Spring Forward Films

Even though this weekend had one less hour to watch movies I still managed to watch four films that ranged from truly great to mildly annoying. I started with Argentina’s entry into this past Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film, Wild Tales, followed up with the American period piece, Serena,  featuring now frequent collaborators Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. Then was a trip to the theater to see Neill Blomkamp’s under appreciated and under seen Chappie, and then finished with last year’s Pam D’Or winner at Cannes, Turkey’s Winter Sleep.

Instead of my typical long reviews I’ll just say if you should watch it or not.

Watch it. This movie will be out at the Oriental this coming weekend and can be seen at other art house cinemas in the area.  This comes highly recommended and is comparable to Borgman in it’s morality tale short stories and themes of economic and moral justice. Argentina is just the country to give us this movie given the complicated real life political drama occurring there.

Don’t see this. Don’t be fooled by the stars involved or the romantic time period involved. This movie is as exactly uninspired as this poster. There are almost no sympathetic characters. They aren’t really even characters but just traits and tired metaphors played out in an uninteresting and disjointed narrative. It’s a shame because Cooper and Lawrence have obvious chemistry, but they got too comfortable here. Serena is a real let down.

Chappie is the sort of movie that I’m going to like no matter what. This is really just for fans of Neill Blomkamp. I’ve been following him from his days of making short films. And Chappie is a direct spinoff from one of those shorts.  This is basically an update on Short Circuit which is totally ok with me. Blomkamp’s visuals and big ideas matched with the South African rap group’s Die Antwoord’s debut as fictional versions of themselves was great for me. I realize how this could be cinematic territory that has been retread too often for some, but for me I enjoyed it.  Check it out.

It’s hard to decide which I liked more, Wild Tales or this, Winter Sleep. If Wild Tales was brethren to Borgman then Winter Sleep, the 2014 Palme D’Or winner at Cannes, was the spiritual companion to Leviathan from Russia. Leviathan was one of my absolute favorite films from last year and Winter Sleep with it’s very limited 2015 release so far could rank up there this year. It’s a beautiful epic at over three hours long that is incredibly heavy with dialogue and interesting layered characters. It examines society with a fine tooth comb and delves into real philosophical topics with a rare honesty. If Leviathan examined the individuals relationship with the Russian state then Winter Sleep examines Turkey’s march towards modernity and reconciles its history with its growth and puts on a pedestal a local dignitary only to knock him down. Watching all four of the aforementioned foreign films all together will give you a great update on the state of world cinema from the Netherlands to Russia from Argentina to Turkey. With the rut the current box office is in you should reward yourself with great foreign films. Oh and go see Chappie too, because Blomkamp is one of the better voices in modern sci-fi. And because it’s just cool.

American Sniper: The Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History

War movies are easy to make entertaining and emotional, they’re hard to make great and memorable for the ages. We haven’t had that seminal war film for our age that covers the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Hurt Locker comes the closest. American Sniper will occupy a close second from now on. That doesn’t say as much about American Sniper as it does about the other films about these wars. I’m not sure if that’s because we don’t have the benefit of time and hindsight just yet or if filmmakers are going about things too literally and trying to maintain gritty realism. Whatever it is, we just haven’t had that film that defines the generation in terms of the wars. I’ll just list my favorite war films to let you know my taste: the four Vietnam films, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket are always near the top; the Russian film Come and See and The Battle of Algiers might beat them all, and Saving Private Ryan of course is nearly beyond any criticism; others I like are Paths of Glory, MASH, The Big Red One and The Thin Red Line. Taking two of those Apocalypse Now is an adaptation of the book ‘The Heart of Darkness’ that just uses the Vietnam setting to tell the story, and MASH uses the Korean War backdrop to look at the then current Vietnam conflict. It is those unique perspectives that make them great. 

