The Lion King (2019)

 

Remaking The Lion King, the Disney classic from 1994, was a completely unnecessary exercise. While Disney has been very successful in recent years in presenting live-action remakes of some of its animated hits, this subpar version of The Lion King is all CGI, so now we really have two animated versions of the same film. The later version’s depiction of the animals is an amazing feat, no doubt, because the animals certainly look realistic (even though everyone knows that not to be the case). The 2019 version has the same plot as the original, and it even seems to follow the original shot-by-shot most of the time. A young cub runs away from his home because he thinks he has caused the death of his father, and he must return years later to save the pride from his uncle’s destructive behavior. The voices are different from those of the earlier actors, except for James Earl Jones, of course, and more members of the cast were people of color this time, thankfully. To be fair, though, John Oliver as Zazu the hornbill, Seth Rogan as Pumbaa the warthog, and Billy Eichner as Timon the meerkat almost steal the film, probably because they serve as the comic relief and it’s easier to look for laughs when the rest of the movie is so mind-numbingly similar to its earlier iteration. Beyonce, who voices Nala, contributes some new songs, but much of the music is from the original Oscar-winning score. I’m sure younger audiences unfamiliar with the 1994 version enjoyed this remake, but anyone who has seen the charming and entertaining original is left wondering what the point of the remake is—other than to make more money, that is.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Breakthrough (2019)

 

Breakthrough is one of the better faith-based films in recent years, and that’s saying something substantial given how narrowly focused and rather simple-minded many other entries have been. Chrissy Metz (best known for her role on TV’s This Is Us) portrays Joyce Smith, a mom whose Christian faith brings her adopted son back to life after he falls through the ice covering a lake in St. Louis, Missouri. Her son John (played by Marcel Ruiz, who spends much of the film in a coma in a hospital bed, so not the most challenging of roles) is a 14-year-old aspiring basketball star, but he has quite a lot of baggage that makes him resistant to the love that his mother offers. He was abandoned as a baby in Guatemala, and the Smiths (Josh Lucas plays husband and adoptive father Brian Smith) rescued him while on a mission to South America. John is also rescued from the frozen lake but not until he’s been submerged for more than twenty minutes. Attempts to revive him at the first hospital fail, but when his mother shows up and prays over his body, he regains his pulse after being pronounced dead. From the religious perspective of the film, she obviously prays him back to life. He’s transferred to another hospital in order to have Dr. Garrett (Dennis Haysbert, a reliable and welcome presence in many TV shows and movies), who is a specialist in drowning cases—whatever that means—assist in reviving John. Garrett offers little hope that John will survive or even be close to normal if he does survive given the likely damage to his brain and other major organs. Joyce, however, believes that her faith and prayer can bring her son back, and other prayers follow from John’s classmates and teachers, everyone at the family’s church, and even people who hear about John’s story on the news. You can easily figure out the ending without any help, but that doesn’t necessarily detract from the movie’s various strengths such as the performances by Metz and by Topher Grace from That 70s Show as Pastor Jason, a more “contemporary” Christian than Joyce would like to have as the leader of her church (but who she warms to, naturally, as she sits by John’s bed in the hospital). The film does suffer from some of the clichés that weigh down many faith-based films. For example, the firefighter who rescues John, Tommy Shine (Mike Colter), admits that he doesn’t really know if he believes in God, and the non-believer comes around to accepting the power of faith before the end credits begin to roll. Even Joyce has to admit her failings and submit fully to God in order for her prayers to work. And, of course, there are lots of tears. Breakthrough is a very weepy movie with tons of crying, but all of the tears are earned honestly. The story is based upon Joyce Smith’s book about what truly happened to her son, and the real-life counterparts to the film’s characters appear at the end. It’s very inspiring to see them all well and happy.

Oscar Nomination: Best Original Song (“I’m Standing with You”)

First Man (2018)

 

First Man is a film biography of astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon. That event only receives about 15-20 minutes at the end of the film and is, frankly, rather anticlimactic since viewers already know what happened. Instead, the film is primarily about Armstrong’s life prior to that historical event, particularly the many failures, setbacks, and frustrations that the space mission encountered throughout the 1960s. It also presents his home life, especially the tensions between him and his wife Janet. Armstrong is played by Ryan Gosling, no stranger to working with director Damien Chazelle, having worked with him on La La Land the year before. Here Gosling portrays the famed astronaut as a man who is reluctant to address his emotions directly. Throughout the course of the film, Armstrong loses his young daughter to a brain tumor and several of his fellow Gemini and Apollo astronauts, but he cries in private and keeps his feelings to himself in public. It gets so bad that his wife, played by Claire Foy, forces him to sit down and tell his two young sons that he might not return from his trip to the moon. The fear of death is always present, and Foy is particularly effective at conveying that emotion. The astronauts’ wives could hear what was happening at Mission Control through speakers, and Janet gets furious when hers gets silenced when the Gemini 8 mission goes badly. The pacing of the film is rather off-putting, alternating as it does between the more action-oriented scenes with NASA and the space missions and the quieter moments at home. And the shaking camera can be annoying at times, but the cinematography for the space flights does a great job of reflecting the frenetic pace and excitement and danger of those trips. What happened with Apollo 11—the first walk on the moon and the glitches that happened on the journey—is faithfully reproduced, a fitting tribute to the difficulties that the astronauts like Armstrong faced. First Man doesn’t necessarily illuminate the space program a great deal, and it doesn’t fully explain why Armstrong was who he was or why he made the choices that he made, but it is visually and, incredibly, auditorily stunning in its recreation of what it was like to be in a space module.

Oscar Win: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Oscar Nominations: Best Achievement in Sound Editing, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and Best Achievement in Production Design

Wonder (2017)

 

Wonder doesn’t really break a lot of new ground in its depiction of how the world responds to people who are different, but it’s an uplifting, melodramatic film. In this case, a 10-year-old with a facial deformity (the supremely talented Jacob Trembley) enters the fifth grade for his first experience with public schooling after years of being homeschooled by his mother (played by the ever-luminous Julia Roberts). In case you’ve forgotten what middle school was like, the film reminds you quickly and repeatedly. A lot of the other kids suck when it comes to their treatment of anyone who doesn’t fit within their parameters of what’s “normal,” and some of the parents are terrible human beings because they always support bad behavior in their own children, especially when the kids have been bullying someone. The stereotypes do pile up after a while: the kindly principal (Mandy Patinkin) who understands what Trembley’s Auggie is going through, the rich kid who’s jealous that someone else is getting attention, even the supportive father (Owen Wilson) who always seems to do or say just the right thing. One way that Wonder does break up the traditional narrative is when it allows us to see several events from different perspectives. Auggie’s, of course, is the most dominant viewpoint, but we also get to know how his sister Via (Izabela Vidovic) feels as well as Auggie’s best friend Jack Will and Via’s best friend Miranda. These shifting angles allow us to understand how we don’t always know what’s going on inside someone else’s head. For example, we learn where the sister’s jealousy over all the attention her brother gets comes from and why her friend Miranda stopped hanging out with her after her summer at camp. The lessons revealed by Wonder may be rather stereotypical but are important nonetheless—particularly the idea that sometimes we need to redeem ourselves from our own bad behavior.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

