madaboutfilm

Great film.

No it didn’t win any Oscars. I have no idea what getting an Oscar even means nowadays anyway. Nolan didn’t even get nominated for best director this year, and in my eyes at least, that was a huge injustice.

What I liked most about True Grit is that it was a serious film, that didn’t try to take itself too seriously. Whether they were very subtle or in your face about it, I loved the fact that I was laughing, at times uncontrollably for decent portions of the film. The humor was a lot more intentional and apparent than in No Country, and I enjoyed that.

Matt Damon, surprisingly, actually had a lot to do with that. I don’t know how difficult a job it is to star alongside a movie veteran like Jeff Bridges and act in a way that compliments instead of competes but Damon did an awesome job.

Again his role was one that he couldn’t take too seriously. I can imagine the first line the Coens approached him with was probably something like “ok basically you’re going to play a bit of an idiot, but seriously, it’s all good.” - but who says no to the Coens? That’s right. Nobody.

He had to play to butt of a lot of the jokes, I mean, he was called LeBoeuf, (Le Beef!)

But honestly he did really well, he forgot for a minute that he was Matt Damon, Jason Bourne, Will Hunting and all those other characters you have him pinned to and the minute you see him on screen you can’t help but laugh at him and his ridiculous Village people outfit. “I am a Texas Ranger” he says flashing the little pin badge on his lapel.

By the end of the film you end up really taking to him, and he still plays just as much of an idiot - that’s talent.

Haliee Steinfeld then. Really really great.

Charming, quick, smart and what a presence. She was able to stand next to Jeff Bridges and still shine.

To be nominated for an Oscar at such a young age is quite something, but then again, everything gets nominated nowadays… With the exception of Nolan for Inception. I’m not bitter.

Personally I would watch this film again just for the dialogue - It’s the old classic western style of language that all sounds very proper. Whether you’re a lawyer or an outlaw, everyone has that lovely old west way of phrasing things and it works.

Great film. Go watch. Now.

BEST PICTURE

The King’s Speech - WINNER

127 Hours

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

Winter’s Bone

True Grit

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

BEST DIRECTOR

Tom Hooper - The King’s Speech - WINNER

Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan

David O Russell - The Fighter

David Fincher - The Social Network

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - True Grit

BEST ACTOR

Colin Firth - The King’s Speech - WINNER

Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network

James Franco - 127 Hours

Javier Bardem - Biutiful

Jeff Bridges - True Grit

BEST ACTRESS

Natalie Portman - Black Swan - WINNER

Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right

Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole

Jennifer Lawrence - Winter’s Bone

Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Christian Bale - The Fighter - WINNER

John Hawkes - Winter’s Bone

Jeremy Renner - The Town

Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right

Geoffrey Rush - The King’s Speech

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Melissa Leo - The Fighter - WINNER

Amy Adams - The Fighter

Helena Bonham Carter - The King’s Speech

Hailee Steinfeld - True Grit

Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

In a Better World - Denmark - WINNER

Biutiful - Mexico

Dogtooth - Greece

Incendies - Canada

Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi) - Algeria

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

David Seidler - The King’s Speech - WINNER

Mike Leigh - Another Year

Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (screenplay), Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson (story) - The Fighter

Christopher Nolan - Inception

Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg - The Kids Are All Right

BEST ANIMATION

Toy Story 3 - WINNER

How to Train Your Dragon

The Illusionist

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Aaron Sorkin - The Social Network - WINNER

Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy - 127 Hours

Michael Arndt - Toy Story 3

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - True Grit

Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini - Winter’s Bone

BEST ART DIRECTION

Alice in Wonderland - WINNER

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Inception

The King’s Speech

True Grit

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Inception - WINNER

Black Swan

The King’s Speech

The Social Network

True Grit

BEST SOUND MIXING

Inception - WINNER

The King’s Speech

The Social Network

Salt

True Grit

BEST SOUND EDITING

Inception - WINNER

Toy Story 3

Tron: Legacy

True Grit

Unstoppable

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

We Belong Together (from Toy Story 3) by Randy Newman - WINNER

Coming Home (from Country Strong) by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey

I See the Light (from Tangled) by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater

If I Rise (from 127 Hours) by AR Rahman, Dido and Rollo Armstrong

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

The Social Network - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - WINNER

How to Train Your Dragon - John Powell

Inception - Hans Zimmer

The King’s Speech - Alexandre Desplat

127 Hours - AR Rahman

BEST COSTUMES

Alice in Wonderland - WINNER

I Am Love

The King’s Speech

The Tempest

True Grit

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Inside Job - WINNER

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Gasland

Restrepo

Waste Land

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

Strangers No More - WINNER

Killing in the Name

Poster Girl

Sun Come Up

The Warriors of Qiugang

BEST FILM EDITING

The Social Network - WINNER

Black Swan

The Fighter P

The King’s Speech

127 Hours

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

The Lost Thing - WINNER

Day & Night

The Gruffalo

Let’s Pollute

Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

God of Love - WINNER

The Confession

The Crush

Na Wewe

Wish 143

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Inception - WINNER

Alice in Wonderland

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1

Hereafter

Iron Man 2

BEST MAKE-UP

The Wolfman - WINNER

Barney’s Version

The Way Back

Well, the ones you really care about anyway.

