Every year I plan to see all the movies nominated in the big categories of Best Picture, Best Actor/Actress, Best Supporting Actor/Actress, Best Director and some years even Best Screen Play. Usually I fail miserably and only end up seeing a fraction of all the great films nominated. So in that proud tradition I give you my picks for these categories at the 2010 Oscars.
What I will do is limit myself to the films I have seen, so if you think The Hurt Locker, Precious or The Blind Side are superior to my picks, you may be right. I haven’t seen them, so I can’t comment on them.
Here goes:
Best Picture:Up in the Air
I’m excited that this is the category where I have seen the most of the films nominated and those are Avatar, Up in the Air and District 9. As you will have summised from my reviews, I am not a great fan of Avatar. I think the storyline is trite, and I don’t really care about the big blue people. I enjoyed Riley cum Sigourney Weaver, but she could not make up for the lack of original story. On the other hand, I really loved both District 9 and Up in the Air.District 9 is a wonderful allegory about how we treat those different from us, and in some ways so is Up in the Air. In terms of timeliness and sheer emotional impact as a result of our horrible ecobomy, Up in the Air wins out for me. It had the (mis)fortune of being in the right time at the (wrong) right time and is my pick for Best Picture. I have to give a mention to An Education, which I have not seen, but have to root for simply because it was directed by a fellow Dane.
Best Director:Jason Reitman for Up in the Air
My choices of directors of movies I have seen are James Cameron for Avatar or Jason Reitman for Up in the Air. Let me up front concede that I admire the sheer magnitude of the Avatar project and the technological advances gained through the making of this movie. Unfortunately, it failed to reach me on an emotional level whereas Up in the Air tore at my insides in ways I am still dealing with. Jason Reitman is my clear pick of the two.
Yes, ladies first! This is not a tough category for me. Meryl Streep was phenomenal as Julia Child in Julie & Julia. She truly became Julia and inspired me to ask for my very own copy of MTAOFC. That I didn’t see any of the movies of the other nominees makes this choice super easy as well.
My pool of candidates are George Clooney in Up in the Air and Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart. The two performances are almost night and day to each other. Clooney plays cool as a cucumber with some emotional vulnerability thrown in, so essentially himself, whereas Jeff Bridges goes all out in portraying the down and out country singer. Advantage Jeff Bridges.
Best Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air
This is another category where I have three to choose from: Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick, both for Up in the Air and Maggie Gyllenhaal, for Crazy Heart. I thought Maggie Gyllenhaal did a nice job in Crazy Heart. Vera Farmiga did a similarly nice job in Up in the Air, but of the three, Anna Kendrick is my favorite. Her character had to undergo the most change over time, and she really brought all sides of that character to life. If you had only seen her in Twilight before, I think you would agree she got a big chance to do a lot more here.
Best Supporting Actor: NA
I have not seen any of the films nominated, so I cannot make an honest choice but my emotional favorite is Woody Harrelson for The Messenger, but only because of Zombieland, which by the way: “Hello!” Way better than some of these “important” films. The same is also true of Star Trek, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and Sherlock Holmes - all favorites of mine from 2009. They are “only” recognized for art direction and other technical categories. Hrumph!
Best adapted screenplay: District 9
In this category I can express my opinion about District 9 and Up in the Air. They are both truly excellent stories and movies, so the choice is hard. However, since I have gushed over Up in the Air in all the other categories, I’m going to go with District 9. It leaves a mark as well, and is a very uncomfortable look at how easily we can alienate each other. I do think though, that this is a more fitting award for it than Best Picture would be.
As you can see, this is a very incomplete and myopic view of this years best films, but as they say “write what you know,” so that is what I have done. Out of the 19 movies nominated in these categories I have only seen five. It will be fun to see how accurate I can be with such a small sampling. On the other hand, conventional wisdom may be no more right than I am. The academy can be tricky that way. They like an underdog but sometimes get blinded by the truly huge movies or they will reward more of a lifetime achievement than the specific project. With that in mind, James Cameron, Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep should all have solid speeches ready - and should keep equally eloquent concession ones in their back pockets just in case.
