The first four parts of Listmania! 2012 might seem to be pretty exhaustive, but having seen well over 100 films last year (a small number for a film critic, but a hefty number for someone such as myself, who spent most of the year playing Halo) there are inevitably going to be a few films that slip through the cracks, being neither brilliant or terrible. They were often films that inspired frenetic note-taking for blogposts that never got written, or films seemingly condemned to be forgotten about but which lingered either like a pleasant perfume on a spring morning, or a kebab fart in a friend’s bathroom, depending on the movie. Much as I’d like to think I can move on without talking about them, often my reaction to them speaks to my state of mind during and after experiencing them, so for the sake of clearing the clutter out of my head, the last posts in this series will be my attempt to close the door on 2012 so I can get on with enjoying 2013.
Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Cosmopolis
After the unendurable famine that starved David Cronenberg’s fanbase of his singular genius for four years — FOUR YEARS — we got half a feast with 2011′s brilliantly realised adaptation of Christopher Hampton’s A Dangerous Method, which thrilled this blog enough to place it at number 6 in SoC’s previous Best Films Listmania! extravaganza. While critics seemed mystified, mistaking the great man’s precision for bloodlessness, or by exposing their ignorance of his work by complaining that a film about the schism between the mind and the body was a departure from his previous films – merely because there was no gore and therefore lacked the one thing they lazily knew about him – for some of us this was a late-career classic, the kind of thrillingly intellectual work we’ve come to expect. This excitement was enhanced by the knowledge that we’d only have to wait another year to get the second half of this feast. Could he strike twice this quickly and maintain that quality?
The plunging enthusiasm I felt during his adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel has only ever occurred once before while watching one of his films, midway through my only viewing of Eastern Promises, but while that seemed like a weird misfire attributable to the script – which he wasn’t responsible for – Cosmopolis‘ problems stem from the fact that Cronenberg hasn’t done anything particularly drastic with the novel, which was already a rambling, overly-ambitious and unfocused book that tried desperately to capture a snapshot of the world that was moving so rapidly past the writer’s window that all we got for his efforts was a meaningless smudge. When reading it in preparation for the movie I could see hints of what Cronenberg found interesting enough to adapt it – man and/versus machine, symbiosis between the mind and an artificial system that transforms the world, sexual deviance and emotional stasis, mental collapse and physical decay – but hoped that he would temper DeLillo’s worst excesses; the arch dialogue, the preachiness, the desperation of his attempt to make a touchstone for our times.
This was not to be. In fact, some of Cronenberg’s choices exacerbate the problems of the novel, primarily the curiously stagy performances from the majority of the cast, Robert Pattinson aside. While Cronenberg deserves praise for drawing such promising work from the previously unconvincing actor, he makes great actors like Samantha Morton and Juliette Binoche deliver dialogue regrettably translated from the novel almost verbatim as if they are the most precocious self-help gurus at the world’s worst staff training day. Their pronouncements about the state of the world, and the ways in which our protagonist can affect the systems he is hooked up to, are deeply uncomfortable viewing for a fan, because the reasons for this choice are mystifying. Are these displays for a king residing in his mobile, air-conditioned throne? This is the only thing I could come up with to explain it.
And believe me, I tried for a long time to justify this film’s unexpected cluelessness, hoping to convince myself that Cronenberg’s adherence to such risible source material was some brilliant choice that I just didn’t understand properly yet. My growing discomfort with critics who second-guess artists who have a proven intellectual capacity and transparent mastery of their chosen form meant that I was eager to find a way to blame myself for my instinctive rejection of this, especially as the critical reaction to A Dangerous Method had irked me so much. I took notes for a blogpost that would probably have been ten times as long – and one hundred times more apologetic – than my defence of Prometheus, but I didn’t have the heart to write it. Instead I just gave up on the film. There’s nothing to pick apart that isn’t contained in the book, at least not much, other than Cronenberg’s ability to keep the film interesting when it’s mostly spent in a limo. And he does a good job of that, even if the rambling monologues drain the enthusiasm from the viewer, and despite occasional moments like the scene in which Mathieu Amalric berates protagonist Eric Packer; possibly the worst blocked and staged scene in a movie released last year.
Is it a total disaster? No Cronenberg movie could ever be considered as such, it’s just not possible. Pattinson is impressive, as is Paul Giamatti, whose appearance at the end crystallises the film’s “plot” in a way even the book didn’t. The confrontation between the protagonist and his until-then hidden antagonist fires the imagination in the way I had hoped the rest of it would, and makes a mockery of the decision to make the rest of the film so damnably stagy. Also Cronenberg removes some cluttering ideas from DeLillo, turning his protagonist from the man who may have crashed the financial system – and robbed his wife of her riches – in a series of nihilistic actions into the victim of what seems to be a day-long panic attack that may or may not have led to his death. Cronenberg seems more interested in making the man a victim instead of the instigator of the world’s financial doom, which makes sense; he’s usually interested in the idea of people losing control, not in having too much power.
And there are touches that link this to his other films; that symbiosis is there, expressed in the anecdotes from Packer’s employees, who think fondly of the machines they use as tools or extensions of themselves. We also get sexual complications, prostate examinations, intercourse with a bodyguard still wearing her kevlar; this is the mind/body/machine stuff we want from the man. But throughout there are too many wrong choices, too much hesitance, from a man I thought would have relished the idea of scrambling DeLillo’s book into a new and exciting form the way he played with Bari Wood and Jack Geasland’s Twins for Dead Ringers, or his thrilling adaptation of Naked Lunch, which turned intentional incomprehensibility into disgusting and coherent fantasy. I’d hesitate to call it a failure, and certainly wouldn’t write the genius off, but it just stumped me. All the reflection it created in me had nothing to do with parsing his message, but more in wondering why he made something so boring. This was not what I signed up for.
Pleasant Surprise of the Year: Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted
A year ago, looking at lists of 2012′s most anticipated films, there’s no way I would have even selected this for viewing, let alone expected to write anything about it. The first two Madagascar films are, as far as I could tell from seeing clips and hearing accounts, everything that is wrong with modern animation, channeling the wrong kind of wacky humour from years past, trying too hard to keep the eye busy with all manner of tired visual cues (crash zooms on characters posing; a crime in any film but especially in cartoons where it’s used so damn much) and pop culture references. When people started praising this third installment, I figured it must be worth a shout, especially after finding out that it was co-written by Noah Baumbach, of all people. I couldn’t help but be curious about this mash-up. But first I had to watch the other two, because continuity or something.
And god help me I hated them. HATED them. They were exactly as I had feared; tired and shouty, lazily written, obnoxiously directed, witless and charmless and unbearably loud. It took all of my will to get through them, resisting the temptation to count the number of times an instantly dated pop culture reference cropped up, or a character reacted to another’s display of joy with a mute expression of horror (surely the most overused comedic sting of the last fifteen years, and particularly so in animated movies). Their appeal with kids made sense; they’re silly and noisy and restless (the first two Madagascar movies, not kids. Well, kids too, but… you get me). But for a fan of animation, it hurt to see what Dreamworks was willing to put out before finding its feet with How To Train Your Dragon and SoC’s beloved Kung Fu Panda franchise; two elegant examples of what animation can achieve with imagination and passion, compared to the Tex Avery-aping forced wackiness of Madagascar 1 and 2.
So was it Noah Baumbach who made Madagascar 3 such a delight? Who knows how much input he had into the development of this berserk threequel. It’s tempting to think not much, as the film shares two directors from the previous movies – Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath, with Darnell on co-writing duties – so you’d expect more of a continuity in terms of tone, even with a new writer onboard, especially as Idiocracy co-writer Etan Cohen joined the team for the second film and that turned out to be as annoying as the first. And yet here we are, with a similarly frenetic comedy, admittedly still committing some of the crimes of the first two, but this time tempered with a bit of grace among the hectic setpieces and ever-expanding cast of characters, notes of sadness and reflection that make the characters come alive more than the mechanical arcs of the previous movies.
But more than that, Madagascar rise far far above the first two installments by completely abandoning any semblance of restraint, launching itself without fear of audience alienation in a dizzying new direction. Where the franchise had occasionally hinted at being more ambitious than I thought, the temptation to rely on rote jokes and set-ups – hell, the second movie is basically an enormous Lion King pastiche – hadn’t been surmounted. But what the hell is going on in this movie, with its “nukular”-powered vans, banana-guns, reality-bending circus tigers, an eye-melting mid-movie Cirque-De-Soleil homage that reaches the level of breathtaking surrealistic uplift, and best of all, a demented antagonist voiced by an obviously merry Frances McDormand who is half-Terminator, half-Edith Piaf? Suddenly this franchise made perfect sense, and instead of being the resident idiot of the Dreamworks stable became its most anarchic pleasure. Also, it inspired this. Dammit.
While Tim Burton continued to rest on his laurels and gave us the entirely unsurprising Frankenweenie, Madagascar 3 proved it’s possible to make something that honours the expectations of the franchise’s fans while also refining the finished product, and while it’s not quite in the same league as SoC’s beloved Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, it will inevitably end up on our repeat-watch list. Will Madagascar be able to maintain this kind of invention through further installments? If they don’t get Baumbach back who knows, but you’d hope that Darnell will realise that holding back on the pop culture references and amping up the invention and lack of respect for convention is the key to this latest sequel’s immense financial – and critical – success. A return to its previous form will be a disappointment, but even so, this enormous surprise remains, and provides hope where there was none before.
Best Documentary of the Year: The Central Park Five. Or West of Memphis. Or Room 237, The Imposter, Or The Queen of Versailles
To those who don’t visit this site whenever I post something, you probably don’t know that Listmania! is an ongoing project with a format I try to follow annually. I suspect even my regular readers haven’t spotted that my award for Hammiest Performance by Michael Sheen award has been going for four years, and that I’m terrified that he won’t provide us with another crazy performance in 2013 (the one year he wasn’t in a Twilight movie was the year of Tron: Legacy, oh joy of joys: see below for further elucidation). What looks like a splurge of random comments and awards is actually done with a level of consistency that’s pretty much unwarranted, I’ll happily admit, but it gives me some pleasure to attempt that kind of fidgety anal continuity.
But for two years I’ve had to break that format, and it has greatly irked me. My Best of 2012 list didn’t feature my usual Best Documentary nomination for the second year running, but while the first omission was because I didn’t see any documentaries in 2011 (for shame!), this time it was because I’d seen five and they were all very good-to-excellent and I couldn’t make my mind up which would win out. The Central Park Five and West of Memphis are probably the ones on the bottom, but I honestly can’t decide between The Imposter, Room 237 or The Queen of Versailles. All three astonished me for various reasons; choosing a favourite has led to a long internal debate that wasn’t resolved by New Year’s Eve.
I’m tempted to say Room 237 is my choice for all the reasons laid out here; in short I find it easier to love this over attempts to depict real-world controversies as I don’t have to agonise over the difficulty in interpreting reality in a form that will inevitably fall prey to authorial distortion, especially as Room 237 is pretty much about differing interpretations. It’s also a beautifully edited work which even, in its best moments, creates an ominous atmosphere in keeping with the tone of its subject matter (The Shining for those who haven’t yet enjoyed it). It was easily one of the highlights of the 2012 London Film Festival, and I’m looking forward to seeing it again, but does that mean I should make it my pick of the year?
Of course, The Imposter is another film about interpretation of reality, though I don’t want to say too much about that for fear of spoiling some of its most delightfully shocking moments. Very little else this year has made me gasp in amazement as loudly as this, both during the movie and at the end, when I realised that the excellent score was by an acquaintance who I met when she was about to embark on her career scoring films. Though I’ve seen interesting Twitter interpretations of Bart Layton’s movie — both in terms of meaning and execution — by Mike D’Angelo and Geoff LaTulippe that have transformed my initial enthusiasm into doubt, I still regard this film incredibly highly. Some might not like how he manipulates the audience, but even taking into account my usual concerns over veracity and dramatisation it was an unforgettable experience at the time. I can’t deny that the showmanship of both Layton and the subject, Frédéric Bourdin, left me breathless.
Which was also what The Queen of Versailles managed too, but not in a particularly pleasurable way. Much as I don’t want to succumb to the reflexive class-warfare fury that I carry within myself like a briefcase full of bees, every so often you hear something about the rich that makes it almost impossible. Be it a story about executive bonuses, cruelty against underpaid employees, erosion of workers’ rights, or profligate and wasteful expenditure on extravagant and useless fripperies, I will allow myself an expletive-splurge and then try to move on without thinking that this human race is fucked, and the oncoming post-apocalyptic reboot might be a good thing.
So you can imagine that The Queen of Versailles was simultaneously very very hard to endure while also being a chance to totally indulge in frothing, screaming, ferocious anger; a Hundred-Minute Hate that I barely survived. Lauren Greenfield stumbled upon what could be The Story Of Our Age, a tale of hubris and disgusting lack of empathy, arrogance and cruelty and the price of the justice that the angriest of us pray for. This tale of the Siegel family shows them as vile, thoughtless parasites but also as recognisably flawed humans, greedy but lost, giving an extra dimension to the 2D villains we conjure up in our heads when we think of the rich and powerful.
And yet despite this skillfully rendered picture of the 1%, I still loathed them, even when I understood them, even when I thought, “Their loss is experienced by their employees a thousand-fold and I shouldn’t hope for their failure”, even when I realised they’re just the tip of an enormous Botox-filled iceberg and there are so many other dysfunctional, grasping, clueless rich scumbags in the world, happily throwing the rest of us into a landfill site in order to justify their comfort. No other movie has made me futilely scream so many epithets at the screen. Good job I watched it at home; if I’d seen it in public I would’ve been arrested for inciting a riot. These fucking assholes!
So which is my favourite of these movies? ProbablyThe House I Live In by Nicholas Jarecki. Okay, I haven’t seen it yet, even though it was on BBC4 a few days ago (I love you, BBC’s Storyville, you’re the best thing in the world), but in the interests of resolving a tie-breaker, and in possibly supporting what would otherwise have been a confusing metaphor by Quentin Tarantino when discussing his Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, it’ll do. Next year hopefully I’ll see some actually bad documentaries, because right now they’re such a novelty to me I have very little understanding of what makes them work or not work, which makes it hard to talk about them objectively.
Okay, my next Listmania! entry is a bit of a grumpy one, and much of it rests on my frustration with not only the cinematic output of 2012, but also my relationship with the online critical consensus, and the war that rages within me as I attempt to figure out how to tell a story by looking at the efforts of others. Please bear with me as I try to work this confusing introspective shit out.
For regular visitors to the Land of Caruso-Shades the realisation that Listmania! isn’t even halfway over yet won’t be too much of a surprise, but for everyone else who stumbles across this, I’ll wager the emotion is something akin to what it would be like if your soul wanted to vomit ectoplasm. Listmania! never ends! As soon as I finish the next ::checks WordPress dashboard:: ::winces:: three to four posts I’ll be thinking about the next series of Listmania! posts, wondering if the movies I see at the start of 2013 will still impress me by the end (fyi The Grey was one of the first films I saw in 2012 and I was still in love with it twelve months later. Good work, @Carnojoe.)
Of course this list took longer to do than I’d planned, as we were catching up on movies I’d wanted to watch for the main lists. Django! Zero Dark Thirty! The Paperboy! And two of them were very good, while one of them was… ::thousand-yard stare::, but whaddayaknow, I was right to put Avengers at the top of the best list. I honestly thought Django would easily beat it but to do that it would also have to beat Inglourious Basterds, and it doesn’t, at all, and I should have realised that because Basterds is a goddamn masterpiece. I liked Django all right but I didn’t flip for it, even despite the righteous carnage inflicted upon Whitey by the brilliantly realised hero.
In fact I think I liked Zero Dark Thirty more, which I didn’t expect. And yet even that wasn’t better than The Avengers. Yes, Jessica Chastain is very impressive and Kathryn Bigelow’s direction is forensically precise and admirable, and the entire cast is fantastic, full of SoC favourites from supernaturally charismatic Jason Clarke to Chris Pratt (utterly incapable of not giving a funny spin to every line) to Kyle Chandler and his Parted-Hair-of-Efficient-Bureaucracy, but it doesn’t feature the God of Thunder holding his arm out for a scarily long time, summoning Mjolnir through a flying helicarrier’s wall, and then twatting the Hulk with it. Nothing tops that.
Okay, here are the performances of the year, both good, bad and miscellaneous. I’ve spent way longer than usual on this but as ever I just know I’ve forgotten something. Sorry, whoever you were that I loved / hated. Quick caveat, as ever! When I say “Worst Performance” that is meant to direct my ire at the work in this performance alone, and is not a value judgement on them in general. Some of the people on those lists are actors / actresses I really like, but they were poorly directed or made poor choices and ruined or negatively affected the movie they were in. I’m sure they will understand.
