Non-current Films I've Seen: Flash Reviews of Maps to the Stars, Gifted, Perks of Being a Wall Flower

Maps to the Stars (2014)-I watched this because I remember it coming out the year that Julianne Moore won her Oscar for the other film she was in (Still Alice). I also distinctly remember this being in the comedy/musical category of the Golden Globes, but wait, this film is directed by David Cronenberg?! Did he decide to mix things up and direct a light-hearted comedy? Nope, this is a macabre, twisted story and the Hollywood Foreign Press got it wrong as usual.

This film is extremely similar tonally to both Robert Altman's The Player and David Lynch's Mullholland Drive in deriving not just satire but genuine horror at the shallowness that pervades Hollywood life. Julianne Moore plays a has-been actress who isn't necessarily malicious but she's pretty soulless in her desperate quest for relevance. She's paralleled by a self-help guru, played by John Cusack, who's son (Evan Bird) is an extremely bratty child actor. There's also an opportunistic burn victim who represents the ingeneue looking to make her mark on Hollywood (think Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street if she chanted Wiccan prayers whenever she passed along the Hollywood Walk of Fame). The only halfway decent character might be the limo driver played by Robert Pattinson although he comes off as a little devoid. There's also a Hollywood director who will trade parts for sex, an entire clique of vapid child stars who enable Evan Bird's character, and a rival for a part that displays the kind of shallow flattery that lets us know in an instant just how fake this town is.

Like "The Player" which shifts gears midway from its broad ensemble satire to the perfect crime; or "Mullholland Drive" which segues to a Lesbian love story than a mobius strip; this film's satirical elements get overwhelmed midway for a more gruesome tragedy which makes the ending feel like something that's been tacked on to cover a superfluous detour from what was originally a better film.

Gifted (2017)-What a wonderful gem of a film. McKenna Grace (who was also in I Tonya AND How to be a Latin Lover in the same year, what a busybody of an 11 year old) plays a math prodigy who's mother committed suicide due to trying too hard to being a math genius. Her grandmother (Lindsay Duncan, the nasty critic in Birdman) was also a math genius and tries to get her granddaughter's custody so she can put her in "service to humanity" solving big math problems. On the other side of this custody hearing is McKenna's uncle who is an incredibly handsome and free-spirited Chris Evans. When he talks about how he went to go get laid the night that his sister committed suicide, it comes off as an odd humble brag.

No worries, Chris Evans isn't just a piece of meat. He's very solid here and his relationship to his niece carries a whollop of sentiment. This is also the first time I've really liked Jenny Slate, and the two are so cute together. I couldn't imagine Jenny Slate being a teacher somewhere and not having half the dads on parent-teacher night not massively crushing on her.

This is a film that is about the kinds of issues with genius, parenting, and growing up in an untraditional environment that you don't see often enough and the film has done its homework on these issues. It's also rare to see a film portrayed so richly from a child's point of view.

Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)-If your favorite off-the-grid indie rock band that you like to gloat about at parties because only you know about them were anthropomorphized into a film about the teenage experience, you'd get this film about a teenage outcast who's magically rescued from having to sit alone in lunch (the horror!) by a manic pixie dream set of siblings (MPDG played by Emma Watson and MPD Gay Best Friend played by Ezra Miller) who don't seem to have any basis in reality. That they would bond with him so instantaneously and unconditionally is a bit off as is the fact that they are step-siblings who voluntarily spend that much time with each other. Were they best friends first who parent-trapped their respective mom and dad?

Logan Lerman, who one year prior played Renaissance France's greatest heartthrob, D'artagnan in the Three Musketeers remake, plays the ugly duckling but he's not particularly convincing. He's obviously good looking so he comes off as a broody James Dean type instead. Perhaps if his part were switched with Ezra Miller, then we'd be getting somewhere.

Lerman's character, Charlie, plays into every stereotype for an indie hero: Wanna be writer, self-realization through indie music, crushing hard on an unattainable girl, etc. While the film has enough verisimilitude to the teenage experience to make it engaging, that doesn't mean that Charlie is by any means original.

Attempting to parse out a dense novel into a two-hour film shouldn't be this hard considering the writer of the novel is the screenwriter and director, but there seem to be a lot of threads that are massively under-resolved. Charlie deals with schizophrenia and black-outs and a molestation story line that all gets so little screen time that since it comes off as an afterthought that was thrown into the script, it takes away from the gravity of any of these serious issues the film is trying to pull us through.

He also has a sister (Vampire Diaries' Nina Dobrev) who's interesting but she has so little screentime, she might as well have been cut to tighten the narrative, and there's a brother too but uh,, what? I don't even remember that character anymore.

In terms of tangent, the film is best served by realizing that Charlie isn't the most interesting character in the story. Patrick's (the manic pixie gay best friend) love affair with a closeted jock or the reveal that Emma Watson's character, Sam, is trying to overcome a past of sexual abuse and promiscuity, are both lines that do get a mention here or there.

