Any filmgoers reading this blog will likely have numerous anecdotes about poor behaviour during films. I can remember as far back as 1989, during a screening of Sex, Lies and Videotape at the Showcase Cinema just outside Walsall, one particularly aggrieved fellow standing up mid-film to scream, “This. Movie. Is SHIT!” before storming out, presumably to ask for a refund seeing as how this wasn’t porn like he’d been promised. Since then I’ve experienced a spectrum of memorable audience reactions, from spontaneous bursts of applause to threats of violence if I dare to ask someone to shut up twenty minutes into Blade (no, I didn’t take him up on his offer of a fight; yes, sitting there for 70 minutes next to the same furious guy was a bit awkward).
Then there are the infamous festival reactions you hear of in Cannes and Venice; 22 minute ovations (surely unsustainable; does the audience delegate changing shifts of applauders to maintain the illusion?) or booing. Terrible behaviour, with the filmmakers in the room. The London Film Festival’s more polite than that, with only a mass walkout during Irreversible entering into LFF lore. Of course I’ve applauded after a movie (I nearly clapped my hands off after Black Swan), but I’ve resisted the urge to boo (though it was hard with Essential Killing and It’s Kind Of A Funny Story), and have yet to vomit (though it was a close call after Take Shelter). The audiences I’ve been a part of have similarly kept to the British code; polite applause then post-screening bile.
This year saw that change, and the unexpected sense of solidarity or outrage shown during the screenings of Helter Skelter and Compliance that I attended were among the most amusing things I’ve experienced at the LFF. Fashion photographer Mika Ninagawa‘s adaptation of Kyoko Okazaki’s manga Helter Skelter is a hit in Japan but has yet to get an international release schedule. For much of the movie I thought this was a shame, and was prepared to use SoC to promote it as hard as I could, especially to a number of people I know online who would find its commentary on feminism, sexuality, celebrity culture and the media’s exploitation of women fascinating. And then…
First thing’s first. Helter Skelter‘s protagonist, Lilico (played by model and musician Erika Sawajiri) is a model and budding actress, famous across Japan, beloved by teenage girls and one of the biggest stars in the stable of Hiroko Tada (Kaori Momoi). Her public persona is at odds with her true self; an egotistical, paranoid, sexually manipulative child-woman whose image has been manufactured by her manager to the point of changing her appearance using advanced cosmetic surgery techniques requiring drugs to prevent tissue rejection. Lilico treats everyone around her like dirt, especially her assistant Michiko Hata (Shinobu Terajima), who becomes embroiled in the model’s psychosexual meltdowns and descent into criminality.
Lilico’s mental and physical state deteriorates further once rival model Kozue Yoshikawa (US model Kiko Mizuhara) begins to surpass her success, leading her to make greater demands of those around her to consolidate her shrinking empire. Her choices become wilder, her psyche more fractured, while the police get closer to shutting down the clinic that has been keeping her image intact. By the end of the second act, Ninagawa’s movie has moved into a realm of berserk sexual fantasy that mimics the gaudy, sexually-charged cinema of De Palma, Argento and Almodovar, her imagery saturated with vivid crimson; All About Eve by way of Body Double, The Skin I Live In and Black Swan. If you know me, you’ll know I’m absolutely fine with that.
It was going great at this point. Lilico enlisting her assistant’s help in terrible crimes and creepy bondage sex games, having tantrums about her waning influence and fame, concocting sickening plans against her rivals; all gold. Sawajiri — a Japanese icon similarly suffering a dip in fortunes, as well as much gossiped-about health issues — plays Lilico brilliantly, giving this toweringly awful primadonna enough of an inner life that, between crimes, she’s almost sympathetic, humanised by the arrival of her sister and flashes of vulnerability, as well as the recognisable fear of obsolescence that we all feel. As for Ninagawa, even occasional rocky moments and overconfident flourishes seem to work, probably because the tale is familiar, and we can relax with it.
But it is not to be. Ninagawa proceeds to overbake her movie with a final half hour designed to break our endurance, offering a number of unsatisfying scenes all of which would make poor endings, but would at least have been an ending, instead of the patience-sapping, repetitious trudge we get. All good will deserted me from the moment Lilico finally met the pretentious cop who has been obsessing over her throughout (Nao Omori, unintentionally hilarious as the profundity-spouting Makoto Asada), in a scene shot in an aquarium that must have been at least two years long. My bodyclock melted, Dali-style, as the scene trickled onward, the dance of the shoal behind them hypnotising me into a trance, if trances can be considered “increasingly annoyed”.
