OVP: Actress (2017)

OVP: Best Actress (2017)

The Nominees Were...

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Margot Robbie, I, Tonya

Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Meryl Streep, The Post

My Thoughts: We are finishing off our acting trophies with the leading ladies of 2017.  Similar to Best Actor, four of the five women cited here were in Best Picture nominees, though unlike Best Actor, Margot Robbie's work in I, Tonya was definitely part of a Best Picture contender.  Though we had more than one real-life person in this lineup, only two biopics is actually pretty good for a category that increasingly cannot handle anyone that isn't part of a real-life story.  This is also, arguably, a category where the winner didn't age well less because of the content of the film, but more because she'd win just three years later.

We'll get the Frances McDormand of this category out-of-the-way, and I want to be forthright in saying-McDormand's the best part of Three Billboards, and I don't mean that as a backhanded compliment.  She's very good, end of statement.  The way that she plays a mother of a girl (a dead girl) whom she had a truly complicated relationship with in life, and finding that girl's killer is the only way that she'll ever find some sort of absolution with a relationship that she struggled to maintain in real life...it's good stuff.  McDormand is better in her other two winning roles, but this is stronger than Streep in The Iron Lady (which, to be fair, is also a very good performance even if its real-world connections make it harder to embrace), and it's certainly not Bergman in Orient Express.  In hindsight, knowing that Nomadland was around the corner, Oscar probably would've gone with someone else, but that's been my main lesson of the OVP-you should only consider the year at-hand.

Had McDormand lost, one assumes that it would've been a race between Sally Hawkins & Saoirse Ronan for the win, though Hawkins role in the Best Picture winner might've given her the advantage.  Playing a mute woman, she uses her expressive eyes and body language to communicate what her voice cannot.  This isn't Holly Hunter in The Piano, though.  Hawkins doesn't play Eliza consistently enough for my tastes.  The script, but also her own actions, feel like she is reacting always and it feels like both writer & actor are underestimating the strength of their character.  It's not bad, but it's not an Oscar-worthy turn.

Ronan, on the other hand, might be turning in her best work-to-date in Lady Bird, which totally upends the mannered loveliness we are used to from her in roles like Brooklyn.  Here she plays Lady Bird as a young woman, perhaps a great young woman, who cannot see beyond what's in front of her.  She's wise...for her age.  The way that Ronan rips through Lady Bird's emotions, eventually finding moments of tranquility that she'll remember into old age, but never modulating the rough teenage emotions here (there's never a knowing wink to the adults in the audience over how much Lady Bird will clearly treasure her mother by the time she turns thirty), is so smart & exact.  Ronan's accent work is flawless (there's no hint of Ireland in her vocal work), and her chemistry with every costar is perfect.

Like Ronan, Margot Robbie arguably hits her best performance-to-date with I, Tonya.  The tone of I, Tonya I found unfortunate (aren't we over the faux documentary aesthetic yet?) & I struggle with my real-world attitudes toward Harding (the film is too sympathetic to her, in my opinion), but neither of those things take away from Robbie's excellent work in the lead.  She finds depth in Harding that other actors might've ignored.  Look at the way that she can't understand why a poor girl in a trailer park's idea of glamour isn't glamorous enough against that exuded by Kristi Yamaguchi or Nancy Kerrigan.  I love that we see her frustration as the film continues, with her succeeding, but never enough, never in the way that her peers do.  It's thoughtful work from Robbie, and she makes the best parts of the film.

Meryl Streep's most recent acting nomination (if she's not cited in 2022, it'll be the longest Oscar drought of her career) for The Post is definitely a nice change-of-pace for the actress.  Ever since 2006, the woman who became famous for her precise realism in the 1980's has played increasingly cartoonish, exasperated characters onscreen, not always to the grand effect she achieved in movies like Silkwood or the Bridges of Madison County.  I don't quite think there's enough here for it to count alongside those pieces-of-work (there are times when Streep feels a bit lost in Katharine Graham's worldview), but she finds an aesthetic here of a hard-working, ambitious, talented, but also otherworldly wealthy (and occasionally unaware of it) newswoman that feels like it's the work of a character actress rather than a movie star, something late-stage Meryl has been reluctant to try.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  For Drama it was McDormand who took the prize against Hawkins, Streep, Jessica Chastain (Molly's Game), & Michelle Williams (All the Money in the World), while Comedy/Musical went to Ronan against Robbie, Judi Dench (Victoria & Abdul), Helen Mirren (The Leisure Seeker), & Emma Stone (Battle of the Sexes).  SAG skipped Streep but kept the rest of Oscar's lineup, putting Dench in instead while BAFTA also skipped Streep in favor of Annette Bening (Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool), with McDormand taking wins for both.  In terms of sixth place, I honestly have no idea.  It's clear Streep was vulnerable, but reading my notes at the time I favored Bening for the potential shock runner-up, given she was overdue at the time for a trophy (still is), a "build-the-momentum-for-a-win" nod might have made sense.  You could make an argument for Chastain, Dench, or Williams though and I wouldn't disagree.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: In a different universe, where Woody Allen's name on a movie wasn't considered a death knell for a film's awards chances, Kate Winslet would've returned to the Best Actress category for the first time in a decade.  Her work in Wonder Wheel is extraordinary, the best performance Allen has gotten out of an actor this century.

