AWARD SEASON IS HERE!

The Golden Globes have past and now we eagerly await Oscar Nomination announcements, which happen on January 24th.  The award season is meant to be a time of celebrating the best films of the year. Of course, most years my favorite films get very little recognition and, still, I enjoy the process.  I love the dresses, I love the spectacle, I love the predictions and how invested I get.
This is an exciting year mainly because many of Hollywood's Elite are getting nominations. Leonardo Dicaprio, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney are shoe-ins for noms, and THE ARTIST star Jean Dujardin is too.  The fifth slot could go to sexy Michael Fassbender, or sexy Ryan Gosling. I think Fassbender in SHAME deserves it, but I love me some Gosling as well.
In the Best Actress category we could have Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, and Tilda Swinton, all amazing talents, and Michelle Williams is a big threat to win.  I really hope Charlize Theron gets a nod for YOUNG ADULT but I think Rooney Mara might beat her out for her role in GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

This year the top runners are THE ARTIST and THE DESCENDANTS. Both will get nominated, and I am guessing one of them will win.  The third top contender is HUGO, my favorite of the three. Martin Scorcese won best director, so look for him in that category.

As for my list of ten favorite films of 2011, I am busy busy trying to see as much as possible (which is hard work) and will post my top ten list the week before the Oscars.

Below, just for fun, are my favorite Golden Globe red carpet looks this year.

Emma Stone had a great year.  I am ready to see her in a movie I like, but am still a fan.  She killed it on the carpet, I WANT THAT BELT!

Always nice to see a curvy women on the carpet, holding her own.  I was happy she won, there is a terrible lack of good roles for black women, and I think she was gorgeous in this gown.  

Clooney is a handsome man, and Stacy Keibler looked fantastic!  I am not a huge fan of red dresses, but she looks hot. I love the hair, the simplicity.  This couple should have babies!

I wanted Charlize to win for YOUNG ADULT, because she was amazing.  As for her dress, not many ladies can pull this off, but her height and breathtaking beauty allows her to wear the dress and not be overwhelmed.  (Unlike Natalie Portman, whom I thought looked like a toddler in her dress)

I love Tilda!  She is an amazing actress who consistently stars in films I love.  I have yet to see this years WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, which she was nominated for, but I am eagerly awaiting it.  Tilda has a unique personal style that gets put down often, but this year she pulled it off, looking lovely and original. 

At first I wasn't sure what I thought about this dress, but after seeing it several times I fell in love. This women is always stunning and has breasts to die for, and this is one of her best looks.  She is like a hot latin robot lady. 

YOUNG ADULT: this years darkest comedy.

YOUNG ADULT 

From the the writer and director of JUNO, comes a second movie, also starring a strong female character.  This time, however, the leading lady is strong in a vulgar, self destructive, hard-to-watch, kind of way.

Charlize Theron stars as Mavis Gary, a ghost writer for a shallow young adult series that is coming to an end.  Mavis lives in Minneapolis, is recently divoraced, has a drinking problem, and an icky nervous habit of pulling her hair out, leaving her with a bald spot, covered by removable fake hair. Mavis is the definition of Hot Mess, and Theron plays the part perfectly, avoiding cliches and caricatures an giving Mavis the believability that makes her such an uncomfortable heroin to follow for 90 minuets. I say that in the best way, because YOUNG ADULT is a movie about pathetic, unlikable people.  Similar to 1999's hilarious ELECTION, ADULT presents the mid-west in a less then flattering light. The best people in the movie are bland, boring, and settled. But healthy and happy, which is more then can be said for the majority of the characters. 

The story goes like this: Mavis, nearing rock bottom, decided to return to her small town to win back her high school sweetheart, who is married and the father of a newborn baby. Mavis shrugs off these facts by explaining that she has baggage too. She returns home feeling confident that her "big city" lifestyle and long legs will win him back no problem. After all, she was prom queen, and has maintained her looks well, although it is clear she will go down hill one day, since her self destructive habits seem to increase as the movie continues. Her delusions last several days, as she throws herself at her ex, insults his wife (and nearly everyone else she encounters) and drinks herself to sleep every night, waking up morning after morning looking like she was hit by a car, and aimlessly wanders the town, trying to seem important, despite being clearly lost. 

