Promised Land (***)

PROMISED LAND
Directed by Gus van Sant

***

The last time Gus van Sant and Matt Damon worked together on a film, they produced Good Will Hunting. Hunting became a huge splash, won a couple of Oscars, ran through a gauntlet of cruel backlash haterism and has now settled into a place in cinematic history that it truly earned: a sentimental, albeit heartfelt melodrama that combined fantastic performances and a smart script to tell a really effective story. Good Will Hunting's meteoric rise still has many detractors, but I love it. So that being said, Damon's reunion with van Sant in this latest movie, Promised Land really peaked my interest. This time, instead of writing with hometown friend Ben Affleck, Damon penned the script with another popular actor, John Krasinski. The result is a film that falls short of the greatness of Hunting but is still pretty damn good.

The Impossible (*1/2)

THE IMPOSSIBLE
Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona

*1/2

The 2004 Tsunami disaster was one of the biggest natural disasters in our memory, an unrelenting force that blew through several countries and wrecked havoc unlike any we've ever seen. The Impossible takes a peak at this phenomenon through an interesting prism: an English family visiting a Thai beach resort. What follows is a brutal display of just how powerful and destructive this tsunami was through the eyes of a single family. We see just about all you'd expect from this kind of film, and lot of things you wouldn't expect. What we don't get though, is the tight, coherent film that this story deserves.

Best Director Blame Game

One thing that people have not been able to STFU about since the Oscar nominations were announced this Thursday was the big surprise in the Best Director category. Here's the official line-up:

Michael Haneke, Amour
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Behn Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

The big shock? That only one of the high profile directors expected for a nomination (Spielberg) actually made the final five. Left off were the legitimate contenders in Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) and Ben Affleck (Argo), as well as two other directors that made uneven films and puzzling directorial choices but that were also late-season megahits (Hooper for Les Mis and Tarantino for Django). It's become a big deal, getting media coverage even in non-movie-lover's circles, including the influential sports writer, Bob Simmons, who took to Twitter with his complaints.

So, technically speaking, this is the final five that would have made general audience Oscar followers happy (and I'm using "general audience" in the pejorative, slightly condescending sense in that these are the people that, more or less, only go to the movies to watch easy-to-swallow, basic-three-act kinds of movies - which makes up a majority of people but doesn't exactly make the best subjective choices):

Ten Things I Liked/Didn't Like In This Year's Oscar Nominations

As I'm sure many of you have already heard, the Oscar nominations were released this morning (here's a full list of all the nominees) to much fanfare. Today is always like my second Christmas, even though I'm not always fond of what Oscar Santa comes to bring me. This morning brought quite a handful of surprises and at least two SHOCKER!'s, so here are ten things that I liked/didn't like - in no particular order or ranking.

1) Beasts of the Southern Wild and Amour hit the jackpot
Both Beasts and Amour were nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (Beasts in Adapted, Amour in Original), fairing far better than most probably predicted, and it brings me GREAT delight since these were probably the two best movies of 2012. Beasts director Behn Zeitlin (all things considered, a very pretentious name) getting the Best Director nod was probably the biggest surprise of the morning. I'm not sure how well they'll do when it comes to actually winning, but if this gets lots of more people to see these movies, then I'm happy.

2) Paul Thomas Anderson shut out
You knew I was going to talk about this. His movie, The Master, amassed three overall nominations, all for acting (Joaquin Phoenix - Lead Actor; Amy Adams - Supporting Actress; Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Supporting Actor), but the eccentric writer/director was nominated for neither Best Director (which was expected) or Best Original Screenplay (which was less expected). It's hard not to feel bitter when P.T. Anderson can't scurry up a nomination for Original Screenplay, while John Gatins' heavy-handed script for Flight can.

Considered a lock throughout the whole race,
Affleck ends up without a nomination

3) Best Director shake-up
As I said earlier, Paul Thomas Anderson had fallen off and was never really a true contender for Best Director. But Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) and Ben Affleck (Argo) were. Their movies managed to get Best Picture noms, but it seemed like Affleck and Bigelow were the front runners to win Director, so when they get left off completely - it's very surprising. Especially considering that Ang Lee (Life of Pi) and David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) managed to squeak in. Les Miserables director Tom Hooper, also a safe bet before this morning, was left off the list as well. Suddenly, Spielberg's third Oscar seems imminent.

