All evening I’ve felt very depressed like something was missing or was not quite right in my world. And as I drove home from bowling, it struck me. I watched United 93 this afternoon and I couldn’t shake the feeling of despair and death from the film. We went to Blockbuster earlier this week to see if any Oscar movies had been released and found three: Marie Antoinette, An Inconvenient Truth and United 93. I remember a shocked awe that came over the crowd when the nominees were announced last month and Paul Greenglass was nominated in for this film in the best director category. Not only were people shocked, but they are mostly certain that he has no chance at all. Nada. Not with Eastwood and Scorsese battling it out on the cinematic battleground.

Unless you live in a cave in Tibet, you know this film is about 9/11, and it’s the second film I’ve seen on this. I saw World Trade Center earlier this year and felt it was so so (Maybe if they left out celebrity casting like this gem does, it would’ve been better). Donna and I had recorded Flight 93 on television, and I actually still don’t know what the difference is between that and United 93. I do know that this one hit closest to home for me, literally. United 93 crashed in Somerset County less than 2 hours from my hometown. And we can postulate that it was a darn good thing it crashed since it was supposedly headed for D.C. Now I am not going to conspiracy theorize of anything with you, but how do we really know? Greenglass does a fine job of making a tasteful movie, but the only thing we know for sure that happened on that plane was what passengers said to people who they called before they all blew up and died. And Greenglass made his film around that.

I’ll admit. I cried. I sit here writing this, looking at the small TV where I watched the second plane crash into the WTC on CNN, and I watched my daughter play around me as I watched the movie earlier. She will never know a world without 9/11. She will never know the taken for granted freedoms we once had. It bugged me that Greenglass almost seemed to attempt to get into the psyche of the terrorists in the film, as if he knew what they were thinking. And how white everyone but the terrorists were in the film. The film bugged me. It bugged me that as with my grandparents before me who know where they were when Pearl Harbor was bombed or my parents who know where they were when Kennedy was shot, and now I won’t forget where I was in Sept 11, 2001. I was in my bedroom in our first apartment getting ready for work watching on a small Emerson CRT television. And I sit here writing this, I wonder where my daughter will be when the next big catastrophe happens.

Greenglass has a snowballs chance in hell for the directing nod, but maybe if the Academy wants to throw the auteur a bone it’ll come in the shape of a film editing Oscar, even though there are some heavy hitters there, as well. We will see if the five year old largest catastrophe on American soil, and the third film about it, can come away with a solitaire award on Oscar night.

Earlier I had reviewed Notes on a Scandal and lauded Judi Dench’s voice over narration, but here, in Little Children, those same techniques become too much, too often, and remind me of Emma Watson’s narration of Stranger than Fiction on Crack. That was just the beginning of my problems with Little Children. This film critique is almost oxymoronic in that there was so many things I really enjoyed about the movie, but at the same time there’s a ton I didn’t enjoy. There are those movies that just make you want to analyze them over and over again, but the problem here is that everytime I attempted to answer a question posed for the audience, I realized that we never did get those answers. Why was Jean mad at Sarah? Did Ronnie live? And what was up with Richard?

Little Children should’ve been the smart intersection of four separate life stories all entangled in subterfuge, lost and loneliness in suburbia, but I really didn’t get that. I got the mopey housewife who once had potential and, dressed, looked only a step better than Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich. Sarah Pierce, played by Kate Winslet, is stuck in a drole life where her husband would rather masturbate to internet porn than pay attention to her. He’s on-screen long enough to be caught and then we don’t see much of him, at all. Sarah’s lover Brad’s (Patrick Wilson) wife, played nicely be Jennifer Connely almost feels like the most talented actor in the film and isn’t given much credit. Throughout she wants Brad to take the bar for the third time, but we don’t know why he never passes. I suppose he doesn’t want to really be a lawyer and would rather play with his son in the park or watch the local skaters. Sarah seems happy in her boring life where she absolutely nothing to worry about. (Her house is paid for and her daughter’s a dear.)

In a seemingly enigmatic parallel plot line, a convicted pedophile has been released from prison and moved into the neighborhood with his elderly mother. Jackie Earle Haley, former child star from The Bad News Bears, plays this predator with acidic aplomb who, at times, the audience can almost feel sorry for. He is sickening to look at, but the entire plot around the town’s obsession with his arrival did nothing for the film and didn’t seem to mesh with the affair Brad & Sarah begin in the local park — other than the obvious link between lust & playground antics.

