The Official Review Thread of 2011

[ksrymy]

Chastain has been much, much better - and better used - in another movie this year.

I think she was best in Take Shelter which is a little movie that's crept its way into one of my favorites of the year. I don't understand her Tree of Life acclaim (much less the entire movie's acclaim). I haven't yet seen Coriolanus so no judging there and there's no way I'll see The Debt. The only reason I wanted her to be nominated for The Help is because she'd be most likely to win. It's a crowd-pleasing movie that's heavily-skewed toward the female members of the Academy (and women everywhere). And while I really, really do think that she is fabulous in this film I guess I'm just bitter that Take Shelter didn't get anything (especially for Michael Shannon who should take Bichir's spot).

[ITALIANO]

This also goes for Viola Davis who I would not even nominate this year. Her work is unimpressive and she fails to deliver on her big speech(es) hoping that her tears will provide what she herself cannot act out.

Bravo. Plus, I'm not even sure that Octavia Spencer has less screen time than Davis in the movie. Davis's role seems big at the beginning, but then she's almost completely absent in the second half of the movie, except when the director remembers to cut for two or three seconds to her teary-eyed, noble face. And of course she has the ending of the movie all for herself - which helps but still doesn't mean Leading. And she hasn't a character to play - just an idea. (Spencer at least HAS a character, though obviously not a complex one).

Chastain has been much, much better - and better used - in another movie this year.

[ksrymy]

I was just trying to protect you. Because defending The Help is tough, Sabin, very tough.

And this is where I had to do a full fifteen-minute convincing to a lady I work with. Over sushi on our lunch break, she asked me what I thought about the nominations and I bitched about Melissa McCarthy and she bitched about Demián Bichir stealing Fassbender's spot and whatnot.

But then came The Help. I thought it was a nice movie. Nothing extremely warranting about it (except I fully endorse Chastain here and I pray to God the award goes to her or Bejo). She really liked Spencer's role in it and this is where things got divisive. She sees Minny as a fully-realized character. I see her as the only (and I use this word liberally) spot of humor in the film. Eventually I let it slip that her win will only be because of white guilt. She looked a bit taken aback so I had to go through and explain McDaniel's (as actually good as she was in 1939) win is the exact same thing. White people are assholes to the fat black lady and sympathy votes go hand-in-hand with those who think her performance is genuinely outstanding. And not only black housemaids get these votes. Think of Mildred Dunnock's sympathetic role in Baby Doll (alas, a film she had not seen so my point here was a bit lost on her). Gale Sondergaard is one of the only anomalies here because her role in Anthony Adverse was a villainous role. I know she'd seen All About Eve so I mentioned Thelma Ritter; She noted that the only problem is that Thelma Ritter had many nominations as opposed to one like McDaniel and Spencer do. I retorted saying that, however, she was pretty much stuck in that quick-talking maid role for the rest of her life.

This also goes for Viola Davis who I would not even nominate this year. Her work is unimpressive and she fails to deliver on her big speech(es) hoping that her tears will provide what she herself cannot act out. This is the exact opposite of her work in Doubt.

And when I told her that the only nominee from the film should have been white, I was pretty much given a death glare. The air remained tense for a while but she later confessed that she does not think I am racist she was just defending a movie she really enjoyed.

The Academy has way too big a boner for black maid roles. Hell, even Queen Latifah was dressed like one in Chicago.

I am so done with The Help and I really hope the only thing it wins is a statue for Chastain.

[ITALIANO]

ITALIANO wrote

Sabin wrote
There seems a lot for me to respond to in this post. Really, can't wait. How is Jessica Chastain's character unnecessary?

Would you have killed yourself if the director had cut her whole subplot? (The movie is full of unnecessary subplots). Would you have cried: Hey, where is the Marilyn-Monroe-type who's good to the black servant? I need her!

Sabin, it's impossible to defend this movie. If you do, you'll probably become a very well paid screenwriter, but you'll lose your dignity, so let's stop here.

Sorry, I thought that by referencing out conversation a couple of weeks ago that you were inviting conversation and not just being an asshole. My mistake.

