OVP: Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Film: Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Stars: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Stephen Rea, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunster

Director: Neil Jordan

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Art Direction, Score)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

All October long, The Many Rantings of John is running a marathon dedicated to the Horror classics of the 1960's-00's that I'm seeing for the first time this month.  If you want to take a look at past titles from previous horror marathons (both this and other seasons) check out the links at the bottom of this article.

The 1990's were really the last decade that was indisputably about the movie star, and even horror, a genre famous for having B-Grade names and a willingness to tackle unknown actors, was not immune to trying to use big names to guarantee major box office.  One of the biggest hits of the mid-1990's, in fact, was a horror film starring two of the most important movie stars on the planet, Tom Cruise & Brad Pitt. The film is, of course, Interview with the Vampire, and while I am a huge Brad Pitt fan (he is maybe my favorite working American actor?), this has been the most glaring gap in my viewing filmography of his (it is my 38th Brad Pitt film, putting him squarely in the Top 5 most-viewed movie actors ever for me).  The movie was nominated for two Oscars, keeping with our trend this month of favoring Oscar-nominated horror movies, but let's be honest-this is all about the gigantic stars at the center of its cast, facing off in the only movie they have made together (to date).

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is told in flashback, here by Louis (Pitt), a centuries-old vampire who is telling Daniel Molloy (Bale) the story of his life.  The film goes back to Louis beginning as a vampire, when, widowed and with a dead child, he wants to die, but a vampire named Lestat (Cruise) has other ideas, and turns him into a vampire, initially as his companion.  This becomes a problem when Louis cannot stomach the constant murder that comes with being a vampire, living off of rats & chickens rather than humans like Lestat.  He finally breaks with the orphaned girl Claudia (Dunst), who is dying of the plague, and as a treat, Lestat turns her into a vampire too.  The problem is that she cannot age, and will remain a young girl forever, which makes her angry and restless, blaming Lestat for her condition.  She and Louis try to kill Lestat, and flee to Europe, where they meet a band of vampires including Santiago (Rea) and Armand (Banderas).  Santiago tries to kill them both for the "unforgivable crime" of killing a vampire, which they think they did to Lestat, in the process killing Claudia but not Louis (who gets his revenge by killing all of the vampire coven except Armand).  The film ends with us back to the present day, where Daniel begs to become a vampire, Louis realizing in the process that he has learned nothing (human beings will always want immortality, no matter the price), and Daniel, fleeing, runs into Lestat, who bites his neck, and offers him "a choice" indicating that he will have to choose whether to die or become a vampire, the same choice that was once offered to Louis.

The movie's horror elements are pretty minimal.  Other than Lestat's jumpscare at the end with Daniel, it's honestly not even scary, and I don't know that it's meant to be-it functions in a lot of ways like a very dark gothic novel, perhaps more Alexandre Dumas than Bram Stoker.  Its horror tag is solely based on the vampire aesthetic, which is good.  The Oscar nominations are totally earned-I loved the shifting cities and looks of the vampires (the way that they continually seem themselves, slightly out-of-place, no matter the century they're in), and the Goldenthal score is both extravagant and a bit cheeky, which works with the picture.

That's because while it's not a good movie (it's too decadent and ridiculous to actually be good), Interview with the Vampire is a fun movie.  Cruise is delicious, and honestly kind of a riot as Lestat, forever being a total bitch to everyone.  Both of these characters (as well as Banderas's) are obviously intended to be gay (or at least sexually fluid), but only Cruise has the balls to actually play him that way, not just when he seduces a young fop (that looks comically like him), but also just in general-he's flirting with Louis like a married couple the entire movie.  The best performance in the film is Dunst's, which shows a real range.  She was nominated for a Golden Globe for this (she missed with the Oscars), and it shows why-just a child when it happened, she showed a remarkable ability to feel like (toward the end) she is channeling a bratty teenager or young woman who is constantly frustrated by her inability to grow up.  It's good stuff, and makes her cruel fate even harder to stomach-she never stood a chance.

1920's: The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera

1930's: The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Dracula's Daughter, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Invisible Man, Mad Love, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Raven, Son of Frankenstein, Werewolf of London

1940's: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Cat People, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Invisible Woman, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Ghost, The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, Phantom of the Opera, She-Wolf of London, Son of Dracula, The Uninvited, The Wolf Man

1950's: Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It Came from Outer Space, Revenge of the Creature

1960's: The Devil Rides Out, The Innocents, The Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Living Dead,Village of the Damned

1970's: The Amityville Horror, Black Christmas, Carrie, Dawn of the Dead, Don't Look Now, Flatliners Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes, The Omen, Phantom of the Paradise, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, When a Stranger Calls, The Wicker Man

1980's: Altered States, An American Werewolf in London, The Changeling, Child's Play, The Evil Dead, The Fly, The Fog, Friday the 13th, Gremlins, Hellraiser, The House on Sorority Row, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Pet Sematary, Poltergeist, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, Sleepaway Camp, The Thing

1990's-Present: Arachnophobia, The Blair Witch Project, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Candyman, Flatliners, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Paranormal Activity, Scary Movie, Scream

OVP: Supporting Actress (2021)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2021)

The Nominees Were...

Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter

Ariana DeBose, West Side Story

Judi Dench, Belfast

Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog

Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard

My Thoughts: One of the questions I sometimes wonder with the Oscars is whether or not the role is getting the nomination or if it's the performance.  When I judge for the OVP, I always base it solely on the performance, which I think is the correct tactic; roles, even good ones, shouldn't get you an Oscar.  But it does feel like AMPAS occasionally forgets that, and even when it does get a good performance with a good role, it feels like they sometimes overestimate it when it comes to a sweep or a win.

I say this as someone who really enjoyed Ariana DeBose's stellar work in West Side Story.  When I first saw it, I was wowed, but when it comes to a remake it's hard not to compare it to the previous iterations of the story, and while I try not to do it (if it's in the Top 5, it's in the Top 5, and for me, this is Top 5-you'll see it when we get to the My Ballot hopefully in the next week), in a Hollywood bereft of ideas, I feel like Maria from West Side Story (one of the only roles to win multiple Oscars) is one of those parts it's hard to screw up.  She nails the singing and there's a bite in her that's not quite there in Moreno's, but Moreno also seems to give her part more depth, more personality.  DeBose is playing one of the best aspects in the finest musical score of all time...she's starting out on third base even if she's admittedly hitting a home run.

Aunjanue Ellis is also playing a trope that feels very much like the "role" is getting the nomination more than she is: long-suffering wife is toward the top of the list of favorite parts for Supporting Actress.  Ellis is a good actress, and adds a lot to Oracene Price that isn't on the page.  There's a weariness in her that feels cloaked in the scenes with her daughters that disappears when they are not that feels appropriate for a woman who eventually divorced the title character.  But the problem is that the script doesn't care about her, and more importantly, doesn't care about her struggles (particularly when it comes to Richard Williams' infidelities), and so it feels like a half of a performance rather than a full one.

Judi Dench is not getting nominated so much for a performance as she is because, well, Oscar loves Judi Dench.  Dench's citation for Belfast got her an eighth Oscar nod, putting her in the same company as screen icons Jack Lemmon, Geraldine Page, & Peter O'Toole.  While people dismissed this as a throwaway nod, I actually think Dench is strong in this movie (better than even her costar Caitriona Balfe), giving us this wonderful bit of aging from a woman who knows most of her life is gone, but instead of stopping living her life, she's trying a way to guide the next generations of her family into a better existence.  It's a smart, capable performance (her best since Philomena), and I think is one that will age well in her long career.

Kirsten Dunst is getting her first nomination after a film career that has spanned decades, and the former child performer saved some of her best work for Power of the Dog.  There are moments in the middle of Power of the Dog where it feels like Dunst might be losing the narrative a bit...the alcoholism seems to come as if out of nowhere, not telegraphed enough in the first third of this triptych.  But Dunst plays against our expectations by showing us mental health and its ramifications in an era where we don't frequently think of the travails of mental health issues...even if we know they're there.  Especially as the film continues, and her allegiances & understandings of this situation shift...you get to see the mechanics of a woman who is over-her-head, and must trust that she'll survive this chess match between the men in her life.

Our final nominee is Jessie Buckley, a very good actress (and great singer) who, I'm going to be honest, gives an Oscar-nominated performance (her first!) that I couldn't get into at all.  I think part of it is the writing-there's not enough connection between Buckley as a woman and Colman playing the same part, and I don't really blame Colman here, as she gives her "freed mother" part with such recklessness behind a respectable veneer.  There's too many scenes that feel like they're missing from making Buckley's Leda feel fully-fleshed.  It's cool that Buckley got an Oscar nod, but had AMPAS waited a year, she might've earned it.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes, SAG, & BAFTA all picked Ariana DeBose as their victors, but came up with much different lists of nominees.  HFPA had her beating Balfe, Dunst, Ellis, & Ruth Negga (Passing), while SAG had the same lineup except instead of Ellis they chose Cate Blanchett (Nightmare Alley).  BAFTA did its totally own thing (which they've been doing more-and-more lately, and I love it), with DeBose besting Balfe, Buckley, Negga, Ellis, & Ann Dowd (Mass).  In terms of sixth place, at the time I predicted both Catriona Balfe and Marlee Matlin (CODA) would get nominations (I missed Dench & Buckley), and I honestly still can't pick between the two.  Balfe had all of the precursors, but CODA love was so strong I wonder if Matlin might've been just below-the-surface.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I wasn't in love with Oscar's lineup here (I'm guessing you can tell).  Part of that is because there was some really interesting work in films Oscar nominated elsewhere that they skipped (or had gotten enough precursor love that it was clearly on AMPAS' radar).  Two that come to mind are Ruth Negga and Kathryn Hunter (The Tragedy of Macbeth).  Both find ways to enhance well beyond the page, oddly both inhabiting women with a secret, potentially dooming the leading player forever for being in their sightline.

Oscar’s Choice: It wasn't close-DeBose clobbered the competition here (honestly, no idea who was in second place...maybe Dunst?).

