Double Feature: The High and Low (Brow) of It

So the Oscars are over and I feel pretty confident in my movie criticism abilities. I mean, before the show I predicted that Argo, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence (swoon!), Christoph Waltz, Anne Hathaway and Stephen Spielberg would win and five outta six ain't bad (damn you, Ang Lee!).

But now that the Oscars are over, I don't have a nice OCD-appealing list of movies to watch and that is just sad. So when I had my at-home movie session this weekend, I scrounged the ole Roku to find Oscar movies that I had never seen. Which led me to...

The Artist

I saw a lot of the Oscar-nominated movies last year (The Descendents, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Help, Moneyball, War Horse) but somehow missed, you know, the one that was apparently the best of all. Oops.

For those who also missed the boat last year (spoilers abound), The Artist is tells the story of George Valentin, a superstar in the time of silent movies. When we first see him, it's 1927 and he's on top of the world - cockily showing off to his sometimes-wife, sometimes-costar, showboating with his sometimes-costar, always-best-bud dog friend, and playing to the newspapers. A chance meeting at the premiere of his latest film brings into his life Peppy Miller, a spunky wannabe movie star. Both are obviously attracted to each other, and when she winds up with a bit part in his next film, he takes her under his wing, giving her a "beauty mark" with a makeup pencil that will allow her to stand out from the other girls.

Shortly thereafter, new technology bring talking pictures onto the scene, and when his movie production company opts to go all-talkie, George is left on his own. He fights back by writing, directing and starring in his own (silent) movie, but it just so happens to open the exact same day as his previous company's talking-picture blockbuster, starring the newest starlet: Peppy Miller. Added to the fun is the fact that both movies start a few days before the stock market crash of 1929 and poor George is left with a bust.

[Warning: This paragraph is full of spoilers.] Over the next couple of years, George's life falls apart - he loses his wife, his job, his home, his possessions, his trusty manservant - pretty much everything except his little dog. Meanwhile, Peppy is starring in picture after picture (along with her trademark beauty mark). Eventually, George hits rock bottom, setting fire to the film reels of all of his pictures and thereby setting fire to his apartment. His quick-thinking dog brings help just in time, and when Peppy finds out, she takes him into her home to take care of him. He enjoys her company, but seeing her go to work in the morning is too much for him, and he escapes to his burnt-out apartment to kill himself. Peppy arrives just in time and they work out a way for him to succeed in the talkies without actually talking: by performing big dance numbers as Peppy's costar.

[Spoilers completed.]

The story is a good one, but what makes The Artist stand out and won it so many awards last year is HOW it was made. For the most part, it's a silent movie, with the dramatic music and slightly exaggerated acting (but not too exaggerated). But it also utilizes the limited sound it does use effectively. When he first learns about talking pictures, George has a dream where he can actually hear things - a dropped pencil case, a barking dog, giggling girls - and we can, too. And in the last scene, after George and Peppy perform their dance routine for her latest film, it ends with the director yelling cut, the film crew equipment making noise, the producer asking if they have one more take in them, and George - actually speaking - replying yes and revealing a strong French accent (maybe that's why he wasn't ready for actually talking).

The acting is really great, especially considering that both of the leads are foreign actors who have not appeared in many American movies before and since The Artist (Jean Dujardin is French, while Berenice Bejo is Argentinian). The supporting cast is more recognizable and equally great: John Goodman as the producer, James Cromewell as George's faithful butler, Penelope Ann Miller as the scorned wife, and bizarrely, Malcolm McDowell in about 10 seconds' worth of a scene.

I wasn't sure about The Artist before I watched it. I'm no film student and sometimes I think that excessively artistic movies go over my head (see Beasts of the Southern Wild), but I actually loved this movie. It was artistic and did a lot of things without seeming like it was trying too hard. I can see why it, and Dujardin, won the Oscar last year.

There's Something About Mary

I finished watching The Artist pretty early in my evening, and having had cleaned out my DVR earlier in the day (I need a hobby), I opted to try for another movie I haven't seen. Then I decided that this second movie would be the utter opposite, most non-Artist movie available and voila! There's Something About Mary!

I don't know why I never saw this movie when it came out in 1998. Maybe because I was in the 8th grade and couldn't get into an R-rated movie. I probably should have watched it somewhere between then and now because that's a good 15 years it's had to age, and while some movies stand the test of time, this one sadly does not.

For similar cave-dwellers who missed the last decade and a half, let me sum up. Mary is a down-to-earth, funny, beautiful gal (played by Cameron Diaz) that every man falls in love with. Ted fell in high school, when the two were set to go to the prom together. Through a series of unfortunate events, they never did get to that prom, and Mary moved away a few months later, forever out of Ted's life.

