Film Review: Steven Spielberg's Lincoln

The aptly titled Lincoln, director Steven Spielberg's twenty-ninth feature film, is not a bio-pic so much as the story of a great man's tragic final months.  A great man accomplishing great things in the midst of the greatest of adversity.  Spielberg's film does not cover the early days of the man who would become our sixteenth president.  We do not see the deeds and actions that made the great man so great.  We do not see the tragedy of early lost love.  We do not see the growth of a boy into manhood.  We do not see the young Lincoln as lawyer or debater or resistant politician.  We do not see the first harrowing term that included the start of a war that would take more American lives than any other in history and the debilitating loss of a child in the dark night of the White House.  We do not see that man - that Abraham Lincoln.  What we first see is the man that was born out of these tragedies.  The Lincoln we get here is a man worn down by war and rhetoric and great great loss but also a man who has risen above such things, to fight the good fight, the fight others cannot fight, to become the legendary heroic figure we were all taught about in school.  What we get here is the Lincoln that has gone down in history as arguably - or possibly unarguably - the greatest president this great nation has ever seen.

What we also get here is one of the greatest performances of one of the greatest men, by one of the greatest actors working today.  Daniel Day-Lewis' brilliant, almost dead-ringer portrayal of the first Republican president (back in the day when it was the Republicans who wanted social change and equal rights for all, and the Democrats were the stalwart voice of intolerance - oh how things have changed) should not come as much of a surprise, considering all the virtuoso performances that line the actor's resumé like gold records (and a pair of gold Oscars) on the wall.  What does come as a bit of a surprise is the subtle grace with which Day-Lewis uses to portray the former president.  Known in recent years for more oft than not going well over the top in his portrayals (and this is not meant as a diss of any sort, for roles such as The Gangs of New York's Bill the Butcher or Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood would not have worked as well as they did otherwise) it is a more inconspicuous, more subtly suggestive performance that Day-Lewis hands in here.  A performance that is not so much Daniel Day-Lewis being a version of Daniel Day-Lewis (which he does so well) but a performance that makes us forget just who is behind that iconic beard and stovepipe hat.  A performance that gives us not an actor playing a president, but a performance that gives us the president himself.  A performance that is so penetrating as to make us forget Daniel Day-Lewis and make us see only Abraham Lincoln.  And also a performance that could very well win that oh so hidden portrayal a third to go with those aforementioned pair of past gold Oscars.

But it is not just Day-Lewis who brings it home daringly yet quietly.  Spielberg, and please pardon the reference to a different president, also speaks softly and carries a big stick here.   LIncoln is the director's most grounded film.  This critic has always been much more of a fan of Spielberg's so-called popcorn flicks than the director's more serious-minded fare.  Give me giddy excitement of Jaws or Raiders or Jurassic Park over the cloying, manipulative, heavy-handed likes of The Color Purple or last year's dreadfully-played War Horse any day.  Even something like the almost universally-beloved Schindler's List has its pandering faults.  In the director's more action-oriented hits, this directorial fault is overshadowed by the inherent swashbuckling aura, but in his more dramatic films, this fault stands out like a blinding beacon in the night.  Fortunately for we the viewers, and perhaps for Spielberg as well, that glaring fault line barely rears its ugly head in Lincoln.  Yes, the film ends about five minutes too late, as instead of closing on the president leaving the White House for his infamous date with destiny at Ford's Theater, the director drags it out to show weeping and screaming at his death.  I mean, I do not think anyone need say spoiler alert here, we all know how this story ends, there is no need to drag it out - but alas, poor Spielberg, he did it anyway.  Now granted, this five or six minute faux pas is but a minor criticism considering the 137 or so minutes that precede it is some of the best work Spielberg has done in years.  The fact that when the film eventually comes down to that historic House vote to end slavery, there is enough tension palpitating through the theater, even though we all know damn well how the vote ends (I mean, spoiler alert if I must, but yes, slavery is indeed abolished), to make one shudder in the very face of history being made.  That is how you direct a movie.

