Top 10 Films of 2011

To start off on a more personal note, a very merry Christmas Eve to you all and general well wishes for the rest of the holidays this cold season. And I apologize for the past few missed opportunities of posting film reviews or awards predictions, but alas this semester's finals were particularly demanding. That said, I can set off a series of list-posts with the one people tend to care about the most and that is the very best films of this year. My War Horse review did well to kind of summarize the trends in this year in film, which I think was ultimately strong if nothing than in the strongest of what it offered. Particular trends indicate the strength of British cinema this year with a full four offerings from the U.K., several films deeply tied to memory (if not suiting the trend of "nostalgia" this year), and childhood.

Honorable mentions go to films that may have made my list this year had I not seen them in 2010. Certified Copy, Poetry, and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives in particular.

10. Senna (Asif Kapadia, U.K.)

The life of Formula One racer Ayrton Senna is reconstructed with brilliantly edited footage of the racer's career reminiscent to a much shorter entry from my list last year, The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu, but much shorter and with occasional English narration. Whether you're already aware of the fate of Mr. Senna or if, like me, you had zero interest in formula one or any entry of the racing sport genre, the film plays out with compellingly realized passion and reverence for its subject that is lovely to watch.

9. Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, U.K.)

The first entry of the year I saw of the promise of British cinema this year, Tyrannosaur is an often hard to watch character study that will hit you in the gut on the strength of performances like Peter Mullan's and Olivia Colman's as much as it is the study of the very community that Considine grew up in in all of its bleak landscapes and air as tough as the residents' skins. Colman's delicate Hannah has been receiving the bulk of awards' attention for this film as her gentility and faithfulness from growing up in upper class life veils the domestic horrors she faces regularly until the tension erupts near the end to what remains the best performed scene of this very year. It's Mullan's Joseph, however, whose rougher grumbly exterior shields his sensitively internalized past experiences of love and loss through short-tempered outbursts that I think was perhaps the more difficult task and offered some more deeply embedded shades of characterization.

8. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher, U.S.)

David Fincher has offered his take on the Swedish literary phenomenon with the startling ease of his past crime procedural films, tension always amped up well passed 10 and a wholly more cinematic and compelling product than the original Swedish films. From the opening credits the audience is prepared for some ruthless Fincherian style and will break every audiences' most squeamish sensitivities that will start you squirming in your seats, to shivering in your seats, to completely recoiling and shaking at the slightest gestures that may not mean a damn thing. But with the atmosphere Fincher presents, you'd never know it. Rooney Mara sinks every teeth possible into the potential of her character's strength and kicks some serious ass. Her eyes like the very film itself seethe with a quiet fireball of energy even in her most quiet moments, which only makes her crowdpleasing moments of outbursts that much more thrilling and exhilarating to watch play out.  

7. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, U.S.)

Perhaps this year's most truly nostalgic "nostalgia piece" (and not just yearning for a time you never even lived in) is a style in exercise always underpinned by a very contemporary and relevant sense of dark dread, like a more mechanical No Country for Old Men. A killer techno soundtrack offers a sense of modern poetry in the slowly simmering scenes featuring a slowly simmering but quietly effective Ryan Gosling, whose performance itself is like a fast car going forward with cool smoothness until the slightest changes can leave the most jarring impacts. But Refn allows the final climactic moments of released tension play out quietly, but never in a boring way. The scenes are violent, but never gratuitous. They're shot slickly but never glamorize the blood and gore onscreen as is a problem with many mainstream American action films.

6. This Is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi and Mojbata Mirtamasb, Iran)

As of yet unreleased in the U.S., Jafar Panahi continues to push the level of cinematic possibility while bound by house arrest shortly before his prison sentencing in Iran last year. The results of how much he's able to express politically as well as humanistically while also lamenting on his potentially finished film career can be tragic, hilarious, thoughtful or spellbinding at any given moment. The self-reflexivity of trying to make a film is a common theme in this new Iranian cinema of which he's a major figure and it is, of course, adapted for this film with utter brilliance in defiance of art-detesting authoritarian forces that speaks to deep moralistic questions for audiences anywhere. A simple yet astonishing feat in filmmaking, and the most important film in a long time.

5. Weekend (Andrew Haigh, U.K.)

Going on about his art project in the film, the character in the film Glen jokes that only gays will visit to get a view of some cock and straights won't bother since it has nothing to do with their world. With subtle snarks of self-references ("so is this our Notting Hill moment?") that brings attention to how it subverts and spins on its head the conventions of modern cinematic romances or queer films, Weekend is a tenderly realized romance in a standard English industrial town that operates in quiet whispers and hushed moments. Tales of both characters pasts are sewn in carefully, and build on enough development for an audience to glue their interests and attention to these two characters and their relationship. Tom Cullen's performance as Russ is among the most natural delivered all year, with deeply embedded strings of repression and self-consciousness foiled by Chris New as Glen, arguably given the tougher task by building a lot of what we know about his character through reactions. Both performances are of equal keel, though, as they both achieve the task of figuring each other out and breaking them of their respective insecurities and fears and regrets all common in the modern Western gay experience. Seminal moment though it seems for gay cinema, the story is (at the risk of sounding gay-cliché) all too universal. Anyone should be able to relate to falling in love at the worst time, and the ending works like a punch to the gut.

4. We Need To Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, U.K.)

Scottish visual auteur Lynne Ramsay returns triumphantly to the cinematic world with a cerebral horror story into the mind of one Eva Khatchadourian, reconstructing her past in fragmented blood-splashed regrets and fears and potential explanations for what her life has become. Played by Tilda Swinton, every ounce of pain and retroactive remorse pulsates to every bone in her body, communicating shades of haunting and confusion and fear with single facial expressions that outdoes most (if not all) performers in film this year with ease. The ultimate unreliable narrator of this character study, we see the landscape of her traumatizing experiences much like Travis Bickle sees the bleak New York City streets in Taxi Driver or how Stephen Myers' glossy but upbeat view of politics is ultimately tainted to something more menacing in The Ides of March. We see the disgust with which she perceives pregnant women, we see the creepy stillness in suburban life she feels trapped by, and most troubling of all we see the very evil and darkness she senses out of the very child she herself bore life to (if not the singling out of retrospective evidence she was searching for later on). Kevin, of course, grows up to massacre students in his high school in as grisly a manner as you can imagine, and the question then becomes whether he was truly born as evil as Eva had suspected or if he ended up that way as a result of how she saw him when raising him. The ultimate subjective exercise demands deep interaction with the images put forth to the audiences and has led many an American critic to easily dismiss the film, very unfortunately I think, as something "pretentious" as can easily be applied to a film of any visual flourish. Fact remains that Lynne Ramsay and co-writer Rory Kinnear have pulled apart all literary elements and structures of the original novel into a truly brilliant, creepy, and thoughtful piece of oedipal cinema.

3. Bal ('Honey') (Semih Kaplanoğlu, Turkey)

Winner of the 2009 Golden Bear prize from the Berlin Film Festival, U.S. audiences only got to see this film at the start of the year and when it was what I considered the first 2011 film to have seen I had immediately realized I had laid my eyes upon a quiet masterpiece. Deep in the lush Turkish countryside, orchestrated by the sounds of insects or wind-kissed leaves or approaching footprints in the dirt, we meditatively penetrate the mind of a young boy named Yusuf who sees his world of nature and family and school with a heartbreaking childlike innocence that is inevitably shattered by the end of the film. The childlike gaze in cinema is a tough code to crack, but those that managed to — Pather Panchali, The Color of Paradise, The Spirit of the Beehive, Kes — are among the finest films ever made. It's hard to describe this meditative piece of impressionism in a way that can do it any justice, but its so visually descriptive that you can smell each flower in the fields and taste each drop of soup that Yusuf's ethereal mother feeds to him with the help of some of the finest cinematography ever dedicated to the screen. We see a young boy striving for his father's approval, naturally affectionate to his mother, sensitive to his speech impediment in front of his class but so yearns for the admiration of his classmates the way that he does for them as he mouths the words they read from their books' pages in ambition for their confidence and aural clarity. But like the film, not much talking is to be had. All of it is said through simple perception.

2. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, U.S.)

