Thoughts on the Oscars

Best Picture: Spotlight

This is somewhat a surprise. Spotlight was pegged as an Oscar contender early on after great critical acclaim. But the glut of nominations for The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road suggested they had jumped way out in front of the rest of the Best Picture contenders, and the former's pre-show buzz and wins in other major categories seemed to lock it in. It's a solid choice for the top prize, though. While it may not be the exhilarating work of entertainment those other two films are (both because of its subject matter and its unadorned style), Spotlight is a superbly acted and endlessly captivating piece of work, at once palpably outraging and also a restrained depiction of journalism as a public good.

Best Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant

This epitomized the battle of the two big, thrilling, eye-popping spectacles, The Revenant and Mad Max. The Revenant had the advantage of being a more "safe" picture for the Academy. It's a vivd historical re-creation shot in the elements, much more the Academy's forte than Fury Road's grungy sci-fi setting. It had one of the biggest and most acclaimed actors today practically killing himself in the lead role (seriously, it looked like it). And it had a past winner known for eclectic and ambitious stuff in the director's chair (although, Fury Road's George Miller is actually an Oscar-winner, for 2006's dancing penguin flick Happy Feet). So I'm not surprised Iñárritu took this one. I enjoyed Fury Road more out of these two films (and all films in 2015), so I was rooting for Miller (as well as for it to take Best Picture). But The Revenant was amazing, exciting, and beautiful to look at, so I can't find a whole lot of fault here.

Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant

 

Best Actress: Brie Larson, Room

I haven’t seen Room. Or for that matter, any of the nominated films. But still, no nomination for Charlize Theron as Furiosa?

Best Supporting Actor: Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies

Sylvester Stallone was the sentimental favorite for this one, and I almost found myself rooting for him like the final fight in a Rocky movie. But honestly, an award this late in his career for his seventh time playing the same character seems like an excuse to give Sly an unofficial lifetime achievement award (à la John Wayne in True Grit) instead of truly deserved. This would have been all the more underlined by the fact that Creed received no other nominations. Mark Rylance winning isn’t terribly surprising, as he’s a distinguished serious actor in a historical feature right up the Academy’s alley. He was solid in Bridge of Spies, but the best nominee here was Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight. Struggling to maintain his journalistic composure and detachment, something that becomes harder and harder as more heinous truths come out about the story he's investigating, Ruffalo was as good as any of his co-stars, but also the audience’s main emotional vessel. It was arguably more of a co-lead performance than supporting, but I guess it’s hard to single out any one lead above the rest in an ensemble work like this.

Best supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl

I haven't seen The Danish Girl. Of the two nominees here I've seen, Jennifer Jason Leigh was about the fifth most interesting character in The Hateful Eight, while Rachel McAdams was as strong as the rest of the team in Spotlight.

Snubs:

In regards to the controversy about the lack of diversity among the nominees, I offer my opinions of some of the films that became points of contention for their snubs.

I liked Creed, but I wouldn't put it among the best films of 2015. It was an entertaining feelgood piece of Hollywood underdog comfort food. But underneath Ryan Coogler's new touches, it was still the old Rocky formula, and it takes more than that to really move me.

Concussion, I did not think was very good.

I really enjoyed Straight Outta Compton. It was well within the standard biopic parameters, to be sure. But the thing is, the Academy loves biopics. Look through lists of nominees going back decades and you'll find plenty of biopics up for at least acting categories, if not other top awards. So, why would the Academy mostly ignore one of the better ones in a while, one with some of the best musical sequences ever filmed and some still-timely cultural relevance, while showering awards on dry, blatant awards bait like The King's Speech? Some may point to race, but maybe it is just that Oscar voters are an old bunch with tastes out of step with current culture. In which case, this controversy did some good by pushing the Academy to clean house and bring in some new members (not to mention made for some very sharp and entertaining stuff from Chis Rock as host).

