Inside Llewyn Davis (*****)

My filmgoing experience today has taken me from one emotional extreme to the next (see my "American Hustle" review). With the Coen brothers, I can always trust them to deliver a story with real characters and great dialogue. What caught me off guard with "Inside Llewyn Davis," then, was the emotional punch it brought. Known for their technical brilliance, Joel and Ethan have outdone themselves in capturing the Greenwich Village scene pre-Bob Dylan.

With a bookend technique that perfectly crafts the film like a brushstroke, we meet and get to know Llewyn Davis (the name is Welch, though his mom is Italian) over the course of a few days. In typical Coen fashion, he's down on his luck, hopping from couch to couch, playing gigs but getting nothing for it. The film is a slow, churning reflection on the times, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see people walking out of the screening instead of listening to song after song in their entireties. What we lack in plot is made up for in characters and imagery.

Davis is trying to start a solo gig, after the recent suicide of his musical partner. The problem is that he can't get anyone to listen. On top of it, his friend's cat escaped their apartment and he is locked out. What else can a man do but carry around an orange cat through the cold of a New York winter?

Oscar Isaac is the man. You may recognize him from "Drive?" Here, he shines. The film depends wholly on a man we can sympathize with and yet demonstrate a broad range of talent. This is a star-making performance, and I hope to see more from him soon. The cast is littered with great roles (Carey Mulligan playing his ex who has nothing but profanities for him, John Goodman as a mysterious man who uses two walking canes, drugs, and a chauffeur). Their scenes are perfect and yet too short. We could make an entire film out of Goodman's character, and yet we see him for mere minutes!

The real star is the music, but what else is new? The soundtrack is manipulative to the point of being sentimental, but I didn't mind in the least. It sounds of sadness that seems to mirror the sense of foreboding as the innocence of the times is almost over.

As per the Coen's emphasis on craftsmanship, the film is gorgeous, and the best moments are the short scenes of little to no dialogue, beautifully shot and conceived. A car on a snowy highway, the glance of a cat, a puddle of slush in the snow.... Breaking from long-time collaborator Roger Deakins, the film is still a marvel of photography with Bruno Delbonnel (Amelie) as the helm.

The film moves mountains in it's slow, dark journey, and what a pleasure it was to watch. As far as Coen brothers go, their streak of unique filmmaking and first-rate writing continues. "Inside Llewyn Davis" is simply fantastic.

(Awards potential: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Isaac), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Editing, Best Soundtrack, Best Sound Mixing)

State of the Oscar Race...

Let's begin by simply stating: this is a drab year for quality movies. Sorry, that's this blogger's humble opinion. One year after one of the most exciting Oscar races in memory (Argo, Lincoln, Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty, Django Unchained, The Master, etc, etc, etc), we're having trouble naming more than a couple films that could theoretically WIN the big prize: Best Picture. As of now, and based on our recent SAG Nominations/ Golden Globe Nominations/ Critics' Choice Nominations, we have but one possible winner: 12 Years A Slave. Let's discuss this logic. 

BEST PICTURE

With Golden Globe nominations, we saw an interesting split between the Comedy/Drama categories. In Best Picture, we had the following nominees: 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, Captain Philips, Rush, & Philomena. Comedy saw the following hilarious films nominated: Her, American Hustle, Inside Llewyn Davis, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Nebraska. As little as the Globes matter anymore (and as irrelevant, too), we did see some trends with the SAG Best Ensemble nominees (the Best Picture equivalent for actors: The Butler, 12 Years a Slave, Dallas Buyers Club, August Osage County, and American Hustle) and the Critics Choice nominees (American Hustle, Captain Philips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, Saving Mr Banks, 12 Years a Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street). Ignoring the overwhelming mess of trying to interpret, there are a few basic rules with gauging Oscar potential: Getting a nomination from all 3 is almost crucial (12 Years A Slave & American Hustle), a SAG Ensemble Nomination is required to win Best Picture, and generally the film with the most cast members nominated wins (The Butler leads with 15, followed by 12 Years A Slave at 13). Meaning?: 12 Years A Slave is our front-runner, and American Hustle is not far behind. Sorry Gravity....

