Oscar Predictions 2011

Here are my predictions for all the Oscar winners for tonight's 83rd Academy Awards ceremony, I'm going out on a limb with this one, my gut is telling me that The King's Speech won't make the clean sweep it's expected to make and the winners will be spread evenly throughout the night. I have to say, I have a pretty bad record when it comes to predictions and I'm hoping this year that will change but I'm not holding my breath.

Best Picture Nominees:  Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, 127 Hours, Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit

Who will win: The Social Network

Who should win: The Social Network

Actor in a Leading Role Nominees: Javier Bardem (Biutiful), Jeff Bridges (True Grit), Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Colin Firth (The King's Speech), James Franco (127 Hours)

Who will win:  Colin Firth (The King's Speech)

Who should win:  Javier Bardem (Biutiful)

Actress in a Leading Role Nominees Annette Benning (The Kids Are All Right), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone), Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Michelle Wiliams (Blue Valentine)

Who will win:  Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

Who should win: Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)

Actor in a Supporting Role Nominees: Christian Bale (The Fighter), John Hawkes (Winter's Bone), Jeremy Renner (The Town), Mark Ruffolo (The Kids Are All Right), Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)

Who will win: Christian Bale (The Fighter)

Who should win:  Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)

Actress in a Supporting Role Nominees:  Amy Adams (The Fighter),  Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech), Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

Who will win: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

Who should win: Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)

Directing Nominees: Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), David O'Russell (The Fighter), Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) , David Fincher (The Social Network), Joel and Ethan Coen (True Grit)

Who will win:  David Fincher (The Social Network)

Who should win:  David Fincher (The Social Network)

And the rest:

Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3
Art Direction: Inception
Cinematography: The King's Speech
Costume Design: Alice In Wonderland
Documentary Feature: Waste Land
Documentary Short Subject: Poster Girl
Film Editing: Black Swan
Foriegn Language Film: Biutiful
Makeup: The Way Back
Music (Original Score): The King's Speech
Music (Original Song): Toy Story 3
Short Film (Animated): Day & Night
Short Film (Live Action): The Confession
Sound Editing: Inception
Sound Mixing: The Social Network
Visual Effects: Inception
Writing (Adapted Screenplay): The Social Network
Writing (Original Screenplay): The King's Speech

Final Oscar Tally:

4 - The Social Network, The King's Speech
3 - Inception
2 - Toy Story 3, Black Swan, The Fighter
1 - The Confession, Day & Night, Poster Girl, Waste Land, The Way Back, Biutiful, Alice in Wonderland

Coming To A Cinema Nowhere Near Me 25th Feb 11'

Now, what follows is a rather nerdy admission but one that is completely necessary for both myself, in order to keep on top of the numerous amount of films being released in the UK cinema week after week, and for the point of this post.

I use spreadsheets.  There I've said it.  Lots of them.  I find out what films are being released, jot down the ones I want to watch, add them to my Lovefilm queue (that's if I can't see them at the cinema and believe me 90% of the time that has to be the case) and I feel like my world has order.

So, Friday is new film day and basically these are the latest films to be added to that ever expanding list.  Have I mentioned how much I like lists?  It's starting to become a worry.

Animal Kingdom (David Michod)

Winner of a Grand Jury prize at this years Sundance Film Festival, David Michod's debut feature about a dysfunctional crime family on the verge of imploding has me rather excited; Peter Bradshaw's 4 star review in the Guardian has only whetted my appetite: 

It is a tense, violent and supremely watchable crime drama, set in the bluecollar-gangland of Melbourne and starring Guy Pearce and Ben Mendelsohn, reviving memories of Eric Bana in Chopper and Scott Roberts's Australian heist thriller The Hard Word.

Sounds like just my cup of tea.

Waste Land (Lucy Walker/Karen Harley/Joao Jardim)

This Oscar nominated documentary has recently been shrouded in controversy with questions being asked about who really directed the feature, check out this article at Salon for the full debacle.

