Best of Oscar, The Conclusion

Well, we did it! Victoria and I finally followed through on something that we’d been talking about since we started dating over four years ago: watch all Best Picture nominees of the year before the Oscar telecast, hoping to gain some real investment in the awards show. If you haven’t read the reviews yet, you can follow the links below:

Series introduction
Part 1: The Reader
Part 2: Slumdog Millionaire
Part 3: Milk
Part 4: Frost/Nixon
Part 5: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

It was a great experience. And we learned a few things along the way: for example that watching five movies in three weeks is quite a bit of work. That abiding by somebody else’s (the movie theater’s) schedule doesn’t come as natural as it once did. We watched two of the movies during the week, and working through lunch just so that I could leave on time to meet Victoria straight at the theater felt positively anachronistic.

But even in the age of home theater, 60 inch TVs and Blu-ray the experience of watching a memorable movie in the theater is still unmatched. It creates memories. A theater becomes synonymous with a certain movie. Especially when you have access to smaller, “art house” type cinemas. We watched Slumdog Millionaire and Milk at Sonoma’s Sebastiani Theater, a small, single-screen affair where we also watched Little Miss Sunshine and Cars. We were just as lucky to catch Frost/Nixon at The Lark, an restored non-profit theater in the heart of Larkspur. They serve alcohol! I remember watching Rent, Juno and a re-run of Donnie Darko there while drinking my beer.

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Best of Oscar, Part 5: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Written by Eric Roth, directed by David Fincher, and starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson and Jared Harris.

(Mild story spoilers follow.)

Benjamin Button is born into truly remarkable circumstances: his body’s internal clock is running backwards. Looking like an arthritis-ridden, old and crumpled baby when he is born on the final day of World War I, Benjamin gets increasingly younger through the years. Abandoned by his shocked biological father, Benjamin is raised by substitute parents at a retirement home instead, where Benjamin’s condition doesn’t easily reveal itself. It is here, at an early age, that Benjamin meets Daisy Fuller. We immediately hear destiny calling: the connection is instant, Benjamin’s and Daisy’s lives become intertwined, and as their paths keep crossing through the decades, the inevitable love affair develops. And of course Benjamin lives a truly extraordinary life. “Young in body, old in spirit” takes on a whole new meaning as we watch Benjamin Button go through the ages, see him reconnect with his estranged father, and, through Benjamin and Daisy, witness a unique split-screen perspective that explores the meaning of growing old.

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Best of Oscar, Part 4: Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon
Written by Peter Morgan, directed by Ron Howard, and starring Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon and Matthew Macfadyen.

(Mild story spoilers follow.)

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 35 years since Richard Nixon was forced to resign as president of the United States. We’re trained to automatically rate Nixon as one of the, if not the, worst presidents the US has ever had. But for having made such a long and lasting impression on American politics, many details of Richard Nixon’s ‘crookedness’, as well as the aftermath of his resignation, have been lost in the decades that followed. Several generations are simply too young to ever have fully understood the meaning of the Watergate events, which is certainly true for me. Frost/Nixon, based on Peter Morgan’s play, is doing its part to rectify the situation.

The setup of Frost/Nixon is remarkably similar to modern times: a controversial president has left the office with record low approval ratings and allegations of misconduct; through all this said president never wavered in his uncompromising style or attitude (he most certainly never admitted to errors in judgment or flat out wrongdoing); the American public is coming to terms with an unproductive (and potentially unnecessary) war…; and although a new president is in office and life has supposedly moved on, the nation is still reeling with the distinct feeling of unfinished business, of missing resolution.

In 1974, it felt like Richard Nixon got off the hook.

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How We Met Their Mother

Victoria and I agree: How I Met Your Mother is the best sitcom currently on TV. ‘Til Death held the distinction (at least in our minds) for a while, but apparently the writers decided that it was time to systematically destroy that show, instead.

So HIMYM it is. It’s funny, it’s life-assuring, it has that extra little bit of mystery (who is Ted going to marry?), and it has an attractive cast that we’re familiar with from other movies and TV series. Not since Friends has a sitcom assembled a group of actors with such great chemistry. Victoria and I aren’t exactly long-time followers of the show, though. I do remember watching a few of the early episodes (how can you forget a show with an episode called “The Slutty Pumpkin“?); but we only started watching all the DVD sets a few months ago, after Victoria caught one of the later episodes on TV and luckily insisted that we watch it.