2017 Golden Globes Reaction and Hopes for the Upcoming Awards Season

Source: http://www.korsgaardscommentary.com

The first in-depth piece I read on the Golden Globes was by Richard Roeper who did an expose in his book about how the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was a near-fraudulent organization of some 80-something journalists who don’t represent anywhere near the cream of the crop in terms of film critics or reporters.

But looking over the lists of nominees, I hardly care: Despite having to go first, these guys generally manage to fall in the same region of adventurous mainstream artistry that the academy favors which is a lot harder to do when you’re up earlier in the season. But more than that, they’ve allowed people like Colin Farrell (In Bruges), Gene Hackman (Royal Tenenbaums), Dennis Quaid (Far From Heaven), Gael Garcia Bernal (Mozart in the Jungle), Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) to thrive that didn’t get recognition at the Academy or Oscars. Mozart in the Jungle is a solid show that will always get overlooked by best of lists considering the plethora of Golden Age TV, but it can always call itself a Golden Globe winner.

This year, Jason Bateman in Ozark, Katherine Langford in 13 Reasons Why, and Freddie Highmore in the Good Doctor (let’s call this collateral for his Bates Motel snubs) are surprisingly astute picks. Eric McCormack (the blandest cast member of an entirely unnecessary reboot) and SMILF are both pretty puzzling but when you have such a small sample size of 80 that’s part of the fun.


Other notes:

-Three of my four favorite films this year are all in the comedy category: Big Sick, Beatriz at Dinner, and Baby Driver so I had plenty of horses in this race and was somewhat disappointed. Selma Hayek gave a tender performance that went for big laughs in a wonderful movie that encapsulated the best of Mike White-style awkwardness. Similarly, the omission of Holly Hunter, Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, and the screenplay of Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani are all extremely disappointing. Watching Ansel Elgort get nominated for Baby Driver was a small consolation prize. Overlooked in all the hype of the movie is Baby Driver isn’t just a great technical achievement but Edgar Wright’s most emotionally poignant story with Elgort at the center. However, I think Lily James might also have been deserving.

-For my money, the nicest surprise would have been Tom Cruise in American Made. The actor has been relegated to strictly low-risk action since Oprah-gate and this is the first role in years where Cruise is committed to creating an interesting character while letting loose. Tropic Thunder was a nice cameo, but Barry Seal was a fully realized anti-hero and he was a lot of fun.

-With the horror film Get Out (a film I’m not crazy about), the indie stylings of Sean Baker (The Florida Project), and the fantastical Shape of Water, this is an awards year in which genre ghettoization will be broken open and I predict that will be the story of the 2017 season.

-Though I’m a big fan of Jordan Peele, I worry that Get Out will displace a better film because it’s getting an exaggerated spike from a film criticism community that leans towards the social justice liberal end of the spectrum. At the same time, I’m not attuned or experienced in the horror genre to fully get the nuances of the film. I would recommend that awards bodies go for Mudbound instead (which got snubbed by the Globes). 

-While I think the idea of being unable to separate the man from his art in the case of Kevin Spacey is absurd, I can certainly respect Ridley Scott’s decision to remake the film and it’s a testament to his genius and efficiency that he reshot All the Money in the World in a week and it was wonderful to see him rewarded.

-For the life of me, I can’t understand the fuss with Mary J. Blige. It’s such an understated performance, I can barely remember her at all. Mad props to Blige for taking on a challenging project for her transition to acting, but if these awards bodies want to award the film’s fantastic acting, Jason Clarke or Jason Mitchell deserve the nod in the supporting actor category. 

-Ughh, Judi Dench and Meryl Streep. Of course, these are two very good actresses but the former is always getting slots for Oscar-bait (she's already been nominated twice for playing Monarchs including Victoria herself, Chocolat was lightweight and Iris was a dry biopic that had no appeal outside of the acting challenge of playing an aging author culminating in Alzheimer's) and Streep has just been nominated too many times to feel any joy for her 21st film nomination.

-Lastly, seeing your favorite films get love on awards ceremonies is nice but it also makes one wonder about the “what ifs.” Todd Haynes and Richard Linklater are both directors who rarely go wrong and one has to wonder what they possibly could have done differently with Wonderstruck or Last Flag Flying to get the critics’ attention. Are they deserving films? Both films were on my must list but by the time I got around to stopping by the theater to see them, I discovered that they both were quietly dropped within a week or two.

Guest blog: Academy award predictions by Anthony Gullino

Honestly guys, I have failed as a film critic this year. I caught up on films and increased the number of films I have watched from John Huston, Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, Johnothan Demme, Billy Wilder, Wes Anderson, Mike Nicholls and a few others on home video and have seen 30+ films this year, but a great number of those films came out earlier in the year and are what I'd call summer fluff.

