2013 Best Picture Countdown #2: 12 Years A Slave

The top two movies in my Best Picture ranking could not be more different and represent a clash of style versus story. Both are excellent films and equally worthy of winning Best Picture for completely opposite reasons. Gravity, my personal favorite, is about the spectacle of filmmaking and is great because of its inventiveness in making a movie that really appears to be set in space. 12 Years a Slave, number two, is the most moving story of the year and feels like the most important movie of the year for the way it examines America’s secret shame in a way never done in movies before.

12 Years a Slave is an ugly, powerful, profound movie about the experiences of slave life in the United States. To say the movie picks away at an ugly, nearly unforgivable piece of American History is an understatement.

12 Years a Slave is the true story of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free-born New York musician. With his family away, Solomon travels to DC with a pair of shady characters (one of whom is played by Saturday Night Live member Taran Killam!) to make a quick buck playing some shows. But Solomon is drugged and awakes in chains. He is savagely beaten and sold to a slave dealer (Paul Giamatti) who renames him Platt and sells him in the Deep South.

Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and the maliciously evil Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender)

At first, Solomon is owned by the relatively nice William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who he helps ford a river. But Solomon runs afoul of one of Ford’s cruel white laborers and Ford is forced to sell him to Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). Epps is brutal and savage, repeatedly whipping slaves who do not pick enough cotton and openly lusting after and eventually raping Patsy (Lupita Nyong’o), another slave on the plantation. Solomon looks for ways to escape to no avail and must play dumb and illiterate in order to stay alive.

The movie is about the dehumanizing effects on slavery on both the slave and the master. While it doesn’t take pity on the cruel Epps or the purposefully ignorant Ford, it does suggest they know what they are doing is wrong.  Living with their sins has torn the masters apart internally. Epps in particular becomes a wild man, frightfully administering beatings and whippings, which the film does not sugar coat.

The most comparable Best Picture in terms of unflinching depiction of injustice and man’s cruelty to man is Schindler’s List. But I found 12 Years a Slave to be even more horrifying and ugly. For one thing, Schindler’s List is told from Oskar Schindler’s point of view. While an excellent film, Schindler is actually outside the horror, looking in, and in some ways, this softens the blow for the viewers (relatively speaking). In 12 Years a Slave, the viewpoint is Solomon’s, and we watch and experience his tortures and horrors firsthand with him from the inside. Furthermore, Schindler’s List has a tinge of hope – there is at least one good guy in the world, willing to risk everything for what’s right. 12 Years a Slave lacks a hero. Solomon is rendered almost powerless and there is nobody until the last 10 minutes of the movie (or 12 years in the story’s timeline) who is willing to help him. The movie’s coda adds additional levels of bleakness to the story.

Best Supporting Actress frontrunner Lupita Nyong’o as Patsy

This movie is not great because it is bleak, though. This movie is great because of its honesty about its bleakness. I think knowing it’s based on a true story helps because there’s no way to deny these horrors really happened. All the actors give terrific performances as well. Ejiofor is great as a man fighting to hold on to his dignity, but Fassbender is mesmerizing as a man of pure evil. Nyong’o is equally powerful as Patsy, who can never win or escape and falls into increased despair.

I decided to rank 12 Years a Slave number two because it is not a movie I am eager to watch repeatedly. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it and to soften its depiction of slavery would have been a disservice to the plight it chronicles. But it’s not a fun movie and for that reason I can’t claim it as my favorite.

Other Nominations: Best Actor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Best Supporting Actor (Michael Fassbender), Best Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong’o), Best Director (Steve McQueen), Best Adapted Screenplay, Production Design, Costume Design, Film Editing

2013 Best Picture Countdown #3: American Hustle

“When you are offered a favor or money, take the favor, not the money. Jesus said that, didn’t he?” – Irving Rosenfeld ( Christian Bale), American Hustle

From its poster, American Hustle appears to be about cool people doing cool things (a particular favorite of mine, we last witnessed cool people doing cool things Casablanca). On the contrary the characters of American Hustle are not cool. They are hustlers, pure and simple, scrounging to get by, willing to screw over anyone in their path because that’s the only way they know how to live. It sounds bleak, but the movie is soaked in a type of cinematic coolness. Even though the cast are basically scum, you can’t help but enjoy them and even cheer them on.

