OVP: Director (2000)

OVP: Best Director (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Stephen Daldry, Billy Elliot

Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Ridley Scott, Gladiator

Steven Soderbergh, Erin Brockovich

Steven Soderbergh, Traffic

My Thoughts: Actors are not allowed to be nominated in the same category in the same year.  This doesn't come up a lot, though there are high-profile situations where it was definitely a factor in the years we've profiled so far (Kate Winslet in 2008, Nicole Kidman in 2001).  Directors, on the other hand, are allowed to be nominated twice in the same year.  There was a time this wasn't allowed, after Michael Curtiz pulled it off in 1938, but the only other time it's ever happened was in 2000, when Steven Soderbergh achieved the seemingly impossible and directed himself to two nominations in the same category.

We'll start with Erin Brockovich, which of the two was the less likely given its subject matter (the directing branch has not only a history of denying women nominations...they're also not wild about films featuring women in the leads).  His work here is solid, though not exceptional.  A lot of the trademark flourishes we associate with Soderbergh (the camerawork, the lingering shots) are gone, and it feels in some ways like a direct-for-hire gig with a great script.  I do think that the ways he frames the monologues are at least solid, giving as much reaction as we get focus on Julia, but while this is decent, I'm surprised it happened given that they could've put a new name into the conversation while still keeping Erin in Best Picture.

On the flip side, Soderbergh's direction of Traffic is really special, and kind of indicative of him as a filmmaker.  I love the way the camera tries to capture the motion of being on drugs in addition to the actual surroundings, the frenetic energy that comes from being out-of-control.  I also think he smartly ties the movie together as the plot lines intersect, taking advantage of the audience's genuine surprise as characters from different stories begin to overlap.  A gifted filmmaker, but (give or take Magic Mike), his finest hour.

Soderbergh's biggest competition at the Oscars was not himself-it was Ang Lee.  Lee's work in Crouching Tiger heralded a new era for the eventual two-time Best Director winner (who had, five years earlier, missed for Sense and Sensibility).  Crouching Tiger is, like Traffic, an achievement of the director.  The way that the film moves, giving us giant, seamless action sequences that are paired with vengeance and romantic backstory, and the way that he captures all of this while also bringing the natural landscape and production design into the story, is extraordinary, giving us this complete, giant epic.

Ridley Scott was also in the hunt for his first Oscar (something that he's still in the hunt for, though Napoleon didn't get him into the conversation again).  Gladiator is one of those movies that reads (to me) like the old Sydney Pollack quote that Hollywood's definition of a director is "damage control expert."  This is just giant, with him trying to scoop up a hefty visual effects budget, wildly different acting styles, and a too-big story into one, specific film.  It's too much, and comes across as messy by the end of it in Scott's hands, even if some pieces of the picture work well.

Our final nominee is Stephen Daldry, whose film Billy Elliot is the only movie we won't be revisiting tomorrow for Best Picture.  Daldry's work here is challenging-he has to wrangle around child actors and have them tell a pretty mature story about lost dreams and how you have to find your moment.  Billy is the kind of family film you realize the dimensions of it a lot more when you're older.  But he does that beautifully, giving us a distinctive English town and the claustrophobia of it, all of which finds an escape every time Jamie Bell stands on-point.  A sentimental film that's never schmaltzy.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Ang Lee, besting Scott, Istvan Szabo (Sunshine), and both of the Soderberghs.  The BAFTA's, usually so contrary, gave the exact same lineup as Oscar (though here they went with Lee as the winner), and the DGA got rid of Daldry in favor of Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous), with Lee winning again.  In sixth place, I think Crowe is a decent guess, as would be Lasse Hallstrom (Chocolat) or maybe even someone like Philip Kaufman for Quills (at the time, Kaufman had been on a long run of "eventually will be nominated" successes that ended after this movie so it's very possible he just missed) or maybe Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away), who was no stranger to Oscar by this point.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: I'm going to be totally honest-I've got a lot of other nominees that I think should've gotten nominated here, but none of them were really on Oscar's radar, and given how strong Lee/Soderbergh are, I'm going to give AMPAS a pass even though this could've been improved.  You'll see my much more esoteric selections on Monday.
Oscar's Choice: Despite Lee's dominance all season, his loss wasn't seen as a huge upset given Soderbergh's historic double nomination.  But Traffic pulled it off for him (Lee would win twice-he's fine).

