OVP: Supporting Actress (1999)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (1999)

The Nominees Were...

Toni Collette, The Sixth Sense

Angelina Jolie, Girl, Interrupted

Catherine Keener, Being John Malkovich

Samantha Morton, Sweet and Lowdown

Chloe Sevigny, Boys Don't Cry

My Thoughts: It is pretty rare (and as the Academy becomes even more insular, even rarer in the 21st Century) for the Academy Awards to do what they did in 1999-give us all five first-time nominees.  While each of these women would have very diverse careers that followed (three of them, to date, have been invited back to the Academy Awards as a nominee for a different picture), they all started as first-timers together.  It's fascinating to think about how one of them became a global superstar, one emerged as an Indie darling, and the remainder are three beloved character actresses with very different fanbases.  But we're only judging the performances in front of us, so let's start with them, shall we?

Samantha Morton is maybe the most versatile of these actors, having appeared in countless roles in the years since of varying sizes.  I think it makes sense how well she fits into the vision Woody Allen has set up for her in Sweet & Lowdown.  The mute girl with a heart-of-gold is a staple at the Oscars for a reason (just ask Jane Wyman or Holly Hunter), but I wanted a bit more of it from her.  A lot of her acting here that works is more physical, reactive rather than driving the viewer, and while that's a good fit, it doesn't give us the range I want from this piece (and as Hunter showed in The Piano, not being able to speak onscreen is no excuse for not giving us everything you'd get with a lot of dialogue).

Toni Collette, oddly enough, does that kind of projecting without speaking in her most famous scene in The Sixth Sense, going through a facial journey as she understands her son's gifts, and gets to have a reunion of sorts with her mother (she does have dialogue, but it's definitely secondary to what she's doing).  Collette is aces in this in general, though.  She nails the tough spot of being a single mother in a horror movie (very much a cliche) by giving us a sense of not just what it's like to raise a unique child, but also what it's like to put your life on the back-burner to raise said child.  This is one of those performances that Oscar could've skipped (Osment gets the showier part), and I'm so glad they didn't.

I will confess since this is the last (guaranteed) time that we discuss her that I've never been really besotted with Angelina Jolie as an actress.  I think she's better as a movie star or celebrity, but when she's forced into actually acting or transforming, she can't do it.  Part of the reason she works in Girl, Interrupted is that we're getting that star persona full-force, for the first time, and audiences were wowed by it.  In many ways it's similar to what one of her competitors that missed the field in 1999 (Jean Smart in Guinevere) is doing-it's the first time we see this talent, so we assume it's limitless and are astounded, but we quickly get used to it, and it's not something where every performance is an event like Meryl Streep or Julianne Moore.  Again, I need to judge this based on what's totally in front of me (those are the OVP rules), and what I'm seeing is intoxicating...but I don't know that it's great acting.

Catherine Keener is able to achieve both in Being John Malkovich.  She's playing a role that would be a staple in her catalog (the gorgeous, smart, impetuous bitch), and she nails it.  Keener would later be typecast in these sorts of roles, but here you understand that there's something special to what she's specifically bringing.  Look at the way she is totally comfortable stepping on John Cusack's character to get what she wants, which is something better than him.  It's basically said out loud, but you understand because she's so enthralling why Cusack is willing to put up with it.  In a film teaming with really interesting character decisions, hers is the best and I'm glad if only one person got that nomination, it was her.

We end with Chloe Sevigny, one of those stars that just has such a unique screen persona it's inevitable that she would land an Oscar nomination at some point, but likely not much more because she is not in traditional Academy fare.  Sevigny can be a good actress, but she goes all-in with all of her characterizations, and I think her work here needed some more breathing room.  She plays well off of Hilary Swank, but it's more predictable and close-to-the-vest in her approach, giving the audience less glimpses inward rather than just what we get on the surface.  This isn't a bad performance, by any means, but when you're judging on a curve (i.e. giving out an Oscar), you have to be pickier, and I think there was room for something more fully-fledged here.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Golden Globes went with Jolie as their victor, here taking out Morton, Keener, Sevigny, Natalie Portman (Anywhere But Here), & Cameron Diaz (Being John Malkovich).  SAG also picked Jolie, beating Diaz, Keener, Sevigny, & Julianne Moore (Magnolia), while BAFTA gave their statute to Maggie Smith (Tea with Mussolini) atop Diaz, Cate Blanchett (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Thora Birch (American Beauty), & Mena Suvari (American Beauty).  The clear sixth place based on precursors is Diaz, and that probably makes the most sense.  Moore was in the running, as were Blanchett & Gywneth Paltrow for Ripley (they likely split their vote), and as I mentioned above there were some who thought Jean Smart might surprise given her reviews for Guinevere, but Diaz was likely in sixth even if that feels weird given Oscar didn't care for her.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: This was in the era before Nicole Kidman was an Oscar staple, but that doesn't mean that Oscar was making the right decisions by her, as she was still doing the work.  Look at what she does in Stanley Kubrick's final film, a prickly, tough performance as a neglected wife in Eyes Wide Shut...she was Oscar-worthy well before Moulin Rouge!.

Oscar’s Choice: There was some buzz building at the time for Collette to win in an upset, but not enough to topple Jolie from her perch.

