OVP: Les Miserables (2012)

Film: Les Miserables (2012)
Stars: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks
Director: Tom Hooper
Oscar History: 8 nominations/3 wins (Best Picture, Makeup*, Actor-Hugh Jackman, Supporting Actress-Anne Hathaway*, Original Song-"Suddenly," Sound Mixing*, Art Direction, Costume)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I will start with the confession that multiple reviewers seem to be sharing about this film, in that I've never seen this musical either on stage or on a taped version on PBS.  I have received a copy of the book for Christmas, but have not had the chance to read it, primarily because it's 1500-pages long and that's not going to happen in the course of a week.  Sure, I knew a couple of the songs-I do write recaps of Glee, so I knew a couple, and I don't live under a rock, so I know of Susan Boyle's performance of "I Dreamed a Dream."  But what I have to say is that I don't have a built in love for the musical-I had to pay attention to learn character's names, I did not sing along to "Do You Hear the People Sing," in fact the only person I know for certain was in the original Broadway run of the show is Judy Kuhn (and I'm a bit of a Broadway nerd, though this is clearly a blind spot).  So I went in with blinders on and as few preconceptions as I could muster.

(Spoilers Ahead) For those of you, who like me didn't know the story, it's obviously based on the novel by Victor Hugo and the musical by Schonberg/Kretzmer.  It tells the story of a man named Jean Valjean (Jackman) who went to prison for twenty years for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's son during early 19th Century France.  Valjean tries to steal from a church, and instead of being re-incarcerated, he is given silver to start a new life as an honest man.  This would go well (he becomes an employer of the poor, and makes an honest and rather comfortable life for himself), if not for Inspector Javert (Crowe) spending decades trying to pursue him and re-arrest him for breaking his parole.

The film, of course, is also about the after-effects of the French Revolution, and when France briefly returned to a monarchy, and the people uprising against the King and nobility.  This features primarily in the second half of the film, where thanks to the death of one his employees, a woman turned to prostitution named Fantine (Hathaway), Valjean is now the caretaker of a young woman named Cosette (as an adult, played by Seyfried), who has fallen in love with a young revolutionary (Redmayne).  All the while, Valjean is still being pursued by Javert, who is aging far better than Valjean, for the record (the makeup team seemed to spend all of their time on Jackman, it seems, and completely disregarded Crowe, who just seems to have had his temples greyed).  The revolution, unsuccessful as it was, happens, and multiple characters die (including Valjean and Javert), and the lovers are reunited, and in true Broadway fashion, all of the characters unite once more on the stage...err screen, at the end of the film to sing the final reprisal.  It's the sort of epic scale moment in a film that doesn't often happen, and seemed to be more en vogue in the 1990's, but it clearly pays off, as it's one of the few films that I've seen that people actually applauded at the end (the last time I remember that happening was Milk four years ago, and that was in a primarily gay audience).  All of this is to say that anyone who disregards this film from being crowned the 85th Best Picture in favor of darker fare like Zero Dark Thirty or historical biopics like Argo or Lincoln does so at their own peril.

But what did I think of it, as this film has truly divided critics, and a lot of critics that I love and often agree with have had wildly dissimilar reactions?  This is probably because, to paraphrase the most annoying cliche that Scott Hamilton throws out every Olympics, "when the film is good, it's really good, but when it's bad, it's awful' (he always says something hackneyed like that-isn't there someone better at skating announcing that NBC could hire?...but I digress).

The film has many high points, as the score is clearly exceptional, and the cast is about as pedigreed as you get.  While there are a couple of roles I would have recast or retrained (we'll get to that below), the fact that Hooper hired stage pro's who are unknown to most audiences like Aaron Tveit and Samantha Barks to work alongside movie stars like Hathaway and Seyfried was an absolutely brilliant decision.  I loved the live-singing.  Even when it didn't pay off, it still was wildly refreshing-after the last few years of lip-synching and auto-tuning everything to death, the live-singing gave it a truly fresh breath, as if you were at a live stage rather than just sitting in a darkened theater.  And for anyone who complains about "too much singing"-get over it, it's a musical, people are going to sing.

I'll also say that I think the sets were divine-this film is inevitably going to be nominated for Best Art Direction, and since the greatest limitation that Broadway has is its finite space in terms of the sets, it was rather awe-inspiring to see the film lit up with a multitude of churches and French buildings and some masterful matte painting.

The film had some exceptional, some mediocre, and some in-between performances, and so we'll start out with some of the best performances.  Anne Hathaway has been sucking up all of the oxygen in the Best Supporting Actress race, and seems almost assured of a trophy there, and there's reason behind that.  Though she only is on-screen for approximately twenty minutes (that's a guess, not exact, but it's not a long time and it's very front-loaded-she is largely absent for most of the second half of the movie), she sells every second she gets, and her "I Dreamed a Dream" is the equivalent of Jennifer Hudson's "And I Am Telling You," and just like Ms. Hudson took her Oscar for that song, I suspect that Anne Hathaway will follow in her footsteps and win here.  Hathaway is for some reason a divisive actress (and seems to be the heir apparent to Liza Minnelli's throne, what with those pipes and her joie de vivre about everything and everyone), but she's an entertainer of the highest order, and though I don't think she should slam dunk win the Oscar for this role (there are others this year that are her equal, and she doesn't quite hit the perfection that, say, Catherine Zeta-Jones did a decade ago), she's a deserving contender, and anyone saying otherwise just has sour grapes or should blame that Oscars on James Franco.

Hathaway is not alone at the top of the heap of this film, though, as the biggest surprise coming out of the movie was the remarkable Eddie Redmayne.  Redmayne was sensational as the romantic, aristocrat-turned-revolutionary Marius, who falls for Cosette, but is also loved by Eponine (Barks).  Redmayne, who won a Tony Award for Red, has a spectacular tenor voice, and manages to outdo even the human perfection that is Aaron Tveit onscreen.  His "Empty Chairs" number was divine, and I welled up during his duets with both Tveit and Seyfried.  I'm not sure that there is a lot of musical work onscreen for a man with cheekbones like a Michelangelo painting and a voice like a dove playing a cornet, but casting directors take note-hire Eddie Redmayne if you want to get the audience to "ooh" and "ahh."

Though they aren't quite of the same muster as Hathaway and Redmayne, Samantha Barks and Aaron Tveit are both excellent-in-voice, fine-in-acting as the doomed Eponine and Enjolras.  Barks, who is I believe the only cast member to have played this role on stage, sells her "On My Own" with a confidence that says "I beat both Lea Michele and Taylor Swift for this role, so I'm going to take advantage and wow everyone in the audience," but the rest of the film she's a bit overshadowed by the distracting brilliance of Redmayne and the haunted shadow of the other doomed lady of the film, Hathaway.  Also, can I just say how thankful I am they didn't cast Taylor Swift here, who would have been wildly out-of-place, and likely would have sunk that love triangle-having an unknown to romance Redmayne against the lovely Seyfried was a far better solution.  Tveit, who I've seen on Broadway and is sooooo handsome and has a beautiful voice, is strong, though his Enjolras was in some desperate need of a character arch, and he didn't take full advantage of the emotional range of the character, in my opinion.  His "Red and Black" is brilliant, though.  With both of these actors, I'm hoping that Hollywood takes note, and hires them for more work, as I'm intrigued and want more.

Amanda Seyfried is somewhere in the middle of the roles.  I feel like her character could have been considerably expanded (she oddly doesn't get her own solo number), but I will admit to being a huge fan of her in general-when she gets the material, she and her bewitching eyes take advantage, but against the more interesting characters of Eponine and Fantine, she just can't compete.

All right, so now if you're one of the film's haters, it's time to start reading and stop gagging on the gushing (that would be a bit of a tongue twister out-loud-you should try it).  The two most notable faults, and the ones that people are most consistently complaining about, are the shoddy camerawork and Russell Crowe.  The camerawork is the more unexpected complaint, but it's definitely deserved.  I'm not sure if the editor, the cinematographer, or Hooper himself is most to blame, but I'm throwing it at all three (Academy, since you're bound to nominate all three out of habit, please at least consider this when you're handing out the actual trophies).  There are far too many close-ups, too many odd shots from the floor-there is more to the cinema than giant close-ups of people's faces, and while it works with Hathaway's "I Dreamed a Dream," it gets very old when they do it for everyone.

