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2022 Academy Awards: Best Picture Reviews – Part One

Jon The Blogcentric2 Comments

The 95th Academy Awards are coming soon. Once again, I saw all ten Best Picture nominees. For the first time in three years, I didn’t need a streaming service to see any one of them. Elvis was the only one I saw outside of a theatre; on an airplane divided by two flights. The other nine I was lucky to see in theatres. There is your mix of enjoyable and unenjoyable. A mix of common popcorn fare and serious topics.

This year’s batch have some notable details. For the second straight year, a film directed by Steven Spielberg is nominated. For the second straight year, a remake of a Best Picture winner is nominated. Two of the nominated films are sequels to legendary sci-fi or action films. Two of the nominated films have four acting nominations each. On the contrary, half the films have no acting nominations. Also interesting that comedies, which normally get the sort end of the stick at Oscar time, are this year’s toast as two of the heavy favorites are comedic films.

The purpose of my reviews are to give a summary of the Best Picture nominees. I will be saving my predictions for a separate prediction blog. In the meantime, here is the first of my reviews of the Best Picture nominees of the 2022 Academy Awards:

All Quiet On The Western Front – Just like the 1930 film, this is an angry film. This film makes it look like World War I was a vanity effort. Like all the war was where it was all about the egos of those in power. While the young men fought and many died, these leaders with the power only cared about themselves and the power they wanted to hold onto. Even those who worked in the military seemed to take the losses of life very lightly. Seemingly not caring that a generation of young men were being lost. The last 20 minutes of the film would especially enrage many. Armistice had been declared for November 11, 1918. Germany was the losing side, but the German leader wanted one last battle. Another bunch of young men dead, just shortly before the war finally ended. Will definitely have you leaving the theatre asking what was it all for?

I’m planning on doing a comparison of this film to the 1930 original for after the Oscars. So in looking at this film, I won’t compare it to the original. I won’t even call it a remake because even the original was adapted from a novel. It’s possible this film is a re-adaptation. I will say the film is an excellent work. The film does a good job in telling the story from the point of view from the young soldiers and the meetings with the leaders. It shows the two different worlds between the two very well. The battle scenes are also intense to look at. Of course, war is ugly. There’s no compromise in the story here. Most surprising is how they slowed down the last 24 hours of World War I over a period of just over twenty minutes. That paves the way for the final dramatic scenes that would make the viewer angry at the end.

Top credits go to director/writer Edward Berger. He brings back the horrors of World War I in grand style and delivers a film that has a big message to send even now as Ukraine is going through a war of its own. The acting from newcomer Felix Kammerer was also excellent, even if his part didn’t have that much depth. Albrecht Schuch was also very good at Kalczinsky. The film also had excellent technical elements like the music of Volker Bertelmann, the cinematography of James Friend and some of the best production design and visual effects of the year. The visual effects really did a good job for the battle scenes.

Avatar: The Way Of Water – Usually when a sequel comes out, the freshness of the original seems lost and the rehash seems to be too similar to the original. Nevertheless the story does aim to have some notable differences from the first. One of which is Jake’s new family on Pandora, including his relationship with his oldest son. The other is facing rivalries both from Earth and his world. The best thing about this film is that the first Avatar took the audience to a new world. This film is also successful in taking people to a new world. Although it feels there may be something missing in this film, it’s still very spectacular and gives the audience the escape they’re looking for. The new twists in the story will also give people the drama they’re looking for and the action scenes they all enjoy.

James Cameron does it again. Not only does he bring back the world of Pandora successfully, but he does it so in breaking box-office records! To think James Cameron films have knocked each other out in setting the record for the highest-grossing ever! First Titanic, then the first Avatar, and now this! However it’s not simply box-office numbers. Cameron succeeds in creating a world where people can escape and be enchanted by. Pandora dazzled people back in 2009 and 2010 and it does it again here. Cameron also wrote an excellent story with four other writers and compiled the official script with two of the writers. They had to make it a believable story, especially since this film is thirteen years since the first. It does a story that works for the film. There was very good acting from returning actors Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana. Also excellent was newcomer Jamie Flatters in playing Jake’s oldest son. The film’s best qualities, nevertheless, are its visual effects. It’s these effects that give people the escape to Pandora they’re looking for and keep their attention on the drama as it unfolds. Simon Franglen also does a good job in composing a good score for the film.

