Oscar Frenzy

Are there films opening this weekend? A couple, yes, but they are well hidden behind the Oscar hype. This is what’s out there: Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail, and Fired Up. Madea Goes to Jail is Perry’s latest installment in his very successful Madea series; the films are not screened for critics (or anyone else, apparently) so it’s hard to get a heads up on this one. Fired Up has been reviewed, though, and it is not a well liked film. The best thing about it, according to a lot of critics, is that it borrows heavily from Wedding Crashers – but they all recommend that you see that instead. Meanwhile, there is lots of Oscar intrigue, like, who is not going to be allowed to walk the red carpet, because they are surprise presenters? (Are you all on the edge of your seats on this one?) Or, is it appropriate, in these economic times, for someone like, say, Beyonce, to wear a 200 carat diamond necklace to the show? (For the record, the jewelers and designers who dress these women think that the high ticket elegance is good for us regular folks; we are transported, they believe, by the spectacle of famous people in fancy clothes. Makes us forget all about our 401ks.)

Meanwhile, Slumdog is trying to grab the box office gold by ramping up its theater counts – the little movie that could is on almost as many screens as The International this weekend. Otherwise, if you haven’t see Milk yet, that’s a good one, and it could pull an upset on Sunday. A couple of DVD releases are interesting: Changeling -- Angelina Jolie plays a mother in 1928 Los Angeles whose son vanishes; the LAPD, desperate to solve the case, pick up another boy and try to convince her that they’ve found her son. Notorious true bit of Los Angeles crime history. Jolie is nominated for Best Actress for this part. Also Religulous, Bill Maher’s traveling documentary about religion and the religious; entertaining, generally interesting film. If you have preteens, High School Musical 3 is out on DVD this week, but then, if you have preteens, you already know that. See you on the Red Carpet! (Actually, I won’t be there, I just watch the Oscars at home on TV.)

Not so thrilling: The International

Clive Owen plays Louis Salinger, an Interpol agent who suspects The International Bank of involvement in a string of murders. Naomi Watts is Eleanor Whitman, a New York City Assistant DA who has the same suspicions; why the Manhattan DA’s office is interested in the activities, legal or otherwise, of a bank that is headquartered in Luxembourg isn’t exactly clear. But, if you decide to spend your Friday evening with an escapist thriller, logic shouldn’t be high on your list of priorities.

As capers go, this one is pretty entertaining. There are some good action sequences (including an elaborate shoot out at the Guggenheim) and Clive Owen brings great intensity and earnestness to his role. There are times when he seems nearly unhinged in his determination to get the bad guys. There are plot twists and shifting alliances and surprise developments and some Jack Bauer style disregard for the law. There is also a lot of stuff that doesn’t make any sense; you won’t have trouble coming up with plot holes on the ride home. The International is getting middling reviews from critics, which is pretty good for this particular bunch of February releases – most everyone, in other words, thinks it’s better than Shopaholic and Friday the 13th. Faint praise. Currently playing just about everywhere.

Valentine Weekend - maybe skip the movie, just do dinner

It’s Friday the 13th and Hollywood can’t help it, they just had to reanimate Jason and let loose with another installment of the Friday the 13th movies. This one’s a remake (as opposed to a sequel or prequel or some other excuse to use an old premise to make a new movie) and apparently does little to advance or improve the franchise. But if you’re looking for a horror film to see on Valentine’s Day, this is probably your best bet. Salon calls it “glossy, good-looking garbage.” For the chick flick set, there’s Confessions of a Shopaholic; critics are loving the irony about a movie focused on shopping at a time when people are afraid to spend money, but this looks to be a kind of lighthearted screwball comedy that could work. Pretty much loved and hated by an equal number of reviewers, although the folks who hate it really hate it, and the ones who like it are lukewarm. Holdover He’s Just Not That Into You did well last weekend and it’s a pretty entertaining, but in spite of the film’s earnest efforts, it never amounts to more than fluff. Still, not bad for a February release. If you’re looking for action, The International is a thriller about evil banks – more economic crisis irony. Stars Clive Owen (Children of Men, other Brit films) and Naomi Watts, so how bad can it be? Well, pretty bad according to The Wall Street Journal, but what else are they gonna say? It’s an evil banker movie. If you feel like staying in, there are a couple of new DVD releases: Frozen River and Vicki Cristina Barcelona are available and feature Oscar nominees.