It does sound a bit like Oscar fodder, An uplifting feature documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit...but hey, maybe that's what I need on a Sunday afternoon

Howl (Rob Epstein/Jeffrey Friedman)

Now, I admit, this one I wasn't so sure about for a long time until I relented and I just know I'm going to be disappointed.  Howl, the poem that is, meant so much to me as a young, moody teen and I've probably got blinkers on when I read some of the negative comments coming out about this film...la la la not listening.

Ah, who knows, maybe I'll be surprised. 

So, that's my lot this week.  Anything coming out in your neighbourhood that you may venture out to watch?

Playing catch up - Best Films of 2009: #50 Public Enemies

The first part in an ongoing series, my countdown of the best films released in UK Cinemas in 2009.

#50 - Public Enemies (Michael Mann)

'it was the golden age of bank robbery'.

The gangster movie, that bastion of the American film industry which came out of the silent era straight into the talkies, earmarking the golden era of Hollywood filmmaking.  An era that as a young boy I was so innocently wrapped in, the myths it built and the players it starred; Jimmy Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G.Robinson and, Scarface himself, Paul Muni, to name but a few, what a dignified cheap thrill it all was.  Tommy guns, cool cars, gangsters in hats with good looking molls on their arms, how was I to know as a young boy that what the studios were mythologising happened to be a very real and very violent chapter in America's deep depression? 

Those 30's gangster flicks and the revisionist gangster filmmaking of the 60's and 70's, think Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn) and The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola), have more than a baring on Public Enemies and how could they fail not to?  The gangster film has an unique identity in Hollywood, up there with the Western, and to ignore comparisons or influences prove to be impossible.  Michael Mann brings an ambivalence to the proceedings, a gangster film where there are no glorious deaths or martyrs, Johnny Depp's, playing John Dillinger, vacant face and haunted eyes are the polar opposite to that of Jimmy Cagney's larger than life villain.  There's an inevitability in the way Dillinger walks, mumbles and postures, he's a dead man walking and the perpetual motion of Public Enemies, of John Dillinger, means that he's not sitting still and waiting for death to come to him.

Taking up the story from Dillinger's (Johnny Depp) infamous jail break from Indiana State Penitentiary in 1933, we follow Dillenger in the last year of his life, incorporating more bank robberies, violence and the slow disintegration of his gang and fellow outlaws by the newly enforced g-man conceived by J.Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) and led by FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). Told in an almost vignette style we jump from bank robbery to shoot out to jail break, evading Purvis at every turn until Hoover realises that his new bureau, now a public laughing stock, need to enlist some actual experienced police officers if they're ever to catch Dillinger and co.

Public Enemies is a deliberately low key affair, the antithesis of the summer blockbuster and as a result won't win over many a floating audience, it does however rewards fans of Mann's work with the usual mix of the stylish and detached, of pop and art, of men versus the established order.  Dillinger is the perfect Mann character for instance, his strict code of honour and life outside the mainstream kicking against those he feels repress his freedom hark back to any Mann protagonist (Tom Cruise in Collateral, Robert De Niro in Heat, Will Smith in Ali) who embody the world of men against men. Yet Depp doesn't register like those men who have gone before, neither does the man he's pinned against in the guise of Melvin Purvis, both men seem to move on regardless, Mann deliberately keeping them at arms length. 

Despite the relentless constant motion of moving on, plus the use of cinematographer Dante Spinotti's digital camera, which gives Public Enemies its immediacy, a nowness that juxtaposes with the period setting and makes you feel as if sometimes you're just sitting in the corner of the room, Public Enemies stutters from time to time.  Character seems like a second concern for all involved and this is probably the choice Mann had to make to get the feel for his film, however it confuses several passages in the film and infuriates in others; some characters are dropped in with next to no introduction and feels like a missed opportunity to establish a connection with these men, no matter how sparse. Dillinger's love interest, Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) is also given short shift, there is hardly time to establish a feeling between the two and it's only Elliot Goldenthal's luscious score that reminds us there's anything between them.

