Oscar Chat: Predicting the Best Picture Nominees

The guys at the Awards Daily blog (http://www.theoscarigloo.blogspot.com/) do a great job throughout the year of trying to predict the Oscar race.  Being in the UK, predicting the Oscars is much more difficult mainly because most of the likely runners and riders don’t enter cinemas until after the Oscars are long since past.  However, in other ways it makes things easier because all I have to go on in a lot of cases is the trailer and the buzz.  So, here it goes … and I expect to have a red face come Oscar time.

#1 Up In The Air (dir: Jason Reitman) – Jason Reitman’s third feature follows hot on the heels of 2007’s Oscar nominated Juno and captures the zeitgeist of our credit crunch affected time.  Lead actor George Clooney managed to lead previous corporate drama Michael Clayton to a Best Picture nomination two years ago as well.  At this point, it must be the frontrunner although the difficulty of categorising it as a drama or comedy may hurt its chances.

#2 Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (dir: Lee Daniels) – A hard hitting drama usually sneaks into the Oscar final reckoning and having the vocal support of Oprah Winfrey can’t hurt, nor can performances from Mo’Nique and Gaby Sidibe that are being touted for nomination.  My question is this: is it too bleak to win the top prize?

#3 Nine (dir: Rob Marshall) – Marshall has form with musicals at the Oscars with previous film Chicago named as 2002’s Best Picture and this could be the feel good film to beat this year.  The set piece trailers are infectious and if the rest of the film matches up, this could be one.  The starriest cast of the year with former Oscar winners Daniel Day Lewis, Sophia Loren, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotilliard and Penelope Cruz as well as decidedly non-Oscar winners Kate Hudson and Fergie.  But is it too lightweight and passe?

#4 An Education (dir: Lone Scherfig) – A beautiful luminious film with a superb central performance from Carey Mulligan and a quality script from acclaimed author Nick Hornby.  I suspect that this film is this year’s Atonement, likely to be nominated a lot but not to win the big prize.

#5 The Hurt Locker (dir: Kathryn Bigelow) – Still buzzed from the first half of the year, this appears to have become the Iraq war film of choice and Jeremy Renner is a dark horse for a Best Actor nomination.  Superb direction means it will probably make it … if enough people remember it.

#6 A Serious Man (dir: the Coen Brothers) – One of the Coen Brothers’ most personal film translating the biblical story of Job and channelling Kafka showcases a great lead performance from Michael Stuhlbarg and the writing for which the Coen brothers are rightly known.  Now part of the establishment expect to see them again.

#7 Up (dir: Pete Docter) – One of the anticipated beneficiaries of the expansion from 5 to 10 Best Picture nominations is Pixar as Wall-E was widely thought to be the number 6 or 7 choice from last year.  Whilst Up is not quite Wall-E, its touching opening 30 minutes should deliver it to the big show.

#8 The Lovely Bones (dir: Peter Jackson) – The initial reviews have not been quite as glowing as one might have expected, this grand literary adaptation from former Oscar winer Peter Jackson should still make it, particularly if Stanley Tucci and Saoirse Ronan’s performances continue to garner rave reviews.  It has definitely dropped down the pecking order though.

#9 A Single Man (dir: Tom Ford) – Fashion designer Tom Ford’s debut feature is an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s novel of the same name and features a feted performance from Colin Firth and multiple Oscar nominee Julianne Moore.  The trailer looks beautiful and this with the performances could just push it into the final 10.  Something from Venice usually makes it and this is as good a bet as any.

#10 District 9 (dir: Neill Blomkamp) – A real outsider but one populist film will make it in the Top 10, the question is which one.  My money is on District 9 because it is so different to the usual alien invasion films and made a lot of money.   A long shot but I would like to see it there.