The Banshees Of Inisherin – This is a film not everyone can understand at first. Even after one sees the film, they can only guess what the film is about. Some say it’s about human weaknesses, or about men and their inability to relate, or even about Irish pride as seen through the eyes of McDonagh. I’ve often felt the story is as much about the island town of Inisherin as it is about the central story. Inisherin is a town away from the mainland and lucky to be out of the range of fighting during the Irish civil war. However Inisherin comes across as a town where nothing really happens or nothing really improves. Anybody who wants to get anywhere have to be like Siobhan and leave the island. Sometimes it seems like the dead friendship of Padraic and Colm is symbolic of how dead the town of Inisherin is. In addition Inisherin being a small town, it’s often a case where word easily gets around about what’s happening. The feud between the two soon becomes the talk of the town.

This film is unique as it attempts to make a comedy out of something intense and dramatic. It’s a story of a drama that is slow, but the slowness is its quality. A story about a man deciding to end a friendship because his friend is ‘dull’ and spend the rest of his years composing music seems odd and pointless. Nevertheless the film allows for the intensity to build over time. It also has its ugly surprises, but the surprises become important to the drama. The different characters also add to the story. They help provide for the environment of the story almost as if the film is based on a classic Irish fable. In addition, the scenery adds to the story. The film is as much about the scenery and the landscapes as it is about the town and its drama. Its addition to the film help builds the story.

Top credit should go to director Martin McDonagh. McDonagh infrequently shells out works. It seems like almost once every four to five years. In fact his last film before Banshees, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, was five years ago! This is quite possibly his best work. It’s a story that gives you the unexpected and Martin did an excellent job with it. Also when you see the ending, you easily forget that this film is a comedy. Once again, a case of a film that mixes comedy with tragedy, and it does a memorable job here.

Additionally, the story came alive from the excellent acting. Colin Farrell did a great job making Padraic to be kind and loyal and always trying, but pushed to his limits near the end. Brendan Gleeson was also great as the stubborn Colm. He captured his hardness very well. Kerry Condon was also great as Siobhan, the sister who tries to find a way out. Also great was Barry Keoghan, the troubled son of the policeman Padraic and Siobhan try to help out. The supporting characters like the Garda, the banshee and the priest also added to the story. There were also additional technical feats with this film like the cinematography of Ben Davis and the score from Carter Burwell.

Elvis – It’s not easy doing a musical biography and making it into something different. On top of it, you can be sure there have been countless made-for-TV movies made about Elvis. So how can you make an Elvis movie for the big screen of 2023? One ingredient that makes it different is the story being told from the point of view of Colonel Tom Parker. Those of us who know a lot about Elvis may have overlooked his relationship with the Colonel, especially the rocky moments. Another is to add some creative flares. Those that remember Moulin Rouge will remember how that film has creative flares. Luhrmann applies similar creative flairs from Moulin Rouge here. Another ingredient is to have the best songs of a musician’s career as well as their career’s most significant moments. You can’t pack everything about Elvis into 159 minutes of story. This film does showcase the most famous moments of his career.

Another excellent work from Baz Luhrmann. Just when you thought you couldn’t bring Elvis back to the big screen, Luhrmann does it, and in a stylish winning way. He pulls the right moves to deliver an Elvis film people of today will want to see at the theatres. Of course it’s the performance of Austin Butler that has to be the biggest quality. A thirtysomething of today able to epitomize Elvis? The answer is Yes! Butler does an excellent job in playing The King in with a performance with dimension and doesn’t go cartoonish, as one can risk doing performing Elvis. Tom Hanks is also quite good as the colonel. It’s hard to picture him with a Dutch accent, and there were a few times when I questioned if it was off or not, but he did a good job with his role. The technical details also make the film excel. The cinematography, production design, makeup and costuming are all some of the best of this past year.

Everything Everywhere All At Once – Now there have been some absurdist films that have been nominated for Best Picture or other major categories. What makes this film-of-the-absurd is that this takes place in a multitude of worlds. Thanks to technology, Evelyn is able to make many trips of the mind to many different universes and assume many different personas: past, present and future. Even the persona of a rock somewhere in the desert is possible! Usually most people look at stories like these and ask “What the hell?” This is one absurd story that many people found enjoyable. The kung fu fighting scenes also helped a lot too. And to think this all started as Evelyn’s taxes were to be done and she was to get some bad news!

