Continuing my streak of missing at least one in the big category I got 7 out of 8 but I don’t feel bad because nobody could have predicted Precious winning screenplay. Plus it’s great to see Jason Reitman not get something for the first time in his life. Overall I got 17 out of 24 in my guessing which is down from my 19/24 tally last year. What killed me was Avatar’s losses in the sound department (sure Hurt Locker was better but, come on). Very boring show but it’s saying something that this is only the third time in a decade where a good film won Best Picture. No Country and Lord of the Rings were the only other two.

Best Picture

• “Avatar”
• “The Blind Side”
• “District 9”
• “An Education”
• “The Hurt Locker” (saw the mistake. I’m NOT picking Blind Side to win. Changed at 5:04)
• “Inglourious Basterds”
• “Precious”
• “A Serious Man”
• “Up”
• “Up in the Air”

Note: All final predictions to be locked in by Saturday night. I usually flip-flop at the last minute.

My Vote Would Go To, in this order: Inglourious Basterds, Hurt Locker, A Serious Man, District 9, Precious, Avatar, Up, An Education, Up in the Air, and Blind Side in the back, way waaaaay waaaaaaaaay in the back. Sadly, the only two with any shot here are Hurt Locker and Avatar. Funny how even with ten nominated films there are still very few surprises. I half think that spineless Oscar voters tend to vote not for what they think is the best but what has the best chance, or most hype. The problem is that Avatar has a lot of hype. In fact, it’s all hype. Still, Hurt Locker is a film that plays much better on DVD screeners. Without the novelty allure 3D Avatar’s many flaws become clear. 
Should Not Be Here: It’s a shame that Blind Side got a nomination. Not quite as bad as Blind Side but still should not have been nominated are Up, Up in the Air, An Education, District 9 and Avatar. Whew, that’s a lot.
Robbed: Too numerous to count.

Directing (all predicted winners labeled with a red asterix)

* “Avatar” James Cameron
***“The Hurt Locker” Kathryn Bigelow
* “Inglourious Basterds” Quentin Tarantino
* “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels
* “Up in the Air” Jason Reitman

My Vote Would Go To: Tarantino first, K-Big second, nobody third. QT is just too good to win a directing Oscar. I have this suspicion though that there might be a picture/director but if there is one it will probably be an Avatar Picture/Bigelow Director split so Bigelow is safe for now.   
Should Not Be Here:Reitman and Daniels.  
Robbed: James Grey (“Two Lovers”) was once again overlooked.

Actor in a Leading Role

*** Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
* George Clooney in “Up in the Air” (and I usually love the Cloonster)
* Colin Firth in “A Single Man”
* Morgan Freeman in “Invictus”
* Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker”

My Vote Would Go To:Tough one. Renner and Firth, two very different performances, are as good as they got last year. Bridges is also pretty damn cool in “Crazy Heart” (one of those bad movies/good performances deals) and when he wins I’ll be clapping.
Should Not Be Here:Clooney. I love the Cloonster but he’s done better. 
Robbed:Viggo Mortensen in The Road. Kang Sung in Thirst. And call me crazy but Jason Statham was underrated in Crank: High Voltage.

Actress in a Leading Role

***Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side”
* Helen Mirren in “The Last Station”
* Carey Mulligan in “An Education”
* Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
* Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia”

My Vote Would Go To:Nobody could have done what Gabourey Sidibe did in “Precious.” I didn’t care for any of the other performances nominated but would be happy if Streep won.
Should Not Be Here:Might as well have nominated Sandra Bullock for All About Steve cuz she’s such a good actress.
Robbed: Maria Onetto in The Headless Woman. A more high profile snub was Melanie Laurent’s omission in this category. She should lock the doors and blow up the Kodak theater in retaliation.

Actor in a Supporting Role

* Matt Damon in “Invictus”
* Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger”
* Christopher Plummer in “The Last Station”
* Stanley Tucci in “The Lovely Bones” (first ever Oscar nom for someone doing a Dr. Evil impression lol)
***Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds”

My Vote Would Go To:Waltz. End of story. Would be happy if Plummer had more of a shot.
Should Not Be Here: Damon. Boring performance in a boring movie. 
Robbed: Steven Lang, the heavy from Avatar. His character came to life while all the others put me to sleep.

Actress in a Supporting Role

* Penélope Cruz in “Nine”
* Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air”
* Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart”
* Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air”
*** Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”

My Vote Would Go To:Gyllenhaal was surprisingly good in this thankless performance.
Should Not Be Here: Kendrick first. Her performances is all wrong for that movie. Cruz was also nothing special in “Nine.” 
Robbed: Samantha Morton, my favorite actress, did so much with so little in “The Messenger” that she should have an Oscar by now.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

* “District 9” Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
* “An Education” Screenplay by Nick Hornby
* “In the Loop” Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
* “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher
***“Up in the Air” Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

My Vote Would Go To: In the Loop is the only truly worthy script of the bunch because it actually adds something to the source material. Too bad it has no shot but that’s usually the case with this historically bankrupt category.
Should Not Be Here: As usual the probable winner, Up in the Air, is the one film with no business even being nominated. An Education was also pretty bland but Hornby was once a pretty good author so it’s fun seeing him nominated as a screenwriter.  
Robbed: The Road managed to capture McCarthy’s prose better than “No Country for Old Men” did.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

***“The Hurt Locker” Written by Mark Boal
* “Inglourious Basterds” Written by Quentin Tarantino
* “The Messenger” Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
* “A Serious Man” Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
* “Up” Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy

My Vote Would Go To:Easy. Basterds. But I was totally won over with “Serious Man,” one of the Coen’s best scripts in years. I’m also a big fan of “The Messenger” and its writer who made the great “Jesus’ Son” a number of years ago.
Should Not Be Here: Everything should be here except for the overrated/overwritten “Up.” 
Robbed: Robbed: Sure, a lot of good scripts were robbed but for the first time in years I like the Original Screenplay category for the most part. The sloppy, haphazard writing/plotting of Up is the only exception.

Animated Feature Film

* “Coraline” Henry Selick
* “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Wes Anderson
* “The Princess and the Frog” John Musker and Ron Clements
* “The Secret of Kells” Tomm Moore
***“Up” Pete Docter

My Vote Would Go To:“Coraline” made me remember what I forgot, that Neil Gaimen is really good at making kids stories for adults. I also didn’t hate “Mr. Fox” as much as I thought.
Should Not Be Here: I’m not going to say “Up” but… um, “Up.” 
Robbed: WHERE’s FUCKING PONYO, AHHHHHH FUCK YOU!

Cinematography

*** “Avatar” Mauro Fiore
* “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” Bruno Delbonnel
*“The Hurt Locker” Barry Ackroyd
* “Inglourious Basterds” Robert Richardson
* “The White Ribbon” Christian Berger

My Vote Would Go To:Potter, Ribbon then Basterds.
Should Not Be Here: Funny how one of the best movies here, Hurt Locker, is the weakest in this category. 
Robbed: Robbed: White Ribbon. Oh, wait they actually bothered to watch that movie. Cool! How about The Road and Two Lovers. Or Serious Man. Or You, The Living. Lots of great Cinematography last year.

Art Direction

*** “Avatar” Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair
* “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; Set Decoration: Caroline Smith
* “Nine” Art Direction: John Myhre; Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
* “Sherlock Holmes” Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
* “The Young Victoria” Art Direction: Patrice Vermette; Set Decoration: Maggie Gray

My Vote Would Go To: Holmes, the most unlikely underrated film of 09, looks fantastic. From the city streets to dirty alleys to that big ass boat to science labs up to no good to Holmes’ dark nest of OCD filth, this is the most amazing art direction undertaking since The Prestige. There’s just so much (besides Downey’s wonderful scenery chewing) going on within the frame. 
Should Not Be Here: Young Victoria. Looked fine but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.
Robbed: Watchmen captured the look of the comic perfectly. That’s way harder to pull off than Young Victoria.

Costume Design

* “Bright Star” Janet Patterson
* “Coco before Chanel” Catherine Leterrier
* “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Monique Prudhomme
* “Nine” Colleen Atwood
*** “The Young Victoria” Sandy Powell

My Vote Would Go To: The Good Doctor just because it’s good to see a non period drama win this for once.
Should Not Be Here: Period (yawn) dramas. 
Robbed: The  tattered yarns of The Road. People seem to forget that great costumes are not always supposed to look good.