As for the films that were nominated, the Academy seems to have finally figured out this expanded Best Picture category. All eight films were also nominated for acting, directing, or writing, instead of one or two nominees who were there purely as an unspoken honorable mention with no shot of winning. Of the six I've seen, I can't argue against them being up there. However, some of their acting nominees I might have done differently. I think Mark Ruffalo was very good in Spotlight, but they could have just as easily swapped him for Michael Keaton, Liev Schreiber, or Stanley Tucci. Such is the conundrum of such a great ensemble effort. The Big Short similarly had a strong group of equal players, but Steve Carell is the one who really stood out more so than Christian Bale. His performance, alternately his usual awkwardness and righteous, polemical rage, showed his range is far greater than comedy (people said that about his turn in Foxcatcher last year, but I disagreed).

I was also kind of hoping Ridley Scott would get a Best Director nomination for The Martian, and then finally take home the prize that has eluded him. I realize I just sort of argued against giving out unofficial "career" awards, but you could argue he deserved it for The Martian solely on its own merits. It's a very good film.

Where to Invade Next

People probably make up their mind about a Michael Moore movie before they even see it. He appears to have taken that to heart with his newest doc Where to Invade Next.  Viewers might be surprised to find little of the anger, sardonicism, and clear, firm political stance of his films like Roger & Me or Fahrenheit 9/11. On the contrary, Moore displays an uncharacteristic restraint so as to engage, not enrage, about the subjects at hand. This works in favor of the points he presents, even though the presentation is a little staler than usual.

The picture sees the professional muckraker take his film crew abroad under the pretext of "invading" other countries to steal their best policy ideas and take them back to America (but really, he just talks to people about them). Some of the ideas he encounters are already well-known to most Americans, such as how other countries have way better schools (better curriculum, better coursework, a better deal for college-goers, even better school lunches). Or how the U.S. is the only country without mandatory paid vacation days. Or how the country of Iceland, which went bankrupt in the 2008 financial crisis, clawed itself out of the economic abyss by taking a decidedly different approach than the U.S. 

Other things he finds are quite eye-opening. One example is a visit to a Norwegian prison, the surprises in which are simply hilariously stunning. Another is how the North African country Tunisia, only a few years removed from gaining democracy in the Arab Spring, already has constitutionally guaranteed equality for women, which the U.S. does not. That turns out to be a recurring theme, the fact that the U.S. is not only behind on representation of women, but that countries with women in positions of business or government power seem to function pretty well.

Through all these travels, the attention-getting stunts and guerilla ambush interviews that are Moore’s forte are nowhere in sight, and his sarcastic comedic bent is kept to a minimum. Yes, he injects some humor into his discussions (there’s a jab at the last President that still lands nearly eight years later), and the usual suspects (i.e., Fox News talking heads) appear in snippets as the face of ineffective American policy. But Moore himself is pretty subdued. Instead, he lets his subjects do most of the talking, which makes a stronger case.

That also accounts for the movie’s relative weakness in form. The tricks and techniques Moore usually employs may be ammunition for his detractors, but they’re frankly what make his movies entertaining for the rest of us. Without them, Where to Invade Next seems a bit like his amateur vacation videos roughly tacked together into a travelogue.

Still, the central question it asks is very good. Why is the United States, the richest and most powerful country in the world, outranked by other nations in so many things? The answers Moore presents aren’t exactly ones that can be simply shrugged off.

Vinyl, "Pilot"

One of the many great skills of director Martin Scorsese is his unnaturally gifted ear for music, often popular or classic rock ‘n’ roll that fits the scene with a sublime perfection. There couldn’t be a better candidate to tackle the music biz, especially that of the era which birthed both his career and so many of his scoring choices, the era which Vinyl covers. And as director of last night’s premiere, his musical ear is there in spades, as is his skillful technical direction maybe a little less so. As for his knack for highlighting the character of immoral people in an environment where morals are few? That’s not clear, yet, though the immorality is front and center: this is a world of coked-up, backstabbing sex fiends, and it almost plays those qualities as positives.