Intrigued by his old flame, Ted decides to hire a private investigator (Matt Dillon) to see what Mary's been up to. Along the way, the PI falls in love with her himself and tells Ted a bunch of things to make her seem unappealing. Ted's still intrigued and realizes the PI was full of it.

Shenanigans ensue, and we learn that Mary is also pined after by a local pizza deliveryman who has spent years befriending her as a handicapped architect and Ted's best friend, who happens to be Mary's ex-boyfriend from high school. Also, Brett Favre.

Full disclosure: I'm not a huge Farrelly brothers fan. I should be, what with the whole New England thing and the fact that I normally like stupid comedies. But this just didn't do it for me. Maybe because it was 15 years old. Maybe because most of the better jokes have been beaten to death outside of the movie (the hair gel scene, franks-n-beans, etc.) that they seemed tired by the time I saw them in context. Maybe because I watched it right after The Artist. Who knows? Sorry, New England.

Movie Review: The Sessions

Mark O'Brien is 38 years old and paralyzed from the waist down thanks to a childhood bout with polio. He leads a pretty fulfilling life otherwise though, working as a professional poet/journalist from his iron lung, regularly attending Catholic Mass on his wheeled gurney, etc.

Not surprisingly, Mark is a lifelong virgin, something he doesn't seem to think much about until two things bring the idea of sex to the forefront of his mind. One is his brief employ of a beautiful young woman that he soon falls in love with and asks to marry him (she doesn't reciprocate and he has to find a new daytime assistant). The other is an assignment to write an article about sex and the disabled. Interviewing wheelchair-bound folks about their sex lives awakens something in Mark and he does what most people do when they decide they want to have sex: he seeks the counsel of his priest.

With his priest giving him the go-ahead, Mark is put in touch with a sex surrogate, which is apparently a thing and which, despite my most open-minded thoughts and research, I still can't differentiate from just a really kind and patient prostitute (sorry to the sex surrogates out there). Through a handful of sessions with Cheryl, Mark opens up physically and emotionally and gains a sense of independence and confidence he didn't have before. The power of sex!

This movie is based on a true story; Mark wrote a first-hand account of his experiences after the fact. Despite the fact that I still struggle to wrap my head around the existence of sex surrogates, the story was an interesting one and I enjoyed the performances of John Hawkes, Helen Hunt and William H. Macy, not to mention Moon Bloodgood and W. Earl Brown as his assistants (some of my favorite scenes are Bloodgood's Vera killing time with the motel clerk while Mark and Cheryl hold their sessions in a nearby room).

Helen Hunt is up for Best Supporting Actress this year, but I doubt she'll win. I haven't even seen Les Miserables yet but even I know this is Anne Hathaway's to lose. Nor do I really think she deserves to win; I don't dislike Helen Hunt but I find her to be a pretty overrated actress, and she wasn't even the best performer in this movie (give that to John Hawkes, acting while keeping his body in that writhing position). Having not seen Les Mis, my heart rests with Sally Field.

Updated Oscar Viewing List:

Silver Linings Playbook
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Zero Dark Thirty
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
The Master
Flight
The Impossible
The Sessions
Moonrise Kingdom
Frankenweenie
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
Brave
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugarman

Movie Review: How to Survive a Plague

How to Survive a Plague is a documentary that follows members of the AIDS activist group Act Up during the tumultuous time between 1986 and 1996. With people dying left and right and members of the gay community watching their friends and lovers drop like flies to this terrifying disease, the U.S. government wasn't giving the epidemic nearly enough attention. The mysteriousness of the disease was one thing, as was the stigma of how it was transmitted, and anti-gay sentiments had many feeling like if "these people" didn't make these lifestyle choices, they wouldn't be dying.

Obviously, the focus of the film is on AIDS and its victims, and the treatment of these patients - being turned away at hospitals, having their bodies disposed of in trash bags - is appalling. However, the film is also a lesson in how to get stuff done as activists. While Act Up did the traditional stuff - picketing, chanting, sign-waving, creating human chains to block traffic, holding up effigies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush - they also had a real game plan. With the help of sympathetic doctors and scientists, they educated themselves on the medical aspects of the disease and various treatments that other countries had adopted. When the FDA and NIH weren't moving fast enough to develop real treatments, they created their own action plan that the federal agencies simply had to adopt. The battle was a long and heart-breaking one and you see some of the activists get sicker and sicker until they die (one of the most heartbreaking parts is when scenes the outgoing guy who dressed as Jesus while they protested the Catholic church's stance on homosexuality and condom usage are followed by the same guy sitting in a wheelchair, having lost his eyesight and hearing and still talking about being grateful for what he has).

There are a few things that stood out to me about how the film was made. Other than showing a few modern-day interviews with key players, almost all of the footage is original from the time - of rallies, meetings, speeches, and more. Another clever tool was how the filmmaker didn't use interviews for a lot of the strongest advocates until the very end, allowing you to think that these guys eventually succumbed to the disease. Some did, but a lot didn't, thanks to the combination treatment plan that served as a Godsend for many victims.

