Jamie Daily

12 Years a Slave (2013) Review | Jamie Daily

12 Years a Slave (2013)
86th Academy Awards 2014
4/5 Stars
Nominated for 9 awards, of which it won 3.
Nominated for Best Actor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Best Supporting Actor (Michael Fassbender), Best Costume Design (Patricia Norris), Best Director (Steve McQueen), Best Film Editing (Joe Walker), and Best Production Design (Adam Stockhausen, Alice Baker).
Won Best Picture (Brad Pitt, Anthony Katagas, Dede Gardener, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen), Best Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong'o), and Best Adapted Screenplay (John Ridley).
Watched April 23, 2014.

 

12 Years a Slave is based off of the memoirs and book of Solomon Northup, a free black man who lived in the north in the 1800s and was kidnapped and sold into slavery.  This is no Quentin Tarantino's Django.  This is raw, and somehow artistically balanced to give a small taste of what Solomon went through during 12 years in slavery in southern plantations.

 

Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor) fights for his freedom from the beginning, but the crippling terror and the ruthless inhumanity of the slavers beat him down into survival mode.  His fight becomes smaller and his caution greater.  His first owner is kind, as plantation owners go, but a run in with a power corrupt plantation hand lands him with the only owner who will take him.  Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender) is matched in evilness only by his wife.  He has a lust for the slave Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o), which has her physically and verbally abused repeatedly by the married couple.  Shortly after Solomon comes to the plantation, Patsey begs him to kill her.  After this they form a painful relationship that is more out of mutual understanding than of affection.  Solomon is a good man.

 

His ability to read and write must be hidden, but his intelligence and education helps get him out of many tight spots.  He still endures punishments we can barely fathom.  He spends a full day hanging from a noose with only his toes touching the ground.  He dares to hope and trust in few men, because those he takes a chance on are looking out for themselves and no one else.  

 

((SPOILERS)) The one let down for me in casting was actually Brad Pitt who plays Bass, a Canadian who comes to work on the plantain to make some money.  He doesn't agree with slavery, but Solomon calls him out to act on his beliefs.  For me, Pitt is so well known and so trustworthy that his appearance was a sure sign that Solomon's salvation would come through him.  I wish they had chosen a lesser known actor to maintain suspense and realism.  ((End spoilers))

 

The film itself is artistic in nature.  Although most of the story line is linear, the director chooses a few painfully long sequences in order to communicate Solomon's emotions.  He symbolically expresses an event or emotion when typical hollywood editing and story telling don't seem to do an adequate job.  Solomon's experience with the noose is long and drawn out.  Almost long enough for the viewer to go to the bathroom in the middle and not miss anything.  I cannot decide if I think this is a strong choice or a weak choice.  The style reminded me a lot of Beasts of the Southern Wild.  I almost wished for a little more story and less pause, but I can understand the choices of the director.  

 

There a very few times that I can appreciate nudity in a film, but this is one of them.  The slaves are stripped of identity, dignity, respect, and humanity.  They bathe in the open, men and women together, watched by slavers.  They stand nude as plantation owners shop and decide who to purchase.  They are stripped naked and lashed to poles where they are whipped for things like wanting soap.  Although this symbolism is more obvious than others in the film, it showed a very raw side of the slavery culture.  Fed by their own justifications, the plantation owners were sick with the twisted logic of the south that believed that slaves were property and nothing more.

 

If you can take it, you should watch 12 Years a Slave.  In fact, even if you don't think you can take it, you should watch it.  It has its flaws as a film, but its underlying message and its strong elements in acting and artistry are what won it the Oscar for best film this year.

 

 

Lincoln (2012) Review | Jamie Daily

Lincoln (2012)
85th Academy Awards
3/5 Stars
Nominated for 12 awards, of which it won 2.
Nominated for Best Picture (Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy), Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones), Best Supporting Actress (Sally Field), Best Adapted Screenplay (Tony Kushner), Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Sound Mixing (Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom, Ronald Judkins), Best Cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), Best Costume Design (Joanna Johnston), and Best Film Editing (Michael Kahn).
Won Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Best Production Design (Rick Carter, Jim Erickosn).
Watched February 27, 2014.