Similar to Bal in its childlike view growing up in 50s Texas, much like its elusive filmmaker himself, but wider in scope and bigger in impact. The Tree of Life is master director Terrence Malick's magnum opus and the cinematic event of the new millennium delivered on its promise with a Cannes Palme D'Or and awards promise for this season. The most affecting moments of the film are the emotional brushstrokes in the more intimate tale of childhood, approaching repressive 50s family structures with Biblical grace — all bottled up with the tense promise of future tragedy to boot in similar retrospect as We Need To Talk About Kevin, set to tender classical piano music. Juxtaposed to the small-scale family portrait is the much larger implications of the universe's creation from the big bang to the evolution of life on Earth from a God-like point of view that confronts the audience with the dwarfing of importance they see in their own family life to the larger scheme of universality and everything that happens. What Malick's messages include is hard to say, I simply try to interpret the film in my emotional reactions to it which are far too diverse and varied in impact for me not to consider this an instant classic, and what I can only assume is what Terrence Malick's been aiming for with his distinct visual style all these years.

1. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, Iran)

Asghar Farhadi has managed the near impossible task of crafting the pinnacle of my very favorite world cinematic stage right now. Nearly flawless in every aspect of its construction, from the intricately crafted screenplay (STAKES STAKES STAKES!) to the almost bizarrely consistent top of the line performances across the board to subtle camerawork that established spatial relations between each character in crucial ways to the overall product, the result is a deeply felt humanistic piece with deep implications of social critique, gender relations, hegemonic religiosity, class struggles, justice systems and basic questions of moral and personal truthful ambiguity of right and wrong that can make the slightest statement or action make you as squeamish as the rapiest torture sequences in Dragon Tattoo. The original title of the film translates as The Separation of Nader and Simin, as the story is framed through the divorce of the two central characters, but still operates as thoughtful synecdoche considering how wide ranging the story progresses from that point as the very film provides a microcosm for issues of middle class Iranian society. The upper-middle class marriage of Nader and Simin indeed falls apart in the opening sequence as Simin wishes for a less oppressive regime and lifestyle for her and their daughter, Fermeh, while Nader refuses as he has an Alzheimers-stricken father to care for and their daughter is not willing to leave him. The intertwined story unravels from there as every side to every story is both justified and at fault for the explosion of tension that then proceeds while they enter into various legal battles, not the least of which is the divorce case at the center, with full and confident interpretations of their own truth that all falter in logical scrutiny. At the heartbreaking center is daughter Fermeh, played by the director's own daughter Sarina Farhadi, who slowly loses her innocence and the idealized views with which she sees the truth for the sake of her own family but ultimately has to choose a side. The film should be required viewing when it opens in select cities later this weekend and will surely be studied in film schools well into the future. It is a full-fledged masterpiece.

On DVD: Bal (Honey), The Tree of Life
Available for instant Netflix viewing: Poetry, Senna, Weekend
In theaters now: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Soon to be in theaters: A Separation, This Is Not A Film, We Need To Talk About Kevin

11-20:
11. The Help
12. Martha Marcy May Marlene
13. Beginners
14. Shame
15. Bridesmaids
16. The Muppets
17. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. II
18. War Horse
19. The Artist
20. 50/50 Read more!

MOB: LAFCA Preview

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association are sometimes hard to peg I think because they can go super mainstream (being good indicators of the Lead Actor winner at the Oscars) or go super obscure into the foreign selections (not so good at Lead Actress). Kenneth Turan, who easily yields the most influence in the group, gave his biggest rave of the year so far to The Artist but I do think that the NYFCC date sufficiently pissed LA off and they will try to differentiate themselves from NY in a number of ways, and probably NBR as well (Turan was less than a fan of Hugo). The Descendants is a safe bet since they're huge Payne fans but to many the film doesn't live up to Sideways, which absolutely swept in '04 (then again does anyone think About Schmidt, BP winner from them in '02, did?). Turan gave other raves to Poetry, We Were Here, We Need To Talk About Kevin and Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

One has seen increasingly in recent years, though, a more general push towards the more out there foreign choices (Carlos would have cleaned up had it not been for The Social Network). Easily the biggest critical story in the foreign language field this year has been A Separation, so there's that.

There's a number of films left unsaid by NY that LA can easily claim, and I think they will especially be pretty kind to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy as it recently leapfrogged over the likes of NY successes The Artist and Moneyball as the highest metacritic score for a more major English language film of this year. You can also see some love, maybe, to stuff like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

So I find with stuff like this if you just make a list of films you think they'll want to recognize and start to allocate them various awards from there, then you might be pretty successful. I would list them as:
The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
A Separation
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

So with that...

---

Best Picture:
A SEPARATION
(runner-up: The Descendants)

Best Director:
MICHEL HAZANAVICIUS, THE ARTIST
(runner-up: Tomas Alfredsen, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)

Best Actor:
GARY OLDMAN, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
(runner-up: Jean Dujardin, The Artist)

Best Actress:
JEONG-HEE YOON, POETRY
(runner-up: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin)

Best Supporting Actor:
ANDY SERKIS, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
(runner-up: Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

Best Supporting Actress:
SHAILENE WOODLEY, THE DESCENDANTS
(runner-up: Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus)

Best Screenplay:
THE DESCENDANTS
(runner-up: A Separation)

Best Cinematography:
THE TREE OF LIFE
(runner-up: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)

Best Production Design:
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
(runner-up: The Tree of Life)

Best Music Score:
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
(runner-up: The Artist)

Best Foreign Language Film:
A SEPARATION
(runner-up: Poetry)

Best Documentary:
WE WERE HERE
(runner-up: Cave of Forgotten Dreams)

Best Animation:
CHICO & RITA
(runner-up: Rango)

New Generation Award:
DEE REES, PARIAH
(runner-up: Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene)

---

Read more!

The Timeliness of War Horse

To judge a year in cinematic terms is easier to do some years than others, but in particularly strong years one can see strong trends in thematic elements explored throughout some of the more popular films of the year that reflect a certain air in the zeitgeist. As the Bush era was drawing to a close, darker fare like No Country for Old Men or There Will Be Blood were among the first names out of the lips of those familiar with the cinematic atmosphere of 2007. Entering the Obama age, an uptick in hopefulness brought about films like Slumdog Millionaire dominating the filmic discourse. Whatever this says about our current place in the annals of history this year — disillusionment with the social climate, a yearning for a better time — the trend as of late has dealt with strong feelings of nostalgia, revisiting your past, even confronting your new future. One could have seen this last year in 2010 between an emotionally awkward youth reshaping the social landscape at the costs of leaving behind those who simply couldn't keep up (Eduardo Saverin and the Winklevii) with the new era in The Social Network or a British monarch who needed serious help in adapting to the new technology of radio to keep his country together as war loomed in The King's Speech. More notably this year is how much those themes and sentiments have been vocalized so clearly in such a plethora of the very defining films of this year.

Terrence Malick's magnum opus The Tree of Life, arguably the most aesthetically significant cinematic event of the new millennium, juxtaposes at once the reflection of suburban childhood in the 1950s with the prehistoric past of the Earth to dwarf its significance in the longer scheme of its epochs of the past heading into future millennia. Owen Wilson's character in Allen's Midnight in Paris literally finds himself able to go back in time to his favorite era only to find there the same weariness of their own times. Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive mimics the flashy stylings of 80s action flicks with a sense of slowly churning dark dread underpinning the action sequences (not unlike the 1980-set No Country for Old Men) the same way Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist harkens back to Hollywood in the silent era as unwilling stars from the time watch it transition to sound. The introduction of the new technology resonates with those in the industry as it clearly parallels contemporary Hollywood as 3D increasingly finds profitability in the marketplace, as evidenced by Martin Scorsese's utilization of the newly expressive potential the technology adds to the cinematic language in Hugo, a film in which film pioneer Georges Méliès himself stops shying away from his past in the film industry and acknowledges just how forward he pushed the new medium in his own time.