I was born a year before the time period that this documentary focuses on, and so wasn't cognizant of any of the things that were happening with AIDS. I have vague memories of Magic Johnson's announcement, and I remember players being concerned about Magic bleeding on the court because that's how the disease spread. By the time I learned about it in my elementary and high school health classes, these treatments were discovered and I only heard about the prevention techniques - not touching anyone else's blood in elementary school, wearing a condom in high school. Watching this with a filter of the present, I had a lot of strong reactions. One was how far we've come in gay rights. Sure, there is a long way to go, but watching Jesse Helms talk about the abomination of homosexuality on the Senate floor made my stomach turn. There are still those people out there, but in an era where the president is mentioning gay rights in his inauguration speech and each year sees more and more states approve same sex marriage amendments, progress is being made.

The second thing I took away from this was the power of real, motivated activism. The film was called How to Survive a Plague but it could have just as easily been called How to Change the World. Every time I saw footage of one of the street protests, with people laying in the road and blocking traffic, it reminded me of last year's Occupy Wall Street phenomena. But when they showed the meetings where filmmakers and actors and average joes were memorizing glossaries of medical terms in order to educate themselves on the disease and its treatments, you see just how pointless the Occupy movement was. I'm not saying I disagreed with what they were protesting, but their action plan was...well, they didn't really seem to have one, other than to camp out for several weeks. Nice fodder for some memoirs in the next few years but not really a way to get stuff done.

This is the first movie I've seen from the Best Documentary Feature category, so I don't really have anything to compare it to. I'm looking forward to seeing Searching for Sugar Man too. But whether it wins or not, it was a powerful movie that I'm glad I saw.

Updated Oscar Viewing List:

Silver Linings Playbook
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Zero Dark Thirty
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
The Master
Flight
The Impossible
The Sessions
Moonrise Kingdom
Frankenweenie
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
Brave
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugarman

Friday Flicks: Frankenweenie

Since I was on my own for the evening, I opted to expand my Oscar movie-viewing horizon by entering the realm of Best Animated Feature. Being a childless 20-something, it's been awhile since I've actually seen any Best Animated films (I'm guessing the last one was Finding Nemo, which makes me feel both old and like I need to watch that movie again because, my God, it's perfection). Aaaaanyway, I'm also not too proud to spend a Friday night watching a kids' movie, and since my date was my corgi Charlie, it seemed like the perfect fit.

Frankenweenie is a new take on the Frankenstein story, where mad scientist Victor is a brilliant but lonely boy whose best friend is his dog Sparky. When Sparky gets run over by a car, Victor is inspired by his crazy science teacher to try to reanimate him. When word of his successful experiment gets out, all of the kids in his class (including an Igor-esque hunchback named Edgar) attempt to recreate it for the school science fair.

In my mind, there are two types of Tim Burton movies: Good Tim and Bad Tim. Good Tim usually involves integrating some really dark idea (a Frankenstein monster of a dog, a robotic man with scissors for hands, a long-slumbering vampire back from the dead) into bright, sunshiny, perfect suburbia. Bad Tim usually murders some beloved story from my childhood (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland). This was Good Tim in its best form. It was dark, it was funny, it had a sweetness underneath. The mannerisms of the stop-motion dog, both alive and as a "monster," are perfection, clearly the product of somebody who has spent a lot of time around dogs and loves them. More than once in the movie, I looked over at Charlie and found myself making ridiculous promises if he happened to get hit by a car and I happened to develop any sort of knowledge or skills in science overnight.

And as with most Burton films, what took it over the edge were the little side jokes. When Victor visits Sparky's grave in the pet cemetery, he passes a gravestone with a familiar cat's face on it, complete with X's for eyes, with the epitaph reading, "Goodbye Kitty." And it wouldn't be a Tim Burton movie without either Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder or Catherine O'Hara in it and he managers to get two of the three.

Having not seen any of the other nominees for Best Animated Feature yet, I can't say whether I think this movie will win or not. But I won't be disappointed if it does.


Updated Oscar Viewing List:

Silver Linings Playbook
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Zero Dark Thirty
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
The Master
Flight
The Impossible
The Sessions
Moonrise Kingdom
Frankenweenie
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
Brave
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugarman

Movie Review: Zero Dark Thirty

Full disclosure: Zero Dark Thirty is not my type of movie. I knew that going in. I'm not a big war movie person. I'm not a big undercover agent espionage movie person. This isn't a stance on anything, or a sign of my squeamishness; I don't like those movies because most of the characters seem extremely one-dimensional, and I often have a hard time telling them apart. (This is how Argo differed and why it appealed to me.) So I would normally have never seen this movie. But making an oath to see as many Oscar-nominated movies as possible isn't all fun and games, people! We have to make SACRIFICES. And it helps to prep yourself by eating a box of Goobers.