My Choice: For sure Collette.  This is on a different level from her competition, even if Catherine Keener would've made a respectable winner as well.  Behind them (in order) are Morton, Sevigny, and then Jolie.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does everyone want to stay with Jolie, or would you like to see dead people with Toni & I?  Which of these actresses (their first glance for many cinephiles) is the strongest thespian in the years that followed?  And is sixth place as easy as just "it was Cameron Diaz" or does someone want to push for someone more traditionally in Oscar's wheelhouse?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 1999: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously, in 1999

Past Best Supporting Actress Contests: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

Eternals (2021)

Film: Eternals (2021)

Stars: Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie

Director: Chloe Zhao

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

We are now 26 films into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and, well, we all kind of know the formula at this point, right?  After we spent 22 films leading up to the ultimate Avengers showcase in Avengers: Endgame (remember Thanos & his glowing hand), the story has continued and been a bit sprawling, if we can be honest.  Spider-Man: Far From Home was a disappointment (for yours truly), unable to get me all that interested in a world beyond Thanos, and Black Widow was an origin story that would've been more interesting five years ago.  Shang-Chi had me intrigued, as we had a film that, again, did the origin story thing but was so well-cast (particularly Awkafina & Tony Leung) that it felt elevated and like Marvel knew how to do a twist on a story that had become familiar.  And like every sentient being, I'll be seeing Spider-Man as soon as I can because you an only shove so much speculation into one movie without stoking my curiosity (I am confident this will become the first film to make $1 billion post the pandemic).  But I don't know that there's been a Marvel movie in a long time that had me genuinely as curious as Eternals did.  From the mind of Chloe Zhao, fresh off of her well-deserved Oscar for Nomadland, it'd been a longtime since we'd had a creative mind like this behind a Marvel film-would Zhao be able to put her distinctive, introspective spin on a movie so integral to the Disney machine's brand?  I was intrigued, and the divisive reviews had me even more curious.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place over literal centuries, as we learn about a group of protectors to the planet called the Eternals.  They are led by Ajak (Hayek), who gets her orders from a Celestial named Arishem.  They are asked to simply battle an invasive species known as Deviants, but not to stop or interfere with any other violence or war (i.e. this is why they didn't help in the battle for Thanos, a question that has been levied at this group since it was decided to introduce it into the Marvel Universe).  When the Deviants are defeated (or so they assume) in 1521, the group breaks up but they remain on the planet for centuries, never aging & taking their lives/powers in different directions.  When a Deviant shows up in modern day around Sersi (Chan) and Sprite (McHugh), it sets in course a chain-of-events that reunites all of the Eternals, who learn complicated truths about their existence and what their true role has been for thousands of years across the universe.

That's about all of the plot I'm going to get into, both because this article isn't a Wikipedia article (if you want to know more, go see the movie), and because it's hard to summarize Eternals, which plays well (like several films we've reviewed this week, length is never an obstacle in what we're sitting through), almost like a miniseries.  It is very, very hard to write a film like this where you have to introduce a dozen or so characters and not give some of their stories short shift, but Zhao pulls it off-the characters in this film feel distinctive, realized, & well-cast.  It's hard to pinpoint an exact person I liked the best (Richard Madden & Barry Koeghan probably rise to the top if I had to pick), but the actors feel exactly true to their star personas, and it never feels like we're lingering too long on one hero or staying away too far from another.

The film's best moments, though, are the way that Zhao introduces risk & consequence into a Marvel Cinematic Universe where increasingly that doesn't exist.  Eternals is not faultless (it relies too heavily on exposition, particularly in picking up some of the looser ends of the plot toward the back-half of the film), but it has genuine stakes.  Some of these characters will die, some of them big names that might have made sense for a future film.  It's messy-there are tangents that don't quite work-but it's also creative & fascinating.  It looks beautiful, it uses a terrific score from Ramin Djawadi (random aside, but having Djawadi score a film where Jon Snow & Robb Stark fight over a woman named Cersei...at what point did Marvel realize exactly what they were doing here for the Game of Thrones fanboys?), and its effects are glorious.  I loved the way that the costumes become their own special effect, and the golden fighting effects are elegant & distinct.  I genuinely liked it, not because it's a truly great film (Marvel has technically done better), but it's the most creative I've seen the MCU be in at least a decade.  Here's to hoping that MCU sees the benefits of having stories like this in the future.

OVP: The One and Only Ivan (2020)

Film: The One and Only Ivan (2020)

Stars: Bryan Cranston, Sam Rockwell, Angelina Jolie, Danny DeVito, Helen Mirren, Brooklynn Prince, Chaka Khan

Director: Thea Sharrock

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

One of the bigger problems I've had with film in 2020 (and now into 2021) is that with all movies on streaming platforms, it's been tough to understand what the hidden gems are, and what are the kinds of movies I'd catch in theaters in a normal year under a "down" week where there aren't a lot of pictures out.  You know the kinds of films-the ones that you forget a week later, but you risk going because you're bored or perhaps because you know that sometimes these films become secret favorites (every year there's at least a couple).  Without buzz, those movies start to meld into the backgrounds of your Netflix or Hulu or Disney+ queues, and you never really watch them.  One of the films that might have fallen under this category for me is The One and Only Ivan, which was originally intended to get a theatrical release in 2020, but instead become one of several projects that Disney dumped onto its streaming platform with little-to-no fanfare.  In a different world, it's easy to see this having been a sleeper hit this past summer, the kind of late-in-season movie that stir crazy parents bring their children to.  So I decided to give this a chance one lazy Sunday afternoon, wondering if I could find myself one of those sleeper favorites in a year where they've been in short supply.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about a group of animals (who talk to each other, though the humans can't understand them) and perform at a circus that happens to be inside of a mall.  The big attraction is the One and Only Ivan (Rockwell), a silverback gorilla who is ferocious to the crowds but who is gentle & sweet behind the scenes.  With ticket sales dropping, the ringmaster (Cranston) brings on Ruby (Prince), a baby elephant who initially is raised by adult elephant Stella (Jolie), but Ivan after Stella dies.  Ruby doesn't like the circus, and Ivan works to gain her freedom.  They attempt to escape, but they realize they can't get to freedom in the middle of an urban environment.  Soon a different path emerges, though, when Ivan begins to paint, and locals see that Ivan has artistic skills, which are shocking in an animal, but what he paints are scenes of green-and-blue, showing that he wants to leave the circus.  A movement in the press comes about indicating that the animals should be given "freedom" (the quotes are there because they eventually end up in a zoo, not the wild), and in the end Ivan is able to reunite Ruby with her own kind, while also enjoying the green & increased space of staying at the zoo.