Any points made by Ninagawa and screenwriter Arisa Kaneko about the cruelty of celebrity culture, and the damage caused by the passing fancies of a hungry public are repeated over and over again to decreasing effect. I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. As one subsequent scene faded to black, a woman behind me began half-heartedly applauding, only to stop when another scene started. Two scenes later, the screen again faded to black, only to come up again for yet another shot of Tokyo, triggering an outburst of “JESUS!” from the back of the room. When the credits finally rolled ten minutes later, no one applauded, probably waiting to be sure the credits wouldn’t stop for one last recap of the film’s theme.
I had intended to stay for the Q&A in order to ask Ninagawa who her influences were but I was so annoyed by this mood-tainting ordeal that I got out of there and raced across town to catch another screening instead (Blancanieves, which I didn’t like much either. That was a crap day). This misjudgement of the narrative’s sell-by date made me re-evaluate everything else about Helter Skelter. All the tonal mistakes and plot confusions from earlier were suddenly disastrous folly, not forgivable errors of an overly ambitious thriller. Even though I’d enjoyed Sawajiri’s hysterical performance, all I could remember after were the ponderous, risible scenes of Omori’s policeman staring out of a window talking about butterflies and ash or other cod-profound things.
And yet this audience reaction was nothing compared to that afforded Craig Zobel’s Compliance, a thriller based on real events (spoilers on that page, sort of). It tells of a put-upon fast food restaurant manager, Sandra (Ann Dowd), who receives a call from a policeman (Officer Daniels, superbly creepy work from Pat Healy) claiming that one of her staff, Becky (Dreama Walker), has stolen money from a customer. Already distracted because of concerns over a refrigerator mishap that may get her in trouble with her superiors, as well as a possible visit from one of the chain’s secret customers, Sandra takes the policeman’s claim at face value, despite her ambivalent feelings about Becky.
Officer Daniels makes numerous claims about not being able to come straight to the restaurant to interrogate Becky, but threatens that unless the staff do as he orders, she will be taken into custody. This threat is enough to make Becky commit an increasingly outlandish series of acts in order to placate the alternately charming / sinister policeman, all with the compliance of Sandra, who is so frazzled by pressure and fear that she begins to delegate the job of monitoring the young woman to other people, who also take the authority of the voice on the other end of the line at face value, so to speak. There follows a chain of events I’m loath to spoil.
By the midpoint of the film it’s obvious that Officer Daniels is not to be trusted, and the gullibility of the restaurant’s staff is shocking. But it’s easy for us to say that. After the film ended my main complaint was that it was simply unbelievable that any human would go along with the insane orders given by Daniels, which meant the most controversial and upsetting scene, which occurs late in the film, struck me as a step too far. And yet it all happened, even to the point that the Wikipedia page for this specific case (one of many) mentions a line from one of the actual participants that is included in the film (spoilers for the actual film, again).
There’s that old writing rule that even if something really happened, it doesn’t mean it will seem believable in a story, and this is no exception. But it did happen, and with that knowledge I can look back on Compliance with a clearer head, especially as, during the film, I experienced a cognitive meltdown so complete that I could hardly concentrate. The agonisingly slow pace of events, and the increasingly bizarre demands made on Becky, are almost too much to bear, made worse by Sandra’s cluelessness — Dowd is excellent, playing the manager as a deluded oaf whose well-meaning nature is overwhelmed by the threat of censure — and Becky’s youthful insecurity, meaning she barely has a voice, and certainly no agency at all.
This tension became too much to bear for our audience. As Sandra enlists her fiancee Van (Bill Camp) to help watch over Becky, the earlier hints that Officer Daniels has a much darker motive than we had feared become an actuality, and the audience rebelled. Someone at the back of the room shouted out something along the lines of, “You don’t have to just sit here and watch it, you know”; an admonition directed at us, not the characters onscreen. A couple of minutes later we heard, “That’s it, you have to leave now,” which could either have been security or the aggrieved viewer yelling at us again. Some audience members took this cue and got up; about thirty people left, with the rest of us openly grumbling and complaining at the events on the screen.
I asked the ushers afterwards what had happened; turns out some audience members had indeed been thrown out for causing a commotion. By now this audience rejection has become a common reaction to Zobel’s movie. As I came out I tweeted that the screening was extremely controversial, and thanks to @ScottEweinberg and @jamieandaston my words reached the ears of Officer Daniels himself, Mr. @Pat_Healy, who revealed that there had been similar problems at an SAG screening, not to mention the notoriously contentious post-movie Q&A at the Sundance Film Festival, which saw audience members argue with Zobel and the cast. This IndieWire article comments on Zobel’s intentions, listing other experiences of audience rebellion during the movie.