My Choice: I'll go with Dunst over DeBose, I think adding more interesting touches to her character even though both are good.  Behind them, I'll do Dench, Ellis, & Buckley in back.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you want to join the rest of the stampede in crowning Ariana DeBose for doing the thing (I had to) or do you think this was a great moment to just go all-the-way with Dunst's first shot?  How did Judi Dench come out-of-nowhere when Caitriona Balfe had done so well all season?  And why didn't Marlee Matlin get any love for a Best Picture winner?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2021: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2021

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

OVP: The Power of the Dog (2021)

Film: The Power of the Dog (2021)

Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Director: Jane Campion

Oscar History: 12 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director*, Actor-Benedict Cumberbatch, Supporting Actress-Kirsten Dunst, Supporting Actor-Jesse Plemons, Supporting Actor-Kodi Smit-McPhee, Adapted Screenplay, Score, Sound, Production Design, Cinematography, Film Editing)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

The western is possibly my favorite genre (give or take film noir, though that's so much a time-and-place genre that it feels like a cheat) not because I enjoy John Wayne proclaiming "pilgrim" repetitively (though, it's worth noting, the film that inspired that Wayne joke on Family Guy is a marvelous western), but because it's such a claustrophobic genre.  The best westerns aren't about taming the land or driving cattle, they're about fighting against the loneliness of the prairie, the reality that the time of the cowboy comes-and-goes, making way for a different, more permanent way of life.  I wouldn't have name-checked Jane Campion, the New Zealand directing icon, as someone who would have one of the most compelling recent installments in this constantly down (but never out) genre, but I should've known Campion, a master of the human experience (and bringing it to to the screen) would have something as sharp as The Power of the Dog up her sleeve.

(Spoilers Ahead-and I mean it, so stop & bookmark if you haven't watched yet as we're discussing the whole movie) The movie takes place in five acts, focusing principally on four characters.  The first are Phil (Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Plemons), two brothers with an uneasy relationship with each other.  Phil appears to be the alpha of the two, to the point that when George falls madly in love with the recently-widowed Rose Gordon (Dunst), he has to marry her in secret for fear that Phil might find a way to stop it.  This makes sense, because in the opening scenes we see Phil make Rose cry, not because of how he treats her, but how he treats her son Peter (Smit-McPhee).  Peter is "different," preferring books and making his own paper roses to the rough-and-tumble life of the Burbank brothers.  He is meant to read to modern audiences as gay, but as the film goes it's clear that Phil is the one who is attracted to men.  His obsession with the deceased Bronco Henry, another cowboy who took hold of Phil when he was young, becomes a driving conversation for him, something he won't stop talking about (it's clear from the opening scenes that an uneasy George knew of the relationship, but has said nothing through the years due to the strange grasp his brother has on him).

The film's second half, though, doesn't take the twists you'd think.  Rose, at one point a teetotaler (we learn late in the film that her husband was a drunk who killed himself), becomes an alcoholic under the weight of Phil's constant pressure, tormenting her & making her feel less than while her son is away at school.  George doesn't know how to fix this, but strangely Peter does, though we don't know it right away.  When he returns from school, he understands that his mother whom he adores has become ill, but instead of confronting Phil, he starts to meticulously seduce him.  He emulates the likely behavior that a curious young Phil experienced with Bronco Henry, sending off signals that Phil might finally be able to express himself once more.  What we find later, though, was that Peter was using his sexuality to seduce a tempted Phil (it's never actually confirmed if Peter is gay or not), only to kill him.  Peter convinces Phil to use rawhide and water that he provided, and with that, we get a callback to an earlier scene where Peter carefully skinned a diseased cow.  Phil, always careful in other moments, with his libido up and his guard down, uses the skin and dies from anthrax poisoning, thus freeing Peter's mother from Phil's bind.

The story is perfectly executed.  Much of The Power of the Dog is about an impending crescendo, which lesser writers might falter under-there's intense amounts of buildup to the climax, to the moments where we will see what happens to these four intertwined figures.  I called pretty quickly that we were leaving a lot of enigma around Peter, that much of what Campion's screenplay was providing on him was the impressions of him that others were providing, not any sort of data we got from the character himself, but Smit-McPhee plays him well enough that even as he unfolds his plan, we still don't know what happened, and that works here (ambiguity is this story's friend).  We don't know if Peter is gay, or if he on some level found Phil's offer attractive (Benedict Cumberbatch has never been hotter, the camera lingering over his chiseled frame & unkempt beard almost as if it wants us to get caught staring)...Peter remains a mystery even as everyone else's motives become clear.  The only hint we have in those final moments is that we know he knew what he was doing, a telling pair of gloves being worn as he handles the rope that Phil made for him, something he pushes underneath his bed for unknown futures.

Power of the Dog, helped by this script, is a universal triumph.  The cinematography is spectacular, with Ari Wegner understanding the beauty of a longshot; frequently there are two different things happening onscreen in the same shot, something you rarely see in movies today but it works because it's indicating to the audience that there are multiple wheels going on in this story.  The Jonny Greenwood score is yet another marvel from one of the most distinctive composers in movies today, and the editing is judicious and riveting.  

Of course, the acting needs mention as well.  Benedict Cumberbatch is not an actor whom I love, and he feels on-paper to be an ill-fit for this story (that posh London accent doesn't feel at-home on a Montana ranch).  But the actor totally uses that to his advantage, foraging a specific, unique figure that defies all convention & feels so uneasy with his own world that a British accent would be the least peculiar aspect of his Phil Burbank.  Kirsten Dunst is appropriately tragic; you can practically see the happiness drain from her body the further into the movie we get, the life force aching for someone to help her.  And Kodi Smit-McPhee gets the movie's toughest part but keeps it appropriately chilling...only in the lit cigarettes do we finally understand the grandness of his long con, and after that it vanishes, potentially never to be seen again.  All of these actors combine to a spellbinding good time, one I hope you see in theaters, as all westerns are better on the big-screen.