My Choice: I'm going to continue the precursor trend and also pick Lee over Soderbergh (Traffic), though either was a good decision.  Behind them is Daldry, Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich), and Scott.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Do you think that Ang Lee was already worthy years before he won for Brokeback, or do you think Oscar made the right call with Soderbergh?  I ask this a lot, but seriously...is Ridley Scott ever getting an Oscar (even an honorary one)?  And was it Kaufman, Zemeckis, Hallstrom, or Crowe in sixth place (for the record, I lean toward Kaufman even though no one will probably agree with me)?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2000: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

Past Best Director Contests: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

The Good, the Bad, & the Preventable at the Oscar's

It seems fitting that after one of the strangest & longest Oscar seasons in memory (and of course one of the strangest years, period) that we would get one of the strangest (though not the longest) Oscar nights in a while.  The Oscars this year, in the middle of a pandemic, were always going to look a little different.  Housed in LA's Union Station, the first change in venue for the Academy in twenty years, while the glamour was out (and god I loved that pink carpet-so bright & fun), it was on a much smaller-scale, with only the nominees in the room to accept (and even in that case, some of the nominees, even high-profile performers like Olivia Colman and Sacha Baron Cohen, were halfway around the world due to an inability to fly to the ceremony).  As we do every year on the blog, we will discuss the good, the bad, and in this case the preventable of the ceremony.

Good

We'll start with the good, because despite what you'll read on Twitter this morning, there was good in last night's ceremony.  The evening started with a bang, and I quite liked the longer speeches.  After a year where we were all on Zoom calls, I didn't mind getting people into a room, overjoyed to be there (and thankfully all of them tested & vaccinated so we could do something like this), and the longer speeches led to some really lovely moments.  Youn Yuh-jung's speech was the best of the night, and stretched into a lovely ode to her fellow nominees (Glenn Close & Amanda Seyfried both appeared moved), and arguably the best "cringe" moment of the night was Daniel Kaluuya's flabbergasted mother & sister both looking on in horror as he pointed out that the only reason he was there was because his parents had sex.  These moments surely would've been cut off by an orchestra, and while there were some speeches that did run too long, overall this was the right choice given that we didn't have the traditional ability to do skits or musical performances like we normally would have.

I also loved the camerawork & set design.  Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh added his own flare, filming the movie in 24 frames per second (this is the speed that most movies are filmed in), giving the ceremony a more cinematic glow, and the camerawork utilizing the smaller space to look at the larger room (and a beautifully lit Union Station) worked well for me (I saw someone on Twitter say "why does this look like Birdman?" and I don't think they meant it as a compliment, but I think it should have been intended that way).

And the winners were lovely.  Honestly, we'll get into the shock of the night (the Best Actor situation), but the winners were really good.  Nomadland will stand apart as a great Best Picture winner, one of the best in recent memory (along with Parasite), and the four acting winners were dynamite.  Anthony Hopkins' win for The Father was a surprise, but honestly-this is going to put him in the same company as Vivien Leigh in terms of winning for two perfect performances.  Not all of the winners were my choice, but there are very few categories that I left saying "huh" to (I know that the consensus is that they royally botched in Documentary Feature, but having seen very few of those movies I can't confirm).  This is a field that will stand up well once the sheen of the ceremony wears off.

Bad

That being said, the actual ceremony itself was, for the large part, a giant whiff.  I spent the first hour so enthralled with the fact that the Oscars were actually happening (in a world that feels topsy-turvy so often, I was stunned to simply get to enjoy my favorite night of the year, and I was texting my brother ferociously during it, realizing just how normal it felt, a sensation that I could've never dreamt would be so wonderful).  But as the night wore on, even my rose-colored glasses started to wear off, and there were several clear problems.