Review: The Men Who Stare At Goats

The difficulty of turning non-fiction into a convincing and enjoyable fictional narrative has defeated many a director including most recently Richard Linklater with the inexorable Fast Food Nation, so an adaptation of Jon Ronson’s book The Men Who Stare At Goats was always going to be hard work for first time director Grant Heslov, who previously co-wrote George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck.

This film starts with the disclaimer that more of this story than you would think and goes on to tell the story of hapless Ann Arbor journalist Bob Wilton who uses the break-up of his marriage as the catalyst to become a war correspondent on the War on Terror.  Frustrated and humiliated in a Kuwaiti hotel, Wilton stumbles across George Clooney’s Lyn Cassady, a name he recognises from his days interviewing in Ann Arbor.  What follows is part-road movie and part-madcap comedy exploring the antics of the so-called “New Earth Army” – a black op exploring the possibilities of the mind in combat led by Jeff Bridges’ Bill Django.

There are a number of problems with this film, most notably with the film’s structure.  The road movie sections are present day which leaves much of the antics of the army in flashback narrated by McGregor.  As a device, this doesn’t work and takes the audience in and out of the movie.  The other problem is that I just didn’t find a lot of this film to be particularly funny.  A lot of the jokes fell flat, particularly between McGregor and Clooney and this is symptomatic of  performances which feel “phoned in” and unremarkable.  With no-one is this more apparent than with Jeff Bridges who could play the drugged-up hippy role in his sleep.  In the case of Clooney, McGregor, Bridges and Spacey, all of them have played similar roles better in better films.

The book is a fun interesting book and whilst some of that fun makes it onto the screen, once again this film is just another illustration that adapting non-fiction is tricky.

4/10

Review: Johnny Mad Dog

Set in an unnamed African country but shot on location in Liberia, a country blighted by its own civil war between 1999 and 2003, Johnny Mad Dog is a gritty, unrelenting examination of the rise of the child soldier in Africa, how they end up where there are and then why they end up staying in their gang of rebel soldiers.

Christophe Minie plays Johnny Mad Dog, a former child soldier who has grown up enough to now lead a band of child soldiers looting and rampaging their way to the government headquarters in an unknown city whilst ethnically cleansing the Dogo people, looting from them and recruiting their children.  There are some extremely harrowing scenes in this film – none more so than the opening scenes in which a family is brutalised whilst one of the leaders slowly changes into a wedding dress.  It is a scene which reflects the mixed tone of this film from quite blackly comic to deeply violent.

This is a tough film to warm to as the none of the characters in the gang are in any way sympathetic even though we know how they got to be the way they were because their acts are so repulsive.  Of the early incidents in the film there is an unpleasant rape scene which ratchets up the tension as they tease their victim before they commit their crime.  All of the violence and misogyny without any redeeming features means that whenever one of the gang meets his fate, you can have little sympathy.  Not that they would want any.

This is an interesting film about  a difficult subject matter and there is an impressive rawness but the lack of depth in the characters lets the film down.

7/10

Review: Up

Pixar return to the big screen with Up which has a lot to live up to.  Wall-E is, in my opinion, their best movie to date and the follow-up needed to be as stellar.  For the most part, I am pleased to say it delivers!

Up tells the story of an old man, Carl Fredericksen, who is now on his own and trying everything to avoid a one-way ticket to a local retirement village.  Having promised his wife that they would have an adventure and having failed to carry out his promise, he decides to up and leave, literally, by tying balloons to his house.  As anyone who has seen the trailer for Up will know his plan does not completely work as he finds a young wilderness explorer, Russell, on his front porch who joins him along for the ride.  Once he makes it to deepest, darkest South America, he finds himself embroiled in a battle of wits with former childhood hero, explorer Charles Muntz.

