Sean Connery in Memoriam

Cinema lost another giant this year as the legendary Highlander Sean Connery himself passed away aged 90 in the Bahamas. Now, he might have had some very regressive personal ideas that have been repeated ad nauseum by leftists. But one can't claim that he wasn't a mesmerizing screen star, and also (his constant Scottish accent and lisping s's notwithstanding), quite a great actor as well. This post takes a look at some of his best performances.

From Russia with Love (UK, 1963)
Dir. Terence Young

There are many ways of approaching the Bond series, but it is also interesting to watch the earliest entries where everything was not that set in stone. While Dr. No already had a version of the basic formula, the first sequel in the series took a different path, having a more real world espionage-based and dark sequel. As it is one of the more serious entries in the franchise, I find it also surprisingly underrated.

It's still a Bond film, so there's plenty of ludicrousness. The entire film begins with a scene where Bond is seemingly killed, but it turns out it's just some guy wearing a rubber mask (for some reason) in Red Grant's (Robert Shaw) training exercise. Grant's dark reflection of Bond is one of the reasons people remember this film so fondly, but it has some other good characterizations as well, from the double-agent Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) to the actual main villain Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya), who never even meets Bond face-to-face. 

But Red Grant does, in perhaps the best fight scene of the entire series.

 

Before Daniel Craig came along, Connery was the only actor who managed to get a sense of danger out of the Bond movies. He is constantly in over his head, but his cocky nature and luck also make him come out on top of any situation. Bond is probably the worst secret agent possible, but it just adds to the allure of the character. Espionage is well below his radar after women and boozing.

★★★★

Marnie (USA, 1964)
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock

 

Late-era Hitchcock films aren't also quite as well-known, and it may seem even surprising that Connery starred in a Hitch movie. Marnie is a exploration of trauma and lies and their effects on a relationship. It also has a Psycho-like table-turn, in which we at first follow Marnie (Tippi Hedren) as she cheats, swindles and steals money from each of her employers. When she gets caught by Connery's Mark Rutland, he takes it upon himself to get to the bottom of her personality flaws and functions.

 

As it was already the 60's, Hitch could have more graphic sex and violence than used to in his films. Connery is more of a hands-on actor than Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant who had problems with their masculinity in Hitch's movies. The central character of Marnie, however, is way too half-baked, a damsel in distress with little agenda of her own. Hitchcock has interesting scenes play out her panic attacks, but is seems he could have grounded the end reveals a bit more with the role of Marnie's mother being almost nonexistant beforehand. I think the film showcases a little too clearly Hitchcock's problems with women, and as a result, it's a good try to have a multilayered psychological thriller, but times had already passed such a chauvinistic view of things. It's not among the best of it's director's standards.

★★★

The Offence (USA, 1973)
Dir. Sidney Lumet

 

Connery made four films in total with Lumet, and as directed by a veteran who leaned heavy on good scripts and getting the best out of his actors, he also made some of the best work in his career. Here he plays a British policeman driven evenly more desperate as a child-murderer's case lingers on.

 

I'd say the bleak outlook on a 20-year police procedure has probably been a major influence on Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder. Lumet, however directs this mostly like a stage play, with minimalist interrogation rooms and very dialogue-heavy scenes. Lumet is interested in a breaking psyche, and the growing desperation that brings a seemingly good police to do atrocious deeds. It covers similar themes than a lot of showier films which is probably why this small-scale movie has had such relatively light attention.

Connery's role, however, is yet another character that takes out his inner anger and frustrations on women, in this case his long-suffering wife. Well, he has violent tendencies towards suspects as well, so he's not entirely likable by any means, but still, one has to wonder why so many of his characters share this woman-beating tendencies.

★★★ 1/2

The Wind and the Lion (USA, 1975)
Dir. John Milius

Milius found a good historical epic with which to tell a story about one of his greatest heroes, Theodore Roosevelt. It wasn't his last Roosevelt film, and Ol' Teddy is restricted here to a quite brief supporting role, though he is the Wind in the title. The Lion, then is Connery's Raisuli, a Berber prince out for glory. At that point it wasn't considered problematic to have Scots portray Arabs. Rather, he is used here to be a world-class lover and a fighter, in the same vein as Rudolph Valentino. 

There's planty of action scenes equal to Milius's later Conan the Barbarian, and a Stockholm sydromish romance with Candace Bergen's reporter, who finds that there's more to the Berber lifestyle than meets the eye at first. Meanwhile, Teddy (Brian Keith) faces pressures on his foreign policy back home, but meets them with his personal philosophies, which isn't nearly as interesting. The seperate stories don't quite click together and the ending is quite underwhelming. nevertheless, it is an enjoyable film to watch since Connery's and Milius's approaches to tell manly men tales are tangentially similar.

★★★

The Rock (USA, 1996)
Dir. Michael Bay

Finally, among the last really entertaining romps Connery made, and also the movie was more or less to blame for many of Connery's late-era woes. The Rock's stunt casting sees him play pretty much a James Bond type that has been kept in a prison cell for 30 years. He's a quippy man of action, but at the same time a mentor too. That the aged Connery happend to fit into a thoroughly modern action movie so well gave the wrong imprsiion to other filmmakers who attempted similar approaches, the bottom of the barrel being 2003's LXG which made Connery quit acting altogether.

 

You can find plenty to blame in Michael Bay's approach. Connery seems to enjoy to play a character that sees things to be as black-and-white as they were in the 1960's, which extends also on his sex politics. He also seemingly kills or maims a lot of innocent people in a very tacked-on car chase, that's nevertheless a great showcase of Bay's strengths as an action director. By contrast, Nicolas Cage's weirdo, modern action man and Ed Harris's noble main baddie are more nuanced characters, but Connery holds his own against these two great performances. Bay has only regressive things to say, but that's only if you try to search anything meaningful in his cavalcade of outrageous plot turns and huge explosions. As a 90's romp, it's still great fun, and perhaps should have been Connery's actual retirement film so he could have gone out on top.

★★★★

Worst of the Worst II: The Worsening

Let's do this.

LIVE - from the beautiful Villa Ihalainen in Eastern Helsinki. It is a Dark and Stormy Night and celebrities flock to the huge gala celebrating the 200th blog post of The Last Movieblog. I've already spotted David Hasselhoff on a T-shirt and Marilyn Monroe on a painting. And isn't that a cartoon image of Michael Caine? Oh - and this just in: There's double the reason to celebrate tonight, since the blog's visitor number has just passed 150,000! Over to blogkeeper Paavo Ihalainen for comments:

"Well, it's been a patchy year and I haven't been able to update as much as I've liked to. Oh, I've written plenty about movies to other places, but this live blogging is a means to show the world that this blog is still alive and kicking."

So, what's going to be the programme tonight?