The movie is sweet, and very much a kids movie in the sense that children will love to see all of the animals.  It's also pretty repetitive.  The story underlines a lot of points (like the fact that the circus is failing, and that Ivan keeps being jealous of Ruby), and it's not for adults.  This is entirely for kids-not even Danny DeVito as a stray dog can help instill enough wink for the parents in the audience. The technology isn't sharp (this might make some VFX shortlists with Oscar because they go for main characters that are CGI and it's a weak year, but there's little finesse here), and this is forgettable.

But it's still an intriguing film in one aspect.  While it would be better if it was higher-quality, it's admirable that Disney is making a message picture that really tries to introduce environmentalism to a group of younger children.  This is actually something they've done a lot of recently (not just Ivan but also Moana and Frozen), bringing climate change & conservation to younger audiences.  If this helps in that effort, it would be cool to know that a film inspired young zoologists & advocates to start caring at a young age (this isn't specious-TV shows like Flipper are oftentimes cited for an increased fascination in marine biology & ocean conservation).  But as a movie itself, it's more forgettable than gem.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)

Film: Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sam Riley, Harris Dickinson
Director: Joachim Ronning
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Makeup & Hairstyling)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

In an era where we get almost carbon copy versions of Disney films like The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast, it's comparatively refreshing to see something like the Maleficent franchise (and yes, it feels safe to call it a franchise at this point-has Disney already signed up for a third or a TV series?), where the story is, in theory, unique.  Maleficent's first outing came before the era where we simply recreated the same animated film with real-life actors, and thus with its sequel, it expands further into the Sleeping Beauty universe, this time focusing on the family of a recast Prince Phillip (Harris Dickinson replacing Brenton Thwaites...a step-up in virtually every way conceivable).  However, once you get over the happiness that is caused by this being a story you don't know by heart-is it any good?

(Spoilers Ahead) The film picks up five years after its predecessor, with Aurora (Fanning) now Queen of the Moors and Maleficent (Jolie) her surrogate mother.  Aurora is engaged to Prince Philip (Dickinson), who wants to bring his bride (and her mother) to meet his parents, including the scheming Queen Ingrith (Pfeiffer).  Once there, Maleficent is accused of cursing the king (turns out, it was Ingrith trying to set her up), and she is attacked while she leaves the castle, with Aurora unknowingly inviting the creatures of the Moors into a trap.  It turns out Ingrith has a powder that will turn magical creatures into ordinary beings or just into dust, and in a cruel attack, starts doing this to the creatures of the forest before Aurora, Maleficent, and an enlightened Philip save the day.

The film is more involved than that plot (there's an entire side sequence featuring Chiwetel Ejiofor where Maleficent meets other horned creatures such as herself), but we'll leave it there because it's really all you need.  Maleficent 2 is more fun and intriguing than the original (which you might recall I didn't enjoy), aided by a more confident Jolie and Pfeiffer taking on the role of a villain with grater aplomb, but it's not tight in the way that you'd expect from a Disney movie.  The film's meander into Maleficent's origins are dull & kind of pointless, and I ended up being bored by it, but the attack scene was moving (particularly when the Blue Fairy sacrifices herself to save the rest of her forest folk), and visually impressive.

The film's Makeup nomination feels right as well.  This isn't a case where you're nominating the same creations of the original, but instead signing up for more horns, more trolls, more woodland critters, and of course Pfeiffer looking glamorously royal.  There's not a lot to be said for Elle Fanning (I know this isn't a popular opinion, but I tend to like Dakota better still even if in adulthood she's not approached the fame of her sister), but the film is pleasant if meandering-the sort of movie it'd be easy to see on a lazy rainy day, even if it's also a movie you'll have forgotten by nightfall.

OVP: Shark Tale (2004)

Film: Shark Tale (2004)
Stars: Will Smith, Jack Black, Robert de Niro, Renee Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Martin Scorsese, Peter Falk, Katie Couric
Director: Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, & Rob Letterman
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