 

Kong: Skull Island taps into some of the existing mythology about King Kong. The primary setting is still Skull Island, a remote location in the South Pacific that is surrounded by storms that prevent it from being discovered and explored. However, this reboot (set in 1973 near the end of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War) places Kong in a somewhat different context by making him the protector of the island’s inhabitants from the really scary monsters that lie dormant beneath the surface. Of course, we don’t find this out immediately; first, Kong has to attack a series of helicopters that have been dropping seismic charges across the island, potentially awaking some of the aforementioned hidden monsters. Ostensibly, the expedition to Skull Island is intended to prove the existence of such monstrous creatures, and John Goodman’s Bill Randa is the head of the government agency looking for proof. He enlists Tom Hiddleston’s James Conrad, a former British Special Forces officer, a team of (mostly doomed) soldiers led by Samuel L. Jackson’s Col. Preston Packard, and a couple of seismologists. Oh, and Brie Larson’s Mason Weaver is a war photographer along for the ride because, well, all of the Kong movies provide at least one white woman for Kong to rescue. As you might expect, the survivors of the various helicopter crashes must meet up with each other and make the journey to a rendezvous point within three days, arbitrary deadlines always being necessary to increase the dramatic tension—will they make it in time? Packard, however, is initially obsessed with finding all of his men who might still be alive and then becomes obsessed (a la Ahab in Moby-Dick) with killing Kong in retaliation for his other men’s deaths. Viewers of this type of film could easily predict what will happen on this journey; the foreshadowing is pretty heavy-handed. Since the soldiers had been on their way home when Packard agrees that they will serve as the military escort, it’s no surprise that many of them die. When one of them writes a letter to his son and asks a fellow soldier to deliver it if something happens to him, you know what to expect. The plot offers relatively few surprises. John C. Reilly almost steals the movie as a World War II lieutenant who’s been stranded on the island for almost 29 years. He’s a bit crazy, understandably so given what he must have witnessed in three decades on Skull Island, but he serves as the voice of reason trying to prevent Jackson from trying to destroy Kong. The movie has a bit of fun with the others trying to catch Reilly’s Lt. Hank Marlow with world events since the end of World War II. (No, the Cubs still haven’t won a World Series, but we’ve put a man on the moon.) He also provides the escape boat used in the second half of the film, a vehicle that another character describes as looking “like it’s made out of pure tetanus.” What really makes a Kong movie a success is, of course, Kong himself, and he’s pretty impressive here. The visual effects are spectacular, whether he’s eating a giant squid like someone at a sushi place, helping Larson’s character free a trapped water buffalo, rescuing her from a particularly nasty Skullcrawler (as Reilly’s character dubs them), or battling a series of Skullcrawlers. Those beasts may only have two legs and a tail, but their mouths are frightening. The cinematography is beautiful, award-worthy in its own way, and the location scout for the film deserves a great deal of credit for finding such spectacular places (Hawaii, Australia, Vietnam) for the action to take place.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

The Greatest Showman (2017)

 

The Greatest Showman tells the story of how P.T. Barnum (played by Hugh Jackman with his usual musical theater bravado) created what would become the American-style circus. The movie, much like Barnum, tries to have it all. Barnum himself never seems satisfied with what he has. He always wants more: to be richer, to be more famous, to be respected. The movie tries to encompass issues of race and class and diversity and oppression and acceptance, never quite addressing all of the topics that it raises. Barnum was the son of a tailor, and he married a young woman named Charity (Michelle Williams, more subdued than necessary) who comes from a very wealthy family. Charity’s father never believes in Barnum, and as a result, the circus impresario keeps attempting to show that he deserves the wealth and fame that comes his way, at least temporarily. His initial attempt, Barnum’s American Museum, is too staid and boring; he begins to seek out so-called “freaks” to join him in a new kind of show. He’s the first to show them acceptance for who they are, and the film does make an important point about how we make our own families with this narrative thread. The most poignant relationship in the film might, however, be the one involving Zac Efron’s Phillip Chandler, a rich white playwright who becomes Barnum’s business partner, and Zendaya’s Anne Wheeler, a talented African American trapeze artist. Their romance crosses racial and class lines, and their duet of “Rewrite the Stars” features some gorgeous choreography. The soundtrack features several great songs, only one of which (“This Is Me”) was nominated for an Oscar. It’s easy to see how “This Is Me” was singled out, given its tuneful demand for acceptance, but for my taste, “Never Enough” would have been a better choice. Rebecca Ferguson performs it as famed 19^th century Swedish singer Jenny Lind, whom Barnum brings to America for her first tour. The musical numbers also chart the highs and lows of Barnum’s show business efforts, from the large audiences and popular attractions to the community revolts against the “freaks” that he hires and the non-stop criticism by the press. The film’s messages about the need to reach out to those who are different and the necessity of remaining allies regardless of the complications that come your way undoubtedly resonate with audiences, and the music certainly helps spread those ideas beautifully.

Oscar Nomination: Best Original Song (“This Is Me”)

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

 

You don’t really have to have seen the original Blade Runner (1982) or even know a great deal about it to enjoy Blade Runner 2049, but it does help. While the sequel stands on its own, it has enough references and flashbacks to the original to encourage a viewer to search out the earlier film. LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling) is a replicant (an artificially created being) who works as a blade runner, someone who hunts down older model replicants to destroy them. He discovers information about a child who was born of a replicant, a miracle child given what has been widely assumed about the inability of replicants to reproduce. Under orders from his superior (master?), Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright, who doesn’t get very much to challenge her), K begins trying to track down information about the child. He learns the identity of the child’s mother, Rachael, who was Rick Deckard’s lover in the original film. The film gets to have its way with the audience by providing several hints that K himself could be the miracle child unless he has been given someone else’s memories. He meets Jared Leto’s Niander Wallace, one of the oddest characters ever to appear in a science fiction film, and that’s saying a lot. Wallace, whose company has taken over the replicant business from Tyrell, wants to expand the number of replicants so that they can colonize other worlds. Of course, meeting Wallace means meeting his assistant Luv, played by Sylvia Hoeks with the right amount of cold serenity and badass martial arts skills. This part of the film is rather nonsensical and convoluted in its intricacy, frankly, but it does lead K to information that allows him to track down Deckard (Harrison Ford, injecting some much needed adrenaline into the film’s final hour) in Las Vegas. While all of the film is spectacular in its use of production design and cinematography, the Vegas sequences are the most outstanding. The casino features holographic performances by Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Liberace; they make nice companion pieces to K’s holographic girlfriend in the movie’s first half. For me, it’s the technical achievements that make this film stand out; Blade Runner 2049 is a showcase for exceptional cinematography, production design, and visual effects. The plot, however, is unnecessarily complicated, and the 160+ minute running time suggests that it could have used some trimming to rid the narrative of some of the secondary plots. Others will undoubtedly like the expansion of the original’s universe, particularly the ways in which some of the looser aspects of the 1982 film get resolved.