4) Silver Linings Playbook goes 4/4 in acting
Silver Linings Playbook became the first movie since 1981's Reds (that's 31 years, folks) to get a nomination in all four acting categories. Jennifer Lawrence and Robert DeNiro were pretty much locks, but Bradley Cooper was still lingering around the edges and Jacki Weaver was a total shock. To be honest, I didn't think Weaver had a whole lot to do in the movie and I didn't think she was in the running at all. That enough people liked her so much in it to get her a nomination is something outside of my realm of understanding, but considering how weak this category is this year, it makes some sort of sense. The other three performances? Good to see them recognized.

5) Oscar actually liked Django Unchained
Though I didn't see it this way, many thought that Django Unchained's high marks were more internet-generated, Tarantino-fanboy noise rather than actual buzz. But Django walked away with nominations for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Christoph Waltz), Best Cinematography (Robert Richardson) and Best Original Screenplay. I personally would have swapped out DiCaprio for Waltz myself, but don't have much issue with Waltz getting nominated EXCEPT for the fact that....

6) Best Supporting Actorzzzzzzzzzz
All five of the actors nominated for Best Supporting Actor this year are previous Oscar winners. I know that is just circumstantial and shouldn't matter a whole lot when it comes to actually nominating actors, but when Alan Arkin and Christoph Waltz have already been held the statue for reheated versions of the same characters, I would have liked to have seen something a little spicier added to the mix (like DiCaprio playing against type in Django; Samuel L. Jackson creating a villainous character unlike any other in the same film; and if they really had the balls they would have considered Dwight Henry's incredible work in Beasts of the Southern Wild).

7) Hushpuppy and Riva
I know I've already talked about Amour and Beasts crashing the party, but what a charming little factoid that we have here. Beasts little powerhouse Quvenzhane Wallis is the youngest ever Lead Actress nominee (at 9 years old), while Emmanuelle Riva (at 85 years old) is the oldest ever. I love how this piece of trivia connects these two considering that they are probably my two favorite performances from this category and neither were really considered locks going into nomination morning. Really, I'm just glad they got in and that they get to share that piece of history.

In this round of Lincoln vs. Zero Dark
Thirty, Lincoln wins in a landslide

8) Exciting Oscar nominations, boring ceremony
As exciting as it was to see how the nominations ended up shaking out, this has pretty much led to what will be a very uneventful ceremony on February 24th. With Zero Dark Thirty failing to get a nomination in Best Director or Best Cinematography, is there any doubt that Lincoln is just going to crush it and hog all the awards? Unless you think Life of Pi's surprising haul of 11 nominations means it's a threat to win - I don't. That's the one issue about Beasts and Amour getting all the nominations that they, cause we essentially know that the industry considers that awards enough for them and they don't really have a legitimate shot at winning. It's still early but it may be time to just fast-forward six weeks.

9) Seth MacFarlane might actually be good at hosting
I know it was only for less than ten minutes and he owes a lot of credit to Emma Stone who stood next to him, looked absolutely adorable and got just as many laughs, but MacFarlane was actually really funny as he wheeled off the nominations. This pains me as an admitted Seth MacFarlane hater. The announcement was a lot less stiff than usual, which I imagine was MacFarlane's idea, and it actually made the whole thing watchable (usually its just the president of the Academy and some actress staring blankly at the camera). If he manages to de-stiff the actual Oscar ceremony in the same fashion, then that's a real achievement.

10) I'm still sad about Paul Thomas Anderson
Let's just not talk about it.

I know, Paul. I feel exactly the same way.

FINAL Oscar Nomination Predictions

This year's Oscar nominations come earlier then ever, early Thursday morning. So, for anyone participating in any pools, here's what I see getting announced. I will have to admit that I'm more hopeful for The Master and Beasts of the Southern Wild than most people, so take that with a grain of salt:

Best Actor
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
John Hawkes, The Sessions
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Argo
Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

Best Supporting Actor
Amy Adams, The Master
Ann Dowd, Compliance
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Best Director
Ben Affleck, Argo
Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
Tom Hooper, Les Miserables
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

Best Original Screenplay
Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master
Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom
Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty
Michael Haneke, Amour
Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

Best Adapted Screenplay
Lucy Alibar & Behn Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Tony Kushner, Lincoln
Ben Lewin, The Sessions
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Chris Terrio, Argo

Best Picture
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

The tech awards and everything else after the jump.

That's A Wrap: The Best Everything In Movies From 2012 (pt. 2)

So, last week I made my list of what I thought were the ten best films of the 2012. Now, I will breakdown all of my faves in the specific categories - think of this like my own personal Oscar ballot. Off we go!