YOUNG ADULT is a comedy, but a very dark one.  Many of the scenes are simply hard to watch, because of how embarrassing Mavis is, and how clueless she is at how inappropriate she is. The best laughs come from her, like when she has trouble remembering a former classmate until she see's his crutches and realizes he is "that hate crime guy! Why didn't you just say that!" referring to the time he got beat up by a bunch of jocks for being gay (which he is not) and is now crippled. The fact that Mavis see's no reason to be sensative to his situation is an example of her delusional, self involved self, and this is who we spend the entire movie with. Considering how unlikable our heroin is, it is not surprising many people find YOUNG ADULT off-putting, especially since the movie offers no indication of Mavis seeing the error of her ways, or becoming a better person. 

So, what is the point of this movie?  I took it as an analysis of a large part of our culture.  When alone, Mavis always has the television on and she is always watching reality shows. To be specific she is watching The Kardashions and Hank and Kendra.  Both times the clips are of rich, beautiful women complaining about superficial problems, similar in shallowness to Mavis.  As a person Mavis has very few things going for her other then being beautiful and "cool", and drinking herself into a blackout every night is her coping mechanism for everything that is going wrong in her life. She lives in a delusional state that what she wants, she should have, and will have. It's the desire to live like a rich socialite that has run through so much of our pop culture in the last decade. Paris Hilton might be old news, but the Desperate Housewives are popular as ever, and I think writer Diablo Cody is basing Mavis around this mind set, that being rich and beautiful is more important than being conscientious of the people around you. Mavis wants to be pretty, desired, get everything she wants when she wants it, and not to worry about complicated issues. Just like she throws fake hair over her creepy bald spot without giving it another thought, she shrugs off any real responsibility with a shot and a cigarette.  She has the lap dog, but it lives forgotten in her hotel room with a pee pad and bowl of water. She spends more time fake texting to look busy, then she does making any type of real human connection.  Mavis is fake and beautiful, but her setting is small town Minneapolis,  and she is a very hot mess. 

FASSBENDER FEVER!

Two films starring Michael Fassbender coming very soon! I am excited for both of these. Love Cronenberg. Then comes SHAME which I have been reading about for months and eagerly waiting for.

Here are trailers for both the films. I'm thinking double feature!

Michael Fassbender plays Carl Jung in this David Cronenberg film, costarring Keira Knightley, as a kinky patient and Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud. 

I love Carey Mulligan, who costars with Fassbender in SHAME. 

DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT: waiting to blow up

DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT is the story of 19 year old Leah, who is preparing to kill herself in a suicide bombing. The movie is shot like a documentary, staying on Leah from stat to finish, not a second passes without her being in front of the camera. We see the two days leading up to her planned suicide, but we learn very little about her past, or what has brought her to this place.

In the opening scene Leah is reciting an intense prayer, explaining she is doing all of this for "him".  All we learn about Leah (who has an nondescript American accent) is that she is 19, carries a photo of her younger brother, and she claims her parents are dead. Interestingly this last fact is questionable towards the end, when she makes a phone call to people it seems are her parents, although perhaps her birth parents are dead and these are the people who raised her? Personally I like films that leave unanswered questions, and clearly knowing so little about Leah is one of the strengths of the film, it keeps us unsettled, because we are never sure if we should view her with sympathy or horror. 

The first half of the film is Leah, passing time in her motel room, waiting for phone calls and visits from a group of masked men who come and go, preparing her and testing her for the deed ahead. Their faces are never revealed, but they too speak with American accents, and remain as mysterious as Leah. The first half is strong, even as we watch her do mundane acts (clipping her toenails, brushing her teeth, opening a curtain) it is very tense. Each of these daily activities form new meanings in the context of her situation. These are the last times she will do these things, and I felt that each activity was like an escape for her, a way to put off what was to come, and the completion of each one was a reminder that she was that much closer to death. 

The second half of the film is Leah wandering the streets of New York, headed for Times Square, wearing a yellow backpack stuffed full of over 50 pounds of explosives. She walks and walks and walks and buys a lot of food. Two gigantic pretzels with mustard, a candy apple, each giving her an activity to pass the time, but leaving her with only her anxiety. This half is weaker then the first, but still strong. The tension I felt, watching her holding her walkman detonator, had me bracing myself, wondering what we would see if she blew up. I always enjoy when a film can make me feel a degree of what the characters I am watching are feeling, and DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT did a great job of building the anxiety for the viewer, while we watch a girl experiencing immense fear and apprehension, about to commit an unimaginable act. 