You've likely noticed in the past two weeks a bit more conversation around the films of 2004-06, which isn't an accident.  I've been moving at a decent clip through a number of Oscar Viewing Project viewings, and these movies are next up in my queue as I've polished off pretty much every Oscar-nominated film since.  As a result, we're going to be heading today back to when the Best Animated Feature race was still in its infancy, when there were only three nominees and one could question whether or not even that number was too much, considering that they were giving "Oscar-nominated" status to a movie as generic (though insanely profitable) as Shark Tale.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers around Oscar (Smith) a blue fish who spends his days working at a Whale Wash (a carwash for whales-no muscles were stretched here), but day-dreaming about living the life of someone rich-and-famous.  He is adored by his friend Angie (Zellweger), who is secretly in love with Oscar, and who offers up an inherited pink pearl as collateral when Oscar's boss Sykes (Scorsese) calls in all of the money that Oscar owes him, as Oscar is inclined to waste his paychecks on get-rich-quick schemes.  Oscar loses the money in a bet, but before he's found out by Angie & essentially killed by Sykes, the shark that was going to kill him dies because it's hit in the head by an anchor, and Oscar claims he was the one who killed it.  He is proclaimed the "Sharkslayer," a myth that is further perpetrated when Lenny (Black), a vegetarian shark, helps Oscar out by pretending to die like his brother (who was hit with the anchor).  The film ends with Oscar being found out by Lenny's father Don Lino (de Niro, mining every last inch of that Godfather legacy for coin), but ultimately coming clean, with the sharks letting his reef go free and him getting back together with Angie, now as a legitimate partner in the Whale Wash.

It's kind of hard to describe how big of a deal this might have been circa 2004.  Though the actors involved are obviously still famous, Jolie, Smith, & Zellweger were at the peak of their movie star power when this film came out, and so the movie's gargantuan ($350+ million gross) makes sense.  I mean, they found a way to get Marty Scorsese to play a pufferfish-you've gotta have some pull to be able to get a legend like Scorsese to do his only voiceover role.

If only the film was worth it.  I don't know how they could pull this many magnetic film personas into one room and come up with something so generic, but they did.  The film's plot is easy to see coming, and no one is doing anything interesting here, not even Jack Black who could make the phonebook funny if given the opportunity.  Scorsese is arguably the best of the bunch simply from a curiosity standpoint, but Smith is playing his persona as a fish, as is Jolie, as is de Niro, and there's none of the inventive voicework that was making Pixar (Dreamworks' biggest animated competitor during this era as Disney was also phoning it in at the time) a critical darling at the time.  Even the color palette seems a bit uninspired compared to Finding Nemo a year earlier.  The movie, much like Shrek, ages poorly, with pop cultural references that die just a few years after it was made, and the only saving grace for the picture might be that it found enough stars that simply will always be famous that trading on their personas will still work years later.  Unfortunately, the actual movie itself never takes advantage of the call sheet and gives a hackneyed, disposable tale.

OVP: The Good Shepherd (2006)

Film: The Good Shepherd (2006)
Stars: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert de Niro, Alec Baldwin, William Hurt, Joe Pesci, John Turturro, Billy Crudup, Tammy Blanchard, Lee Pace, Eddie Redmayne
Director: Robert de Niro
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Art Direction)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Trying to recreate The Godfather is a fool's errand.  One of the truly perfect cinematic masterpieces, it hangs as a shadow over so many movies since it's creation, with really only one man (Francis Ford Coppola) able to duplicate it, and that was as a sequel (and that was only once-just ask any film fan).  A quiet, introverted epic about one family's journey, the movie is legendary for a reason-no one else has been able to achieve such a towering, studied look at an organized syndicate.  But that doesn't mean that people don't try, and perhaps few people should be allowed more leeway to pursue such a venture as Robert de Niro.  De Niro has only directed two films in his career, the first being the commercially-dismissed but critically-praised A Bronx Tale, and the second being this movie, a three-hour (fictionalized) look at the earliest days of the CIA.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie, at 167 minutes in length, is expensive, but it's main focus can be summed up in a few lines.  Essentially, we have Edward Wilson Sr. (Damon) who is working for the government during the Cold War in the 1960's during the Bay of Pigs invasion.  We alternate back to his present day, where we learn about his life, his early romances with a deaf woman (Blanchard) and the sister of a friend at Yale, where he's in the Skull-and-Bones, whom he gets pregnant (Jolie).  We also see as he happens, through luck and skill, to eventually be recruited into government channels not available to regular people, in counterintelligence that will eventually become the CIA.  While this is happening, we see others in his web betray him or be subsumed by scandal, and he watches as his wife and son (a very young Eddie Redmayne) struggle with his stoicism, eventually ripping his family apart in pursuit of his career.

This is all very, very similar to The Godfather, with Edward Wilson becoming our Michael Corleone, and while there's no Don (kind of William Hurt, but not really), it's interesting to see just how similar the films are considering that A) de Niro is a major component of that film series and B) how the film fails when it has so many of its components borrowed from a filmmaker who saw the original made first-hand.  The problem with The Good Shepherd is first that it never really justifies its length-the movie is overstuffed with oftentimes repetitive points (how many times can we see Damon's Wilson be betrayed), as if de Niro is trying to shove all three Godfather movies into the same movie.  The film becomes meandering, and while that is likely how it won its sole Oscar nomination (getting to cover decades of furniture, offices, and interiors we get at a "most art direction" sort of citation without ever getting into a traditional British costume drama or fantasy film, which is where "most art direction" is usually used as a criticism), but it makes the picture pretty dull, and takes away the few moments of intrigue it generally lays out.

