Movie – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug improves on the first Hobbit film.  Director Peter Jackson evidently learned from the reaction to some of An Unexpected Journey’s goofier elements and eliminated much of the silliness that permeated the first film.  Radagast the Brown and his bunny-drawn sled are barely to be seen, for example.  (Comparisons to how differently Jar Jar Binks was presented in Star Wars Episodes One and Two come to mind.)  In addition, The Desolation of Smaug flows better with it only slowing up for a particular subplot.  One thing that got a lot of book purists crying foul is that a majority of what appears onscreen does not come from Tolkien, but from the imaginations of the screenwriters.  They didn’t eliminate major plot points, though; in fact, they expanded many of them.  For the most part I consider what was added to be quite entertaining, so I don’t have a problem with it.

Movie – The Hunt (2012)

The Danish film The Hunt, nominated this year for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, is a true horror movie.  Please don’t mistake this for the generic organs and entrails monthly release from Hollywood, though.  Those kinds of films are about body trauma and gross outs.  They stopped trying to be scary a long time ago.  No, The Hunt is a horror film that is truly frightening because it is so real.  It shows just how easily a good man’s life can be destroyed from the modern day witch hunt that follows an accusation of child molestation.  And it is so scary because it happens far too often in real life.

Ranking the 2014 Best Picture Nominees, Plus Some Observations

I have now posted reviews for all nine films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.  I am not done yet.  I intend to write reviews for those films I have seen that received other Oscar nominations, and that I would recommend.  Look for reviews of The Hunt, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and others as I have the time to post leading up to the Oscar telecast.  You can read my previously posted reviews for nominees Despicable Me 2, Iron Man 3, and Star Trek into Darkness by clicking on those titles.  You can read my comments on The Lone Ranger, a film I didn’t recommend, here.

In regards to ranking the nine nominees, right off the bat I have a tough time picking not only the best film of the year, but what order to put the best three in.  My top three are Gravity, Her, and The Wolf of Wall Street.  It’s almost impossible to compare them because you could probably not pick three films more unlike each other.  One is a thrilling adventure drama set in space, another is a sweet, near-future tale of unlikely love, and the third is a comedy/drama period piece about the rise and fall of a Wall Street trader.

In terms of which ones I am most looking forward to seeing again, that would be Wolf and Gravity.  I will definitely watch Her again, but I am not quite as anxious to see it as the other two.  That puts it in third place.  Between the two remaining I’m going to have to go with The Wolf of Wall Street for the sheer fun and entertainment it provides across its three hour running time.  While Gravity is also very entertaining it does have some “less fun” moments in it.

So, here is how I would rate the nine Best Picture nominees from best to not quite the best.  I have also included how these films are ranked according to the Rotten Tomatoes critics (RTC), the Rotten Tomatoes audiences (RTA), and the IMDB voters. 

Me	Nominee	Reviewed?	RTC	RTA	IMDB
1	The Wolf of Wall Street	Read my review here	9	8	1
2	Gravity	Read my review here	1	7	4
3	Her	Read my review here	3	6	3
4	Philomena	Read my review here	8	4	8
5	12 Years a Slave	Read my review here	2	1	2
6	American Hustle	Read my review here	6	9	9
7	Nebraska	Read my review here	7	5	5
8	Dallas Buyers Club	Read my review here	4	2	6
9	Captain Phillips	Read my review here	5	3	7

Last year I aligned closest with audiences and was most out of touch with professional critics. (Or were they the ones out of touch?)  This year I don’t really align with any of these three groups.  IMDB comes closest, with agreement on two of the top three films.

A few more observations now that I have seen the nine movies: 

1. Three years ago only one of the ten nominated films exceeded two hours (Inception).  It was a welcome change from the three hour long depress-fests that often get nominated.  Two years ago six of the nine films were over two hours long, but none were over 2 ½ hours.  Last year eight of the nine films were at least two hours long, and four of them were at least 2 ½ hours long.  This trend back to longer and longer nominees was not one I was thrilled by.  Thankfully, this year only one film (The Wolf of Wall Street) clocks in at three hours and it is so entertaining that you don’t even notice the time passing.  Six of the other eight nominees are just under or just over two hours long.  And the final two are 98 minutes (Philomena) and 91 minutes (Gravity).
2. Gravity is one of the stronger contenders for Best Picture.  If it wins it might be the shortest film ever to win that prize.  Annie Hall was 93 minutes long.  Marty was 90 minutes, but has an alternate version that runs 94 minutes.  I might be forgetting another short Best Picture winner, but off the top of my head those are currently the two shortest.
3. Two years ago there were only six of nine nominated films that I felt were worth recommending.  Both last year and this year I liked all nine Best Picture nominees enough to recommend them.    
4. Two years ago only one of the nine nominees was rated R, and that was only for a few bad words.  That was quite a change from years past when the nominees were almost always R rated films.  Last year we edged back more towards the past.  Four of the nominees were rated R, four were rated PG-13, and one was rated PG.  And last year Spielberg’s movie Lincoln got a PG-13 when it would have received an R rating if directed by anyone else.  This year six of the nine nominees are rated R, and a seventh was originally rated R, but received a PG-13 upon appeal (Philomena).  The remaining two films (Gravity and Captain Phillips) are also rated PG-13.  There is one ludicrous R rating.  Nebraska has no sex, no nudity, no violence other than a punch being thrown, and a total of two, count ‘em two, F-bombs in it (neither used in a sexual way).  It’s rated R for “some language.”
5. Two years ago was for misty eyed nostalgia (The Artist, Midnight in Paris, and Hugo).  Last year was for re-creating true events (Lincoln, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty.)  This year goes even further with the latter trend.  The Wolf of Wall Street, Philomena, 12 Years a Slave, Dallas Buyers Club, American Hustle, and Captain Phillips were all based on real events.
6. Last year Jennifer Lawrence broke a string of 27 straight years, and all but 4 years since 1970, where the Best Actress winner has done nudity.  Many of the winners appeared nude in the role that won them the Oscar.  (So much for “real actresses don’t do nudity.”)  This year’s frontrunner, Cate Blanchett, has also not done a nude scene.
7. The biggest surprise for me among the nine nominees was Philomena.  I was thinking it would be a touching light drama and it is much harder hitting than I expected it to be.  It is almost on par with 12 Years a Slave in regards to showing the evil that people can do to each other.