Documentary (Feature)

* “Burma VJ” Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
*** “The Cove” Nominees to be determined
* “Food, Inc.” Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
* “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
* “Which Way Home” Rebecca Cammisa

My Vote Would Go To: Food Inc.
Should Not Be Here: Haven’t seen enough and there’s a reason for that: dees dare some boring docs.
Robbed: Anvil! The Story of a Doc Snubbed In Favor of Tedious 90s era Doc Noms.

Film Editing

* “Avatar” Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
* “District 9” Julian Clarke
***“The Hurt Locker” Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
* “Inglourious Basterds” Sally Menke
* “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Joe Klotz

My Vote Would Go To: Basterds! No question about it. The editing really helped set the many varying moods and transition between the many characters and plot actions.
Should Not Be Here: The editing in Precious is too grandiose when it’s doesn’t have the standard cutting of a TV movie.   
Robbed: Antichrist, Two Lovers and The Box.

Foreign Language Film

* “Ajami” Israel
* “El Secreto de Sus Ojos” Argentina
* “The Milk of Sorrow” Peru
***“Un Prophète” France
* “The White Ribbon” Germany

My Vote Would Go To: White Ribbon is a timeless movie. I have a feeling it’s not “social” (read PC) enough to win. The “inverted Scarface” Prophet’s got a lot of momentum but it’s not the top or even second movie most are picking to win, that would be Ribbon and something called El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secrets in Their Eyes) which must be good since so many people are including in (Update: just read the synopsis about a unsolved murder and it does indeed sounds cool). I hope I’m wrong about Prophet.   
Should Not Be Here: I don’t know, whatever. Not a good year for foreign films.
Robbed: Thirst was hurt by the fact that it’s a vampire movie. Besides, the Academy really sucks when it comes to recognizing good (or any) Korean films. Fuck em’.

Makeup

* “Il Divo” Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
***“Star Trek” Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
* “The Young Victoria” Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore (huh?)

My Vote Would Go To: None. Makeup is a stupid category.
Should Not Be Here:Young Victoria. Nothing special. Oh, it’s about Royality, I guess the makeup must be good. Stupid logic voters. 
Robbed: The Watchmen

Music (Original Score)

* “Avatar” James Horner
* “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Alexandre Desplat
* “The Hurt Locker” Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
* “Sherlock Holmes” Hans Zimmer
***“Up” Michael Giacchino

My Vote Would Go To: Hans Zimmer is so underrated. His Holmes score fits the movie, the tone and the time period perfectly. I love Desplat but honestly can’t remember any of his music from Fox. Same goes for the music of Hurt Locker, I can’t remember a thing about it.
Should Not Be Here: James Horner recycled his old music (that wasn’t good to begin with!) to make Avatar even more annoying. Trumpets and tribal chants are sucide on the ears. 
Robbed: Once again Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (The Road, The Proposition a few years ago) were dissed in favor of more traditional scores.

Music (Original Song)

* “Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
* “Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
* “Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36” Music by Reinhardt Wagner Lyric by Frank Thomas
* “Take It All” from “Nine” Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston
*** “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

My Vote Would Go To: NONE, all nominated songs suck. Okay, The Weary Kind wasn’t all out bad but it was the weakest song in the movie which really hurt it because it was supposed to be Bridges’ “comeback” song.  
Should Not Be Here: I can’t even remember the songs in Princess and the Frog.
Robbed: Does “Bale Out” count? Totally should.

Visual Effects

*** “Avatar” Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
* “District 9” Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken
* “Star Trek” Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton

My Vote Would Go To: This is the one category that Avatar belongs.
Should Not Be Here: It’s all good in da hood.
Robbed: Harry Potter’s understated visuals. Oh, and how about Moon? You know, “good” visual effects do not have to ALWAYS be the most expensive visual effects. Sometimes, as in the case of Moon, it’s the way the effects are used that should be rewarded because it’s more creative. Oh, but what does creativity have to do with winning an Oscar these days?

***

The Usual Crap Nobody Cares About…

Short Film (Animated)

* “French Roast” Fabrice O. Joubert
* “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell
* “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” Javier Recio Gracia
* “Logorama” Nicolas Schmerkin
* “A Matter of Loaf and Death” Nick Park (Can Park ever get enough Oscars? No. He is the anti-Pixar and I love him for that)

Documentary (Short Subject)

* “China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
* “The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner” Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
* “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
* “Music by Prudence” Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
* “Rabbit à la Berlin” Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra

Short Film (Live Action)

* “The Door” Juanita Wilson and James Flynn
* “Instead of Abracadabra” Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström
* “Kavi” Gregg Helvey
* “Miracle Fish” Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey
* “The New Tenants” Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson

Sound Editing

* “Avatar” Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
* “The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson
* “Inglourious Basterds” Wylie Stateman
* “Star Trek” Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
* “Up” Michael Silvers and Tom Myers

Sound Mixing

* “Avatar” Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
* “The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
* “Inglourious Basterds” Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano (wow, another sound nod for IG. Werid, cuz most of the film is very low key)
* “Star Trek” Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
* “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson (no kidding, the sound is fantastic in this, um, less than fantastic film)

What’s Good: Scorsese’s best film since “Bringing Out the Dead.” A solid screenplay adaptation remains undaunted by an overbearing director and overwrought actor. I also like how this period movie does not contain the usual period music that Scorsese has a tendency to punish us with. Also, I  must say that seeing actors Mark Ruffalo, Max von Sydow, Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer and Elias Koteas in a Martin Scorsese film for the first time is a real treat–see Marty, there are actually some good actors around who weren’t in “Titanic.”    
What’s Not: Even overrated directors and actors can make a good movie every now and again.
Fake Peter Travis Blurb: More twists and turns than my small intestine. Martin Scorsese is the best director who ever walked the ear, I want to blow him, um, a kiss. This one’s a real grabber!

With “Shutter Island” Martin Scorsese’s influences coming from a number of different places and thankfully none of them have anything to do with organized crime. Let’s start with the period of movies in which this one is set, the early 50s. This is an insane asylum mystery with all the subtlety of, well, an insane  asylum. Asking the much asked question: “it the patients who are crazy or the system that contains them?” the great Sam Fuller movie “Shock Corridor” came to my mind a lot but probably a dozen more came to Scorsese’s with Hitchcock, of course, begin a clear favorite. One influence that Scorsese couldn’t have foreseen or intended is a palpably empathetic horror aesthetic that plays out like a Hollywood version of the survival horror video game “Silent Hill” with a closely identified character walking down long corridors while people in straight jackets jump out to say “boo!” Another noticeable and random influence comes from the “dark” Spielberg epoch that gave us a ton of crappy films like “Saving Private Ryan” (both share a WWII theme), “Minority Report” (ditto, noir) with a commonality of dead children in all. Like Spielberg’s war and mystery works, “Shutter Island” is a big booming melodramatic murder mystery with vibrant colors penetrating the beautifully bleached cinematography. Unlike Spielberg though Scorsese it too smart to let emotion get the better of him or his characters. Instead, he allows emotion to consume them. The final big influence on Scorsese seems to be Scorsese himself, specifically the frantic “Cape Fear” Scorsese full of anger and pessimism and crazy people and big storms whose godly power puts pithy earthlings in their place until the story is told.

Scorsese seems to work better when he’s not making the kind of movie that he thinks we expect him to make. The god awful “Departed,” “Gangs of New York” and even (don’t hate me, but…) “Goodfellas” are examples of a smart director who is able to channel a lot of creative energy into films that are basically second-hand crime stories that add nothing to the genre except for a fun but ultimately empty sense of misplaced manic energy. “Shutter Island” is not that Scorsese. But that does not meant that it fits with the other Scorsese who stumbled upon his best work in years with “The Aviator” (which turns out to be not even that good in retrospect). Like the protagonist that haunts the shadowy, light flickery institutional corridors, this film exists in-between worlds without ever seeming to belong. Gotta love limbo.

