Oscar Wrap

Can I predict ‘em, or what?  Actually there were two big surprises at the Oscars this year: Dragon Tattoo’s win for best editing (well deserved) and Meryl Streep’s Best Actress score.  Everyone’s talking about Meryl this morning, and why not, as recently as Friday the odds of picking up a trophy were trending against her.  But the Actors Branch of the Academy, which seemed, after the SAG awards, determined to make The Help cast its fave, either mellowed towards Streep or was outvoted by the other Branches, because there she was, accepting the award with all the charm and presence we would expect from our most celebrated actress.  


The return of Billy Crystal in the hosting role was pleasant, but not invigorating; Billy did what Billy does.  There were some entertaining moments – Christopher Guest’s focus group, Emma Stone’s funny and charming bit where she attempted to find ways to extend her time on stage as a presenter.  (Ben Stiller made a perfect foil.)  Angelina Jolie’s apparent effort to strike a “sexy pose” by thrusting her leg through a thigh high slit in her Versace dress wasn’t so appealing.  It’s hard to guess what the actress had in mind when she did that – reminding the crowd that she’s still the good time gal who made headlines in the nineties?  Trying to divert the spotlight from her life partner? Just trying to divert the spotlight?  Jolie seems to want to be taken seriously – she just wrote and directed a film about the Bosnian war – but this stunt might indicate that the 37 year old is not ready to grow up.  Fortunately, her little move was counter balanced by the Descendants writing team when they picked up their award; two of the three men struck the same pose as Angelina.  That was funny.


All in all, the 84th Academy Awards were not memorable.  Of the nine films nominated, only one (The Help) qualified as a hit, and hardly anyone has seen Best Picture winner The Artist.  Ratings were down, due to awards season fatigue, and general lack of interest.  Seems like the old white dudes who are responsible for Oscar Outcomes have lost step with America; maybe they should pay attention to the underlying message of last night’s show, and get out occasionally to see a movie. 

Oscar Wrap: Final Predictions

Rocky won the Oscar.

The votes are in, the accountants are counting, and the winners of the biggest show biz contest are just a few days away from glowing in the spotlight.


So who will get the prize? Well, the predictable awards are still predictable: Octavia Spencer (The Help) and Christopher Plummer (Beginners) will take home the Supporting trophies; screenplay awards will go to Midnight in Paris (Original) and The Descendants (Adapted). 


Best Director looks like Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist, but there is some momentum for Scorsese and Hugo.  Not a lot of momentum, but some. Hey, it's Scorsese, all those old white dudes in the Academy love Scorsese. Some of the creative awards come down to these two films as well: Art Direction and Cinematography will probably go to Hugo, but their chances could get mowed down by an Artist juggernaut. Film Editing is leaning Artist.  In the sound categories it's Scorsese up against Spielberg (War Horse) with Scorsese predicted to pull out the win.  Spielberg, I'm sure, is honored to be nominated.  (Well, it's not him, really, it's his sound guys who are nominated but these guys take everything personally.)


The only really interesting contests are in the Best Actor and Best Actress categories.  George Clooney (Descendants) and Jean Dujardin (Artist) have been battling it out during the awards season, each of them picking up trophies, so there's no clear front runner, although the safe money is on Dujardin.  Some risk taking prognosticators are betting that Clooney and Dujardin will split the vote and Brad Pitt (Moneyball) will slip in and take the prize. Pitt might also have some sentimental momentum because he hasn't won before (nominated twice), and apparently he was quite the charmer on the awards circuit.


The actress contest comes down to Viola Davis (The Help) and Meryl Streep (Iron Lady).  Like the actors, Streep and Davis have split a lot of the early awards, but the current front runner is clearly Davis - she gave a bang up performance, the film was a box office hit, and there is a sense that the left leaning (mostly white) Academy likes the idea of giving the award to a black actress.  But there is a little awkwardness around Streep, since even though she has been nominated more times - 17! -  than any other human, she has only won twice, and it's been awhile since her name was inside the envelope. This thing could go her way.


Finally, Best Picture: any Oscarologist looking over your shoulder while you fill out your office pool ballot would tell you to check The Artist for the top prize, and that is far and away the safest choice. The only possible spoiler in this contest is the fact that there are eight other pictures in contention, enough to screw up the numbers even for an established front runner. Here's how the counting works: The Academy members are asked to rank their choices for Best Picture by preference -  this year, that'll be one through nine (this is the only category where voters rank their choices; for everything else, they check their favorite and move along).  The fine young accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers take those ballots and stack them in piles according to the number one pick.  Then they take the shortest pile and redistribute those according to the second ranked film on each ballot, and they keep on doing that, redistributing the smallest pile, until one film has fifty percent of the votes.  So it's not just who loves you best that matters, it's also who loves you second and third best.  Other contenders for the throne are The Help and Hugo, with former front runner The Descendants bringing up the dark horse rear.  The Oscars will be telecast on Sunday, February 26; the actual show begins at 5:30 but there will be televised hoopla for most of the day.  