It seemed that whenever Tood Fields wasn’t sure how to show a scene, he just decided not to. Instead he had some faceless narrator tell the audience what was about to happen, and by doing so, treated us as if we weren’t intelligent enought to figure it out for ourselves. Unfortunately for Sarah, Ronnie, and for us, Fields dropped his voice over narration toward the crucial end, where he left us high and dry. These Little Children went home to bed without as much of a good night, let alone any explanation whatsoever. I guess after Marie Antoinette and, now Little Children, it was the week of ignoring the audience for the sake of art.

I’ll admit that I was really waiting for this one. It came out some months ago, and I so enjoyed Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides and her relationship with Spike Jonze (who, to my dismay, eventually divorced) that I thought that Marie Antoinette was sure to be a winner. Damn, was I wrong. Sure, the initial reviews weren’t great, but I was willing to overlook them. Especially after I acquired the brilliant soundtrack and watched the trailer multiple times, but I was disappointed that all the "good stuff" was right there in the trailer. When I saw the film it fell completely short. The soundtrack linked the classical sounds of the late 18th century France with contemporary music like Aphex Twins & Bow Wow Wow, and with Sofia Coppola at the helm I hoped to drink this film like a tall, cool glass of fresh originality built around an intriguing story and brilliant soundtrack, but all I got was rain water and soggy lifelessness.

Now don’t get me wrong. I like Dunst, but she sometimes reminds me of the female Keanu Reeves, who I never ever ever forget IS Keanu Reeves and not the embodiement of the role. This film chronicles Antoinette’s life from being handed over to France after being stripped away of all belongings (except a nude, not-so-invisble thong over her near anorexic body) to the exile from Versailles at the heighth of the French Revolution. Coppola seemed to attempt to convey the language of the film through imagery, and it is with that goal she fell short. This is NOT Lost in Translation, but it felt like she attempted a period piece along that same vein. Although I would enjoy seeing her attack more period pieces, a talent that can only grow with time and travesty. As for the language of imagery in the film. My god, give me some lines! Some dialogue! Tell your audience what’s going on. Shakespeare in Love not only told the neophyte Shakespeareans what was happening, but it was also smart enough for Elizabethan scholars. Marie Antoinette expects you to know everything there is to know about the life and times of Marie Antoinette and offers nothing to you in terms of plot. It just moves forward as if her audience all just finished reliving all events in 1790s France.This doesn’t work for me.

What does work for me is the Costume Design. Milena Canonero has a long line of nominations behind her starting with Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, Chariot’s of Fire, and Out of Africa. It has been a while since Canonero has won, and she’s due again. In a category as mish-mashed as the structure of this film, Canonero is sure to shine on Oscar night.

Donna hates scary film trailers and in a world of Tivo, we don’t watch commercials anymore. It’s to the point where sometimes the commercials come on, and she will pause for a while so she can then fast forward through them. So anyway, she doesn’t watch scary previews, and some people would say that Pan’s Labyrinth falls into this category, and I suppose I thought it would be scarier than it was. I also thought it would be underworld and less above world, but I did enjoy del Toro’s allegory of the struggles for indepence against the Spanish facist regime in 1944 Spain. Of course, I also forgot that it was subtitled.

It bothered me a whole two minutes before I became mesmerized by the cineatic filters and the subtle undertones of military conflicts between the Captain’s army stationed at the mill and the rebels in the mountains surrounding the area. Ofelia, lost in a world of make-believe and fairies, has recently lost her tailor father and her mother has remarried to give the captain an heir and to save herself in the midst of revolution at world wars. Ofelia rebels against the world as it is and slips into a fantasy world that the viewer never rectifies. She is supposedly the underworld’s princess and lost daughter of the King of the Underworld. She is told all of this by Pan (played phenomenally by Doug Jones who you will later see as the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) who also plays Pale Man –both of whom are the most cinematic characters in the tale. I trusted Pan almost as much as I trust Severus Snape (at least until this summer). I won’t give away the ending or this on, dear readers. I will tell you I enjoyed it. Moreover, I am pleasantly surprised by it’s five nominations this year, and I would guarantee it will win at least one that will remain nameless and maybe others.

Yes, I am being ambiguous on purpose here. I can’t give away all my secrets. Until Little Children.

Every year there’s that one movie that just makes you feel so good about yourself. This year it’s Little Miss Sunshine, and the sun sure was shining on us today as we watched this one. I hate to say it, but this film has some tough competition in the categories where it’s nominated. The best shot it has is Alan Arkin who plays "Grandpa". His breakaway scene is when he tells Olive Hoover, the heroine of our film played amazingly by the talented Abigail Breslin, how much he loves her, before locking himself in a hotel bathroom to sort Heroine, which subsequently kills him. The humor that enfolds as they steal his body to continue their trip to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in California reminds me of National Lampoon’s but he’s stuffed in the trunk rather than tied to the roof. This was only one of the several well-placed comedic scenes in this film. Arkin is up against some heavy hitters (see my last post on the jauggernaut that is Dreamgirls), and he has never won. Sorry, Al, but this isn’t your year either.