  

I have heard a lot of good things about Lincoln, and perhaps these things, along with Daniel Day-Lewis' win at the Oscars made me expect too much.  As much as I tend to enjoy the pristine nature of a good Spielberg film, the stage like dialogue, production design, and cinematography left something to be desired.

 

President Abraham Lincoln is perhaps one of the most well remembered Presidents.  This film focuses on a small period of time around his reelection, just months before his assassination.  He is gunning for the 13th Amendment, which would abolish slavery, much to the chagrin of his cabinet.  Even some within the Republican party were hesitant.  Everyone wanted peace from the Civil War.  They wanted their sons to stop dying in battle and for the South to come back to the nation.  The Democrats were vehemently opposed to the Amendment.

 

We all know what happens in the end, which takes away some of the mystery and suspense, although the filmmakers tried their best to keep the audience on the edges of their seats.  The representatives vote and threaten each other.  Lincoln is slow and yet eloquent.  He speaks strongly when needed but prefers a calm state and story telling.  In tense situations he commands the attention of a room by telling a story that might relate to the situation at hand.  

 

The acting, particularly from Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field, is top notch.  They deliver difficult lines and portray a wounded spirit very well.  My favorite scene involving Mary Todd Lincoln (Field) is when she defends her remodel of the white house to some extremists, showing a bit of the gumption that Lincoln must have fallen in love with in the beginning.  The loss of one of her sons has all but done her in, but in this moment there is fire in her eyes, much like in the President's when he expresses how disgusting slavery is.  

 

He and his political party dance the line between peace and the freedom of slaves.  They believe that if they declare peace with the south before the Amendment is brought to a vote, there will be no sense of urgency and it will not be passed.  They employ questionable and typical techniques to "buy" votes and stall envoys.  

 

Some of the story is much too slow, or maybe unnecessary.  I understand why they included the story line of Robert Lincoln (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the son who wants to go to war, but it is so underused that it is more of a distraction from the main story than anything else.  It shows the fear of his parents and unearths more of their grief.  The emotions in these scenes are palpable, but the execution of the filmmaking is very staged.  There is a constant tug of war between filmmaker and actor in this film that I found very distracting.  

 

Despite some negative attributes, the film is well done and deserving of its nominations as well as wins.  I would definitely watch it again, although I might not own it.  If you are a history buff you will probably really enjoy it.  I can recommend Lincoln as a good film, but you should expect it to be somewhat slow, dark, and quiet.

 

Silver Linings Playbook (2012) Review | Jamie Daily

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
85th Academy Awards 2013
5/5 Stars
Nominated for 8 awards, of which it won 1.
Nominated for Best Picture (Donna Gigliotti, Bruce Cohen, Jonathan Gordon), Best Director (David O. Russell), Best Actor (Bradley Cooper), Best Supporting Actor (Robert De Niro), Best Supporting Actress (Jacki Weaver), Best Adapted Screenplay (David O. Russell), and Best Film Editing (Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers).
Won Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence).
Watched January 24, 2014.

 

Silver Linings Playbook is your average rom-com story, but with creative and unique characters that take the film up a notch.  It is no wonder that it received so much recognition from the Academy, and if it weren't for some stiff competition, Cooper might have been accepting an award right alongside Lawrence.

 

Pat (Bradley Cooper) has spent the last eight months in a mental hospital.  He found his wife in the shower with another man and almost beat him to death.  He found out in the hospital that he is bi-polar and has been struggling with it his whole life.  Against his doctor's wishes, Pat's mom Dolores (Jackie Weaver) gets him out on court approval and he moves back in with his parents with one goal in mind--get healthy and get Nikki.  His wife Nikki (Brea Bree) has placed a restraining order on him, but Pat will do anything to get her to see that he is better and that he is good enough for her.

 

While having dinner at his friend's house, he re-encounters Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a recent widow who is just as messed up as he is.  After only an hour or so she makes him walk her home and then offers him sex, but Pat insists that he's married.  They begin an unlikely friendship in which their problems sometimes complement each other and other times result in public embarrassments and encounters with the cops.  

