Monthly Archive for February, 2010

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Continued Dialogues

Published on February 4, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

We have many things to discuss, Dear Reader! First and most pressing, of course, is the Oscar nominations. Let’s just get right down to it:

Best Picture:

Avatar–Makes sense. I mean, who is surprised there? But I don’t think it should win. As good a movie as it is, and God knows I love the thing, its technological advances can’t hide the overt simplicity of the story itself. A “Best Picture” needs to be something a little deeper.

The Blind Side–Still haven’t seen it, but I think a fair choice. The Academy is obviously sensitive to alienating people, and they know that if this movie isn’t nominated, a lot of America is going to flip them off and watch something else. Scoff all you like, and most of my professors do, but the people love it. If only this kind of open-mindedness was there for “The Dark Knight,” whose snub last year is made all the worse by the fact that with ten nominees, it almost certainly would have gotten the nomination. I will never get over that.

District 9–And here we get them filling up space, this is not a good enough movie to be “Best Picture.” It’s a fad that died off once everyone realized the movie had no third act. I like “District 9,” especially for its new and exciting take on sci-fi, but it’s problems are too significant to ignore.

An Education–Haven’t seen it, but I hear great things. A pretty obvious Hollywood choice, I’m sure it would’ve been nominated even with 5 slots. It won’t win, though, and everyone involved in it knows that. Because the Oscars are more than any other thing a television program, and television programs need exciting upsets and huge, record-breaking sweeps. A lesser known up-and-comer winning the big prize would elicit a giant shrug from too many people. It’s not happening.

The Hurt Locker–My current pick for the Best Picture win, and a deserving contender. I really like “The Hurt Locker,” but I must admit that I’ve been avoiding a second viewing, because I have this nagging sense that its muddled third quarter—especially the scene where Jeremy Renner breaks into that house for some reason—will bother me even more than it did the first time. Like “District 9,” it’s a movie whose strengths are big and hard to miss, while its weaknesses are whispering in your ear while you leave the theater. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be nominated or even that it shouldn’t win, but as a character study I do find it imperfect.

Inglourious Basterds–A wonderful nomination, and one of the fruits of the ten-slot changeover, because it surely would have been left in the cold a year ago. This is a brazen, interesting film that gave people a genuinely new experience, and that alone is something. It breaks a lot of basic storytelling rules, which “Pulp Fiction” also did, but I don’t think it gets away with it quite as cleanly as that film did. It’s a great movie, I’m glad to see it here, but the pace is occasionally a bit cumbersome and not every subplot resolves in a worthy manner.

As far as its chances of winning, I think they’re decent, but I’d put money on “Locker” and “Avatar” first. This is kind of the “Benjamin Button” of 2009, and although everyone is happy to see it at the dance, I don’t think we’re taking it home with us.

Precious–Admittedly, this one managed to generate a lot of heat for awhile, and I think its lead will probably go home with a statue, but the movie itself has gone the way of “Juno” and started losing momentum before the ceremony rolled around. It’s not winning.

A Serious Man–God knows I hate to be arrayed against my beloved Coen Brothers, but in my opinion this is one of their weaker films. Its script wouldn’t get past an undergraduate screenwriting class, its protagonist fails to elicit sympathy, and the plot is dramatically unsatisfying. The most interesting character, the main character’s son, is awkwardly thrust into the limelight in the 3rd act to try and engage the audience, but what the stoned bar mitzvah sequence is supposed to mean is never made clear. As filmmakers, their craft is as good as its ever been, but here they stray too far off the reservation. The one redeeming feature is a spine-tingling last frame, which calls out like a phantom limb from the movie “A Serious Man” could have been, but isn’t.

As for its chances…don’t count on it. I have a theory that no one actually likes “A Serious Man” that much, and given the swirling protestations of anti-Semitism (which are ridiculous as usual), I don’t think it’s got the legs to make the jump. And it doesn’t deserve it, anyway.

Up–A good enough film that isn’t great, no matter what anyone says. Stellar opening, incredibly tepid middle, enjoyable but shrug-worthy conclusion. Funny and spirited, but the audience is ahead of the characters the whole time.

Up in the Air–I said I thought “The Hurt Locker” would win, but if I could work my will, here is the one that should win. In terms of likelihood of taking the prize, I’d say it’s about equal with anything here. This is the best movie of the ten, hands down. It’s more topical than “Locker,” sweeter than “Up,” and more brutally honest than “Precious” or “A Serious Man.” Reitman earned his nomination for “Juno,” but no matter how wonderful that film was, I don’t think anyone was comfortable calling it “Best Picture.” “Up in the Air” feels born to be.

