The Oscar nominations are being announced tomorrow morning, and unlike most recent years, I’m not really jazzed about the frontrunners. I mean, I liked The Artist well enough, and I didn’t hate The Descendants, though that little brat of a teenage boy sure pulled me out of the story every five seconds. When a film has a character that is so obviously inserted into scenes just to let the filmmaker make a joke or a point, then I get annoyed. (For an excellent report on that movie’s limitations, check out Sarah Bunting’s write-up.)

Where was I? Oh, right. Frontrunners. I’ve also been up front about why The Help left me frustrated and Midnight in Paris made me wish Woody Allen hadn’t soured his sweet little films by indulging his desire to scorn Republicans.

There were, however, many films I enjoyed in 2011. To celebrate them, I’ve created a dream Oscar ballot for Best Picture and the acting categories. What’s on your fantasy list?

[Read more →]

Last night, while I was waiting for Top Chef, I decided to watch Devil on HBO On Demand. In case you don’t know this masterpiece, it’s mostly set in the elevator of a Philadelphia office building. The elevator gets stuck, and one by one, the five people in it are murdered. Because one of the passengers is Satan.

This is a pretty good idea for a movie—a supernatural update on the claustrophobic suspense of Lifeboat and other such tales. But the good idea gets trampled by the execution.

Consider that we learn about the Devil’s presence from a building security guard who is watching the elevator madness unfold on closed-circuit television. He proves the Devil’s nearby by dropping a piece of toast on the floor. When it lands jelly-side down, he says, “See? When he’s around, things always go wrong. The toast lands jelly-side down.”

This is not played as a joke.  Jellied carpeting is considered proof that El Diablo is in on the grounds.

I could spend more time dissecting this movie’s awfulness—what’s up, African-American with a criminal past and Hispanic gentleman who believes in “spirits!”—but the fact is, I wasn’t surprised it was awful. You see, it was executive produced and based on a story by M. Night Shayamalan. His name alone signals hackery.

That wasn’t always so, of course. There was a time when Shayamalan was a Golden God in Hollywood and with audiences. But now, he’s destroyed that goodwill.

And that got me thinking: Who else has pissed away the love they so rightfully earned? Who else is close to doing so?

I’m pleased to present this round-up of goodwill squanderers. Can you think of any more? Let’s discuss!

(Caveat: They have to have ruined themselves through their work and not through their tabloid behavior. Lindsay Lohan and Mel Gibson are not who we’re talking about here.)

[Read more →]

Young Adult was a happy upheaval of my presumed taste in movies. Typically, I think of myself as someone who dislikes bone-deep cynicism, who finds it cheap and lazy. Yet the cynicism in Young Adult, which is directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody, manages to be insightful, humane, and comic in both the structural and amusing senses.

I know, right? How’d that happen?

[Read more →]

Over at Monkey See, I just explained why I’m all in on the Rock of Ages trailer. I truly believe this is going to be an amazing movie. The wigs alone will be worth the price of popcorn.

After you’ve read my write-up, I’d love to know what you think? Are you in or out?

So… The Artist: It’s a lovely silent movie about silent movies themselves, following George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a superstar who’s distressed to realize he has no place in the emerging talkie world. As it tells this story—which also includes the meteoric rise of Valentin’s costar Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo)—it delivers some of the most imaginative and delightful scenes I’ve witnessed in ages. And because The Artist more or less follows the conventions of old silent films, it creates these moments with real-world props and ingenuity. The lack of CGI makes this film feel dazzlingly human in its magic, and that is wonderful to behold.

Early in the film, for instance, Peppy is still just a chorus girl trying to get a break. On the set of George’s latest film, she overhears some music and starts jitterbugging with abandon. (As you do.) From across the soundstage, George sees her dancing… or rather, he sees her legs. Peppy is behind a piece of scenery being wrangled by two stagehands, and as they lift it off the ground, they reveal her dancing feet, then her dancing ankles, then her dancing calves. Before he sees the rest of her, George runs up and starts matching Peppy’s steps, so we see a man dancing in perfect time with a pair of legs. It’s delightful.

And honestly, I think this scene is even more satisfying because it comes in a silent film. With only a score playing, and no “real-world sounds” to distract me, I was able to focus completely on the dancing. I was able to lose myself in it.

By the end of The Artist—which is the first silent film I’ve ever seen in a theater and one of maybe five I’ve seen in my entire life—I was intensely grateful for the special focus that soundlessness demands. I couldn’t look away from the movie for a moment because there was no chance I could follow along just by listening to dialogue as I rustled around in my backpack for a water bottle. By demanding so much of my attention, the movie created a more intimate connection, and I can’t remember the last time the act of watching a film felt so personal.

That’s interesting, since this connection is ostensibly created by 3D effects, but with a few exceptions (Avatar, Up, etc.) 3D rarely excites me. I guess my “poor theater” aesthetic has reared its head again, reminding me that I get transported further when the art I’m watching is working with less, not more.

There was never a chance I was going to enjoy the movie Shame, but I was hoping I’d at least respect it.