As for the rest of the film, and there is a surprising amount of time where Day-Lewis' fateful Commander-in-Chief is merely a peripheral figure in the guts of the film, the act of voting on and passing the 13th amendment to abolish slavery, it too is held aloft rather mightily.  Tommy Lee Jones as Republican Congressional leader Thaddeus Stevens, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and sometimes adversary to President Lincoln, as well as the man who, second only to the president, was the most fervent guiding force in the abolishment of slavery, is dead-on in his performance as well - and probably headed toward his own Academy Award nomination.  Then we have Sally Field as First Lady, or Madame President as she snidely informs Representative Stevens of what she is to be called, Mary Todd Lincoln.  At first glance one could call her performance a bit in the over-the-top realm (a certain someone I know went as far as to compare said performance to the screechings of a howler monkey), especially when side-by-side with Day-Lewis' subtle nuances, but considering the history of one of the most flamboyant (and dare I say a bit insane) first ladies in history, such a portrayal hits the proverbial nail on its own proverbial head.  And I suppose we should tack her on for an Oscar nomination as well.  In the end though, the film comes down to how well  Spielberg has filmed it (saturated lighting, a smoothly moving camera and low-key editing give the film an almost seamless look and feel) and how well Day-Lewis has become Abraham Lincoln (and it too is seamless), and in these aspects, despite those last few minutes of audience pandering, Lincoln, though ultimately maybe not the masterpiece some are touting, is indeed a success.  A historic success.

Retro Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The following is part of a series where I bring back some of my "older" reviews (those written during my 2004-2011 tenure at the now mostly defunct The Cinematheque) and offer them up to a "newer" generation. With the release of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, here is a look back at a film that...well, let's just say it's not one of the director's best, which is made even more disappointing by the fact that the first three films in the series were some of the director's best.  Anyway, here it is.

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When you have a film series as iconic as Indiana Jones, there is bound to be a sense of apprehension when it comes to the latest installment.   Put that together with the nineteen year gap since the last film and the idea of a sixty-five year old action-adventure hero bull-whipping his way around the Amazon rain forest, and no matter how giddy one may be at the mention of this long-awaited sequel-to-a-sequel-to-a-sequel - and some are quite giddy indeed - there is still quite the powerful sense of trepidation that creeps along the ole cerebral cortex.   Can Spielberg pull it off after all these years?   Can Harrison Ford do the same?   Will it be, like the second (or is it first?) trilogy of Star Wars films, nothing more than a ridiculed shadow of its true self?   Will they be able to get back that old-time movie magic one more time after such a long wait or will this be the death knell for the coolest archeology professor to ever strap on a whip and fedora?

I can tell you this for sure - I left the screening humming John Williams' iconic (there's that word again) theme music and am even doing it now, a day later, as I write these words.   What does that mean?   Well I suppose it means that old-time movie magic is still there, but unfortunately it seems rather old and tired this time around, almost as if no one - director and stars both - is really trying all that hard.   I suppose the humming is more nostalgia than zest for the new.    Granted, no one would rightfully expect the latest to be able to stand up to the original Raiders of the Lost Ark (renamed Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark for DVD release) with its original bravura and Ford's Bogart meets Errol Flynn chutzpah - especially since neither Temple of Doom nor The Last Crusade could do so in their time (without a near twenty year gap) - but I suppose I was hoping for something a bit, I don't know, a bit more.

Perhaps, as I stated earlier, Crystal Skull is a bit on the tired side (though the sexagenarian Indy does still get around with quite the florid mix of machismo and aloofness) and sometimes feeling as if everyone is just phoning in their lines, this fourth (and last? - doubtful considering the obvious foreshadowing of a new Shia LeBeouf-helmed future franchise) Indiana Jones flick does have its moments.   Unfortunately these moments (an army ant feast du jour, LeBeouf and an army of CGI monkeys Tarzanning their way through the Amazon, a nuke-thumped refrigerator catapult) never give the kick one would hope for in such a movie.   The suspension of disbelief is there as always in the genre, but the danger we are meant to perceive for the characters is not.  

Ford, though aging quite Hollywood star-like, seems as if he just wants to go home to his waifish girlfriend and his trillion acre Wyoming ranch, while Karen Allen, whom the years have not been so good to, has no other purpose it would seem than to smile adoringly at the fedora-topped adventurer that got away and all the while Shia LeBeouf, who seems quite the dynamo when contrasted with the rest of the listless cast, is merely the triflist of sidekicks as Indy's heir apparent.   Then we have Cate Blanchett as the most mildly inoffensive (and quite unintimidating) villain Indy has yet to come up against.   Looking completely lost in her dominatrix bob and bondage and quipping in silly borscht-accented coyisms, one hopes her paycheck is substantial enough here to finance her in doing about a baker's dozen more I'm Not There's.

Much has been said of Spielberg's lack of soul as a filmmaker (much of it by this very critic) but this is the kind of mega-mastondonic movie where the auteur - and sans soul or not, Spielberg is surely one of - can shine his movie-making lights upon.   Where other filmmakers of his generation (Scorsese, Coppola, Cimino, Bogdanovich, Rafelson) studied Renoir and Chaplin, Welles and Griffith, Powell and Minnelli, Spielberg was busy building then blowing up toy trains in his basement and filming it all on his Super-8 camera.   Perhaps this doesn't make for a filmmaker capable of Raging Bull or The Godfather but it does make for quite the old-timey pulp genre smoke and mirrors illusionist that Spielberg has become.   Much like his vaunted Cecil B. DeMille, Spielberg is more showman than filmmaker, and it shows here.