The first was the lack of clips for the nominated features.  For Soderbergh, a man who knows the power of visual cinema better than most anyone (he's got an Oscar for a reason), this feels unthinkable.  After all, one of the bigger criticisms around this year's Oscars was that a large chunk of these movies were not as familiar to the general public...why not lean into that criticism a bit and put actual clips of the movies themselves, showing the viewers what they're missing?  This one can't be blamed on the pandemic, because A) they were able to get clips for several of the films (Best Picture, Animated Feature Film, & International Feature all had them, for example), and because B) this is the one of the rare things where you don't need the Dolby to be able to pull off some grandeur.  As a result, the ceremony at times felt more like a company awards dinner, rather than the Oscars.  There were better ways to do this, and as the night wore on it became abundantly clear that trying to cut the movies out of the Oscars was a terrible mistake.  We honestly saw more of In the Heights or West Side Story last night than any of the films actually nominated for the show, and while I don't have a problem with that (putting actual movie trailers during the commercials of the Oscars feels like a pretty natural fit to me), ignoring these movies during the ceremony, particularly in a time with an uncertain audience, was a foolish creative & financial decision.

In not having these breaks, the ceremony really didn't have enough escapism, and the presenters didn't provide any of that.  The show desperately needed a host, perhaps not one that was particularly funny, but at least someone to realize that the show was dragging & needed something to lighten it up.  The only skit of the night was a silly Oscar trivia one, and while some of the internet didn't like it, for me it was water in a desert (Glenn Close being the obvious highlight-what the hell does this woman still need to do to get an Oscar?!?), as we finally had something breaking up the monotony.  I texted about halfway through the ceremony how much a comedian as a presenter would've killed at about the halfway point, but the funniest presenter of the bunch was Harrison Ford (which is not a good sign for your ceremony, as Ford is many things but he's not a comedian).  The show was classy as a result, but it also was slow.  In a show with no movies & no humor & no music...glamour can only get you so far.

The Preventable

There were three things, though, to me that stood out because it was clear from the onset that they were preventable and we're going to start with the easiest thing to fix...the music.  In a somber year, one filled with criminal justice protests & a global pandemic & a tempestuous election, it was obvious that the speeches were going to be moving & political & tender.  And yet, you would have thought from the outro music that was happening before each commercial that we were at a wedding dance.  Chloe Zhao being walked out to the Wings classic "Live and Let Die" was the first time I noticed it, but "9 to 5," and "Let's Hear it for the Boy," both also showed up as outro's (not, in fact, songs during the "Oscar Trivia" bit).  This was tacky, but more bizarre than anything else, as if no one seemed to know the cadence of the ceremony.

Music choice was definitely a problem during the "In Memoriam."  Obviously tone isn't always the best indicator of meaning, and Stevie Wonder's "As" is a lovely song for a funeral for someone who wants their life to be a celebration, not a dour occasion (it's about how you'll love someone always).  But putting this upbeat number alongside a PowerPoint presentation without any sort of clips of the actual actors themselves (just screenshots) felt rushed & disrespectful.  Having actors like Olivia de Havilland & Max von Sydow, screen titans, flash on that screen for milliseconds after 70 years of film memories is pretty much unforgivable.  I have said for years that they need some sort of rule about who is included (it should just be for Academy members, former nominees, and if the Academy gets a petition to include someone additional, but not every person in the entertainment industry can be put in, particularly if they only have a tertiary connection to the movies), but speeding through this as if it was a box to check off before you get to the end was really gross, and the worst part of the night.

Getting back to the cadence of the ceremony, though, I initially thought it was bizarre to start with the writing awards, but thought it might have been a choice to kick off with an attention-grabbing category.  At about the hour marker, though, when they announced that Best Director was happening so soon, I was stunned-this is usually one of the last 4 categories, and it was happening too early...even in years where it's a foregone conclusion who will win it, they still wait until the end.  And then, of course, they did the unthinkable-they moved Best Picture up, moving the acting trophies to the end.

For those not versed in their Academy history, this isn't totally unprecedented.  Until 1955 Best Picture wasn't always last: in 1954, for example, they ended with the honorary trophies), and in 1947 they ended with Best Actress (the last time they ended with an acting trophy).  There are a couple of problems with this, though.  The first is that the show was lacking a lot of old-school Hollywood glamour.  While there were big star presenters, every year some of the best Oscar moments tend to come from trotting out screen legends, particularly for Best Picture.  But last night the only obvious legends (and not just "future legends") you could claim amongst the presenters were Harrison Ford & Rita Moreno.  And when you bury both of those figures in the middle of the ceremony, it minimizes the impact.