An excellent publicity stunt? As much as I’d like to say I would never behave like those audience members (and I didn’t), at numerous points in the movie I really did want to stand up and scream at the screen. Even Bigas Luna’s (literally) hypnotic Anguish didn’t affect me like that. The degradation of Becky by regular people who don’t have the courage to reject Daniels’ authority is so relentless that it feels like you’re having an electrical wire dragged across your nerves, especially as you are compelled to place yourself in that situation and think, “I wouldn’t do that”. The audience engages in a kind of combat with the film; we expect our good sense to prevail, but it doesn’t. The result is unbearable frustration, as Zobel intended.
The infamous Milgram experiments have shown that we are likely to respond to orders from authoritative individuals in ways that bypass our own sense of morality, leading to us doing terrible things. Zobel adds an extra layer by making the audience “complicit” in the events onscreen by daring us to stay in our seats as the lengthy debasement of Becky — cleverly played by Walker as a blank slate in some scenes and as a terrified, emotional human in others — begins to reach a point at which we will be forced to see things we don’t want to see. As Richard Corliss says here, this is a movie that works best when you’re trapped in a cinema, and turning the film off with the click of a button isn’t an option.
Some have said that Compliance‘s tricks are not enlightening, with some complaining that this is voyeurism with no purpose. Why put yourself through it? Is Zobel merely playing a Derren Brown prank on the audience just for laughs? Is this just a cruel game? While enduring the movie I thought back to the most chilling scene in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, in which we watch Henry and Otis murder a family, and then realise we are watching a video of the murder that they have recorded so that they too can rewatch it and enjoy it; our voyeurism thrown back in our faces. Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is often cited as another influence on Compliance, though I haven’t found the courage to watch either version of it so I can’t say with authority.
But beyond the movie references, the person I kept thinking about was Lynndie England, whose disgusting acts in Abu Ghraib were explained by her as responses to orders from above. And not just her. As Zobel says, people are more likely to do terrible things when forced into a corner, or threatened with the loss of a job, or other forms of extreme official censure. “Some people have to eat shit for their jobs because they need the money,” he says, and this rings so true it hurts. I’m terrified of losing my job, knowing that there’s very little else out there. You don’t need anything as extreme as the fear of death or terrorism to make you accept loss of liberty or privacy; you just have to think about being broke and unemployed. That fear keeps me up at night.
What some see as cruelty, or games played on the audience to see how much discomfort they will swallow before walking out of a movie, Zobel is forcing us to look at our behaviour, waking us up to the sudden dip in critical thinking we face when threatened with loss of liberty. Post-9/11, post-financial-meltdown, we’re all more vulnerable, not only to danger or poverty in the real world, but to the change of view in which we accept privation or tyranny in order to maintain our status quo. Our civil liberties are being eroded every day, and sometimes we’re even complicit in this, using the internet to publicise details about ourselves without care (Daniels’ actions also smack of the most extreme form of trolling; Zobel might be making a point about that too).
Helter Skelter attempts to make the audience think about its complicity in the celebrity culture, making demands of stars that we build up and knock down almost as a game. These people are twisted by the passing fancies of the crowd, the chattering teenage girls who obsess over their idols and they cast them aside as soon as a new model comes along. Ninagawa does her best to express our part in this cruelty, but either through poor storytelling or some cultural barrier that I can’t get past Helter Skelter fails to make an emotional connection between the idea and our perception of ourselves, and as such is merely a garish exercise in hand-wringing, made worse by the movie’s lack of focus or resolute endpoint.
Compliance, on the other hand, brilliantly portrays recognisable humans doing terrible things out of fear and, by making us a part of that crime, reveals to us how close we are to becoming drones, our autonomy forever sacrificed because we don’t have the mental energy to think past the noise of the world we live in. This isn’t a movie about movie violence, like Henry and (so I gather) Funny Games; this is about the real world, and the way we have mutely accepted our own degradation. The precariousness of our situation in an economy as fragile as this has led to a situation where we can be easily manipulated by anyone, and Compliance makes that point personal by playing with our expectations. It’s a needle that prods us until we snap.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety,” said Ben Franklin, and Zobel’s deeply upsetting but essential movie is arguably the most rigorous depiction in recent times of that concept, and the consequences of our ignorance / denial of our part in our own enslavement. My reaction to Compliance was so visceral that I’m tempted to say that it’s the most important film of the year. Perhaps that’s a bit too “poster quote”. However I have no qualms about saying it’s the one that will make you the most uncomfortable, intentionally rubbing its point in the audience’s face until it screams “UNCLE” and bolts for the door. See it in a room full of people, and prepare for fireworks.
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!
