As a kid, I could never figure out why The Avengers comic books didn’t appeal to me as much as other series, like the X-Men. In theory, the team atmosphere should have provided more than enough combinations, permutations and interpersonal interactions to keep me amused for hours. In practice, however, I was never able to relate to any of them. Luckily, Joss Whedon’s take on the familiar characters has helped me give voice to my youthful instincts
My path to clarity began with Mark Ruffalo’s pithy recognition that The Avengers aren’t actually a team. They’re a time bomb. They aren’t heroes who are called together for some high philosophical purpose or common cause, but rather out of necessity. They aren’t First Responders but rather Last Responders, if you will, and even then they have to be tricked into it by Nick Fury, who has himself assembled them despite the objections of higher forces.
As I began to question why they should be brought together so reluctantly--and why they are allowed to disband so easily once crisis has been averted-- I began to realize that they aren’t really the type of heroes I want to emulate at all. Sure, they have super strengths, but none of them actually embrace a value system that I can get behind. One is a flag-waving (and flag-wearing) anachronism, with an ethical sensibility that is so binary and antiquated that one wonders if they left it frozen in the ice. Another is a billionaire playboy (surely part of the 1%), who made his fortunes selling military weapons. Add to that a Norse god of lightning and two hired assassins, and you begin to wonder why the authors are so afraid of superheroes arising from among the regular population. Oddly, it is the big green guy that turns out to be the most relatable as a smart, quiet boy who would prefer to spend his life providing medical attention to the poor, but his bosses and his culture insist that he’d be of greater use smashing things.
What bothers me the most, however, is that these powerful people get praised for simply cleaning up their own messes -- or partially cleaning up their messes, since I doubt that they had to rebuild all the buildings they smashed, sweep the streets the next day or pay for those burning cars. Honestly, the Tesseract device that opens the portal for the evil Loki has connections to Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and Nick Fury. Couldn’t they have left well enough alone to begin with? It’s like they are getting credit for cleaning up their own oil spill, or solving a banking crisis that they caused, or narrowly defending us from the invading army that they had been poking at for decades. I suppose that is how powerful people have always portrayed themselves, hoping that when we make movies about them we will call them avengers instead of time bombs.
Oscar Chances:
In my opinion, the film’s best chances for Oscar consideration are in the sound and visual effects categories. But there are some serious contenders still on the horizon that could easily overshadow those possibilities.
Sound Editing (currently ranked 8) Visual Effects (currently ranked 11) Sound Mixing (currently ranked 12) Makeup (previously ranked 25) Art Direction: James Chinlund and Victor J. Zolfo (currently ranked 47) Film Editing: Jeffrey Ford and Paul Rubell (currently ranked 50) Costume Design: Alexandra Byrne (currently ranked 50)
I probably will add the film to my Adapted Screenplay rankings in my next round of predictions, likely somewhere in the middle to lower half of the list.
Some have placed The Avengers into their best picture lists as well due to its box office success, but my suspicion is that there is another superhero film opening in July that will put an end to that speculation pretty quickly. I have also heard Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. mentioned as possibilities since they are former nominees/winners, but I didn’t see anything in their performances that I think could carry them to the end of the year.
As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!
My Lamb Score: 3 ½ out of 5 Lambs What is a lamb score? ClickHERE to learn more. Read recent reviewsHERE, or search theArchives. .
If the movies teach us anything about real life, it is that all heterosexual relationships begin with one person lying to the other one. Indeed, I am starting to suspect that choosing the right lie may be even more important than choosing the right partner. The formula doesn’t work if you come clean on your own, so you want to pick a lie that is certain to be revealed by a third party-- preferably someone with a vested interest in splitting you up. You’ll also need some physical evidence that can’t be explained away as a simple misunderstanding. And of course, it must be a lie that is big enough to utterly destroy all trust that you’ve built between each other, yet small enough that it can be overcome with a single gesture.
In fairness, Zac Efron has more than just a good lie going for him to help him win over Taylor Schilling. He is also a former marine who knows how to walk back and forth in front of her window with his dog, and readily admits that he “can’t remember the last time he had a plan.” If that’s not enough of a catch for you, he’s also working the intergenerational angle with grandma (Blythe Danner) cheering them on and a kid that he can buddy up to when the girl isn’t biting (something that is never cool in real life). Still, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought that the whole movie was just an excuse to look at Mr. Efron without his shirt on.
Which is absolutely fine for the movies. I just hope that in real life all the women out there realize that we’re in the twenty-first century, and you no longer have to wait around for a guy to start lying to you. You can take charge and start lying to them first!
Oscar Chances:
Not gonna happen. Maybe there was an original song somewhere that will get submitted, but it won’t go anywhere in the nomination process.
