The Oscars don’t
matter. The Oscars only matter because people think they matter.
The recurring motif here is 'Interesting but overrated.
You'll have no reason to ever watch it again.' Most of these films aren't
horrible (with the exception of Extremely
Loud and Incredibly Close if you have a brain or The Help if you have a penis) but they're nothing special. So...no
different than most Oscar nights. Another safe mediocre crowd-pleaser, another
night of self-congratulation and few surprises. Just like every other year.
So…once more and into the breach.
Tree of Life
The Pitch: The most ‘nothing happens’ Gus Van Sant film meets the most ‘What the fuck’ Lars von Trier film meets
the most ‘Wow, pretty scenery/pictures’
Terrence Malick film.
An existentialist minimalist interpretation of life, family,
and the world. In other words, less a film with a story than a collection of
images and ideas. Tree of Life is experimental artsy-fartsy bullshit (the
opposite end of the spectrum of Transformers 3, an excruciating 2 1/2 hour
waste of time either way). For the pretentious cinephile in all of us. Along with
2012’s Melancholia and Restless, this is yet another a movie
for people who hate movies. A film that’s boring in a beautiful way. Half dull
family drama, half IMAX ‘History of the Universe’ documentary, all
insomnia-inducing.
The Moral: “All
your problems are your parents’ fault. And we’re all boring.”
War Horse
The Pitch: “Saving
Private Ryan minus the violence multiplied by The Horse Whisperer with two extra scoops of self-indulgence
filmmaking.”
Spielberg is full-on Jewish-grandfather mode. A Frank Capra
war movie. So schmaltzy and soft. No scenes of violence, just the build-up and
the aftermath with none of the squibs-and-screams in between. If you can stay
awake until the end...and if the phrase 'the story of WWI told from the
point-of-view of a horse' doesn't make you run in fear or collapse in
giggles...then maybe you'll like it. Maybe the play is great, I’ve never seen
it, but this is 140 minutes of sickly-and-sweet sentimentality and
bait-and-switch battle scenes.
The Moral:
“When people die, there’s no blood or messy icky stuff. And also, animals are
equal and/or better than people. Especially horses.”
Midnight in Paris
The Pitch: “Purple
Rose of Cairo meets Small Time Crooks
meets a Woody Allen New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs piece from 30 years ago.”
It's a chocolate soufflé of films. It's light, it's
sweet, and it's gone quickly/it’s sweet, it’s light, it’s amusing, it’s
enjoyable, it’s a good time at the movies and doesn’t overstay it’s welcome or
throw in third-act tragedy just for the sake of depressing the audience…and it
doesn’t have a fucking chance in hell of winning. At only 95 minutes, it's the
bare bones of storytelling. More fun than funny, more interesting than
involving, you'll enjoy yourself while you're watching it and never think about
it again. Considering the outright disasters that Woody Allen seems to have
3-out-of-4 films, this is good for what it is. and speaking of backhanded
compliments...
The Moral: “Every
generation thinks that the previous generation had it better.” (and in case you
missed it, it’s spelled out in dialogue and preached into camera)
The Artist
The Pitch: "Amelie
meets Chaplin with very little
dialogue and stupid pet tricks."
A decent movie but a minor achievement. One-third light-comic
parody, two-thirds deadly-serious melodrama when the opposite combination would
have worked better (although in its current incarnation of depression and
redemption, it’s much more likely to win Best Picture – the academy loves their
mawkish schmaltz). Interestingly, while Hugo is an American movie set in France which celebrates silent film, The Artist is a French movie set in America
which celebrates silent film. Like Hugo,
a love letter to films that no longer exist for good reason. Nostalgic piffle.
A clear front-runner. A film self-infatuated that you couldn’t possibly love it
more than it loves itself.
The Moral: “Suicidal
people can always be cured at the last minute by nothing.”
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Pitch: "Remember
Me meets Rain Man meets Forrest Gump: The Early Years."
Interestingly, both this film and Hugo feature a poor weird Bambi-eyed
adorably-annoying little moppet-child who goes on a mystery-quest as he
searches for a secret meaning in an object left behind by his dead father…but
ends up finding something even better/discovering something even more important
in the end (I just threw up, a little bit, in my mouth, just now). So…yeah. The War Horse and We Bought a Zoo all came out at the same time, all sappy syrupy
schmaltzy horseshit…and somehow, this managed to be the worse one of the
treacle trifecta. So…you know it must be REALLY bad.
