The Oscars 2014 - Predictions & Desires

Here we go again.  The 86th Academy Awards.  This is the point where I normally talk about how we all know the Oscars are a bunch of bullspit, but it's sill fun to revel in the pomp & circumstance.  But you know what?  I'm not too cool for school anymore.  I love the Oscars.  Never in a million years would I agree that these are the Best Pictures, and I can think of only one occasion in which the eventual Best Picture matched my own personal pick (1992's Unforgiven).  So what?  It doesn't matter.  I love movies.  You love movies.  Any excuse to talk movies is wonderful, and a big damn overblown award show celebrating movies is just dandy.  As much as people scoff at the film selections, the weepy acceptance speeches, the awkward comedy bits, and the never-ending musical numbers, the Oscars still manage to cause conversation amongst co-workers & friends.  "That's a terrible movie!  How come such-and-such got snubbed?  Idiots!"  Fun, I say.  No more making excuses.  Never again will I start one of this columns with "We All Know It's Bull-blah-blah-blah."  My name is Brad Gullickson and I love the Academy Awards.  Always have, always will.  And this year I've really gone out of my way to transform the Oscars into my Super Bowl.

Not much of a challenge really.  The fact that you only needed to see 11 films to have witnessed the major award nominations (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, & Supporting Actress) is a bit of a bummer.  No nods to performances that outshine their films, or the unexpected genre selection.  Variety is not your friend this year.  Of course, that meant after the nominations were announced, I only needed to check off August - Osage County.  I patted myself on the back.  What a dedicated cineaste, I am.  So I started knocking out the documentaries and the foreign films.  Not content, I went a little crazy.  So much so that I currently find myself watching the Hallmark Holocaust Adventure, The Book Thief because The Academy deemed John Williams's score worthy.  Before the show airs tonight, I will have seen every nominated film with the exception of The Missing Picture, Ernest & Celestine, Mandela - Long Walk to Freedom, and the Documentary Shorts.  This is the closest I've come to total Oscar domination.  Feels good.  And a challenge to beat next year.

"Eat The Fucking Fish!!!"

However, the absolute niftiest aspect to this year's ceremony is that the Best Picture nominations range from pretty damn good to really damn good.  Two of my own Top Ten Films of 2013 actually found their way into the top category.  No Everything is Illuminated trauma schmaltz to scratch your head over this year.  Solid choices, all worthy of at least one watch.  Still, the races I find myself the most excited over are in the Documentary & Foreign Film categories.  The Act of Killing is easily one of the most (prepare for hyperbolic cliche labeling...3...2...1...) emotionally devastating films I have ever experienced, and the single most important film to find it's way into the awards ceremony.  There is not a stronger set of films than those found in Foreign Film.  I ranked The Great Beauty as my 8th favorite film of last year, but having now seen the others (again, except for The Missing Picture), I could easily sing them all with equal praise.  This year certainly has its oddities - Bad Grampa for makeup, Inside Llewyn Davis snubbing, the token John Williams nominee, and my usual contempt for all of the Original Song nominations.  But hey, it's alright cuz The Lone Ranger got some respect in the technical awards.  Fingers Crossed!

Moving into my actual Predictions....I got no idea.  I've read the Entertainment Weeklies.  I've studied the Vegas odds.  I've listened to all the podcasts.  It's a real crapshoot this year.  There are at least three films that have been predicted for the Best Picture since the nominations were announced over a month ago, and they have been seesawing one way or another the entire time.  Cate Blanchett & Matthew McConaughey seem like the only locks for Best Actor & Actress respectively.  However, there is always that heavy amount of pressing the Hollywood flesh, and the last 30 days of L.A. politics could win some folks a few upsets.  That always makes for a good show, and the 86th Academy Awards are gearing up to be the closest race we've had in years.

BEST PICTURE:

AMERICAN HUSTLE
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB
GRAVITY
HER
NEBRASKA
PHILOMENA
12 YEARS A SLAVE
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

Like I said above, I like all these films in some way or another.  Gravity is easily my least favorite.  I never bought into the narrative of scardy cat astronaut Sandra Bullock.  As a work of spectacle, the film is astounding, and it is one of the rare occasions where I thought 3D technology added to the experience of the characters.  Bravo for Alfonso Cuaron - enjoy your inevitable Best Director Oscar.  But I don't think the Academy wants to go down in history having chosen this technical achievement when there is an "important" film like 12 Years A Slave standing nearby.  This is the legacy award.  And it should be.  No other fictional film this year left me in such a puddle.  Solomon Northrup is witness to our own shameful history, and it's a perspective we rarely encounter in cinema - Roots...Beloved...Django Unchained...  It bothers me when I hear critics bemoan, "We get it already."  No you don't.  Shut up.  Watch.  I'm betting you'll be surprised by how entertained you are.  12 Years A Slave is not the film you necessarily"like" (this is America's awful mirror), but it's an unforgettable experience that you'll revisit time & again unlike those "important message movies" you've already condemned it as.

Of course, let's not forget about Shakespeare in Love.  An inordinate amount of votes for Gravity & 12 Years A Slave could pave the way for American Hustle, a movie-movie that is a whole lotta fun to watch.  Fun performances.  Fun music.  Fun costumes.  Fun crime.  But for all that Disco Inferno it's still just a Scorsese pretender.  Been there, done that.

If I had my way, I'd drop that gold statue on The Wolf of Wall Street.  Possibly the year's most divisive film, I was enthralled by its three hours of hateful excess.  I abhor these people.  I am deeply disturbed by the mocking tone, the reverence for exploitation, and the scott-free climax.  I hate my own laughter at the monstrosity on display.  At times it feels like the party version of The Social Network, and at other moments (especially after that final middle finger shot) I see it as the greatest condemnation of a lifestyle since Brian DePalma's Scarface (another film doomed to misinterpretation).  It's ugly.  And I like ugly.

