OVP: Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Film: Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Stars: Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles, Harry Dean Stanton, Jack O'Halloran, Sylvester Stallone

Director: Dick Richards

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Sylvia Miles)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Chinatown is one of my favorite movies (as I get older, it becomes basically impossible to corner my favorite films to more than 4-5 films as it genuinely changes based on the day, but know this would be in contention for the crown).  I have not, however, spent a lot of time focusing on the films that came after the success of Chinatown, and honestly hadn't really thought about the strange history of the neo-noir film in the 1970's, which Chinatown was obviously the crown jewel of, but featured a number of films, some starring very important actors.  That's the case with Farewell, My Lovely, filmed in the wake of Chinatown (which you can tell based on the way the movie is shot), and starring Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe, a role that the actor was taking on for the first time & feels born to play (he is the only actor to have played the part, which saw actors as diverse as Dick Powell, Humphrey Bogart, James Garner & Elliot Gould take on the role, twice).  While Mitchum is well-cast, the movie itself struggles, not just in comparison to Chinatown, but also in trying to match that film's pacing & plotting twists.

(Spoilers Ahead) Mitchum's Philip Marlowe is hired by bank robber Moose Malloy (O'Halloran) to try to find his old girlfriend Velma, whom he hasn't seen since he got arrested.  Marlowe starts chasing down Velma, initially thinking she's a woman that has been locked up in an asylum, but this appears to be an imposter.  The real Velma we only learn in the last minutes of the film is Helen Grayle (Rampling), the trophy wife of a wealthy local judge.  As the film goes, we learn that Helen was a prostitute who helped with the bank robbery that Moose had perpetrated, though she didn't go to jail for it, and has been slowly killing everyone that is connected with her past in hopes of erasing it, getting to restart her life of privilege with her rich, oblivious husband.  The film ends in a giant shootout on a boat, where pretty much everyone except Marlowe ends up getting shot, and he lives to see another day as a detective, once again wisened by the streets.

That's the plot in a nutshell.  One of the defining characteristics of film noir is that it has a lot of story-there are tons of twists & turns, frequently characters, especially beautiful women you shouldn't trust, & where you start is never where you land.  This is what I love about it-it requires you to expect the unexpected.  But Farewell, My Lovely doesn't handle the extra plot well enough because it seems to be so obsessed with Chinatown.  In some ways this works-the music by David Shire is properly moody & delicious, and the cinematography is gorgeous and I'm surprised wasn't nominated for an Oscar that year.  But while Chinatown's difficult-to-comprehend plot is anchored by three strong performances (as well as Roman Polanski's precise direction), Farewell, My Lovely doesn't have actors ready to gloss over the movie's constant twists, oftentimes throwing in too many characters at once (which makes them difficult to track, and more importantly, difficult to vest into).  This isn't because these aren't great actors (Charlotte Rampling, Harry Dean Stanton...come on, this is a good call sheet), but they aren't able to elevate the material.

This is particularly true for Sylvia Miles, the one Oscar nominee from the film.  Miles is famous in some sections of Film Twitter for delivering two tiny performances that got nominated for an Oscar (her combined Oscar nominations make up less than 13 minutes of screen-time, less than any of the eight women she competed against at either of her Oscar ceremonies), but this isn't one of those mind-blowing cameos that you can't stop raving about.  She gets two scenes, the first as a relatively capable drunk attempting to mine booze from Marlowe (no matter what danger the information she's sharing will bring to her), and the latter scene is a throwaway moment, a return to a character that only left an impression because there's so few women in this movie.  Miles has no bearing on the plot, and honestly feels like the sort of role that people mine meaning from because she's so distinctive, not because she's giving something radiant.  Personally, I would have much rather one of the many women giving sensational turns in Nashville have gotten a third Supporting Actress nod from that film rather than a blink-and-you'll-miss-it return for Miles here.

OVP: The Verdict (1982)

Film: The Verdict (1982)
Stars: Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason, Milo O'Shea
Director: Sidney Lumet
Oscar History: 5 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Actor-Paul Newman, Supporting Actor-James Mason, Adapted Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

If you look hard enough, the guy in the tan suit & striped tie in the top right
next to the woman with the perm is a very famous future movie star-
do you know who it is?

Few film genres were destroyed more resoundingly by television than the courtroom drama.  In fact, I'm still kind of stunned when a movie like Just Mercy shows up in theaters as it feels like a western or musical randomly getting a retread.  Television almost completely took over the genre, with everything from Perry Mason to Law & Order to NCIS picking up the pieces of a legal drama.  Films of this genre almost always feel worn or tired at this point, as a result, and when I recently caught a classic in the genre, The Verdict, it was a struggle to get by this genre bias, even as it was apparent that this was a quality film.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses on Frank Galvin (Newman), a largely disgraced attorney who was once accused of jury tampering, in the twilight of his career.  He's an alcoholic ambulance chaser, someone who barely makes rent, and is given a bone when he is sent a medical malpractice case by his friend Mickey (Warden) that seems certain to settle out of court (read: an easy payday).  Frank, though, wants to take the case to court, and refuses the out-of-court settlement (to the chagrin of the victims' relatives), and has to go toe-to-toe with the hospital's legal defense team, headed by Ed Concannon (Mason), a cutthroat lawyer.  The case then follows as Concannon's team goes to great lengths (scaring off witnesses and hiring a woman, Laura, played by Rampling, to seduce Frank & feed him information).  In the end, though, a nurse that had been on-duty confesses that the hospital had put the patient under anesthesia even though she had recently eaten, thus causing her current medical predicament.  Frank wins the case, and is left wondering whether or not his relationship with Laura is worth saving.

