OVP: A Very Long Engagement (2004)

Film: A Very Long Engagement (2004)
Stars: Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Dominique Pinon, Chantal Neuwirth, Marion Cotillard, Jodie Foster
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Cinematography, Art Direction)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We're kicking off a slightly short week (Happy Labor Day y'all!) for the blog, but it should be a full one.  I'm hoping by end-of-week that we'll have analysis of our House races, another Saturday installment in our month devoted to Gina Lollobrigida, and the completion of the 2005 OVP (and we'll be kicking right off into the next year on Monday, as I'm already set for our 12th year).  We will also have four reviews for our film theme this week, devoted to my favorite category at the Oscars, Cinematography.  Each film this week was cited in Oscar's most beautiful, and frequently classiest, category, and to kick things off we're going to go across the pond to France, with the star-studded A Very Long Engagement.

(Spoilers Ahead) A Very Long Engagement is about Mathilde (Tautou), a woman in World War I who is searching for her fiancé Manech (Ulliel), who was sent to "No Man's Land" for a self-inflicted wound (essentially a death sentence).  She is convinced that he did not die, and instead will come back to her someday despite all evidence to the contrary.  As she works to discover what happened in the "last seconds" of her beloved's life, she uncovers multiple cruelties that happened to men who could not handle the war, and the callousness of the government in forcing enlisted soldiers to suddenly have bravery beyond-their-years.  As she continues, she finally finds that Manech has not died, but is instead in a hospital with amnesia, and though in the film's final moments it's understood that he does not recognize her, she is still happy to know that he is alive, and he did not leave her.

A Very Long Engagement was the much-anticipated follow-up to Jeunet's beloved Amelie, a film that I have never seen (and a friend of mine who I know will read this article has chastised me for it, as it's his favorite film) and therefore don't have a built-in appreciation for Tautou in her iconic role.  I will get to the film eventually (it was cited for multiple Oscars), but while I appreciate what she's doing here, her character isn't interesting on-the-page for my money, and she doesn't expand it enough.  It's Cotillard, as a strange woman bent on revenge, that pretty much steals the whole movie (this was her pre-Oscar, and thus why you might not know she's in the film in the same way you would Tautou or Foster).  But without a compelling central character, and with a convoluted run-time & script, A Very Long Engagement is the kind of movie you know has a good story, but doesn't know how to ground it cinematically, and thus isn't bad, but isn't good at the same time.

The film won two Academy Award nominations, one for Cinematography and one for Art Direction.  Our theme this week is on cinematography, but it's the lesser of the two citations.  The film relies on "yellow" as a recurring motif-the movie is bathed in a golden lens, and this gives it a distinctive palette, but I find that reliance on lenses almost never completely work.  The lenses separate the film into warm peacetime and cool wartime colors, but it's a bit broad, and it makes it always feel like it's golden outside when it's cloudy.  The vistas, though, look lovely regardless of the marring the production team is doing, but I just wasn't onboard.  Art Direction was better.  The movie only occasionally feels like a set, and frequently it has a lot of great detail (like the library, or the overstuffed houses).  The prisons are a bit barren & feel slightly off (too clean), but all-in-all the art direction is a worthy find for the Academy, who doesn't often nominate foreign-language films in the tech categories.

OVP: Actress (2007)

OVP: Best Actress (2007)

The Nominees Were...

Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away from Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

My Thoughts: It's strange to think that one of my favorite categories at the Oscars, the Best Actress field, was so atypically weak in one of Oscar's best years (by far the finest of the ones we've profiled so far), but it's hard not to look at the above photos and realize that 2007 wasn't a high water-mark for this category when remembering these performances as a collective.  Surely these are all good actresses, with all but one of them nominated for another film in addition to 2007, but it's hard to look at anyone here as doing the best work of their career save Page, who hasn't really done anything since that can compare.  Either way, I profile through the good and the bad, and there is admittedly some good to be had here, particularly when it comes to Julie Christie's brief comeback vehicle in Away from Her.

Comeback is probably the wrong term for Christie, however, as this was hardly a marked return and in a way many thought she'd simply retire from acting after this (considering the dearth of good movie roles she had in the following years, perhaps that would have been for the best).  Christie's Fiona is a thing of beauty, as is her performance.  I love the way she still uses certain attributes that are innate to her (her beauty, her charm, her confidence) far after her memories have started to fade.  The performance is at once very cerebral and physical, and she uses her movie star quality to quickly connect to the audience, Lara disappearing before our eyes.  I love the chemistry she has with Pinsent, and how she still comes of age even as her life is slipping away.  It's a breathtaking, raw performance and one of her best, a great testament to how certain actors never lose their gifts.