Best Performance by an Actress: Marion Cotillard – Rust and Bone
Honorable Mentions:
Jennifer Lawrence – The Hunger Games
Andrea Riseborough – Shadow Dancer
Meryl Streep – Hope Springs
Emmanuelle Riva – Amour
Anna Kendrick – Pitch Perfect
Best Performance by an Actor: Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
Honorable Mentions:
Liam Neeson – The Grey
Denis Lavant – Holy Motors
Toby Jones – Berberian Sound Studio
Michael Fassbender - Prometheus
Tommy Lee Jones – Hope Springs
Best Supporting Performance by an Actress: Dame Judi Dench – Skyfall
Honorable Mentions:
Doona Bae (as Sonmi-451) – Cloud Atlas
Olivia Thirlby – Dredd
Linda Bright Clay – Seven Psychopaths
Mia Wasikowska – Lawless
Ann Dowd - Compliance
Best Supporting Performance by an Actor: Christopher Walken – Seven Psychopaths
Honorable Mentions:
Michael Shannon – Premium Rush
Leonardo DiCaprio – Django Unchained
James Gandolfini – Killing Them Softly
Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master
Gary Oldman – The Dark Knight Rises
Most Likable Ensemble Cast: The Avengers
Best Individual Voice Work: Hugh Grant – The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists
Best Voice Cast/Direction: Chris Fell / Sam Fell – ParaNorman
Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: Quvenzhané Wallis - Beasts of the Southern Wild
Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: Ernst Umhauer – Dans La Maison
Best Performance by a Singer (Female): Kylie Minogue - Holy Motors
Best Performance by a Singer (Male): Tom Waits – Seven Psychopaths
Best Performance by a Film Director: Werner Herzog – Jack Reacher
Best Cameo: Harry Dean Stanton – The Avengers
Honorable Mention: Vincent Gallo – 2 Days in Paris
Franchise-Saviour of the Year: Josh Brolin – Men in Black III
Best Recasting of the Year: Edward Norton (a not-quite-convincing Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk) becomes Mark Ruffalo (charming but dark, funny but tragic; the definitive Bruce Banner, in The Avengers)
Most Improved Performance Of The Year, Which Isn’t A Surprise As He Was Working With David Cronenberg And He’s Never Made A Movie That Didn’t Have An Excellent Lead Performance: Robert Pattinson – Cosmopolis
“I Think You Should Work Exclusively With The Wachowskis And / Or Tom Tykwer From Now On Because They Made You Raise Your Game 1000% For This” Performances of the Year: Halle Berry (as Luisa Rey and Meronym) – Cloud Atlas
Best Performance That Doesn’t Really Match The Tone Of The Film, Thus Leading To A Weird, Discombobulating Effect Where You Think, “This Is Really Good But I Kinda Hate It”: Tom Cruise - Rock of Ages
“See? I Told You He Could Act, But I Still Kept Getting Pushback Even After I Said He Was Amazing In The Lincoln Lawyer And Bernie Which, I Get It, Nobody Saw, But Now This Year Everyone’s Acting Like They Always Liked Him And I Call Bullshit On That, Cuz I Have A Very Long Memory For Shit Like This, You Have No Idea, So Don’t Come Around Here Acting Like You’re His Biggest Fan When He Starts Getting Oscar Buzz For Jeff Nichols’ Mud, I’m Fucking Serious” Performances of the Year: Matthew McConaughey - Magic Mike / Killer Joe / The Paperboy
“You’re So Much More Interesting As An Actor When You’re Not Just Shrieking ‘OPTIMUUUUUUUUS’ At A Gaffer Holding A Cardboard Cut-Out Of A Big Robot” Performance Of The Year – Shia LaBoeuf – Lawless
“You’re So Much More Interesting As An Actress When You’re Not Having To Wastefully Bounce Your Personality Off A Charisma Tar-Pit Like Gerard Butler And You Get To Work With A Director / Writer Who Trusts You And Gives You Funny Material” Performance Of The Year – Jennifer Aniston – Wanderlust
Honorary McConaughey Award For Being So Much Better Than People Give Him Credit For, Especially In This: Seann William Scott – Goon
“I Really Hope You Get To Have The Career My Hero Chiwetel Ejiofor Almost Got Before Ending Up Playing Second Fiddle To Actors Significantly Less Talented And Appealing Than Him Because Dammit, You’re Just As Good” Performances of the Year: David Oyelowo – Jack Reacher / The Paperboy (and Lincoln and Red Tails, which I haven’t seen yet)
“Good Work Making This Undistinguished Movie Seem Better Than It Was, But I Do Hope You Get To Diversify Soon Because Even Though This Incremental Step Away From Your Stock Character Is A Promising Move You Need To Really Push It Now, IMO, Or You’ll End Up Like Ken Jeong, Just Doing The Same Thing Over And Over Again, And Look Where That Got Him, I Mean He’s Been In Two Michael Bay Movies In A Row, And I Don’t Think That’ll Ever Happen To You, Because Bay Only Ever Recognises Women If They’ve Been In Their Smalls In FHM, But Something Similarly Restrictive Might Happen, And We Don’t Want That” Performance of the Year: Aubrey Plaza – Safety Not Guaranteed
Scenestealing Actress of the Year: Anne Hathaway - The Dark Knight Rises
Scenestealing Actor of the Year: Bill Nighy – Wrath of the Titans
Best Career Moves of the Year (Actress): Marion Cotillard - The Dark Knight Rises / Rust and Bone
Honorable Mention: Emily Blunt - Looper / Your Sister’s Sister (and less so, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen / The Five-Year Engagement)
Best Career Moves of the Year (Actor): Channing Tatum - Magic Mike / The Vow / Haywire / 21 Jump Street
Honorable Mention: Scoot McNairy - Argo / Killing Them Softly
Worst Performance by an Actress: Rosamund Pike – Jack Reacher
Dishonorable Mentions:
Julia Roberts - Mirror, Mirror
Reece Witherspoon – This Means War
Jennifer Westfeldt – Friends With Kids
Milla Jovovich – Resident Evil: Retribution
Katherine Heigl - One For The Money
Worst Performance by an Actor: Tyler Perry – Alex Cross
Dishonorable Mentions:
Ben Stiller – The Watch
Chris Pine – This Means War
John Cusack – The Raven
Ryan Reynolds – Safe House
Adam Scott – Friends With Kids
Worst Supporting Performance by an Actress: Chelsea Handler – This Means War
Dishonorable Mentions:
Alice Eve – The Raven
Elizabeth Banks – What To Expect When You’re Expecting
Rebel Wilson – Pitch Perfect
Famke Janssen – Taken 2
Eva Green – Dark Shadows
Worst Supporting Performance by an Actor: Vince Vaughn – The Watch
Dishonorable Mentions:
Ed Burns – Alex Cross
Dev Patel – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Ben Mendelsohn – The Dark Knight Rises
Rhys Ifans - The Five-Year Engagement
Luke Evans – The Raven
Least Likeable Ensemble Cast: Project X
Worst Individual Voice Work: Ed Helms – The Lorax
Worst Voice Cast /Direction: Chris Renaud / Kyle Balda – The Lorax (Bonus fuck-you’s for video linked to Mazda’s YouTube account)
Franchise-Doomer of the Year: Taylor Kitsch – John Carter / Battleship
Worst Performance by a Singer (Female): Macy Gray – The Paperboy
Worst Performance by a Singer (Male): Ben Drew (aka Planb, whatever the hell that means) – The Sweeney
Worst Performance by a Film Director: Seth McFarlane – Ted
Worst Cameo: Chuck Norris - The Expendables 2
Most Wasted Actress: Naomie Harris - Skyfall
Most Wasted Actor: Brendan Gleeson - Safe House / The Raven
Most Entertaining Performance by an Actress in a Bad Movie: Erika Sawajiri – Helter Skelter
Honorable Mention: Rosemary DeWitt – The Watch
Most Entertaining Performance by an Actor in a Bad Movie: Nicolas Cage – Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
Honorable Mention: Will Forte – The Watch
Most Bafflingly Busy Actress of the Year: Maggie Grace (Taken 2 / Lockout / The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2)
Most Bafflingly Busy Actor of the Year: Mark Duplass (Safety Not Guaranteed / People Like Us / Your Sister’s Sister / Zero Dark Thirty)
Oddest Recasting Of The Year, As I Didn’t Know They Had Hair Dye In The Greece Of Ancient Myth: Andromeda in Clash of the Titans (played by brunette Alexa Davalos) becomes Andromeda in Wrath of the Titans (blonde Rosamund Pike)
Best Accent: Emily Blunt – Looper
Worst Accent: Alison Brie – The Five-Year Engagement
Worst Accent in Cloud Atlas: Tom Hanks (as Dermot Huggins) - Cloud Atlas
Dishonorable Mention: Jim Sturgess (as “Highlander”) - Cloud Atlas
Other Dishonorable Mentions: Seriously, we could be here all day – Cloud Atlas
Most Offensive Accent / Dodgy Impersonation Of Peter Sellers In The Party: Dev Patel – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Dishonorable Mention: Lockout (solely due to the presence of Joe Gilgun)
“Where Have You Been?” Actor of the Year: R. Lee Ermey - The Watch
Best Performance By Hott Sam Rockwell: Seven Psychopaths
Best Performance By Bruce Willis: Moonrise Kingdom
Worst Performance By Bruce Willis: The Cold Light of Day
Best Performance By A Chin: Karl Urban – Dredd
Good Enough Performance That I Now Have To Forget My Usual Antipathy, Without Which I Feel A Bit Lost: Jim Sturgess (as Adam Ewing and Hae-Joo Chang) – Cloud Atlas
“Okay, Everybody Loves You Again Now, So Don’t Fuck It Up This Time” Performance of the Year: Jamie Foxx – Django Unchained
“More Of This And Less Of This, Please” Actress of the Year: Jessica Biel (More dramas like The Tall Man where she gets to challenge herself, less formulaic actioners like Total Recall which require her to do precisely nothing except be rescued by the male protagonist over and over again.)
“More Of This And Less Of This, Please” Actor of the Year: Chris Rock (More actual attempts at creating a character — or excellent beard growth, whichever makes you happier — in movies like 2 Days in New York, less paycheck-cashing in offensive dogshit like What To Expect When You’re Expecting.)
Hammiest Performance By Michael Sheen: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part Two
Hammiest Performance By Charlize Theron: Snow White and the Huntsman
Hammiest Performance By Russell Crowe: The Man With The Iron Fists
Hammiest Performance By Nicole Kidman: The Paperboy
Next up: crew contributions of the year. I’m hesitantly predicting we’re past the halfway mark, and it’s not February yet. This is progress.
Here I am, living in the past as usual. It’s 2013 in London, but I’m still writing about 2012, a year that was in general better than the last (which was pretty crummy) but not particularly amazing. No lottery wins, no late-blooming development of psychic powers; just The Grind. Sadly that malaise spread to my enjoyment of films. No fear; this isn’t another end-of-year “crisis in cinema” posts, filled with dire warnings about piracy or 48fps (which I’m still undecided on) or how the kids these days don’t enjoy proper entertainment like The Dambusters or any of that shit. All that happened is that I built up a bunch of movies in my head and they didn’t live up to those expectations. No biggie, and it’s all on me, but by the end of the year this disaffection was becoming a real pain in the arse. Do I ever dare look forward to a film again? I’m gonna find that hard to do.
I’m not gonna fart around like I normally do; it’s late and I just put Anchorman on so I’m only half-paying attention to this semtance. Here’s where I traditionally complain about cinema release dates and how punitive they are if you live outside the US, so here goes: five months for Cloud Atlas? Four for Wreck-It Ralph? Dozens of other movies have been delayed this year, and to be honest I feel stupid writing up this list before seeing Zero Dark Thirty or Lincoln or especially Django Unchained. How can I think of this as definitive when films by my favourite filmmakers remain out of my reach? Will this list be invalid by the end of January?
And yes, I know, the ways in which studios are attempting to capitalise on increased revenues from overseas mean films are now starting to come out in Europe before the US, but this year the biggest examples of that were The Avengers and Skyfall, both of which were out over here a couple of weeks before the US. I hear some say there’s an equivalence here but two weeks is frustrating while a four month delay is absolute bullshit. I thought I was the only person who ever moaned about these things but even Cory Doctorow got in on the action (thanks to @catvincent for the heads-up on that piece). Everything in that makes so much sense to me but still we put up with the old ways.
Okay, moaning over. Here’s the (sadly incomplete) list. No disrespect to any of these films. Naturally, if I didn’t like them I wouldn’t have included them.
25. Your Sister’s Sister
This year Sundance came to London, complete with overpriced tickets, interesting documentaries, and a handful of fiction movies that sounded less so. As ever Shades of Caruso finds itself struggling to love the output of the US independent scene when compared to the bigger studio releases, especially when the new voices showcased at Sundance often seem to provide films as formulaic as their derided big-budget brethren. Lynn Shelton’s chamber-piece Your Sister’s Sister, in which a grieving man becomes dragged into the dramas connecting two sisters, was not on the Sundance list; more’s the pity. At times this looks and feels like every other movie of its kind, right down to casting the seemingly ubiquitous Mark Duplass as the feckless interloper, but Shelton’s a better filmmaker than most, and here does wonders with limited means, supplying all the quiet character work of the best of this genre, but with a populist’s touch for the dramatic. Seemingly sedate for the most part, Shelton saves the fireworks for a startling end-of-second-act blowout, aided by magnificent work from Emily Blunt and Rosemary DeWitt. Only an underwhelming third act prevents this from getting higher in the list, yet after the dramatic lull we at least reach a sweetly satisfying denouement, a gentle sigh of resignation and love you don’t see often enough. It left me with a glow that lasted for days.
24. Killer Joe
The one thing you can count on with a late-career William Friedkin film is that it’ll be muscular, and will likely feature at least one scene that makes your hair stand on end. Killer Joe goes one better than that; it features a final act so full on that when it was over I literally didn’t know what to think or do. To be fair the whole movie, adapted by Tracy Letts from his first play, is pitched at such a weird level of energy that the viewer should know all bets are off. As a filmed play the performances from almost everyone are heightened and emphatic in a similar way to David Cronenberg’s stagy Cosmopolis, but while that was bloodless, Killer Joe is almost dementedly provocative. Performances like this can carry a movie away into quirky irrelevance but thankfully there is a rock to hold it down; Matthew McConaughey continues his campaign to become the most interesting actor in Hollywood with a riveting portrayal of a malevolent scumbag with a baffling sense of dark morality. His final acts turn this from a neo-noir into a macabre spoof of family life, or a satirical depiction of the terrible things we would do to our loved ones to survive in a brutal world. I’m not sure I can even call this worthy of inclusion here, except that it got my pulse pounding like nothing else this year.
23. Moonrise Kingdom
Fantastic Mr. Fox might have been Wes Anderson’s children’s film, but it’s arguable that his follow-up is likely as much in tune with the viewpoint of a child as his adaptation of Roald Dahl’s tale. Like some kind of gaudy yellow reworking of the stories of Arthur Ransome and Enid Blyton, Anderson throws his two very young lovers into an adventure across a humdrum island devoid of any magic or mystery until their imaginations and new-found optimism transform the claustrophobic environs into a wonderland. It’s the clash between their defiant enthusiasm for life and the beaten-down and jaded adults that provides this film’s highlights, with Bruce Willis and Ed Norton on especially good form as two men trying to make the most of a pretty crappy hand, before finding a spark of life in their attempts to help the lovestruck couple. And yet this is the least sentimental of Anderson’s movies, while also serving as his least cynical; a miraculous juggling of tone and intent from a director whose eyebrow often seems perpetually arched. It’s also another piece of evidence for SoC’s argument that Anderson is the finest and most intuitively brilliant comedic director of the current generation. Yes yes, I know, no one agrees, whatevs. But seriously, for your consideration, the trampoline shot. Come on!
22. Premium Rush
How frustrating it must be to be seen as merely “competent” by a critical monolith that doesn’t have time or patience to appreciate the craft of a filmmaker who instinctively knows their shit. David Koepp has been writing deceptively elegant populist screenplays for years, in addition to honing his directorial skills with a number of interesting films that almost hit the spot. Premium Rush is his first directorial effort that absolutely nails it, with a confident visual style, an intoxicating sense of momentum reminiscent of Speed, and the ability to pull sprightly and appealing performances from a well-chosen cast. There’s little else to it than the thrill of a chase, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s cocky bike messenger pursued by a magnificently, hypnotically unhinged Michael Shannon, but Koepp manages the action brilliantly and has fun filling in the margins of the tale, capturing the edginess of a dangerous but vibrant New York while portraying the community of the couriers as a sub-culture with its own rules and priorities. Mid-movie pacing problems can be forgiven when everything else in this exuberantly kinetic thriller is handled so deftly. And Shannon’s work cannot be praised enough. This should have attracted a bigger audience just for him alone.
21. Killing Them Softly
Everything’s going to hell in a handbasket; that much we know for sure (even though it possibly isn’t). Andrew Dominik is more sure than most. His follow-up to the magisterial The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is not about to hold back in its portrayal of America as a morally bankrupt, soul-deadened wasteland populated by venal opportunists, depressed to the point of inactivity, educationally backward and entitled, and he certainly isn’t about to miss an opportunity to drive the point home by including footage of the 2008 election campaign. It’s the kind of point-hammering that would normally drive SoC away, but perhaps I was particularly receptive to those sentiments on the day of viewing, or perhaps I was swayed by the bravura setpieces – such as the brutal, degrading beating and murder of one character, no spoilers – or the slow descent into numbness of James Gandolfini’s morbidly depressed hitman, or Brad Pitt’s increasing frustration with a culture that doesn’t value talent and instead seeks a quick buck. The sentiment expressed in this excoriating blast of fury at a broken society might be delivered with the smugness of a disgusted outsider, but to see Pitt’s electrifying delivery of his key speech is to feel like you just got told, son. It’s the kind of electrifying scene that becomes legendary.
20. Berberian Sound Studio
As with a number of films on this list, there’s a good chance this would rank higher after a few extra viewings, certainly to see if there is some sense to be made of the exasperating third act. If you can even call it that; writer-director Peter Strickland’s fealty to the weird atmosphere conjured up earlier appears to have taken over his mind as completely as the terrifying events in the in-movie movie The Equestrian Vortex do to poor sound engineer Gilderoy, leading to a dereliction of duty right before the end. But what menace, what madness, what delirious berserk horror he provides before that. Cleverly keeping The Equestrian Vortex offscreen, we’re forced to see this film through the eyes and ears of Toby Jones’ horrified technician, a man out of his element and soon unable to cope with the unfamiliar and hostile world he has been thrust into; the typical quiet middle-Englander who thinks of Europe as being the home of insidious decadence. Strickland ratchets up the tension with all sorts of visual and aural trickery, creating a disturbing world with a few sets and well-utillised darkness; this is one of the most technically accomplished films from a British director in a long time. Kudos to all involved, but special praise for Jones, who gives one of the performances of the year, all repressed rage and confusion, sympathetic and infuriating in equal measure.
19. Sightseers
It’s hard to think of another movie in recent years that oozes Britishness as much as this one. As with Berberian Sound Studio, Ben Wheatley has made a character study of what makes the classic British underdog tick, but whereas Peter Strickland’s film isolated its protagonist in Italy and made him weak, Sightseers gives us a murderous, gradually empowered couple to rival Malick’s Kit and Holly, or Tarantino/Stone’s Mickey and Mallory. Two old-at-heart lovers find themselves on the road, travelling north through England, killing those who break their unwritten but familiar codes, becoming emboldened by their love for each other and their transgressions. At first this seems like a simple translation of American homicidal road movies into a British vernacular but by its magnificently unhinged finale it feels like its own thing; a snapshot of everything that is ugly about our nation’s soul, with resentment aimed at those around us and at ourselves, all taking place against some of the country’s most beautiful landscapes. It’s also hilarious, and as quotable as that similarly bleak national self-portrait Withnail and I. With luck this clever and strangely lovable two-hander, deftly written by its stars Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, will find as large an audience.
18. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Peter Jackson’s urge to turn every project into some kind of epic has worked against him before, which is why even the idea that he was going to transform JRR Tolkien’s relatively slender children’s tale into a trilogy created such a backlash. Seeing the first installment places that decision into context; this is no longer a six movie adaptation of four books, more a world-building exercise for the confident New Zealander as he expands upon Tolkien’s tales. There’s a persuasive argument that that’s hubris but these projects are beginning to feel like a compilation of decades of visual and emotional reactions to Tolkien’s complex world, a smorgasbord of interpretations from readers and designers that brings something new to life; a fusion of literary work and fan appropriation that lives and breathes in a way even Tolkien never imagined, reminiscent of the mix of Burroughs and Cronenberg that gave us the movie Naked Lunch. The alterations to the original text are once more shrewd and exciting, his casting insights have again paid off, and even though even this fan can see that some trimming might have helped, what we’ve been given is yet another thrilling demonstration that Jackson is the pre-eminent fantasy filmmaker on the planet, and a persuasive argument that he should fight for the rights to The Silmarillion and keep making these films for the rest of his life. I’m sure he’d hate that, but some of us would be well chuffed.
17. Rust and Bone
You can’t go from making the greatest prison drama of recent times to a love story without bringing some of that grit with you, and Jacques Audiard’s adaptation of Craig Davidson’s short story is simultaneously tender and abrasive, like its beaten-down lovers. Bare-knuckle boxer Ali and gravely-injured Stéphanie seem like they’ve never even understood love before; their slow awakening to its possibilities, in a world of distrust and casual cruelty, would seem trite were it not for Audiard’s sure hand and the remarkable work from Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard. Their commitment to rehabilitate the critically derided love story genre and their low-key performances yield surprising dividends. Rust and Bone achieves moments of astonishing beauty amidst the grime of lives poorly lived; shadows like bruises pushed back by rays of blinding light provided by cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine. There’s even beauty in the brutality that galvanises and saves our protagonists; our rubbernecking fascination in the awful things people do to survive cheekily justified by Audiard’s eye for the transcendental, and the luminous Cotillard’s triumphant, well-earned return to life. This can be dismissed as mere melodrama, but those crimson brush-strokes, and the conviction of all involved, turn it into something more than mere potboiler, a romance for the austerity age.
16. Compliance
It’s hard to shock an audience these days, but Craig Zobel has managed it with this simple but horrifying account of the Mount Washington prank call crime of 2004. The writer-director handles the slowly escalating tension with commendable confidence, his bravest choice being to pace this movie so deliberately, taking the time to let the horror of the events (the TRUE events, don’t forget) sink in and percolate in the nerves of the audience. Watching this with a crowd of people was the most startling cinematic experience of the year, with numerous walkouts and furious tirades aimed at the screen from viewers who couldn’t handle the slow degradation of the protagonists. Very little in recent years plays on our expectations as well as this, but while some critics have attacked it for being a purposeless exercise in baiting the crowd, this remarkable thriller’s only real fault is to have come out now and not during the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq, when Zobel’s points about the ease with which people can be manipulated into doing terrible things might have seemed more timely. As it is, this is a memorable achievement, an experiment in which the events on screen are symbolically acted out by those who watch it; the ultimate in meta-narrative trickery, with our horrified reactions becoming part of the story. Seeing it at home defeats this film’s bold purpose. If you can see it in a roomful of disgusted co-voyeurs, you’ll understand its impact.
15. Painless
Juan Carlos Medina’s directorial debut, the tale of a village torn apart by the birth of several “painless” children, and a family hiding a dark secret, does many things brilliantly; it captures the agony of a country tainted by its terrible past, exorcises that pain by channeling it through metaphor, and offers hope that forgetting these terrors can lead to a new future for a generation now free of the experience of the Civil War. Just for achieving those things it would be remarkable, but for making something with such serious intent in a genre that has, for a few years, seemed to be coasting on found-footage exorcism movies and endless repetitive zombie rampages, Medina’s ambition shines even brighter. That’s before we get into his mastery of atmosphere, his skillful manipulation of the audience –especially during the almost unwatchably tense middle-section — and the bold creation of Berkano, a character surely ready to join the pantheon of horror greats. The bravura, operatic finale is a flourish well-earned; this is the best horror movie of the new decade – emotional, intellectual, and unflinching, made with an elegant touch that is easily a rival to new horror masters Del Toro and Bayona.
14. Jack Reacher
This kind of hoary thriller, based on the questionable novels that target armchair libertarian gun nuts who distrust all forms of authority except that which is dispensed by uncomplicated common-sense killing machines, is exactly the sort of thing that makes Shades of Caruso want to vomit up both lungs, and Chris McQuarrie’s adaptation of Lee Childs’ One Shot is no exception. Our hero is a macho force-of-nature full of old-fashioned values, with a dash of slut-shaming and a damsel-rescuing fetish thrown in for good measure. Everyone wants to fuck him or be him; Jack Reacher is a MAN’S MAN. This is the bad bit of the movie. The good bits? Almost everything else, from the shrewd casting (Rosamund Pike aside), to the attention to detail, to the exquisitely choreographed setpieces. The action is believably messy, the central mystery is intricate but comprehensible, and the inevitable pro-capital punishment argument is arguably tempered by the final scene. The retrograde politics repulse, but the old-school sharpness and focus of the filmmaking is undeniably thrilling to behold. To go back in time to a world of starkly shot and constructed thrillers of this calibre entails taking the rough of the past with the smooth, but considering how rarely we get smooth these days, McQuarrie deserves credit for at least taking the time to transform macho lead into cinema gold.