Last year’s London Film Festival featured the first UK screenings of Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins, a movie so exciting that 24 people were carried out during the final hour due to exhaustion of the adrenal gland. It was the acme of action cool; nothing released since has featured anything as thrilling as the sight of Kōji Yakusho unfurling a scroll before bringing on the mother of all beatdowns against a small army. With that in mind, this year’s inclusion of Miike’s follow-up Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai was a must-see, even with a number of reviews expressing bemusement at its slow pace.
These same concerns were levelled at 13 Assassins, which had a beautifully paced first hour that meticulously set up the stakes. Miike’s judgement was a welcome change from his traditional unpredictability, but some seemed to pine for the madness of his earlier movies. In that case they’ll dislike Hara-Kiri even more. It begins at the same pace as 13 Assassins before taking a disastrous turn, overstating its case at such length that I offered up a prayer to Nyarlathotep to rend the projector asunder with his tentacles.
Talking about the problems with Hara-Kiri is difficult without spoiling some of its surprises — for those who haven’t seen Masaki Kobayashi’s 1962 original, of course — but the conceit of the movie is that a lone samurai, Hanshirô Tsugumo (a haunting performance from Ebizō Ichikawa), arrives at the House of Li to demand the right to commit seppuku in that place of great honour in order to restore his name, after being made… well, I don’t know the correct word for it. Redundant will have to do, I guess. Kageyu, the head of the house (played by the amazing Yakusho, here cast as the opposite of the noble Shinzaemon from 13 Assassins) accuses the samurai/ronin of attempting a “suicide bluff” in order to persuade the house to take him on or pay him off to prevent the ritual disembowelment, and tells the tale of another samurai, Motome, who approached Kageyu the year before. The young samurai was shamed into killing himself as an example to others hoping to make money out of their “compassion”.
Miike then presents the movie’s first flashback, which is the closest he comes to providing a grisly setpiece to match his other work. He shows this death without much gore — another example of Miike’s newly restrained style — but even without that it’s nigh-unwatchable. The young samurai is made to humiliate himself and commit a grisly, protracted suicide with a blunt object. The scene feels like it will never end. The audience visibly squirmed in its seat throughout the long scene, taking solace in the burst of violence that ends it. It’s a bravura sequence that lingers in the memory long after the movie finishes.
That’s quite an achievement considering the length of the second flashback, which is excruciating for an entirely different reason. Even if it wasn’t already way too long, the second flashback shows the lead-up to Hanshirô’s arrival at the House, which involves poverty, humiliation, death, rain, snow, death, poverty, and just endless, endless misery. It’s a trial to sit through, especially if, like me, you are absolutely mortally terrified of being destitute or unemployed or broke. We are shown Hanshirô’s battle to survive his downsizing from the Samurai Department of Feudal Japan (or whatever it’s called) as he struggles to make money selling umbrellas. At one point a character manages to scrape up enough money to buy three eggs, and then promptly drops one and eats it off the floor. Grim.
I’ll be honest, I have a really tough time watching anything like this at the moment. Terror over the state of the economy, and the possibility of being made redundant again, have made me an absolute basket case (see also my terrified whining in my Take Shelter review), and Hara-Kiri‘s enormous wallow in broad melodramatics was a miserable experience. To other viewers it might not seem so long, but in my eyes it completely unbalanced the movie, which thankfully rallied in the final ten minutes as Hanshirôo’s motives become clear. Nevertheless, even taking into account the objectivity-distorting nature of my phobia, the structure of the movie causes its own problems.
As far as I can see, the only good thing to come from the flashback structure is that there are a couple of surprises in the plot that generate enough narrative energy to carry the movie through its considerable longueurs. If it was told linearly instead, we would have a very very long and tedious melodramatic first act that lasts over half of the movie, followed by a heavily loaded second act that introduces the antagonist too late and then shows two acts of violence in a row with barely any room to breathe between them.
No viewer would be able to make it through that overblown miserabilist opening hour to get to the juicy stuff later; it’s just too ridiculous to follow, and contains little surprises. Instead of dealing with the problems of that act, the writers and Miike have jumbled the plot to hide its problems, but no amount of shuffling of index cards can save it. This decision looks even worse when you consider that Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In has a similar structure — with a couple of very long flashbacks coming in the second half of the movie — but uses that narrative trick to far better effect.
The first half of the movie is perplexing, as Almodovar hides the motives of Doctor Robert Ledgard and throws in clues about the identity of his mysterious lodger/captive Vera Cruz. Almodovar is brave enough to make a completely obtuse hour of cinema before pulling out a series of jawdropping twists and revelations in the main flashback (though this viewer felt the denouement was disappointingly flat; a shame as for the most part it’s a terrific movie). Whereas Miike places his surprises and shock moments in the first half, Almodovar puts them closer to the end. It’s arguable that Almodovar is playing the same trick to hide narrative weakness, but the difference is that his shuffling makes The Skin I Live In work, for the most part. Hara-Kiri contains a fatal flaw — that endless boring scene — that could never be fixed. It’s a great shame.
Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene has a more conventional flashback structure, alternating between two time-frames to dramatise a young woman’s indoctrination and escape from a small cult. Elizabeth Olsen makes one of the most memorable debuts in recent memory as Martha, who flees a patriarchal cult to stay with her sister and brother-in-law (Sarah Paulson and Hugh Dancy), neither of whom seem happy to see her. Durkin crosscuts between her disastrous attempts to fit in with her well-off, liberal relatives and her past with the cult, where she goes by the name Marcy May, so given her by its leader Patrick (a memorably vile John Hawkes).
The great sadness of the movie is that no matter where she goes, Martha / Marcy May is treated poorly. She’s relatively safe with her family, but she has lost the social skills necessary to fit in, and won’t explain what has happened to her, leading to a total breakdown in her relationship with them. At the compound she was accepted, but was the victim of a drug-assisted rape; a “tradition” in the cult. Her inability to strike out on her own creates a sense of awful claustrophobia, and as the movie progresses, and we see more evidence of her behaviour at the compound, her motives become more ambiguous. Will she accept the freedom of the outside world, or will the cult win out?
That oppression of Martha’s spirit by her past — which begins to surface again by the end of the movie — resembles the same crushing hopelessness as experienced by Hanshiro and his family in Hara-Kiri. There are barriers in your life that conspire to keep you down, and as someone who grew up in financially restricted circumstances, the weight of Hanshiro and Martha’s baggage felt familiar. Caitlin Moran recently wrote a column about poverty that I think ranks as her best and most important work. Poverty is something you feel will always be there, affecting every decision you make, altering the way you see the world and respond to it. No matter where you go or what you do to better your life, you dread a return to that state.
Hanshiro is powerless to prevent his sacking, and Martha’s ignorance prevents her from seeing beyond her narrow horizons. Though Hara-Kiri does a reasonable job of dramatising this situation, Durkin’s movie perfectly captures that sense of hopelessness, from the brilliant, baffled performance by Olsen to the gloomy photography of Jody Lee Lipes.* Durkin does a superb job of depicting the strained relationship between Martha and her sister, but his premiere achievement is building such a bleak atmosphere, photographing nature as a source of both comfort and menace. The shadows that loom over Martha occur with greater frequency as the movie progresses. It’s a dark blanket that swallows the cult up, most memorably in a skinny-dipping scene in a pool, and a grim scene featuring a gun and a cat, which signals an escalation in the cult’s malevolence.
And yet it’s arguable that Martha is not the passive protagonist it seems, considering the “identity” of “Marlene”. Beware: from this point on there are plot spoilers and possible interpretation spoilers too. Martha spends much of the movie doing very little other than being picked on, abused or exploited by those around her, and it’s arguable that Durkin has done little other than create a Dickensian orphan-type to be pitied by the audience. Her major act of agency seems to be running away from the cult in the opening scene of the movie, and then deflecting attempts to bring her back by fellow cultist Watts (Brady Corbet, whose trademark creepy / sympathetic stare is used as well here as in Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia). After he leaves her alone Martha calls her sister, who picks her up and takes her back to her lakeside holiday home, which is as opulent as the cult’s base is delapidated.
Later we find out that the cultists regularly raid the homes of their family members, and burglarise nearby houses. They’re also willing to kill anyone unfortunate enough to be home; these revelations are timed beautifully by Durkin to maximise our unease, as Martha begins to suspect that her sister’s home is being monitored by the cult. The key moment for Martha comes late in the movie when, after the tension between her and her family reaches an uncomfortable peak, she calls the cult and speaks to “Marlene”. It’s not until a later flashback that we find out that “Marlene” is a kind of codename used when answering the phone. We see Martha / Marcy May do this, asking three questions in accordance with a rule written on the wall next to her.
So did Martha escape from the cult at the start, and have second thoughts near the end of the movie, thus dooming her family? Or was she always meant to contact them, giving a code to say “all clear”, but then had second thoughts after that (her paranoia in the final few scenes of the movie show she is violently opposed to the notion of returning to the cult)? Though I’m curious to know what Durkin intended here, I almost don’t want to know; the ambiguous ending of Take Shelter has been partially ruined for me after finding out that the writer / director Jeff Nichols intended no such ambiguity and was making a very specific point. I think both movies benefit from remaining unclear. Spoilers end!