Crowe, of course, was the biggest eyebrow-raiser when they announced the cast, and while critics are too-quick to dismiss him as not being able to sing (he clearly can hold a note), this is not his style, and he seems wildly out-of-place throughout the entire movie.  Considering that they cast Tveit and Barks in rather significant roles without much fame, and that they had both the wildly successful musical and Jackman as their safety nets, it's a pity they didn't mine Broadway for a Norm Lewis or a Norbert Leo Butz or a Michael Cerveris to try and play the role of Javert-someone who could sell the role and also surprise audiences by being so extraordinary.  By casting Crowe instead, the producers have an easy target for the critics who always hate musicals (there are some prominent ones, and if you follow the Oscar game, you know who they are), and likely cheated themselves out of an Oscar nomination, as Javert in the right hands could be a great launching pad for a nod.

I'm also so over Sacha Baron Cohen (who is clearly talented, but so reliant on ticks and gimicks in his acting that I sort of wish that performance art was more popular, as that is probably far more his thing), and wish that Helena Bonham Carter (who is a delightful screen presence usually) would steer clear of musicals, considering her vocal range is limited at best.  Their mugging, while probably too integral to the plot of the film to completely throw out, is so routine that it's a gigantic yawn in the second half, and you want to say "get off the screen" whenever they are not essential to the film.  Also, before I get to the end of this review, I do want to question why Gavroche sounds like an extra from Oliver Twist when he is running around the streets of Paris.  I get that they didn't want to give everyone a Parisian accent, but the British kid seems completely out-of-place (anyone super familiar with the book, if the child for some reason is supposed to be British, let me know).

Finally, I want to address the actor I've clearly been avoiding, Hugh Jackman.  Jackman is not an actor that I have ever gravitated toward.  I can appreciate him-he's clearly got chops as a singer, loves to entertain, and has biceps the size of my head, which we can all admire.  However, while Hathaway gains so much from live-singing, Jackman loses quite a bit.  His voice gets thin and pitchy during some of the "talking/singing" portions of the musical, and whether this is the musical director's fault or Jackman's, I'm not sure, but he doesn't seem to crescendo at the right moments.  He's going to be nominated for an Oscar for this, and I suspect it's because he's a genuinely nice guy and people have wanted him to get a great breakout role for a while now (not to mention that someone needs to be a first-time nominee this year, and he's the most likely bet), but he shouldn't win, and really, he shouldn't be nominated.  There's nothing extraordinary about this performance, and while he should probably still pursue musicals, he desperately needs a vocal coach to teach him to stay on key.

And so, after all that, I'm reluctant to give a ranking, because I know my opinion of such a gigantic movie is still being formed.  I'm going with a safe 4/5 stars, but I know that's not where this will stay-it could go to 5/5 stars if my memory stays on Marius and Fantine and the epic scale Hooper attains, or it could move down to 3/5 stars if I can't quite get over the Jackman and Crowe of it all.  But now I shall let you share your thoughts-what did you think of Les Miz, and for those familiar, how does it rank alongside the stage version or the book?  And also, if I don't get another post in before then-Happy New Year!

Glee: Glee, Actually (#4.10)

In hopes of finishing off this article before Christmas (so at least getting some sort of relevance to the season, even if it's at least a week-and-a-half old), I thought I'd quickly throw together the latest Glee recap before I head off to enjoy Christmas Eve.

The latest adventure at McKinley High, like most television series in their fourth season, decided to do a riff on It's a Wonderful Life.  Seriously, between this and the inevitable Scrooge parody, Frank Capra and Charles Dickens' descendants should be in constant royalty checks during every holiday season.  In this world, we see what life was like if Artie was never paralyzed, an overly dramatic look as everyone somehow does a complete 180 on their personalities (I've always found this trope to be a little silly, as at least one person's life couldn't have possibly been ruined by the other person not being around, but I digress...).  In this world, Will's a drunk (and still married to Terry), Rachel's a book marm (who does chorus only), most everyone is a jock, Kurt failed school (and never met Blaine), and Tina still stutters.  And Rory has returned as Artie's guardian angel, and he will flit out just as easily, as I'm not really enamored with him and like several characters on the show (Marley, Sugar), is not missed when they are not part of the cast for the week.

After Artie's walk down George Bailey lane, we got to see Burt and Kurt reunited, a far more pleasant reunion than Artie and Rory.  These two have such a special, wonderful chemistry, and one of the most unique father-son relationships on television, so I inevitably reach for the Kleenex the second Burt gets onscreen, as I know something heartfelt will be coming soon.  Turns out, Burt, who survived a heart attack just a few seasons ago, is now battling cancer, though he claims it's thoroughly curable (hopefully true-I heart Mike O'Malley, and losing parents is not something I want Glee to be handling, particularly with the best parent on the show).  Burt also paid for Blaine to come out and skate with Kurt, and it feels very much like they are getting back together, much to my delight and chagrin (what's it called when you're both happy and sad about something-ahh, right, bittersweet-that's how I feel about their reuniting without them exploring dating someone else for an episode or two).  Either way, they have wonderful harmonies on "White Christmas" and we slide right into the Puckerman brothers.

Puck and Jake did some brotherly bonding, somehow managing to ride out to and back from L.A. in the course of one episode, with Puck at first making himself sound like a Hollywood bigshot, dancing and singing a rousing chorus of "O Hanukkah," with Jacob on a studio lot before it was discovered that he was still just a pool boy, pulling a Vince Vaughn on Sex and the City and pretending his employer's lifestyle was his own.  I will say that I welcome Puck back into the fold, though, as it appears he may move back to Lima, though restarting your pool business in January probably is not the greatest move he's ever made (though with Puck, there's a lot of competition for that title).

In easily the best story of the night, we saw Brittany and Sam, too adorable and special punkins (at least that's what I believe Coach Beiste called them) preparing for the Mayan apocalypse, a joke that's going to be so bizarre when this show is reruns in a decade (the amount of time we spent on that "apocalypse" in general is going to be a bit odd).  Being that this is Sam and Brittany, they decide to spend all of their money (of which Brittany has a stunningly large amount of), and get married and go on a hedonistic (for Glee) bender before realizing that the world did not in fact end.  Thankfully, they were only "Mayan apocalypse" married, and all was well in the end.

The final storyline I swear has already been done, with Sue (and Becky) watching their hearts grow three sizes at Christmas.  A few years ago it was a rather demeaning story about them pulling a Grinch, and then this year it was giving Marley and her mother (who is very supportive, but is way too one-dimensional as a character for me to latch onto so far) a merry Christmas, just in time for a schlocky final number.

Overall, this was one of the weaker entries of Glee this season, with everything super syrup-y, though the trailers for next season definitely have me gearing up for some hilarity.  And with that, I wish you all a Merry Christmas-see you in a few!

OVP: Outside the Law (2010)

Film: Outside the Law (2010)
Stars: Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila, Chafia Boudraa, Bernard Blancan
Director: Rachid Boucherab
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Foreign Language Film-Algeria)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I will claim a bit of unfortunate ingorance on the front of this film, at least its historical context.  Though I did take some post-War history in college, most of my knowledge of Algeria's struggle for independence is fuzzy at best and completely absent at worst (and to be honest, it's more the latter).  Therefore, I do not have the background to discuss whether or not this film accurately portrays France's actions toward Algeria during the 1950's as the territory struggled to become a country of its own.  I can only comment about the quality of the film that Boucherab put before me, the fourth of the five nominees that I have seen from the 2010 Best Foreign Language Film race.

The film tells the tale of three brothers, all of whom were, as children, kicked out of their home of leisure and forced to the streets and homelessness.  We don't get to see too much of their struggle through adolescence, as the film cuts directly from their (unjust) evicition to the riots of the Setif massacre, when the brothers' father is killed during the gunfire, and they all are deeply affected by his death and the events of the day.

Each brother starts the film in a very different place than he began it, and in a way, it almost seems to be borrowing a bit from The Godfather (in the way that any film with three brothers dealing with organized crime must be borrowing something from The Godfather).  You have the hotheaded lug Sonny, in this case Messaoud (Zem), who has just come home from war (it sounds like that means he should be Michael, but there's little doubt that he's Sonny as the film progresses).  Michael, on the other hand, is incarnated in the bookish Abdelkader (Bouajila), who takes the Algerian independence cause most to heart, and is willing to sacrifice people's lives, without much of a thought, in order to reach his independence.  You wouldn't guess this was the direction the man would take as the film began, what with his even-tempered intellectualism, and his strong strength in his mother (well-played by Boudraa, as a woman who is both morally upright and clearly revels a bit in her sons' ascendance, even if she turns a blind eye to how he gets there).