Oscar’s Choice: McDormand could not be denied all of 2017, and took the victory against Ronan & Hawkins.

My Choice: I'll do the reverse, giving Ronan's work the nod against silver medalist McDormand, though both are better than I think they get credit for in retrospect.  Third is Robbie, followed by Streep & then Hawkins.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you with Oscar & Frances, or do you want to join Team Lady Bird in my corner?  What's it going to take for Meryl Streep to get another Oscar nomination?  And who the hell was in sixth place here?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2017: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2017

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

OVP: Spencer (2021)

Film: Spencer (2021)

Stars: Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Jack Farthing, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins

Director: Pablo Larrain

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Kristen Stewart)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

For some reason, 24 years after her tragic death became the most-covered story I remember of my childhood until 9/11 (seriously, if you lived through Diana-mania, and I was there for the tale-end of it, it can't compare to literally any other celebrity coverage in the decades since-Bennifer & the Kardashians could never), Princess Diana is making a comeback.  There's a Diana-led musical on Netflix.  Emma Corrin is getting praise for her performance on The Crown, a role Elizabeth Debicki will be taking on in the next season.  And then we have Spencer, where Kristen Stewart, a quintessential Southern California actress takes on the blue-blooded British noblewoman who became the "People's Princess."  The film has attracted both grand praise for Stewart as well as some divisive reactions on Film Twitter (I hadn't read the reviews as I try to go into all films with an open mind, I'd just seen that the tweets were mixed).  So when I had the chance on vacation (I always try to see movies while I'm on vacation as I'm not a night life person & also I'm traveling alone so movies in new theaters feels the best approach to not just lounging in a hotel room after 6 PM), I was curious where I would land, particularly as someone who adored Lorrain's other film about a woman who the world "only wanted to be beautiful," Jackie.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place over a three-day Christmas period at Sandringham Castle.  Diana (Stewart) arrives separate from her husband, and late, which is a perpetual theme of the film-Diana is always missing expectations, missing dinners, ending up in the bathroom dealing with her (true-to-life) bulimia.  She has only one friend in the house other than her two young sons, Maggie (Hawkins) a devoted dresser whom her husband Prince Charles (Farthing) is frequently trying to keep her from.  The movie takes on a supernatural element when Diana is haunted by the ghost of Anne Boleyn, whom she worries is a direct corollary to her current affair (Diana is even related to the late, beheaded queen through her older sister Mary Boleyn).  Diana worries that she's going to be replaced by Camilla, Charles true love, and whether she's losing herself in this world.  Ultimately, she leaves the castle & flees from royal life, headed to a KFC while singing "All I Need is a Miracle" with her two devoted sons in tow, hopefully freeing herself to a new life.

As you can imagine, this didn't actually happen in real life.  While there are definitely connections to real life (Diana's eating disorder, Charles' affair, the late princess's fondness for buying fast food for her children), the events in the film are presented as a fable, and play out that way.  Unlike the more realistic Jackie, Spencer takes on a different motif, a more fanciful one.  This theoretically should work.  Beautiful princesses are a staple of fairy tales, after all, and one haunted by ghosts feels all-the-more appropriate.

The problem is that Spencer never grounds itself in something real.  When you introduce such intense flights of fancy, you need more depth in the characters, and there's virtually none here.  It's a movie that wants you to treat Diana outside of what we know about her...but every other character is so inconsequential you can only rely upon your own Us Weekly-inspired shorthand.  Larrain doesn't owe us a complicated portrayal of the Queen or Prince Charles, and it's not inappropriate to view these two as villains in the Diana tale, particularly considering the tragedy that ended up befalling her (this movie has a happy ending, Diana's life did not).  But it also hurts your cause when you are making a point of giving a flesh-and-blood Diana while (on purpose) showing us nothing real in her two onscreen enemies.

This also hurts Stewart's performance.  I feel like reviews of Kristen Stewart always feel the need to defend her, but at this point we're beyond that.  Stewart's work in the Twilight movies was butchered at the time (in retrospect, if you watch the films it kind of works better as a stylized approach to schlocky fare).  But she has since turned in two Oscar-worthy turns in Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper (I'd have nominated her for both), and can give a lackluster performance without being labeled a "bad actress."  I think her accent & mimicry is to-die-for here-she has Diana down-cold, which considering she grew up in LA, is a testament to her abilities.  But she also feels adrift in a movie that oftentimes feels rudderless, and while that's more on Larrain & his story than Stewart, it also makes it harder for me to get behind this work (and I like dreamy movies like this as a rule...check out my reviews of Terrence Malick pictures).  It just can't find its center, and as a result this was a miss for me even if it was in my wheelhouse.