He's Just Not That Into You

Reasonably entertaining romantic comedy if you’re pretty sure you are going to walk out of the theater and not think about it again. If you do think about it, you might consider that the women in the film are either stalkers or control monsters or just deluded; the men, meanwhile, are bewildered by the apparently universal female desire to get married, which no man ever wants to do because then he can’t have sex with Scarlett Johansson, unless you’re Ben Affleck, in which case you don’t want to.

OK, I’m generalizing a little: there is one guy who wants to marry Scarlett Johansson.

Based on one line in one scene of an old episode of Sex and the City, this movie tries to bring some male perspective to the standard “chick flick” fare, and maybe that’s why the female characters are so single faceted. There’s the naïve lapdog type, and the seductress type, and the hard assed manager and the worn out caregiver and the earth mother who has a lot of gay friends. If all these types could just be combined into one perfect woman, a guy like Bradley Cooper might not be tempted to sleep around. Meanwhile the male characters are inscrutable in their motivations: we never learn why Ben Affleck doesn’t want to get married, or why Bradley Cooper can’t stay married, or why the Mac guy (the Mac guy!) is such a chick magnet that he has to come up with elaborate systems of rejection in order to keep his groupies under control.

The film is populated by celebrity or near celebrity actors who agreeably play the parts we’ve come to expect from them, which is helpful since they mostly get little screen time. The exception is Ginnifer Goodwin, who brings great energy and sincerity to her crucial central role, remarkably without a hint of Margene, the young polygamist she plays in Big Love. Her scenes are good, and there are some laugh out loud moments and genuinely romantic moments throughout the film, so , all in all, not a bad way to spend an evening. Took the box office crown in its opening weekend but lost first place to “Friday the 13th” over Valentine’s Day. Go figure.

Oscar! again

Just when you think you know which way the Oscar wind blows, SAG comes along and changes the weather. Up until last weekend, the shoo ins for Oscar’s Best Actress and Actor were Kate Winslet and Mickey Rourke, but then the Screen Actors Guild chose Meryl Streep and Sean Penn, and handed Winslet the Best Supporting prize for The Reader. So now, depending on who you talk to (and, really, I don’t talk to anyone, I hang out on my computer) Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn are neck and neck for Best Actor, or Rourke is just out of the running. The latter assumes that Oscar voters are turned off by the gritty intensity of The Wrestler, but they like the whole Yes We Can thing that goes on in Milk.

At scene-stealers.com they are keeping a running total of all the critics and guild awards that people get at the end of the year; whoever gets the most of those, they figure, will probably win Oscar. By that system Penn is ahead of Rourke by one award, Heath Ledger has no competition for Best Supporting Actor, and Sally Hawkins will win for Best Actress. Interesting, since she wasn’t nominated. Say, there’s an organization called “Film Critics of Central Ohio” that selected Melissa Leo for Best Actress. How many film critics do you think there are in Central Ohio? If I lived in Central Ohio, I would join that group, and I would vote for Melissa Leo.

Slumdog remains the front runner for Best Pic, some observers think because it is a “feel good’ movie, and to those people I say, “Did you see Slumdog?” There’s brutality and tragedy and poverty and some really trite gangster scenes. They do dance, Bollywood style, on the train platform in the end. That's pretty upbeat stuff.

So, to wrap up: Slumdog for Best Pic, followed by Ben Button and Milk. Penn and Rourke tops for Best Actor. Winslet for Best Actress, except for Streep and, making a late run, Anne Hathaway (possible beneficiary of a split between the first two). Supporting Actor, Heath Ledger, Supporting Actress – look out, could be a surprise on this one. Maybe Viola Davis, for twelve minutes of screen time in Doubt.

Ballots due in February 17.