I think why The Hurt Locker and American Sniper are partially successful though is because they focus on a specialist in the wars, a bomb expert and a sniper. It puts the audience in a unique perspective as well. The best shots of American Sniper were when we peered down the scope of the rifle or when we viewed the battleground from the camera lens of a drone, unfortunately those moments were just too fleeting. I would’ve loved to see a multi-minute shot just looking through the scope to give us exactly what Navy Seal Chris Kyle was seeing. I also liked when we looked back through the scope and saw his eye enlarged by the lens. Despite this minor quibble I will say the best compliment I can about this film: I couldn’t imagine anyone else directing it besides Clint Eastwood and I couldn’t imagine anyone else starring besides Bradley Cooper.

Cooper is massive, both physically and as a leading presence on the battlefield. He is always in control when in country fighting a war he actually seems to enjoy, or at least able to tolerate better than the other soldiers. And this is shown best by how uncomfortable he is during the scenes back home between his four tours. Cooper plays his character bolder in Iraq and sometimes almost sheepish while back in America. I say his ‘character’ and not Chris Kyle because no mater how true, or how many liberties are taken, he is not Chris Kyle. He’s a character. He has some qualities of Kyle, but also would add things that aren’t there. I don’t want any criticism I have of the film to be conflated with criticism of Chris Kyle. Not to say that there are things to criticize. There is a good deal of self mytholigizing done by the SEAL. He believes wholeheartedly in what he does. As good of a soldier that Cooper plays him to be, he’s that bad of a father and husband. He provides for his family, but he can’t be emotionally present for them. Not until his mission is done.

Eastwood is a great director to convey that mission. He’s had a spotty record though during this century. He started out on fire with Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of our Fathers, and Letters from Iwo Jima. I also loved his Invictus. However, his other films between there and here are almost complete misfires. He gets his groove back here and I hope he can keep it up now at the tail end of his career. He’s been prolific in his later years, I want him to keep going. But his early westerns are among my favorites with High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and Pale Rider. He does convey Chris Kyle as a cowboy, and it’s obvious that’s how Kyle sees himself, at least early on in his career. If you’ve seen the trailer you recognize the scene above. He has to choose whether to shoot a child carrying a grenade. Eastwood takes us into that moment with the opening of the film, and right before the decision is made he cuts to a lengthy flashback sequence that shows Kyle as the All-American boy and his choices that led to being a SEAL. There is some troubling narrative here that seems to make a direct connection between 9/11 and al-Qaeda and the war in Iraq. I don’t think anyone is seriously making those connections anymore, but in 2003 plenty were. I hope that’s all this is, just to show Kyle’s mindset. He wants to be a patriot.

The scenes in Iraq are filmed by Eastwood classically at times, and more realistically at times too. It’s as if the handheld camera footage of 9/11 has changed cinema. That nothing filmmakers can create can be as real and dramatic as what we saw on our TV’s that day. Because of this it seems an obvious choice to take things into a hyper-realistic and heightened state. In doing this the scenes play out almost exactly like a Call of Duty video game. I enjoy those games a lot so this is not a criticism, but rather a compliment. Those games are more cinematic than anything out there right now.  Similar to Black Hawk Dawn, Eastwood is able to make a coherent and easy to read geography of the battlefield so we know where danger is coming from at times, and obscures it at others to up the tension. This may have been my favorite part of the film, the staging. Heroism is in the forefront. But because of this another questionable choice is made. Bradley Cooper is given a villain, an adversary, to fight. Another sniper. We never meet him, just see him with his gun. All we know is that he is a former Olympian marksman. This is a video game quality. I don’t care if it was true, it’s just silly. Using visuals from a game is fine, using their stories less so. Other qualities of a game are used well though. There are great side characters that fight along side Cooper, but we never get to know them that well. In fact I only recognized one actor by name in the dozens that fight with him. This brings the focus to our main character and it needed to be done that way.

