Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The Oscar Challenge


Originally published in The Navigator 20 February 2013

Some people run marathons. Some people write novels. A few people even read all of Finnegans Wake. My point is that everyone has some goal in mind that is both ambitious yet achievable, and this year I set out to finally achieved my goal of seeing all the Best Picture nominees before the Oscar ceremony. I know, it’s formidable.

This ambition formed a few years ago; it seemed very possible once I turned eighteen, but the Academy was not going to make things easy. In 2009, after forgetting The Dark Knight, the category was doubled to ten films. Challenge accepted.

During the fall releases, as studios release their best bets, the term “Oscar bait” gets tossed around. It means the film is serious, possibly distressing, and most likely relates to a specific social issue. I have trouble motivating myself to see these films, and in 2009 the Academy nominated The Blind Side, Precious, and An Education. I have still not seen any of them. This probably damages my film buff reputation, but I’d like to think my time was better spent watching District 9, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, and the not-nominated Star Trek (three times).

2009: fail.

I persisted, and when Oscar season returned, I was fully committed. I had a job working for a video store, so I had advance (and free) access to every new release. The list came in and most of the films were already available. I watched Black Swan and swore to never take ballet. I watched The Kids Are All Right and decided more movies should start with Vampire Weekend songs. I watched Winter’s Bone and found something to replace the Fargo wood chipper in my nightmares. Buried under Toy Story 3, Inception, The King’s Speech, and The Social Network, however, was 127 Hours. I had a month to see it, but when the director of 28 Days Later makes a film about a guy who has to cut off his own arm, the squeamish agoraphobe inside of me takes over.

2010: fail.

Third time lucky, right? Only nine films this time. I saw The Artist the day it opened, which exceeded expectations and relight my love of silent films. I saw Hugo, which made me see the potential value in 3D for more than sci-fi spectacle; I saw Midnight in Paris, which reassured me that Woody Allen could still write a film without a narrator intruding every three minutes, but the Academy had fallen into that Oscar bait trap again. Despite it’s good script and a cast highlighted by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, The Help was advertised like it was the story of white people ending racism, so I could not bring myself to watch it until months later when it was released on DVD.

2011: fail.

Nine films were announced on January 10 by Emma Stone and this year’s host Seth MacFarlane. I had seen Argo because I like true stories. I had seen Django Unchained because I like Tarantino and don’t like John Ford westerns. I had seen Beasts of the Southern Wild because I like indie films with giant metaphoric pigs. And I had seen Les Miserables because I had a date, and he didn’t want to see Navy SEALs shooting Bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty.

First seen after the announcement was Lincoln. Steven Spielberg’s look at the last months of the President’s life received twelve nominations, and when I left the theatre I was thinking it deserved to win every one. Then my friends and I went to a late show of Zero Dark Thirty, and I was forced to reexamine my thoughts on torture and murder and James Gandolfini. I also had to rethink my predictions. Suddenly Lincoln didn’t seem like such a clear frontrunner.

Then came Silver Linings Playbook. Mental illness has been a part of my family, although not my immediate family, for as long as I can remember, so the subject matter was both familiar and foreign. The film is a perfect example of good writing supporting good acting supporting good direction. It’s also easily the best film featuring Chris Tucker ever made.

Amour occupied my BC Family Day afternoon, and I am surprised to say that I found it much more fascinating than I had expected. The reviews prepared me for a slow, tragic, depressing film, but even though it was all of those things it managed to draw me in. There are two reasons for this, I think. First is Emmanuelle Riva, now the oldest Oscar nominee, who gives a stunning and exposed performance as Anne, a woman suffering from the effects of a stroke, and the second is the script, particularly two moments where Anne’s husband Georges tells stories from his past. Combined with the film’s simplicity, the script and performances make Amour the inevitable sequel to every great happy-ending romance.

Eight down, and only Life of Pi remained. I’m glad I saved it for last because while all the other nominees are great films, Life of Pi is a great film in a new way. For the first time since Hugo, a director has refrained from using 3D to bring the screen to the audience, and instead allows the audience to fall into the screen. Ang Lee keeps the camera wide and steady, allows shots to linger, and uses classic transitional effects from the era of Citizen Kane to give the audience a chance to absorb the extra dimension. It is the perfect showcase of how technology can push storytelling in powerful new ways, and heading into the final days before the ceremony, my non-existent vote goes to Life of Pi.

2012: win.

I could end by listing my predictions, giving everyone a chance to see how many I get wrong, but there are more than enough predictions out there already (and most of them say Argo). I’d rather point out that every year Hollywood hosts an expensive live TV event, something George C. Scott called a “meat parade,” with the goal of getting me to buy more tickets. By watching, I participate in a cycle of film consumerism that has been going on for 85 years. For this reason, some people turn up their noses, but I love it. This century-old industry is constantly reinventing itself, as these nine unique nominees prove, and after spending millions on films it costs ten dollars for me to enjoy, they are putting on an annual event that includes all my favorite filmmakers, hosted by Seth MacFarlane, with an award presented by the cast of The Avengers. What’s not to like?

Friday, February 1, 2013

WARM BODIES

Nicholas Hoult plays R, a zombie who cannot remember his full name. He shuffles around an airport with dry, witty narration filling his thoughts. M (Rob Corddry) is his best friend, and sometimes they get hungry and team up to go look for brains. During one of these meals out, R eats the brains of Perry (Dave Franco), and R finds Perry’s feelings for his girlfriend Julie (Teresa Palmer) becoming his own. R then saves Julie and hides her in his Wall-E like shelter full of the remains of human society.

