The Dorkies 2014 Podcast

If you haven't checked out the special two part 2014 Dorkies episode of ITMODcast, please head on over to Podbean (here: part 1, part 2), or check us out on iTunes.  We count down our favorite films of the year, and discuss some of 2014's failures, too. 

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (2/23/14-3/1/14)

I spent most of this week ticking off the last batch of Oscar Nominees, feverishly anticipating Sunday's Super Bowl.  I was perfectly content with my adequate consumption of the Major Nominees (12 Years A Slave, Gravity, August - Osage County, etc), but after I got wind of my friend Lindsey's plan to burn through ALL nominations, I kicked it up a notch.  Best Picture?  Best Actor?  Forget that.  Let's go crazy with Best Makeup, Sound Mixing, and Original Song!  Knocking out Bad Grampa & All Is Lost first thing, I spent most of the week working through the Animated Feature category.  The Croods, Despicable Me 2, Frozen, The Wind Rises.  Boy.  None of them really interested me during their initial releases, and I wouldn't have bothered if not for The Academy Awards.  Frankly, the only 2013 animated films I cared about were Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 (TACOZILLA!) and Escape From Planet Earth...yeah...well, you know...Shatner.  The less said about Monsters University, Planes, and the decline of Pixar the better.  Hell, 2014 is already looking brighter thanks to The Lego Movie, but let's cross fingers that How To Train Your Dragon 2 & The Box Trolls deliver this goods this year.

But as much fun as I had hopping back and forth from the Angelika to Landmark's Bethesda Row, my favorite theatrical experience of the week (and the best damn movie I watched) was the Alamo Drafthouse's Tough Guy Cinema screening of Streets of Fire.  Nice to see a crowd show up for Walter Hill's hyper stylized rock & roll fable, and as many times as I've fallen in love with Diane Lane's Ellen Aim, this was the first time I was utterly hypnotized by her opening performance.  Just wow.  One of my regular cinematic rants is how Jessica Alba totally fails as Nancy in Sin City, and watching Lane own that crowd and that camera just absolutely accentuated Alba's Frank Miller failure.  Diane Lane is astonishing in this movie.  So great to see this 80s oddity again, and I really need to track down a high def copy cuz Streets of Fire is a Once-A-Year-Watch for sure.  Easy to see why this is one of Matt's Favorite Films.

Jackass Presents - Bad Grandpa:  Like other Jackassy productions, there are a few cheap laughs to be found here, but how many times can you watch an asshole get kicked in the balls before you've had enough?  Somewhere Bob Saget is screaming, "NEVER!"  I do not like the candid camera format, tricking simpletons into gross-out scenarios is the lowest form of humor.  And I don't care how many dolts get fooled by Johnny Knoxville's latexed face, Bad Grampa has no business earning a Makeup & Hairstyle nomination.  Under the scrutiny of HD cameras, Grampa's mug looks like fat, sweaty putty.  It's not like the Oscars are free from W-T-F acknowledgements, but it hurts a little to see such a base concept receive encouragement.  Am I just a middle aged fuddy duddy?  Maybe.  But I'd rather watch a million subpar South Park episodes than witness Knoxville's stretched-out scrotum.

All Is Lost:  I very much enjoy watching the process of survival.  I love how this film has the confidence to trap its audience on the boat, and reveal character only through the tiniest bits of detail.  It's a great performance experiment, and All Is Lost succeeds with tension in ways that Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity stumbles about in cheap symbolism.  However, as I watched this late at night (or far too early in the morning), I found myself drifting around the halfway mark.  Not locked down in the theater seat, as each attempt at life fails, I lost interest in the hell this Old Man had created for himself. Maybe I do need a Wilson to talk to, or maybe an interior monologue.  Such concepts would certainly weaken the craft on display, but I just never fully engaged with Redford's plight.  Or I could have simply not been in the mood.

The Croods:  This one surprised me a bit.  Quest For Fire, but "For Kids!"  Nicolas Cage certainly works as the chromag dad terrified to venture out beyond his cave.  His voice lends an enthusiasm to his character in ways we haven't seen from him in a long, long time (about three or four Direct-to-DVDs ago).  Continental Drift forces the clan to explore their backyard, and it's a beautiful nightmare of owl-wovles & piranha-birds.  If you're at all familiar with the whacky, nonsensical design of the Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs films then you'll be happily equipped to handle the absurdity on display in the Land of the Lost.  The themes of curiosity & fear are simple, but important to the young audience, and The Croods is easily the most inventive looking film of the Animated Feature nominations.  A classic?  Naw.  But you know...fun for the whole family.