The third son, the Fredo, is of course the weakest of the three, but not in the same way that John Cazale's brilliant middle child is.  Here, Said (Debbouze) is less a cowardly man who betrays the family and more a man who shadily (first prostitution, then a more legitimate run as boxing promoter) gains his fame and fortune, despite the protests of his brothers, who are consistently trying to tear him down.  The dynamic between the three is the best part of the film-the interworkings of these three actors and their competitive, back-stabbing, but still deeply loving relationships is fascinating to watch.  Sibling chemistry is something that sometimes gets neglected in a film (or is portrayed unrealistically), and I love the way that they can go years without speaking, perhaps even hating each other, but when one is in trouble, the other two abandon whatever loyalties they have outside the family and run across the world to save their brother.  That's the sort of crazily loyal bond that only exists from one sibling to another.

The film stretches for way too long, and while it seems intent on giving a complete overview of the entire movement through the eyes of three brothers, it gets repatitive after a while, and you start to wonder why there isn't more time to stop and smell the roses-it seems impossible that these men focused on nothing else but the revolution for seventeen years, and this lack of growth amongst the characters and their ambitions (with the exception of Said), hurts the narrative.

The film competed for Best Foreign Language Film, and though I am not going to compare it to the other films (we're not far off from the 2010 OVP writeups and I don't want to ruin the surprise, and quite frankly, I'm still debating my ranking), I will say that Boucherab is on an impressive streak.  He has landed three Best Foreign Language Film nominations (comprising 60% of Algeria's total citations in this category), and is not a director that I'll underestimate for a nomination in the future.  However, I will say that if the other two films are of the same caliber, I am in for some very handsome and compelling, but overall uninspiring movies.

Pitch Perfect (2012)

Film: Pitch Perfect (2012)
Stars: Anna Kendrick, Skylar Astin, Ben Platt, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Rebel Wilson
Director: Jason Moore
Oscar History: No nominations (Rebel Wilson did score a BFCA nomination, however)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Anyone remember last year, when Bridesmaids and The Help came out, and suddenly everyone was chatting about making female-centric films and how studios weren't going to leave women behind at the Box Office anymore?  You'd be forgiven for forgetting this, since clearly studio heads did-I know it's only one year, but you can't tell me that they couldn't have quickly greenlit more female-centric movies to counter the Summer of the Superhero (Iron Man and Spider-Man and Batman...oh my!).  Thankfully, for both moviegoers and Universal, Pitch Perfect was that sole counterbalance, became a hit, and is an insistently addictive movie that plays just as well on video as the big screen.

The film revolves around Beca (Kendrick), a college freshman who desperately wants to move to Los Angeles to become a record producer.  She's the child of divorce, and is too-cool-for-school, and you already know this character by heart at the beginning, as she's brimming with cliches, but thankfully the casting director had the foresight to hire the delightful Anna Kendrick as his chief player, who breathes life into this character where most actresses wouldn't have been able to find a unique rhthym for the character.  For starters, she's a complete nerd, something that Kendrick's performance revels in-she's into music mixing and has a penchant for singing, something that comes into play when the leader of a failed a capella group catches her singing in the shower and demands that she try out for her group.  Of course, the group needs her to mix things up a bit and bring the group out of the last century and in with the new, as the group's routines are staid and boring until Beca comes in and introduces them to mash-ups and stronger routines.

If this is sounding like an episode of Glee, but on the big screen, you might be forgiven, but unlike the Ryan Murphy series, this show isn't really about struggling with the hardships of high school and bullying-this is primarily about celebrating your place in the niche you belong in-Beca clearly revels in joining the a capella group, and like all of the characters in the film, is strongly confident in herself.  Her love interest, Skylar Astin, is an aspiring cinematic composer, and while his reliance on The Breakfast Club for inspiration seems a bit of a counter to the plot of the film (which largely seems to reject the idea of the 1980's as an artistic inspiration), Astin's adorkable character (seriously-where are these uber-cute and nerdy guys in real life?) is so easy to crush on, you forgive him his rather boring favorite movies.

While Kendrick and Astin are both great, the film, for anyone who spends longer than ten minutes watching, belongs to Rebel Wilson.  Wilson, whom you may remember from a bit part as Kristen Wiig's roommate in last summer's Bridesmaids, plays the randy and completely spontaneous Fat Amy (a name that she embraces rather than admonishes).  It's hard to tell where Fat Amy ends and Wilson begins, but you're going to be laughing so hard that you won't care.  Seriously-there were times when I'm certain I lost several minutes of the movie because I could not stop laughing at Wilson's ridiculously inappropriate one-liners.  Every time that she comes onto screen, you are inwardly giggling in anticipation of what is to come next.  Wilson, who is clearly an emerging star, will be interesting to place in upcoming films (as people will want her to constantly be playing this vein of character), but this woman has star charisma to the hilt and I cannot wait for what comes next.

The film does have its fault-not all of the eccentric side characters have the pure watchability of Wilson's Fat Amy, and in particular, Hana Mae Lee's squeaky-voiced Lilly's act wears thin really, really quickly and though it's always welcome to see John Benjamin Hickey (Beca's father) show up, Beca is too Gen Y and too self-aware to really be believed as an affected child of divorce.  But overall, this is a wildly fun movie with a soundtrack that you're going to want to instantly go out to iTunes to buy.

What'd you think of the film?  What do you think of Wilson's future as an actress?  And do you, like me, think Kristen Stewart would gladly switch careers with Anna Kendrick?

OVP: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Film: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Stars: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Aidan Turner, Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Andy Serkis, Sylvester McCoy
Director: Peter Jackson
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Art Direction, Visual Effects, Makeup)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

As reviewers, we cannot entirely shield ourselves from our personal favorites,  As I mentioned a few weeks ago when I reviewed Breaking Dawn, I am a biased fan of the Twilight films, and that may have skewed me a bit.  However, I can say that, though The Lord of the Rings as a 10-hour epic may be my favorite movie (depending on what day you ask me), I was looking forward to The Hobbit with a bit of dread.  The trailers (the few I had seen) had me a bit nervous-lighter tone is not a direction I care to venture, and unlike the original trilogy, I had read The Hobbit as a kid of about thirteen, and so I knew there wasn't a lot to go on in the film, and to stretch it over three films for nearly ten hours seemed a bit daring, and possibly (well, certainly) a bit greed-induced, potentially at the cost of artistic credence.  Images of The Phantom Menace danced in my head, and they had me shivering with cinematic fear.

I will now admit, however, that I was thankfully and mercifully wrong, as I adored the movie.  It's not the same film as The Lord of the Rings, but that's not necessarily due to a lack of quality, but due to the aforementioned change in tone.  The film is dealing with a slightly less noble pursuit.  I'm going to try desperately throughout this review not to compare it to the book (partially because it's been a few years since I was thirteen and it's a little fuzzy at this point), as I'm usually a solid fan of changing the plot of a book in order to fit it onto the big screen, and one of the best examples of that is the change in the pursuit of the dwarves.  In the book, if I recall correctly, they are simply after the mountain of treasure that Smaug is guarding, rather than the noble pursuit of reclaiming their kingdom.  Here, that makes their quest a bit easier to buy into, and gives the film some depth that is well-needed.

Even with that plot alteration, it can't quite hit the "end-of-the-world" heaviness that, say, The Return of the King manages to encompass since there they are fighting a true, complete evil that is set to destroy all of Middle Earth, and so the film cannot quite hit those depths.  It certainly doesn't lose its majesty, however.  The film knows how to highlight the natural beauty it perfected in The Lord of the Rings-every single landscape seems to have been plucked from Tolkien's imagination, so perfectly crafted it is (the art direction is sublime in the film, particularly when you note, say Radagast's house and all of its fun little nuances or the agedness of Bilbo's hobbit hole).