Her main competitor for the Oscar at the time seemed to be Marion Cotillard, who was the ingenue in the field and ended up being a major, major talent in the years that followed, taking on the baton that Juliette Binoche had left in terms of "French actress that American audiences are enamored with."  Cotillard is one of my favorite performers of the past decade, but I'll be the first person to admit that I didn't really get this, and I think it's the least of her celebrated roles.  She physically takes on Edith Piaf, but it borders into the hammy, and I don't really think I know Piaf the consummate professional, as Cotillard plays her more as a freak-of-nature style singer, someone who can belt to the rafters but is otherwise a figure of constant tragedy.  She isn't helped by the movie being standard-fare "famous musician biopic," but this is just a large performance, not a particularly good one.  Add in that the best part of her performance, the singing, is done by Piaf and not by her and I will admit this leaves me lacking.

Another world-class actress giving a performance that screams to the heavens is Cate Blanchett.  Our double nominee (she was just in our Supporting Actress lineup), this is hardly the master class of acting that I'm Not There shows itself to be, instead Blanchett becomes a massive tower of camp at her best, and hammily sunk by a self-important script at worst.  Her best actual acting is the film's light comedy bits, particularly those involving her being courted by foreign princes, and I will admit it's fun to watch her scenery-chewing when she gives speeches like "I too can command the winds sir!", but this is not great acting or a performance that should be celebrated outside of an episode of Drag Race.  Even Blanchett herself appeared somewhat embarrassed by the nomination when the clip played at the Oscars that year.  Let's chalk it up to Cate love and remember she genuinely earned most of her other nominations.

Laura Linney had previously lost to Blanchett in 2004 for Kinsey, and she went home empty-handed yet again for The Savages.  This film was just so-so but I remember being truly struck by Linney's Wendy at the time, the way that she plays her as someone who has a completely different internal vision of herself than what she projects to the world and what she actually was.  It's a difficult part to play, and she inhabits years of disappointment with her life onscreen with refreshing honesty-Wendy is a character you root for, but one that you're uncomfortable with their decisions, and Linney knows that.  Linney hasn't really done anything onscreen that remotely approaches this work (keeping her best stuff for television), but this is a reminder of what a dynamic powerhouse of an actor she can be when given the chance.

Finally we have Ellen Page, playing the iconic Juno in the self-titled film.  Page does such a sure job taking on Diablo Cody's very specific script that I worried for a while after this performance that she'd be typecast (this was not the case, in fact she's never played a part similar), as it's a very confident, extroverted performance that wears well on re-viewing.  I did feel at times that Page gets lost in the words, not entirely understanding where Juno herself is coming from in a scene or whether she's just playing off of the script, but her best scenes, particularly that great final monologue about Jennifer Garner's character and her sublime interactions with Allison Janney and JK Simmons, are what make this movie work so well and make her performance so special.  She may never do anything quite this sensational again, but it's a cool nomination.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Golden Globes of course split their nominations between Drama and Comedy/Musical, but even though that happened weirdly Laura Linney was nowhere to be seen (they clearly had caught the picture as Philip Seymour Hoffman had been cited for the film in Best Actor).  Christie emerged victorious in Drama over Blanchett, Keira Knightley (Atonement), Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart), and Jodie Foster (The Brave One), while Cotillard was the champion in Comedy/Musical (emphasis on the musical in her case, as La Vie en Rose struggles for even a single laugh), besting Page, Amy Adams (Enchanted), Helena Bonham Carter (Sweeny Todd), and Nikki Blonsky (Hairspray).  BAFTA also threw out Linney, keeping in Knightley (Cotillard won), while the SAG Awards favored Jolie over Linney (Christie won).  All-in-all, I remember at the time that Jolie was the shocking exclusion for A Mighty Heart, but don't forget how rare it is for women to miss for Best Picture nominees-Knightley was probably closer than we initially considered.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I definitely would have included Knightley if I were making this list.  Her performance in Atonement is classic full-bodied, breathy Keira as we know and love her, and I'm just a huge fan in general, but I'd argue this is her best performance to date (she was the threat for my own personal win that year, coming in second).  I also think it's bizarre considering the Academy's love for Amy Adams that they skipped over one of her more iconic roles, as Princess Giselle is a delightful skewering of Disney all-the-while keeping her character likable and real in her own reality.  It's not the sort of thing that ever gets nominated, save for Mary Poppins, but it should have been.  Finally, we have Tang Wei, who gave a sultry, sexy, and marvelous performance in Lust, Caution, and then was banned from acting for a few years by the Chinese government.  The performance itself was worthy enough, that she was later banned from acting was a heinous act of censorship, and it'd have been nice if AMPAS had killed two birds with one stone by nominating her, as she was worthy AND it would have struck a blow to governments banning art.

