Archive for March, 2013

Hyde Park on Hudson

Told from the innocent perspective of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s distant cousin Daisy Suckley, Hyde Park on Hudson is a charming film about a collection of fascinating historical figures namely the pivotal meeting between Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) and King George VI and should be viewed as a companion piece to The King’s Speech. Veteran American actor Bill Murray takes the part of FDR and Olivia Williams plays his wife Eleanor Roosevelt, and British actor Samuel West (Howards End) takes the part of King George VI. Set in upstate New York, Hyde Park on Hudson tells of a weekend in the summer of 1939 when the recently crowned King George VI and queen Elizabeth, both whom are reeling from the scandal surrounding the 1936 abdication of his brother King Edward VIII in favour of marrying American divorcee Wallis Simpson gorgeously told in Madonna’s companion film W/E.

The visit of the British monarchy to the American president is meant to bolster American support for Great Britain as the threat of World War II looms with Nazi Germany invading most of Europe and in fact World War II did break out three months later.

Besides the international magnitude of the time, the film centres more on the eccentric Franklin D. Roosevelt America’s president during World War II who crippled by polio resorts to having a string of extramarital affairs including one with his distant cousin Daisy and who despite his physical ailments does not let that deter him from enjoying life and running such a powerful country as the USA. Especially pertinent in the film is the after dinner discussion between the King, who suffering from a speech impediment is soon put at ease by the magnanimous and charming FDR. It shows two politically important men that despite their physical and social impediments have more in common and their strategic meeting soon eases any tension between the United States and Great Britain forging the beginning of a special relationship which is still active more than 70 years later.

Director Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson is an intriguing tale of great political leaders who are viewed through the context of their private frailties and how they triumph not just for their own countries sake but that of the enormous publicity which marked such a visit by a British Monarch and his wife on American soil, in the face of a looming World War. Soon his Royal Highness the King of England is munching on a hotdog in an American style Barbecue and is effortlessly drawn into the less stuffy social conventions of Americans on their home turf. Bill Murray (Lost in Translation) is brilliant as the charming and quite naughty FDR (with his cigarette holders and exotic stamp collection) along with Olivia Williams (The Ghost Writer) cast as the forthright Eleanor Roosevelt. Laura Linney is perfect as the awe-inspired, slightly naive Daisy who is caught in the middle of such a significant historical event.

Beautifully filmed as a period piece, if a tad dark in some scenes, but a fun and interesting comedy serving as a comparison of the differences between British and American cultures and social customs reminiscent of some of the best Merchant Ivory films which are unfortunately no longer made. Recommended!

81st Academy Awards

22nd February 2009

Oscar Winners at the 81st Academy Awards

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director: Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor: Sean Penn – Milk

Best Actress: Kate Winslet – The Reader

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight (received Oscar posthumously)

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black – Milk

Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy – Slumdog Millionaire

Best Foreign Language Film: Departures directed by Yojiro Takita

Best Documentary Film: Man on Wire – directed James Marsh

Best Original Score: A. R. Rahman – Slumdog Millionaire

Best Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle – Slumdog Millionaire

Best Costume Design: Michael O’ Connor – The Duchess

Best Film Editing: Chris Dickens – Slumdog Millionaire

Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/81st_Academy_Awards

80th Academy Awards

24th February 2008

Oscar Winners at the 80th Academy Awards

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men

Best Director: Joel & Ethan Coen –No Country for Old Men

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis – There will be Blood

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard – La Vie en Rose

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem – No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton – Michael Clayton

Best Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody – Juno

Best Adapted Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen – No Country for Old Men

Best Foreign Language Film: The Counterfeiters directed by Stefan Ruzowitsky (Austria)

Best Documentary Feature: Taxi to the Dark Side directed by Alex Gibney and Eva Orner

Best Original Score: Dario Marianelli – Atonement

Best Cinematography: Robert Elswit – There will be Blood

Best Costume Design: Alexandra Byrne – Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Best Film Editing: Christopher Rouse – The Bourne Ultimatum

Best Visual Effects: The Golden Compass

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80th_Academy_Awards

Warrior

Pride and Glory director Gavin O’Connor mixed martial arts film Warrior saw Nick Nolte garner a 2012 Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting Actor and is an engaging film about two estranged brothers who eventually reunite not so much in a domestic arena, but in the world of SPARTA or Mixed Martial arts fighting.