This was the was the second feature directer Julia Loktev, who made a documentary in 1998 about a Russian immigrants. I heard about Loktev while I was reading about this years films and heard about her 2011 film, THE LONELIEST PLANET, which got attention at several festivals last spring, and stars hottie Gael Garcia Bernal.  I am very excited to see LONELIEST PLANET, a slow paced thriller about a couple hiking over a mountain, sounds interesting.  Seeing DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT upped my expectations

MICHAEL FASSBENDER: my new favorite actor

My current actor obsession is Mr. Fassbender. I first saw him in this years JANE EYRE as brooding, mysterious Rochester. That film was exquisite, and soon after I saw him in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS as Magneto, and my obsession began. In both films I found him captivating and completely committed to his characters. I quickly watched two of his break out indy roles, that I had missed in theaters. They were  FISH TANK and HUNGER.  Fassbender has the kind of masculine good looks that stand out after seeing him play such strong characters on film. He plays flaws,  humanity and evil with relatable and terrifying honesty. In FISHTANK Fassbender plays a man who befriends an angry teenage daughter, gains her trust and eventually betrays her in a moment of inappropriate passion. The role is most disturbing because of the wonderful performance Fassbender gives, making him real and flawed over simply perverted. It is Fassbender's ability to explore characters with such dark tendencies, and understand them, without judging them. He is also very sexy in a sort of threatening way. 

Later this year Fassbender has two films opening that I am confident will fulfill my appetite for him. First is A DANGEROUS METHOD directed by David Cronenberg and co-starring Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley. Fassbender plays Carl Jung to Mortensen's Freud and will certainly have some intense moments in a film I hear has some kinky sex scenes between he and Knightley. SHAME comes later in the year and is one of the films I have been looking forward to the most this winter. SHAME reunites Fassbender with director Steve McQueen,  whom directed 2008's HUNGER, an exceptional first film about a hunger strike in a Northern Ireland prison. It is hard to watch, and simply unforgettable. SHAME co-stars the adorable Carey Mulligan, playing the sister of Fassbender, a sex addicted business man in New York and the preview looks amazing. 

I predict that this is an actor who will soon be mentioned among the greatest actors, I would go as far as to say that soon this time of year will have him on constant oscar watch, and he will be offered the great roles out there. So, for now, I am able to be one of few whom is obsessed with this man, but I think the crowds will come soon.

Two fun facts about Michael:  He is a Natural Ginger! He also grew up in Kilarney, Ireland, where part of my family descends from! 

DRIVE: hot actors, hot music, cool as shit

Ryan Gosling plays a stunt driver for movies, but moonlights as a get away driver for robberies. His character is a man of few words, he likes to drive, and is very good at it, but seems pretty empty otherwise. He meets his attractive new neighbor (the adorable Carey Mulligan) and her young son. Soon he is smitten and begins to take care of them. When her husband gets out of prison,Gosling feels displaced, but soon finds purpose in saving the family from thugs who are threatening to kill them all if the husband doesn't do one last job for them. Needless to say, the body count is high and Gosling becomes an avenger with a penchant for unique weapons. 

Director Nocolas Winding Refn shows he is the real deal with this movie, that is getting rave reviews from critics. I hear it isn't as popular with audiences,and I am not surprised. It is not your usual action movie,as both the title and even trailer might have implied. It is ultra violent in parts,but these scenes are slow to come and often end quickly. The characters almost never say what they are thinking and the movie has long scenes of Mulligan and Gosling looking at each other,or away from each other, while the kick ass score plays underneath. But for me, DRIVE was a welcome relief from the shoot em up car chase movies that get made all the time. Like last years THE TOWN (a  deeply flawed film) the car chase scenes in DRIVE are done like old 70's and 80's car movies.They don't have a million jump cuts of cars crashing, rolling, blowing up that I always find greatly confusing (Michael Bay I am looking at you) and always seem more to serve the directors ego of big budget then add anything to plot. Instead, DRIVE, is much more into mood. Despite it taking place now, the clothes,music and graphics used are very early 80's. The movie is cool,it is slow and it is really really realy good.  I was already a big fan of Ryan Gosling, I am now obsessed.  Also, I can't stop listening to the soundtrack and have included the title song below.  AMAZING.

