Future Classic: Toy Story 3 - 2010

In 1995, Toy Story came out and frankly, I thought I was too old to like it. I did anyway because it did what all Pixar films do and that is strike at a truth that we all know to be true. In this particular case, that when we were little we totally thought our toys were alive and did stuff when we left the room. Toy Story 2 was actually an incredible sequel especially for an animated film because we all know those usually turn out to be a bunch of crap. (Shrek 4, anyone?) Toy Story 3 was the first movie of 2010 that I knew I HAD to see.

Story. We find the toys languishing as Andy is nearly grown up and hasn't played with them in years. Andy is going to college and the toys are struggling with what this means for them. They decide to try life at Sunnyside Day Care, against Woody's wishes as he feel ardently that they are Andy's toys and should go wherever Andy wants them to. Here is a clip from some of their tour:



I have to say that the whole Barbie/ken storyline is one of the greatest parts of the film and maybe the most obvious/clever thing ever. Woody decides to go back to Andy and gets sidetracked when he's picked up by a little girl named Bonnie. Life at Sunnyside is not what it's cracked up to be.



I called this when Lotso Huggin' Bear came onscreen. I turned to my brother and said, "This whole thing is going to turn out like Cool Hand Luke." I give you night in the box.



That was Cool Hand Luke obviously and not Toy Story 3, but this is what YouTube makes available to me. I do promise someone does spend a night in the box. Woody gets to know Bonnie and her toys, where we discover all dinosaur toys are tech savvy and Woody gets to experience what it's like to be played with again, which breathes love in him and puts a crack in his stoicism about being Andy's toy. Also, Timothy Dalton gives probably the best performance of his career as a Shakespeare-inclined porcupine toy. Inspired. Yeah, I'm still bitter about his two Bond movies.



Woody makes his way back to Sunnyside where the toys have gone all Lord of the Flies and Buzz has been reset to think yeah, he's a spaceman. The toys try to fix him.



Anyway, the toys have to escape. They make their way home in ways that I don't want to ruin and nearly gave me a heart attack. But they get home, resigned to their fates. Woody overhears Andy and his mom talking. Andy's mom is upset and Andy reassures her that she'll always be with him, even when they're not together. Woody realizes that Andy no longer needs him, that's he is already a part of him that he will carry for the rest of their life and Woody is finally able to let go. We see him scribble something on the box the toys are in and then he joins them.

The note leads Andy to Bonnie's house, where he gives Bonnie the toys. As he does so, he describes each one of them and in doing so, we realize that he is describing parts of himself. No more so is this evident that when he is surprised to discover Woody at the bottom of the box and for a second, we see just a kid who doesn't want to give up his favorite toy. But he does and he and Bonnie play with the toys before he drives off to college.

We see some of the toys' life with Bonnie and get to see the toys at Sunnyside. And finally I stop crying along with everyone else in the theater.

The reason that this movie hits you so hard is that it draws on the nostalgia of childhood, places you don't usually delve into so when you do it's powerful. I would say that most movies depend on flash and new technology and while Toy Story 3 has those it doesn't RELY on them other than to technically get the story across. I was at the Austin Film Festival this past year and one of the decided highlights of the festival was a panel with the screenwriter of this film, Michael Arndt, who also wrote Little Miss Sunshine. He spoke about something which I never heard discussed in film school, which is the philosophical stakes of a story, that in order for your story to succeed it has to be about something other than a flashy, glittering surface. For instance, in this movie it's about what is the role of a toy? Is Lotso right or is Woody? Or does Woody have it wrong?

Anyway, of course we know this movie does not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning Best Picture, but it was still one of my favorites of the year. I still marvel at the emotional effect that it has on people. I know people are starting to sneer at Pixar but that's only because everything they do is so good and when you're good, you're a target. This is the rare case when the last part of a series has left me satisfied, content to leave it where it is, to never want to go back. Hear me, Pixar? Don't revisit this! You'll kill it! Shrek 4, anyone?

Best Picture Nominee: The Social Network - 2010

You know the way I love to watch old movies as a way to examine the world that once was? Well, this is the movie our children and grandchildren are going to be watching when they want to understand the world the way it was way back in the first decade of the millennium. By the way, did we ever decide what to call that decade? Because I was confused at the start and feel as if it never really got resolved.

Anyway, I have to admit that I was one of the doubters of The Social Network. I mean, that title's preposterous and it spawned a vibrant field of parody trailers which I will now show you:

The Auction site


Twitter



The Social Network is the story of Mark Zuckerberg who basically pissed off everyone who knew on the way to becoming a Facebook mogul. The movie transports us back to the internet heyday of 2003 (back then, back then...)back to a simpler world where to keep up with their friends people actually had to talk to their friends and not to the world of now, where you know about Facebook. The film is told in flashbacks at the various depositions that Mark Zuckerberg and his plaintiffs give. He sort of steals Facebook from some annoying rich twins who as much as Zuckerberg pissed me off, were pissing me off more: "We're going to row in the Olympics..." Ooh, ahh. No British accent, Winklevoss, so I'm not impressed. He meets up with the Napster founder played by Justin Timberlake in a great manic performance. (By the way, remember Napster? Wasn't that great? I like iTunes and all, but remember FREE MUSIC?!) With JT he manages to cut out his best friend who put up all the money for Facebook. Jerk. Jesse Eisenberg is very good in his role as an offbeat genius, who we never quite know what he's thinking even though he's the character we spend most of the film with him, we see him from the outside. I almost felt something like pity at the end when Zuckerberg keeps hitting refresh to see if his old girlfriend has friended him yet.