The Verdict gains its reputation not necessarily from the uniqueness of its plot, but the quality in which it's executed.  This is, in fact, considerably better than you'd expect from even the best Law & Order episodes because it explores the soul of some of these characters.  Newman is fantastic in the lead role as Frank.  This was during the period where everyone was sort of wondering if Newman, a decades-long Hollywood favorite, would ever get to win his competitive Oscar (spoiler alert: he would, four years later, but this year he'd be bested by Ben Kingsley), and it's easy to see why such scuttle continued with a performance this solid.  Newman's work here is grounded in not making the alcoholism Frank's totality, but part of his life.  He's a high-functioning alcoholic-he's had a dwindling career, but he's still kept his career.  Newman makes that a side effect of his life, just sitting there on the outskirts, creeping in when he needs it not to the most.  It's great acting from a champion performer.

The film won three other nominations other than its Best Picture/Actor credentials, and all of them are well-earned.  Lumet's direction is succinct, rarely giving us a shot that isn't carefully-framed, while the script is brilliant, filled with strong speeches from Newman & Mason, as well as almost no scenes that are out-of-place (I'm shocked the editing wasn't nominated).  The relationship between Newman and Rampling doesn't quite gel properly, though to no fault of either actor (I don't know if I'd have nominated Rampling or not for this-I'd need to explore the year more-and she's one of my favorite performers, but there's something off in their chemistry, him too fire and her too ice).  James Mason was correctly cited for the film, and unlike Newman, would never win an Academy Award; he would die less than two years after the release of The Verdict.  This is a proper epitaph to the actor, though, with his distinctive voice ringing not just alongside a truly villainous character, but one who is a reminder of the audience's culpability in assuming authority is usually looking out for its best interests.  The Verdict succeeds because it finds a way to not just show an underdog tale, but why underdog tales are important in the first place.

OVP: Actress (2015)

OVP: Best Actress (2015)

The Nominees Were...

Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

My Thoughts: Despite some people's protestations, there are good years and bad years for films.  This is particularly true when you look at field-after-field of nominees from a given year for the Academy Awards.  The Best Actress race of 2015, however, is a really good year, and just staggeringly better than Best Actor, to the point where I wonder if this might be the biggest gap in quality ever amassed between the two fields.  Case in point, the least of these five nominees would place at least second in the men's field, and the remaining four would knock my Best Actor choice (Michael Fassbender, see links below for that race and a whole host of other 2015 contests) out of the field.  This might not be the best field of actresses Oscar ever assembled, but it's (in my opinion) the best field of performances we have yet to profile in this series after nearly a decade of write-ups, beating even 2010's Best Actress.

We'll start with, therefore, the woman who actually managed to win in such a field, Brie Larson.  Larson's work in Room is the type of performance that would win in most Oscar seasons.  Robbed of vanity for the first half, she has remarkable chemistry with young actor Jacob Tremblay, essential since they're the only two people they've seen other than a violent kidnapper in years.  Larson's best parts of her performance, though, come in the back-half of the movie, when she encounters the perverse celebrity of a kidnapping victim (the scene with the television interview, made necessary by her legal & medical bills, is unflinchingly hard to watch), and has conversations with her mother (played by Joan Allen) that she's been bottling up for years, not able to express them to anyone as she tried to create a world for her son.  It's a towering achievement, and a worthwhile winner in such a field.

On the opposite end of the "Oscar newcomer" list is Charlotte Rampling, 43 years Larson's senior but also enjoying her first nomination in 2015.  Rampling's work in 45 Years is (I'm trying really hard to avoid hyperbole but failing here) one of the truly great acting creations of this young cinematic century.  The way that she unfolds a thoughtful woman who never really pondered the beginnings of her relationship is stupendous, as is the way you can tell what she is thinking from the slightest of shifts in her gaze or the rearranging of her hands.  It's a soft, subtle performance, one filled with mystery (what will she do with her life?), but Rampling plays all of her cards.  One of the finest actors of her generation, she is that rare person to get an "old age" nomination for the best performance in their career.

We continue on this list of "best she's ever been" with Cate Blanchett, someone whose two decades of fame affords her lots of competition for that title.  But Carol (and Carol) is Blanchett firing on all cylinders.  The line readings, the way that she seems to be saying goodbye to the love-of-her-life from the moment they meet, is magical.  Carol is a romance with a ticking clock, but it's the rare one where the leading actress clearly knows that there will eventually be an ultimatum, because she's been there before.  Blanchett brings a layered calm to her Carol, knowing that she must speak in code not only for her own safety but also because she doesn't want to scare Therese away.  The scenes with Chandler & Paulson, where she lets some of her guard down and you see what's real and what's just there to entrance is brilliant.  It's the sort of role that potentially no actress of her era (or any era) could have played so well, and Blanchett never scenery-chews in order to steal a scene.  Flawless.