Best of luck to all!
Niels Hansen is the co-owner of Hansen Creative Services, a graphic design firm near Columbus, Ohio which specializes in employee communications and small business marketing.
Ever since I first heard about this movie, I was excited about it. It has a couple of things going for (and against) it. It was Heath Ledger’s last and very much unfinished movie. A small group of his actor friends stepped in and finished his part in tribute. With friends like Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell the results should be interesting, especially since it is also a Terry Gilliam project. He never makes an “easy” movie to begin with, but always has something bizarre, amazing and disturbing up his sleeve.
What I got:
When the story begins, Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is now over a thousand years old. He made a deal with the Devil (Tom Waits,) trading immortality for souls that he would ensnare by telling them his stories. He keept this steady stream of souls coming via his traveling sideshow. Audience members are invited to join their imagination with his, by walking through a magic mirror. What they find behind the mirror is up to them and plenty of them never come back. This all worked fine, until he fell in love with a young woman almost a century ago. He turned to the Devil again asking to become young and handsome, so he can court her. The Devil grants this wish, in return for the life of his first child on her 16th birthday.
Well the day of reckoning has come. His daughter’s (Lily Cole) birthday is in a couple of days and Parnassus is looking for a way out. The Devil, being him, is always willing to deal. He offers Parnassus his daughter’s life in return for 5 other souls. This would not have been a problem in years past, but the act has gotten stale and people are not interested anymore. Not until the troupe meets Tony (Heath Ledger & friends.) He helps breathe new life into the act, but brings his own set of issues that puts them all in mortal danger.
This is of course just the surface story. Underneath Gilliam explores the fine line between sweet dreams and horrible nightmares and the price we are willing to pay for the happiness of those we love. The Imaginarium is a beautiful and frightening place all at the same time. This is all vintage Gilliam. He never gives you happiness without sadness, good without evil, freedom without a cost.
Everybody is brilliant in their respective roles. Splitting Tony between four actors is a fancy piece of footwork. At times you are not sure which actor is playing him. Obviously, they each have their distinctive styles, but with hair and makeup in place you aren’t always sure who’s who.
If you have enjoyed Gilliam’s previous work like The Brothers Grimm, The Fisher King, and The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen, you will feel right at home with this film. It is not as dark as The Fisher King (few things are) but tacks more towards Munchhausen.
Being so prolific is his great strength and perhaps his greatest weakness and maybe that is why he understands life’s dualities so well? Gilliam is so talented, that his movies sometimes become a little bit of a mess and often don’t reach as big an audience as they might deserve. A shame really, since he always has something worthwhile to say.
Rick Riordan has written a series of five wonderful and funny young adult books featuring Percy Jackson and the Olympians. The series does not rival Harry Potter in writing craft or sheer wonder, but it is a fun ride and a great way to learn about Greek mythology. My daughter and I have enjoyed these books together and we wanted the movie to be just as wonderful. However, my heart was filled with dread when I learned that Chris Columbus was the director.
What I got:
I pretty much got exactly what I expected, which is a real shame. Chris Columbus should not be allowed near our favorite books. He was in charge of the early Harry Potter movies, and even if the magic was nicely portrayed, the acting was just horrible, especially from the kids. The Lightening Thief suffers from the exact same problem. The art direction is gorgeous, the special effects are what they should be and a fine cast was assembled, but he still manages to make an almost unwatchable mess out of it all, and fall way short of what it could have been.
The story is fairly straight forward, even if they did leave out most of the funny stuff from the books: Percy Jackson is the son of Poseidon but doesn’t know it. He is growing up in NYC with his single mom and her jerk boyfriend (Joe Pantoliano, who cannot be made to suck, even by the likes of Chris Columbus.) On a school fieldtrip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Percy finds out that he is a demi-god after a fury threatens his life. She is working for Hades (god of the Underworld) and they believe that Percy has stolen Zeus’ lightening bolt, which he has not. His best friend Grover is revealed to be a satyr protecting him and Grover whisks Percy away to camp half-blood and safety. After finding his place at the camp, Percy accepts the quest to go find the lightening bolt and to bring it back to Zeus on Mount Olympus which is now located above the Empire State Building.
