News: A System in Shambles

     This week came the news that Universal declined to green-light the James Cameron-produced and Guillermo Del Toro-written-and-directed adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft novel "At the Mountains of Madness". The movie had a reported $150 million budget and, this is the key, was to be rated R. The R-rating pretty much guaranteed that, despite the big names attached to the film (including Tom Cruise as one of the film's stars), it would not get made. While I am not particularly a big fan of Del Toro's (I found "Pan's Labyrinth" to be extremely overrated) it saddens me to see an original passion project such as this not see the light of day. Unfortunately, it speaks to the state of a stagnant, decaying system that fails to take any gambles on original work. This is especially the case for any filmmakers interested in making a big-budget rated R film, as Gore Verbinski found out trying to adapt the excellent video game "Bioshock" into an R-rated film.

     The news of Del Toro's smashed dreams did lead to one positive creative outburst though, a fantastic article I happened to stumble across that sums up to current situation which has left us with a sea of generic PG-rated family fare and typical PG-13 crap. The author of article, Drew McWeeny, succinctly details the state of the industry and the frustrations I feel with it better than I ever could hope to, perfectly nailing the complex causes of Hollywood's bloated rotting corpse. If you're at all frustrated with the total lack of originality and overall crappy value of most movies today coming from the studios, I highly recommend you read it by clicking here. In response to the authors open ended questions that conclude the article, I don't really have any great answers either. The only thing I can say that we can do to even begin to address the sad state of cinema we found ourselves in (for major studio releases), is to take responsibility of what we see as filmgoers. This means that we can not continue to see sequels out of obligation just because we have seen the originals. If it looks like a cash ploy, it probably is, so skip it and send the studio a message we don't want more sequels. This also means taking more chances on original movies, even if it doesn't look like your typical cup of tea. If you see a movie that is not a sequel or some carbon cut-out formulaic romp, give a chance, even if you have your doubts. This may not sound like much, but it's a start, and at last you'll feel like you're backing new and adventurous cinema.

If I Picked the Winners: Best Original Screenplay 2010

     Continuing my wrap up of the 2010 Oscar season, this week I rank this year's Best Original Screenplay category. An "original" screenplay has became a rare species in Hollywood these days. 2011 will reportedly be filled with more sequels, remakes, and spin-offs than any other year in cinema history. I believe the statistic I read somewhere stated that one in every four movies will be based on some previous cinematic material, although it may have been one in five. Either way, that's way to much rehashing than we need right now at cinemas. The things is, unfortunately, even when a film is not strictly a sequel, remake, or spin-off, it more times than not follows some predictable Hollywood formula that they must keep around in their back offices. True originality is probably an abstraction that doesn't really exist, but I think they can do a little better than what we are getting right now. Anyway, I'll stop the diatribe and get back on point. The Best Original Screenplay category is often an interesting one that can typically contain more films out of left field than your average category. Many times, a challenging film well regarded by critics and cinematistas, but far from the main stream manages to squeeze in a lone Oscar nomination in this category. In the past decade or so, this includes films such as "The Royal Tenenbaums", "Memento", "Dirty Pretty Things", "The Squid and the Whale", "Lars and the Real Girl", "In Bruges", and this year, "Another Year". Overall, this year's group isn't that bad, as there aren't that many alternatives that I personally would have substituted. The one major change that I would have preferred is the inclusion of the screenplay for "Black Swan". I would put ahead of a few of the nominees that actually made it, and it seemed like it had a decent shot at the nomination, but it didn't work out in the end, so I will just have to deal with the nominees given. On to the ranking.

Top 10 of 2010 and Top 5 Anticipated of 2011

     I know it is a little late to be doing a Top 10 of the year (since these lists are typically made around the end of the year), but since I didn't have the privilege of attending any film festivals or living in a city that gets early releases on the year's biggest awards films, I decided to wait to the end of the Oscar season before making my Top 10 of 2010. Even so, there are a group of films I would have liked to have seen before making the list ("Four Lions", "Somewhere", "Buitiful", and "Exit Through the Gift Shop" to name a few), but I felt I could not let the time tick into July before making this list. Overall, if I where to grade the year in cinema that was 2010, I would give it a B-. There were definitely some good movies, but the film had its fair share of disappointments as well. Even films I liked, such as "True Grit" and "Inception", the latter of which (spoiler alert!) made my Top 10, just did not meet my lofty expectations. As a reviewer, there was no film which I would give a perfect 10 (although the number 1 film would be extremely close), and only five films that I would give a 9. Compare that to last year, where "Inglorous Basterds" would have received the mark of perfection from me, and about 13 other films would have gotten a 9, and this year was definitely somewhat of a let down. 2009 though was well above par, and to expect every year to match it in quality is a bit of unrealistic expectations on my part. This year's ten best films are still a decent list of films as you will see, and in particular, the year's best film (which will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog), will be remembered as a classic for years to come.