Despicable Me 2:  I do not care about Steve Carrell's Gru or his Good Dad/Bad Guy routine.  His story of romance and world domination holds zero interest.  But those minions?  They are just too cute for words.  I hate myself for loving them so much, but a ten second dream sequence in which one yellow fella falls head over heels for Kristen Wiig is abso-freaking-dorable.  And Isaac Washington Minion!!!  I want that toy now.  The rest of the movie?  Whatever.

Frozen:  This one suffered from the hype machine.  After weeks of friends, family, and co-workers telling me this is the best film Disney has released in ages, I was bound to finish Frozen with a lackluster spirit.  The film is pretty enough.  I dig the sibling love story.  The snowman character isn't even that annoying (shocker!).  But the film felt rushed to me.  Blinked and it was over.  I was disappointed when the real villain revealed himself, and the songs were Broadway light.  I should have seen this opening weekend, but with the world going ga-ga for Adele Dazeem, the contrarian in me wants to champion The Croods or The Wind Rises instead.  Not terrible.  It's on par with Tangled.  Good enough.

The Wind Rises:  "The Dream is Cursed."  I am not a worshiper at the alter of Miyazaki.  I've enjoyed a few of his films in the past (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away), but I've always felt a little alienated by the anime aesthetic.  Jingoism?  I've always feared that.  I like my cartoons Don Bluth.  Gasping Characters, Big Eyes, and Speed Lines?  No thanks.  American animation certainly has its own batch of annoyances, but my mind has remained shut on Anime & Manga since my 12 year old self first encountered it with Vampire Hunter D.  But I'm trying to grow.  Thanks to books like Gon, Domu, Lone Wolf & Cub, I'm more willing then ever to embrace Japan's greatest export.  Not to mention the sad fact that American Animation refuses to pull itself out of Mother Goose storytelling.  The closest we've come to exploring mature stories in the medium are Pixar's Up & Wes Andreson's Fantastic Mr. Fox.  Utterly pathetic.  The Wind Rises claims to be Miyazaki's farewell film, and I hope he sticks this landing as its a perfect sendoff.  Not the magical fantasy we've come to expect from the filmmaker, this film is a pseudo biography of airplane designer Jiro Horikoshi.  Doing his best to ignore the moral quandary of selling beauty to the military, and witnessing his art transformed into killing machines, Jiro battles apocalyptic nightmares and a doomed romance.  Filled with dread and sadness, I really enjoyed the dreamscape Jiro shares with Italian engineer Caproni; their conversations in regards to the airplanes military destiny contribute the film's greatest narrative meat.  The not-so-rom-com that occurs halfway through never seems fully realized, but there is enough misery there to complement the film's gloomy inevitability.  Not quite enough to make me a believer, as a fan of animation, it's obvious that I have to look outside my borders if I want to experience tales beyond fuzzy animals.

Streets of Fire:  When Ellen Aim (the breathtakingly badass Diane Lane) returns to her hometown for a rock show extravaganza, she's targeted by Willem Dafoe's Black Leather Motorcycle Club.  Kidnapped and dragged into the depths of retro 80s hell, Rick Moranis & Michael Pare assemble a squad of rock & roll weirdos (groupies! motowners! rockabilly bartenders, a lesbian, maybe!) to raid the biker bar and declare sledgehammer warfare.  As ex soldier Tom Cody, Pare delivers his super sincere one-liners with all of his acting might, and follicaly challenged facial hair.  He manages to bounce back & forth from the laughably ridiculous to the totally cool, something that only seems possible in that childhood decade.  The out-of-time reality and skyscraper performances condemn Streets of Fire as a cult favorite, but it's a Kool-Aid I don't mind drinking.  From the uber masculine mind that brought us 48 Hours, Southern Comfort, Extreme Prejudice,  and The Warriors, director Walter Hill was the master of the generational gem.  Streets of Fire is a rootin' tootin' crowd pleaser for stunted youth everywhere.

Rocky IV:  When I came home from The Alamo, I wanted to continue that thrill of 1980s cinema, and in my mind no other movie sums up the Reagan Era better than Sylvester Stallone's bombastic franchise killer.   Follow-up films were bound to fail after Rocky IV crushed communism's super science, resulting in the Berlin Wall's collapse.  Using the power of Montage (30 minutes worth in a 90 minute movie!), Rocky trains faster, harder, and beardier than his Giant Evil Foreign counterpart, avengers the death of Apollo Creed, and secures the love of his family through staged violence.  Plus, Paulie marries a robot!!!  Did the 80s produce better movies?  Raiders of the Lost Ark?  Blade Runner?  Raging Bull?  NOOOO!  It does not get better than "I Must Break You."  Case closed.