OVP: Anastasia (1997)

Film: Anastasia (1997)
Stars: Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Lloyd, Hank Azaria, Bernadette Peters, Kirsten Dunst, Angela Lansbury
Director: Don Bluth & Gary Goldman
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Original Song-"Journey to the Past," Score)
(Not So) Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

All right, I think (I pray) that my stomach virus is officially gone (as it appears to be, knock on wood), but I will not be attempting a third week of Foreign Language Film as at this point it feels like it's tempting fate (to keep up with the 2005 OVP, though, we'll still do that write-up, as well as the writing categories from that year sometime between now-and-Sunday).  Instead, we're moving on to a different slate of films, at least one of which will be in a foreign language, but all of which will be animated.  This week every one of our five reviews will be of animated features, all but today's being films that I saw for the first time over quarantine.  Today, though, we're revisiting a film from the mid-1990's, a time when Disney was hitting its renaissance, but not without competition.  In 1997, Disney's success with princesses had spilled over to Fox, with a major hit that seemed to rival Disney's success that decade, a movie about a real-life princess named Anastasia.

(Spoilers Ahead) We start in Imperialist Russia, where the Dowager Empress (Lansbury) gives a music box to the young Grand Duchess Anastasia (Ryan as an adult, Dunst as a child), and bids her farewell before she goes to Paris.  The two are saved during the Russian Revolution by a young boy named Dimitri (Cusack as an adult) who takes them through a secret drawer.  We learn that the Revolution is caused by Rasputin (Lloyd), who has sold his soul to curse the Romanovs.  Ten years later, there are rumors that the young princess survived the night, and the Dowager Empress has put up a reward for her discovery, but no one knows who she is.  Dimitri and his associate Vlad (Grammer) find a young woman who resembles her, Anya, who it turns out is the real Anastasia despite them only hoping to impersonate her.  The film's final third is a standoff between Rasputin and the now-in-love Anastasia & Dimitri.

The film is loosely based on the real-life story of Anna Anderson, whom we discussed here (which, again, was a loose interpretation).  As I mentioned at the time, even as late as the 1990's the mystery of whether or not Anderson was Anastasia was coming to a close, but hadn't been shut at that point (and we'd wait a decade before there was confirmation of all five children's bodies having been discovered, proving that one of the great mysteries of the 20th Century, whether one of the Romanovs survived, had an unsatisfying & tragic answer of "no").  Still, this doesn't have the same "is she or isn't she?" question that the more historically-minded 1956 film did, and so it isn't ruined as much by knowing that Anderson was not Anastasia, and that the real Anastasia died at the age of 17 in 1918, since we know in the confines of the film that she is Anastasia.

The film, though, is not very good.  It's a bit sloppy, the comic bits are wrong-headed, but it has a great score, to the point where you'd be forgiven if this was a "guilty pleasure" (which it is for me, and which is why it's getting a 3-star even if it deserves a 2).  The opening ode "A Rumor in St. Petersburg" is hilarious and recalls something like "Belle" and "Once Upon a December" is a romantic, moody ballad that runs well through the film.  Honestly, it's a pity that one of the least of the film's songs "Journey to the Past" was the one that ultimately got a nomination because we could have done so much better.

Before we go I want to remind everyone that while many animation snobs spent decades pointing out that Anastasia was not a Disney Princess, with the Fox merger Disney now owns this property.  I've become mildly obsessed over if/when some of the major properties that Disney purchased (not just Anastasia, but also Rio, Ferdinand, and the mammoth (pun-intended) animated franchise Ice Age) will get rides or nods from the studio at their parks, but so far we haven't seen any hints that Anastasia will be added to the successful Disney Princess line or will be a character at the parks, but I have to imagine this is in the works.  If you want, sound off in the comments on which Fox property is the first to get a nod at Disney's theme parks.

The Beguiled (2017)

Film: The Beguiled (2017)
Stars: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning
Director: Sofia Coppola
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

The films of Sofia Coppola run the gamut between movies that I adore for all-time (Lost in Translation) to the best of the year (The Bling Ring) to pictures I don't quite get the hype surrounding (Marie Antoinette), but they're always worth the time investment.  For some reason her films are always greeted with criticism that they are too similar in focusing on the world of rich, white women (suspiciously a criticism that isn't levied at Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen, or Paul Thomas Anderson, but you draw your own conclusions there), and while there is some truth to that, her movies still have a feminism in them that few other mainstream pictures have, and I rarely leave uninterested in the movies.  Thus, I caught The Beguiled with an ardent fan's interest, curious to see where her latest film (one that has largely disappeared at this point from the film year conversation) ranked in my personal estimation.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place in the waning days of the Civil War, where Martha (Kidman) runs a girl school within the ruins of a largely abandoned South, assisted by a dowdy Edwina (Dunst), who dreams of getting out.  One day, one of the girls in the school comes across a handsome, wounded Union corporal, John McBurney (Farrell), who has abandoned the battlefield and is in desperate need of medical treatment.  Despite trepidations, Martha and the students decide to let him stay at the school, and slowly there's a game of cat-and-mouse, with John seducing the lonely women who have been neglected of attention through the war, and starts winning their favor until Edwina, who has become madly in love with him and views him as her escape from "spinsterhood," finds him having sex with the eldest student Alicia (Fanning).  She pushes him down the stairs, and in the process he breaks his leg badly, to the point where Martha (whom he has also spurned) feels like she needs to amputate the leg.  It is never entirely clear whether this was the only option, but Corporal McBurney is convinced they crippled him out of spite and vows revenge, eventually getting a gun and holding the women hostage until Martha finds a way to poison him, even though Edwina has forgiven him and plans to marry him.  Corporal McBurney dies, to the devastation of Edwina, who viewed him as her only way out of this existence, and the film ends just as it began, with the women alone in the house, with no implication of how this random man has changed their lives, if at all.