 

Tiffany's sister is Veronica (Julia Stiles) who is friends with Nikki.  Pat wants Tiffany to get a letter to Nikki explaining how much he has improved, but Tiffany decides that she will only do it for something in return, which is how Pat gets roped into doing a dance competition with Tiffany.  Pat's dad, Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro) hates Tiffany because he thinks she's messing up the Eagle's juju.

 

Pat's relationship with his family is complicated, and it is obvious that his dad probably struggles with the same emotional problems that he does.  His mom fights for both of them, hoping that love will cure them both although she always seems anxious about her men.  Pat senior makes a living from betting on the Eagles games and Pat Jr. is his good luck charm.

 

While the end of the story is pretty typical and the rest of the time Pat is pretty good at playing the hero, the rest of the film does a really good job of showing an honest and raw view of Pat, his family, and what they are going through.  Tiffany seems like she's had an extra helping of crazy but Pat slowly brings her down to earth.  Both Cooper and Lawrence fully inhabit their roles and bring a reality to them that is exquisite, especially from Cooper whose previous appearances in films such as The Hangover didn't show the abilities that he possesses.  

 

Despite the fact that Lawrence is pretty hot right now and I am a fan of hers, I think she deserved the Oscar that she won.  She became Tiffany, leaving behind the teen Katniss from The Hunger Games and embracing more of the Ree from Winter's Bone (that earned her a nomination in 2011), she went all out.  Cooper also did the role justice.  My favorite scene was when he could not find his wedding video and a terrific family fight ensued in which the cops were called and a teenage neighbor showed up with a video camera.  I could feel Cooper's frustration and his loss of control while his family tried to help instead of escalate the situation.  

 

The film is kept pretty muted as far as colors go and the comedy is all appropriate and well timed.  David O. Russell obviously did an amazing job directing this film and while I didn't find the editing particularly unique, it got the job done (aka it was invisible, as it should be).  The visuals and behind the scenes are all top notch, but the thing that makes the film for me is the characters and the actors who inhabit them.

 

If you can handle a good amount of swear words and a little bit of crazy, I would definitely recommend Silver Linings Playbook to you.  While it might be a romantic comedy, your guy will enjoy it as much as your girl (Cooper and De Niro don't hurt, and the football talk is good as well).  If you don't have this film on your Netflix list yet I don't know what's wrong with you.

 

Les Miserables (2012) Review

Les Miserables (2012)
85th Academy Awards 2013
3/5 Stars
Nominated for 8 awards, of which it won 3.
Nominated for Best Picture (Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, Cameron Mackintosh), Best Actor (Hugh Jackman), Best Music--Song ("Suddenly": Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer), Best Production Design (Eve Stewart, Anna Lynch-Robinson), and Best Costume Design (Paco Delgado).
Won Best Supporting Actress (Anne Hathaway), Best Sound Mixing (Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson, Simon Hayes), and Best Makeup (Lisa Westcott, Julie Dartnell).
Watched October 3, 2013.

 

Photo Source: Acesshowbiz

This adaptation of Les Miserables is both deeply loved and deeply hated by many--critics and citizens alike.  The enchanting music and performances are beautiful, but the dutch angles* and static camera work is grating.  For some (book lovers, mostly) the first two parts of the film are what they should be, if a musical can be considered a good representation of the original literature.  For others, the last act is what makes the piece.

 

For myself, the first two thirds of the film were incredibly boring.  There are certain pieces that stand out, but over all it isn't something that I would be able to watch very often.

 

For those who don't know, Les Miserables is a story about a man named Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) who is set free from prison and hard labor after serving 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread.  Javert (Russell Crowe) is the guard who sets him free, but Valjean's papers label him a dangerous man, which make it impossible for him to get a job, something to eat, or a place to stay.  He is shown incredible kindness by a godly man who tells him to turn his life around.  Valjean creates an alias for himself and years later we find him a factory owner and the mayor of a small town.  This happy world is rocked when Javert returns, now as an inspector, although he does not at first recognize Valjean.

 

Distracted by the new inspector, Valjean doesn't take notice when one of his factory workers is thrown to the streets because she had a child out of wedlock.  Fantine (Anne Hathaway) enters a dark path and in her deepest despair performs the most heart wrenching, memorable solo number of the entire 158 minute film.  Valjean learns of Fantine and her daughter Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and vows to take care of the girl.