Omar:  Why are all "important" films so dang sad?  Watching through this year's nominees it's obvious that The Academy only has room in its heart to mope.  My quest for total Oscar domination brought me face-to-face with a lot of tragedies, and the Foreign Film category practically delivered me into a state of despair.  Omar is the story of a Palestinian revolutionary caught between his freedom fighter responsibilities and the love of a comrade's sister.  But as tensions build and plans result in death, imprisonment, more death, more imprisonment, and more death, I started to see Omar as less of a message movie, and more as a thrilling crime saga staged against the West Bank.  Think Donnie Brasco with the added bonus of systemized hatred.  I didn't leave the theater weepy as I did with Broken Circle Breakdown or The Hunt.  Instead it was a sensation more akin to surviving a James Ellroy novel.  A good time?  Actually...yeah.

The Invisible Woman:  After the boiling violence of Coriolanus, director Ralph Fiennes tackles the burdensome lust of every college professor's favorite novelist.  Having produced a litter of children and grown tired of his wife, the wandering eye of Charles Dickens lands on a supposedly talentless young actress.  They strike up an affair for some reason, causing a stir amongst the London press, and a not-so-secret shame for their family.  The film looks nice.  I suppose it earns its Wardrobe nomination.  Screenwriter Abi Morgan certainly frames the story in an intriguing fashion, and Fiennes pulls fine melodrama from his actors.  But the story left me cold.  I never fully understood the actions of the characters, nor did I ever really care.  The best I can say is that for thirty seconds or so while the film played I contemplated pulling the dusty Dickens off my book shelf.  But the moment passed.

The Book Thief:  I hated this movie.  A Hallmark Holocaust Adventure brought to you by the voice of God and John Williams's token Oscar nomination.  A young girl learns to read while Nazis burn books in the streets and hatred sweeps the nation in the most offensively banal depiction of World War II I have ever experienced.  I think it's all well and good to remember the horrors of the past.  In fact, it's deadly important.  Our society needs films like Schindler's List & 12 Years A Slave every decade or so as a reminder of human nature's horrific capability.  But The Book Thief delivers its message with about as much passion as an after school special.  It feels like a checkmark in a high school history class.  Infuriating.

Anchorman 2 - Supersized R Rated Edition:  Simply fascinating.  The narrative is the same.  Ron Burgundy travels to the big city unleashing the hell of the 24 hour news cycle upon our hapless society.  But half the jokes are different.  Improvised comedy is both wonderful and terrible.  You film one scene thirty different ways with thirty different lines, and suddenly you can cut thirty different films.  Or at least two solidly different films.  But I preferred the original Anchorman 2.  Maybe because it's jokes were better, but probably because it was my first experience with the script.  I still managed to laugh my ass of here, but the Supersized edition fascinated/perplexed me more than anything else.  A great bonus feature, but was it worth the second price of admission?  Still working it out.

--Brad

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! (2/9/14-2/15/14)

    This week started with something of a mini-vacation, and it was kind of awesome.  On Sunday, I saw Monuments Men with Ben and West Side Story with Brad and a group of friends.  Great.  On Monday, though, Brad and I went nuts.  We headed in to DC to visit Lee Marvin and Dashiell Hammett’s graves at Arlington, then walked over to the World War I monument, then the Martin Luther King monument, then on to the Air & Space museum to see the original model of the Enterprise from Star Trek.  The MLK monument was very cool.  And, I'm guessing because of its proximity, they've cleared the area around the WWI monument, so you can actually find it now.  That's a welcome change from the serious effort it took to uncover the right hidden path you used to have to take to find it.  From there, we headed over to Mad Hatter, the bar/restaurant on Connecticut for a delicious meal.  Then it was back to Brad’s for a movie (China Gate), and then off to the AFI Silver to see Point Blank on the big screen.  Awesome.  Feeling pretty darned devastated after such a busy day, I crashed hard and had a good sleep, only to get up Tuesday morning and head over the Cinema Arts to watch all the Oscar Nominated shorts.  Busy, busy couple of days.  My last few vacations have been a touch lackluster, but this one was darned fine right from the start.

