Cineplexus

Oscars 2010: Kind of Weird

Last night I dreamt that I wrote a quick Oscar recap. It began, "The evening was full of young stars just starting out and old stars we were relieved to know were still alive." of course, in my dream, the show had featured Todd Bridges and Art Garfunkel, as opposes to the higher-profile (but still strangely chosen) celebrities the real show featured.

Last night, why did Kathy Bates, Keanu Reeves, and Ryan Reynolds each come out to talk about one of the Best Picture nominees? Why did James Taylor sing a Beatles song? I'm not complaining, the choices just seem a little odd. Maybe names were drawn from a hat?

I am, of course, ignoring the biggest shock of the evening. I'm not talking about the thrills of awarding the first screenwriting Oscar ever won by an African American (Geoffrey Forrester for Precious) and the first directing award won by a woman (Kathryn Bigelow of The Hurt Locker ;) and the odd speeches that followed. No, I don't mean the lady from "Music by Prudence" weirdly interrupting the first guy's speech with an insult before taking over. Or the fact that hosts Baldwin and Martin (really a funny duo, why didn't they do two hosts sooner?) getting away with calling Sarah Jessica Parker a "whore" and a "horse" simultaneously (it was a TelePrompTer gag surrounding the term "clothes horse". For me, the shock of the evening was that I suddenly LOVE Sandra Bullock. She gave a speech that included jokes, kudos, and a few tears all at once. It was kind of the highlight of the evening.

Weird, right?!

An Education ★★★★

Ah youth. It's hard to know where it ends and real adulthood begins. That said, it seems universally true that we all think we've made it to a responsible decisionmaking age long before we truly grasp the gravity of our adulthood, or of our decisions. This is the dilemma that Jenny embodies in An Education (which is based on the memoirs of journalist Lynn Barber). Jenny's father isn't helping — he's so dead-set on getting her into Oxford that he cares of little else. For example, he feels that Jenny needn't *practice* her cello or attend the symphony; just being a member of the youth orchestra is enough to beef up her application. 

No surprise, then that Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is swept off her feet by the older David (Peter Saaragaard), with his culture, his fun-loving grown-upness, his glamourous friends, and his inescapable charm. He's able to charm even her parents, as he and Jenny devise harmless lies to goad them into allowing her to accompany him on increasingly extravagant trips. Jenny is too young, too trusting, or too naive to realize how much one lie begets another, and that someone with one secret probably has others. 

An Education is beautifully filmed, wonderfully acted, and often hilarious or poignant. It has glorious speeches on the role of formal education in our lives and about the severe career and cultural limits women still faced in the '60s (limits that women in some cultures still face).

"Best Picture," however, it is not. 

For a film that makes such a valiant effort to prove the lameness of The Establishment, of square British upper-middle-class expectations, its ultimate message serves to totally undermine that initial premise. It's as if screenwriter Nick Hornby was unaware of the film's ending when he wrote the film's tenacious beginning and middle acts. If this seems like nitpicking, perhaps my opinion of the picture was skewed from the start because of how creepy I find it's central romance. Nowadays, there are laws against someone in his late 20s — maybe 30s!— courting a 16-year-old girl. Of course, the movie is based on a true story. But that might actually make the whole thing worse. 

Considering the grave implications of this romance and what happens between this starring couple, the last act of An Education felt a bit easy and trite. Cloying music detracts from a heartfelt speech from Jenny's dad, and the closing scene features an out-of-nowhere voice-over that feels like a cop-out. 

Ultimately, I'd be less critical of An Education's last 20 minutes if I hadn't been so impressed with the rest of the film. Maybe the sea of critics with nary a negative word to say about the film had the opposite reaction, i.e., the minor ending issues were forgivable because of the movies' superior majority. With whom will you side? It's definitely worth seeng An Education to fnd out for yourself.     

   

The (Short) Road to the Oscars

Busy with a lot of other projects, I've been sleeping on some of my Oscar-nomintated movie reviews. Sleeping hard. But that all changes with the next 3-4 days, when Cineplexus.net presents the Short Road to the Oscars. In the time before the Oscars begin this Sunday night, I'm going to finally post (and in some cases, finally write) reviews of An Education, Up In the Air, Hurt Locker, and more. Enjoy! I know I will :)

More on 2010 Oscar Noms

Okay, still on the bus. It's a different bus, going the opposite direction, and the light is a lovely flourescent blue...a perfect time to blog from my trusty iPhone.

The 2010 Nominations make me feel like I did a pretty good job of picking movies to see over the past year, but highlight a serious issue I have as a critic: I don't see enough bad movies. Personally, I wouldn't mind paying my hard-earned money to see a movie I felt had a high potential for badness. In fact, I sort of relish the chance to see a crappy movie. It's my own brand of schadenfreude. But I don't go to the movies alone that much, and most of my friends have pretty decent taste. Alas.

I'll work on this in the years to come.

