Future Snubs

Okay, so how many future Oscar nominations is this:

going to cost Jim Carrey? 

Depending on how you're keeping score - whether or not you were as impressed with his work in Phillip Morris as I was or thought there were five stronger performances than his Andy Kaufman in 1999 - Carrey should have in the neighborhood of 3 or 4 Oscar nominations under his belt by now instead of the big fat goose egg he's pulling so far.

Not that it's Carrey's job to chase trophies. His great work is its own reward (although that Truman Show snub still stings) and he's proven his abilities several times over. Anyone still writing stories about whether or not Carrey can be taken seriously as a dramatic actor is wasting column inches. 

But I still got a pang of disappointment when I saw him covered in cutesy penguins, and it's not just that I miss when he made big Hollywood films as funny as Dumb and Dumber or even Liar Liar. It's that I get the distinct feeling that every time Carrey takes one of these big budget, mass appeal gigs the Academy dumps any collective good will he's earned and sends him right back to GO. 

So, I ask again, how many really fine, top notch performances is Mr. Popper going to negate? Just one or the next few? 

Setting the Stage for Revenge

This week's Unsung Heroes column is my tribute to the production design of one of the most indelible movies of the last decade: Park Chan-Wook's Oldboy. Take a look.

Trapped in the Green Valley

When is it better for a film to lose an Oscar than to win one?

John Ford's How Green Was My Valley was a perfectly respectable Best Picture choice for 1941, definitely a little hokey at times, but beautifully crafted, well directed, and packing a real emotional wallop. Sure, it's not up to the Lawrence of Arabia/Godfather standard of winners but it's easily as good as Best Pictures like Rain Man or Mutiny on the Bounty and a damn sight better than a lot of winners - Gentleman's Agreement leaps to mind.

So why would Green Valley had been better off losing in 1941? Because, as most film buffs know, it had the misfortune of beating a film few at the time could have guessed would become synonymous with "Best Movie Ever", one Citizen Kane. Now every time Valley is mentioned it's held not to the standards of other winners but to the Kane standard. Suddenly it is not a strong entry in the John Ford canon, but rather a dated piece of sentimental claptrap that stole Orson Welles' Oscar.

Which brings us to last week's video release of 2010's best picture The King's Speech, a film which I have a gut feeling will suffer a similar fate. In all the heightened emotions of Oscar seasons the anti-Speech crowd was probably guilty of exaggeration when it came to Speech's quality. Sure it's was appallingly safe choice but that doesn't mean it's not an all-around fine piece of work. A handsomely mounted, flawlessly acted period piece that is not going to break onto any top 100 lists, but will likely be well regarded for years to come along the lines of Quiz Show or Good Night, and Good Luck.

Unfortunately for Speech, 2010 produced a few films that, I feel safe in predicting, are going to stand the test of time with much greater stature. Speech will be remembered less for being a respectable, if unexceptional (and historically dubious), piece of work of, and more for being that blatant piece of Oscar bait that somehow trumped The Social Network, Black Swan, and Toy Story 3. Hell, Winter's Bone and The Fighter are probably going to have stronger reputations ten years down the road. 

Here are some other movies and performances I think would've been better off in the long run not winning:

Gwyneth Paltrow - Best Actress, 1998 - Paltrow is wonderful in Shakespeare in Love but consensus quickly formed that Cate Blanchett was robbed for her starmaking turn in Elizabeth. The subsequent careers of the two actresses has only cemented that impression.

Rocky - Best Picture, 1976 -  After all the increasingly cartoonish sequels it's tough to remember what a spare, heartfelt fairy tale the first Rocky was. The fact that it beat Network, All the President's Men, and Taxi Driver hasn't helped matters any.

Dances With Wolves - Best Picture, 1990 - Like How Green Was Valley, Wolves is a film with a lot of strengths that is weakend by its occasional romanticizing of the material. Also like Valley, all anyone seems to talk about anymore is how the film sideswiped a masterpiece that was much to dark for Academy tastes, in this case Goodfellas.

