Oscar Prep

Yesterday I saw Blue Valentine and with that I think I saw all the Oscar nominated films I'm going to get to before the awards on Sunday. I missed only 8 films. I saw everything nominated in 19 of 24 categories. The ones I missed:

Hereafter - Visual Effects
The Tempest - Costumes
WasteLand - Documentary
Country Strong - Song
Tangled - Song
Incendies - Foreign Language
In a Better World - Foreign Language
Outside the Law - Foreign Language

As near as I can tell the three foreign films have never played here, are not on DVD and are not online (legally). WasteLand has only played festivals so far and the others I just missed in the theater and aren't on DVD yet. I even managed to see to all all the short films in all three categories (I don't think I'd ever seen the doc short before). This might be the best I've done. Here are some reviews. Most of these are small dramatic films, meant for adults about relationships (usually gone bad).

Barney's Version - Paul Giamatti is Barney and this is his life story. Barney is kinda of an asshole though a description of his actions makes him out to be worse than he actually is. His problem is that he's selfish and takes others for granted. He does seem to be a good friend and a successful TV producer. It takes his three times before he's a good husband and even then he's not great at it. His being a good hockey fan and bar patron gets in the way of that. So I meant it when I said he was a good friend and a description of his actions makes him out worse than he is, here's an example; he might have shot and killed one of his friends. He certainly did hit on a guest at his second wedding, but he ultimately married her so he was just finding true love, right? So it's a complicated role and Paul Giamatti does a great job with it and in another year could have gotten an oscar nomination for this. Instead the film is up for best makeup in aging the characters over a few decades. Rosamund Pike is great as his third wife and Dustin Hoffman as Barney's father is as good as I've seen him in a while. Minnie Driver is good as the second wife, but the script makes her out to be too much of a Jewish stereotype. There was a "verklempt" that just felt too unnatural to me. There's a strong narrative here and even a murder mystery. Barney's an ass I was kinda rooting for him til the end.

Blue Valentine - Follows the relationship of Dean and Cindy. They're married with a young daughter, she's a nurse and he's a house painter. They seem to be just barely floating financially but they are not getting along. Flashbacks show how they met and got married, there's a lot to that story. But this film isn't about story. The direction is mostly handheld closeups, we barely even see the rooms they are in. It's purely a character study and really an acting class. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are amazing in these roles. They cover just about every emotion and feel like real human beings. Williams was nominated for Best Actress and Gosling should have been nominated for Best Actor. If you want to see great acting and can handle being depressed, this is the film to see...

Rabbit Hole - Well, or maybe Rabbit Hole is the film to see for great acting and a depressing story. David Lindsay-Abaire wrote the screenplay based on his Pulitzer Prize winning play. Becca and Howie are parents who's 4 year-old son died eight months ago. They are still having a hard time and each are dealing with in their own way. He's feeling better going to group therapy sessions, she hates them. He wants to have another child, she's not able to think about it. One wants to sell the house, the other doesn't. Nicole Kidman is nominated for Best Actress and she's great. Aaron Eckhart is also great but didn't get nominated. I think Dianne Wiest should have gotten a supporting actress nomination as Becca's mother.

It's interesting comparing Rabbit Hole to Blue Valentine. This has more of a story and you watch the characters go through an arc. In Valentine you see the beginning and end of a relationship and have to contrast the characterizations yourself rather than seeing the changes happen. Both films concentrate on the characters and don't make them deal much with the rest of the world. Rabbit Hole makes them wealthy in a big suburban house and of course he doesn't even mention a job and she doesn't work. Valentine makes them working class and uses their jobs as settings and excuses to talk or fight. Rabbit Hole is a little more Hollywood and has a more of a plot; Blue Valentine's performances are stronger.

Another Year - Where Rabbit Hole is about realistic characters in heavily constructed circumstances and Blue Valentine is about realistic characters in real but dramatic circumstances, Mike Leigh's Another Year is about realistic characters in real but uncomfortable situations. Tom and Gerri are an older happy couple. Unlike their cartoon namesakes, they really are happy and don't fight and the film doesn't make them. Instead they know people, most notably Gerri's co-worker Mary. Mary is single and drinks too much and is lost. But she hangs around and usually makes things uncomfortable for others and doesn't always realize it. She's the definition of pathetic. There are a few other characters that come and go and the thing is they are all real people. You could know of any of them, and if you're older than 30 you probably been in these circumstances. It's really nice seeing a film about real life.

I Am Love - I don't really know where to start with this one, Ebert loved this and I didn't really care for it. There's a wealthy Italian family and it opens with the announcement of the succession of who runs the family business. Edoardo selects both his son Tancredi and Tancredi's son Edo to share the role. There's some interesting conflict here but it mostly is dropped. Instead we start concentrating on Tancredi's wife Emma played by Tilda Swinton. She's Russian and has married into the family. She'll always be an outsider and keeps things bottled up as a result. She has an affair with someone she really shouldn't and then things go wrong. The film is in Italian and Swinton I guess does an admirable job learning Italian with a Russian accent but I of course had to read subtitles no matter how well she did. The film doesn't have a lot of dialog, instead it suggests emotions with its direction. Many complain that it turns to melodrama at the end but I think it's more like opera. Kartina Richardson on Ebert Presents: At The Movies describes the best part of I Am Love, the costumes, and why it got an Oscar nomination. I saw this before seeing the film and it didn't help me enjoy it any more.

How to Train Your Dragon - A pretty cute cartoon about a small viking and how he befriends and learns to fly a dragon rather than kill it. I heard really strong reviews of it when it came out and I think it's a great kids (boy) movie and adults will not be bored. There were 3D versions in the theater but I saw it on DVD in 2D, it still looked good with a lot of Avatar-like flying sequences. I don't think that adults need to see it without a kid (unlike some Pixar films or The Illusionist). My favorite part was that apparently Vikings spoke with Scottish accents so they got Craig Fergusson among others to do a voice, and he's always funny.