Saoirse Ronan is probably not giving her career-best work here (I'd give that nod to Lady Bird two years later in her young career), but that shouldn't be confused with her not giving a truly seismic piece-of-work in Brooklyn.  Given an introverted character still inclined to study the world, her Eilis is the rare character study at the center of an epic.  The way that she falls in love, first with Tony & then with Jim, is pure joy.  Perhaps the best scene of the movie, and one that only works because of what Ronan has done before, is when Eilis is confronted by her nosy neighbor over her marriage to an Italian-American even though she's been seen with the local Irish boy.  The way she states that she's proud of her husband, but leaves a shred of doubt in her voice (that perhaps, given the chance, she might just pick Jim to stay in the country she loves), is devastating and a tour-de-force of acting.

Which brings us, finally, to Jennifer Lawrence.  Lawrence got a lot of ire from me that year (and a lot from a lot of people in the wake of this nomination...worth noting she hasn't been back since) considering that there were better performances to cite that year rather than a 25-year-old getting her fourth Oscar citation.  However, her work in Joy is good, it's just not up to the level of any of these other women (or Lawrence's past nominations).  The scenes with Bradley Cooper are splendid, and I loved the ways that Lawrence hinted at the eventual magnetism that Joy Mangano would bring to her TV personality.  The script is more at fault than Lawrence, giving us a host of one-dimensional side characters and a meandering plot that should just be focusing on Joy's rise, not the inherent need to continually take her down.  But Lawrence is good, and this performance is better than you remember.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Golden Globes of course split their nominations between Drama and Comedy/Musical, but even with that split we still are missing one of the eventual nominees (Rampling). Larson took on the Drama field, besting Blanchett, Ronan, and Oscar's Supporting Actress nominees Rooney Mara (Carol) and Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl), while Lawrence took the Comedy/Musical over Melissa McCarthy (Spy), Amy Schumer (Trainwreck), Maggie Smith (The Lady in the Van), and Lily Tomlin (Grandma).  SAG took a weird tactic with a rich year by putting Helen Mirren (Woman in Gold) and Sarah Silverman (I Smile Back) for bad movies alongside Blanchett, Ronan, & the victorious Larson, while BAFTA also went with Larson, but substituted out Ramplin & Lawrence in favor of Smith & Vikander.  All-things-said, unless Alicia Vikander's The Danish Girl was in sixth place, my money is that it was Smith, who was at the height of Downton fever at the time, had just had massive hits with the Marigold Hotels, and normally gets in when she's a contender.  In 2014 or 2016, she almost certainly would have gotten her seventh nomination.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Perhaps no year is better to illustrate the "snub" problem than 2015's Best Actress field.  Every year magazines will proclaim a field of "snubs" which are really just actors that were floated as potential nominees, rather than finding people you'd put in in place of someone else.  Melissa McCarthy, Alicia Vikander (Testament of Youth) & Blythe Danner (I'll See You in My Dreams) are definitely worthy of an Oscar nomination, but as they aren't better than these performances save Lawrence, I couldn't include them since I'd have to put in Juliette Binoche (Clouds of Sils Maria) as an aging, mourning actress in a complicated relationship with her assistant in the Top 5.

Oscar’s Choice: Larson won easily.  Second place probably would've been Ronan considering Lawrence & Blanchett had recently won (and Rampling's political comments had made giving her the trophy at the time impossible), but no one was beating Brie Larson.

My Choice: I have to go with Rampling, giving possibly the best performance of the decade.  Blanchett follows, with Larson, Ronan, & Lawrence at the back (but there are no losers here).

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you with me on Team Rampling or are you staggered I didn't follow the crowd with Brie Larson?  Despite being good work, anyone actually want to defend Lawrence's nomination being one of the year's five best?  And if not, who would you throw in her place?  Sound off in the comments!

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

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

4 Mini Reviews

As I mentioned yesterday, we will be doing three days of mini reviews as I catch up on the movies I saw in 2018 (and today one FilmStruck movie I never got around to reviewing) in an effort to wrap up 2018 before we will start doing OVP's from that year in the next few months.  As a result, here are four additional films I saw in 2018, that, while interesting, I will be giving an abbreviated review to rather than a full one as I'm a bit behind & am tired of being behind on my film reviews.

(Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen Smallfoot, Red Sparrow, Paddington 2, or 1961's Victim, please skip over those sections & come back later when you have!)

Smallfoot (dir. Karey Kirkpatrick)

Yes, yes, we're all aware that Zendaya is Meechee, but the better question is-is this movie any good?  The question is hard to answer, as there are moments of charm in this kind of dismissible animated feature that, like seemingly all animated features, still grossed over $200 million.  Centering on the unlikely friendship between a Yeti (Channing Tatum) and a documentarian (James Corden) trying at first to exploit his new friend & then protect him, it's cute that they focus on this from the Yeti's perspective, having the humans be the "imaginary creature," but the joke gets old after a while, and no one in the voice talent is particularly good in their role, with Tatum's earnestness being the best fit for the role.  The songs are lackluster, and there's too much plot for a 96-minute movie, making the entire Percy-redemption storyline feel a bit combed over.  (Ranking: 2/5 stars)

Red Sparrow (dir. Francis Lawrence)