I was just trying to protect you. Because defending The Help is tough, Sabin, very tough.

[Sabin]

ITALIANO wrote

Sabin wrote
There seems a lot for me to respond to in this post. Really, can't wait. How is Jessica Chastain's character unnecessary?

Would you have killed yourself if the director had cut her whole subplot? (The movie is full of unnecessary subplots). Would you have cried: Hey, where is the Marilyn-Monroe-type who's good to the black servant? I need her!

Sabin, it's impossible to defend this movie. If you do, you'll probably become a very well paid screenwriter, but you'll lose your dignity, so let's stop here.

Sorry, I thought that by referencing out conversation a couple of weeks ago that you were inviting conversation and not just being an asshole. My mistake.

[Uri]

According to comments attributed to Viola Daivs in another thread, she seems even more thrilled with the nomination of her other film, Exrememely Loud and Incredibly Close, for Best Picture which wasn't expected than for her own nomiantion which was.

Mmm... Can I say something that you'll never hear in America - never, I mean, about a black actress who plays an uplifting, saintly, mistreated black servant? Just between us, ok - please don't tell anyone else, especially not to your government..

I feel that this is fake person. Personal opinion, of course.

I'd like to defend Davis, at least partly. From the little I saw of her offscreen lately, I sense something which I can't fully put my finger on. She seems to be trying too hard – in a round table of best actress possibilities she looked overdressed on one hand and very self-conscious on the other. She seemed to be feeling as if she didn't belong. I believe it has something to do with being a victim of the Sidney Poitier syndrome – being black and feeling the responsibility to be a representable tribute to one's race at any given moment. She is a gifted actress – think of her turn in Far From Heaven – but she may be trapped in this very American need to fit a very structured behavioral and social pattern. And the more she becomes this Grand African American Lady Thespian de Jour, the more trapped in her image she might be. Pitty.

[ITALIANO]

According to comments attributed to Viola Daivs in another thread, she seems even more thrilled with the nomination of her other film, Exrememely Loud and Incredibly Close, for Best Picture which wasn't expected than for her own nomiantion which was.

Mmm... Can I say something that you'll never hear in America - never, I mean, about a black actress who plays an uplifting, saintly, mistreated black servant? Just between us, ok - please don't tell anyone else, especially not to your government..

I feel that this is fake person. Personal opinion, of course.

[ITALIANO]

Movies like this make me angry - I consider them an insult to my, to anyone's, intelligence.

Told you so. You can't say you weren't warned, Marco.

True. And I knew you'd be right - but it was an even worse experience than I expected.

The good guys (or girls), the bad guys - are we still at this point? I couldn't believe it.

[ITALIANO]

There seems a lot for me to respond to in this post. Really, can't wait. How is Jessica Chastain's character uneccesary?

Would you have killed yourself if the director had cut her whole subplot? (The movie is full of unnecessary subplots). Would you have cried: Hey, where is the Marilyn-Monroe-type who's good to the black servant? I need her!

Sabin, it's impossible to defend this movie. If you do, you'll probably become a very well paid screenwriter, but you'll lose your dignity, so let's stop here.

[Big Magilla]

According to comments attributed to Viola Daivs in another thread, she seems even more thrilled with the nomination of her other film, Exrememely Loud and Incredibly Close, for Best Picture which wasn't expected than for her own nomiantion which was.

[Uri]

Movies like this make me angry - I consider them an insult to my, to anyone's, intelligence.

Told you so. You can't say you weren't warned, Marco.

[Sabin]

There seems a lot for me to respond to in this post. Really, can't wait. How is Jessica Chastain's character uneccesary?

[ITALIANO]

A few weeks ago Sabin complained that The Artist doesn't have "a message", and was shocked when I replied that I don't like films "with a message". Privately, I also wondered if films "with a message" still exist. They do. I saw one tonight - The Help. And it confirmed my fear for this kind of movies, which I carefully tend to avoid but I couldn't this time, after all its nominations.

