Sean Hollihan Film

Isaac Illuminated from Sean Hollihan on Vimeo.

Sean is the son of one of my college mentors, Tom Hollihan. This is from the Ed Wood Film Festival at USC. The idea is that everything is conceived, shot and produced in 24 hours.


Just found an update on Facebook that Sean's film won the Ed Wood Festival at USC. Congratulations to Sean and his partner.

Academy Award/Best Picture Showcase Summary

We had two great weekends to set up the Academy Awards tonight. We have been going to the Best Picture Showcase since it started back in 2006. Usually I have seen all the movies by that point but as it became apparent that this event was going to be an annual occasion, we started being a little cautious and waited because we knew we had this as a back up. The Academy has upped the number of nominees the last three years, ten for the previous two and nine this year. Before this event I had seen four of the Best Picture Nominees and so I had five new experiences. I am not going to do full reviews on all of them, but I will provide some quick thoughts. For the four I did full reviews on, the poster should provide you a link to that review.

Tree of Life

One of the posters that we won at the Best Picture Showcase in the trivia contests is this lovely image from the movie Tree of Life. Admittedly, the movie is filled with lovely images but it has no storytelling skills and those images are in service of a ponderous pile of pretentious nonsense. Amanda read that of all the text ratings sent in by the ticket holders from the BPS, this one had the lowest rating, Obviously some critics disagree but while I respect the right of others to find meaning where they may, I need to point out that the Emperor is naked.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

This is another movie that appears to have polarized critics. Some have loved it and others have described it as mawkish 9/11 porn. It is certainly different and there are some things about it that I like a lot. Here is a trivia question you could probably win a bet or two on, "Which acting nominee fails to speak a single word in their performance?" Many people will be suckered in, thinking that the silent film "The Artist" is the answer, in fact the correct answer is Max Von Sydow in this film. He is one of the great things about the movie. There is also a wonderfully muted performance by Jeffery Wright in the last part of the film. I had problems with the way the story develops and the concept. There is a slight remedy of some of my objections in the last section where Sandra Bullock's mother reveals her involvement in what is going on. It is reassuring and also a bit of a cheat. This is the poster that we won in another of the trivia contests during the long day.

The Descendants This was my second time seeing this movie. If you go back and look at my original comments, you will see that I was ambivalent about the film. Alexander Payne has done some films that I have adored, Sideways among them, but this movie felt  to me a lot more cold than the others had. With a second viewing I was able to see the themes a little more clearly and appreciate the situation that is being presented. Clooney does good work, my daughter Amanda thinks he plays George Clooney, but I was a lot less of the cockiness that characterized his roles in "Michael Clayton" and "Up in the Air". He seems more like a lost soul and a desperate man in this than I have found him in other films. Many people have talked about his wardrobe as a tool for conveying the character here. I don't live in Hawaii but I suspect the casual dress and the odd ways he wears his shirts at times might reflect the culture there which is supposedly more lay back. This is the first of the nine films that would not piss me off were it to win. I did not think it was the best but it was very good. Also, sorry to brag but we got one of these posters as well for another answer. 

Midnight in Paris  Woody Allen is a director and writer that I admire, but a human being that I have deep doubts about. Over the years I have seen many of his films but I also have skipped quite a few. I did not purposefully ignore this when it came out but my wife has a block on Woody and it never worked out to get the timing right with her mood. As it is, she enjoyed this movie immensely as did I. This is one of the charming fantasies that Woody Allen has produced and it ends up being very satisfying. There were some political potshots and the usual snide asides about the movie business, they put me off momentarily. When the premise of the movie kicks in however, the story focuses on finding what is real in life and in artistic expression. It appears that no one will be satisfied with the world they are born in, and we need to make what works there connect for us. The actors playing the famous artists, film makers, writers, and others of the bygone eras visited here were really fine. I especially liked the portrayal of Ernest Hemingway, who delivers the lines in the straight prose of the character even in conversation.. I also thought the first line of Owen Wilson's characters book would make me want to read it as well.

The Artist  This is the film that has all of the buzz and appears to be the likely winner tonight. It is thoroughly entertaining and  deserves to be recognized as an excellent film. I do think that as the years go by it will appear to be a novelty pick rather than a reflection of the best film making this last year. The actors perform virtually without speaking, and they tell the story in a way that movies did a hundred years ago. Some of the techniques are very clever and the dog is one of the best special effects of the year. John Goodman appears in this movie as well as Extremely Loud. There were a couple of performers who appeared in multiple best picture nominees this year. Another character actor that was a favorite of mine since the 1970s, is Ed Lauter. He has a couple of small scenes here and I just like to see that people I have enjoyed for years are still making a contribution and working. The music for this movie is also nominated and it was strong, but I swear I heard the love theme from Vertigo used in the movie and it would be a shame if this film wins on the basis of a misunderstanding of which music was original.


