Getafilm Gallimaufry: Best Picture Nonsense, Clouzot, Crazy Heart, Muriel, & More

[Note: This series includes scattered thoughts on various movie-related topics. I was looking for a word that started with the letter "g" that means collection or assortment, but lest you think I'm some elitist wordsmith, know that I'd never heard of "gallimaufry" and I don't even know how to say it, but it was the only other option the thesaurus provided aside from "goulash" (too foody) and "garbage" (no).]

_______________________________________________________________

The Best Picture Nominees

I scoffed at the decision to expand the Best Picture field six months ago, and I'm scoffing at it again now. To summarize: because The Dark Knight was not nominated for Best Picture last year and the Oscar telecast was again watched by a fraction of the population, the decision was made by AMPAS and the show's producers to nominate ten films instead of five, making the ceremony more appealing to Joe and Jane Public, who see 3-5 movies year, at least one of which is directed by Michael Bay and at least 2-4 of which star Brendan Fraser, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Lopez, or Sandra Bullock.

And so in a year where so much went wrong at the movie theater (in my opinion, of course, and for the first time I didn't even bother with predicting the nominations), we have five stereotypical Best Picture nominees (Avatar, The Hurt Locker, A Serious Man, Up in the Air, and Inglourious Basterds), three passable Best Picture nominees (Up, An Education, Precious), and two tacked-on popular hits (District 9, The Blind Side; that The Hangover was somehow not nominated for Best Picture surprised me more than anything else in the nomination announcements). I'm not saying the wrong films were nominated - that's a given every year. I'm just saying that the expanded field only made room for more wrongly chosen films.

Of course the irony is that the inclusion of Avatar alone would have been enough to get people to watch the telecast, so the expanded field turned out to be completely unnecessary. Worse, the first-ever Pixar film to be nominated for Best Picture is arguably not even one of the best Pixar films. There was a case to be made for WALL-E last year, but not so with Up this year. Besides, it will win Best Animated Feature without any problem - wouldn't that have been "enough" without what is now a somewhat meaningless Best Picture nomination?

REVIEW: The Dark Knight (A)

Background: While I was hanging out with some friends in Chicago last summer, somebody mentioned how the filming of "the new Batman movie" was causing mass hysteria around their workplace downtown. I didn't think about or hear mention of The Dark Knight again until six months later, when Heath Ledger's sudden death caused an even greater buzz about the movie. Now, six months after that, humanity's anticipation for it has reached a Y2K level that I can't fully comprehend. I joked to my friends while waiting in the midnight line that Knight is going to have a viral reach - I challenge you to find 10 people one week from today who have not seen it. Anyway, you know all of this. Truly, there are too many trivia items to share about the most hyped movie since Revenge of the Sith, and why I didn't choose it in our fantasy league is a total mystery. To catch up on the Batman franchise, go here or here.

Synopsis: After learning that Gotham has a bevy of problems (bank robberies, angry mob bosses, Batman wannabes), we meet our three main characters: The Joker, committed to causing anarchy; idealistic D.A. Harvey Dent (Eckhart), committed to cleaning up the streets and corralling the mob; and Bruce Wayne (Bale), committed to being rich and awesome (and Batman, when called upon). These men form a bizarre triangle involving revenge, justice, love, hate, depression, and costumes. The supporting players come and go, but the action and drama remain within these tenuous relationships, eventually culminating in The Joker threatening to eliminate the city unless Batman reveals his true identity. This leads to a good hour of brooding dialogue, fistfights, explosions, and Batmobile/Batcycle chases. As this is a franchise, there's no real point in discussing more details. This story will keep going until Michael Bay signs on and casts Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne.

I Loved:
+ Heath Ledger's viscerally shocking performance, which has received award buzz since before last year's Oscars (ironically, he died the day last year's nominations were announced). At the very least, a nod for Best Supporting Actor is in the bag.
+ Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, especially in the restaurant scene. The kind of guy that I hate in real life but can love in the movies.
+ The final frame.
+ That a movie rated PG-13 could still contain enough bite and fright (um, Ledger), without the ghoulish gore. Is there a better example?

I Liked:
+ Morgan Freeman, who, with hardly anything to work with, ripped out some of the movie's most memorable scenes. My favorite? Putting the research nerd in his place when he was threatening blackmail.
+ The comedic lines: "I'm a dog chasing cars..."
+ The action sequences, as cluttered as they were. Memo to Hollywood: Less CGI actually makes for better action, unless you're Guillermo Del Toro.

I Disliked:
- The comicy comic book lines: "The night is darkest just before the dawn." Eh.
- Batman's animal-like growl. I don't remember it being that pronounced in Batman Begins, or at least I don't remember the bass being jacked up so high. His voice, even when just talking normally, had the cinematic effect of the T-Rex stomping around in Jurassic Park.

I Hated:
- The makeup effects for Two-Face/Harvey Dent. That looked like a complete rip-off from the "Body Worlds" exhibit, never mind the fact that he would have had a fatal infection within hours. Yeah, I'm ridiculous.
- What else? Goofy fanboys sitting behind me. Shouldn't those people be the most silently reverent of everybody in the theater?

Grade:
Writing - 9
Acting - 10
Production - 9
Emotional Impact - 10
Music - 5
Significance - 4

Total: 47/50= 94% = A

Last Word: As groggy as I was this morning, it didn't take me too long to realize that I not only enjoyed The Dark Knight more than Batman Begins, but more than any of the others before it, including Tim Burton's Batman. That 1989 version may have been the bigger achievement (considering its context and Burton's vision), but it doesn't quite pack the same punch as Knight.

