OSCAR 2011 PREDICTIONS: Lead Actress

I am usually much more enthusiastic regarding this particular race, because the women so often transcend the talent of their male counterparts in the top categories. Not so much this year, which only really yields two good performances. Does that mean that I count Michelle Williams, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close as bad performances in their respective films? Absolutely, yes. "Albert Nobbs" contains nothing appealing to an entertainment or quality seeking audience, and it ultimately serves to give Glenn Close this nomination. Same goes for "The Iron Lady", and it seems like these films are only created now to give Meryl Streep these catapults towards awards.

And amongst the two films Michelle Williams has done this year, it's her more obvious performance that is getting the massive portion of the heat. Something as dry as the work she does in "Meek's Cutoff" isn't likely to gain many supporters in the Academy. So that leaves Viola Davis and Rooney Mara, and I'll admit that I won't be too ornery about Viola Davis winning. She gave a strong performance that had me invested from the start of "The Help", even if the film didn't match up. Although, her endurance throughout her career doesn't change that I'd be absolutely ecstatic if Rooney Mara won for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". It was a performance that solidified her place in this business, as I know it would when I was already a fan of her a year previous for "The Social Network".

THEN & NOW: Lead Actor & Actress

Continuing to seek our teeth into the flaws that exist in this low-point for the Academy Awards, I was starting to wonder if there was even a point of doing this. I mean, sure the nominees this year aren't great, but are they really a massive departure from previous years? Actually, yes. This isn't an overreaction. Previous years have rendered much greater and more deserving performances and films in the categories given. Maybe last year went a bit wild with the winners, but it did the nominees pretty well. I think that the Best Actor race was the worst last year, as it didn't really seem to have its heart in it. Colin Firth was the frontrunner the year after he should have won.

I am still of the belief that Jeff Bridges should have came to a win last year, rather than the year before, but he isn't the most deserving performance here either. James Franco was always a bit on the mild side, and I can't quite believe that he really needed to be there. I'm very glad that Javier Bardem made it in for a performance that was admittedly quite strong, and that was worth it simply for the rage it ensued amongst ignorant YouTube reviewers. But I think that Jesse Eisenberg was the real gem of the group last year, with a skillfully internalized performance in a very internalized film, but it was still a case of a relative newcomer sweeping in to steal the glory from somebody who was overdue.

Film Review: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

"They say that I'm insane. Don't worry. You can nod. I am insane."

When you kick off your film with as beautifully disgusting a title sequence as the one in David Fincher's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", you are typically expected to keep up that kind of stylistic intensity. If we expected anything out of this film, it was a film of stylistic means, which it almost seemed like we were heading into. The eight minute long trailer seemed like the perfect abbreviation and promotion for a film that's a great deal more than your average serving in terms of size. But if I learned anything in the first ten minutes of the film, it was how appropriate the marketing for the film was, as this is ultimately a 2 hour and 38 minute promotion trailer, except there's nothing more to receive from it.

Ficher's film seems to follow Mikael Blomkvist, a newspaper editor who ends up soiling his reputation by falling into a libel prosecution by... someone. It's vague at best, but whatever to free him up in order for him to be sent off to investigate the disappearance of the niece of the head of a rather important corporation. How is it important? Well, that's also rather vague. And why should we really care about the death of a 16-year-old girl? To be honest, I'm not at all sure. The way you bound from subject to unrelated subject in a film trailer is very much true of how the first meeting between Blomkvist and Henrik Vanger goes. It's speedy, abrupt, and we barely get any idea of what's going on. We don't get any room to care about the mystery.

AWARDS 2011: The "Bad" in the Golden Globe nods!

I'm not often praising the Golden Globe nominations at all, as most year's they're just the afterthought of the season. Nobody should care, and yet we do. Why? Because the split of the Drama and Musical/Comedy branches makes room for the films and actors that would have been left behind otherwise. For the most part anyway, as there are things I still don't quite get. The Globe nods made it clear that it was a light field this year, as most of the "Drama" films nominated weren't really dramas. Doesn't it make sense that "The Descendants", "Hugo", and "The Help" would fall more kindly under Comedy?