Though he has done better (Jaws, the original Raiders, Jurassic Park, Minority Report, the oft-maligned and somewhat flawed War of the Worlds and even my own secret shame guilty pleasure 1941) and he has done quite worse (Always, the dreadful Hook and his dismantling of Kubrick's A.I.) I suppose, even with its flaws (some of them quite glaring) and that nagging sensation that the title sounds a bit too much like a never-completed Hardy Boys Mystery, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - the fourth installment in the series - manages to wallop a few popcorn punches during its 124 minute running time.   Too bad those punches seem pulled throughout.

[Originally published at The Cinematheque on 05/21/2008]

Retro Review: Super 8 (J.J. Abrams, 2011)

The following is part of a series where I bring back some of my "older" reviews (those written during my 2004-2011 tenure at the now mostly defunct The Cinematheque) and offer them up to a "newer" generation.  With the first episode of the J.J. Abrams-produced TV series Revolution making its mark earlier this month, here is a look back at Abrams most recent theatrical foray - and one of the best films of last year.

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Imagine a world of youthful memories, evoking a certain place and time of cinematic innocence, now all but lost to future generations, where children played at make-believe in the suburban utopia of woebegone days and the buddings of first love are felt in the small town purity of kids caught somewhere between their first swear word and their first cigarette.  A place where adults were secondary, incidental even, and where monsters and aliens crept into our subconscious only to be made real by those purveyors of the era's newly born summer blockbuster machinations - a place of George Lucas and of Joe Dante and especially of Steven Spielberg.  This place of seeming cinematic incorruptibility, where escapist fare was met with a sense of childlike wonder and the daily box office take was, though assuredly important and quickly becoming moreso, not yet the be all and end all of making movies in Hollywood, is where J.J. Abrams takes us with his deceptively brilliant evocation of a simpler, kinder, more gentle cinematic world in Super 8.

Set in the early summer days of 1979, in an archetypal small town in rural Ohio, Abrams pays the greatest homage to his mentor and master Spielberg (though Spielberg's credit as producer may smack a bit of nepotism in a way) by giving his monster movie an aura of that time when Spielberg was still a filmmaker with heart and soul (a filmmaker evoking his own childhood dream world) while at the same time giving it that more-bang-for-your-buck style that has come to epitomize the directorial signature of Abrams' still young (one could even say still budding) career.  One could even go so far as to call this film an E.T. for a more jaded, more in-your-face and a much faster-paced generation of moviegoers - a less innocent generation of moviegoers if you will.  It is this blend - more sympathetic than Abrams usually makes out and less cloying than Spielberg, even vintage Spielberg can be - that makes the film work as well as it does.

After a brief prologue showing, in a very Spielbergian way appropriately enough, the loss of a wife and mother (a typically seventies factory where a sign stating how many days since their last accident being marked back down to one, a lone child sitting on a swing caressing the locket of his now dead mother) and the almost immediate shattering of the aforementioned cinematic innocence, Abrams sets his story rolling - and roll like proverbial thunder out of the gate it most certainly does.  We are introduced to a group of kids, barely on this side of pubescence, in the process of making a zombie movie (George Romero can be seen as an influence as well), via their titular super 8 camera, complete with the idea of cheap but wholly appropriate special effects (blowing up model trains and filming it on super 8 is pretty much the most accurate way of describing La Spielberg's own filmmaking youth) and stilted but again wholly appropriate acting.  We see these kids filming at a small train depot as a locomotive comes barreling past at a breakneck speed.

Once the train derails in the most spectacular of set pieces (Abrams certainly knows how to make his action go that extra mile) and our inevitable monster is set loose upon this unsuspecting small town America (shown, a la Cloverfield in quick shadowy spurts - making for the tension and inherent danger to be at a peak level throughout), and once the military swoops in and quickly becomes even a possible greater danger than the escaped monster they are not telling anyone about (and no one is digitally replacing guns with flashlights this time around Mr. Spielberg), Abrams movie kicks into high gear and we are shown the director who was only hinted at in the mostly awful Mission Impossible III (important only because it was what first showed what the director was capable of if let loose upon the big big screen of the cinema, with his daring-doo way of choreographing elaborate and convoluted action set pieces) and honed to an audacious bravura in his quite spectacular reboot of the dying Star Trek franchise.   The director who is quickly becoming something of an action-oriented auteur - and a Hell of a lot of fun to watch.