But even if Martha is a victim, there’s nothing wrong with that interpretation. Sometimes you can’t change your fate, and the choices you’ve made can end up dooming you and those around you. It’s a bleak message, but then Martha Marcy May Marlene is the best kind of horror movie; the one where there is no hope of escape. The final shot of the movie will haunt you long after the credits finish, especially if you’re the kind of person who has been running from the past all your life, but you feel that the life you once lived is in your DNA, your soul, and the only thing you can hope to do is delay the inevitable.
* Embarrassingly, during the post-movie Q&A I asked Durkin whether he had used different cameras for different scenes, as some shots looked like photographs from the 70s, but he said no, and seemed a bit perplexed at my boring technical question. Ah well, John Hawkes was a gent about it. I love him.
2011 has been a bit of a crap one for movies so far. There’s very little I’ve outright loved — only Attack The Block, Rango, and Fast Five have really fired my imagination, and even the current London Film Festival has left me cold so far. It’s made me worry that there’s something wrong in my head. Have I experienced too many stories? Have I become immune? Will I never again enjoy a story without thinking the final act needed an extra level (The Skin I Live In) or thinking someone else did it better (Rampart = A trailer for The Shield)?
Perhaps it’s good, then, that I’m doing this list now. Ordering these shows has been a nightmare. They’re all truly great hours (or half-hours) of TV, with barely a micron of difference in quality between them. Even the top spot (in my next post) was hard to decide on, as there were three episodes that were eligible candidates. I’m happy with my final choice, but it took some pondering. I think I’m good with this part of the list as well, though I’m sure I’ll regret something once I’ve hit Publish.
20. Big Love – The Noose Tightens
The final season of HBO’s underrated polygamy drama had a lot to do before it came to a close. The first few episodes appeared to be concerned with dealing with the fallout from the previous, much-derided season’s worst excesses, as well as setting up the biggest plotquakes to come. The result was a dispiriting lack of urgency for several episodes, but a forgiveable one when this barnstorming hour is taken into account. Everything that had been set up thus far kicked off here: Margene’s guilt over her underage marriage to Bill leading to her hysterical reaction to Cara Lynn’s affair with her tutor; Bill’s desperate anger and bullying of Barb as she prepares to spread her wings and leave his church; Alby’s plot to finally free himself of his arch-enemy Bill with the help of Verlan; the wives facing up to the fact that they are likely to lose their husband as Bill pleads with Senator Dwyer to drop the procurement prosecution aimed at Barb. It’s a packed episode; fireworks go off in every scene, leading to a heart-stopping finale with Alby’s mania finally finding a victim. Chloe Sevigny, who has always been the best thing about Big Love, reaches new heights here, her performance ranging from blazing defiance to mortal terror. The show – and the masterful creation that was Nicolette Grant-Henriksen – will be greatly missed.
19. Terriers – Fustercluck
Viewers who caught the first three episodes of FX’s almost uncategorisable slum-noir P.I. show were likely confused as to what they were getting. The tone seemed at odds with expectations; neither as funny as Ted Griffin’s work on Ocean’s Eleven, nor as gritty as Shaun Ryan’s Shield, it seemed to straddle a number of genres. There were also quibbles about the overall structure; was it going to be serialised or episodic? The fourth episode was where Griffin’s masterplan came into focus, and also made it clear that the first three episodes were actually tonally consistent, not to mention intentionally unpredictable. Hank and Britt – two well-drawn characters unlike pretty much anyone else on TV – come into focus as two street-smart chancers making it up as they go along, and getting themselves into more trouble than they bargained for when they become accidentally responsible for the death of the shady real estate developer who hired them in the first episode, whose body they are then forced to hide. With that act the show suddenly made a weird kind of sense; these were not the normal TV heroes, and this was not a normal TV show. Most shows have a format for you to hold onto, but at this point Terriers leapt into the unknown, and became essential viewing.
18. The Vampire Diaries - The Descent
No matter what your feelings about the capabilities of handsome Ian Somerhalder as an actor, his Vampire Diaries character Damon was always one of the best things about this oft-po-faced supernatural teen drama. It’s only fitting that the best episode of the massively improved second season should be Damon’s finest hour. Our anti-hero takes on the responsibility of looking after his sexual partner Rose as she slowly succumbs to the mortal wound inflicted by a werewolf. Other momentous events happen in this episode, all courtesy of SoC writing heroes Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain, but the episode makes the list thanks to the final ten minutes, beginning with a surprisingly moving fantasy scene with Damon easing Rose’s pain with a manipulated dream that allows her some dignity and comfort before he euthanises her. Our new awareness of his compassion is then blown away in a horrifying final scene, as a clearly mentally unstable Damon finds a lone woman driving through Mystic Falls, and regretfully but violently kills her. The final shot of the episode, showing Damon’s vampire eyes, bloodshot and almost glowing with confusion and malevolence in the darkness, is the most chilling of the entire 2010-2011 TV season. It’s not the only time The Vampire Diaries outdoes its prestige TV rivals by messing with the audience’s expectations, but it’s the most memorable.