It makes it all the more odd that "The Artist" IS nominated for Best Comedy/Musical, a category it is destined to win of course. But while we're talking about things that don't belong, somebody explain to me how "My Week with Marilyn" is a comedy. If that qualifies as a comedy, then throw "W.E." up there by all means! The lead drama acting nods were typical enough of what you'll see on Oscar nominations morning, with the only exceptions being Ryan Gosling in "Ides of March" and Rooney Mara in "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". The lead comedy acting nods were so much more interesting, as they offer space for Brendan Gleeson ("The Guard"), Ryan Gosling again ("Crazy, Stupid, Love."), and Kristen Wiig in the underrated performance of the year for "Bridesmaids".

The supporting performance branches seem just as lost as usual, aside from Albert Brooks and Christopher Plummer of course. And that's more or less it aside from noting how depressing the Original Song category is. Nary a worthy song in sight. As for the television branch, there nothing I really can say. Well, aside from the bogus omissions of "Cougar Town", "Community", and most shockingly of all, "Breaking Bad"! Color me red! So yeah, this is why nobody SHOULD care about the Golden Globes.

Carpet-Bagging: Actress Heavyweights Steal the Focus

I'm getting severely sick of the lack of activity on this site, mostly on my own part. It's just that nothing's been happening enough to talk about. It's not until November that things are truly set in motion, though I admit that things seemed to get going a lot sooner last year than they are currently. I guess it's a contrast that's telling of this year, at least in my own opinion. So I decided to get back in the game of guessing, though I've still neglected posting up a full predictions page. There's just so little confidence in the pot, it feels too facetious to make locked in guesses, especially with so much still likely to change, as candidates fall in and out of the race.

However, at least the way things are stacking up currently, the Best Actress race seems to be banal and dismal. One of the new writers at Film Misery, Casey Chapman, recently did his own sizing up of the field, which really drowned my spirits. The field is dominated by performances in films I have little to no interest in seeing. I admit to being delightfully surprised by "The Help", but I hardly feel like Viola Davis is either the strongest performance of the piece or the main focus. She'd have a stronger campaign for Supp. Actress, but it looks like they're pushing the far less likely Octavia Spencer for that field. Don't get me wrong, as I like both performances really well, but they do not belong in shortlist.

And then there's those who don't need to show anything necessarily strong in their films to be considered candidates, those being Meryl Streep and Glenn Close. I think I've earned the right to be more than just skeptical of their films' merits and strengths, not just in terms of their performances. In the first trailer for "The Iron Lady", I was frankly annoyed by Steep's overly fantastical impersonation of Margaret Thatcher. On any given year, I'm railing against her automatic nomination. And Glenn Close has been away for a while now, taking great confidence in this "Albert Nobbs" of hers. Yet her work just seems cold, uninteresting, plain, and dull.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Extended Trailer

Aside from the obvious, I've been looking forward to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" for the specific reason that it has David Fincher taking on something less heavy-handed in subject matter. This trailer takes me down from those feeling enough for me to be slightly disappointed, but not down on it yet. There are moments here that ring quite a bit obvious, and you can't help be wonder if they could've done a better job in writing.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Trailer (Again)

As time goes by, I become more and more certain of my belief that the leak of the red-band trailer for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was intentionally orchestrated. That being said, we now have the cleaner green-band trailer, so the choppy version is no longer necessary. I'll be honest and say that the leaked quality of the trailer was one of the most favorable parts of it, so it may be a tad difficult to adjust to a higher quality. The footage still looks wonderful, but without the gritty violence that gave us a hint at what the film would really be like.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Trailer

Working off of a previously developed phenomenon like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo can turn out a bit wrong. Let Me In, based off of Swedish novel Let The Right One In, had considerable trouble drawing in viewers. However, seeing as the second two films in the Swedish trilogy turned out a bit disappointing, perhaps the new version, still set in Sweden, will work out better. Judging from this trailer, leaked online via YouTube, he's taking the gritty and ugly approach we all knew he would. Take a look and comment below!

