1 weekend - 4 Movies

So I went for a bit of a movie run this weekend, finding the time to fit in 4 movies in three days. The contenders are as follows:

Crazy Heart, Up In The Air, Invictus, and Avatar

Some were good and some were bad so let’s get started.

Crazy Heart:

I was really excited about seeing this movie after viewing the trailer to it. I loved the song, but after watching the trailer a few times I realized that the plot seemed very familiar. I know that stories and themes get recycled over and over in Hollywood and I’m fine with that, but come on, The Wrestler came out last year for Christ sake. Going into this movie I was hoping that I’d be proven wrong. I was really hoping that it wouldn’t be The Wrestler with different professions for the two characters (check it out, he’s a washed up singer this time around). Sadly this was not the case. I remember saying to myself that all it needs now is the reveal that he’s also a deadbeat dad, and you guessed it, the very next scene. I couldn’t believe it. And then the scenes that weren’t taken right out of the Wrestler also seemed vaguely familiar, and that’s because they were from another film that came out a few years ago that you might have heard of as well, it’s a little film called Walk The Line. Perhaps I’m being too hard on this movie. There were some good parts to it after all. The music was great and I still love the song Weary Kind by Ryan Bingham that was used in the trailer. Also Jeff Bridge’s acting was flawless and I would not be surprised at all if he gets a nomination this year. I admit that I may be too hard on this film because my favorite film last year was The Wrestler. If you are into music and especially have traveled the road from one shitty gig to the next, then I imagine you may like this movie a lot more than I did. I give it a C+/B-

Up In The Air:

I liked this movie, but I wanted to like this a lot more than I did (too high of expectations is a common trend for me). It had a lot of really good lines and I liked George Clooney’s character quite a bit, though I’m on the fence about his whole backpack speech. I get the point and see how it serves the movie and his character, but it just seemed a bit lazy from a screenwriting standpoint. That aside, I was happy that they focused on both the positives and negatives of what life throws at you. I always enjoy films that let the shitty parts of life come through and not shy away. The interesting thing about this movie was that all of those moments/emotions where relative to the individual characters. One person’s moment of happiness and enjoyment is another’s misery or loneliness. It’s definitely not the best picture of the year, but it’s a solid effort. I’d give it an A-

Invictus:

The less I can say about this the better. All you need to know is that both Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon give good acting performances, but the film itself is a complete bore. I would have so much rather seen a documentary on these events or if you are going to make a feature film, then make it more about Nelson Mandela, as that was the far more interesting character in this film. Also, it’s where more of the drama was, rather than the forced and already predictable (um it’s history folks) sporting angle they were going for. I give it a C-

Avatar:

I actually liked this more than I thought I would, but that’s not saying much seeing as I assumed I’d hate it to pieces. I was even surprised with myself that I was in the mode to see it (way to go marketing campaign!). The special effects where actually pretty amazing, though I didn’t really see the point for 3-D. So far the only movie that I think actually worked in 3-D was Coraline. This movie is definitely a shoe in for special effects. One thing I didn’t care for too much though was the voice over narration. I’m generally not a fan of narration, though it worked great in both Adaptation (a must see) and Fight Club. I also felt like they over did it with one of the underlying messages of the movie: Nature is good, respect nature and ecosystems. Yes I agree with the message, but I don’t need it driven over my head. Plus I think there are some much better movies out there that address this point (oddly enough The Two Towers comes to mind). Not to sound like too much of a hypocrite (as my favorite movie this year was Inglourious Basterds) but I didn’t care for the violence. Maybe the difference was that in Avatar the theater was full of very young (and obnoxious) kids. Yes it’s true that the violence was your typical action packed sci-fi violence and there was no real gore or blood associated with it, unlike Basterds, but it still bothered me because you had all this little kids cheering it on. In some ways I prefer the gore and blood that went along with Basterds more because at least it made you nauseous, and violence should make you feel nauseous, not cheerful. Overall I’d give it a B-

So to summarize:

Crazy Heart: see The Wrestler instead

Up In The Air: worth seeing

Invictus: skip it

Avatar: see it for the special effects alone, but otherwise why not be equally impressed by the Lord of The Ring films and get a better (albeit it longer) story out of it.