BEST PICTURE

127 Hours

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech

Winter’s Bone

True Grit

The Social Network

BEST DIRECTOR

Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan

David O Russell - The Fighter

Tom Hooper - The King’s Speech

David Fincher - The Social Network

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - True Grit

BEST ACTOR

Colin Firth - The King’s Speech

Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network

James Franco - 127 Hours

Javier Bardem - Biutiful

Jeff Bridges - True Grit

BEST ACTRESS

Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right

Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole

Jennifer Lawrence - Winter’s Bone

Natalie Portman - Black Swan

Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Christian Bale - The Fighter

John Hawkes - Winter’s Bone

Jeremy Renner - The Town

Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right

Geoffrey Rush - The King’s Speech

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams - The Fighter

Helena Bonham Carter - The King’s Speech

Melissa Leo - The Fighter

Hailee Steinfeld - True Grit

Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Biutiful - Mexico

Dogtooth - Greece

In a Better World - Denmark

Incendies - Canada

Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi) - Algeria

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Mike Leigh - Another Year

Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (screenplay), Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson (story) - The Fighter

Christopher Nolan - Inception

Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg - The Kids Are All Right

David Seidler - The King’s Speech

BEST ANIMATION

How to Train Your Dragon

The Illusionist

Toy Story 3

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy - 127 Hours

Aaron Sorkin - The Social Network

Michael Arndt - Toy Story 3

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - True Grit

Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini - Winter’s Bone

BEST ART DIRECTION

Alice in Wonderland

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Inception

The King’s Speech

True Grit

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Black Swan

Inception

The King’s Speech

The Social Network

True Grit

Toy Story 3

At first, I was intrigued by the story: a ballet dancer, under the stress of competition, consumed and driven to the edge. I expected to live her experience, to slide down the slippery slope of sanity with her, and come away at the end of the movie affected and shaken. Instead, I was plunged right into a nightmare, an acid trip that removed itself so far from reality that it ceased to become anything but a series of disturbing images and scenes. Striking, raw, excruciating, the movie swerved its way through two hours without being anchored by a narrative I understood.

As a story, the easy comparison is to The Wrestler. In both, Darren Aronofsky’s characters were destroyed both physically and mentally in the process of pursuing success in the strange worlds they inhabited. Where Black Swan left me confused and disturbed, The Wrestler resonated in my core. Between fight scenes and his physical deterioration were sweet, clumsy relationships, a search for love, misguided attempts at making a connection – and the sense of regret, of being misunderstood, pervaded the movie so strongly that I internalized it throughout. I was moved by what he gave up to pursue his goal, his loneliness painful in contrast to those he left on the outside, grounding the unreal world of wrestling in the reality of people who cared about him. In Black Swan, her loneliness was stark and without context. Her voice a quivering whisper, the camera followed behind her as she hurried through New York alone. Her uncomfortable relationships with her mother, fellow ballet dancers, and her director further highlighted her disconnect. In the absence of background or perspective, her particular experience, struggle towards her goal, and subsequent insanity felt pointless and ungrounded. As a viewer, I never gained enough traction to make the narrative leaps from ballet to crazy town.

Not that we were supposed to ride along comfortably. The movie was hyperbolic: black swan and white, the Madonna and the vixen, good and evil, restraint and passion, villain and victim, admiration and fear. It swung wildly between the extremes, jarring us painfully in our seats.

Maybe at its heart, this was simply a horror movie, nothing more and nothing less: music crescendos, turning around to find someone there, gory imagery. As an experience of Nina Sayers’ nightmare, Black Swan actually makes sense. The seemingly unrelated images at random (seeing herself everywhere, knees buckling backwards), the pervading sense of loneliness and claustrophobia, and the colorless, paranoid atmosphere suggested an unreality to be woken up from rather than a reality to be understood. It was terrifying to watch her become unhinged, her life taken over as she was ripped apart by something not of her own volition. And seeing the physical results of Natalie Portman’s training onscreen – hollow cheekbones, jutting shoulderblades, arms like twigs – was unnerving, as was the focus on bleeding, cuts, nails, and feathers, moving the battle to a corporal plane designed to make skin crawl.

In The Wrestler, physicality and vivid imagery were used as a tool to move the storyline, a way to underline its psychological effect, vivid illustrations of the abstract concepts of pain and sacrifice. In Black Swan, the gore and physicality were images to focus on, their value lying in and of themselves.

I guess the question is: what do you want out of your movies? I don’t need every movie to change my life, to contain meaningful relationships and well-developed characters. And no, it’s not fair to judge Black Swan against The Wrestler when Black Swan never claimed the same results as its goal. In a way, the point of a horror movie – to thrill, to remove from reality – runs counter to any attempt to explore a character’s psychology, narrative and world in a way we can relate to. But in Black Swan, the crazy came at me in waves, and unable to come up for air, my understanding of the purpose of it all was completely undermined. As a horror movie alone, I was left gasping, white-knuckled – and in that sense, I could have walked away satisfied with the experience. But if I’m going through hell, I want more payoff. I could have appreciated the crazy if it was in service of a higher goal – making a point, telling a story. But it was crazy for the sake of crazy, and I am not a masochist. I woke up from this nightmare wanting to peel the prickly sensation from my skin and move on as quickly as possible. Discombobulated and without anything of substance to put my feet on, I was left grasping at nothing.