The second problem is the acting.  Damon is one of those movie stars who has natural charisma, but does better work in lighter films as he confuses serious with lifeless, and his Edward Wilson is without personality in the worst way possible.  It's unfair to compare any performance to Al Pacino in The Godfather, but as they are so similarly structured it's hard not to see that while Pacino lets us into Michael's world and then slowly closes the door, Damon just keeps it closed shut, so all we see is this person whom we don't really care about for three hours.  Jolie's performance is bordering on terrible as his wife, her fight scenes becoming hyperbolic & she seems to have no connection to her other than "this scene I'll play her happy" or "this scene she should be sad."  It's underwritten, but it's hard to imagine that both of these people are Oscar winners based on just this movie.  The best part of the movie is arguably Pesci as a mobster in one single scene.  Pesci came out of his prolonged retirement to make this film, and it was worth it, showing he has lost none of his ability to land a scene.  But the rest, even de Niro himself, are underwhelming in a movie that just sits there, trying to be important but instead is a snooze.

Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

Film: Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)
Stars: Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, JK Simmons, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan, Kate Hudson
Director: Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I actually reread a couple of old reviews of mine before deciding to tackle this installment of the Dreamworks' series Kung Fu Panda just to get a sense of the previous films.  Dreamworks (foolishly, in my opinion), decided to go with a Pixar-level tactic of waiting five years to come out with a new installment to one of their quintessential film franchises, hoping that overall devotion to the series could carry that long.  Considering the gross for the film was down over $100 million from the previous installment, this was probably a foolish decision (Dreamworks Animation has made several of those in the past decade), but I was also curious to read reviews because of my memory of the first two films.  I am not a fan of this animation house-despite 32 feature films, most of which I've seen, I have only really liked three of the movies they've produced, two of which of are in this series (the other being the first How to Train Your Dragon).  Revisiting what may well be the final film in the trilogy (at least I'm hoping that's the case considering how it closes) felt like a weird rush for a trio of films I initially wrote off before actually watching them and being impressed.

(Spoilers Ahead) I think there's a few reasons to really enjoy the Kung Fu Panda pictures, but one of the chief ones is that they're genuinely funny.  Jack Black is an actor of somewhat limited means, but he's a compelling onscreen presence and when he finds a role that suits him, like Po, he nails it against the wall.  Po is hilarious, albeit a character whose eventual journey to being the Dragon Master is a bit hard to follow if you hadn't immediately seen the two previous films.  I never quite know what the rules are for sequels in rehashing "scenes from the previous episode," but I will say that I felt a little lost for the first fifteen minutes or so trying to remember what had happened in the previous episode, and specifically if JK Simmons' Kai (an evil yak, because of course), was a new villain or a villain from a previous installment that I'd just misplaced in my memory.  He was, in fact, new, though here I feel like the franchise dropped the ball a bit, as no one was going to live up to Gary Oldman's evil peacock from the second installment of the series (that was a joyous creation).

The film does succeed in a number of great visual gags, though.  The fights here are some of the best I've seen in the series, and truly marvelous to behold.  The film also does a good job of balancing Po's increasing seriousness with his natural comic persona (this is, after all, still a children's movie and never had the gravitas to be able to pull off what Pixar did during it's 2007-10 Golden Age)-the scene where Po must decide whether to return to the mortal realm or not is one where the adults get what he's deciding, but for the kids it still has the playfulness where it's a panda talking to a turtle.

All-in-all, no new ground is broken here and I maintain that the second film is still the best part of the series, but there's a lot to love in this installment.  I genuinely liked most of the scenes, and felt like the movies continued to find a cultivated and strong supporting cast of players (something Dreamworks does well), except in one very obvious case: Kate Hudson's Mei Mei.  I know the story behind this part, clearly intended to be a love interest for Po that got lost in storyboarding, and originally Rebel Wilson, whose comic skills match Black's, was scheduled to play the part and then (due to scheduling conflicts) had to drop out and Hudson filled in at the last minute.  This ends up being a disaster, as her first scene feels strange (is she just a woman who is blinded by her lack of talent or is she just seducing Po-it's very hard to say?), and then she has almost no interactions onscreen with Po, but gets a ridiculously over-the-top line reading at a critically-emotional scene later on in the film where she said she was a "nunchuck chick" and yet we haven't hearkened back to her at all since her first blustery scene.  It's a badly edited choice by the directors, one where they probably should have cut her storyline entirely from the film but didn't know how to (and probably were trying to set up a potential sequel for the studio's sake), but Hudson is badly underwritten and miscast, and it wears on those scenes of the movie in a jarring way (it's the first thing I thought of wanting to write about prior to this review...never a good sign for a film I actually liked).

Those are my thoughts on (what I'm hoping, in terms of story structure) is the final Kung Fu Panda film, and by-and-large it was a successful trilogy in my opinion.  How about you?  Which is your favorite (as I mentioned above, mine's the second) and where does this rank on your Dreamworks' animation list?  Do you also feel like Rebel Wilson could have saved Mei Mei or was this simply a character without redemption?  Share your thoughts below!

A Mighty Heart (2007)

Film: A Mighty Heart (2007)
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, Will Patton, Alyy Khan, Archie Panjabi, Irrfan Khan
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Oscar History: Jolie nabbed Globe and SAG nominations, but was shockingly left out of the Oscar lineup.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Angelina Jolie is one of those actors that I have never found quite the right role for in my movie-watching love.  Jolie is certainly an actor that I'm aware of, and have seen many of her films.  She's a celebrity that I have had deep admiration for through the years, particularly in the way that she's used her fame to better the lives of people living in impoverished countries and on behalf of those who are victims of sexual violence.  And her beauty is, well, ethereal and kind of daunting.  However, her film output has never been something that I have really loved.  While there are some gaps left in my viewing (particularly her breakout trio of George Wallace, Gia, and Girl, Interrupted), her period as a major movie star has sort of left me cold.  She's got great presence, but her films are either action movies with little substance, overwrought dramas, or directorial efforts that feel too uncomplicated for a woman that's seen the many angles of the world like she has.  About the only film of hers that I cherish is Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a comedy which is hardly the genre one would consider her forte.  That being said, A Mighty Heart is one of those films that almost everyone universally admired her in, and she frequently made not only awards show lineups, but also critical lineups of the best performances of 2007.  As a result, I tried to go into the film, which on the surface looked like the sort of movie that I would normally steer clear of (biopics of recent events that were universally-covered by the media are not my cup of tea), with an open mind and an ever hopeful heart that this was the film that sealed the deal for me with Jolie.

