Oscar Cliffs Notes.
OK, so I've been using my WGA card to full advatage and scoping as many Oscar-nominated films as possible over the last few weeks -- for free! And thank God they were free, because lemme tell you, overall I'm far less impressed than I thought I would be. I can't remember an Oscar season when so many movies got such great buzz AS "SERIOUS films" and had such obvious flaws. Sure they're more or less entertaining, but is this the best film can do? Really?
Nevertheless, as we approach my annual Oscar gathering, I thought I'd sum up and get a conversation going. Maybe I'm just being a curmudgeon and you can all set me to rights.
DREAMGIRLS
First, the good news: Jennifer Hudson does a great job, and also she's a plus-size hottie. What a great real-life success story for her, too, it does a heart good to hear about it. Eddie Murphy also kicks ass, and looks especially cool in his character's 1970s incarnation -- check him out in his Marvin Gaye skullcap. Damn.
Now the bad news. Uh, did anyone notice that the lyrics to every single song unequivocally SUCK? "We are family/Like a giant tree?" Are you fucking SERIOUS? That's the kind of line I'd come up with if I was making a parody of a musical.
Also, there's the small issue that the story of "Dreamgirls" unapologetically mirrors the rise of Motown records and the Supremes. Right down to the fictional girl-group replacing their original (and more talented) brassy frontlady with a wispy-voiced Diana Ross type, so's to score points with white audiences. That's fine. The problem is that (WARNING: SPOILER) in real life, the brassy frontlady died young, destitute and bitter as result of this backstabbery. Whereas in the "Dreamgirls" version, her former bandmates rally to her aide and help her win out over the double-crossing Berry Gordy-ish svengali. Now, musicals are of course known for their gloss and glitter, but hey, if you're gonna go to the trouble of aping a real-life tragedy -- one many in the audience know very well -- to turn it into a feel-good story of friendship feels downright condescending.
And y'know, there was a time when Oscars went to musicals that weren't afraid of serious grit -- witness "Cabaret." "Dreamgirls," in fact, practically begs to be taken that seriously, with its nods to Martin Luther King, the nascent Civil Rights Movement, and the Detroit riots of the '60s. But it sells out all its aspirations with a whitewashed ending.
CHILDREN OF MEN
As usual for this year's Oscar contenders, a really well-made film. It's perfectly paced, beautifully acted (Michael Caine is just fantastic), and stunningly photographed. The action sequences may be some of the most intense ever shot (if you've seen the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that I can't imagine how someone didn't die during the filming of that one motocycle stunt). And I appreciate the horrific depiction of sectarian violence. In this day and age, we need this kind of bracing reminder of what street warfare must really be like. Grit? Oh, we got grit.
But ultimately it's all in the service of a pretty pedestrian story: A cynical guy rediscovers his humanity by helping to save an innocent. It's dressed up in a bit of religious parable and injected with some modern politics, but ultimately it says nothing new about religion or politics or really anything. Again, that doesn't mean it's a bad film -- it's well worth seeing. I just don't understand why so many critics have heralded it as such a breakthrough.
NOTES ON A SCANDAL
Again, great performances all around. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit the tension gets ratcheted up to a fever pitch by the end of Act Two. But again, a copout ending. (WARNING: SPOILER) I mean, the protagonist's husband just takes her back? The reporters just magically disappear? Judi Dench's character just lets the object of her obsessive affection walk away? None of this makes any emotional sense. And for a movie this misanthropic, I think I expected a little bit more than a screechy shouting match for a climax.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
I've got no problem with the film itself. I think it does exactly what it sets out to do, and does it really well. Probably one of the best examples ever of the "Quirky Family" subgenre of American indie films. And here, by the way , is an example of a movie where the ending is downright brilliant -- totally surprising, hilarious, and perfect.
My problem is that it's been heralded in some quarters as this ultra-rebellious movie. Now, there's no doubt it has an important point to make about the bullshit standards of our society -- impossible standards of beauty, behavior, decency and "family values" that don't seem to take into account uniqueness of any kind. But come on! I think it was David Denby of the New Yorker that called this one of the most subversive films of the year. Really? In a year of documentary films that explored, for instance, the U.S. policy in Guantanamo? Or spoke with the children who survived the school massacre in Chechnya? Or made plain the Inconvenient Truth of global warming? More subversive than "Borat"? More subversive than "V for Vendetta," in which blowing up Parliament is considered a happy ending?
Guys, it's a fun indie film with a little something to say. Enjoy it, but in a post-9/11 world, the word "subversive" has got to to be ascribed to something a little more, I dunno, subversive.
THE DEPARTED
As always, Scorcese straps you into a violent rocket ride, and you just hang on for dear life. No question this movie is the work of a master. But it's not a masterpiece. In fact it could be argued that it's one of his least personal films, and has the least depth. Sure, it has fewer flaws -- and a tighter narrative -- than say "Gangs of New York," but in stripping everything down to workmanlike basics, Scorcese loses the mad power that makes his best films unique. Figures "The Departed" is probably the movie that'll net him his Oscar.