13. Argo
For those of us who have eagerly followed Ben Affleck’s career since he began to show promise, for those of us who pooh-poohed all of the mean gossip about how he and Matt Damon’s Oscar-winning screenplay for Good Will Hunting was really the work of William Goldman, for those of us who loved him in Changing Lanes and Hollywoodland and even Daredevil (God help us), oh my, this has been a long time coming. After Gone Baby Gone and The Town were described as being “surprisingly well-made considering it’s by Affleck”, the great man returned with his strongest and most confident movie yet and finally, FINALLY, everyone started giving him a break. To be honest this incredible tale of the rescue of six Iranian Embassy staff would be hard to screw up, considering the astonishing details about the fake sci-fi movie Argo and the crazy plot to fool the hardline regime of Iran, but Affleck goes above and beyond, offering up a riveting piece of big-screen entertainment, maintaining suspense from the first scene right through to the end while modulating the tone with a light touch. Add to that a cast packed full of beloved character actors — with special attention to lovable Bryan Cranston — and you’ve got the cheekiest film of the year; part heavily-detailed period piece with modern relevance, part adventure, with a touch of Wag The Dog thrown in.
12. The Bourne Legacy
Skyfall, and the two films before it, impressed Bond fans by taking the popular hero back to his beginnings and recasting his historical failings as consequences of his adventures, with a good man broken down and rebuilt in new form. The first three Bourne movies followed a similar path, with a lost man finding himself, ending with a journey back to the room in which he was “born”, followed by a metaphorical rebirth. The fourth Bourne movie reverses this trend, with a new character given a new lease of life by evil men, made to do evil things, but terrified of returning to his original self. As with the previous films the enemy here is the banal self-preservation instinct of venal bureaucrats, but for once they have done one good thing; delivering a man from oblivion, giving him the tools to make a future for himself; yet another example of how the Bourne movies defy expectation and complicate what could have been simple. That is pleasure enough, but Tony Gilroy also provides a masterclass in writing suspense, withholding information skilfully to build tension in the early scenes, keeping characters in the dark about others’ motivation (another convention of the series), before laying all the cards on the table with a breathtaking finale on the roads and rooftops of Manila. Dismissed as a misstep by critics during the summer, this espionage classic is due a revisit. Hopefully we’ll have time to realise that Jeremy Renner’s Aaron Cross is a worthy replacement for the franchise’s titular hero.
11. John Carter
Could it be SoC’s reflexive love of the underdog that saw this blog go out of its way to defend Andrew Stanton’s obscenely expensive love letter to pulp sci-fi? Was it sympathy that triggered a million tweets of desperate pleading for audiences to give this instantly dated old-school adventure a chance? Or was it a sense of injustice that something crafted with such affection for the source material and – at times – such storytelling skill could be dismissed with such ease by reviewers who likely got the scent of an easy kill in their nostrils? Perhaps it was just relief that, in a year where big-screen entertainments, for the most part, delivered so little, there was someone out there who was willing to put their reputation on the line to tell a tale that they loved and to do it with brio and enthusiasm and crowd-pleasing confidence. John Carter might have ended up the punchline of a million shitty jokes, but for a growing legion of fans this was the real deal; space opera with scale and imagination and spirit, light and uncynical and emotionally honest. It’s everything critics have been complaining has been missing from cinema, done with an open heart and the buccaneering spirit of the Golden Era of film; a Burt Lancaster carouser in a digital shell. This should have been loved from the moment it came out, but no matter. That love will come in time.
10. Dans La Maison
Storytellers prone to agonising over the conventions and expectations they need to consider as they practice their craft will likely find Francois Ozon’s dizzying adaptation of Juan Mayorga’s play The Boy In The Last Row a difficult film to watch, but they should swallow their pride and do it anyway. Much of this tale of a soured marriage, and how it is enlivened by tales spun by a mysteriously-motivated schoolboy, focuses on satirising the class prejudices of its smug middle-class characters, and treating the film as such is rewarding in itself, thanks to Ozon’s deft touch and witty approach. Nevertheless this is also about how we view life through the prism of expectation, either through the rigid rules of storytelling taught by Fabrice Luchini’s amusingly humourless protagonist, or the eagerness to treat the outside world as a display to sate our voyeurism; the world as stage, filled with people who forget that they are players as well as participants. If Haneke had directed this it would have been a gloomy parable; maybe better, maybe worse. Gratitude is due, then, to Ozon for whipping up something lightly entertaining yet multi-layered, critical but hopeful, cautionary but compassionate. It will reward repeat viewings for years to come.
9. Seven Psychopaths
You could see this as the typical balls-out, unrestrained debut of a director with more ideas on his mind than he knows what to do with, and in a way you’d be right. Martin McDonagh wrote this before In Bruges, before a number of his plays, and the feeling that he was running riot in his study, cramming jokes and setpieces and thoughts about writing into a screenplay that barely has time for it all. But if this doesn’t have the focus of The Pillowman or In Bruges, it does have the charm of an eager puppy. The way McDonagh picks at the mindset of the writer, the laziness of the mainstream story factory, and the process of transforming reality and previously-absorbed stories into a new form is endearingly frank; anyone who has ever written for a living would probably recognise the desperation and egotism of Colin Farrell’s brilliantly played anti-hero. Even more pleasing is the cast, all of whom are on top form, especially Shades of Caruso favourite Sam Rockwell at his very best, and Christopher Walken, here giving his strongest and most moving performance since Catch Me If You Can. McDonagh’s games with genre and narrative are a pleasing puzzle for the mind, but his craft as a director is improving; no one else could pull off the film’s surprisingly powerful final scenes while still keeping the tone this light.
8. The Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan’s ambitions from one movie to the next have increased so much that surely the only thing he could do to top the scale of The Dark Knight trilogy is to cram the rise and fall of the Roman Empire into one four-hour epic. What makes The Dark Knight Rises a success, however, is not the eye-popping shots of a city at war with itself, or the image of the Bat soaring above the streets through concrete canyons, engines and rockets booming. The masterstroke is grounding the trilogy, turning what could have merely been a story about heroes and villains into the tale of a boy getting over his grief, locating the source of his unhappiness and overcoming it through sheer force of will. This simple arc would be satisfying enough, but it also serves as a warning to the audience about the consequences of giving in to despair. Bane represents a lie that the society we have built for ourselves is only a prison, a lie easily believed when the institutions we have built become corrupted by human venality. The Dark Knight trilogy has shown the people of Gotham inspired by a symbol to say that they can do better, if they say no loud enough while never losing their humanity to despair. If superheroes are meant to show the nobility of the hero, and the possibilities created by courage, then The Dark Knight Rises is possibly the ultimate example of this message.
7. Cabin in the Woods
Whoever thought Scream had the last word in deconstructing the horror genre ::says nothing but points at own chest with a look of regret:: was wrong. Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon managed to do it with even more wit and energy than we had hoped. But their greatest achievement was to take a clever idea and run with it, to run so damn far that you never think they’ll stop. For a writer to see an explosion of ideas this extreme, and yet so grounded in honouring a single core concept – that this film will link the repetitive and necessary conventions of a subset of genre to every other subset you could imagine, creating an ur-myth of horror that accepts that genre is about honouring conventions because of our psychological make-up as well as in a completely fantastical made-up sense that explains the plot of this specific story – is to fall in love with the telling of stories all over again. They put SO MUCH STUFF in this movie, you guys, and it ALL WORKS COHERENTLY. Watching this is like being a part of the greatest and most satisfying brainstorming session ever, with the bonus that the finished product is not only clever but effective as a horror movie and also still hysterically funny. It’s the complete package; a story about story that’s also just a really good story. In a year in which meta-fiction proliferated, this was the most deliriously enjoyable example.
6. Cloud Atlas
As a fan of David Mitchell’s ambitious multi-layered novel this adaptation by Tom Tykwer and Wachowskis Lana and Andy had a lot to live up to, and for the most part it succeeds. Certainly this is a masterclass in editing, penny-pinching and thematic ambition, going all out to honour the book’s ideas about pan-temporal connection by using the same actors in each of the film’s six timeframes. Perhaps on first viewing this can be seen as a mistake; picking out familiar faces obscured by layers of make-up can be distracting. But then this is a movie not afraid to risk failure, and so we swing back and forth from one tone to the other, from farce to high drama, and all the while with the same disarming, open-eyed sincerity. Anyone with even a grain of cynicism will take nothing from this film, citing its simple message of love and hope as the kind of thing a fool cherishes. But a simple idea, told with this level of narrative complexity, deserves all the praise it can get. Ignore the idea of souls passing through the ages; this is a story that heralds the accretion of ideas across the ages through the narratives of our lives, passed on to those around us, and with those ideas the possibility that courage is transferable, and goodness cumulative. To do this Tykwer and the Wachowskis had to create a story like a web, one whose connections will only become completely apparent with further viewing; a perfect film for our connected and complicated age.
5. The Grey
Marketed as part of Liam Neeson’s late-career action renaissance, audiences must have been mystified at Joe Carnahan’s survival tale, in which the actual act of enduring horrors is secondary to exploring the idea of whether it’s even worth fighting against impossible odds. There’s no wolf-punching here, merely the struggle to squeeze the last few drops out of a life before death wins; a message far less palatable than the bluntly Manichaean battles Neeson usually fights. This high-mindedness has drawn its own criticisms; how dare this pulpy B-movie try to address the most important issues facing every human? But the disparity between the macho natures of the characters and the vulnerable, terrified survivors they become is arguably the ideal way to show how imminent death can humble all of us, leading to a final act of devastating power. Mamet may have given us a similarly symbolic tale of man vs. nature in his survival epic The Edge but even that most perceptive of masculine dramatists doesn’t approach what is accomplished here. Neeson has been great value in recent years but this remarkable, grueling movie represents his finest hour. We expected an ironic diversion, but Joe Carnahan and his star managed to achieve a kind of brutal, startling profundity. It’s a game-changer for both of them; let’s hope it leads to more ambitious work in the future.
4. Wolf Children
Pixar’s Brave was an interesting attempt to dramatise the love between a mother and her child within a magical framework, at times achieving breathtaking beauty and insight, but notably complicating an otherwise simple tale with anthropomorphic transmogrifications and such like. Your opinion of the movie may vary depending on how you take such things. Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children does similar things to Brenda Chapman and Mark Andrews’ Highland tale, showing the bond between a mother and her children, whose animal nature makes bringing them up even more challenging than usual. It also strikes right at the heart with a directness to equal the opening scene of Up, except stretched out to two hours. The result is exhausting; an assault on the senses and the emotions that left SoC weeping as if bereaved. With admirable honesty Hosoda — aided by a glorious score by Takagi Masakatsu — presents young motherhood as a struggle that can only end in loss, bringing pain leavened by the love and joy of family and community, while also taking time out to honour the fantastical nature of his protagonists without ever losing sight of the story’s emotional core. The delicate skill with which Hosoda dramatises young Hana’s trials is beyond doubt; whether we will ever recover from this lachrymose onslaught, this instantly cherishable masterpiece, remains to be seen.
3. The Master
Paul Thomas Anderson’s spiky movie expands on There Will Be Blood‘s loose narrative structure, presenting a tale of healing in which no one is healed, a tale of education in which no one learns anything, a tale of love in which no one finds love; a choice that has inevitably frustrated many. Freddie Quell and Lancaster Dodd’s peculiar rapport is less a meeting of minds, more the desperate embrace of two men lost in a storm, turning this into a tale of disappointment, both men holding onto a doomed relationship for selfish reasons, almost to the point of destroying each other. To tell that story, Anderson has created a drama that deflates as their friendship dissolves, a platonic love story where happy endings come from the characters realising they’re wasting each others’ time. How fitting that their only talents are for obfuscation and intoxication, in a movie that hides its purpose – the empty life of the charlatan – within scenes as brilliantly baffling as Dodd’s seemingly endless and ineffective deconstruction of his charge, or in a mise-en-scene so perfectly rendered by David Crank, Jack Fisk and Amy Wells, so luminously lit by Mihai Malaimare Jr., so energised by Phoenix and Hoffman at their very best. If There Will Be Blood is the tale of a man who loses his soul and doesn’t care, The Master is a story about two men who have lost sight of their souls but are too stupid and proud to realise it. Such desperation is rarely dramatised, and never before has it been done with such mesmerising and unpredictable immediacy.
2. Holy Motors
Is it possible to like a movie without having a concrete idea of what its intent actually is? Leos Carax’s critically adored festival crowdpleaser is a million mysteries at once, an anti-narrative sunburst of imagery, a handful of short stories that play with audience expectation in the most playful of ways. And that’s the key to appreciating Holy Motors, at least for this viewer. Carax sets his muse, the magical Denis Lavant, loose on Paris in a series of vignettes that set out to play to our expectations before dancing away in bizarre directions, all of which make a perfect dream-like sense, like an image caught at the edge of our vision. So is it a paean to the imminent death of cinema? Does it embrace the digital future? There’s enough in the movie to argue for either case, but also enough for interpretations that Carax is as interested in the stories we all live as in the ones we see on the screen. Lavant’s protagonist is a performer dancing to the tune of an unseen, possibly celestial organ grinder, but is he also just a human, transforming through a number of personas each day as we all do? Is Carax paying homage to the medium of cinema, or is he drawing attention to the audience, and how we live our lives in the light of stories remembered, where we find ourselves lost when real life takes unpredictable turns untold by our cinematic gods? Holy Motors will inevitably flourish upon further viewing, to be plundered for new ideas and interpretations, but this isn’t a barrier to immediate enjoyment. Carax’s joyous melange of image and sound, idea and mood, is welcoming, filled with a warmth and wit rare in art cinema, offering dreams within dreams within glorious dreams.
1. The Avengers
Shades of Caruso knows what it likes, and it rarely feels the urge to apologise for those likes. Yet this may be the most defensive entry in this list, simply because with all the will in the world I cannot argue that Joss Whedon’s superhero epic is a better film than Holy Motors, or The Master. It has a clumsy first hour or so. The plotline in which the team rebels against the machinations of SHIELD is underpowered. Whedon’s eye as a director is not the most reliable. The shady guys on the other end of Nick Fury’s phone feel like artificial obstacles and particularly stupid human beings. And so on, and so on. But my god, look at what it gets right. Look at the ambition of the Marvel Studios project, making these huge, gallumphing movies line up so that we could get this unifying vision at the end of it. Look at the wit on display, the dedication to bringing an entire universe of possibility to life, the effort to understand these icons as distinct and exciting viable characters. I mean, it’s like we got a movie with seven Indiana Jones’ in the lead, they’re that well drawn and likeable, and yet we take this incredible achievement for granted. Okay, I’m getting overexcited here but honestly, to most people this might be little more than a big summer event movie, one with a few nice jokes and some cool action. But to a few of us, this is the electrifying depiction of a childhood fantasy. It’s here! It’s really here! They did it!
It’s impossible to overstate how happy this movie made me. Last year I chose Jeff Nichols’ remarkable but troubling Take Shelter as my movie of the year because it perfectly captured my state of mind; desperately fearful of what is to come. This is the flipside. In times of strife we look back to the things that made us feel safe when we were children, and part of the success of The Avengers is down to its ability to make the audience feel young again, to give us unambiguous goodness and heroism versus unformed but undeniably nefarious threats and, most importantly, not to apologise for it. This is possibly the least complicated movie on this list, but for that reason I love it all the more. It’s “merely” well-wrought escapism, but the very best example of this since Back to the Future, maybe even earlier; a huge, unifying blast of populist joy that turns packed cinemas into some kind of communal dream palace cum stadium. Film lovers worry about the future of the medium, but should resist their negativity, even if it means accepting “hokum” as the solution. Whedon and Marvel Studios brought fun back to cinema this year in the most overwhelming, exhilarating manner imaginable. Nothing in 2012 has made me as euphoric as this delirious display of optimism and spectacle, nothing else left me reeling in this way. So screw the apologies, cancel the equivocation. The year belongs to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and so does my heart.
Honorable Mentions:
Chronicle: The only film this year to make the increasingly miserable found-footage genre seem like a viable option. Josh Trank and Max Landis’ superhero movie is actually more a supervillain saga, with Dane DeHaan’s unhappy and sympathetic lost soul becoming a force of darkness upon discovering great power. His increasing instability leads to an ending that evokes memories of Akira. Thrilling, imaginative, emotionally resonant; this is a superb debut, and an instant classic of the genre.
The Pirates: In An Adventure With Scientists!: Finally, Aardman Animations lives up to its potential as an animation powerhouse with this inventive and joke-packed crowdpleaser. For too long they’ve coasted on affection for their endearing shorts, but screenwriter Gideon Defoe, adapting from his popular children’s novel, has brought a necessary sly and snarky wit to a studio whose output can sometimes seem a little too polite. Aardman are looking for backers to fund a sequel; if I had the money I’d fund it myself.
Magic Mike: Congratulations to Steven Soderbergh for making a movie that is defiantly harder to love than the garish good-time movie promised by the ads and yet still made money and generated good word of mouth. That’s how smart and absorbing this story of thwarted entrepreneurial spirit and economic difficulty is; come for the gyrating and greased-up abs, stay for the low-key character drama. And some more abs, cuz seriously, there’s a lot of them, mostly flexing on Channing Tatum’s belly.
21 Jump Street: Regular readers will know that we’re the world’s biggest fans of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which dissects movie cliches with the precision of a coroner. This adaptation of the ludicrous 80s TV series looked and sounded like a misfire for Cloudy‘s directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, but even if it’s not as good as their animated masterwork, it’s still sharp, silly, and perfectly judged, with a stand-out performance from the increasingly lovable Tatum.
The Man With The Iron Fists: If there’s a place in the world of cinema for movies made with precision, sobriety and emotional complexity, there should also be a place for balls-out enthusiasm and goofiness. The haphazard style of The Man With The Iron Fists betrays RZA’s desperate attempts to cram in as many homages to his beloved martial arts genre as possible, but goddamn it, at one point Lucy Liu kicks a guy’s head off, and later RZA punches someone’s eye out. Sometimes this is exactly what you need in your life.
And sometimes what you need in life are SHIT MOVIES and that’s what’s coming up next: my worst movies of the year list.
Yesterday it was announced that ad director Adam Berg has been attached to bring to the screen a remake of David Cronenberg’s deeply silly 80s folly Videodrome. As we can all agree, the thought that someone would want to remake a movie as widely loathed and mocked as Videodrome seems particularly odd, seeing as how it’s just hated by everyone. And I mean everyone. No one likes it, for serious. It’s just shit. I watched it when I was 16 and I was so incensed I burned down my video store and salted the earth. I didn’t watch another Cronenberg movie until Crash, which I thought deserved its Best Picture Oscar, and showed an artist who had wisely jettisoned the gratuitous weirdness of his early movies in order to do something worthwhile in bringing to light the terrible racism that had previously gone unnoticed in our blinkered society.
Anyway, Universal have decided to right this wrong committed against the medium of cinema by making a cutting-edge sci-fi thriller that will feature nanobots, in a move that will likely make all sci-fi fans immolate themselves with excitement. Nanobots! The possibilities opened up by the introduction of a bleeding-edge technological concept as daring and full of potential as that are literally breathtaking. Stupid Cronenberg. Why didn’t he realise how exciting he could make his dumb movie? Meandering down all those pointless cul-de-sacs about sexuality and the power of the image and breaking the barrier between technology and organic life, and whether we are dehumanised by this transgressive journey across the boundaries of decency and self-control. What we really need is proper movie material; a race against time, one man against a deadly conspiracy, and a love interest who gets to run around after him in some nice, sexy high heels. Luckily I was given a sneak-peak at the new project, and can now bring you the highlights of the forthcoming VideoDrome: The Newfleshening.
The beginning of the script is pretty much the same as the original movie, except that Max Renn is no longer the owner of a sleazy local TV channel in Canada (what was Cronenberg thinking setting the story in Canada? Such a weird choice). This time around Max is a video blogger who confronts the corruption of politicians operating in New York, much to the annoyance of the paper journalists and the police, who are corrupt. I don’t know who the producers are looking to hire to play Max Renn, but I’d say Channing Tatum would be perfect.
Max’s life is turned upside-down when he meets a beautiful young woman who is hiding in a nightclub from the attentions of some mysterious men. This is Nataskia Pronbits, a sultry and uninhibited young woman who used to work for Brian O’Blivion, founder of ObliviCorp and creator of the social network called VideoDrome. Nataskia’s on the run from ObliviCorp after stealing secret files, stored on a memory stick shaped like a pair of kissy-lips that she keeps hidden in her cleavage. Many feel Rihanna would be right for this part after wowing audiences with her thrilling performance as Corporal Taylor Kitsch in Universal’s smash-hit Battle of the Ships, but I think blue-rinsed bisexual Katy Perry might be even better. Or maybe Selena Gomez.
After beating the mysterious men to death with various tables and chairs to a pulse-pounding Skrillex track, Max escorts Nataskia back to his apartment, where she reveals O’Blivion’s plans to release a deadly nanobot virus that will turn people into machines, her shocking revelations punctuated by many moody shots of her sexily stripping out of her tattered clothing. Max gallantly offers to spend the night on the couch instead of ravishing Nataskia right there and then, like any red-blooded male would probably do, what with all the excitement and tension caused by his heroic nightclub fight. Next morning they realise they have been followed, and race out of the apartment without even having any coffee or grapefruits. There follows fifty pages of chase scenes. As I say, it’s very loyal to the original.