To think it’s the magic of the directing/writing team of the Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert) that delivered this gem. The two have not had a lot of directing experience. Until this film, they’ve only directed some short films together and their only feature was Swiss Army Man from back in 2016! Here they have the perfect breakthrough film for them, and boy is it unforgettable. It’s a fun, thrilling story that comes off as weird and bizarre at first, but starts making more sense as time goes on.

Also excellent is the combined acting. Michelle Yeoh shines as Evelyn. When I first saw her in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I had a feeling she would go far. She had a lot of grace with her. Although this role is way more multidimensional, she still does excellently here and delivers one of the best performances of the year. Ke Huy Quan is also excellent as the meek Waymond. Quan is also this year’s former child actor comeback story. He is best remembered as Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom and Data from The Goonies. Here he gets the adult actor breakthrough he was waiting for, and what a scene-stealing performance! Additional scene stealers are an unrecognizable Jamie Lee Curtis as the IRS agent and Stephanie Hsu as the daughter whose nihilism threatens the multiverse. All the aforementioned actors had a lot to do with their main role and their various roles in the many worlds of the multiverse. That’s a lot of work! Additional technical credits go to Shirley Kurata for the costuming and the band Son Lux for the score that fits the film well.

And there’s the first of it. This is the first half of my review of this year’s Best Picture nominees. Second half coming in a day or two.

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Oscars 2017 Best Picture Review: The Post

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

Post
Merly Streep plays newspaper head Katharine Graham in The Post.

The subject matter of The Post doesn’t sound like the type of subject matter that would win a big crowd, but it is a film worth seeing.

The story goes back in 1966 during the Vietnam War. Military analyst Daniel Ellsberg is in Vietnam with General Robert McNamara to document the progress of the war. McNamara admits to Ellsberg and President Johnson that the war is hopeless but has confidence in the effort, leaving Ellsberg disillusioned.

Years later, Ellsberg is now working for a military contractor and comes across classified documents showing the US’s decades-long involvement in the conflict in Vietnam going back to just a few years after World War II ended. Ellsberg discloses the documents to the New York Times.

It’s 1971. Katharine Graham is head of the Washington Post. It’s been a position she mastered with a lot of difficulty as it’s commonly seen as a ‘man’s position.’ Even though her family founded the Post, the position of the head went to her husband Philip instead of her. It was right after Philip’s suicide that Katharine became head. It’s not easy for a female to be head of a newspaper. Especially someone like Graham who has a good work ethic, but lacks experience and is constantly overruled by the aggressiveness of the men of the Post. On top of that, she seeks to gain an IPO for a stock market launch to propel the Post to greater strength. The Washington Post however is second-fiddle to the New York Times which always has the biggest news scoops, even the scoops of what’s happening in Washington.

Editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee is one of the men who work for her. He tries in vain to be one step ahead of the New York Times in coming up with the latest scoops, but falls short each time. Meanwhile McNamara, who is a friend of Graham’s, confesses to her of how he’s the subject of bad news in the New York Times. It’s through their constant expose of the government’s deception of the American public. However a court injunction blockades any further publication of such news by the Times.

Ellsberg is willing to provide the documents and opportunity to the Post to publish the stories. As they look through the stories to publish, lawyers to the Post advise against publishing the story, fearing the Nixon administration will press criminal charges. Graham seeks advice from McNamara, Bradlee and Post chairman Fritz Beebe of whether to publish. It’s made even more frustrating when the lawyer note that since  the sources are the same as the New York Times, Graham herself could be charged with contempt of court. It’s a gamble. Graham risks terminating the newspaper her family established. Alternatively, the Post won such a legal battle, it would establish itself as a major journalism source, much on the same level as the New York Times.

She agrees to have the story published. The White House retaliated by taking both the Times and the Post to the Supreme Court to argue their case of publishing classified document information being a First Amendment Right. Both newspapers receive almost unanimous support from the other newspapers in the US and they win their Supreme Court battle 6-3. An infuriated Nixon bans the Post from the White House. And the rest is infamy… for Nixon.

