Cars 3 (2017)

Film: Cars 3 (2017)
Stars: Owen Wilson, Cristela Alonzo, Chris Cooper, Nathan Fillion, Larry the Cable Guy, Armie Hammer, Tony Shalhoub, Bonnie Hunt, Kerry Washington
Director: Brian Fee
Oscar History: Only the fifth Pixar film to not be nominated for an Academy Award, and the third to not be nominated for a Golden Globe.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

As you might have expected after yesterday's review of Cars 2, as we continue animation week, we're going to conclude with the final Pixar film (to date) that I had never seen, Cars 3.  The Cars franchise is actually (if you count the two spinoff Planes films, which I haven't seen, but who knows what will happen if quarantine continues at its current pace) the most plentiful of the Pixar franchises with five installments, but to-date this is the final one in the series, and might stay that way considering the diminishing returns on the franchise (and the fact that Planes and its planned spinoff into space both were sunk when DisneyToon was shuttered).  So let's take a look at what is probably the final chapter in this franchise, one that takes a decided detour from the direction the series took in Cars 2.

(Spoilers Ahead) While the second film was a spin on caper films, and shifted Lightning McQueen (Wilson) to the background in favor of Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), this movie reverses that decision, with Lightning front-and-center and Mater off-to-the-sidelines.  Lightning is fighting against a new generation of cars, led by Jackson Storm (Hammer), all of whom are younger, sleeker, and better at what he does, and he just can't compete.  Soon all of his fellow car rivals (but the friendly kind), retire, and Lightning is left to face-off against a crew of cars that can match his speed. The film focuses on how Lightning, along with a young racing trainer who idolizes him (but wants to try new methods) Cruz (Alonzo), learns that his experience and tricks are enough to beat Jackson Storm and regain his crown, albeit in a way that acknowledges that he's getting older.

The movie has a really fascinating angle for a Disney film, as it's obviously focused on a younger generation being the de facto "villains," and as a result the film initially demonizes youth (the target audience), which is what our protagonist Lightning doesn't have.  It's also a movie that has a message that's reassuring for older viewers, similar to Toy Story 4 and Up, that even though you won't ever be who you once were, you still can have new adventures & extraordinary memories.  The film is really lovely when it pines this message,  even if because Lightning was absent from the last film and hasn't really established the same level of nostalgia (in this viewer, but I suspect in most viewers minds) as Woody & Buzz, it feels unearned.

That said, the movie itself drags through the middle.  The obvious implication that Cruz will be Lightning's successor is so apparent from her introduction that much of the film's center feels unnecessary, and none of the sight gags work, including a monster truck rodeo in which the two sleek racers find themselves competing.  The animation is also a bit uninspired-the opening scenes with the racing are kind of metal grey and glorious, but the rest of the movie lacks this move toward a distinct palette.  Overall, it's an improvement on Cars 2, but not by enough to warrant existing.

On the Basis of Sex (2018)

Film: On the Basis of Sex (2018)
Stars: Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux, Kathy Bates, Sam Waterston
Director: Mimi Leder
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Liberals have few living superheroes quite as beloved as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  Though there are complicated aspects of her legacy (namely the risk she put her seat in by not resigning in 2012), it's impossible to look at the actual substance of her career and not marvel at what she has meant for women.  Watching On the Basis of Sex I was reminded of this fact, not just from the multitude of women of all different walks of life sitting with me in a darkened theater (one of those rare non-premiere films that got applause after the film ended), but also looking at my own mother next to me, sobbing uncontrollably as she witnessed the final moments of the picture unfold.  On the Basis of Sex isn't nearly as groundbreaking as its subject, but it is very much a populist hit that's harder to make than you'd think-Leder's film is interesting, swiftly-paced, and proof that biopics don't have to be awards bait to still be fun to watch.

(Do you need a spoiler alert for a movie like this?) The film follows Ginsburg (Jones) during the earliest days of her time as a Harvard law student through her first major gender-discrimination case in the early 1970's.  The film does a pretty decent job of balancing out Ginsburg's professional woes (and successes) with her family life, with a lot focused on her storybook marriage to Marty (Hammer).  The movie's central case involves Charles Moritz, a man who was denied caregiver's rights because the law presumed only a woman would want to be a caregiver for an ailing parent.  Along the way, Ginsburg butts heads with the ACLU (despite them teaming up), with Justin Theroux's Mel being a leery ally of her movement, and properly fights former Solicitor General Erwin Griswold (Waterston) in court.  The film ends with her winning this case, and a very moving transition from Jones as a young Ginsburg walking up the Supreme Court stairs to be followed briefly by a present-day Ginsburg wearing the same outfit, a bit of a shock I'll admit as I had no idea she had blessed the film in such a way.