My Lamb Score: 2 1/2 out of 5 Lambs What is a lamb score? ClickHERE to learn more. Read recent reviewsHERE, or search theArchives. .
Prior to seeing The Hunger Games, my boyfriend and I went to eat at one of our favorite Thai restaurants. Their lunch combinations allow a wide range of choices, and our collective bounty included roasted duck with spinach, spicy basil chicken, yellow curry, wontons, salad, rice and hot tea. Still full from our feast, we skipped the extra large tub of buttered popcorn, but had to get a coke in case we “died” of thirst during the show.
Yes, I live in the Capitol City--or at least one of our real-world parallels-- and while my clothes weren’t designed by Judianna Makovsky, I’m pretty sure that Levi Strauss ™ is represented in my closet.
The advertising for this movie has mostly focused on the action, drama and romance of the film, almost as if the big studio executives don’t want moviegoers to recognize that we are a lot like those viewers in the districts, for fear we might rebel some day. True, our War Games no longer use a lottery system as they did in the days of the draft, but there isn’t much doubt that our military focuses its “reaping” on a certain economic segment of our younger population. Just as in the film, we have become just as accustomed to a society of haves and have nots, and are often involved in battles amongst ourselves, rather than against the system as a whole. The only thing that was a bit unrealistic in the movie was that when the powerful organizers wanted to change the rules for their own advantage they had to announce it over loud speakers. In the real world they get to hide it in the fine print of my monthly banking statement.
[SPOILER ALERT] In the end, our predicament is quite like that of Katniss Everdeen. we can survive for a while by trying to make people like us, and falling in love with the people they want us to love, but the only real way out--the only path to salvation-- is to make it known that we are willing to sacrifice ourselves to bring down the system as a whole. To rob them not only of their weary participants, but of their willing winners as well. To give up the illusion that the odds will ever be in our favor. Now, who is ready to volunteer? [End Of Spoilers]
Oscar Chances:
The Hunger Games is the undisputed box office champion at the moment, and there is a natural temptation for pundits to toy with the idea of Oscar recognition, if only to give themselves something to write about. However, I advise caution to anyone who tries to place the film too high on their lists. Remember that there is a whole year worth of movies that will fit much more easily into the Academy’s definition of Oscar bait, while blockbusters like Prometheus and The Dark Knight Rises are likely to steal those technical awards.
Original Song: T Bone Burnett, Taylor Swift and The Civil Wars for “Safe And Sound” (currently unranked, but will appear in my next predictions) Original Song: T Bone Burnett and Arcade Fire for “Abraham’s Daughter” (currently unranked, but will appear in my next predictions) Makeup: (currently ranked 8 in a field with 3 nominees, but will likely drop in my next predictions) Art Direction: Philip Messina and Larry Dias (currently ranked 19) Sound Editing (currently ranked 25) Visual Effects (currently ranked 27) Sound Mixing (currently ranked 28) Adapted Screenplay: Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins and Billy Ray (currently ranked 39) Costume Design: Judianna Makovsky (currently ranked 34) Lead Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (currently ranked 44) Film Editing: William Goldenberg (currently ranked 49) Original Score: T Bone Burnett and James Newton Howard (currently unranked but likely to be in my next predictions) Best Picture (currently unranked, may show up in the top 50 in my next predictions) Best Director (currently unranked, may show up in the top 50 in my next predictions) Supporting Actor: Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Stanley Tucci, Lenny Kravitz, Wes Bentley (unlikely, but imaginable) Best Cinematography: Tom Stern (currently unranked)
As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!
My Lamb Score: 3 ½ out of 5 Lambs What is a lamb score? ClickHERE to learn more. Read recent reviewsHERE, or search theArchives. .
Most of us were taught to be suspicious of mean people, but personally I find that it is nice people that I don’t trust. Their acts of charity are really debts that they’ll make you repay with interest; their compliments are merely a ploy to get you to acknowledge their superiority and thank them for judging you; and all the while their smiling faces hide their true intentions. What are you hiding, nice people, that could possibly require you to utilize so many deceptive techniques with such regularity?
The characters in Roman Polanski’s Carnage start out presenting their better angels. They are civilized, sensible and smiling. Before long, however, they turn into characters that I actually like! Christoph Waltz is the first truth-teller of the group. Initially pegged as the parent who is never present because he is always on his cell phone, he soon points out that it is the others who are actually distancing themselves from the situation through their false pleasantries. Kate Winslet plays his wife, a woman who tries so hard to make everyone happy that she makes me sick, and as luck would have it she ends up making herself sick too! Opposite them is John C. Reilly, dressed in his best sweater and making mindless small talk about flowers and cobbler, and Jodie Foster, who gets what she deserves as her insistence that people should be nice backfires horribly.