"I wrote a rather popular text for my 100th blog post, that celebrated some silly and cheesy exploitation movies that had found newfound fame in YouTube and other media streaming sites. Since then I myself have subscribed to Netflix and get an incresingly big number of bad movies from there. The site has an impressive arsenal of famously terrible movies - many of which I have wanted to see but haven't dared to actually sit down and watch. So, as making fun of these universally loathed films is something akin to shooting fish in a barrel, and what better way to celebrate than to make me miserable, why not do both - and live."

What are we going to watch today?

"Well, I figured we could start out with the notorious Catwoman, and go on there to some other atrocities. Some possibilities include Rollerball, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever and Green Lantern. You can also suggest your own pieces of cinematic shit on Twitter (handle @LastMB or hashtag #TheWorsening ) and if it makes me fear and shudder, I might get into it. This will go on until I pass out or die."

That sounds like quite an evening. I've just gotten word that we are ready to go live on to Netflix and start to view Catwoman, so get your popcorn ready and Tweets fired up and we'll go.

Catwoman (USA, 2004)
Director: Pitof

I'm guessing the Catwoman in this one isn't the first one. At least judging by the opening credits. There's been Catwomen before. And thus the one in this isn't that special.

Halle Berry starts out narrating dead in a pool. A Sunset Blvd. reference? Bad movies shouldn't acknowledge classics.

Sharon Stone had something of a comeback at this point. She did this and Basic Instinct 2, so it didn't go as well as it could've.

Eugh, I have to go through Halle Berry trying to act mousy and timid. Why can't superheroes ever start the movies already powerful?

Halle got saved by falling off a roof by a police officer. She went there to get a cat. That's this movie's strong female role model for you.

I think they picked the actor playng the love interest cop because he looks a little like Michael Keaton. He can't act worth shit.

Oh, the actor is called Benjamin Bratt and his character is, get this, Tom Lone. Han Solo's more boring cousin?

These aerial CGI shots look horrible. Like a cutscene from a PS1 game. Then again, this film IS 9 years old. Makes you think about your life.

Yeah, make the female protagonist have an opponent her own caliber. An evil cosmetics manufacturer. That's not sexist at all!

Halle died, then a group of cats wagged their tails at her and then her own cat (with serious halitosis issues) burped green radioactive gas on her. Thus, the iris in her eye changed and Catwoman was reborn! This is a terrible movie, in case you didn't know.

Was this Warner Brothers' first attempt of getting into the new wave of superheros (started by Fox & Sony's Marvel movies)? This became before Batman Begins, but after X-Men 2 and Spider-Man. It does not compare well to any of them.

Oh. Halle's still timid. Step up your game, girl!

Now she's showing her mad basketball kids to Lone Starr and a group of freaky chanting kids. They chant the "One of us" thing from Freaks, which is baffling.

Now for some faint praise. I think visually, the film isn't too shabby. It's bright, colorful and staged like comic book panels. I see they attempt the same unreal style that worked in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. Too bad the script is horrendous and the actors either bad or poorly directed.

So Halle becomes Catwoman only by night, steals jewelry and can't remember anything in the morning. Then she's back to being timid. The Mask was done already! Give us a good female character that can stand on her own and has no regrets!

Catwoman's powers are explained to us in detail. Silly me to think she was just an expert burglar and jewel thief without any supernatural powers. Goes to shows how wrong everything is that comics teach you.

Man, that bondage gear is a horrible superhero costume. Sexy only to S&M freaks, a pain to look at for others.

Catwoman's beau is dumber than a sack of bricks, if he can't tell the woman he took out earlier and the half-nude woman in a dumb cat mask are the same person.

Have I complained about the dreadful R&B soundtrack already? Cheap and as lazy as this movie's script.

What's this movie's theme? You shouldn't attempt to stop aging and rather go through life acting like a cat? You shouldn't be mousy, but rather go and hit and hit on your boyfriend at nighttime masked? Being schizophrenic makes you more attractive? This is all over the place.

Sharon Stone has a superpower of her own! She's had so many botox shots, she's impervious to any pain. She's unconvincingly pounding Catsy around in an ad studio.

Final thoughts: The movie had potential to be an emancipating female action movie, but they saw fit to overcomplicate Catwoman's character, had a terrible script and no style whatsoever. The film is mostly by-the-numbers boring rather than truly atrocious, thus resembling the similarly forgettable Elektra. Ugh.

★ 1/2

Dungeons & Dragons (USA/Czech Republic, 2000)
Director: Courtney Solomon

The film seems to have a Dune -like quality in that I didn't understand the strange concepts in the prologue text, and have a feeling you should know the source material to get anything out of this.

Jeremy Irons, what have you wrought? He plays a wizard that obtained a cheap-looking toy wand with an odd machine.

Now here's a (bad CGI) dragon. He obeys Irons' orders since he has a green-glowing candy cane.

Already this presents a more entertaining brand of bad moviemaking. Irons chews the scenery here and the horrible effects seem to be borrowed from Hercules: the Legendary Journeys.

Oh great, here's some Star Wars: Episode I -inspired political "intrigue", where a child queen is concerned about the well-being of her subjects, while politicians play their own hand. How interesting.

There certainly are also a lot of scenes of Marlon Wayans screeching. He's the Jar Jar of this picture.

Some thieves, the princess and a dwarf who likes to break the 4th wall and address the camera directly have formed a band. They met some brightly colored aliens and now the protagonist fought for his life inside various death traps for like 20 minutes. He then found a big red ruby.

They are pursued by Jeremy Irons' blue-lipped henchman and his guards. If he doesn't succeed, Irons will take out the tentacle monster he enchanted there before.

If the acting was bad in Catwoman, it was at least uniformly bad. All the characters in this one act as if they are in different movies. Sometimes that, and the horrible dialogue produce interesting results. The guild leader shouting "I never joke, when mages invade MY GUILD!" is pronounced in an odd mixture of Christopher Walken's extra punctuations, Nicolas Cage's mania and John Malkovich's disdain (plus baldness).

The director has an odd fixation on ears. Now, a girl is interrogated by a baddie growing tentacles from his ears that connect to her ears. Ears!

A lot of fantasy cliches in this one (duh). Dwarves hate elves, fear horses, and are generally a pain in the ass. Still, better than The Hobbit II.

Although the soundtrack sounds ripped straight from The Mummy, there's a surprising lack of Avatar-chanting.

The make up budget of this movie must've been smaller than most Halloween parties. The beards and other facial hair all look clearly glued on, the ears and whatnot plastic.

Jeremy Irons needed another plastic toy sword all along. This film isn't that clear about its MacGuffins. With that he can summon some evil dragons.

Of course the CGI effects are really bad, but with this epic battle raging around and dragons flying all around, one does not get the impression of that, you know, really happening. It seems all the actors just sort of pretend they're there.

