Golden Globes – Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

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Matt and I are still cramming to bring the best Globes coverage we can, and I’m putting up thoughts and predictions as I complete the categories. Please chime in with your own vote, we always love the feedback!

The nominees:

St Vincent

Pride

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Birdman

Into the Woods

I watched Pride this morning and The Grand Budapest Hotel probably 10 months ago, so this category is a little uneven for that reason. I’ve enjoy ed all of these movies to some extent, but of course there are some stand-outs.

St Vincent is a fun movie if you love Bill Murray but probably a little flat if you don’t. It’s a star vehicle but not much more. Pride is a feel-good movie that everyone should watch and anyone would have some good take-away feelings. It’s just not that deep. The Grand Budapest Hotel is my baby. I’m a Wes Anderson nut and I love everything he does. He probably poops glitter. And this movie is great even among Wes Anderson films, with an all-star cast that blows you away (and a little Bill Murray to make me swoon), and a thousand little details that will have you licking your lips in delight. Don’t miss it. You may, however, give Into the Woods a miss. The cast is great but the story’s inconsistent and the musical numbers just aren’t that memorable. Plus there’s the whole pedophilia angle. Birdman has a great cast AND a great, fresh story. It somehow blends a gritty realism with a gothic surrealism quite seamlessly, leaving the audience to guess and to fill in the blanks. It’s the most daring of the nominees, and the most exciting to watch.

Apologies to Wes Anderson (and with confidence that you have many more great movies to come), I’m giving it to Birdman. It just makes you excited about what is possible in filmmaking. I’m gushing, but Birdman deserves it, just as it’ll deserve the golden Globe on Sunday.

Score one Birdman. But do I think the Globes will agree? I hope so. I wouldn’t be disappointed to see it go to The Grand Budapest Hotel, another deserving movie from a director who’s been criminally snubbed in the past. What I’m worried about is the celebrity power of Into The Woods, a movie undeserving but perhaps irresistible to the people doing the voting. Fingers crossed that they do the right thing.

More Golden Globes awards coverage: Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song.

Golden Globes – Best Animated Feature Film

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The Nominees are

The Lego Movie

How To Train Your Dragon 2

The Boxtrolls

Big Hero 6

The Book of Life

I have nothing bad to say about any of these movies, they’re all watchable and enjoyable. It’s not easy to compare inflatable robots with Mexican representations of death, or sentient toys with mute dragons, but the Golden Globes (and soon the Oscars) forces us do so, and this year, there’s no contest.

This category holds one of my favourite movies of 2014, period. The Lego Movie is a triumph in detail. Every piece of the movie is virtually built with bricks, bricks that are blemished and scratched, bricks that appear to be played with. The nostalgia factor runs deep in this movie, with several familiar faces popping up in cameos throughout the film. Emmett, the hero of the movie, voiced by Chris Pratt, is a likable doofus that appeals to all audience members. Liam Neeson voices good cop\bad cop brilliantly and steals every scene he’s in. The movie shows a pig explode into sausages – I mean, there’s just no beating that. And any kid movie that can sneak in themes of Orwell’s 1984 AND The Matrix has got to be awarded. We’ll start with the Globes, but we’re not stopping until the Oscars.

Score one The Lego Movie. But do I think the Globes will agree? Yes, I do.

See our other Golden Globes coverage.

The Book of Life

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Matt really disliked this movie but I couldn’t disagree more. The Book of Life is dazzling and vibrant and steeped in beautiful Mexican culture, even if it does fudge the facts a bit. Yes the accents are a bit wonky and the movie embraces stereotype – but that’s just it. They own it. There’s a real sense of pride but it’s never alienating. It may occasionally poke fun at itself but I thought it was sensitive and illuminative.

And finally an animated feature that, when most people would rather show another talking dog or a cuddly dragon rather than a person of colour, brings us a whole host of Mexican heroes that teach a lesson in love and diversity to a group of white schoolchildren. I thought it was refreshing. I thought it was electrifying to look at, Day of the Dead has inspired so much art and this movie is a real testament to all that came before it, and sorry Matt, but I even loved the mariachi-inspired covers of Radiohead’s Creep and Mumford & Sons I Will Wait. I thought it was a brilliant way to incorporate Mexico’s modernity into a film mostly set in the 19th century.

