Special Bulletin

Hey, guys.  It's your friendly movie reviewer here.  I am writing to apologize because I totally whiffed on my Monday post and I didn't want to leave you all hanging.  I'm still trying to get my Oscar nominees banged out.  The short films have been released to Amazon and iTunes so I'm hoping I can get all three categories knocked out before Sunday.

Here's my issue:  I decided to go back (well, not so much back as it is for the first time) to college and get a bachelor's degree.  I'm only in one class right now but it's already caused me to significantly shorten my movie-watching time.  I can't take any time off my real job because, you know, I need to eat and so do my dog and cat.  But I've been doing this blog for over four years now (holy shit) and I'm not going to just give up on it.

There are millions of blogs out there so I appreciate each and every view I get.  I don't make any money off this, it's strictly a passion project because I love movies as a storytelling medium.  Hopefully you do as well or you wouldn't be reading this.  Unless you accidentally found this site while looking for porn parodies of your favorite movies, in which case I cannot help you.

So really, this is just a little note to tell you, Internet readers, that you'll probably see fewer posts from me in the coming weeks and to beg you not to forsake or forget me.  Considering that I'm going for a degree in English, this blog could get way better because now I'll actually know what the hell I'm talking about.  Theoretically. 

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Prisoners (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Cinematography    This is another of those categories that people talk about but I don't really know how to judge.  Cinematography is essentially how the film is shot, but like most art, whether or not you appreciate it is up to you.  Everybody says Roger Deakins is one of the best Directors of Photography in the industry right now and they're probably right.  He's making his feature debut as a director this year with Transcendence, starring Johnny Depp so he's at least making it work for him.

He does convey the tone of the movie.  If you turn off the volume so you're not influenced by dialogue or score, and you can still tell the overall emotional mood of the film, it's probably a great cinematographer that did it.  Prisoners is flat, grey, depressing, and cold.  You get that sense throughout, even if it's just paused.  Every scene is shot through with melancholy.

It is Thanksgiving Day somewhere in America and the Dover family have gone over to visit their neighbors, the Birch's, for dinner.  Their kids are roughly the same age and the young ones, Anna (Erin Gerasimovich) and Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons), are best friends.  The girls run off to play unsupervised and then go missing.  Anna's older brother (Dylan Minnette) remembers seeing a decrepit old RV parked on the street.  Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) locates the RV and arrests the driver (Paul Dano) for trying to flee the scene.  He is later released for lack of evidence.  This does not sit well with Anna's father (Hugh Jackman), who decides to abduct the driver and torture the girls' whereabouts from him.  Meanwhile, Loki is having to split his attention between another suspect (David Dastmalchian) and Mr. Dover, because he knows the latter is up to something.

People compared this movie to Zodiac and I can see why.  Both movies are slow, talk-heavy, boring, and think they are more clever than they actually are.  I was very dissatisfied with the experience of watching and at two and a half hours that's a rather large waste of my time.

Lone Survivor (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing    Sound editing and mixing are two technical areas I will fully admit I don't know much about.  I'm lucky if I even pay attention to the score.  Given the types of movies that usually get nominated, I'm guessing they have to do more with adding the ambient sounds and special effects sounds and integrating them into the overall movie.  If so, then they did a really good job here because you can hear every zip and whine of a gunshot round as it's fired.

This is the last Oscar nominee still in theaters where I live, minus the special screening of all the Best Picture nominees a local theater is doing starting this weekend.  I had planned to see a lot more of them when they were in theaters but, to use a military adage, a first plan rarely survives contact with the enemy.  You adjust and you move on.  I did manage to see this one, however.

Four highly trained special operations members, led by Lt Mike Murphy (Taylor Kitsch).  With him are radioman Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch), and gunners Matt Axelson (Ben Foster) and Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg).  They are sent into the upper provinces of Afghanistan in order to locate and possibly kill Taliban leader Ahmad Shah (Yousuf Azami).  Unfortunately, their position is discovered by goat herders and the four men are forced to run for their lives.  The title pretty much spells it out after that.