The bigger problem, though, was obvious.  While it was known that all of the Best Actress nominees were going to be there, it was clear that the two leading contenders for the Best Actor trophy were not going to be able to attend.  It was obvious, in fact, that the producers were counting on this, hoping that Chadwick Boseman's widow would accept his posthumous award on his behalf, a crass cash-in on the producers behalf to end with a bittersweet tribute to the actor.  But that was precipitated on the idea that he'd actually win.  And it was clear to anyone paying attention that Anthony Hopkins was gaining steam in the weeks leading into the ceremony, and it was also clear to anyone paying attention that the 83-year-old Hopkins, who lives in Wales, did not intend to travel in the middle of a pandemic to accept a trophy he wasn't the favorite to take.  But the fact that the producers clearly never thought about the prospect of Hopkins winning was a clear lack of preparation...and one that they needed when they had no emotional climax to their show, ending with a stunned Joaquin Phoenix bringing them to the credits.  How they never thought that this could happen is beyond me-Rule #1 at the Oscars is you never take for granted that anyone is going to win, because upsets can & do happen.  While it will surely be a viral conversation topic all week, it was another sign that the producers were so worried about the logistics of the show that they warped things that were already working (to disappointing results).

OVP: The Good German (2006)

Film: The Good German (2006)
Stars: George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire, Beau Bridges
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Every few years, some filmmaker thinks they can do it.  Perhaps watching from their screening room in Bel-Air, they chance upon Michael Curtiz's 1942 classic, and think, without any sense of hubris, "I bet I could make Casablanca."  That clearly was the case with Steven Soderbergh circa 2006, and as a recent Oscar winner who basically had a blank check from the studio, he had better resources than most do in such circumstances.  He stacked up two then-recent Oscar winners as his leads (Cate Blanchett & George Clooney), and even put it in black-and-white for a nice touch.  But here's the thing about Casablanca-while there are countless great wartime romances out there, there's a reason that Casablanca is the best.  It's literally a perfect movie, 102 flawless minutes of cinema that happened, based on every legend of the film, nearly by accident.  Trying to recreate something so grand, arguably the greatest movie of all-time, is a recipe for disaster.  And to be sure, The Good German is definitely a disaster.

(Spoilers Ahead) Here's the deal-the plot of The Good German is so confusing, that it might be the first time ever that I have seen a Wikipedia explanation of the film told outside of chronology and with spoilers in early paragraphs because otherwise it won't make sense while describing it.  Of course, while you're watching it for the first time, it then doesn't make sense but I'll try summarize it here.  Essentially, we have Jake (Clooney), who initially seems like a side character-a reporter coming to Germany after World War II, and we see the story from the perspective of Tully (Maguire), his abusive, petulant driver who is profiting off of the war and having sex with a local woman we assume to be a prostitute named Lena (Blanchett).  As the film progresses, though, Tully is murdered in what was clearly meant to be a red herring (Maguire would've been a pretty big actor at the time to have randomly vanished so soon in the movie), and we focus on Jake & Lena, who had a relationship prior to the war.  Lena's husband is a former SS Officer who is trying to out his former commander, a commander who was in charge of a concentration camp that tortured people...but because of his rocketing know-how, the Americans still want him to be on their side, and have to kill Lena's husband to keep him from testifying, since obviously the Americans can't hire a guy who ran a concentration camp.  The film ends with Lena's husband dead and the Americans getting what they want through his commander, but not before Jake learns the truth about Lena (who escapes): in order to stay alive, she essentially sold out Jews to the Gestapo, despite being Jewish herself.  The film ends with her, headed off into a plane alone, and him leaving her behind.

The artwork for the film and the ending are definitely the biggest homages to Casablanca.  The ending could almost work if we'd had more hints about Lena, or if what came before it had been any good.  After all, in the end of Casablanca (another spoiler alert if you haven't seen it, but hopefully if you've seen The Good German you've seen Casablanca), Rick does the noble thing by letting Ilsa leave with her husband, as her husband can do the most good by going to Lisbon.  In The Good German, Jake lets Lena get away after they've essentially sentenced her husband to death, and he lets her go despite her being a criminal; Emil is Victor Laszlo, the man with the true conscience, but instead of growing one as the film progresses, Jake is seduced by love rather than ennobled by it.  It's a clever perversion of the Hollywood ending of Casablanca, and it's a finale that should work for the movie.