Oscar 2010 Predictions: Supporting Actress

Not nearly the most difficult race to predict, but also not a walk in the park. This was really a banner year for supporting female performances, and in fact more so than lead female performances. You can tell by the sheer amount of talent that wasn't nominated here, and yet should have been. Mila Kunis was did a fantastic job with what she was given in Black Swan, but the supporting gal that really stole the show for me was Barbara Hershey as Nina's overbearing mother. It's really one of the most tragic performances of the year, embodying somebody who reluctantly gave up her own career to become a mother, and as such is now realizing how she hasn't prepared her daughter properly for the real world. When she's looking up at Nina at the close of the film, you can see it in her eyes.

I could go on about Rooney Mara's stellar-but-short performance in The Social Network, Marion Cotillard's fascinating, multifaceted, and underrated work in Inception, or Mia Wasikowska's sweet and fragile overlooked performance in The Kids Are All Right, but I pretty much just summed them up in a run-on sentence. If there's any actress nominated here who is undeserving of any recognition, it is Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech. Don't get me wrong, because I've loved plenty of her past work, but she's the plainest and most uninteresting of the big three characters in the film. You can tell that from the clothing she wears, and you can tell that from her performance. I much preferred her latest turn as Bellatrix Lestrange in Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

I still haven't seen Animal Kingdom, for which Jacki Weaver is nominated, and I've been putting it off because the only ads for the film have been showing off this creepy and demented image of her. Maybe that's one of the big appeals of it, but I'll have to check it out sometime before this Sunday. Amy Adams is up for her work in The Fighter, which almost immediately appealed to me after I saw it. I gather that that's the way it was for most people, because she had such a trashy-yet-sexy attitude about her that seemed pretty authentic, and most people could imagine a girl like that in their neighborhood.

The big fight is between Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit and Melissa Leo for The Fighter, and I've been pretty one-sided for most of this race. At the end of last year, I absolutely loved Steinfeld's brave and beautiful performance, and I still believe that she's the best actress in contention here. However, as for the person who I believe will win and absolutely deserves to win, I have to go with Melissa Leo for The Fighter. After going back to the film, she's really got that ferocity and expression that almost matches her up with Bale's work. That's not even to mention the work she's done in the past. She's been unrewarded for so long, and that should end on Sunday night. If not, then she'll turn in another bravura performance and we'll be right back here again.

1. Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
2. Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
3. Amy Adams (The Fighter)
4. Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)
5. Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech)

Will & Should Win: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Potential Upset: Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Should Have Been Nominated: Barbara Hershey (Black Swan) OR Rooney Mara (The Social Network) OR Marion Cotillard (Inception) OR Mia Wasikowska (The Kids Are All Right)

"The Social Network" DVD Shines With Texture And Depth!

Nobody on earth would ever think of belittling the success of The Social Network, and what David Fincher, Aaron Sorkin, and every person in the cast and crew has achieved. It feels like a bite in the ass that I wasn't able to see this film again until after I put up my list of the best films of 2010, because I would've placed it higher. I might have placed it at #1, because it's a film that deserves that. True Grit keeps falling down the list, and I've been warming to Black Swan with every day that goes by. The Kids Are All Right is right where it was before, but I really undersold The Social Network, because to place it at #4 is actually too harsh. Once you're halfway through the opening scene, you remember why it is the undeniably perfect film of the year. It's a work of technical, visual, psychological, and emotional dexterity at a level that is unprecedented

The film keeps proving itself again and again, and that is no less evident on the DVD. I had to stop as soon as I got to the main menu, because even the array of images they place for you there is textured and stimulating. As for the bonus features, they are immense. There are two audio commentaries you can watch with the film. One features director David Fincher, and the other features screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and members of the cast. There are mini featurettes on the visuals, music, post-production, scene-breakdowns, and even a look at Trent Reznor's gradual creation of his adaptation of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" which plays during the row crew scene in the latter half of the film.

