OVP: Actor (2015)

OVP: Best Actor (2015)

The Nominees Were...

Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

My Thoughts: Frequently you think of a specific year’s Oscars in relation to the Best Picture winner.  1953 is the “From Here to Eternity Oscars” or 1976 is the “Rocky Oscars,” (for example).  However, that’s occasionally not the case, and I think the most recent example of this is the 2015 Oscars, which few people seem to remember as the SpotlightOscars, but instead the ceremony where Leo “finally” won his statue.  The collective internet seemed to think that DiCaprio’s lack of a trophy was approaching Susan Lucci at the Emmys territory, and as a result he seemed to have won by collective acclimation for The Revenant.  I’ve been a Leo fan for years, someone who has proclaimed he’s earned an Oscar more than once (including in this Oscar Viewing Project-check out 2013 below in the links), but that he won what will likely be his only trophy for a movie like The Revenant seems like a gigantic miss.

Leo’s work in The Revenant, is, at best, a physical achievement. It’s certainly a transformative experience, and in the one truly great scene in the movie (the fight with the bear), he is able to create a sense of fear that is lacking (but desperately needed) in the rest of the movie.  But Leo’s Hugh Glass is nothing more than that.  He’s not a man, he doesn’t have any character growth, he’s just someone enduring the constancy of the elements.  This might be filmmaking, but it certainly isn’t acting.  Leo does nothing to ground the character he’s bringing to the screen, and in my opinion gives his worst performance in The Revenant because there’s nothing there.  It’s hard to even judge it-it feels more like you’re judging a reality TV star for acting, because it’s just a series of stunts and grunts, nothing special & certainly not leaning into the great talents (charm, wit, vulnerability) that made him a star in the first place.

I’ll be real, though-if Leo was going to win over a field for an “it’s about time” Oscar, he picked the right lineup to conquer as 2015’s Best Actor race isn’t that impressive.  Matt Damon, who I always associate with Leo (even though DiCpario had won critical and awards success several years before Damon’s breakout performance in Good Will Hunting), is good in The Martian, a solid action-adventure that doesn’t feel the need to bring depth to its work but instead just let a good story keep the tale going.  The parts where he’s amusing himself to fight the mind-boggling loneliness of being the only man on a planet are quite fun (Damon, like DiCaprio, is probably best at light drama or comedy), but the second half isn’t as impressive when he flexes the acting muscle rather than the movie star muscle, though it’s still game and one of the better performances in this lineup.

Bryan Cranston is probably wishing he was in a film as good as The Martian, as he’s clearly trying to pull a similar trick of a capable actor attempting to substitute star charisma for acting.  Unfortunately, Trumbois not The Martian, and Cranston isn’t doing enough work here to save the film from itself.  His Trumbo is unknowable, though unlike Leo he is definitely a character, just a one-dimensional one.  I left thinking that he must have been just a lovable scamp, but I also don’t think that Cranston grounded enough of the actual actions of his character with the words-why was it that his Trumbo was willing to give up a career that he obviously loved to stand for a principle that doesn’t feel particularly engrained in his day-to-day life?  That there’s not an answer to this question is a fatal flaw not only in the movie, but in Cranston’s performance itself.

Michael Fassbender is also tasked with playing a larger-than-life character, but here he manages to find the sole of the man he’s portraying.  It’s rough playing one of the most famous figures on earth just a few short years after he passed away, but Fassy brings an incredible amount of depth to his creation, not mimicking Jobs but instead making a megalomaniacal genius that recalls his visage (Fassbender is also considerably more attractive than Jobs, so trying to just have him look like him would have been a failure).  Fassy understands the rat-a-tat of Sorkin’s screenplay, which is good but suffers from all of his indulgences (and inability to write particularly compelling women that don’t revolve around a man’s achievements), and is the only person in this lineup who is giving a performance we should still be talking about some four years later.

Cause that sure ain’t the case for Eddie Redmayne.  Redmayne, an actor & celebrity who seemed to have a moment a few years ago and then disappeared into a boring franchise, has never really equaled the talent I saw in him with Les Miserables seven years ago, despite a pair of Oscar nominations since.  His Einar/Lili has a grace that he can’t lose, and that’s necessary in handling such a role, but he’s too calculating and timid in his work, even when Lili is supposed to feel free.  You can almost see him thinking “I need to be angry” or “I need to be scared” rather than let it come organically, and you leave having spent so many intimate moments with this character but knowing little about what she wanted to bring to the world, other than herself.  It’s hard to judge this film already because the politics of it feel dated, but Redmayne’s work is not up to the same caliber of some of what we’d come to expect from him, and certainly not equal to what Vikander is doing as his leading woman.

Other Precursor Contenders: We start with the Globes, which distinguish between Drama and "Comedy/Musical," and as a result have ten men to contend with.  The Drama category saw nearly an exact replica of this field, with the only one missing being Damon (instead going with Will Smith in Concussion…Leo won), while Comedy had Damon beat Christian Bale (The Big Short), Steve Carell (also The Big Short), Al Pacino (Danny Collins), and Mark Ruffalo (Infinitely Polar Bear).  Damon won, despite the fact that he was in a drama.  SAG threw out Damon for leading actor, instead picking Johnny Depp (Black Mass), and went with Leo as their winner as well, while BAFTA went for an exact replica of the Oscar race, and Leo was again victorious.  In picking a sixth place, I suspect it was Smith, but honestly looking at this race I am guessing that it was a very distant sixth place.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I would almost completely re-haul this category.  For starters, I’d keep Michael Caine’s quiet, dignified work in Youth as he tries to overcome the grief of a dead wife whom he neglected.  Jacob Tremblay certainly deserved to be included (even though he was campaigned as supporting) for his breathtaking work in Room, and one wonders if they’d gone all-in as a lead actor if they’d managed to have gotten him the nomination as Cranston & Damon were vulnerable.  I’d throw in Tom Hardy’s double-duty in Legend, which was a dismissible film but one where he’s having a blast (and I did too). And for the final spot, why not Michael B. Jordan, who unlike Leo has a physical transformation AND achieves a complicated performance?