For background, Zero Dark Thirty tells the story of how the U.S., and specifically the CIA, caught uber-terrorist Osama bin Laden. The story obviously begins on Sept. 11, 2001, but it really begins two years later, when CIA operative Maya arrives in the Middle East. Maya learns the ropes from the people she's with: how to torture, what type of information to look for, etc. Eventually, it becomes obvious that Maya is a force to be reckoned with and she soon discovers the trail of Abu Ahmed, believed to be one of bin Laden's most trusted couriers.

For the next eight or so years, we watch Maya follow leads, lose leads, lose friends, find new leads, and kick butt, and the whole thing culminates with the famous Seal Team Six infiltration of bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.

This is the third movie I've seen in recent weeks where I knew the end going in. Drama or not, I knew Abraham Lincoln would pass the 13th Amendment and then get shot in the theater. I knew the six American hostages would get out of Iran alive. And I knew this movie would end with a member of Seal Team Six shooting bin Laden in the eye. The sign of a great movie based on actual events is that it creates suspense despite everyone knowing the end. I still found myself gasping as Ben Affleck led the hostages out of the Iran airport. I still wondered just how Lincoln's band of merrymakers, led by James Spader, would convince enough politicians to pass the amendment. I didn't really feel that with Zero Dark Thirty.

It's weird: of the three movies, this should be the one that moved me the most. I lived through 9/11, the subsequent years, and the eventual assassination of bin Laden. I remember how I felt, how people reacted. It was heart-wrenching, every step of the way.  And yet this is the story I felt least affected by. I thought Jessica Chastain was fabulous as Maya, showing a tough, smart woman who wasn't too cartoonish. She had connections and friends and she was affected by what she did and saw, but she wasn't the girly girl that had to be toughened up by the big strong men, which would have been the obvious route. (One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when she's left alone with terrorist in mid-torture. The guy notices her hesitation and discomfort in what she's watching and appeals to her, asking for her help. She steps forward...and then tells him that it's up to him to stop the torture. Way to show what this woman is all about.)

However, I didn't feel connected to her. Part of that was impossible: Maya is a conglomeration of multiple people, and the one woman she is mostly drawn from is still an active agent, and therefore,the filmmakers weren't able to give too many details about her. But the other characters were like this, too. Seal Team Six, in particular, seemed like 20 different incarnations of the same guy.

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy parts of the movie. I actually enjoyed the first half very much. But the second seemed so chock-full of bureaucracy and "yes, this is the guy...oh wait, no it's not...oh yes it is!" back-and-forth that I was ready to get on with it.

In the end, this is one of those movies I'm glad I saw. Like a documentary, it's interesting and I'm glad I know this about our nation's recent history. But I can't say I especially enjoyed the experience and I'm probably never going to watch this movie again.

In the Oscar race, Zero Dark Thirty is up for Best Picture, Best Actress (Chastain) and Best Original Screenplay. Chastain, I think, has the best chance to win it, although my heart still lies with J-Law. The big controversy was how Kathryn Bigelow wasn't nominated for Best Director. Is it sexism? Is it because of the questions about where she got her story? Or is it because other movies were better directed? I still think Ben Affleck should have received a nomination before Bigelow. While she did tell a complex story in a compelling way, I don't know how much better it was than the other nominees in the category. But then again, I'm not a war movie person.

Updated Oscar Viewing List:

Silver Linings Playbook
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Zero Dark Thirty
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
The Master
Flight
The Impossible
The Sessions
Moonrise Kingdom
Frankenweenie
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
Brave
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugarman

Movie Review: Django Unchained

I'll preface this by saying that I'm not generally a shoot-em-up, Tarantino-type fan. In fact, the only other Tarantino film I've ever seen is Pulp Fiction, and while I didn't hate it, I also didn't really get what all the fuss was about. John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson have funny hair? There's a sex gimp? Yay?

This isn't to say that I have anything AGAINST ultra-violent movies, per se. I'm not appalled by superfluous exploding blood packets or bareknuckle fistfights or anything. It's just that the movies have to have some sort of interesting story behind them. For example, two of my favorite movies are The Departed and Four Brothers - extremely violent, everyone-must-die gore-fests that totally drew me in with interesting stories and characters (although it's possible that at least 40% of the reason I like those movies is because of their good vibrations).

And that's where the divide between Django Unchained and Pulp Fiction occurs for me, and apparently for the Golden Globe- and Oscar-voting audience. Pulp Fiction was disjointed and weird and the prize everyone coveted was some mysterious gold-glowing suitcase that we never saw. Django has one awesome story, a bunch of awesome characters, and an actual substantial goal in mind: sweet, sweet revenge in the form of a sawed-off shotgun.

