SAG Awards 2010

SAG Awards

These awards may claim to be about acting, but really the main departure from the Golden Globes is that of pretension and class. There are only a few awards to be won and it tends to be a pretty inoffensive show. Onwards!

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture:

An Education
The Hurt Locker: PROBABLE. This is where they get to make their Best Picture winner guess. “Slumdog Millionaire” won last year, and the young stars of that haven’t done much of anything this past year. “Hurt Locker” is a critical favorite and actually features some top-notch acting in addition to its heady subject matter.
Inglorious Basterds
Nine
Precious

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role:

Jeff Bridges
George Clooney
Colin Firth: PROBABLE. Gay rights are still the hot thing, especially out in Hollywood. Bridges will likely take the Oscar but I can’t see Firth being ignored totally by his peers.
Morgan Freeman
Jeremy Renner

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role:

Sandra Bullock
Helen Mirren
Carey Mulligan
Gabourey Sidbe
Meryl Streep: PROBABLE. There can never be a category where both Meryl Streep AND Helen Mirren get ignored, can they? This a tiny bit of a crapshoot. “Julie and Julia” premeired and Streep was the shoo-in. Then “Precious” came out, and Sidbe could have ridden that film’s popularity to the finish. “An Education” seemed to blow everyone away, but since, Mulligan has yet to receive anything for her performance. Bullock got lucky last week at the Golden Globes, and I would be more shocked than Mickey Rourke to see her win again.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role:

Matt Damon
Woody Harrelson
Christopher Plummer
Stanley Tucci
Christoph Waltz: PROBABLE. This is the one I’d bet on. I can be confident here. None of these other actors were as vital to their film as Waltz was to “Inglourious Basterds.”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role:

Penelope Cruz
Vera Farmiga
Anna Kendrick
Diane Kruger
Mo’Nique: PROBABLE. Her win last week solidified my theory. Actors love to see other actors lose their shit onscreen. It’s a performance most would describe as “fearless” (I prefer “shameless”) and has personal relevance to her. It would be hard for her not to win.

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series:

The Closer
Dexter
The Good Wife
Mad Men: PROBABLE. A classy, well designed show that’s also low-key enough to sit back every week and let its actors do the work. This season also showcased each major character at some sort of crossroads. Really good stuff.
True Blood

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series:

30 Rock
Curb Your Enthusiasm: PROBABLE. It’s like giving an award to “Sienfeld.” There’s been a huge “30 Rock” backlash and I can assure that neither it nor “The Office” will walk away with the prize.
Glee
Modern Family
The Office

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series:

Simon Baker
Brian Cranston
Michael C. Hall: PROBABLE. He’s great on “Dexter,” the show just avoided a major vacuum of creativity and is more popular than ever, and the man is currently kicking cancer’s ass. He wins.
Jon Hamm
Hugh Laurie

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series:

Patricia Arquette
Glenn Close
Mariska Hargitay
Holly Hunter: PROBABLE. At least, I hope so. Why Margulies won last week while Hunter wasn’t even nominated is beyond me.
Julianna Margulies
Kyra Sedgewick

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series:

Alec Baldwin: PROBABLE. Baldwin takes “30 Rock’s” consolation prize, else the show walks home empty-handed. The dark horse could be Shaloub, whose show recently went off the air with a touch of deserved sentimentality.
Steve Carrell
Larry David
Tony Shaloub
Charlie Sheen

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series:

Christina Applegate
Toni Collette: PROBABLE. She plays up to four roles an episode. Exhausting, plus it holds the weak premise of the show together (barely).
Edie Falco
Tina Fey
Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries:

Kevin Bacon: PROBABLE. It’s a TV movie, yes, but he’s also Kevin Bacon, and sadly this puts his recent movie roles to shame.
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Jeremy Irons
Kevin Kline
Tom Wilkinson

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries:

Joan Allen
Drew Barrymore: PROBABLE. “Grey Gardens” was just like a theatrical release, save for the fact that Barrymore was actually quite good in it. My earlier prediction that she and Lange would split the vote turned out to be false earlier, but if anyone could steal, it’s be Dee.
Ruby Dee
Jessica Lange
Sigourney Weaver

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture:

Public Enemies
Star Trek: PROBABLE. Great movie, and it had lots of hand-to-hand combat and jumping around.
Transformers 2

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series:

24
The Closer
Dexter
Heroes: PROBABLE? A boring note to go out on.
The Unit

These awards generally tend to be quiet and reserved—unless someone particularly raucous wins something (cough, Sean Penn, cough). Not much fanfare, not much coverage on the red carpet.