Speaking of Radagast, the film also manages to fill in some of the thinness in its plot with clever and delightful diversions such as Radagast and his crazy affinity for mushrooms and hedgehogs.  Some critics may be divided on this (I honestly haven't spent a lot of time reading reviews of the film, though I've heard they are a bit sour on it), but I must confess that I love every single hint and clue that comes up regarding the soon-to-come Lord of the Rings tale.  Radagast seeing Sauron, the Necromancer, and the already shaky allegiance of Saruman to the side of good.  Prequels aren't usually fun because they make everything fit too neatly, but with a story as well-definied as Tolkien's, this works well for Jackson and his co-writers.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the plot of the film aside from picking and choosing what I loved, and that's because you're going to see this movie-it's one of those bulletproof sort of films that anyone who is remotely interested in the film is going to head out and see it, and they should-this movie is excellent popcorn fare.  I'm also not going to focus on the entire plot, because this is a long, long movie-coming in just shy of three hours (though it breezes by), there's tons of plot and sideplot to push a review into a novella, and I'm about to start my Christmas travels, so I don't have time to finish a Cliffs Notes version of The Hobbit.

I will, however, note on some of the best and worst parts of the film.  The best parts, almost certainly, hearken back to the first film, and perhaps that's the nostalgia at work.  Every actor seems like they have missed these characters and the grandeur they bring, and so you suddenly see Cate Blanchett or Ian McKellen (every bit as fun as you remembered him in the first film, without quite the confidence he possessed in those movies) or Ian Holm, and your heart swells with pride over what a fun time you once had with them, and are now are about to have with them again.  The film's newer characters (save a heavy-hearted Richard Armitage and a dottering Sylvester McCoy) aren't quite as well defined as they should be, and haven't had the time in our hearts that the older characters have, and so I wasn't quite as drawn in by their plots and had a bit of a difficult time finding defining characteristics for each dwarf.  I will also gripe (just this once) that Aidan Turner, who plays Kili, may be a bit too...beautiful to be playing a dwarf.

I'm also warming to Bilbo, as incarnated by Martin Freeman, as my main protagonist, and I will say that I am closer to loving him than I ever was with Frodo (who sort of gets to be the Luke Skywalker of The Lord of the Rings-the main character, but constantly overshadowed by his more interesting and rootable-for sidekicks).  Though Freeman doesn't get the plum role that Ian Holm did (it's always better and more exciting to be turning evil onscreen than to be the jolly good predecessor), he still finds a voice as the film progresses.  I wish they would have found a bit more time to show his emerging strength (and more animosity with Thorin) so that the final moments where he saves Thorin's life would be a bit more of a payoff, but overall, I enjoyed Freeman's work, and am excited to see where this character goes in the next two films (personally, considering where they are in the plot of the book, I'm truly excited to see what happens in the third film period, as there's not a lot left of the novel if I recall correctly, and certainly not enough to fill two films, but that's a problem for another day and another movie).

Lastly, I want to end with what undoubtedly was everyone's favorite part of this film, the return of Gollum, and the glorious Andy Serkis.  The only disappointing thing about this moment was that it's the only interaction we're guaranteed between the two in this trilogy, and so I was so glad that Jackson gave it its proper due, rather than short-shifting Serkis or trying to string the character through multiple films (at least I'm hoping that's not where they're going with it).  You spend so much time getting to know the human side of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, it's a nice reminder to the audience what a menacingly evil character he also happens to be.  It takes a lot of directorial and acting skill to make a scene that everyone in the audience knows the ending to (Bilbo will escape with the ring, and both characters will live to see another day, though never to see each other again) thrilling and edge-of-your-seat, but that's what Jackson does here.  The riddle match, the stealing of the ring, and everything about this interaction brings out the best in the movie, and the best in Freeman as an actor.  Serkis's character may be relying on some past tricks, but he still manages to add new depths to a character-look at the glee he showers on Bilbo when he realizes that he'll get to play a game before the kill, and the unnerving way he doesn't address his multiple personalities, which of course he is not truly aware is odd.  It's a tour de force triumph at the end of the film, and worth the ticket price, even on top of an excellent adventure of a movie.

And that's where I'm going to leave it.  I'm positive there are opinions out there of the film, so feel free to share your favorite (or least favorite) parts in the comments.  And though I know I owe everyone a Glee recap (I have seen it, I just haven't written it), if I don't have the time to write it before the holiday, Merry Christmas!

Killing Them Softly (2012)

Film: Killing Them Softly (2012)
Stars: Brad Pitt, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta
Director: Andrew Dominik
Oscar History: Not a chance with that box office
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Okay, before I head off for Christmas break, I thought I'd throw a couple of final reviews out there that I had not been "putting off" but had not been able to get to do to a crazy work week.  Like almost none of you (considering the Box Office), I went out and saw Killing Them Softly this past weekend, and was pleasantly surprised at what a fine picture had been made for all of us, and one that apparently no one really wanted to see.

The movie tells the tale of several smalltime crooks and what has become of organized crime.  The film never 100% says what city it's in, but you can feel from the washed out cityscape and the crumbling homes that this is Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.  Showing the city, still reeling from the devastation of that storm and the lack of federal response, is one of many political insinuations that Dominik throws out throughout the film.  The film takes place in 2008, during the collapse of the world economy, and frequently highlights speeches made by President Bush and then-Sen. Obama.  We'll get to why in a minute, but just keep it it mind, as this seemingly out-there use of their speeches comes to a head as the film progresses.

(Spoilers throughout) The film follows two young criminals-for-hire (McNairy and Mendohlson) and their backer who tries to execute out a seemingly perfect crime.  Several years earlier, Markie (Liotta) stood up his own poker game, and kept the money.  Time went by, and Markie eventually confessed to the crime, but no one seemed to care, as Markie was a guy that everyone got along with, and they just brushed it off.  However, McNairy and Mendohlson decide to duplicate the crime, therefore implicating Markie since he got away with it the first time, and presumably taking the suspicion off of themselves.

The plan would work, but loose lips and all of that take place, and eventually Jackie (Pitt) is hired to kill the backer and Markie.  However, because Pitt knows the backer, he convinces the man hiring him, an accountant for the mob (Jenkins) to hire someone else to kill the backer, James Gandolfini's very tough Mickey.

This all sounds like fairly boilerplate crime drama, doesn't it?  That's where you'd be wrong.  Dominik, who five years ago came out with one of the best films of the decade, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, does not make simple, un-complicated films, and this movie, which is admittedly hard to describe in the confines of a review, spends most of its time after the initial set-up exploring its characters on the periphery, particularly Mickey.  Mickey, excellently played by Gandolfini, who must be tired of playing emotionally-stunted tough guys, but still gives it his all, shows us a man who has essentially lost his way, likely never to return from it.  He is a man who breaks down into tears at the thought of his wife leaving him or cheating on him, but is still the sort of man who won't give up drinking or hookers (the film is stunningly lacking in female roles, and I think the only woman with a speaking part is Mickey's prostitute).  He also wouldn't give up crime, but he's so drunk all-the-time that he can no longer do the thing that he's good at, something that becomes apparent to Jackie as he realizes that he'll be doing all of the kills.

The film also is about money, and what people will do in a tough economy to get it.  Presidents Obama and Bush consistently talk about the money that the financial collapse had cost, and the ensuing bailout.  The film makes the commentary that these institutions, who stole all this money are just as much criminals as the men bloodily beating and stealing in front of you, and I'll leave your politics to decide whether or not you agree with that statement, but suffice it to say it's a bold one, and one that works rather effectively in the confines of the film.  When, as the film closes, Jackie is seemingly stiffed by Jenkins' accountant character, and comes back to demand more money, Jenkins cheekily blames it on the economy, and the film ends with Jackie demanding his money.

The film's two best assets, aside from Dominik's sturdy and daring direction, are Greig Fraser's cinematography and Pitt's lead performance.  Fraser's work is mesmerizing, particularly in the film's most violent sequences.  When one of the characters is murdered in a car, Fraser frames the shots as if he's filming the Joffrey Ballet, with a sort of sweeping beauty that has you both gaping in awe and in disgust that such carnage could look so stunning.  Fraser, who is an excellent cinematographer, also has Snow White and the Huntsman and Zero Dark Thirty out this year, and may just get his first of that most coveted of prizes in a few weeks: an Oscar nomination (just not for this film).