4 Mini Reviews

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

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

Smallfoot (dir. Karey Kirkpatrick)

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

Red Sparrow (dir. Francis Lawrence)

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

Paddington 2 (dir. Paul King)

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

Victim (dir. Basil Dearden)

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

OVP: The Shape of Water (2017)

Film: The Shape of Water (2017)
Stars: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia Spencer
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Oscar History: 13 nominations/4 wins (Best Picture*, Director*, Actress-Sally Hawkins, Supporting Actor-Richard Jenkins, Supporting Actress-Octavia Spencer, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Original Score*, Production Design*, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

My relationship with Guillermo del Toro is not uncomplicated.  The first film I ever saw of his was Pan's Labyrinth more than a decade ago, and I loved it.  It was one of my favorite movies of 2006, and I remember being in awe of the magical realism of the picture, and the way that it engaged an enchanting fairy tale with a grim reality in Franco's Spain.  But the years since have worn on this relationship.  I thought the Hellboy movies were mediocre at best, frequently trading on the "I'm a freak, but I'm beautiful" message a little bit too hard.  Crimson Peak was what used to be called a "hot mess," and Pacific Rim's most important contribution to cinema was this.  As a result, I went into his most critically-lauded picture since Pan's Labyrinth with some modulated trepidation.  The trailer was beautiful, the actors in it felt like they would fit del Toro's world but not be overwhelmed by it, and I was ready after a hard year to invest a bit more fully in a complicated fairy tale.  Unfortunately, while it's lovely to look at and has its moments, The Shape of Water continues the trend of movies I'm more indifferent to than swept away by when it comes to del Toro's cinematic output.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers upon Elisa (Hawkins), a mute janitor in the 1960's, working at a secret research facility at the height of the Cold War.  She lives a staid life, marked by routine (polishing shoes, hard-boiled eggs for lunch, and because this is a del Toro film, morning masturbation in the bathtub) and quiet friendships with her aging gay neighbor Giles (Jenkins) and her fellow, chatty janitor friend Zelda (Spencer).  One day, a new creature, played by Doug Jones (kind of similar to what a mermaid would be if it were 50% fish, 50% human, but if it was your whole body), is brought in by a sadistic colonel (Shannon), who takes a perverse shine to Elisa and enjoys torturing the creature.  The film unfolds with Elisa falling in love with the creature, trying to free him while the colonel is out to destroy him, and increasingly dominate her.

The movie functions as yet another strange fairy tale, and like most of del Toro's films, there are moments of visual splendor that are undeniable.  The magical realism is occasionally ridiculous (that entire sequence where they're floating in the bathroom defied physics in a way nothing else in the film does), but it's lovely to look at, and the sunset scenes are gorgeous.  The movie, though, suffers from too much plot, and performances that are all-over-the-map (okay, just Michael Shannon).  As the colonel, an actor who is rare on subtlety (and really has an imposing physical demeanor that doesn't allow for such things), his increasingly manic portrayal of a deranged and unhinged colonel is too much for even a film that suspends reality so frequently, and toward the end his cartoonish villainy has totally subsumed the picture.  Combined with a confusing performance from Michael Stuhlbarg (who can blame this more on the screenwriters, who make his motives nearly impossible to discover and his character resolution is left bloody on a pile of sand...literally), the film's plot is too sloppy for my tastes.

The rest of the performances fare better.  Spencer is such a winning screen presence she fares the best with this complicated material, giving Zelda a worn warmth that I responded toward.  Hawkins is getting the lion's share of the plaudits, but while it's a physically demanding role, I have to admit I wasn't as drawn to this work as I suspected I would be.  Her character is interesting, but she doesn't sink in the way you'd expect during the tougher scenes, particularly when she goes quickly from self-sufficiency and self-pity and back again.  And with all due respect, Richard Jenkins is not convincing as a gay man.  His plot is equally tragic to Elisa's, perhaps more so because he's left with nothing in the end of the film, but the script doesn't really care about that, and it feels an awful lot like the "sassy gay friend" trope in a film that has a pretty strong queer narrative otherwise.

All-in-all, I left unimpressed even if there's obviously something fascinating there.  Del Toro's going to continue to demand my ticket money if only because his visuals are too interesting for me to skip out (plus, he may well be headed to his "Oscar-friendly" phase after The Shape of Water), but I think that if this film can't get me to amour once again, I doubt I ever will for anything other than Pan's Labyrinth from his creative mind.

Maudie (2017)

Film: Maudie (2017)
Stars: Sally Hawkins, Ethan Hawke, Kari Matchett, Gabrielle Rose
Director: Aisling Walsh
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Adult dramas, one without frills or packaging, are rare these days when they're well-done.  Too often we find ourselves stuck with either dramas with comedic undertones (the old lady who has to find her self-worth through indulging in marijuana or listening to rap music) or are soggy come-from-behind tales without any sense of reality to them (nearly every music drama ever made).  As a result, a movie like Maudie, which was an arthouse hit but has largely gone unnoticed as we count the best films of 2017, should be a bit more treasured than it is.  Quiet, unassuming, introverted, but still brimming with strong work from the two lead actors and the rare biopic that goes off of its traditional story beats, Maudie is a lovely look into the world of famed folk artist Maud Lewis, played by Sally Hawkins.