Our guide through this world is Richie Finestra (Bobby Cannavale), the founder and head of the New York City-based record label American Century. Once a titan of the industry, the label has fallen on hard times by the series date of 1973, and is about to be sold to a German conglomerate. The pilot mostly follows Richie as he gets his house in order before the sale, amidst the beginning of New York’s punk rock scene, as well as hinting at a few other musical movements that would arise from the same time and place.

The episode is two hours long and still feels overstuffed. Richie’s workday entails quite a lot, meeting so many characters in so many places and seemingly eating up half the running time or more. There are also plenty beginnings of subplots, such as a relatively underused Olivia Wilde as Richie’s bored and melancholy wife he has little time for, and a great Juno Temple playing a label secretary determined to sign a wild young punk rocker (James Jagger, son of co-creator and executive producer Mick) and move up in the world. These smaller story threads are more interesting than the stuff following Richie. Affable and capable as Cannavale is, his demeanor is that of a hardened guy who's unfazed by any of the excesses around him. As high-energy and flashy as the show is, his disinterest is frankly a bit of a buzzkill. Also better are the flashbacks to his earliest job in the business, where his management of a blues artist (Ato Essandoh) takes a tragic turn. Oh, and there are also outside-of-time musical numbers that appear as interludes.

But, nostalgia is more the order of the day, and not just the music. The scuzzy New York Scorsese depicted as an urban hell in Taxi Driver is shown longingly here. With few exceptions, the consumption of piles and piles of drugs are depicted as a pretty good time. The industry characters Richie encounters are almost like parodies of sleazy exec archetypes played to the absolute hilt. It’s generally a lively, often funny time, and it’s kind of fun seeing real rock icons as bit players. But about three-quarters in, the pilot takes a sharp turn into GoodFellas territory, such a rough fit that the whole show nearly crosses the line from somewhat lightweight musical ear candy to kitschy popcorn cheese.

The small tad of depth beyond the surface sleaze comes at the very beginning, in the opening moment of the great sequence that bookends the whole thing. Here, a despondent Richie pathetically snorts cocaine and seems to be hit with the reality that he’s clinging to a part of his life that’s passed, that it’s time to move on. The events of the episode leading to this point reveal this is not exactly what's going on, but still, kind of an ironic note to kick off a project so dripping with nostalgia.

It’s pretty fleeting, as he happens upon a rowdy New York Dolls show that literally brings the house down. It’s a fantastically staged sequence, with the expert editing and variation of camera techniques Scorsese employs to heighten the state. It all leads to a conclusion that is at once a corny piece of rock ‘n’ roll movie embellishment, and absolutely perfect and fitting after the nearly two hours that preceded it. Best of all, it finally loosens Richie up a bit. It remains to be seen if he or his fellow travelers turn out to be strong characters under those drug-fueled 70s shells, but the prospect of more thrilling sequences like that is enough to give this show a chance. 

Deadpool

Spend a little time on the web and it’s clear everyone agrees the 1990s were a pretty bad time for comic books. But if that uber-macho, uber-gritty, uber-‘roid-y artwork-filled era was good for anything, it was that it gave the world Deadpool. Marvel’s cocky, fourth wall-breaking mutated mercenary came around at the right time, humorously tearing down the decade’s aesthetic that had become fodder for mocking, while also getting to participate in it. Likewise, this moment, with the market for comic book movies saturated to near-critical mass, is absolutely perfect for the character to give the genre onscreen the same drubbing. And he certainly does, in a film as endlessly fun as it is filthy.

One might recall Ryan Reynolds played the character before in that much-hated Wolverine prequel everyone has apparently agreed to forget. Having learned from their mistakes in that film (sewing his mouth shut is like taking Wolverine’s claws away), the studio lets him be to play the character to the fullest this time. It’s a case of note-perfect casting if there ever was one; Reynolds’ charming smart mouthy act has been perfected by this point and fits Deadpool like his costume, the particulars of which he oh-so-vulgarly describes early in the flick (which is to say, quite well). This time, though, they bothered to make the right movie around him. His persona doesn’t clash with everything else like in Blade: Trinity, or get anchored down by an unsure half-seriousness like Green Lantern (the butt of more than one joke here). Everything in Deadpool is built around him, and just as committed to getting laughs above all else.