The film is more than just about a top secret story that needed to be exposed and makes journalism history. The story is also about the newspaper behind the story. We shouldn’t forget that this came at a time when The New York Times was the newspaper that delivered the biggest news about what was happening in the Oval Office and the ones to do it first. Even though the Washington Post was the newspaper of Washington, DC, it was more of a second-fiddle newspaper like the newspapers of the rest of the cities. The New York Times lead and all other newspapers, including the Washington Post followed. This story allowed the Washington Post take pole position towards what was happening in Washington. This would also allow for the Washington Post to be the prime newspaper to go to upon the breaking of the Watergate Scandal. Even despite the Post competing against the Times, they united when they faced the heat of the freedom-of-speech debate and won together.

The film is not simply about a history-making story, a legal breakthrough or even a milestone for a newspaper. It’s also the personal story of Katharine Graham and how she had to achieve greatness for herself. Katharine Graham was born into the paper and assumed control of it right after her husband died. It was always tradition that a man headed the newspaper. After the suicide of her husband, she headed it. The paper her ancestors founded and the paper she wants to propel into marketability. This news story could help be the boost she needed, but the court injunction against the New York Times causes her to put it on hold. Basically she’s gambling everything with this touchy story: the Times, her status as a leader, her role as a woman with power, her role as a mother, even her own personal freedom. In the end, that one decision caused left all of us convinced she did the right thing. She did more than just allow a story. She did more than boost the profile of the Washington Post. She created a breakthrough in freedom of speech and freedom of press. On top of that, she earned the respect from her male colleagues. That was rare back in the early 70’s.

This story is very relevant to the present. We always hear those words ‘fake news.’ We have a feeling that Donald Trump is like a big brother monster who wants to control everything. There are often times in which I wonder if the times of Nixon were worse than the times of Trump. I know all about Nixon and his lust for control. Whatever the times, the story and the court ruling against government censorship of the press serves as a reminder to all citizens that the press has the right to publish the truth to the public. The ruling of the New York Times vs. The United States of America back then was clear: “‘In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.” That ruling still applies today.

Leave it to Steven Spielberg to direct a story that will capture our intrigue. Some would describe this type of story as a ‘boring story.’ Steven Spielberg knows how to direct it into something interesting and have us glued to the screens. The screenplay by Josh Singer and Liz Hannah also creates the right interest and intrigue. They’re able to take the chain of events surrounding the publishing of the story and turn it into a story of intrigue. Even a story from a humanist side.

Once again, Meryl Streep delivers in creating depth in a public figure. She gave Katharine Graham the right dimension and the right humanistic tone to make the story work. Tom Hanks also does an excellent job in his role as Ben Bradlee. He delivers in the character very well as he adds some dimension to Bradlee too. The supporting actors may have minor or limited roles, but they add to the film too. Janusz Kaminski does an excellent job of cinematography and John Williams again delivers a fitting score.

The Post is a journalism story that will keep one intrigued. It’s a story that’s very relevant today as it’s also about our own right to know the truth.

Movie Review: Saving Mr. Banks

Jon The Blogcentric2 Comments

Emma Thompson portrays the author of Mary Poppins to be like someone we never expected her to be at all in Saving Mr. Banks.
Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) tries to get a stubborn P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson)  to agree to a movie version of Mary Poppins in Saving Mr. Banks.

Saving Mr. Banks is to be the story of how Walt Disney was able to bring Mary Poppins to the big screen. The question is not just will it bring the story to life but will it make people want to see it on the big screen?

It’s 1961 and Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers is struggling financially. Walt Disney has been trying to get Travers to agree to allow him to adapt Mary Poppins to the big screen for 20 years on account of a promise he made to his daughter. Travers finally agrees, albeit reluctantly but she’s extremely distrustful of Walt. She has stern expectations of Mary being adapted to the big screen such as no musical numbers, no Dick Van Dyke, none of the Disney frilliness and no animation.