Aaron Sorkin's dialogue is sharp and great as usual, making me long for the days of The West Wing before it jumped the shark. Director David Fincher keeps the look of the film is dark and brooding like Zuckerberg himself and not showy at all, in fact relying heavily on Sorkin's words fitting for a movie that is in essence about statuses and words on a screen. Of course, the surprise of The Social Network is that it didn't suck and may well have lived up to the hype. I think it may well be a classic, a movie for future generations to watch and see how Facebook started when they're living in some sort of Tron meets Facebook world.



So, be sure to like this post on Facebook, then share it for your friends to like and tell me what you think of the post in the comments. Also, don't forget to vote in the poll to the upper left of the screen about which movie should win Best Picture.

Just A Question That Is Tangentially Related to Classic Film

I know it's not my usual thing, but does this bother anyone else?

Best Picture 1961: West Side Story

Are you even kidding me? This is the Best Picture of 1961? As an FYI. this is the same group that brought you Gigi, so I'm thinking payments were made.

In case you didn't know, West Side Story is Romeo and Juliet, but they've added singing, dancing and street gangs. Sound like an unlikely combination? That's because it is. It does not hold up to time at all well. Dancing street gangs? Tell me, when was the last time you saw the Crips dancing up the street? By the way, if anybody can prove to me there were street gangs with names like the Jets and the Sharks in 1961, maybe I'll take this whole attempt to deal with youth violence a little more seriously. Then I will call those gangs punks. The music isn't even all that great and my evidence for this is that with my tin ear, I thought it sucked. I'm not even sure all the actors could actually sing. Here's one who could, Rita Moreno, who won an Oscar for this and with one of the most famous songs of West Side Story, "In America."



Now this may seem to be nitpicking to you all, but I believe Puerto Rico is actually in America. Anyone? The only part of this film that livened my interest was when the Jets attacked Rita Moreno and I thought maybe Chris Keller from Oz would come kill them all.



See? That would have been fun. I wouldn't even have cared if he had sung and danced afterward.

Okay, let's go ahead and look at the nominees that year. Fanny, The Guns of Navarone, Judgment at Nuremberg, which I have previously covered: and The Hustler.






The Hustler starring Paul Newman, Piper Laurie, George C. Scott and Jackie Gleason. Paul Newman is "Fast Eddie" Felson, a pool shark who wants to prove he's the best in the world by beating the legendary "Minnesota" Fats played by Jackie Gleason. He loses badly because of his own hubris and falls in with Sarah played by Piper Laurie, who is some sort of boozing college student with writing aspirations and a limp. I'm not sure why I felt the need to add that, I'm still trying to figure out why the filmmakers added it, she's damaged or something? I don't know. Anyway, Eddie tries to hustle someone and gets his thumbs broken which is bad for a pool player. He heals and gets a new stakeholder, Bert, played by George C. Scott. Bert tells Eddie that the reason he lost to Minnesota was that he had talent, but no character. He's right, which in my mind always make a truly great villain. This is Eddie losing to Minnesota Fats.



Meanwhile, Sarah becomes more concerned about Eddie's drive for success even as she accompanies him to Kentucky where Bert has arranged a game for him. The game turns out to be billiards not pool and Eddie loses. Sarah pleads with him to leave, but he won't because he's driven by his desire to win. Sarah calls his world "twisted, perverted and crippled" and leaves. Eddie comes back and wins, but Bert goes back to the hotel first and sexually assaults Sarah, which we never actually see. She kills herself and Eddie comes back to the hotel to find she's scrawled those same words "twisted, perverted and crippled" on the bathroom mirror.

Eddie goes back to New York to challenge Minnesota Fats. He bets all of his winnings and beats him so badly he has to quit. Bert demands his share and Eddie reminds him about Sarah. Bert relents, but tells Eddie he can never play pool again. It's Sarah's death that finally enables Eddie to see there's more to life than winning and that's how he can finally win. It's only by letting go that he can succeed. I know that must seem convoluted, but that's what actually happens. It's like a whole Oprah "Aha!" moment type of thing.

The cinematography is beautiful, it's black and white, but still so sharp. Paul Newman is as usual, brilliant. Newman was from the first generation of Actors' Studio students and it shows. He had a way of just inhabiting his characters, no matter what he was called upon to do. George C. Scott does menace exceptionally well and conveys it even as he tries to play the mentor figure. Jackie Gleason is great in an unexpected sober performance, where he does so little and much like Newman seems to inhabit his character. Now the stats: Gleason, Scott, Laurie: Oscar nominations. The director, Robert Rossen, got nominated but lost to those jerks from West Side Story. Paul Newman got nominated for Best Actor, but lost to Maximilian Schell. Paul Newman actually finally won a Best Actor Oscar for playing this same role opposite Tom Cruise in The Color of Money, which I used to think was the worst film ever made, but is now just the worst film ever made by Martin Scorsese. Don't believe me?