Jennifer Lawrence had been taking an interesting tact post-Oscar win, using her massive celebrity to greenlight movies like Joy and Mother!, which got a wider audience than they ever could have hoped to get without her face across the posters.  There's unfortunately nothing noble about her Red Sparrow, though, as this is a completely commercial play, and not an enjoyable one (or that successful of one).  The spy thriller moves along at a glacial pace (it's 140 minutes long, and could have dropped a half hour without any speed bumps), and is easy to see coming.  All of the twists are apparent to anyone who has seen a movie like this before, and the film relies heavily on extreme violence and sex to titillate the audience, but it just feels gross after a while.  Even with actors as pedigreed as Jeremy Irons & Charlotte Rampling filling out the supporting class, there's little to redeem here and Lawrence's considerable movie star charisma can't save such a dud.  Here's to hoping that she either works with better blockbuster directors going forward or returns to the arthouse soon. (Ranking: 1/5 stars)

Paddington 2 (dir. Paul King)

The best movie on this list by a country mile, Paddington 2 takes the lovely, calm tone of the first film and perfects it, with a better villain.  Hugh Grant made my personal ballot for Best Supporting Actor in 2018, and with good reason-he's marvelous as a vain, conniving washed-up actor who is desperate to find a hidden treasure by way of a pop-up book (a beautifully constructed sequence).  The film fills out the cast with a cavalry of Royal Shakespeare Company actors, but it's Grant and Ben Whishaw's Paddington, so calm, so of a different era, yet totally at home in such a film that makes this movie special.  I'd say "they don't make them like this anymore," but clearly they do, and it's refreshing & a bit shocking to find out that a movie like Paddington 2 has an audience.  Bravo to Paul King, who manages to avoid what could have been pablum and pulls together a sweet tale without ever making it sugary. (Ranking: 4/5 stars)

Victim (dir. Basil Dearden)

Considering the landmark position Victim has in LGBT cinema, it's kind of crap that I am not writing a full review on this one, but let's be real here-this is a basic suspense film that's only proper calling card is featuring a gay main protagonist.  The film, centering around the blackmail scheme of a barrister who has had a romantic (but non-sexual, cause heaven forbid he get laid) relationship with a man twenty years his junior.  The barrister is played by Dirk Bogarde, who famously was well-loved in Britain but never became proper star in the United States (probably because he was gay in real-life & didn't downplay this to the degree that would have been acceptable in 1960's Hollywood, making this film all-the-more-shocking), but I wasn't blown away at all by his work here-he plays his repressed homosexual as a constant reassurance to the straight audience that he "isn't like" the deviants that are immediately coming to mind.  This is my way of pointing out that while this was aggressively progressive at the time (it's the first English-language film to use the word "homosexual"), it has aged poorly, to the point where you really have to focus on the non-gay elements to see if it works...and it doesn't, as the suspense is marred down by antiquated politics & a thin plot.  I try to grade based on the era, rather than our current one's, but even by that metric this is just 2/5 stars.

The Little Stranger (2018)

Film: The Little Stranger (2018)
Stars: Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson, Will Poulter, Charlotte Rampling
Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

"A little slow" is not an insult that I usually care about when it comes to movies.  Generally, I find that I have more patience for the cinema than your average moviegoer, and am at home with moody silences, muted stares, and plots that reveal all but do so in a subtle way.  Knowing this, I ignored some of the more negative reviews of The Little Stranger, Lenny Abrahamson's followup to Room, the latter of which he was nominated for a Best Director Academy Award.  After all, it stars Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson, and in particular Charlotte Rampling, none of whom is a slouch when it comes to the art of acting, and the trailers had a lot of promise.  The film, though, short changes its leading man when it comes to the script, and suffers from, well, being a bit slow, alas proving that I have a tolerance for, but am not immune to, such criticisms.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place in the late forties, right after World War II, but you'll be forgiven for assuming that it occurs in an earlier century, as so much of the film is about the fall of the class system in Great Britain.  We see Dr. Faraday (his first name is never mentioned in the picture from what I can remember, a sign you'll realize is foreboding as the movie continues), played by Gleeson, coming to call on a young maid who is pretending to be sick because she hates working in Hundreds Hall, a once magnificent 18th century mansion that has fallen into disrepair, much like its family.  The three remaining owners of the house are Angela Ayres (Rampling), a monarch that still thinks she's living before the first war, her more modern daughter Caroline (Wilson), and Roddy (Poulter), the technical owner of the house who lives in the outskirts of society because he was badly burned and disfigured during his time in the war.  All of the characters are haunted by the memory of Angela's first daughter Susan, who died in 1919 and was clearly Angela's favorite child.

The film progresses with a series of unusual, and occasionally unexplained instances occurring in the house, especially to the three living members of the Ayres Family.  A girl visiting them is disfigured by a seemingly sweet-and-kind dog, then Roddy goes mad and starts burning down their library.  All-the-while, it appears that Faraday is going to be romantically involved with Caroline, to the point where she eventually becomes engaged to him, but it's clear she doesn't love him and he becomes harder & crueler as the movie progresses.  The class system also is at-play, though Abrahamson's gentle touch with the story doesn't have him spell it out for the audience.  Even though Faraday is an up-and-comer and promising figure in his medical field and Caroline lives in a rundown house, the social cues of the time still put her in a place of privilege that he cannot reach thanks to her name and birth.  Faraday becomes increasingly controlling, wanting to force Caroline into picking a date or even have sex with him, but her resistance makes him furious.  Gleeson, the best part of the movie, does a superb job of not entirely letting us see the misogynist within until Caroline starts to realize it, and at that point Susan's "ghost" has reared its head.