Fantasy is a genre where phallic objects come to the spotlight, and they make good use of various wands and swords banging against each other here.

Final thoughts: They went for too much epic here. Since they hadn't the budget, it's foolish to attempt to do epic dragon battles, skeletal monsters and such. With a more low key approach, this could have been a Princess Bride -style modern swashbuckler or at the very least a Hercules: The Series: The Movie. But this was ruined by casting Marlon Wayans to scream around. I'm glad he's only around for half of the movie.

★★

Highlander II: The Quickening (USA/France, 1991)
Director: Russel Mulcahy

Topical troubles: The Earth's Ozone layer is collapsing. The one Connor McLeod (Christopher Lambert and his impressive hair) helps around the main scientists to build a shield to protect the Earth.

In a surprising twist, we jump forward 25 years, where an elderly McLeod is still worried about shields and ozone.

He also watches a lot of Opera.

Here we go. He's not an ancient Highlander, but... an alien from planet Zeist! Sean Connery reminds this (entirely contradictory) "fact" to us in voiceover. He was also a zeistian, fighting against the evil General Katana (ha!).

The orchestral music makes this all seem like a Popeye cartoon.

Michael Ironside plays General Katana. Maybe he can bring an ounce of class to this.

I can't stand these references to Queen songs, when they are not playing on the soundtrack. The replacements are uniformly pretty terrible.

So these aliens were exiled on earth where they were immortal and apparently lost their memory, but now the elder McLeod remembers he could go back to space since he won "The Prize" of being the last Highlander left standing. What a load of gibberish.

Eurotrash aliens! They are Katana's thugs, of course.

Since new zeistians have arrived on Earth, McLeod is no longer "the One". They, of course attempt to behead him while giggling annoyingly.

But then one dies in the battle and McLeod gets stronger again.

I haven't liked any of Mulcahy's feature films, but I got to say, he's got a unique style in staging action scenes. It's an 80's music video type of style, which is one of the reasons his career went down the toilet. This movie is another.

It's funny to hear Sean Connery say "shithead". It's the word he was born to say!

Not limited to just flashbacks, Connery's gotten better from his beheading in the first film. He has to adjust to a brave new world and you know what that means: a montage of him trying on modern clothes with a bad synthesizer version of the Wilhelm Tell Overture in the background.

This is really idiotic: An airline video demonstrating safety procedures has a plane going down and the passengers screaming in terror. I'd like to see them try to put such a film to be shown in any real air travels. That's some Fight Club shit right there.

I've got to be honest, I haven't paid much attention on what's happening. They are attempting to destroy Katana's shield or something. There's little interest in any of he characters and their thrives on doing something or other. I like the bleak dystopian athmosphere, though, so it's not all a waste.

Mulcahy does get some extra mileage out of the fact that only beheading can kill these characters. So they're able to go through gruesome ordeals ans bounce right back.

Final thoughts: This was clearly a lot more carefully constructed film than the two previous ones. In fact, I think it's bad reputation is caused mostly by it shitting down its predecessor in a way very few sequels do. It's a shame, really, because all that stupid alien crap wouldn't be that hard to write around. Except of course, then you'd have to explain how all of a sudden McLeod isn't the only "One" out there. Plenty of Highlander sequels have since done just that.

Other than that, it has plenty of good old fashioned high concept action and a nice dystopian angle on it all. It's just sad thare aren't any stakes going on the viewer would care about.

★★

Ghosts of Mars (USA, 2001)
Director: John Carpenter

Carpenter's idea of a future dystopia is a matriarchy? Or why is it so much emphasized?

This has a flashback structure too, we are solving what happened to a freight train on Mars that returned empty.

This is probably the only movie out there that has both Pam Grier and Jason Statham.

The blue-collar drones on a strange planet gives a definite Alien vibe. Carpenter has already stooped low since he has to copy oter people's ideas instead of making his own.

Mars doesn't look otherwordly and there really isn't a sense of presence. All the sets look like sound stages. Must be the lighting...

Also Carpenters use of special effects hasn't improved much since Escape from New York.

And also he can't use music like he used to. The cheap soundtrack that sounds it's from public domain is far fetched from JC's own athmosphere heavy synthesizer tracks from his classics.

They've wondered whether Ice Cube has gone around killing them, but they now found out there are a lot of Martian cultists that look like Marilyn Manson fans out there who like to behead their enemies.

Oh, okay, they are actually possessed people. Possessed by the Slipknot virus.

This wasn't really like Alien at all. In fact this is actually a pretty nifty twist on a basic trope, with the berserker virus carriers and all. Too bad so much on how it is presented has failed so badly.

With deputizing ordinary citizens, the movie's turning into a western, fast. Figures, this is the guy who did Assault on Precinct 13. Still, I kind of wish Carpenter would have managed to do a better space-western than Avatar. Also, couldn't Carpenter try to do a real western? With Kurt Russell?

They just went out guns blazing. It doesn't look that exciting, more like a company's weekend retreat at a paintball range. Odd that Carpenter didn't even direct the actors on how to hold the guns.

In the end it actually seems that this was a remake of Assault on Precinct 13. Wow. Loses to Carpenter's previous effort with considerable numbers.

Final thoughts: I may be a sentimental fool, but I've seen the potential in all of the films I've watched today. None of the other movies' failures pains me as much as this one's. It just appears that Carpenter hasn't been trying, from every which angle you try to look at it. It is a shame, I don't know what burned him out but it took a long while to get him to direct again and even then the result was the ho-hum The Ward.

★★

Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (USA/Canada 2004)
Director: Raja Gosnell

They wiped he soundtrack from Beetlejuice, I hear.

Written by James Gunn. WHY?!?

This begins as the Mystery Machine twerps being super-popular, walking on a red carpet. Speaking of carpet, the fact that Velma has enthusiastic fan girls (shown right after Daphne's over-enthusiastic fan boys) does little to repel the lesbian undertones associated with the character. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Matthew Lillard is creepily similar to the cartoon Shaggy, right down to the voice.

Velma has spotted and immediately fallen for Seth Green. He'd be a beard if he could grow one.

Wow, after Dungeons & Dragons I didn't think there would be as terrible CGI effects on a big-budget movie. I was mistaken.

So a pterodactyl monster spooked everyone in a museum, and everyone blames the Mystery Inc. for that. We've got ourselves a mystery. Enh.

What would be a modern children's movie without "Baby Got Back" on the soundtrack? I shudder to think.

Another Dungeons & Dragons flashback: The black knight ghost is banging his sword at Daphne's crotch.

Scooby fakes he has rabies in oder to get out for "fresh air". Dog, if you really got rabies, you would be put down.

Peter Boyle! Why oh why does every bad movie includes someone genuinely awesome?

