Dogs Bark

Duke's Picks - - The Oscars 2010 - - 25 February 2011

OK! We still are saddled with ten picture noms. The phrase “honor to be nominated” has never sounded so pathetic. And like the NCAA tournament, the Super Bowl playoffs and the World Series, momentum has unfortunately become more important than it ever should. 

Pixar rubbish aside, I think I did find seven movies worthy of my consideration and I feel comfortable with any of them winning.  Yeah, there were a few more that should have been nominated but I don’t think they would have made my top five. So it’s a good year, right? Smile, Duke!

Best Actor in a Starring Role - - Colin Firth, The King’s Speech - - Here good money and talent nicely converge on a guy that everyone seems to prattle on and on about. Well, they're right. I’d like to give it to Jeff Bridges but it seems unfair for him to get two in a row, with one for a part that got John Wayne his one and only.

Best Actress in a Starring Role - - Natalie Portman, Black Swan - - When I reviewed Black Swan, I told Natalie she had a lock. Since then I’ve been delighted by Mss. Williams and Bening but not swayed. Jennifer Lawrence was also impressive. I have not yet seen Rabbit Hole.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role - - Christian Bale, The Fighter - - This is a tough category and I’d love to recognize John Hawkes in Winter's Bone. I was pleased greatly with the others, somewhat less so by Jeremy Renner. But like Black Swan, the The Fighter really raised a sweat and Bale answered the bell.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role - - Helena Bonham-Carter, The King’s Speech - - This is a hugely talented actress. Apparently she needs to ditch her director-husband to really blossom (also to share my dirty love.) But seriously, what a competitive group! Jacki Weaver and Melissa Leo were astonishing mommy fearists. And Hailee Steinfeld also must evoke literal fear in the depth of her talent. Amy Adams? This hurts. She’s so wonderfully good and yet she AGAIN has to compete with a co-star. At least it’s not Meryl. Hell, I adore the work of all these chicks.

Best Original Screenplay - - Mike Leigh, Another Year - - This is ironic because Leigh generally works way, way off his script. The other four scripts were very good but I loved this movie and this is its only chance for a statue.

Best Adapted Screenplay - - Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini, Winter’s Bone  - - Are you happy, Wayne and Garth? Your Bone gets a stroke! Apparently, the Coen’s True Grit is ‘closer’ to the book than the Duke’s version but there’s not much difference in the dialogue. The Social Network was a mean-spirited pack of lies.

Best Cinematography - - Wally Pfister, Inception- - I almost always love Roger Deakins work, particularly in True Grit, but Black Swan and Inception were clearly the most ambitious. Close call, but I prefer the illusions of the night.

Best Film Editing - - Andrew Weisblum, Black Swan - - Where the hell was Lee Smith? The pace of Inception was critical to its success. But not even a nomination. Black Swan was the next best thing. The Social Network? HTML mash notes? Bah!

Best Direction - - Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit - - What about Roman Polanski for The Ghost Writer? Whatever . . . True Grit was a masterfully made movie but seems to have been just slightly beat out in every category. Hooper was very close but did not have to duel with a one-eyed, dead, fat man. Russell and Aronofsky were in the next tier.

Best Picture - - Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas, Inception - - I just had more fun at Inception than most of the rest but I thought this was a very tight race, with True Grit, and The King’s Speech nosed out at the wire and Black Swan, Winter’s Bone and The Kids Are All Right, a shoulder behind. The others never left the gate, among the movies I did see. So if The King’s Speech wins, as the smart money says, I’ll sleep dreamlessly.

And so it goes . . . I thought I would be sending this in from the Marmont tonight but AWK! I’m sick and delerious. My admin had to finish it for me.

His Finest Hour - - The King’s Speech (2010) - - 20 February 2011

Strongly recommended. When I first started hearing about The King’s Speech I couldn’t picture a two-hour stutter.  And since I’m a shameless hussy about public speaking, I don’t really understand stage fright. But I’m not sure Tom Hooper’s very smooth film has, at its heart, anything to do with all that. What Colin Firth rather masterfully elucidates is the nature of courage and duty, a thing in marvelous abundance in England in 1939. Timothy Spall (Harry Potter, Vanilla Sky) was obviously born to play Churchill. Geoffrey Rush, as speech teacher Lionel Logue, and the Queen (Helena Bonham-Carter) already see the King’s destiny, long before he does. Bonham-Carter is a true wonder in this part, amazingly capturing that odd cross of plain-spoken wit and royal bearing that so distinguished the Queen Mum and made her a national treasure.  The score, by Alexandre Desplat (The Painted Vail, The Ghost Writer), also compliments.