The film functions almost best if you view this as something removed from the South.  Aside from the two teachers, five students, and the corporal, there is only one other allusion to actual humans in the outside world, when the Confederate soldiers come looking for the soldier.  Part of me wished that they had skipped this portion of the picture, as it could just as easily be a strange Purgatory or Hell, a punishment for the misgivings of war or of the soldier himself, as the isolation of the picture is its best attribute.  The movie ends so closely to the beginning you could view this as a sadistic Groundhog Day, and suddenly later that day they will find a different wounded soldier in the woods.  These women quite literally only have each other when the corporal comes into the house, disrupting their fragile ecosystem of boredom and trying their best to carry on in the face of a seemingly never-ending war.  When the film plays with this idea, of them trying desperately to end a cycle that seems too oppressive to overcome, it makes for very interesting film.

But it doesn't seem as intrigued by this concept, and when reality strikes, it feels a bit too soft.  The motives of Corporal John appear too accidental, and that of Martha perhaps a bit too strained.  It isn't entirely clear what Corporal John did to deserve the ire of these women except refuse to love them all, and in the process it's hard to tell in the first half who exactly the villain is supposed to be.  When Corporal John goes mad and puts a gun on the students in the second half, it feels almost like a copout, with the hanging question of whether they have just maimed a largely innocent man (albeit one with a wandering eye) for no reason other than jealousy.  Coppola doesn't play with this idea enough, and the ending becomes a bit predictable and doesn't idle around in the fascinating way the first half of the picture does, like a long plantation version of Marienbad, but that doesn't mean there aren't some fine elements in the picture, and overall I was a fan, even if it never approaches the heights of something like Lost in Translation or the sharpness of The Bling Ring.

Those were my thoughts on The Beguiled-how about yours?  At this point I'm assuming a lot of you have caught the picture, so anyone else want to weigh in on where they thought Coppola was going with the movie?  Share your thoughts below!

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Film: Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Stars: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard
Director: Sam Raimi
Oscar History: It is one of only two films that led the Box Office in the past twenty years that received no Oscar nominations.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

As we are investigating the films of 2007, I figured it was important for me to see the year's highest-grossing picture (domestically, at least).  Somehow when it originally came out I missed the movie, despite having seen both of the originals and having a bit of a thing at the time for both Topher Grace and James Franco (also, what the hell happened to Topher Grace's career-he was the highlight of That 70s Show and yet Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis became superstars and Grace became Shelley Long).  The thing that kept me from the film at the time were the awful, awful reviews that accompanied it, but despite this fact the film made gazillions of dollars (for comparison's sake it made more money than mammoth hits like Captain America: Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy).  So I was curious what it would be like filling in this missing piece of Marvel iconography.  Unfortunately the initial reviews were right.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film's biggest problem, oft-discussed when it originally was reviewed, is that it is WAY too busy.  When I originally started I groaned a little bit because the film was going to cross the two hour marker, but then I recalled that they would be covering three of the biggest villains in the Spider-Man universe: Venom, Sandman, and the Green Goblin.  How in the world were they going to give each of those three a real plotline without short-shifting one?  The answer was, of course, that they weren't.  In the Batman series the films became greedily worse whenever they expanded the number of villains, but while one villain is controlled, two villains is potentially solid but shaky, and three villains always ends in disaster.  Comic book villains are generally more interesting, at least aesthetically, than heroes, and so we want to see what they do, see what it's like for them to occasionally win before they eventually fall to their doom or learn the error of their ways.  Here, with three villains in such a short amount of time, we see no growth from any of them.

We see, for example, the ridiculous plotline of Venom (Eddie Brock, played by Grace).  Eddie goes from being a happy-go-lucky guy on top of the world, trying to get ahead, but then he quickly falls and becomes homicidal after just a few quick mishaps (his girlfriend Gwen Stacy dumps him-also, Gwen Stacy is coming chronologically after Mary Jane, totally throwing that entire lore from the comic books to the wind-and Peter Parker exposes his lies).  If we're meant to feel a little bit of sympathy for Venom, it fails (he kind of deserved both of these falls), and the movie is predicated on us thinking Peter has done something bad when, quite frankly outside of trying to kill the Sandman instead of arresting him, he doesn't.

The film also sacrifices a critical part of the initial movie by making the guy who killed Uncle Ben be someone different than the man he initially thought.  The original movie and comic book sees Spider-Man take up a hero's lifestyle when he realizes that letting evil grow has dire consequences (his uncle is killed by a man whom Peter doesn't stop from sticking up a convenience store).  As a result, the film in order to establish a quick rivalry between one of the three villains, gives up one of the most important moments in the first film and in Spider-Man's history.  I know I don't usually care about a film matching the source material, but the Uncle Ben story is arguably one of the most beautiful in comic book history, and I just don't see why they gave it up.  The Sandman villain, it should be noted, just randomly knows how to control his powers despite not even planning to become a villain, and we get a lazy story arch involving a dying daughter who doesn't even get a name (if she does, it's mentioned like once).  Overall, the Sandman and Venom stories are so ridiculously rushed and stupid that you wonder if they didn't actually plan on a fourth film and were just throwing paint on the wall.