Captain Phillips, Her, Nebraska, Phillomena, Dallas Buyers Club.  Decent movies.  But in ten years we will not be talking about them at all.

Prediction:  12 Years A Slave

Desire: The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST DIRECTOR:

ALFONSO CUARON (Gravity)
STEVE MCQUEEN (12 Years A Slave)
ALEXANDER PAYNE (Nebraska)
DAVID O RUSSELL (American Hustle)
MARTIN SCORSESE (The Wolf of Wall Street)

The tone of Nebraska never set well with me.  The midwest...hardy-har-har-har, what a bunch of yokels.  Alexander Payne sure knows how to set his sights on people.  Sometimes it's a blistering pinpoint assault (Election), other times it simply seems mean spirited (Nebraska).  David O Russell loves to move his camera in crazy, unexpected ways and it's obvious that he knows how to eek a performance out of an actor.  Isn't it mind boggling that no other director has helmed two films to win nominations in all five major categories two years in a row?  Steve McQueen is almost an unseen hand in 12 Years A Slave.  He's performance based, but he also concocts shots with painfully pristine precision.  I dig his art.  However, it's looking like we're going to get a repeat of last year with a fun little split.  12 Years gets Picture, and Alfonso Cuaron gets Director for the astonishing amount of filmmaking trickery on display in Gravity.  You're going to see his film early on in the show sweep the technical awards, and it will climax right here, but go no further.

Me?  Again, Wolf Of Wall Street.  It's a power chord movie.  Slamming it's theme of American Excess home with the largest nail and the largest hammer.  Scorsese is 71 years old, but he attacks his films like a young man.  Some of his greatest visual flourishes have occurred in his last three films.  I am in awe.  Is Wolf of Wall Street comedy, satire, or porno?  People will be fighting this war for some time.  As they do with nearly every one of his big pictures (no one talks After Hours or Kundun, but perhaps they should).  The man's excitement for cinema is contagious, and yes, he's as much of a fanboy director as Quentin Tarantino.  His films always demand examination, and they're a delight to pick at.  He won for The Departed, but I wish the Academy had waited for this moral quandary.  People who miss 70s cinema look no further.

Prediction:  Alfonso Cuaron

Desire:  Martin Scorsese

BEST ACTOR:

CHRISTIAN BALE (American Hustle)
BRUCE DERN (Nebraska)
LEONARDO DICAPRIO (The Wolf of Wall Street)
CHIWETEL EJIOFOR (12 Years A Slave)
MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY (Dallas Buyers Club)

This is just a tough, tough category.  I'd be perfectly happy with any one of these gents taking home Oscar.  Christian Bale brings an unexpected warmth to his conman, and manages to emote past his potbelly & hairpiece.  Bruce Dern is Bruce Dern.  He's old man awesome.  It's a character he could have done in his sleep.  Matthew McConaughey is certainly the favored, but is he the lock we think him to be?  Apparently, Leo has been beating the streets of Hollywood, and if we're going to get an upset this evening it's in the Best Actor category.  I really dig McConaughey and his McConaaissance.  But this is not my favorite recent role, nor do I really like Dallas Buyers Club.  It's fine.  But if I want to revisit this American Horror Story then I'll probably rewatch How To Survive A Plague rather than this obvious soap opera.  For me, it's Chiwetel Ejofor.  It's a performance properly filled with anguish and terror, but the movie owns our heart because Ejofor is a master of silent cinema.  The small gestures that lead to great triumph.

Prediction:  Matthew McConaughey

Desire: Chiwetel Ejiofor

BEST ACTRESS:

AMY ADAMS (American Hustle):
CATE BLANCHETT (Blue Jasmine):
SANDRA BULLOCK (Gravity):
JUDI DENCH (Philomena):
MERYL STREEP (August - Osage County):

Forget Meryl Streep.  I am done with her acting-acting.  Judi Dench, like Bruce Dern, can't turn in a bad performance these days to save her life.  Sandra Bullock is just fine, but she suffers from ham-fisted scriptwriting.  I do really love Amy Adams in American Hustle.  Her bizarre-o triple performance had me rooting for her whackjob romance.  This is her fifth nomination, and she's the only one of the group who has yet to win a statue.  But that doesn't matter.  If we're talking locks, there is only one this year, and that's Cate Blanchett.  No matter where this never-ending Woody Allen controversy goes, nothing is changing the fact that she's walking home a winner tonight.  And it's totally deserved.  Blue Jasmine might not be my cup of tea, but this super hero origin of a bag lady was a masterful depiction of despair.  I may never watch it again, but I cannot deny her the gold.  And neither will The Academy.

Prediction:  Cate Blanchett

Desire:  Cate Blanchett

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

BARKHAD ABDI (Captain Phillips)
BRADLEY COOPER (American Hustle)
MICHAEL FASSBENDER (12 Years A Slave)
JONAH HILL (The Wolf of Wall Street)
JARED LETO (Dallas Buyers Club)

Possibly my least favorite category this year.  Some solid work here, but not a one of these actors would have made my shortlist (where's James Franco's shit??).  Barkhad Abdi does some good stuff with a character that could have easily been a one dimensional villain, but I think Paul Greengrass probably deserves the most for that performance.  Michael Fassbender is utterly terrifying in 12 Years A Slave.  It's a flashy, big-bad role.  Jonah Hill sneaks in with a Moneyball repeat.  He's a funny dumbass monster, sure, but...really?  Jared Leto - I'm still working him out.  He's there in Dallas Buyers Club to transform McConaughey's bigoted redneck into a drug dealing hero figure.  It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  He'll most likely take Oscar, but Fassbender may sneak it away if 12 Years sweeps the show, and wouldn't it be cool if Abdi snagged it?  Still, being a comic nerd I've got to go with Rocket Raccoon.  He just plays the scumbag tool so well, and I really enjoyed watching his villain nature ratchet to extremes in the film's final moments.