The cast is very strong. It features Uma Thurman as Medusa, Pierce Brosnan as Chiron (the trainer of heroes,) Rosario Dawson as Persephone (Hades wife) and the always delightful Catherine Keener as Percy’s mom - just to name a few. Unfortunately, these talented actors are slumming it here. All of them are capable of so much more. It is as if Columbus went with the first take of every scene without any exploration whatsoever. He specializes in the significant stare and it is on full display here. Pierce Brosnan is especially afflicted, and not just because he is literally acting with a horse’s ass.
The young actors playing Percy (Logan Lerman) and his best friends Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) and Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) are all too old to be given the child actor treatment, which is clearly what Columbus did to them. I would venture to say that they as well could do so much more.
If you take your kids like I did, they will probably enjoy themselves, even if you, as a sentient human adult, may have trouble doing the same. Restroom breaks and popcorn runs can be your friend here. Just remember: You are doing it for the kids. You may have to repeat that more than once.
Niels Hansen is the co-owner of Hansen Creative Services, a graphic design firm near Columbus, Ohio which specializes in employee communications and small business marketing.
Over the years I have come to expect great things of Jeff Bridges. He is one of those actors, like Christopher Walken and Michael Caine, who is always working but typically doesn’t get credit for what he does. Unlike those other two though, he hardly ever shows up in heaping piles of poo, but rather in good, weird and interesting stuff. I went to this on blind faith that he and his agent knew what they were doing and that this would be one of those sleeper gems he is so known for.
What I got:
Last year Mickey Rourke BECAME Randy the Ram in The Wrestler and Sean Penn BECAME Harvey Milk in Milk. Both performances were outstanding and either would have been equally deserving of the Oscar (which went to Penn.) Both of these great actors transcended the material and truly became the character/person they portrayed. This year Crazy Heart is THAT movie and Bad Blake is THAT role for Jeff Bridges. If you want to see acting at its most sublime, this is it.
Bad Blake is a down-and-out, has-been country & western singer of the old school. He was one of the greats in his time, but he has long since crawled inside the bottle and now spends his time crisscrossing the Southwest in his old, beat-up Suburban playing dark bars and bowling alleys. Each gig is hundreds of miles from the next and he drives himself - usually drunk if he can afford it – all the while peeing in a jar to make better time.His life has been spiraling down for quite some time and you keep expecting him to crash spectacularly. The tension between how he hangs on to this life and what you know has to be coming is excruciating.
Bad doesn’t often sleep alone, but he has no emotional ties, not even to his son, who is now a grown man. When he meets Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal) at one of his gigs it starts out pretty much the same, but they both realize they have something much more profound. She has a little boy, and Bad makes his first real connection with other humans in a long time with the two of them.
Needless to say, he is not ready for this and has to truly hit bottom before clawing his way back to finally being truly alive. In this he gets help from his local bartender friend played by Robert Duvall in what is a pretty neat homage to Duvall’s work in Tender Mercies.
All the songs are original to the movie, and Bridges does all his own singing as does Colin Farrell who plays Bad’s much more successful protégé. I am not much of a country fan, but they both do an outstanding job.
This little movie will keep getting bigger as the awards season goes on. I would not be surprised if this is the role that finally got Bridges the Oscar he so richly deserves.
Niels Hansen is the co-owner of Hansen Creative Services, a graphic design firm near Columbus, Ohio which specializes in employee communications and small business marketing.