The story had lofty ambitions but didn’t quite live up to its own goals. The female character balks at her hand in marriage being given away for her. She seems an independent sort, strong, dare I say a feminist, but is sadly animated in the disgusting tradition of cartoons – her eyes are bigger than her hands, her ponytail is wider than her waist, and she’s about half the size of her male counterparts (who are glamorously styled after traditional marionettes). A real disappointment, not to mention the fact that the plot relies on a wager placed between gods as to which of two childhood friends will marry her, because offering a girl as a prize to be won is apparently necessary even when we’ve already established that this girl can think for herself.

The pacing is quick, maybe too quick. Adults, at least, will want to soak in the artistry and the legends but the momentum is unrelenting. The voice work is pretty great, although some of the casting did give me pause. Why are Channing Tatum and Ice Cube voicing Mexican characters? Did they get lost on their way to a 23 Jump Street rehearsal? I mean, I’m relieved that Channing Tatum at the very least isn’t affecting a disingenuous Mexican accent, but I feel that with so much Latino talent, they could have easily found someone better and I can’t think of any reason why they chose to go with a whiteboy. I realize we’re already stretching our imaginations to include a Mexico where the people speak English (some accented, some not). And I also realize that I probably don’t even have the right to comment on this. And while this movie isn’t a perfect representation of Mexican tradition, it’s a friendly start. It’s familiar enough that American audiences, even American kids, won’t be put off, while bridging a cultural gap that I hope will lead to more family movies doing the same.

The Boxtrolls

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The Boxtrolls really seizes the opportunity to create a universe unlike any we’ve either seen. It’s a bit more macabre than we’re used to in a children’s movie, dark and gritty, but immersive and satisfying in its stop-motion animation.

In the town of Cheesebridge, an evil exterminator vows to kill off every boxtroll, spreading lies and ugly myths about them to win public approval (“Hide your delicious babies!”). The boxtrolls live underground, basically in hiding, clothed (or disguised?) in cardboard boxes, where they use pilfered materials to build all sorts of magical things. They only come out at night to snatch unused, unwanted things, but to do so is to put themselves in peril of being caught. Their number dwindles steadily until a young boxtroll named Eggs discovers you can go out into the light, and he must try to rally the timid boxtrolls into standing up for themselves.

The boxtrolls don’t speak, but that doesn’t stop them from each having a unique character (not unlike the Minions, come to think of it), or from communicating what they feel. The humans in the story are a sorry lot – sure Mr. Snatcher, the dastardly exterminator, is evil, but the others aren’t much better. The troll “monsters” are eminently easier to root for in their sweetness and earnestness. There is also real sorrow here, and stabs at profundity. One human wonders if the boxtrolls “understand the duality of good and evil” while murking up the concept himself.

We have come to expect big things from the animators at Laika (think Coraline) and this film looks just as cool, and even more textured. And I love seeing an animated film where the little girl is not sexed up, and isn’t even crazy skinny. She has little girl proportions! Disney, you’re totally busted: turns out it IS possible to make a girl who looks like a girl. And if you stick around after the credits, you’re in for a treat: there’s a bit of existential animation that’s enlightening and entertaining.

A little slow to start, it’s still a solid movie that will capture children, especially those inclined to gross-out jokes (so, pretty much all). But this was a competitive year in terms of animation, which is great. Everyone’s bringing their A game. It’s just that movies like Big Hero 6 and The Lego Movie earned an A+.

Golden Globes – Best Original Song in a Motion Picture

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Hollywood’s biggest party-slash-awards ceremony is happening this Sunday, January 11th 2015 at the Beverley Hilton in Beverly Hills and as usual, Matt and Jay are cramming like crazy in order to bring you their predictions, hopes, and outrage, but mostly to just compete between ourselves.

The Golden Globes are handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press, “journalists” who report on American film and television to other countries. Why they felt qualified and entitled to start up their own award system I’ll never know, but the Golden Globes are an excuse for the industry to come out and party. Everyone’s eating dinner and drinking heavily, which often leads to more interesting acceptance speeches (and also more absences due to bathroom breaks). The Golden Globes celebrate both film and television but these Assholes will be concentrating on the movie side of things. The tricky thing with the Globes is that they’re handed out quite early in the award season, before general audiences have really had the chance to see all of the nominated films because wide release hasn’t happened yet. So, bear with us. We’re trying our best.

There are 5 films nominated for best original song, a new song written and recorded specifically for a movie. The award goes to whoever wrote the song, not who performed it. This year, however, the nominees are all known to the music industry and to your radios.