Very loosely based on an actual FBI sting operation on corrupt government officials, American Hustle is set in the late 70s, when morals were lax and bras were apparently illegal. Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale with an amazing comb-over) is a small time con artist and legitimate dry cleaner whose illegal activities get a boost from girlfriend/grifter Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams). Sydney gets busted by FBI Agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) also a small timer, but on the right side of the law. DiMaso, not unlike the con artists, is looking for one big score that will make his career and help him to be a big shot. DiMaso offers to cut the pair a deal – help him nab some bad guys and he’ll let them skate. Irving’s situation is complicated by his estranged and hysterical wife, Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence), and the pair’s young son.

These are some cool looking cats

Even though he initially was targeting other small time crooks, DiMaso soon forces Sydney and Irving to go after major politicians, particularly those involved with rebuilding Atlantic City. One particular target is well-meaning Camden Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) who is wary of the illegal kickbacks and underhanded deals Irving and Richie coerce him into, but feels they are necessary to help his constituents. Irving is struck with a conscience of crisis for the relatively upstanding mayor who is getting caught up in the wave of scandals that the FBI is only helping to rile. DiMaso however become over-confident and tries to over-extend the reach of his undercover trap, which involves several congressmen, a fake sheik, and the mob, placing everyone involved in danger unless Irving can figure a way out.

Like I said, I liked the cool nature that the world of American Hustle resides in. Even if the characters are scummy, cowardly lowlifes, they operate in a way that is fun to watch. I liked the movie’s overall theme of a broken system – Carmine is really an honorable man trying to do good but the only way to get anything done is to play the dirty game. In the end, he does the least bad for the best reasons and yet is punished the most. How much wrong would he have even done if Richie had set up the sting in the first place?

Christian Bale disappears into his role

The movie benefits from amazing performances from all the actors. Jennifer Lawrence has been receiving the most attention, and she is great, but I thought Amy Adams really carried the movie as Sydney. She plays a very insecure woman who must wear a mask of unshakable confidence to escape mobsters and FBI agents. Christian Bale is equally awesome as he totally disappears into his character. Irving, unlike Sydney, is very confident in himself, which is why he can easily wear his bizarre comb over and paunch without a hint of shame.

I think that Director David O. Russell perfectly captures the feel of the 70s – the overdone glamor – from Bradley Cooper’s perm to Sydney and Rosalyn’s barely there dresses – but also the general distrust of the system brought on by Watergate. It also speaks to us now as we move further into an age of paranoia and disease with a broken system that feels beyond fixing. All we can do is hustle to get by.

Other Nominations: Best Actor (Christian Bale), Best Actress (Amy Adams), Best Supporting Actor (Bradley Cooper), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Lawrence), Best Director (David O. Russell), Best Original Screenplay, Film Editing, Costume Design, Production Design.

2013 Live Action Shorts

Before we start, I just wanted to mention the passing of Alice Herz-Sommer, the subject of the Oscar Nominated Documentary Short The Woman in Number 6. Alice was clearly an amazing woman and the movie does a great job capturing her incredible life and resilient, positive outlook. I was glad to have seen the movie while Alice was still alive because I think it’d be tinged with an added sadness now that was not the filmmaker’s intention.

The nominees in the Best Live Action Short category of the Academy Awards are a bi-polar bunch, ranging from the pits of despair to sitcom-style family hijinks. None of the nominees are from the U.S. (one is in English but is from the UK). A couple deal with relevant social topics, others diverge into fantastical flights of fancy. I didn’t like any as much as last year’s winner, Curfew, or collectively as much as last year’s group. When ranking them, I found I tend to put the lighter fare nearer the top (except for the very best one). I can’t say for sure that this is a bias against sad movies or if the lighter ones really were better.

Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me) falls on the far end of the sadness range. It’s the story of child soldiers in Africa who kidnap a trio of Spanish doctors trying to do missionary work. Despite its important, relevant subject matter, this movie suffers from being all over the map. It shifts back and forth from the doctors’ to the soldiers’ point of view (which is told in flashback) and veers strangely into a revenge story towards the end. I just didn’t think the movie addressed the topic all that well. Last year’s Asad took on a similar subject matter with a lighter touch and more personal story. This was my least favorite of the five.

Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just Before Losing Everything), on the other hand, tackles the subject of domestic abuse in a very personal manner with a deft, subtle touch that never hits you over the head with what’s going on. The movie is about a French woman trying to escape a violent husband with her two children and how she sets up her escape on the last day of her job. The movie is great because it never uses the term “domestic violence”. We just slowly figure out what’s going on from small things the characters say and how they respond to the wife as she tries to quit her job. The movie grows to a tense climax as her husband shows up at her job and she tries to avoid seeing him. A very powerful and intense 25 minutes. My favorite of the nominees.

Helium is also an incredibly sad movie about a dying kid (can’t get much sadder than that). This guy takes a job as an orderly at a children’s hospital and forms a bond with a sick child with an undisclosed illness. To help assuage the kid’s fear of dying, the orderly comes up with an increasingly complex story about where kids go where they die and how they get there. As the child grows sicker, the orderly goes to great links to finish the story. I thought this movie was just kind of dull, save for one pretty cool effects shot at the end that must have cost a pretty penny (how do these fancy short films get the money for their productions?). I put this at number four because it just wasn’t that interesting and moved very slowly for a twenty minute film.

Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?) is a Finnish comedy, basically in the Modern Family vein. An urban family of four (a mom, a dad, two pre-teen girls) have to get ready for a wedding with a lot of comic hijinks ensuing. The movie is told from the mom’s point of view, as she is the only one really keeping the family together. On the one hand, this was a very funny little movie. On the other hand, it wasn’t really tackling any ground breaking subject matter. Did you know families are often messy and humorously slovenly? It was kind of a relief to see this light hearted material after the depressing African child soldiers and abused wives, but on reflection what did this movie really accomplish other than a couple jokes? I liked it but can’t really place it higher than third due to being so inconsequential.

The Voorman Problem is also a comedy but it definitely does not tackle common ground. Martin Freeman – Bilbo Baggins from the Hobbit movies – plays a psychiatrist called to a prison. An inmate has convinced the other prisoners he is a God and is wreaking havoc amongst the prison. When Freeman tries to interview him, he finds a very laid-back and totally convincing guy who may just be what he says. This movie was very surprising and funny with quite a twist ending. I really liked the cleverness of this movie and would place it second amongst the nominees.

2013 Best Picture Countdown #4: Her

“I feel like I can be anything with you.” – Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) explores romance with his computer in Her

Let’s get this out of the way: Her is weird. There’s no other way around it. Her is about a man who falls in love with his computer. And the computer loves him back. You can’t say that’s not weird.

Her’s director, Spike Jonze, is known for making weird (or “quirky” as we say in polite company). His other movies include Being John Malkovich, about a secret passageway that lets you enter the actor John Malkovich’s brain. So you should have some idea of the “quirkiness” you are getting into here.

But that’s not to say Her is bad. Quite the contrary, like the best “out of the box” stories, Her uses its bizarre starting point to explore very human ideas about love and humanity.

When I first heard about Her, I pictured a story where the hero would be forced to choose between becoming a social pariah because of his unconventional romance or accept the computer as his soul mate. I assumed there would be lots of public humiliation and discrimination because he dared to love a computer. But Her is not that kind of love story and is not that conventional. To the contrary, Joaquin Phoenix’s techno-romance is actually not that big a deal to anybody else, which is one of the neat ways Her is able to subvert our expectations and go in such an exciting direction.

Joaquin Phoenix, fearless in love and dorkiness

Phoenix plays Theodor Twombly (if your character has a silly name that no one comments on, it must be a Spike Jonze movie), a lonely, somewhat self-centered man in the near future. Twombly is going through a divorce and works writing personalized letters to other people, which is all kinds of metaphorical. Twombly buys the newest “OS”, which in real life stands for Operating System but here is really more of a digital assistant. Semantics aside, the OS is marketed as self-aware and able to communicate with his/her master like a real person.