Eventually Max is captured by O’Blivion’s men (known as Videodrones), and is taken to the penthouse office of ObliviCorp which looks over the city. Here are some of the highlights of the last fifty pages of the screenplay.
“Max Renn, I presume?” “I have to stop you releasing the Videodrome virus, O’Blivion!” “No one can stop the New Flesh!” #VideodromeRemake
If they don’t hire John Malkovich to play O’Blivion, I’ll eat my copy of Being John Malkovich, starring John Malkovich as himself (i.e. John Malkovich). O’Blivion’s evil plan is simple; everyone who will be turned into a machine by the Videodrome nanobot virus will be forced to project adverts on their bodies, earning Oblivicorp billions in ad revenue. This will mean ObliviCorp will become the world’s number one company, protecting the US (remember, not Canada) from the dire economic threat posed by China. (The screenplay here points out that the word “China” will be dubbed out in versions of the movie shown in Asian markets, and replaced with the word “Brazil”.)
“What do you mean, O’Blivion? The Videodrome conspiracy goes all the way…” “To the White House, Max. To the President.” #VideodromeRemake
At this point in the script, Nataskia turns up at the ObliviCorp tower dressed as a sexy pizza-delivery woman, giving Max a chance to escape. There follows another exciting chase, this time on a train, as Max and Nataskia escape from a group of elite Videodrone units. The end of the scene features Max getting shot with a bullet from one of the Videodrones’ arm cannons, before he and his sexy, voluptuous sidekick daringly unhook the last carriage of the train, which careers off the track and falls onto a gas station, vaporising a city block in a terrifying and exciting conflagration.
“Max, you’re infected!” “Argh! I can see boobs on the TVs! Quick, hand me that defibrillator. That’ll kill the nanobots.” #VideodromeRemake
Before trying his radical cure, Max finally kisses Nataskia, sexily, on the lips, like men do. Far better than the weird sex scenes in the original, which were a massive turn-off. There was a bit where he tries to hump his VCR or something, and he gets a blowjob from a grenade, I think? Jesus, I don’t know, it really made my head hurt. David Cronenberg’s just some kind of demented boner-killing pervert.
“Max, we have to stop that mad man O’Blivion!” “Way ahead of you.” “Hold on, where’d you get that gun from?” “Don’t ask.” #VideodromeRemake
The two heroes infiltrate the O’Blivion tower, disguising themselves as Videodrones, though their cover is blown when O’Blivion’s right-hand man — or should I say woman — Steffani Convex, notices that Nataskia is wearing Louboutins, which no Videodrone has in their limited wardrobe, because these drones, turned into machines by the nanobots, don’t have any room in their hearts for anything as nice and sexy as a lovely pair of high heels. There follows a ten-page sequence with Max and Nataskia incapacitating or killing the Videodrones with a variety of objects including fire extinguishers, computer monitors, and a butane tank handily left behind in a storage closet. Eventually they find the nanobomb on the roof of the tower, its clock ticking down before the detonation which would disperse nanobots across New York.
“We gotta deactivate this before the Videodrome nanobots escape, Max!” “Man, I liked you better when you were a sexy TV.” #VideodromeRemake
Here comes the best bit: Max deactivates the nanobomb with just a few seconds to spare, just before being confronted by O’Blivion and Steffani (I’d love to see the sassy villainess played by Taylor Swift. Or Carly Rae Jepsen). There follows an exciting rooftop fight, which ends with Nataskia knocking Steffani unconscious with a large model of the VideoDrome logo (an eye in a pyramid, suggesting some pretty heavy-duty ideas about the Illuminati; a very clever touch that will undoubtedly generate a lot of debate on the Internet), and Max throwing O’Blivion off the side of the building, with the sign-off line, “Signal interrupted, bitch.” The final scene sees Max and Nataskia finally alone, and ready to consummate their scorching, sexy chemistry.
“Oh my God, Max! Your… your penis looks like a huge gun barrel!” “Long live the New Flesh, baby.” The end… OR IS IT?!? #VideodromeRemake
Why am I doing this? There was once a time I would dazzle all those around me as I applied an almost precognitive talent for award prediction to numerous hastily organized Oscar ballots. Oh how I was feted, carried high on the shoulders of friends and enemies alike, given ambrosial liquor to sup on from jewel-encrusted golden goblets. They were glorious times, my friends, and those efforts were the stuff of legend. But since making my predictions via this blog, my hit rate has dropped into the low fuckalls. Once Shades of Caruso was described as “usually fairly reliable“. Well, not in terms of Oscar predictions. So why put myself through this ordeal again? Why humiliate myself when my former predictive talents as a modern-day Cassandra have suddenly and inexplicably morphed into those of just some random lass called Sandra?
To be honest it’s only to justify having sat through the combined clusterfuck-a-thon of War Horse, The Iron Lady and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; three movies so wretched they should be investigated as hate crimes against my very soul. And yet here they are, given baffling nominational attention from the various elders who constitute the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The anguish caused by this triumvirate of terribleness, and their baffling inclusion on the Oscar shortlist, is the fuel that powered this epic post, so if you get bored to extinction by the time you get halfway down the page, blame Stephen Daldry, Eric Roth, Abi Morgan, Phyllida Lloyd, Lee Hall and Richard Curtis (Spielberg gets a free pass for Tintin, which was aceballs).
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Who Will Win: George Clooney – The Descendants
Jean Dujardin may have been winning awards by smiling a smile that honestly looks like it could melt through steel like Superman’s heat vision, but I think the Academy members are ready to give Gorgeous George the big prize at last, mostly just to get it out of the way. There are worse things that could happen; though I’d be more than happy to see the thoroughly handsome Dujardin win and do a little tap-dance or something, Clooney was the best thing about The Descendants (other than Shailene Woodley, who was also very good). It’s odd to look at the mostly quiet work he does here, the way he balances light comedy and heavy tragedy, and think back to the way his performances were merely an amalgamation of irksome tics when he was on E.R. and not-massively-popular action extravaganza The Peacemaker. Now look at him. He’s really very good. And still handsome. An Oscar win here is no bad thing.
Who Should Win: Gary Oldman – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
But of these five candidates, surely it’s Oldman’s prize. He’s survived the fallow years caused — I’m sure — by appearances in two Luc Besson movies with only Airforce One and Lost in Space to separate them, and has proved cynics (such as myself) wrong time and again. By now even his shaky appearances in crap like Red Riding Hood are usually worth watching. It’s enough to make me think he will take over from Sir Anthony Hopkins in the Endlessly-Entertaining-Actor-Shaped extra chamber in my heart once the great Welshman has sadly entered the Odinsleep. Tinker Tailor was an impeccably performed movie; picking out individual acting highlights is hard, but pretty much every moment Oldman is onscreen, like a shade sucking all of the light from the room, it’s as if everyone else has faded into the awful period-appropriate wallpaper. His voicework in Kung Fu Panda 2 was good too. We take Oldman for granted; time we stopped doing that.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Michael Fassbender – Shame
Maybe it’s a good thing Fassbender didn’t get nominated. The outrage generated by that stupid-but-expected decision will power his career for a while longer as he comes to work on projects to be filed under the heading True Quality, as opposed to the gilded, establishment-approved version of art represented by the Academy’s often-mystifying choices. It also means that the inevitable dirty tricks campaign could dig up some pretty unpleasant stuff about Fassbender, and at this point in his career (or at any point, really) that’s not a good thing. Best he sits this one out until a year when a very driven producer doesn’t have a dog in this fight.
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Who Will Win: Christopher Plummer – Beginners
Beginners was a good enough movie, one that made it okay to like Ewan McGregor again, but without the storming performance from Plummer I think it would be forgotten fairly quickly. His energy levels here are remarkable, and make an average movie unmissable. Hopefully people won’t go on about how he’s bound to win because he plays a terminally ill gay man who finds a new lease of life in his final years, thus completing some kind of Oscar-Worthiness Bingo card. He deserves to win because he deserves to win. It’s that simple.
Who Should Win: Christopher Plummer – Beginners
Though a spanner was thrown into the works when Max Von Sydow got nominated as “The Renter” in Stephen Daldry and Eric Roth’s monumentally awful Extremely Insensitive and Incredibly Corny. The great man has been acting for nearly 700 years now and has never won an Oscar, so surely he’s due one. Hell, make it a retroactive award for The Virgin Spring. Despite this, and despite the fact that he’s the only good thing to come of Daldry and Roth’s wretched miasma of relentless sentiment, it has to be Plummer who wins this. He’s been cranking out great performances for the past few years (he should’ve won for The Insider, to be honest), and if he gets this, he’ll have a BEGOT (not just your Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony quadfecta, but also a Bafta as well). If you don’t want to root for such an achievement, please fill out the order form below to request a new, fully-functional soul.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Sir Ben Kingsley – Hugo
Lots of folks complained about the numerous snubs in this nomination list, with much of the justifiable frustration directed at the miserable lack of Albert Brooks, but I’ve only seen a couple of people point out that leaving Sir Ben off the list for his superb work in Hugo was an egregious omission. Maybe Best Supporting Actor is the wrong category, as Uncle Georges is arguably the protagonist of this movie, but there’s more room for him here than in the crowded Best Actor slot (ahem Jonah Hill ahem). Sir Ben is in the same category as Sir Anthony Hopkins; he’s usually the most interesting thing in whatever movie he appears in, and Hugo is no exception. If it works at all, it’s because of his skill in bringing to life the sweet-and-sour mystery at the heart of the film.
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Who Will Win: Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady
A horrible inevitability has descended upon this category. Many are talking up the relative lack of Oscars Meryl has received despite being in the list of top twenty most awesome people in the history of the world, and I’m sure many people are aggrieved that she didn’t win anything for her impersonation of Dan Aykroyd in Julie and Julia, but even so, the thought of her playing a real live actual person is just too much. The Academy must have written this winner on their scorecards without even seeing the movie. She truly embodied the pluck and lovability of Margaret Thatcher completely (i.e. it was correctly completely absent from the movie). Plus there was a lot of make-up on her face. The assorted critics of the Daily Telegraph plumped for Viola Davis en masse, but I still think this is Meryl’s to win.
Who Should Win: Michelle Williams – My Week With Marilyn
And it would be the worst crime of the night. Don’t get me wrong; I genuinely adore Meryl Streep. She might even be my favourite actor, if not vying for joint fave with Jeff Bridges. Nevertheless, the obnoxious fractured editing by Phyllida Lloyd — which is obviously meant to mirror Mrs. Thatcher’s current unfortunate medical situation — means the movie never settles down long enough for us to have any idea what Meryl’s performance is like. As I tweeted after the godawful mess finally came to a close, it feels like a 100 minute trailer for a 17-hour-long movie, mostly made up of stock footage. It makes W.E. look like a coherent film, which I thought would be impossible. The glimpses we get of Meryl in excelsis suggest she did good work but I honestly can’t attest to that. So I say it should have gone to Michelle Williams. Cheeky of me, as I haven’t seen My Week With Marilyn; I’m burned out on such things thanks to The King’s Speech. But MW was unfortunate to have given a performance of such brilliance in Blue Valentine in the same year that Natalie Portman brought her A-game in Black Swan. Williams deserves to unlock the Reversal of Fortune Achievement for that. (1000 Gamerpoints)
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Tilda Swinton – We Need To Talk About Kevin
What else do I need to say? Excise the horrible cartoonish display by the otherwise excellent Jessica Chastain in The Help, and put Tilda in where she belongs. She’s said she’s happy to avoid going to the ceremony, but what about her fans, who look forward too seeing her appear in white dresses before being described as “androgynous” by every fashion expert? An essential part of the award season is now sadly missing. Plus she was phenomenal in WNTTAK. That too.
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Who Will Win: Octavia Spencer – The Help
This was a movie that made me very uncomfortable, much as The Blind Side did a couple of years ago, but at least The Help had great performances (and not-so-great, Jessica Chastain and Bryce Dallas Howard) on its side. Octavia Spencer managed to out-act Viola Davis without having to do that snotty nose thing Davis does in so many movies; Davis even managed it again in Extremely Long and Incredibly Offensive, probably because she knew that disappointing us by not featuring it would have ruined hundreds of Extremely Twee and Incredibly Pretentious drinking games. This is another of the most predictable wins of the ceremony, and one I back almost 100%.
Who Should Win: Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids
Except that it would be so nice for a comedic performance to get an Oscar nod, and Melissa McCarthy’s much-loved work is the most likely possibility for many a year. Admittedly if she won over the other candidates there’s a possibility that in time she would be given the same treatment Marisa Tomei got when she won for My Cousin Vinny, but as someone who likes Marisa Tomei and My Cousin Vinny, and who has done a complete 180° on McCarthy now that I know she has more about her than was shown in Gilmore Girls (shudder), I’d back this win also. Not gonna happen, though.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Charlotte Gainsbourg – Melancholia
Fair to say that Uncle Lars’ Bedtime For Hitler storytelling at the Cannes Film Festival sank any chance that either Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg would get a nomination. I suspect the screeners for this sat unwatched on many an Academy member’s coffee table. A pity, as it was one of the highlights of the year. Gainsbourg was just as good in Antichrist, but maybe this kind of soul-baring work isn’t ever going to find favour with the assorted old white men who vote for these things. “Why, she’s just got the vapours,” they would say into their mug of restorative potions made from the tears of discarded Hollywood dreamers. “Just buy her an ironing board and be done with it.” And that, my friends, is why the Oscars mean jack shit.
Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
What Will Win: Rango
Ha ha ha ha ha ha Cars 2 didn’t get nominated ha ha ha ha ha. Reap the merchandising whirlwind, Pixar, and thanks for pissing on your legacy (until your next incredible film comes along and makes me forgive you for temporarily misplacing your soul). Anyway, Rango was the frontrunner over a year ago and nothing has changed since.
What Should Win: Rango
Seriously, why are we even talking about this? Rango‘s a masterpiece. End of.
What Should Have Been Nominated: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
Of course, there was the amusing upset during the Golden Globes when Spielberg’s much-maligned performance-capture movie won the animation award, but then it didn’t get in here. There are lots of theories why, from “is it animation?” to “it’s not animation“, to “it wasn’t good enough”. Whatever the reason, its omission here is pretty bizarre, made all the worse by the nominations dropped into War Horse‘s trough. This vibrant, manic blast of imagination gets nothing while that risible failure gets a bunch of nods? Shocking. But it still wouldn’t deserve to win. Why? Because Rango. Like I just said a paragraph ago.
Achievement in Cinematography
Who Will Win: Robert Richardson – Hugo
I have a theory, for which I have absolutely no proof, that if the movie with the most nominations doesn’t win Best Picture, it will be given Best Cinematography as a consolation prize. The Artist might or might not not win many awards this year but I believe it’ll win Best Picture at the very least, which would leave Hugo wanting. As a result, I think Robert Richardson’s 3D cinematography will win out. Or Ludovic Bource will win for The Artist because he isn’t using that new-fangled technology? No, it’ll definitely be Richardson. Unless that lovely, clear, monochrome photography persuades the oldsters. ::is utterly undecided::
Who Should Win: Emmanuel Lubezki – The Tree of Life
If there is one word I could use to describe Malick’s meditation on cosmic gubbins and personal strife — other than pretentious, or powerful, or intricate, or unsubtle, or preposterous, or profound, or overlong, or ambitious, or breathtaking, etc. etc. — it would be luminous. Thanks to Emmanuel Lubezki’s work, this film glowed. It throbbed with the very life its titular tree is full of. Maybe it was just that we saw this on a good screen, brightly lit and digitally projected (a rarity nowadays), but it was so gloriously shot that I felt I was looking straight through a window into another world, or at least into the mind of Malick, and it was as beautiful a place as I had hoped.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Sean Bobbitt – Shame
In the past Bobbitt filmed a lot of Ye Olde Worlde settings for some of the seemingly infinite number of period adaptations made by the BBC, so it must have been a nice change for him to capture the most memorable images of New York in recent memory. Not that that mattered to the Academy, who don’t care about his ability to paint the city with terrifying reds, soft golds, and rainy greys. All they think is, “But he pointed the camera at a dong”, and that’s your lot. Sorry Sean. Maybe some day you’ll make a movie set during the first quarter of the 20th Century and the Academy members will be falling out of their bath chairs to give you a nod. Fingers crossed, eh?
Achievement in Art Direction
Who Will Win: Laurence Bennett and Robert Gould - The Artist
It’s in these technical categories that the two love letters to silent cinema will fight their most fraught battles, where the majority winner will be decided. As a result it’s hard to deduct who will win using my usual scientific rigour. Instead I have to rely on guesswork, and the thought that last year the Weinsteins managed to strongarm the Academy into giving Tom Hooper — TOM HOOPER — the award for Best Director. I’m sure Harvey has been going door-to-door this year, telling more anecdotes about how clever he was to acquire the rights to this, buying bunches of grapes for the voters and promising to give them back-rubs and what-not. Even though half of my brain is convinced the voters will be more charmed by the charming charming super super charming charm of Hugo (an excellent read, that), I think Harvey’s carpet-bombing techniques will win again. Plus the art direction on The Artist was very nice.
Who Should Win: Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo - Hugo
That said, the art direction on Hugo was even better. Dante Ferretti’s collaborations with Scorsese are always a feast for the eyes and his interpretation of what a semi-fantastical Parisian railway station would look like — with toy shops, overstocked bookshops and clockwork labyrinths included — is some of the best work he’s done. Plus he’s on a roll, having won his last two nominations for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barberof Fleet Street and The Aviator. So I could well be wrong here.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Maria Djurkovic, Tom Brown and Zsuzsa Kismarty-Lechner – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Friend-of-the-blog Beggar So’s Hat wisely noted that the shockingly grim production design of this was horribly snubbed. I hadn’t even noticed that. I think I tried to blot the miserable look of the film from my brain rather than be reminded once more of the horrors within. It made me think of my childhood, which now feels like it happened in the 50s and not the 70s like it actually was. It’s as if England was frozen in time for fifty years, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was just a snapshot of that. Which is to say, Mr. Hat was right. The production design on TTSS was worthy of many awards, especially this one, but also Grimmest Evocation of the Cigarette-Smoke-Stained Dilapidation of 20th Century Britain.
Achievement in Costume Design
Who Will Win: Mark Bridges – The Artist
Again, it’s all down to who will be the overall winner. If it’s going to be The Artist I have to go all in and give it to Mr. Bridges…
Who Should Win: Sandy Powell – Hugo
…while thinking that Sandy Powell’s work is more deserving. By now I must seem like a guy who hated The Artist, but I didn’t. I adored it. Hugo was the movie that left me cold, even though it’s obviously a thing of great precision, as intricate and lovely as the clockwork contraptions that litter it. But all that effort from Scorsese was futilely expended trying to shift the enormous rock that is my heart, and it wasn’t going to work. ::hands in film buff card::
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Eiko Ishioka – Immortals
Nevertheless, that’s not as big a crime as neglecting Eiko Ishioka’s brain-maddening work which so dominated Tarsem’s latest empty trinket. It’s especially frustrating as the world is now bereft of her singular genius. Creating works of art for ill-received genre movies directed by someone with… shall we say, a questionable grasp of narrative… means her work wasn’t really seen enough. When we see Mirror, Mirror later this year, it’ll be a bittersweet experience. And not just because it’ll almost certainly be desperately boring crap. #Uncharitable
Best Documentary Feature
What Will Win: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
As usual I haven’t seen any documentaries this year, not even depressing ones about how the economy is about to explode with the force of a million megaprolapses, so I can’t really talk with any authority here, but I’d wager Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky will get the nod for campaigning successfully for the West Memphis Three. Unless the Academy is still mad at Berlinger for Blair Witch 2, which is understandable.
What Should Win: IDK SMDH
As I can’t say anything authoritative here, I’ll keep my fat mouth shut.
What Should Have Been Nominated: Tabloid
Yep, I didn’t even see Senna, the most critically acclaimed documentary of the year, but everyone I know who has seen it adores it. Nevertheless, I would’ve loved to have seen Errol Morris’ crazily entertaining Tabloid get some recognition. Perhaps because it’s so much fun it never stood a chance of getting any Oscar love; that old “comedy is too frivolous to be worthy of recognition” thing again. Which is a shame, because I’d say Tabloid has some pretty hefty points to make about news cycles, journalistic arrogance and human venality. It just also happens to be very amusing while it makes those points.
Best Documentary Short Subject
What Will Win: God Is The Bigger Elvis
Best Animated Short Film
What Will Win: La Luna
Best Live Action Short Film
What Will Win: The Shore
Okay, I’ll come clean. I haven’t got a clue about any of the nominees in any of the three categories clustered here, as was the case last year, so I’m just going to pick for the stupidest reasons. I just read about God Is The Bigger Elvis a few hours ago, La Luna because I like the name of the director (Enrico Casarosa), and The Shore because it’s made by Terry and Oorlagh George, and I always get annoyed that I confuse Terry George and Terry Southern even though their surnames and careers are completely different so I guess that’s an omen or something. Sorry to all of the nominees in these categories; I should give you respect, and instead I give you this excrement-soaked corsage. You deserve so much better.