Against The Queen, Iwo Jima, and The Departed for Best Picture, it’s difficult not to throw the levity of a feel good movie a bone by nominating in here, but we all know the record of comedic wins in this category. Far and few between.

As an ensemble, it’s a brilliant movie, but the Academy doesn’t recognize ensembles, and that’s too bad. Breslin was fine in this film and has a career, if she doesn’t fall into the child star syndrome. Kinnear has been better, and I’ve never liked Toni Collette. She’s ugly. My opinion. Yes, ugly. Uglier than Steve Buscemi. Sorry, but she was the scariest thing in Sixth Sense and since. Now let’s talk about Paul Dando and Steve Carrell. Unless you’ve lived in a cave in Tibet during the last 18 months, you know Carrell, and he’s wonderful here as the suicidal, out-of-work, gay professor uncle who is being babysat by his sister’s family so he doesn’t try to slit his wrists again. His stark white outfit fits well against the bright banana (or should I say sun?) color of the VW bus they need to push start everytime the stop somewhere. Dando plays well as Brelin’s older brother whose 9-month vow of silence ends 3/5 of the way through the film. I last saw him in The Girl Next Door as the mysterious penis man, and he’s come a long way since.

I checked Oscar.com as soon as I could following the film, in hopes it is nominated for Costume & Cinematography, but to no avail. It was denied in both categories, which was a travesty in itself.

A fun evening movie with some great laughs, and definitely a true contrast to today’s earlier Notes on a Scandal.

Ever eat chocolate fondue, sushi, and baked brie? On Donna’s birthday we had all three –together. Is that odd? For some people it isn’t. For me, it’s not. During summers before Claire was born, Donna and I’d see films Friday mornings at 10AM the day they’d come out. Now we barely get to see any movies at all. Julie has been offering to watch Claire for a few weeks now, and today we took her up on it. We saw the heavy-hitting drama Notes on a Scandal during the sunny Saturday afternoon, and, even though it was more of an evening movie, it worked for us.

I feel badly for Judi Dench. Not because of her performance, because there wasn’t anything bad about it–at all. I feel badly because Notes on a Scandal came out the same year as The Queen. Neither are up for best Picture, but both have best Actress heavyweights. (To see my review on The Queen, scroll down.) This one is all about Dench. She’s such an elegant, talented woman that she can mesh herself into any role from Proulx’s ancient matriarch to the Queen of the free world to a lesbian psycho-spinster who lives vicariously through younger, beautiful, successful women. Barbara Covett (Dench) is the history department chair at a British school whose former art teacher has left for reasons unknown when the movie begins. Cate Blanchett dances into the role of the new art teacher with aplomb and blonde hair that glistens like a beacon in a dreary school yard where she becomes the focus of a 15-year-old paramour. A paramour who Blanchett permits to seduce her, since she’s in a drole life as Bill Nighy’s younger wife whose children are a young boy with Down Syndrome and a teenage girl the same age as her lover.

Notes on a Scandal is just that. A refreshingly original plot narrated in voice over by Dench who interprets the actions of the film in her off-kiltered, soul-searching way. She inhibits every scene seamlessly weaving intrigue, lust, envy, and blackmail into a tail that comes down to lost love, obsession, and pure loneliness. Blanchett shines as Sheba who struggles against herself, but she fails to convince me of how bad her life really is. She has inherited a lovely old row house outside of London, her writer husband adores her, her daughter seems as dysfunctional as the rest of us, and her son is the love of her life. What more can she want? I suppose Dench just wants to replace her former obsession with a new one, and cares more about her cat than the people around her.

In the alternative-universe where Marky Mark & Eddie Murphy are up for Oscars, the media has run away with Jennifer Hudson who does NOT deserve an Oscar. Come on, Dreamgirls is her first role EVER! She hasn’t paid her due. Blanchett has, and continues to do so. I will continue to see Blanchett movies, but Hudson needs to prove herself to me. But once again, I found myself living in this alterative universe, that only you my dear readers can make right by realigning the stars by giving Blanchett the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress & Martin Scorsese his first win ever for the aforereviewed The Departed.

The cyclic ending to Notes on a Scandal is bittersweet, pleasing to the palette while still keeping true to the travesties of life. The movie is exactly what I thought it would be. A wonderfully delicious romp somewhere in the bowels of clandestine subterfuge between two talented, deserving Oscar nominated actresses.