Movie – Philomena (2013)

Philomena is based on the book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith.  It tells the story of how the title character tried to find a son that had been essentially stolen from her when she was young.  Sixsmith helped her find out what happened to the son and wrote the book on both these people and his experiences.  He is played by Steve Coogan in the film.  Coogan also co-adapted the screenplay and earned an Oscar nomination for that.  Playing Philomena is Judi Dench and she earned yet another Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress.  The film itself is nominated for Best Picture.  Director Stephen Frears, who had worked with Dench previously in Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005), didn’t receive a Best Director nomination, though.  The movie is quite harrowing in places and if you don’t get angry at some point during the film you must be one very jaded person.  Philomena, quite frankly, caught me by surprise.

Movie – Nebraska (2013)

In the tradition of Oklahoma! (1955), Kansas (1988), Texas (1994), and South Dakota (2013), comes Nebraska (2013), a movie that takes place in the Midwestern United States.  (Sorry North Dakota – there’s no movie named after you, although there is 1996’s Fargo.)  Director Alexander Payne loves setting movies in his home state of Nebraska (i.e. Election, About Schmidt), but surprisingly he didn’t write the screenplay for this film.  It’s the first film where he hasn’t directed his own story.  You wouldn’t know it from the film, though.  There are a number of Payne touches in it.  In fact, it’s sort of a re-imagining of About Schmidt, although done better.  Nebraska has more humor in it than I was expecting.  No, it’s not as funny as Election, but it certainly does have its moments.

Movie – Gravity (2013)

Gravity was the first of this year’s Oscar nominees to make a splash at the box office and it ended up tying with American Hustle for the most Oscar nominations – ten.  Four of American Hustle’s nominations were in acting categories.  Gravity wouldn’t have ever been able to match that because the entire movie really only consists of two performers – Sandra Bullock as Mission Specialist Dr. Ryan Stone and George Clooney as Mission Commander Matt Kowalski.  There are a few other people seen or heard briefly, but their presence in the film is minor.  There is a vocal cameo by Ed Harris as the voice of Mission Control, which is fitting given his Apollo 13 role.  Bullock received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.  Some people, including myself, felt that Clooney might get a Best Supporting Actor nomination, but he did not.  Despite the small cast Gravity really delivers in regards to characterization and a compelling, edge of your seat story.

Movie – Her (2013)

Like American Hustle, the film Her was also nominated in the Best Comedy or Musical category at the Golden Globes, and like American Hustle it’s mostly a drama.  There is a phone sex scene that is played for laughs, and there is the normal level of bantering in the relationship that produces some chuckles, but by and large it is a drama about an unusual love story.  How unusual?  Well, I never thought I would write this, but Her features a relationship as unlikely, yet still believably touching, as that in the 1971 film Harold and Maude.

Movie – Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

Dallas Buyers Club is a story that combines a real life person with fictional characters in order to tell the tale of a straight man diagnosed with AIDS in Texas in the mid 1980s and how he came to be a proponent of alternative medications for treating the disease.  Both Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto have been praised for their performances in this film.  They have already won the Golden Globes and SAG Awards for Best Actor (McConaughey) and Best Supporting Actor (Leto).  They are also the odds-on favorites to take home the Oscars.  In my opinion they are the main reason to see this film since the presentation itself has a couple of flaws in it.  It’s a film worth your time, especially if you are not old enough to remember when AIDS first started becoming huge news in the 1980s.