And it succeeds splendidly, most often. The jokes are great, and the verbal rapport swift and sharp. The action scenes are frantic and goofy takedowns of industry standard CGI (but no less thrilling, and honestly maybe a little better and more coherent than the real thing). T.J. Miller is really funny as Pool’s deadpanning pal Weasel, as are the liaisons from the X-Men: a hilariously do-gooder Colossus (Stefan Kapičić) and sullen, unimpressed Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand). Even some of the most basic movie elements are presented in funny ways. And the complete lack of a fourth wall is a huge plus, not only presenting some good gags and self-aware pop culture digs, but making the title figure seem sort of like a pleasant buddy watching the film alongside the viewer and wisecracking the whole time, while simultaneously acting in it.

But, as much as it plays like a parody of comic adaptations, a few scenes pull it off for real. The one-on-one fights between Deadpool and his nemesis Ajax (Ed Skrein) are bloody and intense, and more effective for that. And when comedic touches seep into these sequences, it all fits together seamlessly. That, as well as Reynolds selling it well in both physique and attitude, suggests that the character might work just as well if he he managed to sneak into a property playing it straight. More surprisingly, the highly raunchy scenes between Reynolds and love interest Morena Baccarin, played more for humor, are nevertheless sweet and sexy in a way that’ll appeal to the dirty-minded horny teen in everyone.

This one’s kind of a narrative featherweight (in a nutshell: mercenary gets cancer, gains superhuman healing in an experiment but also gets disfigured, seeks revenge on man responsible), but it’s many times more fun than comic book films with greater ambitions. In fact, that leads me to the only complaint I have: the fact that character ownership rights will likely limit Deadpool to his own movies (and maybe further X-Men pictures if we’re lucky). That’s a damn shame. I love Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool. I want to see him do to every self-serious comic movie out there what he did to the genre’s broad strokes here.

The Revenant

At this point, if Leonardo DiCaprio is in a movie, you know you’re in for a strong performance. If Emmanuel Lubezki is doing cinematography, you know there will be some awesome long takes, taking the audience from the most intimate view of the action to expansive shots of the whole canvas, and then back again. And if Alejandro G. Iñárritu is in the director’s chair, you can expect a film of heavy subject matter with artful touches of the surreal. The Revenant is probably Iñárritu’s most straightforward picture, despite some attempts to insert a deeper meaning into what’s, at its base, a simple man-in-the-wilderness story. Still, holy hell! Even by the standards of these three major talents, the film is a transcendent masterwork.

The movie opens in 1823 in the untamed Dakota territory, where a fur trapping expedition is suddenly ambushed by an Arikara war party. It’s an incredible sequence, practically equal to the famous Omaha Beach assault in Saving Private Ryan in both scope and the feeling of being in the battle, not merely watching. It sets the tone well: this a bloody, unforgiving frontier, one where tropes of the pioneer genre aren’t so much subverted as ripped to shreds. It’s also positively stunning in its beauty. The film has the odd effect of making the gore (of which there is quite a bit) not off-putting, but just another color in a lush, rustic palette.

Among the survivors of the opening attack is Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), a guide hired to lead the company through the harsh wilderness. While scouting ahead of the group, he accidentally strays too close to some grizzly cubs and is attacked by their mother, and wounded seemingly mortally. While the rest of the party moves on, a fellow explorer (Tom Hardy) is charged with guarding Glass until he succumbs to his injuries, but instead leaves him for dead and murders his half-Pawnee son (Forrest Goodluck). And yet, Glass manages to recover enough from his wounds and survive the brutal winter with no supplies and the Arikara on his trail.