What positions this year as a landmark in Steven Spielberg's career is how his two films this year places into the conversation in very similar means. The Adventures of Tin Tin uses a 3D motion capture technology on the surface but is still said to flow with the very cinematically adventurous gusto that defined Spielberg's career in the first half of his career with films like the Indiana Jones series. War Horse, however, is singularly as definitive of Spielberg's abilities and career as anything he's ever made. John William's swelling score awaits viewers of this film at every turn as a backdrop to Janusz Kaminski's lensing each shot in the vein of films like The Searchers or Gone with the Wind, among others. Nothing in the film is left unsaid, nothing is made unclear, parts of it as as sweet as the most cinematically sugary entries in his canon as the scenes of World War I trench warfare seem as brutal and viscerally trying as the storming of Normandy he chronicled in Saving Private Ryan. As he operates on this film full throttle firing on every cylinder in the most Spielbergian sense, it either works for you or it doesn't. For me I was much more easily able to look pass the emotional obviousness of some of the scenes, the predictability and the clear need to suspend disbelief at certain points because the rest of the film simply worked. The score that informed every emotion you were meant to feel, each reaction shot as a close-up allowing the talented group of actors little in way of subtle emotional expression, something about it still just managed to keep me tuned in and enjoy the ride at every turn.

If this kind of thing has never worked for you in a Spielberg film, though, it's not going to now. That reason being that the main functionality of War Horse in the cinematic conversation, what feels like the central purpose in every bone of its being, is how it harkens back to its own artistic voices behind the film at their peak in the same way that Drive does to 80s action films or The Artist does to the silent studio films and, in fact, this did somewhat to the quintessential American films of John Ford in spite of its strictly European settings (but not entirely unlike how the largely French creators and cast behind The Artist approached that film with accessible contemporaneity). Maybe better and less obviously than any other film has attempted to this year, War Horse will best satisfy the nostalgic thirst clearly evident in the desires of moviegoers this year at this time by simply being closest to that thrill and classic feel of such a story told this way that seems to have been missing in the marketplace for so long. The romanticization of the landscape, the scope of the story going between Scottish farmers and German soldiers and French civilians all affected by the War, the risk and stakes apparent in trench warfare, and the very resilience of this central character you find in this strong horse and the universal sentimentality he inspires in anyone who crosses his path.

A probably drawn out opening act that establishes this horse and his young owner's borderline Equus-like obsession with him embodies the spirit of a youthful pre-World War naïveté that can reflect a spectator's fond memories of when they themselves felt that same spirit before surrounding events hardened them to the point where Peter Mullan's character as a drunken father was in the beginning bogged down by his own traumatic memories of war and a life plagued by poverty and poor luck. Exaggerated though it may be, though at a certain point exaggeration becomes the norm in a film like this, Mullan's character almost serves as the entire audience who watches all of the events in this film unfurl in a way that forever wipes away that spirit of pre-war naïveté amongst everyone else and the realization everyone seems to come to of just how cyclical the nature of these sorts of sentiments are that our moviegoing sensibilities seem to be feeling as evidenced by the strikingly similar themes in all of these films out there this year. Last year we went through being confronted by a future we were unsure how to face to a nostalgic escape to the past only to find that it's our present and, ultimately, that scary future that we must ultimately face and come to terms with. Read more!

MOB: The Gotham Awards Kick-off the Awards Season

The Gothams are a big enough name on the indie circuit to provide a small alternative to the Independent Spirit Awards (announcing nominees tomorrow), but often aren't taken with quite the seriousness that a group like the NYFCC or the NBR, but seemed to lend a smart and smooth amount of influence to start off the '11 awards race tonight. The Gotham Awards became the first with a fancy awards show this year and started off an already surely unpredictable year with many a surprise, including two seeming heavyweights in The Descendants and Martha Marcy May Marlene, both going into the night with the most nominations, pulling a Gangs of New York and a Color Purple, respectively. They went him with no awards. Indeed, Dee Rees took Breakthrough Director away from Sean Durkin while Felicity Jones bitchslapped Elizabeth Olsen and Shailene Woodley both to the Breakthrough Actor prize for Like Crazy (not sure what can exactly account for that preference, myself).

The lovable little film Beginners, highly recommended, got about as big a boost as an award like this could offer a tiny independent underdog heading into the awards season with its best shot at Oscar in Christopher Plummer accepting the Best Ensemble prize (over films like The Descendants and Margin Call) with humor and grace. Natalie Portman discussed a 2.5 hour conversation the jury had before compromising to also give the tiny film the coveted Best Feature prize tied with the very big Tree of Life.

The boost this lends The Tree of Life is significant, on first glance. It's just another expectation it defied, after taking home the Palme D'Or, winning the International FIRPRESCI prize earlier this year and earlier this week topping the Sight & Sound poll of 100 critics in a landslide victory. The amount to which this can became a major player on the critics circuit depends on how well it does tomorrow, particularly in the New York critics, but I suspect it shan't do too bad considering how much of the Circle's voting body are admirers of Malick's. I'd bet on a Best Director win, at least (although I'm predicting Picture as well). Read more!

MOB: New York Film Critics preview

The New York Film Critics Circle's decision this year to leapfrog over all other precursor awards this year has decidedly backfired as they've proven entirely incapable of seeing all the possible options, including who knows how many hidden gems wanting desperately to bubble over the surface. Either way, they've delayed their voting to Tuesday morning, which will be announced via their twitter page, so that they can see David Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. They will not be able to catch Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which certain members will humbly suggest has to do with that film's own level of quality. I think most people realize that is ludicrous.

But what can win? Last year you had options like eventual champ The Social Network at a staggering 96 on metacritic with Toy Story 3 also well into the 90s (and at a higher percentage of positive reviews on rottentomatoes). This year mainstream cinema has not been able to break 87 on metacritic, currently in a three-way tie between Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. II, Moneyball and latest entry The Artist. This could bode well for The Artist since the other two seem to be a bit light for critics' favor, although most of the reviews I can see on the aggregate site seem to be Los Angeles critics for whom the film looks better suited to anyways. And then of course if Dragon Tattoo delivers as the final film they see before voting that could very well lead to a bandwagon (but would they want to have another Fincher film sweep two years in a row?). In a second tier of 85 scores you have Martin Scorsese's Hugo, Mike Nichols' Take Shelter and Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, which just recently won the top spot on Sight & Sound Magazine's 2011 film poll of 100 critics. The Social Network being the first American film in a long time to win that prize last year boded well for its own critical success, and though The Tree of Life is inarguably more divisive it still did win the Palme D'Or after an initial stammering of boos upon its premiere and even won the main FIRPRESCI prize of critics polled this year, which means it just does fare very well among groups of critics in terms of finding consensus in a year like this.
Other options obviously include the likes of The Descendants, though LA has always been much more of the Payne-fanboy type than the New York critics. If they want to go super-inspired and outre they could easily also go for A Separation, the best film of the year for my money and runner-up at the Sight & Sound poll (and the likely annointed ones at least among the foreign film scene this year).

Possibilities:
The Artist
The Descendants
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. II
Hugo
Moneyball
Shame
Take Shelter
The Tree of Life
We Need To Talk About Kevin

My prediction: The Tree of Life (runner-up: The Descendants)

Goldderby's poll of pundits has them picking The Descendants but Jean Dujardin still besting Clooney. But I think one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year will end up being Steve McQueen's Shame (evidenced by a FIRPRESCI prize of its own at Venice) which is driven by a lead performance by Michael Fassbender, still primed in a perfect position between foreign indie critics fave and bonafide film star. But for each of these three actors it could prove to be a consolation prize in well-liked films (not to even mention a possibility to double-mention Brad Pitt for the well-reviewed Moneyball and The Tree of Life).

Possibilities:
George Clooney, The Descendants/The Ides of March
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 50/50
Ryan Gosling, Crazy Stupid Love/Drive/The Ides of March
Michael Fassbender, A Dangerous Method/Jane Eyre/Shame/X-Men First Class
Woody Harrelson, Rampart
Hunter McCracken, The Tree of Life
Peyman Moaadi, A Separation
Brad Pitt, Moneyball/The Tree of Life
Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
My prediction: Michael Fassbender, Shame (runner-up: Jean Dujardin)

Best Actress is such a peculiar category because many of the perceived frontrunners for Oscar glory are not seen as being in critically acclaimed films (Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams, Glenn Close and even leading contender Viola Davis herself). But it's not like there aren't great options to choose from actually great films, and then of course there's the possibility they do go for one of these other, by all measures praised, performances in weaker films, or even a sight unseen like Rooney Mara (I wouldn't count TGWTDT out for anything considering it'll be the one freshest on their minds and is likely to leave an imprint on their mind, judging from the preview materials we've seen). They've gone for veterans in the past like Meryl Streep in 2009 or, less explicably, Annette Bening last year. That could bode very well for either Meryl Streep or overdue Glenn Close. But there are also ingenues this year like Elizabeth Olsen, Felicity Jones and Rooney Mara. Cannes queens Tilda Swinton and Kirsten Dunst are in the running for a critics' darling position themselves that might prove crucial in their path to a coveted Oscar nomination alongside names like Olivia Colman or even praised performances last year just released this year like Juliette Binoche in Certified Copy or the fantastic Jeong-hee Yoon for Poetry (though LA and NSFC are more likely to reward foreign-language performances in general).