The scenes at home are done well. The editing between them is done even better. But they are just scenes. The connections are hard to make. This is more a collection of extremely well done scenes than a cohesive movie.  Sienna Miller plays the wife admirably enough, but we just don’t get a lot of time with her. I used to think she could be the next big thing, but that was back in the mid 2000’s. Her best roles were as wives here and also in Foxcatcher. Perhaps she can turn things around and be that actress I thought she could be. I liked her much more than I thought I would. Eastwood knows how to direct great female characters as we saw in Million Dollar Baby, I would’ve liked to see more of some of those qualities here. The best scene at home was done when a soldier he saved sees him out in public and thanks him and his son. That was the most emotional part of the film until the end where real life footage is shown for the tragedy that was never shown at the gun range where Kyle was helping other veterans, but the PTSD of one overcame him and he violently took Kyle’s life. This could be just ‘PTSD: The Movie’ but thankfully some good directorial choices and a very strong performance make it more than that. But there are other choices that made me groan, like the flashback early on and the use of a villain without any nuance. This film is what you see is what you get. I wanted more. I see why it was nominated for a best picture, but it unfortunately won’t crack my top 10. It was better than Unbroken, but I still come back to Fury as a better war film this year. Though time could change my opinion. Regardless you need to see this movie. It is going to be a huge hit, and will be the talk of the filmgoing public for a while.

Oscar Nominations Are Here!

BEST PICTURE

                         

American Sniper                   Birdman                   Boyhood                  

                                       

The Grand Budapest Hotel                          The Imitation Game

                     

 Selma                                 The Theory of Everything

  

     Whiplash

Alright, so there it is, we have the “Best Pictures” of 2014 according to the Academy. They only selected eight films this year instead of the usual nine of prior years.  Ever since expanding from five films they have the ability to select up to ten but have only selected nine.  Nightcrawler or Foxcatcher definitely could’ve taken up those spots. Not that it really matters since this is Boyhood‘s category to lose

DIRECTING

Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Richard Linklater

Bennett Miller

Wes Anderson

Morten Tyldum

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Steve Carell

Foxcatcher

Bradley Cooper

American Sniper

Benedict Cumberbatch

The Imitation Game

Michael Keaton

Birdman

Eddie Redmayne

The Theory of Everything

Super strong category here and lots of deserving people (Jake Gylenhaal, ahem) got left out. I think this is a two man race between Keaton and Redmayne. I still have to see American Sniper though, and I’ll be doing that this weekend.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Marion Cotillard

Two Days, One Night

Felicity Jones

The Theory of Everything

Julianne Moore

Still Alice

Rosamund Pike

Gone Girl

Reese Witherspoon

Wild

My personal favorites in this category are Jones and Pike, but this is going to go to Julianne Moore. Her career is longer and her role more daring. A perfect recipe to win. All are amazing actresses. Still need to see Two Days, One Night, though that isn’t scheduled to screen anywhere close.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Robert Duvall

The Judge

Ethan Hawke

Boyhood

Edward Norton

Birdman

Mark Ruffalo

Foxcatcher

J.K. Simmons

Whiplash

Very bummed that Duvall got a nomination at all for a subpar typical picture like The Judge. I don’t like career achievement awards in categories like this. Simmons has it in the bag though. But it just would’ve been nice to see someone actually deserving of the award or someone who’s career it would boost.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Patricia Arquette

Boyhood

Laura Dern

Wild

Keira Knightley

The Imitation Game

Emma Stone

Birdman

Meryl Streep

Into the Woods

I think Patricia Arquette should win this, and she probably will. Though lately I have been rooting for Keira Knightley because she was so good. Either would make me happy. Well, anyone winning except Meryl Streep would make me happy. There must be a rule that she get nominated every year despite what role she is in. This is just as bad as the Duvall nomination.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• 
  Ida
  Poland
• 
  Leviathan
  Russia
• 
  Tangerines
  Estonia
• 
  Timbuktu
  Mauritania
• 
  Wild Tales
  Argentina

I’ve actually only seen Ida and I’m upset that Force Majeure wasn’t nominated. Leviathan is supposed to be great, but it won’t hit screens here until February 27th which is a week after the awards show. The others likely won’t be on screens anywhere near where I am unfortunately. Hopefully they pop up online somehow.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