I rather enjoyed this film’s biting portrayal of our true psychological states, and the way that both the screenplay and the actors slowly peeled back the illusions of societal decency. My only complaint is that the film ended too abruptly for me. I wasn’t expecting a resolution or happy ending, mind you, but it would have been nice to see someone storm out or otherwise make clear that the conversation was over. Then again, if it had such a tidy and “nice” ending, I probably wouldn’t have trusted it!
Oscar Chances:
Although the film did not get any love from the Academy, it did receive Golden Globe nominations for Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet, and won France’s Cesar award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories! My Lamb Score: 3 ½ out of 5 Lambs What is a lamb score? ClickHERE to learn more. Read recent reviewsHERE, or search theArchives. .
What I Saw: A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader Az Simin)
The sad truth about human beings is that we don’t really understand each other. We think we do, and we imagine that other people’s motivations are similar to our own, but usually we’re just fooling ourselves.
Typically, these misunderstandings are met with a polite smile or a roll of the eyes once the other person’s back is turned. Occasionally, however, the stakes rise and we are forced out of our avoidance and into confrontation.
Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation begins with a high stakes divorce between Nader and Simin, and then raises those stakes again and again as characters with competing motivation systems are added to the plot. Culture, religion, gender, and personality traits are brought to the surface, as each character tries desperately to do what they believe is the right thing. When they turn to the legal system to help them solve their disputes, they don’t find a resolution that makes anyone happy, but rather discover yet another competing value system with which to contend.
I am not qualified to speak to the details of life within Iran, but I did find the message to be universal, and wondered why more films don’t really explore how these themes play out in our multicultural society. Too often, mainstream films reduce our differences to caricatures, cover over them with platitudes and easy answers, or take sides according to the filmmaker’s own leanings. Farhadi’s refusal to do so allows us to sympathize with each character, and the ending finds us wondering less about the choice that a central character must make, and more about the choices that we have already made to become the people that we are, and the separations that divide us.
Oscar Chances:
A Separation won the Academy Award for best foreign language film (one of the awards that I predicted correctly), and was also nominated in the original screenplay category.
Interestingly, the film’s reception and Oscar win has mirrored its central premise, with different political and cultural groups inside and outside Iran interpreting its success in ways that support their own perspectives.
As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories! My Lamb Score: 4 ½ out of 5 Lambs What is a lamb score? ClickHERE to learn more. Read recent reviewsHERE, or search theArchives. .
The key to enjoying most romantic films, whether comedies or dramas, is to recognize them as fantasies. You shouldn’t judge the health of your actual relationships by their standards any more than you would judge the value of your car by how well it stacks up against the Transformers. The problem that I had with The Vow, though, was that it asked us to indulge too heavily in some fantasy situations, but not heavily enough in the fantasies that make the genre work.
Rachel McAdams’ character gets amnesia after being in a car accident. Her memory reverts back to a time before she met her husband (Channing Tatum), as well as a time before she had made a series of life changes involving a new career, new friends and a distancing from her family of birth. As someone who has moved a few times in my life, I can certainly understand how one’s routines and social circles can change drastically over time, and in the context of a romantic fantasy I was perfectly willing to play along with the conceit of having severed all connections to an earlier age.
What felt forced to me, however, was the antipathy that everyone from her past has toward her new life. Yes, the movies have made a trope of the rich father trying to get rid of the boy from the wrong side of the tracks in order to salvage his daughter’s reputation, but to have every friend and family member participate in the ruse felt inauthentic. Are we really to believe that there is not a single person who thinks she might be happier at least exploring her relationship with her husband, or that there was no one encouraging her to reconnect with her successful art career?
In contrast to this overemphasis on the fantasy of universal social stratification, Channing Tatum’s character underwhelms as the fantasy lover that we expect from this genre. One minute he is hunky and charming and fully invested in sweeping us off our her off her feet, but the next minute he is impatient and overbearing and downright insensitive to the struggle she is facing. In the midst of a story where everyone else engages in a single-minded pursuit of their goals, it felt odd that the romantic hero would so frequently and inexplicably stray from the archetype that we all showed up to see.
Oscar Chances:
Unless the film had an original song that I didn’t notice, there’s not much chance of it showing up on my Oscar lists this year. That doesn’t mean that it’s bad. It only means that it was designed for that other day in February, the one with the red hearts instead of the red carpets.
As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!
My Lamb Score: 2 1/2 out of 5 Lambs What is a lamb score? ClickHERE to learn more. Read recent reviewsHERE, or search theArchives. .