Humphrey Bogart - Best Actor, 1951 - Bogart's great comic performance in The African Queen is a high point in his career but it would probably be a better regarded if it A) wasn't such a blatantly sentimental win for Bogie and B) wasn't the same year that Brando positively demolished Bogart's stylized old Hollywood acting style with his work in A Streetcar Named Desire.

The test of time is absolutely merciless when it comes to putting films in their place. One could make the case that it's better to grab the spot in the pantheon no matter what, but I would argue the reputations of plenty of great artists have been enhanced by the injustice of their not winning: Hitchcock, Kubrick, Barbara Stanwyck. Not winning gets everybody focused on how deserving they are. An ill-timed win accentuates the flaws in a film or performance for decades to come.

Superman

Released in 1999, right as the Disney renaissance was fading and the era of Pixar was taking off, Brad Bird's The Iron Giant got lost in the shuffle. Warner Bros. didn't know quite what they had, so a lackluster marketing campaign meant Iron Giant came and went with little fanfare. Twelve years later there a few films, including those of the Disney/Pixar canon, with fans as passionate as The Iron Giant. Some movies are too special to keep down,

The Iron Giant is the subject of my weekly column at The Film Experience, specifically the brilliant design of the title character. Go give it a read.

Line Reading Hall of Fame #4

"Hi."

The Keaton Man's Guide to Loving Chaplin

As one can probably tell from banner of this blog, I am a Buster Keaton man through and through, and as such, I love the great man's movies with an undiluted fervor most people reserve for God and country. Mr. Keaton is without question my all-time favorite movie star and could make a pretty good run at being my all-time favorite director too. Therefore, like most card carrying member of the Buster Fan Club, I have a complicated relationship with the other great clown Buster is destined to be forever linked to, Sir Charles Chaplin.

Keaton and Chaplin in Chaplin's "Limelight"

The fact that I am actually a big fan of Chaplin is beside the point. I love City Lights. I love The Gold Rush, and I recently purchased the fantastic new Bluray of Modern Times. Still, I can't help but help but feel a resistance towards the man in whose shadow Keaton spent the better part of the 20th century. The reflex resentment is too strong. I am helpless to qualify every bit of Chaplin praise with the unequivocal statement that Keaton was his superior in just about every way.

But a funny thing started to happen in my lifetime. With the advent of DVD meaning that Keaton's films could for the first time be viewed by mass audiences in pristine transfers, the general consensus has swung to the fact that, yes, Keaton was the greatest of the silent clowns. Through modern eyes Keaton's unadorned, clean approach is still fresh and funny, while Chaplin - although his brilliance remains unassailable - is hampered by sentimentality and stilted filmmaking.

When the AFI put out its first list of the 100 greatest movies in '99 Keaton was missing. When they did another list ten years later - with the DVD revolution having crucially taken place in the mean time - Chaplin was still all over the list, but now Keaton had shot up into the top twenty.

So, since it looks like film history is going to grant Buster his proper status, I thought maybe it was time to let go of my Chaplin resentment. When Nathaniel Rogers of The Film Experience asked me to pick my favorite shot from Chaplin's charming The Circus (1928) for his fascinating Hit Me With Your Best Shot web experiment series, this seemed like the perfect time to delve into my fondness for Chaplin without all that baggage.

So how did viewing Charlie's The Circus make me feel? It made me feel like praising Keaton.

By focusing on picking a favorite shot Nathaniel zeroed in on the heart of why I love Chaplin but worship Keaton. Not to content to merely capture his brilliant performances, Buster used the camera to tell his story in every way imaginable, getting laughs from entrances, exits, framing, shot juxtapositions, timing - you name it.

The circus is an appropriate setting for Chaplin since for him we are always in the audience, watching him neutrally. The camera is rarely much more than a tool for bringing his brilliant performances to us, with only the occasional close up separating it from a live performance.

I don't want to sound like I'm bashing Chaplin. His instincts for pleasing audiences were second to no one, and his technique, however simplistic, never failed to capture his countless moments of breathtaking grace to maximum effect. I doubt Murnau could have directed the ending of City Lights with any greater power.

