In an attempt to gain viewers, the Academy this year is selecting a greater diversity of movies and nominating 10 films in the Best Picture category. The increased number means it’s harder to keep up and watch all the candidates. Thus, to be perfectly candid, I have not yet seen the following movies – An Education, A Serious Man, and Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire. Nonetheless, that won’t stop me from describing my personal favorites
The Best Picture category is an all out fight between Avatar – perhaps the greatest movie ever made – and The Hurt Locker, the best film of the year. So what is my distinction between a movie and a film? Avatar is a great movie for its combination of effects, camera angles and 3D realism. It is a transformation in movie-making, similar to the revolutions of silent to sound and monochrome to color. The themes though are quite simple – good vs. evil; boy meets, loses and gets back girl (albeit 9-foot tall, feline blue girl). The story is familiar, but the packaging is ground-breaking.
Katheryn Bigelow’s feature, The Hurt Locker, available on DVD, also shows us a world we barely know – following a bomb-defusing team in Baghdad. But, this is not re-telling a classic tale. Instead it muses on darker themes –the desire for annihilation in a world where taking risks is what keeps you alive; the imbalance between sanity and gifted-talent. Similar to Avatar, this movie has bombastic effects, but what makes it different is the taut storyline and character development. Although Avatar will get Best Picture, Katheryn Bigelow should win Best Director.
The other Best Picture candidates like District 9 would have had a shot in a less strong year. Up also nominated in this category should float away with the Best Animated Feature category.
Best Actor will go to Jeff Bridges, but he is robbing it from Colin Firth whose portrayal of a torn soul due to his lover’s death in A Single Man is heart-breaking.
Best Actress will go to Sandra Bullock. Although the movie Blind Side pulls at all the right heart strings, it is not a great film or movie and shouldn’t be a Best Picture candidate. Yet, Bullock’s turn as the bull-headed, suburban mother that adopts and raises a pro-football athelete, is sincere and worthy. Meryl Streep has enough nominations and wins; she doesn’t need this one.
Christopher Waltz’s killer performance in Inglorious Basterds should get Best Supporting Actor. His fey Nazi Colonel who speaks four languages fluently and is constantly outwitting his prey is pure Oscar fun. The vengeance story of the movie itself is a little more disquieting. Matt Damon’s Afrikaaner rugby player doing the right thing in Invictus would have won for its feel-good storyline in any other year.
Finally, Mo’Nique’s performance in Precious has won every award so far, and is likely to continue its streak. Although, I personally enjoyed Vera Farmiga’s performance as foil and friend to George Clooney in Up In The Air. I hope to see this pairing soon – they may become the modern-day Cary Grant / Katherine Hepburn.
Have fun and don’t forget to watch on Sunday, March 7.
February 27, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Some thoughts on… Appeasing Anger
Heading to the subway for work two weeks ago, I was stopped by the driver of a white van on the street. He leaned over and asked “Hey buddy, this is a strange question, but do you want to buy a 5.1 system?” I didn’t need a stereo but a couple of friends did. He opened up the back to show 8 new boxes and a shiny catalogue demonstrating the retail price was around $3000. This had to be a scam.
Thrilled by the prospect of a good deal and simultaneously nervous of being arrested by the police for literally buying stuff that was falling off the back of a truck, we came to a negotiated price of $220. I brought it back to the apartment and started to Google which eventually voiced my gnawing doubts – this was a big hoax. The brand – Paramax – was being sold out of white vans in the UK and US. The speakers were barely worth what I had paid. Luckily, I hadn’t been completely ripped off, but I was ashamed and pissed.
On February 4, Scott Brown was sworn in as the Republican Senator of Massachusetts inheriting the seat left by Ted Kennedy, disrupting the fragile Congressional vote on Health Care reform, and representing the anger of the broader Tea-Party Movement. Formed early in 2009, these citizens oppose the large spend associated with the stimulus package and the actions of President Obama over the past year. They are livid that the national debt is increasing, and that they may have to pay future taxes.