Director Jonathan Levine made the indie coming-of-age film The Wackness, which was reasonably entertaining if not very original. His follow-up feature was the terrific 50/50, which was a great convergence of actors and script. Warm Bodies ends up somewhere between the two. The highlight of the film in terms of both actor and script is Nicholas Hoult. His depressed narration includes most of the best lines and Hoult manages to get across a lot of emotion despite sticking to the grey, dead features of the classic Hollywood zombie.

The supporting cast fits the film, but no one is trying too hard to make Warm Bodies a very serious film, which for a Rom-Zom-Com is the best choice. Rob Corddry just plays himself, Teresa Palmer is a beautiful and relatable lead, and John Malkovich agreed to be in this movie, which is less impressive now that his recent work has included Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Jonah Hex.

As for the story itself, if R and Julie wasn’t enough of a hint, Perry sounds like Paris, R’s best friend is M, and Julie’s best friend wants to be a nurse. The star-crossed connections become painfully clear when R approaches Julie at her balcony, and this is the main flaw of the film. Director Jonathan Levine keeps the focus on the Shakespeare romance instead of on the zombie comedy. This is only a problem because it places the audience in the awkward position of rooting for necrophilia, an obstacle that even the most dedicated romantic would have trouble overcoming.

Warm Bodies is an entertaining riff on Romeo and Juliet that seems very original at the start, but soon reveals its conventional side. It’s not gory enough to be a zombie classic, but it’s good enough to be the first worthwhile film of 2013.


The Hollywood Calendar: 2013 Preview

In mid-summer 2012 I was joking about the so-called apocalypse that the Mayan calendar predicted for December, and I said, “It’s okay if the world ends, I’ve already seen The Dark Knight Rises.”
You see, I’d been following the production of Nolan’s film since the premier of The Dark Knight, and I’d been following The Dark Knight production since I saw Batman Begins. It was a cycle of permanent anticipation that influenced me whenever I walked past the Batman section in Curious Comics, or wanted to debate some film trivialities with my friends. It didn’t consume my life, but it meant there was always something to look forward to and think about, no matter what happened to me personally. I imagine this is the sort of comfort that religion holds for spiritual people, which I suppose would make Christopher Nolan my God.

But, now that The Dark Knight Trilogy is completed, is there nothing left to look forward to? Well, Nolan is considering a full-on science fiction film written by his brother Jonathan called Interstellar. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks just announced they are working on a third WWII mini-series for HBO called Masters of the Air. Jurassic Park 4 was just announced for 2014. Joss Whedon is currently preparing a post-Avengers TV series called S.H.I.E.L.D., which will include fan-favorite Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg). And for the five of you who haven’t heard, Disney bought Lucasfilm and has Star Wars Episode VII scheduled for 2015. Star Trek director J.J. Abrams has just signed to direct, which will surely re-ignite the “Trek vs. Wars” debate.

My point is that by the time the apocalypse came and went I had new things to look forward to, and there is a very good reason for this. The film industry is a perpetual motion movie machine, and it has fallen into a predictable pattern over the last thirty to forty years with the goal of making film geeks like me give free word-of-mouth promotion. I’m not going to fight it, so let’s see how 2013 fits the pattern:
The year starts in February-March (I’ll explain why later) with a spread of action films (Good Day to Die Hard, Snitch), genre films (Oz the Great and Powerful), and delayed holdovers from 2012 (GI Joe: Retaliation) that have mid-range ad campaigns and mid-range expectations.

May is the start of blockbuster season, which, like the last few years, opens with a Marvel film (Iron Man 3) and takes us to the summer and to the year’s biggest movies (Star Trek Into Darkness, Man of Steel, Monsters University, World War Z, Kick-Ass 2, Pacific Rim, The Wolverine, Elysium).
By September we are into the genre films and new franchises that are not sure things (Riddick, The Tomb, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones).

October is where everything gets mixed. We have big sequels (Sin City: A Dame to Kill For), Award-seeking genre films (Gravity), remakes (Oldboy, Carrie), and some quirky originals (The World’s End, from the makers of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz).

November mostly gets crowd-pleasing blockbusters (Thor: The Dark World, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Frozen) with a few interesting early Oscar-contenders (Ender’s Game).

December has a final push of blockbusters (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Jack Ryan, Anchorman: The Legend Continues), but this is also the time for all the currently unpublicized Oscar-contenders to make their bids.

The end of the year is January, which is where we are for the 2012 movie cycle, and this is where movies go to die. You may have noticed that your options at the theatre are limited, and the best films are the Oscar-contenders held over from December. The box office is the best evidence. Currently the highest-grossing film of the month is the Del Toro-produced horror film Mama. Past winners include Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Big Momma’s House 2, and Spice World. Essentially, January is a good time to catch up on your reading.

My point, if I have one, is this: if you enjoy movies but haven’t seen a good one in a while, don’t despair. The Hollywood calendar will reset after Seth MacFarlane hosts the Oscars on February 24, and this perpetual motion machine will continue to churn out good films, bad films, and ugly January films until a real apocalypse puts a stop to it.