     Now since I have written about some of these films ad nauseum, due to their status as Oscar competitors, I have run out of new words to say about them. For that reason, for the films that I have covered in depth with reviews and summaries of their award worthiness, I will use previously written summaries to express my love for the film. So while reading this, if you get the strong sense of deja vu, don't be alarmed, you have probably read this before. For some of this year's great films that were criminally ignored by the awards season, I will be writing new summaries to try to convince you to see them if you haven't already.

     This article isn't exclusively about looking back though, as after chronicling my favorite ten film's from last year, I will peer into the future and look at my five most anticipated films of 2011. If you read a lot of film websites or trade papers, chances are that you will have heard of these films, but if your not as savvy a film-goer then you have some interesting surprises awaiting you. At this point, 2011 looks to have some decent films from some big name auteurs, but that is usually the case every year. The question is how many of these films will really deliver on their promise. Hopefully, if enough of them can live up to the hype, and throw a few good under-the-radar surprises, and 2011 will shape up to be a fine year indeed. That's enough speculation for now though (I'll leave that up to the oil markets), it's time to countdown last year's ten best films.

If I Picked the Winners: Best Supporting Actress 2010

     The 2010 Academy Awards season may be good and done with (culminating to that anti-climatic snoozer of a show on Sunday), but I am going to spend the next few weeks wrapping up this year's Oscars and giving my opinion on who should have won the major awards (although it looks like I won't be able to see "Buitiful" until it comes out to rent, so Best Actor will have to be delayed for awhile). For the first post-Oscar addition of "If I Picked the Winners", I'm going to start with what was seen as the tightest race in the "Big 8" categories going into the night: Best Supporting Actress. For a good long time, the award was all but wrapped up for Melissa Leo's portrait of Alice Ward, the mother of the boxing half-brothers Dickey Eklund (Christian Bale) and Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg) in the film "The Fighter". Then, scandal broke when Melissa Leo put her "homemade" FYC (For Your Consideration) ads in the trade papers, a move that reportedly rubbed some Hollywood insiders the wrong way. The award then seemed to be a toss-up, with many people (including myself) predicting a win for Helena Bonham Carter due to the love for "The King's Speech". In the end though, the "scandal" turned out to be more of an internet story than anything else (or maybe it did tighten up the race significantly, who knows), because Melissa Leo took the stage Sunday night and made ABC's censors earn their keep.

     Despite the apparent competitiveness of the race, in all honesty (as you will come to see momentarily), I was not all that thrilled with this year's line-up. It's true that it may have not been the richest field of any Oscar category of any year ever, but their were some fine performances that the Academy missed. The most noticeable and egregious absence, was that of Lesley Manville's in the wonderful British film, "Another Year". Manville gave one of the best performances of any actress this year (and actor too for that matter), but one of the likely reasons for Manville's MIA status was category confusion, as it was never 100% clear if she should be included in the Best Supporting Actress race or the Best Actress race (in all honesty, I would have put her in the Best Actress race). Another woman I would have liked to seen nominated in this category (and someone that Academy members can't use "category confusion" as an excuse to why she was not nominated) is Mila Kunis for "Black Swan". As the true antagonist in the film (even if it is imagined), her performance really keeps the tension rising at all times, which allows Natalie Portman's performance to be the powerful work that it is and the reason she took home Oscar Gold Sunday night. Finally, even though she never had a prayer in hades to be nominated, I was stunned at the all-out commitment to the role that Ellen Wong gave to her character Knives Chau in the underrated film "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World". Her obsessively devoted fan and ex-girlfriend of Scott Pilgrim helps make it the hilarious film that it is. We have to deal with cards we were given though, so now on to ranking this year's nominees.

News: Tarantino's Spaghetti Western

     In the most possible exciting news I could report, Quentin Tarantino has confirmed that his next film will be a spaghetti western, a homage to the work of Sergio Leone. There are no real details on the story yet, but Tarantino will reportedly finish the script in the next few months with plans to start shooting some time this year. Hopefully then we will be looking at a 2012 release, but we may have to wait to 2013. As for the cast, while there are rumors of a couple different people, the only confirmed to be involved is Christophe Waltz, who won Best Supporting Actor for his amazing portrayal of Nazi "Jew Hunter" Hans Landa in Tarantino's last film, "Inglorious Bastards". If you read my "Top 100 Favorite Films" articles, you'll know that Tarantino is my all-time favorite director. The man is a movie making genius. 7 films, 7 masterpieces. I'm already counting down the time until this movie arrives! (If you want to read more about the news, click here).

News: Oscar Postmortem

     Where should I begin? I think I will start with my own predictions. After doing a decent job of forecasting the Oscar nominations, I was a bit disappointed with my prognosticating powers to pick the winners. I was 16/24 (or 2/3, 0.67777777777) which isn't terrible, but I felt like I could have done better. There were a lot of tough categories this year, especially some of the tech categories, but I still think I should have seen some things coming. In particular, in the Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction categories, I knew "Alice in Wonderland" was the most obvious choice, but my hatred for the movie, as well as getting caught up in the whole "The King's Speech" sweep talk, led me astray from two choices that would have bumped me up to a healthy 18 correct predictions. Hopefully it is a lesson learned for next year.