But it doesn't, because The Good German is such a mess.  The script is all-over-the-place.  Honestly-there are too many under-developed characters, and the whole red herring aspect of Tobey Maguire dying a fourth of the way through the film (and then it not really mattering that he was dead) is bizarre.  It doesn't help matters that Maguire is terrible with this part, badly miscast even though, quite frankly, I don't know who would have been good in such a weirdly written part.  Clooney & Blanchett at least have plausible characters, but neither adds anything of note or intrigue here-they read their stylized dialogue with detached irony.  In some ways Clooney would play a similar character the following year to raves; arguably the best role of Clooney's film career is Michael Clayton, and Jake is not dissimilar to Michael's warped, but tried, sense of morality.  But Clayton made sense in his film, and Clooney never makes sense of his Jake.  This is a movie that tries to be grounded and yet pay homage and yet kind of make fun of films like Casablanca all in the same breath, and it never works.  The best part of the movie other than the leads look great (both actors photograph well in black-and-white, though the cinematography is punchy-too reliant on heavy shadow when light might make it more intriguing, always a Soderbergh sin behind the camera) is Beau Bridges in a small part as a morally-bankrupt colonel.  His character at least feels fleshed-out, even if he's given nothing to do.

Before we leave, I have to admit I don't get the score at all, the film's only AMPAS-approved element.  I know Oscar has a crush on Thomas Newman, and occasionally I do too, but this isn't one of his best, and it's a weirdly sporadic score.  Much like the movie, it shows up in a big way in scenes that should play small, and yet in scenes where the light hum of a string or bassoon might work, it's absent.  Newman's nomination here was surely part of their gut reaction need to nominate him every chance they get, but not only did they bestow "Oscar nominee" on a bad movie, there's also nothing notable about what Newman is doing here. It's not even that pretty, and it doesn't feel necessary at all.

Logan Lucky (2017)

Film: Logan Lucky (2017)
Stars: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Oscar History: Soderbergh had a really big 2000, but otherwise really was never Oscar's cup-of-tea...doubtful this changes things.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I always find it amusing, if a bit reassuring, that actors or directors who claim they are "retiring" almost always renege on their intentions to retire within a couple of years.  Yes, there are a couple of cases like Gene Hackman or Sean Connery where it seems to have stuck, but by-and-large, particularly when they're under seventy, famous figures in cinema almost always turn their back on that retirement within a few years, clearly meaning they wanted a break more so than anything else.  Steven Soderbergh is the most recent example of this, after claiming that he was retiring from the movies but then quickly returning.  Logan Lucky is his first feature-film in four years, and the director who is perhaps most well-known for loving ensemble casts at the expense of star vehicles, has lost little of his visual skill even if Logan Lucky is a bit of a trifle, albeit a tasty one.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around the Logan Brothers, Jimmy (Tatum) and Clyde (Driver), two men who are down-on-their-luck, a theory that Clyde connects to their genetics.  Clyde lost his arm in Iraq, and Jimmy is recently unemployed and worried that his daughter will be leaving him as his ex-wife Bobbie Jo (Holmes) wants to move due to her successful husband getting a new job.  Jimmy decides that he wants to end his life of mediocrity and better provide for his daughter, and in the process get back at the company that fired him by robbing from the stadium he worked construction.  His plan goes array when what was initially intended to be a small-time gig turns into him being forced to rob the Coca-Cola 600, one of the biggest in the NASCAR series.  He recruits an explosives expert appropriately-named Joe Bang (Craig...and do all Soderbergh films have characters that sound like they've been plucked out of a Tarantino picture & I've just never noticed or is this unique to Logan Lucky?), and along with the Logans' sister Mellie (Keough), they orchestrate a robbery, with of course unintended consequences.

