A Woody Miss

Having recently seen the excellent Match Point (2005), I've restarted my attempt to see the Woody Allen corpus. Unfortunately the first film that came to me has me rethinking the whole idea. Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask) (1972) is an early miss. It takes some strange questions and offers some even stranger answers in short bits. It is woefully unfunny and actually took me two days to watch. I turned it off after 45 minutes because sleep was more inviting than finishing the film and finished it up the next day. I have yet to see where Annie Hall (1977) came from, because all though Bananas (1971) and Take The Money And Run (1969) are amusing, they are in no way on par with Annie Hall. Well he was still experimenting perhaps. Yeah, that comforts me.

Oscar Nominations!!

Okay, that might have been a bit too excited. But still, love them or hate them, the nominations are in, which means in less than two months, we will have Oscar winners. Now I enjoy the Oscars mainly because I pick my favorites and then howl, hoot and curse and jeer anytime my choice is snubbed and cheer, scream, laugh and clap when my favorites win. Yes watching the Oscars with me is a bit of an odd experience. This year, I have the added bonus of having seen a great number of the nominated performances and films. Has the Academy made mistakes in the past? Yes. The two most notorious, in my mind, are Tommy Lee Jones winning best supporting actor for The Fugitive (1993) and Marisa Tomei winning best supporting actress for My Cousin Vinny (1992). Although I feel I should mention the travesty that is in rewarding Ron Howard for anything.

So, I've already done a preliminary take on my favorite movies of the year. Now, I'm picking my horses so to speak for the awards. Here we go.

Best Actor - Terrence Howard blew me away as a pimp trying to escape his desperate livelihood through rap. He blows away the competition in this category too.

Best Actor, Supporting - A weak category in my opinion this year, none of the performances leaps out as particularly memorable. In fact in several cases I've expressed that I wish there had been less of them in the movie not more. William Hurt was certainly the most entertaining in History of Violence (2005), so I'll go with him. But I must say I would love to have seen Ciaran Hinds or Michael Lonsdale from Munich (2005) nominated, both gave amazing performances.

Best Actress - I'm woefully underinformed in this category, having seen only two of the performances. I'm basically going with a coin flip because I liked both Keira Knightley's and Reese Witherspoon's performances about equally. I literally just flipped a coin, I'm not kidding. Congratulations Keira, you're my front runner.

Best Actress, Supporting - Remember what I said about best actress? Its worse in this category. I'm one for five. But as Michelle Williams didn't particularly impress me, I'm going to blind pick on of the four remaining nominees. Frances McDormand, eh she was good in Fargo. Okay, I support Frances McDormand now.

Best Director - For being able to evoke the 50s both in atmospheric smoke and jazzy sound, while faithfully telling a tightly scripted historical drama, I'm giving it to sophomore director George Clooney. And he acted in it too!

Best Film - Ahh the big one. I could ramble on about the complete snub of Walk The Line (2005) but I think the category is fairly well represented in good films, though I might be a bit bitter if Crash (2005) wins the night. For overall effectiveness, I think Munich crushes its competition.

Miscellaneous awards

Best Adapted Screenplay - Is this an award for how well a screenplay was adapted? Or an award for the best screenplay of those which were adapted? If the latter, then I find it arbitrary and an excuse to give screenplays two categories. Munich for me.

Best Original Screenplay - Go Woody!! Match Point (2005)

Animated Feature - I'm embarrassed for the Academy that this is a category.

Original Song - It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp, I don't even particularly like rap music and I enjoyed this song in the film.

Original Score - Why no achievement in unoriginal score? I've seen some brilliant use of music that was in no way an original score. If there is a category for adapted screenplay there should be one for adapted music.

Final thought, Jake Gyllenhaal was more impressive in Jarhead (2005) than in Brokeback Mountain (2005).

Woody Allen Wows

I haven't seen many Woody Allen films. I've seen a couple of his early works, a few less of his later works. With the exception of Annie Hall () nothing ever really impressed me. Granted I'm sure I didn't watch the right Woody Allen films and so am woefully unqualified to make that statement. But for what it is worth, Match Point is very impressive.