The film's final twenty minutes, where we'd expect most of the big horror movie moments (either Susan being truly real or realizing that Faraday is intentionally inflicting pain upon the Ayres Family as retribution for denying him his expected place in high society) don't happen.  A sly scene about poltergeists that feels a bit out-of-place (it likely should have occurred earlier in the film so as not to completely show the screenwriter's hand) proves that it is Faraday's younger self who is torturing the family in various fashions, taking the manifestation of the thing that torments them each the most, and implying heavily that he has been around since Susan saw him misbehave and be slapped by his mother as a child, perhaps even claiming her as his first victim.  It's clever, but underdone, just like the movie.  Subtlety occasionally falls into the trap of boredom, and while Gleeson & Wilson are giving nuanced work, it doesn't save us from the length of the picture or the unanswered questions from the film's middle, particularly the way the script doesn't quite know what to do with Roddy (Poulter is giving the weakest performance in the film, being asked to play a more bombastic character while not showing all of the reveals too early in the picture).  All-in-all, there's clearly promise here, but it doesn't quite have the confidence or the crisp ending that a film that favors style, mood, and simplicity can get away with without risking a dull middle.

Top 10 Films and Performances of the Decade (So Far)

The Film Experience, one of my favorite blogs and a daily part of my routine, recently put out a list of the Top 10 Best Performances of the decade so far.  I decided to take that a step further and actually do both my favorite performances and my favorite films of the 2010's (have we decided what we're going to call this decade yet?),  Weigh in with your own in the comments.  First the movies:

10. Carol (2015)

9. Pride (2014)

8. Gravity (2013)

7. Drive (2011)

6. Brooklyn (2015)

5. Short-Term 12 (2013)

4. Weekend (2011)

3. The Social Network (2010)

2. Boyhood (2014)

1. The Tree of Life (2011)

And now the top ten performances...

10. Viola Davis (The Help)

9. Garrett Hedlund (On the Road)

8. Cate Blanchett (Carol)

7. Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

6. Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)

5. Brie Larson (Short-Term 12)

4. Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)

3. Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine)

2. Reese Witherspoon (Wild)

1. Brad Pitt (The Tree of Life)

OVP: 45 Years (2015)

Film: 45 Years (2015)
Stars: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay
Director: Andrew Haigh
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Charlotte Rampling)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

When I first saw Andrew Haigh's Weekend a few years ago, I left the film kind of slack-jawed.  The way that he managed to make a romance feel so vibrant and so intimate onscreen, with little more than two hours to establish the characters felt like a wonder.  Frequently in movie romances we have to rely in some part on the public persona of the stars to fill in the gaps, or at least make the characters so blank you can fill in the holes, but Haigh overcame these obstacles with very specific human beings falling in love, and we're left breathlessly wondering what will happen as each scene follows the other.  In his cinematic follow-up (he took a wonderful detour into television with the under-appreciated Looking in between these pictures), he manages to find a similar triumph with two very different individuals.  Whereas Weekend was about discovering individuals alongside each other, here we are given two people who have spent a lifetime together, watching their world spin as they discover a long-buried secret one of them has held for so many decades.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film's power lies in that secret, and the way that we live most of our lives without trying to think too hard about the people we love and their motives for loving us.  The film follows Geoff (Courtenay) and Kate (Rampling) as they throw a 45th wedding anniversary party, an abrupt change from their relatively calm and lovely existence in the English countryside.  Geoff receives a letter stating that a woman from his past, from before he met Kate, had been discovered after decades of being missing in the ice of a mountain glacier.  Geoff starts to expound on the relationship in a way that he hadn't before, and Kate at first listens, and then starts to second guess some of the choices throughout their marriage and becomes bitterly jealous of Geoff's affections for this woman and the ghost that she has brought forth after all of these decades.

The film is not deeply melodramatic, and rarely goes into what you'd expect from such a film (there are no August Osage County-style diatribes and the film never carries into histrionics), but its power lies in the silences and glances between the two.  We see a couple that, after decades of being together, has grown so comfortable with each other that direct communication has been supplanted by a series of routines.  Their intimacies aren't necessarily phoned-in, but they happen without thinking, and when Kate starts to wonder about their lives together, it dawns on her how much of her life has been guided by a woman she's never met.

This makes the final third of the film one of the best things I saw last year onscreen.  I stood in shock-and-awe when I saw the slide projector in Kate's attic, as she looked through photos of Geoff's lover Katya, whom he had recently admitted he would have married had she not died, and the initial gut punch of realizing she looked incredibly similar to Charlotte Rampling at that age, and the even more daring position of finding out she was pregnant when she died.  At this point we see the hurt and betrayal in Kate's face, as suddenly she realizes why Geoff initially picked her and why they never had children, because he wanted a reminder of Katya but either out of loyalty to his ex-lover or out of avoiding hurt he could never bring himself to have another child.  The anniversary party dance comes across almost like a climax to a horror film it's so rife with baited breath, as we wonder whether Kate will forgive due to too many years invested in this man or whether she'll spend the rest of her life regretting the husband she married.  The film is too smart to give us that answer, but in the final shot of Rampling's face, her hand clutched away from her husband, you think it may be a combination of the two.