I used to do ballet too. But I was never like Nina Sayers, I guess I was a tad too far from becoming a professional dancer to understand the competition between fellow dancers for castings, and the psychological effects that come along with.

I think I understood what it feels like though, through Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers. She completely outdid herself this time. The transition between the white swan and the black, the constant mind battle going on in Nina Sayers’ head; the fear of letting loose and for what might be once she does, which she does, eventually; the illusions of everything a ballerina would be most afraid of; Natalie Portman had it down. Paired with Darren Aronofsky’s directing, (like what Christina already said) the movie stays with you – whether for better or for worse.

I close my eyes to sleep and I hear Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in my head, the noise of the subway in contrast to the silence in an empty ballet classroom, Nina Sayers’ pants from her practice for perfection, the cracking of floors and the occasional toe nail; I see Nina’s mother (Barbara Hershey) and the cocoon she’s weaved around herself, Nina Sayers’ eyes and her quivering lips – the fear of breaking down and for not being perfect, in them in every shot she was in. It wasn’t a fear of being imperfect, it was a fear of not being perfect.

Except, she was. She was perfect. Natalie Portman was perfect as Nina Sayers. And Nina Sayers was as perfect an imperfection as we all are.

I don’t know all that much about movies, but I know it when something causes my heart to tremble and it’s sitting right on my nerves, while I sit on the edge of my chair watching Black Swan. I could be tipped over any minute now. It’s all about the balance – you lose it, and you fall. Me off my chair; Nina Sayers off the stage, and the cliff of her mind. 

‘Black Swan’ is an experience that will stay with you— whether you like it or not. In the vein of Darren Aronofsky’s break-through works, Pi  and Requiem for a Dream, psychological disintegration and descent is his domain and here he delivers 108 unflinching minutes of it. Set in the stereotypically glamorous world of ballet, ‘Black Swan’ tells of a ballerina’s casting in the ultimate role and subsequently her ultimate undoing.

From beginning to end, Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers suffers the extremes of  psychological and emotional torment in more varieties than you can count. You can say that it’s split personality, but then here comes the mommy issues, add to that competitive pressures, throw in some problems with sexuality while you’re at it and there goes the girl. ‘Black Swan’ is a cornucopia of neuroses that would have seemed cheap if it weren’t for the exquisite performance by Natalie Portman who utterly consumed herself to portray Nina. No longer is she ‘Natalie-Portman-playing-a-bald-headed-British-girl’ or ‘Natalie-Portman-playing-a-free-spirited-stripper’; for once I was completely convinced that she was the tremulous Nina, perpetually on the verge of breakdown. 

And down she went. Readers beware, spoilers ahead. Leave while you can and that’s the same advice I’d give if you’re not up for Nina’s gruesome journey. Aronofsky never shies away from the grime and gristle. Every element of the film served the singular purpose of thrilling, shocking and drilling his themes home. Duality is emphasised over and over in the form of black and white costuming and reflections in mirrors littered throughout the scenes. Aronofsky’s use of tracking shots binds us to Nina’s experience and then he expertly cuts to a wide shot to drop us back to sanity. The eerie sounds which was used to perfection in Requiem for a Dream return to haunt a new nightmare and we hear each creak and crack of bones, pointe shoes and trauma. This completely visceral experience is topped off with a mesmerising score that ushers us into the story, deeper into Nina’s harrowed mind. Aronofsky is an expert storyteller, adept at manipulating all the resources at hand. Including you.

His story has so many layers that I don’t even know where to begin. Symbolism is heaped onto every aspect of the story, revealed in every frame, so much so that it is overwhelming and almost stifling. But that’s good, because that’s what he wanted. The key themes are hardly subtle. The story of Swan Lake is repeatedly told. A pure, innocent princess is bewitched into becoming a swan and would have had true love with a prince if it were not for the appearance of an evil doppelganger. The doppelganger theme emphasises the inevitability of her doom, as encountering one’s doppelganger has traditionally been associated with death. With ballet dancers often being selected for their physical similarity, Aronofsky also plays off the distinctive features of ballet to enhance his story. Albeit that this is the ugliest side of ballet, a showcase of the fundamentals of what makes ballet possible but what we choose to ignore in order to see beauty through cruelty.

Yet at the heart of it all, underneath these connected themes is deep, unadulterated psychology. Freudian psychology dictates that the mind is made up of the id, ego, and super-ego. Whilst the id is the source of a relentless drive to seek pleasure (hello, libido), the super-ego opposes it as a perfectionistic moralising force to keep these desires suppressed. The ego mediates between the two extremes and the external world to keep all parties in check, creating the basis of who we are. And there. That’s the problem with Nina Sayers. She has no ego. As white swan she is pure super-ego and as the black twin she is id supreme. The chaotic fluctuation between the two culminates in her demise. With all this going on, she never had a chance.