     Then there was the show itself, which is not going to win any "Best Awards Show" award any time soon. In someways, it was a much cleaner production than previous years, and I did love some of the production design of the stage, but the main problem was the show's hosts, in particular James Franco. While Anne Hathaway wasn't very funny, at least she was giving it her all and did the show with a pleasant smile, which is much more than I can say for James Franco. I don't know if it was stage fright, some subversive "too cool for school" act, or if he was just stoned out of his mind, but whatever it was, he would have done the Academy a better service if he hadn't shown up at all. He easily takes the cake as the worst host in Oscar history, and it just proved why they should let comedians handle the job. Contrasted with the hilarious Ricky Gervais hosted Golden Globe awards, the Oscars were pathetic, but the delicate sensibilities of the Hollywood elite (whose thin skin made sure that Gervais will never host a significant awards ceremony again), guarantee that we will never see a comedic host who is deemed "subversive". A good compromise I think though would be to have Ben Stiller host the Oscars. Whenever he has presented an award at the Oscars, he has been one of its highlights, and since he is "one of them", his jabs at other actors come off playful to the elites, but our still funny to the rest of us non-insiders.

     Finally there were the awards themselves. There were a few nice victories. In the night's biggest surprise (which still wasn't that big a shock), I was happy to see long-time Christopher Nolan collaborator Wally Pfister receive his well deserved Best Cinematography award for the camera work of "Inception". I was also quite pleased to see the hilarious live-action short "God of Love" win the Best Live Action Short category (if you haven't seen it, make the effort to find it, it is definitely worth the hassle). Despite what some may say about her f-bomb layered speech, I was glad to see that merit won the day over Victorian rules of behavior and class with Melissa Leo's Best Supporting Actress win. "The Social Network"'s win for Best Film Editing was a nice nod of recognition, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' victory for their haunting soul-searching score to the film was my favorite victory of the night, and saved the show from being a total disgrace.

     Even though I knew it was coming, I am still having a hard time swallowing the fact that Tom Hooper won Best Director and "The King's Speech" won Best Picture. Luckily the film did not get the massive sweep that many were predicting (winning only four Oscars, compared to the 7/8 some were expecting), showing the Academy did take time to consider the merits of each category, but it is still disappointing to see something so trite beat a film as well executed, and as insightful as "The Social Network". Hell, even if say something like "Black Swan" or "Inception" had won instead, while not my first choice, at least I could understand the thinking behind it, but "The King's Speech"? And Tom Hooper? Hooper, who made an extremely paint-by-numbers film, beat out not only the great David Fincher, but Darren Aronofsky, the Coen Brothers, and David O. Russell (not to mention non-nominees Christopher Nolan and Danny Boyle). These are some of the best auteurs of their generation, and they lost to this stereo-typical (even if well meaning) puff film. It's really a shame and another entry in the Academy's long list of goofs. Especially after a few years of some decent choices ("The Departed", "No Country for Old Men", and "The Hurt Locker"), to see them slide back to awarded typical prestige-fare is disheartening. As always, time will be the ultimate judge, and in 20 years, people are still going to be watching and analyzing "The Social Network", while the only thing "The King's Speech" will be remembered for is that it won Best Picture. Of course it is the Academy's right to make crappy decisions, just as it is mine to complain about them, and so it appears the typical cycle starts again until hopefully next year, when they might actually award something worthwhile.

(For a complete list of last night's winners, click here).

    

Predicting the Winners: 2010 Oscar Preview

     It's now time to put up or shut up and predict this year's Academy Award winners. Now if you are just looking for a quick handicap for your own Oscar ballot, at the bottom of this article I have provided my predictions for every category, but if your interested in a more detailed breakdown, I will give brief analysis for each of the major eight categories.

     If your an avid follower of Oscar blogs, about this time each year you begin to hear from the bloggers about how fatigued they are, and how this year has been so much nastier than the previous years in terms of level of discourse. I guess it is just human nature to always see a perpetually worsening (or sometimes improving) situation, even when it is really just staying the same. The key in any competitive situation that divides people into warring camps, such as the Oscar race, is to just ignore the extremists and exaggerators and just try to have a little fun with it. After all, the Academy Awards are ultimately a very trivial event that is far from a life and death situation. That being said, putting on my film enthusiast cap, I have been pretty disappointed with the turn of events in this awards season. As many of you know, I count myself as one of the leading members of "The Social Network" fanclub, so to see the early frontrunner fall from grace in favor of the mediocre "The King's Speech" has been a let down to say the least. Especially given the Academy's surprising good taste over the last few years, to see it slip back into its pattern of rewarding typical "Oscar bait" prestige fare is disheartening, but I guess that's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.