Oscar Wins: Best Achievement in Cinematography and Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Achievement in Production Design, Best Achievement in Sound Editing, and Best Achievement in Sound Mixing

Suicide Squad (2016)

 

Suicide Squad has too many characters and too many backstories to be a coherent film. Simply put, there’s just too much stuff to keep track of. The great Viola Davis plays government official Amanda Waller, who recruits a group of supervillains to help with Task Force X. Well, “coerces” might be more accurate than “recruits.” They all have a bomb implanted in their necks that will be exploded if they try to escape or refuse to help with the dangerous missions with which they’ve been tasked. The actors playing the parts of the villains are all first-rate: Will Smith is Deadshot, Margot Robbie is Harley Quinn, the underrated Jay Fernandez is El Diablo, Jai Courtney is Captain Boomerang, Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje is Killer Croc, and Adam Beach is Slipknot. Each one has special talents, and each one gets a bit of a flashback to when she/he became a villain before the film returns (somewhat, temporarily) to its main narrataive. Jared Leto portrays the Joker, the lover of Robbie’s Harley Quinn, but Leto’s performance suffers from the inevitable comparisons to Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance as the same character. At the center of much of the narrative is a character known as Enchantress, a witch who is building a machine that will destroy humanity, very typical “end of the world” stuff for superhero movies. However, the building of said machine seems to take forever, and the movie keeps taking side trips to those very underdeveloped stories about how the villains became who and what they are. Davis is tough and effective, but this character doesn’t really challenge her abilities. She almost coasts throughout the film. Robbie steals the movie from the rest of the large and talented cast. She seems to be having the most fun, and she shows the most emotional range of any of the actors. That is due, in part, to the script that gives her character the widest range of possible emotions to feel, particularly in the scenes she gets to play opposite Leto’s Joker. A more streamlined film, one that doesn’t include cameos from almost all of the DC Comics heroes (Batman, Flash, even Aquaman), one that primarily focuses on a rich character like Harley Quinn, would be much more exciting.

Oscar Win: Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)

 

Florence Foster Jenkins is based upon the life of the 1940s-era socialite once known as “the world’s worst singer,” and if you’ve ever heard the one recording that she made during her lifetime, you’d know how she earned that moniker. Meryl Streep plays Jenkins as she prepares for a performance at Carnegie Hall, the prestigious venue that represents a sign of having achieved greatness as an artist. Only those of (alleged) great merit get to perform there. Florence, as revealed in several sequences, is not a talented singer and likely does not belong in such a hallowed performance space. No one can quite understand if she hears something different from what everyone else hears when she sings, but her love of music and her support of the arts are certainly evident. She’s also supportive of many charitable causes, and she manages to get others to let her provide entertainment as a way to raise money for those causes. The film begins with the hiring of Cosme McMoon (played with great deadpan facial expressions by Simon Helberg) to accompany her on the piano during her rehearsals and performances. McMoon realizes that Carnegie Hall will be quite a change of venue for Jenkins, given that her recitals are most often held in very controlled atmospheres. She’s typically surrounded by sycophants and/or by people paid off by her husband (Hugh Grant, slyly funny). Her husband has always tried to keep bad reviews out of her hands, and one of the funniest sequences in the film involves him trying to purchase and destroy every copy of the New York Post with an unflattering review that she might encounter. Everyone seems to be trying to bolster her ego, but she doesn’t truly come across as necessarily egotistical. In fact, her personal life is rather tragic and she herself is rather fragile. She’s dying from advanced stage syphilis and the horrific treatments for it. Her husband is cheating on her with a girlfriend he’s been keeping in another home. The balance of comedy and drama (well, maybe melodrama?) in the film is carefully maintained, and one of the centerpieces of the film, the performance at Carnegie Hall itself, is a delight with the outlandish (and deservedly Oscar-nominated) costumes and the audience participation and/or involvement in the show. It's little surprise to a current audience that gay men at the time were in on the joke for the camp value that Florence’s shows provided. What’s more notable is how Florence Foster Jenkins could overcome the resistances of the rest of the audience and make them enjoy the show too. They seemed to recognize the heart with which she performed. Through the performances of all of the key actors and the delicate handling of sensitive matters such as Florence’s illness and her marriage, Florence Foster Jenkins achieves more than just a few laughs at the expense of “the world’s worst singer.”

Oscar Nominations: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Meryl Streep) and Best Achievement in Costume Design

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the first spinoff film from the Harry Potter movies, a prequel to the events of that impressive series. Soon after Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a magizoologist, arrives in New York in the 1920s, he encounters Mary Lou Barebone (Emily Watson), leader of the New Salem Philanthropic Society, a virulently anti-witch and anti-wizard group. Barebone’s group wants to expose and kill witches and wizards. A mix up of briefcases leads to several creatures escaping from Newt’s magical case. Thanks to the chaos they create, Newt gets accused of being in league with evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), who has been wreaking havoc throughout New York City. Scamander surrounds himself with an intriguing array of friends in his quest: Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a frantic “non-maj” (non-magical person, or Muggle) baker; Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), a witch no longer in good standing with her community; and Tina’s sister Queenie (Alison Sudol), who has psychic powers. They make an interesting cadre of adventurers. For much of the film, Newt tries to recapture various animals that got out of his briefcase, the cutest of which is the Niffler, a thieving little animal reminiscent of a platypus. Getting to see the imaginative creatures and their quirks is a delight, one of the best aspects of the film overall. There’s also a narrative thread about the Obscurus, a parasite that develops if you suppress your magical powers. Unsurprisingly, Barebone’s family has an Obscurus in its midst. Director of Magical Security Percival Graves (the dashing Colin Farrell) looks out for and tries to protect wizards, and he works with Mary Lou’s adopted son, Credence (Ezra Miller), to get the family away from their monomaniacal mother. By the way, Graves is a suspiciously snappy dresser for a wizard, and he and Credence develop what can only be described as a homoerotic relationship as the film progresses. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has always included a range of sexualities in her books, and the movies have sometimes followed suit. Being well-versed in the Harry Potter universe would undoubtedly help a viewer. Scamander, after all, writes one of the textbooks that Harry will read when he gets to Hogwarts. Otherwise, there are lots and lots of details to keep track of, lots of character names and lots of creature names and lots of terms associated with wizardry and witchcraft. It’s easier for someone like me, who’s familiar with the movies and has read one of the books, to focus instead on the basics of the plot and the outstanding production design, which creates a rather magical world in the midst of early 20^th century New York.