17. Boardwalk Empire – Paris Green
For SoC there was no greater frustration this year than that experienced while watching Boardwalk Empire. The setting, cast, and production values were all well within our wheelhouse, but the show never took off the way we had hoped. Time will tell if this is just a stumble before a sprint, but until then we can at least be grateful for this memorable late-season belter. For the most part Paris Green appears to be a quiet meditation on the imminent death of the Commodore, which leads to a series of revelations for Jimmy Darmody. Once more Michael Pitt excels as the bitter, thoughtful heavy, burning with frustration at his lot in life and torn between two emotions as his father nears death. Of course, in the final surprising act it isn’t his father who dies, but a man with a secret allegiance to Nucky Thompson – the man who acted as a guardian to Jimmy. Poor Agent Sebso, who finally proves to be as foolish as his cover persona seemed, is coerced into his own death at the hands of his unhinged boss. Michael Shannon shakes the screen as the evangelically-powered Nelson Van Alden, blasphemously baptising his Jewish lackey in a final scene of terrifying power that goes disastrously wrong. If only the rest of the series had scenes as riveting as that, or the beautifully shot moment when the two prohibition agents initially find the baptism site. Hopefully season two will harness the potential of this delirious insanity.
16. Spartacus: Gods of the Arena – The Bitter End
Most, if not all, Spartacus fans would have been fine with the show taking a year-long break while star Andy Whitfield recovered from cancer, but the showrunners cleverly and graciously gave him time to rest by creating this prequel mini-series while keeping him on staff in order to support him, in the hope he would return. Sadly, this was not to be. With only six episodes in the series it was possible that Gods of the Arena wouldn’t achieve the same narrative momentum that the first season did which, if you don’t recall, was moving as fast as a bullet train by the time the final episode arrived. The worries were for naught; with many of the familiar characters in place, Gods of the Arena had a head start. Even with so much of the story already told, GOTA still managed to throw in a few surprises, especially the insight into just how cunning Lucretia truly is. The last episode of the season was a balls-out shocker with an amazing final setpiece; a huge ruck in the new arena which features the immensely satisfying resolution of numerous arcs, including the developing animus between Batiatus and Solonius, the reason for loathsome Ashur’s hatred of Crixus, and the surprising reason why Gannicus isn’t present in the House of Batiatus in Blood and Sand. It’s thrilling, shocking, gorgeous and gaudy and as addictive as smoking, just as we had hoped.
15. The Walking Dead – Days Gone By
I’ll have more to say on this in a forthcoming post. I’ll link back once it’s published. For now, just look at that awesome picture and try to remember how promising that pilot was, how excited everyone got when it aired. So long ago…
14. Parks and Recreation – Fancy Party
There were funnier episodes in the third season of Parks & Recreation (also known as The Show That Shades Of Caruso Once Foolishly Said Was Terrible But Actually Turned Out To Be One Of The Great Sitcoms Of Our Time, for short), and there were more ambitious ones, but no other episode this year encapsulated the life-affirming fantasy elements of this show so completely. The city of Pawnee transforms all who live under its umbrella of optimism, and all who have committed themselves to following this remarkable show are similarly affected by its cheer-inducing rays. This episode saw April and Andy get married after being together for a little while (“My Brita filter is older than their relationship,” says Ben, adding, “Wait a second, should I change my Brita filter?”). The sensible characters object, the foolish characters rejoice, and for once common sense is utterly wrong. Only in Pawnee can an obviously disastrous life-decision be the only right thing to do, and not just because their young love finally motivates Leslie to begin her courtship of Ben. It’s also encapsulates the beauty of Parks and Recreation; a sentimental show that makes that oft-derided philosophy acceptable, a sitcom that offers the audience a chance to embrace light in a dark world, without shame. Long may it run without being tampered with by NBC executives.
