Website of Jonathan O. Dewbre

I will be honest and say that 2009 has not been one of my favorite years for film. The best picture category for this year’s Oscars has been increased to include 10 nominees – of those 10, there was one film that I loved, three that I liked, one that I hated, and two which I intentionally avoided seeing. (I didn’t see “Inglorious Basterds” because I’m not a Tarantino fan on a good day, and the idea of a WWII revenge fantasy didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t see “The Blind Side” either, because it looked like schmaltz. I could be wrong about both movies, but I have a feeling I’m not. Also, I didn’t get a chance to see “The Last Station,” though I really wanted to.) In short, I don’t see a reason for having 10 nominees instead of 5, except to decrease the honor of being nominated by half and allowing everyone to go home with an achievement trophy. (Reminds me of grade school athletics all over again.)

In an effort to make this list short, I’ll just say who I think should win each award instead of who probably will win.

BEST PICTURE: “The Hurt Locker”

The movie business seems to be fascinated with the military right now. All three serious contenders for this award – “Avatar,” “The Hurt Locker,” “Inglorious Basterds” – have war as a primary theme. That’s not to mention other films like “The Messenger,” “Brothers,” “The Men Who Stare At Goats.” We’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan for quite a while now, but I guess I’m a little surprised that we’re only receiving a glut of war films now, years after the wars themselves started.

“Avatar” painted a very unfavorable portrait of the military, and yet managed to be a huge box-office success. (Don’t worry… I’m not going to talk incessantly about how much I disliked that movie.) “The Hurt Locker,” on the other hand, took the route of exploring the psychology of soldiers, particularly those who continuously re-enlist, and did it WITHOUT being an anti-war diatribe. The idea that war is terrible and soldiers who voluntarily enlist are insane has been a Hollywood staple since at least the time “All Quiet On The Western Front” won best picture. What “The Hurt Locker” does is demonstrate where that insanity comes from. Despite the realism in the tense bomb-defusing scenes, you are rarely given a clue as to what’s going on or how to feel about it, or whether a given person is good or bad. At one point, a sympathetic character is shown to be dead, only to turn up alive in a later scene with no explanation. By the end of the film, you understand how psychologically screwed up the main character is and why he can no longer function in normal society. The epigram stating that “war is a drug” makes sense, and “The Hurt Locker” demonstrates that viscerally, without shoving an intellectual debate about war in your face.

It should be noted that some controversy has sprung up around “The Hurt Locker.” One of the producers made the stupid decision to lobby the film by badmouthing “Avatar,” and the filmmakers failed to credit or compensate the real-life EOD expert whose stories formed the basis of the movie. Whether or not you let these facts affect your appreciation of the movie is up to you. I don’t typically like war films and I have a hard time identifying with military culture, but despite my prejudices “The Hurt Locker” ended up surprising me. It’s not my favorite movie of the last year, but it definitely deserves to win in the best picture category.

BEST DIRECTOR: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”

A lot has been made out of the fact that Bigelow is the only woman who has ever been in serious contention for a best director Oscar. That irritates me, because I think she should simply be seen as the most competent director among this year’s nominees, regardless of her gender. “The Hurt Locker” was really made by its direction – Bigelow managed to take what was a patchwork script and turn it into an excellent film. We feel the tension of the bomb-defusing scenes because Bigelow knows to let them play out in real time, instead of trying to disorient the audience with quick cuts. She gives the Iraqi bystanders personalities instead of just using them as background observers, which brings the war zone to life instead of making it seem deserted. Bigelow also knows enough to allow the actors freedom of improvisation, which keeps the dialogue from seeming overly scripted. Most of all, she does all of this and more without being too flashy or apparent; that, to me, is the hallmark of a good director.