The best compliment one can pay DiCaprio’s performance is that eating real raw animal flesh might be the least impressive (or rather, insane) thing he does in the movie. He’s far beyond merely convincing; it’s hard to tell how much he’s really in anguish and braving the elements, and what’s just acting. On at least two occasions, he turns a blueish hue and looks like he’s about to expire for real. And Lubezki’s camera follows every excruciating detail with such closeness that the viewer nearly feels it, too.

On the other end of the spectrum, Lubezki’s signature unbroken shots augment one thrilling sequence after another. The bear attack is absolutely petrifying, with such an intimacy that you can feel the animal’s breath on your neck. Even short, fleeting escapes are meticulous works of editing and constructed chaos. And while the inevitable final chase and showdown at first seems tacked-on and superfluous, it’s revealed in execution to be perfect in its brutality and catharsis.

The picture often moves quite slowly between its impressive peril and bloodshed (to a literal crawl in a few cases). But this seems less like a loose grasp of pacing than a conscious choice to pause and take in the incredible Alberta scenery. And that’s just fine. Nearly every single frame is absolutely gorgeous, always a sight to behold even when not much is happening on the screen (this, more so than The Hateful Eight, would be something see on 70 mm).

A few of the more mystical sequences the film could have taken or left. Some are somewhat haunting and pretty to look at. Some are just trying to be haunting and artistic and weird, but come off as passé. None of these do harm to the final product, but honestly, omitting them would have resulted in a leaner picture of no lower quality. The portions spent in the real earthbound realm, whether breakneck and ruthless or leisurely and awed, more than suffice.

The Hateful Eight

If you thought The Force Awakens was heavy on fan service, well, Quentin Tarantino is not one to be outdone on anything. The Hateful Eight is the director’s most self-indulgent work since the Kill Bill duology, serving up heaping helpings of everything he loves: dirty lowlife characters with deceiving touches of eloquence, liberal appropriation of his favorite genre tropes (in this case, the Spaghetti Western), and long, talky exchanges of profane verbal fireworks, often just for the hell of it. And in addition to the splatter-ific bloodletting, there’s one of those shocking moments of excess where the filmmaker is obviously trying to repulse and offend. Whether or not all this is a good thing depends on how much the viewer likes Tarantino. But hate him or love him, it’s inarguable that this time all the technique and style on display is decidedly not utilized toward any greater, unifying point.

Despite the wonderfully dread-instilling Ennio Morricone score and the brief bits of stunning landscapes (obviously playing to its much-hyped 70 mm presentation, which I’ll get to later), the film is less Sergio Leone than Reservoir Dogs on the prairie. During a roaring blizzard, a nasty assortment of travelers—Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Walton Goggins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, and James Parks (yes, there are actually nine, in spite of the more alliterative title)—take shelter in a one-room cabin in the Wyoming wilderness. With the Civil War in the not-too-distant past, the still-fresh wounds result in some immediate side-taking (to Tarantino’s detractors’ ire, the “N-word” is in frequent use, though Jackson never takes it sitting down). But after a few incidents where the tension in the room boils over, it becomes apparent that there’s some foul plot afoot, and no one is who they seem.

It takes a while to reach that point, however, for the film takes its sweet time getting to the cabin where the bulk of it plays out, and continues to do so once there. It waits too long to let a narrative finally take form, becoming a whodunit late in the game after several possible outcomes are already crossed off the list. It also makes the major mistake of walking the audience through it all, instead of offering mystery or misdirection to ponder. It frankly sucks the life out of its only shred of a driving plotline before it even picks up any steam. And that’s when there even is a plot; up until that point, it almost feels like an experimental dialogue exercise transcribed to screen.