My favorite shot of The Circus is this sweet moment with The Tramp giving an impromptu performance while up a telephone poll. It's exactly the kind of moment of unexpectedly graceful action that appears so effortless in Chaplin's hands, here a little more visual arresting than we're used to from Charlie due to the low angle and interesting framing.

Having enjoyed this and Modern Times recently, I think it's time for me to bury the hatchet with Charlie.  He may not be the best, but so what? There's no shame in taking the silver. Chaplin's films are just as indispensable to me as countless others I don't consider the best. My love of the cinema is big enough for both of them.

Review: Meek's Cutoff

The characters of Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff are quietly marching to their doom. There isn't very much left to say. A small wagon train has found itself lost on its westward journey, and in the film's dialogue free opening sequence, we see them leave behind a water source uncertain when, or if, they will find another. The grizzled guide, the Meek of the title, will not admit that they are lost and he marches them on, maintaining his authority through a mix of bravado and eccentricity. The pioneers don't challenge him because, for the time being, his false confidence trumps their honest helplessness, and, after all, his leadership is probably just as good as the random direction they would end up choosing.

That opening sequence is just about perfect in the way it lays out the situation and settles you into the film's rhythms. In a broad sense, Meek's Cutoff is similiar to Boyle's 127 Hours in the way it shows a desperate situation with few moves left to play, a situation where the tenacity of the character(s) is as crucial as the decisions made. But tonally the films are polar opposites. Where Boyle ratcheted up the suspense, hammering the viewer with every cinematic trick he could muster, Reichardt goes in the opposite direction. She strips down the material, diffusing the tension in favor of the dreamlike state of being hopelessly lost with no prospect of rescue to cling to.

Which is not to say the film is plotless. There is a very complex story, only it is the hidden in plain view variety. The kind of simmering-under-the-surface conflict that mass audiences have no patience for. As the days of desperate wandering wear on into weeks and it becomes painfully clear that their guide is lost as any of them, we gradually understand that only person with the fortitude to stand up to Meek is Emily, an unimposing woman played with quiet steeliness by Michelle Williams. If this was an 80 million production opening on 2500 screens the ads would bellow, "In a time when women had no voice, one woman will speak." But Reichardt isn't interested in spoon-feeding the audience so blatantly.

Reichardt is especially good at showing how the delineations of social status hold up even in this small band of survivors separated from society. She uses staging, editing, and sound design to show the subtle shifts in power taking place. When the men discuss strategy the women mill about on the edge of earshot trying to catch snippets of conversation. As desperation increases the boundaries break down. When there is a dispute over how to deal with an Indian who might be able to lead them to fresh water, the question of leadership reaches a breaking point and without fanfare or dramatic underlining we watch as Emily mounts a challenge to Meek's authority.

When the conflict is presented with such subtlety much depends on the actor's ability to do a lot of the heavy lifting. The ensemble cast that includes Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson and Zoe Kazan, rises to the occasion. Michelle Williams is excellent at using her level gaze to stare right through Meek in a way that makes it clear to both how completely she is on to him. This is her second fantastic lead performance for Reichardt, following her heart-rending work in Wendy and Lucy. The actor-director pairings is proving to be one of the most fruitful currently going. Will Patton also deserves special mention in the crucial role of Emily's husband. He is only newly married and his wife's actions are as mysterious to him as their guides. Like the audience, he is constantly sizing up the situation and the main players involved, trying to maneuver the group to the best odds of survival.

Having said that, this film really belongs to Bruce Greenwood as Meek. It must have been tempting to go over-the-top with the character with his wild appearance and messianic proclamations, to turn him into a kind of Daniel Plainview of the Oregon Trail. Reichardt and Greenwood smartly keep him down-to-Earth, and his plausibility serves the story well. If he had been a charismatic, larger than life figure it would have made more sense for everyone to follow him. His obvious small-scale flaws makes everything that much more urgent: For the love is God is anyone going to stand up to this guy before everyone dies of thirst?

