) knew what they were paying for. “I warned them” giggled a content Gervais at the end of his opening. Surprised that the HFPA did not think he had gone too far the first time, Gervais pushed the limit even further this year.

Result: in four minutes Gervais managed to insult Charlie Sheen, Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, everyone working on The Tourist and Sex and the City 2, the HFPA, Cher, The ‘Church’ of Scientology, John Travolta and Tom Cruise (implicitly) Hugh Hefner and Hugh Hefner’s fiancée. Midway through the show Gervais disappeared for an hour, sparking online rumors that he had been fired ‘live’. But then he returned, closing of the show with a ‘thank you’ to God, ‘for making me an atheist.’ I’m not sure how (or: if) James Franco and Anne Hathaway plan to top that when they host the Oscars later this year.

 

But did Gervais go too far? Robert Downey Jr. thought so. But then again, he got the full load of Gervais sarcasm. Tim Allen and even the always polite Tom Hanks weren’t amused. Steve Buscemi was scared shitless when Gervais mentioned Boardwalk Empire, and very relieved when it proved not to be a target. But Robert de Niro and Chris Noth were having a great time, and Johnny Depp was a sport. Humor is subjective, and perhaps we can judge Gervais only by his own standards. He seems to have a pretty clear idea of them.

Sincere, Heartbraking, Sensational – the Winter’s Bone review

Winter’s Bone is one of the surprises of the awards race this year. Not a single famous name is attached to the project, there is nor prestige and no glamour and hardly a likeable character in the story. Yet it is heartbreaking, sincere and captivating. It is this year’s precious, without the media hype, the exaggeration and the promotion by famous people.

Winter’s Bone, written and directed by Debra Granik (and based on the 2006 novell by Daniel Woodrell), tells the story of Ree Dolly (what a name!), a seventeen year old girl from the poor and rural backlands of Missouri. She cares for her sick mother and her little brother and sister.  The father is absent, but when the sheriff comes by to tell Ree that her father has put the family house up as collateral for his bail, and that they will be evicted if he does not show up at court, she has to find him. However, Ree’s father was involved in the production of methamphetamine, and had made enemies. None of the locals – all of whom appear to be relatives of each other – are therefore willing to help Ree out. On the contrary: After a confrontation with the Morris clan she should be happy to be still alive. This does not stop Ree though. Nothing stops her.

Winter’s Bone is not a feel-good film; so much may be clear now. Even protagonist Ree is not an angel or angelic character: she sees no harm in the methamphetamine trade, distrusts police and authorities and wants to join the army. However, her love for her mother, brother and sister is her starting point, her foundation, and motivates and legitimates her more brutal actions; for instance when she teaches brother and sister how to shoot and prepare a squirrel for dinner. The film does not back away at such moments, and this is for the better. They show Ree as, above all, a survivor. At all cost.

Jennifer Lawrence is sensational as Ree Dolly. Determined, stoic, wise beyond her years and at the same time as naïve as any teenage girl. This is not an academy-favored type of role, and there will be stern competition in the Best Actress category (amongst others from Natalie Portman for Black Swan), but Lawrence should at least make it to the nominee list. She is 20 years old, and has a great career ahead of her.

Similarly there would be nothing scandalous or even surprising if Debra Granik would be the second female director to pick up Best Director, after Kathryn Bigelow last year. What works against her, apart from the competition of course, is that Winter’s Bone is only her second feature. The ‘Best Director’ Oscar is as often a career prize as an award for a single achievement. However, if it comes to single achievements, Winter’s Bone is as good as they come.

The film is not inspiring or touching in the conventional way. It is not an underdog story. It is not a historical epic. It has no British actors in it. There is no comic relief. And at the end, there is not really a perspective. Although Ree may have survived this particular struggle, it is obvious that many more will come on her way. In other words: This film will by no means be an Academy favorite. But it is the first serious awards contender of the season.

A Justice in Their Eyes – the El Secreto de Sus Ojos review

“There is a difference between Justice and a justice” says Irene Menendez-Hastings, the supervisor of legal investigator Benjamin Esposito, when a rape and murder convict he has arrested is set free to work for the government’s intelligence service. Irene advises Benjamin to leave it all behind and look forward.

El Secreto de Sus Ojos (Juan Jose Campanella) is filled with moments like these: Moments in which characters have to decide between looking back and moving forwards. Set in the 1970s and in 1999 the film implicitly comments on the transition of Argentina from a military dictatorship to a democracy. It is not a political film though, nor a film about politics. It is a film about people trying to do their best in difficult situations.

In 1999 a retired Benjamin, played wonderfully by Ricardo Darin, decides to write a novel about the investigation into the rape and murder of a 23 year old school teacher in 1974. He, his colleague Pablo (Guillermo Francella) and Irene (Soledad Villamil) were struck by the grief of the victim’s husband – Ricardo – and tried to push the investigation forwards, despite being hindered by bureaucracy and an uninterested superior. 25 years later Benjamin feels that he needs closure, as well as renewed contact with Irene, who had always been the love of his life. Inevitably, he gets more than he bargained for.

I don’t believe that films can or should try to offer a national ‘experience’ to foreign audiences. Slumdog Millionaire’s only major drawback was that it dwelled on the ‘Indian-nes’ of its story. The same can be said of last year’s Baaria, which was more Italian than cinema.  However, El Secreto de Sus Ojos, while not trying (or perhaps because it is not trying) and without cheap kitsch, comes very close to what foreign eyes could recognize as ‘the Essence of the Argentinian Experience’: the struggle with the past and with disappearances, the quest for a justice, but also smaller things: the central role of Buenos Aires (especially in the eyes of its inhabitants) and the passion for football.

Or ‘passion’ in its own right. As Pablo clearly states: a man can change anything, but not his passion. It is his passion that betrays the murderer, but every character in the film has a fatal passion: Pablo for liquor, Ricardo for justice, and Benjamin and Irene for each other. So much passion: in my cold ‘rational’ Dutch eyes this can’t end well. But Campanella manages to find a climax and a closure that, if it does not feel completely comfortable, is still acceptable. Not Justice, but a justice, and closure and reconciliation between the two main characters.

El Secreto de Sus Ojos is a wonderful film. Although it is difficult, if not ridiculous to compare films from various countries and cultures, I think it more than deservedly snatched away the Best Foreign Film Oscar before the heavyweight pretentiousness that was Das Weisse Band and the flawed surrealism of Un Prophete. European critics were disappointed of course, but I think the Americans got it right this time around: El Secreto… is more balanced and better written. It has real human characters and when it carries a message, it does not shove it into your face. The message is just there for you to find, right below the surface, where it belongs, and where Benjmain and Irene find theirs.