Category Archives: Jay

On the Oscars, and Giving Awards for Art

We all know that it’s technically impossible to judge art. Art is subjective, meaning it’s an opinion, and opinions will vary from person to person. And we all know that we aren’t allowed to tell people that their opinion is stupid (even when it clearly is – believe me, I’ve tried). So if no one is wrong, then how can anything be right? Is an awards ceremony like the Oscars meaningless?

In a word, yes. The winners are established not by general consensus, but by secret-ballot voting of a select few who are not even a representative sample of the public. The Academy is made up of industry people – people who work in the business. People whose livelihoods depend on the business. People who are financially invested in the outcomes. They all pledge allegiance to certain movie studios and voting is not decided on ‘merit’ but on the political glad-handing that runs rampant behind the scenes. People campaign for votes. Literally campaign. Studios host lunches and come up with special advertising. The Academy is influenced by marketing first, and we can only hope that quality is at least second. The studios negotiate between themselves – if I can have your vote for Best Supporting Actor, you can have mine for Best Original Screenplay. Richard Linklater was an ardent campaigner this year while Birdman’s Inarritu was too busy working on another movie. But does someone deserve to win based on how many hands he shook, how many martinis he comped, or how unembarrassed he was to beg for the votes?

It all starts to feel a bit dirty.

As you know by now, the Best Picture award, which was a hot race between Boyhood and Birdman, went to Birdman. Inarritu’s peers, the people who make movies and would like to continue making them, decided his movie was the best. Or at least the one that should be rewarded, ostensibly so movies like that can continue to be made and the voters can continue to be employed. But movie critics, people who judge movies professionally, who are educated in what makes a movie ‘good’ gave it to Boyhood. The Assholes were split; Matt really loved Boyhood and I threw my weight behind Birdman. I enjoyed the concept of Boyhood immensely and gave it a lot of props and admiration but at the end of the day, I much preferred the experience of watching Birdman. Boyhood felt a little dull to me. And isn’t that the point, at the end of the day? To want to watch these things? Because the truth is, if you ask the viewing public, they’d pick neither. We audiences may not have a fancy red carpet or a gold statuette to offer, but we vote every day with our dollars. The top-grossing movie of 2014 in North America was The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part1; internationally, it was Transformers: Age of Extinction.

Movies are made to be seen. That’s their purpose, it’s why they exist and why they are made. Being popular does make a movie good, but shouldn’t it count for something? Transformers grossed over a billion dollars last year – that’s more than most countries’ GDP. Any good art should transcend any critical reasoning. I think good art is something that lasts. The Academy fails to get even that much right reliably – nobody watches Shakespeare in Love anymore, but Saving Private Ryan seems to have proved itself over time. And Chicago winning over Gangs of New York? Don’t get me started. William Freidkin, himself an Oscar-winning director describes the Awards as “the greatest promotion scheme that any industry ever devised for itself”.

Artists typically roll their eyes at the concept of rewarding one piece of art over another, but movie stars are just too vain to turn them down. They all give lip service to “not doing it for the accolades” but they all start salivating during awards season, and who among them has not been reciting their acceptance speech into a bathroom mirror since tweendom? Oscar in hand, suddenly they’re singing a different tune. Only three people, two of them actors, have turned down their Oscars. Marlon Brando famously used his win for The Godfather to protest the portrayal of Native Americans in film but only George C. Scott turned his down for Patton because he didn’t feel acting should be competitive. Competitive is a great choice of words – clearly it has become a competition since studios will gleefully turn out scripts stinking of “Oscar bait” but it’s not one that can be accurately measured. If someone runs competitively, you can declare a winner based on who was fastest. But when people start acting competitively, what criteria do you use for establishing the winner? Who was the best fake person – or who was the least offensive mimicker of a real person? Who got paid the most? Who got the greater screen time? Whose name got first billing in the credits? Who did the more ingratiating appearance on Conan? And lately it seems that acting awards aren’t necessarily based on merit at all, but rather on sentimentality, personal popularity, atonement for a past mistake. And then there’s the ever-popular just deciding it’s time – time to reward someone with a distinguished career but no wins, time to give it to a black woman, time for a comedian to have his turn.

Elizabeth Taylor lost an Oscar due to controversy over her unpopular 4th marriage. The Academy made it up to her for her work in “Butterfield Eight,” a role which even she hated, but she’d nearly died of pneumonia, with only a tracheotomy saving her life. Shirley MacLaine, her competition that year, nominated for her role in “The Apartment” said, “When Elizabeth Taylor got a hole in her throat I canceled my plane.”