For those new to the game, Django starts with King Schultz, a dentist-turned-bounty hunter in the 1858 south. Schultz is hunting three brothers who work as slave overseers at plantations and seeks out a specific slave named Django to help him out (since he knows what they look like). Schultz is anti-slavery and approaches Django as a deal. The pair immediately click, joining forces to take on the various southern baddies who are wanted dead or alive (mostly dead). But the ultimate goal is to find the plantation where Django's wife, Broomhilda, was sent and freeing her.

That leads them to Candie Land, a bizarre funhouse of slave torture run by Calvin Candie. In this corner, we have a brothel full of good-time slave women. In that corner, Mandingo fighting (where two slaves fight to the death with their bare hands). Over there, a runaway punished by being torn apart by vicious dogs. (The latter two supplied two of the goriest, eye-coveriest scenes I've ever witnessed.)

I won't ruin the end for you but I will make these general points about the last hour or so of the movie. 1) Samuel L. Jackson's character might be the worst one of all, considering where his loyalties are, and Jackson does a delightful job in making such a horrific person. That is, until 2) he ends the movie by just being Samuel L. Jackson. Which is fun, too. 3) It must have been a weird role for Kerry Washington (Broomhilda), who spent probably 85% of her screen time being whipped, being hit, being chained, screaming, crying, and requiring rescue. While there's debate over what this movie means in terms of race, there's no debate over gender issues: this woman is a Damsel in Distress requiring some Big Strong Men to Save Her.

Generally, that might bother me, but this movie was too fun, even considering I had to watch a decent portion through my fingers. Plus, Tarantino made great pains to portray this as an old-timey Western, stylizing everything from the original music to the credits, and a woman's role in that kind of movie was to be saved.

Moreso than Tarantino's writing and directing, what really made the movie was the acting performances. Christoph Waltz won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and I can see why. He's absolutely fantastic. And so are Jamie Foxx as Django and Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin Candie. Even Jackson is kind of awesome even though you spend most of the movie wanting to grab the shotgun out of Django's hand and shoot the guy yourself.

Django Unchained is up for Best Picture, Tarantino and Waltz could double up their awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. I think the best chance they have to win is Waltz, although I wonder if the Academy will be more impressed by some of the other pedigrees (Robert DeNiro, Tommy Lee Jones, Alan Arkin). Tarantino also has a decent shot, although my heart lives with Wes Anderson and Moonrise Kingdom.

Here is my updated list of Oscar movies to see:

Silver Linings Playbook
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Zero Dark Thirty
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
The Master
Flight
The Impossible
The Sessions
Moonrise Kingdom
Frankenweenie
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
Brave
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugarman

Movie Review(s): Argo and Beasts of the Southern Wild

We all need to have goals in life, and while earning that advanced degree, running a marathon or starting your own business are all fine for some people, I like to reach that extra mile. And so I'm attempted to see as many Oscar-nominated movies as possible before the awards are given out on Feb. 24.

In my typical OCD-infused way, I've made some ground rules. Top priority are the movies nominated for Best Picture. Then the four acting categories, then the directing and writing categories. If I can squeeze in a couple documentaries and animated films, then more power to me. Movies I won't see are anything involving a subtitle. I know, that makes me a snooty American, but I have a hard time understanding what's going on because I'm so obsessed with making sure I don't miss any words. So, sorry, Amour.

That leaves me with this list, in this order of importance and with those I've already seen crossed out:

Silver Linings Playbook
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Zero Dark Thirty
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
The Master
Flight
The Impossible
The Sessions
Moonrise Kingdom
Frankenweenie
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
Brave
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugarman

So. I have some work to do. I did cross two off in the span of about six hours when we watched Argo and Beasts of the Southern Wild back to back on Saturday, and I'm glad we did.

Argo

I wanted to see Argo when it was originally in theaters, but it was a rough time of year with various work tasks and holidays and whatnot. Thankfully, I found a little second-run theater in the next town. Before the movie even started, I knew it would be up my alley. First of all, Ben Affleck directed. After Gone Baby Gone and The Town, I will officially see anything Ben Affleck directs and I will LIKE it an excessive amount. Secondly, it has Bryan Cranston and John Goodman. So, duh. And third, it had that perfect combination of seriousness and humor. But let's backtrack.

For those who have been living under a rock for several months or decades, Argo takes place in late 1979/early 1980. When irate Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy and took everyone they found hostage, they missed six people who snuck out a back door and found refuge in the Canadian embassy, hidden there with the help of the Canadian ambassador and his wife. The trick was getting them out so that the Iranians wouldn't notice.