Possibilities:
Juliette Binoche, Certified Copy
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Olivia Colman, Tyrannosaur
Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia
Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin
Charlize Theron, Young Adult
Michelle Williams, Meek's Cutoff/My Week With Marilyn
My prediction: Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin (runner-up: Michelle Williams)

The supporting categories could be a place to conceivably go with Oscar prognostication since New York has historically always been closer aligned to Oscar success than any other critics' group. If Christopher Plummer is the frontrunner in Supporting Actor, then maybe he'll win Best Supporting Actor. He certainly won't see Max Von Sydow as competition. But sometimes these critics like to go a little rougher around the edges, and I think a veteran alternative like Albert Brooks in the gritty Drive provides them a good opportunity at rewarding that otherwise well-reviewed film (though not the most kindly from NY critics in general) and a choice that might be seen as slightly fresher even though he's deep in the hunt for Oscar. But as far as I can tell those are the two options it really comes down to.

Possibilities:
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Albert Brooks, Drive
George Clooney, The Ides of March
Robert Forster, The Descendants
Ben Kingsley, Hugo
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Patton Oswalt, Young Adult
Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life
Christopher Plummer, Beginners/The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Christoph Waltz, Carnage
My prediction: Albert Brooks, Drive (runner-up: Christopher Plummer)

Just like Plummer is slated to sweep his category, though he might not start here, another actress who looks "sweepy" seems to be Vanessa Redgrave in Coriolanus, getting Oscar predictions as soon as last January when the film was screened at the Berlin Film Festival. She lost out on the festival prize for Actress (for which I presume she was a frontrunner) to the female ensemble of A Separation, about which I'm not complaining. If they go, as they often do, for prizes recognizing multiple performances than the award is almost sealed for breakthrough (in every sense of the word) actress Jessica Chastain, between Take Shelter, The Tree of Life, The Help and The Debt has established a critically acclaimed, artistically diverse, and generally financially successful career this past year alone. Other contenders in this category from critically acclaimed selections include the radiant Carey Mulligan in Shame, Berenice Bejo in The Artist, and Shailene Woodley in The Descendants.

Possibilities:
The female ensemble of A Separation (heh)
Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, Coriolanus/The Debt/The Help/Take Shelter/The Tree of Life
Jodie Foster, Carnage
Helen McCrory, Hugo
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Carey Mulligan, Drive/Shame
Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Kate Winslet, Carnage
Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
My prediction: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life, et all (runner-up: Vanessa Redgrave)

For best director the slate of options should be similar to the contenders for Best Film, although a bigger name and more craft-oriented director like Kathryn Bigelow and David Fincher are more likely than lesser named or more subdued directors like Michael Hazanavicius or Alexander Payne. That said, splits happened here a lot more often than not (and especially more than at the Oscars) and it almost seems as if they're overdue for one.

Possibilities:
Tomas Alfredson, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Asghar Farhadi, A Separation
David Fincher, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Bennett Miller, Moneyball
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Lynne Ramsay, We Need To Talk About Kevin
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
My prediction: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life (runner-up: Michel Hazanavicius) Read more!

MOB: Calm Before the Storm

If you're not nearly as obsessed with awards season and Oscar politicking as I am but are still curious as to how the process might work, might I recommend you start with this season? Last year the critics decided in lockstep with The Social Network before every industry award went in lockstep with The King's Speech. The Oscar winning fates of last year's winners such as Colin Firth, Christian Bale and Natalie Portman seemed like foregone conclusions as soon as their films debuted (while Melissa Leo was the frontrunner in her respective category).
Next week we have what should be every distributor, campaigner, and prospective awards candidates taking in their final breaths before jumping into the depths of awards season starting with the New York Film Critics, much earlier than usual, and the National Board of Review within days of each other. From then on until the holiday season, where there's a nice breather until the industry awards, will be a deluge of obscure regional critics prizes doled out and pages worth of nomination lists.

And it's not like this year hasn't already been fraught with tension and suspense. After the surprising announcement of bringing Brett Ratner on to produce the Oscar telecast itself for next year with Eddie Murphy as its host brought with it some house cleaning among writers, PR people and other producers of the show under his watch until it turned out he was a douchebag sullying the name of the Academy and had to step down, after which Eddie Murphy followed suit. This is the year that the Academy announced that not only would there not be a set number of Best Picture nominees for the first time ever, but when they announce them it will be in completely random non-alphabetical order so you'll have really no way of knowing for sure what was coming next. Their recent shortlist of potential Documentary Feature nominees included many more high profile snubs and shockers than usual (no mentions of The Interrupters, Senna, Page One, Nostalgia for the Light, Into the Abyss or others to be seen).
Not to mention their current list of Animated submissions for the year, currently standing at a number high enough to reach the 5-nominee threshold needed for the category, could dwindle down to 3 nominees if they rule motion-capture films like The Adventures of Tin Tin or Happy Feet 2 ineligible (remains to be seen though most feel like they will).

And that's not even getting to the potential nominees. There is little critical consensus out there, with the highest metacritic rating for wide releases belonging to Moneyball and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. II (slight advantage to the latter), though The Descendants is looking pretty good on nearly the same tier as The Tree of Life. You can have star studded acting lineups of what you can call Hollywood's 1% that can include Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Glenn Close, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kirsten Dunst, Michael Fassbender, Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep , Charlize Theron, and Michelle Williams, among others. Some of those are in a club of lower profile indie fare alongside the likes of Démian Bichir, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elizabeth Olsen, Michael Shannon, and Tilda Swinton.

It's likely not going to break down this specifically, but I can foresee scenarios where very major precursor more or less goes with a different film or performance. Here are some simulations: We'll start with the first two, New York critics and National Board of Review

New York Film Critics Circle
Best Film: The Tree of Life
Best Director: Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive
Best Actor: Brad Pitt, Moneyball and The Tree of Life
Best Actress: Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks, Drive
Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain, The Help and Take Shelter and The Tree of Life et all.

National Board of Review
Best Film: The Artist
Best Director: David Fincher, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants and The Ides of March tied with Brad Pitt, Moneyball and The Tree of Life
Best Actress: Michelle Williams, Meek's Cutoff and My Week With Marilyn
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help

And then we can go ahead and fill in some blanks for the other two major film critics.

Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Best Film: The Descendants
Best Director: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants
Best Actress: Jeong-hee Yoon, Poetry
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

National Society of Film Critics
Best Film: A Separation
Best Director: Steve McQueen, Shame
Best Actor: Michael Fassbender, Shame
Best Actress: Juliette Binoche, Certified Copy
Best Supporting Actor: John Hawkes, Martha Marcy May Marlene
Best Supporting Actress: Carey Mulligan, Shame

So you start to see a semblance of consensus at some point, since there's a lot of overlapping voters and tastes within these groups. But let's begin to get on with the industry awards.

Broadcast Film Critics Awards (BFCA)
Best Picture: The Descendants
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants
Best Actress: Viola Davis, The Help
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress: Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus

Golden Globes
Best Picture, Drama: War Horse
Best Picture, Comedy/Musical: The Artist
Best Director: Steven Spielberg, War Horse
Best Lead Actor, Drama: Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar
Best Lead Actress, Drama: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Best Lead Actor, Comedy/Musical: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Best Lead Actress, Comedy/Musical: Charlize Theron, Young Adult
Best Supporting Actor: Patton Oswalt, Young Adult
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids

Screen Actors Guild
Ensemble Cast: The Help
Best Actor: Ryan Gosling, The Ides of March (stranger things have happened)
Best Actress: Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Best Supporting Actor: Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Best Supporting Actress: Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs

BAFTA Awards
Best Film: The Artist
Best British Film: Senna
Best Foreign Film: The Skin I Live In
Best Director: Tomas Alfredson, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Best Actor: Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Best Actress: Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin
Best Supporting Actor: Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn
Best Supporting Actress: Berenice Bejo, The Artist

With this kind of potential data out there, you can pronounce frontrunners and feel out the mood for the time but it won't be nearly as statistically easy to pick out winners as it has been the past few years, and I do think we should buckle ourselves down for a thrilling season of twists, turns, shocks and snubs. Read more!