As for the cast, it is mostly populated by the kind of kids one would expect to find in such an homage.  Foremost among these kids are Joe, the town deputy's son and aforementioned lone child lamenting his loss, and Alice, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who seems to be in serious need of redemption from sins she carries with her that are not even her own.  Joe is played with a wide-eyed sense of wonder that does its own evoking of Henry Thomas' Elliott in E.T., by first-time actor Joel Courtney, while Alice is played by the quite disarming Elle Fanning (just thirteen but the veritable veteran of the young cast) whose perfect blend of youthful exuberance and adult-like sensibilities (much like her older sister, the young actress's eyes evoke both a naiveté appropriate to her age and a frank knowingness that belies that very same age) make for the most layered character in the film - and she comes off as any red-blooded young teen boy's fantasy girl hot, sassy and dark, and she can drive a car! (where were the girls like this when I was thirteen!?).  These two young actor's scenes together are the emotional high points of the film.  The way their attraction grows and their playful interacting (Fanning's cute way of stealing a kiss while in zombie make-up) make for the most charming of young romances.

In all reality, it is the simple and unaffected budding romance between Joe and Alice, as well as these kids' tempestuous relationships with their equally bewildered fathers (played by a stoic Kyle Chandler and a pathos-riddled Ron Eldard), and not the monster nor the military, that is the central core of this spiraling, sometimes batshitcrazy movie.  It is this side of Spielberg, the one seemingly long gone these days, that Abrams is paying homage to here, and it is this particular age (this critic turned twelve in the summer of 1979 and therefore am virtually the same age as Super 8's young protagonists) that makes it stick so personally for me - and let's face it, anyone who has ever grown up in the places evoked here and in the early works of that ever-present Mr. Spielberg.  It is also due to this subtle approach to the storytelling aspect of the film that when we finally get to our expected dénouement, it is not the monster Abrams focuses his camera on but the kids - the human aspect of the story.  In a way this ends up as something of a mixed bag of reactions come the fade to black and end credits.

Perhaps those of us looking for nothing more than the perfect action movie kicks will be left feeling a bit (but just a bit) disappointed as the layers of the film are peeled away, revealing each new reveal, albeit each one nestled inside stunning set piece after stunning set piece - and perhaps too those of us looking for pure summer blockbuster chutzpah and a balls out Michael Bay-esque finale that will theoretically leave every quasi-pubescent fanboy with a moist pair of jeans will end up feeling cheated by their own sense of imagined anticipatory self-rhetoric.  I do admit to a feeling of disillusionment once our intrepid monster is fully seen and fully realized and the tension is unwarrantly alleviated and we are left with a let down of sorts.  Perhaps though, what we are left with in this overly sensitized wake (and self-invented sense of moviegoing entitlement) is an emotional heft (and general warm fuzzy feeling - but in a good way) and a childlike fantasy that harkens back to those halcyon days (both cinematically and nostalgically) being evoked by Abrams in his loving homage to his mentor and master.  Perhaps, it is more than a mere monster movie.  Perhaps indeed.

[Originally published at The Cinematheque on 06/10/11]

Early Bird Oscar Predix

Some would say making Oscar predictions in June is doing things a bit on the early side, but having made my early bird predictions in May of last year, I am actually a bit on the late side.  And after all, they are called early bird predictions.  So get off my back people.  Okay, I digress.  Anyway, with the Oscar nominations, as of my posting of this post, just 204 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes and 33 seconds away (not that I am counting or anything) it is high time I get going with my predictions.  So without further ado (well, except for the picture below), here we go.

Best Picture

1. Lincoln

2. Django Unchained

3. The Master

4. Zero Dark Thirty

5. The Life of Pi

6. Les Miserables

7. Argo

8. Anna Karenina

9. Hyde Park on Hudson

10. Beasts of the Southern Wild

Now we never know these days just how many nominees will be included in the top prize, so I put these in order of probability.  I think as long as it is a hit, Spielberg's Lincoln is a sure bet, but then again this could be the Daniel Day-Lewis show and end up not getting recognition anywhere else.  As for Tarantino's Django Unchained, it is one of the most anticipated films of the year, but will Oscar respond the way they did with Inglourious Basterds a few years back.  We also have P.T. Anderson's The Master and Kathryn Bigelow's Bin Laden-hunting film Zero Dark Thirty, but again, who knows if they will gather steam with Oscar voters.  I think the real wild card here is Beasts of the Southern Wild.  This film could be this year's Winter's Bone and therefore could be much higher on the probability list.  For now though, I will keep it in the number ten spot.  So pretty much, what I am trying to say is there is no real clear cut frontrunner here.  As for other possibilities, we should not count out The Great Gatsby, Gravity, The Silver Linings Playbook, Killing Them Softly, The Gangster Squad, The Surrogate, The Trouble With the Curve, To Rome With Love or even The Hobbit.  The Dark Knight Rises, the sequel to a film that was very possibly responsible for Oscar upping their BP noms to ten, could be a factor too, but probably not.  There is also a relatively strong possibility of the Coen Brothers' latest, Inside Lwelyn Davis making the grade, but it is still up in the air whether it will be finished in time for a release this year.  So we will lay off that one until a release date gets confirmed.