Yet, as messy and dirty as it is, it’s also a lot of fun. There’s no denying the energy and skill in every scene. The dialogue exchanges are alternately tense and funny, horrible though they may be at times (in both the dirty and un-P.C. ways). The bursts of violence are also hilarious, displaying a mastery of molding shocking gore into an object of humor that any horror maestro would envy. And while the whodunit is a no-go and the trajectory of some characters is obvious, there’s some genuine surprise that certain players one initially pegs as “good” or “bad” finish in a much different position than expected, especially the seeming protagonists.

That doesn’t change the fact that it’s ultimately Tarantino’s most aimless film, but it’s rarely boring. If a yarn ends up going nowhere, better it be spun by a filmmaker with such talent and style than a mere pretender.

On the 70 mm presentation:

You’ve likely heard about the movie’s release in a roadshow version on old-school 70 mm film in a handful of theaters prior to a digital wide release. You might have also heard that some 70 mm screenings haven’t gone well. At the 70 mm screening I attended, the film looked great. I’m no expert on the particulars of film stock versus digital, but the difference is quite apparent, for the former lends a more real and detailed texture that’s mostly lost upon the glossier latter. It’s not essential for the experience to see it this way, but it’s a cool opportunity to take. One thing that is nice about the roadshow version, however, is the intermission just past the halfway point; even for the most hardcore Tarantino fans, the movie’s pushing it a bit at close to three hours.

Concussion

Even if you don’t follow sports, you’ve probably heard about concussions in recent years. It is the sports issue of this decade. Timing isn’t the only thing on the side of Concussion, as its namesake subject matter is prime material for the best kind of incendiary off-the-field sports film. But for everything in its corner, it doesn’t fully seize the moment, or the Hollywood stage it’s been given.

The arguable impetus for this ongoing issue was the research of Dr. Bennet Omalu. While working for the Pittsburgh coroner’s office in 2002, the Nigerian-born pathologist (played onscreen by Will Smith) was tasked with performing the autopsy of former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster (David Morse), who died at age 50 after living for years in a shockingly disoriented mental state. Omalu discovered a never-before-seen degenerative disease on Webster’s brain, dubbed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (or CTE, an acronym many have likely heard). The National Football League, not wanting to endanger their lucrative game, tried to discredit and silence Omalu, but a string of more ex-player deaths (many of them suicides) and the revelation that they, too, suffered from CTE proved the doctor right.

Smith anchors the picture admirably. He’s got the accent down pretty well, but more affecting is his understated intimation of a more universal immigrant struggle. Certain moments allude to the need he feels to be a “good American” (i.e., someone who wouldn’t speak ill of the beloved institution of football) conflicting with his conscience as a man of medicine. This element is ever so slight, however, as the depiction is mostly a glowing and pure one, equal parts modest grace and determined strength against long odds. Clearly, the star has a strong reverence for the man he’s playing, as do the filmmakers.

Despite his research and findings, the real Omalu has insisted during the movie’s promotional rounds that he isn’t outright against football. The film, though, is not so nuanced. The scenes of damaged ex-players—Webster as well as the now-deceased pros Justin Strzelczyk (Matt Willig), Andre Waters (Richard T. Jones), and Dave Duerson (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) are depicted—are haunting. The only football footage is of hard hits intercut with ominous music, examinations of CTE-riddled brain tissue, and even an animated demonstration sequence straight out of a medical film. And when the NFL doesn’t seem like a faceless, sinister entity, its representatives come off like stonewalling, obviously-lying politicians. And in defense of pro football? A little lip service about how the game is entertaining to watch, and how it's a way out of poverty for a lucky few who play it. The film seems to believe it’s occupying some middle ground, but it's only kidding itself, and doesn't realize its strongest moments are its most damning. 

Concussion is a competent product, if rather meat-and-potatoes in its construction. At the very least, it succinctly transmits the gist of Omalu's story and CTE for those who haven’t been following them in the news. But it probably won't make any waves in the larger concussion discussion like the filmmakers are certainly hoping. It’s not sufficiently angry or impassioned, not daring enough to take a stand. A more polemical approach might have gotten people’s attention, not to mention made for a more interesting movie.