Wonder Boys and Wonder Years

I should really stop trying to plan my weekends, especially my long weekends, mainly because they rarely turn out as I expect. This isn't always a bad thing, just an observation. Or maybe, this did turn out as I planned and I don't realize it. Out of the roughly 12 hours of movies I watched this weekend, only one has actually won an Oscar; one was given an honorary Oscar; one has not even officially been nominated; and the other collection has not been nominated at all. What, you may ask, was I thinking? Well, all will be clear shortly. I will start from the beginning.

11/28/13 Wonder Boys, Best Original Song, 2000

Wonder Boys stars Michael Douglas, Robert Downey, Jr., Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes and Rip Torn, and you have probably never heard of it. It takes place in a university setting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Michael Douglas plays Grady Tripp, a writing professor, who has had one very successful novel and not much else since. Robert Downey, Jr. is Terry Crabtree, Tripp's editor-in-waiting. Tobey Maguire is one of Douglas's students, James Leer, who has a very active and creative imagination, and regularly makes up stories about his existence (almost Gatsby-like, except Leer is downwardly-mobile). The movie covers a weekend at the university's creative writing event and follows Tripp as he deals with the apparent end of his marriage, his affair with the university's chancellor (Frances McDormand), his years long writer's block and James Leer's incredible creativity. There are a few running gags (the unfortunate passing of the dog, Poe; the circumstances surrounding Tripp's car) that are funny, and there are some pretty humorous scenes. It's a great opportunity to see Robert Downey, Jr. pre-Iron Man and he and Douglas have a few witty exchanges. But overall, I really didn't care. I do not know why, but there is something that really bugs me about Tobey Maguire. I cannot explain it, I just do not find him compelling to watch, or at least not long enough for a two-hour movie. Bob Dylan won the Oscar for "Things Have Changed", and it seemed to go well with the story. I've never been a huge Dylan fan, at least not of his singing, so I'll just leave it there.

11/29/13 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, honorary Academy Award, 1937, 34 on AFI 100

I am sure I have seen Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs before, but I don't think I have ever enjoyed it or appreciated it as much as I did this last time. This was Disney's first attempt at a full-length animated feature, it had not really been done by the other studios before either; the short-form was the norm. The animation is really good; the backgrounds are pretty static, but the moving characters or features are full of incredible detail, from water droplets to melting candles to the expressions on the animals.These were all hand-drawn. There is everything for a good story here (especially for kids): scary stuff (kids do like to be scared occasionally, especially when there is a 'happy' outcome), physical and verbal humor, dwarfs, fun songs and a happy ending. Visually the movie is colorful and easy to watch. The dwarfs are such a piece of the American consciousness and lexicon, we call people 'Dopey' or 'Sleepy' or my favorite, 'Grumpy' (I'm convinced that Thoren Oakenshield is Grumpy reincarnated). 'Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to work we go', who doesn't sing that occasionally, in mock derision of having to work in the 'mines'? The DVD I got from the library had a special features disk and that included a 'making of' featurette that helps place Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in an historical context and animation context. We all probably watched this as kids, but I am definitely glad I watched it again as an adult. So, do yourself a favor, and watch it over the holidays, and whistle while you work.

11/29/13 Philomena 2013, not nominated (yet)

Oscar time is fast approaching and I am frightfully behind on current movies. It may be my good fortune that many potential nominees aren't released until this time of the year and I am able to 'catch up' as it were. There has been some buzz that Dame Judi Dench will be nominated for her role in Philomena, and that was reason enough to get dressed and leave the house on Friday to go sit in a theater. Philomena is based on a true story and stars Judi Dench as Philomena Lee, who as a young Irish woman who was forced to give up her young son for adoption in the 1950s. Around her what would be her son's 50th birthday, Philomena decides that she wants to look for him; her daughter, who up until this point did know she had an older brother fully supports her mother and gets journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) to help with the search. Stephen Frears (The Queen, The Grifters, Prick Up Your Ears and more) directed and Coogan co-wrote the screenplay. The circumstances that surround what happened to Philomena and girls like her have been very well-documented and I think it's very easy to think this is a cut and dried matter, but Philomena's own struggle to come to terms with what happened and move on and forgive shows that it is not that easy. Martin Sixsmith actually tries to advocate for her and gets very angry on her behalf. Dench and Coogan work so well together, and it really is the two of them on screen for the majority of the time (you could almost make this a two-person play which could be quite interesting). Dench breaks your heart and then lifts you up with her spirit. I do not want to give away too many plot points because the movie just came out in the US, and hopefully this is enough to get you to see it. It's a people film, no special effects, no big musical numbers, just a true story with likable characters.

