Around this time of year I receive advance screening DVD’s of hopefully award-worthy movies. I get them because I’m in the Writer’s Guild of America West, and I vote for the best original and adapted screenplay for the Writer’s Guild Awards. Okay, it ain’t the Oscars, but the idea is that a Writer’s Guild award will give an extra push for the film come Oscar time. This is not a top-ten list people, but I have been watching the movies and I have some helpful opinions regarding ticket-buying choices.
First of all, it is interesting to note which movies I get sent, and which ones I do not get sent. I’m sure Academy Members get more movies than I do. The screeners are typically the more offbeat dramas and “indie” vibe films that have little chance of broad theatrical release, but have at least the minimum cred to actually be nominated. I do get some “big” movies too. These are the ones that want to steamroll the awards (Inception), or perhaps movies that don’t really have a chance but prestigious persons are involved (Shutter Island). I did not get Black Swan, damn it. No Toy Story 3 either.
Okay so here’s the list of movies (in no particular order) I have received, with comments:
PLEASE GIVE is an ensemble piece involving various Manhattanites working out minor personal travails. A dull, unfocused story is dressed up with aggressively quirky characters that behave in puzzling, contrived ways. It is at times lovely, if not amazing, because of several magnetic actors and performances. Rebecca Hall, Sarah Steele, and Ann Morgan Guilbert deliver the good stuff. Katherine Keener is left out to dry and Oliver Platt is miscast.
I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS is so much better than I expected of a movie with Jim Carrey playing a gay compulsive con man. The opening credits claim “true story,” and there is a real guy (Steven Jay Russell) who was a crazy genius con man and frequent ingenious prison escapee. The movie emphasizes the love story between the characters played by Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. They are good and everything, but the problem with Jim Carrey in dramatic mode is that he always seems to be smirkingly ironic, or ironically smirking. Does anybody else have that issue with Jim Carrey? The star of this movie is the story.
CITY ISLAND is like Please Give, but with a story and more believable humanity. Both movies are too lightweight for Oscar.
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT is a really good story and a really good movie and yeah, Annette Bening deserves the nomination.
THE FIGHTER is good (not great), and the true-story aspect lends some amazingness to it, as in I Love You Phillip Morris. There will be a lot of talk about Christian Bale’s performance and how Oscary (or just scary) it is. But honestly, Christian Bale just has to shut the fuck up. He’s a big fat show-off. Mark Wahlberg is in control, but drowned out.
SHUTTER ISLAND is a bad movie.
SOMEWHERE is the new movie from Sofia Coppola. I haven’t watched it yet, but it has Dakota Fanning’s little sister in it. It might be the last chocolate left in the box.
THE COMPANY MEN is a certified Razzie/ Golden Turkey contender. Such a story could only come from the most condescending limousine liberal mindset. One must assume that the recent global economic disaster hit Beverly Hills like a soft breeze. Anyway, the story is about three hard-working American white men who get downsized. Ben Affleck loses his 160k per year cushy desk job. Though his wife is an employed nurse, Ben is forced to take a new job that only pays 80k. He even has to give up his Porsche: oh the humanity! Tommy Lee Jones, who lives in a beachside castle, is squeezed out of the company he’s helped build over thirty years. In his darkest hour, when all hope is lost, he tires of banging Maria Bello and opens up his own ship building company. I tell ya, I cried. And Chris Cooper, who worked his way up from spot-welder to corporate exec, is so dismayed by his pink-slip that he locks himself in the garage, starts up his car, and gases himself to death. Because he can’t afford his daughter’s tuition to Brown. If I was that sensitive I would have committed suicide when I was five. Memorable line: “We lost Royal Caribbean.”
INCEPTION is 148 minutes long, and at least 40 of those minutes are spent trying (in vain) to explain what the hell is going on. Other than that, cool.
TRUE GRIT is a joy, and so much more audience-friendly than A Serious Man. Due to similarity in character between Rooster Cogburn and Bad Blake, there is no hope for Jeff to medal this time. Hailee Steinfeld is another matter.
THE TOWN is a silly movie, but fun. It deserves an award only from the Popcorn Growers Association. Rebecca Hall is a hundred times better in Please Give.
I also received GET LOW (Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Bill Murray) and BARNEY’S VERSION (Paul Giamatti, Minnie Driver, Dustin Hoffman), but I haven’t screened them yet. I didn’t get The Social Network, but they know they’re going to win, so they don’t need to send screeners out to the likes of me. All in, I received thirteen movies. If I had seen them all in theaters, with popcorn, that would work out to about $260 bucks. I’d have to give up my Porsche.
David Warfield