Brendan Conlon is a popular Pittsburgh physics high school teacher battling to pay the mortgage played by Australian actor Joel Edgerton, last seen in the gripping Melbourne crime thriller Animal Kingdom. His character is introduced as he teaches a class of students an important law of physics – Force = Mass+ Acceleration, and this formula could really signify the relationship that Conlon has with his younger brother Tommy Reardon played with an appealing physicality by British actor Tom Hardy, recently seen in This Means War and as the villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. Reardon after an elusive tour in Iraq has returned to the US under a cloud of suspicion, which serves as one of the narrative threads of the film and seeks shelter with his father recovering alcoholic and ex-boxer Paddy Conlon brilliantly played by Nick Nolte.

As Warrior progresses, the relationship between the father and his two estranged sons is explored amidst an ongoing battle not just to heal old wounds but to also to prove their fighting skills, both physically and emotionally as the showdown for the Sparta championships in Atlantic City takes place. A couple of directorial flourishes adds to the build up  and suspense of this fighting narrative whilst carefully maintaining the right balance of physical aggression and emotional depth  as events in both Pittsburgh and Atlantic City unfold and the brothers are forced to confront themselves and more importantly deal with all the pain that an abusive father has caused them.

The suspense is terrific in Warrior and while some of the plot points like Tommy’s Iraq escapade is slightly contrived, the film as a whole is a gripping testimony to the fraternal force that binds the two men as they compete in a physical arena, while their father has to contend with his own personal demons. Warrior is highly recommended for those who liked films like Rocky, Million Dollar Baby and The Champ and is held together by a superb performance by Nolte along with rising stars Edgerton and Hardy whose physical endurance and emotional range is equally captured to make the film’s final showdown riveting entertainment.

Oz, the Great and Powerful

Sam Raimi, the director of the original Spiderman trilogy, has reinvented the great tale of the 1939 Judy Garland classic The Wizard of OZ in his unique, but tepid version in Oz, the Great and Powerful starring James Franco (Milk, 127 Hours) as the self-infatuated and egotistical conman wizard Oz. The film’s opening sequence is truly hilarious, shot in black and white and set in a mid-Western state fair in Kansas in 1905, where Oz, also known as Oscar Diggs poses as a Wizard and puts on a less than illustrious show to try and dazzle the conservative rural community of this Mid-Western American state. Assisted with a comic glee by Frank played by the underutilized Zach Braff, Oz is soon wooing audiences into all sorts of illusions and magic tricks, some of which fall short of magnificence.

However in an attempt to escape the county fair strongman, Oz gets caught up on a balloon in a tornado as one does in Kansas and soon finds himself transported to the radiant and colourful land of Oz where he meets the bewitching Theodora, underplayed by the smouldering Mila Kunis (Black Swan) who soon takes Oz on the yellow brick road to meet her supposedly evil sister Evanora, played with malicious panache by Oscar Winner Rachel Weisz (The Fountain, The Constant Gardiner).

Theodora

Evanora upon showing Oz the mountains of gold stored in the Emerald city soon cons him into tracking down the Wicked Witch in a bid to steal her magic wand. Oz journeys to the dark forest along with a china girl and a pet flying monkey and tracks down the supposed evil witch who turns out to be Glinda the Good, beautifully played by Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn, Blue Valentine), who obviously took the role so that her daughter Mathilda could see one of her movies. The rest of Oz, the Great and Powerful is light, candied entertainment with the occasional witty line, but really lacking in the true imaginative retelling found in Tim Burton’s brilliant Alice in Wonderland or in the dark magic realism of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth.