The original Boston Tea-Party staged before the American Revolution, protested actual levies on goods imported and exported from the US. Confusingly, the current movement is focused on potential tax increases that may occur, although no taxes on the middle-class are planned in Obama’s ten-year budget.
So, why are the Independent voters in Massachusetts, the Tea-Party Republicans and I so mad at our respective transactions? Didn’t we just get what we deserved?
The musical, Fela! which transferred from off-Broadway to the Eugene O’Neill, is an homage to afro-beat music pioneered by Fela Kuti in the 1970’s. Kuti, a Nigerian composer and political activist, wrote scathing critiques of the corrupt government and its links to multi-national oil companies. The music is a syncopated, mash-up of West African rhythms, jazz and story-telling in Pidgin English. The music of the show is enveloping and electrifying; tantalizing the audience with its marijuana-laced power to stand, sway, clap and interact regardless of the age, income, and racial composition of the Broadway audience
The haphazard story line doesn’t follow a traditional musical plot, and the rambling narrative paints an impressionistic canvass rather than fine-detail, but the music is sufficiently enthralling to cover these faults. Although Kuti’s original critiques of the government were crushed through violent suppression by the military, he continued to express his discontent in the streets of Lagos and across West Africa through his music well into the 1990’s. He attempted several runs for the President’s office in the 1980’s, but the rebellious and withdrawn approach of his protest – declaring an independent state within Nigeria, eventually marrying more than 27 women, and actively using illicit narcotics – separated him from more influential parties. In the end, his remonstrations were colorful spectacle, but could not effectuate change since they did not present a clear and viable alternative to the prevailing system.
David Mamet’s new drama, Race, is a court-room exhibition with fast-talking lawyers, an ingénue assistant, and a morally-questionable defendant. It’s the right mixture of ingredients, but the cake doesn’t rise. David Alan Grier and James Spader portray Partners in a law firm who are determining whether to take on the case of a white man that is accused of raping a black woman. Mamet’s dialogue is clever, but is thrown-away by the verbal acuity of the performers who seem intent to race through the show as quickly as possible. Just as I had a handle on the state of play, act 2 was completing.
Blame is a major theme of the performance – is the defendant culpable for the turn of events or is race biasing our view of innocence? The lawyers seek to determine guilt using the tools they have to address a potential judge and jury - hatred, fear and envy. Their own prejudices are mired in these emotions. Before approaching a court, they play out potential arguments in the safety of their office, leading them down philosophically - wayward streets and back alleys. Eventually, we realize that in the pursuit to establish innocence, they become guilty, since they forget to acknowledge their role in creating the lurid affair.
Similar to the Tea-Party independents, all of us can get mad at our current situation – with work, with our families, with the economy – but when expressing anger we should take on two responsibilities. First is to recognize our own culpability in creating and fostering the situation. How did we allow an administration in eight years to take us from a Fiscal surplus to deficit by running two wars without paying for them?
The second responsibility to displaying anger is being able to generate a potential alternative for the situation. If Republicans really disagree with the current situation, they should complain, and then generate ideas for resolution. We can’t just sit back and criticize without taking the responsibility to govern. Otherwise, we become cynics cursing at the skies and others.
It’s easy for me to get angry at the people selling me a bad stereo – “they swindled me”, “the cops should stop these people”, “the city should crack down”. In the end, though I was the one buying a system from the back of a truck. I got what I deserved. Maybe in the future, I’ll think twice about getting such a good deal.
February 7, 2010
Thrilled by the prospect of a good deal and simultaneously nervous of being arrested by the police for literally buying stuff that was falling off the back of a truck, we came to a negotiated price of $220. I brought it back to the apartment and started to Google which eventually voiced my gnawing doubts – this was a big hoax. The brand – Paramax – was being sold out of white vans in the UK and US. The speakers were barely worth what I had paid. Luckily, I hadn’t been completely ripped off, but I was ashamed and pissed.