Things do not start well for Mrs. Travers. She’s unhappy in Los Angeles with the carefree attitude of the city and by the happy ways Walt Disney, his co-workers and even Ralph the chauffeur do business. Not even Walt’s familiar manners warm up well to Travers.  Things get harder as Don DaGradi does the script, the Sherman brothers compose the music and Walt designs the characters. She even has a problem with Mary Poppins being the epitome of sentiment and whimsy, believing she’s the opposite of that. That surprises the Disney crew as they’ve always viewed Poppins as fantastical and known Travers to have a fantastical childhood, as seen through flashbacks.

However things take a turn for the worse when Travers sees the depiction of George Banks. She believes he is completely off-base  and leaves distraught. It’s then where the Disney studio realizes that Mary Poppins and its characters are very personal to Travers. It’s through flashbacks that we learn that Travers Goff, her father and the inspiration of George Banks, was indeed a banker but valued his imagination more than work in the real world. Things became too crushing for Travers and he would lose his job and his sanity to alcoholism. Her mother was the stern one of the family who even attempted suicide once.

The Disney team are persistent and try to work things out. Walt even offers to take Ms. Travers to Disneyland to lighten her mood. Things improve. The trip to Disneyland improves her embrace of the imagination, albeit slightly. Travers also has an unlikely friendship with Ralph the chauffeur as he tells her his handicapped daughter loves the novel. Things really improve when she walks in and hears George Banks is given a happier manner and has him singing ‘Let’s Go Fly A Kite’ at the end. But just when things seem to be working out, she learns of dancing penguins in a scene. That infuriates Travers to the point she refuses to Walt the film rites and flies back to London.

Once Disney learns that P.L. Travers is actually an Australian names Helen Goff, he departs to London for one last chance. Walt arrives at Travers’ home and opens up to her during his visit. He tells her that he too had a troubling childhood with a stern father and growing up poor. It was through his animation and his happy characters that he was able to heal and he tells Travers that having a creative imagination would also help in her healing of her disappointment with the world. She eventually agrees but she’s not invited to the 1964 premiere for fear of her panning it. Once news hits her, she shows up at Disney studios demanding to be invited. Her reactions at the premiere are unexpected but those of us who’ve seen Mary Poppins would know the movie would have a happy ending.

There have been movies before about the making some of the most famous children’s stories. I even remember seeing Finding Neverland a few years ago. The film of an adaptation of a novel to movie is not something one would call a fresh idea. Nevertheless it is unique this case of adapting the Mary Poppins novel to the big screen.

We should keep in mind that to make a film like this, it would have to be entertaining and keep audiences interested. It succeeds with some surprises. First is the personality of P.L. Travers. It’s funny that we see this uppity personally and we’re left thinking: “Are you sure this prig is the author of Mary Poppins?” Second is Travers’ feelings towards Disney’s style of creativity and how on earth it would ever be adapted. Crazy thing is we all know it was adapted. Even still the film makes you forget that and wonder if it will, even as the Sherman brothers sing the movie’s songs we all know. Third is that the biggest issue wasn’t the depiction of Mary but of George Banks. Travers designed George to be kind like her own father while Walt was in favor of a stern George Banks like his own father. You could understand how this would cause the two to collide.

The movie isn’t just of the dealmaking for the adaptation. The film is also of Travers’ own inspiration of Mary Poppins from her own childhood. We see how over time Travers had a nanny she thought as magical as her father was dying. We also see her father as a banker but one who believed in fantasy and the imagination. Even after he died, the spirit of his imagination lived on in Travers, even as she tended to her younger sisters and dealt with a troubled mother. Many of us are already familiar with Walt Disney and his fun ways. However we learn more of P.L. Travers and of her upbringing and her own imagination. That’s a good thing because I don’t think most of us ever did. None of us ever expected the author of Mary Poppins to be the stern type. However she was one who would try to come to terms with her imagination as noted in a scene where she’s in bed and confides to hugging a stuffed Pluto.

People should not be fooled too easily. There are many people who think this will be a family movie since this is done by Disney and since this a depiction of Walt trying to convince Mary Poppins to agree to let him adapt the novel to screen. However the film’s depiction of Travers’ troubled childhood as Ginty is what keeps it from being family friendly. Elements like an alcoholic father and a suicidal mother are not entirely for a family audience. It may be okay to bring older children to the film but younger ones are not a good idea.