Best Director

1. Steven Spielberg for Lincoln

2. Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained

3. Paul Thomas Anderson for The Master

4. Ang Lee for The Life of Pi

5. Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty

Wild Card: Ben Affleck for Argo

Again, there appears to be no real frontrunner here.  It all depends on what response the films get upon their eventual release.  Other possibilities include last year's winner, Tom Hooper for Les Miserables, as well as Baz Luhrmann for The Great Gatsby, David O. Russell for The Silver Linings Playbook, Roger Mitchell for Hyde Park on Hudson, Woody Allen for To Rome With Love, Joe Wright for Anna Karenina, David Cronenberg for Cosmopolis (yeah, right), or even Chris Nolan, Peter Jackson or Alfonso Cuarón.  Of course there is also the possibility of the brothers' Coen, if they release their film this year.

Best Actor

1. Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln

2. Bill Murray in Hyde Park on Hudson

3. Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The Master

4. Hugh Jackman in Les Miserables

5. John Hawkes in The Surrogate

Wild Card: Bradley Cooper in The Silver Linings Playbook

Well it looks as if we finally have a category with a clear cut frontrunner.  I mean really, Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln?  I could go out on a limb and claim that Day-Lewis, the best damn acting working in film today, will become the first man to win three Best Actor Oscars.  Poor Bill Murray though.  As FDR, it looked as if the very loved Murray would finally win his Oscar, and then DDL has to come along and play Lincoln.  Go figure.  Anyway, I think this is a pretty strong line-up here and am really hoping Hawkes gets in there as well.  As for the wild card, perhaps it is a bit to soon to hear the sentence, "Bradley Cooper, Oscar nominee" but hey, who knows.  Other possibilities include Ben Affleck in Argo (though the director spot may be a bit more likely), Clint Eastwood in The Trouble With the Curve (didn't he retire from acting?), Leonardo DiCaprio in The Great Gatsby (though supporting for another film is more likely), Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained, Brad Pitt in Killing Them Softly and Shia Lebeouf in Lawless.    Okay, that last one was just me making sure you were paying attention.

Best Actress

1. Keira Knightley in Anna Karenina

2. Helen Hunt in The Surrogate

3. Laura Linney in Hyde Park on Hudson

4. Viola Davis in Won't Back Down

5. Qvenzhane Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild

Wild Card: Nicole Kidman in The Paperboy

I don't think Knightley is as sure a bet as DDL above but she does seem to be a frontrunner here.  Laura Linney could end up going supporting with this role, so that could put Kidman in the top five after all.  Then again, some are saying Kidman's role is more suporting so who knows.  As for the current number five choice, most would claim that should be a wild card, but I gots a feeling people.  I gots me a feeling.  She would end up being the youngest nominee ever.  Other possibilities include Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone, Barbra Streisand in The Guilt Trip, Maggie Smith in Quartet, Sandra Bullock in Gravity and Carey Mulligan in The Great Gatsby.  Other possible wild cards are Dakota Fanning in Effie and Kristen Wiig in Imogene.

Best Supporting Actor

1. Joaquin Phoenix in The Master

2. Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained

3. Woody Harrelson in Seven Psychopaths

4. Russell Crowe in Les Miserables

5. Brian Cranston in Argo

Wild Card: Aaron Johnson in Anna Karenina

After we all saw that clip from Anderson's The Master, we all pretty much penciled in Phoenix for an Oscar.  Of course the film has yet to be seen, but then again it is a PTA film, so my hopes are pretty freakin' high.  This could of course be DiCaprio's year, a la Waltz's year with Inglourious Basterds.  As far as Harrelson goes, the role looks pretty juicy, but a similar sounding role had everyone pissed off when Albert Brooks was snubbed last year.  Other possibilities include the aforementioned Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained, Tom Courtenay in Quartet, George Clooney in Gravity, Tobey Maguire in The Great Gatsby, Justin Timberlake in The Trouble With the Curve and any of the Lincoln supporters, Tommy-Lee Jones, David Straitharn and Jared Harris.