The story follows Chris (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) as a former tennis player now attempting to climb the social ladder through marriage. He quickly finds success by befriending Tom (Matthew Goode) and dating, eventually marrying, his sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer). The crux in his climb is Nola a sexy American, who is dating Tom for a time, that Chris lusts after. His affair with Nola makes his life more and more complicated as he realizes he just lusts for her and does not love her and has no desire to give up his new rich lifestyle for her. Inevitable action occurs, which I leave to those who watch the film or go to a spoiler revelation website. The outcome is quite clever.

Rhys-Meyers and all the cast really were excellent in their roles. Scarlett Johansson as Nola was incredibly sexy and quite convincing as a seductress with her scratchy voice and alluring eyes. There were also little touches in the film. In an early scene Chris is reading Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and after each section, has to pick up the Cambridge Guide to Dostoevsky in order to understand what has been written. It comes back beautifully in a later scene when Brian Cox mentions what a delightful conversation he had with Chris about Dostoevsky.

The movie was enjoyable from beginning to end and its clever resolution brings home the line of dialogue from the opening and ending of the movie "I'd rather be lucky, than good". A sentiment Woody Allen doesn't have to worry about, since he is indeed quite good at what he does, when he wants to be.

Brokeback Mountain

I could write about how love transcends socially stagnated ideas about sexual orientation and that Brokeback Mountain makes that clear, but either you understand that and are interested in seeing the movie, or you don't and aren't. Ang Lee has made an excellent film. It is filled with sweeping, beautiful cinematography, honest and believable characters, and a deeply tragic and sad story. The story focuses on Ennis (Heath Ledger) but at times details the life of Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal).

I found Ennis to be the most interesting character and enjoyed very much his continuing story throughout the film. His struggle is interesting because he recognizes the reality of being discovered to be gay since he saw the gruesome aftermath of a similar event as a child. He strives to live the accepted life by marrying and having children. Even after the break up of his marriage, he for a time has another relationship with a woman. It is actually quite bittersweet to recognize the pain, Ennis is still in by the end of the movie.

Unfortunately, not all aspects of Ennis' life are exploited to full affect. I was intrigued by the relationship he had with his daughter. I wanted to know more about it. I wanted to know how they had developed such a close connection. I wanted to know why the other daughter seemed to disappear entirely from the film. By contrast, Jack's standing up to his father-in-law was predictable and uninteresting.

Overall the film was very good. It had its flaws, and I'm not sure it deserves to win awards over other films but it was definitely one of the best films of the year.

Delighted to be Hoodwinked

Typically I enjoy animated features slightly more than I enjoy musicals and slightly less than I enjoy a terrible headache. Even with the advent of animated films which make valiant attempts to keep parents as well as kids entertained, they still tend to be childish. Which I suppose is the point, and so let the kids go to the animated films and I'll stick to live action. In fact if at all possible, never bring your kid to a live action film, particularly one I am viewing, since I'm going to be quickly irritated by your crying, fussing child.

I say all this because I loved Hoodwinked. It wasn't that it was really all that more funny than any other animated film and many have commented that it looks like a Shrek (2001) clone, it was that it was ridiculously clever. From the most basic premise of a German fairy tale, I would never have guessed one could get so much mileage. It is only at the point when the four traditionally characters (the wolf, the grandmother, the girl and the woodsman) come together do things really get going.

The investigation that gets going with the aid of a frog named Flippers is what makes the movie so damn clever. The audience is treated with four narratives. Each following the events of the person in question up to the coming together of the four. Each is filled with its own set of occurrences that at times seem rather bizarre. But as each consecutive person tells his or her tale, little pieces of the puzzle are filled in. Each time it happened I smiled and laughed and was generally amazed.

Although it eventually erodes into a more standard villain narrative, it still has its moments and the four part interrogation still fascinated me and it made up most of the film. This movie is worth seeing for that first part if for no other reason. And if for some reason unlike me, you actually enjoy animated films, then you should definitely see this one. It is not in my opinion, just a Shrek clone.