You know, I like Joe Dante -like cartoon buffoonery. The scene where Shaggy and Scooby try out various colorful science formulas is reminiscent of Gremlins 2 or Looney Tunes: Back In Action. Perhaps James Gunn's influence does shine through.

Then again, Scooby Doo rapping was not something I ever needed to hear.

I've always wondered, what age are these characters supposed to be? They say they haven't visited their high school clubhouse "in years".

The diver's ghost is a great visual. One of the most memorable creatures from the original cartoon.

Far be it from me to speak against fart jokes, but the ones in this are just shameful.

I laughed unironically at the cotton candy glob.

And of course the unmasking scene is always fun. How long did the villain have to wait in two rubber masks for the police to see who was under all that?

The pop music in this movie is kind of godawful.

Final thoughts: Y'know. For kids. It's a children's film, even though fussy, noisy and running all over the place. But it all doesn't have to appeal to adults anyway. There are a few genuinely funny cartoonish moments, which is more than I expected from this. But James Gunn's script would need a better director, that would keep the tone consistent (and perhaps the monsters a little more creepy). Raja Gosnell isn't perhaps the best choice for this, but certainly not the worst, either.

★★ 1/2

P.S. There's an additional scene after the credits with a secret code to a Gameboy game. Huh. Multimedia advertising.

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (USA/Germany, 2002)
Director: Wych Kaosayananda

This was still surfing on the tidal waves of The Matrix when long leather trenchcoats were considered cool.

I'm not keeping up with the plot. Antonio Banderas is a secret agent, whose wife has been misplaced. And he has amnesia? Something like that.

So far there hasn't been a single new idea in the film. I think this is so badly rated because it's so generic to the point of tears. It's hard to believe anyone remembering anything about the movie after a week.

Surprising technical troubles: The voice sync stopped working at about 20 minutes in. I'd say we call it a day. I'll try to finish watching this another time.

Best of 2012

Hoo-hah! What a year, amirite? I hope it's been as good for you as it's been for me. In retrospect, I can see that 2011 in particular was a great movie year, since so much of its best flooded our Finnish cinemas this past year. I've yet to see so many films that were produced this year that I don't really know about 2012, but I got a very good hunch about it. A surprisingly good amount of fine films made my shortlist to make one of these top lists for your pleasure.

Keep in mind that I only include films that got their premieres during 2012 in Finland. That's why the list may include films produced in 2011, or even 2010. Festival and straight-to-dvd -lists will follow later on.

To be seen top 5: Deep Blue Sea, Faust, Magic Mike, Pirates!, The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Runners-up

This year, it was so hard to choose which films to raise to the top 12, that I included no fewer than ten runners up. Rather than to have a few words of explanation, for the most part I'm going to allow the reviews of these films speak for themselves. The runners up are:

The Artist
Brave
The Cabin in the Woods
Canned Dreams (Säilöttyjä unelmia)
Call Girl
Cosmopolis - The smartest film of the year by far, but perhaps a tad too analytical to be enjoyable. I wrote a review in Finnish for Elitisti.
Hugo
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Moonrise Kingdom
We Need to Talk About Kevin

The top 12 films released in 2012

12. Skyfall (USA/UK)
Director: Sam Mendes



Sam Mendes balanced the nigh-impossible odds of bringing the fun back to Bond without sacrificing too much of the feet-on-the-ground approach people have enjoyed in Craig's previous outings (well, in Casino Royale at least). Sure, there are several gaping plot-holes and odd character decisions, but keep in mind that this is a film series about a secret agent that tells everyone his real name, and saves the world from domination by being really, really good at poker. Now, while there are komodo dragon-jumping and bazar motocross scenes a-plenty, the threat of violence and death makes the film exciting.

Much of the thanks belongs to DoP Roger Deakins, whose stunning work has created one of the most visually striking blockbusters in a long while.

(few minor spoilers ahead)

A lot of people have problems with the final act of the film, which I can't understand. It's good for the Bond franchise to try something new once in a while. Plus, it has a lot of my favorite parts: Bond's reaction shot when the main villain explodes his car,  the montage of Bond booby-trapping chandeliers and floor-boards with cluster bombs, "Welcome to Scotland", that helicopter explosion...

11. Wuthering Heights (UK)
Director: Andrea Arnold

As you might guess, costume dramas really aren't my cup of tea. but when one is done in such a unique way as Andrea Arnold has here, I'm bound to take notice. A silent, meditative look at inner turmoils, Arnold bases much of the emphasis on nature, how it withers and dies away each year yet comes back the next spring.

The story of Heathcliff (James Howson / Solomon Glave), his thirst for vengeance for those that mocked and punished him as a child, the whole class system, and his doomed love with Catharine Earnshaw (Kaya Scodelario / Shannon Beer) has all the weight and melodrama you'd expect from such a story. The reason this film is ranked so low is the overflow of this super-intense relationship drama into ridiculousness in the final act. But the slow, meditative opening is still mesmerizing.

10. The Descendants (USA)
Director: Alexander Payne



Not the best film in Payne's resumé, but even the least-good Payne is better than the best Wes Anderson film (Moonrise Kingdom). The Descendants is still a funny, tragic and heart-warming film, and earnest in a way very few such high-profile American films can manage to be. Clooney's fake tear nonwithstanding. Back in February, I wrote:

The Descendants is more melancholy-filled than funny. Altough it does offer a few hilarious scenes as well. By first glance the film's characters are clichéd, but Payne has written the film intelligently enough to give each of them some surprising depth, and making them integral to the story he's unfolding. It also allows him to have various different viewpoints into one tragedy, and ways of coping with it. 

9. Argo (USA)
Director: Ben Affleck

A surprise final-minute addition to the list, but Argo managed to be one of the year's most exciting films. The super-intense thriller about rescuing American ambassadors from the Ayatollah's Iran in 1980 reaches almost Hitchcock-levels in building up tensions and letting the viewer worry about the outcome. Ben Affleck has grown better and better with each of his directing duties. This nails-to-the seats thriller pines for the days America solved international conflicts creatively, instead of resorting to violence, arrogance and civilian casualities. It's also a tribute to the hands-on approach to filmmaking, craftsmanship and B-movies of old. Really, how could you dislike a movie, where Michael Parks cameos as comics master Jack Kirby?

The film does depict iranians as straight-up villains (although it lays the groundwork on why they are so upset of America's policies, what with all the hated Shah's protection and spying). As such, it probably won't do any favors for the already icy relationship between USA and Iran. But Affleck does offer as apolitical approach to the historical subject as is possible in such a real-life situation. The final scenes have little to do with reality, but as a climax to the tension, as well as a tribute to the little-cheesy American blockbusting filmmaking the movie celebrates, it works.