12 Movies I am looking forward to this Fall, 2011

 MARGARET 

dir. Kenneth Lonergan

Here is a movie I have been waiting for for six years, because it was filmed six years ago! It has been stuck in limbo, supposedly because director Lonergan couldn't cut it short enough for the studio to release it, but they must have worked it out because it comes out this month (3 hours long). Starring Anna Paquin, long before True Blood, with Matt Damon and, my main crush, Mark Ruffalo! This movie has so many exciting aspects for me, Lonergan wrote and directed one of my most loved films, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, which is also the film that introduced me to the ever swoon worthy Ruffalo, and inspired me to write a screenplay because that script has fucking brilliant dialog. Since YOU CAN COUNT ON ME came out over ten years ago I have seen nothing from Lonergan, and have just kept seeing mentions of MARGARET until I assumed it would never come out, but now it is! Delayed release is not usually a good sign, but I am hoping it will be another impressive script with stellar performances, from it's highly capable cast.

 CONTAGION 

dir. Steven Soderbergh 

Creepy infection movie, kinda like a zombie movie with no zombies. I think this movie looks good, and it has a great cast. Mainly Kate Winslet and Matt Damon, both of whom I always like. From what I have read it is pretty ruthless and everyone dies. I don't mean everyone on earth dies (though they might) I mean that the cast is very expendable, and watching movie stars die off is always entertaining. I am not a huge fan of Soderbergh, I find most his movies pretty pretentious and the only one of his I really like is KING OF THE HILL, but he's got me sold on this one. I love mass hysteria movies, and having it done with a high production level is always a bonus. 

 MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE 

dir. Sean Durkin

This movie has had good buzz all year, mainly about the lead performance by Elizabeth Olsen (the younger sister of the Olsen twins) who is getting oscar buzz. The movie looks to be a creepy drama/thriller about a girl who escapes a cult, led by the fantastic John Hawkes, and goes to live with her aunt. The preview looks good and cults are pretty fascinating (in a disturbing way of course) so I predict this will be one of my top picks for 2011. 

 MY WEEK WITH MARILYN

 dir. Simon Curtis 

 

Here is another movie I have been hearing about for years, although not six and all during pre-production. The casting of Marilyn was being gossiped about for some time. Scarlett Johansson was said to be the front runner, Michelle Williams simply one of the many other names mentioned as interested. I'm not surprised Williams got it. Her work has been very consistent and she has the vulnerability to pull of such an iconic and tragic role. But this movie has other famous characters in it too, Arthur Miller, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, and I hear casting was tough with everyone. So this fall we can see how all the pieces fit together.  I am a fan of Marilyn Monroe. I am also a huge fan of Michelle Williams so it is an exciting combination. 

 SLEEPING BEAUTY 

dir. Julia Leigh

Here is a very interesting sounding movie by a first time female director based on a novel she wrote, that promises to be bold, if nothing more. It is the story of a law student who takes a part time job as a nude maid in an upscale club for old men which leads to a job being drugged like "Sleeping Beauty"and allowing the old men to do whatever they want to her. I hear there are many old man penises and a very hard to watch scene where a tube is put into her gut. Those are sure things to look forward too.  I am sure this movie will create a stir, unless it gets no distribution and hardly anyone sees it, and I have no idea how I will feel about it. But the cinematography looks very impressive, and Leigh's style has been compared to Hanake, which gets my attention. A movie can't be brilliant unless it takes some risks, perhaps Leigh will be a new great director, following in the footsteps of her mentor Jane Campion, or perhaps it will be an overstylized art house porn. It's bound to be memorable either way. 

 THE SKIN I LIVE IN 

dir. Pedro Almodovar 

I love Almodovar. His flamboyant style and mix of dark movies and fabulous comedies make him a director I am always excited for. Most recently I loved BAD EDUCATION and VOLVAR, and now this year THE SKIN I LIVE IN comes out starring Antonio Banderas, whom Almodovar worked with often early in their careers. It is the creepy story of a doctor who uses a women as a guinea pig to test a synthetic skin he is developing. Form there, I think, they enter some weird sort of relationship as captor and captive. The preview looks good and I love the music used in it. It sounds like the movie is pretty intense, so I am thinking there must be some pretty out their surgical stuff. I am excited how Almodovar will handle the creepy dark elements in this movie. 