It's good to see Leder behind-the-camera here in general, considering that sexism played no-small-part in how her career eventually capsized.  Leder, who received a bum's rush after the disastrous performance of Pay It Forward (this is her first theatrically-released film in the United States in 18 years), surely would have been given a second chance were she a man considering she also had the successful Deep Impact on her resume (Andrew Stanton, Tim Johnson, & Guy Ritchie still work, and unlike Leder, their films were proper bombs...Leder's at least turned a profit if you don't count publicity, plus it's not like she wrote the damn thing).  You can see in the way she approaches this film a lack of a distinctive touch, playing it safe with Ginsburg's story and letting it be the central focus.  This may make some critics snooze, but I found it oddly refreshing.  Too often we see something dreadful like Vice, where the director's instincts are consistently missing the point or Bohemian Rhapsody, where a jumble of approaches to the film's lead results in a messy picture.  On the Basis of Sex isn't breaking ground (this is the sort of film that just as easily could have been made with Barbara Stanwyck or Ali McGraw or Ashley Judd...it works in any era), but it is eminently watchable.  Leder's approach is to give the audience story beats that are familiar, but with strong acting from the leads that makes up for the fact that you know this story by heart.  In an era where every director requires their individual stamp on a movie, this feels retro.

The leads are really fun in these roles.  Hammer, in particular, stands out as the supportive spouse.  His Marty borders into manic-pixie-dream-guy (from stories they have told about their lives, this might have just been the truth), but you can see his struggles to be a modern man with a wife who will overshadow him, while only occasionally falling into the trappings of his privilege.  It feels authentic to show him as someone who genuinely adored his wife, something we don't really see onscreen enough-there are countless people who love and admire each other and have relatively successful marriages, but it's not something that makes for compelling drama.  Here it feels truly watchable, though, and hats off to Hammer & Jones for being able to pull this off.  It's easy to sigh knowing the film is trying to curtail sexism, but were the roles reversed, it's impossible to imagine Jones not getting Supporting Actress heat for such a supportive spouse, but since it's a man playing this role, AMPAS isn't going anywhere near the film.  Even in 2018, we still have a long way to go when it comes to sexism.

Sorry to Bother You (2018)

Film: Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Stars: LaKeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler, Omari Hardwick, Danny Glover, Steven Yeun, Armie Hammer, David Cross
Director: Boots Riley
Oscar History: It's not that kind of movie
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Few actors working today are quite as exciting onscreen as LaKeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson.  Both are consistently excellent in the work they put to screen, but are in that sweet spot where you know a classic role is coming, something that will become a defining part of their career, but they haven't quite gotten there yet even if they're always memorable.  This was one of the main reasons I was excited to see Sorry to Bother You, a film that I had seen in trailers but was not mentally prepared for as I sat in a silent theater (fourth time this year that I was the only person in a movie theater, a trend I'm not enjoying at all as I want theaters to succeed even if I don't love all of the movies that come out), and while neither of them come out with an iconic role, it goes to show that the faith we have in them can ground even the most unusual of material.

(Spoilers Ahead) Sorry to Bother You is the first feature film from The Coup vocalist Boots Riley, and it has the intense freshness of a promising debut artist.  The film centers around Cassius "Cash" Green (Stanfield), a kind if down-on-his-luck young man who has just taken a job as a telemarketer, lives in the garage of his uncle (who is also about to lose his house), and is in love with a beautiful artist named Detroit (Thompson).  Stanfield's goal at his new job is to someday become a "Power Caller," a seemingly made-up sounding position that turns out to be all-too-real when Cash lands it, realizing that he will now be working for a company called WorryFree, a corporation that essentially provides slave labor to companies around the globe.  In order to become a Power Caller, however, Cash must adopt his "white voice," where he pretends to be a white man on the phone (he is voiced by David Cross while doing the "white voice.").

The film is sharp, particularly in its first hour, as we look at the complicated racial politics of Cash, and in particular take a look at poverty in America that you almost never see on screen or in print.  The New York Times is often criticized for fetishizing a certain kind of blue-collar worker (you know the articles, where they profile the straight, white, middle-aged male who has no college degree, lives in rural Pennsylvania or West Virginia, and uses his economic struggles to excuse the racial politics of a Donald Trump or Roy Moore), but here we see a truly ignored branch of blue-collar worker.  There's no glamorizing Cash's life-his existence is a series of truly dive bars, living not just paycheck-to-paycheck, but overdue notice to overdue notice.  He's smart, capable, but has never been afforded any opportunity and is dismissed by most of society as someone who can be used but isn't really important.  It's not an accident that Riley puts him into a job where he's doing something most of us ignore-a field where we're free to hang up on the workers, or just pretend they don't exist through screening their calls.  Cash is someone that at best is viewed by those in power as a cog to be exploited, at worst a person that doesn't exist.

This is what leads to the bizarre second half, where we meet Armie Hammer's Steve Lift, a coke-addled CEO who is the only person in the film who has actual power, and not coincidentally, is a straight, white, handsome male.  Lift makes Cash a proposition, and here's where we leave the heightened reality of this world and enter science-fiction.  Essentially, Lift's company WorryFree, which is a corporation where you sign a lifetime guarantee of three meals a day and a roof over your head to become a day-laborer (he sells it as "opportunity," but it's obviously blackmailing the working poor into legalized slavery), is a front for a genetic experiment where you combine humans with horses to make mutant creatures that can be exploited and have the strength of a horse but still communicate like humans.  It's weird, and so far out of left field you'll be forgiven for thinking this is a bridge too far.  The film ends with the horse people coming into society, and Cash eventually becoming one of them (having been tricked by Steve Lift into taking the cocaine to become a horse person), and taking back society.