Locked and loaded for a nomination:

1. 12 Years A Slave

2. American Hustle

3. Gravity

4. Nebraska

5. Inside Llweyn Davis

6. Captain Phillips

Most likely:

7. Wolf of Wall Street

8. Her

It Could Happen:

9. Dallas Buyers Club

10. Saving Mr Banks

11. Philomena

12. Rush

BEST ACTOR

When dealing with actors, SAG nominations (Screen Actors Guild) are your best bet. Not only does it gauge the overall tone of the voters, but it shows where the support is amongst the Oscar's biggest group of voters: actors. Our nominees are Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club), Bruce Dern (Nebraska), Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips), and Forrest Whitaker (The Butler). Save for Whitaker, who may easily get bumped off for Robert Redford in All Is Lost, this has been the consistent lineup all season. McConaughey will finally break into the 'big boy club' by scoring his first nomination (ala Bradley Cooper last year), Tom Hanks will receive his first nomination since 2000, and Best Picture will most likely secure a win for its main actor (think The Artist, The King's Speech, No Country for Old Men, Million Dollar Baby, Gladiator, etc). It helps to star in a critically-acclaimed movie when you're looking for Oscar gold. Expect to see Chiwetel Ejiofor as the front runner for the rest of the race. 

Locked and loaded:

1. Chiwetel Ejiofor

2. Bruce Dern

3. Matthew McConaughey

4. Tom Hanks

Battling for the last spot:

5. Robert Redford

6. Forrest Whitaker

7. Leonardo DiCaprio

8. Christian Bale

BEST ACTRESS

Then again, sometimes you don't need an Oscar juggernaut to push you through to an Oscar, all you need is to be a female starring in a Woody Allen movie. SAG nominated Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine), Sandra Bullock (Gravity), Meryl Streep (August Osage County), Emma Thompson (Saving Mr Banks), and Judi Dench (Philomena). That's a strong lineup, one that will most likely secure all ladies Oscar nominations, too. Outside of Blanchett and Dench, each woman has already won Best Actress, and ALL have won Oscars before. Bullock is expected to be the biggest threat to Blanchett's win here, but being in a science fiction film doesn't fare well for Oscar voters (remember the last time someone in a science fiction film won an Oscar? Me neither...), nor does Bullock's recent win (which some found undeserving to boot). Cate Blanchett stands out from the pack. 

Locked and loaded:

1. Cate Blanchett

2. Sandra Bullock

3. Meryl Streep

4. Judi Dench

5. Emma Thompson

It could happen:

6. ..... cough.... ?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Some surprises here, with SAG nominating Barkhad Abdi (Captain Philips), Daniel Bruhl (Rush), Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave), Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club), and James Gandolfini (posthumously, for Enough Said). Replace Gandolfini with Bradley Cooper in American Hustle and you have the Golden Globe lineup. Include both and you have Critics Choice. Who will miss a nomination on Oscar morning? Abdi and Bruhl were surprises to say the least, but they were consistently nominated across the board. Are they in Oscar lineup for sure?? It's no guarantee. Who can say for sure at this point. All we know is that Fassbender and Leto will have to duke it out for the title. Interestingly, both play somewhat historical characters in an American historical film, one a villain, and one a hero. Supporting Actor loves themselves some villains at the Oscars (No Country for Old Men, Inglourious Basterds, Dark Knight...) so perhaps Fassbender. Then again, the Academy has yet to prove their love for him, and he plays a very unsettling role. As of now it looks like Jared Leto is a few paces ahead (if only because of other critics awards he has already picked up). 

Locked and loaded:

1. Jared Leto

2. Michael Fassbender

Most likely:

3. Barkhad Abdi

4. Daniel Bruhl

Battling for #5:

5. James Gandolfini

6. Bradley Cooper

7. Tom Hanks (Saving Mr Banks)

8. Will Forte (Nebraska)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Julia Roberts (August Osage County), Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave), Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle), June Squibb (Nebraska), Oprah Winfrey (The Butler). Those are our SAG nominees. Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) bumped Oprah out in a shocker at the Globes, and Critics nominated all our SAG ladies on top of the Scarlett Johansson for Her. Wow. Will Oprah make the final cut? Most likely. Will she win? No. Who are the front-runners? Tough call. Lupita Nyong'o is powerful in 12 Years a Slave and has a powerful debut. June Squibb is a veteran playing a colorful character in a great movie that has little chance of winning other awards. For now, bet on Lupita, but June stands in the shadows of great older women who have won this category in the past.