The film features Leonardo DiCaprio in yet another one of his tightly wound performances. As a bonus he even reprises that silly Boston accent from “Depaaaaaaaateeeeeeed.” At least he’s not playing a South African again. Leo is an odd actor to assess because his selection in roles far surpasses his ability in said roles. After “Titanic” Leonardo became a huge name but even then few really thought he was super talented, especially when he followed “Titanic” up with “The Beach” (between those two, it’s no wonder he gets sea sick in “Shutter Island’s” opening scene). Then something happened. He made “Gangs of New York” with Scorsese. That’s all it took. Really?! People instantly started taking him seriously even though he did nothing to prove why we should. In fact, “Gangs” was proof of the opposite as even fans didn’t love him in that (it didn’t help that he was standing next to Daniel Day Lewis). In all of his subsequent films with Scorsese (or Ridley Scott or Woody Allen or Ed Zwick or Sam Mendes etc.) I never understood what either saw in each other because neither brings out the best in the other. This is the one of the most dull actor/director duos of all time, ranking just above the Stephen Sommers/Kevin J. O’Connor powerhouse that yield, to this day, gems like “The Mummy,” “Deep Rising” and “G.I. Joe.” My only guess is that Scorsese became blinded by the school girl allure of Leo (not Leonardo, just Leo) and thus wanted to forge him into his very own De Niro and, like a fluttery eyed ingénue, Leo, in turn, did his best to impress this “genus” and he was smart to do so. The fact remains that DiCpario finds himself miscast in, oh, just about every film he’s ever been in. Okay, “Catch Me if You Can” (Spielberg of course) and “Titanic” used the naughty/clean boy act right and “Shutter Island” might be lucky number three except that’s not a lucky number at all.

Putting the mystery of DiCaprio’s esteemed career aside, there are a lot of fun twists in this mystery, so much so that many people who saw it last weekend fully expected to see ghosts. And maybe they did. Either way, by the end we see how Leo’s performance actually makes a lot of sense given the context he is placed in which I won’t spoil. Aside from a lot of really embarrassing interrogation scenes (DiCaprio is never worse than when he projects disdain for another character), this is a “good” Leo performance if only because it’s the sort of overwrought, shaky-hand and intense-all-the-time performances that the film absolutely needed in order to work and is thus is able to work him into the narrative web rather than the other way around as is usually the case.

The story is not going to win any awards but this is not that kind of movie. Hum, come to think of it “The Departed” also was not intended to be but that didn’t stop people from heaping praise upon it as if it were the last time they were ever going to get to do so with Scorsese. Everything we see in this movie exists through the dark ringed eyes of the protagonist, a U.S. Marshal, and if you follow the logic of his encounter with this strange Island and it’s secret holding overseers (Ben Kingsley is particularly good as a very calm and modern Freudian psychiatrist that rejects the harsh old ways of treatment… or does he?) may be far fetched if you think about it but it holds up much better than it has any right to–or, at least, it holds up as much as one can say it holds up having seen it only once. The plot, about a man looking for lost things on this island (yes, I’m being deliberately vague), does a remarkable job at keeping us and it’s character in the moment (Laeta Kalogridis should be commended for adapting Dennis Lehane’s novel) without ever getting wearing out its welcome. Sure it strings us along but does it so well enough that we want to go along.

“Shutter Island” is particularly adept at reinventing itself at the end of ever act. Not only does the primary mystery get solved half way through but the final twist, an epic though not terribly original role reversal, is not only a whopper but a whopper that’s actually grounded in reality. Granted it’s a dour Lehanian reality, but still. It’s not great art, it’s just good pulp. If there is a flaw it is not that Scorsese is aiming low but that he’s so damn obvious about how low he’s aiming as if he wants points for not being high brow. But is he ever really high brow? Scorsese wants us to know with every twist and turn of the camera and every sharp musical chord that pounds away at our heads like one of Leo’s migraines, is that he’s in on the spooky fun.

“Shutter Island” is a good mystery movie if you can forget that Scorsese approaches it as such a deliberate mystery movie. In the fuck-with-your-head genre, it’s too forced to appreciate in the say way as a David Fincher mystery like “The Game” or Michael Heneke’s “Cache” but I’m not dumb enough to expect more from this project or director than either are capable of delivering. I would be foolish and even lying if I said the end product isn’t totally enjoyable while it’s unfolding. It’s a B-movie in every sense of the word including…

Grade: B

Time for a new theme. I’ll be testing them out.

On the Spot Reaction: Man, what a forgetful year for Oscar nominations. Not bad overall but I’m just not seeing anything terribly important. A few of genuinely good films made the cut (Basterds, Hurt Locker, The Messenger, A Single Man), a few of nice but not earth shattering filler picks (Precious… which, okay, I kinda liked), a ton of tepid offferings (Nine, Up, Invictus) and, of course, crap (Blind Side, Up in the Air). Sadly, no big surprises other than the fact that two sci-fi films were nominated for best picture by an industry that historically can’t even bother to recognize any at all; the down side is that the lauded sci-fi films are as heavy handed as they are overrated. I gave both a passing grade though so how much can I really complain? What I can complain about is the biggest shut-outs, The Road and Two Lovers which I though could at the very least grab a few noms like Screenplay or Cinematography.  And don’t even get me started on Miyazaki’s animated Ponyo which was overlooked. Overall, though, not a bad Oscar year, just not a very compelling one.   

Best Picture (I got 9 of 10 perdictions right)

“Avatar” James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers
“The Blind Side” Nominees to be determined :cry:
“District 9” Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers
“An Education” Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers
“The Hurt Locker” Nominees to be determined
“Inglourious Basterds” Lawrence Bender, Producer
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, Producers
“A Serious Man” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Producers
“Up” Jonas Rivera, Producer
“Up in the Air” Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers (papa Ivan’s first ever nom!)

Robbed: Almost every other movie released last year are better than these ten. What a lame year to have this beefed up category. Best Pic Nominee Blind Side, okay fuck you too.

Directing

* “Avatar” James Cameron
* “The Hurt Locker” Kathryn Bigelow
* “Inglourious Basterds” Quentin Tarantino
* “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels
* “Up in the Air” Jason Reitman

Robbed: Coen Bros., right?  

Actor in a Leading Role

* Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
* George Clooney in “Up in the Air” (and I usually love the Cloonster)
* Colin Firth in “A Single Man”
* Morgan Freeman in “Invictus”
* Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker”

Robbed:Viggo Mortensen, Viggo, Viggo, Viggo.  

Actor in a Supporting Role

* Matt Damon in “Invictus”
* Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger”
* Christopher Plummer in “The Last Station”
* Stanley Tucci in “The Lovely Bones” (first ever Oscar nom for someone doing a Dr. Evil impression lol)
* Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds”

Robbed: Steven Lang, the bad guy from Avatar. Dude’s the shit in that otherwise lame movie.

Actress in a Leading Role

* Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side”
* Helen Mirren in “The Last Station”
* Carey Mulligan in “An Education”
* Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
* Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia”

Robbed:Might as well have nominated Sandra Bullock for All About Steve cuz she’s such a good actress.

Actress in a Supporting Role

* Penélope Cruz in “Nine”
* Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air”
* Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart”
* Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air”
* Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”

Robbed: I would say Moore from Single Man but she was in it for like ten minutes so Samantha Morton from The Messenger it is.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

* “District 9” Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
* “An Education” Screenplay by Nick Hornby
* “In the Loop” Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
* “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher
* “Up in the Air” Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

Robbed: The Road

Writing (Original Screenplay)

* “The Hurt Locker” Written by Mark Boal
* “Inglourious Basterds” Written by Quentin Tarantino
* “The Messenger” Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
* “A Serious Man” Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
* “Up” Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy

Robbed: Sure, a lot of good scripts were robbed but for the first time in years I like the Original Screenplay category for the most part. The sloppy, haphazard writing/plotting of Up is the only exception.  

Animated Feature Film

* “Coraline” Henry Selick
* “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Wes Anderson
* “The Princess and the Frog” John Musker and Ron Clements
* “The Secret of Kells” Tomm Moore
* “Up” Pete Docter

Robbed:WHERE’s FUCKING PONYO, AHHHHHH FUCK YOU!

Cinematography

* “Avatar” Mauro Fiore
* “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” Bruno Delbonnel :)
* “The Hurt Locker” Barry Ackroyd
* “Inglourious Basterds” Robert Richardson
* “The White Ribbon” Christian Berger

 Robbed: White Ribbon. Oh, wait they actually bothered to watch that movie. Cool!

Art Direction

* “Avatar” Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair
* “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; Set Decoration: Caroline Smith
* “Nine” Art Direction: John Myhre; Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
* “Sherlock Holmes” Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
* “The Young Victoria” Art Direction: Patrice Vermette; Set Decoration: Maggie Gray

Costume Design

* “Bright Star” Janet Patterson :-|
* “Coco before Chanel” Catherine Leterrier
* “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Monique Prudhomme
* “Nine” Colleen Atwood
* “The Young Victoria” Sandy Powell

Documentary (Feature)

* “Burma VJ” Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
* “The Cove” Nominees to be determined
* “Food, Inc.” Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
* “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
* “Which Way Home” Rebecca Cammisa

Film Editing

* “Avatar” Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
* “District 9” Julian Clarke
* “The Hurt Locker” Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
* “Inglourious Basterds” Sally Menke
* “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Joe Klotz

Foreign Language Film

* “Ajami” Israel
* “El Secreto de Sus Ojos” Argentina
* “The Milk of Sorrow” Peru
* “Un Prophète” France
* “The White Ribbon” Germany

Makeup

* “Il Divo” Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
* “Star Trek” Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
* “The Young Victoria” Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore  (huh?)