The Monuments Men:  To me, the argument that saving art while war is raging was somehow unworthy is a lot like the argument that spending money on space science while people are starving is unworthy; short sighted and missing the point.  Art, literature, architecture; these are the ways in which we as a species achieve culture.  Culture is the only thing that separates us from wild animals, and I think it’s worth remembering, protecting, and sacrificing for.  It doesn’t lessen the cost of war.  It doesn’t cheapen life.  It gives life its meaning and a people their immortality.  We know the Egyptians through the works they left, we understand the struggles of the Renaissance through the art and literature those people left behind.  We have the United States Constitution because men thought to write it down.  All that is just to get out of my head some of my frustration about the ignorant and petty complaints about the movie’s very concept.  Besides that, these weren’t men being taken from the front line; they were guys who would otherwise not have taken an active role in the war, who ended up helping to defeat not just Hitler and the Nazis, but their very idea.  The movie itself feels like something of a throwback to the war/caper films of the 1950s.  I could easily see Gregory Peck, Lee Marvin, Anthony Quayle, Robert Shaw and others of that time stepping into the various roles.  As such, it’s a bit slower paced than many modern films, and perhaps a bit sentimental.  But I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  This is a movie that I’d watch as a companion to a viewing of Band of Brothers, The English Patient, Downfall, and Black Book.

West Side Story:  This is my favorite version of Romeo and Juliet…including the original.  The songs are good, colors are vibrant, and the actors are charming, if not always that great.  I like how it’s a grand, epic musical version of all those 50s ‘youth gone wild’ movies.  ‘Hell cats in hot pants,’ and all that.  Plus, there’s a lot of stuff about life as an immigrant, trying to blend into the established American tapestry, itself already a hodgepodge of various other ethnicities.  One of the better musicals, and one that I find myself enjoying more with each viewing.  Seeing it this time around on the big screen was a special treat.

China Gate:  That’s a whole lot of ugly.  Awful people root around in the bombed out ruins of pre-US involvement Vietnam, while the Chinese funnel weapons from Moscow.  The French Foreign Legion troops who feature in the film are all nasty customers, but the lead is the worst.  A horrible racist and a general scumbag.  And he’s ostensibly the film’s hero.  Though in truth, ‘half-cast’ Lucky Legs (Angie Dickinson) is the real hero.  Nasty business, brutal twists, horrible cruelty, and one heck of a climax, followed by one ugly action scene.  Nat King Cole also makes an appearance, and is really good.

Point Blank:  One of my favorite Tough Guy movies, this John Boorman experiment in crazy is so tough, so rough, so relentlessly nasty, I’m sure most viewers couldn’t handle it.  Lee Marvin plays Walker (a name switch for Richard Stark’s venerable badass Parker), a man who wants his money.  And he’s going to take down or out whoever he needs to in order to get his cut.  Filled with wild sequences, weird sound work, visual flourishes, and awesome character actors, it’s a movie you can’t unsee.  It’s not that they don’t make movies like this anymore.  They never made movies like this.

2014 Academy Award Nominated Animated Short Films:  The animated shorts for 2013 were a nice mix of style and content.  Disney’s retro-inspired Get a Horse is cute, but at the end of the day feels like something Warner Bros. would have done a decade back when trying to recapture old glory.  Room on the Broom took a bit to build, but won me over after I was initially put off by the animation style.  Feral was the most visually impressive and interesting, but I’ll admit, I kind of tuned out near the end.  I wanted to like it more than I did, and I’m not sure just how I’d have done it differently.  Mr. Hublot is cute, and the CGI Steampunk universe sure looks pretty.  It has some fun and clever gags and was a pleasant viewing.  I don’t think it will stay with me in the long run.  Possessions is tough for me.  On the one hand, I found technical aspects of the animation to be very irritating (what appeared to be a lot of separate, CG rendered 3D elements, moving stiffly, like a slightly more advanced version of old flash animations…or like models of people made out of folded card-stock, then stop motioned…only in CG).  But I liked the weird little Japanese mythology based story.  Actually, I liked the story a lot.  There were a couple honorable mentions shown along with the five nominees, and among those I found my favorite.  The Missing Scarf, narrated by George Takei, left me kind of thunderstruck.  It’s so funny, so uplifting and depressing, so simple, yet do darned complex.  It was a highlight of my short film filled day.  Pixar’s The Blue Umbrella felt more like a coffee commercial or something.  It looks good, sure.  But as far as stories go, it’s pretty dull and obvious.  If I just watched it, with no idea that it was a short film, I would assume at some point a product would be put in front of me, and I’d be told that I should buy it, be it the afore mentioned coffee, or a car, or a dating website.  And finally, they played A la Francaise, about a bunch of chickens at Versailles.  It had a couple funny gags, but was mostly just a head scratcher.