Locked and loaded:

1. Lupita Nyong'o

2. June Squibb

3. Jennifer Lawrence

Most likely:

4. Oprah Winfrey

5. Julia Roberts

It could happen:

6. Sally Hawkins

7. Scarlett Johansson (well, maybe this one can't...)

BEST DIRECTOR

Globes nominated 12 Years A Slave, Gravity, Captain Phillips, American Hustle, and Nebraska. We won't have a good grasp of this category until DGA nominations, although last year, that only translated into 2 Oscar nominations (remember when Ben Affleck was snubbed and Ang Lee won? Oh yeah). For now, things will correlate closely with Best Picture, meaning Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave has all the right ingredients right now. 

Locked and loaded:

1. Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave)

2. Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)

3. David O. Russell (American Hustle)

Most likely:

4. Alexander Payne (Nebraska)

Need to fill the last spot:

5. Martin Scorsese (Wolf of Wall Street)

6. Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips)

7. Joel & Ethan Coen (Inside Llewyn Davis)

We'll see how the race shapes up with PGA (Producers Guild) DGA (Directors Guild) WGA (Writers Guild) nominations in the coming weeks. So far, the crystal ball is becoming clear....

Her (*****)

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”

"Her" is a film unlike any other this year. In a screenwriting debut, Spike Jonze (of "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation." fame) single-handedly turns in a story on par with the best of Charlie Kaufman, a story of humans and machines and the crazy world in which we live (and perhaps the world we will soon be experiencing). 

The time is the near-future. The date is not important. Nor is the setting, a massive expanse of high-rises and skyscrapers with lights, images, color, people. It's an entire world, and yet the people in this world inhabit their own, with earpieces that are reminiscent of the smartphone fad. Heads down, focused on reading emails, people pass through the most beautiful settings unaware of any special significance. 

Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) is one such man. He is freshly-single from a divorce, still haunted by memories of their life. He works in an office where he is hired to write love letters to people as though penned by the lover, themself. He is a genius of the craft, able to eloquently ghost write a love note to an elderly couple, but lacks the social skills necessary for anything else, least of all his relationships with women. 

A new software becomes available, an operating system with an artificial intelligence. She names herself Samantha (the gorgeous, scratchy voice of Scarlett Johansson).  She begins to charm Theodore with her knowledge, her insight, her programming. She asks about his life, his past wife, his thoughts.... They fall in love. 

As far as you are concerned, that is the plot of the trailer, cryptic and beautiful, and yet there is an ocean of depth to this film! We discover other people are falling in love with their OS's (operating systems), though it's rare. Theodore begins introducing Samantha to his friends, colleagues. Some are surprised, some are not. All the while while watching, I was aware of my own distaste with the subject matter. So radical, nearly warped, and yet not without the slightest hint of self-reflection. 

Can a man and machine truly love one another? Can an artificial intelligence honestly feel emotions, especially towards a human being? As Theodore's neighbor, Amy (Amy Adams) puts it: how can you decide what's real if you're not actually experiencing it? 

The ending leaves as many questions and puzzles as the film's beginning. Through the gorgeous futuristic settings and against the somber Arcade Fire soundtrack, "Her" was one of my most pleasurable movie experiences this year. This is not to say I was laughing, although it is a comedy. Nor is it to say I was depressed, though it is a hard-hitting drama. Spike Jonze manages the near-impossible, telling a science fiction story with the most humanistic focus possible. That's a rare feat, indeed. 

(Awards potential: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Phoenix), Best Supporting Actress (Adams, Johansson), Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography, Best Soundtrack)

Philomena (****)

Oh how I adore you, Judi Dench. One of the most remarkable actresses that has ever graced the screen. Can she do no wrong? What seemed like a slight comedy in the trailer comes a powerful and emotionally honest story of a woman looking for her adopted child. Directed by Steven Frears (you know him for directing 'The Queen'), 'Philomena' is as well-rounded as any movie this year and features one of the best leading performances to boot.

As a young girl, Philomena becomes pregnant. Taken in by a group of Irish nuns, she is forced to work off her sins as penance and her son is adopted to an American family against her will. The memories of her son haunt her to this day, and it's the realization that her lying about the truth for all this time is a sin in itself is what sets the story in motion.