More later, I gotta work.
Nevertheless, as we approach my annual Oscar gathering, I thought I'd sum up and get a conversation going. Maybe I'm just being a curmudgeon and you can all set me to rights.
DREAMGIRLS
First, the good news: Jennifer Hudson does a great job, and also she's a plus-size hottie. What a great real-life success story for her, too, it does a heart good to hear about it. Eddie Murphy also kicks ass, and looks especially cool in his character's 1970s incarnation -- check him out in his Marvin Gaye skullcap. Damn.
Now the bad news. Uh, did anyone notice that the lyrics to every single song unequivocally SUCK? "We are family/Like a giant tree?" Are you fucking SERIOUS? That's the kind of line I'd come up with if I was making a parody of a musical.
Also, there's the small issue that the story of "Dreamgirls" unapologetically mirrors the rise of Motown records and the Supremes. Right down to the fictional girl-group replacing their original (and more talented) brassy frontlady with a wispy-voiced Diana Ross type, so's to score points with white audiences. That's fine. The problem is that (WARNING: SPOILER) in real life, the brassy frontlady died young, destitute and bitter as result of this backstabbery. Whereas in the "Dreamgirls" version, her former bandmates rally to her aide and help her win out over the double-crossing Berry Gordy-ish svengali. Now, musicals are of course known for their gloss and glitter, but hey, if you're gonna go to the trouble of aping a real-life tragedy -- one many in the audience know very well -- to turn it into a feel-good story of friendship feels downright condescending.
And y'know, there was a time when Oscars went to musicals that weren't afraid of serious grit -- witness "Cabaret." "Dreamgirls," in fact, practically begs to be taken that seriously, with its nods to Martin Luther King, the nascent Civil Rights Movement, and the Detroit riots of the '60s. But it sells out all its aspirations with a whitewashed ending.
CHILDREN OF MEN
As usual for this year's Oscar contenders, a really well-made film. It's perfectly paced, beautifully acted (Michael Caine is just fantastic), and stunningly photographed. The action sequences may be some of the most intense ever shot (if you've seen the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that I can't imagine how someone didn't die during the filming of that one motocycle stunt). And I appreciate the horrific depiction of sectarian violence. In this day and age, we need this kind of bracing reminder of what street warfare must really be like. Grit? Oh, we got grit.
But ultimately it's all in the service of a pretty pedestrian story: A cynical guy rediscovers his humanity by helping to save an innocent. It's dressed up in a bit of religious parable and injected with some modern politics, but ultimately it says nothing new about religion or politics or really anything. Again, that doesn't mean it's a bad film -- it's well worth seeing. I just don't understand why so many critics have heralded it as such a breakthrough.
NOTES ON A SCANDAL
Again, great performances all around. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit the tension gets ratcheted up to a fever pitch by the end of Act Two. But again, a copout ending. (WARNING: SPOILER) I mean, the protagonist's husband just takes her back? The reporters just magically disappear? Judi Dench's character just lets the object of her obsessive affection walk away? None of this makes any emotional sense. And for a movie this misanthropic, I think I expected a little bit more than a screechy shouting match for a climax.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
I've got no problem with the film itself. I think it does exactly what it sets out to do, and does it really well. Probably one of the best examples ever of the "Quirky Family" subgenre of American indie films. And here, by the way , is an example of a movie where the ending is downright brilliant -- totally surprising, hilarious, and perfect.
My problem is that it's been heralded in some quarters as this ultra-rebellious movie. Now, there's no doubt it has an important point to make about the bullshit standards of our society -- impossible standards of beauty, behavior, decency and "family values" that don't seem to take into account uniqueness of any kind. But come on! I think it was David Denby of the New Yorker that called this one of the most subversive films of the year. Really? In a year of documentary films that explored, for instance, the U.S. policy in Guantanamo? Or spoke with the children who survived the school massacre in Chechnya? Or made plain the Inconvenient Truth of global warming? More subversive than "Borat"? More subversive than "V for Vendetta," in which blowing up Parliament is considered a happy ending?
Guys, it's a fun indie film with a little something to say. Enjoy it, but in a post-9/11 world, the word "subversive" has got to to be ascribed to something a little more, I dunno, subversive.
THE DEPARTED
As always, Scorcese straps you into a violent rocket ride, and you just hang on for dear life. No question this movie is the work of a master. But it's not a masterpiece. In fact it could be argued that it's one of his least personal films, and has the least depth. Sure, it has fewer flaws -- and a tighter narrative -- than say "Gangs of New York," but in stripping everything down to workmanlike basics, Scorcese loses the mad power that makes his best films unique. Figures "The Departed" is probably the movie that'll net him his Oscar.
More later, I gotta work.