The message is, of course, so banal, so obvious, so simplistic that the movie itself seems to be made for an audience of 7-year-olds. Don't get me wrong - I don't have anything against unsolved conflicts, in individuals and in whole countries. I respect them - we have lots of those in Europe, in Italy. So it's not that. What I absolutely hate is when such conflicts are treated by a movie in the most predictable way, unworthy of the issue itself, self-congratulatory and absolutely superficial, and for this reason ineffectual. And, let me be honest, Americans are specialists of this kind of things. Movies like this make me angry - I consider them an insult to my, to anyone's, intelligence.

Still, movies can be entertaining. Not this one. I don't know if it has ever happened to you, I'm sure it has - you are watching a movie and suddenly you asks yourself: Why am I here? Who are these characters and why should I be interested in them? Who are these ALIENS??? Impossible to feel any connection with them. I should have just left the cinema, but I'm basically a coward and stayed. Till the very end.

As for the much-praised (even on this board) acting... I don't know, it's possible that some of these actresses wouldn't even be bad, if only they had CHARACTERS to play. The attitude of American critics when it comes to black actresses, especially not-conventionally beautiful black actresses, is very strange - it's like when parents look at their little children: "Look! He can walk now!" and applaud. Now isn't this racist? I think it is.
Viola Davis is now officially my least-favorite American actress - with her absolute, stubborn refusal to do anything even vaguely unpredictable, original, UNEXPECTED. Of course I knew I wouldn't get an Isabelle Huppert-level performance - not in this movie - but how can such an unimaginatively, conventionally uplifting performance be taken seriously? How can it be seriously considered for important awards? In Europe it would be impossible. In America Saint Viola could win the Oscar. A mystery.

The others are, of course, dreadful too, but at least they take themselves less seriously. But even grotesque... it takes talent to do it well, and Jessica Chastain, amazing as she seemed to be in The Tree of Life, doesn't have this kind of talent. Bad, bad performance, unnecessary character.

At first Octavia Spencer seems to be the only competent member of the cast - at least she provides some much-needed fun, and she definitely could play a human being, too - but after a while one grows tired of her, of the caricature she soon becomes, of all those close-ups of her big bulging eyes. Sorry, I'm too old for this kind of things.

Since Best Supporting Actress this year is weak, Spencer will easily win - and will still be absurd, because Janet McTeer is a much, much better actress. But she's not black, she's not fat, and she doesn't play a victim.

Absurd, but not a crime - a crime would be if Viola Davis wins Best Actress. And she could.

[anonymous1980]

WE BOUGHT A ZOO
Cast: Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church, Elle Fanning, Colin Ford, Mary Elizabeth Jones, Patrick Fugit, Angus Macfadyen, John Michael Higgins, Peter Riegert, JB Smoove.
Dir: Cameron Crowe.

The highest praise I can give this film is that it's fine and it could have been a hell of a lot worse. It's a highly unremarkable film that somehow managed to entertain thanks to the charm of Matt Damon and the cast. The script dials down the potential for silly sap and annoying cute moments. It's an interesting enough story that could have been a bit better as a TV pilot, I think. Still, it's just....fine.

Oscar Prospects: None....well, maybe for Original Song.

Grade: C+

[anonymous1980]

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
Cast: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Michael Sheen, Kathy Bates, Kurt Fuller, Mimi Kennedy, Nina Arianda, Tom Hiddleston, Adrien Brody, Corey Stoll, Allison Pill, Lea Seydoux, Carla Bruni.
Dir: Woody Allen.

The worst thing I can say about this film is that it isn't quite as great as Woody Allen's masterpieces from the '70s and '80s. But it is very much a highlight on his current contemporary European phase of his films. It's a funny, joyful infectious romp about writer who longs for the past and suddenly getting his wish come true at the stroke of midnight. Owen Wilson manages to make the "Woody Allen"-type lead character without doing an overt impression. I'm watching this right after a marathon that consisted of The Purple Rose of Cairo and Manhattan and this film has plenty of elements that strongly reminds me of both films.

Oscar Prospects: I think it should also be nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Corey Stoll).

Grade: A-