BEST ACTRESS AND SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious: Based On The Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire”

This year’s supporting actress competition isn’t even a competition. Each of these actresses did competent jobs, but Mo’Nique’s performance is the firecracker, and the one that stays with you. And this brings me to my main critique of “Precious” itself: the film suffers heavily from over-direction. When Precious pretends to be a glamorous celebrity, or pretends to be a French film star, or pretends that photographs are actually speaking to her, it is all vividly literal and not at all believable. When director Lee Daniels connects a scene where Precious is hit in the back of the head and falls to the ground with a graphic flashback to her rape at the hands of her father, it is borderline offensive. And when the film opens with Precious herself being hugged by Sapphire, the author of the original novel – well, you know you’ve got problems from the start. The thing is, “Push” worked because it was a first-person novel grammatically written in the style of a poorly educated, borderline-illiterate girl. It’s an engrossing novel that could not possibly have made a completely faithful transition to the screen. The film’s greatest success is in its powerhouse acting talent; every actor/actress in it gives a memorable performance, including, oddly enough, Mariah Carey.

Sandra Bullock has been nominated in the best actress category and she is considered to be a lock. Gabourey Sidibe has consistently lost to either her or Meryl Streep in most of the major film award ceremonies. Sidibe’s character in “Precious” is vocally quiet but she is required to show a lot of emotion through body language, and is on-screen for the entire film. Sidibe has also been overshadowed by Mo’Nique’s performance, and that demonstrates the tendency of award committees to favor passion over subtlety. My wish is that Sidibe would win the award. While Bullock is a hugely talented and popular actress, her latest film is stereotypical of those where white people act as saviors to non-white people. Gabourey Sidibe’s ability to pull off a difficult first role, especially when she is a non-typical movie actress, seems like much more of a success story than “The Blind Side.”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Woody Harrelson, “The Messenger”

Woody Harrelson is not an actor I typically like. His role in “The Messenger,” however, seems to have been custom-made for him, in that he is allowed to be brash, uncaring, drunk, and promiscuous at varying times. And it works, because he practically carries the film. Initially seen as a dictatorial, jingoistic sh*thead, his character is forced by the U.S. Army to break the news of a soldier’s death to his or her loved ones. His job is not pleasant. Harrelson gets assaulted, screamed at, and forced to participate in the grieving process despite his attempts to stay unemotional and uninvolved. “The Messenger” is hard to sit through – moreso than “The Hurt Locker” – for the very reason that the filmmakers see to it that you can’t stay uninvolved. Every character has a life and a back-story, and the acting in the film is uniformly brilliant. Harrelson is the stand out, going from being a military stereotype to having a memorable emotional epiphany at the end of the film.

BEST ACTOR: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”

Last year I said that Mickey Rourke deserved to win this award for his performance in “The Wrestler.” (He didn’t win.) My reasoning was that an actor playing an extension of his own personality does an invariably better job than an actor playing a character that actually requires him to “act.” The same seems to be true of Jeff Bridges, who is considered a lock in this category. Bridges IS Bad Blake, more or less, and there is no point in “Crazy Heart” where you believe otherwise. Perhaps that’s not a good enough reason to give someone an Academy Award, but then again, what is? Bridges, like Sandra Bullock, has been in movies forever and has gone unrecognized for this fact long enough that it’s put a lot of critical support behind him. Plus, he’s been nominated for best actor four times before and hasn’t won once. (Speaking of “The Wrestler,” I didn’t particularly like “Crazy Heart.” I think it’s because every time I was preparing for something terrible to happen, the movie tricked me. Also, the happy ending seemed a little disingenuous.)

By the way, Colin Firth would be my second choice in this category for his surprisingly effective performance in “A Single Man.” I never thought I’d find myself sympathizing with a character played by Firth, or even that he’d find a way to break out of romantic comedies and Jane Austen adaptations. If somebody ever plans a biopic of Cary Grant, they need to give Firth a call.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, “Up In The Air”

Remember how I said there was only one film on this year’s best picture list that I actually loved? That would be “Up In The Air.” This film was tailor-made for sad-sack white guys like myself who have had employment problems, have never really known love, aren’t sure what they really want out of life and who prefer to deal with their problems by internalizing everything. Sure, it’s different from “Precious,” but having a strong emotional bond with a film often depends on how well you can relate to it. Reitman is brilliant at blending everyday drama with gentle comedy, and I envy the way he is able to write with such a strong ear for the way people actually act and talk. There is nothing about “Up In The Air” that I didn’t like.