The New World

After viewing enough Terrence Malick movies, you learn to expect certain things. Although when I think about it, the man has only directed four feature length movies, so maybe you can't view enough of his movies to discern that. Still there does seem to be a surprising amount of attention drawn to nature and man's struggle with it. But what was subtle in Badlands (1973) and Days of Heaven (1978) became blatant in Thin Red Line (1998) and now The New World.

The New World definitely is styled in the vain of The Thin Red Line. Whereas, however, I enjoyed Thin Red Line, I found The New World at times to be a bit much. The most notable difference being that one feels every minute of the new movie and the long, long narrative is broken up by only a few action sequences.

I find the message a bit tired as well. Malick's contrast of the natural world (peaceful, utopian) of the Indonesians with war was interesting in The Thin Red Line. His contrast of the Naturals living in harmony with nature and the English forcing nature to their whim is decidedly not interesting. Plus The New World wants to be three movies at once: a love story between Pocahontas and John Smith, a love story between Pocahontas and John Rolfe, and the story of the struggles of the first years of the Jamestown colony.

I could only interest myself in one of these stories and went with the Smith-Pocahontas romance. It worked surprisingly well, the chemistry was electric and convincing. There was a neat sadness in Smith's constant declaration that Pocahontas didn't know who he really was. Colin Farrell as Smith was superb at being both completely vulnerable when he is with Pocahontas and yet also distanced. His inability to abandon his duty and his desire for Pocahontas to be happy was beautifully summed up, when he leaves secretly and arranges for someone to say he died. I wanted more of this story and less of everything else.

The Rolfe-Pocahontas story was much weaker. Either from lack of chemistry or inferiority of the story telling compared to the Smith-Pocahontas romance, it just didn't work. Her choice for security over love, as it seemed to me, was wholly uninspiring for a movie that is trying for the epic. Finally, the film just ends, no telling us what happens to Smith or Rolfe, although the quickly drop in Pocahontas' fate. Obviously Jamestown survived but a movie should provide a satisfactory conclusion for the characters it treats so well, and not require me to resort to a history book just to see what happened.

Awards

January 31, 2006, the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the nominations for this year's academy awards which will air on March 6, 2006. Although regularly I only do reviews on this blog, I thought I'd make some comments both now before the nominations and once more after the nominations are made.

According to the Academy website there are 311 eligible films (http://www.oscars.org/78academyawards/reminder/reminder_list.html) for 2005. I saw 86 of them. There are also five eligible films currently on my "want to see list". So I in no way saw every film or even all of the so called "Oscar Buzz" movies. Here is a list with a short explanation of what films, which I saw, I thought were the best of the year. In alphabetical order.

Batman Begins - Comic book turned movie done right

Good Night, and Good Luck - Strong performances, evokes the feel of the fifties and does modern commentary right.

Hustle and Flow - Terence Howard stands out as an incredible actor with a phenomenal story.

Munich - Spielberg finally earns my respect back after The Terminal (2004) and War of the Worlds (2005), powerful suspense with a powerful message

Pride and Prejudice - Funny, Sad, Moving and Romantic without missing a step

Serenity - Rock rolling fun space epic that reminded me of my first viewing of Star Wars, it had humor, heartache and plenty of action without any god awful Lucas style dialogue

Sin City - Film noir and graphic novel. Beautifully weaved together, amazingly faithful to the comic with strong performances.

Walk The Line - Biopics are pretty standard fair but this one is done well and has Johnny Cash music throughout, I was harsher on it in my review but I've had second thoughts.

Underworld: Evolution

When fantasy geeks get together and have an idea, it can quickly degenerate into absurd match-ups, like who would win in a fight the Enterprise or a Star Destroyer. It's pointless and renders some of the most ridiculous and bad movies I have seen to date. These match-ups made in geek heaven have given us Alien Vs. Predator (2004), Freddy Vs. Jason (2003), and the spectacularly bad Underworld (2003) which some how conned a sequel Underworld: Evolution. Tending toward the geek side myself, I admit I enjoyed the concept of Underworld.

