OSCAR NOMINATIONS 2012

January 24, 2012 2 Comments

The Oscar nominations have just been announced today (January the 24th). The awards will be given on February the 26th

BEST FEATURE FILM:

This year it seems that the Artist might just win it. I didn’t unexpected to see Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which hasn’t really been making many lists for favourite movie this year. War Horse had to be in the list, however it’s interesting to see that Spielberg didn’t really gets any nod (nor for directing, nor for Animation)

Actor In a Leading Role

Unexpected but quite a well deserved nomination for Gary Oldman, however my vote goes to Clooney (he’s also the front runner on the list). Most newspapers obivously picked up on the fact that it’s a battle of the “hot” as Clooney and Pitt are both nominated.

Actress In a Leading Role

Is there any chance for anybody else but Meryl Streep? Don’t think so. I did like Michelle Williams too though.

Actor In a Supporting Role

Good to see Christopher Plummer nominated (I did say in my review at the time he might  get it). However I am quite pleased to see Kenneth Branagh on the list too. The surprise is Jonah Hill, who probably can’t believe his luck!

Actress In a Supporting Role

The Oscars voter might for for Octavia Spencer (just like the Golden Globes voters). I thought the move to put Bérénice Bejo forward for supporting actrtess was actually quite clever (thus avoiding to compete against Meryl Streep or Michelle Williams)

Directing

Mallick is unexpected, but it’s a battle between Michel Hazanavicius and Alexander Payne. Woody Allen seems to be the only person alive who is allowed to get nominated for an Oscar when directing (or writing) a comedy.

Cinematography

All very well deserved nominations. The Artist might get it, but the photography on both the Tree of life and War horse was quite astonishing. It’s great to see Jeff Cronenweth nominated for his cold touch in the girl with the Dragon tattoo.

Animated Feature Film

I find shocking that Tintin is not in the list for best Animated Film, however it’s good to see some brave choices, like Chico and Rita… But was Puss in boots better than Tintin? And Kung Fu Panda 2?!?! Are we kidding?

Art Direction

All well deserved nominations and even though Harry Potter should finally be recognised for something

Costume Design

Documentary Feature

Documentary Short

Film Editing

Some people say that the best editing is also the most invisible one… Which is probably why usually very flashy editings seem to win awards left and right (JFK style just to mention one glaring example), in which case Moneyball should really win… However it will once again be the Artist, even though the film was a bit too slow and definitely 20 minutes too long.

Foreign Language Film

Makeup

Music (Original Score)

Music (Original Song)

Short Film (Animated)

Short Film (Live Action)

Sound Editing

Sound Mixing

Visual Effects

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Writing (Original Screenplay)

In the end, not too may surprises of course. The Artis is obviously coming through as the main contended in the big categories, the Descendants is going to be the one to beat.

On the acting front, Meryl Streep is the frontrunner as we all know… and I do also feel this is George’s year (yes, he did win, but as supporting actor).

What do you think? Leave us a message  and share your thoughts

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The Iron Lady – Review

January 4, 2012 7 Comments

The Iron Lady (2011) 

Director: Phyllida Lloyd. Writer: Abi Morgan. Cast: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent.

What could have been an insightful, challenging and even controversial film about one of the most loved/hated politician of the twentieth century, instead ends up being just an empty vessel for Meryl Streep to showcase once again that she’s Oscar worthy! As if we didn’t know that already… The most Oscar nominated living actress in history really does indeed become the British Prime Minister in the “Iron Lady”. Unfortunately Meryl alone is not enough to lift an otherwise flat and quite superficial biopic.

Some may argue that sometimes her performance veers slightly too much towards parody, but that’s mainly a problem with the staging and the direction of the film itself.

“The Iron Lady” is trying too hard to please everyone that in the end it just disappoints everyone. It wants to be too much like “The King’s Speech” (there’s even a scene which feels lifted directly from it, where Margaret Thatcher is rehearsing her voice… I was waiting for her to stammer at any point), but here the baggage behind the main character is just too big and edgy to get away with such lightness. Margaret Thatcher is a complex character with an even more complex life: to try to reduce it and compress it all into a film of less than 2 hours is a tough task and “The Iron Lady” suffers from trying to do it. Major events like the Falklands war, or the miners’strike,  are given just a few minutes and it all ends up feeling a little bit like reading a page from Wikipedia: yes, all the facts are there, but it all feels a little bit too superficial… And a film about Margaret Thatcher should be anything but superficial.