The Descendants

At its best, The Descendants is a lovely rumination on love, loss, togetherness — in the end virtually all at once. I'd seen it in one of those bigger NYC megaplexes wishing I was back in my hometown watching it in the smaller, cozier arthouse theater that I've been watching indies like this in for years. It just has that comfortably homey quality, ya know? The perfect indie movie that you can just pop in if you're in the right mood for it and really having a great night as a result.

Unfortunately, I think a lot if it really does bog itself down too much in on itself through extraneous storylines and characters and motifs they just drag on and on unnecessarily. Mainland-centric perspectives that exoticize Hawaii have always kind of bothered me, and while I realize much of the story is trying to kind of deglam mainstream perceptions of it the constant ukelele music and random splashes of the shore you can hear and seagulls just to remind you of where it is still just stunk to me of a really smelly legacy that only snowballed until the end when George Clooney gives that incredibly patronizing and corny speech about his ancestors' lands belonging to the Hawaiian people and whatnot. I mean, I realize that's probably just adapted from the source material but I just don't think they really made it work that well, the backdrop didn't seem to add much that it couldn't have done more effectively through other means.

It might seem like nitpicking but its things like that in addition to it that just seemed tacked on and, well, tacky. The random surfer kid who didn't really need to be there, and then they just randomly force some sympathetic back story on him to show that ~everyone's more complicated than they seem~ or something. The kids in general, including the littlest one, just seemed a little too cliche and just how old farts view children and not necessarily realistic. The search for Matthew Lillard was exhaustive and annoying and boring and didn't feel worth it as a viewer by the end. And that whole subplot of trying to get rid of the land at the end, just like, blah blah blah. Give me some more Shailene Woodley man! I think she showed here that she was probably the reason why The Secret Life was such a guilty pleasure to me in the first season (until they just gave up on it and had her deliver the damn baby mid-season) because my eyes always went to her and she was constantly the most interesting person on screen to watch despite her more emotional moments sometimes seeming a bit overcooked (probably leftover Secret Life syndrome).

As for everyone else in the cast, I admittedly went in skeptical of the Clooney "career best" notices because I feel like he gets those notices every time he has a new performance and it's never, like, THAT much better than any other performance he gives — not that he plays the same character, but I think his performances are generally of the same level and not necessarily a very high one. But yeah, I do think this was definitely a role that showcased a growth and maturity in his performative abilities as a vulnerable man with a world of responsibility on his shoulders between his cousins counting on him and trying to hold his family together and dealing with the bittersweet loss of an unfaithful wife. He doesn't make my top ten or anything but I wouldn't mind him being nominated (I guess not if he wins, either, though I don't really think he's going to). Robert Forster was understated but he did shine in his brief moments, especially near the end (although the whole peeking through the cracked open door thing seemed incredibly contrived) though I don't think he deserves significant recognition for it. Nor should Judy Greer, who was fine in her...scene, but she's no Viola Davis in Doubt or anything.

I do think there's a lot of good to recommend in it, and I wouldn't mind seeing it myself if under the right circumstances...but man that last speech really lowered it for me. Like what even was that. And in general I'm not a big fan of the Alexander Payne voiceover format. Read more!

Mid-Season Report

Here I have a nifty guide with reviews of 11 films either in theaters now or coming very soon. With Oscar season going in full gear this month and you need to know what to see to catch up, look no further! Reviews of 11 films, indie or otherwise, after the cut.




Drive
Cannes Best Director winner Nicolas Winding Refn offers a cool, suave exercise in style and form in the world of 80s actions car flicks. Although many American audiences were fooled by the distributor's ad campaign for the film (exhibit a: the Michigan woman suing for the film "not being enough like The Fast and the Furious"), the white-hot intensity of the film is just as compelling in its quieter moments as its talkative moments as its action-packed, bloodied and gorey sequences. Ryan Gosling's quiet and unblinking charismatic central performance of the driver functions very much as that of a speeding car — smooth and effortlessly straight shooting throughout until the slightest motions, movements, and well judged changes leave a dramatic impact upon the viewer. Gosling's effortless emanation of cool, Nic Winding Refn's mechanical precision in his direction and probably the best soundtrack of the year as style serves the story the substance it otherwise might lack in its screenplay. Perhaps not quite the ride for everyone, but I fell right into it.
Grade: A



Hugo
An excruciating first hour of cliche, expository set-up, what ever the opposite of charisma is apparent in young leading star Asa Butterfield and boring directorial protocol eventually opens itself to any viewer willing to commit to the film up until that point to a pearl of sincere and lovely passion for the art of film, experience of cinema and history of the art as a beautiful love letter to the medium by master director Martin Scorsese. I was privileged to be at the NYFF (not so) secret world premiere unveiling of the film that will forever be remembered as Scorsese's 3D picture, Scorsese utilizes the technology as a cyclical means to position it as another step in the development of the technology sprung forth by the brilliantly innovative mind of Georges Méliés (similarly to how The Artist captures a film industry in its transition to sound, or even comparable to Midnight in Paris' yearning for nostalgia no matter at which point in history you're in). I can say it is the very first film I've yet to see that I simply can't see as anything other than the rough 3D cut in which I saw it, it eventually leans back to a convoluted and confusing conclusion wrapping up various and sometimes unrealized subplots that young audiences will likely snub at the box office this upcoming holiday season in favor of Alvin and the Chimpmunks, but it would certainly, I think, be a worthwhile and rather lovely adventure to immerse yourself in on a brisk day during the winter break catching a holiday matinee at your local cineplex.
Grade: B-



The Ides of March
George Clooney's political parable gets off to shaky footing in the first half building the premise of this tale by representing politics with high Hollywood gloss and unrealistic glamour. But perhaps that is simply the lens in which, again, youthful charismatic Ryan Gosling views his work trying to get the principled Pennsylvania governor Mike Morris (played by director/writer/producer extraordinaire Clooney) elected in an electoral environment vaguely resembling 2008's Obamania. Years of experience of manipulation, backstabbing and corruption in Paul Giamatti's Mark Penn-esque character and Philip Seymour Hoffman's Bob Shrum-esque character eventually lend their way to the decidedly darker and much more effective second half of the film that, though not necessarily making a fresh statement, completely embody the climate of disappointing disillusionment and disenchanting tainting of an ideal in one's head. Ryan Gosling shines again in his character's universal, though perhaps unprofound, emotional journey dirtying his way to stay in the political game he so believed in. The very last scene ends on the most perfect note possible.
Grade: B+



Into the Abyss
Shaking off the first few minutes of most Werner Herzog documentaries that his lovably manipulative sounding questioning of his subjects borders on self-satire at this point, Herzog examines a fascinating topic that plays right into his thematic hand. He looks at the fallout from a horrific triple homicide over a stolen vehicle in Texas in 2001 that led to a life sentence for one of those involved and a death sentence for his co-conspirator. The Death Row inmate himself should be the most fascinating window into the dark depths of humanity Herzog is so skilled in his romantic sensibilities at delving into, but Herzog never takes advantage of the opportunities in the mind of this obviously childlike but darkly twisted individual who refuses involvement with the crime to his final day (despite a lack of doubt by virtually anyone else). Everyone other than the two inmates themselves make for fascinating interviews, between the lieutenant, the family members of some of the victims and a man once in charge of dealing with Texan death row inmates on their final day who now renounces the practice. Considering the depth of potential material, in my mind still untouched in popular conversation concerning the subject, it felt like Herzog presented a fascinating and emotionally compelling first half that never paid off in the second.
Grade: C+