(I know it's real life so I don't need this, but she's so unknown to most outside of the art community that I'm going to issue the Spoiler Alert Anyway) The film centers around a socially awkward woman with arthritis named Maud Dowley (Hawkins), who lives with her Aunt Ida (Rose) and brother, and whom (we quickly learn) once gave birth to a deformed baby, which has caused her aunt to think of her as promiscuous.  When her brother sells her childhood home, she randomly ends up being the maid for a gruff fish peddler named Everett (Hawke), whom initially dislikes her and eventually (though further into the movie than you'd anticipate) starts to warm to her.  While serving as his maid, she ends up finding a passion for painting flowers, trees, and birds, which is noticed by a woman (Matchett) visiting Nova Scotia from New York City, who starts to serve as a sponsor of sorts for Maud, offering her $5 for a painting.

You'd assume that at this point you'd know exactly what direction this film is taking, and in some ways you're right-Maud enjoys a newfound level of fame, and her husband has to learn to deal with his wife being more successful than she is, and she has to stand up for herself in the marriage.  But the way that Hawkins, Hawke, & Aisling approach this is on such a soft scale it feels like a new story.  Maud's newfound fame doesn't cause her to leave Nova Scotia, but instead simply means that she gets requests from across North America for her paintings.  Her brushes with celebrity mean a news article and a television interview, but nothing like her going on Carson or Dick Cavett, and the only name drop in the entire film is when Richard Nixon makes a request for one of her paintings (which really happened, though considerably later than when it did in the picture).

As a result, we get a more intimate look into Maud Lewis's real life, as she was not a wealthy woman and her paintings didn't become the type that sold for $25k a pop (like they do now) until after her death.  She and Everett spent most of their lives in relative poverty and in a teensy house on the outskirts of Marshalltown.  As a result, the focus here is less on how Lewis deals with traditional fame, and more with how her husband deals with his love for a woman he didn't know he was capable of caring for (he seemed destined to be an eternal bachelor otherwise), and what fame looks like for the couple on a scale familiar to anyone who lives in a small town.  I loved this approach, because it felt fresh, particularly in the eyes of Hawkins and Hawke, both of whom are superb here.  Hawkins is good with physicality as an actress, playing the hunched over Maud with increasing severity as her arthritis got worse, but also finding her inner-strength and resolve.  We saw in Happy-Go-Lucky that she's shockingly good at playing an optimist, and once again she does that, playing a woman whom we are meant to pity without any sort of pity for herself, instead showing how lucky she was to find the success and the love that she did, even if it doesn't look like what we as an audience might want for her.  Hawke is equally-good as a man who clearly resents Maud's success, but more because he resents that he needs her around.  The way that he manages to show that he loves her without saying it is terrific, and unlike Hawkins (whom I would have bet on being able to play this), Hawke is lightyears away from the dreamer American man stuck in adolescence that has been his best filmic parts.  Both combine to a loving duet that will make you wish this kind of subdued drama was made more often in American cinema.

Paddington (2015)

Film: Paddington (2015)
Stars: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Madeleine Harris, Samuel Joslin, Julie Walters, Nicole Kidman, Jim Broadbent
Director: Paul King
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

While my childhood was filled with books in every corner of the house and bedtime, Michael Bond's stories about a bear named Paddington never reached my ears.  Perhaps they were a bit too British, or perhaps it was because my mother's love of Judy Blume and CS Lewis precluded her from investigating these tales, but I was wholly unfamiliar with the Paddington series, other than the bear's iconic hat and blue coat, when I popped in a DVD of the film yesterday evening.  As a result, my only real interactions with the series were two bizarre contradictions: the initial trailers for the film, which looked egregiously bad, to the point of blaspheming on the beloved children's tale, and the reviews, which were almost universally adulatory to the point of nearing 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.  These two contradictions intrigued me enough to ensure Paddington was seen before the end of the year, and as luck would have it rose to the top of my queue more quickly than I anticipated.

(Spoilers Ahead) The question now, of course, is if I liked the movie, which I did.  Not having been familiar with the stories I don't know if we are seeing a carbon copy or a complete misread of the books, but the film has a hearty glow of English loveliness to it.  It's hardly groundbreaking entertainment, but that doesn't have to happen every film (not everyone is Richard Linklater or Terrence Malick), and there's really no falseness to it.  In a world where we feel like every cartoon or childhood character has to be hip or modern, Paddington feels very authentically at home in a different era.  This is the sort of film like Matilda or Babe in the 1990's that children could cling to without any parental worry about cynicism.  Just a love for a bear in a coat.

Part of this is achieved through a series of simple, but always genuine, interactions with Paddington and both his aunt/uncle as well as his adopted family the Browns.  The film isn't shy about relying a bit on cliches to establish the characters, principally the children who get very little to do in the movie, but it has the good sense to hire actors who are aware of this books place in British lore and who give this film respect and not treat it like a paycheck (which oftentimes feels the case with children's movies, let's be honest).  Sally Hawkins has a warmth as Mrs. Brown that is undeniable, but also keeps her character very real, as does Hugh Bonneville as her nervous husband.  Best of all is Nicole Kidman as a scheming taxidermist, off to restore her family's honor by putting Paddington on the mantlepiece.  Kidman, who has a cool elegance that lends itself well to a movie villain, occasionally hams it up but by-and-large she stays within the universe of Paddington, letting the bear stay the star even when her charisma and role could steal the film from beneath his paws.