For the film Noah: Mercy Is, by Patti Smith & Lenny Kaye

For the film Annie: Opportunity, by Sia, Greg Kurstin & Will Gluck

For the film The Hunger Games Mockingbird: Yellow Flicker Beat, by Lorde

For the film Big Eyes: Big Eyes, by Lana Del Rey

For the film Selma: Glory, by John Legend & Common

The Patti Smith one is more of a sweeping theme along more traditional movie music. It’s beautiful and solemn enough for the film but it’s kind of forgettable and the truth is, I just can’t bring myself to predict even a hypothetical win for the movie Noah.

The Lorde song is kind of good, and she’s certainly a darling at the moment. It’s cool to have a song written by a strong young woman for a movie about a strong young woman. The lyrics are good, and appropriate (“the fires found a home in me”) but the sound just doesn’t seem to match the mood of the movie.

Lana Del Rey wrote a very suitable piece for her movie, Big Eyes. It’s haunting and ethereal, much like most of the stuff she does on her own time. It’s not much of a departure for her and frankly, it’s just not that interesting to listen to as a stand-alone song.

That leaves my top two contenders, the song from Annie and the song from Selma, about as different as two songs can get. Annie is of course a musical, but anything used in the first movie can’t be nominated, so they’ve written new material to keep the movie feeling fresh and to be eligible for accolades, which they just might receive. Sia is already a decorated song writer who has a whole catalogue of hits to her credibility. This one probably wouldn’t get a lot of play on the radio but does manage to incorporate all the best bits of the movie, all while being believably sung by a little girl with great pipes. It’s sweet and mildly catchy and a good representation of the movie. My favourite, and my vote, for what it’s worth, go to John Legend and Common for Selma. It’s a great song, strong lyricism (“Freedom is like religious to us’), catchy beat, radio-worthy. It’s quite powerful and with reference to Ferguson, it ties the historical to the present and makes the song not just good, but relevant.

Score one for Selma. But do I think the Globes will agree? I’m not sure. But they should.

Pride

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“There’s a long and honourable tradition in the gay community. When somebody calls you a name, you take it… and you own it”.

Ever since I’ve started reviewing movies, I’ve been surprised how often a character says something in a movie that reviews the film perfectly. Mark Ashton (played by Ben Schnetzer) seems to sum up Pride’s philosophy. Some have criticisized it as “formulaically cheery” and “gushy”. Seeming to have anticipated this response, Pride wears labels like “crowd-pleaser” and “feel-good movie” like a badge of honour. Its unapologetically sentimental, unashamedly light, and undeniably manipulative. And I LOVED it!

In 1984, a group of London-based lesbian and gay activists formed a small group in support of the miners strike called Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. This is a tough side for both sides at first. Some gays and lesbians question why they should help the kind of guys that used to beat them up in school. And the miners in the small Welsh town that the group focuses on are about as pleased to accept help from homosexuals as Billy Elliot’s dad was to discover that his son was learning ballet. Soon though, the initial culture shock gives way to an alliance that builds friendships that last even after the miners strike is over.

Pride is based on a true story although I’m not sure how much of this actually happened. The bonds between the two groups come a little too easy and the atmosphere of homophobia may be a little watered down to fit the lighter comedic tone of this movie. But the fact that any of this happened is actually kind of amazing- that two groups of activists with different agendas would work side by side, daring to see their struggles not as “gay rights” or “worker’s rights” but simply as human rights, fighting injustice that they see done to others even as they have their own injustices to deal with.

Pride tends to keep things light but isn’t afraid to touch on some pretty serious themes as members of LGSM deal with coming out, hate crimes, and AIDS. Its filled with likeable performances from an ensemble cast that contribute to a very funny and moving film that I highly recommend.

Wild

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A bright but maybe a little spoiled University student (Reese Witherspoon)’s world falls apart after the unexpected death of her mother (Laura Dern). After a particularly dark period where she turned to heroine and compulsive sex instead of what seemed like a pretty strong support network, she decides to hike the 1,100 mile Pacific Coast Trail (PCT, as everyone keeps calling it) in hopes to find herself along the way. Having packed way too much, all the wrong things, and boots that are way too small, her trip gets off to a rough start but before long, she starts to realize that she may be tougher than she might be made of stronger stuff than she ever thought possible.

Adapted from Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, this is an awards season must-see with Reese being almost gauranteed an Oscar nomination. It’s not necessarily a movie I would have ever gone to see otherwise but my annual quest to be as prepared for Oscar night as possible has led me to sit through worse. My main concern was Reese Witherspoon. Not that I have a full-on hate-on for her; in fact, she can really rise to the ocassion when she gets a good part. She’s just not one of those actors I would have thought to be compelling enough to watch wander through the desert alone.