So, I thought I'd call upon Anthony Gullino, an acquaintance of mine who is a former film critic for the Dusquene University student newspaper and intern at the Pittsburgh film office, to contribute to my his predictions:
Ok gang. The new year is here, and the award season is upon us. Many critics groups have already handed out their prizes for the best in film of 2007 (notably, No Country for Old Men took the top prize from the National Board of Review). I'd feel confident in saying right now that No Country is a lock for a Best Picture Oscar nomination and a frontrunner for the win.But before we can get to the Oscars, the Golden Globes come first. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (the group who decides the Globs) announced their nominees for this year's awards early Thursday morning. The Golden Globes honor both film and television, but in this blog, I'll look at the film nominations only. So.. here they are!
Best Picture - Drama
American Gangster
Atonement
Eastern Promises
The Great Debaters
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
No, your eyes do not deceive you. The HFPA nominated SEVEN films in the Best Picture - Drama category, as opposed to the usual five. (Ok, they nominated six in that category for the '04/'05 awards). I think this one is a four-way race. Michael Clayton, Eastern Promises and The Great Debaters are far off the pace for the win. At this point, all signs would point to No Country as the frontrunner. But there is something to be said for the fact that Atonement was the most nominated of all the films (with seven). I expect buzz to grow significantly for There Will Be Blood once it opens nationwide. And never count out a box office smash like American Gangster.

Best Picture - Comedy/Musical
Across the Universe
Charlie Wilson's War
Hairspray
Juno
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

This is a pretty open race with no real surprises here, except perhaps the exclusion of Waitress. Based on what the buzz is now and the recent critics awards, I'd say that this one is between three: Charlie Wilson's War, Juno and Sweeney Todd. The reception for all three of these has been overwhelmingly positive. That's not saying that Across the Universe and Hairspray have no shot whatsoever, but I think their only prize is the nomination itself.

Best Actor - Drama
George Clooney - Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
James McAvoy - Atonement
Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises
Denzel Washington - American Gangster
The only surprise here is Mortensen's inclusion. And the biggest injustice is the exclusion of Emile Hirsch for his dazzling performance in Sean Penn's Into the Wild. Out of the five, I think this one is between Clooney and Day-Lewis. Again, if Atonement's seven nominations are any indication of growing momentum for the film, we could see it sweep. But for now, I'll put McAvoy on a second tier with Washington, with Mortensen just off the pace from the other four.

Best Actress - Drama
Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie - Away from Her
Jodie Foster - The Brave One
Angelina Jolie - A Mighty Heart
Keira Knightley - Atonement
Right now, this one is Christie's to lose. She and Marion Cotillard (who is nominated in the Comedy/Musical category, even though her film is neither a comedy nor a musical) have been receiving all of the critics awards, and they have the most buzz. Who could be the spoiler in this one? Only Knightley. Blanchett has more attention for I'm Not There, and Foster and Jolie have absolutely no shot. Sorry ladies.

Best Actor – Comedy/Musical
Johnny Depp – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Ryan Gosling – Lars and the Real Girl
Tom Hanks – Charlie Wilson's War
Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Savages
John C. Reilly – Walk HardI think it's safe to say this award is Depp's to lose. His stiffest competition could come from Hanks, but overall, Sweeney Todd is receiving much more praise. Reilly's nod is a bit of a head scratcher, but he's always been excellent, so in this case, he's being awarded for his talent rather than the movie itself (probably). And I must say, what an inspired and delightful choice they made in nominating Gosling.

Best Actress – Comedy/Musical
Amy Adams – Enchanted
Nikki Blonsky – Hairspray
Helena Bonham Carter – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Marion Cotillard – La Môme
Ellen Page – Juno
This one goes to Cotillard, almost definitely. Not only was she triumphant as the late singer Edith Piaf, but the film is French, and this is the Hollywood Foreign Press after all.

Still, surging support for Juno puts Page right in this race. I think it's also safe to say that Adams and Blonsky, though both fantastic, are not in the running here. But within this category lies what is perhaps the biggest shocker of this year's crop of noms: NO LAURA LINNEY. Linney has been receiving rave reviews for her turn in The Savages (Some critics call it her career best performance), and her less buzzed about co-star Hoffman was nominated. If Linney is snubbed by the Screen Actor's Guild, then it's safe to say she's out of the Oscar race. But I wouldn't count the lovely Linney out quite yet.

Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem – No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Charlie Wilson's War
John Travolta – Hairspray
Tom Wilkinson – Michael Clayton

This one pretty much looks like a no-brainer. This is Bardem's to lose, and I'd be shocked if he did lose. The one performance that could cause an upset is, shockingly, Travolta. It's unlikely, but if anyone is going to upset the frontrunner, it will be John Travolta in drag. Ugh.

Best Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett – I'm Not There
Julia Roberts – Charlie Wilson's War
Saoirse Ronan – Atonement
Amy Ryan – Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton – Michael Clayton
This is such a tough category to predict. There are three strong contenders who could all win this one: Blanchett, Ryan, and Swinton. For months, Blanchett had enormous (and deserving) buzz for her mind blowing portrayal of Bob Dylan. But once the critics started handing out their awards, Amy Ryan gathered up a few awards and some serious momentum. Still, we can't count out Tilda Swinton. Buzz for Michael Clayton has been mounting since the nominations were announced, and if the HPFA loves it enough to reward Clooney, they may just reward his co-star too. Roberts and Ronan – no shot here.Well thanks for reading my rambles.