Post-Oscar Talk

I enjoyed the Oscars. Hugh Jackman was a pretty good host, but kind of absent. I did really like his musical tribute to the nominated films. It was stellar. It was also strange that one presenter, or set of presenters, announced like three awards. My enjoyment also had something to do with my correct predictions of 13 awards.

I correctly predicted:
Supporting Actor, Heath Ledger
Leading Actress, Kate Winslet
Animated Feature, WALL-E
Art Direction, Benjamin Button
Cinematography, Benjamin Button
Costume Design, The Duchess
Directing, Danny Boyle (SM)
Film Editing, SM
Makeup, Benjamin Button
Original Score, SM
Visual Effects, Benjamin Button
Screenplay, Adapted, SM
Screenplay, Original, Milk

I wasn't overly surprised about any outcome. I was a little disappointed in the sound categories of all things...I really thought that WALL-E was the obvious choice.

Did anything shock you?

81st Academy Awards

Starting with some red carpet, here are the awards:

Kate Winslet is beautiful and should win. That is all.

Taraji P. Henson quite possibly had the best performance in Benjamin Button. Unfortunately she will not win.

Mickey Rourke is talking about his dog dying and how he had a tux made and he has it with him. It is so incredibly sad.

They are talking with Meryl Streep now. I used to hate her and then I saw Doubt. I like her now.

Hugh Jackman is welcoming us. I am afraid he is going to cheese it up. He says that this is his first year hosting...I am not sure if he will get a second. He has created his own opening number to pay tribute to the movies. Anne Hathaway helps him out with Frost/Nixon. The Reader consists of a large group dance...he didn't have time to actually watch the movie. So apparently Hugh Jackman can be funny.

I think something went horribly wrong with the curtain opening before the supporting actress montage. What is Whoopi wearing? And what is Tilda wearing?
Actress, Supporting - Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)

Steve Martin and Tina Fey. They rock.
Screenplay, Original - Dustin Lance Black (Milk)

Screenplay, Adapted - Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire)

Jack Black and Jennifer Aniston are introducing the 2008 movie yearbook, starting with animation. Jack Black made everyone feel awkward when he made a Dreamworks/Pixar joke.
Animated Feature - WALL-E (Andrew Stanton)

Short Film, Animated - La Maison en Petits Cubes (Kunio Kato)

Sarah Jessica Parker and Daniel Craig announce (these two are getting a lot of screen time doing three awards)
Art Direction - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo)

Costume Design - The Duchess (Michael O'Connor)

Makeup - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Greg Cannom)

Robert Pattinson and Amanda Seyfried introduce the romance movies of the year.

Ben Stiller (as Joaquin Phoenix) and Natalie Portman come out to announce
Cinematography - Slumdog Millionaire (Anthony Dod Mantle)

Jessica Biel looks really weird. I think her dress has a growth on it. She wasn't really there for anything interesting.

Judd Apatow does a short for the comedies of 2008.

Short Film, Live Action - Spielzeugland (Toyland) (Jochen Alexander Freydank)

Hugh Jackman is talking about how musicals are back...he is going to sing now. Beyonce is now joining him. They are singing GREASE!!! and many other musical numbers from Oscar movies. Zack Efron and Vanessa Hudgens and Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper also join them. It was alright, but lasted too long.

Now (just like the women) five previous supporting actor guys come out to announce that Heath Ledger has won. Alan Arkin, Christopher Walken, Kevin Kline, Cuba Gooding Jr., and an old guy who's name I missed.
Actor, Supporting - Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
His father, mother, and sister accept his award and give a really nice speech.

Bill Maher comes out after the montage of Documentaries.
Documentary Feature - Man on Wire (James Marsh and Simon Chinn)

Documentary Short - Smile Pinki (Megan Mylan)

And now for the 2008 Action movies.