The jolt here is that while Cash risks everything to tell the public about WorryFree's true intent, no one seems to care.  There's a running theme throughout the film of people assimilating and adjusting to horrors when they don't know how to fix them.  While the film will receive comparisons to Get Out that are pretty easy, that picture was a reaction to the racist fallout of President Obama's presidency, a precursor to Trump but not a byproduct of it since the film came out only a few days after the 45th president's inauguration.  Sorry to Bother You, though, is clearly a product of our current era, an acid-hazed study of how people will do anything to normalize a man who would side against America's interests, who would keep children in cages, who would brag about assault or embrace white supremacists or continually exploit the working poor in a way that borders on inhuman. Riley pulls no punches, frequently not only showing a real person's reality in Cash, but also showing what crippling poverty can do to people's lives and ambitions.  We see Cash's uncle willing to sell himself into slavery because he cannot put a roof over his family's head, and we see an interesting look at the "Uncle Tom" trope where Cash is willing to initially sell people out, mostly because he knows he'll be next if he doesn't (until he gets a rude wakeup to this reality when they start turning people into horses, something even his mildly elevated perch as a Power Caller doesn't excuse him from).  The film is damning, nasty, and frequently truthful look at the way that capitalism has exploited people, particularly people of color, in order to create wealth for the few (almost exclusively white men), and in many ways is the most important political film I've seen this year.

Unfortunately, though, it's kind of a mess.  While it's brimming with ideas, it takes too many left turns and frequently under-writes different characters or finds too many metaphors.  Perhaps because there are too many examples of ways the working poor are exploited to count in one film, or perhaps because Riley just wanted to shove all of his ideas into one picture, but the movie is jumbled, and the second half in particular feels sloppy.  In many ways he feels like a combination of Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino, both directors with singular vision but who frequently struggle to pull together their narratives as they expand with ideas.  The characters feel underwritten, and the casting director does a better job of filling plot holes than the screenwriters (Detroit, in particular, feels like she could have been her own movie and oftentimes only exists to serve as Cash's moral compass, which I found a bit anti-feminist considering what a great actress you have in Thompson).  The best parts of the movie, other than the random asides and obvious metaphors (the punching people in the face show that is so loved is clearly a spoof on the NFL, right?), are Stanfield & Hammer, both continually excellent and bringing more depth to these roles than the writers give them.  Still, though, this is way too interesting of a film to ignore even if it feels too full of ideas to be coherent, and Riley has a guaranteed ticket from me the next time he gets behind the camera.

Final Portrait (2018)

Film: Final Portrait (2018)
Stars: Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clemence Poesy, Tony Shalhoub
Director: Stanley Tucci
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

When I first re-started this blog, one of the reasons that I did was because I had virtually no memories of the movie My Sister Eileen starring Rosalind Russell and Brian Aherne.  According to my Oscar charts, I had clearly seen the film before-it was marked in most of my Oscar charts, but for some reason when I read a description of the film on IMDB, there were no bells ringing, and thus I realized that even though I'm blessed with a weirdly good memory for the cinema, there was still a finite amount of space for the films that I had seen in my memory.  Thus, a blog where I kept track of said movies and wrote reviews I could later reference, hoping to jog my memory but at least filled with my immediate (or when I'm running behind which seems to be constantly, semi-immediate thoughts), was a blessing and something I needed to track.

What I didn't expect was to have movies now, nearly six years after bringing the blog back, that were modern that I still couldn't remember, and yet they're littered on this site.  Every year there's 1-2 movies that by the end of the year or a year later I am shocked to remember I saw, or that I really don't remember that well.  This makes sense since I see hundreds of pictures each year (both modern and classic), but it still feels like a bit of a "whoa-that was a movie" for me, particularly when they're films that got almost no ink.  It's not hard to see where I'm going with this, but if the "John of 2020" is reading this (and if you are, sign up for another phone-banking shift to beat whichever Republican is in the White House), yes, Final Portrait was a movie you saw (in an empty theater, for the record, which is cool for about two seconds and then a bummer because even bad movies you want to see make money, if only to keep the theater's lights on) & that existed.

(Real Life Doesn't Need Spoiler Alerts) The film is pretty straight-forward.  It follows famed biographer James Lord (Hammer) during the early period of his life (though not so early that this focuses on his relationship with Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar, which would have arguably made the more interesting movie), as he is painted by Alberto Giacometti (Rush).  The movie unfolds revealing the inner-turmoil and madness of Giacometti during the late period of his life, as he moved away from the world of sculpture that found him international fame and once again into painting, in what would become the final portrait of his career.  The movie's main premise is that the portrait will only take a few hours to paint, but instead takes two weeks, with Lord's patience growing thin as he learns about Giacometti.

Except, and I want to put this as clearly as possible: nothing happens.  Literally, nothing.  The movie is perplexing and an oddity in that there's virtually no conflict.  We're left to assume that Lord will eventually quarrel with Giacometti, that we'll gain more introspection of this character on-screen and the man behind the genius, but that's not really what Final Portrait is capable of accomplishing, apparently.  So thinly drawn are these characters that the famously larger-than-life Rush and the hot-off-a-career-best-performance Hammer can't begin to find a connection with these characters.  The script is paper thin, to an unusual degree (the characters, when occasionally faced with consequences, get out of them so easily you'd think this was the ninth season of a sitcom).  On some level it feels like Tucci was attempting to make a movie about the artistic process, but even there he fails.  Giacometti is made as a puttering, philandering genius, though presented oddly free of judgment from pretty much anyone on screen or off, but his process feels like that of a fool.  And yet Tucci can't seem to find a connection with a man who was one of the great artists of his generation.  The only times that the movie survives is the occasional walk through the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, and both Lord & Picasso engage in some banter & name-dropping.  Hammer & Rush are too good of actors to not make this rare bit of fun work to their advantage, relishing moments to lean into their respective charms.  But by-and-large this movie is both literally and figuratively about watching paint dry, and is so devoid of purpose it's hard to imagine a non-movie star director getting it greenlit.