For what it’s worth, I really liked the screenplay for “An Education” as well, and its subject of a young woman following her dreams versus settling for practicality was very similar to the theme of “Up In The Air.” Liking it is probably not a coincidence, as it was adapted by Nick Hornby.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, “A Serious Man”

I’ve already praised the screenplay for “The Messenger,” which was nominated in this category. “A Serious Man” was also well-written, so I had trouble deciding which screenplay to write down here. I finally decided that I enjoyed watching “A Serious Man,” whereas saying that I enjoyed watching “The Messenger” would be a huge overstatement. I continue to have a love/hate relationship with the Coen brothers – for example, I despised “No Country For Old Men.” I have a better time with their comedies, and “A Serious Man” is, I think, the best they’ve done since “Raising Arizona.” In retrospect, adapting the book of Job from the Bible could really only be done as a bleak comedy. The Coens’ tendency to rely on weird and outlandish characters has always bothered me, but in “A Serious Man” they serve as a perpetual plague of irritation and unhelpfulness to Larry Gopnik. It’s really one, long slow burn that puts “Fawlty Towers” to shame, and even though I’m not going to pretend like the ending made any sense to me, there’s still a lot here to think and debate about.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: “The White Ribbon”

Making a prediction in this category really isn’t fair, because Michael Haneke’s film “The White Ribbon” is the only nominee I’ve seen. It’s also the only one that’s made it into the theaters in Dallas, so I’m fairly sure that it’s going to win. Haneke is a German filmmaker with a disturbing fascination with violence. His film “Funny Games” was originally made in Germany and then remade with an English-speaking cast; I didn’t see it, as the violence in it was deliberately intended to provoke and I don’t like having my buttons pushed. “The White Ribbon” is an enigma. It’s a beautifully filmed black-and-white feature set in pre-WWI Germany, but which could easily pass for an Ingmar Bergman film. Like Bergman, the film is fatalistic and preoccupied with religion and death. Violent, disturbing things happen in it, but with a few exceptions, the violence is recalled in voice-over and isn’t seen on screen. The question is whether the children of the village, who are lorded over with rigid discipline and speeches about purity, are responsible for committing them. The presence of “white ribbons” is a pretty obvious analogy to the arm bands that would eventually be worn by the Nazis, but that’s one of the only things in the film that is obvious. Still, almost every frame of the film seems like a painting, so its cinematography deserves an award even if it isn’t the best choice in the foreign language category.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM AND LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: “A Matter Of Loaf And Death” and “The Door”

I’ve been pretty vocal about my hatred of computer-generated special effects and their use in animation. These days, if anything is animated, it’s animated on a computer. There is one exception among this years five short animated film, and it’s also the only one that runs about 30 minutes long – Nick Park’s “Wallace And Gromit: A Matter Of Loaf And Death.” I love Nick Park’s work, and like his previous films, this one is done in stop motion clay. I’ve seen videos documenting Park’s process in creating these short films; he has the patience of a saint. Pretty much everything he’s done with Wallace and Gromit has won an Oscar, and with good reason. “Loaf And Death” is not, in my opinion, the best short he’s done, but it’s still a good sight better than the other 2010 animated short films. (Pixar didn’t get nominated this year… I wonder if they have an exemption?)

I liked almost all of this year’s live action shorts, but the one that stood out for me was “The Door,” an extremely bleak film about a family evacuating from Pripyat after the Chernobyl explosion and then watching their daughter die from acute radiation poisoning, unable to do anything about it. It’s definitely the darkest and most powerful of the shorts, and it’s also the only one I liked which didn’t seem like a rip-off of “Slumdog Millionaire” or “Napoleon Dynamite.” I loved “Instead Of Abracadabra” for its humor, and I’d watch it again, but I wouldn’t give it an award just for that.

So… yeah. Here’s your Oscar, “The Door.” Now, let me never have to hear of you or see you ever again.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: … Oh, who the hell am I kidding?