As with Wall-E, this is a film which I believe should appeal to adults and to children but that there is a very definite arc of interest.  The first 20 minutes and the final 30 minutes is likely to appear to adults whereas the middle section is much more slapstick and akin to films like Madagascar which are more likely to appeal to younger audiences.  This is a slight flaw as I found the middle section of this film to be a bit flabby and it struggled to fully keep my interest.  But that should in no way take away from the opening 20 minute sequence which shows Carl’s life and how he got to where he is when the film’s adventure begins.  It comprises predominantly montage but it is so well done and incredibly emotionally effective that I will admit that by the end of the montage, I had tears in my eyes. 

In fact, I will admit that I cried (a little) on not one but two ocassions as a throwback to the opening montage sequence in the last 30 minutes had me again.  The relationship between Carl and his wife is so well rendered it is such a shame that there isn’t more of it and it is a shame that rest of the film doesn’t have that level of depth.  The South American stuff is good knock-about comedy as Carl and Russell (whose relationship is simply not as interesting as those which have gone before) encounter a colourful stork like bird who quickly takes on the unlikely monicker Kevin and a talking dog, who sounds suspiciously like Alec Baldwin (but isn’t).  The animation and the story telling work well together and includes a creepy performance from Christopher Plummer as Muntz which is a good contrasting character to the sweet natured performance put in by Ed Asner as Carl.

I really enjoyed the film but I don’t think that it reaches the intelligence of Wall-E or the storytelling of Monster’s Inc.  Having seen the film in 3D, I struggled to see what I gained from seeing it in 3D.  I can’t say that I found the film particularly immersive other than the screen had more depth.  My view is that seeing the film in 2D is unlikely to spoil your enjoyment and you will enjoy it (you may even cry).

9/10

PS - One of the joys of seeing Pixar films at the cinema is the short films which play before the feature presentation.  These are always some of the most memorable and enjoyable parts of the whole viewing experience and Up’s featured short Partly Cloudy is no different.  Brilliant animating clouds and storks, it takes the child’s mythology of where babies come from to a whole new level.  It is worth making sure you are in your seat to see it or catching it on the DVD.

Review: An Education

An Education is a dramatisation of the memoirs of journalist Lynn Barber written for the screen by men’s book specialist Nick Hornby.  It tells the tale of Jenny (played by Carey Mulligan), a 6th form student who is destined for great things in 1960s Twickenham as she discusses Camus with her friends in the local cafe preparing for a scholastic life at Oxford and is under the strict tutelage of her father played by Alfred Molina.  All of this is turned upside down when she meets an older man, David (played by Peter Sarsgaard, whilst waiting at a book shop who sweeps her and her parents off their feet and shows her another world, far away from the books and Latin homework.  What follows makes Jenny the talk and envy of both her fellow sixth form school girls and teachers.

Whilst this is a fine ensemble film, there is a bright star at the centre of this film and it is Carey Mulligan.  As Jenny, Mulligan starts as a naive schoolgirl but Mulligan manages to bring with that naivete an arch, somewhat saracastic and occasionally pretensious streak.  After all, how many 17 year old girls break to French to make a particular point or discuss Camus in the local cafe.  She also has a lovelorn admirer, Graham, who doesn’t always get the rub of the green or Jenny’s undivided attention.  But for all of the attention on Carey Mulligan (which is undoubtedly deserved), this is very much an ensemble piece with many great performances.

What I really liked about this film is that there are few black and whites with characters drawn in shades of grey and the performances backing that up.  Alfred Molina’s father is a bit hapless and alternates between being strict and being easily persuaded to allow his daughter to do things which seem to face in the face of his cautious nature.  However, Molina manages to make Jenny’s father a likeable character as he clearly wants the best for Jenny even if he is not quite sure what that is or how to achieve that.  Clearly he thinks Jenny going to Oxford is the best and he is relying on what he has been told is the best way of her doing it.  It’s hard to take against him. 

