Review: Blue Valentine

     Relationships can be a tough battle. As much as one person may truly love another, it's impossible to get around the fact that we are all ultimately just using each other. When one human being begins to count on and derive pleasure from another human being, it becomes impossible not to build expectations for one another, as we begin to see the other person as who we think and want them to be instead of who they truly are. I think Nirvana's "Come As You Are" sums it up best in the opening lines of the song: "Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be". As crude and cold as that may sound to some, I think it is the unavoidable truth, and for the most part, it works to everyone's benefit. Enjoying the presence of the ones you love is one of things that make life great, but when an individual becomes too dependent on another for their happiness, not able to enjoy life on its own terms, many serious problems can result, including pushing away the one you love the most. This unfortunate circumstance is what is painfully chronicled in Derek Cianfrance's "Blue Valentine".

News: Christopher Nolan's Post-Batman Project

     We're still about a year and a half outside of the last Batman film in the Nolan trilogy, but even before "The Dark Knight Rises" begins shooting, speculation about Nolan's next project is all over the world wide web. This weekend, rumors began to surface that Nolan might return to his script about Howard Hughes. Sometime in the early 2000's, before "Batman Begins", Christopher Nolan had written a script based on the life of the eccentric mogul, but when the Martin Scorsese/Leonardo DiCaprio Howard Hughs bio-pic "The Aviator" made its way into movie theaters, Nolan shelved the idea. Nolan has called the script the best work he has ever done, and now that some years have passed since the Scorsese/DiCaprio collaboration, apparently Nolan wants to go back to it. From what is known, the two films will actually be quite different, for while "The Aviator" covered the early years of Hughes life and ended as he was losing his marbles, Nolan's film apparently will be almost exclusively covering Hughes later years when he was a shut-in at some Vegas hotel, paranoid that the FBI was after him. Back when Nolan was originally planning to shoot the film, he was planning to have Jim Carrey star in the role, but there is no word if that is still the case. Whoever he gets to star as Hughes, I glad he has decided to go back to the project. By the time the film is released, it will likely have been over a decade since "The Aviator", and if the two films really do cover different periods of the man's life, it wouldn't matter anyway. Nolan has proven himself to be a great shaman when it comes to dealing with aspects of the mind, and his perspective on the insanity of Howard Hughes is almost certain to be another classic in his already great filmography.

Review: Another Year

     I have come out as a pretty strong anti-realist in terms of cinema in many an article on this blog. I have explained my view that films are an unique art form where the use of controlling moving images along with combinations of other influences (music as one example) give an artist an unlimited tool bag to express their emotions and ideas, and by trying to capture some non-existent "real" of the everyday, the artist not only limits the potential of the medium, but fails to capture the overarching theme of life itself: emotions. The thing is though, while I steadfastly hold on to these beliefs, there is no genre that is in and of itself, by definition, bad. In general, one genre may have its weakness and I am okay with characterizing the genre as such, but a good artist is a good artist, and their are always ways to overcome any artistic challenge (such as amazing insight). My preferences though led me be somewhere quite significantly less than excited to see Mike Leigh's "Another Year", which from the trailers look to be a heavy-handed exercise in realist cinema, but to my pleasant surprise what I saw instead was an insightful character study of a certain type of lonely older-middle-age personality that is all too common in life.