War Horse This was one of the two films that effected me the most
emotionally. I have been a fan of Steven Spielberg since I saw "Duel" as a TV movie of the week way back in the early 1970s. This guy knows how to tell a story. He can make a sprawling event like a world war, into a personal drama that pulls us into the individuals experience. He did it with "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List". Here he manages to do so with a central character that cannot speak a line of dialogue but manages to break our hearts with his courage and  spirit. I hope someday to see the play that this movie is based on, because I have heard it is magnificent. Spielberg is not limited to the stage or horse puppets to tell the story and he makes the most of the settings on the battlefields and farms of Europe. Tom Hiddleston, is another one of those actors in two best picture nominees. Here he is the Captain that takes Joey with him to the Great War, in "Midnight in Paris" he is F. Scott Fitzgerald. Most of the characters who encounter the horse are sympathetic, regardless of the side of the war they are on. It is however obvious that war is casually cruel to animals as it is to people. One character tries to diminish the emotion by saying that after all, he's a horse not a dog. I'll bet there are horse people out there who sat up in anger at the thought that their love of an animal was any less valid. I am a sucker for animal stories and this one pulled me in completely. If this were the upset winner tonight, I would be delighted.

Moneyball  The great American Pastime is given a modern makeover with technology and desperation. Baseball movies that work, are usually not focused on a single game, that's not how baseball works for the most part. There are one-hundred and sixty-two games played by each team each season, that is why statistics matter so much in this game. The theme of Moneyball is the courage of your convictions that the way to gain success is by playing the odds rather than swinging for the fences with a  player who is really a reach. From a romantic perspective, it is a hard concept to wrap your head around. Baseball fans love stats but they also love a hero, and this movie is about guys being heroes for doing the mundane job they are chosen for. If it all works out they are a success. Brad Pitt joins our list of performers appearing in two nominated pictures for this and for "Tree of Life". He is personally nominated here and his performance was so natural that I think it was under appreciated. If Aaron Sorkin had not won the screenplay award last year, he would be a lock this year for turning an idea into a screen story. This is based on a book, but it is not a narrative like the movie is. Good job again Mr. Sorkin.


The Help  This is the movie that should be the favorite but it suffers from having come out in the summer and the original impact it had on audiences will have faded a bit. This is an empowering story of women, civil rights and dramatic changes for the better in our culture. It is hard to fathom that the world portrayed here was actually part of my lifetime. Most of my students will see it as ancient history so they may not be able to feel the same kind of power from it that I did. This movie is filled with great performances from the women in the story. Viola Davis is probably going to win tonight as Best Actress, she is also in our two nominee Best Picture Club having also appeared in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close".  Joining her at the victory table tonight will be Best Supporting Actress nominee Octavia Spenser. Jessica Chastain is also a nominee and appears in another Best Picture Nominee, "Tree of Life", so she and Viola can compare their membership cards when they see each other after the show. Oh, and here is a leading contender for Best Picture that apparently directed itself. Terrance Malick is sitting in the theater tonight with Tate Taylors directors nomination in his pocket. Shame on the Academy for honoring a director who can't find a story to save his life instead of one who told an incredible story and actually directed people in the movie he was making.

Hugo  After seeing all the films and seeing this for a second time, I believe it is the Best Picture of the films nominated this year.  The visual imagery is used not to dazzle us with tricks like in "Tree of Life" but to tell us a story. This story is one that should be embraced by movie lovers everywhere. It is about the history of our passion. There is adventure, mystery and fine acting in the movie. It features a character who was a real person and a real magician, so it is something that I can relate to on additional levels as well.  It might look like a children's film but it is deeper than that, it has elements that every adult can relate to as well as those things that the kids might care about.  This is the movie that I believe in ten years will be the one that appears on all those lists of films that should have won but did not. Other than Spielberg, Martin Scorsese is the closest thing there is to a sure thing when it comes to entertainment. He will be able to look back on films that everyone says are the best of their respective decades and be proud that he worked at this level his whole career. If we ever get a Best Picture Winner made for 3-D, it would be a shame that it was not this piece of heartfelt homage to the infancy of cinema. This was the other film that moved me enough to shed tears on a consistent basis. Let's have one for the romantics and the technicians together. 