• 
  Big Hero 6
• 
  The Boxtrolls
• 
  How to Train Your Dragon 2
• 
  Song of the Sea
• 
  The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Obviously the biggest disappointment of the whole nominations is that The Lego Movie was left out. A crime! After that I’m pulling for Big Hero 6, because that’s the only other one I’ve seen yet. I do want to see The Princess Kaguya because I love Japanese animation and Song of the Sea because it’s from the makers of The Book of Kells and is just another example of how Irish cinema is on the uptick.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• 
  CitizenFour
• 
  Finding Vivian Maier
• 
  Last Days in Vietnam
• 
  The Salt of the Earth
• 
  Virunga

Here I’ve see Citizenfour, Finding Vivian Maier, and Virunga. All are great. I think Citizenfour is too timely and makes such amazing suspense out of just hotel room interviews that it will be impossible to ignore as the winner. The other two I haven’t seen but will check out. There were others on the short list of potential nominees hat I think deserved those spots more, but who knows. I won’t be definitive on the matter until I see them all.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Emmanuel Lubezki for Birdman
• Robert Yeoman for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski for Ida
• Dick Pope for Mr. Turner
• Roger Deakins for Unbroken

DICK POOP! LOL. Ok, I think Dick Pope will win this for Mr. Turner. Amazing painterly shots. Though Lubezki is my favorite current cinematographer, he could win for the great work in the editless Birdman. Deakins is a god amongst cinematographers, but his work in Unbroken was just not as good as his prior works. Would’ve loved to see Hoyt Hoytema get a nomination for Interstellar here instead. A nomination for Ida here is great. Usually foreign films get ignored in categories except their own, but this was well deserved. I love cinematography! One of my favorite categories outside the major ones.

COSTUME DESIGN

• Milena Canonero for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Mark Bridges for Inherent Vice
• Colleen Atwood for Into the Woods
• Anna B. Sheppard and Jane Clive for Maleficent
• Jacqueline Durran for Mr. Turner

Couldn’t care less about Into the Woods or Maleficent. Usually this category goes to period pieces so Mr. Turner has to be a frontrunner, but the costumes in Inherent Vice were so much fun. Tough one to call.

FILM EDITING

• Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach for American Sniper
• Sandra Adair for Boyhood
• Barney Pilling for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• William Goldenberg for The Imitation Game
• Tom Cross for Whiplash

Whiplash all the way here. Such inventive and frenetic editing. Loved it.

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

• Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard for Foxcatcher
• Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White for Guardians of the Galaxy

Would love to see Guardians of the Galaxy win something, so why not here? I think everyone is enamored with the work done in Foxcatcher, so that will probably win.

MUSIC – ORIGINAL SCORE

• Alexandre Desplat for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Alexandre Desplat for The Imitation Game
• Hans Zimmer for Interstellar
• Gary Yershon for Mr. Turner
• Jóhann Jóhannsson for The Theory of Everything

A double nomination for Desplat. That’s pretty much a death knell since his votes will be split. I think Johannsson wins after picking up the Golden Globe last weekend. I am really pumped to see Hans Zimmer here. That was my personal favorite score.

MUSIC – ORIGINAL SONG

• “Everything Is Awesome”; Music and Lyric by Shawn Patterson from The Lego Movie
• “Glory”; Music and Lyric by John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn from Selma
• “Grateful”; Music and Lyric by Diane Warren from Beyond the Lights
• “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”; Music and Lyric by Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond from Glen Campbell… I’ll Be Me
• “Lost Stars”; Music and Lyric by Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois from Begin Again

Not a category that I care about, though I hope The Lego Movie gets some love. Selma would also be a good choice.