Sandra Bullock somehow got her hands on an Oscar for playing a fairly convincing condescending white lady. To make matters worse, she won over Meryl Streep, Carey Mulligan, Gabourey Sidibe and Helen Mirren, because Sandy Bullock is a likeable and well-liked Hollywood staple with an awful lot of powerful friends in the business.

It seems like the Oscars are just another black-tie opportunity for millionaires to congregate and pat each other on the back. Because the caviar and private jets just aren’t quite enough

Focus

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After being one of the world’s most reliable hit makers and bankable movie stars, Will Smith took a hiatus from making good movies. He felt he’d contributed his share of watchable movies to the world and it was time to make some crap ones for a change. He’s excelled at the crapfest for a while now, but I guess his paycheques must have started to reflect the loss of box office, so Focus is meant to be his comeback.

But is it?

Only three of us saw Selma together, and only two made it out to Birdman, but somehow all four of us, every last Asshole, made time in his or her busy schedule to take in Will Smith’s latest. Our low expectations turned out to be a gift for the film, which very slightly exceeded them. It wasn’t a bad movie, per se, and the trouble at any rate wasn’t attributable to the Fresh Prince.

Matt was wary of the movie before it even started. Focus is a heist movie and Smith plays a con man. And savvy little movie goers that we are, we know that the con man isn’t just trying to con the bad guy, he’s also trying to con the audience. So you have to be on guard. Sean felt that because he couldn’t trust anything, he never felt invested in the characters, and just couldn’t enjoy it that much. The formula is tired. The first time a movie like this tricks you, it’s great. But when they all line up to trick you, it’s just annoying. You don’t buy the tricks anymore, but you don’t buy into anything else, either. When M. Night Shyamalan brought us The Sixth Sense, we were dazzled, but by the time ~~The Happening~~ ~~Lady in the Water~~ The Village rolled around, we were over it. We’re over it!

But do you know what we’re not over? Margot Robbie! In fact, most of us agreed that we’d like to be under her. She’s a delight and a half and I can’t wait to ~~stare to her lips~~ watch her in whatever else she’s working on – a Tarzan movie with Alexander Skarsgård (she plays Jane, of course), and Suicide Squad where she’ll reteam with Smith (he plays Deadshot) as Harley Quinn, supervillain and girlfriend of The Joker (Jared Leto). After stealing scenes from Leonardo Di Caprio in The Wolf of Wall Street and charming the pants off us (and the watches off most of her costars) in Focus, it’s fair to say that whether this movie flops or not, Margot Robbie is a rising star.

Father-Son Movies

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This week’s Thursday Movie Picks theme is father-son relationships. The challenge is to list 3 movies that highlight the theme. I didn’t have to think too hard because this theme seems to be explored exuberantly in so many intriguing ways, so here are 3 off the top of my head:

Beginners – Matt has a strong and pervasive dislike of Ewan McGregor so I know he’s disapprove of this pick, but I can’t help it. After the death of his wife, an older man (Christopher Plummer) comes out as gay to his son. There is a real relationship here, a shakiness between dad and son that feels genuine. But the honesty seems to breed closeness and the two embark on a new relationship, late in life, one with understanding and humour. The story is told cleverly and shows a bravery we don’t often see on screen. It’s not necessarily about being gay, it’s about a father teaching his son about what is possible when you open your heart.

Catch Me If You Can – Christopher Walken is the shit. I just love the layered performance in this movie. Frank Abignale Sr. is obviously a huge influence on Frank Jr. Clearly this is where his charm comes from, but it’s also where he learns his seething resentment for the world. Even when his father makes for a rather pathetic picture, Frank Jr. idolizes him and chooses a life of crime not just to make his father proud, but restore his father to his former glory.

Big Fish – This is one of my all-time favourite movies (sorry, Matt – how did Ewan McGregor end up here twice?). The relationship here is complex – a son is called to his estranged father’s deathbed. He wants to be able to say goodbye to him, but isn’t sure if he even knows him. His father has told grandiose tall-tales his entire life, and those stories have gotten in the way of their relationship. The son thinks they are lies that put distance between them, and the father feels they are essential truths meant to serve as legend. They are his legacy. As the stories are retold, the son (Billy Crudup) comes to understand that the exact facts are not the point. His father (Albert Finney) is a story-teller, each story is infused with heart and meaning, and it’s not what they tell so much as how they’re told, and to whom.

What are your favourites?

And the Oscar goes to…

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I would like to take this opportunity to present myself with a fabulous LEGO Oscar because I’m the winner of our Asshole Oscar pool. This should come as a surprise to absolutely no one since I won last year also, and tied for first the year before, which means I’ve never lost. Even Meryl Streep doesn’t have a record like that. Suck it, Streep!