 

BPS Part Two

 

This is just a quick update on Day Two of the BPS at AMC. The day was long but rewarding. Everything we saw was excellent although I had some issues with Extremely Close Incredibly Loud. The Artist was very good although I am not sure it should be the front runner for the Academy Awards tomorrow. Midnight in Paris was a solid Woody Allen entry  in the vein of Purple Rose of Cairo or  Zelig. I will post some mini reviews and insights tomorrow and let the chips fall where they may.

BPS Part One

Here at the Best Picture Showcase. A lot of familiar faces from last week. We are missing Anne but the day looks promising. Hugo is up first and it is in 3D.

Loved Hugo even more than the first time.

The Help was again, terrific.

Extremely Loud Incredibly Close was fine but not great. There were some things about it that bugged.

After Dinner, the Artist and Midnight in Paris.

Best Picture Show Case Day Two Preview

Last weekend was pretty great. There was a good sized crowd but it was not packed. Everybody was having a good time, and we started off with the movie that AMC Voters ranked as the best for the day on their text poll; War Horse. We saw this movie on Christmas day and it was a wonderful way to cap off the holiday. I was moved by the story all over again and in many ways it was more touching and deeply effective than it had been the first time. My appreciation of the movie was increased, and although I have heard criticism of John Williams score being over used and too saccharine, I thought it worked well and was happy to hear it.

Next we saw "Moneyball" which was my first time. I have a hard time believing that I did not see this earlier in the season. Like other movies with baseball at the center but not about the game, it uses our familiarity to tell a different story altogether.  It is a lot like one of the two Costner baseball films of the eighties. Family and reconciliation are the themes of "Field of Dreams" and love and ambition are the targets of "Bull Durham". Both movies feature baseball, but the outcome of the game is not really the point. In "Moneyball" the outcome of the season is the point, and there is one game featured, but that was about it. The story is really concerned with innovation and creativity confronting prejudice and tradition. It was very entertaining, even though most of what happens is talk. Of course if the talk is scripted by Aaron Sorkin, then it should be plenty interesting.

The less I say about "Tree of Life", the happier I will be. You can see my comments elsewhere on a post earlier this week.

Finally, "The Descendants" manages to be an effective drama with humorous moments. It centers on several complicated situations that the main character must deal with all at once. Every once in a while, I think a family gets challenged by a really tough stretch of time. Years ago I lost my best friend, my Mother, my Father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, we bought a house and we had the hardest move you can imagine, all in a period of about nine months. George Clooney's character faces overwhelming problems and difficult decisions and it is the manner in which he faces those challenges that he end up defining himself as a person. I was much more ambivalent about the movie the first time I saw it. This time it resonated more with me and I could see the quality of work Mr. Clooney was turning in.

Tomorrow, we have "Hugo", "The Help", "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" , "The Artist" and "Midnight in Paris".  For my previous comments on two of the films you can click on the poster below. I have heard great things about the other three and it looks to be a very pleasant day.

 

Safe House

Finished off the long weekend with a little Denzel action. The man can play badass without breaking a sweat and in this movie all he does is kick other peoples asses and brains around. There is a little too much dependance on fistfights and car crashes and shootouts to make this work as the paranoid spy thriller it wants to be. It never rises above the level of action film with pretensions of insight. It looks like it is going to be a buddy spy film for a while and while it does have elements of that, there is not much time devoted to the motives of the two protagonists.

From the late sixties and early seventies on, there have been a thousand spy films with rogue elements of the CIA doing bad things. They must have the stupidest recruiters and the worst internal controls of any bureaucracy in history, at least if you buy any of the premises of these kinds of films. The story here involves a CIA agent that has turned traitor and may be selling secrets that will expose the CIA to international ridicule. The bad guy in the movie can be spotted early on because it is just casting that creates this character. None of this ultimately exonerates Denzel's agent, but it is supposed to make it more acceptable that he is basically "Wiki-leaks" with a bank account. 

Ryan Reynolds does a credible job as a young CIA operative, in a low level, low priority job which suddenly becomes the center of the spy universe. He sells the desire to do the right thing with his puppy dog face, and he handles the action scenes with vigor. He needs to because every time we turn around there is running, fighting, chasing and shooting. There are more survivors of car crashes in this movie than there are on the streets of L.A., I know that for sure. People get shot, stabbed, beat up and they just keep going. You hope the real spies can do all of this stuff because most people can't make it through the course in an episode of "Wipeout" without a longer breather than any of these guys get. The director relies on a lot of shaky cam work to pump up the action, but there is some good tight choreography as well.

