Tag: Beginners

Oscar Homework

The uninitiated movie goer treats the Best Picture nominees at the Oscars as the must-see list of the year. But this year, that audience might be disappointed with “The Help” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” and confused, if not frustrated with “The Artist” and “The Tree of Life.”

So for those of you looking to get acquainted with this year’s Oscar nominees and the potential winners, here’s a bit of Oscar homework due promptly before the ceremony on Sunday, February 26.

Don’t worry; doing this won’t feel like a chore.

1. Beginners – Nominated for Best Supporting Actor Christopher Plummer Continue reading “Oscar Homework”

The Anti-Oscars

In “The Anti-Oscars,” I make a list of the Best Movies and Performances of the Year that don’t stand a chance at getting nominated.

This article will not help you win your Oscar pool.

On this Oscar Nomination ballot, you will not find any Streeps, Clooneys, Plummers or Spielbergs.

No, this is the Anti-Oscars! This is the opposite of what will happen when nominations are announced on Tuesday, January 24.

I’ve made picks in five of the six major categories, but while these certainly don’t reflect what will happen, they aren’t even necessarily what I think should happen. The Academy gets some things right some of the time.

Rather this list is my personal ballot dedicated to the not-even-out-of-the-gate contenders that were marvelous in 2011 but for whatever reason will not receive the attention they deserve at the biggest award ceremony of the year.

I’ll also use this space to discuss why they are not in the race and what that means for the actual contenders. So if any of these names are in your predictions, rethink your decisions now, and watch me eat my words when I predict the real ballot next week.

 

Best Picture

  • Drive
  • Beginners
  • Super 8
  • Incendies
  • The Skin I Live In
  • Certified Copy
  • Weekend
  • Melancholia

If there’s one thing the Best Picture hopeful lineup is missing, it’s a good dose of darkness. Is “Moneyball” really the darkest movie this year’s Oscars have to offer? My list, which conveniently resembles all eight films in my Top 10 list not solid contenders for nomination (the other two being “Midnight in Paris” and “Hugo”), shows a much more even split of heavy and lighter entertainment. Continue reading “The Anti-Oscars”

The Best Movies of 2011

“Drive” tops the list of my best movies of 2011.

I had to be convinced in just the last few weeks 2011 was a decent year for movies.

Catching up on some high profile winter titles made list making extra difficult this year.

Perhaps because of style over substance in some cases, no one movie jumped out as the year defining movie that no other could touch.

And although critics uniformly rallied behind “The Tree of Life” as the consensus favorite of the year, this year found critics getting behind just about anything as their number one choice, and they could often find at least someone to back them up.

It’s even made for an interesting Oscar race with no clear frontrunners.

But 2011 was a year for looking back. Veteran directors trumped newbies with nostalgia projects (“Hugo,” “Midnight in Paris,” “War Horse”) and grandiose epics (“Melancholia,” “The Tree of Life”). A few indies and up-and-comers stepped forward, but they made timeless statements (“Weekend,” “Beginners,” “Super 8,” “The Descendants”) rather than 21st Century relics, with a few exceptions (“Margin Call,” “Moneyball,” “50/50”).

Last year I assigned titles to each movie for what they stood for in the year, and there was one clear winner. This year no such labels exist, and just about any could be my favorite.

I’ve done my best to mention films that need mentioning and forgotten the rest. (Most titles are linked to subsequent reviews on my website.)

1. Drive

The Driver is in a plain silver sedan parked underneath a bridge as a helicopter passes overhead. He sits silently and does not make a bold getaway, and yet this is one of the more exciting scenes in the most invigorating and intense motion picture of the year. Continue reading “The Best Movies of 2011”

Beginners

In a smattering of close-up pictures and jump cuts, Mike Mills accelerates us through time and history during his film “Beginners.” He points out the sun, the stars, the president and what emotions look like. These symbols have come to define us, but they’re endowed by someone else, by society. His story is about three people learning to communicate their own personalities and embrace the idea and feeling of happiness, not just the image.

Few films are truly about communication. Even “The Social Network” merely analyzes speech patterns, internal coding and societal trends. “Beginners” understands that the words and symbols themselves have no meaning except the meaning we assign to them. Society has branded Hal (Christopher Plummer) as the member of a happy American family, complete with a job, wife, child and home in the suburbs. But after his wife dies, Hal, at the age of 75, confesses to his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor) that he’s gay.

This comes months before Hal’s death, yet in the time before and after Hal’s death, Oliver is just as confused with the symbols of success and friendship he’s been presented with. He does not begin to change until he meets the lovely Anna (“Inglourious Basterds’” Melanie Laurent) and she asks him, “Why are you at a party if you’re so sad?”

The beauty of that question is twofold. Firstly, why would anyone even think to ask a question like that? Aren’t their emotions simply implied by the people around them? But secondly, she asks this question with a pad and pencil. She has laryngitis, but not by accident, and not for the filmmaker to be cute. Look at how clearly Anna learns how to communicate with Oliver without words and even without expression behind makeup at a costume party.

“Beginners” speaks without speaking at all, and it is eloquent and beautiful in its quiet. Continue reading “Beginners”