Review: Thin Ice

ATO

The latest Greg Kinnear movie has the perennial everyman playing a desperate, morally ambiguous insurance salesman trying to solve his personal and financial troubles through any means other than actually selling insurance.  He sets out to steal a valuable violin from a doddering, elderly client, gets caught in the act by a volatile, ex-con locksmith, and  from there everything tumbles towards disaster.


These kind of stories - where the main characters dig themselves ever deeper into trouble - are fun if they're done right.  The best ones have protagonists who are sympathetic in spite of their moral weakness, and their decisions, the steps they take towards their own ruin, are believable.  Think of William H. Macy's character in Fargo: we feel for the dude, even though he sets his wife up to be kidnapped and we never learn for sure why.  There's a charm to his sad sack demeanor, and his naive hope that everything will turn out okay somehow.  


Not so much here. Kinnear's Mickey is a low life in a suit, he puts on a good act but you get the feeling that he'd take advantage of anybody; even his efforts to reconcile with his wife - who he claims to love - are insincere. Kinnear tries mightily to make this work but Mickey is so one dimensional that we don't care too much about what happens to him.


What redeems the film are the supporting characters, especially Allen Arkin as the elderly client and Billy Crudup as the slightly crazed blackmailing locksmith.  These guys are fun to watch, and Kinnear's Mickey comes to life when he's with them.  Playing in limited release.  (Interesting production note: Originally titled The Convincer, Thin Ice was warmly received at Sundance, but distributor ATO pictures made significant changes to the film prior to release without director Jill Sprecher's approval.  The newly cut version has gotten a lukewarm critical response.) C+

"Smash" revisited - briefly

Tuned in to episode two of "Smash."  Tuned out a half hour later. 

Review: Safe House

Universal

If you like car chases, shoot outs, and all kinds of fast paced mayhem, this movie is sure to entertain you. If you also like tightly drawn thrillers and interesting, sympathetic characters, well, did I mention the car chases?

Denzel Washington plays Tobin Frost, a turncoat CIA agent hunkered down in Capetown, South Africa. He’s in the midst of negotiations on a megadeal, trading classified information for serious dollars, when he finds himself the target of a lot of determined bad guys. After some high octane action and lots of close calls, Tobin decides his only option is to take refuge at the US Consulate. CIA brass immediately hustle him off to a safe house for questioning, but the bad guys find him there, and when the dust settles the only man left standing to keep track of Tobin and provide for his security is the fellow who staffs the safe house, a green agent named Matt Weston.

Up until now, Matt thought he had a pretty boring job.

Weston, played by Ryan Reynolds, figures his career depends on how well he handles this unexpected, high profile assignment. Frost, a master of psychological manipulation, wants to slip away from his young keeper and get on with his deal making. But Matt Weston turns out to be much smarter – and less gullible – than Frost imagines; Frost has trouble escaping. (“How did you find me?” he asks Weston, when the young man shows up looking for him in a remote spot. “It wasn’t that hard,” Matt snaps back, powering an old pickup truck through a gunfight.)

The best part of this movie is what goes on between these would be antagonists. Denzel Washington - always terrific - is great here as the clever bad guy who maybe isn’t quite so bad. But Reynolds nearly steals the show from the Oscar winner, showing both the vulnerability and apprehension of a rookie along with the resolve and astute thinking of a top drawer agent. That relationship, and all the edge of your seat (it really is edge of your seat) action are good enough reasons to see this movie; it’s a shame though, that the thriller aspect of the story never comes together. When everything shakes out and you find out who’s been setting Frost up, you don’t really care anymore. Came in number two at the box office, attracting a mixed audience (not just the usual youthful action fans). Still playing in lots of theaters. B-

Big Weekend at the Movies

Didja go to the movies this weekend? Any trouble parking? Were there long lines for tickets? It seems like sometime on Friday or Saturday everyone in America looked at everyone else and said, "Hey, let's go see a movie!" and presto, just like that, we had one of the biggest February movie going weekends ever. Big winner was The Vow, scoring about a third more box office coin than anyone expected , but it was closely followed by Safe House, which nearly doubled its predicted take. Biggest surprise was Journey 2: Mysterious Island, which confounded prognosticators by doubling its business between Friday and Saturday; seems like good word of mouth and Dwayne Johnson propelled this one into a respectable third place finish, beating out Phantom Menace 3D, the only new opening whose business lined up with expectations. Among holdovers, Chronicle and Woman in Black held their own.