Vampires at war with werewolves? Kate Beckinsale looking sultry in tight leather (if a bit pale)? Yes to both. But as it turns out, execution is very important to a film. And the first film was a disaster of bad acting, horror film cliche and just poor writing in general. The plot was confusing and poorly thought out. Flashy fight sequences were fun but unsatisfying in the end.

The sequel is pretty much more of the same. It starts with a text prologue essentially creating a back story that I'm guessing never existed before the second film, which causes it to be a bit more ridiculous. We get an elaborate flashback sequence that sets up our plot and has Bill Nighy chewing scenery. Once we get back to the present, our ridiculously powerful bad guy shows up as well as a quick re-acquaintance with our heroes Selene (Beckinsale) and Michael (Scott Speedman). Throw in a mysteriously led "watcher" type group and you have everyone accounted for.

The flashy fights continue, the story line gets wilder and wilder, if you can't guess who the leader of the "watcher" group is before its revealed, you probably weren't paying attention at all, which might be for the best. The movie has its finally act in an elaborate set piece which gives lots of opportunity for cool stunts and effects. The movie had one moment that actually surprised me and I thought 'bravo' but I should have known better and they went ahead and ruined the one inspired thing they had going for them.

The ending was obligatory and of course open ended in a way. A sequel is no doubt already in the works. I can't imagine how it could get worse, but I'm sure someone else has and was probably involved in the making of the next film.

Hostel

Eli Roth's Hostel is a boring movie. The entire plot hinges on an absurd reasoning for the protagonist to go to eastern Europe and eventually be tortured by some sick bastard. Its sole selling points seem to be gratuitous violence and nudity, of which there is an ample supply of both. The film offered little more than Wolf Creek (2005) as far as getting three unsuspecting passer-bys into a situation were a sadist can live out the most disturbing of fantasies.

In truth, I couldn't even glean what the point of the exercise in film was except to be essentially exploitative. At best, I could come up with the reaction of the protagonist to the realization of what is happening. The final act is so dependent on this reaction and at one point made me laugh audibly in the theater at the absurdity of what was happening on the screen. I didn't particularly find the movie scary, nor did I feel there was a particularly interesting human truth revealed. This movie is ultimately pointless.

Rumor Has It

Rumor Has It is by no means a great movie, but it is an enjoyable one. It's helped on by an absurdist plot based on a Hollywood rumor, plus it makes fun of California, which is always good for a laugh. What really carries the film is that the actors in it are so damn good.

I could note Jennifer Aniston's performance as the unsure of her self 30 something, or Kevin Costner as the man who by movie's end will have slept with three generations of women, but hands down Shirley MacLaine steals every scene she is in, perhaps in part to brilliant lines like "I'll put on a pot of Bourbon." But she also has a great way of dismissing people she doesn't care for, letting slip knowledge she shouldn't and having a general disdain for the fact that she is a grandmother.

Credit also goes to Mark Ruffalo who plays the lovable guy who is about to get stepped on so well. The problem is despite getting his heart handed to him, in the end it is inevitable that he take the woman back. But he gives such a heartfelt speech as to why he feels betrayed that I was actually rooting for him to not take Aniston back because he deserves so much better.

For about ten seconds I actually believed he would let her walk out of his life and I was hoping, but inevitably Hollywood cliche reared its ugly head. But despite it, this movie was enjoyable. The actors had fun and it is genuinely funny at times. Plus the story has a nice finding yourself arc that is satisfying and the end love prevails. Who can get mad at a movie where love prevails?

Is Uwe Boll, the antichrist of cinema?

Uwe Boll is very fond of making films based on video games. I first saw his House of the Dead (2003), in which he thought it a good idea to intercut in small bits of the video game the movie was inspired by. It was a badly done movie that seemed wholly built around an action sequence in which teens with machine guns blast away unending hoards of zombies. It was bad, but it was laughably bad. I can't say the same for BloodRayne.