The weirdest thing about the film, quite frankly, is that the trailer showed arguably the worst scenes.  There's a gross-out sequence with a toothbrush followed by an implausible situation with bathroom plumbing that was the highlight of the trailer, but really this is the lowest moment of the film and the only toilet-bowl scene (quite literally, in fact).  The rest of the movie is leisurely, investing time in side characters but particularly in making Paddington himself a well-rounded individual, and all-in-all it's an adorable little film.  Like I said above-this isn't rocket science here, but simplicity is hard when it's done well and without dullness, and Paddington and his lovely charms surely reach that point.

There you have it-I debated between three and four stars and went with the former just because I don't love the film even if I admire it (it isn't in my heart like Matilda or Babe, admittedly), but I surely would recommend it to anyone, particularly anyone with children, and wouldn't begrudge someone giving it that extra star (I'd be part of the 98% Fresh ratings on Rotten Tomatoes if I were part of that community).  In the meantime, though, please share your thoughts on this movie-were you a fan?  Did you skip it due to the trailer but are coming back due to the ratings?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

Film: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
Stars: Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Alexis Zegerman, Andrea Riseborough, Sinead Matthews
Director: Mike Leigh
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Certain directors have their own signatures, whether it be a wink to themselves (Hitchcock), a series of actors that consistently show up in films (Bergman, Allen, Scorsese), or just a specific genre they tend to work in (Fellini, Chaplin).  Overall, though, rarely do they play with form and story quite in the way that Mike Leigh does and end up with a surprisingly moving result.  Mike Leigh is, in my opinion, the director who best knows how to tell a story in a way you didn't expect, at least amongst working directors today.  His films always start in one direction, and like life, end up in a different corner of the universe as a result.  This is probably why, despite his films having an improvisational nature, they consistently land nominations at the Oscars for writing.  In a world with "twist endings" Mike Leigh's film stand apart because they truly could end happily or miserably for a specific character and you have no idea whom it will be until the film's final scenes.

(Spoilers Ahead)  This is certainly true of Happy-Go-Lucky, the film that turned Sally Hawkins into a household name amongst award aficionados (she won basically every trophy you can think of short of an Oscar nod, which she had to wait five years for with Blue Jasmine).  Her Poppy is not someone that you can easily define.  At first you think she's simply a sprite, someone who doesn't give a hoot about anything except having a good time and marching to the beat of her own drum.  She's the sort of person you think in theory you want to be and be friends with, but are aware that if you actually interacted with them their sunny disposition would start to grate.  In almost any other film, except for a Mike Leigh film, she would be taught that you need to come down a peg-or-two, cruelly joining the real world, but this (one of many surprises in the film) is not Poppy's fate.  The woman who opens the film with a stolen bicycle is bound-and-determined to have the life she wants to live, being blissful as often as possible despite being surrounded with detractors like her sister (who seems miserable) and her driving instructor (played by Eddie Marsan, who also is miserable).

The film follows Poppy through several months of her life and we learn she's more than just non-pragmatic boots and random nights out dancing.  We see, in fact, that she's just a genuinely good person who has a wonderful loyalty to her best friend and is quite strong at her job.  Poppy, despite what we've been taught at the movies about frivolous-seeming people, has a good life.  She's someone who recognizes, for example, that one of her students is being abused and finds help for the pupil in the form of a handsome therapist, who ends up being her boyfriend by the film's end, when she gets pretty much everything we all want out of life: fulfilling job, nice partner, great friends, and pleasurable leisure time.  It's a role that Hawkins has to truly toe-the-line with because the scenery-chewing is just waiting there, ready for the biting, but she holds back and keeps her grounded as a real person.

The same can be said for her driving instructor Scott, who is someone that clearly has received the short end of the stick in life.  Paranoid, racist, and consistently berating Poppy and his students, Eddie Marsan makes him extremely believable as a human being, but unlike every other director, once again we're thrown for a loop.  Instead of a comeuppance or a change-of-heart, Scott gets continued loneliness.  He confesses his amorous feelings toward Poppy after nearly killing her in a driving lesson, which she receives kindly but realizes that he's not someone she's going to be able to save, and dismisses him from her life.  It's a cruel, very heightened scene in a film that's far breezier than that climax would admit (to the point where it almost feels forced), but Leigh is so good at keeping reality there that it just works.