Will Smith, who apparently loves action movies, will now tell us who won
Visual Effects - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, and Craig Barron)

Sound Editing - The Dark Knight (Richard King)

Sound Mixing - Slumdog Millionaire (Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, and Resul Pookutty)

Film Editing - Slumdog Millionaire (Chris Dickens)

Eddie Murphy is presenting Jerry Lewis with the humanitarian award.

Now they are playing the original scores and Zack Efron and Alicia Keys tell us that
Original Score - Slumdog Millionaire (A.R. Rahman)

Original Song - Jai Ho (Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman and Gulzar)

Liam Neeson and Freida Pinto announce
Foreign Language Film - Departures (Japan)

Queen Latifah introduces the in memoriam...oh, and she sings. Her dress is not flattering. This is horrible because they keep puling back so you can't read the names at all. They are not doing these people justice.

Reese Witherspoon is pretty and announcing
Directing - Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)

Sophia Loren, Shirley MacLaine, Halle Barry, Nicole Kidman, and Marion Cotillard announce
Actress, Leading - Kate Winslet (The Reader) I am very happy for her.

Robert De Niro, Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins, Adrien Brody, and Michael Douglas announce
Actor, Leading - Sean Penn (Milk) Penn's speech was really good!

Steven Spielberg announces
Best Picture - Slumdog Millionaire (Christian Colson)


[sorry if anything was incoherent...I did not edit]

81st Academy Award Predictions

Actor, Leading
Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler"

Actor, Supporting
Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight"

Actress, Leading
Kate Winslet in "The Reader"

Actress, Supporting
Amy Adams in "Doubt"

Animated Feature
"WALL-E"

Art Direction
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

Cinematography
"Slumdog Millionaire"

Costume Design
"The Duchess"

Directing
Danny Boyle for "Slumdog Millionaire"

Documentary Feature
"Trouble the Water"

Documentary Short
"The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306"

Film Editing
"Slumdog Millionaire"

Foreign Language Film
"Waltz with Bashir" (Israel)

Makeup
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

Original Score
"Slumdog Millionaire"

Original Song
"Down to Earth" from "WALL-E"

Best Picture
"Milk"

Short Film, Animated
"Presto"

Short Film, Live Action
"Auf der Strecke (On The Line)"

Sound Editing
"WALL-E"

Sound Mixing
"WALL-E"

Visual Effects
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

Screenplay, Adapted
"Slumdog Millionaire"

Screenplay, Original
"Milk"

Do you agree? Disagree? Who do you pick?

Slumdog Millionaire

The movie Slumdog Millionaire contains a lot of contradiction (even the title itself). The story centres around a young man, Jamal (Dev Patel), who is an uneducated boy from the slums of Mumbai and yet he knows all the answers on a trivia show. He also has no interest in money and yet he is on a show that's purpose is to make the contestant rich.

The movie begins with Jamal getting questioned, and by questioned I mean tortured, because he is suspected of cheating his way through the show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Once the torture stops Jamal tells his life story which explains how he knew the answer to each question. Through his stories we are introduced to his brother Salim (Mudhur Mittal) and his love Latika (Frieda Pinto). We also see the incredibly hard life that Jamal has led. Once the police officer is convinced that Jamal has not cheated he is let go so that he may return to the show to answer the final question. Through his story we find out that the reason Jamal is on the show is so that he may find Latika.

Jamal is faced with a question that is also from his past, but he does not know it. When he and his brother were younger they called themselves the Musketeers. They were Athos and Porthos. When Latika came into their lives Jamal said that she could be the third, but they did not know the third Musketeer's name. Jamal's final question: In the Alexandre Dumas novel The Three Musketeers there is Athos and Porthos, what is the name of the third Musketeer?
(a) Aramis (b) Cardinal de Richelieu (c) d'Artagnan (d) Planchet. Jamal still did not know the third Musketeer's name so he had to use his last lifeline. [I got the answer right, did you?]

*Spoiler*

Jamal phones his brother (the only number he has), but Salim had given his phone to Latika. She answers and Jamal has already won since he has finally found her. Neither of them know the answer and so he takes a guess, (a) Aramis. He wins the money and they are able to run away together.