Oscar’s Choice: The internet literally would have revolted if Leo hadn’t won, and Oscar wasn’t going to deprive the people of their big speech.  In a world where he wasn’t here, I suspect Redmayne getting a back-to-back Oscar could have been in the cards (or honestly Will Smith might have gotten a similar sort of Leo Push).

My Choice: Fassbender is head-and-shoulders above the rest of these guys.  Follow him with Damon, Redmayne, Cranston, and DiCaprio.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you agree that this was Leo’s time, or are you with me that Fassbender had this coming?  Won’t it be strange if Trumbo (of all things) ends up being Bryan Cranston’s only Oscar nomination?  And has anyone actually seen Danny Collins orInfinitely Polar Bear…should I?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2015: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Documentary Short, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Previously in 2015

Past Best Actor Contests: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

Song to Song (2017)

Film: Song to Song
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Holly Hunter, Patti Smith
Director: Terrence Malick
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Few once-lauded directors have become easier punching bags in modern pop culture than Terrence Malick.  The deeply-private (he doesn't care for being called a recluse, though it might not be far from the truth), director has a style unlike pretty much any other filmmaker's working today, creating complicated, occasionally frustrating but always fascinating visual poems for the screen.  I am an ardent admirer of his work, and am currently in the process of trying to see everything he's ever done (anyone who can point me in the direction of a way to see Voyage of Time is about to become my new best friend), and have not given into the fashion of slamming his three most recent films, considering To the Wonder to be a masterpiece and Knight of Cups to be a fascinating if occasionally (too) boundless movie.  His most recent film Song to Song seems to have been the final in a trilogy of this experimental style (Malick has stated his next picture, which is somewhere in its production, will have a tighter narrative structure, though considering this is Terry we're talking about that could mean anything...it could also mean the movie won't be out for another twenty years, though it's rumored for a Spring 2019 release).  Either way, we do have Song to Song thankfully, and as I finally just caught it, I figured it was due a review on the blog.

(Spoilers Ahead) Like so many of his pictures, trying to define this in terms of actual plot is impossible.  The movie, though it has names for its characters, doesn't really use them-I think the only time anyone uses their name is Rooney Mara's Faye, and it's simply mouthed softly rather than something you can hear.  The movie takes a look at a romance between Faye and BV (Gosling), too aspiring musical artists, the latter of whom is enjoying more success than the former.  They enter the world of a record producer Cook (Fassbender), who promises to make all of their dreams come true and shows them in lavish, impossibly-gorgeous mansions and situations, but instead their relationship starts to drag apart.  In between that time, we see all three explore relationships with other people, with BV entering into an ultimately tragic romance with a waitress named Rhonda (Portman), and Gosling romancing Amanda (Blanchett, who I believe was uncredited despite a pretty substantial role in the film by Malick's standards, certainly more so than Holly Hunter's blink-and-you-missi-it performance as Portman's mother), but ultimately he returns to both his simple life on a drilling rig and Faye returns to him, their love sustaining them in a way their musical careers could not.

Song to Song has considerably more structure than Knight of Cups, so critics being divided on this film while seeming to prefer the former on such grounds feels a bit absurd.  The dialogue here isn't as crisp or as meaningful as his previous pictures, and in many ways Song to Song proves that it was To the Wonder that started a trilogy rather than The Tree of Life, the 2011 movie that restarted Malick's career but has considerably more narrative force than any of his three later (fictional) pictures.  The movie has a heavy use of cameos, including Val Kilmer as a mentally-ill rocker and a number of real-life musicians, including a terrific bit by Patti Smith as herself, inspiring the young guitarist Faye.

The movie's best moments are when Malick is using extended visuals to tell the stories rather than his heavy reliance on narration and shorter film cuts, as it's clear the lack of a traditional screenplay forces Mara, Fassbender, and Gosling to all say things in voice-over that feel like something you'd find on a coffee mug you buy from Hallmark.  Still, there's a lot to offer here.  I think the acting is improved from both of its companion pieces, particularly Mara & Blanchett (until I wrote that sentence it didn't occur to me that this was a Carol reunion...sadly they don't share the screen at all here).  Fassbender's story gets lost, but Gosling & Mara make their relationship work.  This isn't the masterwork that Malick is capable of, but it's not the obvious, easily derided work that so many people thought it was, and Malick is distinctive enough for a proper cinephile to find certain sequences brilliant, particularly when they seem to borrow a visual style from To the Wonder and Knight of Cups to make all three feel like Warhol-esque versions of the same picture.  I do hope that his next film finds something new to say within his distinctive style, but Song to Song, like all of Malick's works, is gorgeous and worth the investment.

Ten Mini Reviews

Usually at about this time each year, the amount of movies that I have gotten to has become completely overwhelming, and I am ridiculously behind on my reviews.  It's an unfortunate side effect of having my busiest time of year at work coupled with my busiest time of year in my personal life coupled with having the busiest time of the year on the blog.  Suffice it to say, it starts to get to me and while I always want to give every single movie I see its due, I also don't think I can get to all of these while the memory is still there for me to properly create a full review.  So with apologies to the filmmakers, I'm going to be doing short reviews here; we'll still have full reviews of all of the remaining Oscar nominees I haven't discussed from 2016, as well as A Monster Calls because I feel like I owe it to you to explain why I loved it so much, but these movies are going to just get the one paragraph.  If you want more of my thoughts, I'll gladly interact in the comments (incentive!)