This would be an excellent counterpoint to watch with Dirty Wars.  This is fictionalized, of course, but Marcus Luttrell is a real person who really had this happen to him.  I just think it's interesting to see it from both sides.

Can't Hardly Wait (1998)

  Also not an Oscar nominee.  I'm trying not to lose my place on my regular rotation during award season, in case you're wondering. 

It is graduation night and six seniors are making their plans for the last night.  The jock, Mike Dexter (Peter Facinelli), has dumped his girlfriend, Amanda (Jennifer Love Hewitt), in anticipation of all the college tail he'll be getting.  This is music to aspiring writer Preston's (Ethan Embry) ears since he has been pining for Amanda since freshman year.  He convinces his best gal friend, Denise (Lauren Ambrose), to accompany him to the big party.  Meanwhile, nerd William (Charlie Korsmo) is planning an elaborate revenge on Mike Dexter for all the torment he endured at the latter's hands, and Kenny (Seth Green) is looking to pop his cherry with some hometown hottie before moving to UCLA.  Nothing at this party goes according to plan for anyone involved but nobody would learn anything if it did.

There are a crapload of named people in this, most in either cameos or before-they-were-famous bit parts.  That was enough to keep me interested the entire way, even if the plot wasn't.  This is nothing like my high school experience, nor do I wish it had been.  It is, however, a time machine back to 1998, if that's the kind of thing that interests you.

Ernest and Celestine (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Animated Feature    Technically, I don't think this movie has been widely released in the States yet.  I heard they're doing an English dub that will be out February 28, but I don't have time to wait for that.  The Oscars are in thirteen days. 

However, when this movie comes out, you should definitely go see it.  Based on a series of French children's books, this is the story of a mouse and a bear that become friends and destroy an age-old classist society.

Celestine (Pauline Brunner) is a young mouse who has been raised to believe that all bears are big and evil.  They live above and the mice live below, in the sewers.  Celestine and the other mouse children go up to the surface world, however, to steal bear teeth in order to make replacement teeth for mice.  However, Celestine accidentally gets trapped in the trash and is found by Ernest (Lambert Wilson), a hungry bear musician.  The two strike up a strange partnership and end up running from the law.  They hide out for the winter, but when spring comes, the cops of both species are back on their trail.

This is animated in beautiful, soft watercolors and almost impressionistic lines.  It is lovely and charming and I would say that it is a strong contender for Best Animated.  I just don't know if it can overcome the giant that is Frozen. 

All is Lost (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Sound Editing    You could do a double feature of this and Gravity and then never leave your house again.

After last year's Life of Pi disappointment, I was not looking forward to seeing yet another person adrift in the ocean, even if it is the Sundance Kid.  And yet, this managed to be more arresting than a CGI tiger.

A man (Robert Redford) wakes up as his sailboat is taking on water.  A floating cargo container full of tennis shoes has collided with his boat out in the Indian Ocean.  Alone, he must find a way to survive through storms, sharks, and sunstroke.

My question is who the fuck sails halfway around the world by themselves? I get that everyone needs alone time, but wouldn't you want somebody nearby to watch out at night at least?  More reasons why I can never be rich.  If a container ship of sweatshop shoes wrecked my million-dollar boat, I'd be on the phone to my lawyer so fast.  Not the Coast Guard, not the U.S. Navy, but my lawyer.  Who do you even call for help when you're stranded in international waters?  Is it the Navy?  A navy?  AAA?

There was technically no dialogue in this movie because Robert Redford is the only one who talks and then only a couple of times.  He must be the most silent man on the planet, because when I lived alone I talked to myself out loud all the time.  There was also a lot less crying and cursing than I would have been doing.  Good thing it was him and not me.