Twombly’s OS is Samantha (voiced with real talent by Scarlet Johansson). As the two go through Twombly’s jumbled files, work on his letters and explore the world, they form a romantic connection. But as I noted, it’s not really that big a deal. OS romance is not commonplace but also not seen as deviant or dangerous in the universe of Her. What follows is a series of vignette’s chronicling their relationship – they have a honeymoon phase, worry about growing apart, attempt to recapture the magic. Just because Samantha lacks a body doesn’t make her and Theodore’s romance particularly different from other relationships.

Scarlett Johannson doesn’t appear in Her, so this is as good as it gets.

I think the movie is actually a metaphor for all romances, both doomed and successful. At first, there’s a feeling out period and people try to adjust to meet their partner’s needs and desires. Samantha is crafted to form a complimentary personality to Theodore’s own. But because she is also self-aware, she grows on her own. Plus, Theodore’s romantic ideal must paradoxically be independent. He can’t fall for the “perfect woman” who will change herself to his needs.

There is a LOT going on in this movie. It is not a cheeseball romance or just weird for the sake of weird. I liked this movie so much because it addresses really deep thoughts, probably more than any other Best Picture nominee. It’s also not on a soap box, like Dallas Buyers Club. What does Theodore’s job represent? Are we losing our genuine humanity to the easy automated nature of today’s society? How can you write love letters for someone else? Is Samantha programmed to love Theodore or does she really have emotions for him? More than any other movie in this year’s Oscar race I think you could watch Her repeatedly and see different things each time.

Other Nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Original Score, Best Original Song (“The Moon Song”);

Best Picture Countdown #5: Philomena

 

“She told four people today they were one in a million. What are the odds of that,” Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), on his unlikely charge Philomena Lee (Judy Dench), Philomena

Spoiler Jam: Look, the producers of Philomena hide a couple of important twists in the story during the trailer and I don’t know how to talk about the movie without talking about at least one of those twists so if you haven’t seen Philomena and would like to, don’t read this. But please click on the link so I can get a page view out of it. I’m needy.

When I was a kid, my family went to see this movie called Men Don’t Leave and it has obtained a legendary status among us. The trailer made Men Don’t Leave seem like a jolly family comedy. It was not. Men Don’t Leave is about a family struggling, poorly, to get over their father’s death. Anytime we run into a situation that we think will be light-hearted and is not, we now use the Men Don’t Leave as shorthand.

Philomena is a total Men Don’t Leave. The trailer makes it look like a fun, odd couple road trip movie with a jaunty reunion implied for the end. Let’s watch shall we?

Looks fun right?  The story is pretty much what they advertise. Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), a disgraced journalist decides to help Philomena Lee (Dame Judy Dench), an eccentric elderly woman track down a son who was taken from her 50 years ago.  But the tone is a lot different. Even though Philomena is kind of a wacky lady, her past is very tragic and the story is not a happy one.

It turns out Philomena’s son died of AIDS about ten years before the events of the movie, so the investigation, climaxing with tracking down the son’s partner has a very sad tinge to it. And there is one last horrible secret to be revealed.

All of this is not to say Philomena is not a great movie, because it absolutely is. Judy Dench delivers a terrific performance as the sweet, good-natured Philomena. She never gets angry about what having her son stolen has done to her or the missed opportunities of her life. She can be frustrating in her stubbornness, but so good-hearted I can’t help but like her. She’s also not “stupid” as she comes off in the preview, just a little naive as to the ways of the world, especially modern day journalism. One of the funniest parts of the movie is when she requests a pseudonym and tries to pick one out. Steve Coogan, usually a droll comedic actor is very good as Philomena’s straight man. Even though she exasperates him, he comes to care about her and take this unimportant human interest story to heart.

Judy Dench and Steve Coogan

 

Philomena is not a road movie or an odd couple movie. It’s a social statement movie about a horrible wrong that was inflicted on thousands of poor women more than 50 years ago. It also is a bittersweet tribute to one woman’s never-ending, but totally believable, optimism.

Best Picture Countdown #6: Nebraska

Receptionist: Does he have Alzheimer’s?

David Grant (Will Forte): No, he just believes what people tell him.

Receptionist: That’s too bad.