Oscar’s Choice: 2007 was a genuinely close race.  Cotillard and Christie dominated the precursors, but I do recall Page getting a last-minute push from the press to take the trophy.  Cotillard won, in what was yet another "deglam" victory in 2007, but I think the other two were nipping at her heels.

My Choice: A pretty easy victory for Julie Christie, the only performance I truly loved of this bunch. I'll follow her up with Linney, Page, Blanchett, and Cotillard in back.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you with me in the Team Christie camp or are your Edith Piaf records doing a scratch right about now?  Anyone think that Ellen Page will ever get another nomination, or is she in the one-and-done club forever?  And was it Knightley or Jolie that was in sixth place?  Sound off in the comments!

Also in 2007: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2007

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

OVP: Allied (2016)

Film: Allied (2016)
Stars: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard, Jared Harris, Lizzy Caplan
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Costume Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Like most people, I go to the movies to escape.  While I do appreciate the grittier aspects of the cinematic culture, it's not like I don't see enough of that on occasion in the news, and sometimes I just want to see two beautiful people fall in love on the big screen.  Thus is the appeal, initially, of something like Allied, where two of the most beautiful movie stars working today (Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard) dane to interact with us mere mortals by falling in love in the sand-swept deserts of Morocco.  This has been the recipe for many a film classic in the past (Casablanca and The English Patient can decidedly prove that falling in love in an exotic, war-torn city can be exhilarating...these are my two favorite movies ever, as well, so I have a soft spot for such a plot), but unfortunately Allied never really rises above its thrilling promise.  It's a movie that lacks any sort of soul or heart, even if it looks like a movie classic.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Max (Pitt) and Marianne (Cotillard), two spies working against the Germans in World War II pretending to be married as their cover.  As happens in pretty much any movie, their initial professionalism subsides into a sexy love affair, including a particularly steamy moment about a third of the way through the movie where they have some impossibly erotic sex in a car.  They eventually escape Casablanca in a scene where Cotillard brandishes a machine gun (arguably worth the price of admission), get married and have a daughter, only to find out later that Marianne is a double agent, working for the Germans.  Because this is the movies and we can't possibly have our leading lady be completely treacherous (this isn't the actual 1940's and she isn't Barbara Stanwyck), Cotillard we find out is being blackmailed into working with the Germans, as they are threatening the life of her and her daughter.  The movie ends with Marianne being found out by Max, and killing herself to keep Max from going to jail.

All of this is pretty standard boiler-plate romance, but that's not always a bad thing if it's done correctly.  Romantic dramas are perhaps most reliant on chemistry between the leads, the way they fell for each other, and the ramifications of their love more than a revolutionary change in the plot.  If the film had been able to find the chemistry between the two leads and given us a bit of romantic daring, it would have worked.  Unfortunately, that's not the case.  While these two actors are fine on their own in the film (and are two of the best working movie stars, in my opinion), their chemistry together always feels stilted and a bit programmed; I never believe that they didn't like each other initially, and they feel so mechanical with each other even as they're falling in love.  There's some good acting happening, particularly with Pitt, when they are separated; I loved the scene where he interrogates a man to try and find out if his wife is a spy (and by proxy, whether she actually loves him), but the movie can never really sell me on the high stakes of their relationship nor that two consummate professionals in their late thirties/early forties would so easily be drawn to one another.  It doesn't work-they aren't careless enough to be believable as being smitten, particularly so quickly.

The movie therefore never rises above this lack of chemistry, and the plot is too dull to really lift it (other than the scenes of Pitt in France, which are decidedly the best parts of the picture).  The movie received one Oscar nomination, and while it's easy to see why it won a citation for Costume Design, it feels like a lazy, phone-it-in nomination.  Who couldn't make Cotillard and Pitt look exquisite in well-tailored 1940's gowns and suits?  I mean, honestly-it's the sort of nomination where you're like "I can't really argue that it's bad, but is there anything stand-out here."  I remember a lot of grey and blue, and part of me wonders if the film's insane obsession with paying homage to Casablanca even seeped into the costumes, despite the 1942 classic being in black-and-white ("the Germans wore grey, you wore blue").  Either way, it's a fine if a bit dull nomination from Oscar in that regard.

Those are my thoughts on Allied, one of several 2016 Oscar nominees I'll be profiling over the next week as we lead up to Sunday night (I'm going to get through as many nominees as I can before Oscar puts his final stamp on the pictures).  What were your thoughts on Allied?  Did it also feel to you like it was trying too hard?  Do you want to see Cotillard and Pitt give it another go?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: Actress (2014)

OVP: Best Actress (2014)

The Nominees Were...

Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild

My Thoughts: Like it or not, 2014 is going to be one of those years in this category, much like 1975, 1994, and 2005, where we always raise an eyebrow over the nominations.  I'm not saying that the nominees here are bad (they're better than any of those three, and in the case of one actress, she's doing career-best and decade-best work), but this was a weak-sauce year if you look past the nominations.  The Academy was struggling to come up with contenders, and did that thing they usually do in such a circumstance-went to the foreign language well, honoring an actress with her second foreign-language nomination (only the second woman ever to accomplish such a thing).  Because she was the shock of the acting nominations that morning (I recall gasps), we'll start out with one Marion Cotillard.

Cotillard is arguably the greatest actress working right now, give or take some Blanchetts and Chastains.  Every film feels like an event, something to be celebrated and treasured because we all know streaks like this rarely last.  Two Days, One Night is a strange situation for me here because we've come to expect so much from Marion Cotillard that the performance feels very good, but not the "career-best" that so many were trumpeting.  Her naturalism is impressive, and I love the uncomfortable and occasionally dislikable ways that she treats her Sandra, but the film itself is so much structure, rarely working in some of the more emotional scenes, especially as Sandra is dealing with her mental illness on-top of her quest to win back her job.  This cuts a little bit into Cotillard's work, and I feel like (while she's better here than her first bout with Oscar), AMPAS keeps missing the boat on her most impressive work, particularly something like Rust & Bone which has emerged in my memory as a favorite.

While Cotillard was the surprise inclusion here, the dominant force of the Best Actress race in 2014 was surely Julianne Moore.  Becoming only the second woman ever to win this category while in her 50's, the longtime celebrated actress made her impression as Alice, a brilliant woman dealing with Alzheimer's much earlier than your average person.  Moore is a woman who knows the inner ticks and clicks of a character, and you find that in Alice, particularly the conversations, plans, and mechanisms that she has with herself.  Moore herself is hampered by relatively weak costars (save Kristen Stewart), as she risks, particularly in her scenes with Baldwin, overacting, but as a general rule this is fine stuff, and she truly comes alive toward the middle when she no longer has control over her decisions, but is emotionally aware enough that something is wrong.  It's a staggering performance in a not particularly great film, which is always difficult to judge, but while it's also not career-best stuff (it's worth noting, of course, that the entire point of the OVP is to not judge based on other films in ones career but simply the five performances that Oscar put in front of me and nothing else), it's still very strong work from Moore.  There are select scenes of the film that you find yourself rooting for the character, which is always a feat for an actress this famous to transform into that person on screen.

The same could be said for Reese Witherspoon, whose Cheryl Strayed is a truly unique and splendid creation.  Witherspoon hasn't been this strong since at least Tracy Flick fifteen years previously, possibly ever.  While most films of this nature (that is, in nature) usually show a man struggling with his own personal demons but not being willing to admit that the nature is a metaphor, Witherspoon's film largely drops that metaphor (save the fox scene) and we get simply someone doing something she doesn't understand because she doesn't understand her life.  Witherspoon gets a true gamut of emotions to deal with: grief, lust, shame, revenge, hate, and occasionally even love, but what she most has to deal with and which struck a chord with me ferociously (this is easily my favorite movie of these five pictures) was the way that loneliness sets in as you get older when you either don't follow the traditional spouse/children path or when you do, but you feel empty inside for doing it.  Reese creates something magical on that trail, giving herself wholly over to the character-no vanity, no need to prove herself an actress, but just an authentic, grand gesture of a movie.  Since she's a movie star we don't see it examined as closely, but were this a new actress or in a foreign language (or, let's face it, a man), it would have been hailed as a landmark.  Considering how many terrible movies she's made since her last Best Actress nomination, this is a big way to say "I'm back."

Speaking of relative ingenues, we have Felicity Jones who has been at the outer rings of AMPAS with films like Like Crazy and The Invisible Woman in recent years, but generally I've left those pictures underwhelmed.  Her onscreen beauty (those green eyes are ridiculous) is not to be challenged, and I'm rather intoxicated by her inflection, but her acting ability-ehh.  She always seems to underplay her role, and in particular what the part calls for-she's staid when she should be vivacious, and blase about her romantic entanglements, leaving too much inside without emoting in other ways (or letting the script do that for her).  For the first thirty minutes or so of The Theory of Everything she escapes that, and we get a glimmer of what casting directors clearly have wanted us to see-she's vivacious, and has genuine chemistry with Eddie Redmayne, but as the film progresses to sadder territory, she keeps everything on the inside, giving us an English stiff upper lip but no sense of what's going on inside.  Some may say this is naturalism, as surely Jane Hawking wasn't a particularly expressive person with her feelings, but in a movie that is so reliant on her to be an audience surrogate, it feels lacking, and makes me wonder if I'll ever truly get on-board with a Jones performance.