The best parts about Leigh's films, and the thing that distinguishes them in a way few other directors have, is that his trademark is on the emotional haves and have nots of the world.  Yes, like other directors he works with specific actors and frequently works in similar genres, but he is always focused on the cruelty of life and the way we pursue happiness in the same way we pursue money or sex, but happiness is a far more fickle mistress than either of those two other end goals.  His characters frequently have the same actions in all of their films as the protagonists, but in the end they get different results, which is true of life but very rarely true of the movies.  No one frames "pathetic" characters quite like Leigh can.  Think of someone like Marsan's Scott or Lesley Manville in Another Year (still my favorite of his films) or Dorothy Atkinson in Mr. Turner.  These are people who suffer from mental illness or from low self-esteem or an unworthy station in life-they are not generally bad people.  But they are people you skip inviting to parties or pity without trying to help or try to move past when you're having a conversation.  They are the sorts of people life forgets about, and whom we would consider pathetic.  The cinema is usually exceedingly kind to these people, giving them an unlikely best mate or an unorthodox but kind love interest.  It doesn't, however, mimic real life when these people just keep existing, even if we have lost our interest in them.  Mike Leigh does that in his films, which is why his endings always crackle and buzz-you don't know who will end up getting hope and who will have it extinguished.

Overall, then, while I never quite fell into the film the way I did Another Year, the movie is highly recommendable, and I look forward to seeing it compete against Milk and WALL-E in a couple of weeks when we start in on 2008's OVP.  In the meantime, let's discuss this film-what do you think of the bitterness of Mike Leigh: are you a fan such as I or do you find it too depressing?  Share in the comments!

OVP: Live Action Short Film (2014)

OVP: Best Live Action Short Film (2014)

The Nominees Were...

Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis, Aya

Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney, Boogaloo and Graham

Hu Wei and Julien Feret, Butter Lamp (La Lampe au Beurre de Yak)

Talkhon Hamzavi and Stefan Eichenberger, Parvaneh

Mat Kirkby and James Lucas, The Phone Call

My Thoughts: Continuing on in our look at the short film nominees of 2014 (see the bottom of this page for more short film contests, including 2014's Doc Short race), we're going to take a look at what is usually the hardest race to crack of the three-the race for Best Live Action Short film.

Like the documentary short films, we're going to begin with the first film presented by the fabulous ShortsHD team who put out these wonderful movies each year and take a look at Parvaneh, a Swiss film about a young Muslim girl who is trying to find a way to transfer money to her family in Afghanistan.  The film itself is merely okay, and hardly worth the price of a nomination.  I loved the look inside Switzerland (for our international readers, Americans usually get more travel information about France, Germany, and the UK than some of the more inland European countries), particularly their famous banking system.  That being said, this is a pretty antiquated "worlds collide" sort of story that was far more popular in foreign films of the 1980's, and uncomfortably recalls The Intouchables (which, you may recall, I HATED).  Parvaneh is too short to be that bad, but it's certainly not good.

Our second film, which is Butter Lamp, is easily the strangest Oscar-nominated film I've seen this year.  The film itself is nothing more than a collection of quick snapshots at a variety of people.  The movie is set up with just a photographer taking random photos of a number of Chinese families and couples behind select backdrops.  The film feels more like an art piece than an actual movie, and is probably the least conventional film I've seen nominated for an Oscar since Dogtooth.  That doesn't mean it's bad, though, by any means-it's wildly watchable, even if you continually wonder where it's going, and the ending, which juxtaposes the fake landscapes of modernity with the majesty of rural China feels like an "ohhh..." moment without spelling it out too loudly.  Still, there's not a lot there except a clever idea and a strong ending, so I wouldn't select it for the trophy.

Not when you have something as special as The Phone Call coming for you.  Every few years one of the short films stars someone you've actually heard of, and here we have Oscar nominee Sally Hawkins as a grief counselor named Heather trying to find a way to help a grieving widower in Jim Broadbent's Stan.  The entire film plays like a thriller, with Heather trying find a way to save Stan, who is dying from a sleeping pill overdose, and we as the audience cannot quite tell whether or not she'll get there in the end.  In reality, while the thriller aspect carries the film, it's the acting and the message that you remember.  Hawkins in particular is just wonderful, with her plain Jane appeal and practiced note-taking and speaking.  And I loved the message right up until the last few moments, as it really shows the importance of simple interactions that we have every day, and how much they can matter even when we don't know it.  I didn't like the final frame, as it felt a little cheap and cloying, but overall this was a wonderful experience.

While Butter Lamp is on the surface the strangest of the films, the movie Aya may have been the oddest for my friend Liz who went to this screening with me, and I can feel why.  We have two individuals that are randomly pushed together by one's rash decision: Overby (a pianist in Israel trying to go to a piano contest) and Aya (a woman who randomly decides to be his driver when a twist of fate leads to this confusion).  The film is odd principally because Aya's motives are never properly revealed.  We do learn that she has a life we didn't expect, but are these two playing a game, and in Aya's case in particular, does she float from reality to reality, never quite finding herself but being whatever others reflect on her (throughout the film I was expecting some sort of bizarre artistic reasoning behind the characters, much like Certified Copy with Juliette Binoche a few years ago)?  They don't give enough impression for such credit to the film, though, and I think it may just be a strange woman who finds comfort with an odd soulmate on a highway.  The film (along with the next one) is the film that feels like it could easily be expanded into a feature-length movie, for whatever that's worth.