Prediction:  Jared Leto

Desire: Bradley Cooper

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

SALLY HAWKINS (Blue Jasmine)
JENNIFER LAWRENCE (American Hustle)
LUPITA NYONG'O (12 Years A Slave)
JULIA ROBERTS (August - Osage County)
JUNE SQUIBB (Nebraska)

Julia Roberts looses because she tried to make Steep - "EAT THE FUCKING FISH!"  People who refer to June Squibb as "adorable" creep me out.  Sally Hawkins is perfectly fine in Blue Jasmine, but she looses shine next to Cate Blanchett.  This race comes down to Jennifer Lawrence's Science-Oven enthusiast & Lupita Nyong'o's systematic victim.  Tough call.  Both do great work.  Lawrence is a brilliant shrew, but Nyong'o wins because she's the perfect piece in a powerhouse story.  She has the shortest amount of screen time (18 minutes) of the nominees, but she makes everyone of them count.  From the flashy tearjerker confession, the Fassbender brutalization, and Alfrie Woodard's story hour.

Prediction:  Lupita Nyong'o

Desire: Lupita Nyong'o

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:

THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN (Belgium)
THE GREAT BEAUTY (Italy)
THE HUNT (Denmark)
THE MISSING PICTURE (Cambodia)
OMAR (Palestine)

Jeez, I don't know here.  I haven't seen The Missing Picture, but I loved all of the other nominees.  Omar is a gripping crime tragedy set against the West Bank.  The Broken Circle Breakdown is a wallop of melodrama that really puts similar miserable concepts like August - Osage County to shame.  The Hunt contains my second favorite lead performance of last year (the 2nd being the equally snubbed Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis), as Mads Mikkelsen battles his town after a wrongful accusation of pedophilia.  The favorite looks to be Italy's Great Beauty, a Fellini obsessed tour through the wreckage of one-time novelist Toni Servillo.  The Great Beauty is a gorgeously somber film for the lost souls in all of us.  Criterion snagged the blu ray rights.  That's good enough for the snob in me, and I'm sure The Academy agrees.

Prediction:  The Great Beauty

Desire:  The Great Beauty


ANIMATED FEATURE:

THE CROODS
DESPICABLE ME 2
ERNEST & CELESTINE
FROZEN
THE WIND RISES

I spent most of this past week scarfing down these nominees, but was unable to locate Ernest & Celestine.  None of them particularly grabbed me on their initial theatrical run, and I don't think most of them will stick with me much longer.  The Croods was shockingly fun.  The nonsensical animal design won me over in the same vein as Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.  I love the Despicable Me minions, but I could not care less about the Gru storyline.  I appreciate Disney's attempt to play in the Princess genre, but was left cold by much of Frozen.  I'm going to sound a little bit like an ignoramus here, but I've never really enjoyed anime or the films of Miyazaki.  Princess Mononoke & Spirited Away were fun enough, but meh.  That being said, I was really taken by The Wind Rises.  The story of Jiro Horikoshi's cursed dream to build the ultimate flying machine is a complicated narrative for an American to engage, but Miyazaki excels in tackling the juxtaposition between art & war.  At the very least, The Wind Rises carries with it some of the most beautiful apocalyptic imagery I've encountered in an animated film, and it's rather bothersome to me that American Animation still finds itself caught in childhood.  Pixar has come close to telling adult stories, but I'm still waiting for the USA to mature.

Prediction:  Frozen

Desire:  The Wind Rises

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:

20 FEET TO STARDOM
THE ACT OF KILLING
CUTIE AND THE BOXER
DIRTY WARS
THE SQUARE

20 Feet To Stardom is a solid episode of VH1's Behind The Music.  Cutie and the Boxer is a sad little look into failure.  Dirty Wars puts American foreign policy on trial, but fails to back up its claims with hard evidence.  The Square is a fascinating look into Egypt's ongoing political strife, and it's possibly the only film here that could stir serious global change if experienced by the right people.  But The Act of Killing?  God damn.  I've never seen anything like it.  And if we're going to talk about "important" films like 12 Years A Slave then we have to discuss Joshua Oppenheimer's weird-ass expose into the crimes of Anwar Congo.  Responsible for thousands of executions during Indonesia's Communist Revolt in 1965, Oppenheimer records Congo's reenactment of his proud duties as he plops them into cinematic genres like the musical and the film noir.  What is man capable of?  What are you capable of?  Dark questions and darker answers await us in The Act of Killing.  I'll be ok if The Square wins.  But if any of the other nominations set foot on stage, I'll be pretty peeved at The Academy's ability to shove their head in the sand.

Prediction:  The Act of Killing

Desire: The Act of Killing

CINEMATOGRAPHY:

ROGER DEAKINS (Prisoners)
BRUNO DELBONNEL (Inside Llewyn Davis)
PHILIPPE LE SOURD (The Grandmaster)
EMMANUEL LUBEZKI (Gravity)
PHEDON PAPAMICHAEL (Nebraska)

Will someone just give Roger Deakins an Oscar already!?!?!  Well, unfortunately, he didn't partner with The Coen Brothers this year and instead brought great beauty to an obviously mediocre tale of Law & Order.  Prisoners is junk.  Bruno Delbonnel blanketed Inside Llewyn Davis in snowy gloom, and it would be nice to see this film take some sort of gold home tonight.  Phedon Papamichael matched the starkness of the land with the starkness of the relationships in Nebraska.   Who doesn't love black & white photography?  Emmanuel Lubezki will probably take it during Gravity's early show dominance.  But I want Phillipe Le Sourd to go home happy due to his sumptuous and varied display of Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster.  Not a chance in hell, but...

