Oscars Predictions

I've been working like a dog for the past few weeks, and seeing movies like a fiend when I haven't been working like a dog - which means that I've seen pretty much all of the major Oscars contenders but haven't had any time to say anything about them. In brief, the only movie I've seen recently that really impressed me was "A Separation" (up for Best Foreign Film and Best Screenplay, and deserving of both), although "Iron Lady" was more compelling than I expected - mainly, of course, because of the great Meryl Streep.

I managed to see all five Best Foreign Film nominees - thanks in large part to the National Geographic Museum's "Global Glimpses" series (they do a weekend marathon showing of all the Foreign Film nominees - great event, if you can see that many films in one weekend) and thought they were a solid bunch - not a dud among them. Surprisingly, even though I thought "A Separation" was the most accomplished, my personal favorite of the five was "Monsieur Lazhar," a Canadian film about an Algerian immigrant who gets a post as a new teacher in a Montreal grade school; it's very modest, but that modesty is part of its charm. However, the nominee most likely to upset frontrunner "A Separation" is (naturally) a Holocaust film, Agnieszka Holland's "In Darkness," which might be subtitled "If Oscar Schindler had been a mercenary sewer rat in Lvov, Poland."

My one big Oscar-watching failing: I haven't seen any of the nominated documentaries. (hangs head in shame) I guess I'm more of a fiction kind of gal, in movies as well as books - though I did (do) want to see "Pina."

Anyway, here are my predictions for the majors:

BEST PICTURE

NOMINEES: The Artist; Hugo; The Descendants; The Tree of Life; Midnight in Paris; The Help; Moneyball; War Horse; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
WILL WIN: The Artist, although no one seems very excited about that prospect
SHOULD WIN: The Tree of Life

BEST DIRECTOR

NOMINEES: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist; Martin Scorsese, Hugo, Alexander Payne, The Descendants; Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life; Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
WILL WIN: Probably Hazanavicius, though I can't help thinking Malick might be a dark horse here. If Scorsese hadn't won relatively recently, he'd have a better shot.
SHOULD WIN: Malick

BEST ACTOR

NOMINEES: Jean Dujardin, The Artist; George Clooney, The Descendants; Brad Pitt, Moneyball; Gary Oldman, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Demian Bichir, A Better Life
WILL WIN: Dujardin by a hair over Clooney
SHOULD WIN: Michael Fassbender. Oh, he wasn't nominated? Well, that's a shame. (Nyuk, nyuk. In all seriousness, I haven't seen "A Better Life," but among the rest, I'm rooting for Oldman. Very understated, perfectly calibrated performance.)

BEST ACTRESS

NOMINEES: Meryl Streep, Iron Lady; Viola Davis, The Help; Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs; Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn; Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
WILL WIN: This is a tough one. I was leaning towards Viola, but having seen Iron Lady more recently, I'm less sure now. At post time, though, I'm sticking with Viola.
SHOULD WIN: Kirsten Dunst - oh wait. Hmph. Ok, I have to say I was pretty impressed with Meryl Streep - she somehow managed to make a person whose every word I disagreed with strangely compelling and, at the last, a sad but not pathetic old lady.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

NOMINEES: Christopher Plummer, Beginners; Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn; Jonah Hill, Moneyball; Nick Nolte, Warrior
WILL WIN: Plummer
SHOULD WIN: I haven't seen Warrior, but all the rest fell in the "good, not great" category. (Clear omission: Brad Pitt for Tree of Life.) I'm ok with Plummer winning for body-of-work (could say the same for von Sydow, but Plummer's performance this time was better).

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

NOMINEES: Octavia Spencer, The Help; Bérénice Bejo, The Artist; Jessica Chastain, The Help; Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids; Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
WILL WIN: Spencer
SHOULD WIN: I love my girl Jessica, but of this group I was most moved by Bejo.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

NOMINEES: The Artist; Midnight in Paris; A Separation; Bridesmaids; Margin Call
WILL WIN: Woody
SHOULD WIN: A Separation - one of the best constructed screenplays I've seen in a while.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

NOMINEES: The Descendants; Hugo; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Moneyball; The Ides of March
WILL WIN: The Descendants
SHOULD WIN: Tinker Tailor

And there you have it. I'm going to be back to working like a dog next week, so no Oscars recap for me - but you can bet I'll be watching. Go Billy Crystal!

Top Ten Films of 2011

It may have been a dismal year for Hollywood, measured in box office receipts, but 2011 turned out to be a pretty good year for movies. Or, at least, for this moviegoer.

By "pretty good" I mean that I liked, but didn't love, almost everything I saw to at least some degree. I saw quite a lot of well-made, well-acted, engaging films, some of which suffered from the weight of expectations produced by too much advance buzz - a problem I noted last year that's only gotten worse, and is probably at least partly responsible for the large number of B+'s I handed out. Hence one of my minor new year's resolutions is to cut back drastically on reading about movies before I see them - or at least to refrain, once I know enough about a movie to want to see it, from reading anything further about that movie until after I've seen it.

Being spoiled by too much hype did, at least, make me appreciate even more keenly those films that actually exceeded my expectations. And it says something about the strength of this year that there were several such: my entire top five, particularly the top four, which doesn't even include a number of films I badly want to see but either missed in theaters or don't have access to yet (e.g., "Certified Copy," "Meek's Cutoff," "Margaret," "A Separation," "Coriolanus"). But equally tellingly, there's a rather sharp enthusiasm differential between the upper half and lower half of my top ten, and I'm not sure how much of that correlates with actual difference in quality.