(It was literally all over the news for a year, so if you need a spoiler alert you need to spend less time watching reality TV and more time reading a damn newspaper) The story of Daniel and Marianne Pearl (played by Futterman and Jolie, respectively) is one familiar to pretty much anyone who was paying attention to the War on Terror that occurred in the years following 9/11.  Mr. Pearl's kidnapping and eventual murder by the Taliban was widely-covered by the press, including statements from Secretary of State Colin Powell, and upon his death, from President George W. Bush.  As a result, though I had never read Ms. Pearl's memoir, I was curious as to what additional insights the characters and the writers would bring to hers and her husband's story.  It's one of the reasons I resist recent biopics-I go to the films to see new facets of characters, even if they are extremely well-known, and recent biopics where most of the people involved are still living are less likely to explore these individuals in interesting ways.

I left this film feeling that way about the entire ordeal.  The film feels a bit like a thriller, except of course that we know the ending of the movie.  The movie unfolds with the occasional flashbacks to Daniel and Marianne's life, but mostly it's just a serious of missteps as we watch Marianne and a team of government employees try to track through a terrorist network in hopes of finding Daniel before he dies.  The film in many ways has the same handicap that Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty experienced, where we know the ending, but Bigelow as a result spends less time on the minutia of what is actually happening and more time on the central figure in the movie, unknowable but slowly dying from her obsession.  Here, though, Winterbottom doesn't seem to want that luxury, frequently wanting to tell Daniel's story just as much as Marianne's.  It's a noble pursuit, but it makes the film drag, particularly when the plot continually repeats and we are treated to stories and news items that we are extremely familiar with; as a result, the movie is kind of dull when it should be riveting, and we're more mournful of the fact that we saw this transpire in real-life and know that there were true people behind Futterman and Jolie's characters, and less so because of what is happening onscreen.

As for Jolie, I still leave this movie waiting for that performance that makes me love her as an actress.  She is fine as Marianne, and her breakdown scenes late in the movie are indeed impressive.  I liked the way that she underplays most of the scenes, and her accent work is flawless.  However, I left this movie having very little understanding of Marianne Pearl-what was it that drove her career, what was it that drove her love for this man.  Too much of her life, even in the quietest of moments were spent inward and without projection, and unlike Jessica Chastain's Maya, we never get the sense that this is happening because of a self-preservation, but instead as something that feels dangerously close to a plot device for a script that doesn't want to stray from a very traditional narrative.  As a result, I'll head into Girl, Interrupted hopeful that I'll finally fall in love with one of the Aughts' most-celebrated movie stars.

Those are my thoughts on A Mighty Heart-anyone want to share theirs?  Do you have the same resistance to biopics of recent events?  And what is your favorite Angelina Jolie performance?  The comments are there for the taking!

OVP: Actress (2008)

OVP: Best Actress (2008)

The Nominees Were...

Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader

My Thoughts: 2008 was the Year of the Winslet.  After more than a decade in Hollywood, where she tried pretty much every angle to win an Oscar (Austen, Shakespeare, Hardy, Manic Pixie Dream Girl, famous author, adulteress, dying mother, death row journalist, Nancy Meyers, mistress, maid, and the highest-grossing film of all time), she came out with not one but two major pictures, going both the route of the Holocaust (an Oscar-bait tactic she cheekily parodied years earlier on Extras) and the lonely suburban housewife (another major Oscar-bait tactic).  While most people thought headed into the nominations that she'd end up with a Best Supporting Actress trophy after committing category fraud with The Reader, she was completely overlooked for Revolutionary Road and was cited for Stephen Daldry's film in lead instead.  However, though her win was never in doubt, she did get a pretty solid collection of competitors.  Let's take a look at them, shall we?

Anne Hathaway is in the only film we haven't yet discussed in the OVP writeups, so we'll begin with her.  Honestly, you'd be forgiven a bit if you couldn't recall that Hathaway scored this nomination-so much press has been spilt over her victory for Les Miz and the Hathahate that followed that it's difficult to remember she was actually on her second Oscar nomination in 2012, and her previous one had been in lead, no less.  It's also worth remembering that her Rachel was absolutely splendid-she portrayed an addict not as someone afflicted by her demons, but as someone who is romanced by them.  We see why this woman was able to have such an intoxicating persona, making such a mark on her family.  Hathaway plays Kim like a marvelous, complete creation, never sacrificing the good times to go along with the cold pricklies.  It helps that RoseMarie DeWitt and Debra Winger are great scene partners, but anyone who doubts Hathaway's talents needs to see this movie, where she plays someone too cynical to care but too electric not to still bruise those around her.