Best Supporting Actress

1. Amy Adams in The Master

2. Sally Field in Lincoln

3. Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables

4. Annette Bening in Imogene

5. Samantha Barks in Les Miserables

Wild Card: Jennifer Lawrence in The Silver Linings Playbook

There is no clear frontrunner here.  I guess Hathaway has the "we love her" Gwyneth Paltrow/Sandra Bullock vote, but otherwise, not so much.  There could be a splitting of votes if screen newcomer Barks (the only main cast member transferring from Broadway) gets in.  Another thing that could skew the way is the possibility of either Linney or Kidman going supporting instead of lead.   Although I have not seen any of the performances in question yet, I would like to see Bening finally win her Oscar here.  As far as our wild card goes, she could sneak in here with the help of her popularity in The Hunger Games.  Other possibilities include Kerry Washington in Django Unchained, Vanessa Redgrave in A Song for Marion, Pauline Collins in Quartet, Jacki Weaver in The Silver Linings Playbook, Penélope Cruz in To Rome With Love and Olivia Williams as Eleanor Roosevelt in Hyde Park on Hudson.

Well that's it for my early bird Oscar predictions.  I suppose I could go on and talk about Original Screenplay (The Master, Hyde Park on Hudson, Django, Brave, Imogene, maybe Zero Dark Thirty) or Adapted Screenplay (Lincoln, Life of Pi, Les Miz, Anna Karenina, Silver Linings Playbook, maybe Argo or Gatsby) or Cinematography (Gravity, Django, Lincoln, Les Miz, Gatsby, maybe Dark Knight Rises) or Art Direction (Gatsby, Les Miz, Prometheus, The Hobbit, Moonrise Kingdom, maybe Dark Knight or Dark Shadows) or Film Editing (The Master, Django, Zero Dark Thirty, Les Miz, Argo, maybe Dark Knight or Gravity) or Costume Design (Anna Karenina, Lincoln, Great Expectations, Gatsby, Les Miz, maybe Snow White and the Huntsman or Hyde Park) or Original Score (Lincoln, Argo, Brave, Anna Karenina, The Hobbit, maybe Life of Pi or Snow White, or even Dark Knight) or Best Sound Mixing (Prometheus, Brave, Dark Knight, The Avengers, Les Miz, maybe The Hobbit or Snow White or Gravity) or Sound Editing (The Avengers, Dark Knight, Prometheus, Hunger Games, Zero Dark Thirty, maybe Brave or The Hobbit or Gravity) or Visual Effects (Prometheus, Dark Knight, The Hobbit, The Avengers, Spidey, maybe Life of Pi or Battleship or Gravity) or Make-Up (Lincoln, Les Miz, The Hobbit, Hyde Park, Looper, maybe Dark Knight) or Original Song (?????).  Well look at that, I guess I did go on and talk about those.  Anyway, that's it folks.  See you with newer, and probably better predictions a bit closer to the actual day.

Who SHOULD Win the Oscar Poll Results

Almost a month ago, a few days after this year's Oscar nominations were announced, you my faithful and constant readers (thanx to Mrs. Parker for the borrowing of at least part of that phrase) were asked to choose which film you think should win this year's Oscar for Best Picture.  Not the film that will win (which incidentally seems to be more than a foregone conclusion at this point) but which film you would vote for if you were a member of the Academy.  Did you pick the swaying genius of The Tree of Life or the giddy nostalgia of The Artist or Hugo?   Did you cast your vote for Woody back in Woody form in the magically inclined Midnight in Paris?  What about the love of the game directness of Moneyball or the dramatic poignancy of The Descendants?  Did you vote for the succulent looking but emotionally manipulative War Horse?  What of the pandering mediocrity of The Help, which though wonderfully acted all around, saddled with the most inane screenplay imaginable?  Or perhaps your choice was for the insipid atrocity that was Incredibly Loud and Obnoxiously Close?  Perhaps you can see a bit of my own leanings from the above statements, but after all, I am one of those nasty critics everyone speaks so badly about.  Anyway, on with the results of the poll.

In no real surprise, and by a veritable landslide, Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, easily the most acclaimed film of 2011 and my own personal favourite, wins the thing hands down as they say.  Garnering 31 votes (out of an overall total of 72 cast), which is another way of saying 43%, Malick's gorgeous film (hated and reviled by much of the mindless multiplex masses) is our big winner.  I would love to see it spoken when they open that final envelope of the night on Sunday, but that, as they are prone to say, ain't gonna happen brothah.

Coming in at a distant second and third are a pair of films that look back into the annals of cinema history.  With 12 votes (16%), just squeaking out the silver medal spot by one vote, is Martin Scorsese's Hugo.  This film, my second favourite of the year, is followed by the frontrunner to win the actual Oscar, The Artist, grabbing 11 votes (15%).  Pretty much from the beginning this was really a race between these two motion pictures for the honour of coming in second to The Tree of Life, and it was nearly a photo finish - but in the end, Hugo had all four feet off the ground.  In case you do not get that last reference, check out some, appropriately enough, very early, pre-film history here.  