Oscar Win: Best Achievement in Costume Design

Other Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Production Design

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

 

The makers of Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens had a difficult task to achieve: they had to revive a beloved franchise that had been tainted by a lackluster second trilogy, returning the story to the well-respected roots of the initial trilogy from the 1970s and 80s and creating a transition to a new narrative with different characters. Attempts to create such a bridge could easily offend the fanboys, who love the first three films with an intensity that borders on the pathological, so if this seventh installment treads some familiar territory on its way to introducing the characters who will likely dominate the new series of films, that merely allows viewers an easy opportunity to tap into the mythology originally created by George Lucas four decades ago. Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) are here to create a sense of nostalgia as they search for Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker, who has disappeared but could provide valuable assistance in combatting the First Order, the villainous replacement for the Evil Empire of the earlier movies. Even the Millennium Falcon, Han’s famous spaceship, and his co-pilot, Chewbacca, appear, as do C3PO and R2-D2 in smaller roles. However, we need to establish a new set of heroes, so the hotshot pilot this time is Poe Dameron (played by Oscar Isaac), and he is joined in the Rebel battles by Finn (John Boyega), a disenchanted Stormtrooper mourning the death of his friend and undergoing an existential crisis, and Rey (Daisy Ridley), a junk scavenger who finds a message in a droid, the adorable BB-8. You’ll notice the parallel between the storyline here and that of the first film, Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope, when you realize that BB-8 carries information on a new weapon developed by the First Order. Unsurprisingly, the new weapon is very much like the Death Star of the earlier film, only much larger. There’s even a moment when the two are compared to each other to show that the new one is a bigger, better weapon. In order to figure out how to blow up the weapon, the information in BB-8 needs to get into the hands of the Rebel leaders, and the complications that delay that from happening make up the bulk of the narrative this time. I rewatched the original trilogy with The Boyfriend before going to see Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens in theaters. He had never seen the original films and was only familiar with the second, lesser trilogy, but he found the new “episode” to be a thrilling addition to the canon. I did as well, particularly because this film creates a diverse universe of characters such as Poe and Finn, played by a Latino actor and a black actor, respectively, and it makes Rey, the lead female character, a strong, central part of the story. It was also lovely to see Ford and Fisher back in their iconic roles, and their inclusion allows for the introduction of their son, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who wants to be the new Darth Vader, making the theme of determining the significance of one’s genetic heritage a central part of the story here, just as in the original trilogy. While you might think that these links between the earlier films and this sequel would make for a boring experience at the movies, what happens instead is a combination of admiration for the ability of the filmmakers to interweave what lovers of the Star Wars films have always expected with a new, exciting cast of characters who will keep our interest and attention as they become more of a focus in later films.

Oscar Nominations: Best Achievement in Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Achievement in Sound Editing, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and Best Achievement in Visual Effects

The Danish Girl (2015)

The Danish Girl depicts the story of one of the first people to undergo gender-confirmation surgery, a famed landscape artist in the early part of the 20^th Century, Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe. Central to the story of Einer’s transition to becoming Lili is the story of his wife, Gerda, a portrait artist who has to come to grips with the transition from what appears to be a happy marriage to a friendship with the woman who was once her husband. The film was directed by Tom Hooper, an Oscar winner for The King’s Speech, and it shares with Hooper’s earlier film an earnestness that sometimes gets in the way of a more realistic portrayal of what must have been a difficult time period for transgender people. Several aspects of the film lend themselves to criticism. For example, rather than using the historical record to develop the story, The Danish Girl is instead based upon the novel of the same name by David Ebershoff. The lead character is portrayed by a cisgender male actor (Redmayne, who is quite good in portraying the struggles that Lili undergoes) rather than a transgender actress. The filmmakers also campaigned to have Alicia Vikander placed in the category of Best Supporting Actress rather than Best Actress even though her role as Gerda is as large as Redmayne’s. What the film does well is depicting the growing desire that Einar feels to become Lili and the difficulties someone identifying as transgender faced during the 1920s, including doctors thinking that the “real” issue is “perversion” (i.e., homosexuality) or schizophrenia because Einar thinks of Lili as being a separate identity and speaks of her in third person. The film also clearly demonstrates the growing desire Lili feels to become a woman physically as well as emotionally and her attempts to learn how to be like other women by observing them carefully. It’s an intriguing film overall, and it has that typical polished look with quality production design and costume design that we might expect from a Hooper film. There’s a nice, underappreciated supporting turn from Matthias Schoenaerts as one of Einar’s childhood friends who becomes attracted to Gerda but remains loyal to both Lili and Gerda throughout the transition in their relationship. The resolution is rather abrupt, frankly, and the business with the scarf at the end is a bit heavy-handed for a film that overall has been rather delicate and sensitive.

Oscar Win: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Alicia Vikander)

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Eddie Redmayne), Best Achievement in Costume Design, and Best Achievement in Production Design

Unbroken (2014)

 

Unbroken focuses on three key periods in the life of Olympian Louis “Louie” Zamperini (played with flashes of intensity by newcomer Jack O’Connell). The key strength of this Angelina Jolie-directed film is its reliance on the extraordinary details of Zamperini’s experiences. Unfortunately, except for some dazzling cinematography and strong supporting performances, the film takes a rather conventional biopic structure to relate the key events in his life. The film opens with Zamperini and the rest of the bomber’s crew being attacked by Japanese fighter planes but managing to return to the base alive despite having their plane badly damaged. However, after this rather dazzling opening, the film uses the traditional trope of reverting to his childhood years. As a young boy, Zamparaini was always getting into fights and drinking and smoking—a troublemaker who is able to run fast enough to elude capture. His brother (played as a young man by John D’Leo) encourages him to take up track and field, which leads to him participating in the infamous 1936 Olympics in Germany and garnering the attention of Adolf Hitler for his fast final lap of the 5,000-meters race. This third of the film’s story is the least interesting perhaps because it mostly sticks to presenting the details of Zamperini’s life without much dramatic tension. We learn very little here about why he becomes the strong survivor that he does. It’s the second segment, when the film returns to his time as a bombardier in the Pacific and the plane crash on a recovery mission that led to him and two other servicemen (played by Domhnall Gleeson and Finn Wittrock) spending more than six weeks on a raft together, that we begin to see how remarkable a single person’s life can be. Sometimes the film uses Zamperini’s point-of-view in the raft to allow us the chance to experience just how desperate the three men become. They eat raw fish and drink rainwater to survive, but they still try to keep each other from going mad from sun exposure and the repeated threat of shark attacks. The Japanese navy captures the two survivors and forces them into POW camps. The third segment of the film chronicles Zamparini’s life in two such camps, both of them under the command of Mutsuhiro “The Bird” Watanabe, who singles out the Olympic hero for constant punishment. The torture inflicted by The Bird is tough to watch given how excessive and brutal it is. Given how desperate his condition is, it’s astonishing to watch Zamperini time and again survive the challenges and beatings that The Bird metes out. After watching long stretches of The Bird’s sadistic behavior and Zamparini’s toughness, viewers might find his and other men’s release from the camp almost anticlimactic. What you have to acknowledge after watching Unbroken is that Zamparini led a remarkable life; it’s a shame that this film isn’t more innovative in its (still-admirable) attempts to honor his accomplishments. 