On February 4, Scott Brown was sworn in as the Republican Senator of Massachusetts inheriting the seat left by Ted Kennedy, disrupting the fragile Congressional vote on Health Care reform, and representing the anger of the broader Tea-Party Movement. Formed early in 2009, these citizens oppose the large spend associated with the stimulus package and the actions of President Obama over the past year. They are livid that the national debt is increasing, and that they may have to pay future taxes.
The original Boston Tea-Party staged before the American Revolution, protested actual levies on goods imported and exported from the US. Confusingly, the current movement is focused on potential tax increases that may occur, although no taxes on the middle-class are planned in Obama’s ten-year budget.
So, why are the Independent voters in Massachusetts, the Tea-Party Republicans and I so mad at our respective transactions? Didn’t we just get what we deserved?
The musical, Fela! which transferred from off-Broadway to the Eugene O’Neill, is an homage to afro-beat music pioneered by Fela Kuti in the 1970’s. Kuti, a Nigerian composer and political activist, wrote scathing critiques of the corrupt government and its links to multi-national oil companies. The music is a syncopated, mash-up of West African rhythms, jazz and story-telling in Pidgin English. The music of the show is enveloping and electrifying; tantalizing the audience with its marijuana-laced power to stand, sway, clap and interact regardless of the age, income, and racial composition of the Broadway audience
The haphazard story line doesn’t follow a traditional musical plot, and the rambling narrative paints an impressionistic canvass rather than fine-detail, but the music is sufficiently enthralling to cover these faults. Although Kuti’s original critiques of the government were crushed through violent suppression by the military, he continued to express his discontent in the streets of Lagos and across West Africa through his music well into the 1990’s. He attempted several runs for the President’s office in the 1980’s, but the rebellious and withdrawn approach of his protest – declaring an independent state within Nigeria, eventually marrying more than 27 women, and actively using illicit narcotics – separated him from more influential parties. In the end, his remonstrations were colorful spectacle, but could not effectuate change since they did not present a clear and viable alternative to the prevailing system.
David Mamet’s new drama, Race, is a court-room exhibition with fast-talking lawyers, an ingénue assistant, and a morally-questionable defendant. It’s the right mixture of ingredients, but the cake doesn’t rise. David Alan Grier and James Spader portray Partners in a law firm who are determining whether to take on the case of a white man that is accused of raping a black woman. Mamet’s dialogue is clever, but is thrown-away by the verbal acuity of the performers who seem intent to race through the show as quickly as possible. Just as I had a handle on the state of play, act 2 was completing.
Blame is a major theme of the performance – is the defendant culpable for the turn of events or is race biasing our view of innocence? The lawyers seek to determine guilt using the tools they have to address a potential judge and jury - hatred, fear and envy. Their own prejudices are mired in these emotions. Before approaching a court, they play out potential arguments in the safety of their office, leading them down philosophically - wayward streets and back alleys. Eventually, we realize that in the pursuit to establish innocence, they become guilty, since they forget to acknowledge their role in creating the lurid affair.
Similar to the Tea-Party independents, all of us can get mad at our current situation – with work, with our families, with the economy – but when expressing anger we should take on two responsibilities. First is to recognize our own culpability in creating and fostering the situation. How did we allow an administration in eight years to take us from a Fiscal surplus to deficit by running two wars without paying for them?
The second responsibility to displaying anger is being able to generate a potential alternative for the situation. If Republicans really disagree with the current situation, they should complain, and then generate ideas for resolution. We can’t just sit back and criticize without taking the responsibility to govern. Otherwise, we become cynics cursing at the skies and others.
It’s easy for me to get angry at the people selling me a bad stereo – “they swindled me”, “the cops should stop these people”, “the city should crack down”. In the end, though I was the one buying a system from the back of a truck. I got what I deserved. Maybe in the future, I’ll think twice about getting such a good deal.
February 7, 2010
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