Golden Globes 2010

Golden Globes 2010

The Golden Globes kick off the movie awards season, so they are noteworthy only because most of the major players turn out to be repeats, and there are so many categories that the awards actually tend to be given out at a reasonable pace. Ricky Gervais is hosting and it will certainly be an entertaining three hours of television.

That said, I haven’t gotten the chance to see many of the year’s biggest pictures. Case in point, I missed: “Up,” “Up In the Air,” “The Hurt Locker,” “The Lovely Bones,” “An Education,” “A Single Man” and probably more that will rightfully get noticed.

BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA: I saw only “Basterds” and “Avatar,” and am not rooting for either. I think “Hurt Locker” is a frontrunner.
• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker: Probable
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious
• Up in the Air
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA:I missed every single one of these performances and the movies that go with them.
• Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria
• Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren, The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan, An Education: Probable
• Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA: Again, I didn’t see a single one of these.
• Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
• George Clooney, Up in the Air
• Colin Firth, A Single Man: Probable
• Morgan Freeman, Invictus
• Tobey Maguire, Brothers
BEST MOTION PICTURE, COMEDY OR MUSICAL: Strangely, I’ve seen all but “It’s Complicated,” which I plan on seeing soon. I had a lighthearted year.
• (500) Days of Summer: Preferable?
• The Hangover: Probable
• It's Complicated
• Julie & Julia
• Nine
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE, COMEDY OR MUSICAL: A weird category. Streep may be hurt by the double nomination. Cotillard returned to form after the lackluster “Public Enemies” and gave an impossibly good performance in a flawed movie.
• Sandra Bullock, The Proposal
• Marion Cotillard, Nine: Preferable
• Julia Roberts, Duplicity
• Meryl Streep, It's Complicated
• Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia: Probable
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE, COMEDY OR MUSICAL: This was a great year for classic Hollywood leading men in very unexpected parts. George Clooney belongs here, not on the “Drama” side.
• Matt Damon, The Informant!: Probable
• Daniel Day-Lewis, Nine
• Robert Downey Jr., Sherlock Holmes
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer: Preferable
• Michael Stuhlbarg, A Serious Man
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: No contest. Pixar always wins. A great set of nominees.
• Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
• Coraline
• Fantastic Mr. Fox: Preferable
• The Princess and the Frog
• Up: Probable
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: I haven’t heard much American buzz about any of these, but it is the Hollywood Foreign Press.
• Baaria (Italy)
• Broken Embraces (Spain)
• The Maid (Chile)
• A Prophet (France)
• The White Ribbon (Germany): Possible?
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE: the “Up in the Air” ladies will split the vote. Mo’Nique has the sort of balls to the wall, disgustingly go for broke performance that generally wins things.
• Penélope Cruz, Nine
• Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
• Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
• Mo'Nique, Precious: Probable
• Julianne Moore, A Single Man
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE: it will be most disappointing if Waltz loses because of the insanity of the movie—his performance was quite refined; elegant, in a way.
• Matt Damon, Invictus
• Woody Harrelson, The Messenger: Probable
• Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
• Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
• Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds: Preferable
BEST DIRECTOR: Here it’s a toss-up between Bigelow, whose movie has gotten nothing but good press, and Cameron, who worked tirelessly for years to get “Avatar’s” technical achievements perfect.
• Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
• James Cameron, Avatar: Probable
• Clint Eastwood, Invictus
• Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
• Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
BEST SCREENPLAY: Maybe here is where “District 9” is appeased?
• Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, District 9: Probable
• Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
• Nancy Meyers, It's Complicated
• Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air
• Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds: Preferable
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: the “Up” score was brilliantly expressive, and hopefully Giacchino will be recognized as the best composer of the year, also creating a strong hook for “Star Trek” last spring.
• Michael Giacchino, Up: Probable and very preferable
• Marvin Hamlisch, The Informant!
• James Horner, Avatar
• Abel Korzeniowski, A Single Man
• Karen O and Carter Burwell, Where the Wild Things Are
BEST ORIGINAL SONG: I hope no one wins.
• "Cinema Italiano," Music & Lyrics by Maury Yeston (Nine)
• "I Want to Come Home," Music & Lyrics by Paul McCartney (Everybody's Fine)
• "I Will See You," Music by James Horner, Simon Franglen; Lyrics by James Horner, Simon Franglen and Kuk Harrell (Avatar)
• "The Weary Kind," Music & Lyrics by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart)
• "Winter," Music by U2; Lyrics by Bono (Brothers)
BEST TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA: Mad Men had an incredible season, while the other four shows coasted.
• Big Love
• Dexter
• House
• Mad Men: Preferable and Probable
• True Blood
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA: Sedgwick and Jones, the two seeming shoo-ins, did not thrill this year.
• Glenn Close, Damages
• January Jones, Mad Men: Probable
• Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife
• Anna Paquin, True Blood
• Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA
• Simon Baker, The Mentalist
• Michael C. Hall, Dexter
• Jon Hamm, Mad Men: Probable
• Hugh Laurie, House
• Bill Paxton, Big Love
BEST TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL: Here there is possibility a surprise. “Glee” was the smash hit of the season. “30 Rock” is being judged for a poor season while a superior one airs, and “Modern Family” must have been nominated for a reason, right? Meanwhile, “Entourage” is approaching self-parody, and “The Office” had a series of bumpy episodes in a lukewarm season.
• 30 Rock
• Entourage
• Glee: Possible
• Modern Family: Preferable
• The Office
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL: Tina Fey’s popularity, while not waning, is hardly rising after the Palin afterglow has worn off. Collette won the Emmy but the enthusiasm about her show has not sustained.
• Toni Collette, United States of Tara: Probable
• Courteney Cox, Cougar Town
• Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie
• Tina Fey, 30 Rock: Preferable
• Lea Michele, Glee
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL: “30 Rock” may be losing some steam, but Baldwin seems to be the last remaining solid double the series has.
• Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock: Preferable and Probable
• Steve Carell, The Office
• David Duchovny, Californication
• Thomas Jane, Hung
• Matthew Morrison, Glee
BEST MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: “Grey Gardens” got a lot of attention when it premiered. Pay attention. It’s good for you.
• Georgia O'Keefe
• Grey Gardens: Probable
• Into the Storm
• Little Dorrit
• Taking Chance
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: It’s difficult to tell because I haven’t seen a single one.
• Joan Allen, Georgia O'Keefe
• Drew Barrymore, Grey Gardens
• Jessica Lange, Grey Gardens
• Anna Paquin, The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler: Possible?
• Sigourney Weaver, Prayers for Bobby
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: I wouldn’t know.
• Kevin Bacon, Taking Chance
• Kenneth Branagh, Wallander: One Step Behind
• Chiewetel Ejiofor, Endgame
• Brendan Gleeson, Into the Storm: Possible?
• Jeremy Irons, Georgia O'Keefe
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: Jane Lynch was the breakout star of “Glee,” which featured otherwise bland (and sometimes bad) casting choices.
• Jane Adams, Hung
• Rose Byrne, Damages
• Jane Lynch, Glee: Preferable and Probable
• Janet McTeer, Into the Storm
• Chloë Sevigny, Big Love
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: NPH has been ignored for so long it seems silly to predict he’ll get any love now.
• Michael Emerson, Lost: Probable?
• Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother: Preferable
• William Hurt, Damages
• John Lithgow, Dexter
• Jeremy Piven, Entourage