Gender Inequality in Film

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Yes, there are movies made with a female in the lead. But has Oscar ever heard of them?

This year’s Best Picture nominees are as follows: a story about a man who goes to war and loves it; a man on Broadway as actor\director\schizophrenic; a little boy growing up to be a man; a man running a crazy hotel; a brilliant gay man; a brilliant black man; a brilliant man with a degenerative disease; a devoted male student and his sadistic male teacher.

So, a big time sausage fest. These are the stories of men. Felicity Jones, Emma Stone, and Keira Knightly are all nominated for their roles as pretty accessories. None are real players in their films; they are passive actors in someone else’s story. Julianne Moore in Still Alice, Reese Witherspoon in Wild, and Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night are all the driving forces in movies told from their (female) points of view, and none of those movies earned best picture nods.

2014’s highest grossing movies include:

1. Transfomers: Age of Extinction

2. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five ARmies

3. Guardians of the Galaxy

4. Maleficent

5. X-Men: Days of Future Past

6. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, part 1

7. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

8. The Amazing Spider-Man 2

9. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

10. Interstellar

Women fare a little better here – females take the lead in 2 of the 10, which, in case your math is weak, is exactly 20% of the top-earners and 0% of the most lauded. And women, in case you haven’t looked around in a while, make up a good 50% of the population. Does that make any sense to you? Only 12% of protagonists were female in 2014 movies, which is down 3% from the previous year. THAT’S THE WRONG WAY, PEOPLE!

Yes – you’re reading that right. Only 9% of directors are female. Only 4 women have ever been nominated as Best Director, and of them only Kathryn Bigelow has won (for The Hurt Locker – a movie with basically no women in it). It would seem that to be taken seriously, a woman has to direct a masculine film; Angelina Jolie made war movie Unbroken this year, and Ava DuVernay tackled the most iconic man in American history with Selma. Both were locked out of the Best Director category but Selma scored 2 men nominations for Best Song while Unbroken garnered 3 nominations spread among 5 men and 1 lone woman (Becky Sullivan, for sound editing – we salute you!).

In 73 years of Academy history, only 8 women have won best adapted screenplay, and only 8 have won best original screenplay. In 85 years, only 7 women have taken home Best Picture Oscars as producers, and all of them were co-producers with men.

77% of Academy voters are male. Another big surprise: the average winner in a female acting category is 36 years old compared to 44 for men.

The top 10 highest-paid actresses made $181 million in 2013 while the men made more than twice that – $465M!

The worst part is that the stats are worse when it comes to movies made for kids – in top-grossing G-rated family films, there is almost a 3:1 ratio of male characters to female characters. And how many of those are industrious go-getters? What are we telling our daughters, or for that matter, our sons? And what does it say about us as a society that animated female characters tend to show more skin than male ones – even the little girls – and are portrayed with tiny little waists and sexy features. Even the non-human females are sexualized in children’s cartoons!

In G-rated family films, speaking parts are 70% male. Characters with jobs are 80% male.

In 2012, Pixar released Brave, its first movie (out of 13) with a female protagonist. While Merida provides a positive female role model to its young audience, behind the scenes things were a little less progressive. Brenda Chapman, who spent 6 years working on the film, was stripped of her directorial duties and for the 13th time in a row, a Pixar movie was helmed by a man.

Check out the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media to find out more.

Ratatouille

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This post will publish the moment Sean and I, in Paris and thus “6 hours into the future” will set foot into Guy Savoy, a beautiful 3-star Michelin restaurant, the second most-expensive in the world, where we hope to eat caviar, drink champagne, and delight over brioches slathered in truffle butter. There will be 35 chefs in the kitchen preparing dinner for 60 hungry people and we will hope, hope hope hope, that none are rats. That none so much as have a rat in their hat.

Ratatouille is one of Sean’s favourite Pixar movies, probably because Sean loves food, but possibly also because Sean doesn’t have the classic aversion to rats that the rest of us do – his family idiotically kept them as pets (RIP Robbie and Bambam). So did the animators of Ratatouille. Rats lined the hallways of the Pixar studios so that animators could get their whiskers and tails and paws just right.

The film’s protagonist, a rat named Remy, is rendered with over a million individual hairs (his human counterparts have a tenth that – still impressive!). Little Remy dreams of becoming a great French chef despite the fact that his family’s against it, and you know, he’s also a rat. And restaurants hate rats. But he encounters a laconic chef named Linguine who benefits from Remy’s passion and skill.