Oscar Nominations: Best Achievement in Cinematography, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and Best Achievement in Sound Editing

Maleficent (2014)

Maleficent is the story of Sleeping Beauty told from another character’s perspective, that of the title character, a misunderstood fairy who condemns Sleeping Beauty to her long sleep. The film examines the tension between the kingdom of the humans and the Moors where the magical folk (fairies, pixies, etc.) live. A young Maleficent falls in love with a human named Stefan; however, he leaves her when their kiss turns out not to be “love’s true kiss.” He returns to the land of the humans, only to betray Maleficent later because of his outsized ambition to be kind, cutting off her powerful wings. When his daughter, the Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning), is born, Maleficent (Angela Jolie in full-on imperious acting mode) curses her with the familiar “she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die when she turns 16.” The catch: the spell can be broken only by true love’s kiss. To ensure her safety, Aurora is whisked away to be taken care of by three pixies (played with a delightful comic touch by Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, and Juno Temple), King Stefan orders all spinning wheels destroyed, and Maleficent creates a wall of thorns to block access between the kingdom and the Moors. Why the king would send Aurora to the Moors for protection is a puzzling move, especially since it leads Maleficent to befriend Aurora and serve as her erstwhile “fairy” godmother. Naturally, there’s a huge battle between the humans and the magic folks, and that extended sequence is one of the most visually arresting of the film. The film is very CGI heavy, and it’s rather obvious at times, but when Maleficent transforms her raven sidekick Diaval (Sam Riley) into a dragon, all is forgiven. Disney’s adaptation of its famous version of the fairy tale takes some astonishing risks, not the least of which is making Maleficent a tragic but sympathetic character rather than the heartless evil character from other versions. Jolie’s Maleficent is pure drag queen fantasy nightmare with her outside horns and enormous wings; she makes quite the visual impression. She’s really the most intriguing aspect of the film, and it’s undoubtedly her look that led to the film’s sole nomination for an Academy Award.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Costume Design

Into the Woods (2014)

 

Into the Woods is the film adaptation of the famed Stephen Sondheim musical that weaves together the disparate fairy tales of Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Little Red Riding Hood into the story of a baker and his wife (a lovely Emily Blunt). The barren couple wish to have a child and are given a chance to break a curse by the witch (Meryl Streep, having a delightful time) who lives next door. The adventures and misadventures that follow are some pretty dark stuff dealing with parents and children, spouses, regrets, revenge, growing up—all of the stuff of contemporary musicals. The woods themselves become this metaphorical space of self-discovery and revelation, and I must say that this is one of the first movie musicals in decades to resonate powerfully with me. It grapples with the issues that real humans face even though the fairytale setting might suggest otherwise. The songs are, as expected, a major draw, and almost all of them are performed with great enthusiasm and precision, a necessity with the tongue-twisters that Sondheim creates. I particularly enjoyed “Agony” sung by the two princes played by Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen. Who knew Pine could be so delightful and could sing so well? (And who could have predicted just how good leather pants would look on both of the princes?) “On the Steps of the Palace” and “No One Is Alone” are also shining moments with the latter one bringing tears to my eyes. By the end of the film, many characters have seen their lives overturned, but expecting the fairy tale ending of “happily ever after” in a Sondheim musical will only lead to disappointment. However, knowing that not all stories end happily means you can better appreciate what the filmmakers (and the people who created the original Broadway musical) achieve here.

Oscar Nominations: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Meryl Streep), Best Achievement in Production Design, and Best Achievement in Costume Design

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

 

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the final installment in director Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s series of novels about the inhabitants of Middle Earth. At least, it’s allegedly the final installment; after six quite lengthy films, you would assume that there isn’t much more to cover. Honestly, I’m not even certain that The Hobbit, one of the shortest books in Tolkien’s series, needed to have its plot spread over three films. For example, the opening attack by the dragon Smaug on Laketown, which was set up at the end of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, happens rather quickly here. What could have been more of a centerpiece is briskly dispatched so that we can get to the treasure—so much gold!—in the mountain of Erebor and the goals by various characters to possess it and the Arkenstone, yet another McGuffin that drives the plot but isn’t particularly valuable to the actual narrative itself. What does matter, of course, is the battle of the title. I honestly had to look up who was the fifth army. It’s obvious that the orcs, dwarves, elves, and humans are involved, but the last group was apparently the wargs (wolves) or maybe it was the eagles or maybe no one else was distracted (as I was) by trying to count to five while the battle raged on. I still couldn’t always tell the dwarves apart, but I did begin to appreciate the performance in this third film of Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenfield, who feels entitled to the fortune and becomes obsessed with possessing it. The production design, the hair and makeup, the visual effects, really all of the technical aspects of The Battle of the Five Armies are first rate, as they have been for all of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. The battle itself is not as spectacular as the Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, but then how could it be? Aside from that powerful, lengthy sequence, though, what we as viewers perhaps enjoy most is seeing the development of characters about whom we have come to understand deeply. Our central character is, naturally, Bilbo (played beautifully as a young hobbit by Martin Freeman), the heart of this epic movie about powerful struggles for control, and the focus upon him makes this film somewhat more sentimental than the other entries in the trilogy. Of course, the plot here also sets up what’s going to occur in The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring, the initial entry in Jackson’s first Middle Earth trilogy, so there’s inevitably less of a sense of suspense here. You know how events are going to play out if you’ve seen the Lord of the Rings films. For example, it can hardly be a spoiler that Bilbo returns home at the film’s end to write the tale that would become The Hobbit. Nevertheless, the entire film offers a satisfying finale to the Hobbit trilogy and a clear introduction to the characters and some of the key plot points of the Lord of the Rings films.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Sound Editing

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Guardians of the Galaxy takes the rather hoary conceit of a group of misfits, some of whom hate initially hate each other and/or are bitter enemies, coming together to achieve an admirable, even heroic goal: in this case, the saving of the universe from a megalomaniac. What makes this film different from the rest of the science fiction pack that use the same plot outlines is its injection of a consistent sense of humor throughout the special effects battles. Each of the five central characters has her/his own backstory involving pain and sadness. For example, Peter Quill, or, as he prefers to call himself, Star-Lord (played by Chris Pratt), was abducted by aliens as a young boy on the day that his mother died. The green-skinned Gamora (Zoe Saldana) was orphaned when Thanos killed her parents, only to have him train her to be one of his personal killing machines; he even ironically calls her his “daughter.” Both Quill and Gamora are trying to obtain and/or hold onto an orb, the McGuffin for this film, only to be thwarted initially by the attempts by Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a raccoon that has been genetically engineered against its will, and the tree-like Groot (hilariously voiced by Vin Diesel), to capture Quill for a huge bounty. Add to their company Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), a hulking, scarred alien out for revenge for the death of his wife and daughter at the hands of Ronan, Thanos’ henchman who is the primary villain in this film, and you’ve got an intriguing mix of criminals who must come together for the good of everyone in the universe. The beats will likely be familiar to anyone knowledgeable about science fiction stories like The Avengers, and even though the orb, which contains something called an Infinity Stone that gives infinite power to its possessor, is allegedly central to the plot, what really draws our attention is the interplay between the main characters and the ways that they become friends and develop strong feelings of love and concern for each other. I’m not sure that the movie really takes itself too seriously, and that’s good because, frankly, the names of most of the secondary characters and the different planets and cities and such became too much to remember after a while, and Ronan (an unrecognizable Lee Pace) isn’t truly frightening enough to create significant tension. Using great pop music from the 1970s—my personal favorites here are Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love” and Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around and Fell in Love”—to punctuate the emotions in various scenes, Guardians of the Galaxy keeps our focus on the interpersonal more than the spectacular, and that’s probably one of the reasons that it was such a successful film.