PRODUCTION DESIGN

• Adam Stockhausen (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration) for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Maria Djurkovic (Production Design); Tatiana Macdonald (Set Decoration) for The Imitation Game
• Nathan Crowley (Production Design); Gary Fettis (Set Decoration) for Interstellar
• Dennis Gassner (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration) for Into the Woods
• Suzie Davies (Production Design); Charlotte Watts (Set Decoration) for Mr. Turner

I think The Grand Budapest Hotel deserves this, though Interstellar’s design was absolutely epic.

SOUND EDITING

• Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman for American Sniper
• Martin Hernández and Aaron Glascock for Birdman
• Brent Burge and Jason Canovas for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
• Richard King for Interstellar
• Becky Sullivan and Andrew DeCristofaro for Unbroken

SOUND MIXING

• John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin for American Sniper
• Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and Thomas Varga for Birdman
• Gary A. Rizzo, Gregg Landaker and Mark Weingarten for Interstellar
• Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and David Lee for Unbroken
• Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley for Whiplash

I’ll talk about Editing and Mixing here. Nolan’s films always get nominated. I know there is a big controversy over the sound in Interstellar but I think it will go down in history for being innovative. The Hobbit is also always a contender in these categories. Otherwise Birdman would be my third choice. I might have to revisit this after seeing American Sniper soon. You can toss Unbroken aside in this category entirely.

VISUAL EFFECTS

• Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick for Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett and Erik Winquist for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
• Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould for Guardians of the Galaxy
• Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher for Interstellar
• Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie and Cameron Waldbauer for X-Men: Days of Future Past

Can’t there be a tie? I think Interstellar’s practical effects are more innovative, but Guardians of the Galaxy is more fun. I’d rather innovation win over fun. GotG didn’t offer anything new.

WRITING – ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Written by Jason Hall for American Sniper
• Written by Graham Moore for The Imitation Game
• Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson for Inherent Vice
• Screenplay by Anthony McCarten for The Theory of Everything
• Written by Damien Chazelle for Whiplash

Whiplash should win, though it’s not really adapted. The Academy considers this adapted because he made a short film from a scene in the full feature to get investors in on the project. This short screened at Sundance which then makes the feature film an adaptation. What? Well whatever. P.T. Anderson could win here too and I wouldn’t be mad one bit, his characters are so crazy it’s hard not to love his screenplays.

WRITING – ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo for Birdman
• Written by Richard Linklater for Boyhood
• Written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman for Foxcatcher
• Screenplay by Wes Anderson; Story by Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Written by Dan Gilroy
  for Nightcrawler

I’d like to see Dan Gilroy win here for Nightcrawler but that’s a bit of a long shot. Otherwise it’s a hard fight between Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel. A real toss up.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

• Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Dana Perry for Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
• Aneta Kopacz for Joanna
• Tomasz Sliwinski and Maciej Slesicki for Our Curse
• Gabriel Serra Arguello for The Reaper (La Parka)
• J. Christian Jensen for White Earth

SHORT FILM – ANIMATED

• Daisy Jacobs and Christopher Hees for The Bigger Picture
• Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi for The Dam Keeper
• Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed for Feast
• Torill Kove for Me and My Moulton
• Joris Oprins for A Single Life

SHORT FILM – LIVE ACTION

• Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis for Aya
• Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney for Boogaloo and Graham
• Hu Wei and Julien Féret for Butter Lamp (La Lampe au Beurre de Yak)
• Talkhon Hamzavi and Stefan Eichenberger for Parvaneh
• Mat Kirkby and James Lucas for The Phone Call

I won’t say much about the shorts since I haven’t seen any yet. Luckily the Oriental Theatre puts on a program with all the shorts for Live Action and Animated and it’s a really fun time at the movies to go see those. I’ve done that the past two years and will do so again this year. They’ll be playing starting the weekend of January 30th. Unfortunately the Documentary Short Subject are pretty impossible to see anywhere. Maybe I can be sneaky and find them online.

So … what nominees are you cheering for? The Awards will be announced Sunday February 22nd. I’ll be watching attentively. Not sure if I’ll live blog again. That was pretty damn exhausting!