The main stories, the ones that don't feel as rushed surrounding the Peter/Mary Jane/Harry love triangle have already been done to death in the first two pictures.  We make no use of Gwen Stacy (poor Bryce Dallas Howard gets underutilized yet again...also, she is in a LOT of movies), and Harry in love with Mary Jane is yet another repeat of a previous film.  We also get no indication of how Harry survives a blast about halfway through the film (or whether the Sandman is even beatable), and then dies later on in the film.  The movie tries for the epic, and everything is there, but it's trying to be too many things to too many people, and Tobey Maguire, nearing his mid-thirties, is too old to still be playing a guy who can't figure his life out like he's still a teenager.

Overall, then, this is possibly the worst comic book movie I've ever seen.  It's a mess, and when the only cool things about your film are seeing powers onscreen come to life, you have an issue (that's in literally every comic book film ever).  It's worth noting that I've never seen Daredevil, and I'm just now remembering Green Lantern exists (that was worse than this), but where does this rank in your personal estimation?  Do you think this film ruined the Spidey franchise?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

On the Road (2012)

Film: On the Road (2012)
Stars: Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams, Tom Sturridge
Director: Walter Salles
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

There are books that I can say with a little bit of "I'm getting around to it" shame that I haven't read like The Help, where the novel hasn't reached any sort of level of classic fame and is really just a popular book club selection.  Then there are books where admitting you haven't read it feels like you're admitting you're an alcoholic or that you took your parents' car joyriding or some long-seated truth that you've hidden in the dark.  So, friends, readers, Romans, countrymen, my name is John and I've never read On the Road.  Whew, glad we got that out there.  I promise that I will get around to Portrait of a Lady so we don't have to have this awkwardness again when we get to the 1996 Oscars.

(Spoilers Ahead) While I wasn't familiar with the book, I was familiar with the Beat Generation, and had seen Howl (yes, I haven't read that one either, and yes, I will be making more of an effort to get a little more literary in the upcoming year), and had read about the Beat Generation (...in Vanity Fair...leave me alone!) and its impact on artistic culture, so I went in with a bit of a preconceived notion, and while I can't say that I know Kerouac's written story, in the hands of Walter Salles, I got to see both the good and the bad of this drug-addled, mind-bending band of artists.

The film tells the tale of Sal, a character clearly inspired by Kerouac himself, who, after the death of his father, takes up on a trip on the road with two Bohemian spirits, Marylou (Stewart), a young, beautiful woman who happens to have fallen in love with the lawless, uninhibited Dean Moriarty (Hedlund), a name that sounds like a Sherlock Holmes villain for about twenty seconds and then Hedlund owns it with a confident, naked swagger.

The film after this is a series of interactions, and while both Sal and Dean slowly alter their own sense of friendship and attitude toward life, Salles, perhaps at the film's peril, is a bit too preoccupied with throwing at us cameos by a bevy of actors that we'll react to with a "she's in this movie?!?" sort of awe.  This sometimes works-Kirsten Dunst, for example, is wonderful as a good girl that has been brought down by the magnetism of Dean's appeal, and through the film we see her slowly lose herself, going from a reputable young woman to a single mother, a thought that demands a far sharper stigma in the 1960's than it does now.  Dunst, who has proven adept recently in films like Melancholia once again proves that her sometimes prickly onscreen demeanor can lend itself well to the characters who aren't villains, but aren't necessarily to be cheered for either.

On the flip side, you have Amy Adams, tragically miscast as a woman of the Bohemian wilderness, consumed by lust and drugs.  Adams, who is a superb actress when suited for the right role, seems to not understand her character, and while previous life experience hasn't hurt her in the past (I assume that she hasn't led any cults) it seems to be causing her to be too cartoonish in this role.

However, if there's an actress listed above that you want me to discuss, she isn't Adams or Dunst.  I fear that for some, Kristen Stewart has entered the realm of actresses beyond reproach, with people putting her in the same field as Kim Kardashian and Pia Zadora in terms of acting ability, but I'm sorry to say that you'll be disappointed, as Stewart is very good in this movie.  This, and not Bella Swan, is the style of role she was born to play-wild, unknowable, with motives that shift erratically.  She may not be an actress of Dunst's or Adams's abilities yet (or perhaps ever) but an actor who can excel in a particular role can work magic for decades onscreen (if you don't believe me, ask Cary Grant).

While the plot takes too many loose turns for this to be considered a great film, Hedlund's performance frequently makes it seem as if you're watching one.  His work as Dean Moriarty is spellbinding-from the second he saunters onto the screen, stark naked and completely aware that people are staring but hiding his pride behind a cheshire grin, he devours the film.  His work slowly shows a man desperate for attention, a closet extrovert whose wild, manic lifestyle threatens to destroy him, but to give it up would be like suicide.  With Dean, we see that there is no moral line that he cannot cross, even as others who claim not to have one find their own.  Hedlund's performance, largely due to the poor release schedule of the film (it's finally hitting a wider audience in the past week, despite the Box Office insurance of Stewart), was ignored during the awards season, but I'll give you this: not only is he better than all five of the supporting actors that were nominated this past year, he was better than every supporting performance in 2012.  If this is a sign of things to come from him, I am excited, but if he somehow finds himself relegated to franchises and Hangover-style films, I'll still have Dean Moriarty.  I'll still dream of Dean Moriarty.