I don't know why this movie isn't getting the kind of awards love as Gravity.  Maybe it's just too similar, maybe the Academy secretly hates Robert Redford, or hates yachts.  Apparently, comedian Louis C.K. hated it.  Here's the audio from his interview on the Opie and Anthony Show:  http://youtu.be/F5uNtBoeAKM.  I was trying to embed the actual clip but it is not cooperating.  He makes some good points that I, as a non-boating person, would maybe not think of while watching.

Calamity Jane (1953)

  Not an Oscar nominee for this year, but it did win an Oscar for Best Original Song for "Secret Love".

I was in kind of a funk yesterday and I didn't feel like doing anything.  Nothing particularly bad happened, I just wasn't in a good mood.  So I decided to pull out Calamity Jane, because you can't be angry while humming show tunes.  It's a fact.

When his New York actress turns out to be a New York actor, Deadwood saloon operator Henry Miller (Paul Harvey) thinks he is sunk.  But local rough rider and sharpshooter Calamity Jane (Doris Day) has a solution:  she will ride to Chicago and get acclaimed actress Adelaid Adams (Gale Robbins) for the town.  Unfortunately, Ms. Adams is leaving for a European tour and Calamity accidentally hires her maid, Katie Brown (Allyn McLerie), instead.  Katie is soon found out to be a fraud but Calamity convinces the town to giver her a break and she soon becomes Deadwood's darling, catching the attention of famed gambler Wild Bill Hickock (Howard Keel) and cavalry officer Lt. Danny Gilmartin (Philip Carey).  This latter swain proves a problem as Calamity is secretly in love with Danny, despite the fact that he's kind of a douche.

Doris Day was the probably the most wholesome person to have ever been on film, with the possible exception of Shirley Temple (RIP).  This is one of my favorites of her films, even though it's not the most lavish.  She's just so fresh-faced and hopeful that you can't watch her and be in a bad mood.  Is it predictable and kind of corny?  Sure, but for me, it's the right kind of predictable and corny.

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing, Best Hair and Makeup, and Best Original Screenplay    I have never been a fan of Matthew McConaughey as an actor, mostly because the bulk of his filmography is romantic comedies and we know how I feel about those.  The past few years have signaled a shift in his priorities, however, and now the phrase "Matthew McConaughey, respected actor" isn't followed by air quotes or derisive laughter.  Jared Leto has always been somewhat of a wildcard.  He's never been afraid to take on dark roles but he also tours with his band, 30 Seconds to Mars, and hasn't been filming anything in the last few years.  Both men undertook some serious weight loss to play their characters, but you never get the feeling that it was purely a gimmick to sell tickets.  They brought these people to life.

Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey) loves three things:  rodeo, hard drugs, and pussy.  When he is diagnosed with HIV and given 30 days to live, he is furious.  He starts by bribing an orderly at the hospital to get him AZT, which is still undergoing a double-blind trial, but when that source dries up, he heads down to an unlicensed doctor (Griffin Dunne) in Mexico.  There he learns that AZT is one of the worst drugs for combating AIDS, but is the only one currently undergoing FDA trials.  Ron and the doctor decide to start transporting better, unlicensed drugs across the border for sale, however, Ron's homophobia makes that more difficult than it should be.  Enter Rayon (Jared Leto), a sweet-natured drag queen who tempers the edge of his irrational hatred.  It starts as a way to make money but soon becomes a Cause. 

I didn't expect this to be as mild a movie as it was.  Maybe I've seen Rent one too many times, but this just lacked the emotional gut-punch I was prepared for.  The things I took away from the film were a) the will to live against the odds is an incredibly powerful force, and b) you can get away with huge lies if you look the part.  Ron Woodruff was like the Frank Abagnale, Jr. of AIDS drug smuggling. 

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Hair and Makeup    God help us.  I still don't think it should have been nominated for an Oscar, but it wasn't as awful as I thought it would be.

Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville) finds himself a free man after his wife passes away.  However, his drug addict daughter (Georgina Cates) violated her parole and is slated to go back to jail.  She tells Irving that he has to take his eight-year-old grandson, Billy (Jackson Nicoll), from Nebraska to North Carolina to his father (Greg Harris).

The addition of a partial narrative makes something more of Jackass's usual hidden camera shenanigans.  Personally, I don't think pranks involving unsuspecting bystanders equals comedy.  Mostly, it involves making regular people feel awful, confused, or angry for no real reason.  That does not blow my skirt up at all.

Looking at it from a sociological standpoint, it was interesting to see precisely how much sexual harassment the average woman would take from a stranger.  It's a lot.  It was actually almost disturbing to see how skillfully these women would politely and non-confrontationally blow off Zisman's advances.  That comes from practice.

The only truly redeeming moments for humanity comes when Irving is about to turn over Billy to his father in a biker bar.  The bar is the hangout of a group called Guardians of Children, whose primary mission is to protect abused kids.  The group rallies around the boy when it becomes clear that his father is not a competent guardian.  I am glad there are people out there who are willing to step in at a moment's notice with no care of the cost to themselves.

The Last Starfighter (1984)

  I bet this movie launched the hopes of a thousand video game nerds.

When I told Christy I had never seen this movie, she gave me the kind of face I usually give her when she tells me she's never seen Casablanca or It's a Wonderful Life.  Our tastes may differ, but our judgment is the same.

Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) lives in a trailer park with his mom, but dreams of going to college and making a successful life in the big city.  The trailer park doesn't offer a lot in the way of entertainment, aside from his girlfriend Maggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) and an arcade game called Starfighter.  When Alex beats the high score, he unknowingly alerts the game's designer, Centauri (Robert Preston), who comes to find him and offers him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

No, not to play video games for a living.

Essentially, he abducts Alex, replaces him with a robotic replica, and hauls him off to the planet Rylos to actually become a Starfighter.  He had designed the game as a training module to find talented candidates across the universe to fly in an elite unit tasked with keeping the evil Xur (Norman Snow) from enslaving multiple galaxies.  Alex is paired with a navigator named Grig (Dan O'Herlihy) and given a ship.  However, because Earth is not part of the Star Union, Alex is sent back home.  Xur does a sneak attack and kills all the other Starfighters, even sending an alien assassin (who looks like a werewolf goldfish) to Earth to kill Alex.

The computer graphics are beyond dated but this was still a fun little picture.  Robert Preston was clearly doing someone a favor here as no one else comes close to matching his name recognition.  According to IMDb, Wil Wheaton is in this, but he has no speaking lines and I couldn't find him so he was probably just part of a crowd shot near the end.  You can't really count that.

The Act of Killing (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Documentary     I hope none of you live in close proximity to mass murderers, but, if you're wondering what it would be like, watch this movie.

In the 1960's, Indonesia had a military coup.  The new rulers immediately embarked on a campaign against the "communists", but really, anybody they felt disagreed with them.  They hired local gangsters to head up death squads because there were just so many people to kill.  Fast forward to the present and these death squad leaders are still hanging around, not being prosecuted, living out their lives without a single care in the world.  The filmmaker, Joshua Oppenheimer, sat down with two of the most prominent killers, Anwar Congo and Herman Koto, and asked them to make a movie about what it was like for them.  Congo and Koto took to the idea enthusiastically, recruiting friends, neighbors, and strangers to pretend to be communists on film.  Koto also decided to be in drag, for no apparent reason.  Maybe he just wanted to feel pretty. 