Music (Original Score)

* “Avatar” James Horner
* “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Alexandre Desplat 8-O :D
* “The Hurt Locker” Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders (wha?)
* “Sherlock Holmes” Hans Zimmer
* “Up” Michael Giacchino

Music (Original Song)

* “Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
* “Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
* “Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36” Music by Reinhardt Wagner Lyric by Frank Thomas
* “Take It All” from “Nine” Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston
* “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Short Film (Animated)

* “French Roast” Fabrice O. Joubert
* “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell
* “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” Javier Recio Gracia
* “Logorama” Nicolas Schmerkin
* “A Matter of Loaf and Death” Nick Park

Documentary (Short Subject)

* “China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
* “The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner” Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
* “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
* “Music by Prudence” Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
* “Rabbit à la Berlin” Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra

Short Film (Live Action)

* “The Door” Juanita Wilson and James Flynn
* “Instead of Abracadabra” Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström
* “Kavi” Gregg Helvey
* “Miracle Fish” Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey
* “The New Tenants” Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson

Sound Editing

* “Avatar” Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
* “The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson
* “Inglourious Basterds” Wylie Stateman
* “Star Trek” Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
* “Up” Michael Silvers and Tom Myers

Sound Mixing

* “Avatar” Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
* “The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
* “Inglourious Basterds” Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano (wow, another sound nod for IG. Werid, cuz most of the film is very low key)
* “Star Trek” Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
* “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson (no kidding, the sound is fantastic in this, um, less than fantastic film)

Visual Effects

* “Avatar” Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
* “District 9” Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken
* “Star Trek” Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton

• Avatar
• An Education
• District 9
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Invictus
• Precious
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up in the Air

Sad that the year the Academy decides to implement it’s ten picture category is a year where 10 Oscar-y films are actually hard to come by. My reasoning: in what other year would a film like Star Trek be a contender (I still don’t think it would make it because three sci-fi best pic nominees is a stretch because the Academy doesn’t even usually go for one. I would even say that even if it were just five, there’s still aren’t enough films! The locks are of course Avatar (or as it’s more fun to say “Aaavadar”), Hurt Locker, Basterds, Precious and Up in the Air.  The rest is totally filler. Also, I’m not going to bother predicting acting/writing etc awards because I don’t see any surprises. I hope I’m wrong.

Possible: Star Trek (what?! WHAT!!!), The Hangover, Julie and Julia, The Blind Side. Damn.

Hoping for: Well, only three of seven probable nominees are any good so how about anything other than what’s here. Oh, maybe there’s four good ones, I’m a closeted “Precious” fan.

Okay boys and girls here are the best songs of the year! I’m eschewing the modesty of calling these fifty tracks (plus a little gem known as ”Bale Out”) my ”favorite” songs of the year. Fuck that, these are the best. Deal with it. I took a couple of hours to listened to these great tunes all the way through and realized just then how great this year was for not just new artists/bands but for fringe musical genres such as electronica/noise/ambient/metal/prog. So enjoy the good ones, enjoy the weird ones, and everything in between. And if you’re lucky enough to know me I’ll burn a copy for you let you listen to all these songs I totally legally downloaded.

1. Sea Within a Sea by The Horrors
2. Kingdom of Rust by Doves
3. The Incident by Porcupine Tree
4. Surf Solar by Fuck Buttons
5. French Navy by Camera Obscura
6. I Don’t Like Your Band by Annie
7. Golden Phone by Micachu and the Shapes
8. Build Voice by Dan Deacon
9. The Afterlife by YACHT
10. Leftovers by Jarvis Cocker

11. Crystalised by The xx
12. Panic Switch by Silversun Pickups
13. This Tornado Loves You by Neko Case
14. Corrupt by Depeche Mode
15. Glass by Bat For Lashes
16. United States of Eurasia by Muse
17. Inaugural Trams by Super Furry Animals
18. Holiday On The Moon by Puscifer
19. Dog Days Are Over by Florence And The Machine
20. Where Shadows Make Shadows by Tim Hecker

21. Give It Up by Datarock
22. Slow Poison by The Bravery
23. Since We’ve Been Wrong by The Mars Volta
24. Oblivion by Mastodon
25. Leni by Crystal Castles Remixed
26. Digidesign by Joker
27. Stillness Is the Move by Dirty Projectors
28. Drawing the Line by Porcupine Tree
29. Jetstream by Doves
30. Babel On by The Soundtrack of Our Lives

31. Heads Will Roll by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
32. From Africa to Málaga by jj
33. Help I’m Alive by Metric
34. Lisztomania by Phoenix
35. Funny The Way It Is by Dave Matthews Band
36. Moped Eyes by Super Furry Animals
37. Don’t Stop by Annie
38. Further Complications by Jarvis Cocker
39. Daniel by Bat For Lashes
40. True Stories byDatarock

41. Working On a Dream BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
42. House of Flying Daggers by Raekwon
43. Angela by Jarvis Cocker
44. Begin The Engine by Andrew W.K.
45. Fuck You by Lily Allen
46. Divinations by Mastodon
47. Padding Ghost by Dan Deacon
48. Here to Fall by Yo La Tengo
49. Something is Squeezing My Skull by Morrissey
50. The Mission (feat. Milla Jovovich) by Puscifer
50.1 The Shattered Fortress by Dream Theater
50.2 Bale Out by EvoLoution

***

Best Non-Song Song of the Year:
“Bale Out” by RevoLucian. Genus on so many levels. First off, and all due respek to my man Bale, it’s funny. Second, it’s actually a very well made dance song in terms structure and beats. Third, this guy made the song, like, two days after the rant was released. This song is so good it’s fucking distracting.

1. “TiK ToK” by Ke$ha. Oh, I have a few signs for Ke$ha as well. Sure there’s the $, which is sooooo cool with its faux gangsta irony (which may not even be ironic), but there’s also a #@*%. This is the kind of post-Gaga popular dance music that is ushering in the new decade. It makes me not want to be alive to hear what the rest of the decade has to offer.  This song is… DEATH.
2. “Right Round” by Flo Rida. Fuck this shit.
3. “Party in the U.S.A.” by Miley Cyrus. If this is how we party they I’m moving to Canada.
4. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon. It is beyond my comprehension how this band and THIS 2009 hit single grew in popularity.
5. “My Girls” by Animal Collective. Not bad by any means just overrated and kind of bland.  There are far better tracks on Merriweather Post Pavilion.
6. “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga. Maybe not the worst song ever but the opening of this song makes me feel like my skin has been cut off and bleach is being poured on my blood covered, barley alive carcass.

Best Bad Song of the Year:
I Got A Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas. A horrible song from a horrible band. Still… ehh, kinda catchy. Mazeltov!

Music didn’t do much for me this year but I’m going to force myself to write about it anyway. These were the albums that mattered to me most but, from the looks of it, not that of the critical consensus (Animal Collective is the best band of the year…um’kay) or public taste (Lady Gaga, the most “multi-talented” male “female” “artist” of the year) or just people who think they’re cooler than us (Girls fans, UGH). Overall, I heard 35 good albums worthy of a “best of the year” list. That is both a victory for the 09 album format and a defeat because for every 35 albums that were great to good to, uh, whatever the Flaming Lips album was, there were four times as many that were a mess. The album has been dead for a while and this year it’s easy to see why. On that sad note, check back in a few days for Paper Street Cinema Music’s best tracks of the year.

Click below to find out what the Best Albums of the Year are... 

Game of the Year is Awarded To...

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)

1. Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)

2. Scribblenauts (Nintendo DS)

• #1 Trend: Playstation trophies and to a lesser degree Xbox achievements. If my increase in video game playing can be attributed to one thing this year it’s a quirky personalty obsession with scoring trophies that reward everything from head shots to beating a game on hard. This trend gave me a tangible reason to play video games other than the fact that they’re really fun.

• Good: Online play has reached a new peak. It’s better and more varied than it’s ever been.

• Bad: X-Box 360 is an overrated, suck ass system that gathered more dust this year than my Wii. This is the first year that not one Xbox game made my top ten. That’s more sad than bad.

• Bad: Xbox again for its unacceptable failure rate and for peopel for not caring that hte hardware is broken.

• Good: IPs are strong.