Most of this can be attributed to Heath Ledger, but credit is also due to writer/director Christopher Nolan, who has not only written amazing characters (and wow, what a knockout of a cast again, all of whom brought their "A" game - Bale, Freeman, Eckhart, Gyllenhaal, Caine, and Oldman), but placed them within an actually believable story, at least relative to most comic book/superhero movies.

Would it be a stretch to say that, in this installment, Bruce Wayne is a universally relatable character? Not just for the trillionaires and superheros among us, but for anybody who's ever struggled to give something up and move on to the next stage in their lives. I don't mean that The Dark Knight is a grand parable for humanity that has significant relevance to my life; it is, after all, a movie about a rich guy dressed up in tights and cape fighting a sinister maniac wearing face paint and purple suit. But I do think its story is much richer and much more interesting than any of its 2008 summer peers (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Hancock, Hellboy II, etc.).

In any case, The Dark Knight is not the type of movie that I see for its moral lessons, and I'll let others delve more deeply into its symbolism, relation to the other sequels, and place in film history. I'll just declare that it's a summer blockbuster in every way, and probably the only one you'll remember three months from now. Now to make a plan to see it in IMAX...

REVIEW: Rendition (D)

Background: Yet another installment in this season's "post-9/11 America/War in Iraq/War on Terror" series, Gavin Hood's Rendition stars Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, Brokeback Mountain), Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line), Peter Sarsgaard (Kinsey), Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine), and Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada). Hood, a South African who deservedly won an Oscar for writing and directing Best Foreign Feature Tsotsi in 2006, is currently working on the next X-Men sequel. Quite a Hollywoodized career arc if you ask me. Rendition was partially filmed in Morocco and Cape Town, the latter only because Hood probably wanted to stay home for as much of the production as possible, since there was no other reason for the opening scene in Rendition to be filmed there, let alone even set there.

Synopsis: Douglas Freeman (Gyllenhaal) is a rookie CIA analyst in "North Africa" who drinks too much and cares too little. When he has a near-miss with a suicide bombing, he is assigned to observe the interrogation of suspect Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally from Munich), an Egyptian-born American immigrant who is husband to "Izzie" (Witherspoon) and dad to Jeremy ("Jeremy El-Ibrahimi"?). El-Ibrahimi was detained upon arrival at Dulles Airport and, under orders of "extraordinary rendition" from CIA higher-up Corinne Whitman, (Streep) shipped off to a secret detention facility/torture dungeon in "North Africa." The local authorities are in charge of the interrogation, allowing Freeman only to look bored/uncomfortable during the torture sessions (and throughout the movie). In the meantime, super-pregnant Izzie desperately runs around D.C. trying to find information on what happened to her husband. Conveniently, her ex-boyfriend Alan (Sarsgaard) is a staffer for a U.S. Senator (Arkin), and eventually Izzie gets the opportunity to confront the ice-cold Whitman and scream at her for a couple of minutes. Back in "North Africa," Freeman is trying to expedite the interrogation, and his local counterpart is busy dealing with his teenage daughter Fatima, who is dating Khalid, an impressionable young "North African" who has extremist tendencies and is the doppelganger of actor James Franco. The plot speeds up here as all of the characters become desperate to finish the movie, and an odd time warp brings us back to the beginning, where we see the suicide bombing all over again. Some new details emerge and we're left with a predictable made-for-bad-TV ending.

I Loved:
+ Nothing.

I Liked:
+ Peter Sarsgaard's short screen time - his scene with Streep, second scene with Arkin, and second scene with Witherspoon.

I Disliked:
- That the identity of the country was deliberately ambiguous, and poorly hidden at that. We learn it's Tunis, Tunisia from Douglas Freeman's Interpol search.
- The gratuitous shots of Washington D.C. in the background of every scene. Izzie has the master hotel suite with the perfect view of the capitol? Doubt it.
- That it looked like it was filmed on a really bad set - dark, wet alleys; cliched torture dungeon; quaint city square in "North Africa," etc.
- The silly subplot about the "North African" interrogator's daughter Fatima - a total waste of time.
- The silly subplot about Douglas Freeman's lover/girlfriend - what was the point of that?

I Hated:
- The time warp - another unnecessary Hollywood gimmick that had no place here.
- The neatly wrapped, very predictable ending.
- Fatima's discovery of Khalid's delicately crafted and totally bizarre scrapbook.
- The stereotypical Islam = terrorism theme, capped off with the exaggerated locker-room speech about killing Americans. Anyone with a middle school (which I taught) knowledge of Islam should bristle at how it's misconstrued here, but we're so used to it we don't even notice anymore.

Grade:
Writing - 5
Acting - 7
Production - 6
Emotional Impact - 6
Music - 5
Significance - 5

Total: 34/50= 68% = D

Last Word: Boy, this got worse really quickly after I started thinking about it. Between painful cliches, a convoluted story and bad acting, I really can't understand how Rendition was so well received, aside from the fact that it's the first movie to deal with extraordinary rendition. But the subplots and unnecessary characters really get in the way of what could have been an extremely significant, moving film. I'm not sure what Gavin Hood's motivations are, but this kind of mainstream/fast-food filmmaking is not his strength. Stick with a character-driven story like Tsotsi, which had important lessons and a simple plot, without all of the stereotypical characters and bizarre scenes. Maybe it was the writer's fault, whose only writing credit prior to Rendition was a comedy musical about drag queens. I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned somewhere in that fact, but a general rule we seem to be learning is to not make films about extremely complex global issues as they are happening. Like Matt said after we left this, the best movies about Vietnam, for example, came out several years after everything was over. You need perspective to understand how to make meaningful films about these subjects, but Hollywood is just rushing to make sensational fluff like Rendition and The Kingdom. Since the trend will presumably continue, here's hoping for at least a more thoughtful movie in the near future.