Oscar Nominations: Best Achievement in Hairstyling and Makeup and Best Achievement in Best Visual Effects

Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me (2014)

 

Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me charts the farewell tour of the country music legend after his announcement that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The tour, which is in support of his final album, Ghost on the Canvas, begins at the Nokia Theater (now the Microsoft Theater) in Los Angeles and ends 150 shows later in Napa. We are given glimpses of several different stops along the way, primarily so that we can witness how his disease begins to affect his ability to perform, the one thing in his life that still seems to give him some focus and a sense of purpose. He seems to be a different person on stage, and it is especially heartbreaking to watch his decline there. As the tour progresses, he becomes less and less able to remember the lyrics to even his most famous songs without the help of a teleprompter, and he’s unable at times to recall the names of some of his bandmates, which is all the sadder because most of them are members of his family. In addition to selected moments from the tour, the documentary also presents a few television appearances such as on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Grammy Awards where Campbell receives a lifetime achievement honor as well as interviews with famous people who have also had members of their families diagnosed with Alzheimer’s: Vince Gill, Sheryl Crow, the Edge from U2, Bruce Springsteen, and former President Bill Clinton. Interspersed throughout the film are clips from the height of his career (the late 1960s and 1970s) that only serve to emphasize how much his condition has deteriorated. Two thoughts linger after viewing this emotional film. One is how remarkable it is that Campbell has maintained his sense of humor. Of course, there are moments of anger and frustration when he can’t recall important details or when he’s forgotten what he’s just done, but for the most part, he is always cracking jokes and laughing.  The other is just how dedicated his wife is to ensuring that he is taken care of. The film is truly a testament to her love for and dedication to him. She is so much a part of his life and of this documentary, and it is particularly sad to watch her having to witness the progress of his disease. The film’s only nomination came for one of its songs, the final song, in fact, which is a bittersweet coda to the film and its message of resilience in the face of a debilitating illness.

Oscar Nomination: Best Original Song (“I’m Not Gonna Miss You”)

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

 

Moonrise Kingdom is the charming story of how an island full of quirky, eccentric people reacts to a pair of 12-year-olds running away to be together. It’s almost impossible not to smile throughout this light romantic comedy, particularly if you’re familiar with the films of director Wes Anderson and even if you’ve seen it before—maybe especially if you’re watching it for a second or third or even fourth time. The couple at the heart of the film, Sam (played by Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward), meet backstage at a church’s performance of a Benjamin Britten opera, and their correspondence for the next year (most of which is shown on screen as well as narrated in voice-over) leads to their decision to go to a more secluded part of the fictional New Penzanze Island so that they can be together. Their disappearance puts everyone in the film on edge: the police chief (Bruce Willis), Suzy’s parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), Sam’s Khaki Scoutmaster (Edward Norton), etc. Anderson is working with a top-notch cast here, and they all approach their roles with the sort of deadpan style typical of his films. Everyone and everything is so matter-of-fact in the way it is played that you become aware of how you become increasingly willing to accept ever more outlandish actions and behaviors as the movie progresses. The film also features Anderson’s usual close attention to detail, with the costumes and sets and props all being perfectly chosen. For example, a battery-powered record play serves such a vital role in the film that it almost becomes a character itself. By the time it gets used to play “Le temps de l’amour” by Francoise Hardy as accompaniment to a wild dance on the beach, you start to want one of these players for yourself. Overall, there’s a fine line here that the film gets close to crossing, perhaps, where an audience might feel uncomfortable about seeing such young performers acting so much in love, but this ersatz Romeo and Juliet with their almost monotone delivery and the more innocent time period of 1965 keep the emphasis on the simplicity and even naiveté of young people in love. They fall in love at first sight because they recognize a kindred spirit; both of them have been described as “emotionally disturbed” or “troubled,” after all, and there are similar pairings throughout this delightful film. You also get a lot of laughs here, such as the chase involving dozens of Khaki Scouts (played by a talented group of young actors) and brief performances by such powerhouse actors as Tilda Swinton and Harvey Keitel. It’s no wonder that Wes Anderson’s films have gotten increasingly more popular among the general population. They’re almost too precious—the British might call it “twee”—to ignore. 

Oscar Nomination: Best Original Screenplay

Unstoppable (2010)

 

Unstoppable is a great tension-filled adventure involving a runaway train in Pennsylvania. Two goof-offs (played, appropriately enough, by Ethan Suplee and T.J. Miller) fail to follow the protocol for getting a train started, and so one loaded down with dangerous (flammable, toxic, etc.) freight heads off on its own and starts to gather speed on its own. Much of the film involves the attempts to slow down and/or stop the train before it reaches a dangerous curve in Stanton near some large fuel storage tanks, threatening a huge disaster if the train derails. Almost every attempt to stop it fails, including dropping a person from a helicopter onto the train and a ridiculous attempt by police to shoot out the shutoff switch (conveniently located near the fuel tank), until Denzel Washington’s Frank Burns and Chris Pine’s Will Colson decide to catch up to the runaway train with their engine. They figure they’ll either drag it to a slower speed or manage to pull it in the other direction… so long as all of the brakes hold out. Frankly, that’s enough to keep the interest of an audience, but Unstoppable burdens both Frank and Will with quite a bit of unnecessary back story. Frank’s wife has died of cancer, and he has two teenage daughters who are working at Hooters in order to pay their way through college. Will is under a restraining order and is unable to see his son except from a distance. Of course, we need a happy ending, a reconciliation at the end of the film, so we have to learn all of this, I suppose. And that’s not all: Frank, an engineer, is also being forced out of his career after 28 years, and Will is just beginning his work as a conductor, having finished his training only four months earlier. As an old-timer and a newbie, their banter and interaction before and during the crazy attempt to stop the runaway is fun and interesting, but it’s an action movie, so thankfully, the emphasis is often on the action more than the dialogue. There is a bit of a misdirect early in the film involving a train full of school children on a field trip. We are made to think that they will be in the most danger and that much of the film will involve saving them from a collision. However, what the film really emphasizes is Frank and Will’s rescue mission. It’s a thrilling movie overall, and it features good performances from Washington, Pine, and Rosario Dawson (in the typically thankless role of the person stuck in the central office who has to encourage Frank and Will remotely). There’s also a bit of fun business involving a welder named Ned (played with considerable gusto by Lew Temple), who drives his truck alongside the runaway train and is being followed by a series of police cars. Ned, however, seems to know what Frank and Will are going to do, and he’s there to make it happen (and claim some of the glory for himself). It’s a nice touch to the overall excitement of the film.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Sound Editing

In Bruges (2008)

 

In Bruges is, by turns, funny and dark, silly and despairing. It’s the tale of two Irish hit men who are sent by their demanding boss to hide out in the Belgian title city after a hit goes horribly wrong. The younger of the two men, Ray (Colin Farrell), while performing a hit on a priest in a confessional, accidentally killed a young boy. Apparently, hit men and their bosses have scruples: who knew? Ray and his mentor Ken (the subtle Brendan Gleeson) are meant to enjoy the city, but while Ken enjoys the medieval churches and the canal rides and other historical, tourist spots, Ray hates it. However, he soon finds a way to stay busy with a series of misadventures. Stumbling up a film shoot that includes an American dwarf as the star, Ray falls in love with a drug dealer named Chloe (Clemence Poesy). He picks a fight with a Canadian couple while dining out with Chloe, then later has to ward off an attack from her boyfriend when he goes back to her place for sex. Ken, meanwhile, has gotten the order from Henry (a very tightly wound Ralph Fiennes) that he has to kill Ray because the murder of an innocent child is unforgiveable. Ken doesn’t want to kill his friend; he feels that Ray can still be redeemed. It was his first hit after all. The strength of In Bruges lies primarily in its script. The banter (bickering?) between Farrell’s Ray and Gleeson’s Ken is delightful, dark at times, playful at others. They discuss what the death of a boy could mean; it’s some heavy existential stuff at times. However, they also have a raucous night with the dwarf film star (Jordan Prentice, stealing every scene he’s in), snorting coke and enjoying the company of hookers. Farrell has the flashier role, and he makes good use of it. This is one of his best performances in years. Thanks to the script by the talented Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, even relatively minor characters such as the pregnant woman who owns the hotel where Ken and Ray stay while in Bruges contribute to the depth of the story. All of the performers get moments to shine, and the city itself serves as a lovely backdrop to the action.