 

In the next act, a rebellion against the crown in stirring in France.  Cosette is a young woman and her beauty attracts another young man who has left behind his family wealth to support the revolution with his friends.  Marius, played by the freckle-faced tenor Eddie Redmayne, sees her but once and is in love.  He must choose between the girl and the revolution.  When Valjean discovers the romance, he must choose between his own freedom or Cosette's happiness.

 

The film's biggest strength is director Tom Hooper's decision to have the cast sing live.  Normally with musicals, they record the tracks before they shoot, but with singing live the actors have a much better opportunity to connect emotionally with their characters and their performance.  There is no debate that Hathaway's performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" is the best point in the entire film and it is undoubtedly what won her the Oscar.  

  

The film captures the darkness of the circumstances, but its biggest flaw is probably the conversion of stage to film--it stays too true to Broadway.  The continuous musical ballads draw out the emotions of characters that we as an audience can see in a split second simply from the actor's face.  We spend five minutes exploring a single emotion.  On stage this can work brilliantly, especially if you're sitting in the nosebleed section.  Film is different.  The slightest flicker of emotion can be detected by your audience--we don't need to marinate in it.  

 

My second favourite performance is when Redmayne sang "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables." He expresses perfectly the emotion--the devastation he felt at the loss of his comrades.  The film also did well in showing the sorrow that the soldiers must have felt at killing such young men.  

 

There are so many facets to this film, it is hard to discuss them all.  For me, the first two parts of the film were slow and tedious.  They did not hold my attention very well.  If it wasn't a musical I probably would have enjoyed it, but when there is little to no dialogue, it gets old fast.  Part three, which many critics disliked, was my favourite.  By then I was used to the singing and although certain love stories were a little silly, the character interaction was much more engaging.  The revolution was interesting and its toll was disheartening.  

 

If you are a fan of musicals, you will probably love this film.  If you hate musicals, you will hate this film.  There isn't really an in-between with this Les Miserables.  I will probably see it again, simply because it is so well loved, but I hope it isn't any time soon.

 

*Dutch Angle (or dutch tilt) is defined as "a type of camera shot where the camera is tilted off to one side so that the shot is composed with vertical lines at an angle to the side of the frame" (Wikipedia).

The Master (2012)

The Master (2012)
85th Academy Awards 2013
1/5 Stars
Nominated for 3 awards.
Nominated for Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix), Best Supporting Actor (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Best Supporting Actress (Amy Adams).
Watched April 25, 2013.

Photo Source: Acesshowbiz 

Everywhere I look, the world of reviewers is raving about The Master.  Hardly anyone has anything negative to say.  To be quite honest, there have only been two films I have watched so far that have driven my writing on this blog to a complete standstill, and this is one of them.  It was all I could do to sit through the first half hour of this film, let alone the remaining 100 plus minutes.  

 

While the acting was all well and good and those embodying their characters gave intense commitment to their character arc, the story itself was lackluster and slow moving.  The emotional depth was so one note that it was hard to keep my eyes open.  When the story attempted to get deep and perplexing, there was so little explanation and so much left to the audience to discover and decide that I lost interest immediately.  I am a big fan of films that make you think, but this film made me so uncomfortable that I had to walk away from it several times.

 

In the most simple of terms, the film is about a cult.  A man named Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) returns home from World War II a broken man.  He spends his nights making and pushing his moonshine (generally made out of soap and paint thinner, among other things), and his days searching for his next job, because he can't seem to hold down anything.  His world changes drastically when he happens upon a storybook ship adorned with lights and laughter.  He hops aboard and finds himself the new pet of The Master, Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

 

Author and thinker, Dodd leads around a gaggle of ex-wives and family as he teaches about past lives and healing faults and hurts of the past.  He argues that the earth is trillions of years old and that by healing our past wounds we can become a more perfect species.  

 

Despite how interesting and soul searching this might sound, that's really all there is to this film.  There are some awkward experiences and a few fists are thrown here and there, but the film really stays at a standstill and by the end there is very little growth seen in any of the characters.  Freddie maybe has the most change, but the rest are determinedly still.  