2014 Academy Award Nominated Live Action Short Films:  I can’t say I’m surprised, but these films seemed primarily in the vain of ‘we’re gonna make you feel really bad about life’/meaningful films.  One about a kid with a terminal illness, one about child soldiers, one about an abused woman.  In fact, only one of them was at all enjoyable to watch.  Now, I get that some people want to use art to make a point, to make people aware of ills in the world.  And I certainly wouldn’t begrudge them that.  Film is a great medium to discuss things like that.  OK.  But come on.  My favorite of the bunch was Pitaako Mun Kaikki Hoitaa?, if for no other reason than it was uplifting and didn’t make me think about slitting my wrists.  In fact, it was the only one of the films (despite clear attempts to manipulate my emotions in others) that brought tears to my eyes.  They were tears of laughter, but tears none the less.  I also liked The Voorman Problem, which was very well put together and put me in mind of old Outer Limits episodes or Ray Bradbury stories.  Helium feels somewhat cloying, like a Hallmark Channel movie.  Aquel No Era Yo was brutally depressing and goes to exactly the places you expect it to go.  Avant Que De Tout Perdre is very well put together and very tense, and I guess ultimately emotionally satisfying.  But it’s kind of lost among the depression.

    Tuesday night, I finished reading the second volume of Thor: God of Thunder.  Excellent series.  I’m very interested in seeing where they take it in the future.  Love the art, love the story.

Sweetwater:  Not at all the goofy, silly film I expected, this Western isn’t great, but it’s not bad.  A villainous, half-mad preacher is trying to set up his own kingdom, and he’s willing to crush anyone who doesn’t jump in line.  A crotchety old law man and a revenge fueled young wife have something to say about it, though.  I can’t get too excited about the film, but it’s not bad.  And if you’re in the mood for a different Western, it’s worth giving a watch.  January Jones doesn’t suck, too.  That’s kind of a shock.  Ed Harris is doing Jeff Bridges doing Rooster Cogburn.  OK.

The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box:  I enjoyed this little slice of Victorian (?) fantasy adventure, but it’s not particularly good.  The acting is fine.  The production looks fine.  The whole thing is fine.  But it doesn’t pop; it doesn’t capture the imagination.  Passable, but not noteworthy.

How I Live Now:  I had a hard time getting into this movie, in part because the lead character is such a snot, and I’m not fully satisfied with the ending.  However, excepting the very beginning and the very ending, it’s an excellent, beautifully shot film about surviving during a war.  It’s steeped in the all consuming, depressing fear of nuclear war that I grew up with, reminding me of stories and films, and imaginings of that era.  The countryside is beautiful, and it sets the horrors in that much more of a stark contrast.  It’s hard to say you enjoy a movie like this, because it’s pretty dark and depressing.  But this is a good take on the subject.  Not especially original, but well told.

    On Wednesday, the expected last day of my vacation, Brad and I headed out to visit Big Planet comics, and generally goof about.  At some point, it was decided that I would join him and mutual friend Darren at the Alamo for the new Robocop, a film I’ll admit, I wasn’t too interested in.  Still, a movie’s a movie.  And since the whole region was flipping out over an approaching snow storm, it was a nice place to get away from the raving panic.

Robocop (2014):  This doesn’t suck.  And that right there isn’t something I expected to be able to say.  Was it great?  No.  Did we need a Robocop remake?  No.  Should it have at least been rated R?  Of course.  But it wasn’t awful.  There were enough new elements to make it not completely pointless, but there wasn’t anything especially ground breaking.  I liked the soundtrack.

    The snow storm hit, and even this jaded Northerner had to admit, it was a lot of snow in a short time.  But, it was also really cold, so if you shoveled it early, it was easy as pie.  Later, it began to rain, and the melting process began.  Whatever the case, I ended up with an unexpected day of vacation, but was pretty groggy, and spent much of my day zoned out on the couch.

The Sentinel:  A horror movie very much of its time, with all the requisite parts.  Morally bankrupt men, an emotionally devastated female lead, uncomfortable sexuality, jarring music, Satan, a-hole cops, and so much more.  If you’re into 70s horror and don’t feel like watching The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror, The Omen, The Devil’s Rain, Susperia, or Rosemary’s Baby, well then, there’s this.  Lead Christina Raines is half way between Brooke Adams and Kate Jackson.  Not a bad actress, and very cute in that fresh-faced 70s starlet kind of way.  The movie?  It's OK, I guess.

