Biutiful is occasionally beautiful, often moving and entirely better than a few of the English-language Oscar nominees this year (shall I rant about The Fighter or The Kids Are All Right again?). Damaged characters who occasionally do bad things and inadvertently do some very bad things—this is my kind of movie. It’s not for everyone—and not just because we American filmgoers tend to not want to read our movies. This is not a happy film; just look at the premise: a man who talks to dead people, has an addict wife, has two kids who clearly could use a better quality of life, employs desperate illegal immigrants and who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. There is much sadness in play, to be sure. There is some great use of visuals, notably some mirrors in the same vein as Black Swan but more subtly. There is also a very strange stripper bar, the details of which are so unique I was sure it had to have some deliberate meaning for the film… otherwise why not simply film at a more generic stripper bar? Except I still haven’t figure it out… maybe some symbolic ubercultural motherhood thing? Nevermind that. Bardem proves worthy of his nomination for Best Actor (though even if some crazy fluke meant Colin Firth wasn’t going to win, it wouldn’t be Bardem to take the top slot from him). Anyway, for anyone who has seen or read about the film and wants to see it, you will probably like it a lot. If you’ve not even heard of it (and still aren’t sure you know what it is, even after seeing it on the Oscar nominations list or reading the above paragraph) then it’s probably not for you.
Salt is not a great film. But, it was actually better than I expected, flowing fairly well through its various setpieces to a finale it didn’t necessarily earn (through characterization, that is). The writing holds up, for a shallow action movie anyway. There isn’t much time given to letting us get to know the characters or even necessarily care about them. But, it’s not like this was advertised as a movie with great depth. It is an action movie that harkens back to Cold War era spy thrillers with more modern stuntwork. It also has some good sound (it’s up for Sound Mixing at the Oscars), though I think Inception’s got it beat. Plus, it is far better than another movie I watched last night…
The Wolfman is an awful movie. There is some fine visual effects, some good makeup (that latter one is where it falls on the Oscar nominations list) and even a few good action sequences; it’s rated R for “bloody horror violence and gore” and it makes good use of both those things. What it doesn’t make any good use of is actors… or writers. Seriously, on that latter one, writing credit goes to Andrew Kevin Walker, writer of Se7en… so, I guess ALL the credit for the greatness of that film must go to David Fincher, because Walker has turned into a hack. Really, when you have a character explaining his feelings about his dead wife and describing how he walks the halls of his big empty house at night looking for her (or whatever that damn line was) and Anthony Hopkins can’t do anything with the line, you have a problem. When there seems to be a love story trying to be at the heart of your story and yet the male and female leads have hardly any screentime together, have no chemistry, have had no romantic scenes and I WANT him to kill her in the big finale, there is a problem with not only the writing and directing but also the acting. Anthony Hopkins was phoning in his scenes. Del Toro makes one wonder if he ever bothered emoting on screen (I know he’s been great in the past, but this film almost blocks out my memories of it). Emily Blunt was a waste of screen space, a waste of story time and really had nothing to do so she barely had time to do it badly. Perhaps the only actor who actually did anything good with what he was given was Hugo Weaving. Of course, he had very little to do except simply be the cop. He also gets one of the only good lines in the entire movie when he explains why he’s simply sitting in the local tavern rather than out hunting the monster that’s killing people—I should really spoil that so you don’t have to bother watching the movie… but I can’t find the scene online. Of course, the film doesn’t bother making us want to care about any of these characters anyway—seriously, I didn’t even know del Toro’s character was named Lawrence until close to the end of the film and I didn’t realize Weaving was supposed to be Aberline of Jack the Ripper fame until I just tried to find his tavern scene online. Instead it spends 10 to 20 minutes (which felt more like 40) trying to be a horror film without having established setting, let alone any characters or even a monster, then lets some actors wander around. The only sequence that was really any good (aside from Weaving’s scene mentioned above) was probably the whole asylum sequence, in which del Toro is tortured and then finally turns into the wolfman right in front of a bunch of stupid doctors who apparently didn’t read the arrest report, since for some reason they think he’s crazy when the guy who caught him totally bought into the wolfman thing (or considering he was supposed to be Aberline, I guess maybe he didn’t but that was not at all the impression I got watching the film). Anyway, I really hope this film doesn’t get the Oscar for makeup, but it’s got a good shot I suppose, up against Barney’s Version and The Way Back. I haven’t seen the latter (yet) but the former uses makeup for aging (and maybe de-aging) characters, nothing fancy. La Vie en Rose won for such a thing a few years back, but other recent winners have been the less subtle uses of makeup.
Moving on, I Am Love is a great film, a strangely understated drama, a romance, a tragedy. But, it’s up for Costume Design, not Foreign Language Film (it had been mentioned as a possibility there leading up to Oscar nominations but no luck). So, skipping past some good acting work by Tilda Swinton (in an Italian-speaking role, by the way) and some good performances from a bunch of Italian actors with which I am not familiar, there is some great use of blurs and unreal lighting in the film, some good sets, nice camera work… so I could see it being up for Art Direction. The costumes… well, Swinton’s do add a bit of character, but most of the rest of basic suits, plain clothes. Well, the recently-turned lesbian daughter does have an annoyingly noticeable sweater she wears to the funeral, but I don’t think I was supposed to think that inappropriate. So, it’s just Swinton’s various dresses, and I doubt that’s going to win over, say, True Grit, or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 or Alice in Wonderland, even The King’s Speech (that one’s just so damn likable that it’s going to win a few categories it probably shouldn’t, maybe even this one). Still, a great movie.
But, on the subject of The King’s Speech, coming off a PGA win and a SAG win, it’s starting to seem like the momentum is shifting away from The Social Network… except I’m not so sure. The King’s Speech is built around its actors, not its director (even though Hooper took the damn DGA prize as well) or its writing or its art direction or costume design… but clearly there’s some love for The King’s Speech in the Academy, since it’s nominated for about everything it qualified for. I guess we’ll see.
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