Perfection, the idealised dream and our human inability to contain it is the DNA of Darren Aronofsky’s movies. In the closing shots, with Nina’s last line, a scene from the Bible’s Old Testament came to mind. In Exodus 33, Moses audaciously asks God to show him His glory. This is the pinnacle of perfection: the eternal, all-powerful God in pure form. Goodness in pure form. Light in pure form. Love in pure form. God agrees to reveal some, but warns that no one can see His face, for they would not be able to survive it. In his own way, this is Aronofsky’s preoccupation. His characters repeatedly strive for perfection, which in each case seems to be within reach, but they each fail and fall to disintegration. He calls into question this driving force of humanity. Is our unabating desire for perfection actually hubris? Can perfection actually be achieved? Can we ever master it? 

As far as I can tell, Darren Aronofsky doesn’t seem to think so.  

Is that the same look of confusion you got when you heard about the results? Well done facebook film. Commiserations Nolan.

WINNER

The Social Network (2010)

Other Nominees:

Black Swan (2010)

The Fighter (2010)

Inception (2010)

The King’s Speech (2010)

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

WINNER

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

Other Nominees:

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Burlesque (2010/I)

Red (2010/I)

The Tourist (2010)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama

WINNER

Colin Firth for The King’s Speech (2010)

Other Nominees:

Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network (2010)

James Franco for 127 Hours (2010)

Ryan Gosling for Blue Valentine (2010)

Mark Wahlberg for The Fighter (2010)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama

WINNER

Natalie Portman for Black Swan (2010)

Other Nominees:

Halle Berry for Frankie and Alice (2010)

Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole (2010)

Jennifer Lawrence for Winter’s Bone (2010)

Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine (2010)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

WINNER

Christian Bale for The Fighter (2010)

Other Nominees:

Michael Douglas for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

Andrew Garfield for The Social Network (2010)

Jeremy Renner for The Town (2010)

Geoffrey Rush for The King’s Speech (2010)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

WINNER

Melissa Leo for The Fighter (2010)

Other Nominees:

Amy Adams for The Fighter (2010)

Helena Bonham Carter for The King’s Speech (2010)

Mila Kunis for Black Swan (2010)

Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom (2010)

Best Director - Motion Picture

WINNER

David Fincher for The Social Network (2010)

Other Nominees:

Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan (2010)

Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech (2010)

Christopher Nolan for Inception (2010)

David O. Russell for The Fighter (2010)

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture

WINNER

The Social Network (2010): Aaron Sorkin

Other Nominees:

127 Hours (2010): Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy

Inception (2010): Christopher Nolan

The Kids Are All Right (2010): Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko

The King’s Speech (2010): David Seidler

Best Animated Film

WINNER

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Other Nominees:

Despicable Me (2010)

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

L’illusionniste (2010)

Tangled (2010)

Ok, I’ll be honest. I’m not the biggest fan of ballet. Let’s throw opera and theatre in that bucket too. Shocker I know.

Ballet sits in a comfortable little box in my life along with a multitude of other things that I will make a comment about every now and then to seem more cultured than I actually am; Somewhere to take a pretty girl to show her how sensitive I must be whilst I’m trying desperately to stay awake.

Let’s put it this way. It’s Friday night, and I ask you to pick a bunch of places you would love be, I guarantee you would not say the ballet, I don’t care how cultured you say you are.

But hey, despite this apparent distain for all things arty farty, I have to say, Black Swan was a pretty damn good film.

What I love about this film and consequently the reason why I dislike most farty things, the one thing I occasionally dislike about myself, is it doesn’t try to be something it’s not. There’s very little air of pretentiousness about the film that can otherwise spoil a good night out, say if you were to actually go to the theatre.

Natalie Portman is amazing. If you’re a fan of hers, I would recommend this film based on her performance alone. If you’re not. Piss off. She’s amazing. Portman plays a ballet dancer who must learn to dance both roles in Swan Lake; One pure and innocent, one dark and carnal. The moment where she transitions from good to evil on stage is completely electric and engaging. She does to you what Heath Ledger did for you in The Dark Knight; Made you frightened, unnerved and sit at the edge of your seat in utter disbelief, totally convinced.

Portman goes all out to have us believe that she is a ballerina, a damn good one at that. And shows people lost in the world of method acting that they don’t all have to go looney and back to be able to act well (Christian Bale). This is her craft. She knows it, so do you.

I didn’t care too much for the negative commentary about the performing arts industry in general. Apparently Black Swan managed to ruffle quite a few feathers around arts circles.

The last 20 minutes of the film is an experience in itself. Throwing itself completely off the cliff of insanity and (swan) diving into dramatical madness making no apologies for it’s intensity. I don’t think I blinked once. I was sucked into it all, her transition, the music, the final act. Don’t forget to breathe.