At any rate, here are nominated movies I've reviewe this year, along with links to the review and a list of nominated categories. You can check out all the details at www.oscar.com. In no particular order (okay, okay, it's alphabetical by review status):

Reviewed by Cineplexus!
Avatar
Art Direction
Cinematography
Directing
Film Editing
Music (Original Score)
Best Picture
Sound Editing
Sound Mixing
Visual Effects (yay Ryan!)

District 9
Film Editing
Best Picture
Visual Effects
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

In the Loop
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Inglourious Basterds
Actor in a Supporting Role (Christopher Waltz)
Cinematography
Directing
Film Editing
Best Picture
Sound Editing
Sound Mixing Writing (Original Screenplay)

Julie & Julia
Actress in a Leading Role (Meryl Streep)

A Serious Man
Writing (Original Screenplay)
Best Picture

Star Trek
Sound Editing
Sound Mixing
Visual Effects
Makeup

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Sound Mixing

Up
Animated Feature Film
Music (Original Score)
Best Picture
Sound Editing
Writing (Original Screenplay)

Seen Recently, Reviews to Come Shortly
Crazy Heart
Actor in a Leading Role (Jeff Bridges)
Actress in a Supporting Role (Maggie Gyllenhaal)
Music (Original Song)

An Education
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Best Picture
Actress in a Leading Role (Carey Mulligan)

The Hurt Locker
Actor in a Leading Role (Jeremy Renner)
Cinematography
Directing
Film Editing
Music (Original Score)
Best Picture
Sound Editing
Sound Mixing
Writing (Original Screenplay)

Up in the Air
Actor in a Leading Role (George Clooney)
Actress in a Supporting Role (Vera Farmiga)
Actress in a Supporting Role (Anna Kendrick)
Directing
Best Picture
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Seen but for Some Reason Not Reviewed (Ugh)
Coraline
Animated Feature Film

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Cinematography

Oscars 2010: Happening Again.

Well, it looks like the Oscars (aka Academy Awards) will be occurring again this year as usual. The hosts, as you may have heard, will be Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin — I think it should be fun, though after his amazing Emmys this Fall, I think Neil Patrick Harris should be hired to host every big awards ceremony for, like, forever.

Today, nominations were announced for the 2010 Oscars (to be held the first Sunday in March). I'll post some links and comments when I'm no longer on the bus (from where I'm presently posting). For now, let's leave it at this: there are eight TEN Best Picture nomination this year. EIGHT TEN! I have seen all but two, and one ofthose two is sitting in my DVD player right now. Hooray! The nominees are:

Avatar

The Blind Side

District 9

An Education

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

A Serious Man

...I am THRILLED about that last one. It won't win, but Good On Ya, Academy. More soon.

Like the other 2 nominees that didn't appear when I originally posted this, but which I have also seen (yay).

Up

Up in the Air

(sorry about that)

From PopSent…"Full House Genetics"

I just wrote a pretty ridiculous meditation on Full House for my pop culture and general-purpose blog, Popular Sentiment. To tempt you to read it, I will mention that it includes this picture:

 
 

Youth in Revolt ★★★½

Michael Cera was in a rut. In order to get what he really wanted, he'd have to create a new, unfamiliar persona that pushed him to new lengths. Er…wait. That wasn't Cera, at least, not exactly, It was his nerdy-yet-plainjane, deadpan character in Youth in Revolt, Nick Twisp. The role of Nick is not exactly a stretch for Cera (examples), but both Cera and his fictional counterpart shake things up a little by creating an alter-ego, François.

Think of François as the blue-eyed, mustachioed devil on Nick's shoulder...and there's no angel to counter his influence. Rather than sitting on his shoulder, though, François (also played by Cera) walks along side Nick, invisible to the world and always encouraging him to make the baddest possible choice. He is nothing like Nick's normal persona. I can't help but think of this as a small victory for Cera, who's so often accused of being a kind of one-note actor (by haters; Cera lovers can't get enough of his deadpan).

At it's heart, Youth in Revolt is a love story; on the surface, it's a kitschy, fantastical farce. These two sides combine for some serious laughs as Nick (accompanied by his evil twin, françois) do some sweet, crazy, and (in some cases) downright disturbing things to keep his/their first and only love, the wise, beautiful Sheeni (Portia Doubleday) close at hand. It combines periodic animation, science fiction, and hyper-reality with gusto.

The zany, fast-paced nature of the film, alas, causes some structural issues. Characters are trotted out for major scenes and then never heard from again. Sheeni's brother (an open-minded drug enthusiast played by Justin Long) appears out of nowhere in Act 3 and then becomes a major catalyst for the rest of the film. Her too-good-to-be true ex-boyfriend, Trent Preston, is only the stuff of legend until the movie's final scenes. He'd have been more ominous and impressive if he'd never been revealed to us. Then there's Nick's friends, Lefty and Vijay. One could argue that they represent the differences between Nick's pre- and post-Sheeni existence, but that doesn't excuse the film's reckless practice of presenting them for a few scenes and then totally forgetting about them.