“Up” was nominated for both best picture and best animated feature film. I thought they created the animated film category so that wouldn’t happen again… oh well. Do award ceremonies mean anything to Pixar anymore? This isn’t even a competition to them. They should get a lifetime achievement award and let that be that. Give someone else a chance. Of course, “Up” is still the best animated feature film among the five nominated, so I’m just being a sourpuss. The voters might have given the award to “Coraline” if Pixar fatigue set in, but I kind of doubt it.

On a different subject, there’s a film called “The Secret Of The Kells” that was nominated this year that looks amazing. I haven’t been able to watch it. Why? Because the film doesn’t have a g*ddamn U.S. distributer! You’d think that an Academy Award nominated film would have garnered enough interest to get released before the ceremony. Apparently not. Apparently, releasing “The Secret Of The Kells” into theaters is a financial gamble, but making “The Crazies” and releasing it EVERYWHERE is financially sound. Damn it, Hollywood! You suck!

THAT’S IT FOR MY 2010 OSCAR PREDICITIONS. HOPE I GOT A FEW OF THEM RIGHT!

I just sat through Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest movie, “Bruno.” (For some reason, “sat through” sounds like a better verb than “watched.”) I don’t like Cohen’s style of movie-making, but upon seeing his mock-gay character enrolled in a National Guard boot camp in the previews, I felt that I had to go to this one. What I expected was a humorous confrontation of our country’s culturally ingrained homophobia. What I got was a geek show, a one-man cry for attention that left me feeling sick, sad and worn-down. (And this is coming from a guy who watches Italian slasher flicks and can deal with seeing actors vomit up fake internal organs.)

Cohen should neither be called a comedian nor a documentarian. I don’t know what to call him. Bruno doesn’t so much examine homophobia as confront people with disturbing, graphic situations and force them to react. One might say that a person only shows their true colors under stressful situations, and there’s some truth in that. But “Bruno” is not social satire, because that would require Cohen to show himself as an intelligent voice of reason at some point in the proceedings. It’s ridicule. And any laughter that comes out of it is from nervousness and genuine concern that Cohen will eventually get himself beaten or killed. (Which he may, if he tries to outdo himself in his next movie. I certainly won’t be there to see it.)

With all of that said, there are some specific parts of the movie that I thought were worth addressing with my own opinion.

- At one point, Ron Paul is tricked into giving an interview to Cohen, only to find himself in the midst of what appears to be a pornographic video as Cohen drops his pants. Ron Paul leaves angrily, and in a hidden-camera video shot in the hallway of the hotel, he comments that there’s “some queer stuff going on in there.” Of course, the question of right and wrong presents itself. Was it right for Cohen to have tricked Paul with a fake interview? Absolutely not, and why Cohen wanted to make Ron Paul look like an idiot is beyond me. Was it right for this footage to have been included in the movie? Yes, and it’s entirely because of Paul’s “queer” comment. If anything, this should reinforce the fact that politicians are, under their slick surface, human beings with flaws and prejudices, and part of what “Bruno” is (apparently) intended to do is expose prejudice. As far as I know, the word “queer” can still be considered hate speech, even if said under duress. If I have any qualms about this, it’s the fact that Barack Obama and George Bush were not put in similar situations, because it would have been interesting to compare their reactions.

- The National Guard segment is predictable, and unfortunately does not address what I hoped would be addressed - our military’s ludicrous “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule. I’m certainly not offended that Cohen ridicules our military culture, because I find it ridiculous myself - if anything, I’m offended that the several military officers featured in the movie (and the National Guard itself) failed to realize that this was a put-on.

- Before I even saw the film, I had read some entries from a gay and lesbian blog (shakespearessister.blogspot.com) urging a boycott of “Bruno”: “Sacha Baron Cohen wants us to believe that Brüno isn’t a central part of the joke, but he composed the character from spare parts of the worst gay stereotypes, promotes the film with images of the character that heavily rely on the premise that anything gay/feminine is inherently absurd, and shows up to public appearances dressed in ass-bearing glittery gold lederhosen.” I’m straight and thus can’t comment on the movie from a gay perspective, but the character was obviously invented to offend. So I have to ask - what audience was Cohen shooting for, if he was determined to offend everybody? I went into the theater hoping for a social satire on homophobia and came out completely confused by what I’d witnessed. That’s a huge part of the problem - I don’t think Cohen had much of an idea of what he was doing when he made “Bruno,” which makes it a failed experiment at best and a mentally unbalanced sideshow act at worst.