I'm just like, why? Why did we do that? Still, Paul Newman could kick Tom Cruise's ass any day of the week and make a better salad dressing. So, conclusion about 1961? The movie with Paul Newman in it got robbed. Again.

Best Picture 1939: Gone With The Wind

Oh, yeah. I'm going there.

Gone With The Wind was the biggest movie ever without aliens in it. There are a couple of Yankee carpetbaggers in there, though. Anyway, it still holds the record for having sold the most tickets of any film ever. It runs 3 hours and 44 minutes and has a 15 minute intermission. It was produced by David O. Selznick who was making long movies that ran well over budget long before James Cameron ever latched on to the idea.



The film was a popular culture phenomenon before its release, its basis on a successful novel and the epic nature of its production having been in the news for some time. Gone With The Wind continues to live on in pop culture and as far as I can tell remains part of a rite of passage for young women from the south, myself included. Watch the movie, read the book and decide if you actually like Scarlett or not.

If you don't know the story, where the hell have you been? Okay, I'll humor you. It follows Scarlett O'Hara the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner in Georgia. Let's get to the point, either you like Scarlett or you think she's the biggest bitch ever. The latter by no means hinders your enjoyment of the film. She is in love with Ashley Wilkes who is set to marry his cousin, Melanie (insert southern inbreeding joke here). She's rejected by Ashley at a barbecue on the eve of the Civil War where she meets Rhett Butler, played by Clark Gable. Oh, my God, I just realized how long it will take to explain this story. This may come off as lazy, but here's a 30 second version with bunnies that is pretty accurate:



The script was compressed from the novel which is twelve hundred or so pages long as I recall it. It had multiple writers and a lot of the lines in the film were lifted directly from the novel. Scarlett has two other kids in the book that just get completely dropped in the film. Oh, nobody will miss you Wade and Ella. Also, the film had multiple directors: First, George Cukor, then he got fired. Victor Fleming and then Sam Wood took over for a couple of weeks when Victor Fleming was too exhausted to direct.

The film is an accomplishment simply because of it's length, but also because of its detail. Selznick spared no expense in making as lavish a production as possible. I am particularly fond of the expressive use of color, in depicting the splendor of the antebellum south, the terror of war, the hardship of Reconstruction and ultimately in the fog used in the Scarlett's realization. Also, just look at a sequence like the burning of Atlanta or Scarlett walking through the war wounded. Or even a lighter sequence like the dance at the bazaar. You're going to have to go to YouTube and search for those things because someone over there decided to disable embedding.

There's also Scarlett O'Hara, one of the most memorable film heroines ever and also one of the most divisive. Leigh's performance is a very committed one and she evokes either a love or hate response. On the one hand, you can admire her will to survive. On the other, she is obsessed with a love for Ashley Wilkes. How much can you like someone that is still hung up on the guy she liked when she was seventeen? It's this that hinders her and she never has a real clue about this until the very end of the film. She never figures out that it is not just the acquisition of something isn't the only thing, there's also how and how you treat people. She never examines anything.

How bad ass is Clark Gable in this movie? He's the only one that seems to realize what a bitch Scarlett is, which is ironic since he's in love with her. He gets to be a rogue, gets all the best lines and even what I, along with the American Film Institute, would call the best line ever. You'll have to settle for this clip someone clearly recorded off their TV because once again people are embedding disabled happy.



You know what I've never understood about this scene? I swear Rhett must still be in the front yard when Scarlett starts in on the, "I'll think about it tomorrow" thing. Is she just a hopeless procrastinator? Just walk out there, you idiot! We've all been watching this movie for four hours! GO AFTER HIM, DAMN YOU!

Let's also not forget Olivia de Havilland as Melanie, who gives one of the most compelling and varied performances of the film, somehow managing to portray gentleness, grace and a quiet inner strength as a a foil against Scarlett.

I have to discuss the portrayals of the African American characters in the film. This is the movie that Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar for, the first African American to do so. The characters are portrayed as largely one dimensional, mostly unintelligent and somehow loyal to the white people who enslaved them after the war. I would just think that Mammy would take emancipation as an opportunity to get the hell away from Scarlett. Mammy is not as bad as the part of Prissy which is just a groan inducing part. I was just thinking as I watched the film recently that she had to have to some kind of mental disability. There were hardly any african Americans in films, these were the parts to be had and it does suck that Prissy has to be one of the ones available.