Greenwood has been delivering quality work for years, playing everything from Kennedy in Thirteen Days to Cate Blanchett's foil in I'm Not There to his recent high-profile gig as Captain Pike in the Star Trek reboot. This performance should cement his place on top of the casting lists of major filmmakers.

Meek's Cutoff is what is commonly referred to as an "art film" by people searching for a polite way to say it's dull. I can personally state that I was not bored for a minute. Reichardt, along with cinematographer Chris Blauvelt, accomplish something special here. They had me immersed in their world from the opening moments, providing shots to get lost in, images worth pondering for longer than the attention deficit disorder timing we usually get. It has the effect of not just creating a foreboding atmosphere but increasing my interest in the story. When Reichardt took me out of the familiar set up and pay off of formula screenwriting, I sat forward in my chair and perked up. She achieves that all to rare goal of getting the audience to genuinely wonder what will happen next.

Love the film or hate it, the ending is sure to be maddening. It is that way by design. While merely presenting an ambiguous ending doesn't automatically equal deep meaning, thinking back on the film it's clear that Reichardt made a strong choice. Reichardt takes two hours to distill the story down to its purest essence and having accomplished that she draws the curtain. Unlike the bewildered Meek, Reichardt knows exactly where she's going. If, in the final tally, Meek's Cutoff is a few degrees shy of a masterpiece, Reichardt doesn't seem to know it. She progresses from shot to shot with the supreme confidence of a master at the end of a long career who has stripped away all flourishes, leaving only the essentials.

Verdict: Meek's Cutoff is an original and powerful film and it places Reichardt at the forefront of directors working today. It brings to life the pioneer experience more tangibly than any film that comes to memory. It should be sought out by anyone looking for a film that will be worth pondering for days after viewing. Reichardt doesn't lean on the allegorical aspects of the film too hard but one should not be surprised to find themselves thinking back to this desperate band of travelers and their deficient leader when confronted with recent world events. 8 out of 10

One Scene Wonders

It's common in music to have an album that only produces a single hit track. We hear less about movies that manage one memorable scene. Obviously, that is because there is a way to measure the performance of one music, where as movie are package deals.

But it would be mighty interesting if we could measure the popularity of individual scenes apart from the films. We all have those individual moments that stay with us from movies that otherwise fade from memory. In my new Unsung Heroes column I address such a scene: the performance of "Going to Acapulco" in Todd Hayne's Bob Dylan collage, I'm Not There. 

Take a look, and be sure to chime in with a one scene wonder of your own.

Come Into the Light...

Before Beauty and the Beast no Disney characters had ever fallen in love gradually. They were always just instantaneously in perfect fairy tale love. Even in Beauty's immediate precursor, the undeniably great The Little Mermaid, Ariel fell for Prince Eric in a matter of seconds, making goo-goo eyes at him like the teeny-bopper she was. Eric, for his part, fell for her while in a daze, immediately after his brain was deprived of oxygen for several minutes. Sure they got to know each other later, but they were hardly discussing art and politics over a game of chess. Mostly they grinned at each other while the crab slapped his forehead in frustration.

Charm, maybe, but not exactly depth

And Eric was a step up from the usual Disney prince - two dimensions instead of the standard issue one. Before him the chief qualifications for leading man status was a nice set of shoulders and a horse. This doesn’t necessarily qualify as a flaw in those movies where the prince was deployed more for iconography and myth than for drama. It’s only that I get the feeling that if those guys were in Beauty and the Beast you would find them down the pub singing back up for “Gaston” if you catch my drift.

Beauty and the Beast had and emotional complexity Disney animation hadn't seen before. Belle is a character that could have walked out of the pages of Jane Austen. Beast is raging ball of conflicting emotions, a big furry James Gandolfini. The main obstacle to their romance is internal, not a witch or a curse, although outside forces inevitably play a part. They grapple with things like empathy, self-control, forgiveness, and selflessness. The big breakthrough of Beauty and the Beast was that for the first time, amidst all the magic and adventure, the romance had some psychological truth to it. You could imagine those two characters going on to have a life together after Happily Ever After. What are Cinderella and Prince Charming going to be chatting about after a few years of marriage?