OVP: Lead Actress (2011)

OVP: Best Actress

The Nominees Were...

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

Viola Davis, The Help

Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

My Thoughts: Ask any Oscar watcher their favorite category, I'm guessing an inordinately high number will say Best Actress, and I may be one of them-sure, I toy with Best Picture or Best Cinematography, but when it comes down to it, the leading ladies of the screen probably give me the most cinematic joy.  Maybe it's the way they get to play a wider variety of characters and character arcs-looking at this lineup, you get to see a powerful woman challenging the status quo, a meek woman desperately trying to find her place in the world, an elusive woman that the entire planet adores, a forgotten woman who is determined to fight back no matter the cost, and a mysterious woman sorting out her baggage and a murder mystery.  These are all five women of vastly different backgrounds, different goals, and different films to showcase them.  One could also argue that these are five actresses of vastly different goals, and different careers that have helped or hindered them.  Either way, this continues to be a category that I'm drawn to, and though I can't play favorites with Oscar, the category that knows I love it best is fully aware.

Since this is the last acting category, I've been toying-do I start with my least favorite or my most favorite?  And then I thought, why not start in the middle, and so I will reveal my bronze right off the bat-the actress playing an actress, Michelle Williams.  Williams has come a long way since she first rode into Capeside-this is her third Oscar nomination, and she had not yet turned 32 when she received it.  I have to admit that I get a Kate Winslet sort of vibe from her on her Oscar path-continually getting nominated in performances that get her third or fourth or fifth place with the Academy and then suddenly storm in with a film and year that will not be ignored.  This was a great way to start out that pattern-Williams' Marilyn is a complicated creature, just like the Norma Jean behind the Marilyn that has become as much a part of the late actress's myth as the actual films and photos that have adorned clocks, placemats, and postcards the world over.  I love the way, that she keeps Marilyn in on the secret-it would be so tempting to play her as totally tragic or naive, but that's not the Marilyn that likely would have existed-she was still an actress, and the playful scene where she says "shall I become her?" adds to the whole illusion angle of Marilyn-how much is real and how much is show?  The film doesn't have enough meat on its bones for Williams to completely stretch her legs-she only gets a few chances to add a strong amount of depth to Marilyn, and I think that the director's clear ambition to keep Marilyn an unknowable phantom that we, the audience, happens to glance upon, limits Williams ability to play a woman in all of her facets, but I have to say that this performance ages better with me than I expected.  And though mimicry is not acting, kudos to the hair-and-makeup team, as well as Williams herself, for the totally believable transformation of this actress, particularly after all the naysayers questioned this casting decision in the first place.

Glenn Close is an actress who probably didn't have too much trouble landing her part, and naysayers weren't crowing about her being cast at all when she took on the title role in Albert Nobbs.  Close had been trying to make this film for almost thirty years when Rodrigo Garcia finally took the helm as director, and it's evident everywhere that Close was involved, as a producer, writer, actor, and lyricist.  You see the delicacy that she brings to Albert, and with which she handles her character-she doesn't want him to come off as too off-putting or strange, and wants to make sure we see his humanity.  It's a worthy cause, and this is Glenn Close, so she doesn't fail in this task, but what we don't see is any sort of fire or drive.  This is a man who throughout the film makes some great risks (proposing to a woman, picking a fight with a young man, wearing a dress in public after decades as a man), and it's very obvious the reason (Janet McTeer's Hubert has inspired him), but we see a rather dull performance from Close as the movie flows along.  So concerned is she with Albert's humanity and his "he's just like you" aspects that she doesn't give him any spirit.  It's a pity, because Close is one of the best actors of her generation, and probably would have been in the running for a win had she been as risky with her performance as Albert is with his newfound daring.

This is my last shot at Dragon Tattoo, a film I've grown less fond of with each passing write-up, and my first solely at its star, Rooney Mara.  I will say, like with Close, that this isn't a blanket dislike of Mara.  I know this is going to sound a little insulting considering the comparative sizes of the roles, but she was so, so much better in The Social Network, and I mean that as a strong compliment.  She was excellent in The Social Network-strong and overly confident, she finds that sort of inner assuredness that lots of young women find when they're in college being chased by a smart, intriguing guy.  The performance is so good it doesn't feel out-of-place or wrong when Jesse Eisenberg tries to find her once again late in the movie.  So I have to wonder where that screen presence is in Dragon Tattoo.  While she certainly knows how to make an entrance, the impact is more the hair and piercings and tattoos than Mara herself.  She also creates this two-dimensional aura on the screen-you feel as if a literary character has come to life, which of course they have, but with that they haven't become a person with a backstory and anything additional that exists outside of the screen.  I will admit up-front that I haven't read the books, and maybe some of Mara's actions and motives are far more apparent when I have the context of the novel, but a film is supposed to exist separate from a book, and this movie, and this performance, do not.