Achievement in Film Editing
Who Will Win: Thelma Schoonmaker – Hugo
It’s arguable that Hugo was a bit slack, to be honest, and could have done with a bit of tidying up, but you’re a fool if you bet against Schoonmaker, who has won three of the six Academy Awards she has previously been nominated for (can you believe she didn’t win for Goodfellas? WT actual F?).
Who Should Win: Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
As I said last year, David Fincher’s editing team on The Social Network did a fantastic job of wrestling a ton of footage and talking to the ground and making it work as a narrative. they’re here again with a movie that’s less talky but just as complex (if not more so) than that. Dragon Tattoo may not have blown my socks off the way Fincher’s best work does, but it’s a great thriller, perfectly paced and seemingly effortlessly compelling. Baxter and Wall deserve this win twice over now.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Paul Hirsch – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol / Hank Corwin, Jay Rabinowitz, Daniel Rezende, Billy Weber and Mark Yoshikawa – The Tree of Life / Joe Bini – We Need To Talk About Kevin
Quick run through of my reasons here. 1) The best action movie of the year deserves a nod, especially when the action scenes are so clearly drawn and beautifully constructed. It was a joy to watch, and much of that was down to veteran Hirsch’s command of the AVID. 2) A team of five head editors wrestling with what was probably 65,000,000 miles of footage featuring kids running down alleys or Brad Pitt standing on a lawn, and in the end we get an impressionistic collage of mood and image as powerful as this? I may complain that Hugo was slack but any flabbiness here was probably intentional. The longueurs are as important as the moments of emotion, and the superb judgement of this team — and Malick — will probably become more apparent with each rewatch. 3) It’s as if Nicolas Roeg is making major motion pictures again, and Bini is as important as Lynne Ramsay in creating a fractured but exhaustingly scary like Kevin. Again, a major omission for this exceptional artistic accomplishment.
Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
What Will Win: A Separation
Of course the Academy has a talent for arsing this category up, which could be good news for Agnieszka Holland — I’d think of it as an award given in honour of her stunning Treme pilot; one of the best episodes of TV ever made – but honestly, how on earth could anything beat Asghar Farhadi’s magnificent family drama? I would’ve like to have seen it do a Crouching Tiger and get a Best Picture nomination as well, it’s that good (yes, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was nominated for both Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture, a fact that seems to elude many professional Oscar prognosticators each year).
What Should Win: A Separation
Time spent thinking about this masterpiece since seeing it right at the end of last year has made it seem even more profound, even more exciting. I may not have seen any of the other films nominated here but still it seems only right that this wins.
What Should Have Been Nominated: The Skin I Live In
To be honest, though I enjoyed Pedro Almodovar’s macabre thriller, it still left me a little cold. I’m sure there’s some arcane reason why this wasn’t included (that’s usually the case; did Spain even offer it as a nominee?), but if that’s not the case then I guess its omission here is pretty surprising. Other than that, the majority of the foreign language movies I saw last year just weren’t good enough to warrant inclusion here. Even Peter Chan’s Wu Xia — a film which made it onto my best-of-2011 list — would seem out of place. The closest thing I can think of for inclusion would be Andrea Molaioli’s Il Gioiellino, the fictionalised dramatisation of the Parmalat fraud scandal, but even that’s too dry to really pass muster. ::shrug::
Achievement in Makeup
Who Will Win: Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland – The Iron Lady
I almost feel like I’m saying this because it had the most make-up, mostly on Meryl’s chin for Thatcher’s later years…
Who Should Win: Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland – The Iron Lady
…but as Daisyhellcakes said when we tried to stay awake during this possibly endless collision of stock footage and poorly shot comedic shenanigans, “That’s a really convincing wattle”. And she’s right. It’s a really convincing wattle.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Contagion
The most startling physical transformation of the year was a digital effect; the enfeeblenising of Chris Evans in the first third of Captain America: The First Avenger is a baffling, seamless effect that convinces so completely that post-super-serum Evans looks somehow more wrong than the wimp. I’m tempted to say this should have been nominated just for the wicked Red Skull make-up on Hugo Weaving, but I think Contagion may be a more worthy nominee, for the nasty sweaty death pallor on the victims of MEV-1, Jude Law’s pasty face and rotten tooth, and one very fun autopsy scene.
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)
Who Will Win: Howard Shore – Hugo
I can’t actually remember a single note of it, even though I’m a big fan of Mr. Shore (his score for A Dangerous Method was particularly lovely; he does his best work for Maestro Cronenberg), but I doubt either of Williams’ scores will win (vote splitting), and there’s the possibility that Kim Novak really does have some insider information about how the soundtrack to The Artist did something unspeakable and illegal to Bernard Hermann’s Vertigo score. That leaves Shore’s score.
Who Should Win: Alberto Iglesias - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Of course, this wonderful score by Alberto Iglesias should be the frontrunner here for anyone who has ears. It’s an absolute corker, sinister and peppered with smokey-jazz moments; perfect for the film and powerful in its own right. And yes, I know this won’t be a consideration for the Academy, but the inclusion of this great, nerd-funky version of La Mer just shows how much care was put into the music. It’s such a great choice for the scene it accompanies that I did a joy-pirouette without leaving my super-comfy Odeon-Swiss-Cottage seat.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Michael Giacchino – Super 8
My favourite soundtrack of last year was Cecile Corbel’s delicate score for Arrietty, but as the movie wasn’t released in the US until this year, it wasn’t eligible. I’d like to say Hans Zimmer’s score for Rango should’ve got in, but considering the fuss over Ludovic Bource’s The Artist soundtrack, Zimmer’s re-appropriation of The Blue Danube and Ride of the Valkyries — not to mention similarities with Carter Burwell’s Raising Arizona score — mean it’s better off out of it. Giacchino’s Super 8 score managed to conjure up memories of some of John Williams’ work with Spielberg while remaining recognisably his own work. It might not be the best thing he’s done, but it played an important part in conjuring up the air of nostalgia that made J.J. Abrams’ homage work.
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)
What Will Win: Man or Muppet (Bret McKenzie) – The Muppets
I’ve not heard the Rio song, but is there any doubt?
What Should Win: Man or Muppet (Bret McKenzie) – The Muppets
It’s just what a musical number should be. It’s thematically relevant, perfectly judged on a tonal level, it signals a big plot moment, it’s full of clever lyrical tricks, and it’s a proper showstopping earworm. It brought the house down at the BFI a month ago and I reckon this happens everywhere this movie plays. Is this the most assured winner of the night?
What Should Have Been Nominated: Star Spangled Man (Alan Menken / David Zippel) – Captain America: The First Avenger
Still, the feeble number of nominees here means there’s no real reason why Menken and Zippel’s entertaining pastiche of WWII propaganda songs didn’t get a nod. It’s not as good as Bret McKenzie’s song, but it’s still a witty and catchy tune. I guess the Academy members didn’t want to be reminded of the war that took place during their middle age. Yeah, I went there!
Achievement in Sound Editing
Who Will Win: Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom – War Horse
It might be a load of old chuff but I think War Horse will get at least one Oscar just because Spielberg and the rest strained so damn hard to make something timeless and noble that I bet someone will feel sorry for him. That’s not to say the work of Hymns and Rydstrom isn’t worthy of an award. The movie has a wide array of excellent whinnies, clip-clops, and gunfire.
Who Should Win: Ren Klyce – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Normally I’d pick Transformers: Dark of the Moon for two reasons: 1) to annoy everyone by continuing to not crap all over Bay’s carnage-laden doomfuck, and 2) because there were about one zillion sound effects in this movie, and I’m sure there was a small army of sound recorders trying to find the material for this movie’s sonic tapestry of boom. Nevertheless, I’ll pick Ren Klyce’s work on Fincher’s bleak midwinter tale for two different reasons: 1) I always tend to pick Ren Klyce because Ren Klyce is ace, and 2) the sound of Lisbeth Salander’s steel-toed boot clanging noisily against a very large metallic anus-seeking dildo has haunted me for two months. That counts for something.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Oliver Tarney and Mark Taylor – Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
My two picks here (Nicholas Becker for Andrea Arnold’s glorious Wuthering Heights and Koji Kasamatsu for Arrietty) are again not eligible because of US release dates. Instead I’ll pick the team behind the sound effects in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. There’s some lovely work done during the action scenes, but also the thrum of Victorian London is captured as well as in the first movie, which was also deserving of a nomination.
Achievement in Sound Mixing
Who Will Win: Tom Fleischman and John Midgley – Hugo
Big noisy setpieces in a train station where every individual, important noise is clearly picked out? It’s a lock.
Who Should Win: Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Peter J. Devlin – Transformers: Dark of the Moon
The soundscapes of Michael Bay’s noisiest movies are widely loathed as merely a wash of explosions and screaming, but when blasted at with a good THX sound-system, it’s likely that the volume will deafen you to the amount of intricate work done here. It’s not just queueing up a bunch of banging and sticking it all in a blender; there’s more layering of sound than you’d think. Then again, I’ve always been a fan of percussion, so I’m more likely to enjoy an extended drum solo than the finely-picked notes of a symphony. Make of that what you will.
What Should Have Been Nominated: Peter Miller, Adam Kopald, J.R. Grubbs and Addison Teague - Rango
Among the many joys of this astounding triumph of animation is the lovely audio track, evoking the eerie silences of Sergio Leone’s classics while changing gears for some huge, complicated action scenes. Truly a feast for the ears as well as the eyes.
Achievement in Visual Effects
Who Will Win: Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and Daniel Barrett - Rise of the Planet of the Apes
I’m tempted to say Hugo will win this too, but the furore over Andy Serkis’ performance and the technology used to capture it means this might have a shot, as a sop to the campaigners.
Who Should Win: Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler and John Frazier - Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Once more I’m picking complexity and logistical madness over subtlety or beauty, but the scale of the FX work in this movie is simply breathtaking. It’s also seamlessly integrated with reality; you’ll really believe Chicago had its arse kicked by robotic dickwads. The only caveat here is that they’re not really breaking new ground; we’ve seen this kind of thing before, just not on this scale. Nevertheless, my eyes boggled at the monumental mechanical madness, and I really appreciate that.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Douglas Trumbull, Dan Glass, Peter and Chris Parks – The Tree of Life
What a lovely welcome back for the legendary Doug Trumbull; a snub by his peers that probably would have stung if he had even noticed them, bearing in mind he is a colossus who bestrides the discipline of visual effects and probably thinks Digital Domain is little more than an interesting ant-farm. Bear in mind, this is a man who, while everyone else in the FX business was learning how to use a mouse, was either working on IMAX and Showscan technologies or trying to fix the BP oil-spill. Does he need an Oscar? If the FX industry members of the Academy can’t find it in their hearts to give this visionary the award he deserves, he can get over the insignificant pain by inventing another world-changing doohickey. Trumbull does not need your baubles.
Adapted Screenplay
Who Will Win: Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash – The Descendants
Hugo should win this considering the overwhelming critical praise for it in the US, but I have a feeling the sentimental Academy members will be more drawn to The Descendants, which is a very writerly movie with big dramatic beats, terminally ill people, confrontations that play out in unexpected ways, and speeches that run on for perhaps a bit too long. It also has a terrible voiceover in the first half of the movie that should make invalidate it, but I doubt that that’s a dealbreaker. Or maybe this is just wishful thinking because I want to see Dean Pelton win an Oscar? If so, can Magnitude come on stage for a celebratory “Pop pop!“?
Who Should Win: Bridget O’Connor & Peter Straughan – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Much as I enjoyed Moneyball, mostly because Sorkin’s worst excesses were curtailed by the low-key performances and direction, I don’t think it’s the best script here. I also don’t think that honour belongs to The Ides of March; yet another Clooney / Heslov disappointment that feels four drafts away from completion. Surely Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the only logical choice here. It’s a labyrinth of words and actions and information but there’s emotion here, real aching pain. It’s a magnificent achievement.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Christopher Hampton – A Dangerous Method
As is Christopher Hampton’s expansion of his play The Talking Cure. Its absorption and translation of the ideas and theories of Freud, Jung and Spielrein into dramatic forms is breathtaking, made all the more memorable for its puckish wit and satisfying emotional charge. Though I’d resigned myself to seeing this underrated movie get little Oscar love I held out hope for this screenplay as the sole nominee, but no. What a pity.
Original Screenplay
Who Will Win: Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris
Remember all those days ago when The Artist won the Bafta for best screenplay and amateur comedians and film critics said, “How can it win best screenplay when there’s no words in it duhhhhh duuuuuuh a-duuuuuhhhhhhh?” Well I guess that won’t happen here, but only because the truly sentimental choice is to give Woody another Oscar for his latest self-indulgent wallow in nostalgia. Usually that yearning for simpler times is a subtext to his usual light middle-class semi-intellectual drama, but here it’s right at the fore-front. Who was the Twitter wag who said that this movie was like Woody’s “Things I like” list made celluloid flesh? Because well done, that person, you got it in one.
Who Should Win: Asghar Farhadi – A Separation
That victory for a second-rate script would be a crime when Asghar Farhadi’s brilliantly constructed, humane, intelligent, complex, multi-faceted screenplay has also been given a nod. In a perfect world this would’ve been the only nominee. If ever anyone asks me what screenplay I would pick as an example of brilliant screenwriting, I’ll pick George Gallo’s script for Midnight Run. If they couldn’t find that, I’ll pick this.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Kenneth Lonergan – Margaret / Scott Z. Burns – Contagion
That said, I would’ve liked it if Kenneth Lonergan had received any kind of recognition for his notorious movie, but I guess there was no chance of that happening with the lawsuits flying back and forth like flaming buzzards of doom. Also, we’ve not even seen the full movie; I long for the director’s cut of this challenging and audacious movie. I also would’ve liked it if Scott Z. Burns got nominated for Contagion, but that’s because I’m a big Scott Z. Burns fan and I think he’s great so there.
Achievement in Directing
Who Will Win: Martin Scorsese – Hugo
Okay, hear me out. Yes, I think The Artist will win Best Picture. Yes, I know that Michel Hazanavicius won the Director’s Guild Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film Award, and that’s usually a pretty reliable marker of who will win the Academy Award, but I think Scorsese has played a blinder here; making a homage to the birth of cinema, eoo-goog-alising one of the earliest pioneers of the medium, and passionately campaigning for the virtues of film preservation within the film itself. A pretty ballsy move, to turn a children’s movie into a two-hour lecture about archiving and storage technology. The Artist might be a love letter to silent cinema, but Hugo is a billet-doux attached to a heart-shaped box of chocolate cherries with a bit of sexy lingerie hidden under the crepe-paper tray. There’s no way the assorted dodecagenarians of the Academy will be able to resist giving Scorsese his second director’s gong for this.
Who Should Win: Terrence Malick – The Tree of Life
Even though I really loved The Artist (I did! Honest!), and thought Scorsese did a good job of methodically stripped the magic from his children’s film by the time the final reel arrived just so he could prove a point, this category belongs to Malick. Alexander Payne served up a curiously listless dramedy, and Woody Allen woke up for a little while; not really work worth lauding. But Malick’s bold vision was even more daring than his usual work, happily comparing the travails of a family to the beginning and end of life. What brass balls. It’s the best thing he’s done since Days of Heaven, and more than deserving of some Oscar love. If they don’t do it now, they’ll only regret it in future when he suddenly starts making action movies starring Channing Tatum (mark my words, this will happen).
Who Should Have Been Nominated: David Cronenberg – A Dangerous Method
The great man can’t win. When he makes a genre movie — albeit a genre movie with an intellectual ambition that dwarfs almost everything else around — clueless critics proclaim that he’s little more than a provocateur debasing his better instincts. When he makes a movie that’s sober and thought-provoking, everyone whines that there’s not enough parasites or inappropriate vaginal images in it. So when he makes something as crystalline as this, so perfectly hewn and formally precise, critics say it’s too dry. “It’s too dry,” they say, drawing attention to what they think is an excessive dryness. Seriously, that’s all anyone could say. Well bollocks to that. It’s exactly what it needs to be, and Cronenberg is the only filmmaker in the world smart enough to get that right. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; one day critical opinion will swing back Cronenberg’s way. Sadly, not before voting ended.
Best Motion Picture of the Year
What Will Win: The Artist
Critical mass has been reached for The Artist. I don’t think anyone on the planet expects another movie to win, except Stephen Daldry, probably; a conclusion I’ve reached after enduring Extremely Bad And Just Generally Incredibly Incredibly Dire And Awful Jesus What A Stinker, which seems to have been directed by someone who has absolutely no self-awareness whatsoever. I was tempted to predict a Hugo surprise here, but I think we all know that’s not happening. Harvey Weinstein has been prowling the streets of Hollywood like a cross between Batman, Wilson Fisk and P.T. Barnum, pimping out that movie for all he’s worth. It’s a foregone conclusion.
What Should Win: The Artist
And I’m absolutely fine with that. Not just because it’s the best movie of the nine nominees, but because I still think so fondly of it a victory in this category would make my night. I’m sure in time the numerous haters will multiply like mogwai under a waterfall, but for now a big win would almost feel like an extension of the movie’s deliriously happy vibe. Like a 4D experience for its fans. Plus it’s a last chance to see Jean Dujardin charm us with another impromptu dance. Vous dansez comme un nuage enthousiaste, vous bel homme!
What Should Have Been Nominated: Take Shelter / A Dangerous Method
If that vile… vile… thing with the obnoxiously precious title can get nominated, then surely anything can. Two of my favourites of last year are more than good enough to get in here, usurping Daldry’s slimy ode to sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-McSweeney’s-style precocity and Spielberg’s admittedly hilarious and Dadaesque World War One comedy The Adventures of War Horse: The Siren-Centaur Hybrid of Death, not to mention The (Wonderful Way White People) Help(ed Those Relatively Unimportant Black Folks). Put these two brilliant movies in there, dammit, and why not add Fast Five while you’re at it. That movie was better than at least seven, arguably eight of the movies in that list, even if only for the moment when The Rock and Vin Diesel crash through a wall during a fight. Better than Malick’s dinosaurs, I reckon.
That”s enough making a fool of myself in front of the entire internet. See you on the other side of the award ceremony, and what will likely be a really cozy opening monologue from Billy Crystal featuring at least one — maybe five — jokes about the lacklustre box office takings of Mr. Saturday Night. Mazel tov!
Ever more aware that this is taking way too long, I shall keep this short but sweet, and note that yes, I am indeed posting something while websites with far fewer hits than me (such as Wikipedia and Google) are protesting the evils of SOPA/PIPA with a blackout. Part of me feels like a scab crossing a picket line but then I think to myself no, I have to do this. I have to tell the world just how much I loved the costume design on Conan the Barbarian. The world needs this information. Without it, however would our civilisation cope? This is the kind of thing that the internet was invented for. Seriously! Tim Berners-Lee was just saying the other day how glad he was that he had the chance to read what I said about Green Lantern, though he seemed disappointed that I wasn’t as enthusiastic as he was about Mark Strong’s interpretation of Sinestro.*
Besides, if Congress goes ahead with its plan to give itself the power to censor great swathes of the internet in order to prevent citizen activism during times of social strife which are probably around the corner… erm, I mean, combat the ev0l of piracy, obvs… then I’d better get this shit up now because most of this post is made up of publicity photos and clips from YouTube and I’ll have to “police” myself in future to make sure none of this stuff ever appears again. Thanks for ruining the best thing in the world, Overlords. Like you haven’t done enough damage already.
DOWN WITH SOPA! DOWN WITH PIPA!
* This is a lie. He wasn’t crazy about Strong really.
