National Board of Review 2010 Winners

The National Board of Review announced their winners today, and it's clearly bodes well for David Fincher's The Social Network. Most curious is their complete omissions of 127 Hours, Black Swan, and The Kids Are All Right. A couple of things happened here. First, the NBR always loves Clint Eastwood, so of course Hereafter was going to get in. Also, their tastes tend to be a little more traditional, so the lack of edgy, intense fare like Danny Boyle and Darren Aronofsky's films is not surprising. It does, however, confirm a fear I had about The Kids Are All Right, even if it's a critical indie darling. The film may just not have hit a home run with as many people as we thought. It was a critics darling back in the summer, but I find a lot of people are bucking against the film now that they have seen it on dvd and blu-ray. Not sure what the trend here is, but it's an interesting one. Here's the full list of winners. 

Best Picture: The Social Network

Best Director: David Fincher - The Social Network

Best Actor: Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network

Best Actress: Lesley Manville - Another Year

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale - The Fighter

Best Supporting Actress: Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom

Best Original Screenplay: Buried

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network

Best Foreign Language Film: Of Gods And Men

Best Documentary: Waiting For Superman

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3

Best Ensemble Cast: The Town

Breakthrough Performance: Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone

Best Production Design: Shutter Island

Ten Best Films (In Alphabetical Order minus The Social Network)

Another Year

The Fighter

Hereafter

Inception

The King's Speech

Shutter Island

The Town

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter's Bone

Top Ten Independent Films

Animal Kingdom

Buried

Fish Tank

The Ghost Writer

Greenberg

Let Me In

Monsters

Please Give

Somewhere

Youth In Revolt

Things I learned from my second Harry Potter viewing...

1. The cinematography is stunningly beautiful, especially since I could actually see the damn screen this time, instead of looking up and to the right from a bottom row seat. 

2. Dobby's death makes me cry. Hard. And I got misty-eyed in the Godric's Hollow scene. If nothing else, this film certainly packs an emotional sucker punch. 

3. The film moves at a slower pace than I remember, but that's merely an observation, not a complaint. 

4. Harry and Hermione have excellent music taste, as they were dancing to a Nick Cave song. 

5. I maintain that this is the Empire Strikes Back of the Harry Potter films. Never before have we seen such a dark, menacing film in the series where our heroes are so utterly defeated, so utterly lost, so hopeless. The world is going to hell and the film makes that known. Ultimately, I liked the film the first time I saw it, and loved it the second time. I would argue a lot of that has to do with knowing what to expect, being able to view the screen properly, and not having rude rednecks sitting next to me talking to the screen. It's definitely one of the best in the series, as it captures the tone, characters, and setting so beautifully. 

6. That being said, I still can't decide where it stands amongst the rest of the series, as again, it's not a complete film. It's one half of a five hour epic, and I'm ok with that, because as I see it, we're on an 8 month intermission between the first and second act. Once we've seen both parts and can view them back to back, I will be more than happy to give a full and proper review. Until then, I love what we've seen so far. 

As always, have at it in the comments section and tell me what you thought of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1!

Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

I'm not going to attempt to assign a numerical rating to this film as that would be reductive. The reason being is that while it is a two and a half hour film, it's not a complete film. It's one half of a five hour film. That being said, I still have a lot of things to say about it, mostly ecstatic things. It goes without saying that I absolutely loved the film as it were, but again, I'm having a hard time really sorting out exactly where I would place it within the series, since, again, it's one half of a whole. But I will try to simply talk about what worked and what didn't.

For starters, this is a notably dark film. Parents and casual movie-goers have been complaining endlessly about how the series has gotten progressively darker, more violent, and less "magical". Every time I hear said complaints I just shake my head and let them whine in a corner. Of course it's getting darker. The series is following the pattern of the books, which got darker and less and less about magical wonder and more about characters, story, and matters of life and death. That last bit about life and death is certainly true in this film. From the beginning, in one of the most amazingly well done and well acted scenes in the films, we understand that Voldemort is not playing any games. He's out for blood, and nothing is getting in his way. He relishes every kill, every bit of violence. And it's not going to end any time soon.

Luckily, the film maintains a balance between it's nearly overbearing sense of impending doom and a few light hearted moments with some hilarious humor thrown in. The ministry sequence in particular, had me and the rest of my audience howling with laughter. The sweet character moments are also there, and boy do they ever work. In fact, that's what works best about this film, character development. There's so much I could say about it that I might burst, but I will save some of that for future conversations. On the technical side of things, the film's productions values, as is common for the series, are top notch, especially for score, cinematography, art direction, and of course, visual effects.