That brings us to the rest of this nine horse pack.  With 6 votes (8%), coming in in fourth place is Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, which in turn is followed by Moneyball and The Descendants in a tie for fifth with 4 votes (5%) each.  Then we have those lesser films - and not just in my not-so-humble opinion but apparently in the voter's eyes as well.  With 2 votes (2%) apiece are Steven Spielberg's visually stunning (see I can say good things too) War Horse and that 9/11 work of arrogant stupidity (okay, not everything can have good said about them) Incredibly Overblown and Ridiculously Annoying.  Then we have that last place finisher, The Help, in a sad state of affairs, grabbing exactly zero votes. 

Well, there you have it true believers (now I must thank Stan Lee for usurping his tagline) - the results of how you would vote if you were a member of the "illustrious" Academy.  And speaking of the "illustrious" Academy, I will be back on Saturday to announce my final predictions for these so talked about Oscars.  Until then.....

Film Review: War Horse

Despite his irregularly inflated reputation among those movie going masses that flock in droves to see the director's works (and hand him inevitable yet inexplicable accolades), and in spite of the fact that the man can shell out one hell of a good action yarn, making his war torn movies explode with visual audacity, Steven Spielberg can be an extremely cloying, emotionally manipulative and downright syrupy filmmaker.  With War Horse, his epic-wannabe World War I heart-tugging adventure story of a young man and his horse (or actually of a horse and his young man), Spielberg has accomplished to gather both sides of his filmmaking personality, the exciting actioner and the trite manipulator, into one fell cinematic swoop.

Playing at plastic emotions as always, the first act of Spielberg's movie, set in the rolling hills of Devon, England, is one long roiling melodrama of heart and hope and typical Spielbergian hooey.  Once we get into the trenches of WWI France, the film predictably picks up, as the director's true forte is action - and he gives us plenty of it.  As we follow this heroic yet somewhat hapless horse around the battlefields of war torn Europe, at times a steely mount of the allies, and at other times a bruised and battered pack animal of those damned pointy-helmeted boys of the Kaiser, the adventure is ofttimes quite spectacular.  One scene in particular, as we see our intrepid hero running through the ramparts of war, leaping across trenches and facing down tanks, bravely rescuing a fellow equine, charging full throttle through the barbed wire terrors of war, is easily one of the ten or fifteen best filmed sequences in any movie this year.  Sadly though, as the war happily comes to an end, Spielberg throttles it back into the oversentimentalized (and this complaint is coming from a very sentimental critic) tropes that give his films such an unneeded extra layer of thick fattening sauce.

I suppose when all is finally said and done, War Horse is not a terrible film, but then again it is certainly not a film I can recommend to anyone but the die hard Spielbergian filmgoer - whoever they may be.   I once (half-jokingly) included the first twenty minutes of Spielberg's 1998 war opus Saving Private Ryan in my best of the year list, and I could probably do the same here, though War Horse's powerful twenty minutes or so are scattered in pieces throughout, and unlike the aforementioned Private Ryan, these few saving graces are not enough to rescue an otherwise trembling piece of manipulatively emotional moviemaking as War Horse ends up being.  In the end, the better bet would be to go and see the contemporaneously released other Spielberg movie, The Adventures of Tintin (made by the action-fueled side of the director and hence a much better picture) and leave this trying film in the dark - even with its inevitably demanded forthcoming Oscar nominations (cloying has always done rather well at Oscar time) in tow.

Film Review: The Adventures of Tintin

Even after seeing the rather rousing Steven Spielberg-directed mo-cap The Adventures of Tintin, I still cannot say I am a big fan of motion capture animation, those cherub cheeked half human hybrids lost somewhere in that uncanny valley one hears speak of, but as far as cinematic adventures go, the director, playing once again at his popcorn-fueled breakneck Indiana Jones/Jurassic Park pace, has created a rollicking, unpretentious, nearly non-stop swashbuckling hell of a fun ride.

First coming into contact with the Belgian comic book adventures of intrepid manchild Tintin back in 1981, after reading comparisons to Raiders of the Lost Ark, and as legend would have it, immediately falling in love with writer/artist Hergé's sleek and simple designs, Spielberg befriended the comic book creator (whose real name was George Remi) and would eventually acquire the rights to film his own version of the adventures of this beloved (but admittedly little-known outside of Europe) comic character.  Cut to 2011, and years of artistic purgatory, and finally the director of E.T. and Hook has put character to screen to create what he himself has rather arrogantly, but innocently enough, called "Indiana Jones for kids."  The end result may feel a little funny at times (I still cannot get past the mo-cap style, though to give the director his due, this is the closest I have yet come to doing so) and the payoff of the finale may not quite live up to the promise of its earlier set pieces, but all-in-all, it is indeed a balls-out parade of action and adventure and good old fashioned storytelling that Spielberg is always capable, of but rarely able to pull off in such a consistently effective manner.