A combination of great cinematography (another fancy word I pretend to know more about than I actually do), skillful directing, a powerful soundtrack, a pitch perfect cast (Wynona Ryder), careful use of visual effects - and what you have is a dark, brooding, stripped down and visceral experience of Swan Lake - just like the film promises 30mins in, and it delivers just that.

I enjoyed Somewhere because it felt real to me.

With its unhurried pace and barely discernible plot structure, this was a slice of life as opposed to an event-driven narrative. Depicting a man with an empty life who comes to realize his situation, the story fit into the recognizable thematic vein of “self-discovery” or “finding purpose”, but Johnny’s experiences were shown in a way that closely mimicked actual life: a string of seemingly mundane and ambiguous happenings, which are pieced together afterwards to find meaning.

The lingering and drawn-out scenes filled with silence, the times where “nothing” was going on, or even the times where “something” was going on but it seemed meaningless, I knew these well because my life is full of them. As with life, I recognized that they weren’t pointless moments, because everything happens for a reason—especially in movies. I’m not saying every shot in the film was indispensable, but in my opinion each of them added some kind of clarity to the larger picture.

In my view, the scenes of dancing strippers and house parties and that one make-up session showed the overwhelming absurdity and listlessness of Johnny’s life, the scene of Cleo’s ice skating routine built suspense for the eventual but unguaranteed appearance of wonderment from her father, and over the course of the movie, their time spent together doing everyday things showed a gradual shift in Johnny as he realized what he was missing.

The meandering rate in which all of this happened felt incredibly real to me, because change requires time. It felt like watching a child grow taller or a flower bloom, never seeing the imperceptible day-to-day changes and only able to notice a difference after a certain length has passed.

To me, Somewhere showed how a man, desperately filling all the openings of his life with vapid diversions, begins to learn how to appreciate those quiet times and gradually starts to yearn for more substantial things. It spoke to me personally because I’m reminded of how, even now, I plan my schedule full of busy events—meet-ups with people, social gatherings, errands to run, tasks to complete—and yet I often feel like I’ve accomplished nothing for days, weeks, months. Sitting down to watch the movie was in itself a lesson in being still, being aware of, and enjoying the little pleasant moments: eating ice cream in bed, trying to do swimming tricks, making a home-cooked breakfast, playing ping-pong, lounging in a pool, driving a car.

The unavoidable comparison to Lost in Translation: The mood in Somewhere wasn’t as pervasively suffocating as the disconnect and loneliness expressed in Lost, and subsequently it doesn’t “stay” with you as that film did. But in a way this is a reflection of Johnny’s character, so fickle in putting so many mindless things into his life to distract from what was missing, as opposed to Bob’s and Charlotte’s, two people wallowing in their desire for something more to life and seemingly finding it with each other. In this way, Somewhere seems like an emotional prequel to Lost, as I can imagine Johnny and Bob being the same character at different points in his life. The newfound longing that closes Somewhere is what Lost opens with.

Taken together, both films seem to say that life isn’t so much about the lively, conspicuous events, but all the times that happen in between them—life is made up of the spaces in between.

It’s rather inevitable that I’d be persuaded by Sofia Coppola’s ‘Somewhere’.

Let me get it out in the open: it won’t change your life. It’s been done before, and in fact, Sofia has done it before. Its striking similarity to ‘Lost in Translation’ left a bad taste in my mouth as I sat there watching, hoping that it would turn a corner. It didn’t. The story runs the same. Ennui fills the stage as the jaded and burnt out actor performs his fatigued routine of industry duties, booze, sex and drugs (of the pharmaceutical variety: Propecia included). Enter the young girl, the fresh breath of air promising vitality, change and perhaps redemption for the actor. Except this time it’s his daughter.

Elle Fanning is delightful as Cleo the daughter, exuding genuine charm and sweetness such as when she accepts compliments and lights up as if each were her first. Stephen Dorff offsets her ingénue naiveté in an effortless portrayal of Johnny, her movie star father whose scruffy demeanour and inertia presents the overall tone of ‘Somewhere’.

Simply in light of the movies now prevalent, I appreciated ‘Somewhere’ for its silence and insightfully detailed film sets. As a ‘Sofia Coppola’ I knew that the scenes were carefully curated and in the silence I was given freedom to read and answer every ‘why’ I had for each scene and prop that was featured. From the interspersed ‘Cleo cooking’ scenes to the Ed Ruscha print propped against the wall, neglected and un-hung, each element spoke volumes on the background of its central characters without literally speaking it aloud. Hers is a kind of cinema that requires work from its viewers, to engage and uncover for themselves and really, who cares if the conclusion’s wrong? As with reality, the movie does not audibly explain itself nor does it steer clear of ambiguity which seems so often to be the substance of life.

Whilst most movies would shy away from its glaring light, I love it for its realism. I love that almost every scene is awkward, because in reality, it is. I love that you are made so aware of the sounds of traffic, of Johnny’s cigarette, of Cleo’s skates across the ice…of the noise pollution. This reminds me of John Cage’s experimental musical masterpiece, 4’33” where the musicians let silence play for the allotted time. It’s either profound or profoundly unnerving. You either love it or you don’t. You either get it or you don’t, and it’s fine either way. This is about the other moments, the moments usually tucked behind each scene as the director scrambles to take you to the next highlight. It’s sparse because life is sparse. This is an ode to the mundane.