8. Rust & Bone (De Rouille et d'Os; France/Belgium)
Director: Jacques Audiard



Again, not the director's best work, but dang if this very physical love story couldn't touch the viewer like few other films could. Just in November, I wrote:

(The film is) shot at times as naturally as to be almost like a nature documentary about the hard knock lives of these people. Audiard is as masterful in compressing everything that needs to be said in just a few sentences as Aki Kaurismäki. One also has to give due to the magnificent actors. Cotillard and Schoenaerts are at career-best form here, taking their abilities for emotional performances and imposing physicality (respectively) to whole new heights.

For those awaiting a clear love story, the film might be too distant, even cold. For those awaiting for the brutally violent boxing matches, they are quite sidelined and only featured in two bigger scenes. But for anyone looking for a good drama that makes one ponder about the human vunerability, and how it affects our own humanity, this is a bullseye.

7. Take This Waltz (Canada/Spain/Japan)
Director: Sarah Polley

Another devastating "romance" film, although much in a different way. It is also a comedy of sorts, with a lot of jokes opening up only in symbolism and perhaps opens even better at subsequent viewings. The film isn't afraid to position some very difficult questions like how far do we have the right to pursue our own love and happiness. Blinded by her emotions as she is by the light in the very first scene, Michelle Williams's Margot ends up peeing in the pool of all of her closest friends and new family. And at first tormented, she ends up enjoying doing it for a while. But the rudest awakening is in store for her.

The script is expertly crafted, with call-backs and payoffs to short scenes we almost forgot about in this rollercoaster ride of emotions. The lighting, the music choices, the acting... it all works. The film's symbolism is quite telegraphed, and easy to follow (as with the runners-up list's We Need To Talk About Kevin), but in these cases it's not an entirely bad thing. The year's feel-bad relationship movie.

6. The Raid: Redemption (Serbuan maut, Indonesia/USA)
Director: Gareth Evans

Aw, c'mon. You really didn't think I was going soft on you, did you? For all the well-crafted romance movies I liked, I enjoy a good ass-kicking action movie even more. And for a long time we haven't had as thoroughly enjoyable, kick-punchingly brutal, explosion- and body-count heavy and crucially, totally non-ironic, earnest action film as The Raid. It figures it couldn't have been made straight-out in Hollywood, but rather in Indonesia. Going to South-East Asia to shoot the wildest action scenes imaginable has been an industry haystay from Corman's glory days onwards.

Dredd delivered another tough building-raid movie this year, but this one has a clear advantage on that. The geography and floor plan of the movie are more carefully thought-out, making the rise to the top advance more steadily and logically. At the same time different floors don't feel just like different stages of a video game, but people get thrown from windows and switch floors by quick thinking. The whole thing is crowned with some truly brutal fighting choreography that utilizes the environment in an inventive way. And with the thin, bearded fellow Mad Dog, one of the year's best movie villains as well.

5. Killer Joe (USA)
Director: William Friedkin



Director William Friedkin didn't really make a comeback with this film since he hasn't really been anywhere. Viewing 2006's Bug recently, also based on Tracy Letts's play, made me realize how good his films have still been but no one has taken notice. Well, Friedkin now forced people to take notice, by having Matthew McCounaghey deliver the iciest, evilest, but at the same time oddly logical and twisted morale-following character. Who would've thought that guy could deliver one of the performances of the year! Friedkin's film is wickedly mean, totally brutal, and very unforgiving for the stupidity of its central characters. It's truly devastating, and as a black comedy, not even too funny. It's a lot more complex than that. It could reasonably be called a satire on the American vanishing morales and takeover of greed. And it's a lot more sharp in this aspect than the disappointing Killing them Softly.

Back in August, I wrote:

The film has a down-to-earth aspect, yet some bizarrely delirious ideas, such as a pizza cook being the most notorious gangster boss of the town, or Juno Temple doing nude kung fu moves in the middle of the night for the hell of it. (...) Friedkin stages most of the conflict inside an extended trailer. The movie is at parts laugh-out-loud hilarious, at parts gut-wrenchingly vile and unrelenting. Friedkin hasn't eased his standards one bit while all these years have passed from his magnum opuses.

4. The Punk Syndrome (Kovasikajuttu, Finland)
Directors: Jukka Kärkkäinen, Jani-Petteri Passi



The year's Finnish film, bar none, is this optimistic documentary that follows Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, The Name Day, one of the top punk rock acts of our country. It just so happens that all the band members suffer from developmental disabilities. But they won't let their Syndromes slow them down. The band members quarrel, rebel and go on their daily lives openly in front of the camera. Never apologising, feeling inferior or pandered, the film teaches new ways on how to view the disabled. And it rocks, too!

Back in March, I wrote:

The film raises some questions about how the society treats the handicapped, but it isn't preachy and doesn't rub the viewer's face with them. One also gets a few good laughs at the silly stuff the punk rockers are up to, such as the race Kari loses when he drops his pants, or when the group gets a little too excited with the strip club windows in Hamburg's Reeperbahn. (...) The spotlight is kept promptly on the band, and rightfully so. They are people to easily identify with, to laugh and cry with. The biggest strength of the film is the same as with the band: it feels very real, as opposed to staged. It's a real slice of life with its ups and downs, highs and lows.

3. Carnage (France/Germany/Poland/Spain)
Director: Roman Polanski

For my money, the funniest film of the year. It's another play-based film, and another that takes place solely in a closed environment. Just like the bourgeois in Luis Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel, the rich couple of Cowans (Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet) seem unable to leave the apartment of The Longstreets (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly). They have to come to terms with a schoolyard incident of their children, when one child has hit another with a stick. Turns out, the adults are a lot more savage than to just settle in using sticks as weapons. Closed inside, even the similar-minded people come at each other's throats. At the same time their carefully-constructed images begin to fall apart, so they form unions against each others in an attempt to win moral superiority against each other. The nasty, assholish personalities on display here are perfectly acted.

It's not too far-fetched to see the film as Polanski's own comment on his recent house arrest in Switzerland, waiting for trial. As tensions build and no one is willing to take responsibility, the worst in people comes out. The film's cynical look at human nature married to the fact that it has the most hilarious vomiting scene I've seen in a long while had me howling with laughter. A true gem, and the best Polanski in a long while.