The bad guy is the Head Chef, Skinner. This character is named after behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner, who was known for the Skinner Box, where he made rats push a button for food over and over again.

This is the first Disney movie to feature a bastard. You know, as in, a kid born out of wedlock. Shocking! However, plenty of Disney movies have featured orphaned or partially-orphaned children – disproportionately so, one would hope.

To get the feel of the city just right, Brad Bird took a team up to Paris for a week where they buzzed around on motorcycles and ate at its top five restaurants (certainly Guy Savoy would have been on their list – it’s actually in the top 20 of the world). I feel sort of silly for not figuring out how to get my bosses to pay for my trip. And then I remember I’m self-employed. So I guess she kind of is! Meanwhile, the animators back home got to study and photograph rotting vegetables in order to render a realistic compost pile. No jealousy in that office, I’m sure.

Anyway, while the lucky ones were in Paris, they came across quite a sight, which made its way into the movie: a window shop displaying dead rats! Sounds weird but it’s a real shop that you can find (and we just might) in the first arrondissement called Destruction des Animaux Nuisibles. It’s an exterminator, established 1872, and quite a curiosity, but I don’t think I’ll be shopping for souvenirs there.

I may, however, be staking out their fine wines to bring home to our wine cellar if only we have the weight to spare in our suitcase. There’s a surprising amount of wine to be seen in this children’s movie – the restaurant critic Anto Ego orders a Chateau Cheval Blanc 1947, a Grand Cru, and obviously quite a vintage. This baby would set you back at least two grand, so for the second time in this film review, I’m left commenting: damn. How can I possibly bill that one to my boss? I’m clearly in the wrong profession! John Lasseter, Pixar head honcho, has a winery in Sonoma Valley and a bottle of his Lasseter Cabernet Sauvignon can be seen in the background.

This is a delicious little movie and I hope you’ll give it a watch if you haven’t already!

Marie Antoinette

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Sean and I are still in France and in fact should be touring around the beautiful grounds and palace at Versailles right now, so what movie is more fitting that Marie Antoinette?

She was a bright and beautiful girl, married at the age of 14 to a political ally she’d never seen before. She is traded from one kingdom to another. She is surrounded by servants and comforts of every kind; she has jewelry and clothes and feasts like no other. She also has no grip on reality. And this movie doesn’t criticize her for it. Sofia Coppola may have strayed from historical accuracy in the writing and directing of this film, but she does give us a more human character to relate to. Marie-Antoinette is above all just a teenage girl, used to a lavish lifestyle, uncomprehending of any other.

The production had special permission from the government of France to film on location at Versailles. Even more impressive (to my mind), Coppola even induced famed designer Manolo Blahnik to create hundreds of shoes for this film. Fittingly, there is a shoe montage, which will make you squeal with delight, and if you watch carefully, you might catch a 1.5 second shot of a pair of Chuck Taylor Converse, not exactly time-period correct, but a staple of any teenage girl’s closet.

Did you know Jason Schwartzman is Sofia Coppola’s cousin? I didn’t. I get my Hollywood royalty mixed up just as assuredly as I get my regular royalty confused I guess. At any rate, he plays the king to Kirsten Dunst’s queen, and I have to admire the casting. Who but him could play such a socially inept little weirdo, and who is more inherently hated than Dunst?

I saw this originally back in 2006 when it came out (I’m kind of surprised it’s not older than that) but in the 8 or 9 years since, I’ve become more familiar with some of the other names of the cast: Rose Byrne (broke out in Bridesmaids), Tom Hardy (aka, Bane, and almost Mad Max), and Jamie Dornan (soon to be the pervy guy in Fifty Shades of Grey). Coppola otherwise cast a lot of progeny of movie stars, most of whom I don’t know (although I did see a Nighy and wondered, and was correct in wondering). Plus she threw a bone to her boyfriend, Thomas Mars, from the band Phoenix – he and a bandmate play guitars in one scene, although they can’t have been happy about the tights.

Moulin Rouge!

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Happy love day, everyone! Whether single or otherwise engaged, Valentine’s day is a great day to curl up under a fuzzy, warm blanket and have a cozy day (or night) watching movies that make you believe in love. Today I’m writing about Moulin Rouge!, not just because it’s a great love story, but because Sean and I are in Paris and to celebrate our own VD, we’re taking in a show at the actual Moulin Rouge! Located in the Pigalle section of Montmartre, it was the birth place of the can-can, a seductive dance done by courtesans with split knickers. It was a place where the rich could “slum it” in a safe and fashionable district. And yes, they really had a huge elephant statue right in the middle of the garden, just like in the movie. This past October it celebrated its 125th anniversary. Even the movie is aging – can you believe it’s already 14 years old?