• Good: As games get bigger and more polished, even more get smaller and more fun. Games like Brand for PS3, Plants Vs. Zombies for PC and Shadow Complex for Xbox signal a welcome trend of indie games that rely more on core gameplay than production values.

• Bad: DLCs (added content for games you own). They suck and are overpriced.

• Bad: The words Sony and handheld should never go together. PSP Go is a system that cost almost as much as a PS3 and games can only be downloaded.

Once you go blue...

• What’s Good: James Cameron’s dedication to the material is admirable. His ability to sell this half formed, totally unoriginal sci-fi story is masterful.
• What’s Not:“A New World” meets “Dances with Wolves” meets “Aliens” meets “Princess Mononokie” meets “Fern Gully in Space.” A lot meets here. What there are not a lot of however is new ideas. Cameron’s inability to make the aliens ALIENS is confounding. Cameron is like a sane version Michael Bay who fetichizes the military war complex while denouncing it it at the same time. I’m also sore that Michael Biehn and/or Bill Paxton are not in this movie but Sigourney Weaver is so that’s cool.

Science Fiction has enjoyed its most prosperous year of the young century. The genre has not been this fecund since the year “Matrix,” “Princess Mononokie” and “Star Wars: Episode I” came out. It has also not been this overrated in years though I must admit that the sci-fi purist in me fears mainstream involvement in this genre so I’m naturally defensive. This year though: first “Star Trek” crammed that cocky, shit eating Kirk (Chris “I’m awesome!” Pine) down our throats. Then “District 9″ turned a story of alien apartheid into an inept retelling of “Transformers.” Then, um, yeah, the bland “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” came out and, astoundingly, was not as bad as everyone made it out to be. Now “Avatar” has come to rule them all.

There is very little doubt that this 300-500 million production will not only make a tidy profit but may go on to become the third or even second highest grossing film in U.S. history right below James Cameron’s other blunt edged epic “Titanic.” “Avatar” is a vivid contradiction that poses the question of how could something so stark and visionary can be so unoriginal. Easy, it’s made by Cameron. Aww, nah man, I kid, I kid, the dude’s earned my respect many times over; Cameron’s work in this genre includes masterpieces like “Terminator,” “T2″ (his most overrated film but still good by any other standards) “The Abyss” (his most underrated), and “Aliens” (an A+++++ film) are unparalleled in genre defining qualities that, “Abyss” aside, shoot first and ask questions later. That Cameron’s reputation precedes him is perhaps why I expect more from him especially given his decade long, post “Titanic” hiatus. The expectations are not so much in the storytelling department but in the powerful ways in which he is usually able to approaches stories. The result here is a mixed bag full of minor technical miracles and major storytelling blunders and a curious lack of real danger posed to the protagonist.

This save-the-rain-forest adventure set on a planet known as Pandora (that’s, uh, symbolism, right?) brings virtually no new ideas to the table. Instead, it grafts new technology over old ideas.  The ground it does tread it treads competently, but with all the narrative grace of one of the film’s tree smashing mega bulldozers. What we get here is a hearty retelling of a good vs. evil, man vs. machine, and nature vs technology tale in which an ex military grunt, working as a Backwater-esq soldier for hire, goes undercover and, before he knows what hits him, goes native. The central gimmick is that humans are now able to fuse human and alien DNA to harvest bodies known as Avatars. These proxy creatures can be possessed via cryo-sleeping humans! In their dreams! Nonsense! Yet nonsense that Cameron is able to sell effectively because everything else is so meticulously mapped out. Avatars are essentially flesh based video game characters and the hero, Jake (another original Cameron hero name–totally more original than Jack), gets a mean case of chosen-one-itis when he puts this new body to use. This avatar concept in one sense gives the film a semi-original approach(if you don’t count the other Avatar-ish ”Surrogates” this year) while at the same time removes me from an investment in the immediacy of the hero’s situation since he’s not really there. The Avatar driven hybrids and, for that matter, indigenous aliens known as the Na’vi (which sounds like a snazzy name for a laptop or mp3 player) look convincing and at times posses flawlessly rendered realism but their design is a bit awkward. Their flat noses, strange heads, stupid tribal marks and grotesque bodies gave me, among other things, really bad “Antz” flashbacks.

The plot is so far from exceptional that it gives a new name to the term space opera. There is a lot of politics (and politicking) and tropical/topical parallels to imperial America, sure, but really this is just an space set “Romeo and Juliet” story involving a boy trying to win the heart and mind of the girl and her community. He is accepted by the alien clan all too easily and masters their ways in a manner of weeks. This story element takes up about two hours of the film so expect lots of iridescent plant life, prancing about and forced moments of adventure (Jake trying to tame one wild animal or another). There are enough 90s era Disney cliches here to fool me into thinking characters are on the verge of breaking into a show tune any minute. Lucky they don’t; unluckily, though, James Horner does and his score and it’s full of tritely recycled melodies.

The rest is of the film (and entire third act) is vintage Cameron hoorah military hokum. Humans invade a peaceful, nature loving planet rich in precious minerals whose value to the  new, resource depleted Earth is never fully explained. I’ve always loved sci-fi for the ways in which it is able to encode progressive message into the text. These days all sci-fi subtext has become text because we’re obviously too stupid to get the  message if it’s in any way subtle. While Cameron is being  praised for creating a new world, all I see here is “A New World.” While the romance is nothing new, the post colonial aspects are even more worn. First off, I mentioned that the hero enters this community like a space age Jesus (or Tom Cruse or Kevin Costner etc.) and that undercuts a lot of the supposed autonomous integrity these “savage” creatures have. In addition to that the cultural tropes are obtuse. I have no idea why people bash George Lucas’s anthropological aliens when this film’s egregious mess of Earth based stereotypes gets received with near unanimous approval and cultural cache. These creatures are Ewok’s squared. The peaceful and simple subaltern alien race (Others are aliens, get it!) are a crude amalgamation of African, Aboriginal and American Indian cultures and icons. What bothers me is that Cameron makes no attempt to make these alien underdogs actually alien. I just can’t understand how something so ambitious can be so lazy. Is this a prime example of  unintentional leftist racism or just bad writing? Whatever the case, the humans of “Avatar” are just as one dimensional (ironic that this is 3D then, huh?) with bullheaded military men, egg headed business men, even headed mentors and a Jarheaded hero played by Terminator Salvation’s Sam Worthington.

While I could go on about what bothers me there’s a lot to admire in “Avatar.” Sure, the visuals pop with a musty green brilliance and eerie fog but what I like most about the film is the way it inverts the sci-fi cliche of making humans the evil invaders (weare aliens) while having the viewer relate to the little (actually, large) blue space men. Heading up the invading force is a wonderfully wicked performance by Stephen Lang (“Public Enemies”) as the evil, Duke Nukem looking Colonel who steals the movie through the simple act of bringing some color, dimension and fire to a morally black and white story universe. Too many characters, yes even my dear Sigourney Weaver as the all too noble scientist in charge, are cardboard cut outs that this bad ass Colonel shreds to hell with his his twenty foot mech’s giant-sized machete. Now, as to why a fricken mech needs a big ass knife is something I’ll have to add to the pile of things I don’t get about this movie. Anyways, after all this inane, semi-incoherent ranting I’m going to put aside my objections and give “Avatar” a (barley) passing grade. I do so with caution and the illogical self awareness that I don’t always need to like a science fiction movie to like it.

Grade: B-

“Nine?” Uh, not quite, more like a six or seven. The best thing this musical remake of Fellini’s “8½” did is remind me of how good the original is. Broadway/Hollywood’s update is a glitzed out and dumbed down version of an original that parodied the very same spectacle that ”Nine” has become! I guess the the original Broadway writers and Hollywood director/producers of “Nine” missed that; “8½” is a foreign film after all and that means you have to read subtitles so it make sense that the nuances went over their heads. That huge contradiction aside, this film doesn’t work as a remake because it doesn’t work at all as a musical. No amount of new wave Italian visuals, “Citizen Kane” ripped cinematography and sparkly costumes can mask the taste of bland-ass music. I went with a friend and soon after the film ended she mentioned that she like the song where the beleaguered protagonist played by Daniel Day Lewis sits in a corner while his wife gets her revenge on him through a musical number where she is stripped bare right in front of him. Within minutes of seeing the film this conversation happened and while I could remember the image of a scruffy Daniel Day Lewis and a beautiful, wide eyed Marion Cotillard singing, I could not for the life of me recall what she was singing or, for that matter, just about any other song in this movie! That’s a bad sign.