2. The Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within (Tropa de Elite 2: O InimigoAgora É Outro, Brazil)
Director: José Padilha



The best sequel of the year bar none, the follow-up to the toughest brazilian action film is the Godfather II for violent, political thrillers. It's cynical view sees Rio caught in a maelstrom of violence, with armed police strikes at the homes of the poor drug dealers solving little. The corruption that begins from the top has twisted the system so far, that it takes huge feats to be fixed ever again. During which a lot of innocent people are in the firing line. It's a huge, sprawling epic on the many forms corruption can take in a truly rotten society. Back in January, I wrote:

As it is, the film follows a large number of characters, each representing a layer of the society and/or a level of corruption. Although all of their approaches to corruption are cynically viewed as unfunctional, the characters aren't all clearly set to be only right or wrong. Some of their ideas don't work in practice but some do. Most of the film's characters are three-dimensional, with also ulterior motives regardless of their political alignment.  The main focus is in Nascimento, who while still maintaining some of his moral complexity, also comes into his own terms as a character here. Nascimento starts to feel old and weary by the end of the film, and loses some of his will to fight wrongs. Surprisingly, he has a strong end speech about the human values, and he also sees some error on his own ways. He sees that weeding out upper-level corruption would have helped his cause a lot more than shooting poor people in slums, but by now it is already too late. 

1. Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy (UK/France/Germany)
Director: Thomas Alfredson



Another epic that depicts the tentacles of corruption tighten up their grip on the pillars of society. It took me two viewings to truly get into the film's carefully-constructed web of lies and the number of elements in its vast storytelling. After that I read the novel, which was even more complicated. But each viewing or reading rewarded me handsomely with some new layers in this story. It is, by far the most rewarding film of the year.

The spies, depicted here as clerks, pencil-pushers and grey officials, are so far up their own game that they can't function without playing the cat-and-mouse game at all times. The mixture of family life and high-espionage blinds George Smiley (Gary Oldman) so much he is having trouble doing his daily work. Even the tiniest shred of trust has to be built and built for years on end. When even that comes shatteringly down, it feels devastating. Back in February, I wrote:

The film's aesthetic is such that it's easy to find oneself lost on its world. Even the smallest details are made important, and the film's rainy cinematography and 70's design aesthetics are well-realized enough to get the viewer easily lost among them. The real treat here are the performances. As good as Gary Oldman is (and he's really, really good.), the whole film is an ensemble piece, starring a cast of the best British talent to die for. With Oldman and Hurt, there's also great performances Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Kathy Burke, Toby Jones and Ciarán Hinds. One feels that these actors actually inhabit the jobs of their characters and have actually been spying on us with their other film roles. One does get a paranoid feeling from out of all this, but I would've still wanted to see the film again as soon as I walked out of the theatre.

I'm looking forward in seeing the upcoming follow-up, based on another John Le Carré novel. That's the first recap of the year, next up is a look at the films of 2013.

Review: Skyfall

Probably more than any other franchise, the James Bond series has a clear-cut, familiar formula which most of its movies follow. For a series that has run for 50 years, not very many films have dared to do something different. In the late 90's, early 00's at least, a director suggesting to do so was laughed out of the offices of Albert Broccoli's EON Productions. Thank heavens times have changed enough for us to get Daniel Craig's version of the character that goes a little deeper than to be just sheer escapism and male power fantasy.

Skyfall is very, very good. It's a worthy successor to 2006's Casino Royale. Whereas that film pondered how exactly did Bond become such a ruthless killing machine and a cold lover/sex-addict, this one writes the circle to the end and finds the reason behind several of basic elements of Bond. Casino Royale looked at Bond's tendency to get the bad end of relationships and his need to stay unattached to women. Quantum of Solace was how he in principle is a selfish character that being in the pressure points of world politics does help change the world (I think).

Skyfall has two main themes: the first is to ponder whether James Bond and his methods have ran out of their course in the modern world. The second theme is about his loyalty to authorities and higher-ups, and his troubled relationship with his foster-parent character M. These issues have been dealt with previously, most clearly in Goldeneye. But whereas the past Bond movies (particularly in Pierce Brosnan's era) just threw a bunch of ideas into a canvas and didn't mind what stuck and what not, in Sam Mendes's direction these themes are ambitiously and thoroughly followed from start to finish.

To get to the bottom of the main themes, Skyfall delves into Bond's past and present, find out the demons that worst haunt him, and hit him where it hurts. Craig's Bond goes to hell and back in this one - several times.

And his love for classic cars, which causes the film's best reaction shot.

While on a mission in Turkey with his fellow agent Eve (Naomie Harris), Bond attempts to track down a stolen file which contains the names of every NATO agent undercover in terrorist organizations around the world. While Bond is battling the thief on top of a train roof, Bond's chief of operations M (Dame Judi Dench) orders Eve to snipe the villain. But this bullet misfires and hits Bond, while the thief escapes. Our hero goes missing, presumed dead.

M has to answer for the loss of the top secret file to the British government and her job is at stake. At the same time a mysterious mastermind behind the whole plot targets the whole MI6 organization and M herself in a terrorist attack. Bond must return from hiding and stop the madman before it's too late. He finds out that the culprit is a disgruntled ex-agent Silva (Javier Bardem) who has a bone to pick with M. Bond must go to great lengths to protect his mother figure, who may be the only person he truly cares for.

Is M worthy of 007's loyalty? Or 007 of M allowing his flaws to slip through the radar?

I thought the making of M to a mother-figure to Bond (which, granted, puts Bond's rebelliousness to a whole new light) went to a bit of an overkill in the last movie. But here, although dealt with it even deeper, it service the story and is a clear focus point. His relationship to M is truly the right place to dig to find new sides to reveal about everyone's favorite agent. As I've said before, Judi Dench and Daniel Craig just have a great chemistry, bickering away like an old married couple or buddy cops. It's also nice to have M get a lot more screen time, and early to halfway through the movie she is almost more of a protagonist of the film than Bond is.

But the Bond universe gets expanded with also the introduction of the new Q (Ben Whishaw). He is shown to be the antithesis of Bond, a modern young hacker that can do a lot more espionage with his set of skills than Bond with his. These rivaling agents learn to cooperate towards the end and both of them are seen to not be invincible or flawless. Whishaw's cold approach to his character makes his dry humor and snappy bickering work even better.

Javier Bardem as the main villain of the story seems to get a lot of praise all around. His Silva does have some interesting homosexual tendencies, almost a North Korean style sadism, and manages to be totally ruthless and a bit cheeky at the same time. He is pretty great, although his always-one-step-ahead, years-in-planning terrorist mastermind type starts to feel a bit outdated the more time has passed since 9/11. As Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace were heavily influenced by the Jason Bourne series, this one has a clear Dark Knight vibe to it.

The greatest collaborator of the movie just has to be cinematographer Roger Deakins. The man who has shot most of the Coen Brothers' films just does tremendous work, and just makes one wonder why on earth don't more multi-million dollar blockbusters hire the best Directors of Photography available? I mean, look at how horrible a film like The Expendables 2 looks! Deakins on the other hand never misses on an action, and his stunning photography keeps things interesting (and beautiful) even when there isn't an explosion or a fist fight on sight. He also deserves praise for simply the most beautiful exploding helicopter scene I've ever witnessed in my life. I literally dropped my jaw.

