Academy Awards Time

The Oscars are here and 2010 films are gonna be getting their awards today. I have been watching so many movies from this last year I am ready to move on and after today I am going to. But first I will make my predictions and choose my picks for all the top awards.

This years ceremony will have a new feel to it I think. Hosts James Franco and Anne Hatheway bring youth to the show, and since neither are comics (in the sense that past hosts have been) I am predicting sketches will dominate, maybe them doing bits from many classic movies?

I always enjoy seeing the dresses on the red carpet. Pregnant Natalie Portman will be glowing I am sure, and I have high hopes for Jennifer Laurence and Michelle Williams, both up for best actress along with Ms. Portman.

So here are the nominees, If a name/title is in red I have NOT seen it. Otherwise I have.

BEST PICTURE
BLACK SWAN
TRUE GRIT
KINGS SPEECH will win 
SOCIAL NETWORK
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT My Pick
WINTER BONES
INCEPTION
127 HOURS
TOY STORY 3
THE FIGHTER

If any movie beats KINGS SPEECH it will be SOCIAL NETWORK, which just weeks ago I would have predicted, but SPEECH has picked up momentum recently and is a very academy friendly movie. I liked lots of these movies, I choose THE KIDS because it was my favorite movie of all ten. Both TRUE GRIT and SOCIAL NETWORK were amazing and I would be happy to see either win.

BEST ACTRESS
Natalie Portman will win
Jennifer Laurence
Michelle Williams
Nicol Kidman
Annette Bening My Pick

All 5 actresses were great in their films. I would be happy to see any of them win really. I pick Bening because I think playing as normal of a person as she does in THE KIDS is hard and the scene when she sings Joni Mitchelle at the dinner table is amazing.

BEST ACTOR
Javier Bardem 
Jessie Eisenberg
James Franco
Colin Firth will win My Pick 
Jeff Bridges

Another great catagory. I almost want to say Jessie Eisenberg is my pick, but Firth is really great in KINGS SPEECH and was great last year in A SINGLE MAN and I want him to get an oscar.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Helena Bonham Cater
Jacki Weaver
Amy Adams
Melissa Leo my pick 
Hailee Steinfeld will win 


I am predicting Steinfeld will win because Melissa Leo (who is also a good bet for taking home the gold) might loose based on votes being spit between her and Amy Adams because they are both in the same film and both are good. I think Leo is great as the mom and always great in every film she does. My only problem with Steinfeld winning is that she is not the supporting actress in TRUE GRIT she is a lead and it seems unfair to compare her performance to the others when she is in every scene in the movie and the rest are supporting.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR 
Mark Ruffalo
Geoffrey Rush
Christian Bale will win
Jeremy Renner
John Hawkes My Pick


Bale's performance in THE FIGHTER seems to have gotten him many awards this season and I think it will tonight as well. There is a chance Rush will beat him because KINGS SPEECH has been picking up speed recently. I think Hawkes was great in WINTER BONES, I wish he would win.

BEST DIRECTOR 
David Fincher
Coen Brothers
Tom Hooper will win 
David O Russell
Darren Aronofsky My Pick

I think whatever film gets best picture the director will match. But Fincher has a great shot too. I choose the BLACK SWAN director because I love his crazy style.

BEST DOCUMENTARY
WASTE LAND
INSIDE JOB  will win 
EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP My Pick
RESTREPO
GASLAND

Most people predict INSIDE JOB will win. I have not seen it but want to and am going ahead and predicting it to win. Of the three I have seen both EXIT IT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP and GASLAND are great. I give it to GIFT SHOP just barley over GASLAND because it stayed more consistent.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE 
TOY STORY 3 will win
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
THE ILLUSIONIST

I am not picking a personal winner because I have only seen 2 and think I would really like ILLUSIONIST. it seems a sure bet that TOY STORY will win.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY 
ANOTHER YEAR
KINGS SPEECH will win
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT My Pick 
THE FIGHTER
INCEPTION

This is a hard choice. I loved the script for ANOTHER YEAR but still want KIDS  to get it. The script was original and so funny.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY 
TRUE GRIT
SOCIAL NETWORK My pick/will win 
WINTER BONES
127 HOURS
TOY STORY 3

Aaron Sorkin is a great writer and what I loved most about SOCIAL NETWORK is that the characters have conversations and talk to each other. I think this should and will win.