Likewise, Peter Sarsgaard’s David is clearly something of a creep and potentially a paedophile and some of his scenes are completely cringeworthy, however, it is easy to see how Jenny would fall for him and his easy charm with her parents means that it is not just Jenny falls for him.  Peter Sarsgaard is the perfect actor to play this slightly off-kilter creepy yet charming role.  His friends played by Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike are equally intriguing characters.  Cooper’s character clearly sees the advantage of having David around and appears to be clearly devoted to his girlfriend but, at the same time, despite being something of  a wideboy he is clearly attracted to the smart, cultured Jenny and feels equally uneasy about the nature of David and Jenny’s relationship. 

Rosamund Pike is a revelation as the ditzy Helen who is a perfect counterpoint to Jenny, playing almost a 60s WAG but she mines the comedy potential of this role without being dumb.  I would have liked to have seen more of the teachers, of whom we really only get a cursory glance, particularly Emma Thompson who I always enjoy.

Beyond the acting, director Lone Scherfig has given this film a remarkable lustre and it feels of its period without being hokey and relying on cliche whilst scenes in Paris are imbibed with the sheen of a Fellini movie and feel every bit as magical as they should to Jenny, contrasting the bright palette with the muted tones of greys, browns and blacks you see in Jenny’s home life.  This film is a brilliantly judged balancing act which was thoroughly enjoyable and in Carey Mulligan, I have no doubt that a star is born.

9/10

Review: Fantastic Mr Fox

Wes Anderson has made a career out of making quirky comedy in a style that fans will instantly recognise as his own.  His last film, The Darjeeling Limited, polarised audiences between those who loved the quirky visual touches mixed with his own brand of dialogue delivered by actors with whom Anderson is clearly very comfortable. 

Fans of Anderson will not be disappointed by Fantastic Mr Fox which delivers up more of the same.  Taking Roald Dahl’s seminal children’s story and focusing on a particular part of it – namely the contretemps between Mr Fox and the three farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean, Anderson must tread carefully.  Dahl is an author with whom so many British children have grown up, including myself and his mix of dark humour mixed with genuine creepy stuff has proven a difficult formula to crack on the big screen with even Tim Burton failing to capture the magic of Dahl’s incredibly well-written characters.  Sadly, Anderson’s film is 80% Anderson and only 20% Dahl so die-hards will likely find this film hard going.

Despite the inherent flaw that this not pure Dahl, there is a lot to like about this film.  It is funny and it did make me laugh a lot, in particular the performance of Jason Schwartzman as Fox’s son Ash and his jealousy over cousin Kristofferson.  This is a superb dynamic which is just one of the elements that really works.  Clooney’s Fantastic Mr Fox occasionally strays the wrong side of the annoying divide but is then given a one liner to really knock your socks off.  Other performers such as Anderson stalwarts Owen Wilson and Bill Murray give fine performances but they are limited by the restricted stories of their characters.

I do worry whether there is enough within Fantastic Mr Fox to keep kids entertained for an hour and 45 minutes.  For a generation which have been brought up on computer generated animation such as the canon of Pixar films, I do wonder whether the animation is sufficiently good to keep their attention or whether the gimmick will wear off.  The animation is nowhere near the same league as other recent stop motion films such as Coraline.  The other problem is its wordiness and whether the Wes Anderson film dialogue will go over their heads with jokes about existentialism and the aspirations of journalists.  I think not but there should just be enough to keep them going.  Certainly the kids in the screening I attended were keen for the film to get going and vocal about it during the trailers but when the film came on sat quietly for the duration which is as good a test as any.

Quirky in the way one comes to expect from Wes Anderson and whilst it is not Dahl’s writing in its purest form, it is still enjoyable if slightly more mature fayre than those with kids might wish for.

7/10

Review: A Christmas Carol

Robert Zemeckis is reunited with Disney for the first time since 1988’s Who Framed Robert Rabbit and is back with his motion capture animation technology previously seen in Beowulf and The Polar Express.  Zemeckis is back with another literary adaptation in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and a very traditional and faithful adaptation it is too.  None of the imagery or characterisation will be particularly original but it is the motion capture technology and the performance of Jim Carrey in the central role of Ebaneezer Scrooge.