                – Nebraska

Trying to organize the next three films in the official Justin McClelland Best Picture ranking has proved especially difficult. All three Best Picture nominees are excellent and I liked them all about the same so how I feel today may not reflect how I feel tomorrow about them exactly. Interestingly, these are the three “quiet” films of the nominees, much less about social issues or flashy movie making and more about character study and ideas (which should give the observant some hint as to what they are).

Recently I have become fairly interested/concerned with Hollywood portrayals of Midwesterners. As a borderline Midwesterner myself, I take such representations personally and frankly the results aren’t great. Midwesterners are generally seen as fatty-food loving, small timers with small ideas or crushed dreams. I don’t love everything about the Midwest but I have really begun to see where our own bias of the coastal elite comes from.

In many ways, Nebraska does nothing to assuage my worries. Midwesterners don’t look great in this movie. They are almost uniformly overweight, borderline alcoholics and petty people concerned with their tiny fiefdoms of small town sadness, clueless of their own silliness. But if you watch this movie in a vacuum, away from other Midwest bashers, Nebraska is a really interesting movie. Its characterization, while maybe unflattering, is consistent and solid and what makes the film. The movie is really a character study of a small town man striving for one chance at being a big shot and his relationship with his own sad, quietly failing son.

Bruce Dern and his great sad/confused face

Woody Grant (Bruce Dern in the performance of a lifetime) is fading away from old age and dementia. He believes he has won a Publishing Clearinghouse-type sweepstakes, although he is constantly rebuffed by his bristling, bitchy wife Kate (June Squib, also marvelous). His son, David (Will Forte – yes, MacGruber!) is somewhat estranged from Woody, who isn’t exactly a ray of sunshine, but agrees to take his father to Lincoln, Nebraska and claim the prize.

Following a series of mishaps resulting mostly from Woody’s alcoholism and failing health, the two stop in Woody’s hometown of Hawthorne. There, they run afoul of Woody’s old business partner (Stacey Keach) and some of Woody’s family, all of whom claim they are owed a part of Woody’s fortune.  We get a greater sense of why Woody wants the fortune so badly – just to prove to the town of doubters that Woody Grant is bigger than they are. In the end, the hunt draws the entire family closer in understated and sweet ways. David’s final gift to Woody is particular touching.

Dern and the underrated Will Forte, playing it straight for once

Nebraska is a story of failed dreamers who refuse to give up on their dreams. Woody is the obvious example, but David too, whose life is revealed to also be going down the tubes in a couple of early, simple scenes, must want something for his father (even though he knows there is no fortune) and himself. Why else take part in the trip? Bruce Dern plays Woody as seemingly always confused with a tinge of sadness, as if he knows his time has run out and the confusion of his life only makes him sadder.  It’s the characters who make Nebraska more than anything else – Woody’s dogged determination, David’s ability to stand up for his father even while seeing his ridiculousness. Even Kate’s constant, at-times hilarious, put-downs of others are about a woman trying to make herself better.

Even though I may object to many presentations of the Midwest, the truth is Nebraska creates some very accurate characters who could exist anywhere. Their world seems small (despite the bigness of the land in the beautiful cinematography) and so they fight to be bigger in it. They have quirks and faults but come through for the ones they love. Nebraska is a sweet and very funny movie.

Other Nominations: Best Actor (Bruce Dern), Best Supporting Actress (June Squib), Best Director (Alexander Payne), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography,

2013 Best Animated Short

Best Animated Short has quite a diverse mix of styles and subjects, ranging from the popular (Mickey Mouse!) to the obscure (Luxembourg industrial fears?). I hadn’t really considered this before, but the once doomed-to-obscurity category is picking up steam and recognition now that most studios are putting animated shorts before their feature length cartoons and other kids movies again. Disney did this a couple times in the late 80s/early 90s with Roger Rabbit cartoons before things like “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” but Pixar seems to have start a one-reel revolution that has brought the animated short back to the mainstream (unlike its live action cousin). This year’s crop is once again pretty strong. Here’s the rundown.

Cool animation style, right?

Feral is a depressing boy-raised-by-wolves story. Literally, it’s about a boy raised by wolves who is found by a hunter and attempted to be civilized, to tragic effect. The movie has a cool animation style: it’s done very minimally with mostly “shadows” and shading. There are few features on faces save for mouths but we still get an idea of reactions and feelings. I liked the style a lot but I thought the story was pretty soft. I’d rank this fourth.