"So...Still into mice?"

My favorite shot of Beauty and the Beast, which doubles as my favorite moment in the film, is a great example of the depth the Disney artists got out of these characters. I've discussed before my love of Robby Benson's performance as Beast, but this moment belongs entirely to the animators, particularly lead animator for Beast, Glen Keane:

As a young animation nerd I remember reading about the way Keane and his team of animators agonized over getting the expression on Beast's face just right for the first time Belle, and the audience, get a clear look at him. I see a complex mixture of emotions at play here. Embarrassment at his appearance, anger stemming from self-loathing, an attempt to cling to some sort of dignity, and a curiosity about this unexpectedly bold girl, what she will do next, and, above all, how she will react to him. It's an impressive achievement. 

There are many such beautifully executed character moments in this movie. Another favorite is the breathtaking way Beast's face gradually softens when he decides to spare Gaston's life. But this one is my favorite because of how static it is. The filmmakers trusted that they could leave the focus on Beast and load all the ambiguity and emotion into those eyes.

Perfect.

"Fat man, you shoot a great game of pool."

In this week's edition of Unsung Heroes I look back 50 years to Robert Rossen's eternally cool The Hustler. A special tip of the hat to one Mr. Willie Mosconi, the pool playing legend who helped give that film the unmistakable authentic feel that has kept viewers returning for five decades and counting. Give it a read.

Once More Around

Is it crazy of me to think that Woody might have cranked out something halfway decent this time? I've long since stopped hoping for The Simpsons to rebound and I've resigned myself to the idea that we may never recover Zemeckis from his island of dead-eyed motion capture zombies, but try as I might I just can't hoping that Woody has one more masterpiece left in him. At least it can't get worse. Surely Whatever Works was rock bottom.

Okay, it doesn't look to be 2011's answer to Hannah and Her Sisters but it does look like it might be at least a Vicky Christina Barcelona level effort. That would be good enough for me. I'm not greedy. Really, I would be happy these days simply to exit an Allen film not feeling like I've just seen a first draft pieced together out of notes found in an old pair of pants and filmed in a rush between clarinet practice and the ball game.

Oldmutant

Last December I posted a piece about how I had come around to the idea that directing a Wolverine movie might not be a gross waste of Darren Aronofsky's valuable time. Naturally, once my curiosity was piqued to see the director of The Fountain at he helm of a Hollywood Blockbuster that was the cue for him to jump ship, which, as I'm sure everybody knows, he did about two weeks ago.

I can't say it took me long to recover from the disappointment. Although I had reconciled myself to the idea, that doesn't mean I wasn't still dubious about the whole thing. The prospect of a new project devoid of angry, mutton-chopped, pointy-knuckled Australians was a silver lining bright enough to distract from any lingering curiosity about what might have been.

As for the much less urgent-to-me subject of the Wolverine franchise, I would have to report that Aronofsky's exit causes my interest to plummet to somewhere in the vicinity of non-existent. Unless of course the studio is willing to take another Aronsky-sized gamble. And why shouldn't they? The first film should've rightly killed the franchise dead. (We are all agreed it was a disaster, yes?) So if audiences are willing to give Wolverine another chance, I say it's time to swing for the fences? Grab everybody's attention. I know the perfect man for the job too: Park Chan-Wook, director of such sweeping, violent, and often brilliant South Korean films as Oldboy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and Thirst.

Park Chan-Wook

Tell me you wouldn't pay triple-price tickets to see what Park could do with a character with an unlimited ability to absorb pain. The movie would be five hours long. And would it ever be a thrill to see multiplex crowds react to major franchise film from a guy like Park who's never pulled a punch in his life. All pure fantasy speculation, I know, but as far as pure fantasy speculation goes, man, that would be a sight to see.