Pitt, on the other hand, has been nominated by Oscar in the past.  In fact, Pitt has been so damn good so often these days that you'd be remiss to not be excited about yet another excellent piece of work from the actor (in fact, if you discount vocal work, he hasn't had a miss since his last film with Dominik).  Pitt's work here is forceful-you get a man who treats his work as an assassin with care, but also the normalcy you might consider your average 9-to-5 job.  He jokes with his coworker, he clearly likes some parts of his job more than others, and at the end of the day, he does it primarily for the paycheck.  Pitt's strong, relaxed chemistry with Jenkins, Gandolfini, and McNairy makes it seem so easy, but imagine almost any other actor in this role, and think about how they would have overplayed the political angles of the film or the violent actions of the film, rather than making this man commonplace, a far eerier and bolder way to tackle such a character.  While George Clooney is off making "prestige" fare and Matt Damon is off making family and box office-friendly work, Pitt continues to stretch his considerable acting muscles in movies like Killing Them Softly, The Tree of Life, Burn After Reading, and Assassination of..., and I suspect will have the more memorable filmography from this period as a result.

American Horror Story: The Coat Hanger (#2.9)

Oh Brooke Smith, you just have the worst luck, don't you?  First you fall prey to the evil monstrosity of Buffalo Bill, manage to escape with his dog (and yourself) intact, and then you are forced to encounter Bloody Face 2.0, this time not being nearly as lucky.

Yes, AHS-ers, there is another Bloody Face, and it is indeed Dylan McDermott, confirming one of the worst kept secrets of the season.  For a second during the episode I thought that would leave the question mark over whether he was Thredson's or Kit's child, but there is no doubt that he is indeed the son on Bloody Face, and his father is Oliver Thredson.  What is still in doubt is just how much does he know about his mother, and did Thredson ever come to justice (my gut instinct is saying that he didn't)?  And also, is it now confirmed that poor Jenna Dewan Tatum died at the hands of Bloody Face after managing to survive for so many episodes during her snippets?

These are questions that are still left open, but a lot of them were closed last night, and none-too-satisfyingly.  Perhaps it's because Murphy (or McDermott) have let too many spoilers become common fact, that even for those of us who actively avoid said spoilers, it was impossible not to be permeated at least somewhat.  It took away from the biggest reveal of the episode, and a lot of the rest of the smaller reveals you could see a mile away.  For starters, who didn't see Dr. Thredson eventually escaping the clutches of Lana and Kit?  I mean, to be fair, they had some very legit reasons for not killing him (wanting to exonerate Kit), so this isn't one of those hyper-foolish horror movie tropes where they miss an opportunity to kill him (like, say, a few episodes ago when Lana told on Kit and Grace as they were trying to escape, which I still maintain is the only way all three of them could have gotten out alive-if only AHS was a choose your own adventure book).  Unfortunately, though, this once again may have been a one-time only opportunity for them, as I suspect that Thredson is fleeing the coop rather steadily, though based on Bloody Face, Jr's story, he has to reunite with Lana or at least her child one more time before the series ends.

We also saw some movement on the alien story for the first time in a few weeks, with another set of unlikely allies, Kit and Dr. Arden, teaming up to try and lure the aliens back, based on Dr. Arden's odd but apparently legit theory that the aliens are after something specific in Kit (what that is, it's hard to say-perhaps they want their breed of aliens to be as adorable as Evan Peters?), but it somewhat worked (though, again, why is anyone trusting or teaming up with Dr. Arden?), as Kit lay slowly dying, the aliens returned Grace to Briarcliff, fully pregnant despite her rendezvous being most recent, and we were left to wonder the fate of Kit over the break, though my gut tells me there's still quite a bit to play where he is concerned.

The title of the episode comes from Lana's story, which was fairly straight-forward the entire episode.  Lana wanted to abort the baby of Bloody Face, but that wasn't going to be a supremely easy task in a Catholic insane asylum in the 1960's.  Still, she attempted to do it, and tortured Dr. Thredson with this idea, which was probably good for some catharsis. Sister Mary Eunice, though, wasn't about to let that happen, since she clearly wanted the killer's offspring to enter the world, and continually tried to stop Lana, and as we know from the Dylan McDermott story, Lana is going to be having that baby.  We also saw the reuniting of Sister Jude and Lana this episode, and the apology that probably will never be accepted by Lana, but Sister Jude needed to share.  Sister Jude, so far down the ladder at this point, has gone from head of the institute to patient, and though her story was brief this episode, with Sister Mary Eunice, Dr. Arden, and Lee Emerson all lying and throwing her into the nuthouse, we still got a sign that perhaps that fire in her may return, when she smashed the French record in the recreation room of Briarcliff and said "things are going to change around here."  How she'll be able to change them in her current status as patient, I'm not sure, but I'm looking forward to finding out.  And though Ryan Murphy's characters have constant mood swings, I hope that Sister Jude remains constant in her fight to let Lana (and hopefully Kit) free of Briarcliff forever.

We end this week where the episode ended, with the underused this season Monsignor, whose secrets still haven't come entirely to the forefront (or is it simply that he has ambitions to become the Pope, is that all there is?), but his naivety was at the forefront.  He clearly fell for every lie that Sister Mary Eunice, Dr. Arden (whom he should know to mistrust), and Lee told him, and pushed Sister Jude unjustly into the asylum with little thought of remorse for her, seemingly more focused on his own burdens as a result.  However, his complete stupidity caught up with him later in the episode, when he was suckered in by Lee to uncuff him, causing Lee to almost drown him in the water, and then to quite literally crucify him on the alter.  I'm curious what happens with his character in the upcoming weeks, but unlike Sister Jude, I'm going to have a harder time forgiving him-he was brought down by stupidity, Sister Jude was brought down by seeking the truth.

And that's where we are left until 2013.  All-in-all, a necessary episode to keep everything moving, but not an overly exciting one (except for the genius of casting Brooke Smith at the beginning of the episode-that deserves a Casting Emmy alone).  What were your thoughts on The Coat Hanger?

Oscars: State of the Race

So, though we’ll likely get some potential buzz components in the next couple of weeks (primarily, box office and guild nominations, though there’s always the wedding, death, divorce, scandal, Russell Crowe hitting someone with a phone sorts of situations), at this point, it seems to me that we’ve got all of the major precursor pieces that we’re going to get for Oscar’s Best Picture, Animated Feature, and Acting races, and so while these are not my final predictions, they are worth noting, as we have our Golden Globe, SAG, and (ugh) Critics Choice Award nominations, as well as the Triple Crown of NYFCC, NBR, and LAFCA.

Best Picture

So far…

Critics Triple Crown: Zero Dark Thirty and Amour

Critics Choice Awards: Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, The Master, Moonrise Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty

Golden Globes: Argo, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Les Miserables, Moonrise Kingdom, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Silver Linings Playbook

SAG Awards (Best Cast, but Still): Argo, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Les Miserables, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook

Other Names That Should Be Mentioned: None to speak of-The Hobbit hasn’t received one speck of a mention, which means it’s likely out, and The Dark Knight Rises also seems to be a bit of an afterthought.

What This Means: I think we can all start counting Zero Dark, Argo, Lincoln, Les Miz, and Silver Linings into the Oscar pool, as that is clearly the Top 5. As for the rest of the list, I suspect that with the odd new voting system that Life of Pi will also make it. As for the rest of the bunch, I’m having trouble getting a gage-I think seven seems like the most likely number, but I’m torn between it being Beasts, Django (which no one’s really seen yet-it could be awesome or terrible, and we’d have no way of knowing), The Master, or Best Exotic. For the sake of argument, I’m going with Beasts, because it probably has the most ardent fan base, but the lack of nominations for Wallis in most precursors has to hurt.

Best Actor
So far…
Critics Triple Crown: Daniel Day-Lewis, Joaquin Phoenix, Bradley Cooper
Critics Choice Awards: Daniel Day-Lewis, Joaquin Phoenix, Bradley Cooper, Hugh Jackman, John Hawkes, Denzel Washington
Golden Globes: Daniel Day-Lewis, Richard Gere, John Hawkes, Denzel Washington, Joaquin Phoenix, Bradley Cooper, Jack Black, Ewan McGregor, Bill Murray
SAG Awards: Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, Joaquin Phoenix, John Hawkes, Denzel Washington
Other Names That Should Be Mentioned: Matt Damon’s late-breaking work in Promised Land or Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained both are theoretically possibilities, but neither have the feel of someone who swoops in and lands a nomination out-of-nowhere.
What This Means: I think at this point it would be foolish to bet against DDL, Hawkes, or Washington, and though he’s the lead in a musical (usually terrible news for a lead actor), Jackman feels like the fourth nominee (weird aside, but Jackman may well be the only first-time acting nominee this year). The final slot seems to be a battle between Cooper and Phoenix (with Gere on the outside-looking-in once more), and while I’m guessing Cooper (Harvey is backing that horse, and it’s never wise to bet against Harvey), the Academy has shown that it doesn’t mind nominating people who bash it publicly, and so Phoenix isn’t completely out of the question.