11/29/13 Now You See Me 2013, not nominated 

Now You See Me is a fun movie with a pretty decent cast (Midwest restraint keeps me from saying awesome) including Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, and Jesse Eisenberg. It's described as a 'caper film' or a 'heist film'. Four magicians/illusionists/mentalists are brought together to pull off some crazy mind-blowing tricks/stunts/illusions around the country. There is some good action, dialogue, and a few twists and turns along the way. I only mention it here because it's entirely possible it will be nominated for an Oscar for sound editing/mixing or editing. It was a nice way to wind down the evening and while the story had a lot of things going on, it didn't tax my pretty low emotional reserves. This would actually be a fun movie to watch with friends while eating pizza (I was eating turkey, and honestly, I don't think I need to see another piece of turkey for several months) and trying to figure out what's the next move or how they did this or that.

11/30/13 - 12/1/13 7 Up series through 56 Up, 1964 - 2012, not nominated

If you are interested in documentaries, either you are already familiar with the Up Series or you should you put them on your list. The Up series began following 14 kids in 1963 from different parts of England and different backgrounds. It originally started as a one-off show, as a way to compare and contrast 14 seven year olds, their thoughts, aspirations, concerns.There were fourteen children who were interviewed, but only four girls (three from the East End), and one boy who was black; the others were white boys from London, Yorkshire and Liverpool. Director Michael Apted turned it into a seven year cyclical event, kind of like the return of the cicadas. I have seen a few of the films in the past, but the library had the box set of all the films and I was compelled to watch all eight films at once (okay, over a period of two days). I was originally interested in the films (I think the first one I saw was 35 Up) was because I thought it was really cool to have this look back over twenty-eight years with different people to see how they had grown, changed, and to see living history (trust me, I wasn't always as much fun as I am today). The benefit of watching all the films so close together is that you don't have to wait seven years and there is more continuity to the stories and lives of the individuals; to be fair, though, Apted intercuts interviews from the previous films, so if you only wanted to watch 56 Up you could and still have a good idea of what happened (I wouldn't, but you could). Watching the interviews with the kids when they are seven years old is very much like talking to any seven year old (or collection of them), some are very creative and full of imagination, some are serious. The children went to a variety of schools: boarding schools, public schools, state schools, etc. As Apted points out in the interview with Roger Ebert in one of the bonus features, the initial film was very intent on showing a liberal/leftist point of view (in the 1960s, England was still a class oriented society). The later films may have a subtext of politics or class struggles, but those come more from the comments of the participants and what is happening in their lives than any 'forced' commentary. In 7 Up the children are very free with their thoughts, they don't self-edit themselves; by 14 Up and 21 Up, the now teenagers and young adults are a little more self-conscious (you can see in their body language they would rather be anywhere else) and reluctant to participate; it seems they were only 'required' to participate in the first two films, everything else was 'voluntary' (I use quotes because you definitely get the feeling that many of them feel like they can't quit the series no matter how unpleasant it is).  Because this covers such a long period of time, the participants experience life (the birth of children and grandchildren), death (many lose their parents over the course of filming), marriage, re-marriage, and some show more emotion and feeling than others. One thing that caught my attention around 21 Up was the reluctance that many of the participants had at being interviewed and how they felt that the public who were watching them didn't really understand them, but felt they knew the people. These films were started before the disgusting obsession we seem to have with reality television, and people going on television for the explicit reason to be famous and on the Internet. Several interviewees (Suzy, Nick, Charles and John among a few) mention that they don't like being recognized by the public and feel very uncomfortable. I think it would be very hard to start a project like this today because it would difficult to get such a 'pure' look at the interviewees; people today are so interested in their fifteen minutes of fame, I don't think it would resonate the same way. I hope they are able to carry on with the series; the next one would be 63 Up and if everything is on schedule it would be released in the UK around 2019.