I loved the way that this film is designed in that we discover how Jamal's life experience has given him the answers to questions on the show. I did find that the scenes where he was actually in the studio were a little odd in that they stuck out stylistically from the rest of the movie.

Slumdog Millionaire gets two kernels - a great story concept, but there was something that held it back from being an amazing movie.

Push

Push is kind of a hard movie to describe. I could either tell you every detail and you may get it without seeing the movie or I could tell you almost nothing. I am going to go with the almost nothing because the Oscars start soon and I still have to write about Slumdog Millionaire.

Essentially, there are certain people in the world who have extra abilities. The three main abilities featured in the movie are: pushers (people who have mind control and can make you believe anything), movers (people with telekinesis), and watchers (people with precognitive abilities, they can read people's intentions). There is a group called Division that are experimenting on these people to try and enhance their powers.

The story revolves around Nick (Joel Gretsch), a mover, who is approached by Cassie (Dakota Fanning), a watcher, for help to find a case. Carver (Djimon Hounsou), a pusher, from Division is also watching Nick to find the case. Kira (Camilla Belle), a pusher, has been injected by Division to maker her powers stronger and she is the only one to have survived. She ran away and now Division is looking for her. At the end everything is straightened out, except for the fact that there is a whole lot of excessive plot and complications. It is quite packed with action and has a kind of cool concept. That is about it though.

Djimon should stick with being the moral centre of movies rather than the bad guy...he is much better at being the good guy.
It was nice to see Dakota Fanning all grown up.

Push gets one kernel - cool concept, but not delivered well. Worth a watch when it is on tv.

The Reader

*SPOILERS* will be written in white

The plot of The Reader is essentially this: In 1958, a young man named Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes)falls in love with an older woman, Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), and the two proceed to have a several month long affair. The two create a pattern of reading, bathing, and sex. This continues until Hanna unexpectedly leaves.

While we see this part of the story, we are also seeing a more present day Michael. He is clearly detached from those around him and has been permanently impacted by his relationship with Hanna.

The next time that we jump to is 1966. Michael is now a law student and in one of his classes they are covering a war crimes trial. This particular trial is for a group of female guards who, while on a death march, let hundreds of women burn to death in a church. Much to Michael's surprise, Hanna is one of the defendants. Michael must now confront his feelings for Hanna with the new information that she was a guard for the S.S. Now for the big secret part that I don't want to ruin, so drag your cursor to read. Along with the discovery that Hanna was an S.S. guard, Michael also discovers that Hanna is keeping a secret that she is more ashamed of than her Nazi past. When a letter is produced in court that is said to have been written by Hanna, and she will not write a sample to prove it wasn't her, Michael (and hopefully the audience) puts together the pieces to explain Hanna. Michael always read to her, Hanna would get the sick women to read to her in the camp, she would not produce a writing sample to prove some innocence, and she could not take a work promotion because it meant office work...all because Hanna is illiterate. This new information completely shifts your perspective of Hanna's character. She pleaded in court that she had no choice but to join the S.S. For Hanna this was true because she would have had to admit illiteracy when she turned down her promotion. It is amazing to think of the power that her shame of being illiterate had over her. Because she did not want to give a writing sample she admitted to the majority of responsibility for the church fire. As a result, she was given 20 years in prison while the other women got 4 years. After a few years have gone by, Michael starts sending Hanna cassette tapes of him reading books. He figured out his illiteracy and while he didn't say anything to change the outcome of the trial he still felt like he had to do something for her. Hanna greatly enjoyed the books on tape and eventually started to read along with them to teach herself how to read and write. When Hanna's release date comes up Michael is contacted so that he may help her adjust to the new world. The day before her release he goes to see her. She is thrilled to see him and to be able to thank him for the books, but when she realizes that they can't go back to their previous relationship of him reading to her she clearly does not wish to leave the prison. She goes back to her cell and hangs herself. Hanna has left all of her money to the survivor of the church fire who was the main witness in her trial. Michael takes the woman the money, and she does not want it. Michael decides that he will give it to a Jewish charity that focuses on adult literacy.