The script and direction is tight, and Andrew Haigh deserves a medal for making a film that somehow manages to equal his marvelous Weekend, but he's aided by two excellent pieces of work from his accomplished leads.  Tom Courtenay's Geoff is a man who isn't quite attuned to his wife, and clearly never has been, and I love the way that he never portrays him as playing a game, but simply as out-there, thinking he has gotten away with Kate not knowing some of his motives all of these years.  Charlotte Rampling's Kate, on the other hand, is a revelation.  It feels odd to praise the actress after she encountered such ire for ill-chosen comments about the Oscar Boycott controversy, but her performance here is dazzling, a triumph after a career of playing subtle women onscreen.  It may make for some awkward reaction shots on Oscar night (I partially wonder if she even goes at this point), but Rampling more than earned her Academy Award nomination this past year.

Those are my thoughts on the complicated and excellent 45 Years-how about yours?  Do you think Rampling (regardless of politics) deserved her Oscar nomination?  Are you as hopeful as myself over what Andrew Haigh will do next?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The Best Films of 2015

Whew!  I went on a bit of a movie-watching bender over the past 36 hours, trying to scoop up as many of the missing films of 2015 that I could, and am officially ready to announce my Top 10 for the year (I already announced my Bottom 5 a few days ago on the blog).  Like with the worst of the year I didn't put them in a ranked order (they're alphabetical), but I highly recommend that you investigate all ten of these if you like to laugh, cry, and most of all enjoy fine cinema.  You'll note that every single one of these films has a female protagonist, which is unusual for me (I've never done that before with a film year), but appropriate considering this was clearly the year of the female-driven film, even if Oscar disagrees when they eventually crown Spotlight or The Revenant.  Without further adieu...

45 Years (dir. Andrew Haigh)

A deeply moving look at the hierarchies and intricacies of love and marriage.  Andrew Haigh has proven himself, with Weekend and Looking, a sharp observer of relationships and here we get the devastation of second guesses and suppositions.  Both Tom Courtenay and especially Charlotte Rampling dominate this in subdued, marvelous acting.

Brooklyn (dir. John Crowley)

Romance, especially big, complicated, straight-dramatic romance had largely gone out of fashion at the cinema until 2015, when films like Brooklyn brought it back.  Saoirse Ronan graduates to adulthood with the same level of ease that she portrayed in Atonement, and it pays off with a coming-of-age story that feels fresh, modern, and yet fully in its time-and-place.

Carol (dir. Todd Haynes)

I have never loved, but only liked, the films of Todd Haynes.  Until now.  Carol is the movie that made me a convert, and it's not hard to see why.  The film is that rare romance where you genuinely can't figure out how it will end until the movie actually gives us that answer (props to Phyllis Nagy on the wonderful screenplay), though all along you're breathlessly hoping that Carol and Therese end up together as Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara make a beautiful pair.

Clouds of Sils Maria (dir. Olivier Assayas)

This is what great acting and writing can accomplish-truly moving mountains.  Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart create something breathtaking in this look at celebrity, relationships, and aging.  The film came out so early in the year you'd be forgiven for thinking its time has passed, but Clouds lingers and comes back at you as it's too perceptive to disappear.

Ex Machina (dir. Alex Garland)

This was a wonderful throwback to the Science-Fiction films of the 1970's, where instead of battling aliens or zombies, we instead find ourselves at battle with ourselves and our own hubris.  Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Oscar Isaac create a terrific acting trio, frequently one-upping each other with second agendas and the introspection of forced claustrophobia.

I'll See You in My Dreams (dir. Brett Haley)

Age was a great supporting player in a lot of the best films of the year, and none more-so than I'll See You in My Dreams, a film that meditates on when we stop experiencing newness in our lives and when we pack up the adventures and risks of our youth.  Blythe Danner has never been better (and Sam Elliott never sexier) than in this romance about two people trying something learned and making it feel rich and unexpected again.

Mad Max: Fury Road (dir. George Miller)

The most vibrant action film I've seen in years.  Brimming with lush visuals (John Seale deserves a standing ovation to go with that Oscar nomination), the film is raw, humming with energy, and a complete shock after a year where Jurassic World brought a franchise's heat crashing down.  Everything works, and you find yourself eagerly awaiting every single impending scene.

Room (dir. Lenny Abrahamson)

Based on the amount of tears that came down my face, this was not the smartest date movie I've ever selected.  That's really the only complaint here, as Room is about as wonderful as movies can get, with a perceptive look into the world both of a sheltered, innocent child like Jack (Jacob Tremblay) and a magnificent turn as a woman who doesn't know what to do with her lost youth in Joy (Brie Larson, finally getting the kudos her career has been demanding for years).

Spy (dir. Paul Feig)

The funniest movie I've seen all year...the funniest movie I've seen in several years.  I literally could not stop laughing, and that only happens when you have Melissa McCarthy in top-form (and during the first half of the film, in a form I've never seen her embrace on the big-screen) and a supporting cast of Rose Byrne, Alison Janney, Miranda Hart, and (particularly surprising and delightful) Jason Statham all showing ridiculously well-honed comedic chops.

Testament of Youth (dir. James Kent)

When I keep internally saying the words "Waterloo Bridge" you are doing something right onscreen.  This is one of the most romantic and fully-felt films I've seen in years, with breathy and airy romantic gestures between Kit Harington and Alicia Vikander, who in a year where everyone was awed by her work in The Danish Girl and Ex Machina, won my heart personally forever with her Vera, so defiant and full of ambitions bursting to find their purpose.