BEST FOREIGN FILM
IN A BETTER WORLD
INCENDIES
BIUTIFUL wll win
OUTSIDE THE LAW 
DOGTOOTH

Since I have only seen one of these films (boo) I won't pick it. but I loved DOGTOOTH so I would be happy to see it win. It sounds like BIUTIFUL  is great and will win.

There we go. The show is later today and I will be watching it, hope you will too.

ABORTION; elephant in the room

For a long time I have been annoyed by the treatment of abortion in movies and television.  An estimated 3500 abortions are performed every day in the world, but abortion is so sensitive to many people it has become a procedure to be consistently rejected in film and tv.   I find it frustrating to be watching a show dealing with unwanted pregnancy and suddenly I am watching a repudiation of abortion. Examples of ways that the possibility of abortion is treated often in shows and movies are A) she has a miscarriage B) she visits an abortion clinic but is discouraged by a person or the place itself.  


In real life, women get abortions. 


Even more preposterous are the movies with plot lines about unwanted pregnancies that refuse to even say the word.  KNOCKED UP  has a single, career minded women get pregnant from a one night stand. The whole movie is about her pregnancy, but the word abortion is never uttered. One character uses a word that rhymes with abortion to avoid upsetting his friend and others ask her if she will "take care of it' but they won't even use the word.  
2008's WAITRESS is about a women who is trapped in a marriage with an abusive man. When she becomes pregnant she is horrified and even writes letters to her unborn baby blaming it for her miserable life, but this movie also never uses the word abortion. A friend asks if she will "get rid of it" but when her answer is simply, no, they move on and never come back to the suggestion. 


This unbalance of what women in movies are doing vs. what women in real life are doing seems so absurd to me that it greatly offends my  feminist sensibilities. 

The recent movie that brought all of this to mind is BLUE VALENTINE.

(there is a spoiler coming up so don't read on if you care)

BLUE VALENTINE is a movie trying to capture raw intimate moments in a relationship that is falling apart.  It shows the beginning and the bitter end.  Soon after the couple meet she realizes she is pregnant.  (The pregnancy is accidental.)  She decides to have an abortion.  The movie focuses on her as the procedure begins; she is emotional, and watching, so was I.  The scene is graphic and honest.  And then she changes her mind and stops the abortion and continues the pregnancy.      

Now, here’s the problem.  The pregnancy is the reason the couple marry and the reason they end up where they do.  Had she gone ahead with the abortion the couple would not have had a child to rush them into marriage and unhappiness.  She has a baby because it is necessary to the movie’s plot.  So why does she start to get an abortion?  The decision to stop the abortion took me out of the movie.  It is a scene in which I was emotionally invested and then I was yanked out of the movie because, once again, a woman in a movie does not have an abortion.   

To be fair, I really liked BLUE VALENTINE, and so it is more annoying than usual that, again, an abortion is avoided.  

 I have made a list of movies that deal with abortions.

1) Dirty Dancing

2) 4 Months, 2 Weeks, 3 Days
3) Enter the Void

4) Lake Of Fire

5) Vera Drake
6) Revolutionary Road
7) Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her
8) Cabaret
9) Godfather II
10) Greenberg (although they never say the word, a lead character does get one) 

My Top Ten Films of 2010

Here is my top ten movie list for 2010. I have seen a much higher percentage of films this year then ever before I think, however this list is likely to change over the next four weeks as I see some of the movies I missed. The major movies I have yet to see that have gotten good buzz are 127 HOURS, TOY STORY 3, ANIMAL KINGDOM, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, CARLOS, OUTSIDE THE LAW, IN A BETTER WORLD, ANOTHER YEAR, INCENDIES, BIUTIFUL so look for some of these to pop up and replace some on this list over the next month. I plan to see all of the Oscar nominated movies before the awards are given out. Whew. Sure is a fun way to be busy.