It’s very rare for a female lead to steal a movie from Tom Hanks but Emma Thompson does just that. She was excellent in embodying P.L. Travers as an uptight prig who still harbored a love for the imagination, though only Walt knew it. She also depicted Travers as a person who still struggled with the memory of the father she cherished. We should be reminded that people that produced some of the most delightful entertainment came from troubled childhood, even Walt himself. Tom Hanks delivers a performance that is more a case of character acting than say mastering a difficult part like he did in Captain Phillips. He was very good at capturing Walt’s fun imaginative way of doing business and he made Walt seem like the Wizard Of Oz at times.

Colin Farrell also did a good job as Travers Goff, the father who was troubled by his job but valued his imagination. Paul Giamatti’s role as Ralph the chauffeur was small but he was able to get notice of his own. The other actors with smaller roles, especially those in Walt’s office, added their own pieces and elements to the movie as well. John Lee Hancock did a good job in directing but nothing that really stood out for this film year. Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith do their best in making a story for family audiences with their script. Technical items like the set design and costumes were excellently done in fitting the times they were made in. And Thomas Newman did a great job with the score.

Saving Mr. Banks is a delightful movie despite being too polished and ‘safe’ to excel amongst the top Oscar contenders of the year. It’s biggest success is the acting of its actors and the telling of the story of an author we never new. Even with scenes of the author’s troubled childhood, it succeeds in entertaining young and old.

Movie Review: Captain Phillips

Jon The Blogcentric2 Comments

Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips is a recreation of a moment of recent history. It’s as much about the man involved in this moment as the moment itself.

Richard Phillips is a captain of freighter ships who lives in Vermont but pilots his freighter ships mostly in the Arabian Sea. One day in April 2009, he’s assigned to be a captain of a freighter bringing relief supplies from Oman to Mombasa, Kenya. He accepts the duty but is well aware of the risk of pirates from Somalia once he sails around the horn of Africa. Meanwhile in Somalia, a group of pirate leaders recruit young men for their next sting. It could be big, it could be small, it’s all in a day’s work.

Captain Phillips is sailing the freighter Maersk Alabama through the Arabian Sea. He’s also taking all precautions to prevent a pirate attack including getting the ship to participate in a drill. The pirates are hungry not just for a simple ship but bigger stuff. Their small rusty motor boats, or skiffs, have ship radar. They see the Maersk Alabama within their view and they chase after it. Fortunately Captain Phillips and the crew are prepared. The first day, the pirates’ motor blows on their boat. Captain Phillips and the crew think the have it solved. What they don’t know is that the pirates are fixing the motor in the boat overnight.

The next day the pirates try again. Captain Phillips and the crew again take precautions like using the hose system to prevent them from coming on board. The pirates notice an area where a hose isn’t working. Perfect opportunity to climb aboard the ship and hold the crew hostage. It’s there where pirate Muse and Captain Phillips meet eye to eye. Phillips tries to get them to leave by offering $30,000 but they want more: millions. The ship is able to shut the power down and able to make the pirates fail in their attempt. However the US forces have received word and have arrived. They try to negotiate with Muse only the have the pirates get away in a lifeboat with Captain Phillips as hostage. They hope Phillips will be their ticket for ransom.

That night the lifeboat is surrounded by navy ships and the crew is too frustrated and start turning on each other. Muse is stubborn with Phillips feeling he can’t go after going this far. The end scene adds to the intensity as it shows the whole standoff between the pirates, the Navy and the SEAL team. You’d be surprised to see how close Phillips was to being executed by the pirates. And even after you think it’s over, it’s not.

The most remarkable thing about the movie is that this is one that really depicts pirates for the negative people that they are. Admit it. We’ve all been charmed by pirate stories: Captain Hook, Captain Kidd, Jack Sparrow, Blackbeard, you get the idea. Even the popular lines like: “Arrrrgh Matey;” “Shiver me timbers” and “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!” show how charmed we are with them. However the news about Somali pirates have given us a reality check about pirates and what they do. This film even shows pirate really are: dirty, merciless thieves who threaten people on ships for their riches.