And there you have it folks-my top ten of the year!  Share your thoughts on these films (and if you haven't seen any of them, it's time to start clicking that 'Add' button on Netflix) along with your Top 10 lists in the comments!

No Globe, No SAG...No Problem?

Last year it was Bradley Cooper-who can get in
without the love in 2015?

This article has become a bit of an annual tradition here at The Many Rantings of John, and since I'm still relatively new compared to some other decade-old blogs on the internet, I feel like I have to carry out the few traditions that I have going.  Every year in the past ten, seemingly without fail with the strange exception of 2006 (which was largely due to the bizarrely robust nature of the Supporting Actor race that year where nine different actors were cited by the Globes and SAG Awards), at least one actor has managed to be nominated for an Academy Award without having previously been cited by the Globes or the SAG Awards for the same performance.  Take a look below:

2014: Bradley Cooper, Marion Cotillard, and Laura Dern

2013: Jonah Hill

2012: Quvenzhane Wallis, Emannuelle Riva, and Jacki Weaver

2011: Gary Oldman and Max von Sydow

2010: Javier Bardem

2009: Maggie Gyllenhaal

2008: Michael Shannon

2007: Laura Linney and Tommy Lee Jones

2006: Zero (let's pay attention people-we've already been over this)

2005: William Hurt

As is evidenced here, when you've missed at both awards it helps a ton to be in a film that people are actually watching.  Of these fifteen actors, six of them were in films that would also be nominated for Best Picture, and all but Jones and Cotillard had their films nominated in other categories.  It also helps to be a major player at the Academy Awards-only Wallis and Riva had never been nominated before, and they were nominated for leading a Best Picture, so it's quite unlikely at this point in the race for a nominee to pop up out-of-nowhere for a film people aren't discussing elsewhere.  With that being said, I've gone through and looked at the ten actors who haven't received any of the major precursor love yet, and ranked them by who is the most likely to be nominated for an Oscar anyway.  This year was particularly hard because of the erratic nature of the race, especially when you consider so many unexpected names like Bryan Cranston and Sarah Silverman ended up showing up at the awards prior to nominations, leaving a few contenders that were widely expected in the dust to new theoretical nominees.  Share your thoughts on this list and who was left out (and especially who you think will be left in) below in the comments!

Honorable Mention: I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the likes of Tom Hanks, Blythe Danner, Ian McKellen, Kristen Stewart, and Benicio del Toro would have normally made the cutoff, but I decided to go with ten per tradition-usually I'm scrounging for contenders, but this year it was a plethora of near-misses so hopefully we get some genuine surprises come Oscar morning.

10. Elizabeth Banks (Love and Mercy)

For Her: It's hard to deny Banks made a huge splash this year onscreen.  After all, her directorial debut in Pitch Perfect 2 went off extremely well, making a mountain of cash (even if the film itself was never quite as beloved as the fans of the first were hoping), while also getting rave reviews for her work in Love and Mercy.  With Paul Dano scooping up a number of awards, it's not like the screener isn't available to Academy members, and though she's never been nominated before you can sort of get the sense that she's about ready for some sort of industry acknowledgement.

Against Her: If they're seeing the movie and voting for Dano, why isn't she scoring at the Globes in particular?  Dano made it, and she's a big enough celebrity for HFPA, so where's the love for her?  Is it simply that they're responding to Dano rather than Banks, in which case she's a have-not in this situation?  The film is really only gunning for Supporting Actor based on precursors, and that's somewhat tenuous as can be evidenced by a film like Rush (where the Academy skips out if you aren't a player elsewhere).

9. Carey Mulligan (Suffragette)

For Her: She's a former nominee who spent most of the year at the top of Oscar prediction charts.  Suffragette is a movie that is clearly relevant and I suspect it's one the Academy would like to put a "me too!" on agreeing with at this point.  Period dramas are catnip for the Best Actress category, and she has to do a lot of deglam.  Plus, doesn't it feel like Carey Mulligan should have a second Oscar nomination by now?

Against Her: No one is talking about this film anymore, and it's mostly out of "really, she's not gaining traction?!?" that I kept this on here as it makes so much sense on paper, even though in reality Mulligan's opportunity seems to have all-but-disappeared.  That being said, I thought the same thing about Tommy Lee Jones in 2007 and he still won a nod so it's not totally out-of-the-question.

8. Michael Caine (Youth)

For Him: He's Michael Caine, beloved actor and Academy Award favorite.  Were he to be nominated, he would become the first actor ever to be nominated in six different decades, and he's a major movie star that has long been hungry for a lead Oscar and is willing to schmooze for it.  Caine's also in a movie that, if they see it, seems like the older Academy members would love as it's about, well, older artists and entertainers.  I suspect that those completely downgrading Caine in their predictions are missing what could be a great surprise opportunity.

Against Him: Since the Globes clearly saw the film (they voted for Fonda in the same movie), why not Caine?  They even went with him for The Quiet American, so you know they're fans.  Youth itself has gained almost no traction this season and may be too out-there for the voting community's tastes.  I think this could happen, but I have no evidence of it so one wonders if Caine will continue to have to find a shot at that sixth decade.