Best Actress
So far…
Critics Triple Crown: Emmanuelle Riva, Jessica Chastain, Rachel Weisz, Jennifer Lawrence
Critics Choice Awards: Quvenzhane Wallis, Emmanuelle Riva, Marion Cotillard, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence, Naomi Watts
Golden Globes: Helen Mirren, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, Jessica Chastain, Marion Cotillard, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Emily Blunt, Judi Dench
SAG Awards: Helen Mirren, Marion Cotillard, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence, Naomi Watts
Other Names That Should Be Mentioned: Somewhere, Keira Knightley is wondering what she needs to do to get a second Oscar nomination, considering the prestige fare she’s been in since her first: Atonement, Never Let Me Go, A Dangerous Method, and now Anna Karenina have all missed for her.
What This Means: If you take Streep and Smith out of the race, almost any combination of these women seems plausible. I suspect that Chastain and Lawrence are mortal locks by now, and Watts and Cotillard certainly feel that way, which leaves Riva, Dench, Wallis, Mirren, and Weisz to contend for the final nod, though I’m going to throw out Wallis and Dench based on a relative lack of buzz. Weisz is from a very small film, but she’s certainly got a fanbase considering she keeps getting in, so she’s my surprise guess, but I’ll beti it's Riva versus Mirren. Riva’s film is underseen, and the fact Mirren is well-liked by the Academy makes me want to lean toward her, though either she, Watts, or Cotillard could be the “lots of precursors, not a lot of Oscar” and make way for Weisz or Riva.

Best Supporting Actor

So far…

Critics Triple Crown: Matthew McConaughey, Dwight Henry, Leonardo DiCaprio
Critics Choice Awards: Alan Arkin, Javier Bardem, Robert de Niro, Matthew McConaughey, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones
Golden Globes: Alan Arkin, Tommy Lee Jones, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz
SAG Awards: Alan Arkin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robert de Niro
Other Names That Should Be Mentioned: John Goodman and Bryan Cranston both have a lot going for them, and at least one person usually makes it without any precursor support-if that’s happening this year, I suspect it’s one of these two, though I don’t think I’m guessing either of them at this point.
What This Means: This category tends to be the most “by-the-book” with its first four nominees, and rarely
snubs a frontrunner, so I am going to say that Jones, Arkin, Hoffman, and de Niro are all making it. It’d be wild if Henry, McConaughey, Cranston, or Goodman made it, considering the surprise factor (and that they’d all be getting a first-time nomination), but something tells me that this is DiCaprio. The Bardem thing is bizarre to me, and I’m going to disregard it, though a SAG and a BFCA-nominated performance cannot be dismissed completely out-of-hand. Also, who is the frontrunner to win here-Jones, Hoffman, or de Niro?

Best Supporting Actress
So far…
Critics Triple Crown: Sally Field, Amy Adams, Ann Dowd
Critics Choice Awards: Amy Adams, Sally Field, Helen Hunt, Anne Hathaway, Ann Dowd, Judi Dench
Golden Globes: Amy Adams, Sally Field, Helen Hunt, Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman
SAG Awards: Maggie Smith, Sally Field, Helen Hunt, Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman

Other Names That Should Be Mentioned: Kerry Washington, Kelly Reilly, and Jennifer Ehle all have their reasons to be nominated, and late-breaking support for either Django or ZDT could sway this race, but I’m not feeling any of them right now.

What This Means: Field, Hunt, Hathaway, and Adams all feel like nominees. I know that Adams hasn’t cleaned up everywhere, but the Academy adores the girl, and this field is empty enough that she should

score a fourth Supporting Actress nomination (getting her that much closer to the record) which leaves Kidman, Smith, and Dowd fighting it out for the final slot (again, the Dench thing I can’t get my head around-a Bond film for Oscar?-so I’m disregarding it). Smith is the traditional choice, Kidman is the precursor choice at this point (who would have thought that last week?), and Dowd feels like the nominee (based on this category’s history of always nominating at least one first-timer). I’m going with Dowd, but any of the three would make complete sense to me at this point.

Best Animated Feature

So far…

Critics Triple Crown: Frankenweenie, Wreck-It Ralph

Critics Choice Awards: Brave, Frankenweenie, Wreck-It Ralph, Rise of the Guardians, Madagascar 3, ParaNorman

Golden Globes: Hotel Transylvania, Brave, Frankenweenie, Wreck-It Ralph, Rise of the Guardians

Other Names That Should Be Mentioned: A strong year for animation, but I wouldn’t discount GKids, a recent stronghold at the Oscars, with either The Painting or From Up on Poppy Hill. Also, The Lorax made a mountain of cash, and therefore deserves at least to be mentioned, though its reviews will cost it. 

What This Means: Frankenweenie and Wreck-It Ralph are battling it out for the win, and Brave gets in by default (Pixar has only missed once, and this has too good of reviews to miss). The final two slots are hard-Rise of the Guardians has a lot going for it, but its box office hasn’t been strong, and it seems like an also-ran, though I’d be foolish to not predict something that’s scored this many precursors, so I’m guessing it’s in. That leaves ParaNorman, Hotel Transylvania, and the two GKids films, and of the four, despite ParaNorman’s stellar reviews, I’m going with The Painting-you’d be hard-pressed to find a recent year that didn’t honor a foreign film, and this seems like the buzzier of the two. If Rise falls, ParaNorman and Poppy Hill both could sneak in for that slot.

OVP: In a Better World (2010)

Film: In a Better World (2010)
Stars: Mikael Persbrandt, Trine Dyrholm, Ulrich Thomsen, William Johnk Juels Nielsen, Markus Rygaard, Kim Bodnia
Director: Susanne Bier
Oscar History: 1 nod/1 win (Best Foreign Language Film*-Denmark)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Most films focus on the moments in our lives that Hallmark creates a card for-birth, love, marriage, illness, friendship, aging, holidays, death-the landmark moments that everyone acknowledges carries some inherent weight.  In a Better World is certainly filled with moments that define us as a person, but with the exception of its first ten minutes, it's not on the moments that the world acknowledges as being worth noting.  Instead, it focuses on the moments that truly define us-the quiet, desperate decisions we make, the risks we take and whether they pay off or not, and the way we cling to whatever seems strongest when we are at our most weak.

(Spoilers throughout) The film takes place in two different countries, both in Denmark and in Sudan.  The Sudanese storyline is following one man, a doctor named Anton (Persbrandt), who is treating the victims of a warlord, and finds himself constantly at a distance from his estranged wife in Denmark (he had an affair with another woman), played by Dyrholm, and his two sons, the eldest of which is named Elias (Rygaard) and is bullied at school for his awkward appearance.

Elias's bullying catches the eye of a newcomer to his school, Christian (Nielsen), whose mother has recently passed away from cancer, and whose father (Thomsen) doesn't know how to deal with his son, who seems to blame his father for his mother's death and is constantly pushing him away.  Instead of reaching out emotionally, the father finds the distance better suits their relationship, and though he makes half-hearted (or perhaps fully-hearted attempts, I'm not sure, but in this case I'm going to pass a little judgment and state that he should have tried harder) attempts to connect with his son, he is far more likely to just let it be and hope that time will heal all wounds.

Elias and Christian at first seem like a solid fit, and Elias's parents in particular are glad that their son finally has a friend, but things turn ugly when the boys confront a fellow student who had been bullying both of them, and Christian beats him with a bike pump and pulls a knife on him.  It's an interesting dilemma for anyone who is watching, as you see the savage intent that Christian is throwing at this other boy, and as an American viewer, you instantly think "Damien!" and assume that the boy is named ironically, and we will be in for some sort of psychotic killer.  Bier, on the other hand, doesn't let us off so easily, as while it is clear that Christian is disturbed, and handling his grief very poorly, Bier doesn't let you simply cast your blame on the boy, or the parents, or society, with a great ease.