Prediction:  Emmanuel Lubezki

Desire:  Philippe Le Sourd

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

AMERICAN HUSTLE (Eric Warren Singer & David O Russell)
BLUE JASMINE (Woody Allen)
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB (Craig Borten & Melisa Wallack)
HER (Spike Jonze)
NEBRASKA (Bob Nelson)

This is the only chance to award Spike Jonze as writer & director of Her.  Personally, I found the conclusion rather unsatisfying, but it's a clever deconstruction of our modern idea of human interaction. Dallas Buyers Club is...obvious.  You saw the trailer, and you immediately knew not only how the movie was going to end, but what the ride would be like as well.  It's an actor's film.  That's it.  Nebraska is sorta similar, but like I said above, I never felt a love for the characters from the filmmakers involved.  American Hustle, "BASED ON TRUE EVENTS", is a plot you've seen over and over again.  Fun characters, sure.  I'm going with Woody Allen.  Yep.  I'm as surprised as you are.  I've never been much of a fan, but ever since Midnight in Paris, I've been warming up to the creep.  I really enjoy the story's mindless jabber framing device. I like the flashbacking information dumps.  I like the odd revelations of the minor characters.  I may never watch it again, but I surly respect its script.

Prediction:  Her

Desire:  Blue Jasmine

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

12 YEARS A SLAVE (John Ridley)
BEFORE MIDNIGHT (Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, & Ethan Hawke)
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (Billy Ray)
PHILOMENA (Steve Coogan & Jeff Pope)
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (Terence Winter)

Prediction:  12 Years A Slave

Desire:  The Wolf of Wall Street

I loved 12 Years A Slave.  But there are a couple problems that I had with the script.  Brad Pitt's white savior being the biggest one.  Before Midnight is a fascinating watch, but I'm still bitter about where the writers took these characters after Before Sunrise.  Captain Phillips falls apart once the Navy shows up. Philomena is perfectly fine.  The Wolf of Wall Street takes a despicably proud biography and turns it against its creator.  F - U Jordan Belfort.  For that alone, Terrence Winter gets my vote.



--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (1/5/14-1/11/14)

    Didn’t get a heck of a lot of movie watching done this week.  I’ve been trying to catch up on some reading and planning for the upcoming return to gaming, and I’ve just been danged tired.  Trying to sleep hasn’t been working out too well.  I did get around to solidifying my list of Cinematic Resolutions for 2014.

The Wolf of Wall Street: There are like eight things on earth that interest me less than Wall Street and stock exchanges, so this movie had an uphill battle to rope me in.  Still, the popping style, funny dialog, and solid performances had me smiling and laughing.  Considering Lawrence of Arabia is one of my all time favorite films, and I only watch the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings, this may be an odd statement.  But the biggest problem I think I had was that the movie was just too long.  It wasn’t boring.  Not really.  Though the second half did drag at times.  But I feel like I got the point, like the message was delivered, but then it just kept going and going and going.  I don’t think, as some critics have said, that this movie is morally bankrupt.  I didn’t feel like the filmmakers were saying this sort of thing was good.  Only that it happens; it happened.  And yes, rich people get away with stuff all the time because they’re rich.  That’s just the way it is.  But within 24 hours of watching the movie, most of it had faded from my memory.  It's something I've seen, and something I enjoyed while watching, but not something that left any kind of mark on me.

Clerks II:  I really, really, really love Rosario Dawson in this.  She’s so danged cute and funny.  The rest of the movie?  Pure Kevin Smith.  If that sounds good to you, you should like this film.  I have to admit, after a few years of trying really hard to be one of the cool kids who liked Kevin Smith films, I realized I don’t.  I enjoyed Mallrats the one time I saw it, but never felt the need to watch it again.  And Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back came out while I was working in a theater, so it holds some kind of place in my heart (I may have even taken a lady friend to it, which might account for the positive vibes).  Otherwise, blah.  He’s still running through the same gags, the same obnoxious half-assed social commentary, the same bunch of dick jokes.  The nerd humor feels forced by this point, almost like self parody.  And shoehorning his wife into the film was…um…weird.  Really weird.  Creepy weird.  It just didn’t work for me.  But then, neither did Clerks or Chasing Amy.  I never felt connected to the 90s and Kevin Smith never left them.  (edit: Upon reflection, I think I’ve figured out one of the things that bothers me about Smith’s work.  He subscribes to that particular 90s brand of pseudo-feminism in which women are ALWAYS right and men are ALWAYS wrong, and if a man doesn’t immediately change any and every aspect of himself to fit what a woman wants, he’s an asshole, and part of the Patriarchy [a shadowy conspiracy that seems an awful lot like the Nazi version of the Jews, running everything from behind some horrible penis curtain].  This is just a half baked theory right now, but I think I might be onto something.)

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Gamera VS. Guiron:  “It’s a planet.”  This one is pretty darned good.  The Gamera movies are more kid friendly (read: shoddy) kaiju movies, and their American releases had some epically bad dubbing.  All the stuff with young Richard Burton cracks me up.  And the ending piano bar thing with eventual host Mike is priceless and weird.  Perhaps not in the upper echelons of the series, but a darned fine entry, none the less.