I think Mammy's character, which is worth examining, is best understood as someone who has an emotional investment in the O'Hara family. Why not? She's cared for Scarlett since she was an infant. She cares for her as much as her own mother and in some ways is even wiser than her mother as regards Scarlett's true capriciousness. She's just powerless to deal with her, just as most of the other characters in the film are, save Rhett Butler and eventually he just gives up on her ass. Take one of Mammy's lines when Rhett comes calling: "Captain Butler's here. I told him you was prostrate with grief." Mammy is going to voice her displeasure, even though she can't do anything about it. One of the bits I've always enjoyed in the film is the camaraderie between Rhett and Mammy. Mammy disapproves of Rhett and he wants to win her over, calling her "One of the few people whose respect I'd like to have." I recently found out that Clark Gable was actually friends with Hattie McDaniel before the film and put her up for the part.

On a lighter note, here is the famed Carol Burnett show parody of Gone With The Wind.

Best Picture 1958: Gigi

1958 was a remarkable year in the history of film. It was the year when Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo came out, along with Orson Welles' Touch of Evil along with Some Came Running. However, none of these films were nominated for Best Picture. Instead, the nominees were Auntie Mame, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Defiant Ones, Separate Tables and Gigi. Now, let's review the contenders. Separate Tables is the story of several couples as they stay at a seaside hotel. Auntie Mame is the story of an orphan who goes to live with his eccentric aunt. The Defiant Ones is the story of two prisoners one black, one white escaped who have to work together. It was also the film that Sidney Poitier was first nominated for an Oscar for, making him the first African American man to get the honor, and only four African American women had gotten any nominations before that. (Dorothy Dandridge for Carmen Jones, Ethel Waters for Pinky and Hattie McDaniel for Gone With The Wind, the only woman among these three to actually win.)



Then Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, my personal favorite of these films. Admittedly, there are flaws to my selection. It is the film that Tennessee Williams famously told people not to see because the filmmakers had to cut out all the homosexual elements present in the play and talk around things. They also had to kind of give it a happy ending. Yet the movie still feels like it's about something and Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor both give incredible, tortured performances. Burl Ives also gives a great performance as Big daddy. (Your piece of trivia for the day is also that Burl Ives sings "Holly Jolly Christmas")

So, how the hell is Gigi the Best Picture of 1958?





Gigi was directed by Vincente Minnelli and one of the last musicals to come out of the storied Arthur Freed production unit at MGM. Overall, it's not a bad movie and pretty good so far as musicals about French courtesans go, but Moulin Rouge remains my favorite of the genre. Gigi, played by Leslie Caron, is a young girl being groomed to be a courtesan by her grandmother and great aunt. She enjoys a friendship with man about town, Gaston, played by Louis Jourdan. The friendship unfortunately gets sidetracked by the fact that Gigi is grown up and her family would like to see her put in a comfortable situation. Gigi's grandmother points out to Gaston that Gigi is grown up. He first refuses to believe it and leaves in a huff, wandering the streets and singing. Gaston proposes to Gigi that she becomes his mistress. Gigi rejects him, saying that such a life would only be fraught with misery and scandal for her. Gaston storms out, unable to see that. Gigi calls him back and announces that she would rather be miserable with him than without him. Gigi and Gaston go out to dinner that evening where the combination of Gigi's coquetry and the reaction of the other patrons convinces Gaston that Gigi's original interpretation of her life as a mistress was accurate. Dismayed, he takes her home and wanders the streets of Paris only to return and ask Gigi's grandmother for her hand in marriage.

So, a pretty fanciful story, but it was 1958 so we can't exactly count that against it. It's just in the broad strokes that some things bother me. Take this scene in the opening where Maurice Chevalier sings "Thank Heaven For Little Girls."



Am I the only one thinking old guy alone in the park singing this song equals pedophile? It doesn't help that the plot of this film just about adds up to being about training your granddaughter to be a high class prostitute. The whole concept of this film is creepy. Vincente Minnelli has his usual skill with color and spectacle, it has all the charm of an MGM musical, but there's nothing particularly wonderful or groundbreaking about it, especially when compared with the competition and even more so when compared with the films that got snubbed that year.

So, what do you all think? Fill in the blank in the comments section: "Yo, Gigi, I'm really happy for you, I'mma let you finish but ________ was the hottest film of 1958."

Best Picture 2001: A Beautiful Mind

For this post, I am asking a question that I am somewhat afraid to know the answer to? Was A Beautiful Mind the best movie to come out in 2001? Keep in mind the competition was pretty stiff. Gosford Park, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Moulin Rouge! (Which actually has that exclamation mark at the end of the title)



A Beautiful Mind if you don't know by now is the story of mathematician John Nash and his battle with schizophrenia. Nash is played by Russell Crowe who completely managed to transform himself from Gladiator the year before. And he toured with his band the same year, which is another story that you are not interested in. Josh Lucas plays a mathematics rival of Nash's, Jennifer Connelly as his wife and also Christopher Plummer as a psychiatrist. It also costars Paul Bettany as a friend of Nash's from Princeton and Ed Harris as a mysterious government agent who wants Nash's math skills to fight the Russians. Now, SPOILER ALERT, those last two characters along with a little girl, Marcee, who's meant to be Bettany's niece are not real, which is a brilliant turn of events that Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman manage to pull off. This is done so well that the first time I saw the movie, I was halfway through when I asked, "When is he going to go crazy?" Nash's character is always a little bit off, driven by a quest for mathematical innovation so you never really suspect anything when he does something strange. You're taken in by the delusions so much that later when Nash realizes it's not real, you're in as much disbelief as he is. Howard always establishes the delusions with a clue: you always hear them speak before you see them. This isn't just a dramatic device, but also a reference to the fact that schizophrenics don't actually see their delusions, but they hear them, but this is a movie so you need something on film. There's a clue that I didn't catch until the second time I saw the film. Marcee runs circles through a flock of pigeons and the pigeons don't move. It sounds obvious, but if you're not looking for it, you won't even notice it or think about the birds. This is the type of film that will make your head hurt if you think about it too much, which is a great and a wonderful thing and I love this movie.