The result is one of the most fascinating and horrific looks inside the minds of killers.  They describe their most preferred methods of dispatching other human beings, laugh about the revisionist history that came later, all while scripting choreography for a dance number.  There are interviews with the current leader of the largest paramilitary group, Pancasila Youth, and with other influential members of the Indonesian government then and now.  For my money, the current Pancasila Youth leader may be the most evil sonofabitch walking around.  During a break from filming the recreation of when the burned and slaughtered an entire village, this guy started talking about his favorite rape victims:  14-year-old girls.  Another man cheerfully recounts how he went down the street and stabbed every native Chinese person he saw, including his girlfriend's father, before pushing him into a ditch and hitting him with a brick.

The only one who shows a glimmer of remorse is Anwar Congo, a man who killed possibly up to one thousand people.  He has experienced nightmares his entire life of the faces of his victims and becomes physically sick during some of the re-enactments.  The rest are better at justification, perhaps, or maybe they just don't feel anything. 

The other thing I thought was interesting was that half the crew in the credits is listed as Anonymous, I'm guessing to prevent reprisals once the film came out.  It's clear that the people being filmed though it would be an entirely different animal.  I can only imagine what they thought when (if) they saw the final product.

This is definitely the frontrunner in this category, with The Square being the dark horse.

Cutie and the Boxer (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Documentary    I'm not sure how to categorize this movie, other than "documentary" of course.

Ushio and Noriko Shinohara are artists living in New York City.  They've been there since the 1960's, when Ushio tried to break into the bohemian scene there.  He had some minor success but never enough to be able to get above the poverty line.  Meanwhile, Noriko had to put aside her own art in order to help Ushio, then raise their son.  Now, she is determined to see her work show at the same gallery as Ushio's.

Their styles couldn't be more different.  Ushio favors "motion painting", where he straps paint-soaked sponges to boxing gloves and punches his way across a canvas, and sculptures of motorcycle grotesqueries.  Noriko uses watercolor and pencil to illustrate "Cutie", a cartoon character who lives with her alcoholic husband "Bullie".

Despite the bickering, the passive-aggressiveness, and neglect, it's clear that this couple loves each other.  I'm not sure that is the best thing, however.  It's interesting to watch but I'm not sure what the overall message of the film was.  As a character study, it's all right.  I just can't help but want Noriko to have a greater success than Ushio.

The Lego Movie (2014)

  Everything (about this movie) is AWESOME!!! And if you've seen it, you now have that song stuck in your head.  You're welcome.

Emmet (Chris Pratt) is just an average construction worker in Bricksburg, which is ruled by Lord Business (Will Farrell) and his instructions.  Then Emmet accidentally discovers the Piece of Resistance, a lost part of the super-weapon known as the Kragle, thus making him an instrument of prophecy.  Lord Business plans to use the Kragle to freeze the world and keep it in a perfect state forever.  Emmet is rescued from Badcop's (Liam Neeson) interrogation by Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks).  She takes him to meet the other Master Builders, limited only by their imaginations, and led by Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman).  They believe Emmet has been chosen by The Man Upstairs to stop Lord Business and return the many different worlds to a state of harmony.  With the help of Batman (Will Arnett), Princess Uni-kitty (Alison Brie), the pirate Metalbeard (Nick Offerman), and Benny the 1980's space guy (Charlie Day), Emmet must come up with a plan to defeat Lord Business' robot army and stop the Kragle once and for all.

This is one of those movies that your kids are going to want to watch over and over.  This is good, because then it gives you an excuse to also watch it over and over to catch all the jokes and references, because holy crap are there a lot of them.  This is the best family film I have seen since Toy Story 3.  I have no idea what other animated films are due out this year but they are going to have to pull out all the stops to beat this one.  If it seems like I'm being hyperbolic, let me tell you, I saw this movie twice in the same weekend and I laughed just as hard the second time as I did the first.  This is the highly sophisticated interlocking brick system of toy movies. 

20 Feet from Stardom (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Documentary    This is my pick for the best documentary of the year.  I enjoyed this film so much.  

Take your favorite song.  Play it in your head for a second.  Now mentally strip out the background vocals.  Does it still sound as good, or does it seem flatter, less vibrant?  Now name me any background singer.