Director Sam Mendes has done a film heavy with plot and themes, but delivers on the action too. Particularly great is an assassination scene in a Shanghai glass skyscraper, where Bond hides by turning the reflection of glass doors opposite his opponent. Mendes has also brought back the hands-on brutality in the brawls, and when people get punched, it really packs a wallop. And when things explode, hoo-boy, do you feel that too! The stunning finale, that goes to some quite unexpected paths, is one of the most effective ones in Bond history.

I'm starting to ramble on like a fan boy, but today, the day after seeing this, I feel like this just might be the best Bond film ever made. It feels like it one-ups even the heights of Casino Royale, and has the sort of escapism inherent in films like Goldfinger and The Spy Who Loved Me. For those who think Bond has grown too serious, there's a scene in a casino, where Bond and his opponent drop into an open cage of Komodo dragons. Bond manages to leap out by getting a leg up from the back of a giant lizard while his opponent is devoured alive. Happy 50th birthday, Mr. Bond! You sure made it a memorable one!

★★★★ (while reflecting on other Bond films, ★★★★★)

SKYFALL
UK/USA, 2012
Language: English
Director: Sam Mendes

Screenplay: Neal Purvis, Roger Wade
Cinamatography: Roger Deakins
Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris

Academy Award Nominated Films 2012

The point of award seasons should be to raise awareness to some truly unique film experiences of the past. Of course, when Hollywood is concerned, the quality varies from here to there. Last year, miraculously all Oscar nominees were at least decent. This year, however...





The only way I'll ever watch The Help. Also, a message to anyone thinking I'll watch the ceremony tomorrow.

Okay, now that I've opened yet another blog post with a Legolambs musical, let's take a look at six Best Picture Nominees. I've arranged them according how much you need to see them from unmissable to time-filler. And I haven't still seen War Horse, The Help nor Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close. Looks as if I won't either. Can't imagine they would offer anything for me.


Best Picture Nominees:

The Tree of Life
Director: Terrence Malick

I've written about the film so many times for various mediums (and at least twice in this blog alone) that I'm finding it hard to have new things to say about it. Suffice to say that this is by far the most arty of the nominees because it has no clear plot running through it, just imagery circling around the film's main themes. It's an unique piece of work, unlike any other film nominated this year. While it's overall message might be a little on the naïve side, I'd urge anyone to see this and with an open mind. That's why it's hard to see the film win, no matter how much Hollywood respects Terrence Malick and his life work. And even for a movie about memories and coming to terms with the past, I figure most of the Academy's elder members will fall alsleep to. But at least Emmanuel Lubezki's wonderfully beautiful cinematography should bring in the bust. I'll get back to it after the next rewatch.

The Artist
Director: Michel Hazanavicius

As the film has grown more and more probable as this year's Best Picture Oscar winner, it has prompted a lot of people to wonder how was this ever possible for a silent, black-and-white French movie. Yet one look at the film itself and it becomes quite clear why. The Artist is as Hollywood as they come, a feel-good melodrama with plenty of comedy and romance in the mix, lovingly made in the shape of classic movies of yesteryear. And it's about Hollywood itself!

The romantic silent movie star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a darling of the crowds. Also in love with the star is up-and-coming actress Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), who gets a job as a dancer in Valentin's new film. Valentin is endeared by the young woman and offers her a secret to success. But Valentin himself is facing rough times as the producer Al Zimmer (John Goodman) introduces Sound Film. Valentin refuses to do talking pictures, and soon finds himself out of work. As Valentin circles toward total poverty, it is left for Miller, who has found her fame in movies since, to rescue her old idol and mentor.

The movie is like a puppy, cute as a bug's ear and impossible to hate. Even though it is very calculated. The symbolic imagery in the scenes is easy to spot and underlines the emotions the characters go through. The story is about how we must innovate and develop ourselves according to what we love, in order to progress. There's also a good reason for Valentin to refuse to work in sound, but that's a mystery left to the very last scene. Hazanavicius teases the audience by casting a number of famous actors known for their distinctive voices, such as Goodman, Missi Pyle, James Cromwell and Malcolm McDowell, and not allow them to speak. But they do prove that there's more to their acting than just their voices, and deliver great performances. The film still revolves around Dujardin and his problem-struck movie star. Luckily, he is charismatic enough to pull it off. Like the film, it is hard not to symphatize with Valentin even if he is bull-headed, self-absorbed and later, wallowing in self-pity. Of course it helps that he owns such a cute dog.

The Descendants
Director: Alexander Payne

It has been rightfully argued that this year's nominees are mostly about rich white people and their problems. Furthermore, The Descendants is about a flawed family, featuring a troubled teenager and a spunky little-un, coming together against all odds. For an American independent movie game, that's a full Bingo right there. Luckily, this is being handled by Alexander Payne, who is the sharpest dramedy-maker in Hollywood right now.

Elizabeth King, the wife of a Hawaiian land owner and real estate magnate, has a boating accident and goes into a coma. The doctor's prognosis is negative. Thus Matt (George Clooney), her husband, brings their two daugthers together and begins to pick up the pieces of their lives. At the same time Matt has a major deal going down, as old native Hawaiian's lands are about to get sold, making him a millionaire. But Matt's mind is elsewhere as he hears from her daughter Alex (Shailene Woodley) that Elizabeth was having an affair behind his back. He attempts to seek out her lover to tell him the bad news as well.

Payne hasn't filmed a movie since 2004's modern classic Sideways, so a new film was eagerly awaited in film circles. But it turned out to be more akin to 2002's About Schmidt, a film about coming to terms with loss andfinding a new way forward. The Descendants is more melancholy-filled than funny. Altough it does offer a few hilarious scenes as well. By first glance the film's characters are clichéd, but Payne has written the film intelligently enough to give each of them some surprising depth, and making them integral to the story he's unfolding. It also allows him to have various different viewpoints into one tragedy, and ways of coping with it. Clooney truly is career-best here, his vunerable, confused character having none of his trademarked suave charm. Here is another rich guy, whose fate is told so well, one can't help but to become engulfed in it. It's not Payne's finest, but still better than most similar directors could even dream of.

Hugo
Director: Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese isn't afraid to step outside his comfort zone. I had bad premonitions of his kid's film, partly because the film's trailer made it seem like a quite horrible film where Sacha Baron Cohen chases kids around and runs into a large cake. Well, in actuality Scorsese brought a film for children that refuses to look down on its audience. There's actually precious few or virtually none action scenes, loud noises and moronic humour. That's why the resulting film is also good entertainment for adults.