In the final slot we have the one film that everyone saw of this bunch.  Gone Girl, the only $100 million hit domestically, was a major talking point and a book everyone needed to bring to the beach, and it kept its secrets relatively close to the vest.  Rosamund Pike had a few extremely difficult tasks in the movie, and not just because Amazing Amy has such a specific place in literary minds everywhere.  She has to find a way to make her both believably sane at one point and also a nutcase (but a nutcase with a believable enough case against her husband to not alienate her completely from the audience).  In many ways she borrows from Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs-you find her daunting and occasionally vile, but you can't look away, and you get why people fall for her trick as she's too fascinating to ignore.  The "cool girl" monologue, that fantastic opening narration when her big reveal hits, and the way that you see her deep frustration whenever one of her decisions or plans doesn't happen the way that she hoped-it's all incredible fun.  I know that for some Pike's performance, particularly her deep-throated delivery, wasn't to their liking or imagination, but I was a huge fan.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Golden Globes started off the uniform train with Best Actress in a Drama, where Cotillard was skipped for Jennifer Aniston (Cake), but the rest of this lineup held, as did Julianne Moore as the victor.  That left a surprisingly weird lineup in Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical of Emily Blunt (Into the Woods-makes sense, even if it's kind of default), Helen Mirren (The Hundred-Foot Journey-they do tend to have a thing for her), Julianne Moore (Maps to the Stars-did this film ever actually get released or was it just randomly on DVD one day?), and Quvenzhane Wallis (Annie-all right, I'm out of ideas here).  It's no wonder Amy Adams pulled it off for Big Eyes-it was the only one remotely looking at an Oscar nomination, even if it's about as funny as a root canal.  SAG smartly stuck to the Best Drama race lineup entirely, favoring Moore for the win while BAFTA couldn't quite bring itself to honor Aniston in the Cotillard spot, instead picking Amy Adams, while giving their trophy to Julianne Moore.  It's quite obvious that Aniston or Adams was the sixth place finisher, and while I predicted Aniston at the time (it being a more traditional drama), I was honestly flummoxed, and that's probably why Cotillard was able to make it in-it was likely a weak, close race for fifth that had enough room for someone with a fervent first-place fanbase.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I know that it's popular to bag on her, but I actually really liked what Jennifer Aniston did in Cake (Amy Adams in Big Eyes-not so much), and was genuinely bummed that in a year like 2014 they didn't decide to give her one of those random rom-com queen nominations for a very watchable performance (even if the film doesn't live up to that adjective).  Even better than Aniston, though, was Scarlett Johansson's other-worldly work in Under the Skin, a performance that showed the great promise she had early on not in Lost in Translation, but Girl with the Pearl Earring.  An alien, difficult piece-of-work that hopefully will develop something of a cult following as the year's progress.

Oscar’s Choice: I think sometime early in the 2014 awards season the public randomly realized that Julianne Moore didn't have an Oscar and they all thought she did, so that needed to be rectified immediately.  It's questionable who would have won had she not been in contention (much like 2009's Supporting Actress race, I wonder if it would have been Adams or Aniston in sixth place gaining a Sandra Bullock-style run or a "six nominations without a win is long enough" plea), but Moore clearly was an overwhelming favorite.

My Choice: Witherspoon, no question.  This is my second favorite performance of this decade, and an absolute triumph from start to finish.  Following her would be Pike, Moore, Cotillard, and Jones in a distant fifth.

And now it's your turn-are you on Team Reese with me or are you clutching the pearls over me skipping out on Julianne Moore?  I've seen most of her work, but is there a Felicity Jones performance that will make me a convert?  And I'd love an impassioned plea over whether it was Aniston or Adams that was the true sixth place finisher in 2014.  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2014: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Documentary Short, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Previously in 2014

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

Macbeth (2015)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everybody's Linking for the Weekend

This week was a really productive one for me personally, and that's only partially because I just spent a lot of money filling some gaps in my movie and book collections (The Simpsons article I did yesterday scared the crap out of me and I wanted to make sure I owned the same editions of all of the Gore Vidal' Narratives of History books).  However, now it's time to see what I wasn't productive enough to look into this week in the world of links.  Shall we?

On Entertainment...

Madonna

-The Cannes Film Festival lineup was announced this past week, and we saw a bevy of the world's finest filmmakers on the list to compete for the Palme d'Or (essentially the Nobel Prize of Film).  Todd Haynes' Carol, Gus van Sant's The Sea of Trees, Denis Villeneuve's Sicario, and Justin Kurzel's Macbeth were amongst the biggest films on the list, though it's Cannes so that doesn't mean that they're going to win, exactly (last year it went to Winter Sleep, a film most people weren't familiar with prior to attending).  Also screening there, though not as part of the competition, are George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, Woody Allen's Irrational Man, and the latest Pixar film Inside Out.  Finally, it's worth noting that Marion Cotillard, who has famously competed for Best Actress (and lost) the past three years in a row, is back again with Macbeth, though she'll face competition from the likes of Cate Blanchett, Emily Blunt, and Italian superstar Margherita Buy.