So there you have it. As a quick break-down, let me list the movies I would be happy to see win:

Up in the Air

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

Here are the ones I would be okay with winning, but not thrilled about:

Avatar

Up

And the ones that would actively annoy me:

District 9

A Serious Man

The others I can’t comment on, having not seen them.

I’d also like to point out that this year is a surprisingly weak year for storytelling. Many of these movies are on here for cultural significance or popularity, when their actual scripts are draft material. I notice a particular Achilles’ heel in the third acts of movies like “District 9,” “Up,” “The Hurt Locker,” and “A Serious Man,” all films which fumble awkwardly at their resolutions. When I’m considering who I want to take the ultimate prize, the thing I’m obsessed with is a shiny, glistening story: paced with elegance, nuanced, powerful, and authentic. “Up in the Air” displays all of this and still manages to be funny, sad, fascinating, and the most relevant film for our times. 3-D technology is great, James, but it doesn’t mean anything for me as a human being. “Air” is talking about the American spirit as it is right now with an almost relentless clarity.

A few other things that struck me:

-Cameron is taking the Best Director prize, I guarantee you. But he can’t have that and Best Picture, I don’t think the Academy will swallow that, so that says to me that “Avatar” isn’t taking the statue. Cameron absolutely deserves it in a way, but on the other hand, I sometimes think the technical aspect of directing overwhelms what the job is really about: story, tone and performances. In those respects, “Avatar” is only good, not great. For me, the most visionary control of performances and story I saw this year were brought to us by Kathryn Bigelow (Cameron’s ex-wife, funny side note) and Jason Reitman. Both of their movies, whatever flaws were present, had that feel of someone making real decisions behind the camera.

-I don’t think any of the original screenplay noms really leap out at me as “winners,” they all strike me as movies who will win and then you’ll be surprised ten years later to find that out. The adapted category is full of quality, though.

-Let Sandra have Best Lead Actress. She deserves it. The woman carried that film on her back in a way very few actresses can. The fact that she made Americans love and relate to her character is a crucial ingredient in the movie’s success, and it must be recognized. It must be.

-”Fantastic Mr. Fox” better win Animated, it’s twice the movie “Up” is, and if there was justice in this world it’d be swimming in the big boy’s pool with a Best Picture nom.

-My personal favorites for Best Score are Hans Zimmer’s “Sherlock Holmes” and Alexandre Desplat’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Both were defining components of their film’s personality. I almost want Has to win between the two, since he took a weak film and brought it up a notch with his music. He seems to specialize in that, often doing his best work in crap flicks like “The Da Vinci Code.” I guess he likes the challenge.

But in fairness, Desplat is just as deserving, because the music in “Fox” was integral to the proceedings in a way “Holmes” does not mimic, and he so perfectly rose to that challenge.

-I know it’s a pipe dream, but I’d love to see Bruno Delbonnel win for his lensing of “Harry Potter.” The film was jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

Anyway,

The “Lost” season premiere was, by all accounts, a smashing success. Bad “Lost” episodes are frustrating, giving out too little information and annoying the audience, but this one was always teasing you just the right amount. There was a constant sense of a logic working behind the scenes that you could just barely not see. Beautifully done. The “new” John Locke who manipulated Ben so adroitly is one of the series’ most interesting characters, but I do think they owe the original a more thorough resolution than he got. I’ve enjoyed the disillusionment they’ve milked from John’s bizarre and untimely passing, but it’s beginning to strike me as unsatisfying. You can’t carry us this far with that guy and just leave him in the dust.

No one knows what to make of this apparent alternate reality. I for one am not convinced it is alternate yet, because you never want to assume with “Lost.” I don’t know what it is. I do know that it’s given the show an energy that is going to send it into that big goodnight with momentum to spare. Thank God you’re back, “Lost.” We have missed you.

Tales of Interest!

Published on February 1, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Yes, before you ask, the top 25 will continue, I just feel like spreading it out a little will a) build the tension b) make people start reading this again. Meanwhile, there are various stories of interest to discuss.

Corelyn has led a successful skirmish against our living room, suppressing its defensive reflexes and reforming it into the thing she desires. Our closet had heretofore (I love that word) been a kind of material purgatory, a way station where possessions we could not systematize waited in the dark for a house fire to end their torment. Corelyn never really intended for this, she had plans for that closet, but I was in charge of unpacking on a fateful afternoon, and my Xbox suggested to me that time was a-wasting.