Another remarkable aspect the movie shows us is the sheer determination of those four pirates. You’d think that a group of four young Somali pirates not even 21 would not stand a chance against a huge freighter like the Maersk Alabama with all their devices and a prepared captain. However they were stubborn enough to fix a motor overnight, find a dry gap in the ship’s hosings, use a ladder to get to the deck, try a getaway with a lifeboat and even resist arrest with the US Armed Forces. The film is very focal on the pirates’ determination and their false sense of invincibility. It even shows how sometimes small has a competitive advantage over the big guy. It’s like that way in the animal kingdom too where insects can find their way into large prey.

Just as much as it focuses on the Somali pirates and their determination, it also focuses on Captain Rich Phillips himself. It especially focuses on Rich’s smarts as he knows about Somali pirates before the attack and even prepares his crew just in case, his smarts when he’s under attack on board and his smarts during the attempted getaway. Even the assault by the navy and the aftermath had Rich Phillips in focus. It was as much about Richard Phillips as it was about the pirates.

Tom Hanks once again delivered a remarkable performance: his best since Cast Away. It’s great to see him perform well in a movie that’s the least Hollywood-like I’ve seen him in. His performance really had a lot of range and was as much about Captain Phillips the person as it was about Captain Phillips the hostage. Equally as spectacular is the direction of Paul Greengrass. Actually It shouldn’t be that Greengrass, who made a name for himself with United 93 about a 9/11 terrorist operation botched by vigilante passengers, directs it. It’s like the film reminds us that the pirates of the seas are like the terrorists on airlines. Always were. Billy Ray did an excellent job of scriptwriting. Surprising that the writer of The Hunger Games is the scriptwriter here.

It’s not to say the movie’s all Tom Hanks, Paul Greengrass and Billy Ray. Barkhad Abdi was also excellent as pirate Muse. He makes Muse look like a pirate who didn’t have much of a clue to what he got himself into. Barkhad Abdirahman was also great as the vicious pirate Bilal who possessed a false sense of invincibility. The emsemble of lesser-known American actors added to the quality of the film. The only other well-known actor in the film is Catherine Keener. Actually it’s surprising to see the role of Andrea Phillips, Captain Phillips’ wife, as such a small role. The music of Henry Jackman and the cinematography of Barry Ackroyd also added to the quality of the film.

Captain Phillips is an excellent recreation of a moment in recent history that’s both about the moment and the man involved. Both Hanks and Greengrass do it again.

Oscars 2011 Best Picture Nominee: Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

“If things were easy to find, they wouldn’t be worth finding.”

I know many of you would be nervous at first of attending a movie like Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close. 9/11 films aren’t exactly crowd-winners. Ever since United 93 and even up to now, it still isn’t. It’s still a tense topic to this day and doesn’t make for good subject matter for people to see a movie about. Nevertheless Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close is a good film of its own, if imperfect.
 
Oskar Schell is a young boy who’s a smart but fearful and eccentric brainiac often mistaken for having Asperger’s. However he’s dealing with an inner pain. His father Thomas died in the Twin Towers on 9/11, a day Oskar refers to as ‘the worst day’. His father was a jeweller who spent a lot of time with Oskar nurturing his creative and eccentric quest for knowledge. He would create puzzles, help him develop his own business cards (which lists him as inventor, Francophile and pacifist), have oxymoron challenges while practising karate, and even have scavenger hunts. You could tell Oskar is still very much an intellectual now. He keeps his collection of butterflies. He has his collection of facts and figures. He’s even intellectual in his lewd talk: “Succotash my Balzac, dipshiitake!” Yeah, real charming.
 
However his father’s death still upsets him. He died in the first tower and his body was never found. His mother held a fake funeral with an empty coffin in hopes that it would help them both heal. But Oskar is still hurting and lonely to the point he has distanced himself from his mother and even hurts himself physically. He still has the answering machine of the last six messages his father left before he was killed and replays all but the sixth and last one often, something he has hidden from his mother and replaced with a new answering machine on ‘the worst day’. The only person he talks to regularly is his grandmother who lives in an apartment next door..He feels that the missing ‘puzzle piece’ from the last scavenger hunt he had with his father could keep him from losing the spirit of his father altogether. The quest is to find out what to search for and find it.
 