The final film is thankfully a comedy (though none of these films have the depressing after taste of the documentary shorts), and we get a wonderful look at two young boys who get pet chickens named Boogaloo and Graham.  The film is cute and a fluffy trifle compared with the next two films, but it's also insanely watchable, as the young boys have a frankness that is wonderfully-timed, and I loved Martin McCann as their father, both a complete softy for their sakes and really an adolescent at heart when it comes to his wife.  Occasionally the film hints at the harsher reality of Ireland in the 1970's, but the win here is in the charming depiction of the family.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Academy releases a shortlist of the films eligible for this award so we know that Bahdad Messi, Carry On, My Father's Truck, SLR, and Summer Vacation were all relatively close to being on this list.  The BAFTA Awards oddly doubled-up with a nomination here (they usually don't), as Boogaloo and Graham won the trophy over Emotional Fusebox, Slap, The Karman Line, and The Brothers.

Films I Would Have Nominated: Sadly they don't put short films before films with regularity anymore (don't you wish they did?) and so I don't get to see enough nominees to complain.

Oscar’s Choice: After last year I'm loathe to speculate (Just Before Losing Everything is the best short film I've ever seen in all of my years of watching these movies...and that includes docs, animated, and live action), but I suspect that the star power of The Phone Call will separate it from the pack in a similar way to The Shore a few years back.

My Choice: Quite certainly The Phone Call-it might not be perfect, but it comes the closest.  I'll follow with the wonderfully cute Boogaloo and Graham, and then Butter Lamp, Aya, and Parvaneh.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Did you see these films, and if so, who did you cheer for?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2014: Documentary Short

Past Live Action Short Film Contests: 2012, 2013

OVP: Supporting Actress (2013)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2013)

The Nominees Were...

Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine

Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle

Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave

Julia Roberts, August: Osage County
June Squibb, Nebraska

My Thoughts: I have frequently talked about how 2013 is about as stereotypical as you can get for an Oscar Supporting Actress lineup.  You have the ingénue, making her film debut.  You have the recent winner, getting an afterglow citation.  You have the legend of the Best Actress category “slumming it” to get some career traction after a bit of a slump.  You have the octogenarian, getting nominated for playing an “I’ll-say-anything” old person.  And you have the character actress finally getting her shot at the sweet end of the lollipop after much suffering in lesser roles.  Yes, we have our long-suffering wives, our saucy scene-stealers, our category frauds, and our real-life women.  About the only thing missing is a hooker with a heart of gold, but pretty much every other cliché is checked off the list.

Because her iconic face is staring down on me from the top of this list, let’s begin with Julia Roberts.  This is the first OVP where we’ve tackled one of Julia’s four (so far) nominations (we’ll of course get to the other three at some point, but it’s been a while since Erin Brockovich, so don’t hold your breath too intensely in anticipation), and I have to admit that I’m not happy this is where you’re getting my first in-depth opinion of the woman.  Roberts’ role in August: Osage County is hampered for a few reasons.  For starters, she’s not the most charismatic character onscreen (that would be Violet or Mattie Fae), and as a result, she doesn’t get the giant acting moments that Meryl Streep or Margo Martindale get to enjoy.  Secondly, she has one of the worst cases of category fraud I’ve seen in my years watching the Oscars.  She’s arguably a more pivotal character in the film than Streep herself-she’s in nearly every scene.  Precisely what is supporting about this?  I know that I am not judging the OVP solely on whether someone actually should have qualified for the nomination, but in this case Roberts loses points because I cannot abide by anyone thinking what is surely a lead performance should be included against other supporting work (it’s not fair to the other women who are, regardless of performance quality, actually supporting parts).

That being said, I’ve given supporting parts the win before in the OVP (see Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master), so that cannot totally rule out Roberts.  What does is that this is also a pretty badly miscast part, in my opinion.  Roberts is a movie star, and is best when she’s using her natural charm and skill onscreen in films like Pretty Woman or Erin Brockovich.  She has never been particularly strong at playing dour (one exception being Closer, but she had a really strong director to work with there).  Here she confuses dour with bland, and I found that her character didn’t have the bite and subtle resentment that the part called for (someone like Laura Linney or Cynthia Nixon would have been a better choice to find that balance).  Overall, I left feeling underwhelmed by Roberts and disappointed that they would so egregiously campaign her as supporting to get the film another Oscar citation.

We’ll move on to a different performance I felt a bit underwhelmed by, but which is clearly a supporting part, even though she’s second-billed, and that would be Sally Hawkins.  This film is entirely the Cate Blanchett show, and as a result I’m genuinely surprised that Hawkins managed to gain this nomination, though it feels like the sort of thing that even AMPAS realized was a long-time coming (she was SO close with 2008’s Happy-Go-Lucky).  The performance has occasional shades of subtlety and informed emotion: I enjoyed how she was always making excuses regarding why Jasmine was so much more “successful” than her Ginger, and the way that she tries to emulate the big sister that she could never hope to live up toward.  The problem is that Blanchett is so much life force as Jasmine that she sucks the energy out-of-the-room, and Hawkins cannot compete.  It’s a fine performance from an actor who deserved to be an Oscar nominee at some point in her career (I’m guessing this will end up being like Patricia Clarkson in Pieces of April and we’ll never hear from Hawkins again at the Dolby), but it’s not something that I would call out as superb.