Best Actor
TIE - Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Separating these two performances is just impossible for me. Phoenix is ferocious, capturing the attention of the audience every second he's on the screen. Hoffman is conniving and jovial, with constant simmer of a breakdown coming. I really don't know if either of the two have ever been better on the silver screen.

Overall Ballot:
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

That's A Wrap: The Best Everything In Movies From 2012 (With a 2011 Make-Up!)

For all intensive purposes, 2012 was a pretty great year for movies. There always seemed to be quality product in the theaters no matter what time of year, and even the worst movie I saw this year (The Expendables 2 by far) was enough dumb fun to make it seem like it wasn't a total waste of a movie ticket. I even enjoyed the few franchise box office candy that I just so happened to see as well. Like last year, though, 2012 lacked that one great movie. It wasn't like there was a No Country For Old Men or a Hurt Locker roaming around to soak up the instant classic mojo, but it did have consistent awesomeness. Because I'm lacking a de facto, front-running "best movie of the year", I will comprise my 10 Best List into alphabetized tiers. After all, it's almost unfair to compare the few films I've spent brooding over for months (The Master, Ruby Sparks) with the ones I was rushed to cram in during the holiday season (Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty). So, here are the 10 Best Movies in 2012... in three sections:

THE BEST OF THE BEST
The definitive best. All could probably be considered for the #1 spot depending on my mood.

Amour

Beautifully told, stupendously acted and so overwhelmingly heartbreaking, Michael Haneke's Amour is a story about facing mortality. Through the harrowing tale of Georges and Anne (an incredible, Oscar-deserving Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva), Haneke navigates the evolution of there decades-long marriage after a stroke slowly and surely begins to strip Anne of her health and later, of her most basic physical and cognitive functions. Being a director so obsessed with manipulating and affecting the viewer's experience, this may be the very first movie by Michael Haneke that I've actually enjoyed, and I must say that when he works for me, he really works. This film is stark in its portrayal, unflinching in the details, yet still manages a warmth because the love these two people have for each other. This isn't a love story, per se, but a story about the strength and power of true love.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

"Once there was a Hushpuppy and she lived with her Daddy in The Bathtub", so says the infectiously watchable main character - Hushpuppy (an otherworldy performance from the six-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis) - at the beginning and the end of the year's most wonderful spectacle. When you watch this movie for the first time, it's hard to tell where it takes place, what takes place in reality and what's in the imagination of a five-year-old girl. But you never feel off-balance, the basic plot holding strong: Hushpuppy and her abrasive but loving father Wink (Dwight Henry) fight to survive a hurricane in their impoverished neighborhood. But even after the storm, they must still fight to keep their scavenger society alive. A film about facing fears - whether it be the loss of your father or the emergence of pre-historic beasts - and the importance of heritage and society, Beasts of the Southern Wild holds two very different but very effective performances from Wallis and Henry that make this unlike any movie that I've ever seen.

Zero Dark Thirty (***1/2)

ZERO DARK THIRTY
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

***1/2

I've forever been fascinated by Kathryn Bigelow's career. For two decades she seemed to succeed in a man's business making "manly" products. But more than that, her projects were also so varied and striking. There's the cult favorite and pre-Twilight tween monster movie that she made in 1987, Near Dark. Then there's the equally beloved and scrutinized Point Break which brought with it a self-aware snark so high that it made it almost impossible for me not to fall in love with (plus Patrick Swayze and surfing). Her movies always seemed closer to Michael Bay than Penny Marshall, and it all came to a head when she became the first female ever to win the Best Director Oscar for her 2009 masterpiece The Hurt Locker. The media coronation of her seemed a bit strange, cause she always seemed more interested in being a great action filmmaker than 'The Great Female Director'. But it was a great story, either way.

Les Miserables (***)

LES MISERABLES
Directed by Tom Hooper

***

For various reasons, musicals don't sell in Hollywood like they used to. As movies began to gravitate more towards sensibility and realism in the late 1960's, the spectacle of the Hollywood musical fell out of favor. There's something very stage-y about the old films like The Band Wagon and Meet Me In St. Louis, and I don't think it's much of a coincidence that musicals still run on the stage for decades to acclaim and popularity. Truth is, there's enough spectacle on the screen already, and singing doesn't add a whole lot. I'd love to see someone make another Singin' In The Rain type movie, but instead of singing about the death of the silent film, they'd be singing about the death of their beloved musicals. But I guess I shouldn't really be giving away free, uncopyrighted pitches here.