7. Michael B. Jordan (Creed)

For Him: He's a young up-and-coming actor, arguably the best American male actor under thirty in my opinion, and Creed continues to be a great word-of-mouth hit that could score with the Academy as it feels in their wheelhouse.  Let's not forget Bradley Cooper in American Sniper in all of this, as Clint Eastwood's picture went from being a non-entity in most of the precursor awards to being a huge deal at the Oscars, which could well be what's about to happen to Creed (though Stallone did score at the Globes).

Against Him: Jordan's not Bradley Cooper (who had two previous Oscar citations to rely upon), and this film isn't directed by Clint Eastwood-it's a boxing sequel.  Perhaps the Academy can't quite get over that hump (or they just don't love it) and are content to go with Stallone as their way of giving the film recognition.

6. Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road)

For Her: This is my annual, one-time-only mention of the BFCA Awards, as one might question why I don't include them on this list since they are a televised precursor and of course Theron got nominated there.  I don't mention them for two reasons: one, they have six nominees and that's cheating, and two (and much more importantly) they are far more intent on predicting the Oscars than actually rewarding what they like (compare Rotten Tomatoes scores with who actually gets nominated for a reference point), and that's not an awards show, it's just a Vegas betting board so I shall not mention them again for a year until I write this article again.  That being said, the nomination for Theron has to indicate something, and she's an Oscar-winning lead in a film that increasingly looks likely to be a Best Picture nominee-that's usually a recipe for a surprise nomination.

Against Her: It'd be a nearly unprecedented nomination (with the very glaring exception of Sigourney Weaver in Aliens), and can Theron actually do this without being a huge presence on the campaign trail?  It seems a bit telling that the Globes didn't go for this at all as it seems more in their recent wheelhouse (think Uma Thurman in Kill Bill) but there's clearly at least one very open slot in Best Actress so I wouldn't totally eye-roll here.

4 & 5. Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton (Spotlight)

For Them: I combined these two for two reasons, one of which is that they are both obvious contenders on-paper.  Both men are recent (like, last year recent) nominees who didn't win, which the Academy sometimes feels the urge to correct if you make enough good movies back-to-back, and they are headlining a major Best Picture contender, the only film to score nominations for Best Cast AND Best Drama Picture at the Globes.  That has to matter, and you can imagine these two being on a lot of ballots.

Against Them: The second reason I put them together, though is that they're clearly costing the other one their nomination.  With Keaton going supporting instead of lead (not the worst decision, but potentially costly for Ruffalo who has the more "big moment" role) that means that two men whom the Academy feel are "due" are competing for the same turf.  No film has been nominated for two supporting actors since 1991's Bugsy for a reason-it's because Academy members don't like voting for the same film twice for two male actors.  That's clearly causing some issues for these two as they are competing in a race that is starting to coalesce around other individuals.

3. Tom Hardy (The Revenant)

For Him: He's had an amazing year.  With dual roles in Legend, a title role in Mad Max, and now a significant role opposite the film that's probably going to win Leo his Oscar in The Revenant, Hardy has to be considered for this performance, which also is clear Oscar bait from the trailers (he plays the chief antagonist, a classic Supporting Actor part).  Hardy's been a rising star for years now, and if a year like this doesn't bring him into the fold, I don't know what will.

Against Him: "Why didn't he score at the Globes" is a recurring phrase this year (mostly because I have no idea WHAT was happening at the SAG Awards), but Hardy is hot and could have been an easy arm-candy presenter to Jennifer Lopez at the ceremony so one wonders what the hold-up was there.  Is it a case where he's just not compelling in "the Leo Show?"  He might also be too pretty for Oscar (they like to make the sexy guys wait until the wrinkles come).

2. Joan Allen (Room)

For Her: On-paper, almost everything.  If I was looking at the recipe above, I'd need someone headlining a likely Best Picture nominee (check), someone in a supporting role when everyone is gushing about a lead performance (check and check), and someone whom the Academy has shown a fondness for before but hasn't really been nominated in a little while (and three times-nominated check).  Allen is the sort of performer like Tommy Lee Jones or William Hurt whom the Academy might just want to say "we remember you!" to and her role in Room, while not particularly meaty, isn't without its big moments, and seems more Oscar-friendly than Globes or SAG Awards.

Against Her: It's not a particularly meaty role.  That hasn't stopped people in the past (hello, Jacki Weaver), but with so many lead performers making a play for this category it's difficult to tell whether or not there will be a room for a performance the size of Allen's against the likes of Mara and Vikander.

1. Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)

For Her: She's an acting god who did score a few critical citations so far, and it's worth noting scored a BFCA nomination when Theron was clearly the sixth place finisher in that list.  45 Years has gotten rave reviews, and screeners are a pretty good answer to people saying she won't make it because the film is small (which becomes less of an argument as years go by and the Academy doesn't reflect the Box Office like it used to do).  Rampling feels like she should get a nomination at least once in her career-this could be the moment.

Against Her: She's the exact opposite of Allen in predictive ways, though, and a nomination would be kind of unprecedented in recent memory as she's not in a film that will be nominated somewhere else, she's not a former nominee or winner, and no one thinks of this as a Best Picture contender.  Even Marion Cotillard, who seems most indicative for Rampling, was an Oscar winner when she came out of the blue for Two Days, One Night last year.  Still, records break every year, and I think Rampling is probably the one to do it in 2015.