13. Caprica – Apotheosis
If SoC had its way, Caprica would still be with us. Its cancellation was inevitable, seeing as only about fifteen people watched it, but at least the show went out in style. Last year saw the similarly regrettable cancellation of Dollhouse; another cerebral sci-fi show that had more on its mind than episodic threats or tedious alien invasion plots. That final season almost fell apart under the weight of completing its story. The last few episodes were a mad dash through several seasons of plotting, and I’m grateful for that, but it did mean the finale was compromised. Caprica comes up with a solution that is simultaneously more satisfying and yet still upsetting; the show ends with a montage of what would have come if Caprica had run for ten years like it should have. The tease is fascinating, forming a link between this Battlestar Galactica prequel and the rest of the franchise. The main body of the episode is magnificent too: we see the Graystone family find peace as they reconcile with the avatar of Zoe; we see the failure of Clarice Willow’s dastardly plan, as Daniel and Amanda Graystone thwart the Soldiers of the One in their quest to promote the Monotheistic Heaven; and we see the Adamas take their revenge on the Guatrau following the death of the first Bill Adama. It’s a great season finale, and the only thing that stops it from being a great series finale is that it shouldn’t have been a series finale. ::wears black gloves in mourning, as is the Tauron way::
12. Rubicon – A Good Day’s Work
Rubicon travelled a short distance from 70s-style conspiracy drama to cerebral 24-style topical thriller with some peculiar baggage including the spate of uninvolving office romances and a malfunctioning sub-plot featuring Miranda Richardson as a woman being sad in some rooms. It was the eleventh episode that fulfilled the promise of both versions of the show, with our paranoid hero Will Travers finally revealing to Catherine Rhumer the results of his research; shadowy corporation Atlas-McDowell is in the Shock Doctrine business, wrecking the world and profiting from the chaos. The show suddenly comes into focus, and writer Zack Whedon and director Brad Anderson crank up the suspense with a nerve-wracking fight scene between Will and smug assassin Donald Bloom. It’s the build-up and pay-off that seals the deal; Truxton’s anguish when he realises what he must do to protect his evil cabal, and Kale’s efficient disposal of the dead body of his former lover. This immensely exciting hour of TV ends with Will slowly falling apart, as he realises just how much danger he is in. Plus we get to hear Rocket from the Crypt’s On A Rope over the sound of a body being dismembered. How often does that happen on TV?
11. The Shadow Line – Episode Six
Addicts of Hugo Blick’s dread-soaked drama, shunned by those who proved immune to the almost other-worldly oddness of it all, could well have felt vindicated in their obsession by the rush of shocking moments that occur in the middle of this episode. The first half of it seems like an elaborate set-up for an imminent disaster, which comes during a typically lengthy set-piece that sees Jonah Gabriel face off against his would-be assassin Gatehouse in the home of his mistress and secret son. The audience, of course, knows that they are not alone, and the traps set by both Gatehouse and Glickman end up going horribly wrong. This ten minute centrepiece, in an already exciting episode, is one of the crowning achievements of the TV year, a sequence of bombshells layered so expertly over each other, occasionally in contravention of usual dramatic logic, that any quibbles about the plausibility of it fade away. It’s deliberately played straight at the audience, who can only react with numb horror. Which is not to say that’s the only good thing about the episode. Gatehouse’s final scene, rising like Lazarus to face his would-be assassin, is memorably chilling and, as with the rest of this remarkable show, commendably precise in execution.
Top ten tomorrow. If I can stop shuffling the order around.
Right, quick explanation for the blog inactivity of the last few months. Seems I didn’t read the small print on my blogging licence. Turns out you can’t say anything good about Michael Bay movies at all. Can’t say you enjoyed bits of them even if you were bored or appalled by other bits. Can’t say you understand why he’d want to hire talented, popular actors to fill out smaller roles. Can’t even say you like the cut of his jib; apparently this is racist against giblets.
I didn’t know any of this, and so I foolishly posted a review of Transformers 3: Dark Chocolate Moon Pie that didn’t call for Bay to be sealed in a casket filled with excrement and fired into space. For that, I can only apologise completely and profusely. Transformers 3 was obviously worse than beetroot pickled in rabies and served on a plate made of skunk bone. I must have been brainwashed using some kind of microwave beam to have even momentarily considered otherwise. (Here is a picture of my credibility.)
Anyway, the penalty for this infraction of BlogLaw was temporary suspension of blogging privileges, in case I infected the world with more heretical ideas. It’s been awful. I so wanted to write about the disappointing third act of The Skin I Live In, the frustrating final half of Captain America: The First Avenger, my newfound love of The Good Wife and The Vampire Diaries, my immense and gargantuan adoration of Attack The Block and why I think it’s one of the most important British films of our time, but no. The Bloggery Enforcementation Division (BED) is too powerful to fight against.
Anyway, the period of censure is at an end as of today, so I’m here to announce that from tomorrow I will belatedly begin the 2010-2011 Caruso TV Awards, which have totally been delayed by the tyrannical regime that controls the Internet and not because I’ve been waiting for Breaking Bad to finish because it started so late in the year and I really wanted to put an episode in my Best Episodes list. Nothing like that. It was the Man what stopped me. Anyway, stay “tuned”.