Angelina Jolie, on the other hand, could have used some of Hathaway's panache onscreen.  Though my opinion of Changeling has improved slightly with these write-ups, the impact of Jolie's performance hasn't gotten much better.  Jolie's performance in the film is plum, filled with Oscar-tastic moments about a woman who has lost her son, but she never really plays to much more than concerned mother.  There's great shouting and crying, but that's about it-every scene she seems to modulate not just her performance to the mood of that scene, but also her character, to the point where she's just reflecting those around her.  This could be an interesting tactic, except this strategy stops randomly, where suddenly she's in-charge and having none of it for no reason other than it's convenient to the plot.  It's a performance where she goes in so many directions that I just couldn't get into it, and wished that she would have picked a better crescendo or made more consistent character choices.

The same can't quite be said for Meryl Streep.  Her Sister Aloysius is someone who is consistent to the point of potentially devastating consequence.  Streep is an actor of such incredible range and ability that the film feels a little bit odd-there's never a moment of subtlety, and she doesn't have the advantage that she did in Devil Wears Prada where she isn't at the center of the story, instead just glaring from the sidelines.  Here she's constantly in the spotlight, and it does occasionally throw some harsh light on her work as she overplays certain dramatic scenes (particularly the wildly theatrical spars with Hoffman), but she does find moments of great wonder, particularly when acting off Viola Davis.  In those scenes you see not just Sister Aloysius challenged, but also Meryl Streep, watching an actress who came to win and to impress, and Streep plays those scenes like Serena Williams when she's being challenged by a surprisingly good upstart.  Still, it's a weird act where Streep is sometimes mesmerizing and sometimes hammy.

Melissa Leo doesn't have this problem-her work in Frozen River is outstanding, full stop.  The film is just a centerpiece for Leo to deliver her best performance to-date, here as a woman who is at the end of her rope, trying to find a way to survive in the poorest of situations (where she's trying to keep her trailer and force her son into school).  Watching the way that Leo transforms in this film, finding her life was in auto-pilot and then she suddenly finds a reason not only to live, but to think about the world outside of her purview is outstanding.  There's nothing particularly new about what Leo is doing here, and yet she sells the character and her work as if she does.  It takes an actor of fine talent to be able to transform a story we have seen before and engage us and challenge our way of thinking.  Melissa Leo's Ray Eddy does that.

Which brings us back to Kate Winslet.  Years later, I am still a bit swept-up by The Reader, a film that I loved when it came out and was stunned by the fact that it made it into so many Oscars, and then shocked to find out other people hadn't felt the same way about the film.  To me, though, it was a truly well-kept love story, romantic in its passions as well as in its questionable morality.  Winslet's pining for something, a world outside of her own, feels genuine here-I never felt like I was looking at someone creating a part, but instead at someone who was desperate to escape the tragedy of her existence.  Winslet plays her as someone who was not trying to improve her own world, but instead as someone who was desperately trying to understand it but didn't seem to have the grasp to be able to do it.  Her Reader is finely thought-out and fascinating, but Kate also finds a way to bridge her actions with the rest of the movie, which is not an easy feat.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes of course separate between Comedy/Musical and Drama, and they also kept Winslet in supporting so instead she won here for Revolutionary Road, taking out Hathaway, Streep, Jolie, and Kristin Scott Thomas in I've Loved You So Long, while Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky bested Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Frances McDormand (Burn After Reading), Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia!), and Emma Thompson (Last Chance Harvey).  The SAG Awards went with a near carbon-copy of the Oscar lineup, except here Winslet was nominated for Revolutionary Road and Meryl Streep won for Doubt.  The BAFTA's went with Winslet in lead for The Reader (she won here as well), with Melissa Leo being skipped for Kristin Scott Thomas.  In hindsight, while it is hard to tell where Winslet stood (it seems certain that if she had been in supporting for The Reader that she still would have been cited for Revolutionary Road, perhaps even winning two Oscars in the same night), I don't know that it's in sixth place, it's just very hard to tell which was in that position.  Sally Hawkins became the first person ever to miss after winning NYFCC, LAFCA, Boston, and the Globes, but Kristin Scott Thomas was in a drama that was far baitier.  Hawkins makes more sense on-paper, but I kind of think Scott Thomas was closer, and let's not forget that Cate Blanchett was also in the running.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: This is one of those rare years where I would have bucked AMPAS's rules if I was allowed and given two nominations to the same actor-Winslet is so good in both The Reader and Revolutionary Road and both pieces of work would make my Top 5.  Still, I can't help but feel a pang of sadness that Kristin Scott Thomas, who seems to be toying with retirement from film, didn't get a well-deserved second nomination for her mesmerizing work in I've Loved You So Long.

Oscar’s Choice: It was The Year of the Winslet-if she'd taken supporting already Meryl might have finally nabbed her third trophy or perhaps Angelina Jolie would have won the year after she was snubbed for A Mighty Heart, but with only one option the Oscars were claiming Winslet for their own.

My Choice: At the time I agreed with them and gave Winslet my statue, and I still love what Winslet was doing, but I will admit that I hadn't seen the stark winter of Melissa Leo's work, and I feel like that holds up better even if I like The Reader the movie more.  So I'm going to defy my better judgment (I don't know if Winslet will win an OVP after this and she's a favorite of mine, but that's not what the OVP is about) and go with Leo, with Winslet, Hathaway, Streep, and Jolie coming in behind.