Movie – American Hustle (2013)

American Hustle won the Golden Globe for Best Comedy or Musical and is nominated for 10 Academy Awards.  I’ll be honest: if I had not known about the Globes win it would not have even occurred to me to think of this film as a comedy.  Yes, there are a few moments here and there that elicit a chuckle, but by and large this is a drama.  Among the Best Picture nominees The Wolf of Wall Street is much funnier than American Hustle.  Music plays a big part in American Hustle, up to and including one of the characters lip-syncing along to a song, so perhaps the combination of a little comedy and a lot of popular songs is what garnered it the Globes win.  Overall, this is a good movie, but you do have to have some patience.

Movie – 12 Years a Slave (2013)

The film 12 Years a Slave is based on the 1853 memoir of the same name written by Solomon Northup.  It’s been made into a film before, but not one on such a large scale as this one.  12 Years a Slave received nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Adapted Screenplay – four of the “big five”.  It also received nominations in the two supporting actor and actress categories.  Those three acting categories are for the three main characters in the film.  There are smaller appearances from a number of other familiar faces.  It probably wasn’t hard for director Steve McQueen to attract talent to such a high visibility production.

Movie – The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

The film The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the book of the same name by Jordan Belfort.  He is the main character in the film and is played by Leonardo DiCaprio.  It details Belfort’s meteoric rise to riches in the late 1980s by running a brokerage company that sold, sold, sold, to naive customers who were looking to get rich quick themselves.  It also shows the excess that he and his employees enjoyed during their high flying run.  And in a movie about excess, this certainly has an excess of it, from dwarf tossing, to paying someone to shave their head, to prostitutes practically being employees of the company, to mounds of drugs, and to piles of money.  I’ve only seen four of the Best Picture nominees at this point, but so far this is the most entertaining one.

Movie – Captain Phillips (2013)

The film Captain Phillips is based on the book A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea by Richard Phillips and Stephan Talty.  Changes were made in the film’s plot to pump up the part Captain Phillips played and this has led to some backlash about “falsifying the story”.  I see it more as the filmmakers were simply trying to increase the tension and heroism in some scenes, much like the film Argo (2012) did last year.  The nomination it received is for “Best Adapted Screenplay”, not “Most Faithful to the Truth Screenplay”.  Despite this, if you are like me and remember the news story from 2009 then this is a pretty straightforward movie with no real surprises.  Don’t worry, though.  I will not be spoiling the ending for anyone who does not know what happens.

2014 Oscar Nominations and Observations

The 2014 Oscar nominations were announced a few hours ago.  Going down through them I didn’t see any really huge surprises among the major nominees.  This is a big change from last year when the Best Director category had multiple WTFs in it.  In 2013 the nominations were announced before the Golden Globes were awarded, so I couldn’t do any observations there.  This year they once again came after the Globes, so I will be able to have some analysis on that.

Here are the nine Best Picture nominees:

12 Years a Slave

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

Dallas Buyers Club

Gravity

Her

Nebraska

Philomena

The Wolf of Wall Street

I will post reviews for as many of these movies as I can prior to the Oscar telecast on March 2^nd.  At this point I have seen only a few of them.  I will also post my predictions in the days leading up to the ceremony.  And I will have another Oscar quiz like last year’s one on early films from Oscar winners.  This year’s quiz will be on the titles of Best Picture nominees.

Click “Read more” for a complete list of the nominees, what got the most nominations, and some other things of interest.

Movie – Despicable Me 2 (2013)

Anyone who saw the 2010 surprise summer hit Despicable Me knew that there had to be a sequel coming.  Sometimes that can be a good thing (i.e. Toy Story 2 and 3) and sometimes that can be a bad thing (i.e. Hoodwinked 2).  In this case Despicable Me 2 returns all the things that made the first one fun.  This includes the little yellow Minions getting into all kinds of trouble and mischief.  They are so popular that I’ve even read that there is a Minions movie being planned.  (Watch during the credits for something related to this.)

Movie – Star Trek into Darkness (2013)

While the 2009 Star Trek reboot film had its flaws, one of the things that was extremely smart about it was the fact that the storyline included the time stream being irreparably altered.  This meant that the filmmakers had rid themselves of the burden of more than four decades of Star Trek continuity.  They literally were free to do any story they liked about the ship and crew.  Because of this you’ll understand my puzzlement when I discovered today that for reasons which, quite frankly, escape me, director J. J.  Abrams chose to remake one of the original Star Trek movies.  And he didn’t pick just any old movie, but the one that many consider to be the most iconic: The Wrath of Khan.

Movie – Iron Man 3 (2013)

I’ll answer the biggest Iron Man 3 question that all of you want to know the answer to: yes, there is a post-credits scene.  What’s that?  That’s not the question you had?  You want to know how this movie stacks up to the first two Iron Man movies, and to The Avengers?  Well, Iron Man 3 is a big improvement over Iron Man 2.  I would still pick the first Iron Man as the best of the three, but the third one is almost as good.  And no, it’s not going to touch The Avengers on how entertaining it is.  However, considering that The Avengers is the best superhero movie yet made, and that Iron Man is one of the best, saying that Iron Man 3 is not as good as them still leaves a lot of room for a really fun movie.