- Cohen even makes a trip to Israel and Palestine, which really has nothing to do with homophobia and more to do with mocking a volatile world situation by putting his neck on the line. He walks through the street wearing skimpy, suggestive clothing and gets chased by an angry, fundamentalist mob. Not a mob of Islamists, however - a mob of Jews. In a better movie, some commentary might have been made about this scene, but Cohen only incites emotion, not intellectual discourse.

The entire conceit of Cohen’s “humor” is that it’s funny to watch stupid people get put through the ringer. Here’s the problem – in Cohen’s world, everyone and everything is stupid. While some of the ass-backwards bigots in this film deserve what they get, there are others who are attacked for no apparent reason. Why is it funny to see Paula Abdul recoil at eating food off a naked man’s stomach, or the managers of a nice hotel deal with two naked adults assaulting the staff and destroying a room?

Basically, “Bruno” depressed me. It depressed me because it highlights the darkest side of humanity, and I say this even though I don’t believe that most people are “essentially good.” It made me sick, I wish I hadn’t seen it, and by writing this entry I hope to dissuade others from making my mistake.

I just saw “The Verdict” and wanted to get my thoughts out about it while they’re fresh in my mind. I hope not to spend too long talking about it.

I’m not a David Mamet scholar and there’s a reason for that - I haven’t liked anything of his that I’ve seen, so I purposefully avoid seeing anything he’s written. Lit scholars love Mamet, and I just don’t get it. “The Verdict” and “The Untouchables,” for example, are two films that encourage us to root for their anti-heroes. Never once are we given reason to believe that the outcome will be any different than it is, or that good won’t triumph over evil. At best I’d call this trite, and at worst I’d call it populist trash. Mamet pulls his punches, I’ll admit, but his punches are telegraphed so far in advance that they’re easy to duck. Which brings me to the first reason why I hated “The Verdict”…

Paul Newman punches Charlotte Rampling in the face. Every anti-hero has a dark side, some more than others, but at some point that “hero” moniker no longer exists. Violence against women is a reprehensible act, and can carry no excuse. What’s worse, Newman’s character faces no consequences or moral qualms for what he has done, which is completely against the nature of reality. How does he not get disbarred for this? At some level, we are supposed to accept this act of violence with satisfaction, as retribution for what Rampling has done. I don’t buy it. I simply think Mamet is an ass, which, like most celebrated writers, he is, and that he’s sexist. I am given no reason to believe that he’s examining the nature of heroics or doing anything but throwing candy to his audience.

If such a superficial reason for disliking “The Verdict” is unacceptable to Mamet fans, then let me offer a more substantial critique of the plot, in true “lit criticism” style. What is the connotation of an American lawyer fighting not only the British legal system, but the British medical system as well? Consider also that almost every foreign character is presented as snide (the judge), self-interested (the prosecuting attorney), conniving (the wife) and corrupt (the accused team of doctors). To me, this smacks of nationalism and xenophobia, something present in “The Untouchables” as well. I also have to take umbrage with the way that Mamet not-so subconsciously forces us to hate these characters. Whether it’s through the prosecutor’s merciless interrogations, or the judge’s impartial decisions in the trial, or the anesthesiologist’s weakness under the pressure of both interrogation and surgery, there is no gray in the black-and-white world of “The Verdict.” That’s not necessarily bad, but it is typical of what I have seen of Mamet’s work, which is why I dislike him so much. I don’t like being told what to think.

Just as an aside, I didn’t even realize that “The Verdict” was a Mamet film until I’d watched it and looked it up on the Internet Movie Database. I was recently at a gala featuring Stephen Sondheim, and learned that David Mamet had been the guest at the previous year’s event. When asked how I felt about Mamet, I was unable to come up with an answer other than that I disliked the subjects he writes about. Now if anybody ever asks me about David Mamet, I’ll just point them to this blog entry.  Or maybe I’ll avoid dialogue altogether and simply punch them in the face.