OVP: Call Me By Your Name (2017)

Film: Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Stars: Timothee Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Oscar History: 4 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay*, Actor-Timothee Chalamet, Original Song-"Mystery of Love")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

I have been avoiding for nearly two months spoilers regarding Call Me By Your Name with alarming success.  I shall save for another day my disdain for release schedules and the fact that Twitter needs to find a way to better respect that not everyone lives within ten miles of Beverly Hills or Time Square, but this past Friday I FINALLY got to see the movie I have been hearing such extraordinary buzz about for months now, and see a film that, just a year after Moonlight, is somehow still getting Best Picture consideration even though Oscar "already honored a gay movie."  Thankfully, the hype was not only lived up to but exceeded my expectations-Call Me By Your Name is a remarkable achievement, and truly a special piece of cinema.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on Elio (Chalamet), a Jewish-American young man of about 17 (did they actually say his age in the film, or is this just plucked from the novel?), who is annoyed with his father's (Stuhlbarg) research assistant, a grad student named Oliver (Hammer) who is working on an archeological dig.  The film starts with the talented Elio largely disliking the casual, relaxed Oliver, and then slowly realizing that his feelings of disgust are masking a deep attraction that they both feel for each other.  The movie wanders through this relationship, frequently hitting anticipated pitstops but never entirely giving into cliches the way one would assume such a film about self-discovery, forbidden sexuality, and love would unfold.

It's hard to know where to begin with the film, but I'll perhaps confess first that I was crying intermittently during the final twenty minutes (less than I had expected considering how moving it was) and then when I turned the engine on in my car in the parking garage, I felt a wave of raw emotion sweep me over and began sobbing uncontrollably.  Perhaps this is because Call Me By Your Name derives its masterpiece status from not being a movie with easy answers or simple questions.  The writing is momentous, with crisp, fresh dialogue, and gives you great ideas about how quickly life moves and how we don't always recognize what matters when it happens.  Michael Stuhlbarg gets an astounding monologue toward the end of the film where he tries to impress upon his son not that he will have other lovers, but more so how rare what he just experienced is, and how it gets harder to love so freely and with such abandon as we get older, so appreciate it and don't bury or cheapen the emotions he's feeling.  The line "We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new."  I genuinely can't remember the last time a movie I saw had such a profound pearl of wisdom buried within it.

But Call Me By Your Name is filled with jewels.  It's occasionally funny (though attention straight people-if you're the only person who is laughing, or clearly only straight people are laughing about the behaviors of gay characters, you're being homophobic-there was a woman who kept nervously laughing in the film during scenes that were a lot more serious than she assumed them to be, and it was bordering on a hate crime by the end of the picture), and I liked the beats of giving the characters more happiness than we're conditioned to assume in a gay-themed romance.  The movie's score is fantastic, littered with interpretations of classic composers, and enriched with several songs by Sufjan Stevens, who has crafted arguably the most unique-to-its-picture original soundtrack I can remember for a non-musical since The Graduate (the similarities with Mike Nichols' classic abound, and other than maybe Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, the 1967 picture is Call Me By Your Name's most obvious spiritual sibling).  And James Ivory's traditional class and stiff-then-relinquished view on love in movies is a natural fit for this story (and whomever was the person who nixed the narration idea that was apparently central to the novel deserves an Oscar by themselves-the genuine question that hangs over whether or not Elio or Oliver stay together drives the picture, with you assuming they don't but praying they do).

The film's performances, though, seem to be gaining the most attention, and with good reason.  Hammer has never shown this sort of ability before, and plays a man enjoying perhaps his only dalliance with a sexuality he's been taught to repress (he becomes engaged to a woman at the end of the picture, and shares that his father would disown him if he were to continue dating men) with great relish.  There are scenes of intimacy between the two that show Oliver starved for affection, a part of himself he shut off finally getting a day-in-the-sun.  Stuhlbarg has a smaller role than I assumed based on reviews, but is so devastating in his final monologue that it's easy to see why he's gained his plaudits-honestly, there's so much heartbreak and tenderness in that scene, it's impossible not to see more in every previous interaction his professor has with side characters, or really to see more in how you yourself see the world.  But most impressive of all is Chalamet, largely unknown before this year, who gives a master class in acting.  His work is so lived-in, it's as if he was being followed around an Italian villa and discovering his own world as he's going.  The final credits scenes, where he weeps into the fireplace, is sublime and the sort of moment actors dream about, but really there's nothing false in this performance, it's so self-assured.  Considering how tricky it could have been (it's easy to see a different actor making him too angry or too horny or too sad), Chalamet's Elio is a miracle.  I've been shocked all season that a 23-year-old man could gain love in the Best Actor field, but after watching the movie, it's a mystery no longer.  This is a performance too good to be ignored.