Mickey fights for Minnie through the picture screen

Get A Horse is a real honest-to-goodness Mickey Mouse cartoon, the tenth Mickey Mouse film to be nominated for an Oscar (he’s won once, in 1942). The movie is sort of like Last Action Hero, of all things, with characters on a movie screen interaction with the “real world” and breaking the fourth wall. Basically Mickey is driving around in his jalopy, trying to impress Minnie, when Peg Leg Pete kidnaps her. Mickey gives chase and the action leads to him and the crew literally bursting through the movie screen into a 3D computer animated world. The plot is secondary to the visual gags and slapstick of the chase between the two worlds and the whole thing is just fantastic. My favorite of the bunch and I imagine it has a good chance of winning.

What is up with those numbers on his head?

Mr. Hublot is a sweet story from Luxembourg of a lonely OCD-afflicted robot man who adopts a stray robot dog and finds himself disturbed by the changes the mecha-pooch has wrought. There’s a lot going on, as you can tell. Maybe too much. The mecha-man (the titular Mr. Hublot) has these numbers running on his forehead, symbolizing thoughts, I guess, although they’re never explained and they never really go anywhere.  The animation style is very complex and I’m a sucker for a man and his dog stories that are sweet like this, even if the movie feels overcrowded by its own clever world. Is it some kind of statement on isolation and alienation in our automated world? I’d put this second overall.

Best Hoarders ever!

In a crop of very strange tales, I don’t know if anything can measure up to Possessions, a Japanese Anime style feature about a warrior doing battle with unusual foes. A humble – but burly – gardener – takes shelter in a junk shed on a stormy night only to find the junk, because of its age, has become alive. To escape their clutches, the man must “do battle” by fixing the odds and ends up. It’s played totally straight and seems perfectly normal while you watch, but as I recount it, I’m realizing how totally bonkers the whole things was. It has an excellent, classic Japanese animation style and the story – while many things – is not boring. I’d rank this third.

There clearly is not enough room on this broom!

Room on the Broom is the longest – by a good margin – of the five nominees, based on a children’s book and populated with several famous voices (Gillian Anderson, Simon Pegg). The story is about a kindly witch and her selfish cat. The pair has a serious of misadventures that leads to an increasing number of creatures joining them on the broom, exasperating the cat. In the end, we get a lesson in the value of teamwork and friendship. This movie had very cute animation. But it went on way too long and feels so simple in the wake of the other movies. Each stop to pick up a new animal is exactly the same and it just drags. My least favorite of the five.

Best Picture Countdown #7: The Wolf of Wall Street

“Let me tell you something. There’s no nobility in poverty. I’ve been a poor man, and I’ve been a rich man. And I choose rich every fucking time.” – Jordan Belfort (Leonardo Dicaprio), laying bare the basic gist of The Wolf of Wall Street

The Wolf of Wall Street is kind of like Animal House for stock brokers. The movie is too much in love with the bad boy antics of its character to worry about much else. Three hours of heavy drug abuse, wild parties, occasional forays into dirty dealings on the stock market and then back to the endless Bacchanalia that made up everyday life at the Stratton Oakmont investment firm. You can’t accuse the Oscars of being too morally uptight in the Best Picture nominations this year.

The Wolf of Wall Street is the true life story of Jordan Belfort. Belfort becomes a stock broker during the tail end of the heady 1980s. He’s taken under the wing of Matthew McConaughey in a very strange sort of cameo that sets the tone for how Jordan lives his life. When the market crashes, Jordan becomes a penny stock broker, using dicey means of selling stocks, but making a fortune off the high commission rates. Soon, he’s recruited his buddies from New Jersey, many of them drug dealers, and his neighbor, the slimy Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill), and starts his own firm.