Anyone reading at home is probably thinking that I’m going to head straight to June Squibb and leave the major acting duel of the year as the finale…and you would be right, though I feel like I shouldn’t write more about June Squibb, as it all seems to come out as a bit hateful.  This is particularly sad because June Squibb seems like a lovely person in interviews, and she was easily one of the most enjoyable aspects of the Oscar red carpet in 2013.  In that regard, I was glad she was nominated (it certainly beat the constant McConaughey obnoxiousness that seemed to consume every conversation that year).  However, this is an extremely easy part with no real depth.  I hated Nebraska, but this part in particular-there is nothing special here.  Why not just nominate Ellen Dow for The Wedding Singer while we’re at it (PS-did you know she’s still alive and about to turn 101?!?)?  It’s the same level of skill-there’s nothing particularly in-depth or interesting about what Squibb is doing here, and it’s by-far the most overrated performance nominated in 2013 (though I don’t know if it’s quite the worst).

And now the main event…Lawrence v. Lupita.  I’m going to be honest here-I’m not sure who I’m picking quite yet, so we’re both in for a surprise.  We’ll start with Lupita.  The thing that’s so haunting about this performance is her facial expression.  So many actors rely so heavily on their face to sell a particular part, but Lupita’s character is haunting because she remains so stoic earlier on in the film.  We don’t really get to know Patsey until later on in the film-we don’t know what her depth is as a person.  We see her with Mistress Shaw, and wonder if this is what she dreams of for her life-essentially being one man’s prostitute, surrounded by doilies, but eventually succeeding in at least being spared the whip.  As Nyong’o slowly lets us in, though, we find that she just wants to be rid of the man, rid of everything-we see how deadened she has become from years of sexual assault and beatings, of being hated by Mistress Epps and being the obsession of Master Epps.  The moment when Nyong’o screams “I will be clean!” you know that the film has slipped into metaphor, but Nyong’o keeps you grounded in the work that is happening onscreen.  That this is her film debut makes you wonder what sorts of other souls she’s going to bring to life onscreen.

Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t get the meatiness of a Patsey character, and some might quickly chalk up Lupita’s work as the easy win, but Lawrence is doing something else that few actors can do: she is commanding that screen.  She quickly makes you forget she’s too young for this part.  That she’s not really essential to the overall plot.  That she’s supposed to be the enemy (we’re supposed to cheer for Sydney and not Rosalyn to end up with Irving).  This is an actor who was born to be a star, and you see it in every line reading.  She rings every joke for maximum effect, every line for its fullest catering to her whim.  She makes Rosalyn the most intoxicating presence in the movie (admit it-the film dies when she’s not onscreen), and I love the way that she is able to give enough of her character for us to know that she’s in on the act.  There’s no stupidity here-she’s entirely in charge of Irving, and knows when that gravy train has been wrung of its worth.  This is the sort of performance that, like Nyong’o, we would call a star turn if Jennifer Lawrence hadn’t already proven before that she clearly is one.

Other Precursor Contenders: We had a carbon copy of the Oscar lineup at the Golden Globes, though the winner changed (here Lawrence triumphed over Lupita, hence where an actual “battle” emerged for the Oscar).  The SAG Awards mixed it up slightly, giving Oprah Winfrey the nomination for The Butler in place of Sally Hawkins (Nyong’o was the victor).  The BAFTA Awards also chose to nominate Oprah Winfrey, but here we saw a snub for June Squibb rather than Hawkins (and once again Lawrence was victorious).  All-in-all, it’s quite clear that Winfrey was sixth place, and I tackle this subject a bit here, but I’m still flummoxed how she missed out on that nomination.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I don’t know if I’d 100% go with Nyong’o and Lawrence, but they’re clearly on a different playing field, so I’ll throw out three names rather than getting too picky.  Emma Watson has continually proven to be an actor to take note of, and her vapid Valley Girl in The Bling Ring is just the latest in a series of performances that prove this girl is a star.  Octavia Spencer is wonderful as a mother who is at her wit’s end in Fruitvale Station, an underrated movie with a killer piece of work from the actress who won an Oscar for The Help, but was better here.  And then there’s Sarah Paulson, just as good (actually, perhaps better) than her fellow costar in 12 Years a Slave, giving horrifying layers to an underexplored aspect of the American pre-Civil War South: the plantation mistress.

Oscar’s Choice: Though I would assume that Lawrence (and perhaps Squibb) was close, Lupita pulled off the win on her opening film.

My Choice: We’ll go backwards.  Squibb is fifth, Roberts fourth, and Hawkins third…and, ugh, I don’t know.  Nyong’o is clearly the more artistic achievement, but I genuinely think that Lawrence is giving a stronger piece of work.  I’m going to therefore make the unpopular choice of Jennifer Lawrence for the win here (it was close!) with Lupita in second place.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does anyone agree with me, or is everyone else Team Lupita?  Does anyone else share my (harsh) sentiments regarding June Squibb and Julia Roberts?  How the hell did Oprah miss?  And who was your favorite supporting actress of 2013?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2013: Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score,  Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2013

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