This is one of those rare musicals in which the story is better than its set pieces. I called it dumbed down and it is but it’s also something of a curious interest to fans of the original because here we have a crudley parsed version of a hallucinatory masterpiece. The predominant theme of male anxiety in Fellini’s version is hard to approach or understand at first but by end you’re infected with it. “Nine” is the cliff notes version where the anxiety of the lead character is quite literally spelled out for us (no flying dreams and only one childhood flashback) while notions relating to the elusive nature of art that Fellini captures so artfully (to describe it is to demystify it is the film’s point) is far from elusive with its big and bright quotation marks that are on display like a gussied up whore. Daniel Day Lewis is the right actor to play the part of Guido if only because he looks so cool when he’s tormented (I need not remind anyone of his past performances). But he’s also a bit too over the top this time.  He does lots of angsty pacing here as well as sitting crouched over with his hands up against his face like a tortured version of  The Thinker sculpture. Lewis, like Marcello Mastroianni, plays the Guido as a filmmaker who has nothing but decisions put in front of him and yet is incapable of making even the smallest one. A big difference is that Mastroianni was playing a version of Fellini while Lewis is, um, well he’s definitely not playing a version of thisfilm’s director Rob Marshall because the character in “Nine” is actually considered a great director by his peers and the press and is even called “Maestro.” At any rate, each decision and commitment, no matter how trivial, bears down on Guido like a runaway train and each is avoided at all costs, which, considering the budget of the film he’s not working on, is a lot. “Directing a movie is an overrated job. You just have to say yes or no. What else do you do? Nothing” the non-film’s costume designer, an Edith Head looking Judi Dench, tells the perpetually smoking Guido who clearly hears and perhaps even agrees but just can’t take that proactive plunge both as an artist and as a man. This is a classic struggle that is mirrored with very little mystery in “Nine.”

Marshall, like his character, also seems incapable of making a choice with his film because the music is not only forgettable and antiquated but unnecessary. Marshall wants to make a musical adaptation of a play that was adapted from ”8½” and that’s fair game I guess but he goes ahead with this endeavor without the support of the music part! Marshall’s Oscar winning “Chicago” worked because the music numbers made sense within the context and reality of the story world; they were the lavish day dreams of crazy killers and depraved men. “Chicago” also worked because the music was good and, when not good, catchy at the very least. The music in this film, like “Chicago,” occurs outside the diegetic story space but that’s as far as the film is willing to go with them. Guido will be dealing with one of his many mistresses/feminine infatuations (Nicole  Kidman the international actress, Kate Hudson the American reporter, Penelope Cruz as the mistress, Fergie the vamp from Guido’s past, Sophia Loren the mother etc.) and suddenly someone get a music number dedicated to how they’re feeling. Is he imagining it? Are they? Are we? I feel, though I’m not sure who agrees, that one of the jobs of a film musical is to accommodate the music itself. To find a home for it within the aesthetics as well as being pleasing in its own right. In that regard the music of “Nine” is not only tone deaf but homeless.

I mixed feelings about “Nine.” The lead performance is strong (perhaps too strong) and the cinematography, while not visually original, is even more beautiful than all the women. And even if the refashioned story goes against the philsophy of the original I found it compelling when the music wasn’t getting in the way. Is that enough? Depends. Those who really like musicals might give this a shot, and might like it. Those interested in classic art house foreign films may also want to see it, but will probably not like it. Everyone else should just stay home.

Grade: C+

Well, here lies another high profile release that failed to live up to the hype. While I found the year as a whole to be amazing the winter movie season is the most underwhelming in recent memory. It’s as good a time as any to put this review season to bed. I will be catch up on all the stuff I missed (Avatar, I’m coming to get you!) and of course pulling my best of the year picks out of my arse. Video Games will come first next week, then music then movies, then best of the decade lists. Gwah, exhausting.

Lovely Bones is really, really, really, really, really… bad. I mean really bad. Really. Bad. Rrrrrrrrrrreally bad. In case you didn’t read the book, it’s better than the film version. Big surprise. “I’m Sally Salmon and this my story” we are told in this movie about a dead girl narrating her life from her after life. Her family grieves for her as the murderer sits in a room right across the street (IRONY!). As time passes she prances about in her very own Candyland… or purgatory, or something, I couldn’t actually tell and this film was not about to tell me so Candyland it is. What she does there and how that relates to what’s happening on our earthly plane is never explained, which actually might be a good thing seeing as how clumsy the film’s narrative is. Better to not explain than to to so badly.

As poorly constructed as the somewhat similar 2007 mystery “The Invisible” is, at least the dead protagonist in that story took on the role of a detective who investigates his mortal death and, accordingly, can only be revived or go to heaven (I forget which; again, not a good film) once the killer is caught. Dumb, yes, but at least there’s some measure of internal logic at work. Not here. The dead girl played by the promising young actress Saoirse Ronan (“Atonement”) has no control or agency. She’s dead in other words. So then what function does she serve other than standing around and watching us earthlings with bittersweet wonder? None. The film is more interested in giving you goosebumps and being sentimental (father lights a candle atop a ship in a bottle for daughter to see in the dark storm of night ::gags::, father cries, girl’s not-quite-lover writes her poetry) than exploring notions of death, cosmic justice, fate, and the after life. Not being analytical about this stuff is all well and good in many cases (“Ghost Town” for instance gets a pass) but being that the sentimentalism falls flat while the exploration of the physicality of one’s death is not even a concern there came a time during this film when I wondered, and not in the existential sense, what the point of all of it was. Again, there is none. The film is nonsense, a hollow spectacle of style over substance over common sense that displeases to the core.

Peter Jackson put his name on this film and I feel sorry for him. It bears his trademarks both pre and post “Lord of the Rings” which is as much of a blessing as it is a curse; there are swamps, there are horrible underwater effects (fans blowing on actor’s faces), there is death, there is evil there is good and there is fantasy. Oh, and there is also a lot of bull shit. I am officially done with this filmmaker because I see no future for him. I also pity Jackson because he seems to be in a similar (creative) limbo as his main character in this movie. After “Rings” Jackson wants to be known as a serious filmmaker on “Lovely Bones” when he tries to be that here his creative expressions end up more far fetched than any fantasy world he’s ever conjured up. The movie magic and visual mastery Jackson tapped into with thedecade defining “The Lord of the Rings” series has been negated by a duo of agonizing follows ups “King Kong” in 2005 and now “Lovely Bones.” A problem is that Jackson does not seem to have an emotional compass sharp enough to depict the real world. Fantasy and sloppy comic horror (“Dead Alive”) is what he’s able to do and do very well but anything else comes across as corny and amateurish. When he attempts to blend the two, as evident here, it’s a disaster. Where Jackson was once an clever innovator (“Forgotten Silver” and “Meet the Feebles”) and a cynical genus (“The Frighteners”–his other film about ghosts), he is now a schmaltzy middle class appealing hack that could match wits with Spielberg any day. (Spielberg produced this movie by the way and it shows.) More than anything though “Bones” is a lesser version of Jackson’s own early gem called “Heavenly Creatures,” a film that also involves murder, young girls and the fantasy world they escaped to.

This film’s visual pallet contains almost as much darkness as it does heavenly color. Providing that darkness is Stanley Tucci’s George Harvey character, the killer of the girl who dwells in his Golem like layer that, on the suburban outside, looks perfectly normal, perhaps too normal. Tucci brings George to life with ticks, dorky speach mannerisms and creepy hobbies (crafting doll houses and making outdoor traps for ducks) and is certainly a potentially interesting presence of evil. What undercuts that potential is the fact that his evil is EVIL without equivocation or hesitation. By extension, the afterlife he sends his victim(s) to is the AFTERLIFE. While there’s a lot of talk of in “betweens,” there’s ironically very little of that in the moral or thematic sense. The metaphysical realm, full of rainbows and flowers and coronas of white light so bright I was half expecting Gandalf the White to pop out, is handled with such awkwardness, bombast and intellectual meaninglessness that the movie plays more along the lines of a Mitch Abom/Oprah book club selection than a gritty drama. “You are in betweeeeeeeeen” the dead girl’s spirit medium tells Sally when she asks where she is. Another line that had me howling was “We’re in HEAVEN, YAAAAAY!” and I shit you not, that yaaaaay part is in there too. In this Candyland giant boats in bottles (a blown up symbol of Sally’s father’s hobby) crash against mountains while night, day, snow, water, sun and the moon are all able to exist in the same frame. She’s EVERYWHERE, get it? Sally can’t really communicate with the living but in one scene a dead flower on earth springs back to life when the father holds it (what does that even mean?) and that seems to be the dead girl’s only real power and it’s as lame as it sounds. While the sentiments are all Hallmark TV Movie and Spielbergian drek, the painterly onanism on display in the “in between” reminded of something else, something far, far worse. The late nineties saw a unspeakable film called “What Dreams May Come,” another film about dead people prancing about like dandies in a celestial CGI world. I also happen to resent that film because it’s as empty as it is pretentious. The qualities of emptiness and pretentiousness is a total contradiction in terms but that’s what we’re dealing with here.