The Haunting:  I’m not much of a haunted house fan, but this is one of the better entries in that particular horror staple.  The actors are good, the characters interestingly broken, and the lavish sets impressive.  I like the overall sense of Gothic dread, though it has few actual scares.  I don’t mean jumps, I mean scares.  Any movie can be jumpy, few get to the root of fear, and this one doesn’t.  Still, it’s a pretty good movie.

The Old Fairy Tale: When the Sun Was God (aka: Army of Valhalla):  This is a three part story; I’m assuming it was originally for TV.  It’s a mostly realistic Medieval epic about a corrupt prince stealing the throne, and the struggle of his people to set things right again.  There is a fantasy element, with some magic and occasional acts of gods, but overall, it’s fairly grounded.  The final episode suffers a lot from budgetary constraints.  The finale involves a building being on fire and some other stuff going on, which looks pretty bad and did kind of take me out of things, especially since it had looked pretty good up until then.  I liked the cast and a lot of the story, and think that for a ten year old television production from Poland, it looks pretty good.  Some technical issues and iffy use of music aside, it’s worth tracking down if you’re in the mood something set in pre-Christian Poland.

Flying Down to Rio:  While nowhere near as good as say, Singin’ in the Rain, this movie is a heck of a lot of fun.  And, being made in that magical pre-Code era, it’s delightfully naughty.  The sexual innuendo…if you can even call it innuendo, is wonderful.  Racy talk about fast living and having fun.  None of the prudishness of the 40s and 50s, the so called ‘good old days’ of separate beds, moms in the kitchens, and dads smoking their pipe while the kids watch TV.  These were dashing dandys and brassy dames, dancing, drinking, and getting into all kinds of…well, whatever it was, it was hotsy-totsy.

Ender’s Game:  This was a heck of a lot better than the trailer made out.  But it still wasn’t amazing.  It’s the kind of science fiction film I’d like to see a lot more of, but with more punch and less retread.  I know it’s based off a novel, but that novel was covering some old sci-fi ground when it came out (owing more than a little to Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, among others).  The cast does a pretty good job, again, better than the trailer led me to believe.  And it does deal with some interesting ideas.  One major problem I’ve got with it is that it feels like the pilot episode of a series that I know didn’t get picked up.  It ends at the point I started to really engage.  I know there are the novels, but I’m not an Orson Scott Card fan, so I’m not likely to read them.  And the movie seems to have tanked, so we're not likely to see more.  Still, maybe this movie will pick up a certain cult following among younger viewers.  It’s got the potential.  Who can say?

Rain:  The cold, determined villainy of the religious fanatic, the hypocritical hollowness of the bellowing preacher, and the ill-fated desire to impose spiritual purity on others.  Dang.  This movie, is as relevant today as it was in 1932.  What the prudes would do with the imposition of the Hayes codes, what the prudes had recently done with Prohibition, what the prudes will normally get up to if they’re not fought at every turn.  Ruining joy and happiness for everyone who has it.  Joan Crawford is a fun loving party girl.  Yeah, she’s got troubles.  Her life wasn’t so good.  But now she’s finding pleasure and joy where she can.  She even meets a guy who’s A-OK with her, just as she is.  Well, wild-eyed preacher Alfred Davidson and his sycophantic lady friends can’t let that stand.  He’ll work every angle to break down this free spirit, destroy her life, and ruin her happiness.  I really liked this movie.  Love Joan Crawford and her story arc.  Love the message the movie sends and the middle finger it boldly flips at people who feel they have the right to impose their morality on others.  Also, Guy Kibbee is an especial treat as the bartender/innkeeper Joe Horn.  I’m sure I’ve seen this guy around, but he was so good in the role I’m gonna have to track down more of his work.

    And that’s about it.  But ‘it’ was pretty awesome.  Haven’t had that much fun packed into a week in a while.  I always like a trip in to DC.  Frankly, any trip makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, but walking around DC, even in the frigid cold, is very cool.  None of the claustrophobia I used to get in Boston (not to mention, it’s a hell of a lot cleaner).  Every time I go there, part of me wants to find a way to live there.  But I don’t see that happening any time soon.  Or while I’m single.  So, you know.  Ever.

-Matt