The Reader is a very good movie (better than I had expected). It is amazing how Hanna's secret has such power over her and it is quite exciting to see her overcome it.

Two quick notes: You will see A LOT of Kate Winslet in this movie. There is one sickening in he pit of your stomach scene where Michael walks through an old camp.

The Reader gets three kernels - a very powerful story and well acted.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

*Spoilers* Unless you've read the book, then I can't really surprise you with anything.

Confessions of a Shopaholic is based on the book of the same name written by Sophie Kinsella (it actually combines book one and two of the series). Essentially it is the story of Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher), a woman who enjoys shopping more than anything else in the world. She is endearing and incredibly delusional (the mannequins talk to her and help her justify her unjustifiable purchases).

Rebecca's dream is to work at a fashion magazine, but sadly the job is out of her grasp. Instead, she manages to get hired at a finance magazine that is owned by the same company, because once you are in the family you are in. I am completely blanking on any of the specific line, but a rather hilarious receptionist gives Rebecca this career advice. Anyway, she gets hired at this magazine where there is a really cute editor, Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy). Without knowing it, Rebecca is exactly what Luke has been looking for...in a writer. She is able to relay financial advice in a way that people can actually understand (by comparing it to shopping). Her first article, written under the pseudonym The Girl In The Green Scarf, is so popular that it makes her a sort of star.

This is where the spoilers come in (written in white, drag cursor over to read):
Pretty much Rebecca and Luke fall in love and everything is going wonderfully until Rebecca's debt collector finally catches up with her...on television. Rebecca has been lying about everything and Luke was crushed. Rebecca then gets offered the job she initially wanted at the fashion magazine. However, at this point she has had a break through and has realized that she truly is a shopaholic and that fashion magazines were part of her problem. She turns down the job and gets all of her shopaholic support group friend, and her nutty parents (played by John Goodman and Joan Cusack), to help her sell all of her clothes...including the iconic green scarf. Through the sale, Rebecca is able to pay off her debt, apologize to her friend Suze (Krysten Ritter), and show Luke that she is more than lies and shopping. And of course Luke was the one that bought the green scarf, so Rebecca didn't have to part with it in the end. To wrap up, Luke started his own business (on the earlier advice of Rebecca) and she works for him as a columnist.

I am a big fan of the books, however, I haven't read them in a few years and forgot nearly all of the details. I can't really speak as to how closely the movie follows the book (except for the fact that the main story in the books is set in England). Whether you know the books or not, Confesions of a Shopaholic is a very entertaining movie. Isla Fisher is so wonderful and very Rebecca Bloomwood-esque. I hope they do a sequel that covers the second two books.

Confessions of a Shopaholic gets two kernels - a really enjoyable and fun movie.

Milk

*SPOILERS*

Since Milk is a biopic there aren't really any spoilers (unless you know nothing about Harvey Milk). The movie begins with the only major plot point and then goes back to the beginning of the story. If you don't know anything and you don't want to know before seeing the movie then maybe just don't read this one. Just skip down to the very bottom with the rating.

Milk opens with a newscast announcing the murder of San Francisco Mayor Geroge Moscone (Victor Garber) and city Supervisor Harvey Milk (Sean Penn). We then see Milk telling his life story into a tape recorder. He starts with his 40th birthday and meeting Scott (James Franco). Soon after meeting, the two move to San Francisco and open up a camera shop in the Castro District. Milk quickly becomes part of the political scene. While he does have trouble getting elected right away, he is able to organize the the homosexual population into an influential power. Milk even becomes allies with the Teamsters when he helps them boycott Coors.

After Milk is finally elected as a city Supervisor the main battle he must deal with Anita Bryant & Dade County and Proposition 6. Proposition 6 made it mandatory to fire gay teachers and any other public school employee who supported gay rights. While it seemed that Proposition 6 was a lost cause it ended up being defeated by more than 1 million votes.