(Spoilers for the films may be ahead)

Dark Passage
Thoughts: The least viewed of the Bacall/Bogart pictures, it weirdly has the most famous gimmick of the bunch, where we have a "subjective camera" technique seeing the film almost entirely from Bogart's point-of-view as he escapes from prison.  The film is solid, if predictable (shocker-the third most famous cast member is the real criminal!), and I loved the way that Bacall's performance is both a brazen young woman and completely lovestruck (few people did that better than her).  Still, once the gimmick is over it's never quite as strong as the top half-part of me wished they'd have stuck with it, even if that would have meant Bogart only in voiceover.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

Deadpool

Thoughts: I had sworn to myself I wasn't ever going to see a Ryan Reynolds movie again, but somehow he and Jason Bateman continue to haunt me and I end up stuck with them in front of me even when I didn't want to do so.  Here it was me buying the last-minute hype that Deadpool could land in a major category (or at least Best Makeup) and I ended up stuck in a boring, tired pile of garbage that succumbs to the same cliches that it tries to disprove.  Reynolds may have found a role tailor-made for him, but that doesn't mean he's a good actor.
Ranking: 2/5 stars

Dirty 30

Thoughts: Arguably the film I wanted to review fully the most (give or take Paterson), this film, while not a follow-up to Camp Takota, is at the very least a sequel in terms of who is involved.  The Holy Trinity of YouTube come back, but this time it's Mamrie at the center and all the better for it as she's the most naturally-gifted of the actresses at the center.  Hollywood, in desperate need of a romantic comedy lead, is foolish if they aren't taking advantage of an actress who can sell even some juvenile humor with aplomb-when the script works for her, this is genuinely just a good movie-no YouTube curve needed.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

Eye in the Sky

Thoughts: A taut thriller, the last real performance from Alan Rickman before his untimely death (I'm not counting Alice in Wonderland 2), the film is intriguing and actually quite watchable; it's the rare thriller you're not entirely sure how it will end.  The film's treatment of Americans isn't kind, but considering the buffoon we recently elected...not unfair.  Mirren could do this in her sleep (in fact most of these actors could), and I thought the most intriguing parts of this movie (particularly the sly sexism that hits her harder than the other men, particularly when one of her subordinates disobeys) are skated over, but by-and-large this is imminently watchable to the point where I wonder if the director didn't notice it was happening in the script, even if nowhere near the Oscar nomination some were drumming for the dame.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

The Innocents

Thoughts: No actress in 2016 more fully landed on my list of "on the radar" in a bigger way than Lou de Laage.  Between this and her mesmerizing work in L'Attesa, I can attest that I'll be seeking her out in a big way in future years, and I suspect a Cesar is in her future.  The film is not always easy, and occasionally is very hard to sit through, but it's beautifully shot and a more complex picture than you'd normally expect from a mid-fall foreign art house hit.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

The Legend of Tarzan

Thoughts: It seems funny to review Alexander Skarsgard right now, knowing what he's capable of as an actor (is anyone else thoroughly enjoying Big Little Lies right now-I'm totally enamored?).  This film, of course, is not really an acting showcase, but Skarsgard's shot at movie stardom. The casting department could not be lazier (about the only way they could have found a more cliched set of supporting players would have been to throw Paul Giamatti in there for no reason), but the action is fun and I thought the movie itself was beautifully shot.  Still-this is silliness on-top of silliness, and oh man is Chrisotph Waltz terrible.
Ranking: 2/5 stars

The Light Between Oceans

Thoughts: I will admit that initially I had higher hopes for this movie-it was one of my most-anticipated pictures of 2016, particularly considering how much I've loved the three leads in recent years.  However, that disappointment shouldn't be confused with a bad movie, even if it's sadly a pretty predictable one.  Fassbender and Vikander are both great as the tragic romantic leads, and Weisz might under-emote as the grieving mother, but that feels more like the script's fault that she doesn't get any big scenes. Still, some of the film's best moments (particularly Vikander begging her husband to lie for her sake, to keep her from being lonely) show a movie with great unrealized potential.

Ranking: 3/5 stars

Miss Sloane

Thoughts: Sometimes it's hard to remember that not everything is about the Oscars.  This is particularly hard to stomach when a movie stars one of your favorite actors of the moment, one of whom you wish had an Oscar (hint, hint), but Miss Sloane isn't really an Oscar movie.  It's the sort of taut late-Summer thriller that used to get vacation homes for Julia Roberts or Ashley Judd but has somehow gone out of fashion (perhaps because it got completely absorbed by television?).  Either way, this is a fun movie even if it's wildly over-the-top, and is proof that if Chastain ever wants to just cash-out with big paychecks, she has that ability while still remaining watchable.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

Paterson

Thoughts: Surely the best film on this list, and the one with the best performance, I almost skipped including Paterson because I wanted to discuss it more, but that's technically true of all of these movies (I really just want to talk about movies all day long).  That being said, the comments are there if you want to go further.  Until then, remember that this is a fascinating little study of one single life, proving that you can make pretty much anyone compelling with good writing and good acting, and Driver's central performance exhibits a man that feels like he's being under-served in major movies even if he's cast almost everywhere.  That penultimate scene is a doozy, one almost every other actor would have underplayed or screwed up but Driver nails against the wall and keeps you guessing-when is he going to get some Oscar love?
Ranking: 4/5 stars