Best Director: David Cronenberg – A Dangerous Method
Honorable Mentions:
Andrea Arnold – Wuthering Heights
Steve McQueen – Shame
Lars Von Trier – Melancholia
Jeff Nichols – Take Shelter
Asghar Farhadi - A Separation
Best Directorial Debut: Joe Cornish – Attack The Block
Honorable Mention: Sean Durkin – Martha Marcy May Marlene
Best Screenplay: Asghar Farhadi – A Separation
Honorable Mentions:
Kenneth Lonergan – Margaret
Christopher Hampton – A Dangerous Method
Scott Z. Burns – Contagion
Bridget O’Connor / Peter Straughan - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
John Logan / Gore Verbinski / James Ward Byrkit – Rango
Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki – The Tree of Life
Honorable Mentions:
Robbie Ryan – Wuthering Heights
Anthony Dod Mantle - The Eagle
Sean Bobbitt – Shame
Amelia Vincent – Footloose
Rodrigo Prieto – Water For Elephants
Best Digital Photography: Roger Deakins – Rango
Best 3D Photography: Robert Richardson – Hugo
Best Editing: Paul Hirsch – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Best Soundtrack: Cécile Corbel – Arrietty
Honorable Mentions:
Hans Zimmer - Rango
Harry Escott – Shame
John Powell / Hans Zimmer – Kung Fu Panda 2
Cliff Martinez – Drive
Michael Giacchino – Super 8
Best Original Song: Star Spangled Man (Alan Menken / David Zippel) – Captain America: The First Avenger
Best Costume Design: Eiko Ishioka – Immortals
Honorable Mentions:
Alexandra Byrne – Thor
Wendy Partridge - Conan The Barbarian
Anna B. Sheppard - Captain America: The First Avenger
Paco Delgado / Jean Paul Gaultier – The Skin I Live In
Trish Summerville – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Best Visual Effects: Digital Domain, ILM, Legend 3D and many many more - Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Honorable Mentions:
Modus FX, Tippett Studio, Scanline VFX and again, many more – Immortals
Prime Focus, Animal Logic, Pixomondo and… you know what I’m going to say – Sucker Punch
ILM, Hammerhead, Entity FX, and dear God, how many FX houses are there in the world? - I Am Number Four
Digital Domain, Buf Studios, Stereo D, etc. etc. etc. sorry guys – Thor
Douglas Trumbull, Prime Focus, Double Negative, but mostly hey check it out, it’s Doug Trumbull! – The Tree of Life
Best Sound Design: Nicolas Becker – Wuthering Heights
Honorable Mentions:
Erik Aahdahl / Ethan Van der Ryn – Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Koji Kasamatsu – Arrietty
Oliver Tarney / Mark Taylor – Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows
Ren Klyce - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Peter Miller / Adam Kopald – J.R. Grubbs / Addison Teague – Rango
Best Production Design / Art Direction: DanteFerretti – Hugo
Honorable Mentions:
Mark “Crash” McCreery – Rango
Bo Welch / Maya Shimoguchi – Thor
Chris August – Conan The Barbarian
Scott Chambliss / Christopher Burian-Mohr / Daniel T. Dorrance - Cowboys and Aliens
Tom Foden / Michele Laliberte - Immortals
Worst Director: Paul Johansson - Atlas Shrugged: Part I
Dishonorable Mentions:
Madonna – W.E.
Rob Marshall – Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Lone Scherfig - One Day
Paul W.S. Anderson – The Three Musketeers
Ivan Reitman – No Strings Attached
Worst Screenplay: Madonna and Alex Keshishian – W.E.
Dishonorable Mentions:
John Aglioloro / Brian Patrick O’Toole – Atlas Shrugged Part I
David Nicholls – One Day
Elizabeth Meriweather / Michael Samonek - No Strings Attached
Jason Lew - Restless
Tom Hanks / Nia Vardalos – Larry Crowne
Worst Cinematography: Dion Beebe – Green Lantern
Dishonorable Mentions:
Hagen Bogdanski – W.E.
John Mathieson – X-Men: First Class
Masanobu Takayanagi – Warrior
Adriano Goldman – 360
Ross Berryman – Atlas Shrugged Part 1
Worst Editing: Danny Tull – W.E.
Still more to come even after all of this excessive listmaking. Hey, I can’t help it if I don’t get a chance to write for the rest of the year. There was a huge build-up of opinion inside me and this is the slow release, like air leaking out of a zeppelin.
My first experience of the 2011 London Film Festival was attending 360, the instantly derided new project from Fernando Meirelles and Peter Morgan, who were in attendance for the movie’s second screening following the opening night gala. Sadly the second experience of the festival was watching a fight almost break out between the guy sitting next to me and the couple sitting in front of us who conducted a phone conversation with an unseen third party through the first five minutes of the movie; a little gift to the audience that included some calisthenics from the guy who stood up, turned around, sat down, got back up, all while chattering away as if he was the only person in the room. I’ve whined about the unusually poor behaviour of festival attendees before, but this was on a whole new level. It didn’t bode well.
One miserable consequence of this was that I missed the opening of 360, in which Mirkha (Lucia Siposová), a young woman preparing to begin work as a high-end escort, is photographed by a sleazy pan-European pimp. As this happens we hear a voiceover which I suspect is from her sister, Anna (Gabriela Marcinkova) who, as far as I could see past Mr. Inconsiderate Twirling Guy, was talking about things coming full circle which, if you think about it, is super-apt considering the fact that the movie, named 360, is a loose adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde. Annoying that I couldn’t see the subtitles, but then I knew, just from the format of the movie, that I would get another chance to read them again at the end of the film, when it inevitably finished with the same speech. And what do you know, I was right. This is not a movie that contains a multitude of surprises, then.
Maybe it’s delayed fatigue brought on by exposure to Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel, which hopped around the globe from story to story, showing how connected we are, or maybe it’s my belief that this kind of linked anthology story has already been written definitively by David Mitchell (dedicated Cloud Atlas fan here), but 360 felt tired almost from the very first shot. Mirkha leaves the Grimy Room of Depravity™ to begin her escorting career by travelling across Europe to meet with Jude Law, a seemingly inept businessman hoping to have a sexual encounter while away from his wife. An unfortunate encounter with one of the pushy men he has travelled to see stymies his sexcapade, and from this moment on, a wave of accidental meetings, misunderstandings and revelations sweeps across the globe, changing the lives of a number of otherwise unconnected characters.
Meirelles’ critical stock appears to have fallen precipitously over the years, and for a while it felt like I was the only person still banging a drum for him. From critical adoration (City of God) to bemused grumbling (Blindness), his reputation has lost its lustre. Personally I liked Blindness, thought the performances were strong and the movie’s aesthetic appealing enough that I ignored the obviousness of the tale’s metaphorical conceit, but there’s hardly any way to defend 360. It’s a disappointingly ugly movie, rendered in washed-out tones, while the sludgy pace caused by its stop-start anthology structure means Meirelles struggles to generate any tension. The final scenes attempt to create some suspense but so little time has been spent with the characters the only way to make it work at all is to throw some pretty cheap melodramatics at the audience.
It’s possible that the version we saw was incomplete; it’s so flatly shot there’s a chance it hadn’t even been colour-coded, and the subtitles contained spelling and grammatical errors. And I’ll admit 360‘s plotting is mostly drum-tight, with only an occasional unrealistic fudge to help the narrative along. It’s also a surprisingly optimistic film, which gives it an edge over the modish, unconvincing dourness of Iñárritu’s work. In the Q&A following the movie Morgan happily admitted that he’s a jolly person at heart and didn’t feel it necessary to add any bleakness to the tale. It’s refreshing to see something so cheerful and life-affirming, especially considering the stream of huge downer movies I subjected myself to over the next two weeks.
Unfortunately it also means that 360 has little bite, except for a mid-movie sequence sullied with the most startling tonal inconsistency imaginable. Most of the movie’s indiscretions involve adultery, here seen as a chain of infidelity that spreads across Europe. Through a number of linked events we see heartbroken Laura (Maria Flor) leave London to head back to her native Brazil. On the plane she meets kindly Anthony Hopkins, a lonely bereaved father who helps her out, and during a layover in the States she encounters Tyler (Ben Foster), a sex offender struggling with an almost overwhelming urge to rape her and who may have been responsible for the death of Hopkins’ daughter and eh what hold on?
Foster (on admittedly fine form) is just dropped into the movie without any previous connection. A quick discordant scene establishes that he has been released to travel across the States to a halfway house thanks to the intervention of an apparently blind and delusional care worker. That’s very nice, but considering how jumpy he is, how easily tempted he is and how much he is still struggling to overcome his urges, it seems utterly inconceivable that he would be allowed to do this alone. Upon meeting this twitchy, unpleasant, antisocial mess of grunts, Laura is instantly, insanely smitten and drags him back to her room, thus brushing off Anthony Hopkins, who has agreed to meet her in the airport diner because he’s such a lovely and friendly old man but fuck that, eh? Who wants to hang around with someone like that when you can attempt to get over your heartbreak by trying ineptly to seduce a redneck whose body language screams “rapist/murderer” (or should I say “Actor who thinks rapist/murderers act like rapist/murderers”)?
The upshot of this is that we see a ridiculous split-screen suspense sequence seemingly directed by a mogodon-dosed De Palma in which a number of bureaucrats and jobsworths slowly realise that maybe letting someone as transparently dangerous as Tyler out to roam the world might not have been a good idea after all. We also, in the middle of a movie that gaily skips between light drama and broad comedy, get to see Foster in a bathroom frenetically masturbating and miming violent abusive sex acts in an attempt to stop himself from accosting poor oblivious selfish Laura. It’s so bizarrely inappropriate, compared to the rest of the movie, that I felt like asking if the reels had been switched. The fact that this is the only sequence in the movie to generate any kind of frisson complicates matters further. It’s desperately manipulative, almost comically so, but I guess it worked. Insert sadface here.
This wasn’t my favourite sequence, however. I will not hide the fact that I’m a fan of every single one of Anthony Hopkins’ brilliant acting tics; the gabbled run-on sentences, the oddly creepy smile, the constant leaning, and that rich, commanding voice. In drunken moments I have attempted to imitate him, so dearly do I love him. This has been a great year for fans of the thespian colossus. He was brilliantly unhinged in the otherwise unwatchable exorcism movie The Rite, magnificent in Kenny Branagh’s vastly entertaining Thor, and endearingly dopey in Woody Allen’s You Will Meet A Tall, Dark Stranger where, sadly, he had to share a lot of screentime with Lucy Punch, hammily playing the worst chav caricature imaginable. Yes, worse than Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite and Patricia Clarkson in Whatever Works. Nice work Woody, you massive fucking snob.
In 360, however, we get to see what happens when a writer and director completely indulge him. Morgan gives him a long speech about his dead daughter, delivered at an AA meeting, that goes on for what feels like about five minutes. I’m not sure what guidance Meirelles gave him, but the result is a long, unbroken slice of pure Hopkinia, and it took all of my power not to hoot with joy throughout. There is SO MUCH ACTING in this scene. The great man throws in every single tic and technique you can imagine, but goddamn it, the scene works like gangbusters, at least for me. Hell, I’d watch a whole movie of this. Someone get on that shit immediately.
It would certainly be more entertaining that this bitty hodge-podge of promising but underdeveloped short stories. For something that supposedly spans the globe and pays tribute to the hoary old idea that we’re all part of the same great human melange, 360 feels small and inconsequential. There’s no great truth here, and while it passes the time well enough, it’s disconcerting to see something so half-hearted come from Meirelles, who previously seemed to have a better grip of what it is to be alive in the modern age. This is a pick-and-mix bag compiled by someone who doesn’t understand you; there’s probably something in there you’ll like, but there’ll also be far too much licorice, and some of those unappetising-looking fried egg sweets with that nasty foamy texture.
I feel bad saying any of that because 360 is kinda sweet, and both Meirelles and Morgan were utterly charming in the post-movie Q&A. While looking for info about this movie online just now, I spotted here that Morgan’s inspiration for 360 includes the viral contagion that also, regrettably, connects us with each other. Jude Law also showed up in Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, which takes that idea and runs with it, and though Contagion wasn’t included on the London Film Festival roster, I saw it while the festival was happening and it struck me as such a perfect companion piece with 360 that I have to talk about it. Also, because I think Soderbergh’s movie has been given an unfairly rough ride by critics.
Contagion has been described in the same damning way as David Cronenberg’s superb A Dangerous Method; too clinical, too sterile, not fluffy and crazy and melodramatic enough. Just as I strongly believe that such criticism of A Dangerous Method is wide of the mark, and will eventually be consigned to a dustbin once people have seen it more times and have come to appreciate its subtlety, I think Contagion will be treated with greater respect over time (coincidentally, the critic who seemed to value Contagion most was Amy Taubin, whose incisive and similarly enthusiastic review of A Dangerous Method can be found here). Nevertheless, it irks me to hear this gripping, serious drama compared negatively to Wolfgang Peterson’s ridiculous — though admittedly entertaining — plague movie Outbreak.
Written by the brilliant Scott Z. Burns (who was responsible for the exquisitely scripted The Informant!), Contagion follows a number of people affected by a global outbreak of a deadly new virus, MEV-1. Burns and Soderbergh focus mainly on the scientists struggling to find a vaccine, but also show the effect of the pandemic via bereaved citizen Matt Damon and blogger Jude Law. There are multiple strands here, but unlike 360, which parcels its stories out in discrete lumps, Contagion‘s stories run parallel to each other as the virus flourishes, triggering vast societal changes as humanity struggles to cope with impending disaster.
And yes, it is clinical. Soderbergh avoids melodramatics — there are only a couple of histrionic flare-ups during the movie, mostly from poor, terrified Damon, struggling to protect his daughter from the fate that befell other members of the family. But this approach, eschewing easy drama, is entirely appropriate for a movie dedicated to celebrating the best of the human intellect. What might seem like an oddly subdued movie about apocalypse is teeming with suppressed emotion, most of which is tamped down in order to maintain scientific objectivity to prevent the death of almost 10% of humanity. This is a paean to the great minds toiling away to prevent global catastrophe, a testament to the unsung experts who try to save us from our hostile world.
Many years ago I was lucky enough to read Laurie Garrett‘s The Coming Plague, which triggered a fascination with epidemiology and virology. Contagion is the first movie to successfully channel these fascinating subjects in an a serious fashion, but then this is probably because Ms. Garrett was one of the consultants who helped Burns write his authoritative screenplay (Dr. Larry Brilliant and Dr. Ian Lipkin were also among the contributors). The movie screams authenticity; there’s no synthesis of barrels of vaccine in a couple of minutes, there’s no temporary stupidity gaps among the scientists in order to generate fake tension or emotion, there’s no plucky maverick saving the day, and no applause for anyone who isn’t a professional. This is a movie that loves the intelligent, objective elites that know their shit. For this novel approach alone Contagion should be heralded as a major success.
I may rail against Aaron Sorkin as often as I praise him, but his love of the smartest of the smart — most often expressed by giving his characters speeches where they reel off their CVs to a clearly stunned audience of drooling lesser-folk — is refreshing, when not distorted by his personal bias against anyone who dares to question his brilliance. Too often the template for movies is to provide a little man to cheer on as he does battle against the know-it-alls who dare to order the rest of us around. It’s this glorification of the plucky ignoramus that has led to the rise of ideologically motivated idiots like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Melanie Phillips, Peter Hitchens, Jon Gaunt, Amanda Platell and the rest of their malevolent small-minded ilk. This is most definitely not a good thing.
Meanwhile the quiet brains that make the world better or safer are drowned out by this frothing torrent of anti-knowledge, best shown in Contagion via Jude Law’s financially-motivated blogger Alan Krumweide. There have been some grumblings that Contagion is tarring all bloggers with the same brush, but I don’t think Soderbergh and Burns mean to use the vile Krumweide as a critical tool against those of us who write online without the seal of honour provided by a paid job by the official media (see also: Sorkin and his mean-spirited complaints against amateur writers). There are a number of comments made by Krumweide that plainly show their satirical target is the kind of corrupt individual who seeks to alter public perception of scientific endeavours for financial gain.
Their target is almost certainly Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who campaigned against the MMR vaccine. There is dispute over whether his now-discredited claims about links between the vaccine and a rise in autism diagnoses have caused a surge in measles cases around the world, but nevertheless his motives for arguing against MMR closely align with the motives of Krumweide, who promotes the use of Forsythia as a cure for the MEV-1 virus in order to capitalise on the inevitable run on the false remedy. He is a pitiful, unpleasant character, but he is at least given a few moments of what seems to be doubt and pity. I usually react negatively to unrepentant villainy in movies, but my own sense of anger at such venal behaviour in the real world meant Krumweide seemed almost insufficiently evil.
Contagion doesn’t deny that there is a political element to public health provisions, governmental disaster response, or the financial, social and religious reactions to outbreaks, but it strenuously lobbies for a cessation of needless complicating actions when faced with the death of millions. There is a sense of great anger against such behaviour in this movie, and the way in which attempts to capitalise on crisis inevitably obstruct the nobler work of scientists. This is a hero-worship movie, and how you respond to that will be linked to how much you think the CDC is trying to help humanity or exploit it. As someone who thinks these guys are to be trusted, Contagion is the movie I’ve been waiting for since discovering their humbling, courageous work.
And for those who feel Contagion is a heartless movie that denies any expression of emotion, I direct you to the final act of the movie, where we see the assorted characters get a moment to pause for breath. It is in these final scenes that we see them find time to react to the global — and personal — shift caused by the pandemic. There is humanity here in spades. It just had to be put on hold for a while. How rare it is to see something in popular culture praise reflection and professionalism, to take a break from severing Gordian knots with an slashing knife instead of taking the time to unravel it, before exhaling and embracing the horror that the characters have survived.
360 may have tried to tell a story about the wonder of humanity in the connected 21st Century but it rarely rises above the level of potboiler. Contagion is the movie that eulogises the best of our species, by showing how, even when the majority panic and try to make things worse, we were once at least smart and civilised enough to have prepared the safety net that will save us. There is fear here, and raging frustration, and Soderbergh and Burns dramatise both brilliantly, but they also offer a vision of hope. Their cleverest trick comes in the very last minute, in which we see just how fragile we are as a species, and how much we can jeopardise ourselves if we’re not careful. We can be almost entirely undone by the smallest fluke moment, but still we prevail. That last note is haunting, but even as it hangs in the air we can still hear the minimalist symphony of hope played just before. We will prevail, no matter what gets thrown at us. We’re going to be just fine.
Objective assessment of A Dangerous Method — the first movie by David Cronenberg since Eastern Promises — was rendered impossible in the minutes before it started. Regular readers will recall that I am notoriously bad at dealing with these brushes with the great and the good. For all the complaints I make about the anti-glamour of the London Film Festival — held as it is in the most crowded and commercial part of London — as soon as a famous or semi-famous creator appears prior to a screening, I’m usually rendered insensible with joy.
Now take that absurd emotional response and multiply it by a billion, because David Cronenberg is, in my humble opinion, the most important, consistent, and intellectually ambitious director working in the world today. Perhaps of all time. His self-deprecating and funny speech before the second LFF screening almost completely passed me by as my brain fizzed and my eyes misted up. There are just no words to describe how important the man’s work has been to me since my formative years, how much his ideas and his intellectual curiosity have shaped my worldview. To be in his presence was overwhelming (fuzzy photographic proof can be found here; he is with LFF head Sandra Hebron).
The news from previous festival screenings was that Cronenberg had frozen a potentially interesting subject in amber. The dread word “tasteful” appeared more than once. Surely it had to be false. This most transgressive of filmmakers wasn’t making Oscar bait; it just couldn’t be possible. Nevertheless, the disappointed reviews rolled in, talking about the man’s glory days as if they were long past. For those of us who love his work, this was a dark time. And yet, contrary to those reports, Cronenberg throws caution to the wind with one of his boldest openings ever, and to do that he had to reinvent Keira Knightley.
Cronenberg’s facility with actors is nothing short of miraculous. Though he tends to work with already brilliant performers, the work he draws from them is often the best of their career. James Woods, Jeff Goldblum, Viggo Mortensen, Ralph Fiennes, and Christopher Walken have all shone for his camera, with special praise due to Jeremy Irons, whose dual role in the masterpiece Dead Ringers might be the finest performance(s) of the last 30 years. Here he is reunited with Viggo following the departure of Christoph Waltz, and gets to work with the imminently famous / notorious Michael Fassbender. How many actors have had a year as packed with diverse and brilliant performances as Fassbender has over the past 12 months?
Knightley was the wild card. Often derided by critics and cinemagoers, she has yet to make an impression as an actress rather than as a film star, though her work in Joe Wright’s Atonement was solid, and she held her own with a mostly underwritten role in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (with an uptick of responsibility in the third installment). Cronenberg places her front and centre in the very first scene of the movie, and she does not hold back. Gurning, growling, rocking back and forth, barely able to communicate due to the extreme nature of her tics, Knightley’s startling introduction is a gauntlet thrown in our face. Just as Cronenberg once challenged the commitment of his audience with exploding heads or compound fractures, now he’s affronting our sense of reserve by presenting a fearless, unrestrained demonstration of acting pyrotechnics.
This explosion of acting tics has proven to be the most divisive element in the critical response to A Dangerous Method. Knightley plays Sabina Spielrein — patient, collaborator and lover of Carl Jung — as a broken woman partially healed by the pioneering technique known as The Talking Cure. This first appearance depicts her as barely functional, and it’s from here that we gauge the success of Jung’s treatment as he nurses her towards something akin to “normality”. Anything less from Knightley would make the early achievements of psychoanalysis seem less impressive; as Cronenberg says here, the birth of psychoanalysis transformed the human condition completely, and Knightley’s depiction of Spielrein as an almost alien being is intentional and wholly correct.
Her performance calms down soon after this startling opening as she is slowly healed by Jung, but the eye is drawn to Knightley in every scene as she fights against this unpredictable force within. It’s a perfect visual metaphor for the tumult in all of us, hidden behind our civil face, here brilliantly personified by Fassbender and Mortensen as buttoned-down, constrained Jung and Freud. Cronenberg’s masterful decision to restrict his camera and his actors is perfectly judged. The movie is bound so tightly that it almost squeaks as it tries to move; vertical lines dominate almost every scene, faces appear in the middle of the frame, dialogue is delivered in clipped, almost emotionless tones.