In case you haven’t heard, Shame is the NC-17 tale of Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender), a sex addict who humps his way through an emotionally disconnected life in New York City. (And I do mean humps. We see loads of graphic sex and plenty of The Fassbender Member.) In the midst of his humpitude—which involves as much porn and naughty chatroom behavior as actual sex—Brandon’s sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) arrives. She’s also prone to poor sexual choices, and she blends them with emotional need and suicidal tendencies. Her crazy plus Brandon’s crazy leads to High Drama and a series of breakdowns that make Brandon face the fact that he’s screwed up.

Spiritually and philosophically, I almost always reject stories like these, because I do not see meaninglessness or sadness or chaos everywhere I go. Do all these things exist? Yes. Have I been sad and hopeless? Of course. But those feelings are small holes in the garment of my life. For the most part, the seams are in tact. I know that makes me privileged, and I’m grateful.

And that’s why I’m predisposed to movies like Beginners or plays like Hedda Gabler or writers like Thornton Wilder and Annie Dillard and Walt Whitman. All these works and people see the darkness and pull light from it anyway. They don’t deny despair, but they don’t suggest there’s nothing else.

So a movie like Shame, which begins with a man in misery and ends with him facing misery of a different kind, faces a disadvantage with me. But I’m not saying it has no shot. No Country for Old Men is pretty fucking bleak—much more bleak than Shame, actually—but I love the book and the film. Breaking Bad is shot through with evil and desperation, and it’s one of my top three TV series of all time.

Shame, however, is not sophisticated enough to win me over. Though people I respect have enjoyed it, all I see is an insultingly shallow story filled with ham-handed pretension.

(Major spoilers ahead)

[Read more →]

This weekend, the New York Times Magazine will publish its Hollywood Issue, and the content went online early this morning. I’m pleased to say that I’m part of a fun “year in movies” feature about the cinematic moments and trends that will likely be overlooked by the rest of the punditry.

My section is dubbed “Tomorrow’s Iconic Villain Today,” and it celebrates Cate Blanchett’s nasty turn as Marissa Wiegler in Hanna, a brilliant movie that’s still in my top three for entire year.

The rest of the package is fantastic, and I’m tickled to be included.

Hey all! While the head writer’s on vacation, I’ll be posting at NPR’s Monkey See blog every day this week. Woo!

Today’s post is about the trailer for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I have so many reasons to dislike it, yet it makes me cry. Oh, my divided soul!

Take a look and let me know your thoughts!

After two weeks away, I am back from China, and this is the most revolting thing I ate while I was there. Now that I’ve returned to the U.S., jetlag is pretty much dominating my daily life, so that around, say, 3:00 in the afternoon, my body decides I have to be asleep right now.

In my rare waking hours, I’ve been catching up on relationships, reading, TV, and (of course) movies. Yesterday, I saw Take Shelter, which stars Michael Shannon as Curtis, a construction worker from Ohio who begins having prophetic visions of a coming apocalypse. But are these visions real or are they signs that he has inherited schizophrenia from his mother, who was felled by the disease when she was about his age?

The acting is great. I was startled by how much Shannon’s performance made me feel, since he’s so mannered as a Crazy Prophet in Revolutionary Road and Boardwalk Empire. Here, I could feel his fear that he was losing his mind and his compulsive  need to protect his family, just in case his visions were true. It reminded me of the time I was on a plane with a woman who had Tourette’s Syndrome. She kept screaming, “There’s a bomb on the plane!” and then she’d apologize for it. She was acting like a madwoman, but she was also pitiably aware of it.

As Curtis’ wife Samantha, Jessica Chastain delivers her billionth excellent performance of the year, following The Tree of Life and The Help (and probably The Debt, which I didn’t see.) For once, the role of “the wife” is not underwritten (props to writer-director Jeff Nichols), and Chastain knows how to layer Samantha’s conflicting feelings of loyalty, love, and fear.

Curtis and Samantha’s daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart), meanwhile, is deaf. It’s an obvious literary symbol, but her condition has a powerful effect: Hannah is cut off from the world, but is that saving her or hurting her? If you can’t engage with what’s actually happening, are you spared when everything goes wrong, or are you denied true wisdom when you need it most? Is Hannah’s deafness reflected in Curtis’ increasing withdrawal into his visions, where he can’t listen to reason, or is it reflected in the rest of society, who can’t hear what Curtis is trying to tell them? Or both?

If only the ending were this tantalizingly ambiguous. That’s the trouble with either/or plot devices. When your story hinges on the “Is he or isn’t he?” riddle, then either answer is kind of a let down. It’s a question with only two possible answers, and as I watched the movie, I naturally started looking for clues as to which one was “correct.” I happened to be right, but even if I’d been wrong, I would’ve been disappointed. Either way, the answer strips the movie of its tantalizing ambivalence and reduces it to something obvious.

I remember feeling a similar disappointment with Frailty (Is Bill Paxton seeing the devil or not?). Can you think of other either/or stories? Did you like the way they ended?

By Doug Strassler

What with all the attention to recent earthquakes and hurricanes, I’d forgotten to pay attention to the coming of the fall movie season. Now, all of a sudden, it’s upon us, having crawled in like a little lamb. Today sees one of the season’s big entrants with the star-studded disease flick, Contagion.

I mean, looks at the who’s who of a cast: four Oscar-winning actors (Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet), and two additional nominees (Laurence Fishburne and Jude Law). Plus Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh is at the helm. It may just be a pulp popcorn flick about fast-moving germs, but it’s unquestionably a prettily dressed one.

[Read more →]