Category: Comfort Film

Oscar Predictions 2012

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Confession: my Oscar picks rarely match the Academy’s choice winners. I can’t help it if I’m a sucker for the underdog. But, loving a loser in this case still means loving a nominee. Second runners up dodge with dignity but remain eternal favorites.

BEST ACTOR nods to Brad Pitt‘s tux,  but George Clooney should take it home for his distraught dad in The Descendants. Gary Oldman is still too creepy despite his beloved Commissioner Gordon in The Dark Knight. In the end, Jean Dujardin will accept in French for his perfect Gene Kelly joi de vivre in The Artist.

SUPPORTING ACTOR? Kenneth Branagh in My Week with Marilyn.

Though The Help will put up a good fight, this Oscar for BEST ACTRESS belongs to Michelle Williams for her Marilyn Monroe. And Jessica Chastain is up for playing my favorite character in The Help, but she should have been nom’d for Tree of Life.

It seems the true battle cry will rise up between the DIRECTORS – all deserving. The Artist Michel Hazanavicius, The Descendants Alexander Payne, Hugo Martin Scorsese, Midnight in Paris Woody Allen, The Tree of Life Terrence Malick.

Malick may not show, Payne may be all show, Allen would dance the jig if he got it, H will bring the dog along, but the night will belong to Scorsese.

Hugo might just take BEST PIC’s statue home. But I believe that all the feel-good films that fight or first will sit it out while the little, lower budget, love song of a silent film The Artist takes first.

It’s a good year for Oscars and a decent year in film. They open with the red carpet, and the show begins at 4pm, Feb. 26. Download a ballot and cast your votes, or get the Oscar App free this week.

THE ARTIST (2011) movie review

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I knew that I would love it. I had a feeling.

What I didn’t expect was the trick to the senses. All visual but so stunning that you focus on the characters, forgetting that they are colorless and silent and more reminiscent of Dorothy’s life pre-Oz. I assumed it would feel like Singin’ in the Rain, but this felt more like Life is Beautiful. You fall for characters while reading their lines on the screen. Movie magic indeed.

You have to listen with your eyes, and when a tinkling or buzz or clomp breaks the silence you are stunned – awakened by sound. You dream in film score now that you hear its beauty. Thank you, Ludovic Bource, for the original music of this film.

The Artist romances your senses, enabling empathy for an era of beauty almost forgotten: for flammable film reels, the glamor of the silver screen, of penciled in eyebrows and beauty marks, of stick-on-mustaches below twinkling eyes, of alert and responsive audiences, of characters who break the fourth wall until you feel kissed in your plush theater seat. The stars of this film: Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo enchant and entertain.  True stars. So, the brilliant and unsung Artist of this film is its creator: (Writer / Director) Michel Hazanavicius.


WE BOUGHT A ZOO (2011) movie review

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Matt Damon proves the best sort of family man dealing with grief in this feel-good film, We Bought a Zoo.  Despite the inane title and its cutsie repeat as mantra, this movie rolls along sweetly in so many ways. Relationships float into each other. Conflict is not the name of the game.

Jonsi’s music transports us. It’s euphoric. His long-building melodious tones feel like triumph, like a hug, like forgiveness in action.  It almost feels like they tried to make this movie around the music. Sadly, the spoken words could not compare to the soundtrack. Two parallel trains…two separate destinations. The story felt conceptual rather than event-driven. Like a cooking show if we actually took the time to watch the chef chop and measure it all then wait calmly for the goodness to bake. This film takes time to bake, and Damon’s character is certainly full of goodness.

Handsome, gentle, sentimental, patient, consistent: the perfect man. Surreal? The daughter is precocious and perfect. The only miscast was perhaps the angsty artist son who was likeable but dull in the mix.  Thomas Haden Church was a favorite. If only all of these sweet characters had been given believable lines and a memorable story plot.

Fortunately, Cameron Crowe is a master at filming awe and knowing glances. This is a comfort film with animals, but we know in the end…it is all about the people.

ELF (2003) movie review

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It is…afterall…the quintessential Christmas movie. It’s the new generation’s Lampoon or Red Rider BBGun.

At Christmas time the poetry of Billy Collins waxes shiny in my mind.

As the poet laureate of our United States, Collins writes a poem a day. His word-smithing wages war between the subtle sarcastic and the eloquent exquisite. I’d like to take this moment to dedicate the following poem to you.

Insert “Litany”: a recitation by a precocious 3 year old (below).

Billy Collins tricks his readers, prone toward exhaustive exposition of “the deeper meanings” within, into laughing at themselves, at life, and at all things taken far too seriously.

So pair the far-sighted farce with light-hearted fun and watch Elf to your heart’s content knowing it may not be the pine scented air.  But it certainly is the pigeon on the general’s head.

Christmas is a Baby in a manger who, if born into this century would have loved nothing more than sitting by you as this silly lovely movie plays.

So to you and to me, on this Christmas day, know that somehow to me…

You will always be the bread and the knife.

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman’s tea cup.
But don’t worry, I’m not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and–somehow–the wine.

THE FAMILY MAN (2000) movie review

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Brett Ratner redeemed. He claims that this is his favorite of his films. I know I’ve trash talked him a bit, but I must credit him with best direction of Nick Cage. Sure Nick’s made enough terrible film choices to make you overlook this national treasure, but he’s precious in this one. This is his best character to date. His grinch-turned-Griswold kills me softly and I adore him as a Family Man.

Tea Leoni performs flawlessly, creating chemistry, making matronhood and mothering look sexy and appealing. I fall for Jeremy Piven and Don Cheadle along with the rest of the world.

“Oh, you mean this chocolate cake? No. It’s too important to me…”

It’s an inverted “Wonderful Life” story. The glimpse is the gift and the journey of the film. It answers our ever-loving “what-ifs.” Our lives are built on decisions and priorities. Who would we be if we had chosen differently? I don’t know, but “I choose us.”

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (2007) movie review

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Don’t be shocked. Lars is a comfort film.

Cradled in pink hues in a plaid flannel town. Blue collars breathe cold air in a tight-knit community. Society decreased to three spaces in which you shop, work, and worship. Lars is the boy, the brother, the friend. He’s quiet. Comely. He is Ryan Gosling, pre-6-pack. Shock-value lifts and lowers in waves as the “real girl” surfaces. But, it’s not what you think.

Some of my favorite people are in this film: Patricia Clarkson, Paul Schneider, Emily Mortimer.

The script and score lock-step. Comedy reigns. But beyond the realm of filmology, it’s the felt that makes this film – the true and basic element of love from an entire community, love for a boy who grieves and lives a quiet life. They sit, they sing, they pray, they accept, they hope, they grieve, they love. Perhaps all it takes is a casserole to heal a heart. Perhaps that’s real love.