Here we go.

1) I AM LOVE

The most beautiful film I saw in 2010, I AM LOVE, has gorgeous cinematography that is a throwback to 70's Italian cinema. It stars the fascinating Tilda Swinton as an emotionally repressed Russian-born women now married into a rich Italian family. Her desires are awakened, you could say, by the food of a young chef who befriends her oldest son.  The score is composed by John Adams and it takes the film to an even higher level. I really can't say enough good things about this movie. The movie left me breathless. 

2)THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

For me this movie had a lot going for it before I even saw it. THE KIDS is the story of a lesbian couple raising children, and it is written and directed by a women. Plus, it features Julianne Moore who rocks, and my number one celebrity crush, Mark Ruffalo, who, it turns out, is at his hottest. It lived up to my hopes and has remained one of my favorite films since I saw it in June. I liked that THE KIDS is a comedy where no one is the bad guy, the characters are complex and flawed, and relatable. The pain they cause one another comes from real places giving me compassion for them all. 

3) DOGTOOTH

A surprising Oscar nomination for best foreign film, this Greek drama is disturbing and very odd. It is the story of parents who choose to raise their three children in complete isolation from the rest of the world. They teach their children different definitions for common words, like "salt" is "telephone", and a pussy is a small yellow flower. The only outsider brought to the house (always blindfolded for the drive to and from) is a prostitute  for the son. The two daughters are fascinated by this woman, and she uses their curiosity to fill her own needs. Needless to say the methods the parents use on their children lead to increasingly disturbing behavior and a rather disturbing climax. The complexity of the mythology the parents have invented is part of what makes the movie so rich. DOGTOOTH left me wanting to watch it again, to find answers that will help me understand how and why this creepy world exists.

4) SOCIAL NETWORK

I didn't expect to like this movie as much as I did. I had heard a lot of criticism of its depictions of women, and because I find the depictions of women insulting in over 50% of movies I was sure this one was going to offend me. It did not. SOCIAL NETWORK is about white male Harvard elitists, and it does nothing to make them likable. The acting is top-notch and the directing is sharp. There are more female roles (with names even!) then many popular movies, and it made me excited to see Rooney Mara take on the role of Lisbeth Sanders in director Fincher's upcoming version of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. 

5) WINTER'S BONE  

Rarely do movies get made about the class of people that are portrayed in WINTER'S BONE. Jennifer Lawrence plays 17 year old Ree, living in a back woods town devastated by meth. Ree is raising her younger siblings and caring for her crazy mother; her father is a missing meth dealer. Everything about this movie feels raw and real. The actors look rough; they play people I have never seen before on a big screen. The location and music add to the movie authenticity. The performances are great and the strength of Ree is astonishing to see.

6) BLUE VALENTINE

Another raw movie, BLUE VALENTINE, is the story of a young married couple on the brink of breaking up. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, both consistently great actors, are at their best and some of their scenes are painful to watch, especially the bad sex they have in a motel. I have seen countless movies about relationships but BLUE VALENTINE captures two people who are so unhappy together that every little thing the other does drives the other crazy, and neither can help but consistently say that one thing that will push the other over the edge. Great writing. (There is one part of the movie that took me out of it;I won't go into that here, but I will later write about it.) Still, an almost perfect movie.

7) CATFISH

The less you know about this documentary the better-I suggest seeing it, not reading about it. I will say it is a fun companion piece to SOCIAL NETORK because it is about the friendships we make on sites like Facebook and Myspace. CATFISH is creepy and sad and very entertaining. 

8) SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD 
This was the biggest surprise of the year for me. I only saw it recently and was blown away by how much I liked it.  The story is of Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), who spends his time playing guitar in a band, sleeping in a bed with his gay best friend, and being bummed out over his last girl friend who dumped him when she became famous.  Scott’s world is shaken when he meets the girl of his dreams, (he literally dreams about her before meeting her).  In order to date her he must fight her seven evil exes.  In the world of Scott,people fight as if they were in video games:  you can score bonus lives and turn into gold coins when you lose.  This movie captures the angst of early twenties so well.  The people in it hurt each other all the time, but are so lost in their own pain they don’t see what they do to others. Also great is the music, written by Beck and Metric and Broken Social Scene among others, performed by the actors who play fictional bands in the movie. 