Ben Affleck plays Tony Mendez, a CIA operative tasked with getting these innocents home safe. With the help of a Hollywood makeup artist (Goodman) and producer (Alan Arkin), Mendez concocts a plan: he and the six hostages are a team of Canadian filmmakers scouting Iran for movie locations. They create the whole movie: they have a script, movie posters, planboards, and publicity, thanks to a public reading. The movie is as schlocky as it comes, about space aliens etc. And it's just crazy enough to work.

The movie is up for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay and Arkin for Best Supporting Actor, which is nice but I think it deserved more. Affleck as Best Director for one; and while Arkin was entertaining as the helpful movie producer, I thought Cranston as the CIA agent organizing the operation from the home base was even better. I feel vindicated about the Affleck thing, since he did wind up winning the Golden Globe last nice and the movie won Best Picture (take that, Lincoln!).

I have to say, I can see why. Lincoln was a masterpiece, but it kind of reeked of the type of movie where everyone says "Oscar buzz!" even before it's finished filming. A legendary director (Steven Spielberg), a heavy-duty lead actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), a nonfiction story dealing with the best President in U.S. history. Instant gold! But Argo was just as impressive. It also was a nonfiction story dealing with American heroes; it had some great acting and great directing; and I felt like the story was more well-rounded and told in a more pleasing way. Don't get me wrong; Lincoln was great. But I can see why the Golden Globes folks favored Argo.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

While Argo was a movie-theater-blockbuster, Beasts was a tiny independent film that relied more on nuance and storytelling strategies than excitement and plot. It tells the story of Hushpuppy, a little girl living in a tiny neighborhood named the Bathtub off the coast of Louisiana with her mentally unstable father. The people in her neighborhood are tight-knit and view the people who live on the other side of the levees in Louisiana as the outsiders. They're also extremely poor, surviving off the land for food and medicine. Their views on the world are equal parts personal experience and mythology, and Hushpuppy's teacher tells her about creatures that live in the icecaps, creating a fantasy that Hushpuppy repeatedly returns to.

Hushpuppy's story centers around two catastrophic events: the arrival of Hurricane Katrina, which drowns the Bathtub and forces everyone to come together, and the deteriorating health of her father. Coming to grips with both is how Hushpuppy starts to grow up.

This was an independent movie if I ever saw one, full of advanced storytelling techniques and symbolism. As the story progresses, the mythical creatures come more and more out of the icecaps before Hushpuppy finally faces them as she faces her own future. Her relationship with her father is such a complicated one; he obviously loves her, but is only capable of doing that in strange ways, like having her live in her own "house," helping her survive the impending storm by sitting in a rowboat wearing inflatable arm floats, and encouraging her to embrace her beast inside by breaking into crabs with her bare hands and beating him at arm wrestling. He tries to ease her mind about the storm by taking a shotgun and shooting up at the clouds. Not exactly Parent of the Year material, but it's sweet and big-hearted in kind of a twisted way.

Beasts is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Benh Zeitlin), and Best Adapted Screenplay, and tiny Quvenzhane Wallis for Best Actress. I don't know if it will be able to topple giants like Lincoln, Les Miserables, Silver Linings Playbook or Argo, and it almost doesn't seem fair. It's like if boxing did away with weightclasses and the best flyweight suddenly had to go up against the best heavyweight. They're not even the same species. But if the sign of a good movie is making me feel like I should have majored in film studies at NYU, then Beasts certainly delivered.

Movie Review: Moonrise Kingdom

If only I could maintain this movie-watching obsession all year round.

See, every year around Golden Globe/Oscar time, I like to pretend I'm a big movie person. And I am. I love movies - going to them, watching them at home, etc. - all year round. But things like work and friends and buying groceries generally cuts into my movie-watching. Sure, I COULD devote two hours to watching that copy of Shooter we've had from Netflix for five months...or I could spend those two hours watching back-to-back-to-back-to-back episodes of The Daily Show. And Kristen Schaal is on? Sorry, Marky Mark. I'm sure that movie is totally worth $50 in back Netflix payments.

But oh how productive I am during Oscar season! Every waking moment is spent going to the movies, getting quality (aka not Shooter) films from Netflix and even employing my favorite little device, Roku, for instant streaming.

The latest, via Netflix (and watched within a couple days of receiving the disc - go us!), is Moonrise Kingdom. Moonrise Kingdom tells the story of a pair of pre-teens: Sam, an orphaned khaki scout, and Suzy, a depressed girl whose mother (Frances McDormand) is having an affair on her father (Bill Murray) with the local policeman (Bruce Willis). The pen pals have a romance blooming via the mailbox (it's pre-texting 1965) and decide to run away together - Suzy from her house and Sam from his troop. Scenes of their sweet, romantic camping experience are interspersed with scenes from the search, led by Suzy's parents, the policeman and Sam's scout leader (Ed Norton), with help from Sam's khaki scout troop.