Into this precise world comes Knightley, barging in over and over again to unsettle the delicate world. Those vertical lines tip over onto the diagonal, Fassbender’s eyes begin to flicker with doubt and fear, and with that comes a sexual impulse that he finds impossible to resist. It isn’t long before Jung falls under her spell, taking on the role of dominant in a D/s relationship inspired by her admission that abuse by her father excited her sexually. Cronenberg’s camera finds them in flagrante delicto as if coming across them in secret, our POV catching furtive glimpses of them from around corners and through doorways as they hide from public view. In these moments Spielrein seems utterly transported, while Jung’s involvement seems more hesitant.
Some bright spark on Twitter noted that Spielrein serves the same purpose here as Marilyn Chambers did in Rabid, infecting two men with the unpredictable virus of doubt. She also resembles Genevieve Bujold’s Claire Niveau in Dead Ringers, unsettling the equilibrium of the Mantles’ filial framework, or even the Videodrome signal that rewrites Max Renn into an amalgam of man, woman and machine. Spielrein’s intrusion into Jung’s mental space transforms him too. She contributes to the idea of the Anima and Animus within us all, and to the concept of the Death Drive postulated by Freud, who becomes aware of her theories later in the movie. They are men of the mind, and their minds are mutated by this invading agent, for better or worse.
The conflict between the public and the private, most dramatically shown through Jung’s secret unethical behaviour, is amusingly drawn. With the exception of forthright Knightley, the cast play guarded roles that obscure their baser impulses, all of which subtly leak out for the benefit of Cronenberg’s camera. He brilliantly dramatises the competitiveness between the ambitious Jung and the defensive Freud; the deterioration of their father-son/mentor-pupil relationship, triggered by generational envy and ethnic frisson, is funny and painful. By the end of their friendship, Freud pointedly draws more and more attention to Jung’s Aryan heritage and the way this taints his relationship with both himself and Spielrein, who are both Jewish (see this brilliant, perceptive review by Amy Taubin for more on ethnic identity, Cronenberg’s mastery of composition, and Knightley’s bold performance; many thanks to @DarkEyeSocket for introducing me to that wonderful critique).
My understanding of Freudian and Jungian theory is negligible, I must admit. Most of what I know about Jung’s work concerns his interest in parapsychology. Cronenberg and Christopher Hampton (the screenwriter, adapting his own play The Talking Cure) have dramatised the infamous moment when Jung gleefully reveals his theory of Synchronicity to Freud. The elder scientist’s cynicism is unchanged by the peculiar instance of Jung correctly predicting that a loud cracking sound will be heard in the room during their conversation. It’s a funny scene in a surprisingly amusing movie, though within this moment is the sad realisation that Jung, suddenly made confident by Freud’s companionship and his burgeoning adulterous relationship with Spielrein, has just experienced the rejection of a father figure.
Cronenberg knows more about these scientists than I ever will. Unpicking his coded references to their work is beyond me, but fortunately post-movie discussions with psychology expert Daisyhellcakes have illuminated some of the clever subtextual details littering A Dangerous Method. For instance,Vincent Cassel races into the movie at the halfway mark as Otto Gross, a libidinous, uncontrollable psychologist who helps to disrupt Jung’s psyche. He also creates a dynamic between the three male protagonists that reflects the Ego (Jung), the Superego (Freud) and the Id (Gross), a dynamic that soon dissolves, symbolically echoing the way Jung and Freud’s theories moved in different directions from the same starting point.
It could also be argued that Sabina’s development throughout the movie follows the four levels of Anima development, that we see her through Jung’s eyes, flowering as a person just as the Anima progresses from “base” desire to a position of wisdom and strength. Perhaps the version of Spielrein shown here is an ironic externalisation of Jung’s anima, just as Freud and Gross can be seen as aspects of Jung’s psyche (this also echoes Cronenberg’s earlier work, as The Brood represent an externalisation of Nola Carveth’s rage). The Anima that is Spielrein flourishes while Jung, trapped in the four stages of Animus development, is left broken and depressed, tragically incapable of benefiting from her development due to the bonds of societal expectation and duty. In this way the movie is, on a macro level, a tragic joke about a physician unable to heal himself.
Those who love Cronenberg have always expected this level of symbolic trickery. He’s unafraid to treat serious subjects with playfulness, and A Dangerous Method can be seen as either a straight biopic or a puzzle to be tinkered with. To paraphrase Bob Dylan upon meeting Alicia Keys, there’s nothing about this movie that I don’t like. Cronenberg’s mastery of the material is total. In a way he has been making this movie his whole life, and this might come to be seen as a Rosetta Stone to interpret his other works. Immaculately performed, beautifully shot and sensitively scored by his longtime collaborators Peter Suschitzky and Howard Shore respectively, it’s a funny, sad, sexually frank love story, a film with many levels of interpretation, and an important work of intellectual ambition. If you’re interested in cinema, in human nature, in the history of the modern age, this is essential viewing.
It says something about a man’s life that attending a film festival just a few dozen miles from his front door is so far and away the highlight of the year that once one has finished, he starts looking forward to the next one. Just like the miserable dads you see in bad comedies who make their loved ones’ lives hell prior to the big family holiday in the middle of the year, I spent the time between the 2010 London Film Festival and the 2011 London Film Festival talking about how much I was looking forward to the London Film Festival, or talking about the previous London Film Festival.
Colleagues at work began taking sick leave just to avoid me talking about shaking John Sayles’ hand last year. My cats have heard me complaining about the BFI’s website so often that they now understand about 50 words of human English. The tattoo I got of departing festival director Sandra Hebron might have been a step too far, but what else was I going to do with the large amount of unoccupied real estate on the top of my head? It was getting out of hand, so much so that on the day that tickets went on sale and the BFI servers promptly crashed yet again, I melodramatically declared that my year was definitively ruined. I’m fortunate that Daisyhellcakes is a strong and generous enough person that she didn’t divorce me on the spot.
But it all turned out reasonably okay. We got a shitload of tickets; so many that we ended up with too many, which is a bit of a problem as there is a no refund policy on LFF tickets. Apologies to anyone who queued outside the West End Vue one afternoon in a futile effort to get tickets for Roman Polanski’s Carnage; there were two tickets you could have had but sadly the baffling no refund rule meant you missed out. Word of warning to anyone who goes to the festival next year and buys too many tickets, which is all too likely considering how badly the website crashed this year; if you get too many tickets, start hawking them on Twitter well ahead of the screening. No one else will help you.
I can imagine queuing outside the West End Vue was a particularly miserable experience. Last year I whined about the renovation work being done on the building next to that cinema, which made exiting the building doubly difficult and miserable, but that was nothing compared to this year. Thanks to the forthcoming Olympics, London is pouring literally quadzillions of pounds into sprucing itself up for all of the guests we’ll get next year, which is tough shit for anyone trying to visit this year. Leicester Square is currently being torn apart by machines to such a drastic extent that post-Decepticon-invasion Chicago in Transformers: Dark of the Moon looks easier to navigate.
It’s not just the embarrassment one feels when thinking of great filmmakers and artists (and Jude Law with his excellent hat) coming to London to help celebrate the completion of their work and being presented with a plaza that’s almost entirely filled with mesh fences and corrugated iron, though that does make a lover of London wince; it’s as if the city turned up to a premiere dressed in sweatpants and a faded Scooby-Doo t-shirt. It’s mostly because getting around the area was nigh-impossible for two weeks. Just moving from the West End Vue to the West End Odeon, or Piccadilly Circus, was pretty much like this (actual iPhone footage that I took).
So that was a bit crap (the experience, not Jude Law’s beard). The festival, on the other hand, was terrific; we both saw a number of superb movies, some not-so-great ones, and an outright bad movie classic that will end up being embraced by anyone who has ever watched Showgirls or Dreamcatcher or Glitter and screeched with astonished laughter. Over the next week or so I’ll do my usual LFF thing, comparing some of the movies in order to figure out why some worked and others didn’t, most obviously with the rather similar Shame and Rampart, though I’ll also be tackling some of the more significant movies on their own. I’ll also make a shameful admission about the realisation that I am a know-nothing when it comes to Eastern culture, try to come to terms with the terrible child of the austerity era (the new Cinema of Misery), and reveal my ignorance of psychoanalysis when I discuss David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, which will happen tomorrow.
Traditionally this is one of those periods in the year when I get obnoxiously, nerdily excited about something many discerning film buffs dismiss as irrelevant: the Academy Awards, where overpaid buffoons receive the acceptance of their similarly overpaid buffoonish peers in the form of a gilded trinket. My enjoyment of this ceremony and all of the nonsense surrounding it flies in the face of serious film criticism, but then so does my love of garish and noisy explodofilms, and I guess that means I’ll never get that job at Sight & Sound, WOEZ.
This year is a bit different. Aside from a blip caused by this excellent and informative Tom Shone piece about the Academy voters, RL problems have taken some of the steam out of my usual preparation for the ceremony, and we won’t even be having our traditional Oscar party this year, where a bunch of lovely folks come around to eat Pringles, set off party poppers at 4 in the morning (::panics::), and shout insults at the thoroughly dreadful Sky Movies Oscar show presenters Claudia “I haven’t seen it yet” Winkleman and Mark “I haven’t seen it either but I bet it’s crap” Dolan. Sorry guys, it would have been fun, even with those endless Moet-sponsored inserts from England. Besides, would there be anything quite as thrilling as this in this year’s ceremony? I think not.)
Maybe it’s a lucky escape for all of us. Watching the ceremony is seriously damaged by enduring these ninnies wonk on about things they do not understand. Watching the Golden Globes earlier this year was a truly disheartening experience, the only entertaining aspect of it being Jessica Stevenson-Hynes cashing a paycheck for turning up at the studio and then crocheting for four hours (seriously, she just got her crocheting equipment out and got on with it) while Sky’s fashion correspondent and that stand-up comedian who looks like he’s taking a break from getting rejected by hot girls at fresher’s week blithered on about how The King’s Speech has to win everything just because it’s British and if it fails we’ll all die because our self-worth has somehow become inextricably linked with its baffling worldwide success.
Maybe that’s another reason why I’m not looking forward to the ceremony as much as usual. For the illumination of readers who live outside the UK, it’s fair to point out that all you hear about right now is King’s Speech King’s Speech King’s Speech 24/fucking/7, and it’s ruining my enjoyment of everything. It’s not a terrible movie, per se. It’s just unsurprising and overdirected. British movies revel in these “loser overcomes adversity” plots, applying them to every subject imaginable, though at least we can be glad Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush didn’t have to end up naked like the cast of The Full Monty or Calendar Girls. King’s Speech is no exception to this reliance on the rote and cliched plot template, though much of my irkety feelings about the damnable box office colossus is aimed at the final scene.
Audiences across the country might be weeping openly at King Thingy’s triumphant pronunciation of “thet scahhndrel Mestah Hetlah”, but the scene is so badly edited it really does seem like Tom “Off-Kilter Composition” Hooper is saying the final speech was delivered with such adversity-conquering power that Britain went insane with joy at their monarch getting it finished in a reasonable amount of time, instead of thinking “Oh shit, we’re going to war and we’re going to be bombed to blood-drenched ribbons and our sons are either going to die or be traumatised for the rest of their lives, oh God, oh God, oh God.” No no, our lips were too stiff for all that: huzzah for our imperial leader’s newfound confidence! That’ll make digging an Anderson shelter in the back yard and living on birdseed and gravel for ten years all the more fun.
Which is not to say I hated it entirely. It’s pretty difficult not to enjoy the seemingly now-legendary performance from Colin Firth, who is commendably spiky and unlovable as the spiky and unlovable monarch. The cast is generally very good, though Guy Pierce’s accent is hilariously distracting and Timothy Spall’s genial take on Churchill is a poor choice. It would have been much better had it been directed by someone who wasn’t so eager to draw attention to his work. Mr. Hooper, please stop with the maddening camera-frippery please please please. Your first movie – the far superior Damned United – was similarly marred by showy compositions, and it just makes you look a bit silly. You’re never going to have to go back to directing episodes of EastEnders now, so you don’t have to prove you’re the next Orson Welles. And look! Mark Lawson thinks that your time in the TV trenches makes you and your partner-in-overcompensating-visual-splurge Danny Boyle more capable than David Fincher and Darren Aronofsky! So congrats, one temporarily senile media pundit says that you’ve made it. Now please use the centre of the frame like a grown-up, okay?
So yeah, the worrying possibility of a King’s Sweep has soured me on the awards this year. I’m not crazy enough to assume that my favourites of the year – Black Swan and Inception – would win much, but I’d be perfectly happy with The Social Network winning a bunch of stuff. The topicality of it has made many see it as a movie that will date badly, but I think it says enough about our approach to relationships and interactions that it will fare better than previous tech-movies (who can watch, say, War Games and not laugh at the LP-sized floppy discs). I’m also hoping for some love to be thrown at The Kids Are All Right: it can be dismissed as light indie fare but I think it’s a better crafted movie than that, and earns all of its emotional payoffs with enough invisibly deployed effort that many US indie movies of the past few years couldn’t even begin to imagine. I’d also be very happy to see a surprise deluge of naked gold men all over the Coen Brothers’ triumphant True Grit, a film that ranks up there with their very best.
My sourer impulses hope for a shut-out of ADHD Boyle’s predictably empty 127 Hours, which is little more than a grisly advert for Humanity that relies almost exclusively on Sigur Ros’ Festival to generate any emotion amid the frenetic and mostly random frame-shuffle: classic Boyle, then. Despite my adoration of James Franco (so, so good here, and very amusing in his Green Hornet cameo), there’s little else to praise in 127 Hours. Oh, the photography is very nice. But still, Boyle has even less to say here than usual: the message of the movie seems to be “don’t die if you can help it, and be a little nicer to your mom”. Okay, thanks for the advice, go away now. It would also be nice to see Alice in Wonderland receive none of the technical awards it was nominated for just because I hate it so much (and yes, I’m using hate in the non-hyperbolic sense that I actually do hate it: properly hate it and get red-mist-angry whenever I think about it), but the technical categories were the only ones where I thought it was worthy of praise. That’s a tough one that won’t matter at all as I doubt it will win anything even though the Academy likes to pat successful movies on the head for being profitable, no matter how inexplicable or undeserving that success is.
So anyway, who do I think will win, and who do I think should win, and who do I think was unfairly shut out? See below for further details.
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Who Will Win: Colin Firth – The King’s Speech
Fairly obvious. His ascendance to Oscar glory wasn’t even damaged by the weird attempt by some unscrupulous scoundrel to stymie him by pointing out that King Whats-His-Name was a huge fan of Hitler (he had all of his albums, even his ill-advised dubstep experiment Das Reichbeat). The only thing that could stop Mr. Firth from winning this year would be for him to reveal he used a stunt double in THAT SCENE in Pride and Prejudice as he didn’t want to get his britches wet.
Who Should Win: Colin Firth – The King’s Speech
I used to be a Colin Firth agnostic, but this performance – and his adorable humility in the face of overwhelming praise – has made a believer of me. I’ll be just as pleased at his inevitable win as all of the journalists who will be able to print “GOD SAVE THE KING!” on the front page on Monday morning.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Ben Stiller – Greenberg
I don’t think anyone nominated this year should be excluded. Even the fact that Biutiful is an appalling movie can take anything away from Javier Bardem’s impressive work. Nevertheless, I think Stiller’s bold and detailed performance deserves more praise than it got. Ah well.
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Who Will Win: Geoffrey Rush – The King’s Speech
I think the initial rush of enthusiasm for Christian Bale’s bold work in David O. Russell’s annoyingly conventional The Fighter has passed, though not because of anything Bale did or didn’t do (though not taking out ads of himself with his current Jesus ‘do with the word “Consider…” above it was a good move, ahem ahem). The Weinsteins are going all out with the promotion for The King’s Speech, as they always do, and I think it will swing it for Rush. Which is no crime. He’s very entertaining in that movie, though he sadly does not top his most towering and haunting performance as Casanova Frankenstein in Mystery Men.
Who Should Win: Christian Bale – The Fighter
But seriously, Bale’s performance is more than worthy of the nod. After a couple of years of harassing cinematographers and being overshadowed by his co-stars, this amazing transformation into a haunted and hyperactive loser on a redemptive path is initially showy enough to attract attention but allows for the development of quiet notes later in the movie that knocked my socks off. It reminded me of why I was thrilled when I heard he was going to be Christopher Nolan’s Batman many years ago: because he’s a really, really talented actor and has incredible screen presence when given some room to breathe. That is the main reason I’m not shouting from the rooftops about John Hawkes, who will surely now get the work he deserves after wowing us as the amoral scumbag Teardrop Dolly in Winter’s Bone.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Zach Galafianakis – It’s Kind of a Funny Story
As feeble as this movie is, Galafianakis’ unshowy stillness in the centre is the only thing that stays in the memory after the credits roll. I would have been miffed to see Fleck and Boden’s twee failure be recognised, but it would have been worth it to see Galafianakis receive his due (and not Due Date, which is what the poor bastard ended up with).
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Who Will Win: Natalie Portman – Black Swan
This is possibly the strongest category this year, and yet there is still a frontrunner. While everyone else is preparing bunting for King Colin, I’m expending all of my energy rooting for Natalie. Let’s hope No Strings Attached isn’t her Norbit.
Who Should Win: Natalie Portman – Black Swan
I was impressed by all of the performances in this category (and was especially glad to see Nicole Kidman remind us of why she is such a fascinating actress with some very strong work in the heartbreaking Rabbit Hole), but even so, there is only one that can win. I think the only people who would be more upset if she lost would be all of the Marvel marketing folks who will have prepared countless Thor posters bragging that it stars two Academy-Award-winning actors (and Kat Dennings) in its line-up.
Who Should Have Been Nominated:
Let’s see: Catherine Keener for Please Give, Kristin Scott Thomas for Partir, Rachel Weisz for Agora, Greta Gerwig for Greenberg, Carey Mulligan for Never Let Me Go, Emma Stone for Easy A (I’m 100% serious), Julianne Moore for The Kids Are All Right (it would split the vote against Annette Bening, but it would have been nice anyway), Marion Cotillard for Inception, Angelika Papoulia in Dogtooth… The list goes on and on. What a year for incredible performances from actresses.
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Who Will Win: Helena Bonham Carter – The King’s Speech
You’ll note a trend developing here. I’m really convinced there’s going to be a landslide for The King’s Speech, certainly in the top tiers, and this – or a win for Geoffrey Rush – would be the first sign that Hollywood has gone Monarchy-Mad. Melissa Leo screwed the pooch with her ill-considered campaign (though if she felt the Paramount marketing department were letting her down she’s perfectly entitled to do something about it, I guess), and it’s going to cost her. Plus her performance was really cartoony: even more so than Bonham Carter’s silly Queen Mom with her clipped tones and humourlessness and no mention of all that Nazi sympathising, of course.
Who Should Win: Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit
I guess? I don’t know, this is a tough category. I don’t think I loved any of the performances here (whereas the best actress category is overloaded with greatness), though I haven’t seen Jacki Weaver’s work in Animal Kingdom (released in the UK two days ago FFS). I did enjoy Steinfeld’s funny turn in True Grit, and if Bridges isn’t going to win (and Matt Damon isn’t even going to be nominated, which is bullshit), then this is where the acting praise should fall. Amy Adams was okay in The Fighter, but I’m never very keen on seeing her play working class folks (don’t get me started on Junebug). So yeah, Steinfeld gets my vote and a shrug.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Olivia Williams – The Ghost (Writer)
Ms. Williams was almost obscenely entertaining as the sour and unpredictable wife of Fierce Pierce’s puppet PM, but perhaps appearing in a thriller was enough to make the voters ignore her. Or maybe there was no effort to lobby for her nomination. Whatever the reason was, it’s a crime. See also a lack of nominations for Dale Dickey in Winter’s Bone (so terrifying) and Rebecca Hall in Please Give.
Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
What Will Win: Toy Story 3
Is there any question? I haven’t seen The Illusionist, even though I liked Chomet’s Belleville Rendezvous quite a bit when I first saw it, and so can’t attest to its quality, but even so, Toy Story 3 is one of the richest, smartest, and cleverest films of the year, as well as being the cruellest. In a good way, obviously. Cheerleaders for The Illusionist still hope for a surprise, but it’s not going to happen. This is Pixar’s year. Again.
What Should Win: Toy Story 3
See above. I’m still getting over it. Lee Unkrich and Michael Arndt owe me some new tear ducts.
What Should Have Been Nominated: Tangled / Megamind / Summer Wars
It’s a shame they didn’t expand the list to five nominees this year, because while 2010 might not have been as impressive as the previous year for animation, it was still pretty great, even if only for Walt Disney Animation’s phenomenal Tangled. It was deemed worthy of a Best Original Song nod but nothing else? Even with only three nominations I’d place this above How To Train Your Dragon which, I should stress, I liked a great deal. That said, I preferred Dreamworks Animation’s other big release of the year, the irreverent but surprisingly affecting superhero comedy Megamind. It would also have been nice to see Mamoru Hosodo’s paean to family life and the power of technology get on the list, but I realise that I’m now asking for the moon on a stick.
