It’s that time of the year again when the Oscar nominations are announced in oh so serious, dulcet tones by Tom Sherak, president of AMPAS and some lovely Oscar-nominated (or winning) lass of seasons past. This morning it was Jennifer Lawrence, last year’s pre-eminent gleaming blonde ingenue.

Because of the theme of this blog, I’m not going to dwell too much on the other nominations that don’t fall into the actress categories. I will say this–YEAH YEAH YEAH to the marvelous and long underappreciated Gary Oldman for finally scoring his first (after how many years?) Best Actor Oscar nomination. He should have nabbed one years ago for his tour de force performance as Sid Vicious in the eponymous Sid and Nancy…but sigh. To quote another critic re: Oldman, “a wrong has finally been righted.” So true.

And a thunderous bravo to my long-time theater favorite Christopher Plummer. I’ve seen this extraordinary actor brighten up the Broadway stage with a motley array of genius work (my favorite is his Iago to the wildly overrated and upstageable James Earl Jones in “Othello,” which I saw as a nubile NYU coed back in the early ’80s and never forgot) and am so happy he’s finally getting his due for his film work. Unless something untoward happens, I think Plummer’s Oscar is in the bag. YEAH YEAH YEAH for this remarkable octogenarian.

Now here are the Oscar nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. I haven’t seen all the films yet but I will supply commentary for nominations that merit them on my part:

Best Actress

• Glenn Close
  “Albert Nobbs”
• Roney Mara
  “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (She was great, a revelation as I said in my review of the film but she won’t win).
• Viola Davis
  “The Help” (Her performance was the heart and soul of this well-intentioned but not very good movie. SHE–and Octavia Spencer–are the reasons to see this cinematic exercise in hype).
  
• Meryl Streep
  “The Iron Lady” (Her 17th nomination–if she wins, it’ll be because the AMPAS is unduly embarrassed at not giving our finest actress another Oscar since 1982–yes 1982–for “Sophie’s Choice.”)
• Michelle Williams
  “My Week with Marilyn” (I’m going to write a separate post about this nomination. NEVER EVER in my recent memory has such a woefully miscast performance elicited such a bafflement of raves. I don’t get it. I saw this film last year at an early screening and declared that Williams, a normally gifted and subtle performer, fell drastically short of portraying the legendary celluloid bombshell. I attributed this to not only a one-dimensional script that insisted on delineating Monroe as nothing more than a dim-witted, drugged out cipher when biographers have characterized her as having more shadings than that tired old stereotype but on Williams sorely lacking the traffic-stopping allure needed to convincingly play an iconic screen sex symbol. I like Williams a lot but I don’t get the hoopla surrounding her misfire of a performance. So much of the film she comes off as a little girl playing dress-up. There’s no fire in the loins emanating from her–no tantalizing sexuality. I really do not believe that Michelle’s Marilyn could inspire a multitude of wet dreams. Must be the Harvey Weinstein PR machine..
  

Best Supporting Actress

• Bérénice Bejo
  “The Artist”
• Jessica Chastain
  “The Help” (Chastain is very successful playing a Monroe-inspired Southern bombshell; in fact, she’s so good with this prototype that I have no doubt SHE would have been a better choice than the cute but somewhat unglamorous Williams to play the screen legend in “My Week with Marilyn.” What a shame she was too unknown to essay that role during the casting).
• Melissa McCarthy
  “Bridesmaids” (I loved this riotously funny movie and McCarthy is a scream in it. Kudos for a comedic performance garnering an Oscar nomination.)
• Janet McTeer
  “Albert Nobbs”
• Octavia Spencer
  “The Help” (See Viola Davis above).

Young Albert (Jeremy Irvine) tends to his horse Joey in War Horse.

I’ll admit this right off the bat: I didn’t really want to see this film but unfortunately I was too late for a showing of The Descendants and sadly, The Artist wasn’t playing anywhere near me. So reluctantly, I agreed to see this flick. All in all, I’m glad I went. Despite my fears that I would be seeing a modern reprise of the play Equus (War Horse was previously adapted from a play; although unlike Equus, its original source material is a children’s novel) , I was thoroughly relieved that didn’t come to pass. Directed by cinema’s most consistently popular and well respected director, Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis, War Horse is entertaining schmaltz about the relationship between a boy and his horse. And except for one moment when I stole a fleeting glance at my Blackberry (on vibrate) to see the time (a metric for my enjoyment of a film or a play–how many times I check the time), I was…riveted.