This is a textbook Wes Anderson movie: taking place somewhere without new technology; scenes and costumes with bright, sunny colors; unique frames and shots; the point of view of kids; and a strangely dark and comic tale. And it's adorable. I think it works here more than in any other Anderson movie I've ever seen. The kids are a perfect mix of innocent and world-weary, while Willis, Norton, McDormand and Murray are all delightfully kooky.

The movie's lone Golden Globe nomination is for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy and I can see that. While all of the actors are good, none are stand-out fabulous the way the three leads of Lincoln were, or even like Jack Black in Bernie. I wouldn't be surprised if it was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, and maybe even a screenwriting or directing nod for Anderson. Not having seen all of the nominated films yet, I think it might have a chance for the Golden Globe (although I have a feeling people are going to be a little Les Miserables-crazy), but I doubt it will win an Oscar. Still, if I'm voting for the movie I most enjoyed watching, this would definitely be towards the top.

Friday Flicks: Bernie

As someone with a traditional, 9-to-5 job married to someone with evening hours, and with mostly friends who live out of state and work evenings too, my nights are usually dates with my beloved corgi. Normally, that's fine, as I go to bed early in order to be at least moderately functional when I wake up at 5:30 (or sometimes 4:30) in the morning. The only night it can be long is on Fridays, since I have no reason to hop in bed at 10 (except for the fact that bed is awesome). This can make for looooong, boooorrrring, lonely nights where I may or may not have caught myself talking to myself or my dog as though in conversation. I'm not crazy, I swear!

Anyway, to combat this, I've turned Friday nights into something to look forward to by treating myself to movie night. I pop some popcorn, pour myself a big ole glass of diet Pepsi and settle in for a couple of hours of something fun. I tend go on spurts with the types of movies I watch: sometimes I want to see classics that, for some reason or another, I've never seen before. That led to four straight weeks of Rocky movies (I had heard enough about Rocky V to stop there). Right now, with the Golden Globes next week and the Oscars a few more weeks away, my goal is to see movies that have any sort of buzz about them at all. This is kind of limiting, since most of those movies are in the theaters now, or in that mysterious limbo netherworld that movies go to when they're between theaters and DVDs. But a few have been released on DVD, so that's where I went.

This week: Bernie

I have no recollection of this movie being released at all. Was it in theaters? Did I black out for a few months? I didn't even notice it on the Golden Globes ballot, although, to be fair, my bizarre crush on Jessica Lange had me a little bit distracted (SISTER JUDE, I LOVE EVERYTHING THAT YOU ARE). Anyway, I first heard about it in this Oscar nomination preview by Boston Globe and Grantland movie critic Wesley Morris, and even then I didn't believe him. Morris admitted that he didn't like the Oscars and didn't really care who was nominated or who won, but he was a movie critic so he had to make his picks. So when he said it had a chance to be nominated for Best Picture or for Jack Black to get nominated for Best Actor, I thought it was possible he was being sarcastic. I mean, really? Jack Black? Some weird comedy by the guy from School of Rock that I've never heard of? Sure, and Ben Affleck is a really good director, amirite?

The title character of Bernie is an assistant funeral director in the small East Texas town of Carthage, the type of place where everybody knows everybody and their business. The town is real; the events are real. I think that's what makes this movie so powerful. If this was someone's overactive imagination, it would be just weird and crazy, but it's true and so it's even weirder and crazier. Anyway, Bernie is outgoing, charming and effeminate and quickly excels at his job. Not only can he perform a funeral, he can stand in for the organist, the choir, and missing family members. He's particularly adept at consoling the little old ladies who find themselves alone after their husbands' passing.

Bernie makes a particular connection with Marjorie, an extremely wealthy and extremely mean lady recently widowed by her bank-owning husband. As much as Bernie is loved by the folks in Carthage, Marjorie is disliked and feared. But Bernie isn't dissuaded and Marjorie, for a time at least, enjoys his company. They go on trips together around the world. She comes to trust him more than anyone and soon writes her estranged son and grandchildren out of the will in favor of him.

At some point, however, things change. Marjorie becomes controlling and mean and angry; she makes Bernie's life a living hell until one day, he snaps and shoots her four times in the back. Then he shoves her body in a freezer and doesn't tell anyone. That goes on for almost a year. He tells everyone she's sick and doesn't want anyone to see her that way; her personality and reputation is as such where nobody really questions it. Meanwhile, Bernie begins spending all of Marjorie's money, but not for himself. While he lives in a rundown house and misses loan payments on his crappy car, he uses Marjorie's money to finance new wings on churches, buy other townspeople cars and Jet Skis, and more.