Instead, she shows how being oblivious can affect us far more than anything we say or do or act upon, and in this way, she focuses on the quiet decisions we make.  When Anton is slapped by another man and brushes it off, the boys, and Christian in particular, takes it as an enormous slight, and start plotting a revenge on the man, planning on blowing up his van as retribution.  Christian finds bomb blueprints on the internet, and when Elias rejects the idea, Christian abandons him, and Elias decides that his life without friends was worse than the trouble that he is about to encounter.  This observation, that Elias would stay in a situation that he doesn't want to be a part of and with someone that he increasingly is ill-at-ease with, just to avoid going back to having no friends, says more about "bully culture" and human nature than perhaps anything I've seen in the many "anti-bullying" campaigns I've seen in the past year.

The bombing, of course, doesn't go off as planned, and Elias is nearly killed in the bombing, which causes his mother, in a ballistic rage, to tell Christian that Elias is dead, which causes Christian to attempt suicide, only to be saved by Anton, who is the only one who knows where Christian's favorite place is aside from Elias.  As you can tell from that run-on sentence, it's a fast-paced final third, and in my opinion seems a bit too conventional for the difficult story that Bier was telling in the first 90 minutes of the film.  The boys receive little to no punishment, and in a plot resolution that I find hard to believe, Christian pulls a complete 180 and forgives his father, and seems to have changed his ways completely.

As you may be able to tell, I loved the first part and disliked the conclusion of this movie, and here's why: the film so readily is willing to ask difficult questions like "how well do you know your children," "what really makes us angry," and "who is truly responsible when a child fails."  But it doesn't feel it necessarily to hypothesize answers.  The film also has some compelling, if completely ancillary and unnecessary sequences in the Sudan.  The goal of these scenes is probably to mirror something that all of us as adults become angry over (a man who savagely murders young women) as compared to the slight that the boys seem to feel has halted their world (the slapping of their father).  However, this point is a bit too subtle to notice until after the film, and that's likely only if you're writing a 1000-word review of the movie.

So, in the end, I found this film a mixed bag.  The questions and the first three-quarters were so good (and the actors, particularly Dyrholm, are all top notch), that it almost makes up for the easy and cheap resolution in the final thirty minutes.  Almost.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

Film: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)
Stars: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley, William Petersen, Melanie Lynskey, Adam Brody, Connie Britton, Martin Sheen
Director: Lorene Scafaria
Oscar History: None
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

While some awards hounds spend the remaining days of the year scrounging for those last shards of Oscar films that they may have missed, I also like to focus on some of the films of the year that I was intrigued by, but just wasn't able to hit in the theaters.  The films that are sitting at the bottom of the Netflix queue because they just came out on DVD, and I want to see before I make any decisions about my personal end-of-the-year honors.  They may not make any impact, or they may make all the impact possible (one of my favorite 2011 films, Weekend, was amongst the final films I saw before making my own personal Top Ten list last year).  This thought process was what led me to Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, a film that I missed in theaters (considering the Box Office, pretty much everyone else did as well), and wanted to check out.

The film tells a tale we know fairly well at this point of a man named Dodge (Carell) dealing with a midlife crisis.  His wife has left him, his job sucks, and he goes unnoticed by his neighbors.  What complexity is added to his life is that he has the knowledge that the world will be ending in three weeks.  A seventy-mile wide asteroid is set to collide with Earth and destroy all of humanity.  As a result, everyone around him is reacting differently.  Some are finding God, others are finding Sodom and Gomorrah-there is a party where heroin, uninhibited sex, and all sorts of debauchery reign supreme, and Dodge seems to want none of it.  His friends are inexplicably trying to set him up on a date, despite it being destined to be a very short-lived relationship, and were it not for the interest of a Bohemian neighbor named Penny (Knightley), he probably would have maintained his mundane routines for the remainder of his life.  However, meeting Penny, who is desperate to reunite with her family in Britain before she dies, and becoming emboldened to meet his first love, Olivia, they set off on a road trip to cross that final item off their Bucket List before an asteroid intervenes.

(Spoilers ahead) The film, like Children of Men and Melancholia, spends a lot of time hypothesizing how a world that knows that the end is nigh, would react.  We see bulletin boards advertising not only for the title request, but also for "Assassins for Hire," or "Who Wants to Sleep with a Virgin?" (which amusingly has no phone numbers left on the tabs).  In addition to the orgy that breaks out in an exceedingly amusing scene at a restaurant called Friendsy's, we also see a beautiful line of people being baptized in the ocean.  Everyone seems to have their own thoughts on how the world should end, and Scafaria takes a pleasingly leisurely look at these different customs and denials of the end of days.

The script suffers slightly when it isn't focused on this question of what is "truly important," and instead focuses on the sporadic relationship between Carell and Knightley.  Both fine actors, and I'm not bothered by the age difference (though he often plays a goofy guy, Carell is handsome and surprisingly well-built for a man of 50), but the film seems to make quick assumptions about the two, and it's hard to believe that they so quickly fell-in-love, and that the opposites attract thing would work so well since they spent such a large portion of the film as friends rather than lovers.  When the film first came out, I remember reading somewhere (don't recall where, but if you wrote it, take credit for it), that the film needed to be better edited, and I agree-the film gets choppy about where the relationship is headed, and what the characters' focus is centered upon.

That isn't to say there aren't wonderful moments toward the end, even if the film loses the sharp commentary of its first half.  I don't recall what part of the film this comes in (somewhere toward the latter half of the middle, probably), but the scenes with Derek Luke were excellent.  Luke plays a strong, military man who also happens to be Penny's ex, who has decided rather naively that he will survive the asteroid's blast, and has built a bomb shelter to sustain he and several other men (and apparently some women to be recruited later) to start rebuilding civilization.  He's the sort of character you'd expect in the similarly themed (though far, far, far superior Children of Men)-a man determined to find a hopeful silver lining in the apocalypse.  The entire sequence with him is awkward, but not because he is jealous of Carell, but because he shows a hope that the rest of the film has given up on, even if it isn't grounded in fact.

The movie ends with neither of the characters getting what they initially sought out, but of course, both of them getting the end result of their goal.  Despite Dodge finding Olivia and Penny getting the plane to take her to Britain, they find themselves back in Dodge's hotel as the movie finishes, Dodge finally finding real love and Penny finally finding her family.  The film of course ends with a wall of white, as Penny tells the love of her life about her childhood.  It's the sort of ending that works well even if it hasn't been entirely earned, and shows that even in a film that has a sloppy middle, a great beginning and ending largely makes up for it.

OVP: The Sessions (2012)

Film: The Sessions (2012)
Stars: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood, Adam Arkin
Director: Ben Lewis
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Helen Hunt)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Sex.  You'd be hard-pressed to find a subject more discussed, and yet seemingly just as taboo as this human obsession.  Seriously-there isn't a day of your adult life that it isn't mentioned, talked about, discussed, shunned, celebrated, and everything in-between, and yet, when a movie like The Sessions comes out, it's still cause for an eyebrow raise.  The fun of Ben Lewis's flawed but very capable film is that he basically ignores that eyebrow raise, gaining only a couple of laughs out of it, and instead, makes an honest depiction of one man's extreme hang-ups about sex (and the woman who helps him through them), and shows what happens when we let go of our insecurities and are just ourselves instead.

The film takes place in the late 1980's, and is about a real-life man named Mark O'Brien (Hawkes), who is in an iron lung due to polio, and has throughout his life, defeated the odds.  He has lived to be 38, an age no doctor expected him to reach, is a working writer and poet, has received his college degree, and overall has a routine, if not always fulfilling life.  He's the sort of man who survives things, finds ways to make things work.  He's also a man of deep faith, which plays throughout the film as a secondary storyline (the film is structured as he's giving confession to a priest, played by Macy), but truly shapes his character.  He believes in a higher calling, and is having a crisis of conscience.  You see, Mark wants what we all want-love and intimacy with someone he cherishes.  The film's opening thirty minutes focus on his growing affection, which he unfortunately declares, for a woman who is working as his caretaker.  Once she spurns his advances, and after a long consultation with his priest, Mark decides to seek out the advice and counseling of a sex surrogate.