The real grab of the batch, despite all the little gems of the two disc set, is the feature-length making-of documentary, How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook?. It's a fascinating look behind the scenes of this intensely detailed film. For a film major just about to settle into his/her first film production class, it's almost essential viewing. So I obviously was a huge fan of it, because they tackle each little facet of the production. The opening scene is just as interesting in terms of how they made it happen as it is to watch unfold before you. Also notable is how Aaron Sorkin never really left the production after the script was written. It was an extremely deep and complex screenplay that he wrote, and he couldn't just drop it off at the door, and then go home. It also helped that he was an actor in one scene of the film, and that he directed on shot of the film. Everyone in this film, even the man who played the body that Armie Hammer's face is projected onto to portray the Winklevoss twins, is given credit. It's very much like the way the script was made, embellishing all sides of the production as it embellished all sides of debate. It's a must-see film on a must-buy DVD. If you haven't seen The Social Network yet, you should see at soon as humanly possible. If you have seen it, please comment below on your thoughts on the film and the DVD.

1st Annual Nitrate Awards

We've now officially completed this year's inaugural run of the "Best of the Year" segment, and it's definitely been something of a success. It was a little rocky on the finish there, and I apologize for the numerous problems that sprung up in terms of yesterday's "Best Films of 2010" posts. I'll probably not try the whole countdown thing again next year, and just go with simply posting it all up, avoiding all the technical errors that we've been rigorously dealing with these past few weeks. So now the only thing left to do is give my superlatives, and so here is the premiere run of the Nitrate Awards, which we hope to carry on more successfully to next year. Feel free to list your choices in these categories!

Best Picture: True Grit
Best Director: Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
Best Actor: Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
Best Actress: Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Best Supporting Actor: John Hawkes (Winter's Bone)
Best Supporting Actress: Marion Cotillard (Inception)
Best Male Cameo: Chris Evans (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)
Best Female Cameo: Rooney Mara (The Social Network)
Best Breakthrough Male Performance: Kieran Culkin (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World)
Best Breakthrough Female Performance: Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)

Film Review: The Social Network

My Facebook Status (September 26-October 1):
* "You change your mind like a girl changes clothes."
* There's this amazing film news and review site called High On Celluloid, and its writer is wicked smart. You should check it out.
* The girl who played Shannon on "Lost" is going to be in the next two "Twilight" films. Now I HAVE to see it. Right?
* This looks just like the room I got probed in. Are you a cat?
* My biggest complaint about living [here]: The theaters here are run by contrived idiots who have no idea what the hell they're doing!
* having one of those days, which seem to be increasing in frequency.
* five weeks in, my backpack is already broken, my shoes are falling apart, and things are just as uneventful. Not what I was hoping when I woke up this morning.
* If I talk about how magnificent "The Social Network" was, will Mark Zuckerberg personally ban me from TheFacebook?

When we think about what Facebook means today, it's a lot different from what it meant when we joined. When we joined, we thought of it as an easier way to communicate with our friends, therefore making it so that we don't have to always be with them in order to talk with them. Somewhere along the road, something changed. When people were alone, and everyone is at some point, they'd pour their souls out onto their Facebook, ignorant to the fact that most of the people listening were people that they barely knew. Some of their thoughts weren't even thoughts. They were just song lyrics they thought sounded neat. However, sometimes you say something that you wish you could take back. Unfortunately, as Rooney Mara states in The Social Network, "The internet isn't written in pencil. It's written in ink."

What's so amazing about The Social Network is that it reveals what the site truly meant to the man who created it, fictionalized though it may be. It doesn't take away from how much this film defines our generation. When thinking over the events of the film, it all ends up being a result of the opening sequence, when Mark Zuckerberg's anti-social behavior results in his girlfriend, Erica Albrite, breaking up with him. He's one of the smartest people out there, and that naturally means that he seems like a complete douchebag. When you look at the world from a more intelligent point of view, you quite obviously feel like they're lesser than you are.