Eventually, Marjorie's body is discovered when her money manager and her family get suspicious. The strangest part of the whole story, other than the whole story, is that the townspeople so loved Bernie and so hated Marjorie that they harassed the district attorney prosecuting the case. They actually had to hold the hearing in another town in order to get a fair trial because nobody would convict him. A 30-something-year-old man murders an 80-something-year-old woman in cold blood and remains the most beloved member of the community.

The story is obviously a strange one (and yet, still true), but the way the story is told is even more unique. Rather than straight narration, it is more like a documentary or even more like a true-crime television show. The whole story is told via interviews with local folks from the town. And the kicker? They are actual townspeople. They're not actors. And they're amazing.

As I watched the movie, I couldn't tell if I liked it or not. Even afterward, I wondered if it was too weird or too dark or too pointless. But in reality, I have to say I did really like this movie. It's a unique story, told in a unique way. It's a dark subject portrayed in an almost bright-and-sunny manner. And it's true: Jack Black is tremendous as Bernie. His mannerisms and acting (not to mention singing) throughout are great, but his reaction to his shooting Marjorie is absolutely fabulous - one of those I can't believe what I've done...now this is what I have to do to hide it moments. I doubt he'll win, but I can see why he was nominated for a Golden Globe.

Three Movies in Three Days

Movies are like the entertainment version of lobster for me: I love them so so much and never get to enjoy them as much as I'd like, what with a real job and a partial job and a house to take care of and a full DVR to attack like a rabid monkey. Priorities! I've even made a pact with myself to have a movie night, i.e. one night a week (usually Friday) where I settle in with popcorn, soda, PJs, my dog, and the original Rocky. Good times.

My other godsend when it comes to movie-viewing is vacation. Namely, that week between Christmas and New Year's day when I don't have to go to work and can instead focus on things like sleeping and trying to break my personal record for most calories taken in during one 24-hour-period. To that end, we somehow got to see not one, not two, but three new (to us) movies in three days. And they were all good movies, too. What is this?! Heaven?! Here they are, ranked in order of how much I liked them:

3. Lincoln

Watching Lincoln was like eating a delicious salad: it's good for you, you like it and you're glad you ate it, but you still wish you had ordered a hamburger instead. Lincoln was obviously a terrific movie in that there was no way it was ever going to be bad. A Steven-Spielberg-directed epic, based on a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, and based on the greatest president this country has ever known? Coming out in an election year? And a hilariously whimsical child to boot? The only way this movie doesn't should OSCAR, PLEASE! is that it doesn't have Tom Hanks involved somehow.

And I am glad I saw it. It was entertaining; Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones and James Spader were all fantastic and will probably be showered with gifts and prizes. It was about a part of history that I don't know much about and probably should (the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment), and it made me feel better about our current state of politics, because apparently our politicians were always petty lunatics. But it was also long, dense with information, and at times, really dry. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to nod off during parts, which is reason No. 1 not to see the 8 p.m. showing. I'm happy I saw it and I know it's good, but I'm pretty sure I'll never see it again and that's OK, too.

2. Win Win

This movie is not new to to the world (it came out in 2011) and not new to our house (we've had it out from Netflix for about four months) but it was new to us until last week. And it was absolutely awesome. Win Win is about a lawyer (Paul Giamatti) with a struggling practice, who also happens to coach a really terrible high school wrestling team. For extra money, he becomes the guardian of an elderly, rich client (Burt Young, aka Paulie from Rocky, which made me hope bad things would come to him for most of the movie), but he soon unwittingly also becomes the caregiver for the man's teenaged grandson, who ran away from his drug-addicted mother and her abusive boyfriend. The guy and his wife (Amy Ryan) take the boy in, discover he's an amazing wrestler, and as he becomes more involved with the team and his grandfather, the boy starts coming out of his shell. It is really a sweet movie; Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan are both great and the boy, a newcomer hired because he actually is a champion high school wrestler, was really good, too. I had heard great things, but it was still like finding a great surprise.

1. Silver Linings Playbook

I love everything about this movie, but mostly Jennifer Lawrence. I had high expectations, because of the Oscar buzz surrounding it, but it was so worth it. The story is about Pat (Bradley Cooper), a guy who has a breakdown when he catches his wife cheating on him with another man. After a court-ordered stint in a mental institution (because he beat the crap out of his wife's lover), he moves back in with his parents and works at winning back his wife. Along the way, he meets Tiffany (Lawrence), a young widow who has tried to get over her feelings of grief by jumping into the arms of any man (or woman) who looks her way. The two have a quick friendship founded on their own mental issues and their blunt personalities. She offers to help him get in contact with his wife if he helps her in a dance competition, while he also struggles to connect with his football-obsessed, OCD father (Robert DeNiro).

This movie was sweet, funny, a little dark (but not overly so), and with amazing performances by Cooper, Lawrence, a meeker DeNiro and Chris Tucker (as Pat's buddy from the institution). This is definitely what I'll be rooting for on Oscar night.