Really, the film really works as a great adaptation of Rowling's book, my only complaint is that it's not finished yet. For now, it's the Empire Strikes Back of the films. I can't wait until next July when this epic saga finally comes to a close. As always, have at it in the comments section!

Awards Season 2010 - First round of Predictions.

I was going to write up a longer post about the state of the Oscar race right now, but the simple truth is that until Awards season proper kicks in sometime early December, nobody really knows anything. For now, I'll simply offer up my first set of real nomination predictions of the year. Here's hoping for some real clairvoyance soon.

Best Picture
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The King's Speech
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Alternate: The Way Back

Best Director
Danny Boyle - 127 Hours
Christopher Nolan - Inception
Tom Hooper - The King's Speech
David Fincher - The Social Network
Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan

Alternate: Peter Weir - The Way Back

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges - True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network
Colin Firth - The King's Speech
James Franco - 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine

Alternate: Robert Duvall - Get Low

Best Actress
Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
Lesley Manville - Another Year
Natalie Portman - Black Swan


Alternate: Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale - The Fighter
Aaron Eckhart - Rabbit Hole
Andrew Garfield - The Social Network
Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech

Alternate: Jeremy Renner - The Town

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams - The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter - The King's Speech
Sally Hawkins - Made In Dagenham
Miranda Richardson - Made In Dagenham
Dianne Wiest - Rabbit Hole

Alternate: Hailee Stienfeld - True Grit

Best Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit

Best Original Screenplay 
Another Year
Black Swan
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech

Best Art Direction
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
The King's Speech
Shutter Island
True Grit

Alternate: Alice in Wonderland

Best Cinematography
127 Hours
Inception
Shutter Island
True Grit
The Way Back

Alternate: Black Swan

Best Costume Design
Alice in Wonderland
Inception
The King's Speech
Shutter Island
True Grit

Alternate: Black Swan

Best Editing
127 Hours
Inception
The Social Network
True Grit
The Town

Alternate: The Way Back

Best Makeup
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Shutter Island

Alternate: The Way Back

Best Original Score
How to Train Your Dragon
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
Let Me In
The Social Network

Alternate: The King's Speech

Best Original Song
127 Hours
Tangled
Tangled
Toy Story 3
Waiting for Superman

Alternate: None

Best Sound Editing:
127 Hours
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
Toy Story 3
TRON: Legacy

Alternate: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Best Sound Mixing
127 Hours
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
Toy Story 3

Alternate: TRON: Legacy

Best Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
Iron Man 2
TRON: Legacy

Alternate: Black Swan

Best Animated Feature Film
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

Alternate: Despicable Me

That's all I got for now. As always, have at it in the comments section!

Austin Film Fest - "Black Swan"

Black Swan - 5/5

Neil Miller of Film School Rejects put it best when he said "Black Swan should come with a disclaimer: Dear viewer, remember to breathe during the third act, you might forget." To put it bluntly at least. Darren Aronofsky has crafted something of a psychological horror masterpiece with his latest film. While I fully expected it to be incredibly taught, intense, dark, edgy, and engaging, I never really expected it to be so much fun. In fact, I would go so far as to say that not only is it the most genuinely terrifying psychological horror thriller to come along in years, dare I say maybe even over a decade, but it's also the most fun I've had in a theatre in years.

The film plays out a lot like a mashup of Roman Polanski's "Repulsion" and Powell & Pressberger's "The Red Shoes" in a lot of ways. What makes the film so intense and scary is that there's no cheesy explanation or exposition for the horrors on screen. Not. Ever. It's pure visceral psychological head games. Nina is simply losing her mind under all the stress and pressure of being cast as the Swan Queen in her ballet company's production of "Swan Lake". In a lot of ways, the way the company director, played deliciously by Vincent Cassell, describes the production of the ballet , stripped down and purely visceral, reflects the nature of the film. It's all about being in Nina's head as the story progresses. She hallucinates, and the way Aronofsky combines practical, in camera tricks with visual effects and clever editing is astonishing. It makes for all the more frightening and unnerving and experience. The film moves at such a fast pace that one never feels the time pass. It's a whirlwind tour de force of filmmaking, with so many thrilling, sexy, scary,  "OMG Holy shit did that really just happen or was it all in her head WTF is happening to my brain?!" moments that it's a miracle actually manages to stay in total control and never once fly off the rails into the danger zone of camp trash it so delicately teeters on the brink of, never actually falling into it. And boy does it ever make for one hell of a ride.