Top 10 List of 2009 (so far)

Tis the season of award movie bombardment. It seems as though every year the studios decide to withhold the film that have the best chances at winning awards for the end of the year or released in limited marked for a short period throughout the year. So before that mad rush of film viewing this month, of both future releases as well as the ones I’m playing catch up with, I wanted to make my own top ten list of best movies of 2009 (so far). And remember folks, this year the category for best picture at the Oscars will be chosen out of a list of 10. So, before this list gets all shaken around, I give you my Top Ten So Far:

#10 - The Informant!: I think I would have enjoyed this movie more if I watched it with a packed theater and we all remembered that it was a comedy. Yes, it doesn’t sound like a solid recommendation, I know, but I watched it alone and didn’t realize it was a comedy until I started to listen more closely to Matt Damon’s narration. His narration are just the random thoughts of his character, and man are they odd, but in a very funny way. He made this movie, and deserves an acting nomination for the role even. The overall film and other acting performances though are just so-so.
#9 - Public Enemies: I saw this movie at the very beginning of the year, so it’s not too fresh in my mind. I remember it getting just so-so reviews, but I actually liked the slow pace of the story telling. I thinking people expected an old-timey action packed bank robbery story, but it was much slower paced then that. Not quite an Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford slowness (though I loved that movie, much more than Public Enemies). The acting was solid and I remember loving the closing shot.
#8 - The Fantastic Mr. Fox: First and foremost, I was impressed with the artistic side of this movie. The attention to detail and style of stop motion was amazing (wow, two stop motion films made the list!) The cloths and sets stayed true to what I come to expect of a Wes Anderson film. Don’t be fooled by the marketing of this film. In my opinion this is no kids film (in fact I think they’d be bored with it) and very much a Wes Anderson film. He keeps that melancholic humor throughout, especially with the young kid fox Ash voiced by Jason Schwartzman. This film had probably one of the best death scenes of the year as well. I do have to say though that this film probably falls to the bottom of the list of Wes Anderson movies, but in no way does it make it a bad film.
#7 - Whatever Works: This was no Vicky Christina Barcelona, but it was still a decent Woody Allen flick. It was definitely reminiscent of his older work with the neurotic character that Woody Allen himself usually played replaced by the wonderful Larry David. Without him, the movie would have been garbage, so basically I’m putting Larry David himself on this list rather than the average Whatever Works.
#6 - Zombieland: I thought this was an original take on what is actually blossoming into it’s own genera: Zombie-Comedy. I appreciated the fact that they followed through with many of their jokes and onscreen typefaces throughout the film. Who would have guessed that onscreen typeface could be a character, and a funny one at that. Also, best cameo appearance, bar none.
#5 - The Hangover: Clearly the best comedy of the year so far. Without Zack Galifinakis though, this movie never would have worked.
#4 - Coraline: For a detailed review, see my first post. This made the cut for the imaginative feeling I was left with as I walked out the theater. The only thing missing was a song by The Decemberists.
#3 - Up: I was pleasantly surprised by this movie, especially from emotional/sentimental aspects of it. For being marketed as a kids film it really struck a chord in me and yes, even teared up (okay okay, so it doesn’t take much to make me cry at a movie. There, I said it.)
#2 - 500 days of Summer: I finally got around to seeing this a few months ago when it was still in the theater and man am I glad I did. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a great take on the classic romantic comedy genre. It contains perhaps my favorite scene of the year, illustrating the perfect evening one has replayed over and over in their head vs. how the evening really plays out. This is all done in split screen side by side comparison and is great!
#1 - Inglourious Basterds: (see my previous post for full review)

Movies that I’m looking forward to that have yet to come out or that I just haven’t gotten around to are listed below. I’m realizing now that there are a lot of movies I need to watch. These are only the ones that I haven’t seen that I feel like could potentially shake the list up and are listed in no particular order.