A few years ago I saw a parody of action films where the lead, turns their back and walks away as an explosion goes off right behind them. It has become a cliche in the modern action world. Denzel seems to be making it his own personal cliche to put an extra bullet in the other guy when he is on the ground, and to do it while looking away. Of course the one time he fails to perform the cliche move, there is a negative consequence so in a sense it does set us up for one piece of business.  His character is supposed to be an expert at manipulating assets with psychology, but we hardly get any of that. That would have made the relationship with Reynold's character so much more interesting than we got here. There was enough to sustain the loud gunfights and action sequences but not the story threads.

Sometimes these films rise to a level of excellence that is impressive, but more often they simply compete with one another on body count and action. This is a missed opportunity. It was still a worthy movie, after all it features Denzel doing his thing, but the stone cold facial expression sometimes needs a little more backup. What this movie really did for me was make me want to see some Denzel films where he gets to do more than just his thousand yard stare. I could really go for seeing him work opposite Gene Hackman again. Those two are fantastic in "Crimson Tide". If you just want a shoot em up, this movie fits the bill, but if you want something a little sweeter from Mr. Washington, maybe go back and check out some other work instead.

'This Means War'

In an effort to come down from yesterday's sugar rush of movies, today we have a little bit of the hair of the dog so to speak. A single movie that no one will remember for good or ill in a few months. There is nothing about it that I found offensive but there was also nothing about it that I found particularly worthwhile either. It has cute guys for the girls, Reese Witherspoon for the guys and a bunch of misused spy craft for everyone else. Some explosions, a couple of smiles, and maybe a laugh or two. If you are looking for a date movie this will do fine, it is entertaining enough but it won't interrupt the rest of your evening with conversation about the meaning of it all or the film maker's craft.

The two guys featured are up and comers Chris Pine and Tom Hardy. Pine is the new Captain Kirk in the relaunched Star Trek movies. As far as Amanda is concerned, he is a terrific actor, which translated means, "yummy". Tom Hardy was in my favorite movie last year, "Warrior" where he is a menacing, hulking presence and does most of his acting with his fists. Both of these guys get to trade on their natural gifts, Pine uses his baby blue eyes, crooked smile and smart guy attitude to woo our female protagonist. Hardy plays it sincere with a natural physicality that I guess would be appealing to the opposite sex, oh, and he has a British accent. The third part of our triangle is Miss Witherspoon, last year seen in Water for Elephants and seemingly a little old for her co-star there. She hasn't gotten younger but the make up and costume people on this shoot made sure that she would be a desirable woman for the two younger guys (and us old guys also). She does a completely unnecessary booty dance that reminded me of Cameron Diaz in Charlie's Angels. I guess that should not be a surprise since McG, the director of this film also directed that piece of cotton candy film.

Comparisons to "True Lies" might be in order since the film does feature a spy romance where the profession of espionage agent is being hidden from the romantic partner. Also, a lot of government resources are being used for personal purposes that verge on the brink of creepy stalking. What is missing from this movie that "True Lies" had in abundance is a real action spy movie to immerse the romance in. This movie sets up such a plot line, abandons it for most of the rest of the movie and then revives it in the last ten minutes. The spy stuff never feels serious and there are stupid resolutions to most of the action in that last section. The set ups of the shots felt like out takes from "Fletch" and "Speed". The shots from those movies that were too tired to be used in their respective stories.

For a modern twist on romance being conflicted by two rivals, the story makes some pretty dated references. My guess is that the dialogue of Reese's friend will be lost on contemporary audiences. Do any teens and twenties really know who Gloria Steinem is? This movie sets up Pine as a smooth up to the minute player, and he is using Sade as his seduction song and the cute meet with Reese takes place in a video rental store? Those devices would have been funny ten years ago but here they seem lazy. It is just screenwriter shorthand to save from having to develop something original. The dating site jokes were old a decade ago when I saw them in "Must Love Dogs", why would anyone think this is a fresh take on this kind of story? The idea of Spy vs. Spy is a good one but underdeveloped and used only for the barest of story structure here.

Anyone can see the romantic resolution coming from early on. The bad guy is not menacing enough and is clearly too stupid to be much of a threat, maybe that's why he disappears from the movie for ninety percent of the time. There are some ridiculous romantic set ups that would be cheesy in any film, but set in a world of international espionage, they stand out as obvious. Attempting to match up to an ex-boyfriend, dating at a carnival, lying about volunteering at a pet shelter, all provide quick jokes but no real humor and never any sympathy for any character. This movie is product, but not even good product like an obvious romantic comedy. It gets a reaction in the most obvious way possible and then moves on to the next set up.   There were several times when I noticed story continuity issues, but the film just keeps plugging along. It may be a better evening to go out and see this with a date, than spending time in watching Law and Order or NCIS, but just barely.