Yes, the film is pure treacle from start to finish. From the luridly lush, Disneyfied cinematography panning the verdant fields of Scotland courtesy of the great Janusz Kaminski (Schindler’s List)  to John Williams’ swelling score that telegraphs every single poignant second in the film (lest we are so obtuse that we don’t get that what we’re about to see is TOUCHING in neon hues), War Horse is admittedly overbaked, syrupy mush. But it will also leave a lump in your throat that may take awhile to abate after you leave the theater.

The story begins when feckless, drunken farmer, Ted Narracut (Peter Mullan) buys a stunning thoroughbred that he can’t afford at an auction. It’s a reckless, irresponsible act because Ted owes money in back rent to an unsympathetic landlord (David Thewlis). Ted’s teenaged son, Albert, taking an immediate shine to the equine creature he calls Joey, tells his father he will be able to train the horse to plow the land (and thus save the family from ruin). Only things don’t work out that way. Without informing his son beforehand, the debt-ridden Ted sells Joey to a cavalry officer (Tom Hiddleston) en route to fight the Germans during World War II. Confronted with the heartbroken Albert, the officer reassures the boy he will take good care of the horse and even return the animal to him after the war.

Soon, the film adopts a POV via the horse as the story shifts its focus to a succession of characters (including an elderly French farmer played wonderfully by Niels Arestrup) who interact with Joey. After receiving a sketch of Joey from the officer, Albert enlists in the military to fight and also retrieve his lost horse.

The acting from the principals and supporting players is fine. There’s not a weak link in the bunch. But honestly, the real star of the show is the horse, who according to Spielberg, was played by a dozen horses. It’s hard to assess the thespian ability of a horse (or horses) but the animal actors are very majestic-looking and magnetic. My favorite scene in the film is when Joey is trapped by barbed wire in a “No Man’s Land” war zone, separating the British regiment from their German foes. What transpires next is as heartrending as it’s emotionally manipulative and maudlin. But you won’t care one bit.

Though War Horse is obvious in its tug-the-heart-strings artifice, there’s a genuine layer of old-fashioned warmth and sincerity in the film that harkens back to the oeuvre of Frank Capra and John Ford. For people looking to take their families to a movie that won’t embarrass them (the film is very low on blood-letting), War Horse should nicely fill the ticket.

Rooney Mara as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Okay, here are two things you need to know before you read my review of the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

1) I’ve read all three books of Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy (the first in the series, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is the book upon which the current David Fincher-directed film is based).

2) I did not see the original Swedish film starring Noomi Rapace.

Now that we got that out of the way, here’s my review:

There’s always an inherent danger to seeing film adaptations of books you’ve read. So often your expectations are built up to such an extent that what you see on screen never matches the theater in your imagination when you read the book. This was a key problem I had while watching the recently released American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

On the whole, the film is what you would expect from David Fincher, arguably the best director in the current crop of auteurs: a slick, stylishly photographed, fast-paced taut thriller. But it’s also confusingly plotted (if I hadn’t read the book, I swear I would not have understood HALF of what was going on), intensely formulaic, packed with disjointed scenes that seem to have no relation to the previous ones. Overall the tone is so lumbering and ponderous I kept wondering if perhaps Fincher (who should have won an Oscar last year for directing The Social Network) was the best choice to direct this film, which from the dismal early box office returns, may not morph into the franchise it was probably intended to be.

And that is a shame because the ingredients are all there: A hugely popular potboiler, a charismatic, if socially autistic, kick-ass heroine (or anti-heroine), a sexy, rugged leading man, a terrific film director and an Oscar-winning screenwriter. Unfortunately, as dazzling as the film appears at certain points (including its stirring opening credits), it seems straitjacketed by a gravity of self-importance missing in the novel. Yes, there is rape, murder and mayhem in the novel (and in the film, of course) but believe it or not, the book is-gasp-entertaining. . And there lies the fault of the American remake: It’s a way too literal, heavy-handed interpretation of the Larsson book. Maybe it needed a lighter touch from another director? Nolan perhaps?