I may be gilding the lily here, but I'm coming back to this review having tinkered with it four times and not being able to quite get across how emotional and stunning the film was for me personally.  I get this way with select movies where I can't put it down, like when you read a book and then instantly have to reread it because you don't want the high of a great story to end quite yet (I did this at least twice with On Chesil Beach, and read it every April because its final moments are so powerful to me).  Before Sunset, The Conformist, Lost in Translation, Nashville, Titanic-movies that I just want to keep recapturing that bliss of seeing something so spellbinding onscreen, trying to understand why it filled me so fully.  I literally cried again this morning when I started playing Sufjan Stevens' "Mystery of Love" in my car.  Really great film can affect you in ways you didn't expect, and Guadagnino's picture is the sort that will stay with me for weeks after, the sort of movie you watch and decide to live your life differently.  I'm trying really hard not to be hyperbolic here, mostly because I hate it when people are hyperbolic about movies (perhaps because the movies they wax on about feel pretty run-of-the-mill for someone who has seen over 50 calendar-release films in 2017 alone this year, not to mention dozens of others that I see in my living room), but I can't help it.  I keep thinking back to Chalamet's face and the briefness of Elio and Oliver's encounter.  Call Me by Your Name is the closest I have come to love-at-first-site at the theaters in a long time.  I'm a bit scared to see it again because how can it be so good upon revisit, but based on my experience my gut rarely gives in like this unless the love is going to be permanent.  Anyway, I'm going to end it there, just flummoxed how the movie I have spent the past year hoping to see with sky-high expectations still said "yeah, John, we're going to be better than that."  And with that indulgent final paragraph, I am going to go listen to "Visions of Gideon" and daydream about Italy some more.

The Birth of a Nation (2016)

Film: The Birth of a Nation (2016)
Stars: Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley, Penelope Ann Miller, Gabrielle Union
Director: Nate Parker
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

As you may remember, it was roughly a year ago that I decided to finally break down and see one of the last remaining AFI films that I'd never seen, 100 years after it came out: I viewed The Birth of a Nation.  For those who are curious, the link is there, but I left both impressed that such a feat could be mounted 100 years ago (some of the battle scenes are unbelievable), but saddened that one of the most significant films in American history is so deeply steeped in racist beliefs and tropes.  One of the best tricks about Nate Parker's latest film is the way he re-appropriates that title with a film that is far more accurate and challenges those assumptions.  It's a provocative trick (as the film is not in any way a remake of the Griffith picture), but is a challenging look at the hardships of slaves that they had to face every day, and a reminder of how important accuracy in cinema is.

(Real life doesn't need spoiler alerts) The film is a rather long tale of Nat Turner (or seemingly long-it only runs about two hours), and his journey from being a literate slave to being the leader of a major rebellion in the south predating the Civil War.  Parker takes on quadruple-duty as writer/producer/director/actor, and plays the main character, whom we see gradually find love with his wife Cherry (King), and eventually see driven to protest by the way that his power with the Bible is exploited to try and get neighboring slaves to stay subservient to their masters.  The film follows, in detail, his rebellion against his owners and the harsh surroundings that slaves like Turner were forced to live in during this era.

The movie's most moving attributes are the ways that Turner shows an insight into this world, in a way we haven't seen anywhere, not even in the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave.  The film follows Turner as he goes from poor farmhouse to poor farmhouse, frequently featuring slaves in inhuman conditions that will literally have you wincing away.  There is a scene with a hotbox late in the film that almost made me vomit, knowing how real (and how much worse) this was in real-life compared  to the picture.  Parker's well-guided by knowing how to use light in these sequences, giving us too much of it occasionally in ways that I found quite interesting.  I don't know much about the cinematographer here, but he should be commended, as this is arguably the movie's most intriguing perspective.

The film itself has flaws, however, and it may be the fact that we see little inside the world or goals of Turner.  It doesn't help that, while he might have a vision as a director, Nate Parker is not a strong actor.  We don't have the obvious reminder of his acting skills like in Beyond the Lights (where he's opposite the intensely impressive Gugu Mbatha-Raw), since no one here is a standout like she is, but it doesn't add much to his story when he makes Turner so unknowable, and really is more interested in shocking the audience rather than investigating some of his characters (the same can be said for Armie Hammer's Samuel, who is also vastly underwritten).  The movie itself is watchable, and a forthright film, but the acting and writing hold it back from being the masterpiece it's clearly hoping to be, and there's nothing really accentuating it in a way that salvages that lack of character growth and thespian skills.

The film is likely to be a part of the Oscar conversation, but Parker's probably not going to be an easy sell with the Academy, who doesn't want to invite too much controversy when they could easily go with other movies.  Do you think that it will end up a nominee, or Parker in particular, or has the rose left this film too quickly?  Where do you think he goes next with his career?  Share your thoughts below in the comments.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

Film: The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Stars: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Jared Harris, Hugh Grant
Director: Guy Ritchie
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