 

While there are some winning scenes of impeccable performances, the scenes together do not combine into anything moving or resolved.  I would not recommend this film, and will likely avoid it from now on at all costs.

 

Bridesmaids (2011)

 Bridesmaids (2011)
84th Academy Awards 2012
3/5 Stars
Nominated for 2 awards.
Nominated for Supporting Actress (Melissa McCarthy) and Writing-Original (Annie Mumolo, Kristen Wiig)
Watched November 4, 2012.

 

photo source: That Film Guy

The time has come and now the world knows it--women can, in fact, be funny.  Not only that, but they can be funny in exactly the same way that men can be.  This Hangover for women is a romantic comedy completely different from what we have become conditioned to.  There is little dependency on man, and an incredibly realistic representation of the absolute chaos, jealousy, and selfishness that comes with being a bridesmaid.  

 

Granted, not everyone has a bad experience being a bridesmaid.  I myself have had three very good experiences.  However, one cannot deny the cost, the jealousy, the attempts at being selfless for the bride, and the semi-awkward moments with the fellow bridesmaids who the only thing you have in common with is the bride.  Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo do a very good job at bringing comdic reality to the American women--something realistic, although extreme, and something that does not have the main character falling apart because she doesn't have a man.

 

Annie Walker (Wiig) has been friends with Lillian (Maya Rudolph) since childhood, and even though they have been a little distant lately, Lillian still has no hesitations in asking Annie to be her Maid of Honor after she and her significant other, Dougie (Tim Heidecker) get engaged.  Annie, who is going through a personal crisis after losing all of her money in a failed business as well as a failed relationship, is ecstatic and panicked at the same time.  On the one hand, this is what girls dream and talk about their entire lives--weddings.  On the other hand, she experiences extreme jealousy, not necessarily of Lillians engagement, but of her fiancé who gets the privilege of taking her best friend away from her.  

photo source: Fan Pop 

Annie's first encounter with the other bridesmaids is at the engagement party, where she immediately realizes she is out of her league.  Lillian's cousin Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey) is a married mother whose disgust for men is spilling out of her over-tight dress, Becca (Ellie Kemper) is a naive newlywed, Megan (Melissa McCarthy) is Dougie's extreme tom boy sister, and most auspicious of all is Helen (Rose Byrne), the wealthy, perfect, jealous, mega planner of a nemesis.  It is immediately clear than she is out for Lillian's hand in best friendom.  

 

There is a bit of romance for Annie in the film, in the unlikely and completely precious form of Officer Rhodes (Chris O'Dowd), but the state of her life and her selfish preoccupation because of it means that she barely even notices what she has standing in front of her.  Her hate for Helen, her money stresses, job problems, and incredibly invasive and weird roommates distract her from the silver lining and amazing support she really needs.  

 

Through food poisoning, disastrous plane flights, and even a missing person, Bridesmaids has its share of serious moments among the hilarious, as well as the disgusting.  The story line follows a typical pattern at its most basic level, but the way in which is gets there is quite well done.  Both nominations definitely seem deserved, although I would have loved if McCarthy could once again be depicted as the beautiful person she was in Gilmore Girls for seven years.  

 

If you have a stomach for the R rated humor of today's generation, I would encourage you to see this film.  It is hilarious, it takes its characters to the extremes of reality, and at times makes you wish you were somewhere else because it is just that gross.  A fan of Hangover should certainly enjoy this film, and can definitely point out the similarities to you.

 

Sources: Fan Pop, That Film Guy, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, The Guardian, Smells Like Screen Spirit, NY Times 

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Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
50th Academy Awards 1978
5/5 Stars
Nominated for 8 awards, of which it won 1.
Nominated for Supporting Actress (Melinda Dillon), Art Direction (Joe Alves, Dan Lomino, Phil Abramson), Directing (Steven Spielberg), Film Editing (Michael Kahn), Music-Original (John Williams), Sound (Robert Knudson, Robert J. Glass, Don MacDougall, Gene S. Cantamessa), Visual Effects (Roy Arbogast, Douglas Trumbull, Matthew Yuricich, Gregory Jein, Richard Yuricich).
Won Cinematography (Vilmos Zsigmond).
Watched October 22, 2012.

