The Revenant - we may agree to disagree

Twenty-one movies to go; it was supposed to be 20 but I fell asleep during one of the documentaries last night and I have to re-watch it. So far, things look good, but I'll probably miss the foreign films and a couple of big films that I missed in the theater and aren't on DVD until March. But, despite being behind the eight ball, I still fit in a non-nominated movie last week.

1/28/16 Pawn Sacrifice, not nominated, 2015

Pawn Sacrifice is a bio-pic of Bobby Fischer, the chess genius who suffered from severe paranoia. Toby Maguire is Fisher and Liev Schreiber plays his nemesis, Boris Spassky. We meet Bobby as a young chess prodigy with a laser focus on becoming the best chess player in the world, and doesn't let anyone stand in his way, except perhaps himself and his occasionally outrageous demands. When I saw the trailer for the movie, I was very interested in seeing it, but it really didn't live up to what I thought it would be. I'm not sure exactly what that was, but it lacked something. I have mentioned before, but I will say it again, if you are going to use subtitles (99% of Schreiber's dialog, and the other Russian characters, was in Russian) then they should be in a font that can be read on the movie screen as well as on television. Having said that, I missed out on any important tidbits that Spassky and others might have said. I got bored, which is too bad, because I think it's an interesting topic from an interesting period of time for international politics.

1/31/16 The Revenant, nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Bests Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, 2015

I'm going to say this now: a lot of people are not going to like this review and disagree vehemently with me, but I did not LOVE The Revenant, nor do I think it's the best movie from this year. Sorry, but I don't. I will say that the cinematography is spectacular; I would love to have some stills from the film, and I will also say that Leonardo DiCaprio is very good as Hugh Glass and Tom Hardy is good as Mumbles, I mean John Fitzgerald. There is very little dialog in the film, comparatively less than the other movies, and that turns out to be a bonus because most of the spoken word is mumbled and unintelligibly. This tells me that the words aren't important, and I could probably have figured out what was happening without any words at all. A very high level synopsis (because it is almost three hours long): Glass and his son, Hawk, are part of a fur trapping party in the Western territories of the US. They are attacked by the Arikara and must flee. Glass is attacked by a bear (I didn't expect them to use a real bear, but there was something that screamed 'animatronic' to me) and almost killed. Fitzgerald wants to leave him, in part because he dislikes Glass's half-Indian son, and he doesn't want to be burdened by the near-dead Glass. As Fitzgerald tries to secretly kill Glass, Hawk sees and tries to stop him, but Fitzgerald kills him. He and Jim Bridger leave Glass half-buried and try to catch up with the rest of the trapping party. Glass comes back from the dead and begins tracking Fitzgerald and Bridger. This is where it gets long. As he hunts Fitzgerald, the Arikara are hunting them. I should mention that it is winter time in the Dakota/Wyoming territory and they are at some altitude. I kind of started to get irritated when Glass tries to hide in the river (it's winter, remember) and gets swept away, down some rapids, and seems to go for at least a few miles. He crawls out of the river and eventually builds a fire. I later asked my two friends, who are outdoor people and camped last year in Ely, Minnesota IN THE WINTER TIME, about hypothermia and frostbite, and they were pretty sure that would be some severe damage. But Glass persists, eating a raw bison heart or some organ, as one does when the drive through isn't available. Later, Glass takes a horse from some French trappers and skedaddles when he is chased yet again. This time, he and the horse go flying off of a cliff and smack into a very tall pine tree; well, Glass does, the poor horse immediately proves gravity exists. It was at that exact moment I looked at my young friend and said "I call bullshit." (that previously would have cost me a couple dollars for his college education, but hanging around with me is priceless) Not only is Glass NOT killed, he actually gets up and is moving around a lot better than when he could barely get on the horse a few minutes earlier. I was using the reclining feature in my seat but I became deathly afraid I would fall asleep, thus sacrificing all of my cool points with said young friend. I really stopped caring. The attraction of the beautiful scenery and any good acting just fell by the wayside. I really don't think this is the best movie of the year; Room is my favorite, but if not that, then Spotlight or The Big Short. DiCaprio is very good and he'll probably take it; Eddie Redmayne is outstanding in The Danish Girl, but I think it's long odds that he would win two years in a row, and I don't think the others are really in contention. So, it's off the list and now moves to the "I don't need to see this again" pile. Onward ho.

Lesson learned: Don't go camping with Leonardo DiCaprio, it doesn't end well.