The films of Guy Ritchie have never been particularly within my wheelhouse.  I feel there might be some jokes that I am missing amidst the supremely British humor.  Yet, I can see their charms-Ritchie is most frequently focused on entertaining us rather than creating a larger message or brand, and that is clearly on-display in The Man from UNCLE, the long-gestating big-screen adaptation of the hit 1960's TV show.  The film, amidst a summer bereft of originality and new ideas (this has been the summer of the uninspired sequel/remake, hasn't it?), this is actually a reinvention that I can get behind.  Though the film is not without its faults, the movie itself is too much fun and the actors in the leads are too game (perhaps because the two male leads desperately need a hit) to not be enjoyable.  The film appears likely to be a box office bust, but it doesn't really deserve that title, as you should make a point to catch the film.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Napoleon Solo (Cavill), a suave American spy who is forced by his government to team up with a Russian agent Illya Kuryakin (Hammer) to help stop an attempt by a Nazi villainous Victoria Vinciguerra (Debicki) to gain access to a nuclear warhead.  Set during the height of the Cold War, the two have a reason to be butting heads (the night before they teamed up, their assignment was basically to kill each other), but with the daughter of a scientist named Gabby (Vikander), they set off on a mad dash to stop the bomb from getting to the Nazis, all-the-while frequently sabotaging each other and finding disagreements along the way.

Caper films are toward the very top of my list of favorite film genres, so I knew I'd have a partiality to this film before I even got in, but what made me love it so was the way that they approached the humor.  Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer are not great actors, and they might not even be good ones at this point (Hammer is almost certain to end up in a TV show after this considering that he tanked in both this movie and The Lone Ranger, killing two franchises though neither was remotely as bad as the critics have called, and couldn't get much prestige traction for J. Edgar), but Ritchie may be the first person to get some of their charms.  The reality is that both men are almost unnaturally good-looking; I was sitting between two women during the film, and both stated "oh my" at least twice for each of them while they were onscreen and I echoed the sentiments.  Rather than ignore this fact, Ritchie exploits it for comic effect, frequently having the two of them flirting with not just every woman onscreen, but even with each other (particularly Cavill with Hammer), causing sexual tension all-over-the-place.  The result of this is a film that actually mocks the hyper-sexualization of spy films and that shows a bit of grace when it comes to the characters, many of whose motives are hard to pin down.

It's these little touches that make up for the film's second half, which frequently feels rushed and a little convenient.  Elizabeth Debicki's Victoria is the highlight of the film (the villains always are), but while she can command the screen with unabashed movie star moxie, I felt like her story was a bit too thin.  I'm not asking for 3-dimensional here (that's not really the appeal), but perhaps more screen time.  Her funniest bit was balancing her clear attraction to Napoleon with her clear need to be in control and carry out evil, but that's relegated to only a handful of scenes.  Still, I would have liked to have seen more from her and more interplay between all of the characters.  Sadly, I'm guessing that I won't get much time with them again since this is pretty much begging for a sequel and it doesn't have the gross of a movie that will get one.  But kudos to all of the leads, including Alicia Vikander who may just deserve an Oscar by acclamation this year considering this is the third film of the year she bewitched me onscreen.

It has to be said before I go that the costume work in this film is outstanding.  Joanna Johnston finally won herself a nomination three years ago after years of somehow missing for major films (she frequently works with Steven Spielberg, and yet with Munich, Saving Private Ryan, and Forrest Gump she had never nailed down a nomination until Lincoln), but this is easily the best of her career.  The women's costumes feel plucked straight out of the closets of Twiggy and Catherine Deneuve, all mod wonder and crazily sexy elegance, while the men are dapper, but with a heightened sexuality; Johnston isn't afraid to make you stare at Henry Cavill's thighs or Armie Hammer's impossibly blue eyes. All-in-all, it's the sort of work that should be nominated for an Oscar, and for a branch that has not been afraid to nominate film flops like Anonymous, W.E., The Tempest, and The Affair of the Necklace in the past, I hope they continue that trend and give it the nomination.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Were you with me that this was a fun romp late in the summer, or did you share the opinion of my aunt that it was "too slow?"  While Alicia Vikander's movie star seems firmly set, where do you see the careers of Cavill, Hammer, and Debicki going after this?  And who else thinks that Joanna Johnston should (or will) gain a nomination at year's end?  Sound off in the comments!

OVP: The Lone Ranger (2013)

Film: The Lone Ranger (2013)
Stars: Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, William Fichtner, Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson, Helena Bonham Carter
Director: Gore Verbinski
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Going to a film that you're supposed to hate is like going on a date that your friends are forcing you to attend.  You do it because you have to for some reason-maybe to be polite, maybe because the date is part of the OVP-whatever the reason you begrudgingly shove the DVD into the player or you head to the bar and then, suddenly, something weird happens.  You kind of like it.  That was the case for me when I saw The Lone Ranger for the first time-I genuinely didn't hate it, and was absolutely certain that I would.

This was weird for me because, quite frankly, the film looked awful from the trailers and the reviews agreed with that point.  The film was a giant flop, one that threatens to stall out Johnny Depp's career and has put yet another nail in the Armie Hammer leading man coffin (do you think he and Taylor Kitsch just sit around staring in mirrors wondering how men that are so pretty just can't seem to sell tickets to movies?).

However, I just didn't see the movie everyone else did.  Sure, the film occasionally veers into the cloying or cartoonish-the scenes with Depp as the world's oldest indian are pretty stupid and I thought a couple of the earlier jokes with Depp's character seemed eye-roll worthy, but overall, this is a fun adventure film.  The movie tells the tale of the Lone Ranger's origins, and like all origin stories it is tried-and-true territory, but that's not to say that it isn't fun.  Depp occasionally shows the reason why we loved him so much in movies like Pirates of the Caribbean (for the record, this film is enjoyable-that film is classic Errol Flynn quality moviemaking), and Helena Bonham Carter hasn't been this amusing in a long while.