From there it’s one insane antic after another. There’s a game of little person tossing, preceded by a hilarious discussion on how to hold a little-person-tossing contest in your office without legal hassle. There are sexual conquests of all types. There is the very height of over-indulgent luxuries. Occasionally, Jordan runs afoul of the feds for his shady stock deals but manages to skirt by them. An feature newspaper article calls him “The Wolf of Wall Street” (hence the title), meant as a slur, but his office becomes the hottest in town because all the readers really care about is how much money he’s bringing in. And there are incalculable amounts of drugs. And really that’s all there is to the story until the last half hour. It’s very funny and entertaining (as long as you aren’t outraged by it), but it’s not exactly The Big Sleep in terms of complexity.

Best Supporting Actor nominee Jonah Hill has a hilarious speech about marrying his cousin.

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That the movie can hold our interest for so long – three hours – is quite an achievement and it is very entertaining. But, much like the characters it chronicles, the Wolf of Wall Street suffers from excess and over-indulgence – it’s just too long given the point to its sordid tale. Certain subplots – notably the Belfort’s thieving butler – don’t go anywhere. A LOOOOOOOOONG scene where Jordan tries to drive a car while high on Quaaludes could have been easily shortened, especially since it too doesn’t really have a point (He is arrested and then released for lack of evidence).

Some criticize the Wolf of Wall Street for romanticizing Jordan’s insane lifestyle and never really showing the impact of his dirty dealings on victims, but I think that’s actually the point. The Wolf of Wall Street is not a redemptive tale and based on the current state of Wall Street, we shouldn’t expect it to be. The movie’s ending makes it quite clear that once you get into the club of the rich elite, you never have to leave.

Best Actor nominee Leonardo DiCaprio explains what it’s all about

The Wolf of Wall Street is definitely not for everybody. Some will be appalled, some will just think it goes on too long. Director Martin Scorsese is well-loved and he makes a fine movie about a different sort of villain to go along with his usual gangsters. But like Jordan, he needed to know when to call it quits on the story.

Other Nominations: Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), Best Supporting Actor (Jonah Hill), Best Director (Martin Scorsese), Best Adapted Screenplay

Best Picture Countdown #8: Dallas Buyers Club

“Let me give y’all a little news flash. There ain’t nothin’ out there can kill fuckin’ Ron Woodroof in 30 days” – Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey).

Number 8 in my ranking of the Academy Award Best Picture nominee is Dallas Buyers Club, the true story of Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey), who accidentally became an AIDS activist in the late 80s. Ron was a dishonest, drug addled barely functioning electrician in Dallas when he was diagnosed with AIDS in the late 80s and given one month to live. Shunned by his friends for getting the “gay disease”, Ron bounces back and forth between desperate attempts to stay alive and spiraling out of control in depression. When he can’t find help in the US, he ends up in a Mexican clinic, where an unrealistically benevolent doctor treats him with a variety of pills not approved by the FDA (who are just a puppet of big drug companies, according to this movie).

Ron is still a hustler at heart and starts the Dallas Buyers Club, selling memberships for a club that distributes the Mexican drugs to AIDS patients (thus skirting FDA laws) who are desperate for any chance at living. Along the way, Ron forms an uneasy partnership with Rayon (Jared Leto), an HIV positive transvestite who serves as his entrée to Dallas’s gay community, since Ron is too homophobic to make much dent as a salesman. But as Ron’s club grows, he becomes increasingly sympathetic to the gay community and to the plight of the victims of AIDS, a sort of Oscar Schindler of the pharmaceutical world.

I thought this was a good, but uneven movie. The story ping pongs back and forth from a heist movie, as Ron finds elaborate ways to gain new drugs for his club, and moralizing about the evil drug companies and FDA who only push AZT with little regard to its consequences (the drug in strong doses is as bad as AIDS, according to the movie).

Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey

Its strengths lie in the performances by McConaughey and Leto, both nominated for Oscars. I especially liked the relationship between the two men. As Ron grows to care about Rayon, they bicker like an old married couple (“Why are my walls painted red?”) Ron the hustler is a charming character. Even as a cad, he’s pretty likable and when he’s trying to skirt the law, darting around the world to procure drugs, you really cheer for him. McConaughey displays his usual party boy charm but also gives Ron a slick charm. He also lost an impressive amount of weight for the role, which always impresses at Oscar time.

I lost a lot of weight, alright, alright, alright.