Reese turns out to be more than up for this challenge, equally convincing during Cheryl’s journey of self-discovery as she is during flashbacks of her near self-destruction. Director Jean-Marc Vallée may deserve some of the credit for this. Between Wild and last year’s Dallas Buyer’s Club,, he seems to have found a niche for himself getting egoless performances from movie stars who have done a few romantic comedies too many.

Vallée and Witherspoon have their work cut out for them to keep this all from getting dull. Luckily, the film cuts to flashbacks often enough to keep this interesting and rarely stays in the same place in time for very long. The flashbacks are handled beautifully, more of a stream of consciousness than following a rigid structure. Strayed seems to have learnt more from this journey than I did though and it’s not always as profound as it would like you to think it is but it’s one of the best edited and acted movies you’re likely to see this season.

Wild

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At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I read this book way back when it was first published and didn’t overly love it. I’m wondering right now whether I hold books to an even higher standard than I do movies and believe that this is probably so. The book was written by Cheryl Strayed herself – an account of her time spent solo-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in order to slam the brakes on her self-destruction. I don’t think I liked the voice of Strayed, didn’t like her haughtiness, didn’t connect with her unapologetic ways. Luckily, this movie has undergone the Nick Hornby treatment and as a result, Strayed is a little more tolerable and the story a little more cohesive.

Reese Witherspoon plays the title character. She’s good. She’s good but she’s not great. It doesn’t feel like an overly-challenging role. As she hikes along, some loose association will jar her memory and we’ll receive another piece of the puzzle via flashback. She’s entirely believable in every scene, it’s just that no scene is particularly gripping. I enjoyed seeing her bare face exposed to us (did anyone else feel she looks like an Olsen twin without makeup?) but I didn’t really feel like it translated enough to an emotional vulnerability that seemed necessary in telling such a story. In fact, the “Nick Hornby treatment” that I started out being grateful for began to seem just a little too trite. The puzzle pieces fit together just a little too snugly. No one’s life path is that linear, and I felt that Witherspoon struggled with the script’s limitations.

Perhaps so did the director, because neither did I feel a connection with the vast and probably very beautiful landscapes. We never dwelled on them. They only existed as backdrop. The terrain was rough, certainly, but we never get a sense of it because the camera is always maddeningly smooth. None of the 1000 miles she treks through seem to be all that “Wild” but the thing about this movie is that the land should be Reese’s costar. Richard Brody, reviewer for The New Yorker, put it about as well as anyone could: “they don’t give Oscars for Best Mountains.” True. And after last year’s success with Dallas Buyer’s Club, it certainly feels like Jean-Marc Vallée is gunning for the Oscar by any means necessary.

I criticized the book for being too smug and the movie for being too glib. And maybe I’m just hard to please but there was a lot of story here, a lot of layers and potential depth but for some reason we stayed safely near the surface, and while I’d still place this film in the top 20% of 2014, I think it failed itself because it had all the ingredients to be much much better and wasn’t.

The Imitation Game

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Mathematician Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) meets a girl at a bar while taking a break from trying to build a machine that can break a Nazi code. She may not be the genius that Turing is but she makes an off-hand remark that helps him see a problem that he’s been struggling with in a new way. He gets this crazy look in his eye and runs off without warning, leaving her wondering what she just said. She has just given Turing his Eureka moment.

I hate Eureka moments in movies and The Imitation Game has a few of them. Actually, there were a handful of scenes here and there that felt lazy and occasionally a little pandering. Worst of all though, they distract from what is overall a fantastic script.

Winner of the People’s Choice Award at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, some have suggested The Imitation Game as the front-runner for the Best Picture Oscar. They may be on to something. Like The King’s Speech and Argo, there isn’t much special about it except that it’s a good story told very well with healthy doses of dramatic license taken to keep the truth from getting in the way of a good story.

The best reason to see The Imitation Game is Benedict Cumberbatch. Turing is a tough guy to get to know. At first, the film establishes only that he is brilliant at all things math and ignorant of most things social. He’s portrayed almost as a British Sheldon Cooper, hilariously misunderstanding statements that he takes too literally. He uses logic, not emotion, to guide him and at first it seems like he doesn’t feel much of anything. With time, and the more time he spends with new friend Joan Clarke (well played by Keira Knightley), Cumberbatch slowly lets us see a little compassion and lots of pain. By the end, we’re left with one of the year’s best performances and a genuinely heart-breaking ending.

Read another Asshole’s opinion of The Imitation Game.