No offense, but the “Black Hole” theory of closet space is defiantly Allen. Growing up, we always had…that room, that place where you just did not want to go. It was an ugly little remainder in the long division equation of our family, the seedy underbelly that made the otherwise pleasant appearance of our house possible. I have to admit, every time I visit Brady and Holly, I search for their Room of Torment, so far without success. I can’t decide if they just don’t have one or if it’s so bad they use black magic to cover it up.

To me, junk was always just a natural state of affairs. I appreciate clean rooms, they make me feel happier than messy ones, but I could never seem to consistently will them into existence. Most people who know me are vaguely aware that I am far from a details-oriented person, despite what I say on any job application ever. I am an idea person, a grand scheme thinker, my fascination is with the big picture, so there’s something borderline comical to me about spending ten hours a week relocating a dozen trinkets to their arbitrarily appointed “places.” They’re just going to move again, what is the point of this?

The thing that probably changed my attitude towards cleanliness forever was living with male roommates my senior year of college. It was a sharp, sobering experience not unlike that “Scared Straight” show they used to do. I had to see for myself how bad it could get, I had to live it firsthand before the practice of sanitizing a bathroom or dusting off a coffee table had any meaning to me. I remember that the walls were just blank: no decorations, no pictures. There were a few pieces of furniture across from a television in the living room, but they honestly looked like they had been placed by men with blindfolds, and it was too much to hope their colors matched in any way. The lavatories were war zones, I don’t really want to get into that. Corelyn would come to visit and leave with post traumatic stress disorder.

Anyway, the point is, Corelyn had many enemies in our living room: a computer desk that was too wide, too tall, and jutted uncomfortably into her dining space; a lack of seating space; an awkwardly placed couch; a closet that was a demilitarized zone. These were formidable adversaries, and they are all dead—not  just vanquished, dead. Her only remaining obstacle is the one she isn’t allowed to murder: me. I’m not an idiot, I appreciate the distinction between a good room and a bad one, but I have a rare talent for survival, and will content myself in almost any living space that isn’t too warm or too small. Waking up my aesthetic sense and putting it to work on my home is kind of like smacking your arm over and over when it falls to sleep.

Moving along,

“Mass Effect 2″ is great and getting better. My early misgivings about it have given way to wholehearted embrace, in the same sense that a strung-out rock star embraces cocaine. I’ve logged over 2o hours into it so far, which is incredible to me because that’s nearly an entire day. I haven’t owned the game for longer than a week, and it has already removed an entire unit of time from my life.

The secret to “Mass Effect 2′s” domination of my heart and soul is really its story. Video games have always been addictive on some mindless level, but aside from deranged nerds, most of us could only take so much of a plumber tripping on mushrooms and fighting turtles before we needed to go back to grown up land. This new generation of story-based games insist on stirring two teaspoons of story into the mix, metering out compelling characters, shocking plot revelations, and philosophical observations for each hour of game play. “Super Metroid” used to give you points or extra lives when you conquered a foe, but now the reward for level completion is a lesson in life and love.

Movies are my passion, but I do admit that games and television have a key narrative advantage: they have more time. You can only build so many characters in three hours, but if you have 40 or 50, you can construct a living, breathing world. Gaming has the advantage over both in that the player is allowed to determine the pace and order of the story they absorb, letting each person tailor it to their liking far better than any artist(s) could. When you make a movie, you have to try and guess what the audience is going to care about and emphasize that, but in a game like “Mass Effect 2″ you can sit back and let them decide.

When I first popped “ME2″ in the tray, I was stunned at the absence of RPG elements. There was no inventory anymore, hardly any looting, only occasional collecting of precious “XP” (I still think that one is a mistake), no more Mako, far simpler character trees. Tycho at Penny Arcade wisely compared it to “Deus Ex’s” much-hated sequel, but there’s one key difference: here it works. It’s a weird experience to lose things in a sequel you got used to in the original, but once you get past it, the game is tighter and more satisfying.

Corelyn hates video games, there’s no two ways about that fact, but it saddens me that I’ll never be able to distill “ME2′s” story into a form she would permit, because I think she might like it. Its tone is a combination of any of the following:

1. Heinlein, especially the socio-political yet action-heavy style of “Starship Troopers.” Also toss in a touch of the existential philosophy and character-based drama a la  ”Stranger in a Strange Land.”

2. The morality play dynamic of “Star Wars.”

3. The gritty, real-world psychosis of “Ender’s Game” or “Speaker for the Dead.” Also a fascination with the military, which is depicted in a grounded and relatable fashion.

Mix that with a potent cocktail of cover-based combat and RPG elements, you end up with the gift that keeps on giving until you don’t have a life and can’t remember your name. I think I just need to beat this game and bury it somewhere where I can’t reach it anymore.