With those caveats, here they are:

1. THE TREE OF LIFE

Very much a love-it-or-hate-it proposition, Terrence Malick's tone poem on the wonder and cruelty of life, the universe, and everything has been labeled incoherent, pretentious, self-indulgent, and absurd. It's all of these things. It's also radiantly beautiful and breathtakingly intimate: you can feel the director's soul in every frame.

2. DRIVE

Part dreamy Wong Kar Wai-ish mood piece, part ultraviolent sendup of gangster movies, this exquisitely shot little oddity seemed at first like all style and no substance. But Ryan Gosling's eyes, and the last shot of him driving, specter-like, still haunt me.

3. MELANCHOLIA

If you'd told me a year ago that a Lars von Trier film would be in my top ten, I'd have laughed in your face - and this was before his stupid Nazi jokes. Well, here we are, and what can I say: somehow, the director I loved to hate has managed to channel his mental issues into a mesmerizing tableau of depression that's transmuted by, of all things, an apocalypse - a grim joke that, amazingly, works. Special kudos to Kirsten Dunst for her stunning lead performance.

4. TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

This lean, streamlined adaptation of a densely plotted John Le Carré novel stands out for how skillfully it evokes not just a specific time and place (principally 1970s London) but the general grayness and weariness that blurred the moral boundaries of Cold War espionage. The film also features a superb cast, headed by a wonderfully understated Gary Oldman as the drab but in no way dull hero. Everyone else is terrific, too; the movie's worth seeing for the acting ensemble alone.

5. MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

You'd never be able to tell that this haunting, opaque film about a girl who joins and then flees a cult is writer-director Sean Durkin's first full-length feature. It has the fluidity and assurance of a far more experienced professional with a distinct artistic vision. Elizabeth Olson (younger sister to Mary Kate and Ashley), too, is a revelation as the troubled protagonist, who escapes one kind of prison only to find herself trapped in another.

6. SHAME

Probably the most beautiful and least erotic movie about sex addiction ever made. I still think director Steve McQueen put too much distance between the audience and the main characters, that even wonderful performances by Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan can't quite bridge. But one unforgettable scene - in which Carey Mulligan sings "New York, New York" - makes up for nearly everything.

7. THE DESCENDANTS

Rather like its protagonist, Alexander Payne's low-key Hawaiian dramedy is flawed, shambling, a bit clumsy, and takes a while to find its footing - yet has an underlying warmth and sensitivity that shines through. I found its leisurely pace and its focus on father-daughter dynamics refreshing, where others might find it dull or meandering. I liked its quietness. And I loved Shailene Woodley as the prickly yet loyal teenage daughter.

8. TAKE SHELTER

A fraternal twin of "Martha Marcy May Marlene" - this one centered on a troubled man rather than a troubled girl - with apocalyptic overtones that open it up to any number of sociological, psychological, and allegorical interpretations. Even if you don't buy into any of those, it's still a compellingly creepy little piece of modern American Gothic.

9. CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS

Werner Herzog + prehistoric cave art = irreplicable experience. Not Herzog's best work, but still hits all the right Herzogian notes, and uses 3D better than any film I've ever seen. You feel like you can almost reach out and touch those cave paintings, and not in that gimmicky, faintly unreal 3D way.

10. Tie: THE ARTIST and SUPER 8

They both pay homage to far superior films - or, to borrow a comment I read once about "Super 8" that applies equally to "The Artist," they're good movies that remind you of great ones. They're on this list because they did quite well what they sought to do, and, damn it, because they were fun. A little nostalgia goes a long way.

Christmas Movie Roundup

As always, I'm kicking off the new year feeling as stuffed as a Christmas goose (do people still have goose for Christmas?) - not from eating (well, that too) but from excessive moviegoing, topped off with a frantic end-of-year binge on Oscar hopefuls. And as usual, I'm already ridiculously backlogged on reviews as a result of having seen what feels like half of the total movies I saw all year in just the last three months. But what can I say - it's tradition. Happy new year!


TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY

directed by Tomas Alfredson
starring Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Ciaran Hinds, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, others, all fantastic
based on the novel by John Le Carré

GRADE: B+/A- (may bump this up to A- if it jells well; it's only been a couple of days)


THE ARTIST

written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius
starring Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, James Cromwell, John Goodman, Penelope Ann Miller

GRADE: B+


THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

directed by David Fincher
starring Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgaard, Robin Wright Penn
based on the novel by Stieg Larsson

GRADE: B+


THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN

directed by Steven Spielberg
starring (sort of) Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost
loosely based on several of Hergé's Tintin serials

GRADE: B

Reviews to come, some time, but probably not before I make my best of 2011 list

Fassbender vs. Fassbender: Studies in sexual compulsion

SHAME

directed by Steve McQueen (no, not *that* Steve McQueen)
starring Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale

GRADE: B+


A DANGEROUS METHOD

directed by David Cronenberg
starring Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley

GRADE: B/B+

Reviews to come

"Melancholia": Ending the world with a bang and a whimper

MELANCHOLIA

directed by Lars von Trier
starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, others

GRADE: B+/A-

In a nutshell: What I thought impossible, a von Trier film I actually really liked. The world *must* be ending.

Review to come

Just in time for the holidays - comas, orphans, and second chances in "The Descendants," "Hugo"

THE DESCENDANTS

directed by Alexander Payne
starring George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Robert Forster, Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer

GRADE: B+



HUGO

directed by Martin Scorsese
starring Ben Kingsley, Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jude Law, Christopher Lee, others

GRADE: B+

Reviews to come

Mad visions, visionary madness blur in "Take Shelter," "Martha"

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

written and directed by Sean Durkin
starring Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, Hugh Dancy

GRADE: B+/A-


TAKE SHELTER

written and directed by Jeff Shelton
starring Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain

GRADE: B+

Reviews to come