Don’t get me wrong. I still think that the movie wasn’t so great. The plot is thin, the gags are old and the ending much clichéd but at the crux of why it was inevitable that I’d be persuaded by Sofia Coppola is that her films tend to speak only to those initiated to her topic of study.

‘Lost in Translation’ did nothing for anybody who’s never had that kind of connection with another person and ‘Somewhere’ would take you nowhere if you’ve never been burnt out. To have any appreciation of her movies, it is most important that you have ‘been there’. That you too did the rounds that Johnny did (literally or figuratively, as with the opening scene), that you too have found everything and everyday to be meaningless, and that you too have hoped for an escape from being disappointed by everything that once excited you. But you’re afraid to stop or to say how you feel. 

An understanding of the mechanisms behind distant father-daughter relationships would’ve been an added bonus to your movie-going experience. The performances were near pitch-perfect. It’s just that the script wasn’t. Objectively, this movie isn’t great for its cinematic value. Its worth is perhaps only evident to those in need of gentle assurance in amidst of this bourgeois suffering: maybe there will be breakthrough, but either way, you’re not alone. 

Michael Bay has explosions.  Sofia Coppola has emptiness.  You can’t un-see it now.  Run out of dialogue?  Blow a car up.  Don’t know how to make a point?  Man drifting in pool … slowly.  What can we do to make sure the audience knows how important this scene is?  Main character walking … explosion in the background.  Or, main character walking … nothing happening.  Ever. If Michael Bay gets flack for over-reliance on pyrotechnics, Sofia Coppola should be held accountable for over-reliance on not knowing when to turn the camera off.

There is a point.  I get that.  She’s trying to say something, and somebody out there probably gets it.  I’m not listening.  The film fails in convincing me that there is something I should be paying attention to, a deeper level of meaning that is conveyed by lingering shots of grown men drifting in a pool, or twins gyrating on portable stripper poles.  The scenes designed to give the film its emotional heft are robbed by the lack of character development, inter-character relationships, exposition, just … anything that would make me care about anybody.  And maybe that’s the world Sofia Coppola grew up in, I don’t know.  Disconnected, dispassionate, devoid of purpose. Boring.

There may have been a time when the subject matter of the film would have been a revelation.  In a more innocent time, maybe, when the private lives of Hollywood stars were still largely out of the public eye.  Hollywood life is lonely.  It’s boring.  It’s alienating.  You fly around the world and eat gelato in 5-star hotels and you drive your daughter to figure skating lessons in a Ferrari and sometimes you have parties where you end up in bed with a woman you don’t know, and yet you still feel unfulfilled.  Man, I know this already.  Did I seriously watch a movie about an actor struggling with boredom and regret?

I think I get Sofia Coppola’s style now.  Its slow, its empty, its minimalist.  I’m supposed to feel the reality of the lonely worlds she creates on camera.  But that’s just not my thing.  I don’t care about her vision, her storytelling, her authenticity.  It’s an honest look at something I’ve already seen, and it doesn’t even add anything.  And though the relationship with the daughter had promise, in the end, I got the impression that it really wasn’t necessary, and I wondered if the movie would have been better off without it.  Any sort of lift I was supposed to feel in their relationship was neutered by the director’s clumsy handling of the intended emotional payoff.

The final scene was the dumbest thing ever.

Having said all of this, the movie did get good reviews.  So, whatever.  It would have been amazing if the car blew up in the end.  BOOOOM!  ROBOTS, BITCHES! *puts on sunglasses*

Every now and then, a film comes along that changes the way you see the world. For me, Lost in translation was one of those films.

It spoke to me with such volume, yet with such quiet strength that it was really only until I’d been at a point in my life where I was totally lost that I was able to understand the subtle tones, the stray glances and fleeting subtext.

Lost in Translation was powerful because it explored very personal themes in such a way that I could not have done myself. Quite like when you hear a song for the first time, and feel like you’ve known it your whole life. It sings all the words you could not, says your soul.

I was really looking forward to enjoying “somewhere”. I was absolutely ready to sit there for 120 minutes and have my perspectives on life challenged and the values I held, questioned.

Conveying ideas with subtlety, conveying them well is a difficult task, one that she handled with a great degree of finesse in Lost In Translation. I promise I’ll stop talking about that film I’ll talk less about that film.

But with Somewhere, it felt like she was trying to outdo her own previous levels of nuance. Like Da Vinci going away to work on his next masterpiece, showing up years later to a gallery with what you hope will be shockingly beautiful, only to find that when he zealously pulls off the veil, you’re staring at a blank canvas.

And that’s exactly what I felt I was staring at for a lot of the film. I was trying very hard to see it but mostly I honestly felt that I wasn’t staring at anything.