As the crusading investigative reporter accused of libel, Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomvist in a strangely reticent, low-key manner. (Thankfully, he’s not as oversexed as the ridiculously irresistible babe magnet in the series–although Craig is hot enough that his overpowering desirability to females of all ages would be plausible). This bit of direction makes it very easy for Rooney Mara, as the eponymous title character, to steal the film effortlessly. Emaciated to the point of weightlessness, her pasty face riddled with multiple piercings, Mara, clothed in black leather regalia, unleashes the torments of Lisbeth Salander’s lifetime of harrowing abuse and neglect with a stunning fervor. Whether she’s fighting off a potential mugger or exacting creative revenge on her rapist, Mara is like a cyberpunk fury out to right the wrongs that have not only been visited upon her in her young life but other women as well. She’s an avatar of seething, uncontrolled anti-social rage. It’s a smashing performance and I hope she garners an Oscar nod for her stellar work. Unfortunately, it’s too bad that the rest of the film doesn’t measure up to her level.

Most of the supporting cast, though, turns in fine, dependable work. As the aging patriarch of the troubled Vanger dynasty, Christopher Plummer is his usual resourceful, charming self. Joely Richardson also acquits herself well as an estranged member of the clan (even if there is a MAJOR change in the film as opposed to the book regarding her character) while Stellan Skarsgard is suitably sinister. Robin Wright, as Blomvist’s longtime colleague and lover, is wan and wasted.

The screenplay by Steven Zaillian, who won an Oscar for Schindler’s List, is muddled and chaotic although I do wonder if slapdash editing (maybe to cut the film down to a decent running length) is the culprit here. However, Jeff Cronenweth’s cinematography is appropriately moody and atmospheric.

For people who haven’t read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the current American incarnation may have its absorbing moments. But they are eclipsed by incoherent storytelling, coupled with skimpy character development, making it nearly impossible for viewers to emotionally invest in the action unfolding on screen. If you have read the book, then maybe it’s time for a brisk re-read rather than get caught up in Fincher’s excessively dreary tale.

• The Descendants – Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash
Hugo – John Logan
Moneyball – Steven Zallian and Aaron Sorkin
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan
We Need To Talk About Kevin – Lynne Ramsey and Rory Kinnear

Kenneth Brannagh – Sir Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn
Albert Brooks – Bernie Rose in Drive
• Christopher Plummer – Hal Fields in Beginners
Alan Rickman – Professor Severus Snape in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
Andy Serkis – in Planet of the Apes

A Dangerous Method – Carl Jung spanks Sabina Speilrein
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo — Lisbeth mounts Mikael
Melancholia – Justine in the moonlight
Shame – Opening sequence on the subway train
• Shame – Brandon with co-worker

Sequel or Remake That Shouldn’t Have Been Made Award:

• Arthur
• Cars 2
• Hangover Part II
• Hoodwinked 2
• Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon

Most Egregious Age Difference:

• Albert Nobbs – Glenn Close (64) and Mia Wasikowska (22)
• Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – Daniel Craig (43) and Rooney Mara (26)
• Midnight in Paris – Owen Wilson (43) and Léa Seydoux (26)
• Sleeping Beauty – Emily Browning (23) and Man 1 (Peter Carroll, 1968), Man 2 (Chris Haywood, 63) and Man 3 (Hugh Keays-Byrne, 64)
• Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 – Bella (18) and Edward (over 100)

Courtesy of Zencollegelife.com, check out their 10 “awesomely bad” movies with cult followings. I agree with “Mommy Dearest,” “Showgirls” and “Rocky Horror Show” but I will cede to them when it comes to the others I haven’t seen. Have a read and enjoy: http://www.zencollegelife.com/10-awesomely-bad-films-with-cult-followings/

(FYI, I’m taking a summer break from the blog–I’ll be back soon.)

Dennis Hopper torments Isabella Rossellini in David Lynch's classic thriller "Blue Velvet."

Back in the 1980s when I had less gray hair, I used to be a big fan of David Lynch. He was the hot, up and coming cinematic wunderkind; and although he had a penchant for exploring the bizarre and eccentric in his films, he always executed it with a stylish aesthetic that made pretentious, quasi-trendy twits like yours truly drop their jaws in wonderment.

I remember one time in the mid-1980s, shortly after I graduated from college, I dragged my then roommate, a photography student from NYC’s Parsons School of Design, to see “Blue Velvet.” I had seen it a week before and was so stunned by the film’s overwhelming weirdness (which I took for prodigious genius) that I insisted to my roomie, who was playing with all sorts of styles as a budding photographer, she must see “Blue Velvet” for inspiration.