Mann's discipline to detail and structure are ultimately what makes Public Enemies satisfying, yet in being smitten by the period, the decor, the world (and what film of Mann's doesn't fully incorporate the world in which it inhabits?)  he takes his eye of his players and though sounding, looking and playing the part we know nothing of their motivations or anything of how America related to these people in a depression hit land. Of course, this is probably the point and what does it matter why Dillinger became the man he did?  Or how a thorough psychological background would help us to understand a time and place now alien to the vast majority?  Mann has simply attempted to capture a place and time in America where farm boys who robbed banks were the stuff of celebrity, legend and folklore, nothing more.

#49 - Frozen River (Courtney Hunt)

Festival Update: Berlin hands Golden Lion to Iranian Drama

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi picked up the Golden Bear at this years Berlin Festival for the film 'Nader and Simin, a Separation', charting the aftermath of a 15 year marriage.  At his acceptance speech Farhadi paid tribute to Jafar Panahi, his jailed countryman who was due to sit at this years festival as part of the jury.

Other prizes such as Best Director went to Ulrich Kohler for 'Sleeping Sickness' which centres on a corrupt western aid programme in Africa and the Silver Bear, the runner up film, went to Hungarian stalwart Bela Tarr for his new film 'The Turin Horse' with the director claiming it to be his swansong.

for further reading on the highs and lows of Berlin try here

Ten for 2010 - so far

I know it's a little late in the day for all this and I know it's February but hey, I've been out of the loop for a real long time so I hereby give myself permission to make this little list, ok? Good, that's settled then. Anyway, here are my picks of films released in the UK in 2010; note that due to my geographical disadvantage, cinema wise, I have missed several critically acclaimed films (see list at bottom of page for omissions) and therefore this list should be taken as it is intended: a work in progress.

So what was there in 2010 to love? Well amongst the sequels, vanity projects, debunked star vehicles, dour Hollywood 'product', whimsical introverted independents and some timid world cinema 2010 still offered us a bounty of cinema, enough I believe the keep the most jaded of cinephiles happy in the belief that the future of cinema is in good hands and is vital as much as it ever was. Anyway, that's quite enough from me, here are my 10 for 2010:

 The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel)

Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda)

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

  White Material (Claire Denis)

A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)

24 City (Jia Zhange)

I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino)

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog)

The Maid (Sebastian Silva)

The Ghost (Roman Polanski)

For the hell of it, here are my films ranked 11 - 20

11) Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos)
12) The Killer Inside Me (Micheal Winterbottom)
13) Wild Grass (Alain Resnais)
14) Mother (Bong Joon-Ho)
15) Breathless (Yang Ik-Joon)
16) Lourdes (Jessica Hausner)
17) Double Take (Johan Grimonprez)
18) Samson and Delilah (Warwick Thornton)
19) Winter's Bone (Debra Granik)
20) Inception (Christopher Nolan)

Ommisions :  
The Social Network (Fincher), Another Year (Leigh), Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy), Revanche (Spielmann), Vincere (Bellocchio), The Time That Remains (Suleiman), Ivul (Kotting), Gainsbourg (Sfar), The Illusionist (Chomet), I'm Still Here (Affleck), Enter The Void (Noe),  
Police, Adjective (Porumboiu), The Arbor (Barnard), Carlos (Assayas), Monsters (Edwards), 
The Kids Are Alright (Cholodenko), We Are What We Are (Grau), Of Gods and Men (Beauvois), Somewhere (Coppola)

The above films will probably change my official top 20 as I slowly catch up with the back log, I will keep a constant reminder of the ranking on my blog sidebar.

Stray Dog: A Country in Mourning

This is a contribution to the Japanese Cinema Blogathon hosted by the cool guys at Cinematon! Cinematon!, who along with others in the blogsphere are celebrating Japan's contribution to the world of cinema.  Please feel free to contribute to the week long celebration and share your favourite moments, directors and films from Japan and help to spread aid relief with every post for a country in need of global support.