Even more than the acting, Gore Verbinski has gotten superb at crafting action sequences and keeping the plots of his movies speeding along.  Like Pirates, this movie has a largely paint-by-numbers plot but still keeps the movie going with terrific sight gags and breathtaking action sequences.  The best moment in the film (and surely what won it a Best Visual Effects Oscar nomination) is toward the end of the film with an absolutely jaw-dropping sequence of a train chase through the backdrop of the American West.  In the hands of a lesser director (cough, Michael Bay), we'd simply marvel at the brilliant effects, but Verbinski keeps heart-stopping action and you get caught up in what will happen next.  Verbinski and most directors of large budget films get dealt a tough hand when the audience is aware of exactly what will happen in the end of the movie (the Lone Ranger will surely ride again, with Tonto by his side), but a good director will be able to help you forget about this, which Verbinski does.

The film also spends a good deal of time paying homage to great westerns before it-you frequently see visual allusions to Little Big Man and The Searchers, and the plot is heavily similar to Once Upon a Time in the West, perhaps the greatest western ever made.  This occasionally feels like a bit of a retread, but Hollywood films so frequently borrow from each other (and the films/filmmakers that Verbinski is emulating are so damn good) that it's hard to fault the moviemakers.

Honestly, and I do mean this honestly-did the critics truly just pre-judge this movie and not actually see it, or give it a chance?  Because that's the concern here.  I mean, we're not talking about a Wizard of Oz level film where it is absolutely a masterpiece but the film-reviewing community says it isn't, but I feel like the movie, which was terribly-marketed and probably needed less reliance on its "we're-tired-of-him" star Depp, was judged ahead of time.  The film's stars, director, and producer have all stated that they thought the film was unfairly maligned, and I'm on their side here.  The movie is not great (too repetitive, some comic bits fall-through), but it's hardly a bad movie, and definitely one worth renting if you have the chance.

What were your thoughts-did you think this film was unfairly attacked?  If so, what do you think the cause was?  And do you think it deserved its two Oscar nominations?  Share in the comments!

OVP: Supporting Actor (2011)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor

The Nominees Were...

Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn

Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Nick Nolte, Warrior

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

My Thoughts: And now, it's time for the four categories people tend to most discuss the-those of the actors.  There are always performances to be heralded in each of the four lineups (or at least, there were performances given throughout the year worth heralding in the lineups), but of the four categories, this is probably the one I most often disagree with Oscar on when it comes to their nominations.  Because of the demographics of the Academy, while Supporting Actress oftentimes celebrates the ingenues struggling to make it big in the industry, this category is typically reserved for the veterans of the industry-the marquee stars of yesteryear who are now playing fathers and grandfathers, and no longer get the roles they once coveted.  It will oftentimes ignore the character actors in the middle or beginnings of their careers, and more so than the other three categories, feels too often like an "Honorary Award."  The lineup is typically not quite as lopsided as this one (Kenneth Branagh, at 51, is the second youngest of these nominees), but you see my point in most years of the Oscars.  It's a true pity, because some of my favorite performances in a given year would qualify in this race, but Oscar rarely decides to go that direction.

Let's start out then, with the two eldest statesman of this lineup-Christopher Plummer and Max von Sydow.  Plummer has embraced almost every role Shakespeare ever wrote outside of Lady Macbeth, and has appeared in dozens upon dozens of films, but is most well-known to audiences as the man with the whistle, Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music (a film he famously detested).  In 2009, he got a consolation prize of sorts when he was nominated for playing Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station, a huge relief for the Academy, who had long been harangued for not nominating this legendary actor (Donald Sutherland and Mia Farrow-there's always hope!).  At the time, it didn't seem like he would be returning so quickly (or ever) to the Kodak Theatre, but he defied expectations with the independent dramedy Beginners.

Plummer's character is a long-closeted gay man who, after many decades of seemingly happy marriage to his wife, comes out to his son after his wife's death.  The film follows Plummer's late-in-life declaration of his sexuality, as well as his son's (Ewan McGregor) coping with his father's new path and decaying health.  Plummer brings a real sense of happiness to his role, something not always easy to do onscreen.  Dying is easy, comedy is hard has long been a saying, but it may just as well be depressed is easy, keeping happy interesting is impossible.  Plummer's decaying health gives him a few great speech moments, but it's the happiness that is probably the hardest thing he's doing onscreen, as we get to celebrate the joy of being who you are, even if we find our youth-oriented brains wondering "why now?"  I was not of the group who thought this was a cosmic, brilliant sort of turn (it's well-acted, to be sure, but I don't quite push the button toward Oscar-worthy), but it's nice to see an actor of Plummer's talents still being challenged onscreen in his 80's.