Well, not entirely. Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) is a recently-fired as a political advisor and is looking for work. Maybe he'll write a book on Russian history... Maybe not. Like fate, he comes to hear of Philomena and her struggle to find out what happened to her now 50-year-old son, Anthony. Taken by the 'human' element of the story and the appeal of getting work published, they set off to America, where they search for records of the adoption (how convenient that the nunery had a massive fire destroying all records?)

Judi Dench gives such a natural sensibility to Philomena. She is kind, complimentary, worried more about burdening Sixsmith than finding out the truth. She is almost his opposite. Sixsmith is solely concerned with finding the ending to his story and returning to London with Philomena, happy or not. Likewise for Steve Coogan. He is stern, non-religious, interested only in facts. And yet he grows to care for Philomena. They're subtle but great performances, both of them.

The film has a strong conviction against the Catholic Church and its policies regarding children born out of wedlock, but at the same time it does not entirely rule out forgiveness as a final option. For every day in the last 50 years, Philomena has prayed for her son. She hasn't the heart to hate the nuns that brought her pain about. It's not the Christian thing to do.

It's easy to recognize the work of a great director, and Frears effortlessly directs the film. At times I felt too spoon fed, and as an audience member I wished certain aspects of the film weren't spelled out so neatly for me. The film shows flashbacks of Philomena with her son and at the convent, but these contribute next to nothing to the story and are distracting to say the least. The film opens with an extended flashback of her getting pregnant and having her child. My God, the film just started! Sometimes mystery is a good thing.

Nonetheless, the film is joyous and oftentimes powerful. Alexander Desplat lends himself to a beautiful score and the film has some beautiful moments. Yes, filmmaking is a combination of elements, from the screenplay to the editing, but without a great leading actor, your film is finished. Thank God for Judi Dench.

(Awards potential: Best Picture, Best Actress (Dench), Best Supporting Actor (Coogan), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score)

Lee Daniels' The Butler (**)

Like Tyler Perry, Lee Daniels' is learning to create a name for himself in Hollywood. Branding his films in the same fashion, 'The Butler' has proven a box office hit, and we will surely see many more films by the Oscar-nominee in the near future.

Hopefully we can see a bit more focus next time...

'The Butler' is a mess of near-catastrophic proportions. From the script up, the film itself is flawed in nearly every regard. The 'loosely-loosely based on a true story' of Cecil Gaines (in reality a man with a very different story named Eugene Allen), a man who worked in the White House as Lead Butler from Robin Williams to Severus Snape. The facts surrounding his position are astounding, and it's a wonder he didn't run into Forrest Gump at least a few times during his amazing odyssey through life and American History.

I don't want to spend a review bashing the film, because there are some okay (alright, good) performances by Forrest Whitaker and the beloved Oscar-nominee Oprah Winfrey. And heck, the makeup in the end is pretty good, too.... And I also liked when it ended?

The problem is the structure. When you are making a movie about a man's life and the influence of American history upon it and vice versa, we need a plot, we need reliable characters. As far as I can gather, Cecil liked being a butler, his son rebelled against it by joining the Black Panthers, and then Cecil decides to join him for no clear reason? The emotional conclusion to the film is seeing Cecil share a prison cell with his son, Louis. Oh, and the tears of joy with the election of Barack Obama. You know, because it's a race-themed movie and what a great conclusion.

From the cotton fields at the film's start (I didn't actually know Mariah Carey was black until this movie) to the elderly Cecil waiting to meet with the new President at the White House, we see the story unfold, with scene after scene of the most ridiculous-cast Presidents (each more ridiculous than the next, too). It's like a bad month of SNL hosts in a row giving it their best shot. No President is given more than one scene or two, adding to the confusion of their purpose in the film at all. No matter. I guess it's more a story of father and son, anyways.

For the acclaim this film received upon its release, I would be surprised to see it receive more than one Oscar nomination, if that at all. It's a slow-moving film that drudges along at the speed of an elderly Forrest Whitaker. It's like the continuation of 'Forrest Gump,' were they to make a sequel documenting the life and times of Bubba. Yes, it's kind of a true story and there's a general glazing of facts and time, but in the end, is that enough to warrant a full-length movie?

(Awards potential: Best Supporting Actress (Winfrey), Best Makeup)