(Akira Kurosawa, 1949)

The effects of an evident hangover subtly plays out in the background during Kurosawa's, detective procedural and noir styled, Stray Dog; a year before the international success of Rashomon (1950) and like the elephant in the room it's routinely ignored, best avoided and not to be mentioned, yet inevitably, can't help but to manifest, infect and permeate everything in comes in contact with. Kurosawa taps into a country's collective guilt, the consequences and moral questioning of its role in the Second World War, and where it turns now in the years of depression, occupation and shame without ever fully implying so. It takes 50 minutes for the word 'war' even to be muttered but ever since that unsettling close up of the craze-eyed dog, left out to boil in the mid-day sun, from the opening moments of the credit sequence, we've felt it's presence keenly, as if it never needed saying.

Set in the heaving metropolis of Tokyo in post-war Japan, rife with inner-city crime, a disaffected populous seeking solace in sake and cheap cabaret shows, jaded policemen and poverty, Stray Dog formally plays out like a police procedural drama playing with a film noir template. Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) plays the rookie cop who becomes victim to a pickpocket that easily steals his gun on a packed bus, ladened with shame and bound by the sense of honour so prevalent in Japanese culture, on top of his overwhelming guilt that still hangs heavy from his years of soldering, he offers his resignation which is swiftly refused by his bosses. Given this second chance he is teamed with Sato (Takashi Shimura, another Kurosawa regular) an older and wiser detective, in order to track down his missing gun which is now linked with a shooting of a young woman, sending Murakami into a frantic hunt weighed down by his own failings, history and guilt.

In trying to locate the gun, Murakami and Sato take a tour through the desperate social conditions of the country and the people that revel or sink in its murky waters. It's scenes, such as Murakami's montage through the black market that take Stray Dog to another level, not always reached by the generic film noir of the day, in which he brings the realities of this land into stark, bold focus rather than navel gazing at a rogues gallery of assorted low life, we get to feel that hardship on our back.  Early into their investigation, a name is attached to the shooting, a young man by the name of Yusa, dressed in a white linen suit, an ex-soldier from the war who had his identity stolen from him (his knapsack) on his return; it soon becomes apparent that Murakami could easily have been this man, his doppelganger, his alternative self, if life had treated him differently.

The war hangs on Murakami like a bad smell, his face (as always) a grimace, a fixture of torment and anxiety, never lets up and rarely can he look you in the eye without turning away riddled with guilt and shame. He's been fighting those demons daily and not sure if he's winning the battle, there's a vague notion that he turned to police work in order to battle those thoughts, after admitting that, at his lowest ebb, when he too had his knapsack stolen, 'thinking I was at a dangerous point, I chose this work (policing)' rather than following the road of Yusa on the easier one of criminality. Or maybe he simply didn't want to be on the losing side again. He's one of the nation's stray dogs, fortunately bound by character and morality, Yusa, like the dog in the opening titles has slowly been driven mad by the elements, by nature, by society. Half-baked.

The palatable heat of Stray Dog knits the film together, suture like, with a tense, claustrophobic edge, its noir credentials safely entwined in the world of the bustling, underclass cityscape. The city is coated in a constant layer of sweat, the humidity bringing a lot of the action to a standstill, protagonists having to fan themselves or devour ice lollies in-between sentences. Hot on the heels of their man, the closer, the more oppressive it becomes, clothes hang heavy, brows drip with sweat until finally they are within yards of him and the heavens open with a deluge of rain. It's a brilliant use of weather to measure the frustration of a brooding and angry nation, as well as raising suspense, a particular recurring theme that one will come to see time and again in Kurosawa's work.

Weighing in with the humanity of neo-realism, Stray Dog , ultimately, strives for redemption, belief and a better future; the belief that one can make a go of life with application and hard work. Murakami and Yusa are separated by fate, the cop and the killer; ying and yang, Murakami understanding this predicament better than anyone, 'There are no bad people, only bad environment' he tells Sato, after they had witnessed Yusa's living conditions in the small outhouse of his sister's home, not that his elder colleague shares his viewpoint, one of the many differences that separate the elder and après guerre generations. In an occupied country, striving to make sense of its identity, cultural heritage and psychological mindset, Sato and Murakami's different understanding of the same person underlines this Japan, at this time, in crisis.