The film is structured through a series of flashbacks as it also try to give a more intimate portrait of the old Prime Minister in her first stages of Alzheimer. This is probably the most revealing and poignant part of the film (though not without its problems too). Once again Meryl manages to step above the mannerism and the caricature and brings some unexpected humanity into her character as the so-called iron lady becomes now more like an old rusty iron lady or worse a paper-thin weak old woman (with the aid of some impressive make-up. The people behind the make-up in J.Edgar should watch and learn!!): her performance as an old woman is something to wonder at!

However the film doesn’t quite know what to do with all this material and all the characters around Mrs Thatcher. Are we supposed to like this controversial and yet influential British politician? Are we really meant to feel sorry for her? What is it try to tell us by showing the Iron Lady as a weak old woman stricken by illness? It’s all rather too easy to be controversial, and too thin to be thoughtful, too friendly to be considered seriously.

In the end all we are left is a marvellous performance for a film that doesn’t quite deserve it.

6/10

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The Way Back – Review

December 8, 2010 5 Comments

THE WAY BACK  

Directed by Peter Weir. Starring Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Dejan Angelov, Dragos Bucur, Ed Harris, Mark Strong

Based on a supposedly true memoir (possibly even ghostwritten) by Slavomir Rawicz called The Long Walk, (no, not the one by Stephen King), it tells the story of a polish prisoner and his companions escaping labour camp in Siberia in the 1940s and basically walking all the way across, Mongolia, China, the Himalayas and then into India.

I am sure your geography is pretty good, but just to refresh it a little bit I took the liberty of attaching a map to this post, just to show you how bloody far it is!!

It is an amazing story, so amazing that people argue whether it’s actually true or not. However, the movie goes beyond all that: yes it is a story about the journey, but also about the human endurance, about bonding with friends,  and ultimately about people prevailing over the adversities.

I find this film particularly hard to review: I saw it a few days ago, but resisted from writing anything about it, as I wanted to wait for the film to sink in.

My first reaction was that the pace  of the film seemed to be a bit off. It is a long one for sure, and yet I felt, for the first time in a while, that actually it could have gained more pathos by being even a touch longer. I couldn’t help feeling there must be a lot of material somewhere in the editing room that didn’t quite make the final cut, most of which at the expense of the characters and their relation with one another.

It all seemed oddly fast in places. For example, in one scene people argue with each other, in the next one (few days later) they were all talking normally. At some point they were all suspicious about a new girl joining their group, the next moment they were talking to her and revealing their deepest emotions.

This particularly happens towards the beginning of the film and it made me feel a bit uneasy about it all.

I do wonder if it would have been better to get rid off one of the characters and concentrate more on the fewer of them. It’s interesting to notice that well into the film I still had no idea how many people were actually on the journey and who was who.

I can’t wait to see a possible director’s cut on DVD (or even better ono BluRay): I’m sure the film could only improve by being a little bit more drawn out. I can’t quite believe I’m hearing myself saying that, but it is after all a film about an incredible long journey, so it’s fair enough to have a film which feels  just as long.

Having said all this, the whole thing just looks beautiful! I was quite surprised to see the National Geographic logo at the front, but having seen the film, somehow it all makes sense. Those grand landscapes and vistas make it look like one of their best documentaries.

Performances are strong throughout. Jim Sturgess was chosen by the director on the basis of “Across the Universe” (a film which has been panned in this country and yet loved in many others… in which case I’d consider myself a foreigner).  Colin Farrell is the quirkiest of the all (what a surprise) and I really enjoyed watching him. And Ed Harris, who plays his age, pulls out one of the most rounded characters of the whole piece.

I was also a bit surprised to see a caption at the front of the film basically giving away the ending ( I won’t do here, don’t worry) which actually, when it finally comes, feels rushed and a bit “tagged on” and left me with a slight sour taste in my mouth.