Like Crazy
Perhaps I'm just spoiled by the likes of films like Everyone Else, Blue Valentine, and Weekend (at the end of the list), but Like Crazy seems shockingly thin, disposable, and nonsensical in the recent independent canon of neorealistic young-doomed-romance dramas with ~vague open-ended endings~. But I was just thrilled the film ended at all. The relationship between these irritatingly immature graduate students feels rushed and inauthentic from the start, going on to the central premise of the film that offered a lot of promise in the largely ignored topic of people visiting with student visas to disappointingly sum it up to little more than an idiotic decision from Felicity Jones' character to purposefully overstay her student visa, with everyone involved fully aware of the consequences, that no one from her parents to Anton Yelchin's character as her boyfriend stopped her from doing despite brief and weak initial protests. Not that the whole theme of love making young people making stupid decisions isn't already highly overdone or anything, but these are GRAD students making PROFOUNDLY idiotic decisions that separate the viewer emotionally from their plight and should remove any sympathy for their troubles considering how easy the fix for their emotional happiness would have been in the first place (UM how about NOT violating your student visa so you'll be able to come back to the United States without that many problems in the first place?!). Films like Everyone Else and Blue Valentine allow their characters to be flawed and make poor decisions to each other at certain points that have unfortunate implications on each of their lives upon retrospect, but those were actually believable and understandable in the first place. It's like a nice sounding pop song on the radio, think Cassie's masterpiece "Me & U," that might sound nice and romantic to people on first glance but obviously, obviously, won't hold up to much emotionally substantive scrutiny.
Grade: D



Martha Marcy May Marlene
With fascinating subtlety and unsettling quietude, debut director Sean Durkin has managed to craft a mature film of the disturbing trauma of involvement with a cult without ever using the key phrase itself. Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen's eminently more talented younger sister Elizabeth goes back and forth showing a portrait of a young impressionable girl slowly roped into the world of a cult-leader played to chilling effect by John Hawkes to the aftermath dealing with a paranoia and fear that may well make it impossible for her to ever be able to comfortably assimilate back into regular society. Impressively invisible editing make you think you're descending into Olsen's convincing madness until another misjudged open-ended indie ending that, while good in premise, awkwardly punctuate the film emotionally.
Bonus: Check out John Hawkes' gorgeously haunting rendition of "Marcy's Song" via youtube.
Grade: A-



Melancholia
Said to be one of von Trier's most accessible films, which apparently simply means that it's as heavy-handed as Antichrist but simply less interesting. The film opens with highly pretentious but at least memorable imagery set to beautiful Wagnerian moaning. The first half features some lovely photography and some nice, though uneven, subtlety by Kirsten Dunst as it follows her marriage for much too long and not as well as Le Festen did in the 90s. The second story belonged more to Charlotte Gainsbourgh as the planet Melancholia (it's called that because it represents Justine's depression, get it? Get it?!) slowly beings hurling towards the Earth. Wildly uneven in tone, uninteresting in subject matter and featuring a shocking downturn in Dunst's once softly touched but now distractingly self-aware and over the top performance allows for the more talented Charlotte Gainsbourg to wipe the floor with her and offer the only fascinating and excellent part of the second half of the film (apart from the sound mix, perhaps). Spoiler alert: the world is destroyed in the end. It left a bad taste of ashes in my mouth and I unfortunately left myself wishing for more clitoral clippings and bloody discharges. Something I'd never thought I'd be missing.
Grade: C-



Paranormal Activity 3
Perhaps I'm not the greatest judge of this one. First of all, I haven't seen the first two. Secondly, I saw it with the worst audience I've ever watched a film with having watched it with my sister at home in Danbury, Connecticut (home of the "Smug Bro"). But people were literally jumping in their seats, burping out loud, holding entire conversations, loudly screaming for extended and highly unnecessary periods of time, throwing food, it was a what's-what of what not to do. And it shouldn't have affected my viewing of this film probably, but it did. Even separate from the audience experience, the film seemed to be boring up until the last scene where it made a turn, simply, for the stupid. Again, I haven't seen the first two, but I thought the creepy thing about it was that the titular paranormal activity was an unexplainable kind of ghostly force. Witches? Since when are witches scary? Am I also supposed to be screaming now at Dracula and Frankenstein?
Grade: F



Puss in Boots
Sadly not as funny as the trailer made it out to be. The slight and inexplicable movements of cats are oftentimes hilarious and had long gone unexplored comically until the character of Puss was introduced to great comedic effect in Shrek 2 and stealing the show. Antonio Banderas has been having quite a good year with this box office chart-topper and Almodovar's The Skin I Live In. There's some funny moments but none of the supporting character remotely reach the level of interest of Puss in this prequel leading up to the events at which we would come to meet this character in the second Shrek installment. Salma Hayek's...cat character thing (I don't remember her name) was really typical and lame while Zach Galianifaksadfigaefdg's Humpty Dumpty was more irritating than he's yet been on film before, and not even in the remotely funny way. But, I mean, whatever. Light entertaining fun. Not the worst thing you can be dragged to see by your children (my friend and I did note we were two of the younger viewers in our audience for this one anyways).
Grade: C



Shame
Following Steve McQueen's brilliantly revelatory first collaboration with Michael Fassbender, Hunger, McQueen does grow as an artist going in a different direction in character, subject matter and setting in this film. I don't even believe in sex addiction, personally, but the film captures the condition if it does exist seem the most convincing as they could possibly have made it. Sequences of it go on and are enchanting, and segments of Fassbender's performance are extraordinary (as well as other segments of him, ahem). Carey Mulligan comes in with a glowing supporting performance as the best she's ever been, and the two would handily deserve nominations for their bold, fresh and daring work. The film itself looks nice but doesn't have quite the visual flair that I had been hoping for based on Hunger, and I have to think of Fassbender's performance as just the slightest bit less challenging than in Hunger. And parts of it are as slow as they can be in Hunger, but again missing the visual fascination that I had with that film. But it's a strong film overall with natural moments of brilliance shining through.
Grade: A-



Take Shelter
Making an odd double feature with Martha Marcy May Marlene with confusing rumblings of the subway underneath the Angelika theater in New York confusing me at times as to what was the soundtrack and what was outside noise, Take Shelter works best as Michael Shannon's impressive descent into a hereditary schizophrenia that unravels and reveals itself throughout the film through various dreams and increasing hallucinations. He recognizes it and acknowledges it but his vulnerability still leaves him to fall victim to his paranoia as a "storm" approaches. And the tragedy of him not wanting to abandon his family the way that his family was as his mother fell into her psychosis is a very powerful notion as well. His performance is the central showcase of the film, though aided by a screenplay full of strong characters (including another top performance from Jessica Chastain) and some fantastic editing work. Unfortunately, of all the cliché open-ended indie endings this year I feel like this one is the most misjudged, making it more about the relationship with his wife (though lovely) than the more interesting psychological material apparent throughout the rest of it.
Grade: B+



Weekend
Quiet, but never boring. Artistic but never pretentious. Realistic and always believable. On one level, Andrew Haigh's take on the British indie romance this year is a seminal moment in the history of Queer Cinema as the very best film to capture the contemporary gay experience of its time since the controversial (to this day) Boys in the Band in 1970 captured the personality conflicts of a generation first coming to comfortable terms with their sexuality with a still strongly instilled legacy of guilt and confusion. On another it's simply the most romantic and realistic relationship film of the year, gay or straight. Just like with any other gay relationship, the same sex aspect of it is importantly distinct and recognized but simply not the most important part compared to the largely universal emotions at play between these two characters. Very small moments are beautifully realized and are important brush strokes on this portrait of a brief inner-city romance painted by Haigh and played by the two central actors with tender care. Tom Cullen impressively plays someone trying to naively reconcile his sexuality with a more assimilated straight culture surrounding him who calls for someone trying much more actively to express his queer identity in forms of social protest and resistance, played by Chris New. Both impressive performances working together in sync, Tom Cullen's heartbreaking revelation of his past circulated in foster homes and Chris New's slowly breaking down shell of his hard exterior can have a full room of viewers of any age or background leaving the theater and going home in tears. Beautiful, subtle and realistic retrospection makes this one of the very best films of the year.
Grade: A+ Read more!

FYC: Best Actress in a Leading Role

How is it over there?
How lonely is it?
Is it still glowing red at sunset?
Are the birds still singing on the way to the forest?
Can you receive the letter I dared not send?
Can I convey…
the confession I dared not make?
Will time pass and roses fade?
Now it's time to say goodbye
Like the wind that lingers and then goes,
just like shadows
To promises that never came,
to the love sealed till the end.