Now we’re all caught up with the show’s mysteries and storylines. The writers have been battling with one fundamental problem from the start, of course: to stay true to the premise of the show, we cannot meet Ted’s future wife until the series is closing in on the end – the question of who will turn out to be the future Mrs. Mosby is one of the show’s big overarching themes, after all. The show’s source of information (the future Ted Mosby) is intentionally written as an unreliable narrator, which keeps doors open (and seasons flowing). Many of the romantic interests that Ted meets turn out to be flukes, if simply by necessity. But as a self-proclaimed HIMYM geek, I think I already know who Ted is going to end up marrying! And I will happily present that theory behind the cut (which, RSS readers should know, is right here). Think of it as a SPOILER barricade for everybody not caught up on seasons 3 & 4.

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Best of Oscars, Part 3: Milk

Milk
Written by Dustin Lance Black, directed by Gus Van Sant, and starring Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin and James Franco.

(Mild story spoilers follow.)

In 1970, on the eve of his 40th birthday, Harvey Milk tells his soon-to-be boyfriend that he hasn’t accomplished anything yet in life. This will certainly change over the next 8 years, as Milk moves to San Francisco’s Castro district and works on becoming the first openly gay elected official in the US, championing civil rights in a time when American gay rights were virtually non-existent. The biopic Milk documents Harvey’s rise: from the early days when he was simply “the mayor of Castro Street”, through several elections, his eventual appointment as one of 11 San Francisco city supervisors, to his untimely death in 1978.

Harvey Milk’s life is very well documented, so let’s focus on the movie instead. I’d heard of Milk way before the movie was ever advertised, when my friend (and then co-worker) Wolfi took the day off to work as an extra in the film’s crowd scenes that were being shot in San Francisco. To be honest, I didn’t know anything about Harvey Milk or what he stood for until I watched this movie. As I expected, Milk educated me very well in that regard and gave me a lot of appreciation for the history of the American gay rights movement.

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Best of Oscar, Part 2: Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire
Written for the screen by Simon Beaufoy, directed by Danny Boyle, and starring Dev Patel, Freida Pinto and Madhur Mittal.

(Mild story spoilers follow.)

Jamal and his older brother Salim are slumdogs. Born in the sprawling complex of shanty towns that surround the city of Mumbai, these street-wise kids are naturally-born survivors, whose life takes a turn for the worse when their mother is killed by an anti-Islamic lynch mob. Jamal, Salim and Latika, a girl joining the brothers in the chaos following the raid, have to look out for themselves, growing up in an Indian country that is unfriendly and sometimes outright hostile, but is also full of opportunities.

Fast-forward to several years later when Jamal, now a young man, becomes a contestant on the Indian version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”, a show that not even academics and the educated social elite have been able to crack. Yet that’s exactly what Jamal, the slumdog, is about to do – he is one question away from winning the 20 million rupee grand price when the show breaks for the night with a well-timed cliffhanger ending.  Arrested for alleged cheating as he leaves the studio, Jamal recounts his life to the untrusting police officers as he tries to show why he knew all the answers leading up to the last and final question.

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Best of Oscar, Part 1: The Reader

Victoria and I are on a mission to watch all five Best Picture nominees before the Oscars! The jury is still out on whether we’ll succeed, but we managed to watch one movie for sure Here is the first mini review; you can read my introduction to this series here.

The Reader
Written for the screen by David Hare, directed by Steven Daldry, and starring Kate Winslet, David Kross and Ralph Fiennes.

(Mild story spoilers follow.)

It only seems fitting that the first of this year’s Oscar contenders comes from the two men who pioneered the art of the Oscar campaign: The Reader, distributed by The Weinstein Company. Pushed as a “holocaust movie”, which is indeed the movie’s overarching theme, The Reader is really a character study of two people connected by a single summer in 1950′s Germany.

Michael Berg is only 15 years old when he encounters the unlikely first love of his life: Hanna Schmitz, who is easily twice his age. Reclusive, harsh and emotionally repressed – all for reasons that won’t become clear until later – Hanna breaks social taboos (as well as the law) as she engages in a physical relationship with Michael. She uses sex as a reward for his companionship, and eagerly listens as Michael reads out loud the many literary classics that are part of his school work. The relationship only lasts a summer, but Michael will be haunted by the experience for the rest of his life.
The former lovers’ paths cross again several years later, but this time Hanna is not aware of the fact. Now a law student at the University of Heidelberg, Michael attends the trial against five former guards of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who, after the the publication of a holocaust survivor’s memoir, now stand accused of murder. One of these guards is Hanna Schmitz, and as Hanna’s secret history unravels before the eyes of a German nation that is all too desperate to come to terms with its recent past, Michael is trying to reconcile his personal feelings for Hanna.