And it’s a real shame, because on the whole, this is a solid film, quite understated (including the music, which could have gone so syrupy/hollywood grand and instead, thankfully was kept quite restrained) , with a good story and good performances. I would recommend it to anyone., even though it might not make it to the Oscars…

7/10

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The Fighter – Review

December 6, 2010 5 Comments

The Fighter (2010)

Directed by David O. Russell. Starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams

This was an unexpected surprise! After seen the trailer for “The Fighter” I didn’t really think much of it. Then I saw that it was directed by David O. Russel and remembered how much I hated I Heart Huckabees. Oh dear, I thought to myself, this isn’t going to be a happy viewing… Oh, how I was wrong!!!

This is now probably in my top 10 film of the year (or even top 5 dare I say).

The trailer makes it look like another film about a boxer, filled with violence for the latest testosterone generation, yet this film is as much as boxing as the first Rocky was, actually even less. And just like that film (I’m sorry but the parallel is inevitable), it’s a story about an underdog, a rag-to-riches tale, a story about characters more than anything else.

At the centre of the action is the relationship between  two brothers: the boxer “Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and Dickie Eklund (Christian Bale) who helped train him.

At this point I must confess my complete ignorance about any type of sports. So much so that I had never even head of Micky Ward so the whole turn of events was a complete surprise (including the ending).

The thing that will strike anyone watching the film is the acting of pretty much everybody in it.

Once again (as he had done for the Machinist in 2003) Christian Bale has lost a lot of weight reportedly by eating very little. He researched the part by taking notes on Eklund’s mannerisms and recording conversations for the character’s distinct accent. Apparently he even stayed in character throughout filming. Well, whatever he did, it really works. Bale transformed himself completely for this film and it’s hard to believe that he’s the same person behind the cape in Batman or even in Terminator: salvation.

And as an extra proof of how good Christian Bale is in the film, when during the end credits we are treated with some real footage of the real people in the film, we can be amazed by how similar his mannerism and accents are.

Because of the part itself, Bale is really the one who steals the show every time he’s on-screen, however Mark Wahlberg is also very good too in a much more understated act, which almost goes unnoticed. Never for a moment you doubt that he’s actually anything but a boxer (apparently he even had a boxing ring in his back garden during the making of this film).

But the big surprise for me was Melissa Leo who plays the mother in the film: a relatively unknown actress and yet a great force of nature in the Fighter.

The film is very nicely balanced, has a very good pace, a tight script and a nicely controlled and never showy direction. The only noticeable choice was the way they decided to film the few fight sequences in the film, by using video as opposed to film (or at least it look that way), by making the inter-cutting with the real footage seamless.

This is a beautiful movie which probably hasn’t got anything new that we haven’t seen before but it’s got a moving story that rings true at every step and will make you laugh, cry and cheer all the way to the last frame and it’s done with such simplicity and sincerity that it’s hard not to admire.

8.5/10


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Tron: Legacy – Review

December 5, 2010 23 Comments

TRON: LEGACY (2010) 

Directed by Joseph Kosinski. Starring Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde

Before I start trashing this film the way it really deserves, I should probably admit I was never a real fan of the original. It’s the kind of film that people always seemed to admire for its technical achievement, but even as a kid I never quite got into it. In fact, dare I say, I remember thinking it was all rather boring and overly complicated. Let’s just face it, most of the fun and the enjoyment in that first film was actually watching the video-games-like sequences (and yet even those, I remember thinking even at the time, were over-edited and I couldn’t quite enjoy them fully). The rest was pretty forgettable.
Of course, back in the 80s I probably had the video games, I had the little Mattel characters, and even a notebook for school with Tron written on it… but back then, the times were different and there wasn’t much to choose from for a boy of ten like me.

Anyway, it doesn’t look like I am the only one who thinks that, since the first TRON ranks pretty low on the internet movie database and rotten tomatoes gives it an unremarkable 68% (Most of which surely has got to do with the nostalgia factor). Hence the reason why it took them almost 30 years to make a sequel.

Having said all this, I can safely say that Tron Legacy manages to stay true to the original: it’s just as complicated and confusing in its “story”, the video-games-like sequences are just as messy and over-edited as the original and the special effects want to be absolutely amazing, but actually when you really look at them closely they’re not as successful as they’re trying to make you believe.