Now to the assassination. Dan White (Josh Brolin) is a fellow city Supervisor. White and Milk tried to use each other for votes, but neither of them really gained anything from their efforts. White eventually resigned (saying he was not paid enough to support his family). After trying to get his job back and not being allowed to he went a little off his rocker. White then snuck into city hall and shot and killed both Milk and the mayor.

The movie doesn't really go into this part, but you may have heard of the famous Twinkie Defense. Dan White's trial is where this comes from. Essentially White blamed his behaviour on an increase of junk food. White was charged with two counts of manslaughter. His sentence led to the White Night Riots (which the movie also doesn't go into, but I find it all very interesting).

Before I get back to the actual movie I have one other side story. One activist that Milk kind of recruited to work for him named Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch). He was particularly good at organizing a crowd for a rally or a protest or whatever. In real life, he is also the creator of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. The NAMES Project is the largest community arts project in the world. It was created to memorialize all those who have died from AIDS related causes and there are currently 44 000 individual memorial panels. It was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and the last time it was fully displayed was in 1996.

Now back to the movie. Though I really don't have much else to say. Just that Milk is a very interesting story and definitely one worth telling/knowing. It is also interesting to think that Proposition 6 was defeated, and yet roughly thirty years later Proposition 8 passes. Just saying.

Some quotes.
"Don't knock it until you've tried it." - Milk, regarding being homosexual.
"If a bullet should enter my brain, let the bullet destroy every closet door." - Milk

Milk gets three kernels - a great story with really good acting.

Revolutionary Road

[contains spoilers...reveal of the plot ending will be in white]

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are together again. This time they are not on a boat and the ending is not known by everyone before they see the movie. There is, however, talk of a trans-Atlantic boat trip, sex in a car, and Kathy Bates.

Revolutionary Road, the latest movie by Sam Mendes, is a story of a couple in 1950s suburbia. Rather then depicting the Golden Age of the Utopian suburbs, Mendes shows us a kind of dystopia.

The movie opens with April (Winslet) and Frank (DiCaprio) falling in love across a crowded room. I know...not cliche at all. The next thing we know they are unhappily married with two kids. April was studying acting and is now in the occasional play when she is not trying to keep up the suburban dream. Frank had not decided what to do in life and now he is taking the train into the city in his gray suit (a la Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit) with all of the other husbands to go to a job that he can't stand. Neither of them like the situation they are currently in, but find it difficult to think of a solution to their oh so common but oh so never talked about problem. April finally decides that to fix their marriage and their lives they should sell everything, Frank should quit his job, and they should move to France. She could get a job with a government agency and Frank could just sit around and decide what he wanted to do in life. April convinces Frank of the plan and when they tell their friends it is clear that the plan is considered revolutionary by everyone else. April puts all that she has into making the plan work, while it is clear that Frank does not appreciate how others are looking at him when he says his wife is going to work and he is doing nothing.

The rest of the plot is spoiler material:
Frank discovers that April is pregnant when he finds a home abortion device in the cupboard. Frank is outrages and April just wants the plan to go ahead without anything to stop them. After some fighting it is decided that they will keep the baby and not go to Paris. April is crushed and Frank is still miserable. After one of their fights, April makes Frank a nice peaceful breakfast before he goes off to work. She is obviously pretending that everything is okay (this is the time that I start to really worry about what she is going to do) and she is pretending in a really eerily way. As Frank goes off to work, April phones where her children are staying to say that she is still feeling unwell but to tell her children that she loves them. She mechanically moves about the house as she boils water and sets up the stage for her abortion. She knows that she is too far along to do it safely and when she won't stop bleeding she phones for help. The movie ends with people talking about the couple and with Frank watching his children play at the park.

Special mention to Michael Shannon for playing the neighbour's crazy son. He provides most of the comic relief as well as being the only other person to understand Frank and April's plan.