Heist movies are one of my favorite cinematic genres, as I love seeing the mechanics of how a con is put into action, and this is hardly Soderbergh's first time at the rodeo (his highest-grossing films being the Ocean's franchise), so this works well.  The film is surprisingly brisk for a picture that at first feels very slow, to the point where I thought my audience (who were not getting the deeply dry humor coming from Driver at all) might start walking out, but once the film gets into more consistent molds, it entered the territory of crowd-pleaser while maintaining an abstractness that makes the picture unique.  Soderbergh is so good at assembling strong ensembles, and while occasionally his choices don't work (Seth MacFarlane is a bit too cartoonish as a rude British businessman seems like the weakest link of the picture), the chemistry between the three siblings in particular is excellent.  Keough is an actress that I wasn't really familiar with, but I liked her breeziness with Mellie, and the way she's positioned as a "screw-up" to someone like her former sister-in-law and yet clearly the most responsible and level-headed of the Logan siblings.  She's had bit parts now in Magic Mike and Mad Max: Fury Road, as well as winning a handful of plaudits for American Honey, but I'm hoping she soon gets a star vehicle as she's clearly capable of carrying one.

The movie's ending might be a bit hard to get-your-head-around, and honestly it was a little hard for me to figure out what was happening even as it was being spelled out (the plotting feels like it missed one crucial scene toward the end, perhaps something a bit more expository for the audience), but by-and-large this is a genuinely funny and amusing movie, and well worth Soderbergh's return to the screen.  No, it doesn't rank amongst his very best pictures (which I'd wager is Magic Mike, but would buy Traffic if you argued hard-enough), but it's a lot of fun in a filmic summer that was lacking in that attribute.

Those are my thoughts on the picture-how about yours?  If you've seen it, share some of your theories, particularly over whether Sebastian Stan or Hilary Swank was your favorite cameo (my thought was it was the latter, who totally sold her by-the-book FBI agent), and if not-who do you hope Soderbergh reunites with next from his close-knit cavalcade of frequent actors?

Magic Mike (2012)

Film: Magic Mike (2011)
Stars: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey, Cody Horn
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Oscar History: None
Snap Judgment Rating: 5/5 stars

There are only a few movies that would get me to the theater on opening night (I usually wait for the fanboys to clear out), but for obvious reason's involving amongst other things Channing Tatum's rather stunning physique, Magic Mike is one of them.  Unfortunately, the film was sold out everywhere opening night so I had to settle for a late Saturday viewing.  Perhaps the delayed gratification made me more anticipatory, and therefore, more forgiving, but I have to admit-this was a way better movie than I expected going into the film.

I suppose, with Soderbergh at the helm, I shouldn't have been surprised that this film didn't fall into the pitfalls of most "gimick-y" flicks, and delivered a bevy of real, human characters, but I was.  I can partially blame the advertising campaign, that promised me The Lucky One but instead delivered something closer to Boogie Nights.  The film, for those of you living under a rock, is about a group of male strippers from different walks of life and about how each comes to embrace or distance themselves from their questionable line of work.  The film becomes a slight morality tale at points, but it never goes too far into that direction to be considered preachy.

The performances were perhaps the most surprising part.  Look at that cast list-it doesn't have the...gravitas of the lineup in Soderbergh's Traffic.  And yet, it works.  Tatum, who has had one of those years that screams "arrived!" with hit films like The Vow and 21 Jump Street, has that charisma and chemistry with his costars that is essential to a true movie star.  If he hasn't earned that title quite yet, I suspect he's on his way to deserving it, and more directors of Soderbergh's caliber are certainly taking note.  His equal in the film is McConaughey, an actor of which I'm not typically a fan, but who is perfectly cast in this film.  Borrowing a bit from Joel Grey's Emcee (yep, I'm going there), he has an evil mischief that he brings to the surface just enough to be menacing AND enigmatic (a tough balance), and toward the end of the film, when he chooses to indulge in his own striptease, you get the sense that this is a man who will keep going out on all cylinders until he's hit his blaze of glory.

There's so much more to discuss (the brilliant mirroring of Pettyfer's/Tatum's rise or fall, however you take it; the fact that Cody Horn can act and has a voice freakishly similar to Kristen Stewart's), but since it just came to me yesterday I'm going to let it breathe for a bit.  Maybe in six months when I'm reflecting on the year's best films, I'll know whether I saw a quiet, quicker version of Paul Thomas Anderson's masterwork or was just blinded by Matthew Bomer's torso.  In the meantime, I can say wholeheartedly, it's a fun and wild ride worth checking out.

What about you?  Were you surprised by the depth of the film?  Did you think the marketing was deceptive or right on the money?  And which of the 'Cock Rocking Kings of Tampa' would you most want a lap dance from?