-The Daily Beast had a marvelously articulate article about Madonna's re-emergence to promote her new album Rebel Heart.  The article is spot-on (and includes a FANTASTIC dig against Piers Morgan, so it's worth the click just for that), and really brings up some great comparisons to men like Richard Gere and Harrison Ford who "remained sexy" into their 50's but how only women like Helen Mirren, who simply wink at their sexuality, are allowed to remain sexually viable past fifty.  Madonna of course isn't going to acquiesce to critics, but it's really sad because there's likely great music by former female superstars that just lies dormant because of this sexist attitude (U2, Bruce Springsteen, and the Rolling Stones continued to put out great records well past their "sexual prime," after all).  And speaking of women that constantly are abused by the media for daring to defy beauty standards, Sarah Jessica Parker will be returning to HBO, which is a welcome sign for anyone who recognized the genius of Sex and the City and why Carrie Bradshaw deserves to stand alongside Tony Soprano, Walter White, and Don Draper in the anti-hero pantheon.

-Sofia Vergara is involved in one of the stranger celebrity stories of the week, with her ex-boyfriend Nick Loeb suing her to stop destruction of two embryos they created through in-vitro fertilization before they broke up.  The case itself is actually quite intriguing from a legal perspective (who owns the rights to the embryos in this case, and where does it stand in the abortion legal lexicon?).  Throw in Vergara's celebrity and you have what may end up being a front-page news story for a while.

On Politics...

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)

-I will admit to not usually enjoying Chris Cillizza, who leans a bit too hard right in his columns for my taste, but he's got a fascinating look at Gov. Chris Christie's depleted role in the 2016 race and whether or not he missed his moment to be president in 2012.  History is so much more intriguing in hindsight, but I think even at the time it felt like Christie was giving up a prime opportunity to be president.  This is true of others-Hillary Clinton/Al Gore in 2004, Al Gore/Mario Cuomo in 1992, Ted Kennedy in 1976, where the candidate may have had their best shot and missed it (and with the exception potentially of Clinton, none of them got to be president).  Christie could well end up pulling something like John McCain did in 2008 (an article for a different day), but that seems unlikely-at this point only a guy who likes long odds would bet on him resurrecting his political career.

-President Obama will visit South Dakota in May, giving the Mount Rushmore State the honor of being his fiftieth state visit.  I love this both because I think that president's should make a point of reaching out to states that aren't necessarily large or favorable to their party (like it or not, Barack Obama is the president for all Americans), and also because I love presidential trivia.  Obama will become the fourth president to visit all fifty states while in office, with Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton being the other three (President George W. Bush missed only Vermont, which was probably because there was a movement in the state to impeach him at the time).

-Proving that he is definitely running a long game election, Gov. Jeb Bush came out in favor of a confirmation on Loretta Lynch.  I know that Sen. Mitch McConell is trying to play hard ball here, but it's not really working-Lynch is about as non-controversial as a federal appointment can get, and it feels like they are denying a position, rather than a person (they should have gone for a federal judge with some skeletons in the closet instead to make this point).  I also loved the joke Jeb made about trying to prove that his candidacy isn't just breaking a tie with the Adams' family (the only other father-son presidential pair), even if it might hint at the insularity of the White House.  In fact, my only qualm with Jeb this week was his jab at Hillary Clinton for going to Chipotle.  Republicans-stop talking about Hillary at Chipotle.  It's idiotic, makes you look idiotic, and, also, everyone loves Chipotle.  It's not a winnable fight.

-Sen. Heidi Heitkamp owns the internet...and is decidedly Team Stark.

Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week...

-Can someone go back in time and greenlight this movie?

YouTube Video of the Week...

-Human perfection Christina Bianco recreates the classic "Get Happy/Happy Days" performance made immortal by Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand (Christina of course does both voices splendidly).

Just One More...

-If any of my readers live in Los Feliz, can you please go to this restaurant so that this trend starts to hit the rest of the country, because churro ice cream sandwiches are something I need in my person immediately.