The Moral: “If
a little boy with Asperger’s
comes to your door, run as far away as you can. Oh, and also, ‘9/11! 9/11!
9/11!’.”
The Help
The Pitch: “Crash
meets The Blind Side with an
equal sprinkling of white guilt and shit jokes."
Featuring Viola Davis (the patron saint of long-suffering-yet-ultra-noble-black-women-in-frumpy-clothing roles). The type of overhyped
overwrought self-important schlock that can only be made by smug over-privileged
white people who think they’re doing something noble. Yet another book-club
book (like Ya Ya Sisterhood and Water for Elephants) which women love
more than life itself and men endure yet another reminder that they’ll never
understand the female mind. A movie so awful and misguided and brimming over
with white-guilt apologist preachiness. This movie deserves to eat a
feces-filled chocolate cake and die of intestinal parasites.
The Moral: “Be
nice to black people or they’ll take a shit in your food.”
Hugo
The Pitch: "Oliver
Twist meets Edward Scissorhands meets Iron Giant…in France."
Um…I wanted to like this movie. It’s technically great...but
the story is underwhelming and the child acting is (as it usually is) pretty
bad. It seems too slow and strange for kids...but also too light and
child-centric for adults. It felt like a Tim Burton film, with all the weird
gadgets and the unnecessarily-complex set design and the
Edwards-Scissorhands-robot and the dead father-figure creator…or maybe a
Spieblerg film, with his affinity for children adventure stories and daddy
issues themes. Scorsese is...an odd fit. It's a good film, a family film, just
one that will leave most anticipated viewers disappointed. It’s technically very
well-done, a 3D feast for the eyes and a celebration all things silent-film
but…it's a movie you more respect than enjoy.
The Moral: “Movies
were better when nobody talked and everybody cared.”
Moneyball
The Pitch: The
Social Network meets Bull Durham meets
every Brad Pitt movie where he talks with his hands while eating and smiling reassuringly.
Not a bad movie. Very watchable, considering the lack of
scenes with players actually playing baseball. It’s well-written, well-acted,
well-directed, very competent. You’ll never need to watch it again but what it
is, it’s great. Only two big problems; first, the scenes with the daughter are
boring and distract from the main story (wow, she plays guitar and sings too,
who gives a fuck?), they only make the movie longer and the ending drive (which
mirrors Elizabethtown) more
ridiculous (Brad Pitt was likeable enough without being an ‘aw shucks’ divorced
dad trying to make his daughter proud of him). And second, the biggie; there’s
no ending. No big game (well, no BIG big game). They don’t win. It just sort of
peters out. Oh, and also, the system hasn’t really worked since, like, at all.
So there’s that.
The Moral:
“Baseball movies would be better off
with fewer scenes of baseball being played.
The Descendents
The Pitch: "Sideways
meets American Beauty in Hawaii."
More of Alexander Payne and his schlubby schmuck sad-sacks
who are emasculated by all the type-A foul-mouthed domineering females in their
lives and forced to deal with all the young dumb-jock-surfer-dude morons with
nice hair. In the universe of Payne, everyone’s a cuckold or being cuckolded
and nobody is happy. Not depressing enough yet? Hey, the daughter has a
drinking problem and the mother is in a coma with a feeding tube…and also lots
of hospital-deathbed scenes and the grandmother has Alzheimer’s and everyone’s
marriage is falling apart! I’m a big Alexander Payne fan but…this is bad. The
big exposition dump voiceovers at the beginning are an early giveaway. The
first 15 minutes are just George Clooney's nauseatingly charming voice telling
you everything about the plot (1 line of dialogue for every 4 lines of
voiceover). And then after that...no voiceover for the rest of the movie. Lazy
screenwriting. Oh, and the endless
montages set to horrible Hawaiian songs...the music wasn't actually that bad
but the singing was insufferable. For the entire second half of the movie,
almost every other scene is a scenic montage set to bad Don-Ho-lite music.
After the tenth time, it was driving me nuts. I miss Rolfe Kent and Jim Taylor
and the old Alexander Payne who did Election and Sideways and Citizen Ruth.
You’re better than this, man.
The Moral:
“Life is shit and your wife cheats on
you and then she dies. The End.”
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