Ok, folks. Wow. This one. I don’t know. WOW. I guess I could begin by saying that I responded more viscerally to this movie than all others I’ve seen so far on my quest to see "most" of the Oscar movies (that matter). This movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou as two men whose lives interweave in the midst of the civil conflicts of Sierra Leone in the late 90s. I’ve seen several DiCaprio movies over the years, and most of the time I can’t get over DiCario being DiCaprio. I read and saw reviews that mentioned that perhaps he actually played a role in this movie rather than playing himself pretending to play a role. I haven’t seen Hounsou since In America, and I loved him in that.

Here comes the SPOILER… DiCaprio’s drug smuggler with a conscience and Hounsou’s father figure who struggles to reunite his family come together to make one of the most powerful movies of the year. I enjoyed DiCaprio in The Aviator, but I think he’s even better here. His accent is precious and his struggle with himself throughout this film leads to a his subsequent demise for the sake of so many others.

If I had to pick leading man today DiCaprio may have my vote,,,

And I can’t leave here without Maddy Bowen, Jennifer Connelly’s print journalist. She was awesome in Requiem for a Dream and pretty damn good in A Beautiful Mind as Alicia Nash. She plays a journalist who wants to story about the diamond smugglers and tying them to some of the largest jewelers in the world. She, as we’re sure to see, falls for DiCaprio because she sees his inner good guy, which comes to pass. She concludes our tale with Hounsou in a very satisfying end.

Coming next…… Notes on a Scandal, Little Miss Sunshine & Little Children.

I am kind of cheating with this one, since Donna and I saw this months ago. I think part of the reason we saw it was the star power. Scorsese, Nicholson, DiCaprio, Kietel, Damon, Baldwin, Wahlberg, etc… Believe me, I think it’s hilarious that Marky Mark is up for an Oscar for best supporting, and I KNOW he will NOT win. His nomination is enough, but jeez, he just friggin’ annoyed me in this movie. It’s been so long, I don’t even remember if he lived or died. Hopefully died, I guess.

Damon & DiCaprio were wonderful as the two cops who were good or bad, or both. Who knows? I didn’t. Nicholson is Nicholson, and he’s always good, even when he’s playing bad, which he does so good in this movie. It’s a relative travesty that Wahlberg got the nod over Nicholson.

When I saw American Beauty in 1999 I walked out of the AMC 24 and I KNEW it would be an Oscar contender, which it was. Scorsese’s ready. He’s the turkey and the timer has popped. It’s his time. But what else will it win? Can he pair his best director with a best picture? We surely will see. It’s a front runner, that’s for sure.

Ok maybe you can say, "but Devon, this isn’t a REAL Oscar movie!". If you think that, go tell John Lasseter. Part of Lasseter’s vision for Pixar is to make sure each and every movie he makes has a PLOT. And CARS does. Little Lightning McQueen (better known as "Stickers" by his love interest due to the sponsor ship logos all over him) is a hotshot race car who becomes lost and stuck in a small po-dunk town somewhere in the Southwest Desert (New Mexico? Arizona? Who knows…). He has to learn humility and what selflessness really is before he can get back on track (yeah, yeah pun intended).

The movie’s cute. Yes, cute. I know I cringe when I hear my Creative Writing students use this word about someone’s work. All of the hype of the year was worth it for this one, and I know I’ve not see Happy Feet or Haunted House, but it’s Pixar AND Disney. How can it lose next month? Best Animated is usually a shoo-in, but I’ll hold that card until after Happy Feet whose reviews definitely aren’t as good. I even cried during Cars when the older race car is shoved off the track and wrecks. Oh my! An Oscar contender makes me a shed a tear. Good job, Lasseter.

Ok so we saw Half Nelson tonight. I am sort of tired and it’s late. This was interesting since I too am a teacher, but I sure don’t smoke crack all night long. Ryan Gosling is up for Actor in a Leading role, and I am afraid to say that his nomination may be his reward. This isn’t because I don’t want him to win, because he was good. The best I’ve ever seen him, but he’s up against DiCaprio and Whitaker (and a few others who won’t win.)

Gosling plays David Dunne a crack smoking history teacher/basketball coach who wants to write a children’s book on dialectics, but instead he smokes too much crack and tries to screw a colleague. His ex is getting married and his parents wish he’d visit more often.

His beard bothered me, since it was all scraggily until the end. Shareeka Epps, his student, befriends him, and she does a fine job. This is her second role, a role she reprised from the short film of the same story line she did two years ago. She has a chance to be good, and she shows it in an understated muted role in this film where she attempts to juggle education and drug dealing on the inner city streets.

This film was good, but I felt it was slow. Forty-five minutes in felt like an hour fifteen. Early in the film Gosling tells another character that he’s a teacher to touch just one life. To change just one person, but it’s his character who needs touched, needs to be saved, and, by the end, Epps does just that. Nice ending.