The first thing I noticed about this movie was the cast. This movie boasts the acting talent of Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez and Billy Zane, not to mention Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley. Why is the man who played Gandhi in this movie? Seriously, was he that in need of a paycheck? Michael Pare and Udo Kier, I understand. Even Meatloaf and Kristanna Loken. I didn't know if I should laugh or cry when I read all these names.

Despite being a period vampire flick, swords and all, there was little to no choreography for the fight scenes. Boll seems to have made up for this fact by cutting quickly in the fights so you don't actually have any clue what is going on except that everyone is fighting really pathetically. Loken is particularly horrible with a sword and it shows throughout the movie.

There is a ridiculous amount of action in this film that is completely unmotivated. Rodriguez character arc comes out of left field as does the romance between Loken and Matthew Davis' character Sebastian. I gave up trying to follow the plot and assumed it was some horrible attempt to set up the opening of the video game. I've never played this video game but what I could glean from the movie it seems to be little more than a Castlevania ripoff.

I went into this movie with no expectation other than that I could laugh at how absurd it was. It failed to even meet that paltry expectation. It was so confusing, badly done and acted that I just felt sad for everyone involved. As for whether Uwe Boll is the antichrist of cinema? Probably not, but the man who keeps greenlighting him for movies, might be.

The Producers

As a film buff, I am of course guilty of one of the great sins. I went to a remake and have never seen the original. Of course I know Mel Brooks' The Producers (1968) is a classic which inspired a musical and now a movie musical. But then again maybe its better because I can't compare the two and can have an unbiased view of the movie. Of course that doesn't help the fact that the new musical version just isn't very good.

I admit that I have problems with musicals because I just find the breaking into song a bit on the ridiculous side when I see it on film. This movie feels more like a musical than a movie though. There are lots of stage sets that feel like stage sets and very little camera movement, mostly straight on so it feels like you're sitting in an audience. When I go to a movie I don't want to feel like I'm in the audience. I want to be immersed in the story.

Still, these aren't the reasons I didn't like the film. For the most part, I just didn't find it very funny. The moments I enjoyed most were the scenes with Will Ferrell. In fact I laughed loudest and most naturally when Leo (Matthew Broderick) and Max (Nathan Lane) met Ferrell's character on the roof. After a while I was eagerly anticipating Ferrell's next appearance on screen and finding myself relatively bored with everything else. I didn't laugh much until the actually production of the play with in the movie "Springtime for Hitler".

I suppose for fans of musicals and maybe for fans of this musical in particular, it might be entertaining. But for a simple movie goer, I found it mostly unfunny with a few exceptions. Maybe its funnier on stage. But I doubt it.

Spielberg gets it right, finally

I've been disappointed with Steven Spielberg for several movies now. I liked neither The Terminal (2004) nor War Of The Worlds(2005). Both Minority Report (2002) and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) fell through in the final moments of the film. Bug luckily I can say he gets it all right with Munich.

The actors work, the direction works, the ending works. The reenactment of scenes from the Olympic hostage taking are intercut dramatically and work nicely with a companion piece like One Day In September. Eric Bana is amazing as always and there also nice performances by Ciaran Hinds and Geoffery Rush. But it is Bana who carries the film.

There is of course a message in the film. A blatant message, there is no subtlety in how Spielberg feels. But in the end whatever the message is and how you react to it doesn't take away from the film. From start to finish this film does its job and does it well. I could have done without the blatant symbolism of the final shot, but the movie so caught me up that I was able to dismiss it.

Reasons not to travel cross country across Australia

Wolf Creek made me go eh. I could take it or leave it. It wasn't that it was badly done, but never rose much beyond being a riff on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (2003). Given that I saw it almost two weeks ago and can't remember much about it other than that it made me unlikely to want to travel across Australia. But in truth that desire wasn't to great before I saw the movie, so really it didn't even convince me of anything. And I wish I could say more but it was that forgettable.