Don't worry, I couldn't think of one, either. 

This film focuses on three main backup singers:  Merry Clayton, Darlene Love, and Lisa Fischer.  Each one of these women has more talent in their little finger than I have in my entire body and yet, recognition is something that they do not get.  Darlene Love was just eighteen-years-old when she started singing for Phil Spector, who promptly recorded her voice and slapped someone else's name on it.  Lisa Fischer won a Grammy in 1991 for her solo record but couldn't make that narrow window for a second album before public attention moved elsewhere.  You would think that would make these women bitter or angry, but they're not.  Their dedication and love of their craft shines through every word they say and every note they sing.

Fun, engaging, and never maudlin, this film completely drew me in and fascinated me.  I strongly encourage you to check it out.

Cache (2005)

  I have now watched this movie twice.  The first time, I was fucking confused.  I just didn't get it.  So I put it on the shelf to be re-visited later.  Yesterday, I gave it another shot. 

It still made no sense to me.  I had to look it up on Wikipedia to figure out what it's actually about.

Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and Anne (Juliette Binoche) Laurent are an upper-middle class Parisian couple with a twelve-year-old son.  Georges is a successful writer turned public TV host and Anne works for a publishing company.  Then they start receiving video cassettes at their house.  It's benign, just someone, for whatever reason, filming the outside of their house.  Then little creepy drawings start accompanying the tapes, and they start going to other people:  Georges' boss, their son's school.  All the tapes and drawings have to do with a barely remembered secret from Georges' childhood.

In 1961, there was an anti-Arab riot in Paris that the movie references.  I knew tensions had always been high in France with leftover colonial bitterness and more recent terrorism but, not being French, that's not something that I think about every day.  I certainly wasn't prepared for a film that alludes to the incident while exploring bourgeois guilt and disowning responsibility. 

The film moves with glacial slowness and events just don't seem connected at all.  Michael Haneke is one of those directors that people rave about, but I just don't get the appeal.  Granted, I haven't seen Amour, that's still in my queue, but at this moment, I am not a fan.

The Hunt (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Foreign Film    Get ready to be angry and depressed. 

Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) is trying to bounce back from some life setbacks.  He was laid off from his job as a high school teacher so he has to work at a kindergarten, plus his ex-wife won't let him see their kid.  Things are starting to look up, though.  He meets a new lady friend, his son decides he'd rather live with his dad, and he actually enjoys spending time with the small children.  And they love him, especially his best friend's five-year-old daughter, Klara (Annika Wedderkopp).  When Lucas accidentally hurts Klara's feelings, she retaliates by telling the principal that he showed her his penis. 

All of a sudden, Lucas' life begins a long downward slide as the entire town begins to turn on him. 

It's one of those movies where you just feel awful for the guy.  You can't even be mad, because what are the people supposed to do, ignore a little girl's claims of molestation?  You have to take that seriously.  Unfortunately, when the accusation is unfounded, it not only ruins somebody's entire life, it also makes it that much harder to believe the next kid who says something. 

"Innocent until proven guilty" sounds so good on paper, and we'd like to believe that we, as people, would be fair-minded and wait for the facts before we publically branded someone a monster.  We certainly wouldn't strip someone of their humanity based on a rumor.  And yet, in any society the safety of the young is paramount.  How far would you go to protect your child?

Thorny, dark and deeply affecting, this movie hooks into you and forces you to look at the squirmy underbelly of polite citizenry.  I can't say that I enjoyed the experience but it is one of the first truly unforgettable Oscar nominees of this year.

Gravity (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects    I didn't see this the first time it came out in theaters because nobody could tell me anything except "you gotta see it in IMAX!"  Nothing about plot or character, just the spectacle.  Then it got nominated for ten Academy awards and came back to IMAX, so Rob and I wen to see it.