Sunset Song

Thoughts: Probably the biggest "who?" film on this list, I saw this because it was Terence Davies' follow-up to the sexy and brilliant The Deep Blue Sea. so it felt like a civic duty.  The movie shows the impossibly hard life of Scottish peasants right before World War I.  The movie is beautiful, and has that "case of the handsomes" in that it's rarely compelling, and never really lets up with the hardships even for a moment.  The central love story feels, in my opinion, to be too jumpy in the treatment of Ewan, which is a pity as there was a great movie somewhere in the pages of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's famed novel.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

Macbeth (2015)

Film: Macbeth (2015)
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Paddy Considine, Sean Harris, David Thewlis
Director: Justin Kurzel
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Shakespeare was never really meant for the cinema.  This is both an obvious fact (the cinema not really being an option when Shakespeare was penning plays) and because Shakespeare comes alive far better on the stage.  There's an electricity about watching the sets change, and seeing the great dialogues that are being performed in front of your eyes, all fine enunciation and rhythm.  When you put that into a cinematic setting, it frequently feels stilted and occasionally just ridiculous.  People don't talk like that, and let's be honest here, probably never did to this degree (certainly not with this sort of wit and vocabulary), but the stage is meant to be a more distant reality than the realism the movies bind themselves toward, and so we frequently find Shakespearean movies, at best, to be something like Shakespeare in Love, where the play isn't really the thing, but what's happening behind the scenes is.  This isn't the case with this year's Bard entry, where Macbeth in many ways tries to meld the world we know with that of Shakespeare.  In theory this could almost work, as Macbeth is one of those rare Shakespearean stories that functions, without much embellishment, in the realm of our current cinematic landscape but it can't quite get there.  The film's set pieces and Scottish minimalism are cool, but combined with the dialogue feel like a weirdly stilted version of Braveheart, rather than Shakespeare's greatest masterpiece (it's my favorite of all of his plays).

(Spoilers Ahead...though really, if you don't know the story of Macbeth maybe it's time to take a long, hard look at your free time and possibly re-prioritize some culture into it) The story is about as well-known as you can get, but it's worth pointing out that the film's look is never really the issue.  The film's setting is a fascinatingly small sect of Scotland, and we get the sense of how great and how little being king at the time in this world was; after all, Scotland was hardly the signficant land that it comes across as when we see Mary fight Elizabeth a few hundred years later, and here it's more like something that resembles the fighting bands in a Genghis Khan movie than the giant castles of the House of Stuart.  This may be historically accurate, but it takes some getting used to, and combined with the dialogue (Shakespeare makes sense if you try, but frequently you have to get into his mind-sight, in the same way that you find yourself re-reading the first ten pages of a Bronte novel a couple of times before you're finally adjusted) makes you sort of distracted for the first twenty minutes, which is really when Macbeth gets its groove on as a story.

I'm always an advocate for filmmakers to take liberties with a written source (the cinema, as we have already pointed out, being a different beast), but part of me wonders why specific sections of the movie were cut, particularly those involving the witches and some of their more immortal lines ("by the pricking of my thumbs" will not be uttered if you were hoping for it like I was).  What we instead have focuses almost entirely upon the two leads, and the unfortunate Macduff.  This is probably the right decision as what the film does have going for it is two truly great actors at the helm, and two insanely sensual ones at that.  Fassbender and Cotillard are almost cosmically hot in their roles, with each sparking incredible sexual heat off of not just each other, but pretty much everyone around them.  There seems to be an attraction that everyone has to Fassy's Macbeth in particular that I never saw in the original text, but does come across in some ways as he descends into madness and still people gravitate in his circle around him.  That electric heat and sexuality is odd for this text, which doesn't have the obvious romantic inclinations of Romeo & Juliet nor the more obvious handsome lovers of Hamlet, but it works in the context and easily is the film's best asset.

The final act, which is less interesting (am I the only one who wants Lady Macbeth, all scheming and ambition, to win in the confines of the play?) and indulges in a hyper-violence that is instantly at odds with the remainder of the film, and quite frankly I wasn't into it.  The scenes read as violent, but seeing the near constant destruction of this minute world feels a tad too dramatic and overdone.  The film never properly recovers after Cotillard's Lady Macbeth offs herself, and as a result we get little indication of what Macbeth, now descent into madness, is really fighting for as he seems to loathe the idea of being king and she was the driving catalyst for his throne-love.  Adding in the fact that Malcolm is really underwritten here and that the witches' prophecies aren't underlined enough for the audience for it to be apparent that their pronouncements have come true, albeit not in the ways that anyone had intended, and you have a sloppy final third.  The film has shown some interesting moments at this point, but nothing special aside from hiring two ridiculously charismatic actors has happened in the meantime, so I left the film with a bit of a letdown.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Did you find yourself impressed by the heat of Cotillard/Fassbender, and not much else, or were you all about this darkened look at the King of Scotland?  How do you think that the cinema could properly translate Shakespeare, or do you find it a lost cause?  And what play would be the one that could make the jump?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Everybody's Linking for the Weekend

Happy November everyone!  If you're like me, you needed this weekend not just because of all of the joys of having some time off, but also because, quite frankly, this week exhausted the crap out of me (in a good way), and I need some down time to recharge.  One of my favorite ways to recharge is, of course, learning more about the world, and what better way to do that than exploring around the internet?  Let's take a look, shall we:

In Entertainment...