Crazy Heart
The Road
Up in the Air
Moon
Where the Wild Things Are
Taken
Gomorrah
Sunshine Cleaning
Sin Nombre
Drag Me To Hell
Away We Go
A Serious Man
An Education
Precious
District 9
Invictus
The Lovely Bones

Inglourious Basterds

Admittedly, I had been dreading the release of this film. I know, I know, how can I be saying that? After all I am a huge Quentin Tarantino fan. But the premises of this film did not intrigue me right off the bat: A WWII war film about a renegade group of solders going around killing Nazis. It just seemed kind of average for Quentin Tarantino’s taste, or it would just be a complete gore/ultra violent fest taking advantage of the whole war genre. Then I saw the trailer…. and I really didn’t want to see it after that! The trailer is basically one scene from the movie, the first time the Basterds (our group of renegade soldiers) are introduced to the screen. Brad Pitt plays they’re Southern commanding officer. Based on the trailer I was not impressed with Brad Pitt’s acting and the premise was now a bunch of Jewish American soldier out on revenge, and all with a very campy feel. I just felt like Mr. Tarantino had already done revenge films quite well, and this one was just going to be too campy, have nothing to do with WWII other than there are Nazis in the film, and in some ways it almost seemed offensive to me. And to top it off, two of the Basterds are played by B.J. Novak (Ryan from The Office) and Samm Levine (Neal Schweiber from Freaks and Geeks), so how can we even take them seriously?!

So opening day came and went and I did not see the movie. But word of mouth began to spread that it was quite good. Some were even saying it was now their favorite Quentin Tarantino film. That just couldn’t be true, could it? So now I had to go see it and see what all the fuss was about. And boy am I glad I did.

From the opening credits I knew that I was in for a treat. The use of music was fantastic right off the bat. Using Ennio Morricone music told us that this was not just going to be a war film, but a spaghetti western as well. The first chapter was even called: Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France. The scenes seemed to stay an extra few beats and allowed to just breath, reminiscent of Sergio Leone. We knew that the stakes were high and there was tension in the air as the Nazi car came driving up the road to the farmer’s house, but were unsure way, and were then forced to wait. Even when Colonel Hans Landa, who we learn is nicknamed The Jew Hunter, enters the farmers house we are not informed right away why the Nazis have arrived and why there is such high tension in the scene. Instead the scene is filled with pleasant, hospitable conversation about his lovely daughters, and fine milk. Col. Hans Landa is one of those great villains because he is so charming, but underneath that smile is pure evil, and power. We are made aware of just how powerful he is in that first scene because he does not need to use any threats or violence on his subject, but rather waits for him to crack.

It’s not until the second chapter that we are introduced to the scene from the trailer; the scene that led me to believe would be the main plot and characters of the film, the Inglourious Basterds. I was still not won over by Brad Pitt as Lieutenant Aldo Raine in that first scene, but he definitely did not bother me as much as he did in the trailer (ah, the power of editing). As the film went on though, I began to like the character more and more. He had his own sense of charm as well and was a good match up to Col. Hans Landa. More than anything though I was happy to see that the Basterds story was not the driving force for this film, that there were so many more layers than what I was led to believe.

It was the characters from the third chapter that I found the most intriguing. Quentin Tarantino definitely knows how to write strong leading ladies, and Shosanna Dreyfus, played by the lovely Melanie Laurent, is no exception. She comes across as so bold and independent, it is just so refreshing, and yet my favorite scene of hers is when she breaks that mold and revels how terrified and perhaps over her head, she really is, but then shakes it and bounces right back into action. I love once her plan begins to take into affect, although we still don’t know how exactly she is going to do (Quentin Tarantino knows how to leave the element of surprise after all). I particularly loved the scene of the night of the movie premiere were Shosanne is getting dressed up, the beautiful crane shot of her walking down the stairs and then staring out the window. All of this with the over the top 80’s classic of David Bowie playing. It was partly her dress and vale and the 80’s music that made me think of Blade Runner (another great classic).

One of the great things about this film is that you have two, somewhat unrelated, stories going on simultaneously, but both meet at a climactic finally. What I found myself asking all through the third act though is whether or not these two stories would come together in tandem and work cohesively? Or would it be more tragic and each one impeding the other? This great tension remained up until the final minutes. Because of this, I do not see this film as a war film at all, but rather an amazing suspense film, probably one of the best suspense films I’m seen in years. I don’t care too much for popular figures of speech, but for this review, I’ll use them. I can honestly say that for the entire third act of the film, my stomach was in knots. I was so worked up over what was going to happen to these characters that I had grown to love in such a short amount of time. In the end, it was nothing that I could have expected to happen, and yet still pleased with the results.