 

photo source: Zap 2 It 

 

[This review contains spoilers.]

 

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, like Star Wars, is another sci-fi film released in 1977 that was nominated and won awards for its achievements.  It was also the second-highest grossing film of the year and held records for a good while.  This is, of course, thanks to Steven Spielberg, his incredible understanding of the craft, and his abilities as a story teller.  I, for one, will forever be a fan of Spielberg, not necessarily for his out-of-this-world artistic abilities, but for his all encompassing domination of filmmaking as a whole.  Although certain aspects of Close Encounters are dated, the majority of it withstands the test of time far more than its counterpart, Star Wars.  

 

If you have guessed correctly, like I did, Close Encounters is a film about aliens.  Similarly to other such films where extra terrestrial life visits Earth, you don't actually see the aliens themselves until the end of the film, although you see a good amount of their ships.  Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) is your average blue collar worker with a wife Ronnie (Teri Garr) and three children.  When there is a huge power outage one night, he is called into the field, but once he has a unique encounter with one of the ships, he turns off his radio and decides to chase down the aliens.  He is completely obsessed, even once they have gone, preoccupied with a pyramid shape that he can't place.  A woman he met the same night, Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon) is just as preoccupied, but when her son Barry (Cary Guffey) is taken, her terror leads her to chase down her visions of the mountain.  Roy's obsession eventually makes him so crazy that his wife leaves with the children.  

 

photo source: Classic Movies

Meanwhile, a group of scientists have been tracking and communicating with the aliens and have discovered that the lifeforms have been sending them direct coordinates to Devils Tower in Wyoming.  They immediately evacuate the area, and it is the television coverage of the panic that clues Roy and Jillian in on what their visions have been of.  They both rush to the area, of course meeting up and driving recklessly into the military protected national park.  

 

Unlike many alien movies of our day, Steven Spielberg's aliens are friendly and curious.  Although they have taken many people over the years, as well as accepted voluntary travelers, they seem like they too are merely scientists wishing to understand, explore, and experience.  This also differs from the films in the 70s and before.  The typical storyline is, of course, that their world is dying, they are feeding, or they simply want to terrorize the planet.  Spielberg's creation, although also suspenseful, is much different with much better special effects, which are perhaps two of its best traits.  

 

As far as performances and characters, I thought everyone was phenomenal.  Dreyfuss is very convincing--his crazy is very realistic and because we know his experience was legitimate it is probably less weird to the audience than his wife, although at the climax of his meltdown it is easy to understand and sympathize with Ronnie.  She begins as very loving and supportive, although clearly worried.  At first I was surprised that she might actually be so loving that she completely upholds her "in sickness and in health" vows without question, but she eventually cracks and opts to protect her children by removing them from the situation.  

 

I would definitely recommend this film.  It is more lighthearted than recently viewed films, but certainly has more depth than Star Wars.  Even if you have seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind before, it would definitely be a good choice for this Halloween evening!

 

Sources: Classic Movies, Zap 2 It, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Horror News, NY Times 

Looking For Mr. Goodbar (1977)

Looking For Mr. Goodbar (1977)
50th Academy Awards 1978
1/5 Stars
Nominated for 2 awards.
Nominated for Supporting Actress (Tuesday Weld) and Cinematography (William A. Fraker).
Watched October 20, 2012.

photo source: Facets Features

[This review contains spoilers]

 

Looking For Mr. Goodbar is so far off from what I was expecting.  If I know nothing about the film, I don't look at any descriptions before I watch it, and therefore the title threw me completely off.  It is based on a true story of a woman named Rosanne Quinn who was murdered in New York.  Her story inspired a novel, and then this film.  Richard Books, who both wrote the screenplay and directed the film, decided to change the character of Quinn in order to make her more likable, but her end is still the same.