Okay, so the fantasy is a big fail. But this is really a mystery one could just as easily argue. But, even there, as a murder mystery the film does not fare much better because in this world cops are inept, the mother splits town and the co-lead, a father played by Mark Wahlberg (as guilty pleasure bad here as he was in “The Happening”), sulks in his den, not letting his daugher’s memory go as he growing scruffier and more introverted by the day (which, for Wahlberg, is tough to endure because he’s so low key to begin with).

Just about the only thing I learned from the director/writer on this movie is his fondness for extreme close-ups of fingers. What am I talking about? Fingertips, that’s what. Jackson cuts to them all the time be it characters skimming the dead girl’s journal, other characters skimming the killer’s journal or the killer coldly touching a charm bracelet piece he got off the girl. Yup, lots of finger action for those potentiometer fetishists out there. Why fingers? I have no idea but that makes about as much sense as anything else in “Lovely Bones.”

Grade: D

The Golden Globes kick off what’s going to be a very boring year for awards.

Maybe Our Movie Doesn't Suck

Good:

• Kathryn Bigelow nominated for Hurt Locker… against ex husband James Cameron. Hahaha. Seriously, that’s historic!
• Basterds!!!!!!!!!
• Invictis not getting a best pic nomination. I haven’t even seen the film and I love Clint, so why does this make me happy? Probably because it looks like just another biopic. 
• The Hangover. Yup.
• Hum, maybe Avatar won’t be bad after all.
• Star Trek not nominated for best pic.
• Michael Stuhlbarg nominated for A Serious Man is cool. Still not sure he’s going to get an Oscar nom so this is something at least.  
• Three words: Joseph Gordon Levitt.
• White Ribbon nominated for Foreign film (but sadly not picture). 
• True Blood nominated for Best Drama. Thanks for going where the Emmys were afraid to go.
• Jane “Hung,”Jane “Hung,” Hane “Jung.” 
• John Lithgow nominated for his amazing performance as a killer in Dexter. Far too few people remember how good Lithgow was playing killers in the Brian de Palma films Obsession and Raising Cain.

Um, Not So Good:

• The headline Up in the Air leads Golden Globe Nominations. Couldn’t have happened to a more overrated film. Well, it could have, Lovely Bones, but that wasn’t nominated thank god.
• Ponyo misses the cut for best animated film. Don’t worry though, that fucking Meatball movie made it.
• Composer James Horner gets nominated for Avatar. Have not seen the film, or heard it, but my ears are already bleeding. Wishing now that Horner stayed where he belongs, in the 90s!  
• Tobey Maguire nominated for “acting”…
• … and Jeremy Renner (so good in Hurt Locker) was not. Fuck that noise, yo!
• Oh, and Viggo got shut out too. Viggo, Viggo, where are you? Can you hear me? Viggo???!!!
• Christian McKay not nominated for playing Orson Welles.
• I can’t wait to see It’s Complicatednow ::sarcasm:: because I’m sure the best screenplay nod for Something’s Gotta Give 2 this film is justified. Argh.
• THREE double nominated actors:  Sandra Bullock, Matt Damon, Meryl Streep.
• Did I mention Sandra Bullockwas nominated TWICE. And one of them was for THE PROPOSAL!!! Since the Globes is all about star fucking how ever did Ryan Reynolds miss out?   
• Julia Roberts? Duplicity? What? Oh, yeah, more star fucking.
• Lost not nominated for Best Drama. The nominated House is way better and is not like the same ever season.
• Um, where’s the Bryan Cranston and Breaking Bad nominations? I forgot, House is soooo better and more innovative.   

Hey, let's talk about luggage!

• What’s Good: Clooney can do no wrong, even…
• What’s Not:…when his film can. How so? Well, it’s pretentious, it’s tedious, it’s shallow and it’s predictable. That probably means this is going to be a beloved film this year–a film that will win awards and a film that you’re neighbors and casual acquaintances will respond to with ”Have you seen Up in the Air, ohmygod it’s sooooo good!” Up in the Air has its share of nice moments I but came away from watch the film resenting it.
• Faux Peter ”hack” Travers Quote: This film will have you flying high on humor and emotion. It is a first class ticket to free-flight bliss. Check your emotional luggage at the door.

The more institutionalized, mainstream, critically accepted or, to put it another way, the more Steven Spielberg like Jason Reitman, the more annoyingI find his films. “Juno” was irritatingto be sure but it was also sincere and winning while Reitman’snew film is all that minus the sincere and winning part. In fact, I don’t see any sign that the director is even trying anymore because why should he? Clearly, charm and the illusion of heart are able to get his films past the finish line and into audience/critic’s, um, hearts. By that definition, “Up in the Air” is his most calculatingbest film to date. Reitman’s feel good road trip formula (actually, it’s a flight plan trip but never mind) is patronizing and relies too much on individually pre-package sentiments to get its bittersweet message across.

If “The Terminal” and “Away We Go” were slightly more bearable and slightly less patronizingthey’d be “Up in the Air.” You see, ”Up” –I wish it was “Up”– ”Up in the Air” I should say is a romantic comedy that half thinks it’s changingthe world so it doesn’t have to be that funny or romantic due to the pretence of dramatic importance heaped on with a great and obvious sense of awareness but no true integration into the material. It bothers me that this film gets a pass by the press and public on actually exploring any of its serious themes (lonleyness, joblessness, Clooneyness) because, hey, everyone will claim that it’s not it’s job but, rather, a bonus. No. The story follows a man hired by corporations to facilitate the firing of large amounts of useless corporate employees; “What am I going to tell my kids?,” “What am I  going to do now?,” “‘Sorry’ doesn’t put food on the table mister!,” “How do you sleep at night,” and my favorite “I’m going to jump off a bridge” are non emblished blurbs from what are essentially talking head “every day” Americans. Oh boy, that’s Serious Stuff, but it’s just propped up to give the film a sprinkle of context and flavor.

George Clooney plays a well dressed nomad that enjoys the life of the road and, yes, the metaphor of a man literally flying from his personal responsibilities is that obvious. His boss (Jason Batemen doing the rounds by being in every single movie this year), looking to cut costs on the business of firing (really?), teams the old business shark with a up-and-comer straight out of college and “top of her class.” ”Twilight’s” Anna Kendrick plays her without ever expanding on being that character, i.e. the challenge of youth posing a threat to the antiquated (but human) ways of the older man. She is a product of the new American business machien while he is the result of it. Personality wise, this sidekick also seems to be modeled after Reitman’s character Juno in, um, “Juno” except this sassy gal’s a walking cliche that possesses a flat sense of wit and very little empathy. The actress seems unsure if she’s supposed to be funny (her cryingscene) or serious (giving Clooney shit for not being able to “grow up”) and quite frankly so was I so I can’t blame her all the way. Faring slightly better is Vera Farmiga (“The Deparated”) as Clooney’s casual fuck buddy he meets in an airport and compares business credit/frequent flier miles (as well as fluids) with. At least this character talks from the heart (rather than the screenwriter) and also does an interesting job at selling one of the film’s only redeemingmoments with a cool plot twist at the end. I like this character because she’s the one thingin the movie that’s doesn’t remind me of nailed down furniture. She’s original (and has a great ass!!!)! Nothing else seems to be.

The plot is dull because it thinks it’s more interesting and socially relevant than it is and the filmmaking is routine because Reitman has no real flair or vision. Even the music is wrong. First, the whimsical original score (Rolpe Kent who also hammed up the sounds of “Sideways”) makes what’s on screen feel like a sitcom (because it is!). But worse than the musical Mickey Mousing (aka John Williams-ing) is the wretched song cuts that play over the film to a point where they should be credited for co-writingit. The film sounds like a b-sides Juno CD which, given the plot, is totally off the mark. And nothingbothers me more than when the EXACT RIGHT SONG plays duringthe the exact right moment, thus taking me out of a movie even more because I’m no longer watchinga crafted work of art or storytelling but, rather, a commercial.  Hey, something sad’s happening, quick throw up some Elliot Smith. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

As I watched George Clooney jet from one city/hotel/rental car to another I kept thinking of a moment in “Fight Club” of all things. Ed Norton’s deliberately lifeless (compared to Clooney’s unintentionally lifeless–jeez, is Reitman capable of making a film without voice overs?!) narrated montage about the absurdest prefab universe of travelingfor a living. I wondered for a moment what it would be like if that sequence was extended into an entire feature length film and realized that, holy hell, I WAS watching that movie albeit a neutered and crowd pleasing version. It’s as if we too are stuck in the travel purgatory of the film’s character.