Raiders of the Lost Ark:  Straight up, one of the best danged movies ever made, and one of the very top action films.  It’s also the film I can trace a great deal of me back to.  At the core of my interests, my loves, and my way of looking at the world, there is Raiders.  Karen Allen was one of my very first crushes, and became a template for the tough, black haired ladies I’ve always found myself falling for.  Indiana Jones became the model for my ideal self (one never achieved).  History, geography, religion, archeology, and fighting Nazi bastards became essential thoughts for young Matt, and paved the way for my life to come.  It’s beautifully shot, tense, funny, action packed, and sweeping.  It’s a true homage to the serials and adventure films and fiction of the 30s and 40s, and a great way to spend an evening.

47 Ronin:  If I were 13 and had never seen any movies about samurai, or any Asian fantasy films, this would probably have been pretty cool.  A good springboard movie for me to get into other, better films.  Unfortunately, I’m nearing 40 and I’ve seen everything in this film done before in much, much better films.  I was hoping for a Pirates of the Caribbean type action fantasy film with a Japanese style.  In stead, I got a made for TV, slow paced retread, with little passion and less excitement.  I liked the look and feel of the film, but the script and the acting were not so good.  And shooting digital made everything look cheap, like soap operas.  Still, it wasn’t awful, just dull.  It should have been much, much better.

    I finally got around to listening to Kate Nash’s new album, Girl Talk.  It’s more polished than her previous work, and very catchy.  She’s talking about the same stuff, bad relationships mostly.  But some of her poor London girl charm is missing, due to that polished, studio sound.  And there’s a weird undercurrent of feminism lip-service, like she’s trying to set herself up as some kind of crusader.  But that feels a bit half-hearted.  Whatever the case, the album is pretty good, and fans of her earlier work should enjoy it.

Despicable Me 2:  I didn’t love the first film, but I enjoyed it just fine.  This second movie is more of the same.  It’s funny, occasionally very funny, and cute.  But at the end of the day, not something I’ll be thinking back on too much.  If you enjoyed the first one, by all means, check this out.

Images:  I guess this film captures the point of view of someone who’s completely insane, but that doesn’t really make for a particularly watchable movie.  There’s little to latch your brain onto, so very little to understand or follow.  Every scene and shot is unreliable, so what does anything matter.  In that classically 70s way, everyone is absolutely awful and emotionally bankrupt.  Just unpleasant.

We Are What We Are:  Writer/director Jim Mickle and frequent collaborator, actor/writer Nick Damici have put together another entertaining, atmosphere rich, modern horror film.  I watched Mulberry Street on a whim, and was shocked that such a silly premise turned out to be such a moody and watchable film.  Stakeland, their follow-up was equally as moody, and also quite entertaining.  And now with We Are What We Are, a remake of a Mexican horror film from a couple years back, they’ve cemented their place as high quality-low budget film makers to watch.  This movie looks better than many big budget Hollywood films, has excellent acting, and a good slow-burn pace.  Mickle isn’t re-inventing the wheel here.  He’s not breaking new ground or making movies that will change the way you think about film.  But he’s making good horror movies.  And that makes him a rare breed these days.  Horror has been a near dead genre since the late 80s, and now I’m starting to feel like there’s still potential in it.

    That’s about it for this week.  A lot of things in life are kind of on hold for a bit right now.  My holiday horror isn’t quite over yet.  Soon.

-Matt

A Fistful of Fall Anticipation 2013! (Brad's Picks)

Just four more months left to the year.  September, October, November, December.  Summer is behind us; it's time for Hollywood to unleash the Oscar Bait heavy hitters.  Don't know if you've picked up the mood around ITMOD lately, but Matt & I are desperate for some real-deal cinematic entertainment.  So far this year I've seen 54 films.  I've liked a bunch, but I've only LOVED two films (Only God Forgives & The World's End).  That's fairly depressing.  And going into this prestigious Fall Season, I don't see a lot of options to perk up my mood.  None of the films listed below are there due to their content.  The plots do not really interest me, but the filmmakers behind the camera certainly do.

Honorable Mention - Oldboy:  I am not anticipating Spike Lee's Oldboy remake, I'm dreading it.  Josh Brolin & Sharlto Copley are perfectly paired as the tortured & torturer, but I just cannot imagine this film sticking the original's epic revenge twist.  And judging by what little I've seen of the trailer, this Spike Lee Joint doesn't even seem bothered with pulling off the Korean climax.  So...good, right?  Be it's own thing.  Maybe focus more on the original comic?  Well, except the trailer seems to rob every other beat from Chan-wook Park's film.  Beards, umbrellas, hammers.  Color me cautiously curious.

5.  The Monuments Men:  I think George Clooney is one of the most fascinating, if not all-together successful, actor-turned-directors out there.  Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night and Good Luck, Leatherheads, Ides of March.  Each of his movies are wildly different from the next.  Not just in plot or tone, but in visual style.  Name me another actor/director that has as strong an eye as Clooney?  You can't.  Good Night and Good Luck is probably his strongest effort, but I've also really enjoyed the oddity of Confessions, and I think Leatherheads is ridiculously charming.  But Ides of March was just a basic political melodrama with strong performances, but a blah predictable screenplay.  I'm happy to see him tackling this oddball WWII art caper flick, but is this just a period piece Ocean's 11?  There could be worse things.

4.  The Wolf Of Wall Street:  Martin Scorsese makes a movie, I get excited.  And with its Kanye score and Matthew McConaughey chest thumping, I absolutely adored the first theatrical trailer.  My only concern is that this is just a Social Network wannabe.  Asshole Leo tossing midgets, lobsters, and orange juice and making boatloads of cash off all us American suckers.  We've had a lot of Rise & Fall stories throughout the years, and Scorsese himself delivered two of the greatest with Goodfellas & Casino.  Does he have a third one in him?  I sure hope so.