OVP: Two Days, One Night (2014)

Film: Two Days, One Night (2014)
Stars: Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione, Catherine Salee, Olivier Gourmet, Christelle Cornil
Director: Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Marion Cotillard)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

As someone who recently experienced layoffs first-hand, there's something weird about watching it onscreen, as it's one of those rare instances where I think that the movies almost undersell it.  Layoffs can be extremely difficult personally, affecting both those let go and those that are losing their jobs.  And so I view Two Days, One Night through a different lens as a result of this personal experience, wondering about which of these characters I would be, and really what I would do if I was Sandra (Cotillard) wondering what the right decision would be to keep my job.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place in a small town in Belgium, where Sandra has recently found out that she, after an extended medical leave, has been laid off from her job in what appears to be a relatively shady dealing.  Apparently her manager has told the employees that they can either have a bonus of 1000 euros or they can keep Sandra as their coworker.  Being that Sandra works so close to the poverty line, she desperately needs to keep her job, but being that her coworkers also work so close to the poverty line, the 1000 euro bonus is in many cases just as necessary for them to receive.

The film follows Sandra trying to convince nine of her sixteen coworkers to change their minds, and we get one of the coolest ticking clock structures I've seen in a film in a long time.  For starters, with the exception of Sandra and her husband Manu (Rongione, who is a frequent collaborator with the Dardenne Brothers), we rarely see characters in multiple scenes, which is not really how a traditional story structure works-frequently we find that characters have changes of heart and that we come back to them, but here people who won't open their door for Sandra or who dismiss her out-of-hand don't change their minds.  The Dardennes tend to find realism in the most uncomfortable of places, and that is definitely true here-we get little redemption for characters we dismiss out-of-hand.

And we get little indication that the directors dislike these people.  While some of them are completely dismissive of Sandra, there are others who clearly sympathize with her.  They know that by-the-grace-of-god they too could be amongst the laid off and be in her situation.  And yet they cannot give up that money-lower income citizens have become a hot topic in film lately, with more and more films not about homeless people, but those who live paycheck-to-paycheck, frequently struggling to make a living (the have and have-nots of the 99% movement-you see it in films like Leviathan and Winter Sleep as well).  This is a film that examines how a thousand euros, which to characters in a lot of movies would not be a dire situation, can be an enormous impact on fixing a house or paying for a medical procedure.  You see that in the way that they approach Sandra, knowing the right thing would be to forego the bonus to let her keep the job, but the reality is that they may not be able to afford it.

Sandra herself as a protagonist is a fresh of breath air, with Cotillard not playing her as an Erin Brockovich-style hero, all ballsy and ready-to-take-on-the-world, but as pretty mousy.  This is someone who has suffered from severe depression, is regularly prone to suicide attempts, and without the push of her husband, would have just laid in bed and let her fate befall her.  It's a risky move on the part of the directors to have a character we may not even like at the center, but it's definitely one of the cooler aspects of the film-we even see that Sandra herself knows that this may be pointless and unfair of her to ask-it's pretty obvious that, despite the bonus-for-job deal that eventually someone from the line will get cut, and if it's not her it will be someone in a similar boat.

The film itself has a lot of cool ideas, but I have to admit that the movie didn't quite compel in the way I expected, which is why after what looks like a rave I'm sticking with three stars.  After you get into the pattern of the unusual story beats, you start seeing where this is going (it's quite obvious pretty quickly that Sandra will either score a partial victory, which is the case, or no victory at all), and despite her lack of esteem early in the film and the wandering way she goes about to get there, she ends on a pretty peachy note that doesn't quite match the movie (though considering what she's just been through, perhaps this was necessary-a sad ending may have been too much dour).  Cotillard herself is so naturalistic and wonderful in everything that I have to say that the abject raves she received here surprised me, considering she's been doing (even better work, in my opinion) in things like Rust & Bone.  Still, it's an uncharacteristically small movie that got nominated for an Oscar, so I can't really hate on that even I may still have picked Jennifer Aniston for the nomination (though I'd have chucked out Felicity Jones and kept Cotillard, or if we're being ballsy I'd have gone with...you know, I'll save a couple of cards for when we get to this OVP write-up).

With our return to afternoon reviews, I hopefully picked one that you've seen (or at least heard of), so if you have, what are your thoughts?  What do you think of the trend to show lower income struggles on the screen, and what feels authentic/inauthentic about this movement?  And where does Marion rank against Felicity, Reese, Rosamund, and Juli for Best Actress of 2014?  Share in the comments!

Best and Worst Dressed at the Oscars

The Academy Awards to some people is a wonderful night celebrating the history, majesty, and wonder of the movies, an occasionally infuriating but always magical evening devoted to cinephiles everywhere.  For other people, however, this is the Super Bowl of Fashion, a night where the world's most beautiful creatures (some so gorgeous it's sort of hard to call them human beings, as it's hard to imagine they are the same species as, say, Mama June from Honey Boo Boo) parade around in a sea of the latest in fashion.  I am not one of the latter group, but because I do celebrate Oscar Awareness in all of its glory, I indulge them with a post every year (and to be honest, it's really fun-I've gotten more and more into the fashion aspect of the evening as the years have gone on).