If I Picked the Winners: Best Adapted Screenplay 2010

     The Adapted Screenplay tends to be where the heavy hitters are every year in the writing awards. If you look throughout the history of the Oscars, the Best Picture winner, and a fair share of the nominees as well, tend to come from the Adapted category, not the Original category. I'm not sure why this is. It just may be that coming up with a great original story is so much significantly harder than repurposing one already told for the sake of cinema, but whatever the cause, the Adapted race is usually where it is at in terms of predicting the Best Picture (not that they are necessarily better than the Original Screenplays though). This year's nominees is a fairly good slate, with some big names (including three past winners in the category), as well as a duet of newcomers. All of the scripts are from films I generally liked, although I was a bit disappointed with one of the screenplays. Even though I was not surprised it failed to receive a nomination, it was disappointing that the Academy did not make room for Laeta Kalogridis' adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel "Shutter Island". Lehane has served as one of the leading literary inspirations for filmmakers of the last decade along with J.K Rowling and that lady who writes the Twilight series (sorry, I don't care enough to look up her name, something Meyer I think), as his novels-turned-into-films such as "Mystic River" and "Gone Baby Gone" helped set off the 2000's Boston Cinema Renaissance. Kalogridis' adaptation of "Shutter Island" may be the best adaptation of Lehane's work so for. In particular, the film's closing line, "Which would be worst, to live as a monster or die as a good man?", which was not in the book, puts a whole new interesting spin on the story. In my own personal ballot, I would have also included Edgar Wright and Michael Bacall for their wonderful adaptation of the comic book, "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World", but since I don't have a say, I guess it's all a moot point. This is a good slate of nominees though, so let's get to the ranking.

News: Top 100 Limey Films

     Given the popularity of my "Top 100" countdown, I take it that, as myself, most of you enjoy "Top #" lists. I thought then I should alert you to a list by Time Out of the "Top 100 British Films". They made the list by pulling together the Top 10 lists from many different people in the film industry, from actors to directors to producers to journalists. Unlike most of these type of lists, they also let you view each individuals ballot, which was something I enjoyed skimming through. There are a lot of films on the list I have yet to see, but there are a lot of good films as well, including two films in my own personal top 5, "The Third Man" (#2 on their list), and "Lawrence of Arabia" (#23 on their list, which is definitely too low in my opinion). I was disappointed that Edgar Wright's two British comedies, "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz", did not make the list, but as time goes on hopefully Wright's films will grow in reputation among the film elite. Anyway, if you want to take a look at the entire list, as well as the individual contributors Top 10 lists, click here.

News: Oscar Rarity Tomorrow at 10:00 PM

     I just wanted to alert any Oscar obsessed people like my self that a rare opportunity will be available to you tomorrow at 10 PM on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Every Oscar season, TCM has its "31 Days of Oscar", in which the network shows only Oscar winning or nominated films for 31 days. As part of this great program, tomorrow at 10 PM, TCM will be playing the 1933 winner for Best Picture, "Cavalcade". The reason I mention this, is that "Cavalcade" is only Best Picture winner not to be put on DVD, making it extremely hard to see. In fact, it is one of the few films the Academy has awarded Best Picture that I have yet to see (there are 9 altogether, including "Cavalcade"), which is why, despite the film's supposed mediocrity, I am extremely excited to check it out tomorrow night. If you like knowing your Oscar history, don't pass up this opportunity tomorrow at 10 PM.

News: Two Writing Awards Weigh In

     It feels sort of sacrilegious to be writing about Oscar season in a weekend meant for total dedication towards football, but since there were a few more awards given out, I thought I should update anyone interested. First, the USC Scripter award for "the best adaptation of the printed word into film" went to Aaron Sorkin and Ben Mezrich for "The Social Network", which was adapted from Mezrich's book "The Accidental Billionaires". Sorkin also picked up another award this weekend at the Writers' Guild of America (WGA) awards for Best Adapted Screenplay (although these awards are diminished somewhat by the fact that so many film's are ruled ineligible due to the guild's ridiculous eligibility rules). With his unfortunate snub by the directors' branch of the Academy, I was also happy to see Christopher Nolan win something this awards season, as he won the WGA's Best Original Screenplay award for his script for the film "Inception". "Inception" was also the recipient of the Art Directors' Guild award for Best Art Direction in the Fantasy category. The guild's other two categories, Period and Contemporary, went to "The King's Speech" and "Black Swan" respectively. That's about the only award news this weekend, so I hope you had a great Super Bowl weekend, and congratulations to the Green Bay Packers on winning Super Bowl XLV.