It was New Year’s Eve and we went to this dive of a theater on Sixth Avenue off Waverly in the Village to see the Lynch flick. My roommate was quiet and contemplative as she watched the eerie happenings on screen until the infamous S & M scene between Dennis Hopper’s psychotic gas mask sniffing thug Frank Booth and Isabella Rossellini’s victimized nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens. After the scene was over, my roommate turned to me with a mortified laugh and said: “I’m going to kill you.” But this is the height of visual stylishness, I protested! No, she countered. It’s pretentious and silly. Well, I never went to see another Lynch film with her.

Since his heyday in the 1980s, Lynch has been keeping a low profile. Yet, I still get excited like the post-adolescent schoolgirl I was back in the Reagan era every time his name is brought up in conversation or in articles. Zen College Life has just published on their site a great and insightful article regarding my favorite (and yours I hope) director of weirdness: “10 Absolute Creepiest Moments in David Lynch’s Oeurve.” I urge you all to check it out–just go to this link: http://www.zencollegelife.com/the-10-absolute-creepiest-moments-in-david-lynchs-oeuvre/

Read my article on Broadway dressers in TheaterMania.com! Here’s the link: http://www.theatermania.com/new-york/news/06-2011/dresser-up_38290.html

Movies about money and the people who make or lose them have always been great fodder. From Oliver Stone’s classic greed is good yuppie cautionary epic, “Wall Street” to HBO’s recent “Too Big to Fail” (about the 2008 fall of Lehman Brothers, the once giant investing firm), movies about money continue to be churned out at a brisk pace. Courtesy of AccountingDegree.com (thank you to them!), here’s a preview of the article followed by the link. Please let me know what you think!

Money, even for those who don’t work in finance, is still a part of everyday life. Every time we buy food, pay bills or go to work, we deal with it. Because money permeates so much of what we do and what motivates us to be both very good and sometimes very bad, it makes a great movie subject. Here are some of our favorite films about the supposed root of all evil, taking a look at greed, generosity and everything in between.
Serious Films
Addressing greed, crime and business, these films take a hard look at how humans interact with money.
Wall Street (1987): This Oliver Stone classic comes with the tag line, “greed is good” and that’s just what values the film reflects with its corrupt, money-hungry characters caught up in the 80’s ideal excesses.
Boiler Room (2000): This modern twist on a film noir follows Seth Davis as he attempts to get a legitimate job and please his father after dropping out of college and running an illegal casino. What he doesn’t realize is that the stock brokerage where he finds work is far from legal and may just ruin his life.
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992): This feature film adaptation of a David Mamet play documents the lives of four desperate Chicago agents who will do anything to sell some less-than-desirable real estate to prospective buyers.
There Will Be Blood (2007): Daniel Day Lewis’ portrayal of the ruthless oil baron Daniel Plainview won him an Oscar (among numerous other awards), and there perhaps hasn’t been a better or colder portrayal of a driven businessman on film. Despite the character’s success in the film, he remains lonely and isolated from all those around him, even his adopted son, showing that money truly can’t buy happiness.
Barbarians at the Gate (1993): Based on the book of the same name, this movie takes a look at the real life events that occurred during the buyout of Nabisco. Viewers will see businessmen fight it out for the rights to the company, slowly bidding up into the billions, creating a large shadow of debt for whomever ends up with the company.
American Psycho (2000): American Psycho isn’t about money per se, but the serial killer at the center, Patrick Bateman, will go to any ends to maintain his yuppie Wall Street lifestyle – even murdering business rivals. The film skewers materialism, narcissism, greed and the often shallow nature of American consumerism.
Pi (1998): Pi follows a brilliant young mathematician who is working on a formula that would help him to understand the natural world. While making stock predictions, he stumbles upon a mysterious 216 digit number that could be the answer he’s looking for, but other groups, stockbrokers and religious theorists want the discovery — and are willing to do anything to get it.
Indecent Proposal (1993): What would you do for money? That’s the question this classic film asks, as a man offers a married couple one million dollars for just one night with the wife. While they need the money, the realities of getting it may just drive them apart.
Casino (1995): Where there is money, there is crime and that’s just what viewers will find in this gangster film from Martin Scorsese. Enforcers help make sure that the mafia gets its cut of casino profits.
To read more, follow this link: http://www.accountingdegree.com/blog/2011/the-20-best-movies-about-money/

David Fincher’s long-awaited version of Stieg Larsson’s hugely popular “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is coming to theaters at the end of the year. The film, which stars Daniel Craig as the tremendously irresistible (readers will know what I’m talking about) journalist/amateur sleuth Mikael Blomvist and Rooney Mara as the eponymous girl herself, Lizbeth Salander, has been generating buzz since shooting began. With Fincher at the helm, I can’t imagine this film will be anything other than provocative, brilliantly shot and worthy. Here’s the first trailer–what do you think?