-Glenn Dunks over at the Film Experience went through an interesting exercise this past week, looking into why Cinderella isn't getting the same sort of Oscar attention as The Martian considering both are critically-acclaimed, feature an Oscar-winning performer at their center with an easily nominatable performance, and both were hugely popular hits.  While I think the reasons that Cinderella isn't competing are obvious both in a clearly sexist way (certainly unfairly, but Matt Damon's penis causes him to have more "serious film" credentials in the eyes of older, male Academy members-just look at how rare it is for a female-driven hit to actually make it to the Oscars, and even then it's only in dramas like The Blind Side or The Help), there's also a couple of less-sexist aspects going here at least, principally that Disney is not great at Oscar campaigns and that Ridley Scott is an Academy favorite.  Still, I am curious to see how both films turn out with Oscar, with Martian supporters a bit more manic about its chances than most (it's not winning Best Picture!), while Cinderella has Patrick Doyle, Dante Ferretti, and Sandy Powell behind the camera clamoring for another chance with Oscar.

-In a nod to increased need for public safety after the shootings in Lafayette and Aurora, Cinemark and AMC are both banning simulated guns and masks at the new Stars Wars movie, and reiterated that this is an overall policy and not just for the very-high profile Lucasfilm production.  As a result, you can get your Princess Leia hair buns on, but Chewbacca is not in-the-cards.  While fans have expressed outrage, this seems like the right decision in the wake of public safety concerns.  I love it when people dress up for premieres (I've done it a few times and always had more fun with the crowd), but there is a public concern about these sorts of midnight openings, particularly considering that the Aurora shooter (I stand with Megyn Kelly on this one-not saying his name) used his costume to hide firearms.

-Tom Hanks was honored at Outfest this past week, and pointed out a glaring truth about his work in Philadelphia (and no, it's not that he should have given his award to Liam Neeson), that the film actually came a bit too late.  It's interesting still to see Hanks' feted not only for his bravery in portraying a gay man (which, admittedly was true for a star of his stature at the time), but because it took until 1993 before a truly significant movie about the HIV crisis, which had been ravaging the gay community for over a decade at that point, crossed into the zeitgeist.  It's also of note that Hanks is winning another high-profile award because I can't get a gage on his Bridge of Spies Oscar chances-after his dual snubs for Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks, is AMPAS over the beloved two-time Oscar winner, or does he have a shot for this Steven Spielberg drama (and quite frankly, does Spielberg?)?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

In Politics...

Indianapolis Mayor-Elect Joe Hogsett (D-IN)

-Even fifteen years later, the 2000 presidential election still elicits incredible reactions from both sides of the aisle and CNN did a marvelous job looking at the ways that the election could have turned out.  The report finds that generally the recount, the way that the Gore camp was pushing for it, likely would have resulted in a victory for then-Gov. Bush, but that going with undervotes and overvotes would have landed the Vice President in office.  It also rather boldly points out that more people in Florida almost certainly went out on Election Day wanting to vote for Gore, something that still incites ire in Democrats everywhere who want the four years they feel they should have won back. While I am very much one of those Democrats, what fascinates me in part about this race still is that, at the time, no one really wanted their candidate to win with a fiery passion.  After candidates who became wildly popular with their parties like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Al Gore were "ehh" sort of choices, likely due to their backgrounds (Ivy League-educated sons of wealthy, patrician politicians).  However, in the months and years that followed, Democrats in particular have worn that election as a battle scar, something to be trotted out as the ultimate in "unfair" whenever a Republican brings up pretty much any race as being biased.

-Speaking of Democrats and rough elections, if you're still reeling from this past Tuesday like I am, you might want to check out this rundown of the elections Democrats actually did win.  While I knew about the elections in Pennsylvania and the Grimes/Beshear wins in Kentucky, the Indianapolis victory for the Democrats (winning back the mayor's office and the City Council from the Republicans) and the victory for Jennifer Roberts in the open Charlotte mayoral election both were off my radar.  While new Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett is a well-known perpetual candidate (he'd lost three high-profile elections in the state since his last victory in 1990 as Secretary of State), and may be a risky bet for higher office, considering the purple-nature of North Carolina and the critical role Charlotte plays in Democratic turnout, Jennifer Roberts (who actually ran for Congress in 2012 and lost a close race) may be a name we hear more about in a future statewide run.

-Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert had his portrait removed from the Speaker's Lobby by new Speaker Paul Ryan this week amidst a guilty plea by Hastert that he was paying hush money.  It's an interesting conundrum for historians in the Capitol, as well as one that's a bit eyebrow-raising since Hastert gets to keep his pension (you only lose your pension if you committed a crime while you were in office, rather than before or after, according to what I've read).  While this obviously seems the appropriate choice from a pragmatic standpoint, one wonders if the Capitol and the surrounding historical buildings should coverup their seedier past as a way to show future generations the error of the past's mistakes.  It's never a great idea to discard the aspects of history that are unpleasant for worry that they may be repeated, but it opens up the question of whether the Capitol is in some fashions a museum (in which case Hastert's portrait should stay up) or should it be a representation of America at its best (in which case Hastert clearly should be dismissed).  Either way former Massachusetts Senator Frederick Gillett, who had a six-year term as Speaker of the House, certainly gained here as he took Hastert's spot in the Lobby some 100 years after his tenure.

