Kat’s Film and Book Reviews

Image courtesy of Chicagoist.com

DH and I are big fans of film critic Roger Ebert–which is not to say we always agree with him (usually, but not always).  We have both of his books containing reviews of movies he gave 2 stars or less to (I Hated, Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie and Your Movie Sucks).  So, since this film blog has been quite short of Oscar season news, I thought I would give y’all Roger Ebert’s Oscar picks for this year. He says, “I can’t remember a year when it seemed easier to predict the Oscars.”  Of course, we all know that what should win isn’t always what does win!

I’ll give the whole category, then indicate Ebert’s picks.

Image courtesy of Manny the Movie Guy

Best Film

• Avatar
• The Blind Side
• District 9
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglorious Basterds
• Precious
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up In the Air

Ebert likes The Hurt Locker.  He also gives good reasons that Up in the Air and Avatar might have shots, but says, “Of these three, I’m predicting The Hurt Locker. If one of the other seven wins, let’s say I’ll be very surprised.

Best Director

• James Cameron for Avatar
• Katherine Bigelow for The Hurt Locker
• Quentin Tarantino for Inglorious Basterds
• Lee Daniels for Precious
• Jason Reitman for Up In the Air

Ebert says, “If you vote against Kathryn Bigelow of The Hurt Locker, you’ll be going against years of precedent that say the winner of the Directors Guild Award will win the Oscar.”

Best Actor in a Leading Role

• Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart
• George Clooney for Up In the Air
• Colin Firth for A Single Man
• Morgan Freeman for Invictus
• Jeremy Renner for The Hurt Locker

While I would like to say that Colin Firth is totally due, Ebert has a different opinion.  “Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart. The movie opened late in December and moved out more widely in January. But the distributor, Fox Searchlight, made a wise move: They screened it extensively in advance for movie critics and sent out lots of screeners. Bridges’ great performance swept the critics’ awards, won a Golden Globe, a SAG award and now looks like the winner. Jeremy Renner or George Clooney could win, but Bridges has the momentum.”

Best Actress in a Leading Role

• Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren for The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan for An Education
• Gabourey Sidibe for Precious
• Meryl Streep for Julie and Julia

Ebert likes Sandra Bullock.  “Few people saw this one coming, especially in a year where her two earlier pictures bombed, but Sandra Bullock’s comeback in The Blind Side was dazzling, and she also collected a lot of year-end awards. Meryl Streep was thought to be the front-runner for Julie & Julia, but Oscar likes a comeback role, and Streep has never needed one.”

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

• Matt Damon in Invictus
• Woody Harrelson in The Messenger
• Christopher Plummer in The Last Station
• Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones
• Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds

While I have sentimental reasons for wanting to see Harrelson and Tucci honored (I didn’t know Christopher Plummer was still alive, actually), Ebert is firm: “Christoph Waltz, a relative unknown, won the best actor award at Cannes in May 2009 for Inglourious Basterds and has never looked back. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t expect him to win this category. A sure thing.”

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

• Penelope Cruz in Nine
• Maggie Gyllenhall for Crazy Heart
• Anne Kendrick for Up In the Air
• Vera Farmiga for Up In the Air
• Mo’Nique for Precious

Ebert’s pretty positive about this one, too.  “Here again, what looks like a sure thing: Mo’Nique, for her powerful performance as the mother in Precious. Known primarily as a TV personally and comic, she came, in a way, out of nowhere to create a character who was a damaged, cruel woman. The other four nominees were all very, very good, but Mo’Nique will win.”

I like to see comedic actors stretch their dramatic wings, so I’d be okay with Mo’Nique for that reason.

Actually, I’d be okay with all of these.  Does anyone else have any predictions, or any arguments with Ebert’s thoughts?  I’d love to hear them.

Image courtesy of publispain.com

2004 was the year that everyone was surprised to see this quirky little film on the Oscar nominations list.  It deserved each of the six technical nominations it got.  But this film was more than just technically good; it truly deserved its place on that Best Picture list.  Even with a respectable slate of nominations for Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Costumes, and Editing (all but one of which, Cinematography, it lost to Return of the King) where were the nominations for Best Director, or Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor?

I realize that this was the year of the Return of the King (many of whose actors were also overlooked).  I’m a fan of the LOTR trilogy, so I can’t begrudge them any awards, but I’m indignant on behalf of Seabiscuit, which is really much more than it seems at first glance.

Set against the backdrop of the depression, director Gary Ross tries hard—sometimes too hard—to parallel the story of the horse nobody wanted with the story of poor workers that nobody seems to want, either.  It’s an effective parallel most of the time, even if it’s handled with inconsistency—sometimes we’re hit over the head with it, and sometimes it’s ignored.  But the parallel works to lay the background for the public’s investment in the little-horse-that-could, the equine David challenging the Goliaths of the racing world.

Far more important than the bad-horse-turned-good-and-giving-hope-to-the-nation story is the other parallel—the one about a boy who, like this horse, is struggling to find his place in the world.  Tobey Maguire plays jockey Johnny “Red” Pollard as a little guy with a huge chip on his shoulder.  He’s antagonistic and hostile, and his temper gets the best of him more than once.  When he’s not able to support himself by working with horses, he enters boxing matches in which he routinely gets beaten to a pulp, leading eventually to blindness in his right eye.

One of the more moving scenes in the film takes place through the eyes of Tom Smith, Seabiscuit’s trainer (Chris Cooper in a follow-up performance to his Oscar winning role in 2003’s Adaptation), in which from one eye we see a group of men trying to subdue the wild Seabiscuit, and from the other eye we see a group of boys trying to beat up a wild Red.  The parallel is clear, and from that moment on, Tom uses Red as Seabiscuit’s jockey.

The film avoids the common error of making the horse a centerpiece of the narrative; Seabiscuit is simply a prop, a device, as he should be.  The hero of this film is scarred and scrappy Red Pollard.  Red’s journey from explosive hostility born of pain to self-control and emotional openness is the central point of the story.  He never quite loses that intense, aggressive edge, and we don’t want him to.  He can deliver poetry or Shakespeare with an incisive and wounding sharpness, especially in moments where he feels he’s been betrayed by those he’s allowed himself to care about.

This is by far the edgiest and most complex role Maguire has played, and the refusal of the Academy to acknowledge it, while giving the nod to the film itself, was misguided.

Another golden performance was given by Chris Cooper, as Tom Smith.  He’s wise and determined, the voice of fatherly wisdom not only to young Red, but to Charles, Seabiscuit’s wealthy owner, played by Jeff Bridges.  Tom’s got a temper, to be sure, and some of the best scenes are the ones where Tom goes head-to-head with Red, with Charles playing referee between his two employees. The film is as much about the relationship between Tom and Red as anything else, with some added-on emoting by Bridges.  Bridges is always the same character in his films; fortunately, it’s a lovable and charming character, so we don’t mind spending time with him.

A good supporting cast rounded out the narrative.  Elizabeth Banks is good as Charles’ competitive young wife, and William H. Macy delights as Tick-Tock McGlaughlin, the erstwhile racing announcer.  Eddie Jones is a sufficiently unpleasant nemesis in his Lionel Barrymore-esque role as the rich and powerful Riddle.  Extra stars go to real-life jockey Gary Stevens, playing fellow jockey and friend George Wolfe, who challenges and supports Red whether he likes it or not.  All in all, this was a strong, well-told story that deserved more attention than it got.  But I guess the lesson we learn from Seabiscuit is that quality isn’t always measured in prizes.