Max von Sydow is also being challenged in his 80's in Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Von Sydow is most well-known to audiences today as one of Ingmar Bergman's muses and the father in Pelle the Conqueror (his only other Oscar nomination), but he's continued working steadily during a time-of-life that most people are golfing in Palm Springs (most recently, he wowed as the father in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).  This film was deservedly much-maligned, and while I won't get into that too much now (I'll reserve judgment when we discuss its bizarre Best Picture nomination), von Sydow is not the issue.  I spent so much of this film hoping that Thomas Horn and his nails-on-the-chalkboard performance would lead us to any of the other actors onscreen, and though I didn't get this reward (he stayed the entire film), he at least brought excellent performers out, particularly in the form of von Sydow.  His mute old man with a mysterious past is a rich, complicated performance that has no business in a film this one-dimensional and treacly.  While von Sydow is limited in how much of an impact he can make with Horn's loud performance taking up much of the onscreen air, his weathered glances and searches for approval and internal conflict over human connection are far-and-away the best part of this terrible movie.

Another senior citizen of the screen, gaining his third nomination for Warrior, is Nick Nolte.  Not many actors have gone through more transformations than Nolte, a one-time screen star and "Sexiest Man Alive" who became a tabloid joke after his drunk driving arrest in 2002.  Few people expected him to attempt a comeback, but he did just that as the drunk, abusive father in this sports film.  Nolte gives the long, tedious film a shot in the arm, but is ultimately far too one-dimensional for me to take serious as a legitimate contender for the "best" of the year.  Nolte has given some incredible performances before, particularly in Affliction, but this is a case where the role was nominated rather than the shaky, sometimes workable performance.  And also, for the record, just because someone mumbles their way through a movie it doesn't mean that they're doing Brando-level work.

Kenneth Branagh has one of the strangest histories ever with Oscar-he is the first person to ever be nominated in five separate categories, and he did it in five nominations-Best Actor and Director (Henry V), Live Action Short Film (Swan Song), Adapted Screenplay (Hamlet), and in this category for My Week with Marilyn.  For an actor who has spent much of his career being favorably compared to the greatest of all modern Shakespearean actors, Laurence Olivier, it seems either genius or stunt casting to put him in that role in this film about the making of The Prince and the Showgirl.  Either way, the casting is serviceable, though it limits the hammy Branagh a bit.  I have to admit that I was so spellbound by Williams in this film (not necessarily due to her performance, since she's always good and typically better, but because she does a marvelous Marilyn transformation) that Branagh sort of falls by the wayside, and nothing about his performance calls out to me.  He gets meaty, over-the-top readings throughout the film, but it doesn't translate to great acting.  About the only scene where he works is his "little girl lost" soliloquy, but one strong speech from one of the world's finest Shakespearean actors is not enough to warrant inclusion in this category.

As you may have guessed, even by the standards of this not being my favorite Oscar acting category, this is not a lineup I'm at all happy with, and that unfortunately doesn't stop when AMPAS includes a token "guy under 40" to fill out the category, Jonah Hill in Moneyball.  I have to hand it to Hill, who managed to be one of the first guys of my generation to score an Oscar nomination, and he was not one of the ones I was ever expecting to make it (and neither were you, let's be honest) and is not an actor I greatly anticipate making it here again (note that he's the only one of the five actors I'm not ready to give his own tag).  He manages to luck into the second biggest role in Bennett Miller's Moneyball, and has a wonderful screen partner in Pitt, who is doing his cocky excellence thing in this movie.  Hill's character has little depth, and aside from strong one-liners and a true chemistry with Pitt, there's nothing exceptional about this role or performance.  It was a nice way to round out a weak lineup with an actor who seems like a nice guy, but it, and I sound like a broken record at this point, is not Oscar-worthy.

Other Precursor Contenders: Like writing, acting has a treasure trove of contenders to deal with, so we'll just stick to the Globes, the BAFTA's, and the SAG Awards.  The Globes, always a bit more star heavy, skipped von Sydow and Nolte, instead going for Viggo Mortenson's calculating Dr. Freud in A Dangerous Method and Albert Brooks cold-hearted villain in Drive.  BAFTA also kicked out Nolte and von Sydow, though they favored Philip Seymour Hoffman's exhausted campaign official in The Ides of March and hometown favorite Jim Broadbent playing Denis Thatcher in The Iron Lady.  Finally, the SAG Awards kept all but von Sydow in their lineup, instead favoring the closeted lover that Armie Hammer portrays in J. Edgar.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: Here's where my anger at this category really lights up, because there were excellent performances in supporting roles last year worth honoring.  Brad Pitt and Hunter McCracken are a heartbreaking father-and-son in The Tree of Life.  Pitt, in particular, is giving the best performance of his career as a domineering, unsuccessful husband-and-father.  There's also John Hawkes creepy and intoxicating cult leader in Martha Marcy Mae Marlene that would have been a fine choice after his worthy inclusion for Winter's Bone.

Oscar's Choice: Oscar loves a comeback and honoring a celebrated and elderly thespian, and the precursor onslaught showered upon Christopher Plummer made this an easy landslide decision for the Academy.

My Choice: As I've mentioned, I probably wouldn't have included any of these five men in my personal lineup, and Pitt or Hawkes would have been such an easy decision.  However, I have to work within the confines of the game, which means that von Sydow beats out Plummer for the trophy.  Von Sydow's work is a bit more effective and he has a much more difficult film to be able to excel in than Plummer.  Third place goes to Branagh, and I'll give Hill the slot just above Nolte.

And now, what about you-which of these five gentlemen deserved to win Best Supporting Actor?  Who was wrongfully snubbed in the category?  And of all of the performances of the year, who most deserved Best Supporting Actor of 2011?

Also in 2011: Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, 2011 Recap