The moral soapboxing tends to grow tiresome after a while, particularly one scene where barely-educated Ron reads a medical journal (have you ever tried to read those things? It’s not gym reading) then lectures the well-meaning Dr. Eve Sacks (Jennifer Garner, Ron’s platonic love interest) on it. And the Mexican doctor – who was disbarred for some unexplored reason – seems more like a guardian angel than a real character.

Dallas Buyers Club has a lot of enjoyable characters and for a movie about dying, it has a lot of light-hearted moments and a fun, caper feel. But it gets bogged down in its peachiness at times, which holds it back from being among the best of the this year’s Best Picture Oscar crop.

Other Nominations: Best Actor (Matthew McConaughey), Best Supporting Actor (Jared Leto), Original Screenplay, Makeup and Hairstyling, Film Editing.

Best Picture Nominee Countdown: #9 Captain Phillips

“They aren’t here to fish,” – Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks), nailing down his action movie grit.

To add some pizzazz to this year’s rundown, I am reviewing the Best Picture nominees in reverse Justin McClelland Official Best Picture Nominee Ranking. So hold your breath to see what’s number one (I guess you will be figure it out by the time I get to number two). The Justin McClelland Official Best Picture Nominee Ranking is not a measure of what I think will win, just the order or personal preference for a particular film. I will make my own sure-to-go-wrong predictions for every category on March 1 or 2. A final note on the nominees is this is the strongest crop of nominees I’ve seen in a while (maybe since 2010?). Usually there’s one or two that is pretty boring or terrible or nonsensical (Tree of Life, Beasts of the Southern Wild) but I genuinely liked all of these movies, which makes the rankings pretty difficult. But that’s why I get paid the big bucks.

Oops, wrong Hanks boat captain

Captain Phillips is the true story of an American merchant marine ship that was overrun by pirates off the Coast of Somalia in 2009. The crew was saved and minimal damage done thanks to the quick thinking, steady hand and bravery of Captain Richard Phillips, played by Tom Hanks in his usual awesome, likable everyman fashion.

Barkhad Abdi as Muse. You can really feel the menace here, but he also has some poignant scenes of sad internal conflict.

Once you get past the true story aspect, Captain Phillips is a pretty standard action movie, which is one of two reasons I ranked it at the bottom. It feels like a fun popcorn flick mostly, more like Die Hard on a boat for the first half (and in fact one of the traps the crew sets for the pirates is taken from a Die Hard trap). The entire boat is taken over by just four men (albeit well-armed ones), led by Muse, the excellent Barkhad Abdi, nominated for Best Supporting Actor in just his first picture! Hanks and his crew outwit the men with some clever traps and sly communication, but just when Phillips thinks he’s saved the day he gets taken hostage on a tiny escape boat. At this point the movie bogs way down, with Hanks and the pirates slowly being pursued by the entirety of the U.S. Navy and NSA and the waiting for the final showdown. At first Captain Phillips rebuilds the tension after the false climax of almost getting the pirates after the boat pretty well, but after a while I was really ready to finish things up.

The one thing that does raise Captain Phillips above standard action film fare is an attempt to explore the pirates’ background by showing their home lives and how they get coerced into a pirating life. In one of the more poignant scenes, Hanks admonishes the pirates that there has to be a better way of making a living. “Maybe in America,” Muse replies. Hanks, of course, is excellent, particularly in the final scene where he finally breaks down. He does an amazing job of portraying a man literally in shock, to the point I wonder how he pulled it off. Did he witness real people who have been through a traumatic experience? How do you recapture that?

Besides some pacing issues, the other thing that bothered me about Captain Phillips is its “based on a true story” status. I always find myself in a quandary about movies like this because sometimes I excuse obvious inaccuracies (like in the forthcoming American Hustle) and sometimes they really get me. In Captain Phillips’ case, the real Richard Phillips is currently being sued by his crew for taking liberties with the ship that put them in danger of the crew, when the movie takes pains to show Phillips being super careful about piracy.

I have issued a lot of complaints here, but I really did like Captain Phillips. It does have a lot of excitement, especially in the first half and has two great performances from Hanks and Abdi.

Other Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Barkhad Abdi), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, Best Film Mixing.