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Best of Oscar

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences hasn’t had it easy in recent years: public interest in their prestige event, the Oscars, is waning; TV viewership is shrinking… While it’s certainly way too early to write an eulogy for the Academy Awards, there’s the growing feeling that the academy needs to fix a few things if it wants to retain the relevance of its premier awards show.  Because Oscars’ problems are home-made: year after year, the academy nominates movies in the Best Picture category that almost nobody has heard of. Of course most summer blockbusters won’t have enough artistic merit or substance to qualify for the honors. But when even commonly held blockbuster master pieces like The Dark Knight and Wall•E get snubbed in favor of obscure titles with little exposure it’s hard to get excited for the show, let alone stay engaged through a four-hour TV marathon. That’s certainly true for Victoria and I, who hadn’t seen a single one of this year’s Best Picture contenders. All are supposedly great films, but that doesn’t count for much when you’re watching the ceremony and don’t have anybody to root for.

So this year we made a resolution to watch all five nominees before the big awards show on February 22. Our behavior is certainly debatable, because it actually feeds into Oscar’s fundamental problem: huge marketing campaigns specifically designed to sway the public’s opinion, as well as that of the voting members. The Oscar as a marketing tool, rather than a legitimate and objective acknowledgment of last year’s best work. Do we really want to reward that? But usually the nominated movies are good, and we have never tried this before. It’s a fun experiment – let’s see if we manage to squeeze all five movies into the next two weeks! I’ll post our thoughts on each movie as we go along. Up tomorrow, for the first review: The Reader, starring Kate Winslett, Ralph Fiennes and David Kross. See you then!

The Two Types of Indiana Jones Movies

I wasn’t one of those people who hated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when it arrived in theaters last May. It had numerous problems for sure, but I was happy to disengage the rational side of my brain and go along for the ride. Now that the movie is available on Blu-ray, I’m finding that Indy 4 is actually growing on me. Once you know where the story is going and don’t care too much about how logically the parts of the movie connect, and once you’re already prepared for the movie’s questionable parts (*cough* fridge sequence *cough*) it’s easier to appreciate the moment-to-moment action and the set pieces in Crystal Skull. And there’s some good stuff there! The “ant arena” is a pretty brilliant concept, for example. Sure, the CG ants look somewhat fake, but the scene is a great variation on the traditional creepy crawler sequences featured in all previous Indiana Jones movies. The ants are also a clever way of creating a “ring of death” around the inevitable big fist fight. The motorcycle chase is well done, as are the cemetery scenes in Peru. (Mutt’s Tarzan moment in the jungle still sucks, though; and the sword fight doesn’t feel any less tacked on.)
I was surprised to find myself going back to the movie multiple times. Not giving it undivided attention, mind you, but using it as a background distraction while working on other things. Like a certain Quake level that I have affectionately started referring to as “that one“.

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Rating “Cyberfilms” (Part 5)

Welcome to the final installment of Rating “Cyberfilms”! This has been a lot of fun, but it’s also turned out to be much more work that I initially expected. Mostly because the reviews kept getting increasingly longer, I guess I can’t just write a couple of paragraphs on a story. We’re finishing the series today with George R. R. Martin’s Nightflyers and H. P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West: Reanimator. To learn more about the series and to see previous reviews, read parts 1, 2, 3 and 4!

Nightflyers (George R. R. Martin)
1980
Score: A+

Robert Jaffe adopted this story into the movie of the same name. It was directed by Robert Collector and starred Catherine Mary Stewart, Michael Praed and John Standing.

She put an arm around him, stroked him, coaxed him. “The esperon will give you range,” she said. “Feel it, feel yourself grow stronger. Can you feel it? Everything’s getting clear, isn’t it? “Her voice was a reassuring drone. “Remember the danger now, remember, go find it. Look beyond the wall, tell us about it. Tell us about Royd. Was he telling the truth? Tell us. You’re good, we all know that, you can tell us.” The phrases were almost an incantation.

He shrugged off her support and sat upright by himself. “I can feel it,” he said. His eyes were suddenly clearer. “Something – my head hurts – I’m afraid!”

“Don’t be afraid,” the psipsych said. “The esperon won’t make your head hurt, it just makes you better. Nothing to fear.” She stroked his brow. “Tell us what you see.”

The telepath looked at Royd’s [holograph] with terrified little-boy eyes, and his tongue flicked across his lower lip. “He’s -”

Then his skull exploded.

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