For those unfamiliar, a sex surrogate is not a prostitute and is not a sex therapist, but if we're being honest, borrows a teensy bit from both and melds the idea.  It's here where Lewis gets his most provocative idea of the film going, though clearly the idea of sex surrogates have been around for decades now.  A sex surrogate is a person who helps to counsel those people who have sexual hang-ups (like Mark) and does indeed engage in sexual intercourse with Mark, but only for a maximum of six sessions.  This differs, of course, from a prostitute, in that the sex surrogate doesn't want your return business, and there is a limit to how long they will be seeing each other.  It's a hard concept, I admit, to getting around, which makes the job of Helen Hunt (who plays the sex surrogate, Cheryl), that much more difficult-can she both convince us that this is a real, therapeutic professional (and not a lady of the night), all-the-while establishing her own story arch?

It's here that The Sessions gets its best attribute.  While a lot of the focus on this film has been on the physically-demanding work being done by Hawkes, who plays his character with great charm and fun, and is one of those character actors I'm so damn excited has come to great success, it's Hunt that steals the film.  Hunt isn't necessarily an actress that I gravitate toward-she's always been a bit too methodical for me, and I, like many others, thought her Best Actress trophy was given prematurely for As Good As It Gets.  Here, however, we are given a performance that makes me rethink a lot of her career.  She plays Cheryl as a woman of confidence and professionalism, a therapist free of judgment but not necessarily free of opinions.  We see the woman in a sturdy but no-longer romantic marriage, drawn to her patient, but never really exhibiting it in front of him.  Hunt nails the way that a woman who had been in this tricky job for so long would be able to balance her emotions, even when they are overpowering, to ensure that she is doing what is best for her client.  One of my great pet peeves is when what is good for the story gets lost in what the character's ingrained personality and obvious reactions would be, and so I tip my hat to Lewis (and to Hunt) for not abandoning realism for the sake of an easy plot out.

(Spoilers to come) The work Cheryl and Mark do obviously helps (why else would it have become a movie?), and slowly Cheryl finds herself drawn to Mark, though he remains either oblivious or, being a gentleman, doesn't comment on it.  As Mark becomes more confident and encounters his sexual hang-ups, and his life's hang-ups, we see him start to assert himself more, and find more value in his life.  We also see Cheryl, whose marriage has a hiccup but doesn't falter, after their fourth session, encourage Mark to stop seeing her, because she's done all the good she can do.  The breakdown Hunt experiences in the car afterwards was so raw, and not necessarily pre-ordained, and so I found myself crying along with her.  Again, a triumph from an actress who hasn't had a lot of opportunities since the Academy crowned her fifteen years ago.

The film, for me, should have ended there.  The subsequent scenes, with Mark almost dying, and then meeting the love of his life, and then finally dying, and leaving a confusing message at the end of the film about whether or not Cheryl or this new woman was the love of his life, added unnecessary and murky complexities to the film that sort of kill the earlier scenes and really the purpose of the sex surrogacy.  In this case, a little ambiguity would have made the film better-we had received closure, we didn't need the neatly tied bow.

But that is not to say that this isn't a film worth checking out-you should soon, and see it with someone, if only for the inevitably thought-provoking conversation on the drive away from the theater.  After all, who doesn't love yet another conversation about sex?

OVP: Hitchcock (2012)

Film: Hitchcock (2012)
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Toni Collette, Michael Stuhlberg, Jessica Biel, James D'Arcy
Director: Sacha Gervasi
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Makeup)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

The films of Alfred Hitchcock are amongst the finest ever committed to celluloid.  Few directors (if any) have ever so seemlessly melded art with what is popular.  Though some of his films weren't hits initially (most notably Vertigo, now considered his finest work), movies like North by Northwest, Notorious, and Rear Window are all mesmerizing examples of artistic boundaries being pushed, while also creating edge-of-your seat popcorn fare.

In taking on this director, and the legacy of the film's focus, Psycho, Gervasi has stepped into shoes that he cannot possibly fill.  No one can be expected to make a film as grand as Psycho-it's a Herculean task that even Hitchcock himself would have trouble fulfilling upon demand.  Unfortunately, Gervasi is not only not up to the task, he seems intent on simplifying the life of a man who is beloved, but also was notably and famously imperfect.

The film tells the tale of Hitchcock's life via 1959-60.  At this point in his career, the legend is most definitely solid: he's made Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rope, Rear Window, and just come off the wildly successful North by Northwest.  One of the film's opening scenes is a reporter asking Hitchcock why he doesn't hang up his hat and call it a day?  For a genius like Hitchcock (Hopkins), he takes that not as a suggestion, but as a challenge.

Today it is difficult to understand just how ground-breaking and out-of-bounds a film like Psycho was. Implied nudity, murder, and especially killing off the top-billed star, Janet Leigh (Johansson), so soon into the film (you didn't need the spoiler alert there-it's in every Oscar clip show) as he did were all rather shocking and taboo.  The story walks us through the many hoops that Hitchcock had to endure, all the while watching him face the many travails that come with trying to balance work and career and watching work win the war.  His wife, Alma (Mirren) starts to see another man (Huston), not necessarily romantically, but clearly emotionally, and Hitchcock goes through some surface-level fascinations with his leading ladies, including Leigh and his former muse Vera Miles (Jessica Biel, and don't you secretly want to know what Miles, the only major character portrayed in the film who is still alive, thinks of this movie?).

Unfortunately for all of us, Gervasi spends more time on Hitch's crumbling, but clearly fairly foundationally solid marriage, and less on his infamous obsession with the women who starred in his pictures-the icy blondes that would become his mainstay (in addition to Leigh, there were of course Madeline Carroll, Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, and soon to come, Ms. Tippi Hedren), and his obsession.  For all his many fine attributes, Hitch's obsession with his leading ladies is the stuff of Hollywood lore, and Gervasi's intent to not focus on this, by far the most interesting thing about his biography, and instead turn the film into a Lifetime movie with a happy ending and a lot of winking, is an enormous disappointment.  When I learned that Helen Mirren (whom I adore, for the record), would be the lead, rather than supporting player in the film, I suspected a bit of a cover-up, and I have to admit that I was disappointed we wouldn't see the dark underbelly of one of the most iconic cinematic men of the twentieth century.  That Hitchcock is worth making a biopic on-this Hitchcock might as well be any old guy, struggling through a late-life crisis and coming out a winner.

That's not to say that there aren't things to enjoy in the film.  For cinema aficionados, there's all the fun "you can see which scene of Psycho this is going to hearken back to" moments, and you have to love all the subtle moments they throw into the film with cute, smirking teases, like the constant devotion Janet Leigh exhibits to her husband Tony, whom she would divorce two years later, or the not-so-subtle reminders that Tony Perkins was gay or the adorable ending (which I saw coming ten minutes in, but still), with an allusion to the forthcoming feature The Birds.  Additionally, while I wasn't surprised by the scenery-chewing fun of Helen Mirren, both Johansson and Biel take their roles and run with what little they were given, though I suspect both actresses were secretly begging to make the movie that I mentioned above, considering Hitchcock's difficult relationship with both Leigh and Miles on-set.

Yet for all of these fun moments, there are a dozen missed opportunities.  Not only is there the largely missed moment of Hitchcock's obsession with his leading ladies, there's also far too little of his famous pranks, and the whole Ed Gein as his muse thing could have been handled, far, far better.  Also, and I know the title of this film is Hitchcock, but it would have been more interesting if we had focused not just on Hitch but on Miles, Leigh, and Perkins, and made this a more well-rounded version of Psycho (even the great Toni Collette's snarky sidekick, who is barely used and is clearly channelling Ruth Hussey, would have been fun to see at home).  Additionally, and I'm glad that Hopkins is out there attempting to find material that stretches him, but this is a performance the man could do in his sleep, and occasionally it seems that he's taken a shot of novocaine, bringing all accent and no feeling to his scenes.

Julie Weiss's costumes may be the film's only real shot at getting an Oscar nomination (the Costume branch is one of the Academy's best at ignoring Best Picture frontrunners for its nominees if the Best Pictures don't also have a solid wardrobe department).  You have to love the cheeky way, for example, we're introduced to Scarlett's Janet, not focusing on the blonde platinum hair or her famous lips, but instead on what Hitch probably noticed first about her, the view from the back.  Weiss's work captures the time well, though aside from some smart choices for Johansson, I don't see a huge amount of inspiration on-display from a woman who has definitely been better.

All-in-all, a massively underwhelming film that had a lot of potential, but I shall give you the chance to speak-what did you think of Hitchcock?  Do you think Psycho was the right choice for a biopic, or would you have, like me, preferred Vertigo?  And for those of you who have seen both (I haven't)-who is the better Master of Suspense-Anthony Hopkins or Toby Jones?