That said, was it the Best of 2001? Let's look at the competition. Lord of The Rings. Okay, it's not really my thing and I don't get why if the freaking Elves are so wonderful we all have to walk to Mordor and I don't like how the guy from the Matrix is their leader. Whatever, it's an accomplishment and I can appreciate that. I'll call it a contender. Gosford Park is amazing Oscar bait with its intricate plotting and the delicious dialogue. In The Bedroom, I've never heard anyone try to make a case for it. If you would like to make a case for it, that is what the comments are for. Then we have Moulin Rouge! directed by Baz Luhrman starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor.



Now, how do you see that and not want to throw some Oscars at it? This movie singlehandedly revived the movie musical and brought us Chicago, Hairspray, Dreamgirls and Nine. I'm also going to credit it with Glee because I don't think that show would exist without this precedent. I get that the story is a little conventional. Boy meets prostitute, boy and prostitute fall in love, are almost torn apart by creepy rich guy, but love perseveres, prostitute dies of tuberculosis and boy goes off to fight the dark side. That last bit may not have actually happened. But remember it also gave us the timeless adage: "Never fall in love with a woman who sells herself. It always ends bad."



The magic of A Beautiful Mind can only happen once. If you know the trick with Nash, you can't be fooled again. The magic of Moulin Rouge! can happen again and again, you're always sucked back into the characters and I get verklempt watching the finale. In fact, knowing what happens may well increase the emotions involved.



Has anyone else ever wondered what the audience in the theater is thinking at the end of Moulin Rouge? Like, "Why did the male lead just change actors? Not complaining, the new guy's hot." or "Is that bald guy with the gun in the play?" Or even, "Wasn't this place a brothel last month?"

So, any thoughts? Moulin Rouge or A Beautiful Mind? Or have I totally gotten it wrong and you would like to pull a Kanye for Lord of The Rings?

Best Picture 1998: Shakespeare in Love

I think at this time it would be appropriate to have a slight discussion of Miramax and in particular, its Oscar dynasty in the period encompassing the 1990s. Miramax, if you don't know, was founded by two brothers, Bob and Harvey Weinstein. Their intent was to distribute films other studios wouldn't because it wouldn't be financially feasible. Basically, The English Patient. Yeah, I'm talking to you. They were known for auteur works like Pulp Fiction, Clerks, Trainspotting, a lot of Woody Allen junk and oh, yeah, The English Patient. In 1993, Disney bought Miramax and this may not be where the trouble began, it ended somewhere around Michael Moore, Fahrenheit 9/11 and the brothers leaving the company. Then Disney sold Miramax in 2010. So, let's call it a brief spectacular history.



So, 1998, Shakespeare in Love. First, some fun facts. Julia Roberts was originally to play Viola, but she wouldn't do it unless Daniel Day Lewis played Shakespeare. Luckily, Daniel Day Lewis had the good sense to stay the hell away from Shakespeare in Love starring Julia Roberts. That was back in 1991, so it was another seven years before the film was completed.

We meet Shakespeare in the middle of a case of writer's block as he works on his new play, Romeo and Ethel, The Pirate's Daughter. He falls in love with Viola played by Gwyneth Paltrow, a rich girl betrothed to Lord Wessex, played by Colin Firth. I just want to say I find this trend of female protagonists in the 1990s not wanting to marry or be married to Colin Firth really disturbing. Long story short, Viola inspires Shakespeare to write one of his his greatest plays. I could go through a turn by turn summary, but frankly, we would get bogged down in minutiae and just listing the cast presents a problem because everybody in the film is good. Ben Affleck puts on a good performance in this movie without resorting to his Boston townie accent which still would have been amusing. The story is predictable, but not devoid of interest at all. In fact, one of the charms of the film is that it is so familiar to the audience with its Shakespeare references and inside jokes. It's not as if you have to be a Shakespearean scholar in order to get it, either, you basically need two to three years of high school, which is what I had when I first saw it. For example, Rupert Everett plays Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare's rival and openly regarded in the film as the greatest playwright around. Queen Elizabeth I, played by Judi Dench, hides in the audience of the play as a commoner. Shakespeare's parting with Viola leads him to write Twelfth Night.

