Oscars

Ah, the guilty pleasure of watching the Oscars. And what a treat it is to live on the west coast. For the past few years, the Oscars end and it's around 9pm out here.

All the ones I cared about got awards this year. I was very concerned that Best Director and Best Picture would get split between The Aviator/Scorsese and Million Dollar Baby/Eastwood. Scorsese has been screwed soooo many times (I mean, really, Kevin Costner for Dances with Wolves!!!) but The Aviator was not the strongest picture this year. I was so glad when Barbara Streisand announced it. Million Dollar Baby is just a phenomenal film.

I was also rooting for Sideways and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to win their respective screenplay awards. Sideways was such a wonderful movie, although it would be hard to compete for Best Picture. And Eternal Sunshine not even getting a nod, jeez! I loved Charlie Kaufman's neurotic little acceptance speech.

I thought Chris Rock was pretty damned funny. Was Sean Penn really mad at him? Over cracks about Jude Law?? A very odd moment. But not as odd as them giving awards from the back 40 out on the floor or having all those people crowded on stage to hear the winner, as if they were finalists at the Miss American pageant. Loved Rock's crack about giving out the awards in the parking lot next year!

My biggest beef with the Oscars continues to be the need to have each of the song nominations sung in their entirety. And how odd last night, to have Beyonce "interpret" so many of them in a style not quite like the original. Counting Crows were OK, but I'm so sick of that song. Seeing Antonio Banderas sing was great fun. I had to laugh today though at how many stupid reporters and critics said that Jorge Drexel "sang his acceptance speech." Hel-lo! or, excuse me, Ho-la! He sang the first two stanzas of the freakin song, he didn't give an acceptance speech, except to say "Gracias" after singing.

I did enjoy one article that mentioned that for all the hoopla worrying about what Rock would say, it was the pre-show crew that was ridiculous. I missed Chris Connelly's rude comment to Orlando Bloom, but did hear that other guy ask at the after party of Morgan Freeman whether he thought his Oscar was for Million Dollar Baby or a make-up for all his other work. !!!! Morgan, cool as ever, said something along the lines of he hoped it was for MDB and that when they were ready to give him an Oscar for his complete body of work, that would be fine.

At least no one thanked his/her dogwalker, car washer, florist, etc.

February viewings

In addition to Million Dollar Baby (see below), we also saw several on the big screen this month:

The Aviator, good but not that good

Sideways, excellent!

Hero, got to see it again on the big screen at our arthouse cinema

House of Flying Daggers, finally got to see it on the big screen at our arthouse cinema

Ocean's Twelve, finally saw it at the second-run house

Netflixes and reruns from our library included:

The Hudsucker Proxy, what fun. "And I'll stake my Pulitzer!"

Shawshank Redemption, first time seeing it for me. Wow. Can't believe it lost to Gump that year!

Ronin, always enjoyable. Love the self-surgery scene. Not.

Spartan, a recent Mamet, kind of odd, but good.

Henry and June, hadn't seen it in years.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead - I really really like Clive Owen but he couldn't save this one.

Shanghai Triad - liked this one better this time

Cutthroat Island - a fun little romp

John Q - pretty average.

Maria Full of Grace - a good movie, but I didn't gush over it the way some critics did

Cellular - this sucked. Big time. We laughed so hard, at the parts that weren't supposed to be funny. I hope Macy got a nice fat paycheck, especially for the "It's a day spa, you fuck" line.

Todo sobre mi madre - Have watched this so many times, and it's still so wonderful. Just love Almodovar. La mala educacion, totally snubbed at the Oscars this year. !Que lastima!

Million Dollar Baby

Saw this today in the theatre. Haven't heard so much snuffling and nose blowing and clearing of throats in a theatre since I don't remember when. I personally haven't cried so much in a movie theatre since seeing Love, Actually, but admitting that might give you the wrong idea about this film. There is nothing sappy or melodramatic about Million Dollar Baby. The characters are intriguing, and brutally honest and real, and the dialogue is too. The style is also very important; the use of light and shadow complements the settings and the scenarios in very interesting ways.

But it doesn't take too long before this film starts breaking your heart in little ways, and then it just keeps doing it, serving up these understated, aching scenes, and then the third act of the film just devastates you. I can't say much specific without spoiling it. One final note: I hate boxing, and if you do too, just go see this anyway. You can close your eyes during the boxing scenes. I could tell from Ebert's review that something major happens, and so I avoided any other reviews. Now that I've seen it, I went and checked to see what some of my fave reviewers had to say. James Berardinelli (http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/m/million_dollar.html) notes that excellent films are ones you have to recover from. I agree with him that this is definitely one of those.

January viewings

Viewed in January

Started off the New Year with some old favorites, The Wonder Boys, Monty Python’s Holy Grail and Everyone Says I Love You.

From Netflix:
His Girl Friday, which is an interesting mix of witty repartee and tangled love affairs, with a serious look at the death penalty and journalism.

Collateral, which was better than expected. Tom Cruise did a good job as the creepy killer.

Kitchen Stories, a slow-paced Scandinavian film set in the 1950s.

The Big Sleep. The DVD wasn’t labeled, we ended up watching the original cut of the film. One of the extra features highlighted the differences between the original and the version later released, which is the one we remembered seeing (and the one we would have seen if we had put the DVD in on its other unlabelled side). The original cut was much better, in our opinions.

Nashville – Robert Altman, 1975. Had never seen this. It was a great satire of country music, the South, politics, the Bicentennial. Really quite brutal when you reflect on it. The country songs done during the film are a hoot. Had to really laugh as the credits rolled and saw that most of the made-up songs were written by the actors, including Keith Carradine, Karen Black, etc.

The Door in the Floor – this is the adaptation of the first third of John Irving’s A Widow for a Year. Sad tale of a couple dealing with the aftermath of the deaths of their sons. Jeff Bridges behaves badly in brilliant fashion. Interesting feature on the DVD with Irving discussing book to movie adaptations.

Reruns: 8 Women, such a treat. The Wings of the Dove, a beautifully filmed depressing period piece. Can’t stand to read Henry James; am glad someone was able to make it into a movie.

Finally got to the theatre to see Closer. Excellent film but very depressing. Also saw The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which we adored. I will say that The Royal Tennenbaums remains my favorite Wes Anderson film, but Life Aquatic has a lot to recommend it.