-Finishing off our political articles this week is this piece from Politico which talks about the unlikely event of the U.S. House being won back by the Democrats.  While the author is pretty open that the odds are just above zero, the combination of the rises of Donald Trump and Ben Carson, in conjunction with where they are popular is interesting, as Trump/Carson are popular in places where the Democratic roadmap to a theoretical House majority wouldn't cross, but less popular in suburbs and exurbs, where the Democrats will likely have to be victorious if they want to win the House again.  Places like suburban Philadelphia, the Twin Cities, Greater New York, and suburban Denver, all locations with Republican-held House seats, could be more vulnerable to a poor showing by the Republican nominee in those areas than places like rural Alabama and West Virginia, places Trump or Carson are more likely to outperform.  It's an interesting read even if it's a longshot proposition.

Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week...

-Nic Hoult will see you now.

YouTube Video of the Week...

-Kate Winslet and Julie Walters share their awards show histories, which is delightful because who doesn't love Kate and Julie?  Also, Michael Fassbender is there, which makes everything better:

Just One More...

-Normally this last link is related to environmentalism or adventuring, but this week I was actually struck by a Washington Post link about the increasing deaths of middle-aged white men.  It's an interesting phenomenon where mental illness (particularly depression and alcoholism) has increased the death rate in this demographic while almost all other death rates have seen a decrease.  Definitely worth a read.

OVP: Steve Jobs (2015)

Film: Steve Jobs (2015)
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg, Katherine Waterston
Director: Danny Boyle
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actor-Michael Fassbender, Supporting Actress-Kate Winslet)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I have an anathema to biopics, especially this time of year where the Oscars go gaga for them and I kind of want to throw up in response.  Seriously-they're so formulaic and so rarely say something interesting about the protagonist that history or the news media hasn't already discovered.  It's usually the same sorts of stories too, as frequently we see biopics of incredible human beings who accomplish feats against the odds (after all, who wants to see a biopic of just an ordinary human being?).  I went into Steve Jobs, though, a little curious.  After all, one of about four biopics from the past five years that I genuinely admired and loved came from Aaron Sorkin, writer of Steve Jobs, and was also about the Citizen Kane-style rise of a tech icon (in that case, Mark Zuckerberg and The Social Network).  Sorkin and director Danny Boyle don't disappoint in once again finding a new mold to fit the biopic in, but here we have a less successful execution thanks to a severely-botched third act that threatens to destroy an impressively-started motion picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film unfolds in three different acts, centered around the launches of a trio of products: the Macintosh, the NeXT, and the iMac, all of which left an indelible print on the world of technology but in wildly different frames of success.  The film follows Jobs (Fassbender) and his right-hand woman Joanna Hoffman (Winslet) as they encounter a series of interactions with various people in Jobs' world, including his Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Rogen), former Apple CEO John Sculley (Daniels), and his daughter Lisa.  The film watches as his relationships with all three change, and in some cases remain the same, with him constantly having a chilly distance to his daughter, revering Sculley as the father he had but apparently didn't want, and condescending Wozniak as a friend he needs to protect.  The film's third act addresses these years of interactions, when we know Jobs is about to translate from being a genius to becoming a sort of demigod in the world of technology, reinvigorating his company in a way that changed electronics and the world forever (not for nothing, but I'm writing this article on an iMac).

The film's framing device of these three launches is interesting, and keeps us from having to see a ploddingly simplistic look at how Jobs came from humbled roots (we get that hinted enough with the conversations with his longtime Apple co-founders), but it does occasionally come with issues.  For example, with the exception of Winslet most of the side characters end up being pretty two-dimensional.  Rogen's Wozniak, without a tale of how two such completely different men were able to create something so compelling, is just whiny and seems to hero-worship Jobs and yet despise him at once.  This may well be true, but the reality is that Rogen's performance isn't enough to make us comprehend that conundrum.  The same goes for Jobs' jerk attitude toward Lisa's mother Chrisann (Waterston)-the film treats her as a one-night stand that resulted in a baby, and we get little indication as to why Jobs was interested in her in the first place.  Fassbender's performance is remarkable, wonderfully-felt and delivered and really just a joy to behold as the titular character, but no one else around him seems to be of much use to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin.  I only recluse Winslet because she's so damn good at an underwritten character here (which, admittedly, is not what I'd call her strength).  Her Joanna is a woman who is so surface-level that Winslet does a remarkable job of inserting just enough moments of depth in her relationship with Jobs (whom you can tell she views a bit as the kid brother she never had and is constantly doting upon/scolding), though I would be remiss if I didn't point out that her accent-work needed some help.  These two are the best part of the movie by a country mile.

The writing is a conundrum for me.  I have long ago realized that Aaron Sorkin is an acquired taste, but occasionally even he needs to reign himself in, and his fast-talking, hyper-intelligent creations are frequently their own worst enemy.  Sorkin, despite his protestations, is not great at writing women (evidenced by the Winslet comments above), and in particular this shows with Jobs' daughter Lisa, who in the third act is unfortunately saddled with a series of mood swings that completely betray his previous precocious attitudes toward her (plus, no woman born in the tail-end of the Carter administration could spout a Judy Jetson-style zinger with that much ease).  However, the entire third act is a mess, with Wozniak, Sculley, and Lisa all coming to Jobs to try and gain absolution, and all are granted it by him with a handsomely-wrapped bow.  The reality is that this happens with almost no real indication as to why (after all, he had been on the cusp of a great new moment in technology multiple times before and failed-the character himself couldn't have known the iMac would revolutionize the PC), since he's still a prick who has purposefully prioritized his career over personal relationships and family.  The fact that Sorkin ended with a sloppily-tied-together "happy family moment" ending is appalling and cringeworthy, and really disregards most of his previous moments with Jobs.  The ending of this film, based on the first ninety minutes, should have little to do with his daughter and more to do with his professional vindication despite a constant barrage of personal failures.  The fact that the final scene is him lovingly looking at a girl he barely knows feels like something a studio executive demanded, but it reeks of lousy writing and a directorial choice beneath what Boyle/Sorkin pulled together in the stellar first two-thirds.