So, let us move on to the pressing issue. Was Shakespeare in Love really the best film that came out in 1998? Let's look at the nominees. Elizabeth, Life Is Beautiful, The Thin Red Line and a little film called Saving Private Ryan. I think we can safely count out Life Is Beautiful because that film is schmaltzy crap. I didn't used to think so, I cried when I first watched it and then I visited about five concentration camps and now Roberto Benigni pisses me off. The Thin Red Line is about three hours of Terrence Malick doing Terrence Malick things and I have no idea what the point was. If you know, please tell me. Elizabeth was good and Saving Private Ryan is you know, generally regarded as the greatest of the modern war epics. I think it's all down to a matter of taste. Is Shakespeare in Love good? Yes. Is Saving Private Ryan good? Yes. They're just different and only one could win.

This is not really useful to deciding which film should have won in 1998, but I like it. So, here's what happens when Blackadder meets Shakespeare:



Okay, now because I can, here is an entirely different take on the Shakespeare question featuring two actors from this film, Rupert Everett and Colin Firth, written by Rupert Everett, whose Colin Firth crush may be more serious than mine. I'm pretty sure he decided to rip off a movie he was actually in. From St. Trinian's Part 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold. If you don't know what that is, I think you have to be a British teenage girl.

Best Picture Nominee 2010: Black Swan

Black Swan. What can I say about Black Swan?

Well, let me start with this: I work a really odd shift that usually runs from early morning to early afternoon, leaving my afternoon open to go to the movies since the rest of the world is still at work. Usually, I find myself in a theater full of old people with a smattering of college students, then I imagine that someday when I am old I will have every afternoon to go to the movies without the inconvenience of going to work before. I went to see The King's Speech twice and both times, I found a theater full of old people and college aged girls who I assume were there for Colin Firth. When I went to see Black Swan on a decidedly deserted afternoon at Santikos Palladium, I was in the theater with one old couple, one middle-aged couple and three women who did not stop talking or picking up THE DAMN PHONE!!! Bitches, you paid the money, you climbed all the way to the top row so you could walk in front of me every ten minutes in the almost empty theater and you're talking. Not even about the movie that much! What I was trying to say before I got sidetracked there was that it's not exactly commercial fare. I'm not saying that because of the weird semi-Lesbian thing or even Darren Aronofsky's somewhat gratuitous fixation on Natalie Portman's crotch. It is because it's actually weird. And not in a bad way.



Natalie Portman plays Nina, a ballerina obsessed with perfection. She seems to be living out her mother's failed ambitions as a ballerina and everything about her says that she's a child still. The auteur master of the ballet company, Thomas, played by Vincent Cassel is putting on a new Swan Lake and is looking for a Swan Queen. Her main competition is a new dancer to the company, Lily, played by Mila Kunis. Lily is everything Nina isn't, confident in the role of the Black Swan, which Nina struggles with. In order to be the Swan Queen, she has to let go of her need to feel perfect. We follow Nina as she finds the way to transform into the Black Swan.

Okay, I won't spoil this one. I will say that Aronofsky's direction is pretty damn near perfect. What struck me first was the camera work, the way it's so dizzying and you feel everything Nina feels. Natalie Portman gives a brilliant performance, the anxiety and desperation that Nina feels is so taut. Cassel is great, the role of somewhat womanizing ballet company master could easily come off as piggish, but he avoids it. We don't hate him so much that we don't recognize everything he's saying about Nina is correct. Barbara Hershey as Nina's mom is great, making the audience guess if she's good or bad. Mila Kunis has her first grown up role and it makes me want to forgive her for being on Family Guy.

What really impresses me is the way that we get sucked into the ballet world. A lot of films made by lesser filmmakers would have bored us with ballet details and boring exposition. Black Swan avoids this and even when ballet stuff gets put in there it doesn't feel contrived and we don't feel as if the story has stopped. What I couldn't believe was happening was in several scenes was that when Portman dances and is inadequate and I could tell she was unlike so many velvet curtain dramas where the audience has to be told, due no doubt to Aronofsky's direction and the actors' performances. I would link a clip to demonstrate this, but somebody at YouTube decided to disable embedding, so just head over there and search for Black Swan clip. This is definitely a trip inside Nina's head, replete with spectacular visual effects to complement rather than detract from the performances. We get to know Nina so well that by the time the film reaches its conclusion, it's foregone.

Best Picture? I don't know. I still kind of think The King's Speech has it. It is excellent, but it's like the 1998 Oscar race where Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan, the choice is between totally different animals. One being a swan. I still have to see the other nominees, but Natalie Portman gives such an intense performance, I don't know how it could be topped. Any opinions out there on that?

Best Picture 1996: The English Patient

1996 was hailed by most media and critics as "the year of the independent film." Just look at the nominees for Best Picture: The English Patient, Fargo, Jerry Maguire, Secrets & Lies and Shine. Movies that just about no one had heard of until they got nominated with the obvious exception of Jerry Maguire. It was back before Tom Cruise jumped on couches. I still haven't seen Shine. Apparently, Geoffrey Rush is a crazy guy who plays piano. Don't take that the wrong way, it could be good, I just don't know.

