2015 nominated films Straight Outta Compton and Steve Jobs

2/16/16 Freeheld, not nominated, 2015

Freeheld the 2015 movie was based on the 2007 Oscar-winning documentary short also called Freeheld. The movie stars Julianne Moore as Laurel Hester and Ellen Page as her partner Stacie Andree; Hester and Andree were a lesbian couple living in Ocean County, New Jersey in the early 2000s. Hester was a police officer for twenty-five years, but when she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, the Freeholders (the governing body of the county) denied her partner access to her pension, even though the state of New Jersey allowed for that. The movie begins with Hester on a stakeout and shows the early days of her relationship with Andree. It also shows her relationship with her police partner, Dane Wells (Michael Shannon); Hester has hidden her orientation from Wells, which he resents at first, but he becomes her (and Andree's) staunchest ally. Steve Carell is Steven Goldstein, founder and co-chair of Garden State Equality, the organization that leads the charge against the Freeholders. After an overwhelming battle, one that should make you angry, Stacie Andree is allowed to receive Laurel Hester's pension. I liked the movie, I didn't love it. I love Julianne Moore, but at first it was very distracting to see her with blonde, Farrah Fawcett hair. Ellen Page is as far from Juno as she could be, and she portrays Stacie Andree with a vulnerability and tenderness and a quiet determination to take care of her partner, despite being thwarted by the insurance and medical system. It's a wonderful love story, but the focus moves from Andree and Hester, to Goldstein and his organization's fight with the Freeholders, and to the Freeholders themselves, and also Hester's police colleagues. It didn't flow as well as it could have. Maybe if I hadn't seen the documentary, I would not have had my own thoughts as to how the story could be told. It's too bad it didn't find more of an audience at the box office, maybe it will in the DVD/streaming world. It's definitely a needed reminder that the GLBT community has fought for equal treatment, and continues to fight for it.

2/19/16 Straight Outta Compton, nominated Best Original Screenplay, 2015

I am no expert on hip hop music, not even a little bit (even though I do have Bone Thugs-n-Harmony's "Home" in my playlist), so Straight Outta Compton was all pretty 'new' stuff to me, or framed a different way, it took some events with which I was familiar and placed them in the context of hip hop music. N.W.A. comprised Eazy-E, Ice Cube (played by Ice Cube's son O'Shea Jackson, Jr.), and Dr. Dre. The movie starts before the band existed, when the individuals were getting into various degrees of trouble while trying to make their music. Things change when Eazy-E meets Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti), who becomes the band's manager, but also, ultimately the cause of their break up. In a lot of ways, the story of N.W.A. is like a lot of bands: friends who enjoy making music together, get their break, then break up because of a manager/girlfriend/money squabbles. They made socially charged music that spoke to thousands (millions?) of kids, again, not all that different from music of the sixties, except instead of metaphors and euphemisms, N.W.A used specifics, named names if you will. I liked Straight Outta Compton; I thought the first 30-40 minutes looked really dark, but since this happens to me a lot, I'm not sure if it was a cinematography choice or my 20 year old television, but it was hard for me to tell who was who - also an issue I experience when there are more than three main characters :(. I appreciated the story that the movie was trying to tell more given the current social/racial challenges we face in this country; sadly, it doesn't seem like things are all that different in 2016 from 1985. There were some good young actors in the movie, Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, Jackson as Ice Cube and Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre. I probably would not recommend this to my mom, but I would watch it with my brother. It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay which is actually a pretty strong category this year with entries like Bridge of Spies, Ex Machina, Inside Out and Spotlight.

2/20/16 Steve Jobs, nominated Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, 2015 

If I would have written this review yesterday after watching Steve Jobs, it would have been a few words and none of them very nice. But since I have an obligation to my dedicated readers, I'll try to expound a little more. I saw Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, a documentary on Steve Jobs and I wasn't all that impressed. Now I've watched this biopic and I'm even less so.  Steve Jobs shows us Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender in an Oscar nominated role) at a few major product unveilings, beginning 1984. Writer Aaron Sorkin uses the very intense moments leading up to the product drops to pour every ounce of tension and conflict that can possibly fit into those 'few minutes' and show us how driven Jobs was. Because we didn't know this before? The only person who can stand up to Jobs, poking him like a Polish Jiminy Cricket is Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet also in an Oscar nominated role), a marketing executive at Apple and neXT. She also tries to get him to acknowledge and engage with his daughter, Lisa. For most of the movie, Jobs denies that Lisa is his daughter, only reluctantly giving her mother money or spending time with her. I felt badly for Lisa, as well as the three men (Steve Wozniak, John Sculley and Andy Hertzfeld) who return to all of the product releases, either because they are hopeful for reconciliation with Jobs or they're masochists. I didn't care; Jobs is a narcissist, and we get that for almost the entire movie, and whether the last scene, which shows Jobs and Lisa connecting at last, is true, it comes too late for me to care. You cannot be an asshole for 110 minutes and then get redemption in the last 10. There were some great rants and ravings, which you would expect from Aaron Sorkin, but unlike the rantings that I loved in The West Wing, The Newsroom (if you haven't seen that, it is so good and made me love Jeff Daniels) or A Few Good Men, I really didn't care. The best rant was when Wozniak (Seth Rogen) goes off on Jobs near the end of the movie. Fassbender and Winslet were both good, but you expect nothing less, but I don't think either one will or should win the Oscar. Leo will probably win Best Actor and I am hoping that Alicia Vikander takes the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in The Danish Girl. She shows a greater range of emotions and there is more of a story arc and development for her character.

One week from tonight I will be blogging my running commentary of the Oscar night proceedings. We'll see what Chris Rock has to say about all the craziness leading up to the Oscars, what people are wearing and I hope you join me in a prayer that the ceremony lasts less than four hours.