Holy shit, you guys.  Space is bad.  Like, I knew space was bad before I went in because of the killer robots and acid-blood aliens and whatnot but it's really really bad.  And IMAX 3D is as close as I ever want to get to space.

Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is part of a team of astronauts up in space to add a new gizmo to the Hubble telescope.  The veteran on the team is Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) who is trying to beat the spacewalk record.  They get word from Mission Control that the Russians have blown up a failing satellite and that the debris has become a basically permanent cloud of shrapnel moving at 50,000 miles an hour 

FIFTY THOUSAND MILES AN HOUR

towards them.  So, of course, by the time Houston finishes saying that, the space bullets are already destroying their shuttle.  Dr. Ryan gets separated from her tether line and starts floating off into the void.  Kowalski uses his jet pack to grab her but they only have ninety minutes to get to safety before the space bullets circle the Earth and hit them again.  Since their ride home is wrecked, they have to make it to the International Space Station and use the Russian escape pod to get back to Earth.

I don't like to call it a phobia, because that implies irrationality and there is nothing irrational about not liking space.  Space shuttles and submarines are two places you will not find me because I do not like the idea of being in a small space surrounded by a big space that will kill me if anything goes wrong.  You cannot live in the ocean and you cannot live in space.  These are facts.  You know, now that I think about it, I'd rather take the ocean over space because at least then I'd have the faint hope that I'm actually some sort of undiscovered mermaid.  They don't have space mermaids.

This movie isn't even about space!  It's about letting go of the things that weigh down your soul, like grief and anger and helplessness.  They just set it in space because feelings are also horrible.

I don't know about its chances at most of the awards except for Visual Effects, which were amazing, and maybe Best Production Design.  It's hard to judge it because 99% of it was green screen.  As far as impressive achievement in CGI, though, it definitely qualifies.

Dirty Wars (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Documentary    I will tell you right now, I did not get how this documentary was so well regarded.  To me, it was one big Duh all the way through.

The reporter narrating the movie, Jeremy Scahill, is the same guy who broke the story on the abuses of the mercenary company Blackwater back in 2003, I think.  He says, but I wasn't really paying attention.  While on the ground in Afghanistan, Mr. Scahill learned of night-time raids in the northern provinces resulting in civilian deaths.  He sets out through extremely hostile country in order to interview one of the families affected.  They had video of American soldiers standing over the bodies of their killed loved ones, calmly discussing what their narrative would be if they were questioned.

Upon further digging, Mr. Scahill discovers more attacks like this happening in Yemen, Somalia, and God-knows-where-else.  He is able to determine that these are Black Ops performed by highly-elite U.S. military men under the Joint Special Operations Command.

It always shocks me when people are surprised by information I find obvious.  Maybe nobody did know about these people before the successful assassination of Osama bin Laden and Zero Dark Thirty and book deals about Seal Team 6.  I was in military intelligence, after all.  I met shadowy people like the ones that fucked up that one Afghani birthday party in the movie.  They don't wear insignia, they move like cats, and they look like rejects from Duck Dynasty.  It was outside Karbala, I think, in Iraq.  I was just happy they were on our side.

Maybe that's the difference between me and Mr. Scahill.  I'm happier knowing those guys are out there, moving silently in the night and striking fear into the hearts of our enemies.  They are the faceless terror, but they're OUR faceless terror, dammit.  Yes, occasionally, they will fuck up and kill innocent people. That is terrible and there is nothing about that to be pleased with, but that's not their fault.  Do you get mad at the hammer for smashing your toe or the idiot who dropped it?  A mistake like that is generally the result of bad intelligence.  That is why it is so important and why people lose sleep over getting the right information to pass up the chain.

Mr. Scahill can sit around and bemoan the need for these kinds of men, saying that they are causing more damage than good, and that collateral damage only leads to more vendettas and more hate.  He is not wrong.  But, personally, I appreciate that we have taken more proactive instead of reactive steps.  We have declared war on an abstract concept (terror) and like the War on Drugs, we will never win it.  That is the depressing side.  But, again, that is not the fault of the tool, but of the hand that wields it.