Minor historical note: if you don't count holiday weekends, this is the first time ever that four films earned more than $20 million in their opening sets.

Here's the list:

1. "The Vow" (Sony/Spyglass): $41.7 million.

2. "Safe House" (Universal/Relativity): $39.3 million.

3. "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" (Warner Bros.): $27.6 million.

4. "Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace" (Fox/Lucasfilm): $23 million.

5. "Chronicle" (Fox): $12.3 million. Domestic total: $40.2 million.

6. "The Woman in Black" (CBS Films): $10.3 million. Domestic total: $35.5 million.

7. "The Grey" (Open Road): $5.1 million. Domestic total: $42.8 million.

8. "Big Miracle" (Universal): $3.9 million. Domestic total: $13.2 million.

9. "The Descendants" (Fox Searchlight): $3.5 million. Domestic total: $70.7 million.

10. "Underworld: Awakening" (Sony/Lakeshore): $2.5 million. Domestic total: $58.9 million.

Opening this weekend: February 10

Bunch of big openings this weekend, and none look to impress. The Safe House stars Denzel Washington as a CIA turncoat who is attacked while in government custody and has to be rescued by a young operative in the form of Ryan Reynolds. The story involves a lot of John Woo style action and psychological warfare between the traitor and his protector. Middling reviews. In The Vow, Rachel MacAdams plays a young wife who develops amnesia following a car accident, and she can’t remember her husband. She does remember her old boyfriend, though. Is this supposed to be a date movie?  If so, which love are we rooting for? The husband is played by Channing Tatum, and he  doesn't have a lot of star wattage, and the boyfriend is Scott Speedman, who - wait, who is he?  Based on a true story, getting middling to poor reviews. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, stars Dwayne Johnson and Michael Caine (and a surprising number of other familiar actors) as explorers on a strange isle. This one is really just an excuse for 3-D effects and box office dollars; reviews aren’t great but they aren’t terrible either. Might be a possibility if you have kids to distract on Saturday afternoon (rated PG). Unless, that is, you can’t help yourself and need to take them to see Phantom Menace (Star Wars: Episode 1) in 3-D. Lucas has said that this special edition of his most disappointing film is designed for the grammar school set. So far, no lines around the block; in fact, the new release getting the most attention in presales and general buzz is The Vow. Must be a Valentines thing. Could be a record breaking weekend, box office wise, so if that kind of thing interests you, click back for the Monday wrap up. I’ll be here.

Smash

NBC

Movies are kind of dull right now, so let’s talk TV.  I caught the premiere of “Smash” this week and I felt underwhelmed. Pretty white people sing pretty songs about a pretty white woman and they all live in cool New York apartments even though most of them seem to be making just over minimum wage.  Well, except for the big wigs, who live in elegant Manhattan penthouses that a hedge fund manager might envy.  Do Broadway directors/producers/writers make as much money as hedge fund managers?


Never mind.  “Smash” marks the television acting debut of Katherine McPhee, best known for American Idol (she came in second in 2006); her signature Idol performance was a moving, nearly acoustic rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  The folks behind “Smash” seem eager to remind us of that, so the show opens with McPhee belting out the Judy Garland standard, dressed in an odd, glittery, girlish dress and surrounded by some kind of cloud. It was jarring and strange.  I was reflexively hoping that the camera would cut to Simon Cowell looking bored, or aghast. 

With that start the writers signal that there is nothing new to see here, just a re-hash of old tropes, and that’s exactly what we get.  Two young ingénues compete for stardom, Debra Messing spars affectionately with a gay guy, Angelica Huston plays the evil queen (she may have a soft heart) and the whole thing seems like Glee Grown Up without the welcome, acerbic wit of Sue Sylvester.


The one bright spot in the show, the only reason to tune back in, is Megan Hilty, who plays Ivy, a Broadway vet looking to escape the chorus line. Her nuanced, smooth-as-silk vocals and her genuine, touchingly vulnerable performance as Ivy makes Katherine McPhee’s Karen seem flat and predictable.  And if message boards, tweets, and the young people in my living room are any indication, this is a widely shared opinion.  Hopefully the producers of the show will take note, and resist the urge to turn Ivy into some sort of back stage villain in order to pump up McPhee’s profile.  “Smash” is a big, fluffy bit of entertainment, highly produced and good escapist fun for musical theater geeks.  I will watch the next episode, but if I don’t tune in for round three, well, it won’t be because the show is bad – just a bore. Mondays at 10/9 Central.  NBC