Purgatory is a good word. The production design gets old very fast. A better director would have found a new way of visualizing shots of people in lines, people sitting, people at airport bars etc. and I know that’s possible because I was just mentioning David Fincher’s “Fight Club” and he did it! That being said the pervasive flatness would have been intolerable without…. George. Ah, yes, Mr. George Clooney. I love em’ as much as any straight guy could. I mean, Clooney can hold a movie as good as anybody out there, even a movie that’s not very good with is a real feat. Here he anchors the whole picture with likability and delivers what’s expected except he also delivers his most grab-happy, attention seeking performance  to date (and, yes, I’ve seen “Syriana”).

I fear Clooney had a lot to do with the emphasis of reaching out to middle America in the scenes where the film shows and puts a face to the economic fallout. I can’t stress enough how insultingthis aspect of the film is. The film contains no less than three extended sequences (boringly shot of course) of “everyday” people getting fired and blubbering by a staid looking Clooneyand befuddled Kendrick and each time Captain Your Fired spoke in his gravely voice I wanted to scream because it felt so damn self serving and unearned. But it’s not even like the rest of the film is good enough to be ruined by this social approach; it just means a bad film is being made worse by good intentions. Clooney is a lone wolf but humanist! He’s an island but really loves people! He’s, um, George Clooney. But he’s also a wounded child that finally gives into his softer side when he admits that settlingdown is more than something “other people do”–now give him an(other) Oscar, damn it! Look, George Clooney is great at being himself but what’s funny if seemingly impossible is that he’s been better and being himself! He usually smarter than the material but this time only seems to be pandering to it.

Grade: Oy Vey (C- actually)

“The Road” proves that you can make an apocalyptic movie without zombies. The film is an unrelenting yet landmark work of science-fiction because, for one, the viewer is so caught up in the moment, in surviving with the two lead characters, that it hard to tell it’s even sci-fi. That said, this is the most dramatically rich (and oppressive) films of its kind and no short-cuts are taken. The film is true to the story and the characters. Sometimes so much so that it’s hard to handle.

John Hillcoat (who made the equally bleak Western called “The Proposition”–a film I also love but am afraid to watch again) has fashioned this story based, of course, on the great Cormac McCarthy novel, with a very loose plot structure (the family is moving south for reasons unstated in a world destroyed from unknown reasons) but in a lot of ways the less we know the more we are able to feel the frustration of the characters. And that’s what’s it’s all about! When it comes to the central father and son characters the film is focused and that’s where it counts. With a strikingly haunting Great Depression era face, Viggo Mortensen is brilliant in his struggle to remain “good” when such moral qualifiers no longer exist. Yet he persists. He is not perfect and he is not profound, he just.. is and I admire the modesty and minimalism in Mortensen’s grounded performance. We may not know much in the way of context (the flashbacks to his past life are unnecessary) but we are able to connect with the spirit of the character who does not even have a name; we understand what he is doing and why he is doing it even if we, along with him, can’t articulate it. Sharing every moment of screen time, the man’s son, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, doesn’t ruin the movie and that’s one of the highest compliments I can pay to a child actor.

The film’s production design is perfect. The muted and drab earth tones capture this dying world. And I don’t just use the term “dying world” as a metaphor. The world is shutting down. The temperature is dropping and life is on its way out. Hillcoat and his team capture exactly that. When the two characters finally reach the “blue ocean,” they take one look at it and the father says “I’m sorry it’s not blue.” There you go! Trees are skeletal and often keel over on screen and in a particularly effective design choice, do so off screen too as we often hear creeks and thuds in the background which startle us at first but become a fact of life soon after. Vegetation is withered and brown. Earthquakes reign down upon man like an angry God is shaking the world loose. Animals are nonexistent (and they’re lucky for it). The only thing left is what remains of humanity, full of scavengers, thiefs, blind men and cannibals (yes, cannibals). Mad Max had it easy, this is humanity. If it’s any consolation there is hope, but in typical McCarthy fashion it comes as such a great price that there might as well not be. But there is.

“The Road” is one of the best post-man movies I’ve ever seen. I love that, after having a kid himself, McCarthy’s way of celebrating fatherhood is THIS devastating world. Still, I consider myself a student of apocalyptic fiction so my point of entry into “The Road” is through the genre more than the author and accolades. On that basis its a beautifully realized movie that, refreshingly, lacks irony, sentimentality and Will Smith.

Grade: A-

• What’s Good: “Education” features three perfectly fine performances. That’s the only thing that sets this film apart.
• What’s Not: Coming of age + private school + 60s = seen it before. Bland writing and uninspired directing. Bah humbug.

As the fifth highest rated film of the year (Metacritic) with 7 perfect scores and countless other fawning cheer-a-thons one would think this film would have more to offer. It does not. This is a very simple yet also a very assuming film. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cute little movie at its heart but that’s all it is. So while what they say is true (it is nice) and what happens comes awards time might be deserved (Carey Mulligan is guaranteed a nomination) but “An Education” is just the kind of shallow feel good story to win over the hearts of America’s old and tired who want to experience this story without being challenged in any sort of way.

Ms. Mulligan, the young lead, is winning to be sure but not very subtle in her emotional pallet. She’s smart, she’s nice, she’s a romantic, she’s a, well, Mary Sue. I blame the writing more than the performance. Mulligan’s Jenny is an overachieving student who experiences love (or lurve) for the first time but the story she finds herself in does not rise to her level of academic excellence. Ah, but there’s a twist (but not really): set in an all girls private school (insert naughty thought here) during the roaring-or-rocking-or-whatever-60s, the education in question is not one of acquiring knowledge but experience in ”the school of life.” Wow, groundbreaking. It’s not like we’ve ever seen a plot chronicling a youngins’ personal awakening set against the backdrop of social upheaval (YOU SEE, BECAUSE THE TWO PARALLEL EACH OTHER) before, oh no, never, I can’t even wrap my brain around this groundbreaking concept. Despite such trite sentiments, this gifted young girl with her gifted young dimples has the ability to melt away even my icy cynicism–she’s like the Nermal of teenage girls in that respect. Mulligan’s Jenny is an intellectual shut-in who is a willing prisoner of her demanding father and silent mother. Her bubble is popped (along with a few other things) upon the arrival of an older man into her life in act one. From Latin to lipstick, Jenny suddenly finds herself swept away by a shady rich man and her family is all too willing to allow Jenny to go down this path because the man is rich and powerful. Or is he? Will she stay with the dubious cad or pursuit a life of the mind at Oxford University??? You know the answer. What I’ve just said is all there is in this picture. The plot is so linear that watching it play out provides almost no measure of surprise or insight. It goes where it must and where it has before in countless stories about young naive love.

The film might as well have been written by a machine which, looking at who actually wrote it, author Nick Hornby, that’s half true because he hasn’t written anything true to his style or particularly original or not corny since High Fidelity. The catch in terms of how one judges this kind of film is that the lead is so winning that the flaws inherit in the by-the numbers drama are blurred to a point of forgiveness. Just as effective in an altogether different way is the jail bait scouting suitor played by Peter Sarsgaard (awesome actor, and doing a pretty good Brit accent as far as I can tell) who walks the line between charming and creepy so well that I would say the success of the film hinges upon his ability to make us like him despite our Spidey-senses tell us that some thing not quite right is going on here. While Mulligan will sponge up all the accolades (her cute-as-a-button newness is impossible to resist–could this be the second coming of Sally Field? ooooooh I hope so!) the real show stealer is the great and gifted and usually underrated Alfred Molina who plays her her father, a hysterical and peevish oaf that represents old England with their old values. The only problem is that he’s more lovable than than everybody else (made even more so because this is Doc Ock and the Mexican from “Maverick” we’re talking bout). Even here though, and all across the board, that’s all there is to it.

In the end gives me no pleasure to be hard on such a harmless and likable film. But it gives me even less pleasure to watch something that plays it safe, has no fresh ideas and still gets awarded for its mediocrity.

Grade: C+