’50s and ’60s French chanson singer Jacques Brel is famous for creating a lot of bitingly witty music, but he is perhaps most infamous for writing the song that later became ’70s pop hit “Seasons In The Sun.” The song has a strange history, though. Originally written from the viewpoint of a dying man bidding farewell to his adulterous wife and her lover, the chorus of the song exclaimed, “I want laughs, I want dances when they are putting me in the hole.” Brel’s American songwriter/poet friend Rod McKuen recorded “Le Moribond” with translated lyrics, retaining the main ghist and chord structure of the song but replacing the chorus with the familiar “We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun” refrain. Terry Jacks diluted the song even further by discarding the story of the wife and any cynicism that might have carried over from the original. For this reason, people who don’t really know Brel (or McKuen) might be tempted to write him off as a maudlin songwriter, and that would be a mistake.

Although this video has English subtitles, I wanted to look up the original French lyrics and translate them myself, just to demonstrate how different “Le Moribond” is from “Seasons In The Sun.” Forgive me if I didn’t do that great of a job:

Goodbye Emile, I liked you well
Goodbye to you, Emile, I liked you well you know
We sang about the same wines
We sang about the same girls
We sang about the same sorrows
Goodbye, Emile, I will die
To die in spring is hard, you know
But I depart to the flowers with peace in my heart
And because you are as good as white bread
I know that you will take care of my wife

I want laughter
I want dancing
I want you to amuse yourself like you are insane
I want laughs
I want dances
When they are putting me in the hole

Goodbye my priest, I liked you well
Goodbye to you, my priest, I liked you well you know
We were not on the same side
Our path was not the same
But we sought the same heaven
Goodbye my priest, I will die
To die in spring is hard, you know
But I depart to the flowers with peace in my heart
Because considering you were her confidant
I know that you will take care of my wife

(Refrain)

Goodbye Antoine, I did not like you much
Goodbye to you, Antoine, I did not like you much, you know
I am dying today
Whereas you are quite alive
And even more solid than trouble
Goodbye Antoine, I will die
To die in spring is hard, you know
But I depart to the flowers with peace in my heart
Because considering you were her lover
I know that you will take care of my wife

(Refrain)

Goodbye my wife, I liked you well
Goodbye to you, my wife, I liked you well you know
But I travel by train to the good Lord
I travel by train before you do
But all must travel by that train
Goodbye my wife, I will die
To die in spring is hard you know
But I depart to the flowers with closed eyes, my wife
Because considering I often closed them
I know that you will take care of my soul

(Refrain)

Texas starts a month-long “Click It Or Ticket” campaign targeted at drivers on rural roads. - Corpus Christi Caller Times, May 11, 2009

If you’ve been watching TV at all for the past week, you’ve seen one of these commercials. Despite being financed by the state of Texas, they have pretty impressive production values. (So far I’ve only seen the one with the insect-like swarms of citation tickets and the one with teenagers acting like UFO abductees.) What is clear to me is that the people behind this campaign have put a lot more thought into advertising it than the state of Texas did when it became a law.

There are some legal issues that I take a Libertarian stance on, and this is one of them. The law exists to protect the rights of American citizens, not to take them away. Seatbelts are not designed to keep you from crashing into another car and killing somebody - they’re only designed to reduce the chance that you might die in a wreck. If you decide not to wear a seatbelt, you are infringing on nobody’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but your own, and there’s nothing in the Constitution that says that the law is supposed to protect you from yourself. As many opponents of this stupid, rhyming law have pointed out, there are plenty of things that aren’t illegal - eating, drinking, texting, shaving - that drivers still do to endanger the lives of other drivers. Why the seatbelt law? Because it’s easier to enforce?

I do differ from the opposition on one point - I don’t believe that the government or police force are doing this to increase their income. I think that this entire thing was imagined by genuinely well-intentioned people who are trying to perserve the sanctity of human life. Why do I think this? Because there are so many other laws on the books intended to prevent you from doing harm to yourself. You can’t even attempt to hang yourself without risking going to court for it. Besides, the problem with making money in fines is that you’re not going to keep a lot of it by running a billion television ads with slick production values.