 MELANCHOLIA 

dir. Lars van Trier 

MELANCHOLIA got a lot of attention at Cannes this year. Kirsten Dunst won best actress and director Van Trier made some off color jokes about Nazis in a press conference and upset a lot of people. Luckily, MELANCHOLIA has no Nazis in it, instead Dunst plays a wealthy women getting married (to super sexy Alexander Skarsgard) and discovering that a planet is headed towards earth and may collide. Van Trier makes very depressing films, BREAKING THE WAVES and DANCER IN THE DARK are beyond bleak, so I expect more of that, but you never know what to expect from him. Apparently the idea came to him in a therapy session when his therapist told him that depressed people handle disasters better then happy people.  He originally cast Penelope Cruz as the role played by Kirsten Dunst. 

 YOUNG ADULT 

dir. Jason Reitman 

I was a fan of JUNO, and now writer and director are together again. I haven't cared for anything Diablo Cody has done since JUNO, but this sounds good. I don't know very much about it but Charlize Theron plays a young adult novel writer who returns to her small town after getting divorced and tries to get back her married and fathered ex. The poster alone makes me want to see this movie, and I like Theron and want to see her in something good, because it has been awhile. 

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

dir. Lynne Ramsay 

I love love love Lynne Ramsay. Her only two films have been RATCATCHER and MORVERN CALLAR, both are beautiful.  Based on a novel, it is starring Tilda Swinton, always amazing, as the mother of a boy who commits some sort of Colombine massacre, and how she deals with the guilt. It has gotten some strong reactions at the festivals this year, some good, lots of negative, but so did her last film MORVERN CALLAR and I think that movie is pretty close to perfection, so my hopes are very high for this one. It is a difficult subject to tackle in film, the only time I have seen it done well was Gus Van Sant's ELEPHANT, which I highly suggest to patient film watchers. I am hoping that KEVIN can also do it well.

 THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO 

dir. David Fincher 

Of course I have to put this movie on here. I am a fan of Fincher, despite most of his films being very male. This movie has been getting buzz since it first got whispered about, and the books are pretty popular, so I assume lots of people will it. I was a fan of last years Swedish trilogy, mainly because of the amazing performance by Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth. I never read the books myself, but Lisbeth is an awesome character and at first I couldnt't imagine liking a hollywood version of her at all, espeicaly compared to Rapace, but I thin the casting of Rooney Mara is interesting and she has gone through a literal physical transformation (piercings, shaved her hair off, bleached her eyebrows) so I am excited just to see what Fincher's take on this unique character is. While I know this will be much more Americanized, I think Fincher can pull it off and make it a kick in the face movie. 

THE IRON LADY

dir. Phyllida Lloyd

What is there for me not to be excited about this movie? It is starring Meryle Streep, it is directed by a women and it is about Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of U.K. Since we know Streep will do a fantastic job (maybe an oscar?), the only question is how good of a bio-pic this is. I find them often rather flat, often done very straight forward and linear, I suppose thinking the persons life should take center stage, but I hope that IRON LADY is done with some energy and that Lloyd really uses her skills to impress us, with such an interesting figure, who has accomplished much, and pissed off lots of people. Of course I also expect there to be lots of sexist dialog about the woman and how the film portrays her, since our society typically has deep hatred for powerful "cold" women. 

SHAME 

dir. Steve Mcqueen 

Michael Fassbender is my current obsession. Having seen him in JANE EYRE and X-MEN FIRST CLASS earlier this year. Most recently I saw FISH TANK, which is superb, and that made clear Fassbender is the real deal.  SHAME is the second film from visual artist Mcqueen, whose first film, HUNGER (starring Michael Fassbender) got a great deal of praise when it came out, as is this one. Fassbender plays a successful business man who is a sex addict, stuck in a cycle of casual sex and deep feelings of shame about it. Carey Mulligan (another actor I am impressed with) plays his troubled sister who moves in with him. That is all I know, but from what I know, I feel very certain this movie will be good, and perhaps very depressing. Unfortunately this movie does not have a US release date, I don't think it has been picked up here, but it is coming out in the Europe this winter, but it might not come here until next year. Just have to wait and see...