Much has been talked about the CGI wizardry that has allowed Jeff Bridges to look 30 years younger. Well, sadly, we are still a few years away to make that trick seamless. Even in Benjamin Button the effect on Brad Pitt young just about worked, but was still the least convincing of them all. Though it will probably look just about OK once the film comes out on a DVD (not so sure about the BluRay actually), certainly on the big screen, the effect on Jeff Bridges’ face doesn’t look quite right. Human skin has always been troublesome on GCI and this film proves it again. The result is a weird plastic feel that actually reduces his real facial expression. One of my readers said it made him look like “prince charming” from the Shrek movies, which I think it hits the nail right on the head!! Interestingly it seemed to work better in the scenes which were masked  and filtered through a TV screen (as if they were part of archive footage), which proves that even the makers were quite aware of the limitations.

The film is quite a visual feast for the eye, as special effects and production design fight for attention in every single frame of the film , but it’s all so hyper-real and over-blown that, to be honest, I found it hard to be swept away by any of it. I do recognize some of its value (which is why I am giving it 5 stars and not 2 stars), but all this visual extravaganza cannot make up for the lack of  any clear and interesting storytelling. And this is, at the end of the day, the most important factor in a film, any film, whether it’s an action piece or a drama, or a cartoon.: you’ve got to like the story! You’ve got to sympathize with the characters or at least be interested in them. In the case of Tron:Legacy  I was pretty confused all the way through (but sadly not in a “Inception” sort of confusion where, being confused is part of the fun. This was just confusing because it was badly told!).

I am not really sure who is this film for? Fans of the first one? Well, there are not too many out there.

Is it a film for kids? Don’t think so: they would certainly get lost in the mambo-jumbo story.

Is it a film for video-games lovers? Probably, though I can name hundreds of much more exciting games to play.

Is it a film for girls in love with Garrett Hedlund? Well, there’s plenty of him in here and he does an OK job with the material he’s given, but to be honest that’s not a good enough reason for watching this film.

Is it a film for geeks or special effects lovers? Well, I am one of those, and I can tell you that I wasn’t really taken by any it. It all may look slick and stylish and it’s all just an upgraded version of the previous film, with very little originality.

Even the action sequences seemed just a modern version of the previous ones, with some added 3D Fx. Ah yes, I was almost forgetting the 3D factor. Right at the beginning some weird caption tells you that some of the scenes are supposed to look 2D and that you should keep your 3D glasses on all the time. What it actually means is that the 3D only kicks in once the main characters enters the virtual world of video-games (quite a bad choice if you ask me, especially because it misses quite a few opportunities in the first part of the film to make the action a bit more exciting). Once we finally get to “virtual world” or cyber-word or whatever you wanna call it, after the first few minutes you’re in 3D you actually almost forget you’re watching it in 3D (I say almost because the headache that the 3D glasses give you is still there).  I was so surprised by how badly the 3D is used on this film. Even the flying sequences didn’t seem to draw me in  ( and those are notoriously good on 3D, see Avatar and even the awful Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole). Am I alone on this one? I usually love 3D… I seem to remember the motorbike sequences on the first Tron being a lot more exciting than in this (or is it because I was 10 at the time?).

On the acting side of things (and I am aware that one doesn’t really go and see Tron for the acting), Jeff Bridges in his older self (not the plastic young version) seems a little bit embarrassed to be in this film, in a mixture of the Dude and a Jedi knight… And talking about Star Wars, not only Jeff Bridges dresses like a Jedi and the special effects are sometimes reminiscent of the Attack of the Clones,  but even the main protagonist, Garrett Hedlund looks a bit like Hayden Christensen.And finally  Michael Sheen, is now the parody of himself and doesn’t seem to have any more regard for choosing whatever part in whatever film as long as he gets paid (well, who could blame him? I’d probably do the same).

So, to wrap it all up: the story is a mess, the script if basically riddled with clichés, bad lines and jokes that are so poorly timed and unfunny that in the screening where I was NOBODY laughed, and finally the visual effects are so unreal and overblown that they fail to amaze.

One the positive side, the soundtrack is awesome. Nothing new, of course, it sounds a lot like Batman, Inception and the Bourne films, but it’s still pretty good (though there was probably too much music throughout).

I was ready to love this one, we so need a new sci-fi film to take the crown, but I was really disappointed at this revamped TRON and actually even a bit bored. Sorry Disney

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