I wanted it to be great! From early boyhood I have admired Sherlock Holmes. I read all the books, saw every episode on TV and I’ve even been to 221 Baker St on my 8th grade fieldtrip to London. So Guy Richie better not mess with my Holmes! Already seeing Holmes without his trademark cap and pipe had me nervous, but with Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law maybe it would be OK? I kept my fingers crossed that it would be great – and not another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
What I got:
This is the best Holmes ever! There I said it. Yes, I miss the cap and the pipe, but Robert Downey, Jr.’s Holmes is crazy, brilliant and able to hold his own in a boxing match. And he is also believable as the romantic lead. Guy Richie has done something quite remarkable here: He has turned Holmes into a true superhero. All that is missing is the cape, but maybe in the next one? Because, yes, there will be more this time around. I’m sure of it.
What makes this one work so well is the interplay between Downey’s pitch-perfect Holmes and Watson, played to perfection by Jude Law. They quibble over everything and carry on like an old married couple. The addition of Rachel McAdams as Holmes old flame Irene Adler is also brilliant. She is perfect for this part. You may recall that I was not enamored with her in State of Play, so I am delighted that she is so perfect here. She brings an untrustworthy charm that is totally believable as Holmes one true love and the one person to ever best him – and twice.
The story is typical Holmes: Secret societies, early forensic science, ingenious use of obscure poisons, chemicals and explosives combined with a heavy dose of Victorian stuffiness, tempered greatly here by Richie’s penchant for hand-to-hand combat. All-in-all a very satisfying concoction.
Mark Strong is wonderful as the evil Lord Blackwood. He brings the sinister in ways that would impress even the darkest of fascist dictators. He just oozes evil. Professor Moriarty also shows up, but we never get to see him, except as disembodied hands and a top hat lurking in the shadows. Again, maybe in the sequal?
I have not been a big fan of Guy Richie’s previous work. I found it needlessly violent and mumbly, so I am doubly delighted that he has graduated as a director and has given us a true superhero/period masterpiece.
If it was up to me, Sherlock Holmes would be the movie to beat this Holiday season – not Avatar.Sherlock Holmes is a far superior movie. It is just plain better entertainment, and it oozes charm in ways Avatar could only dream of.
Niels Hansen is the co-owner of Hansen Creative Services, a graphic design firm near Columbus, Ohio which specializes in employee communications and small business marketing.
I honestly didn’t know what to expect of Dark Target. I knew it was an action movie produced here in Columbus and that the talent was local. I assumed the budget was meager and I also knew that the director, William Lee’s, last movie was a zombie flick called Demons Rising and I hoped that wouldn’t be the tenor of this one.
What I got:
Let me say up front that I was impressed. Dark Target offers some really good acting, a good script and cast and crew that obviously poured their heart and soul into the project.
On the other hand, it is obviously not the product of a slick Hollywood studio and you have to allow for that when it comes to some of the technical aspects of the movie. That is especially true of the special effects. The gunfire muzzle-flares and the resulting flying blood splatter are very cartoonish but could easily be remedied with a bigger budget and some higher-end post-production. It is also obvious that the crew just came off making a zombie movie. Some of the violence and gore is clearly rooted in that aesthetic but it doesn’t overwhelm the action. The actual language is also quite raw and it seems at times unnecessarily so.
Overall the camera work is quite nice. William Lee uses interesting angles and editing to make the movie exciting and to pull you through the scenes. Shaky-cam is not my favorite style, but in this case it helps keep the energy raw and to communicate the on-edge quality of the story itself.
It centers around an ex-CIA operative, Daniel Kane (Brian Spangler-Campbell,) who tries to get away from spying after he accidentally shoots his best friend in the line of duty. He quickly gets pulled into a sinister plot where rogue agents led by Commander Baker (Kim Carey) are trying to alter the racial makeup of the country through wholesale execution of blacks. Kane allies himself with a drug-kingpin (Rebecca Moore) and a former CIA doctor (Jennifer Stepp.) Together they take the fight to Baker and his rogue band of sadists.