3.  Thor - The Dark World:  Pre-Avengers, Kenneth Branagh's Thor was my favorite of the Marvel Studios movies.  Chris Hemsworth is the single greatest spandex discovery since Christopher Reeve.  His smile owned that movie.  It was a romcom fish-outta-water adventure that didn't need to bother with brooding responsibility a la Iron Man or a dozen other super hero flicks.  All Thor cared about was having fun at the movies.  But now Branagh is out, Game of Thrones's Alan Taylor is in, and The Dark World promises to deliver the Empire Strikes Back.  Not sure if that's what I want from the mighty god of thunder, but Jason Aaron's comic has brought new levels of enthusiasm to the character, and I'm fascinated to see if Hemsworth's lackadaisical brute can handle the doom & gloom.

2.  The Counselor:  Frankly, given my absolute frustration surrounding Prometheus, I am simply stunned that Ridley Scott's latest has not only made my Top Five, but my Number 2 to boot.  Just goes to show you the power of Michael Fassbender.  Not too mention Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, and Penelope Cruz viciously chewing up a scenery supplied by Cormac McCarthy.  Guns, drugs, and jaguars - Oh My!  This project was born out of the director's inability to adapt McCarthy's hateful western, Blood Meridian, so cross your fingers that this flick brings the rage found within the printed page.  Although, I'll simply settle for some Black Rain blood squibs.

1.  Inside Llewyn Davis:  IMDB's short synopsis reads, "A week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961."  That doesn't really get the heart pumping, does it?  Of course, that's the charm of the Coen Brothers.  They can seemingly take any subject and transform it into a comedy, a drama, a western, a noir, a whatever.  With the exception of Intolerable Cruelty, every single one of their movies has landed in my end of the year Top Ten.  I expect the same here.  You've got Coen stalwart John Goodman, but a lot of fresh faces as well.  The lead Oscar Isaac has been on the verge of a breakthrough for nearly the last ten years (Robin Hood, Sucker Punch, Drive), and given enough critical praise & audience acceptance Inside Llewyn Davis might be his ticket.  Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, F Murray Abraham, and Neelix round out the supporting cast.  I certainly like these faces.

--Brad

"It's a wazy, it's a woozy" - Leonardo Hates OJ, Hugs Monkeys, & Tosses Midgets in The Wolf of Wall Street Trailer

Part of me sees The Wolf Of Wall Street as another Rich Assholes Being Rich Assholes movie.  Another part of me sees Leonardo DiCaprio fisting his chest & humming in unison with Matthew McConaughey...and I get a little giddy.  Martin Scorsese & Leonardo DiCaprio have made one Great Film in The Aviator, one solid crime epic in The Departed, a near masterpiece of paranoia in Shutter Island, and a fabulous disaster in Gangs of New York.  There looks to be a lot of odd and painful comedy in The Wolf of Wall Street, and I certainly respond well to its side players of McConaughey, Jay Bernthal, Jonah Hill, as well as the unseen Shea Wingham, Jon Favreau, & Spike Jones.  Let me sit with this trailer a little longer and it might be one of my most anticipated films of the year.

Matt’s Week in Dork! (5/26/13-6/1/13)

    On Sunday morning, I muscled my way through Silver Surfer: Parable.  That could have been a heck of a lot better, with a writer instead of Stan Lee.  And I read a few science fiction short stories.  Expediter, a Cold War story with a decidedly subversive bent and dashes of 1984, by Mack Reynolds.  One-Shot by James Blish, another Cold War tale that wasn’t really science fiction as far as I could tell.  Shipwreck in the Sky, a very brief story by Eando Binder.  And Zen, by Jerome Bixby.  All of ‘em from a collection of classic sci-fi tales that cost me like 2.99 or something on my Nook.  Still a dozen or more stories to read.

The Great Gatsby:  I had heard a lot of opinions about this movie before I saw it, most of them negative.  In fact, not just negative; almost hateful.  People really didn’t like this film.  I guess I get that.  If you don’t get into the style of the movie, there’s no way you’re going to enjoy it.  But once you get past the specifics of its rather outlandish and theatrical style, I don’t think there was enough of anything one way or another to warrant deep feelings of any kind.  It’s a rather workman-like adaptation of the novel, with actors all doing OK jobs portraying the characters.  Nobody stands out, except maybe Toby McGuire as the narrator.  He kind of sucks.  He’s playing an almost Ewan McGreggor type ‘naïve to the point of parody’ character, but unlike McGreggor, he doesn’t have the charm to pull it off.  I found the film frustrating because it didn’t seem to be able to make up its mind.  It’s too crazy for a normal drama, and not nearly crazy enough for a fantastical Jazz Age myth.  The director did much better hitting the right bugnuts tone in Moulin Rouge, and whoever made Idlewild did a better job of capturing the era’s strange fantasy (both of those films used contemporary music to better effect).  I like where Baz Luhrmann was headed with this movie, but he didn’t get there, and that’s too bad.  And like his Australia, the first half is much better than the second, though Gatsby is far more coherent, likely owing to their near slavish devotion to the plot and dialog of the novel.

