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| THE WAY BACK |
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| TRUE GRIT |
FOR movie lovers this is the season. Studios go into full heat, pulling out the stops to jockey, schmooze, and outright beg for their films be one of the 10 nominees listed as "Best Picture of the Year," on February 27. And we get to watch all the nutty fun.
It's also the season when marketing machinations drive audiences crazy. Distributors cook up indecipherable release dates with "special" showings, or "limited releases." But the good news is many potential nominees are still in theaters and many are already on DVD.
Here's an overview
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| RABBIT HOLE |
LONG SHOTS
Rabbit Hole, David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer winning play brought to the screen by John Cameron Mitchell ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch") boasts a remarkable screen performance by Nicole Kidman as an angry mother struggling with the accidental death of her young child. Too stagy for my taste, as is The King's Speech, about King George VI overcoming a debilitating stammer. It's much,much better than it sounds, but will surely get Colin Firth his deserved Best Actor after losing out last year for The Single Man.
Lisa Cholodenko's affectionate and comic The Kids are All Right, about a lesbian couple calmly raising two children until the kids' biological father enters their life, lets the entire cast shine, particularly Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. And it has more depth than you'd first expect. From dinner table repartee to close personal interactions, her dialogue cuts to the heart of those hard won compromises we all struggle with in family life. And it's really funny.
I'm a big fan of Never Let Me Go, video director Mark Romanek's adaptation of the much-praised Kazuo Ishiguro novel. The story of unwanted children raised to be part of medical experiments (won't say what), the movie is subtle and surreal, making us alert to the transient nature of our own lives -- the consciousness of mortality. I've seen people walk out on it -- now how powerful is that? Then there's Darren Aronofsky's The Black Swan, a movie I haven't seen, yet. Fumblingly described as a combination of "The Red Shoes" and "All About Eve," but only more, and different, and overwhelming those two put together, critics and bloggers I know and trust are freaking out in praise for this movie. Just the poster of Natalie Portman, well... words fail me.
WANNABES
The Wannabes -- popular movies with that extra something to warrant a nomination, but little chance of winning.
Made In Dagenham is a true story about a 1968 strike at a Ford motor plant in England. The wonderful Sally Hawkins leads the women workers to close the assembly line until they get equal pay. One sided and too rah, rah along the lines of "Norma Rae," Hawkins performance saves the movie from preachiness and stereotypes. And if you haven't seen her in Happy-Go-Lucky, do so right away.
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| MADE IN DAGENHAM |
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| THE FIGHTER |
Another true story, Mark Wahlberg's personal film project The Fighter. About a boxer's dysfunctional family and drug addicted brother who use him as their only source of personal financial support, it hasn't been screened near me, but those in the know tell me it's one tough drama. And has a stand-out, remarkable performance by Christian Bale as the brother.
Our third true story comes from Danny Boyle of "Slumdog Millionaire." 127 Hours about a mountain hiker who is trapped under a boulder for days, and cuts off his arm to escape, is literally excruciating to watch -- at the the same time you dare not take your eyes away. Boyle has made a remarkably directed film, holding you fascinated even though you know what happens. That's my problem -- too much flair and flamboyance for this basic, simple story.
And what more can said about Inception? I saw it twice and still didn't get it all. Who would have thought this dreamlike,curve- in-on-itself-access-to-the-subconscious movie could stimulate such rousing action set pieces. But as I felt, and many have told me, the visual grandeur leaves you grasping, somewhat distant, instead of fully embracing the dream.
THE SHOE-INS
FIVE MOVIES WITH THE BEST CHANCES OF WINNING
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| TOY STORY 3 |
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| WINTER'S BONE |
Disney-Pixar is going full out, passionately marketing Toy Story 3 for Best Picture instead of Best Animated Feature. It's time animation ranks with the big boys -- a great movie is a great movie, animated or not. Given Pixar's ground-breaking cinema wonderfulness over the past decade, I agree.
I've been tauting Debra Granik's haunting, Ozark mountain, thriller-noir Winter's Bone since it came out last summer. The movie seems on a course to repeat the path of last year's Best Picture winner "The Hurt Locker" -- small audience response, great critical response, then picking up buzz and audience when it's nominated and comes out on DVD. Winter's Bone is on DVD now. A right-on, tough it out performance by teen-actress Jennifer Lawrence (soon to be seen in Jodie Foster's "The Beaver") is not to be missed.
The movie everyone is talking about but no one has seen, True Grit, has stimulated so much Oscar buzz simply because Joel and Ethan Coen are on a can't miss roll since "No Country for Old Men" and "A Serious Man." Can this remake of the John Wayne classic starring Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon possibly not get nominated?
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| THE WAY BACK |
Then, the movie no one is talking about is the harrowing adventure epic The Way Back. Peter Weir finally returns after his masterful "Master and Commander" in 2003 to helm this David Lean like panoramic, cinematic, and nomination-automatic true story of a brave group (Ed Harris and Colin Farrell and many Russian and Polish actors) who escaped Stalinist labor camps in 1940. Timid distributors set up basic qualifying screenings the last week of the year, then are gearing for just a limited release in January. But maybe, somehow, several nominations will change their plans.
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| DAVID FINCHER REFERENCES CITIZEN KANE IN THE SOCIAL NETWORK |
The real question remains: Can any of these movies beat out The Social Network?
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