Carrey is made for motion capture with his range of facial expressions and ability for accents and his performance as Scrooge is a good one and unmistakeably Carrey with elements of The Grinch and Lemony Snicket thrown in.  Carrey also plays the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future with varying degrees of success.  His Christmas Present is a classic rendition but sounds uncannily like Geoff Boycott in full Yorkshire accent whereas his Christmas Past is somewhat offputting due to the Irish lilt Carrey employs. Other performers also manage to penetrate the motion capture to put their own spin on things, particularly Colin Firth and Bob Hoskins. 

Despite the fine performances, this film does have its problems and one of those is inherent in Zemeckis’ motion capture technique and has been present since The Polar Express.  That problem is that the way in which the technology captures faces.  Whilst A Christmas Carol is arguably better than both Beowulf and Polar Express in that regard with respect to the lead characters, there are still problems with the facial rendering of extras in shot and I found Gary Oldman’s Bob Cratchett to particularly suffer from creepy face syndrome.  On the other hand Scrooge and Jacob Marley looked superb so clearly the problem has been solved in part which suggests laziness on the part of the animators.  There is also a lack of weight to some of the animation and the perspectives occasionally make the characters appear to be floating as if in zero gravity.  The other problem is that the film suffers from being slightly dull and a bit staid – there is not enough to drive the story on and being such a faithful rendition, to the point that it takes some of its visual cues from previous incarnations of the story, you can’t help but feel you’ve seen it all somewhere before, even if the Gothic streets of Victorian London are nicely rendered.

I saw the film in 3D of which I am not a great fan.  I found the film perfectly fine in 3D although I am not sure it added much.  However, if you see the film in 2D, you may find some of the camera angles and shot choices feel unusual as they seem to have been tailored to giving some degree of depth.  The filmmakers using 3D need to remember that the film needs, first and foremost to work in 2D for a home audience to have a life on DVD after its cinema run and bear that in mind when shooting the film.  A final comment on the film is on its certificate – it’s rated PG in the UK and I would suggest that this is on the borderline of a PG/12A certificate.  Some of the imagery is quite creepy and scary – particularly the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come scenes.  I also worry that younger children will struggle to understand the film as it retains some of the Dickensian language and I felt it was overly wordy.

I’m not sure why this film was released as early as 6th November but it is a classic which has been classically rendered.  It does, however, lack the spark beyond Jim Carrey’s performance to turn it into a great film.

6/10

Review: The Fourth Kind

As with the trailer which I previewed here: http://oncelluloid.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/preview-the-fourth-kind/, the film opens with actress Milla Jovovich once again reminding us that she is portraying REAL LIFE DOCTOR Abigail Tyler in the film and that all of what we are about to see can be backed up by REAL LIFE archive footage.  Most importantly, we are told that it is up to us what we want to believe – thanks for that, Milla.  What then follows is a mixture of REAL LIFE archive footage and reconstruction sometimes on the screen at the same time – like an alien abduction episode of Crimewatch.  Added to that is interview footage between the director Olatunde Osunsanmi and what is claimed to be the real Dr Abigail Tyler.  I should say at this point that I do not believe that any of the real life footage is real nor do I think that this is based on a true story and therefore, this review is predicated on this basis.  I must also say this, that the actress playing the “real” Dr Abigail Tyler clearly must have won the woman with a face most like an alien to star in this film.

What then follows is an hour and a half of Milla Jovovich’s Tyler who is recovering from the unsolved murder of her husband and Elias Koteas interviewing patients under various states of hypnosis sometimes matching the archive footage alongside it.  There are some scares, most of which come from the shock technique of fading to black and then presenting the scare.  There are, however, a number of problems with this film:

1. The annoying credits which appear when we see the characters for the first time

2. Why, if you have paid for the services of Milla Jovovich and Elias Koteas, would you switch to the archive footage whenever you get to the scary parts. 