 

Reportedly, Quinn was a woman living in the time of women's lib and got her fixes not just from drugs but from increasingly violent sexual encounters.  She was a school teacher by day and a bar hopper by night.  The character in the film, Theresa Dunn (Diane Keaton) is the same in this regard.  She teaches deaf and mute children during the day, but at night she frequents singles bars, snorts coke, and tries desperately to rebel against her strictly Catholic upbringing.  Theresa differs from Quinn in that she is not a masochist.  She generally would like to avoid violence and abuse and her attraction to lesser men is simply because she can abuse them with her eloquence.  Ironically, the man who is the craziest of all seems like one of the sweetest in her first encounters, although we as an audience know he is not.  This is another difference from the true story and the screen adaption--she brings home what she thinks is a sweet guy, maybe someone more who she would be looking for, but in Quinn's instance, he was probably the worst of the worst from the beginning.

photo source: Fan Carpet

Theresa's story is somewhat intriguing.  She starts as a school girl with wild fantasies of her professor.  He becomes her first lover--the first chauvinistic man to bed her.  After her experience with him, she moves out of her father's house and into an apartment her sister, Katherine (Tuesday Weld), offered her.  Katherine is a wreck when it comes to men--she marries them without knowing them and often wakes up in the midst of naked people and doesn't remember how she got there.  But even Katherine would never let a man treat her the way Theresa eventually finds herself being treated. 

 

When she begins her bar life, she finds a man named Tony (Richard Gere) who is an attractive, jealous player.  He is unpredictable, excitable, and very alluring to her, and although he pictures her as his 'girl,' he shows very little commitment.  His unpredictability and also physical abuse eventually end their "relationship," but her security precautions against him eventually lead to her demise.  

 

What is intended to be a cautionary tale is something I will never watch again.  It is much longer than it needed to be and seems to fall off point many times just so that it can show just how troubled and "liberated" Theresa has become.  Her home life reads as a soap opera, her one legitimate boy toy turns into a creepy stalker, and her near innocent forays into an unknowable world are very misjudged and under appreciated.  Tuesday Weld was pretty deserving of her nomination as the troubled sister, and the cinematography was very interesting.  

 

I wouldn't recommend the film.  Many people and critics alike love the film, but would not necessarily advise it for multiple viewings.  I can understand its nominations, and consider Diane Keaton's performance to be something of note, but Looking For Mr. Goodbar was not my flavor.  

 

 

Sources: Facets Features, Fan Carpet, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert, Film Fanatic 

Albert Nobbs (2011)

Albert Nobbs (2011)
84th Academy Awards 2012
2/5 Stars
Nominated for 3 awards.
Nominated for Best Actress (Glenn Close), Supporting Actress (Janel McTeer), and Makeup (Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston, Matthew W. Mungle).
Watched October 7, 2012.

 

photo source: Cinespect

 

In a winter setting in Dublin, a small group of maids and waiters serve an assortment of guests while watched carefully by the mistress of the house.  Among them is a waiter who from the beginning seems to have an uncanny talent at his trade, which is certainly commented on multiple times within the opening scene.  A man of small stature, he is the utmost of propriety, quiet and polite, even among his coworkers.  It is obvious that he has a secret, this Albert Nobbs (Glenn Close).  At first we have reason to believe that it is only his stash of money underneath the floorboards, but when a certain Hubert Page (Janel McTeer) has to stay in his room for a night, we find out that he is hiding something much bigger.

 

Albert Nobbs is actually a woman.  Her guardian passed away when she was 14.  After being gang raped by five men, she sought work at a nearby party that was short staffed.  She got her hands on a second hand suit, disguised herself as a man, and never turned back.  As an adult, Albert is not only quiet and polite, but fairly naive of modern gender roles and sexuality.  His only aim is to save enough money to buy his own business, but after meeting Mr. Page, things change.  Mr. Page, it turns out, is also a woman dressed as a man, but instead of living a life of solitude, Page is married--to a woman.  Completely dumbfounded, Nobbs begins to dream of having a wife of his own.  Unlike one might presume, he views it purely as a business transaction--an ideal of having a wife sitting by the fire, and working the counter at the shop.  He sets his sights on the prettiest maid, Helen (Mia Wasikowska), but unfortunately she is deeply in love with the new handyman, Joe.  

photo source: Metropulse 

 

I have no hesitation in saying that Albert Nobbs has not been one of my favourite films so far.  I am a huge fan of BBC, Downton Abbey, and other British shows, and this certainly would fall into a similar category.  Its cinematography, characterization, and pace all reflect that of a BBC made for TV movie.  Generally something that I enjoy a lot, especially when it is set in the winter months, I was incredibly bored by the pace and the limited, transparent plot twists.  