Is anyone with me on defying The Year of the Winslet, or are you all about Kate the Great?  This is the lowest I've ranked Meryl Streep so far-do you have a "least favorite" of Meryl's nominated works?  And Kristin, Sally, or Cate-who was in that coveted sixth place position?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2008: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2008

Past Best Actress Contests: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

OVP: Wanted (2008)

Film: Wanted (2008)
Stars: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Thomas Kretschmann, Common, Terence Stamp, Chris Pratt
Director: Timu Bekmambetov
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Sound Mixing, Sound Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Well, that streak just took a huge hit in the head.  After a weirdly long spell of good to wonderful movies, I got my first clunker in a while this morning when I was watching Wanted, a film that you vaguely remember seeing seven years ago, and are surprised to find out Chris Pratt was in (and is naked in for you Andy Dwyer enthusiasts, for the record).  It's a film that you remember being kind of cool, with lots of shifting and angled bullets, plus Angelina Jolie holding a gun, which is always exciting, right?  The answer is decidedly wrong, as this movie is a joke, frequently relying on boring twists, ridiculous plots, and an oddly bad lead performance from the usually reliable James McAvoy.  It also got two Oscar nominations, which is why it's on this blog, but we'll get into that soon enough.  First, though, let's tackle that pesky thing called the plot (a word, perhaps, the screenwriters should have looked up in the dictionary prior than sitting front of their keyboards).

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Wesley Gibson (McAvoy), a cubicle drone who lives his life on autopilot, constantly being berated by his boss and watching as his best friend Barry (Pratt) consistently one-ups him and has sex with his girlfriend.  The characters on this end of Wesley's life are meant to be nothing more than tropes, and that's really what they are.  Pratt is always watchable, and elevates what could be an even bigger loser role (the way he seems impressed with Wesley later in the film for punching him is vintage Andy Dwyer), but being cute only gets you so far in a movie, and the female roles are out of a classic straight-dude manual on female cliches.  Wesley is brought into a fraternity of assassins who want him to track down the man who killed his father named Cross (Kretschmann), being mentored by the gorgeous Fox (Jolie...get it, because she's a fox...my god this movie is opaque) and being watched over by Sloan (Freeman) who serves as his boss and shows him the magical loom that spins out whom the assassins are going to kill.

This presents the first of many problems, because you see Morgan Freeman's Sloan is actually the bad guy.  This is obvious because Thomas Kretschmann has no scenes showing him to be the bad guy and never actually seems to want to kill James McAvoy.  Kretschmann is bordering on the "little too young" to be McAvoy's actual father, for the record, but that's where the film points him in the plot.  As a result of this, we sort of have to question the intelligence of every other assassin in the group for never questioning exactly what happens with the loom and whether vigilante justice is a good idea.  A thousand years is a long time for some common skepticism to not rear its thoughtful head, and it's hard to believe a random desk jockey is the one to take down a thousand years of training.

There are other problems with the film of course.  There's the obvious weirdness about McAvoy's skills being genetic enough so that he can shoot the wings off a fly instantaneously but he can't just get out into the field.  There's also the fact that every character other than Wesley is woefully underwritten, to the point where when Angelina Jolie pulls out the dead father card, you feel like she's borrowing the speech from another of her movies.  Jolie is watchable in a movie-star-sort-of-way in every action movie you can think of, but between Wanted and Salt, I get the sense that she really doesn't know how to pick out a decent action adventure and am hoping that she sticks to dramas going forward, or at least has whomever picked Mr. and Mrs. Smith on-board to help select the film.  Morgan Freeman, the only other big name actor at the time, has a gravitas in everything he does, but this is really underwritten and he doesn't get too much juiciness, particularly since we don't get a moment of questioning why he would be so foolish as to, in the film's final scene, go into Wesley's place-of-work to kill him, knowing full well that it could be a trap.

This final scene, however, illustrates the worst part of the movie: Wesley is a jackass.  I can't recall seeing an action movie with a less likable protagonist.  At the beginning of the film he's wasting his life, somehow trying to seem like not only everyone at home, but also a common man, but he's a lot less than the common man.  He's someone that doesn't even care that his girlfriend is cheating on him, that he works a job that he's not good at and where his boss treats him like garbage.  Then he's impetuous about being an assassin, a job he only has because of his DNA.  And finally, in the film's final fourth-wall breaking scene he condescendingly asks the audience what "they have done lately," never having enough self-awareness to realize everything he did was because it was handed to him.  McAvoy doesn't modulate any of this jerk-like nature, he exacerbates it, perhaps because the ambitious young Scot doesn't relate to such a loser.  I generally like McAvoy in pretty much everything, but this is a bad performance, coupled with a pretty lousy American accent (note to British actors: don't just flatten your accent when you move here, you have to have some sort of regional dialect to go with your voice), and shows that he's just not meant to play someone unlikable and make them at least relatable.  He looks wicked hot, but like so many women in Transformers movies have found out, that's not really enough to carry a movie.

The film received two Oscar nominations, both in the sound categories.  I have a feeling it gained both nominations due to the whooshing of the bullets, an admittedly eye-catching (if ludicrously over-produced) effect, as well as for the bevy of Oscar friendly names associated with the film's sound-work (2-time winner Chris Jenkins, along with 7-time nominees Wylie Stateman and Frank Montano), as the rest of the sound is mostly music and crashing trains, nothing particularly noteworthy or special going on here.

All-in-all, with just one film left before we kick off the 2008 OVP, I'm feeling like I might have chosen duds to end the race with, but what do you think?  Anyone want to stick up for Wanted (it was a hit back in the day, so someone must like it)?  Where does this rank on your personal James McAvoy favorites list?  And when compared to the likes of The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, WALL-E, Iron Man, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where does the sound-work in this picture rank?