I hate poor endings to movies, and part of me wants to go with two stars just because the film left me with such a bitter taste in my mouth, but I'll relent and go with three based on the excellence coming from Fassbender and Winslet.  Overall, though, I left disappointed and wishing that the man who brought us something so extraordinary in The Social Network had better stepped up to the plate.

Frank (2014)

Film: Frank (2014)
Stars: Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy, Michael Fassbender
Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Sometimes I sort of wonder what the point of hiring certain actors are for roles where they disguise their gorgeous, otherworldly beauty.  Look at something like Charlize Theron in Monster or Johnny Depp in pretty much every movie of the past decade.  Movie stars are a rare breed in the vein of giant pandas or thoughtful politicians, so I have never quite gotten the appeal of covering up their faces in roles, which was one of my principle problems with the film Frank, a movie that has a fine enough plot but for some reason casts Michael Fassbender, arguably the handsomest man in motion pictures, as a character whose face is obfuscated throughout most of it, completely hidden behind a giant fake head.

(Spoilers Ahead) This is partially why I avoided the film when it was released in theaters last year, even though it had solid reviews and was released in that drought period where art houses even consider doing something truly atrocious like playing The Avengers in 3-D (I just saw yesterday that mine is doing this, and yet I still can’t find Tangerines in theaters anywhere).  The movie is about a young, aspiring rock-and-roll musician named Jon (Gleeson) who, by happenstance, ends up as a member of an eclectic alternative band, including a continually angry theremin player named Clara (Gyllenhaal) and a lead singer named Frank (Fassbender) who is consistently positive and kind, and creates fascinating if totally eclectic music.  Also, he constantly wears a giant paper-mache head over his own head, signifying some sort of mental illness.

The film's plot proceeds in a completely routine direction-we find that Jon loves the band, fits right in, and is enamored with Frank while competition for Clara.  If you want to do a feminist reading of the movie (which on occasion I feel you should, if only to keep your eyes firmly open), it's not particularly kind to women, as Clara is overtaken for being more powerful than Jon throughout the movie, even if the ending is a bit kinder to her than he.

The film's routineness (rise, fall, rise again) means that you have to rely upon performance, music, and the little touches to see if you rise above it (really, there's only forms on conflict in literature, so everything comes down to these touches).  The film's performances are all strong, with Fassbender as the standout, though I still think he's wasted in this sort of role considering how he should be playing characters where, while his looks aren't center-stage, they should at least be on-display (you think Cary Grant or Ava Gardner would have sacrificed their prime beauty years like that?).  I quite like Domhnall Gleeson's naivete, and the way that his inner-monologue shows how oblivious he is to reality, in many ways mirroring that of Frank himself.  The film doesn't have the musical inventiveness to classify Frank as a genius like it does while Jon decidedly is not, but that's always a tall order when you have entirely new music.

My biggest problem with the film may have been that it plays the twee-ness for a bit too long.  The film has this motley, Wes Anderson-style crew of characters, and it's hard to see how they functioned without dying before Jon joined the group-there's no sense of reality, even around Scoot McNairy's band manager Don, and you are left to wonder what exactly the purpose is here.  If it's simply that misfits need to fit together, it feels a bit pedantic and cruel to shove Jon out of the group, as he is also a misfit, which is what happens in the end.  Really, the ending left a bitter taste in my mouth even if the first half of the film was occasionally watchable-why should Jon and not Clara or Frank be blamed for trying to pursue the dreams of everyone involved.

These are the sorts of questions I don't feel like the film is really willing to answer, getting bogged down with a cast of very hip young actors and occasionally compelling story mechanisms.  At least these were my thoughts-I always love to get yours.  What did you think of Frank?  Do you also find it annoying when beautiful actors get shoved behind makeup and prosthetics?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: Supporting Actor (2013)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2013)

The Nominees Were...

Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips

Bradley Cooper, American Hustle

Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave

Jonah Hill, The Wolf of Wall Street

Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

My Thoughts: And finally, we move into the actors of the 2013 Oscars, the twenty men and women who actually get face-time during the ceremony and the audience pays attention to their speeches rather than taking it as a moment to play Candy Crush.  As a result, I hope you have some opinions that you share in the comments.  Either way, though, it’s time to start perusing the stars.

I’m going to start out with the man who actually won the trophy, Jared Leto.  Leto is one of those actors who sort of felt like he’s underperformed in his career.  His weird obsession with both his second career as a musician and his bizarre issues with losing and gaining weight for every role he does (seriously-can’t we just hand that back to the makeup department?!?) has made us sort of forget that he was once a very promising actor, and this year was sort of a way to give an honor to what could have been a much stronger career (think of what would happen if Edward Norton made good once again…oh wait, that’s likely happening this year with Birdman).

Leto’s performance, though, left me completely cold.  I think that more than any of the four winning performances this one felt the most over-praised.  I think there was an admiration for the weight loss and his willingness to step into a character so unlike him, but Rayon is not a particularly compelling character.  The entire performance felt two-dimensional: we see him strut around and inject himself with drugs that are going to kill him, but we get little indication of what sort of person he used to be.  We have to fill-in-the-blanks, which is fine for a normal movie (you can’t rely on every supporting part to have a back story), but when you’re handing out an Oscar for it, there shouldn’t be room for errors.  Even the big reveal scene, where he dresses like a man and is clearly deeply uncomfortable doesn’t resonate because instead of using the scene to learn a bit more about Rayon, it’s just a giant middle finger to his father-nothing more than audience-pandering, rather than character-building.  This felt cheap, and this performance felt gimmicky, and I wasn’t into it at all.