There were some flaws in the film though, as all movies have them after all. The changing typeface of the opening credits I found distracting (yet I liked how each style looked). There is a surprise cameo in the film, that I feel is very distracting, and I’m still undecided on some of the voice over to give us some back-story to a few characters.

In conclusion, this was one of the better Quentin Tarantino films, and I am so happy that I made myself go see it instead of letting my assumptions based on an inaccurate trailer get the better of me. Although this is not my favorite Brad Pitt film, I think his earlier work is much better, his character grew on my quite a bit compared to what is represented in the trailer. All of the other major characters are virtually flawless. I have never wanted to seriously stay in the theater for the immediate screening afterward. I probably would have if I hadn’t of had to go to the bathroom so bad afterward.

More Oscar Predictions (the rough cut)

I figured I will go ahead and post all of my predictions, but this time I'm only going to list who I think the winners will be.

Original Screenplay:
Happy-Go-Lucky


Adapted Screenplay:
The Reader


Cinematography:
Slumdog Millionaire


Editing:
Slumdog Millionaire


Art Directing:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button


Costume Design:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button


Makeup:
The Dark Knight


Original Score:
Slumdog Millionaire


Sound Mixing:
Wall-E


Sound Editing:
Wall-E


Visual Effects:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button


Animated Film:
Wall-E


Foreign Language:
Waltz with Bashir


Documentary Feature:
Man on Wire


Documentary Short:
Smile Pinki


Short Animated:
Oktapodi


Short Live Action:
Toyland

Oscar Post

Okay folks so here is my opinion of this years Oscars based on the nominees for this year - It's CRAP! Yep, not too excited about them this year, but don't worry I will still be hunkered down in front of my TV on Sunday, after all it's the Oscars, and crap or amazing, I just have to watch. Why do I think this year is crap? Well as always with the Oscars certain movies get ignored and others get over promoted. Sure this happened every year, but this year it just bothered me more then others (I'm sure I'll be more annoyed after winners are announced too). So in honor of this years Oscars and my opinions of it I will highlight a select few of the award categories and say who I think will win, and who I think should win (or in many cases who should have at least been nominated) So without further ado:

Original Song:
A.R. Rahman, Sampooran Singh Gulzar "Jai Ho"
A.R. Rahman, M.I.A. "Oh Saya"
Peter Gabriel, Thomas Newman "Down to Earth"


Winner will be:
"Jai Ho"


Should be:
"The Wrestler" Bruce Springsteen (although out of what's nominated I'd be okay with "Jai Ho")

Directing:
Danny Boyle
Stephen Daldry
David Fincher
Ron Howard
Gus Van Sant


Winner will be:
Danny Boyle


Nominees should have been (and in the following order):
Christopher Nolan
Gus Van Sant
Sam Mendes
Darren Aronofsky
David Fincher


Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams
Penelope Cruz
Viola Davis
Taraji P. Henson
Marisa Tomei


Winner will be:
Penelope Cruz


Nominees should have been (again in the following order):
Rosemarie DeWitt
Penelope Cruz
Kathryn Hahn
Marisa Tomei
Evan Rachel Wood or
Frances McDormand


Supporting Actor:
Josh Brolin
Robert Downey Jr.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Heath Ledger
Michael Shannon


Winner will be:
Heath Ledger


Should Be:
Heath Ledger (okay, so there's one category that I don't have a problem with)


Best Actress:
Anne Hathaway
Angelina Jolie*
Melissa Leo*
Meryl Streep
Kate Winslet


Winner will be:
Kate Winslet


Nominees Should have been (in the following order):
Kate Winslet
Rebecca Hall
Kate Winslet
Anne Hathaway
Meryl Streep

*not completely fair, as I have not yet seen their performance.

Best Actor:
Richard Jenkins
Frank Langella
Sean Penn
Brad Pitt
Mickey Rourke


Winner will be:
Sean Penn


Should be:
Sean Penn, but not upset if it's Mickey Rourke


Best Picture: (what everyone scanned down for)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire


Winner will be:
Slumdog Millionaire


Nominees Should have been (in the following order):
The Wrestler
Milk
The Dark Knight
Vicky Christina Barcelona
Revolutionary Road


Alright, now it's time to sit back and enjoy the show on Sunday night and see how close I am at calling the big awards.