To the grass kissing my weary ankles
And to the tiny footsteps following me
It's time to say goodbye
Now as darkness falls
Will a candle be lit again?
Here I pray…
nobody shall cry…
and for you to know…
how deeply I loved you
The long wait in the middle of a hot summer day
An old path resembling my father's face
Even the lonesome wild flower shyly turning away
How deeply I loved
How my heart fluttered at hearing faint song
I bless you
Before crossing the black river
With my soul's last breath
I am beginning to dream…
a bright sunny morning…
again I awake blinded by the light…
and meet you…
standing by me. Read more!

MOB: The Artist — Best Picture Frontrunner

I got the opportunity to watch The Artist at the New York Film Festival, but never got the opportunity to write about it. It's a film of some lightness but it's incredibly lovely; the film draws you into its concept soon enough and, in spite of occasionally dipping into the more melodramatic and maudlin near the climax of the film, the very end goes off on a booming and spirit lifting note that has a full theater cheering at the end. I saw it among cinephiles and average moviegoers alike and the opinions were pretty much the same, and judging from the critical reaction it looks like it ticks off boxes for all relevant camps.

As far as the Oscar race goes, there appear to be three films that can conceivably win the top prize at this point — Alexander Payne's Clooney led The Descendants, Spielberg's War Horse and this. Sure, Michel Hazanavicius doesn't quite have the starpower of Spielberg's name nor does lead actor Jean Dujardin carry the crowd recognition of George Clooney. That said, anytime Dujardin's glowing smile isn't on screen, you wish it was. And we see last year with Tom Hooper beating someone at career peak like David Fincher last year that directorial star power doesn't quite go all the way every time. At this point, War Horse is more of a wildcard than anything. Spielberg this year has gotten off to a fine note getting a decent reaction for The Adventures of Tin Tin which was seen as being a lot riskier in reception than the film based upon the most recent Tony winner for Best Play.

The problem with Payne is that his films don't really hold up. Sideways positively swept the critics awards in 2004 and he may find similar passion among them this year, but in the general populace his films don't exactly hold up. Sideways loses impact upon repeated viewings while something like About Schmidt or Election are praised for little else than their respective central performances. Payne also had won an Oscar for the screenplay for Sideways and does seem to be perceived as more of a writer than a director, and George Clooney had been given his own Oscar not even that long ago while going up against Oscarless actors of similar star status like Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. Most damning for the film is the fact that, as far as the distinction vis à vis The Artist goes is that people like The Descendants...people love The Artist.

This much was evidenced by its audience win at the Hamptons Film Festival, among a few other places, since Hamptons is where many Academy members can be found trying to catch up on this year's crop of films. You might remember last year, another Harvey Weinstein vehicle, The King's Speech took that prize. The Artist missed out on the Toronto audience award that jumpstarted The King's Speech's campaign, but it has more going for it than The King's Speech, that being that it simply fits better within the framework of the more recent winners. Whether its win was balked or not by the majority of cinephilic communities, The King's Speech still may well have been the third best reviewed film nominated last year behind The Social Network and Toy Story 3, and Colin Firth had still managed to take 2 out of 3 of the central critics groups' awards; The Artist will likely inspire even more critical adulation. It has that distinguishable feature that almost certainly makes it stand out, being silent and black and white, that reminds me of Slumdog Millionaire's ascent into Best Picturedom. And while the more dramatic elements of the story remind older voters of the most traditionally pleasurable of Hollywood themes and entertainment, the story of a Hollywood star transitioning to major changes in the film industry could not be better timed with the onset of actors' fears of motion capture performance and 3D sales dominating the new industry business model. Read more!

My Week With Marilyn

First of all, the film itself is a lot better than I expected. Perhaps thin and a bit disposable like Me and Orson Welles a few years ago but I found this much more watchable overall and generally more convincing. It is definitely stagey and very old fashioned Hollywood in its construction but as appropriately as the film they're making in this film is very much the same.

Eddie Redmayne and Emma Watson are perfectly serviceable while Judi Dench plays the same lovable and sweet but still honest and wise old broad that she generally plays in her sleep. Julia Ormond was stunning as Vivien Leigh in her insecurities about her relationship with Olivier on the set of the film and in her starpower as she reaches 40, and I wish there were more of her since, frankly, she's barely in it.

The two stars are who you'd pretty much imagine. Now, let's get this out of the way. There were times in the film where Michelle's resemblance to Marilyn was straight up uncanny, but no, overall, she does not look all that much like her. But she didn't look more unlike her than Branagh did as Laurence Olivier in the same film. It didn't matter because at some point in the film I easily bought her as Marilyn, really capturing the full spectrum of enigma that exists in our image of her. Williams has that gift where one glance of her eyes could be of pain, disappointment, shock, overwhelming joy, flattering, etc. at different times. Your eyes go to her every moment she's onscreen, and really, I don't know any other actress who could have pulled off the performance with the same intelligence and emotional pull in spite of there being some who might just be considered more "conventionally" sexier than her (though remember, we're using our present day perception of such a thing which Monroe herself likely would not have fit).

She was excellent playing against Branagh, and it's interesting to note that Williams herself seems more of a method actress (and a very good one at that in addition to her natural beauty and allure that I think is part of the formula for the success of her performances) while Branagh is obviously more of Olivier's school. I don't know about the test screening reactions that suggest that Branagh totally outshines Williams in this; yes, he's given quite easily the very best lines of the entire movie that had me burst out cracking up in a way that I can't quite remember doing in a film in a very long time. Hits those RIGHT out of the park. But in the end it's true that Olivier's character is the actor who wants to be a star while Monroe was the star who wanted to be an actress, and her effortless starpower is what shone in this film. Read more!

We Need To Talk About Tilda's Oscar

When we first see Tilda Swinton in We Need To Talk About Kevin, we see her swimming through a symbolic sea of red during a tomato festival where everyone's red drenched fleshes are pressing in on one another in mass chaos and her haunting body above and floating through the crowd in a sort of sacrificial ecstasy, not unlike familiar portrayals of Jesus himself or Maria Falconetti's iconic performance in The Passion of Joan of Arc.

From that point forward the film jumps back and forth through bold editing between her life in the present and her life before leading up to this point. We see her in the beginning as a young woman with soulful passion and a joyful yearning to live and experience a hopeful life. Cut to the present day and you see a haunting shell of a woman completely beat down and ground to a pulp; rock bottom, left for dead, nothing left to look forward to, in an absolute pit of despair. She seems quite pleased to imagine that if there is a God she will go straight down to hell, because, really, how much could the physical inflictions of hell effect her to the profound point where she already is in her life right now?

We follow her journey leading up to what led her to this point with a performance as bold and daring and courageous and provocative as the material lent to her. Tilda, a proud mother herself in her personal life, went forth with a brute honesty in her character's disgust for pregnancies, the violence of childbirth, and a failure to ever connect with her own child from the start before commencing a sequence of maddening and thought provoking events raising the challenging notion of the nightmare scenario of parenting — what if everything (that possibly could go wrong) goes wrong? What if you really truly just happen to bear a monster? In this psychological horror the natural questions then arise of how much that child is a reflection of her, and how much of her she sees in this monster.

Year after year goes by whence Tilda slowly destroys and dismantles and collapses her character of Eva once brimming with hopes and passions and livelihood into the woman we see in the second half until the pivotal moment of the plot finally arrives where anything she's ever known more or less wipes out. Without giving too much away, this doesn't happen until the end, but it makes us seeing her in that barren state of unimaginably lonely and painful and guilt-ridden existence in her specially subtle and layered performance in particular all the more powerful upon retrospect and demanding of repeated viewing. Read more!

A Separation

I'm fully aware that when someone like myself has been really hyping up a certain picture for a while...and they finally see it...and it turns out, surprise!, they're in love with it, it almost seems forced if not bordering on self-fulfilling prophecy. But when Asghar Farhadi (whom I met before the screening and is a totally nice guy) introduced the film, he told us to forget anything we've heard about it and ordered us not to think about any awards it had won or what reviews we'd read of it or any preconceptions we'd held and to pretend that we have an appointment at 4:00 and were just looking for a way to kill time until then by watching that movie. And by the end of it, for the first time I've ever seen a 1 pm non-gala showing at a film festival, Farhadi rightfully received a standing ovation from the crowd.