The Parents Are OK, Too - - Another Year (2010) - - 19 February 2011

Strongly recommended. Three cheers for Mike Leigh! Why, for making a movie about late-middle-age happiness, of course! Another Year gives us the titular stretch in the marriage of Tom and Jerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen), as they warmly tend their garden, their family and their seriously unhappy circle of friends and relatives. The entire cast is brilliant, testifying once again to Leigh’s extraordinary ability to choreograph an ensemble. A co-worker of Jerri’s is crafted by Lesley Manville in a truly Oscar-worthy performance. We all have a friend like Mary, clinging to the rocks in the stream of consequence. Like Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, the script presents self-inflicted misery as an illness . . . not a sin. Tom and Jerri are content because of a healthy and humorous compassion, not any better luck than their fellows. Something vaguely British about this view, I think. Life is not kind, says one character. One does what one can.   

Releasing the Kraken - - Kynodontas [Dogtooth] (2009) - - 15 February 2011

Not recommended. So . . . if you are after random full-frontal male and female nudity, graphic but not erotic sex, including the incestual lesbian kind, eviscerated kittens and violent, impromptu self-dentistry, all on overexposed film, Dogtooth is your game. This is what Greece wants considered for an Oscar? The country that gave us Melina Mercouri and Costa-Gavras? It's like Todd Solanz staging the opening ceremony of the Olympics - - a very bad idea. The characters speak like a language learning CD from a very twisted province of Bizarro World, defining the word ‘pussy,’ as a ‘great light in the sky.’ I guess this movie is a paean to REALLY BAD home schooling or maybe a training film for surrealist assassins. I gotta admit there’s a certain, car-afire fascination herein but ultimately . . . I have no idea what Dogtooth is. It’s certainly not the year’s best film in a foreign language.

Half-Baked Beans - - The Town (2010) - - 10 February 2011

Not recommended.  There is really nothing badly done about The Town, Ben Afflck’s latest directorial effort. The movie is well made, particularly well edited (the talented Dylan Tichenor) and photographed (Robert Elswit, another Paul Thomas Anderson buddy) during one intense car chase through the streets of Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood. Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, and, particularly, the late Pete Postlethwaite, give solid, even exciting, performances. The Town is not a bad movie, it’s just a completely unremarkable one. For one thing, how long has Ben Afflick been trying to get out of Boston? He’s not even from the crummy parts of the city. He’s a rich kid. His performance herein seems to reflect this detachment and Rebecca Hall and Jon Hamm also add little energy.  Insult to injury is dedicating The Town to the good, working townies who aren’t bank robbers. Seems a bit lame after two hours on the crooks.

Heart Murmurs - - Blue Valentine (2010) - - 6 February 2011

Recommended. If nobody else wants to compare this movie to Revolutionary Road, I will. Director and writer Derek Cianfrance (w/ Cami Delavigne) gives us another beautiful couple and you wonder, who could possibly fill their fantasies? Actually, no one. Ryan Gosling (The Notebook), as Dean, is still madly in love, or what passes for it, but Cindy (Michelle Williams, Wendy and Lucy) is empty. While Sam Mendes routed Revolutionary Road through the Camelot of 1961, Blue Valentine’s neighborhood looks like a rust-belt trailer park. Despite this, both prowl the churchyard of lost affection and Gosling does a respectable job as a standard clueless male; however, the burden is on the Oscar-nominated Williams. She nails it, hitting with perfect pitch the off-key note of that got-away girl - - the how, still scraping your blackboard at three in the morning, the why, a mystery to this day. She may be my favorite young actress.

Mother Knows Worst - - Animal Kingdom (2010) - - 5 February 2011

Recommended. Animal Kingdom, a film by Oz-TV director, David Michôd, seems to aspire to a tale of kindred loyalty and vengeance, switching the fight from Tombstone to Melborne. Like Ike Clanton, Josh (James Frecheville) watches his brothers get picked off one by one by the corrupt lawmen, protecting their business interests. The brothers, sullen Darrin (Luke Ford), frenetic Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) and the evil Pope, played with slowly ramped up malice by Ben Mendelsohn, face off against The Law. The good cop of the story is smoothly underacted by Guy Pearce.  A simple crime story seems the offering for two-thirds of the picture; however, in the denouement, the plot does a bootleg turn, as driven by the mother of the brothers, Oscar pal Jacki Weaver. This supple turn of events is a joy to watch. A second viewing is in order to better appreciate how this Ms Weaver achieves this stunt.