Glinda complete with shiny heels and a wand!

Even the flying baboons are not that scary. Raimi who is renowned for making brilliant horror films (Drag Me to Hell and The Evil Dead), find himself caught up in the world of Oz without the necessary desire to make the fantasy vaguely fascinatingly edgy, but rather predictable and very tame. The best lines in the film are taken by Williams and Weisz who know how to play sassy witches, trying to compete for the attentions of the goofy Wizard, slightly overplayed by Franco.

Oz the Great and Powerful will definitely appeal to younger viewers and lacks some of the edginess seen in some of the more recent revisionist fairytale cinematic offerings. My only thought throughout this version was where the heck was Dorothy? She was stuck in celluloid legacy as Judy Garland in the MGM original.

Dorothy had a new meaning after this film!

The only one with sparkling shoes was Glinda the Good, which audiences briefly caught a glimpse in the last few scenes of the film. Fascinating and fabulous as it is, like the Oz’s final projected appearance in the Emerald City, much of the film is filled with hot air, but is nevertheless entertaining in parts.

79th Academy Awards

25th February 2007

Oscar Winners at the 79th Academy Awards

Best Picture: The Departed

Best Director: Martin Scorsese – The Departed

Best Actor: Forest Whitaker – The Last King of Scotland

Best Actress: Helen Mirren – The Queen

Best Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin – Little Miss Sunshine

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson – Dreamgirls

Best Original Screenplay: Michael Arndt – Little Miss Sunshine

Best Adapted Screenplay: William Monahan – The Departed

Best Foreign Language Film: The Lives of Others directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (Germany)

Best Documentary Feature: An Inconvenient Truth directed by Davis Guggenheim

Best Original Score: Gustavo Santaolalla – Babel

Best Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro – Pan’s Labyrinth

Best Costume Design: Milena Canonero – Marie Antoinette

Best Film Editing: Thelma Schoonmaker – The Departed

Best Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/79th_Academy_Awards

78th Academy Awards

5th March 2006

Oscar Winners at the 78th Academy Awards

Best Picture: Crash

Best Director: Ang Lee – Brokeback Mountain

Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman – Capote

Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon – Walk the Line

Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney – Syriana

Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz – The Constant Gardener

Best Original Screenplay: Paul Haggis & Robert Moresco – Crash

Best Adapted Screenplay: Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana – Brokeback Mountain

Best Foreign Language Film: Tsotsi directed by Gavin Hood (South Africa)

Best Documentary Feature: March of the Penguins directed by Luc Jacquet and Yves Darondeau

Best Original Score: Gustavo Santaolalla – Brokeback Mountain

Best Cinematography: Dion Beebe – Memoirs of a Geisha

Best Costume Design: Colleen Atwood – Memoirs of a Geisha

Best Film Editing: Hughes Winborne – Crash

Best Visual Effects: King Kong

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/78th_Academy_Awards

77th Academy Awards

27th February 2005

Oscar Winners at the 77th Academy Awards

Best Picture: Million Dollar Baby

Best Director: Clint Eastwood – Million Dollar Baby

Best Actor: Jamie Foxx – Ray

Best Actress: Hilary Swank – Million Dollar Baby

Best Supporting Actor: Morgan Freeman – Million Dollar Baby

Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett – The Aviator

Best Original Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor – Sideways

Best Foreign Language Film: The Sea Inside directed by Alejandro Amenabar (Spain)

Best Original Score: Jan A. P. Kaczmarek – Finding Neverland

Best Documentary Feature: Born into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids directed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski

Best Cinematography: Robert Richardson – The Aviator

Best Costume Design: Sandy Powell – The Aviator

Best Film Editing – Thelma Schoonmaker – The Aviator

Best Visual Effects: Spiderman 2 directed by Sam Raimi

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/77th_Academy_Awards

Albert Nobbs

We are all disguised as ourselves

Directed by Rodrigo Garcia (son of Colombian Magic Realist author Gabriel Garcia Marquez) the extraordinary film Albert Nobbs see Glenn Close play the title role along with an equally impressive performance by Janet McTeer as the mysterious painter Hubert Page. Both Glenn Close and Janet McTeer give startlingly brilliant performances as Nobbs and Page respectively and deservedly garnered a 2012 Oscar nomination for Best Actress for Close and Supporting Actress for McTeer.

The central tenet of Albert Nobbs is that of woman being disguised as men so that they can survive economically in 19^th century Ireland and is set in the plush Dublin hotel Morrison’s with Mrs Baker being the hotel owner, played with a dramatic panache by Pauline Collins (Shirley Valentine). Nobbs as a waiter has aspirations of owning his own tobacconist shop and when he meets the brash painter Mr Page who show him that despite their disguise, they can achieve their dreams. Mr Page even shares a home with his ‘wife’ Kathleen and shows Nobbs that the possibilities are endlessly disguised.

At a time when homosexuality was reviled and Oscar Wilde would soon be sentenced to two years hard labour in 1895 for sodomy after the public exposure of his affair with Lord Alfred `Bosie’ Douglas by Bosie’s father the vile Marques of Queensberry as elegantly told in the 1997 film Wilde, Albert Nobbs shows a different side of homosexuality, lesbian women who cannot be themselves financially, sexually and socially especially in 19^th century Europe and have to disguise themselves as men in order to survive.

All the extraordinary complex relationships which the Morrison’s Hotel have are gradually revealed as the film progresses and even the one so called traditional relationship between Helen, the Hotel maid played by Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, The Kids are Alright, Jane Eyre) who falls for the charms of the rough boiler maker Joe played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson(Anna Karenina, Savages) is steeped in deceit and disloyalty. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers makes a brief appearance as Viscount Yarrell whose preferences when staying at Morrison’s is for inter leading doors to his male lover in the adjoining suite.

At the centre of Albert Nobbs, director Garcia really emphasizes the plight of women, whether they are abandoned by an ambitious lover after becoming pregnant or having to disguise themselves as men to survive financially in a patriarchal society which stifled any form of female freedom, not to mention lesbian women who have to hide their homosexuality behind a mask of conformity even if that means dressing as a man.

Albert Nobbs is a brilliantly told film featuring a superb performance by the ever versatile Glenn Close (Dangerous Liaisons) as a gaunt and cautious waiter saving up his pennies to one day fulfil his dreams, and how those dreams through a series of events are tragically thwarted leaving a rather unusual scenario by the films close. This is an exceptional and thought-provoking period film, commenting not just on the period of the late 19^th century but on the costumes which define the characters and the disguises people hide behind in order to survive and how those disguises define who they are.

76th Academy Awards

29th February 2004

Oscar Winners at the 76th Academy Awards

Best Picture: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Best Director: Peter Jackson – Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Best Actor: Sean Penn – Mystic River

Best Actress: Charlize Theron – Monster

Best Supporting Actor: Tim Robbins – Mystic River

Best Supporting Actress: Renee Zellweger – Cold Mountain

Best Original Screenplay: Sofia Coppola – Lost in Translation

Best Adapted Screenplay: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh & Philippa Boynes – Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Best Foreign Language Film: The Barbarian Invasions directed by Denys Arcand– (Canada)

Best Documentary Feature: The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara by Errol Williams and Michael Williams

Best Original Score:  Howard Shore – Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Best Cinematography: Russel Boyd – Master and Commander: The Far Side of The World

Best Costume Design: Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor – Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Best Film Editing: Jamie Selkirk – Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Best Visual Effects – Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76th_Academy_Awards