Oscar Nomination: Best Original Screenplay

Australia (2008)

Because it clocks in at almost three hours long—and it’s a very long three hours, trust me—the film Australia has a lot of opportunities to shift its tone, much to its detriment, to be honest. What seems like it might be a comedy, almost cartoon-like in its plot and performances, at first, eventually becomes a World War II movie and a tragic examination of the mistreatment of the aboriginal people of Australia. At times, given the icy prudishness of Nicole Kidman’s Lady Ashley, it even borders on a sex comedy. She’s obviously got the hots for Hugh Jackman’s Drover (and, given his prominent shirtless scene, who wouldn’t be?), but decorum or some such nonsense keeps her from acting on it for far too long. The plot is a bit of a muddle, frankly. Lady Ashley has arrived in Australia from England, determined to get her husband to give up his failing cattle ranch. After her husband’s murder, she has to work with Jackman’s Drover to get the cattle to market in order to have enough money to keep her home, and the cattle drive takes up a significant portion of the film, allowing the filmmakers to showcase the beauty of Australia’s geography. Kidman’s aristocrat becomes protective of a child of white and aboriginal heritage, a so-called “half caste,” after his mother dies trying to protect him from being taken from her, and when we learn later that Drover had an aboriginal wife who died from being refused medical treatment and that Lady Ashley is unable to have children, it’s only a matter of time before the three of them form a family structure. The film grapples with some large issues such as who actually owns what and who really belongs to whom, but the film tends to treat them rather simplistically. References to the film The Wizard of Oz and the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” appear throughout the film, and the pun on the use of “Oz” is cute but a bit of a distraction at times. Australia is a lovely film in terms of its production design and cinematography, but its attempts to create an epic examination of Australian themes lead to a bloated, rather dull movie overall.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Costume Design

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Flags of Our Fathers is the companion picture to director Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima. Flags of Our Fathers presents an American perspective on the Battle of Iwo Jima while Letters from Iwo Jima tells some of the same events from the perspective of the Japanese in the battle. (Yes, Letters from Iwo Jima is the superior film and deserved its nomination for Best Picture; it stretched Eastwood’s talents as a director more than this film does.) The film follows three of the men credited with raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi after an American victory. Much of the film occurs in flashbacks; the present-day narrative follows the three as they are exploited by the government on a bond tour, used rather shamelessly to raise money for the military. Each of the men is give very quick, broad strokes of characterization. Marine Private First Class (PFC) Ira Hayes (played with great reserve by Adam Beach) is a Native American who, despite being a war hero, is refused service in a bar, and even military officers who know of his accomplishments refuse to shake his hand. Hayes’ mistreatment as a result of racism deserves a movie of its own, so powerful are these moments in the film. His story resonates long after the film ends. PFC Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) is the most popular of the three because he always seems willing to play along with whatever crazy scheme the government officials come up with for the three men. He’s also a bit of a flirt, but when his girlfriend (Melanie Lynskey) wants her own time in the spotlight, their marriage becomes another part of the tour. Sadly, his popularity doesn’t last beyond the war as he can’t find a job despite being offered lots of opportunities during the way (“come and see me…”). The third man, Navy Corpsman John “Doc” Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), gets less of a story than his son does and certainly less than the other two men. Much of the flashbacks related to Doc involve his guilt over the death of his friend Iggy (Jamie Bell). Given that Doc didn’t discuss the war much—he disliked being called a “hero”—his son has to interview several people to find out more about his father. Flags of Our Fathers is particularly effective at depicting the battle scenes that are shown in flashback. The film also addresses some of the controversies associated with the flag raising. The famous photograph was actually taken of a second flag raising; the Secretary of the Navy asked for the flag from the first raising but Col. Chandler Johnson (Robert Patrick) feels his battalion deserves it more. This does, however, complicate giving credit to the correct service members. One of the men in the photo is misidentified, leading to some painful moments with the mothers of those who were killed in action. Judith Ivey plays the mother one of the men who raised the flag but didn’t get proper credit initially; she makes the most of her few seconds on screen, and her ability to recognize her son by looking at his butt in the reproduction of the photograph in her local paper is priceless. Flags of Our Fathers is often most effective in its smaller moments, such as when Hayes, Gagnon, and Bradley are served a dessert in the shape of the flag raising, only to have the servers pour a sauce the color of blood over it. There’s also a papier-mâché version of the mountain that they’re asked to climb as part of one bond rally. It’s quite emotional to see just how demeaning were some of the activities the military asked them to complete. The closing credits for the film feature a series of photographs from that famous day, including some of the images of the first flag being raised. An interesting side note: Flags of Our Fathers lost to its companion film (Letters from Iwo Jima, in case you’ve already forgotten) in the Category of Best Achievement in Sound Editing.

Oscar Nominations: Best Achievement in Sound Mixing and Best Achievement in Sound Editing

Apocalypto (2006)

 

We aren’t spared much visually in terms of brutality in Apocalypto, a film about indigenous people around the time of the Mayan civilization in Mexico. The movie, directed by Mel Gibson with his usual penchant for highlighting violence and cruelty, includes scenes of people getting their throats cut, a jaguar eating a man’s face off, beheadings, and, perhaps most infamously, a Mayan priest tearing the heart out of the chest of a man and showing it still beating to the assembled blood-thirsty masses. All of this (and more) plays out in full view. The cinematography of Apocalypto is first-rate—the film is beautifully shot overall—but there is a lot of blood and gore splashed across the screen. The film has a rather simple plot. Jaguar Paw and his father and father and friends hunt for a tapir. They joke with each other and enjoy the results of their hunt. When they return home, they lead regular lives. One of his friends is suffering from his mother-in-law’s insistence that he sire some grandchildren for her. Their peace is rather short lived, though. The hunters had already seen a group of refugees in the forest, and it isn’t long into the film before Jaguar Paw’s village is attacked. Many villagers die at the hands of the attackers, and we are witness to most of their deaths, including the throat-cutting of Flint Sky, Jaguar Paw’s father, in front of this son. Any surviving men are taken captive to be used for human sacrifice in the Mayan city. The women who are taken captive are sold as slaves. The surviving children are left behind as if they are worthless to the attackers. Jaguar Paw’s wife Seven and young son Turtles Run hide in a pit, hoping to stay there safely until Jaguar Paw’s return. The journey to the Mayan city is fraught with obstacles, such as the difficulties of being tied to a severely wounded captive who keeps falling down from exhaustion, and their arrival in the Mayan city is quite the visual spectacle. Following the bizarre prophecy of a young girl with what appears to be leprosy—someone the captors and captives encounter on their journey—Jaguar Paw manages to escape being beheaded and de-heartened thanks to a solar eclipse, an alleged sign from the gods. However, he then has to try to escape from his initial captors, who get to use him and his fellow surviving men as target practice—even more ways to die violently. His attempt to escape through the forest becomes a sort of “and then there were none” journey, as one by one, his pursuers meet gruesome ends (see the earlier reference to a jaguar eating a man’s face off…). By the end of the film, only two of the original captors survive, but even they halt in the face of the arrival of the Spanish with their armor and weapons and priests. We should all know what happens next to the Mayans; if you don’t know your history, let’s just say it doesn’t bode well for the indigenous people. The film’s actors reportedly spoke the closest approximation to the original Mayan language, the Yucatec Maya language. The performances are uniformly good, but other than Rudy Youngblood as Jaguar Paw, most of the characters are rather broadly drawn, so it’s difficult to rouse a great deal of empathy, especially when you start to realize that most of these characters won’t last very long on screen. And, to be fair, the names of most characters appear in subtitles only one, if at all, so it’s not even easy to keep track of what they’re called. I suppose that kind of anonymity feeds into one of the movie’s themes, that of the poor who are often sacrificed in the building of a great civilization (even though the film seems to confuse some of the characteristics of Aztec civilization with that of the Mayans). I’m not sure that’s really what resonates with an audience, though. It’s more likely to be the memory of the acts of violence that will linger most and longest.