Dark Target is a nice showcase for some strong Columbus actors. I was especially impressed with Jennifer Stepp as Doctor Mia Camara. She is stunning on screen and commands any scene that she’s in. Brian Spangler-Campbell is also very strong in the lead role and his combat skills are quite impressive. The same is true of Duane Gamble, Jr who plays one of the rogue agents. Kim Carey is wonderfully demented as Baker and Lonnie Gary gives us her all as his partner and lover.I also enjoyed Gavin Herscher as the evil Dr N’Kame. He was very convincing as a heartless sociopath.
It is great to see that Columbus can put out such a strong movie and that we have such talent right here in town. Dark Target is not for everyone but if you’re willing to give it a chance it will reward you for it.
Niels Hansen is the co-owner of Hansen Creative Services, a graphic design firm near Columbus, Ohio which specializes in employee communications and small business marketing.
Nothing. I had no pre-conceived notions about this movie whatsoever. The title could make it a comedy, a drama or some combination of both. Since the title suggests it is geared to a female audience,some element of romance could also be expected. It doesn’t feature actors I knew much about beforehand so I went in naked on this one.
What I got:
Unlike its near-name-sake Weatherman (the over the top comedy starring Will Ferrell) Weather Girl is a more quietly funny and straightforward view into the heartache and professional suicide of a local TV station weather“girl”. Sylvia, played by Tricia O’Kelley (from the TV show The New Adventures of Old Christine.)
This is a modern story, so the characters are not syrupy and their choices are real.When the story begins Sylvia has been sleeping and living with her co-anchor, Dale (Mark Harmon,) who is now cheating on her with their other co-anchor. Sylvia breaks up with him by breaking down and dumping him very publicly on-air. She is now a pariah in the TV-host market and she ends up staying on her brother Walt’s (Ryan Devlin) couch. While staying there she meets his best friend Byron (Patrick Adams) and they start an uncomplicated affair with benefits while her self esteem is low. Since she can’t get a broadcasting job she is working as a waitress.
The story comes to a head when the TV station offers Sylvia her old job back working with Dale again. Her public dumping of him has become an internet sensation and the viewers demand to get her back. She unceremoniously dumps Byron once she has a chance to return to her career and… no wait,I can’t give it all away.
Weather Girl is a nice date-movie that doesn’t rely on trashing one gender or the other or cheap stereotypes to get its laughs. All the characters get their chance to be up and down, and it is all done with good humor. Though there is some predictability to the storyline, it still seems fairly fresh, exactly because it treats women and men as equals. It is refreshing to see a female lead that destroys her life and then rebuilds it without that becoming a vehicle for grotesque slapstick. One thing that stuck out at me though was that Sylvia’s two female friends seem oddly grafted onto the story - almost as an afterthought - and they don’t really do much for the story or the movie itself.
If I was to classify this movie, I guess it is a romantic comedy, but that label seems oddly insufficient for this one, because it also allows itself to tap into a little of the drama genre. It is a nice choice if you want funny and straightforward. If you want fall-down funny, it won’t quite get you there but it will have both men and women laughing and feeling uplifted.
Niels Hansen is the co-owner of Hansen Creative Services, a graphic design firm near Columbus, Ohio which specializes in employee communications and small business marketing.
This is the review I almost didn’t write. What else is there to say, really? The media has been filled with Avatarfor weeks and if you don’t already know about it and haven’t formed some opinion about it, you are living under a rock – without access to the internet – and thus will not care about this review.I planned to avoid“the must-see movie of the year” on principle, but the geek in me won out and I just had to see what all new movie-making technology hoopla was all about. My gut told me that it was even money that James Cameron would beach this whale in much the same way he did with Titanic, which I found to be a bore and over-hyped.
What I got:
There is no doubt that Avatar is something new. It is visually overwhelming - largely in a good way. It is lush and gorgeous and we have finally arrived at a point where the artificial environments look completely real - hyper-real in fact. Think of the THX trailer with the weird plants they play in theaters to show off the sound system. That is what this movie looks like – for well over 2 hours! Truly overwhelming. But also gorgeous. I did not see the 3D version, so I cannot comment on the vomit-inducing qualities of the 3D effects.