In Paris in the 1930's, Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is a resourceful orphan living in the Grand Station. As a son of a clocksmith, he makes sure that the station's clocks are up and running, but still has to steal to live. He also has to avoid the Station Manager (Baron Cohen), who is bent on capturing any orphans loitering in his station and delivering them to the nearest Dickensian orphanage. Hugo also has a secret project left by his project, which requires various parts from toys and such. He pilfers them from the elder toymaker Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley), who eventually catches Hugo in the act, and then confiscates the blueprints Hugo needs to complete his father's work. To get them back, he makes friends with Georges' foster daughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz). Together, they set out to solve the mystery of Papa Georges' past, which takes them through a journey through the history of cinema itself.

As Scorsese has done plenty of culturally significant work in preservation and refurbishing classic films, the film is a sort of letter to the world on why this work is so important. Scorsese also manages to use a fantastic movie to teach children a thing or two about the history of cinema and the work of its pioneers. In fact, he uses so many montages consisting of footage of old films that these scenes resemble some of his documentary work. The central story is heartfelt enough, altough initially the mystery unfolds a little slow, and doesn't quite captivate as much as it should in the beginning of the film. But when the mystery starts to unfold and we start to get answers, the viewer starts to move towards the edge of the seat. The fact that this sort of film, that isn't noisy, based on a pre-existing films, and is frankly difficult to market (as evidenced by that bad trailer) can be successful, reinstores some of my faith in humanity. Another thing restored is the fact that 3D can be used as a good storytelling device. The sense of milieu, and the blueprints of the entire train station are laid out exceptionally well.

Midnight in Paris
Director: Woody Allen

Woody Allen keeps churning a movie a year. I myself have never been very interested in his work (even though I've watched the films which are generally recognized as his most essential). I also allowed this to fall through the cracks when it was first released. But when it began creating buzz and making money, I started to become intrigued. But in the end, all of it is a whole lot of hot air. While Midnight in Paris is by no means a bad film, it is quite flimsy and slight, so much so that there's little that lingers on in the film. This one is not for the ages, then.

Basically, Allen's stand-in is a neurotic writer, working on his first novel after a career writing screenplays. he is visiting Paris with his fiancée, and finds the city's heart to be helpful for his creativity. She, however, along with her parents, despise the city and can't wait to get back to America. That's why after an evening at a wine-tasting, wanders off on his own. This enables him to time-travel to meet a lot of his favorite cultural heroes who have shared time in the city in the past. From F. Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest Hemingway, and from Pablo Picasso to Salvador Dalí and Luis Bunuel, he finds fellowship in his kin, and necessary instructions on how to improve his work, and in the end, life.

I like the whimsiness of the film and that it has the crucial fantasy element of never explaining its core mystery to the audience. nevertheless, it is pretty clear how this will play out once the set up has been layed out. Allen starts the film with a montage of Paris so long, that the film resembbles more a travel advertisement than a narrative. I'm glad I already had booked a trip to the city before viewing this film. This one is most on the money for Original Screenplay, which is a wonder since Allen goes through is normal tropes, but never really delivers anything genius, super memorable, or even laugh-out-loud funny. It's smart, but never as clever as it thinks it is, or how much the Academy seems to think it is, for that matter.

Moneyball
Director: Bennett Miller

A lot of critics I admire have praised this Sports drama. Personally, I'm not very interested in sports (at least in any that don't frequently feature brutal violence), particularly baseball, but I had heard that the core of the film is set on the backstages and manager's offices of baseball stadiums. That is true, but I still couldn't work out much interest in those goings-on. You see, it doesn't make a difference to me who wins or who loses some stupid match, or even a whole season. So when the stakes are that low, personally I had a pretty boring experience with the film. But that doesn't mean it's totally without merit or wouldn't be a good film for someone else.

The Oakland Athletics baseball team's manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is struggling with low salaries. His team losing an important match doesn't really help things for him. Star players are threatening of leaving the team, and there is little hope of turning his string of losses into vitories when he can't recruit any new talents either. But then he discovers the young analyst Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), who has deviced an economic theory in assessing the player's value. This schematic turns out to work well in recruiting new players and Beane is soon in the centre of a rags-to-riches story.

Aaron Sorkin is a great screenwriter, and his cooperation with Steve Zaillan here provides some good dialogue and moves the plot forward. The problem is that it's all played so low-key. The conversations have few high-points. The precious few times when Pitt expresses total anger at his team and the entire system he's playing in are high points, but don't pace the film well enough for it to capture the viewer's interest. Likewise, the film is overlong, as anyone who has ever seen a sports movie probably knows the basics of the plot from the get-go. Also the clichéd scenes with his estranged family and young daughter are way too familiar, even if they are based on a true story. But at least that gives an excuse to have a catchy acoustic song in the film.

Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay

Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy
Director: Thomas Alfredson

The Swedish director Thomas Alfredson's film is smarter and better than any of the Best Picture  Nominees, yet it has had to suffice on being nominated for smaller awards, which is a shame. This cold war spy thriller strips away all the glamour from the espionage business. It is a twist-filled whodunnit mystery and a slide into paranoia at the same time. It's a demanding film, which requires the viewer to stay awake for every single minute of its running time. I will see this film again in the theatre, which I haven't done once since The Human Centipede. I simply feel that Tinker, Taylor rewards repeat viewings handsomely.

A British MI6 agent is mudered on a business in Budapest. This causes the Minister of Defence to fire the Head of the British Intelligence, Control (John Hurt), and his right-hand man George Smiley (Gary Oldman). Off the record, Control gives the retired Smiley the task of finding out who among their inner circle has betrayed their trust and is in actuality a mole for the Soviet Union. Smiley won't have it easy as he himself is among the five main suspects and thus isn't trusted among his peers. The only one helping him in his investigations at first is the eager young agent Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch). Smiley will have to see rogue agents, men on the run, shady figures and many other shady figures to find out the betrayer. If he himself is not killed before that.

The film's plot is a complicated web of conspiracies and lies. This would be challenging enough, but the narrative isn't straight-forward, and jumps back and forth in time. Also, there are plenty of characters to keep track of. In the end, the main plot isn't that hard, but to find out all the nuances and the whereabouts and goings-on of various characters, one must concentrate considerably. The film's aesthetic is such that it's easy to find oneself lost on its world. Even the smallest details are made important, and the film's rainy cinematography and 70's design aesthetics are well-realized enough to get the viewer easily lost among them. The real treat here are the performances. As good as Gary Oldman is (and he's really, really good.), the whole film is an ensemble piece, starring a cast of the best British talent to die for. With Oldman and Hurt, there's also great performances Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Kathy Burke, Toby Jones and Ciarán Hinds. One feels that these actors actually inhabit the jobs of their characters and have actually been spying on us with their other film roles. One does get a paranoid feeling from out of all this, but I would've still wanted to see the film again as soon as I walked out of the theatre.

History will prove that these sort of films will last, while no matter how many Oscars a certain film wins, it may still fall into obscurity. Hell, it happened to the last silent movie that won, Wings.