Since I pointedly skipped the Red Carpet this year as part of my protest against women getting asked stupid questions while the men get asked about artistry (and also because I want Ryan Seacrest to GO AWAY), I had a joyous moment of writing down my favorites from the ceremony and from the red carpet photos afterwards, so I'm going into this sight unseen in terms of what the collective internet is saying about these people, with my choices of the best and worst dressed completely of my own choosing (if one of these men or women are showing up in the opposite list, it just goes to show that group-think is a virus on the media).  Without further adieu, my choices for the five worst and ten best-dressed stars of the red carpet:

Best-Dressed

10. Sienna Miller

A gorgeous mix of black-and-navy, Miller rocked Oscar de la Renta for the Red Carpet.  The color combination is tricky and could have been a disaster, but the navy is so subtle it's a dress you just can't stop staring at.

9. Dakota Johnson

Johnson has been sort of a master-class in celebrity roll-outs.  She hasn't made a fashion mistake since the premiere of her film (and smartly chose her glamorous movie star mother as her date rather than distracting from her emergence onto the national consciousness with a romantic partner), and she saved one of her best looks (a fire-engine red Saint Laurent gown) for the Oscars.  I particularly love the diamond-encrusted strap.

8. Nicole Kidman

I adored this Louis Vuitton number for its play with color (is it white...wait, no, it's not), the mix of what appears to almost be a yellow-green with red without clashing, and in particular for the box-style handbag.

7. America Ferrera

The How to Train Your Dragon 2 star (for those who were trying to place why Ferrera was at the Oscars this year), made the most of her moment-in-the-spotlight in a gorgeous seafoam-green Jenny Packham dress complete with chic belt and a gorgeous brick-red handbag.

6. Jennifer Aniston

Jen smartly didn't skip the Oscars this year (a mistake other snubbed stars have made in the past), even choosing to present and make a major smash in a steamy Versace with a wonderful flowing down hairstyle rather than going with the traditional up.  Simple, chic elegance.

5. Emma Stone

If you're getting your first nomination but you know you're not going to win, it's time to make a truly bold fashion statement.  This chartreuse Elie Saab gown is daring, but perfectly counters Stone's hair color and has a splash of the modern (the lacy material) with a throwback to the old (the cut is pure Dynasty).

4. Eddie Redmayne

If you're a stylish and handsome younger actor who is likely to be photographed with the most coveted man in Hollywood, it's time to make a splash.  Redmayne's Alexander McQueen tuxedo was a splash of blue in a sea of black-and-white duds, but wasn't so ostentatious that it seemed tacky.  Plus, unlike Ansel Elgort's adventure in navy, this seemed to be tailored to Redmayne's lanky frame.

3. Keira Knightley

Maternity couture is a hard road to travel, particularly if you're a style icon, which is why Knightley wore what was one of my favorite adventures in clothes Sunday night, and along with Stone and Kidman, was one of those dresses that could have easily gone to the bad but was stylistically bold in the right way.  I love the words, the neutral tones, and the down-and-flowing locks.

2. Marion Cotillard

Cotillard is perpetually on the best-dressed list, and her Dior was no exception.  I loved the shockingly baggy back to the dress and the gorgeously flirty front to the gown.  It feels like something you'd see launching on a Paris catwalk, not on the more traditional platform of the Oscars.

1. Reese Witherspoon

It has the perfect color scheme of a Chanel suit, but with the clean lines of Dior-I mean it has to be Tom Ford, doesn't it?  Reese made black-and-white feel fresh and the subtle diamonds just add to the elegance.

Worst-Dressed

5. Scarlett Johansson

The dress itself is sultry if a little bit dull Versace, but the bizarre neckpiece is clearly meant for another dress and is WAY too matchy-matchy for this color scheme.

4. Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth, wearing the most expensive prom dress at Barney's.

3. Chrissy Teigen

The makeup is too extreme, the slit too high, and the cut too low-it looks like she's wearing a bathrobe designed by Frederick's of Hollywood (on the plus side it's a good color for her).

2. Felicity Jones

It's probably best not to wear what could easily double as a discount wedding dress to the Oscars, particularly on your first nomination.  The worst part is that Jones wore a gorgeous and fashionable look to the Vanity Fair party later in the evening that would have ROCKED IT on the red carpet, particularly since no one had a particularly memorable little black dress.

1. Jared Leto

It's probably best not to use Dumb & Dumber as your fashion inspiration.

And those are my thoughts on this year's fashions-what about you?  Share the best and worst on your dressed list in the comments!