One year later while Oskar goes through his father’s clothes and olf belongings, he accidentally breaks a vase. In it is a key inside a small envelope with the name black. Oskar believes this key may be the clue to the last scavenger hunt. He looks in the phone book for all the people in New York named Black: over 400 in total. He vows to search every Saturday for the person with the last name Black who knew his father and refuses to quit until its done. He won’t take any public transit, has a camera to keep a scrapbook of all the Blacks he sees, and he walks shaking his tambourine to keep his sanity while dealing with the world.
 
The first Black he sees is Abby Black, a woman just recently divorced form her husband. She says he doesn’t know his father. He visits other people named Black who don’t know his father but reach out to him: one hugs, one offers her prayer group to pray over him, another is a cross dresser, another gives him a ride upon her horse. One day, Oskar goes to visit his grandmother but meets the man his grandmother refers to as ‘the renter’.’The renter’ doesn’t talk because of witnessing a bombing during his childhood. The two become friends in the search and he learns from the man when to intervene and how to face his fears. Oskar stars to sens that the man is in fact his grandfather. Oskar even plays the messages from ‘the worst day’ for the stranger but he cannot bear to hear and demands it to stop before hearing the sixth and last message. The renter than moves out and begs Oskar not to search anymore.
 
When all seemed lost, Oskar notes a phone number on the newspaper clipping his father left a hint. It returns him to Abby Black. It turns out her ex-husband, whom she was divorcing the first time she met Oskar, may know about the key. He does meet with Mr. Black and learns about the key only to learn it’s not for Oskar at all. Disappointed and disheartened, Oskar destroys everything from his search until he learns that his mother was secretly helping him all along and even contacted all the Blacks even before Oskar had visited. Oskar compiles a scrapbook of his search and is able to find the last link of the scavenger hunt in the most overlooked of places. His fears had been conquered.
 
One strength of the movie is that it uses a creative puzzle and the Oskar’s intellectual way of thinking to help Oskar through the healing process and conquering the simplest of his fears. The scavenger hunt becomes like the journey to healing and along the way the healing comes in the moment he least expects it. The scavenger hunt is also that connection where Oskar searches for that connection that keeps him from being completely lost form his father. He finds it and learns that his bond with his father is still alive and something that ‘the worst day’ can never take away. Another thing Oskar receives is the love and care from people he never met before. It was all the people with the surname Black he encountered that shares some amount of care for him from the start of his journey to the end. It was also where his relationship with his mother heals. It was her own help with Oskar’s mission that showed the bond between the two never died. It also helped her heal too.
 
One glitch with the movie is that it doesn’t make the best of efforts of being watchable. Yes, the movie has the theme of healing but many times it focuses on the pain Oskar and his mother are going through. Especially the scenes where Oskar is shown with self-inflicted scabs. There were many times I was sitting there feeling that there would be many movie audients turned off this movie. People who have lost loved ones in 9/11 may themselves find the movie uncomfortable to watch too. Another glitch is that many feel this is a flawed look at autism. There’s no mention of autism in the movie but it has been sensed by many critics.
 
Tom Hanks did a good job of character acting as Thomas Schell, the intellectual father who always taught in character. Sandra Bullock was also very good as the grieving wife and mother. Max von Sydow was the biggest standout amongst the supporting actors playing the mute renter. Interesting how silence can make a role more that dialogue in a lot of cases. Without a doubt, the movie belonged to young Thomas Horn. This is his first ever acting role and he shines as the boy who’s both brilliant, puzzled, grieving, driven and eccentric. He doesn’t play a sugar-coated child character but one who’s very three-dimensional. Stephen Daldry is one lucky director. Ever since his first feature Billy Elliot, each of his four feature films have earned him either a Best Director Oscar nomination and/or receive Best Picture nomination. This is his fourth feature but the first one where he wasn’t nominated for Best Director. Nevertheless he does another excellent job in directing. Eric Roth does and excellent, if not glitchy, scriptwriting effort that makes this story as much our puzzle as it is Oskar’s puzzle. The score from Alexandre Desplat also fit the movie well.
 
Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close is a good adaptation of a 9/11 novel but it’s not the best at being a watchable 9/11 movie which has always been a difficult task. The effort to create a mostly watchable 9/11 movie continues.
 
And there you have it. I have now finished reviewing all the Best Picture nominees of 2011. My Oscar predictions are coming Friday.