Sloppiness aside, Youth in Revolt is a funny, joyfully off-kilter comedy that really does capture the skewed priorities of the teenage male, if in an extremely extreme way. It's not the first film to do so, nor will it be the last, but damned if it doesn't help to keep the proud tradition alive.

2 Movies About Young Francophile Girls Coming of Age

Okay, I'm not really going to go there. But the last two movies I saw – Youth in Revolt and An Education had some pretty odd things in common. Each featured a star-crossed couple much to wise and cultured for the world around them. Each couple contained a young woman obsessed with all things French, and a male counterpart eager to make her Parisian dreams come true.

Surprisingly enough, these movies have these key points in common and virtually NOTHING else. The former is modern love story, a quirky, tongue-in-cheek adaptation of a quirky, tongue-in-cheek book. The latter is an elegant story of the dubious appeal of the lush life, set in the 1950s and based on a true story. The tone of the two films could hardly be more different. So I will review them separately, later this weekend. I just couldn't resist making my parallel observation. It's a weakness.

Young@Heart ★★★★

Let me pitch you a premise: A bunch of happy-go-lucky senior citizens decide to join a choir. A director young enough to be their son forces them to sing hits and rarities by the likes of the Ramones and Sonic Youth. At first they hate these songs, but they grow to love them, and the movie ends with a hugely successful concert performance to a sold-out auditorium.

This is precisely what occurs in Young@Heart, a new film by director Steven Walker. Sounds like a pretty lame comedy, right? And if the film were a raucous comedy about free-wheeling old fogies, it probably would have been awful. And completely absurd. But Young@Heart, despite some painfully hilarious moments, is no comedy. It's a documentary, and it follows the all-too-true story of a real-life senior choir and its members as they struggle to broaden their horizons and make the most of their golden years.

Originally shot for television in the UK, Young@Heart was shot in Northampton, MA. Despite the best efforts of a too-present narrator with a shaky camera, it's easy to forget all about the film's made-for-tv doc roots. With all the ups, downs, comedic relief, and surprising twists of a Hollywood production, we're taken through several weeks of choir rehearsals that lead up to a big show. These dramatic flourishes definitely work in the film's favor. Not only do they serve to draw the audience in, but they illustrate perfectly the strength and fragility of these unique and wonderful people. For them, the point and joy of life is merely to be alive and doing what you enjoy. This is a humbling message indeed, and it's to the film's credit that it lets this fact shine through the cracks in the group's carefree façade.

I went to Young@Heart expecting to laugh my ass off. And I did, at times. More than anything, though, I left the theater hoping that the choir will be performing soon at a theater near me. If not, maybe I'll just have to start up a Young@Heart choir of my own.

No matter what else, Avatar is a game changer.

Avatar ★★★★½

Full disclosure: one of my favorite people on Earth worked on Avatar for months. 80-hour work-weeks. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner on set. I really, really wanted this to be a decent movie. Still, I had my doubts. Big blue aliens? CGI? 3D for Christ's sake? It seemed unlikely that this one would pass muster. So, when I read Roger Ebert's review I was ecstatic. 4 of 4 stars! He compared it to seeing Star Wars for the first time. I send out elated texts to several other hopeful friends.

Then the haters started in. The movie was cheesy. It was overly didactic. It gave me a headache. And okay, no, those aren't complaints I actually read in negative reviews; they are my own impressions of the film's possible weak points. Therein lies the Avatar debate, one that will likely continue for decades. Do this movie's groundbreaking strides in the very fabric of the medium outweigh any foibles in its basic storyline and dialogue?

I have a feeling the decades will err on the side of Avatar's greatness. Take Star Wars as a forerunning example: its hero is whiny, its villain utterly uncomplex (we're talking JUST THE FIRST FILM here, people). But who cares? The movie remains one of the most widely celebrated ever, as much by the general public as by film geeks like me. Or take Jaws, which (film school taught me) was the first true summer blockbuster. It's about a freaking shark! A killer shark! But do we watch it and think, "What's up with that weird grizzled guy?" No. We think "Wow, this is an astonishingly created film. And to think it was made in 1975!" 

Right? Isn't that what you think? Or is that just me?

The fact of the matter is that Avatar has people thinking about entertainment in a whole new way. The story, classically, has clear cut good guys and textbook baddies. It is pretty fantastical, and one must suspend disbelief for nearly three hours to believe that these tribes of giants and their magic tree can fend off the firepower of huge military manned battledroids. There is way too much voiceover, including a few passages so redundant that even the blind could do without their narrative aid. But it takes a lot of energy to even notice these tiny blips on the astonishing and astonishingly real world that unfolds again and again before your bespectacled eyes. The 3D is immersive, not invasive, so each of us in the audience is having our own experience on Pandora. It's a feat that Star Wars Episodes IV-VI can't even boast. Hell, no movie can.

That's why we call it "groundbreaking." No one's built there before.