Owen Wilson and Marion Cotillard in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris"

In the new Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris, the slightly fallen auteur returns to somewhat stellar form with a charming time-travel fable set in the City of Love. Having reached his peak in the 70s and 80s with such films as Annie Hall (a favorite), Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters (another favorite), Allen’s previously vaunted greatness as a filmmaker might have plunged a few notches; yet he continues to pique fascination among the elite due to his past reputation and a prolific output, feverishing churning out a film a year–even uprooting his beloved New York City locale to a clime (Europe) more fiscally hospitable to film production. While some of his more recent films have elicited raves (e.g., Matchpoint), others like last year’s poorly received You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger make one-time Allenphiles like yours truly wonder if the former stand-up comic has lost his magic.

Having just seen the latest contribution to his massive oeurve, I can confidently say no–but then I’m not sure if his post-1980s films will ever reach the dizzying heights of his Annie Hall days (his checkered personal life has probably forever cast a blight on his appeal with urban American moviegoers). However, let’s be honest: If we had to base virtue as a criterion for artistic success, there would be a worldwide multitude of empty museums, theaters, libraries and movie houses.

Which brings me back to Allen: Okay, he will never be an icon of unavailing moral purity–his “relationship” with and subsequent marriage to the adopted sister of his only biological son, coupled with a borderline sociopathic failure on his part to see anything wrong with that by virtue of his wife not sharing DNA with her adoptive mother (Allen’s erstwhile love and mother of his only biological son), has tainted him forever in my eyes. I admit that; still, I can’t deny the talent that first entranced me when I was a teenager; and it’s for that same reason I keep running to see his movies, long after many other fans stopped because he was no longer considered a hip pop cultural hero.

However, he is still a filmmaker who remains relevant thanks to the wise observations and incisive insights his characters, particularly the thinly disguised alter egos, make about life and art. In Midnight in Paris, self-described Hollywood hack Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a wide-eyed romantic dreamer surrounded by jaded materialists. He is in Paris with his perpetually complaining fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her parents (Kurt Fuller, Mimi Kennedy) who are there on business. Yearning to live in a glorious bygone era– Paris in the 1920s–where Fitzgerald, Hemingway and their illustrious peers reigned supreme, Gil wants to chuck his career, which he concedes consists of nothing more than rewriting other writers’ mediocre work, to fine-tune his novel in the French capital.

Unfortunately for Gil, Inez and her parents do not share his fascination with Paris. To them, the city is nothing more than an extended shopping excursion for Inez and Gil’s upcoming nuptials. Gil, on the other hand, is completely bewitched by the city’s history and cultural legacy. So much so that one night while taking a midnight walk through the streets, he’s greeted by a vintage 1920s car that whisks him away to an era and a group of people he’s lionized in his mind for years.

Soon he starts to rub elbows with the real-life legends: Fitzgerald (Tom Huddleston), his charismatic but volative wife, Zelda (Alison Pill), the macho Hemingway (Corey Stoll), the captivatingly weird Salvador Dali (a funny Adrien Brody) and the affable Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates). Unlike Inez and her circle, which include a pompously self-important windbag of a professor (Michael Sheen), Gil’s new time-travel crowd take his literary aspirations seriously. Gertrude Stein even offers to read Gil’s manuscript, which she does, giving him a positive and judicious critique.

During these midnight time-travel jaunts, Gil becomes dazzled by Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a lovely sad-eyed flapper who dreams of living in the Belle Epoque, a time when Toulouse Lautrec was a mainstay at the Moulin Rouge. Through his interactions with Adriana and the others, Gil arrives at an overdue realization regarding his future and that of his relationship with Inez.

I’ve never been that much of a fan of Owen Wilson. His limited range, busted nose, surfer intonations and stoner/hangdog mien have never held that much appeal for me. But he does acquit himself well as Gil.

Yet the real star of the film is the city itself. Plushly photographed by co-cinematographers Johannes Debas and Darius Khondji, the Parisian vistas have never looked more inviting and breathtaking. From the opening montage of Parisian images to the final shot, Midnight in Paris seems almost gift-wrapped in a glow that only dreamers and romantics can appreciate, a valentine to a city that still continues to draw others into its mist like a siren.