Django Unchained (****)

DJANGO UNCHAINED
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino

****

The last two movies that Quentin Tarantino has made deal with the two biggest eras of racial injustice in America's two-plus centuries of existence. His first one, 2009's Inglourious Basterds, dealt with World War II, in which the German Nazis did their best to exterminate the entire Jewish race in a few years. In that war, the Americans were the good guys. But in his latest movie, Django Unchained, we're moved to what is probably the blackest (forgive the pun) point in the short history of this country: African American slavery. In this era, Southern Americans were not so much the bad guys as they were ignorant orchestrators of centuries worth of oppression that was so deeply rooted in the social and economic infrastructure that it wasn't even considered evil, it was considered a way of life. The Nazis seemed deranged in their genocide, while Americans were straight up stupid and entitled - a very dangerous combination.

Amour (****)

AMOUR
Written and Directed by Michael Haneke

****

Amour is about something that almost everybody has to deal with eventually, but that's not talked about very much, and is almost never shown with such stark detail as it is here. Georges and Anne are both retired music teachers, in their eighties, living in Paris with what appears to be a wholly solid, long-lasting marriage that has produced at least one daughter (at least, that's what the film shows) and several successful students that have gone on to success in the music industry. After decades of being together, I'd imagine that it would seem like nothing could pull you apart from your life partner. But when Anne has a stroke, and her quality of life begins to spiral down quickly and dramatically, it seems to be the first time that their near-lifelong commitment to each other will be tested.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (**1/2)

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
Directed by Peter Jackson

**1/2

There seems to be two kinds of people in the world. One type has read all of J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings books and sang the praises - high and loudly - of every frame of Peter Jackson's trilogy of film adaptations, even going on to further suggest that these three bloated films (all three hover around three hours, with the last one spilling way over) could be even longer with all the material that was left out of the screenplay. Another type (my type, in case that wasn't obvious already) never read the books and found the three movies to interminable - like cinematic waterboarding - and the thought that any of the movies could be even a second longer, makes this type of person ponder a manic, hard-to-keep-your-hand-off-the-knife kind of lunacy. Like Democrats and Republicans, these two types of people not only disagree but fail to see anything but stupidity in the other side's logic. So, alas, Peter Jackson went ahead and made The Hobbit into three movies, the first of which just came out, bringing the two sides clashing again, but I'd bet only one side is actually going to pay money to see it.

Holy Motors (***1/2)

HOLY MOTORS
Directed by Leo Carax

Holy Motors is a strange movie. But it seems strange in a David Lynchian sort of way, that seems to cry out for meaning - for a puzzle to be solved. (As opposed to strange in a The Master sort, which is mostly just eccentric and aimless, and by the end seems to be exactly about being aimless.) I have never been a huge Lynch fan. I consider Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr. to be two tremendous movies, but I don't know why. If you want so strongly to imbue a story with a foundation of metaphor and meaning, why make it so difficult to understand? Why make putting the puzzle together so much work? Well, you can only bang your head against a wall so many times before you realize what a dumb activity it is, and that's how I feel about finding meaning in Holy Motors. I just sat back and enjoyed the fantastic limousine ride.

Skyfall (***1/2)

SKYFALL
Directed by Sam Mendes

***1/2

I'd been staying away from Skyfall despite the craze over the latest James Bond film. Not because I had some reservation about the franchise, or that I had found that - based on trailers and reviews - that I didn't think the movie was that good. It was more because I have such unfamiliarity with the franchise (with Die Another Day being the only other film that I'd seen), that I didn't want to jump in with a story without true appreciation for its past and history. Kind of how I'm weary of watching the TV show The Wire because I find the concept of watching 60 one-hour episodes unbelievably daunting. But after the constant imploring of many friends, I finally buckled and saw the movie (over a month after its initial release, but I digress) discovering that the franchise's past films do not really hold any stock in just how remarkable a film it is.

Rust and Bone (***)

Rust and Bone
Directed by Jacques Audiard

***

The gulf between the roles that Marion Cotillard plays in her commercial American films and the ones in her native language seems large enough the fit a cruise through. Consider the ferocity of her Oscar-winning performance in La Vie en Rose and try to think if she's ever even done anything that commanding and demonstrative on an American screen. Perhaps it's not a fair comparison, because there are few actors who are ever as good/better in there second language (Javier Bardem?) - and she did come close in one particular scene in Nine, but that movie was an absolute garbage apart from that one glowing moment. Rust and Bone - part gritty love story, part redemption tale - gives Cotillard her first role with real meat since her pre-Oscar career.