I felt the same way about Barkhad Abdi in Captain Phillips.  This is a performance that gets more points from people, in my opinion, because of the story behind the actor than the actual work.  We see that it’s his film debut, that he was a cab driver in the Twin Cities, and then he made it all the way to the Oscars.  Every year there’s someone who manages to sell this plot to the media, and it’s a pretty exciting one (who wouldn’t want to think that a year from now you too could be at the Oscars?!?).  And yet, I just wasn’t feeling this performance at all-you could see too much of the “acting,” the quick switches in his emotions.  It doesn’t help that he’s competing against Tom Hanks, who hasn’t been this rich onscreen in years and is giving us deep, harsh, and complex emotions to observe in the film’s second act, but in comparison Abdi is just serviceable, and his character’s weirdly alternating motives took me out of his part entirely.

Michael Fassbender was the other actor who had a shot at “the win” (though really, Leto had that thing locked up the moment he took the stage at the Globes), and here is a man who genuinely understood his violent and evil character.  You see in Master Epps a bizarre mix of emotions, always bubbling to the surface.  He’s driven by hatred and lust, frequently dismissing anyone else but himself as a human being, as he has been given little by the outside world in terms of stature, so he must rely on his cruelty to Patsey and Solomon (and to some extent, his wife) to assert his dominance.  Fassbender gets the showiest role of the three (actually, scratch that-Leto does), but he also finds shades in his character, making him just human enough to be frightening (you can tell that he cannot explain his fascination and desire for Patsey, and this lack of knowledge consumes his rage toward her), but still never relenting in the horror that he brings to everyone onscreen.  It’s a brilliant piece of acting from perhaps the finest actor of his generation, and it’s about time that Oscar took notice.

Coming in after these three are two actors that I never would have pegged as future Oscar nominees, much less two-time Oscar nominees: Bradley Cooper and Jonah Hill.  Both men have had the good sense to balance their continued franchises and fame with smaller parts in prestigious films.  It helps that there’s clearly a desire by both men to be taken seriously as actors.  This helps since both are more than willing to take supporting parts in films, even though they are at the stature where they could demand to always be in the lead.  Of the two, Cooper is probably slightly better.  I loved the direction that he took his idiotic Richie, never letting up on the big fish in the little pond act.  It’s still Bradley Cooper, and so you find (like the scene with him in the bathroom of the nightclub) that there’s a desire there that you would want to succumb to, but Cooper is smart enough to balance his good looks (not dampening them through heavy makeup) with making his character abrasive, so it’s still believable that Amy Adams will eventually betray him.  I loved the way that he also changes his personality when he thinks he can impress or be in charge-that’s devotion to the bit, and yet another sign that Cooper is one to watch in the years to come.

While I was pretty much onboard with Bradley Cooper’s first Oscar nomination, I was less enthralled with Hill’s work in Moneyball, which I thought was pretty much a “ooh, he’s a big star going dramatic!” citation, rather than a nomination that was merited.  That being said, this is considerably better, as Hill proves once and for all that he has chops.  I love the way that his character in some ways mirrors Fassy’s Master Epps-they’re both men that are pretty rotten to the core, and not someone to emulate at all, but they both have shades of humanity.  With Hill, he needs to establish that his character isn’t just a vapid, soulless corporate lackey, which he does not through kindness, but instead through fear and trust in the only person he sees as more than a vessel to corrupt.  This isn’t a particularly easy part to play without totally blowing into a lack of realism, and Hill manages to play that well through most of the movie.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes were largely similar to the Oscars, snubbing Hill for Daniel Bruhl in Rush (clearly the sixth place), and also starting the gravy train for Jared Leto to pick up every award under the sun.  The SAG Awards also honored Leto, but made room for Bruhl and James Gandolfini in Enough Said by skipping Hill and Cooper.  Finally, the BAFTA Awards kind of went their own way with the year, bizarrely missing Leto and Hill (Abdi ended up winning), with Matt Damon in Behind the Candelabra and once again Bruhl scoring nominations.  All-in-all, I kind of get why Bruhl was snubbed (the smaller film, not pushing as hard for it as Hill), but this is one of those extremely rare circumstances where you score every precursor and still cannot make the cut (I’ve never seen Rush-should I?)

Performances I Would Have Nominated: I get why certain performances didn’t get cited (I’m looking at you John Gallagher, Jr.), but seriously-what was the Academy’s problem with the supporting men of Saving Mr. Banks?  Best Actress seemed like a category where there were six contenders and you just had to cut one, but Tom Hanks is an Academy favorite, playing a recognizable real-life person, and is terrific in it-where’s the citation for that?  Ditto Colin Farrell, who continues to get better and better, playing a man who is watching his daughter’s opinion of him crumbling amidst his alcohol and decay.  These are great pieces of acting, and both should have been cited.  The fact that neither did is, well, criminal.

Oscar’s Choice: They cannot avoid a gimmick or a co-lead, and Jared Leto had both, so he takes the trophy.

My Choice: Definitely Fassbender-he’s kind of in a class by himself here.  Cooper, Hill, Leto, and finally Abdi follow behind.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you agree with the Academy in celebrating Leto’s finally delivering on his promise, or are you more in the Fassy camp with me?  Who gets to a third nod first-Cooper or Hill?  What does Barkhad Abdi’s career hold in store?  And who was the best supporting actor on 2013?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2013: Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score,  Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2013

Past Best Supporting Actor Contests: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012