9) BLACK SWAN

A huge fan of director Darren Aronofsky, I was excited to see BLACK SWAN as soon as I first heard about it.  While not my favorite of Aronofsky’s films--that title belongs to REQUIEM FOR A DREAM--I do think SWAN is visually fascinating and the movie strikes a wonderful balance of art film, horror movie.  The story is of Nina (Natalie Portman), an obsessive ballerina who has no life outside of dance.  Just as she is given the lead role in Swan Lake her sanity begins to collapse and everything falls into chaos.  I loved that SWAN never over-explains Nina’s history.  The story implies she is anorexic and into some form of self-mutilation.  We understand the mother/daughter relationship without the movie defining it.  Because delusions begin to overtake Nina so early in the film the audience never knows her without them.  Her disease is the desire for perfection. 

10) SHUTTER ISLAND
 I considered putting this movie higher, because of how underrated I think it is. I personally thought it was great. DiCaprio and Scorsese are a good team and SHUTTER also stars my favorite crush, Mark Ruffalo, and the amazing Michelle Williams. I think the biggest challenge viewers have with SHUTTER is whether you can accept the way-out-there twist at the end. I read the novel by Dennis Lehane years ago and loved it, great page turner, so I already knew the ending going in and was fine with it, but I understand it could be too crazy for some.  INCEPTION  is not on this list, and one of the main reasons is that the central love story did not work for me in INCEPTION. In SHUTTER ISLAND it did. The similarities of both movies are kind of weird so its easy for me to compare. DiCaprio's character is suffering in both films and haunted by memories of his wife and children. In SHUTTER the visions of his wife and daughter are creepy and effecting. The storm that is destroying the island he is on represents the damage of his guilt. In INCEPTION I never felt the children were real, and the images of them in his memories were cliched. The moments DiCaprio shares with Williams are always creepy and mysterious and beautiful.  I think SHUTTER ISLAND  is a top notch thriller.

THE RUNAWAYS is a waste of interesting material

I saw THE RUNAWAYS a few days ago and was seriously annoyed by it. Joan Jett is a cool lady and The Runaways were a cool band. So why is the movie about them so incredibly lame?

The biggest problem is that the movie has no voice. It isn't saying anything. It lakes any focus what-so-ever. The movie makes no effort to show any historical relevance the band had, or any effect it had on females, or the music world,  at that time.

The movie starts with Joan Jett, played poorly by Kirsten Stewart, introducing herself to Kim Fowley as an electric guitar player. He is interested and helps her start up an all girl rock band. They find Cherie Cherry in his club and like her blonde hair and attitude so they ask her to join as the singer. The rest of the band is filled in by girls who the movie never bothers to develop in the slightest. The girls practice in a trailer with Fowley telling them they need to sell sex and be tough. Soon they are touring and doing drugs and having sex. Next they are huge in Japan and Cherie causes problems by posing alone in sexy magazines and developing a drug problem. They start to fight and Cherie quits. All that she is left with is her drug problem and her old life, which wasn't great.
 But all these cliched scenes don't build into anything. Were these girls corrupted? Were they empowered? Was Kim Fowley nothing more then a child molester or just preparing them for the world they were entering? In this movie the answer to all these is, sort of, maybe.
The only slightly saving grace of the movie is Dakota Fanning who is good as Cherie Currie, but she is given such a limp script that it can only help a little. Yes, she is believable as a drug addict, but who cares.
The movie is never shocking (Jett peed on an assholes guitar! But they don't bother to show his reaction or if there are any consequences) it's not provocative(Fanning is wearing underwear on stage, never seen that before) . It is not a feminist movie in the slightest since it never shows a glimpse of any political or social messages. Sadly, it isn't even very fun to watch.

Movies about rock bands are notorious for being bad, but this movie isn't even good bad. I would much rather watch THE DOORS for a good laugh then any scene in THE RUNAWAYS.

I think someone should remake a movie about this band and make it worthy.