Oscar Nominations: Best Achievement in Makeup, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and Best Achievement in Sound Editing

House of Flying Daggers (2004)

 

At its most basic level, House of Flying Daggers is a Hong Kong film that merges martial arts with a love story in the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon vein. Of course, the storyline itself is quite different from that earlier, more famous (and Oscar-rewarded) film, but the successful blending of the genres makes this movie a success too. In its own way, the plot is rather simple. Against a backdrop of a struggle between a corrupt government and a rebellious force known as the House of Flying Daggers, two men, captains in the military, decide to use a blind showgirl, whom they think is the daughter of the previous leader they have killed, as a means to find the House. One of the men, Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), “rescues’ the showgirl, Mei (Zhang Ziyi), from a prison where she is being held captive after demonstrating some remarkable martial arts talents. They are followed everywhere they go and are attacked frequently by soldiers, creating a great deal of suspense as to whether or not they can survive on their journey toward the House of Flying Daggers. Jin and Mei grow to love each other even though they also keep pushing each other apart. It’s a lack of trust at first that keeps them apart, but later it’s the result of him thinking about how he might be betraying his cause by falling in love with the enemy. As realistic as the film can be at times, it’s more of a fable or folktale where the bigger issues of loyalty become less important in the face of overwhelming love and desire for another person. Revelations later in the film come as quite a surprise to the audience and send the film off on a different trajectory, but the core of the film’s plot—the love story—remains the clear focus. House of Flying Daggers is one of the most beautifully shot films of the first decade of the 21^st Century. Two sequences, in particular, highlight the stunning camerawork. The first occurs early in the film, as the other captain, Leo (Andy Lau), forces Mei to participate in an “echo game” where he flicks a bean (or several beans) and she has to strike a drum that would be on the opposite side of circle of drums that surround her. No small feat for a blind showgirl. The other sequence is the stunner, though, as Jin and Mei are attacked by soldiers in a bamboo forest. The greenness of the forest, the swoosh of the weapons, the fast-paced editing—all contribute to the power of this beautifully shot sequence. Scenes like these are, undoubtedly, the reason that House of Flying Daggers was one of the nominees for Best Achievement in Cinematography but sadly lost to The Aviator, a far inferior film in many ways.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Cinematography

Pearl Harbor (2001)

 

Pearl Harbor attempts to use the formula that made Titanic successful: use a romantic story as a means to depict a major historical event. Or perhaps it’s using a major historical event to depict a romantic story? Ben Affleck and Josh Harnett play childhood friends who both become pilots in advance of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the event that precipitated the formal entry of the United States into World War II. Affleck’s Rafe McCawley (as Hollywood a name as Tab Hunter or Rock Hudson) falls in love with a nurse during his induction process, and their romance seems ideal (to the point of being almost hopelessly chaste) until he gets the chance to go to England to fight against the Germans as part of the Royal Air Force. When he’s lost and believed killed in action, Kate Beckinsale’s Evelyn Johnson grieves until she and Hartnett’s Danny Walker (even his name lacks the zing of his good friend’s) start to fall in love with each other. They’ve wound up in Hawaii together, and their friends encourage the romance as a way to begin healing after Rafe’s supposed death. Of course, there’s only one problem: Rafe isn’t dead. (Don’t worry; this isn’t the worst of spoilers, and it seems pretty obvious what’s going to happen when Rafe is sent away to England in the first place.) When he surprises Evelyn and Danny by his arrival in Pearl Harbor, all of the cliched emotions are on display. The romantic triangle plot, frankly, is a bit of a bore, and nothing particularly surprising happens as a result of Rafe’s return. Rafe and Danny fight—a lot—and might have started to sort out what to do but… the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor the next morning after Rafe’s return. They have to put their personal struggles aside in order to begin a counterattack because, you know, priorities…. The battle sequence begins about halfway through the film, which is a butt-numbing three hours long, and the war imagery really changes the tenor of the action. Director Michael Bay is justifiably famous for his emphasis on a fast pace and quick editing, and Pearl Harbor is no exception. It can be tough to keep track of who’s who at times, given that there are so many supporting characters who are fellow pilots and/or nurses and/or hangers-on. Bay does provide a few odd cinematic flourishes, such as when the image goes out of focus in an attempt to replicate how disoriented the characters are immediately after an air attack. However, he does the unthinkable by having his actors express “deep” emotions in slow motion. You know, like when Olivia de Havilland yells out “Nooooooo” in slow motion while turning away from seeing children attacked by killer bees in The Swarm (1978). Pearl Harbor doesn’t make effective use of some of the actors playing real people. For example, Cuba Gooding Jr. in the role of Dorie Miller gets only brief moments to show what’s behind the person who was one of the great heroes of the attack on Pearl Harbor, stationing himself behind an anti-aircraft gun and firing on the Japanese. And Alec Baldwin plays Col. Jimmy Doolittle, another true war hero, with an sardonic bit of sarcasm. The less said about Jon Voight’s FDR, the better. The ending is a truly Hollywood copout with its “resolution” of the love triangle. And the film doesn’t fully address that Affleck’s Rafe seems to love Hartnett’s Danny as much as he loves Kate’s Evelyn. Watch Affleck and Hartnett’s final scene together, and then try to convince any reasonable viewer that the two men aren’t in love. There’s more than a touch of the homoerotic among their group of pilots, too. One more thought about Pearl Harbor, one that I’ve stated elsewhere about other movies: Don’t count on a fiction film to be historically accurate. This movie got a lot of criticism for playing a bit fast and loose with historical details; there are websites devoted to such stuff. If you want a history lesson, read a book or watch a documentary.

Oscar Win: Best Sound Editing

Other Nominations: Best Original Song (“There You’ll Be”), Best Sound, and Best Visual Effects