The Square (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Documentary    In case you don't watch the news, Egypt has been having a slight problem with government.  In 2011, the people of Cairo took to Tahrir Square in protest of President Hosni Mubarak because he hadn't lifted "emergency" measures for three years.  The protests became a revolution, with tens if not hundreds of thousands of people thronging the streets, calling for him to step down.  He was replaced by the military.  The people were not satisfied, since it was still basically the same old regime, just in uniform.  So they took back the Square and protested again.  This time, however, they were sharing the space with a large contingent of Muslim Brotherhood, a pro-sharia (that's Islamic law) group.    The Brotherhood figured out that there was gain to be had by using the Square, and made secret deals with the military.  After a very quick presidential election, Mohammad Mosri, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, took power.  This made moderate Muslims and Christians very upset, especially since Mosri immediately granted himself more governmental powers than Mubarak ever had and still wouldn't re-write the constitution.

If you've ever wanted to know what a revolution looks like without actually being in it, you should watch this.  It's very enlightening.

Cabaret (1972)

  Every time I watch this movie, I see something new.  It's like a sad chrysanthemum.  This time I noticed the little Nazi boy getting thrown out of the club for pan-handling by the owner.  Later on in the movie, he comes back with his friends and they beat the shit out of the old man and leave him for dead.

This is the most depressing musical ever.  Even minus the Nazis, it's still the story of two people looking for happiness and terrified of actually finding it.

Brian (Michael York) is a Cambridge boy just arrived in Weimar Berlin.  He is struggling as an English tutor in order to finish his thesis when he meets cabaret singer Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), an American practically brimming with joie de vivre.  Together, they manage to navigate the changing politics and atmosphere of Germany from insouciant aristocrats to the backlash against Jewish residents.

Plus, Fosse dancers!

"Mein Herr" is easily the best number in the whole movie, if only because it doesn't have Joel Grey's creepster Emcee in it.

I know this isn't a nominee for this year, but it won eight Oscars the year it came out, so there's that.

Before Midnight (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Adapted Screenplay    So, you can apparently adapt a movie from two previous ones and get nominated for an Oscar. 

I have not seen the two movies before this (Before Sunrise and Before Sunset) so I am not familiar with the main character couple.  From what I can gather, **SPOILERS MAYBE** Jesse (Ethan Hawke) met Celine (Julie Delpy) in 1994 and they spent one night with each other in Paris.  Later, Jesse writes a book about the experience and gets famous.  Celine comes to New York City to find him and they spend another day together.  They decide to make a go of it.  So Jesse divorces his wife and shacks up with Celine.  Along the way, the ex-wife decides to take custody of their son while Jesse is in Paris with Celine giving birth to twin girls.  **END POSSIBLE SPOILERS** Cut to the present, Jesse and Celine are in Greece on vacation.  Some friends have gotten them a hotel room for the night and agreed to baby-sit their daughters.  Sounds great, right?

Did you ever watch a married couple fight?  Is there anything more awful and awkward to see than two people who know each other very well attempt to destroy one another for the most petty reasons?  In this case, Celine feels that Jesse is going to leave her in order to move back to America to be closer to his son.  Jesse had no intentions to do so but is put out by the implication that Celine would never in a million years move to the U.S. on a permanent basis. 

It seems this series is a critical darling, because I didn't read a single review that wasn't glowing.  Maybe you had to be there for the first two installments.  These are certainly likeable characters; they're charming and good-looking, witty and great dinner party guests.  But I don't "know" them so I don't care what they're fighting about.  They just seem like every other couple that has been together for more than two years. 

To me, this nomination is equivalent to recommending your favorite soap opera.  If you're not there at the beginning, it's probably worthless to you.