Yes, there were moments in the film, some very nice moments. But why were they all so short lived, and so few and far between? For a director whose work relies so heavily on the impact of these moments to resonate with the audience, there just weren’t all that many for me to resonate with. And even when I was watching something that I knew was supposed to grip me, it was either too short for me to appreciate, or it was trying too hard to not try at all. And that left me vacant.

There were also problems with the narrative. For a protagonist that I was supposed to feel something for and be able to relate with at the end, she spent way too much time in the beginning emphasising how low his life was before his daughter stepped in, which she did way too late in the day. Their relationship wasn’t given enough time to develop, which is really what I desperately wanted to see and sink my heart into.

This underdevelopment really left you wondering how he really, and whether he honestly, could have reached the point of breaking down over the phone about how “he was nothing”. Which lead me to wonder at the end how long he was going to walk away from his Ferrari before he turned around and figured it would just make more sense to drive.

The one scene that almost had me, the very one that could have been perfect, and beautiful, and bittersweet was where he apologised under the noise of the rotor blades looking on at his daughter who was about to be driven off. And I know it was supposed to throw me. I was ready to jump right into the moment and tear away like there was no tomorrow. But the moment was soured because I just couldn’t help but think nothing was going to come of it, that it was all going to lead nowhere.

The Town is undeniably a film that will change lives forever. This is a film to be watched countless times with children and grandchildren. This is a film that will remain on critics’ Greatest Of All Time lists, even while some are already declaring “film” or “movie” to be inadequate words and pronouncing it the first in a new form. It is a film that will remain with you years after viewing, slipping warmly into thoughts when least expected, like a lover’s hand into a back pocket. Blending elements of science fiction, romance, musical, and horror, it represents the disruptive evolution of the fantasy/adventure movie, even while paying a distinct homage to The NeverEnding Story.

It’s quite impossible to convey with words the beauty of The Town, and to even attempt to do so would be an insult to its radical vision, its audacity of hope. Unable to be distilled into any lower form, the film escapes any and all attempts at summary. However, special praise must be given to Freddie Prinze Jr.—this hallmark performance could mark his return to box office dominance—as well as to the computer engineers behind the pristine CGI imagery of the powerful final scene. 

We will always remember the first time we watched The Town.

The Town was about exactly that—the town. The opening scene on the corner of Brattle and JFK at Harvard Square, the curb on Boylston across from the Fairmont Copley, the highway next to Bunker Hill Community College, the Zakim Bridge, the Garden, Fenway Park, disappearing r’s, and ah’s instead of o’s. The movie was saturated with Boston. Being that the writer and director was Ben Affleck, the lovefest was expected.

To understand something about both the movie itself and its writer/director, Boston is a funny place defined by its inferiority complex and transience. Just up the road from New York City, but not as glamorous or exciting. Thousands of college students pass through for four years at a time and then leave to bigger and better things. While there, the condescension drips from these pursuers of higher education towards the locals—with their Red Sox hats and Styrofoam Dunkin’ Donuts cups, the residents of, for example, Somerville, known to us transplants as Slumerville. The result is that born-and-raised massholes are fiercely, aggressively, angrily loyal—just trash talk anyone about the Sox, Celtics, or Bruins. Ben Affleck grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and now lives far, both in distance and lifestyle. Watching his movies, you can sense this split—between the townies and the toonies, the loyalty to Boston and the desire to escape.

With all its potential, The Town ultimately fell short of the substance and depth of his other movies. It had the crime and the grit of Gone Baby Gone, but was missing the tension, moral ambiguity, and the “stays with you” factor. It touched on the themes of brotherhood and a romantic relationship with a woman “not from here”, as in Good Will Hunting, but lacked its character depth and relationship development. The string of scenes, aerial shots, and accented conversations strained to convey .. something, but in the end tried to do too much, stating characters, relationships, storylines, and locales, moving on without fleshing them out. The lack of development left this viewer uninvested, trying to figure out what the movie was trying to be. Nothing stuck, despite efforts to portray a relationship I didn’t really believe, a brotherhood that I was told about more than shown (“we grew up together, we’re like brothers”).

I was impressed by the action sequences, which were crisp and well done. Ben Affleck is a surprisingly skillful director as well as a solid screenwriter. I love his take on the city, that he explores where he came from and the complexity that is so uniquely Boston. In the end, this just wasn’t quite as good as his others—but that I was disappointed is a compliment to him as a moviemaker, and a statement about what I’ve come to expect from him.

To be perfectly honest, when the phone call alerted me to Peter Postlethwaite’s death it took me a while to recall who he actually was. A faint ringing of a bell conjured by the sound of his name and then I had a conviction that I knew who this actor was; but I wasn’t entirely sure who he was or what movies he was in. 

And it seems as if I’m not alone. 

This is strangely the best compliment that I can pay him. I remembered him after seeing a picture and I felt a deep pang of sadness. He’s gone? Like a table leg breaking, you might not notice him when he was there but you certainly feel it when he’s gone. You can’t put a finger on it but you know that it won’t ever be the same again. 