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Filming was halted for two weeks in November 1999 after Nicole Kidman fractured two ribs and hurt her knee while rehearsing a dance routine for the movie. If she’s being filmed from the chest up, it’s probably because she’s sitting in a wheelchair.

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The necklace worn by Satine was made of real diamonds and platinum and was the most expensive piece of jewelery ever specifically made for a film – wowza! The Stefano Canturi necklace was made with 1,308 diamonds (!), weighing a total of 134 carats and was worth an estimated cool million.

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Originally, the green fairy was going to be a long-haired muscly guy , which Ozzy Osbourne was tapped to voice. Obviously it was changed along the way to the current “Tinker Bell” incarnation, played by the fabulous Kylie Minogue, but Osbourne still gives voice to the fairy’s guttural scream when it turns evil. How cool is that?

source: blindlyfromyidols.tumblr.com

The movie was shot largely at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia, with no location filming at all, which means the Paris landscape was digitally produced and the two longest visual effects shots (as of 2001) appear in this film. So while famously Parisian, it’s also famously fake.

However you’re celebrating today, and even if you’re not celebrating at all, I wish you love, happiness, popcorn, and movies. I’m off to the Moulin Rouge with my sweetie, and I’ll let you know if they still wear the split knickers 😉

The Maze Runner

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This movie isn’t terribly sophisticated but it’s also not nearly as bad as I was expecting. I suppose coming from me, and my skeptical expectations, that’s actually a bit of a compliment. But don’t get too excited: I’m not telling you to watch it. But maybe rent it for your kids, ahem, “young adults.” You know, if they’re not already sick to death of the genre, having been bombarded with The Hunger Games and Divergent and their like. The kids are well-cast and it’s surprisingly well-acted. The first half of the movie is actually pretty interesting, and then it starts to fall apart. The ending is weak and confusing (guess I should have read the book!) and though it’s clear that this is just another trilogy in the making this particular movie actually feels more like a second of three than a first. You can safely move this to the bottom of your pile.

Belle

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First off, thank you to all my fellow film-lovers who brought this movie to my attention. It seems to have slipped under the radar over here but I’m infinitely glad I had the chance to watch it.

Belle recounts the true story (in broad strokes – little is known of her life) of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the half-black, bastard child of a Royal Navy Captain in 18th century (slave-trading) England. Her father loves her deeply (as he did her deceased mother) and when he ships out to India, he appeals to his uncle to care for her in his absence. A Lord and Chief Justice, the uncle tries to raise her, along with another (white) niece, with the privileges she is due while teaching her the important barriers of her skin colour. “Too high in rank to dine with the servants, too low in rank” to dine with her family. She has enough to feel a sense of belonging, and just enough to feel left out. At court, her uncle must decide an important case about slaves as he resists acknowledging their similarity to his beloved niece.

I just watched Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Beyond The Lights and thought she was a stand-out, but this film makes clear that her career will be one to be reckoned with. She’s very subtle and deliberate and saves Belle from being merely a curiosity. Instead she is painted as a woman conflicted, a woman carrying the weight of her race for everyone to see. And this movie is also about class, and (perhaps even foremost) about gender. It would seem that her skin colour can be compensated for with enough money, but her gender leaves her with few options. She must either find a good husband or be invisible like her aunt (Penelope Wilton, tragic and invisible). In the film, Belle’s uncle (Tom Wilkinson, formidable) is challenged to draw a parallel between his niece (who is constantly referred to by the ugly word “mulatto”), and slaves insured as human cargo. Are they not worth the same? Is she not worth the same as any other debutante? The film asks the same question of us but poses it too lightly. I can only imagine the controversy her presence in the family home must have caused, and yet I must imagine it because the script glosses right over the indecencies that certainly occurred. The story focuses on romance, or lack thereof, as befits their station and the time, and covers social implications inadequately. Belle lacks the self-starting spark that would make her the pioneer the script so badly wants her to be.

The script has been controversially attributed to Misan Sagay, despite director Amma Asante

The artwork that inspired the movie

having written 18 drafts over 3 long years. Sagay is an American member of the writer’s guild and took it to her union, which decided in her favour against non-member Asante (who is based in Great Britain). Wilkinson and Wilton have expressed ‘incredulity’ at the decision, because they had “only seen and worked from a script written by Amma”, With or without accreditation, this is an imperfect but impressive first full-length feature and Asante is sure to give voice to more great stories over time.