And now, of course, we get to everyone's favorite part of the 2011 race.  Casual observers looking back at 2011 may see this as yet another Streep vs. Close battle, or perhaps a pit stop on Michelle Williams quest to find her Oscar or perhaps the start of a long career for Rooney Mara, but we know, for better or worse, what this year really was: Team Viola vs. Team Meryl.  It seems a pity, not just because the two actresses clearly are deep admirers of each other and are friends to boot, but also because we should be able to appreciate these as they are-two outstanding pieces of work from two of the great actresses working today.  But Oscar (and the media) love a battle, so that's what we got.  Fortunately for us, at least, they had the two best performances of the five go head-to-head.

Viola Davis's work could have been so simple.  The script doesn't necessarily call for Davis to be a woman of great depth-it calls for her to be a hero and occasionally a character for the audience to pity, but it doesn't call for the strength that Davis brings to this role.  Davis brings that all on her own.  Think about the key scene that you know you're thinking of when you recall Davis's rocking performance-her speaking about her son's death.  The son's death scene is so powerful-she brings such sheer determination to this story, it's clearly a story that she knows by heart and is a speech she has practiced in her mind a hundred times.  Davis doesn't waver in the story-she keeps forcing ahead when other actors would have broken down in easy tears.  She stalls, but she waits until the crucial line about "another day of bridge" before she finally cracks, because she's balancing fear and disgust with the lives of people like Skeeter (Emma Stone), whom she is talking to at that point.  It's a scene that shows an actress completely aware of the journey her character has taken, and so aware of the person that the character hopes to be.

That awareness of her character's journey is also evident in Streep's work as Margaret Thatcher.  I'm not going to focus on the accuracy here (with a recent political figure, there's got to be a little bit of glossing or artistic license, so I'm going to forgive the slight sanctification of this very controversial leader).  However, Streep doesn't back down from that in her characterization.  Whereas Davis's Abilene is someone who has been stowing her courage, waiting for it to burst, Streep's Thatcher has no qualms about speaking her mind.  I love that Streep doesn't play her so much as a trailblazer as an incredibly savvy politician who just happens to be a woman.  Streep clearly studied politicians for this performance, as you see the way that she uses any asset at her disposal to maintain power, and the calculated way that she manipulates any situation to ensure the outcome she's hoping for.  Streep, a consummate actress who has been giving us home run after home run on the big-screen throughout her career, still manages to find the moments to surprise us as an audience, whether she's playing Thatcher in her glory or in her dementia-addled state.  Her conviction, even when she knows that she may be wrong, and her steadfast ability to always be "on" show a character, and a performance, fully aware of its surroundings.

Other Precursor Contenders: Once again, the Globes have the opportunity to honor ten ladies of the screen rather than five, so in addition to all five of our Oscar ladies, the Globes found time for Charlize Theron in Young Adult, Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids, and the duo in Carnage, Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet.  They also had time for the almost certain sixth place in the category, Tilda Swinton, who played the harried mother of a killer in We Need to Talk About Kevin.  The SAG Awards skipped Rooney Mara (the Dragon Tattoo momentum was a late-emerging thing), in favor of Swinton.  And the BAFTA Awards skipped both Mara and Close in favor of Swinton (once again-not many people can boast getting in at BAFTA, the Globes, and SAG and still missing out on an Oscar nod-dubious club, particularly when you consider that Tilda Swinton has stunning never been nominated for Best Actress), and a category confusing Berenice Bejo.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: It seems a bit ludicrous to complain when Oscar chose to fill up his lineup with such brilliant actresses as Williams, Davis, Streep, and Close, but there were so many riches last year that I have to focus on three-first off, there's Juliette Binoche doing a mind-breaking work as a woman who is also a facsimile of herself in Certified Copy (trust me, if you see it, you'll understand).  There's Elizabeth Olsen making a terrific splash in Martha Marcy Mae Marlene as a dazed and possibly delusional former member of a cult.  And then there's Kirsten Dunst.  While ultimately I think that my Oscar choice below deserves the trophy, I cannot say that in my personal awards I didn't waver very steadily between the winner (to be revealed in two paragraphs) and Dunst in Melancholia.  The brilliance that Dunst exhibits takes multiple viewings-she has spectacular sisterly chemistry with Charlotte Gainsbourg, she manages to make a character that is both deeply flawed and annoying completely worthy of your attention for the entire film, and she manages to bring the deep feeling of depression that von Trier is trying to bring to the screen to life.  Melancholia was one of my favorite films of the past year, and Dunst is spellbinding from her earlier stages of legitimate wedding jitters to the ultimate feelings of superiority and satisfaction as the movie continues.  A former child star, she proves beyond a shadow of a doubt in this movie that she is ready for the most complicated, adult roles that a director can throw at her, and I for one, cannot wait.

Oscar's Choice: Oscar, after making her wait almost thirty years, gave Meryl Streep her third Oscar, thus depriving Viola Davis of her first.

My Choice: Like I said, Michelle Williams takes the bronze, followed by Glenn Close and finally Rooney Mara.  For the actual trophy, I must give it to Viola Davis.  Meryl Streep is excellent, and a strong silver place and a deserving nominee, but what Davis is dong onscreen is a tour de force performance from an actress at the top of her game, and also, an actress finding more-and-more in the script than you are aware she was given.  Due to those factors, Viola Davis wins my Best Actress trophy of 2011.

And now, I'll turn it over to you-which of these five women deserved to win Best Actress?  Who was wrongfully snubbed in the category?  And of all of the performances of the year, who most deserved Best Actress of 2011?

Also in 2011: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, 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