2015 nominees and more: Nightcrawler, American Sniper, The Good Lie

So far, I have watched all but 18 of the nominated films. I have avoided The Hobbit part 3 because it's just too long to sit in a theater and I stopped caring, and I could have watched Inherent Vice today on-demand, but that was 148 minutes and I'm not up for paying $9.99 for the privilege, so I'll wait until it gets to  the library. If the body and spirit are willing, I will see Still Alice and maybe Two Days, One Night tomorrow.

2/13/15 Nightcrawler, nominated for Best Original Screenplay, 2014

This movie was out in Cleveland when I visited in December and my brother really wanted to see it, but I wussed out. It seemed too 'scary' for me. Back then I had a sneaky feeling that it would be nominated for something, if only to torture me. And sure enough, Dan Gilroy was nominated for his original screenplay. Crap. I put on my big girl pants and watched it at home. It was not scary, but suspenseful, so it was still creepy, but I was able to handle it. My brother, on the hand, was irritated that I watched it. Jake Gyllenhaal is Louis Bloom, kind of a scavenger type, trying to make a buck. He comes upon an accident and sees cameramen (including Bill Paxton) filming the scene and learns that they will sell the video to any news station that will pay. Louis is a very quick study and buys some equipment and begins selling his footage, which tends to be more gruesome than his competitors, to a news station managed by Nina Romina (Rene Russo). He also hires an 'intern' Rick Carey (Riz Ahmed) to drive and help him. Bloom is just creepy looking, with greasy hair pulled back and this tense, wiry body and a speech pattern that is unnerving. Bloom learns that the more graphic the footage, the more money he can get, and that leads him to cross more than a few ethical and moral lines. Nina seems to have no compunction about putting it on the air, and her relationship with Louis evolves from a purely business transaction to a dramatic shift in power in Louis' favor. It did not end how I thought it would, that's for sure. I thought Gyllenhaal's performance was really great (creepy, but great) and powerful. He is a total sociopath. The Best Actor category is full of great nominees, and it's inevitable that someone would get left off the list, but Gyllenhaal was certainly worthy of consideration. I liked the movie a lot more than I thought I would, which is maybe why it made a bigger impression on me. I thought it was an intelligently written script.

2/14/15 American Sniper nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, 2014

The last movie that I can recall that created such intense conversation (or vitriol) is The Last Temptation of Christ, and I don't think it was really the same kind of controversy. I tried not to read too much of the reviews, criticisms or analyses of American Sniper because I wanted to see it with as open a mind as possible. American Sniper, stars Bradley Cooper as real-life Navy SEAL and sniper, Chris Kyle. Kyle was Kyle was killed by a young man he was trying to help, but before he died, Kyle wrote an autobiography/memoir and some of what he wrote is what is at the heart of the controversy. I didn't read the book, so I cannot comment (some issues have been settled in the courts); other comments have been made that the movie glorifies war, and since it's a fact-based movie, there are complaints about events not being portrayed accurately. As far as the movie is concerned, I really liked it. I thought Bradley Cooper did a tremendous job playing Kyle, he seemed to convey the intensity of his job as well as his love for his family and his conflicted feelings of being away from his family, but his desire to stay and protect his fellow soldiers. Sienna Miller played Kyle's wife Taya, and I thought she was okay, not great (I have heard Miller's name many times, but had to look up what movies she had been in, and lo and behold, she was in my least favorite nominee Foxcatcher as well). Clint Eastwood is a much better director than an actor, in my opinion, and he manages to get incredible performances out of actors, like Cooper. In my opinion, there is nothing about the movie that glorifies war, if showing someone's best pals getting blown away is 'glorification'. I think it shows the brutality of war and the effects of war on the participants and the families. It's worth seeing, and you can make up your own mind about Chris Kyle and the wars in which he fought.

2/14/15 The Good Lie, not nominated, 2014

This is another movie from 2014 that was based on a true story which was also told in the documentary The Lost Boys of Sudan. The big name in the film is Reese Witherspoon who plays Carrie Davis who works at an employment agency, but she is really a supporting role here, the stars are the Sudanese refugees who play Sudanese refugees, Mamere, Jeremiah, Paul and Abital. These four, plus older brother Theo, leave Sudan as young children and make their way , thousands of miles, avoiding soldiers and wild animals, to a refugee camp in Kenya. Theo gets captured, and his absence and self-sacrifice stay with the other four, especially Mamere, his real brother, as they grow up in the camp and then move to America. The four are part of a group of refugees who won the lottery and get to come to America, to cities like Boston, Fargo and Kansas City. I was moved by this story when I watched the documentary (crying, I might add) and I was moved by The Good Lie as well. America is made up by the story immigrants; immigrants from Europe, South America, Asia and Africa, and this is a 21st century immigrant story. The movie is probably not as real and harsh as the real experience, but it's a movie, and I'm okay with that (maybe because I have seen other documentaries on the topic). It is still touching to see these young people fly to America (they had never flown before), try to eat airplane food, understand how the phone works, and to appreciate the miracle that is pizza, oh, and learn English. It's charming to see how the young men (Abital, being a girl, is separated from her friends and is sent to Boston whereas the boys are sent to Kansas City) bond with Carrie and her boss, Jack (Corey Stoll), and also try to maintain ties to their roots. The movie was rated PG-13, and I can only think it's because of the war scenes early on, and perhaps the minor drug use, because there is no sex and very little swearing. It may not seem like a typical family movie, but I would recommend it. The title is explained in the movie, and I would hate to spoil it for you, but it was very powerful.

2/16/15 Thoth, Best Documentary Short Subject, 2001

Thoth is adopted name of Stephen Kaufman (born c. 1956), a street performer, who at the time of this documentary, is living and performing in New York City. I don't now that my one-dimensional description of Thoth or his work will do it justice. Thoth's attire is reminiscent of the Aztec or Mayans, but his performance is classically infused, he plays the violin and sings in an operatic voice, but the words of his own language, while dancing. Yeah, it's hard to describe. Stephen Kaufman's mother is from Barbados and she was a world-class timpani player and his father was a doctor of Russian-Jewish heritage. The unlikely couple divorced after several years of marriage, and Stephen had a difficult relationship with his father, and he also suffered from the racism of the time and developed his own universe. Thoth is very well-spoken and thoughtful when he describes his life and his art and choices he has made. There was something about Thoth and his story that was compelling to me. I would have loved another 30-40 minutes of documentary, but there you go. This was available on Netflix if you are so inclined.

2/20/2015 Lucy, 2014
I want my dollar back from the library.