So, The English Patient is the story of Count Almasy played by Ralph Fiennes and his affair with Katharine played by Kristin Scott Thomas. If you're me, you just had to go look that up because all I could remember was that Kristin Scott Thomas is married to Colin Firth in the film and thus, she's cheating on Colin Firth and that just doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense. The interesting thing is that structurally the story takes place in two time periods: the affair happens on the eve of World War II and the part in which the Count tells his nurse his story takes place in its final days.

So, if you couldn't tell the love story is lost on me. The Count seems like a possessive jerk and just stands around spouting a lot of romantic puffery with an accent and somehow gets an Oscar for this when frankly I found Maid in Manhattan so much more compelling. I guess that's because he's so consumed by love or whatever, which I'll admit he was less consumed by love in Maid in Manhattan. Katharine is you know, cheating on Colin Firth, so she must be crazy, right? But in the interests of fairness, here's some scenes that I find gross.




And don't forget the supposedly hot scene where Count and Katharine have sex while Colin Firth is playing Santa Claus. I do not joke. Anyway, the war comes, they have to stop their exploration which is okay because no one actually cared about that anyway if they cared about this movie at all. Because I know I didn't. Colin Firth has also gotten wise and in what some characterize as an insane act of revenge, I call trying to do us all a giant favor. He flies a plane into the Count's desert camp with himself and Katharine on it. I couldn't find a clip of that so here's Colin Firth dancing earlier.



So, Colin Firth dies (the character was called Geoffrey Clifton, I just don't care) and I lose all interest. Kristin Scott Thomas is badly injured and the Count takes her to the cave to protect her from the desert. He makes the journey back to Cairo to try to get help, gets thrown in jail, escapes and comes back to find out Katharine is dead.

So, I could go on about the stuff towards the end of the war with Juliette Binoche which is let's face it, more interesting, but I don't care. There's some stuff with Willem Dafoe seeking revenge, but ultimately this film just didn't hold my interest. So if you feel robbed by me, here's some Rotten Tomatoes reviews.


Meanwhile, the best part of this is the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine feels pretty much like I do about The English Patient and faces ostracism because of it, so here's how that ends up.

Classic Or Not? Best Picture 1997: Titanic

So, as part of my continuing Oscar coverage, I've decided to discuss the current nominees and some of the past winners for Best Picture and particularly their merits, whether or not they deserved Best Picture and do they hold up to the brutal test of time? Which brings us to Titanic, the Best Picture of 1997.

I will now confess something. In 1997, I was 15. Specifically, I was a 15 year old girl. This may not have been of interest except of course that in 1997, Titanic came out. Now, I can at least have the dignity of saying that I wasn't there waiting at the theater with bated breath and frankly, I've never found Leonardo di Caprio attractive. see, Titanic came out on December 18, 1997 and I remember that day because it was the day that the latest James Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies, came out and I had to see that. I saw it twice, actually. At some point, I did get around to seeing Titanic and I saw that in the theater four times. The only other movie that I have seen four times in the theater is Die Another Day and that's because I am still not over the scene with James and Moneypenny.



So, I've seen Tomorrow Never Dies every Thanksgiving since (my family celebrates the holiday by watching every James Bond movie usually excepting Never Say Never Again) and I must say as films go, it holds up pretty well. Sure, the technology is dated as the characters don't seem to know what GPS is and the internet still seems new and people read newspapers, but I'm always good for the ride. I'm drawn in by the characters and the adventure and except for a few Desperate Housewives jokes about Teri Hatcher, it's back to 1997.

Titanic has not held up as well and somehow it was the Best Picture of 1997. I think this can possibly be explained by considering the competition that year. The other nominess were:

As Good As It Gets
The Full Monty
Good Will Hunting
L.A. Confidential

Now, these were all good movies and with the exception of L.A. Confidential, they are not exactly what might typically be considered Oscar movies. Grumpy Jack Nicholson? Check. (By the way, does it annoy anybody else that Helen Hunt got an Oscar for that? Please tell me in the comments if it does.)Quirky British film? Check. Film written by two guys we've never heard of from Boston? Check. Now, if I consider it, I think the reason L.A. Confidential didn't win is that compared to Titanic it feels somewhat insular and also, it may just have been too hard to follow. Also, the end was pretty depressing.

So, for those of you who don't freaking know already, Titanic is about a big ship that's going to crash into an iceberg, but first Kate Winslet gets on board in the part of Rose, a rich girl set to marry Billy Zane who plays Cal, who I just had to look up. Cal is rich and Rose's family is depending on the match to solve their financial problems. Basically, Rose is on a prison ship to a life sentence. Also getting on board is Leonardo di Caprio, who just won his ticket, barely got on board (which is admittedly contrived after a few viewings) and he's a poor Irish artist who's got joie de vivre and so forth. Also, Kathy Bates comes aboard playing Molly Brown and she may be the only part of the film I can still stand.

So, not too long after Jack gets on this scene happens and it may be the primary reason that this movie dated very quickly.