Nosferatu, Phantom Der Nacht:  “The Master has arrived!”  Mad bastard Werner Herzog and madder bastarder Klaus Kinski take on the classic vampire tale, Dracula, seen through the filter of the silent film Nosferatu.  Bruno Ganz gives Jonathan Harker more personality than he is normally portrayed with (or written with, for that matter).  The location shooting and the music are extremely moody and effective.  Kinski is disgusting, but that’s not new.  Bald head, white makeup, and little rat teeth make an already terrifying man slightly more terrifying.  Admittedly, I’m not a vampire movie fan, and not especially enamored of Dracula adaptations.  But this, along with the silent film of the same name, are probably my two favorites.  This also seems the most spirited and stylistically interesting version I’ve seen (an argument could be made for the Spanish language version made by Universal, but meh).  There are some interesting variations on the original, like Lucy (played by Goth princess Isabelle Adjani) being Jonathan’s wife (Mina seems to be a housekeeper or some such), and it being Lucy who takes up the battle against the Count, being a much stronger person than seemingly anyone else in the film.

Embryo:  “I’m also what I believe is called a ‘junkie.’” The atrocious transfer on the DVD makes it hard to know what the quality of the film was originally.  Of course, seeing the boom mike and/or the shadow of the boom mike isn’t a good sign.  Still, when Rock Hudson develops a super-smart dog with a crazy-science drug cocktail, I got on board.  Of course, the next step is jumping into totally unethical human testing, which needless to say results in a Frankenstein’s Monster.  This came out during the initial explosion of anti-science films that we’re still seeing the blast waves from to this day.  Like pretty much every movie that involves an artificially enhanced human, said superhuman becomes intellectually (and possibly physically) superior, then subsequently violently evil.  Erg.  The music is awful made-for-TV soap crap.  The massive computer room sequence, where you know your laptop (if not your phone) could run circles around that warehouse full of dinosaurs, really puts technologic advances in perspective.  I do want Number One, though.  That’s got to be about the coolest dog ever, and his murderous rages seem mostly reserved for annoying little yappy dogs and bitchy sister-in-laws, so no problem there.  This is 70s PG, so there’s some nudity and see-through clothing.  The oversensitive and repressed should beware.  This would have an R rating by today’s puritanical, sex-fearing MPAA (graphic murder is OK; bare breasts are evil).

The Brain Machine:  “Anyway, in the Land of the Blind, the one eyed man is king.  …Nuts?”  Boom mike!  Evil, shadowy government and corporate interests are forcing a scientist to do experiments on four human subjects.  I guess.  This film is shoddy, with weird (bad) editing and overuse of what appear to be stock establishing shots.  There’s an interesting movie here, but it’s lost in the spotty script, low budget, and terrible technique.

The Stunt Man:  “I’ve fallen madly in love with the dark side of your nature.”  Casting a movie is very important.  Obviously, you want great actors.  Sometimes, you get a great actor, but the rest of the cast isn’t up to the job.  Sometimes, you have one of the greatest, Peter O’Toole, cast alongside one of the worst, Steve Railsback.  For some confounded reason, in the last 70s and early 80s, there seemed to be people who thought Railsback was going to be the new ‘it’ guy, kind of like how they keep trying to make Josh Hartnet a star, but it won’t take.  He’s bloody awful, and it’s made all the more obvious when he’s in scenes with O’Toole.  This movie is all about movies and their artificiality, keeping the viewer on constant edge, wondering what’s real and what’s not.  It reminds me a bit of Walker, where film and reality seem to trade back and forth, while trying to make a statement I just don’t understand.  Barbara Hershey sure is pretty in a very 70s kind of way.

Beowulf:  “How ‘bout a quick gobble?”  One of the greatest heroes in literature gets a lavish CG animated treatment, which shockingly manages to capture some of the epic’s magic.  The sins of a king come back to haunt his kingdom.  But glory-seeking Beowulf and his men are ready to come and dish out some bloody retribution.  This film version does not, as so many adaptations do, try to modernize the hero too much.  He’s not a nice and sensitive guy who miraculously embodies current American social mores.  He’s a brutal, violent, glory hunting, boastful bastard.  I still favor Odysseus, a man unwilling to bow to the will of the gods, and perfectly willing (possibly glad) to spit in their faces.  But Beowulf is up there.  He’s flippin’ hardcore.  Violence, sex, revenge, heroics, guilt, redemption, and madness.  Grand stuff.

Enter the Dragon:  “A woman like that could teach you a lot about yourself.”  Thanks again to the Alamo Drafthouse and co-Dork Brad, I got out to see this on the big screen, and it was all kinds of fun.  From the start, you’ve got loads of bad dubbing, awkward humor, strange flashbacks, and the pop-philosophy of Bruce Lee.  With cohorts Jim Kelly and John Saxon, Lee gets all up in evil martial arts master Han’s smiling face.  And no army of unfortunate looking henchmen are going to stop him.  Just a darned fine bit of 70s exploitation.

Where Danger Lives:  “We both got what we wanted…after a fashion.”  A poor sucker gets hooked into some bad, bad business.  Then it’s a slow, steady descent into a mad hell.  While not at all a great Noir, this one is a fun watch, and where it finally arrives is pretty nutty.  Again, not great.  But worth watching.  There’s some interesting technical aspects, including extremely long shots with few cuts.
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Tension:  “I got a file goes back further than you’d like to remember and up to where you wish you could forget.”  An uptight milktoast is married to a fickle, slutty monster.  I mean MONSTER.  He loves her, for some danged reason.  But when she pushes and pushes and pushes, something’s gotta give.  Obviously, the next step is to create a new persona, then harass, threaten, and eventually murder her boyfriend.  Of course, the fact that you start dating a smokin’ hottie, who isn’t a spawn of the devil, while living in your new persona should not distract you from your duty.  Obligatory twists and turns, and suddenly the cops are on the trail, but who killed who, when, where, and why?  The cast is especially enjoyable to watch, even if the circumstances are outlandish.  This one is very, very weird in its plotting, but loads of fun.  Hard to describe really.  But multiple people have excellent and unusual characters that they get to play with.  The cop, the pharmacist, the other cop, the hottie, the monster, even the a-hole boyfriend.