The emotions of these characters practically oozed off of the screen. Both Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio were amazing in their roles. I also really enjoy when the title of a movie really means something. Not only is Revolutionary Road the name of the road where their house is, but they also tried to take a revolutionary road in their lives.

Most memorable line goes to April during one of her fights with Frank:
And you know what's so good about the truth? Everyone knows what it is however long they've lived without it. No one forgets the truth Frank, they just get better at lying.

Revolutionary Road gets three kernels - superb acting that turns an ordinary story into something extraordinary.

The Wrestler

*SPOILERS*

I am very unsure about how to start talking about The Wrestler [perhaps because I have waited nearly a week to write this]. I guess I will just jump into the plot.

Randy 'The Ram' Robinson (Mickey Rourke) is a wrestler who lived his glory days as a wrestler in the 80s and now he is just trying to live the rest of his days...never letting the past get too far away. Randy continues to wrestler when he can, though it is clearly taking a toll on his body, and he also works a second job which allows him to barely make rent for his trailer. We see Randy looking quite at home in the ring, even when the ring is in a local rec centre. However, whenever Randy is in the 'real world' he seems uneasy. After a particularly grueling match, in which staples were involved, Randy suffers a heart attack and wakes up in the hospital after surgery. Randy is informed that he is not to wrestler anymore. From here Randy must struggle with the new life that has been assigned to him. he moves to working at the meat counter at the grocery store...dealing with customers and everything. I must say that I thought he was a good deli counter guy. For awhile anyway. Randy also takes this opportunity to try and reconcile with his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). As a peace offering he buys her a hideous green jacket, that only a father like Randy could like, and they actually spend some time together. Unfortunately, it is not long before he screws up. The scenes between Randy and Stefanie are quite emotional, and they really help to add another dimension to the story. In one particularly heartbreaking line to his daughter, Randy says, "I'm an old broken down piece of meat and I deserve to be all alone, I just don't want you to hate me." *tear*

Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), the local friendly stripper, is going through a parallel situation. She has made her living from her body and now her body is failing her (in that her customers find her age unappealing). Though really she is still smokin' hot. In Randy's attempt to retire from wrestling, he tries to build a relationship with Cassidy. In a way they seem to be a natural pair; as they both hate the 90s, love the 80s, and can no longer do what they know. My only complaint about Cassidy's character is that we do not get to see more of her story independent from her scenes with Randy.

Randy tries his best to live his new life as the meat counter guy, but can never get his mind off wrestling. Before his heart attack a rematch was scheduled between him and The Ayatollah (they had had a famous match years earlier). It was supposed to be a last chance to truly relive his glory days. In a last minute kind of epiphany, Randy decides that he must wrestler one last time. Before the match Randy gives a wonderful speech talking about how he has been told that he is washed up and has basically become irrelevant. However, as long as the fans show up he is going to keep going because the fans are his family. END OF MOVIE SPOILER IN WHITE: During the match it is clear that he is struggling to continue. He manages to finish the fight, and his life, by climbing the ropes for one final Ram Jam.

I feel the need to say that I am not a wrestling fan. It is one of those things that I just don't find entertaining. However, not being a fan of wrestling or not knowing much about it does not make this movie any less interesting. I was lucky enough to sit next to someone who is a wrestling fan, so I was informed whenever an actual wrestler was on screen.

This seems to have gotten kind of long, but I have one last thing to say. I loved the style of the movie. The Wrestler, to oversimplify, is a really depressing story. Because the subject is wrestling, it would have made sense to go all glossy and cheesy in presenting the story. Instead the movie is showing the real gritty side of things and the style definitely reflects that. The audience spends several minutes throughout the movie watching the back of Randy's head as he walks and grunts and struggles through his life. Mickey Rourke absolutely deserved his Golden Globe, and an Oscar would certainly not be out of the question.

The Wrestler gets three kernels [I was initially considering two kernels, but in writing about it I realized how much I actually liked it...the movie grows on you] - amazing acting and a story that transcends wrestling.