See? Anyway, not too long after this, Rose tries to kill herself and Jack saves her. Rose's mom forbids her to see him and she does anyway because they're in love or something. There's the famous nude sketch scene which relates back to a part with Bill Paxton and Old Rose that I haven't bothered to tell you about because no one cares and it's just sort of a lame excuse for starting the story because they didn't think that it was strong enough to stand on its own. I'm just guessing. Here's a love scene that seems really interesting the first four times you see it and then loses its lustre. I don't know that, I'm just guessing that's probably what happened. Or James Cameron wanted some weak excuse to use the leftover diving equipment from The Abyss.



See what I mean? So, into every life some rain must fall and every time somebody says something can't be sunk, you know that sucker's going down. So, Rose leaves her family, there's some arguing about lifeboats and by now, if you've gone to this film with someone with a Y chromosome, they want that frigging ship to sink. And so it does, Jack saves Rose, eventually becoming a big popsicle and it goes something like this if you happen to be interested:



Does Jack's knowledge of physics strike anyone else as odd and not inherent to the character? Anyway, Jack dies, Rose never lets go, she goes on and lives a great adventure of life, then is the old lady and we wrap up to an ending that goes like this.



Okay, that's the scene that can still evoke a tear in me. I'm all verklempt now, so I'm thinking that ending must be what guilted the Academy into voting for that. You also have to consider the scale of the thing which was huge and that everyone thought it would be the biggest disaster and it turned out to not entirely suck. Oh, and let's not forget THE SONG. Because this was the nineties and every half decent film needed a song by a pop diva. And a music video to go with it.



Now, possibly why this merger of song and cinema seems to have fallen out of favor is that everyone gets sick of the song and then you're sick of the movie. Do I still know the words to this? You bet. Did this film deserve Best Picture? If it did, just barely and probably due to lack of competition. Just be glad that Avatar came out in a year with much more serious competition or James Cameron would have another Oscar. Be glad.

Future Classic: The King's Speech - 2010

I have decided to temporarily forego the formality of waiting forty or fifty years for a movie to officially become a classic and report on them in time for this year's Oscars. Today, I am going to discuss The King's Speech, my favorite movie of the year. If I could get through Toy Story 3 without crying, maybe. I'll try to keep it spoiler lite but seriously, you should know how World War II ended by now. Onwards...

If you can't tell by now, I'm a little bit of an Anglophile. I always gravitate towards anything with the royal family and so, Colin Firth as the king, I am there. Let us henceforth refer to King George VI as Bertie, because I like that it reminds me of Jeeves and Wooster. Bertie is the Duke of York, the second oldest son of King George V, which by all accounts means that he's not going to be king, which really works out because Bertie has a stammer. Or a stutter. The opening sequence of the film is one of the best I've ever seen: setting up the stakes, creating tension and creating a great deal of empathy for Bertie very quickly. We see him fumble through a speech of Wembley Stadium in front of a huge crowd and worse on the radio. His wife, Elizabeth, (because I guess they didn't think THAT would get confusing) played by Helena Bonham Carter is desperate to help him and seeks out Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an Australian speech therapist in order to help him. Bertie goes to meet with Lionel and is convinced that no one can help him. So, we follow Bertie back to Christmas with his dad where we start to get the idea that Bertie's real problem is his decidedly screwed up family. Realizing that Lionel can help him, Bertie returns and starts working at curing his stammer.



In a brilliant montage, Bertie works on the stammering and this is interrupted by the coinciding crises of his father's death and his brother, Edward VIII, taking up with an American divorcee which is bad. It quickly becomes apparent that Edward is not up to the task of being king at all.



So, in the style of the bromance, Lionel tries to explain to Bertie that he can be king just as good as his brother, that he doesn't need to be afraid. Bertie doesn't want to hear it because he doesn't want to be king AT ALL and who the hell would? Even when you get to do whatever you want like on The Tudors, you're still miserable and beheading wives left and right. They break up for a while until Bertie is about to be crowned and Bertie is finally ready to understand what Lionel tried to tell him.

We follow them through the coronation and to the opening of the Second World War and everything ties together brilliantly. I really loved this movie and the elegance of the storytelling and the way director Tom Hooper was able to set the mood. Colin Firth gives an inspired performance, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter are also quite good in their roles. Rush manages to make the role of an Australian in the King's Court somehow not comical and is compelling as a man who slowly begins to realize he's playing a role in history. Bonham Carter is quite good as the slightly offbeat future Queen Mother and you really believe the chemistry between her and Firth. (You might be thinking, how hard is it to have chemistry with Colin Firth? Watch Uma Thurman fail at it in The Accidental Husband. And Helen Hunt.) Also, Guy Pearce as Edward is really great at playing a jackass. In conclusion, it is an intimate story that changes the course of global events. Some deride it as being too feel good, but I think it's struck a chord in people, wanting to believe that we can be more than we think we are. So, screw you, negative people who don't want to feel good.


In the part that's not important, I failed to notice that Jennifer Ehle played Lionel Logue's wife. Probably because they made her look really old and it would have gone like, "Mr. Darcy!" "Miss Bennet, you've aged horribly." Try to imagine some mashup of these two.






So, I'll keep you updated with some other commentary on Best Picture nominees and also some opinion on past winners.

On a completely superficial note, how much do I love this poster?