 

Much of the appeal for this film was certainly Close and McTeer, two wonderful actresses playing women who both dress and pass as men.  I'm not sure if i agree with the nomination for makeup, but I do understand it.  The film is not done in an experimental style, but is certainly experimenting with gender roles in early English culture.  It is a sad world indeed when women must disguise themselves as men to be able to fend for themselves and create a good life beyond being a maid.  Poor Helen discovers the tragedy of her gender in her career and unmarried motherhood.  That is a fate that both Nobbs and Page did not want for themselves.

 

Albert Nobbs is not something I would recommend on most occasions.  It's intriguing on some level, with a good Christmas feel, but depressing.  If the plot is simply seen as a woman dressed as a man hopelessly chasing another woman who is in love with another man, don't watch it.  However, if your interest was piqued by the gender comments, it might be a good fit for you.

 

 

Sources: IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Picturenose, Roger Ebert, John Likes Movies, Metropulse, Cinespect

The Turning Point (1977)

The Turning Point (1977)
50th Academy Awards 1978
3/5 Stars
Nominated for 11 awards.
Nominated for Supporting Actor (Mikhail Baryshnikov), Best Actress (Anne Bancroft), Best Actress (Shirley MacLaine), Best Supporting Actress (Leslie Browne), Art Direction (Albert Brenner, Marvin March), Cinematography (Robert Surtees), Directing (Herbert Ross), Film Editing (William Reynolds), Best Picture (Herbert Ross, Arthur Laurents), Sound (Theodore Soderberg, Paul Wells, Douglas O. Williams, Jerry Jost), and Writing--Original (Arthur Laurents).
Watched September 28, 2012.

photo source: The Best Picture Project 

 

The Turning Point would today be considered a Lifetime movie, Oscars-style.  To have been nominated for eleven Oscars and win none of them has only happened twice in the Academy's history.  To be honest, a few of the nominations seemed a bit excessive--namely the supporting cast.  The film was apparently a big hit when it came out, and should certainly be on the favorite list of today's dancers, but it is another prime example of a film not standing the test of time.

 

Despite its flaws, this film is very relatable.  For anyone who once had a dream, and ended up taking a different path, or outgrew it, the story line will strike a chord with you.  It is about a woman named Deedee (Shirley MacLaine) who gave up the opportunity of being a prima ballerina to get married and have a family.  One day when her old company comes into town, her oldest daughter is invited to join.  Deedee accompanies Emilia (Leslie Browne) to New York, just for the summer, and immediately feels out of place.  It is not her time anymore, and it seems the light is dimming on her old friend and rival, Emma (Anne Bancroft), who might just be nearing her last dance.  

 

photo source: Mubi

To see the ins and outs of a dance company is something we are familiar with in films these days, but to see such exquisite dancing, we are not as accustomed.  Granted, as the Step Up films certainly highlight their genres very well, The Turning Point does the same with ballet.  Its consistency with the story is a bit lacking, but unlike many critics I enjoyed this.  I found it more realistic and consistent than, say, a musical.  The characters themselves are in fact dancers, and when they practice and perform the dance consumes them, but in their outside lives they are not as likely to break into song and dance.  

 

Considering the fact that neither MacLaine or Bancroft were dancers, they did a very good job assimilating themselves into their environment.  Their relationship is strained, almost fake, because of long-harbored resentment toward each other.  They both long after the life the other person has and are filled with regrets.  The film is preoccupied by the life decision between career and family, which doesn't give the actors too much range to work with.  The climactic confrontation between the two main characters inevitably comes, and after a lot of harsh words and a drink thrown in MacLaine's face (which was unplanned and thus her reaction is of genuine surprise), turns into a full-out cat fight that was quite hilarious.  

 

Overall, unless you are a lover of dance or a fan of Lifetime movies, I would not recommend this movie for you.  However, if you have any appreciation for ballet, I suspect this is already one of your favourite films!  

 

Source: The Best Picture Project, Mubi, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, You Dance Funny, So Does Me, Minute a Day About Movies, All Movie, Emanuel Levy