Natalie Portman is nothing short of a revelation here. This is the kind of role we've been waiting for her to take on. Something completely different for her, something truly exciting and, not to sound like a broken record, visceral, primal, and intense. We're as frightened as she is through the whole thing, because it isn't until the last possible moment in each horrifying hallucination that we see the reality of the situation. Even so, we're still never certain what is real and what isn't. But the beauty of the performance is that neither is she. I never once thought that Portman was faking it or really aware of what was really going on. They kind of range she has on display here is simply incredible. Mila Kunis is equally impressive. Her sultry, smoky performance often leaves us wondering if he really is a carefree fellow dancer who is simply trying to extend friendly advances or if her intentions are more sinister than she looks. It's not a flashy role or performance, very natural and charismatic, as we've come to expect from her. All I can say is that I'm not as big on girl-on-girl stuff as most guys, but holy hell this was one sexy film, and the "scene" between Portman and Kunis is hotter than the sun. Vincent Cassell, as stated before, is deliciously oily and, like most of the supporting characters, we're never really certain of his true motives.

But really, all of this is largely due to the total mastery of atmosphere Darren Aronofsky shows here. From the expert use of sound design, to Matthew Libatique's twisted cinematography, to Clint Mansell's seamless mesh of original score and Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" no technical aspect is left wanting. Aronofsky is not only a director willing to do the hard work, but he's a genius and he knows it. If anything, the film shows that he's got some huge-ass balls. The film is such a director's achievement that it's very clear no other filmmaker could have made it. The way the camera follows Nina in the final sequence as we watch her finally perform on stage on opening night is nothing short of incredible, darting in and out of backstage, following her every move, creating a ballet of it's own playing with light and shadow, spinning as she spins. The result is stunning, and will leave you absolutely breathless.

Austin Film Fest - "127 Hours"

127 Hours - 5/5

While watching Danny Boyle's latest modern classic, I couldn't help but feel like I was viewing a window into my own life. Aron Ralston is a guy who seeks escape from the the hustle & bustle of city life, crowds, and craziness of society in favor of his own kind of rush, out in the wild. He's an adrenaline junkie, and is completely at one with nature when hiking. I often find myself doing similar activities out in the wild to get away from city life. So one can imagine how I must have felt by the end of the film.

Aron Ralston, also known as the guy who got stuck under a boulder and cut off his own arm to get out, is played so naturally, so emotionally by James Franco that I didn't even see Franco there. I saw the character. He completely disappears into the role, and the result is a masterful performance. I've been a fan of James Franco for a couple of years now in his post-Spiderman career, but I've never seen him do anything like this. In a film like this, which is pretty much entirely a one man show, the success or failure of the film rest entirely on him. And he delivers in spades. Earlier I said that Ryan Gosling's performance in "Blue Valentine" was my favorite male performance of the year. That was then. I don't think I've seen any actor this year, man or woman, come even close to what James Franco accomplishes in this film. Here was have a man at his most vulnerable, confronted with his mortality. He records a "death journal" or sorts on his video camera. There's no way you could ever capture more raw, vulnerable, authentic emotion than a man recording what he perceives to be his final moments of life on film. He says goodbye to his family, tells them he's sorry for not appreciating them more. He begins to hallucinate and dream, reflecting on the bad decisions and selfish choices he made in life. In a particularly morbid yet humorous sequence, he records something of a morning talk show where he interviews himself and reflects on the stupidity of going out into the wild without ever telling anyone where he was going, and how that got him in this situation. It's heartbreaking, when the humor wears off and Ralston ends the segment by repeating the word "Oops" until it's a whisper.

The film can't be dissected without mentioning the modern master behind it. Danny Boyle's trademark exuberance is on full display here, taking a film set almost entirely in one location and making it one of the most intense experiences I've ever had in a theatre. There's an auteurist flair on display here, a complete and total command of every frame. Boyle plays with splits screen usage in the opening, middle, and end of the film. We start with images of the busy busy city life Ralston is trying to escape, mixed in split screen with images of him gathering his supplies before leaving. The film closes with similar images, bookending a message about community and how we can't live our lives in isolation. Nobody does it alone. This really struck a big emotional chord with me.

And really, I don't think I've ever seen a more emotionally intense film in my life. I was in tears by the end, experiencing a sort of catharsis rarely seen in film. "Blue Valentine" may have been extremely depressing, but I never 100% got the feeling of true catharsis like I did here. Boyle is a director so high on life, and his films show that. I've never seen a director whose films have a consistent life-affirming tone to them. And as someone how thinks about stuff like that, it impacted me in a way I wasn't completely prepared for.

Truly, I haven't seen anything this extraordinary all year. In a very strong year where I've seen some of the most incredible images put on film, with "Inception", "The Social Network", and "Toy Story 3", Danny Boyle's masterpiece still manages to stand above the rest. And I will never forget this film, not ever.