And boy howdy did he deserve it. It was honestly one of the most emotional, invigorating, aggravating, tense and visceral viewing experiences and reaction I've had to watching a film in a very long time. Perhaps it's a bit one-sided in favor of Nader to a fault, but his character still gets enough of a vague morality that comprises part of the film's beauty. Never before, I'll say, have I seen a film that so perfectly captures the ambiguity of human "truth." Let's just say that Meryl Streep's final line in Doubt had nowhere near the impact or stakes that a similar line delivered in this film had by any means. But you see temperatures flailing as two sides held black and white and defined sides when deep inside, both sides know they each have more nuances and complications to their stories that they will refuse to confront either out of their own shame or guilt or rationality's sake to win in the system of a legal court.

There were points in the film where I easily felt as hot-tempered as the characters themselves and by the end of it was basically shaking, and I think many in the audience felt the same way. I think I read somewhere that some felt that the sort-of-twist in the final act completely ruined it for them but I don't really think it was anything that I paid much attention or mind to while watching it because it all still fit with the rest of the film and the story, and if anything added a necessary complication to a certain character's side to the story that made me sympathize a little more with her actions despite how deep the implications of it ran, whereas otherwise I think that would have seemed weak. And to me it just speaks more to how intricately and beautifully constructed every word and character and action in Farhadi's script is, and each and every performance more or less seemed as intricate and beautiful as Farhadi had seemingly written them, and I totally understand why basically every actor won Best Actor or Best Actress at Berlin and why Isabella Rosselini's jury's decision was pretty unanimous. It's truly a marvel to behold. Read more!

MOB: Handicapping the Best Actress race so far.

The start of the Venice Film Festival has been said to be the unofficial kickoff point to this year's Oscar race, and if that's the case we can safely say that it's done so with more of a whimper than a bang. Major contenders in The Ides of March, A Dangerous Method, and Carnage has thus far left critics cold and largely unimpressed. Telluride has made some critics and bloggers early fans of Alexander Payne's The Descendants, although, sans Clooney's performance, I don't think it's going to find the same success that Sideways did in 2004 (different times, different tastes, different trends, etc.).

The Lead Actress race, to me, always looked like the most interesting race of the big 8 categories this early in the year even before the major festival kickoffs. Tilda Swinton had already squared off against Kirsten Dunst at Cannes and seemed to lose that round, but for seemingly political means. Keira Knightley looked to fit the mold of a standard winner in the category for A Dangerous Method but if you don't want to describe the response to that as divisive, you can even bill the critical consensus as poor. Glenn Close's passion piece Albert Nobbs premiered at Telluride last night, and received good enough reviews for her performance to play a role in this year's race despite a tepid reception for the film itself.

Glenn Close has a very compelling narrative of an overdue veteran close to tying for the least successful female performer in Oscar history as she shoots for her sixth nomination (none since the 80s). However, like I said, a standard winner in this category looks more like Keira Knightley than it does Glenn Close. Helen Mirren was even a few years younger when she won for playing Queen Elizabeth II and she had been the sweepingest actress in film awards history in a Best Picture nominee. In fact, she'd be the oldest winner since Jessica Tandy for Best Picture winner Driving Miss Daisy. Before her, Shirley MacLaine in Best Picture winner Terms of Endearment. Katharine Hepburn won her fourth and last Oscar for Best Picture nominated On Golden Pond. Even Geraldine Page's film was nominated for a screenplay Oscar. Judging from the response to Albert Nobbs, I don't think Glenn Close will have trouble being nominated. At all. She knows how to work a room and has found success on the stage and TV screen ever since her film career fizzled out shortly after her fifth Oscar nomination. I think she's going to have to fight hard for a win, though.

I would expect a similar response to come from Meryl Streep's film about the life of Margaret Thatcher. Meryl Streep has lost more times consecutively since her last win for Sophie's Choice than the entirety of Glenn Close's career, but Close being Oscar-less means that she beats out Streep for the veteran card. I still believe it's hard not to predict Streep at this point, although the chances for a win are very slim.

Meanwhile, The Help looks slated to top the box office for the third weekend in a row, a feat unmatched by any film this year. Not Transformers, not Pirates, not Harry Potter, not Captain America. Granted, it had little competition in this generally sluggish period of the year for film business but it still outperforms expectations week after week by astronomical numbers, and that heartwarming success story combined with the "important" seeming subject matter for the film itself and the enthusiastic word of mouth on it from regular moviegoers and ecstatic screening-viewing Academy members as well makes Viola Davis a safe bet as well, as Disney looks to campaign for her in this category. She will be the only black actress to be nominated in the lead category since Halle Berry became the first one to win in a decade ago, and the only black actress besides Whoopi Goldberg to have more than one nomination at all. With her film clearly beloved, she stands a good chance at depriving Glenn Close at her long sought after win.

With just two slots left, recent Academy trends have shown kindness to recognizing young ingenues for breakout performances. Consider Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone or Carey Mulligan for An Education. These aren't performances that win, generally, but there's a spot for them. I think there are two actresses vying for that spot. Mulligan and Lawrence both won the same prize at the Sundance Film Festival as Felicity Jones did for Like Crazy, an independent handheld relationship drama that looks to be in the same vein as last year's best American film Blue Valentine (which brought actress Michelle Williams a nomination). The prize at Sundance puts her at good company and in good line for precedent, but the one who had truly stolen the show and the spotlight from media attention that year was Elizabeth Olsen for Martha Marcy May Marlene in a cerebral role that looks comparable to Natalie Portman's winning performance last year for Black Swan. The film itself seems to get more critical notice than big Sundance winner Like Crazy as well, and I think she will continue to steal headlines if nothing else than for the novelty of her being the younger and probably more talented sister to none other than Mary Kate and Ashley. They are both in contention but I'd say there's only space for one between the two of them, and I'd venture to guess that the attention seeking nature of Olsen's role and her very name itself is what could take her over Jones.

That leaves but one slot left. As I said, Tilda Swinton couldn't manage to nab the Cannes prize for Best Actress despite seeming to be a festival sweetheart and easily garnering the best reviews among actresses there. That being said, this isn't Cannes, and the Academy doesn't have nearly a faithful track record to Von Trier films and performances as they. Kirsten Dunst's performance appears to be rather subdued, and only in about the first half of the film before Charlotte Gainsbourgh takes over (whom many prefer over Dunst). Dunst has been a child actress working for a while, like Natalie Portman last year, but her work has not necessarily been taken seriously enough yet despite doing some good work, particularly last year with All Good Things. That said, this looks to be another volume in her independent collecting of street cred before I believe she can truly be a contender.

Tilda, on the other hand, has already garnered major street credit in the industry since her first win for Michael Clayton. That was for a major Best Picture contender anchored by George Clooney in a category open enough to give the film a compensatory prize, but she's been continuing to challenge and prove herself time and time again since then as many feel she was owed nominations for both Julia and I Am Love in some of the proceeding years. She's been honored with nominations at the Golden Globes long before anyone in the Academy paid attention to her, and Oscar bloggers who vote for the Broadcast Film Critics Awards seem to be fans of We Need To Talk About Kevin. Not to mention the British contingent of voters who were arguably the deciding factor in her Oscar win for Clayton, who admire Swinton a great deal. These are major precursors that could truly get the momentum rolling on putting her in that final slot. Campaigning veteran Cynthia Swartz, famously spearheading successful Miramax campaigns in the 90s for winners like The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love into the 2000s with nominees like Chocolat and Finding Neverland before leaving Weinstein with a dry spell until last year's triumph with The King's Speech. In between she looked over the publicity of winners like No Country for Old Men and The Hurt Locker as well as last year's likely runner-up in The Social Network, looks after Venice's trashing to have W.E. off her plate enough to focus on the campaign for Swinton on behalf of Oscilloscope. It's a showy role, not played over the top, in bold material that I think the acting branch will appreciate the level of difficulty of. I'd say she has that fifth slot set.

If enough people see Tyrannosaur, especially if Brits get behind otherwise comedic character actress Olivia Colman's monumental performance in her role, I would highly suggest you watch out for her as a significant darkhorse player. I myself categorize her in Supporting but I'm in the minority. If they push her, I assume they'll push her lead.

Rankings:
1. Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
2. Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
3. Viola Davis, The Help
4. Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
5. Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin

--

6. Felicity Jones, Like Crazy
7. Olivia Colman, Tyrannosaur
8. Jodie Foster, Carnage
9. Keira Knightley, A Dangerous Method
10. Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia Read more!