Because of this one sad event in Mark's life, he would go on to have a drunken episode that would cause the Harvard network to crash. This would earn him widespread infamy, but also acclaim that would mushroom him into a chain of events that would lead to the biggest social networking site in existence. This could've easily been shaped as a rags-to-riches type of film, but that would be disingenuous to who the Zuckerberg character is. He has a very short attention span, he's socially awkward (his best friend being Eduardo Saverin, a wealthy economics major), and he's really one of the most emotionally cruel people I've ever seen onscreen.

This film moves by at an amazing pace, barely making you feel the two hour running time. The dialogue is rapid-fire, intelligent, occasionally witty, and if doze off for a few moments, you may miss out on something important. The last film that truly demanded the audience's attention this much was Inception. As the film goes on, things move into more emotionally trying property, and when we finally reach the tragic conclusion, you will walk out of the theater feeling sorry for Zuckerberg. If the events in this film turned out to be 100% truth, then it makes his recent contribution to the Newark school system so much more commendable. It's not trying to douse the fire of this film.


The performances in this film are absolutely breathtaking. Jesse Eisenberg successfully moves out of the shadow of Michael Cera, which I felt he achieved long ago, but now it's publicly certified by this film. We've seen him play such likable characters in films like Zombieland, but he really shows what he's capable of here. He also bares a striking resemblance to Zuckerberg himself. Andrew Garfield redeems himself after the misfire known as Never Let Me Go, and proves that it wasn't a mistake to cast him as the next Peter Parker. He's the one who will keep you emotionally grounded in this film, and is the key to making it work. I doubt this film would work with anybody else playing the role of Eduardo Saverin.

Justin Timberlake can act! It's a shock to all, but this film shows that he has something good going for him here. He plays the "villain" of the film, Sean Parker. He's what causes everything to collapse, and he's introduced in a slyly written scene with all the charm that he carries with him. Over the course of the film, we finally learn exactly how much contribution he actually gave to Facebook, and it isn't much. I truly hated this guy on the way towards the end. No matter how unbearably mean Mark can be, Parker is even more cruel. He is the Hans Landa of Facebook.

Two other brilliant performances came from Armie Hammer who played the Winklevoss twins that sue Mark over the idea for Facebook. He does a nice job weighing the different personalities of the two, even if we don't quite know whose name is which. It's like the Fred/George phenomenon in Harry Potter. Rooney Mara proves that she can handle The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and is such a quiet presence throughout this film. She only really has two scenes, but we go through this story knowing that it all started with her.

David Fincher does a brilliant job directing this film, and it may just be his best work to date. The critics sure think so, and I do as well. Aaron Sorkin deserves the Oscar to be simply handed right to him now, as his script easily surpasses anything else this year. The editing is similarly fantastic, as the film seamlessly jumps back and forth through time. The Social Network truly deserves the acclaim that it's been getting. It's not exactly the best film of the year, but it's one of them. It's a tragic portrayal of our time, and it will strike true for anybody who sees it. They won't be having conversations about the real life Mark Zuckerberg, so much as they will be talking about what Facebook really means to them these days. I have friends who have nearly 600 friends on Facebook. Think about who you're opening your life to.

A

Craig and Mara Officially Cast in "Dragon Tattoo"!

I assume that you've heard of or read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and by now you know that David Fincher is making an American adaptation of the book. Well, a great deal of time has been spent on speculating who will play Lisbeth Salander, the tatted girl of the title. Even though I was personally hoping for Ellen Page, I'm finely satisfied with who they picked. Rooney Mara has been cast in the title role, and while she isn't a house hold name, she may soon be. She's already had experience with Fincher, having appeared in this October's The Social Network.

As for the male lead, Daniel Craig has been officially confirmed for the role. Not that that wasn't already obvious, but at least we have confirmation. Word still has yet to come on filling the supporting cast, but I trust that they will do as good a job as they've done here.