8 ½:  Well, that was something.  Way back in the prehistory of this Dork, in those dark days before Bob Dobbs invented the internet, a handsome young Matt made his way to the dusty backest of the back rooms at Dirty Daves to paw over obscure titles in the Art & Foreign section, hoping to discover a hidden gem (or at least some of that Euro-nudie stuff) he gave that Fellini fellow a try.  And it sucked.  I don’t know what I watched, Roma was one, I’m sure.  Anyway, I hated it.  Fellini and that awful Russian version of Solaris nearly turned me off of foreign films.  Fast forward 20 years, and I’m sitting down at the AFI Silver to check out a screening of the classic and much lauded 8 ½.  Well, nothing has changed.  I hated it.  It’s such a self serving, self aggrandizing, self indulgent bunch of artsy-fartsy crap I was shifting in my seat like a kid with ADD after like 10 minutes.  While the lead actor was obviously good and there are some funny moments, I went from mild discomfort to outright hatred somewhere near the last half hour.  Just in case you haven’t picked up on what he’s trying to say (Helen Keller couldn’t have missed it), the last half hour is a full on audio-visual assault that blares at you ‘GET IT?!  GET IT?!  GET IT?!’ like you’re a slow child struggling with the subtleties of Dick & Jane.  But hey, at least there’s Barbara Steele and her Picasso face.  AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!  Is this a movie that is well liked because people think it’s obscure, but that they ‘get it’?  That’s the only thing I can figure would justify its film-fan street cred.  The problem is, it’s not actually obscure.  Fellini spends the entire movie outright explaining what the movie is about.  Every scene features dialog about what that scene means.  He spells it all out, even spelling out why he doesn’t spell something out, which pretty much spells it out.  Gah!  Anyway, the movie is crap.  Leave this to the oh so clever hipsters and college film professors, and watch something better.

Needs more clowns!

Splinter:  The X-Files/The Thing/Fringe type ‘creature’ in this movie is pretty cool, and there are some good effects and gore.  The actual characters aren’t too good, though they’re not as completely useless as a lot of modern horror characters tend to be.  Still, not good.  As always in movies like this, I kept yelling “Stop talking! Start running!”  Why, when speed is of the essence, do horror movie characters feel the need to drag ass.  It doesn’t ramp up tension, it makes me angry.  Still, it’s mildly enjoyable.  There’s potential here for something more.

The sequel should be called 'Shredder.'

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter:  “On lonely nights, I shall think of you.”  This is an odd, but very good little Hammer Horror gem.  Horst Janson is the dashing blonde hero, Kronos.  And the Sweet Mother! hot Caroline Munro is the gypsy girl.  A supporting cast of solid character actors helps keep it all going.  It’s surprisingly funny, with a stripe of humor black as pitch.  It’s too bad that this was in the final days of Hammer’s glory days.  A series of Kronos adventures could have been very cool.

    I started watching Space: Above & Beyond.  I’d seen the first few episodes back in the Dark Ages of the 90s, and I’d enjoyed it.  Watching it again, I can’t help but be frustrated by the potential unrealized.  The general idea, telling the story of a group of new soldiers struggling through a war with an alien menace, has plenty of potential.  The design and setting are pretty good.  But the CGI is rough, and the main cast intolerable.  The two lead guys are a bundle of cliché packed in bad acting.  It feels like the show was put together by writers with ideas, and all the writing around the core cast was done by producers (‘Let’s not try anything new or potentially contravercial, only things that have been done time and again in every other TV series.’).  Hawkes is absolutely dreadful with all his bad-boy posturing and put-upon rage.  But West, with his crying and teeth gnashing, and idiotic pursuit of his wife…UGH.  The lingo feels fairly accurate, like they had an actual Marine advisor.  Though shows like this are kind of inevitable, helping to change the status quo, while not managing to survive themselves, it is too bad this didn’t come along 10 years later, when budget and unwritten rules of TV production could have  been different.  Battlestar Galactica has a similar vibe, but came out at the right time.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol:  “I would like to show you my collection of art.”  World travel, wild stunts, sexy dames, and weird high-tech gadgets.  No, it’s not James Bond, it’s the MI team up to their old tricks.  While the first movie was meh, and the second a steaming turd, the third and fourth have substantially improved the franchise, finally getting back to the roots of the original show.  Something about this one, the way their tech and their stunts don’t always work, where they miss their mark or slip or whatever, is a nice change of pace.  They’re not being stupid, just not always getting it right.

    On Saturday, I caught Studio 360 on NPR.  It was a whole episode on Superman, as an American icon.  Plenty of interesting stuff.  It even reveals how some of the worst elements of the character came about (he started flying on the radio, not in the comics).  But there is something enduring about his honorable, honest, and empathetic heroics.  I’m not a fan of the character generally, because it seems to be mostly an excuse to write oneself into a corner, then magically break out of it (like the last season or so of Doctor Who).

    And on Saturday night, I took a trip home.  Well, to the place I’ve always kind of felt should have been my home.  I decided to start watching Twin Peaks again.  It’s been 10 or so years, and it felt like the time was right.  There’s a magic, right out of the gate, about that crazy little town.  And if ever there were a place I’d fit in, I think it’s there.  I could go fishing with Pete, get some wisdom from Big Ed, avoid the Log Lady, crush on Norma over some cherry pie and darned fine coffee, and catch a show at the Road House.  Oh, sure, there’s the occasional alien (?) abduction, serial killing demon, dream dwarf & giant, and what have you.  But it’s a magical place.

-Matt