The ten foot tall people are something else altogether. Again, the technology is now there that allows moviemakers to create “real”-looking people. In this case they chose to make them blue, ten feet tall and noble savages, but I think that is just to get us used to the idea. I fear that one of the truly great qualities of computer generated “actors” is that they can be as skinny as you want them to be. Impossibly skinny. Not only do actors from now on have to compete with younger, fitter talent. From now on they will have to compete with computer generated ones as well. This can’t be a good thing.
From a story standpoint Avatar is a snore. The evil energy corporation colonizes a land inhabited by noble savages and the main character who at first wants to exploit them gets to know and love a beautiful local female. Big surprise, she shows him that their civilization is superior to the human one. James Cameron pretty much phoned this one in. Or more accurately, he took clichés from a bunch of other movies, threw them into his script-baking bread machine. A few hours later out came this loaf of manipulative, morally heavy-handed drivel.
If you are going to make the most expensive movie ever made (reportedly $4-500 million), at least have the courtesy to tell an interesting, new and compelling story.
It is up to you whether to resist the pull of the “must-see” movie of the year, but I almost wish I had trusted my instincts and stayed away.
Niels Hansen is the co-owner of Hansen Creative Services, a graphic design firm near Columbus, Ohio which specializes in employee communications and small business marketing.
When you put Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh & Emma Thompson in a blender with a storyline about larger than life outlaw DJs, it is safe to assume overacting will ensue of almost biblical proportions. Throw in the fashion and style of the 60’s and you can expect a fine concoction of “yuck,” but with a great soundtrack.
What I got:
Sometimes I wish counter-culture docu-dramas would not play to type quite so much, and be better than I expect them to be.
Unfortunately, Pirate Radio is not one that even tries. Instead, it manages to take the story of one of the most important moments in popular entertainment in Britain and make it both small and uninteresting. This was the time of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll and none of that danger and excitement makes it onto the screen. If what they did was dangerous and rebellious against society, it sure is hard to detect in this sad piece of self-indulgent camera holding.
The story is simple enough. In the 60’s Rock-n-roll was hot, yet BBC failed to program it, thus making a niche for pirate radio stations that broadcast from ships off the coast of England. They were not technically breaking the law at first, and provided a broad audience of all ages the music they craved. This was a huge milestone in music broadcasting, and formed the model for music radio to this day. The British government did not appreciate what they perceived to be immoral filth and they eventually outlawed the pirate stations.
How it is possible to make this topic seem dull is a bit of a mystery, but Richard Curtis somehow manages. He has been the writer behind such uneven material as Mr. Bean’s Holiday, both Bridget Jones movies and Love Actually. This is his second attempt at directing – Love Actually, being the first – and he should have stopped while he was ahead.
The pacing is slow and the characters almost sleep walk through it all; even the “dangerous” ones. What this movie really needs are likeable characters that you can care about and villainous ones that you can dislike in equal measure. Unfortunately, everyone seems almost comatose and that is despite the marvelous overacting!
My expectation of spectacular overacting was met on all fronts. Emma Thompson is probably the one who overdoes it the least, followed by Hoffman. Branagh and Nighy just can’t help themselves, and I’m not sure whether to blame them or not. When you go to one of their movies you know what to expect and it’s really not their fault if you then don’t like it.
The music is the real unsung hero of this movie and it helps keep you engaged enough that you don’t abandon ship halfway through - even if you should. I wanted Pirate Radio to be so much more, but it met my expectations in every way. This boat does rock, but it is just difficult to care. Pity.
Niels Hansen is the co-owner of Hansen Creative Services, a graphic design firm near Columbus, Ohio which specializes in employee communications and small business marketing.
I’m very excited about Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Looks very cool! But I’m also dismayed that Chris Columbus is in charge of it. Hoping he doesn’t mangle it too badly. Check out the cool trailer here:
Best Picture: Up in the Air
Best Director: Jason Reitman for Up in the Air
Best Actress: Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart
Best Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air
Best Supporting Actor: NA
Best adapted screenplay: District 9