Achievement in Art Direction
Who Will Win: Eve Stewart and Judy Farr – The King’s Speech
In years past I’ve grown frustrated with the habit of awarding this Oscar to the movie with the stateliest stately home, mostly because I prefer the flash of a fully designed set to the stultifying idea of sitting in an antiques shop trying to find the right vase for a specific period. I suspect I’m not alone in this: everyone who loves film remembers the name Ken Adams, but does anyone remember the names of the (very talented, I’m sure) production designers and set decorators on any randomly chosen period drama from the Great British Period Drama Machine? Still, King’s Speech is bound to win this, with the grungy basement studio of Lionel Logue providing the only interesting set in the whole worthy film. Only Jess Gonchor’s designs for True Grit stand a chance of beating it, which would be nice, as I’ve enjoyed her work before now.
Who Should Win: Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias and Doug Mowat – Inception
I suspect I’m only saying this because I love the idea of a rotating set so much, but I did think Inception had some lovely sets, including the team’s ramshackle workspace, the grimy first level of the dream and the demolished hotel room in Cobb’s subconscious. Or maybe I think True Grit should win it. I’ll have to ponder that one. (No I won’t. This is bloody exhausting. There are, like, a million categories!)
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Dante Ferretti – Shutter Island
Martin Scorsese’s energetic movie may have been muddled and unfortunately stuck with the most glaringly obvious “twist” ending imaginable, but it as a technical exercise in ramping up suspense it was well worth the effort. On top of that it looked the BUSINESS. Part of that was Dante Ferretti’s brilliant production design, a highlight being the asylum on the eponymous island with its intricate nightmarish dungeons, plucked straight from the recesses of Hitchcock’s subconscious. Shutter Island may not have been a total success, partly because the movie serves the twist and not the other way around (for an hour nothing makes sense in order to hide the ending from the audience: a lethal narrative choice), but hell, it got no nominations, even in the technical categories? I guess the Academy figured that after Scorsese won for The Departed they could just forget about him.
Achievement in Cinematography
Who Will Win: Roger Deakins – True Grit
King Deakins amazes again! They should just have an award ready for him every year, and then another one for best runner-up. Truly lovely and textured work, a joy to behold. LOVE!
Who Should Win: Roger Deakins – True Grit
It’s a strong category, but even though I liked almost all of the work here (with the exception of The King’s Speech, though I blame Tom Hooper for that, not Danny Cohen), it has to go to Deakins.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Shelly Johnson – The Wolfman
As weak as that film was, it was so beautiful it was almost possible to completely ignore the phoned-in performances and creaky shock-jumps. Johnson took the black-and-white photography of the original Universal monster movies as a starting point and created a beautiful modern update with flickering shadows, delicate bounced light and an almost monochrome palette that allowed the blood to stand out in all its grisly glory. It reminded me of Emmanuel Lubezki’s terrific work on Sleepy Hollow (a film released in one of the strongest ever years for cinematography, with Conrad Hall and Dante Spinotti excelling on American Beauty and The Insider respectively).
Achievement in Costume Design
Who Will Win: Jenny Beaven – The King’s Speech
I’m actually just saying King’s Speech now as a form of temper tantrum. I’m actually not sure it will win (True Grit is a likely winner too), but I dread its dominance so much everywhere I look I see some obnoxious fish-eye close up of King Colin swallowing noisily. Ugh, I’m beginning to hate the fucking thing.
Who Should Win: Sandy Powell – The Tempest
I haven’t seen it, but I’d imagine Julie Taymor would ask her collaborator to come up with something a little more interesting than something based on a design hanging in a museum somewhere. [/bitter]
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Penny Rose – Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
This misfiring Bruckheimer game adaptation managed too look great despite Mike Newell’s seeming indifference (I expected more from him: maybe the focus groups ruined it, or perhaps the scale of it was too overwhelming to allow space to breathe). Part of that was Ms. Rose’s lovely designs. As I know nothing about clothes I won’t embarrass myself by trying to explain why I liked them so much. I just thought everyone looked really cool. Maybe I should rename this blog I Can’t Believe It’s Not Film Criticism.
Achievement in Directing
Who Will Win: David Fincher – The Social Network
At last I suspect the grim claws of the Weinsteins will loosen a little, and sanity will prevail, though part of me (the miserable pessimistic part) fears Hooper will win and then deliver his speech just to the side of the podium, facing the wrong side of the stage. But no, surely Fincher will finally get his trophy. Surely! The alternative is too depressing to comprehend: a Hooper win and Fincher following up The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo with a Driving Miss Daisy remake starring Brad Pitt as Miss Daisy and Jodie Foster taking on the role of kindly chauffeur/slave Hoke in order to appeal to the addle-brained sentimental twits who are ruining movies for everyone. Because come on, what the hell does one of the most impressive and intelligent directors to come out of America in the last twenty years have to do to get a goddamn Oscar? ::looks at Best Director snubs in the past:: Never mind.
Who Should Win: Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
After all that I may seem like I’m being contrary, but while I thought Fincher did astounding work wrestling with Aaron Sorkin’s verbal splurge, my heart belongs to Aronofsky this year. Regular readers will be praying for me not to lose my head over Black Swan again, after writing an absurdly hyperbolic review last year, so I’ll leave it there.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Christopher Nolan – Inception
A no-brainer, surely. His ambitious screenplay has been attacked for being exposition-heavy, though there are those of us who think the exposition was actually pretty elegant considering he had to front-load the movie with about a million pages-worth of universe-explaining rules in order to make that amazing final half flow so smoothly. Whatever side of that divide you come down on, I would’ve thought only the movie’s most vocal detractors would think Nolan doesn’t deserve something for creating something so singular and odd and appealing despite being a total left-brain project without all of that lovely heart that apparently all movies require nowadays.
Hence the inclusion of Tom Hooper and David O. Russell on the list. Yes, though I love Russell’s previous work his direction of The Fighter was disappointingly straight-forward here. It would be crazy to expect his usual quirkiness considering the formulaic nature of the sports movie, but Aronofsky found a way to make The Wrestler seem uniquely his. Conspiracy theories about Russell attempting to store some mainstream capital after the Nailed debacle seem more and more justified. (For the record, I liked The Fighter well enough — I’m a sucker for boxing movies, it seems — and it was well-performed. It was just kinda flat, is all.)
Best Documentary Feature
What Will Win: Waste Land
Apparently it”s emotional and universally well-liked, so why not? As with many of the categories to come, this is a bit outside my wheel-house, so I’m guessing here. I’ve only seen Restrepo, which is a solidly made and very depressing movie, but I don’t think it will win: war is so last decade. Same with Inside Job, which I think may alienate a lot of the voters. But what do I know? I don’t even know what Gasland is about, and haven’t bothered with Banksy’s movie even though everyone loves it.
What Should Win:
Okay, I promise I’ll make more of an effort next year, because this is always a bit embarrassing. Why don’t I watch more documentaries? I really like them, so there’s not even an excuse.
What Should Have Been Nominated:
::depressed silence::
Best Documentary Short Subject
What Will Win: The Warriors of Qiugang
Is it bad that I’m only picking this because it sounds like it could be an action movie starring Donnie Yen? (Answer: yes, you twat.)
Who Should Win:
As I haven’t seen any of the nominees in this category, it’s best I just walk away before I embarrass myself further.
Achievement in Film Editing
Who Will Win: Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter – The Social Network
Some great work here, taking the excellently paced performances and making them shine, keeping the pace up. The barrage of information should be overwhelming, but Wall and Baxter control it perfectly. Not since Oliver Stone’s JFK have I been so impressed by the way the audience is guided through choppy waters by an editing team.
Who Should Win: Andrew Weisblum – Black Swan
However I think this just pips it just because Black Swan is so immersive and exhausting. It’s a technically perfect movie, and I would love to see everyone involved on the tech side of the movie get their reward.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Inception
I would have thought this was a certainty, as well-liked action movies often get a cursory editing nomination as a sop to the filmmakers who won’t see any other award love during the night, but apparently this doesn’t warrant a mention, even considering there is so much information to impart that if it hadn’t been edited as clearly and cleverly as it did the whole thing would have fallen apart. This might be the most inexplicable snub of the night, other than the sound awards, which I will get to in good time. (Note: I don’t just think editing a movie well is a matter of getting all of the footage in the right order, but it’s worth noting that two of this year’s best films were very info-heavy and relied on steady hands and smart decisions in the editing room to keep the audience onboard.)
Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
What Will Win: In a Better World
I know nothing about this as it hasn’t even been released in the UK yet, but I’ve heard chatter about it from better critics than I who have caught it at festivals. Choosing this feels right: how often does the foreign language award go to the best known movie nominated? It’s always something I’ve never heard of. It’s science.
What Should Win: Dogtooth
Yes, I’m picking this as I’ve seen it, but also because it is amazing. Will it win? Will it bollocks. Too upsetting and daring to gather votes, but it’s okay, I won’t cry. Just as long as the execrable Biutiful loses, I’ll be happy.
What Should Have Been Nominated: A Serbian Film
Kidding! Except not, because it is good. Unwatchably horrific, but good. Even more depressing than Biutiful, in fact. Isn’t that why people like that artfully-presented chunk of sentimental crap? (Okay okay, I’ll drop it now.)
Achievement in Makeup
Who Will Win: Rick Baker and Dave Elsey – The Wolfman
It’s Rick Baker, bitches! I have no idea how good the work is on the other movies nominated, but I do know the effects here are just fab. Almost as good as Baker’s ground-breaking work on American Werewolf in London.
Who Should Win: Rick Baker and Dave Elsey – The Wolfman
See above. Yes, I would like Peter Weir’s first movie since the mighty Master and Commander to win something, but come on! A werewolf movie! It’s the make-up genre. Surely werewolf movies should win every year. They have to put a ton of hair and teeth on people’s faces! That shit is hard, you know.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Black Swan
It’s the only film I can think of that had any notable make-up in it, so I plump for that one. Red contact lenses and shoulder feathers are this year’s hottest new look.
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)
Who Will Win: Alexandre Desplat – The King’s Speech
One of the few things I really liked about King’s Speech was the traditional terrific soundtrack from Mr. Desplat, who is surely the most talented man in the world whose name almost decribes the sound made when a tomato falls on the floor. It might not be as good as his wonderful work on Fantastic Mr. Fox or Birth (surely his masterpiece), but it’s still worthy of admiration. (Caveat, there’s a good chance Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross will win if Speech is starting to rack up the wins and Social Network is suddenly found wanting. I’m tempted to suggest that this award will be crucial in determining who will win the most big awards on the night, but I suspect I’m overthinking it.)
Who Should Win: Hans Zimmer – Inception
Though my choice will anger at least one Facebook friend who maintains the music doesn’t work as a movie score at all (back off, Johnny May), I still maintain Zimmer’s conceptually bold and pulse-quickening score is one of the all-time greats. The fact that it references the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service score by the much-missed John Barry cements it for me. There could well be an upset on the night.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Clint Mansell – Black Swan
Dear Academy voters, yes, Britain is sorry about the whole Pop Will Eat Itself thing, they were not great, but Clint Mansell has apparently turned out to be a massive music genius and we’d really appreciate it if you throw him some love. Fourteen thousand trailers using his music can’t be wrong. Cheers, Admiral Neck. (Yes, I know, it wasn’t eligible because it referenced Tchaikovsky’s ballet so directly, but even so, it looms over almost everything else recorded this year like a bulging ballet-dancer’s groin filled with violins and such.
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)
What Will Win: We Belong Together (Randy Newman) – Toy Story 3
Surely the only way the Academy can honour the majesty of Toy Story 3 is to hand another award out for this terrific, heart-flensing ditty from the maestro. All three films have featured a wonderful song: the benefit of this one is that it’s actually possible to listen to it, unlike When She Loved Me, which is still the most lethal piece of music ever recorded.
What Should Win: I See the Light (Alan Menken and Glenn Slater) – Tangled
The highlight of Walt Disney Animation’s lovely fairy tale Tangled is this soaring love song fit to rival Aladdin‘s A Whole New World for combining emotion, theme and imagery with such satifying skill. It’s the centerpiece of the movie, and seriously folks, if you hear people dismissing 3D or IMAX, this is the scene to quell the doubts. The combination of visuals and thematically resonant storytelling is one of Shades of Caruso’s favourite cinema moments in years. Sorry Randy, I want that moment GILDED by the Academy.
What Should Have Been Nominated: I’ve Got A Dream (Alan Menken and Glenn Slater) – Tangled
As the rules for this category state that a movie can have up to two songs nominated, I would have loved to see a nomination for the other showstopper from the truly magical Tangled (seriously I LOVED IT). It’s silly and broad, but it’s a proper crowdpleaser, sending audiences full of kids into all sorts of gurgling paroxysms: the sort of behaviour that usually annoys a grouchy bastard like myself but merely added to the fun in this case, because Tangled is such a joyous movie. I’m going to keep banging on about this one, so get used to it!
Best Motion Picture of the Year
What Will Win: The King’s Speech
What Should Win: Black Swan
In no world would this get the requisite amount of votes, unless there is a Fringe-style alternated universe where Paul Verhoeven, Dario Argento and David Cronenberg are treated with the fawning respect they deserve. As I’ve said before, I won’t go on about it as I’ve already exhausted reader goodwill, and I will add the caveat that a win for Social Network would please me almost as much, but I just don’t think we’re going to get either. It’s especially frustrating as The Social Network has been “in the lead” for so long, but something tells me the bubble has burst thanks to Harvey “Wilson Fisk” Weinstein’s usual obnoxious efforts. Or maybe it was that Screen Actors Guild win. It’s Crash all over again!!!
What Should Have Been Nominated: Please Give
Yes, only a few people watched it, but my other suggestion for this spot – Agora – was watched by even fewer. I seem to recall a burble of positive notices when this came out but by the end of the year no one remembered. I blame The King’s Speech. [/irrational]
Best Animated Short Film
What Will Win: Day and Night – Teddy Newton for Pixar
Yes, it’s the only one I’ve seen, but I’d be surprised if anything else won. It’s a memorable and imaginative piece of genius.
What Should Win:
It’s not fair to speculate, having not seen anything else (I really want to see The Lost Thing, having loved Shaun Tan’s work in the past), and I can’t think of any other short that should have been animated, so let’s move on.
Best Live Action Short Film
What Will Win: Wish 143
I have no idea if any of these are any good, and am only selecting this one as I’ve heard a lot about it this week (from the predictably patriotic papers that are thrilled to bitsies every time a Brit gets nominated for anything that isn’t a technical award, which is a bugbear of mine), plus the making of it has a story that will appeal to voters. I’m sure it’s very good on top of all this strategic thinking.
What Should Win:
Again I haven’t seen any of the other movies, so I won’t predict. Usually I rely on friend-of-the-blog Mim for help on these matters as she is connected, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it lately. She has better things to do than give me tips about short movies.
Achievement in sound editing
Who Will Win: Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey – True Grit
Part of the reason I’m adding this is the old standby of “Well, they have to honour it somewhere”, but also because the Coens always go the extra mile to make their movies completely distinct from everything else out there, and hiring Lievsay and Berkey to provide a new Western soundscape to distinguish this from every other Western in recent years was a shrewd choice.
Who Should Win: Richard King – Inception
Inception’s freshness was partly down to the imaginative choices made by King: the distorted music cues, the swish of the dream machine, the crisp gun battles and explosions. This is probably just as likely to win as True Grit, but I suspect the voters will want to hand the award to someone shoring up a genre seen to be in decline as it is to praise the new. Not to disparage anyone’s work here: it’s another strong category, though with one egregious omission…
What Should Have Been Nominated: Black Swan
Seriously, what the FUCK happened here? How could Craig Henigan’s amazing sound design and mix get missed off the roster? There were a lot of misses this year that caused some headscratching, but this is possibly the most baffling. The sound work on Black Swan was absolutely exemplary, and there is just no excuse for this snub. Okay, yes, the other nominees deserved their nods, but surely something could have been moved for this. I guess it’s a good job I’ll never be asked to join the Academy, because omissions like this make me wonder if I would fit in.
Achievement in sound mixing
Who Will Win: Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten – The Social Network
It’s easy to miss a lovely piece of sound mixing, but one of my favourite moments in 2010 came as the fictional construct referred to as “Mark Zuckerberg” walked across campus after being dumped by his girlfriend. The melange of chatter from the students around him reflects the imminent chatter on the internet as he unleashes The Facebook – one of many clever touches by the always brilliant Klyce and his ace team.
Who Should Win: Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten – The Social Network
Either that or the work on Inception, which goes from introspective silences in the first half to increasingly chaotic clatter in the hour-long setpiece. Perversely I would also like Salt‘s sound team to win as well, just so that Salt could win an Oscar. That would entertain me almost as much as that crazy movie did.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Black Swan / Shutter Island
Again, all of the sound work on Black Swan should have been given some praise, but Shutter Island‘s snub is similarly peculiar. The experience of watching both movies was immeasurably enhanced by the feeling that the room was alive with noise, sharp clicks and cracks peeping out from the expertly mixed ambient noises not for shock value, but merely as stabs at the amygdala. Your nerves jangled more and more as the movies progressed: a wonderfully unpleasant thing to endure.
Achievement in Visual Effects
Who Will Win: Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb – Inception
The incredibly clever and imaginative in-camera effects of Inception would probably be a sure thing most years, but as it will likely win bugger all other than a sound award, it’s guaranteed to win here. I’m tempted to think the last Harry Potter movie will win big in technical stuff next year: kind of like a Return-of-the-King sop to the incredibly profitable series, which is why it won’t win here.
Who Should Win: Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb – Inception
From the moment we saw Paris fold over on itself, it was obvious we were going to see something special in Nolan’s action masterpiece. It doesn’t matter that the Limbo effects were a bit murky and smudged: these are the visuals that caught our imagination this year. They deserve all the plaudits they’re getting.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Tron: Legacy / Black Swan
The first is a crazy FX blowout, the second has many effects that are almost invisible. As usual, I’m surprised and more than a little disgusted with the FX voters (industry folk who tend to judge on standards that we don’t necessarily understand). I figured both movies were destined to be nominated (I especially loved the FX in Tron: Legacy), but as usual we get this weird curveball, the same kind of thing that saw Speed Racer and the Matrix sequels snubbed (did John Gaeta spill red wine on some voter’s white carpet?), and E.T. winning in the same year Blade Runner was released. Always a weird category, this.
Adapted Screenplay
Who Will Win: Aaron Sorkin – The Social Network
The surest sure thing imaginable, no offence to all of the other fine screenplays nominated here (not counting 127 Hours, which manages to stretch nothing out – an achievement I’ll grant it though it doesn’t really fill the understandably threadbare story out with anything interesting). This is a tougher victory for Sorkin than you’d expect, as I’m sure there are many who think the Coens should win again. This is why I think True Grit won’t win much, even though it’s terrific. The competition this year (not counting King’s Speech and 127 Hours) is just too strong.
Who Should Win: Aaron Sorkin – The Social Network
I have many, many problems with Sorkin’s work, but I also think he’s amazing. I go back and forth on this all the time. When he’s good he’s really really good, and when he’s bad he’s fucking dreadful. The Social Network is him at his best, even with all of the tics, recycling and showing-off. Sorry Coens! I thought you did a great job too.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughan – Kick-Ass
Stop laughing at the back! I genuinely loved what Vaughan and Goldman did here, keeping enough of Millar’s voice to make it pleasantly anarchic while tightening up his most pointless excesses and adding powerful emotional cores. The motivations of all characters were grounded amid all of the other madness, enough that I’ve been moved to the brink of tears each time I’ve watched it. Their work hasn’t yet received enough praise. Or any praise, really. Except from me and a couple of other people. I’m sure this will make up for all the difficulties I’m sure they’re experiencing while trying to make X-Men: First Class their own while Fox attempt to fuck it all up like they always do.
Original Screenplay
Who Will Win: David Seidler – The King’s Speech
Cliched, inaccurate, sentimental, really really inaccurate, and ultimately kind of lazy, but it’s a sure thing. Fuckety piss. At least it will shut out Mike “Sourdoughballs” Leigh. That’s something.
Who Should Win: Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg - The Kids Are All Right
Cholodenko and Blumberg’s light-yet-deeply structured screenplay is an almost pure joy, some last act clumsiness aside. This is the film’s only chance to be given some Oscar love this year, but it’s not about to happen. No triumph over adversity: just truth. Who wants that? ::kicks picture of Buckingham Palace into a furnace::
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Nicole Holofcener – Please Give
Holofcener’s delightful screenplay is one of the many wonders of her underrated rumination on white middle-class guilt and the ways in which we try to profit off each other to get ahead. It looks like a fluffy indie comedy but it’s filled with insight about modern life, all while being thrillingly well-observed and funny. Come on planet Earth! You complain about all the crappy movies being released and we’ve got an incredible artist and reliable entertainer standing RIGHT OVER THERE! ::points in what one assumes is the direction that leads to Ms. Holofcener:: What the hell is wrong with everyone? ::kicks picture of Windsor Castle into furnace::
Well what do you know. I start this post all agnostic and shit about The King’s Speech and end up thinking it is the deformed bastard spawned by the unholy union of Crash and Slumdog Millionaire. ::sigh:: It’s going to be a long night.
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