It was his ability to emote the ‘everyman’, the groundedness of earthy humanity and his power to fluidly convey the complexities of man. He reminds me of Daniel Day-Lewis, which I believe is no small compliment. I remember him for his remarkable strength in each of his roles and our quiet response to every one of his portrayals is our silent vote of confidence; our satisfaction with the fact that he was indeed who he had set out to become.  This was our affirmation of him as an actor which was so wrapped in his subtlety that we even missed it ourselves.

My mind flickers through slivers of moments where I captured a particular emotion that he hit home. I see cowardice, I see bullish resolve, I see long-suffering integrity, humility, honour, vulnerability, weakness … and now with every film of his that I’ll go back to rediscover, I’ll keep seeing it again.

William Ng Status: NOOOOOOO!!!!

Facebook time: 23 hours ago.

The name rings a bell.  I picture a grubby old man with wild, windswept hair, big, goofy glasses and a lisp for no reason.  A quick Google search reveals a familiar face, one of those faces that just seem to pop up everywhere from late-night movies on the television to award winning films on the big screen.  You don’t really bother to find out who it is, but whenever he shows up you’re pleasantly surprised, and you say to yourself, “Hey, that guy!”  If you showed his picture to a random sample of my peers, you’d get a whole lot of “Ohhh him …. he was in … that movie …”  

Myself, I only remember him from Usual Suspects and The Town, two films separated by 15 years.  I still see him as the mysterious lawyer, Kobayashi, passing along instructions from the even more mysterious Keyser Soze.  And the reveal scene at the end, with the bulletin board and the mug, and we find out the truth behind Kobayashi .. wow. That stuck with me.  

After work, I head over to a bar in Central and the topic of his passing comes up.  The discussion is not so much about the films that he’s appeared in, but his appearance itself.  The gaunt cheeks, the piercing eyes, the thick eyebrows … there was something raw and genuine in the worn features of his face.  He once said about his profession that it was “all about telling lies.”

When he acted, I believed him.  

That’s probably one of the highest things you can say about an actor.  It wasn’t about him, it was about the telling of the story.  I don’t know if he ever strived for fame, or whatever it is Hollywood stands for in the minds of most in his profession.  His name may not have meant anything to most people reading about him in the daily.  But I bet the picture of him in the obit generated all the recognition and confirmation of his talent he ever needed.   ”Ooohhh that guy!  Wasn’t he in …..”     

The first time I saw the man on screen I loved him in an instant.

There was good in his eyes. They went somewhere. They saw something. You loved him because he allowed you see it too. I completely bought into the characters he brought to this life. Today the world loses a brilliant performer. 

“Truth is I thought it mattered, I thought that music mattered. But does it bollocks! Not compared to how people matter.” - Pete Postlethwaite, Brassed Off

“At the end of the day, acting is all about telling lies. We are professional imposters and the audience accept that. We’ve made this deal that we tell you a tale and a pack of lies, but there will be a truth in it. You may enjoy it, or it will disturb you.” - Pete Postlethwaite

“It was him we wanted to be like; wild and true; lion hearted; unselfconscious and deliciously irreverent. He was on our side. He watched out for us.” - Daniel Day-Lewis

“The best actor in the world” - Steven Spielberg

“A rare and remarkable man. I was honoured by his friendship - he is irreplaceable” - Bill Nighy

There are parts of the movie that really worked for me. The action going down the streets of Bahstan. The diet coke before Coughlin’s death. Pete Postlethwhaite’s dialogue with Ben Affleck about his mom. Coughlin.

The parts that didn’t work so well were the constant “hey look at me” pushing of character development in between things that actually happened in the movie. Sometimes I would be watching five to ten minute stretches of dialogue at a time where I hadn’t the foggiest what they were talking about or rather why it was significant to the narrative. The dialogue came on too strong, like a roused teen at prom. It was definitely trying very hard to be something, but narrowly missing the point.

Was it a story about brotherhood? There were a few big missed moments that could have been quite moving had the inconsistent pace/lack of development not held it back. The death of the decoy guy, the death of Coughlin. All good scenes, but with very little lasting impact. Was it a romance that suffered from issues of plausibility and lack of depth? A heist movie with too much fluff in between heists? 

Overall the movie suffered from being drawn out too long and spread too thin; It was trying to very hard to cram a heist, a romance and a brotherhood story all into one, but narrowly missing the mark on all three. The way in which it handled latter two of the three was very obvious, almost forcibly so, leaving me feeling slightly manipulated. Definitely contrived.

It is a tall task to ask of any director, to cram three linear narratives into one. You can tell that Affleck spent a lot of effort and worked very hard on each individual scene making sure that it looked and sounded great and to good avail, because a lot of the scenes were handled really well. Putting together a string of awesome scenes does not, unfortunately make for one single awesome movie. The movie as a whole didn’t take me to places, to any place really.

I wasn’t totally disconnected though, from either the characters or the plot. That I do give him credit for. And while the characters and plot may not have at times been believable, they were quite endearing. Enough so that I thought of the bad guys more as the good guys and visa versa. 

Affleck’s fourth hand at directing offers a movie with all the elements, but no heart.