3. The archive footage is not really convincing.

For me, either present it as a documentary and only use the archive footage that you are claiming is real or dramatise it entirely.  I can only suggest that the reason is that there simply isn’t enough footage to make it into a feature without the interview footage and Jovovich’s testimony.  It’s such a shame that the film doesn’t work as the trailer scared the bejesus out of me, however, all of the scares are in the trailer.

Disappointing! 4/10

Review: Tales From The Golden Age (“Amintiri din epoca de aur”)

Palme d’or winner Cristin Mungiu returns to the big screen with 4 other directors to present a portmanteau film of five vignettes depicting life at the end of the Romanian Communist period highlighting hardships and urban myths during the Ceausescu dictatorship.  The five short films are:

1. The Legend of the Official Visit

2. The Legend of the Party Photographer

3. The Legend of the Chicken Driver

4. The Legend of the Greedy Policeman

5. The Legend of the Air Sellers

What is unusual about this film is whilst all of the vignettes has been written by Cristian Mungiu, none of the short films have been attributed to a particular director unlike with other portmanteau films such as Paris Je T’aime.  As with all episodic films whether this film is successful very much depends upon whether the tone of each of the films works together and herein lies the problem with Tales From The Golden Age.  The first two vignettes are quite broad farce with comedy made from the clunking mechanics of the party machine.  This is in contrast to the somewhat more downbeat slower movement stories of the Chicken Driver and Greedy Policeman which hold a mirror up to the problems and hardships suffered by the average person during Ceausescu’s regime, in particular the rationing and hunger.  The final vignette is a far lighter story again.  For me, the more comedic and farcical elements worked far better and I actually found myself willing the longer Legend of the Chicken Driver to make way for something lighter.

There are some good performances in the film of actors that I would like to see more of, particularly in the final vignette, where the actors Diana Cavillioti (as Crina) and Radu Iacoban (as Bughi) who play a schoolgirl and a student running a scam collecting bottles.  I would like to see more of Cristian Mungiu’s filmmaking but I don’t think this is the right outlet for his clear talent.  Having said that, this film is far more watchable than 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days which was fantastic but gruelling and a tough watch. 

Romanian cinema is clearly on the up but these vignettes would work better as separate shorts rather than as a collective whole. 6/10

Review: Extract (London Film Festival)

Mike Judge, creator of Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill and cult white collar cubicle worker movie Office Space, is back at the London Film Festival with his new film, Extract for the first time since Idiocracy graced the festival.  Having seen what happened to Idiocracy which was left on the shelf by the studio to rot, I decided not to miss out a second time and took myself off to see Extract.

Jason Bateman plays Joel, the owner of an food extract factory who is suffering from sexual frustration, disillusionment with his business and the staff that work there and unloads most of this on his best mate, Dean, played in unlikely fashion by Ben Affleck, who is back on his Kevin Smith slacker friend form.  Of all his ennui is brushed aside when sexy temp worker, Cindy (played by Mila Kunis) is recruited to work at the extract plant and seems to take an interest.  Little does Joel know about Cindy’s past or her present for that matter.

What I liked about Extract is that Joel is a likeable lead with whom it is a pleasure to spend an hour and a half.  Equally impressive was the way in which Judge draws his supporting characters in terms which mean that get enjoyment from them no matter how little we see of them on screen and get a sense of what they are really like - from Clifton Collins Jr.’s unfortunate gopher Step to the two old biddies on the production line and J.K. Simmons’ co-owner.  My particular favourite, however, is male gigolo, Brad who makes an appearance when Joel makes an ill-judged decision, a man who is so stupid it is painful but he does provide a hell of a lot of laughs.

Where the film falls down a bit is that the comedy is occasionally too broad and not all of the characters work, in particular Joel’s wife is so pathetic and annoying that you wonder why Joel would ever have gone for her.  However, the film has sufficient goodwill to get over these.

8/10