Featuring Jamie "Billy Elliot" Bell in the titular role of journalist-cum-detective Tintin and mo-cap poster child Andy "Gollum" Serkis as his salty, besotted sea cap'n compatriot Haddock (not to mention nerd patrol bro-couple Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in the bumbling roles of inept policemen Thomson and Thompson - two characters that give the film its occasional screwball bent), The Adventures of Tintin is a story of intrigue and skulduggery, full of the MacGuffins of Spielberg's beloved Hitchcock, as well as high seas pirate adventures, Indiana Jones-esque sky hijinx and a Moroccan-set car chase involving man, dog and hawk that will knock your proverbial socks off.  In other words, this is Spielberg, not wearing his morose serious face (which, even though overblown at times, does have its place in the director's oeuvre), but doing what he has always done best - telling a story full of bravura and classical cinematic kismet, while never thinking itself to be too high-minded to laugh at itself and its own tricks and tropes.

This is the kind of classical filmmaking, though ironically here, using some of the most advanced technological tools available, that first made Spielberg a star among the young turk Hollywood of the 1970's, and would inspire J.J. Abrams to make Super 8 earlier this year, his own homage to the director.  I personally have always been much more of a fan of the fun-loving, rather than the serious-minded Spielberg (the director's serious-minded companion piece War Horse is due out any day now and I suspect it will have much the same cloying effect that well-received but fault-laden films like Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan had), and this animated adventure tale certainly falls into that category.  It also doesn't hurt to have a screenplay written by Edgar "Shaun of the Dead & Hot Fuzz" Wright, Joe "Attack the Block" Cornish and Steven "Doctor Who" Moffat.  These writers, also in a fun-loving mood, bring the characters of Hergé to bold and brilliant life - even if they are in mo-cap (the process, though at its best here, still has its bugs).

Now here, as in the comic, the character of Tintin is played as nothing more than a pragmatic and idealistic centerpiece for the much more layered supporting cast to rally around (or against as the case may be), so the character seems a bit flat at times, but the playfulness of the comics is given full share of these aforementioned adventures (the opening credits let us know right away that this will indeed be the case) and even the motion capture style has, as they say, come a long way baby.  Playing out as some sort of blend of Indiana Jones (think the original Raiders or even Last Crusade) and The Pirates of the Caribbean (the actual Disney World ride, not the eponymous and increasingly annoying movie franchise) this first in its own inevitable animated franchise (Peter Jackson, who acts as producer here will supposedly take the director reigns of the next one) may not make the best use of 3D and CGI this holiday season (that would be Scorsese's succulent and homage-filled Hugo) but still, The Adventures of Tintin (subtitled The Secret of the Unicorn in some circles), despite its flaws, is one of the most rollicking, unpretentious, nearly non-stop swashbuckling hell of a good times to be had in cinema today.   Granted, it may not be a great film (though solidly good throughout with moments of sheer cinematic giddiness), but it sure is fun fun fun - and that is what this Spielberg is all about.

Anomalous Material Weekly Feature: 10 Best Steven Spielberg Films

As you may already know, I now take up weekly residence over at the great film site Anomalous Material.  The fine folks over there have given me a regular weekly gig as feature writer (the fools!!).  It is a regular series of top ten lists on various cinematic subjects (and anyone who knows me can attest to how perfectly suited I am to such an endeavor - yes I am a list nerd).  This week's feature piece (my fifth) is a look at director Steven Spielberg and the 10.2 films I consider his best.  You will just have to go read the list to find out what that .2 is all about.

Read my feature article, "10 Best Steven Spielberg Films" at Anomalous Material.

See, Steven wasn't always the serious-minded director.  Actually, as the story goes, Spielberg and buddy George Lucas, to the obvious chagrin of the money men, damaged "Bruce the Shark" while playing around with him drunk one night.

The Cinematheque Reviews: J.J. Abrams' Super 8

Even the poster, with its obvious nod to late seventies, early eighties adventure movies, has it in spades.  Has what you ask?  Nostalgia, that's what.  In Super 8, J.J. Abrams homage to his mentor and master Steven Spielberg, a movie that is at least on the surface a monster movie, we get a full dose of nostalgia.  A nostalgia for those woebegone days when we as kids ran around our neighborhoods playing all sorts of make-believe.  You know, the kind of imagery that the younger Spielberg once populated his films with.  Abrams gives it a less cloying and more bang-pop-ness than his idol and it is in this blend of stylistic choices that Super 8 (see, even the title rings of nostalgia) succeeds as a movie.  And I like the blue lens flares too.

Read my review of Super 8 at The Cinematheque.