Granted, this list is flawed. I have “Avatar” all but shut out, and “30 Rock” as well. But that said, the Golden Globes exist only to set our watches to the town clock and feel what the people that matter seem to be feeling.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

There is a lot to like about the new Sherlock Holmes feature, but Guy Ritchie’s latest film evokes a few others, intentionally or no. The first that jumps to mind is “Bridget Jones,” solely due to the casting. Brits grumbled when Renee Zellwegger sloppily tried to capture the flighty charm of Helen Fielding’s character, but her undisputable foreign-ness was a roadblock nearly insurmountable. Robert Downey Jr., with his generally good but occasionally patchy accent, faces the same wrath.

The other film this one closely resembles is “Sweeney Todd.” Ritchie seems to be borrowing the CGI streets and artificial darkness Tim Burton put to use in 2007. It almost seems to serve as a companion piece. As Ritchie zooms through mysterious alleyways, chasing cloaked villains, one could almost expect to see Mrs. Lovett pining on a street corner, advertising her pie shop. As much as that film was about the discontent of gutter-dwelling murderers, this film is the opposite. Holmes and Watson enjoy their upper-class life in London, and I could hazard a guess that relocation would be impossible.

Arthur Conan Doyle captured the Victorian era in England well; only Charles Dickens can compete with him. And the beloved sleuth, pipe and stiff upper lip in tow, is the character that best summarizes the period, particularly for foreign audiences. In the past, English actors have gone at it with performances ranging from literally insane (Michael Caine) to ham-fisted (Rupert Everett), but the most beloved is the tweedy, intellectual sort, personified by Basil Rathborne in a “we are not amused” manner that characterizes the times more than it adapted Doyle’s book. In the original writings, Holmes was a drug-addicted, athletic man, and Watson was a competent doctor and soldier. This film takes those characters back to those types, and draws from the actors to create the rest of their dimensions.

Downey Jr. makes a convincing detective. Noticing that his wife is one of the producers of the film, I can’t help but wonder if she had any hand in his participation. He is equipped with his usual Method-y immersion into the world and character, but in the past has been less than skilled at where to point that entire obsessive, exhausting energy. His current hot streak of winning performances in films that match his talent causes me to raise an eyebrow and applaud Mrs. Downey if she’s been able to influence her husband as positively in his professional life as she seems to have been able to contain him in his now very reasonable private one. Enjoying every minute of paranoid sleuthing, Downey Jr. is both charming and, at times, petulant as a child, his talent for mystery solving leaving him emotionally stunted. He is no longer the frowning straight man, but the bumbling fool, a constant mess of corduroy jackets and patterned ties.

Jude Law plays Watson, and brings his typical more-English-than-you pout to the role. His attempts at annoyance constantly flirt with whining, and sometimes the bickering duo can come across too simpering, and, frankly, there is an element of feminine sabotage to their push-pull of a relationship. Law constantly kicks down doors, fences, and people, but he never has the physicality the role requires. His refinement, however, does play nicely off of Downey’s lack of ease. Law is quite capable of surly stillness and silence, and when he is in that mode he does his best acting.

Unfortunately, the film seems too preoccupied with its own homoeroticism. Both Holmes and Watson get love interests, the only point of which seems to be to disguise the sexual tension between the two leads. Rather than dissolve that attraction, however, Holmes’ attempts to seduce Watson back to 221B Baker Street to continue their gallivanting ways seem for reasons even more pronouncedly sexual. Holmes’ own love interest, played unconvincingly by Rachel McAdams (who just five years ago was still pretending to be in high school) really only appears to make Holmes seem more manly. Look! Sherlock kisses girls! But even Downey Jr. loses credibility in those scenes, and judging by the mysterious emission of some that appeared in the previews featuring McAdams in fishnets and lacy underthings, not even the editing room could make them work. Her random, totally modern American accent—she's supposed to be from New Jersey, technically, as the script clunkily tells us—just serves as another reminder that she is the typical, last-minute-addition, femme fatale. It all seems as threadbare as the kiss between Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann in the second “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, and “Sherlock Holmes” would have wasted far less time without her.

But those problems are something that the inevitable franchise will have to address in the future. What Ritchie and company have made here is a quite decent origin story. And like all other origin stories, there are setbacks. Every detail of every character must be painstakingly set up, and all without the relief of any standout supporting players or “the” villain. Like the Joker didn’t appear until “The Dark Knight,” so too does the major villain stay absent from this picture. But for an hour and a half, it’s entertaining to see Downey bring all of his Downey-isms to a stately Englishman and cavorting around town with Jude Law in his checkered coat and walking stick.

Both men are incredibly attractive. That is not to be overlooked.

My initial reaction at seeing the trailer was, “Holmes as Bond.” That viewpoint hasn’t changed much. Holmes is, for the moment, an action flick that has incredible potential to reach far deeper in the next go-round.

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds

The first thing that jumps to mind is that this film, even—nay, especially by the standards of Quentin Tarantino, is not a comedy. There are lighter moments, yes, but they are few and far between. The film (if I can borrow from it a bit) asks you to do one thing and one thing only.

Wait for some Nazis to die.

The Nazis in this film, especially Christoph Waltz’s hopefully iconic portrayal of the Gestapo’s Hannibal Lector, are not the average movie sort. Usually in Holocaust films, Nazis are either bland foot soldiers or quietly calculating psychopaths. Waltz, however, is just as much of a revelation as Anthony Hopkins’ cordial cannibal. He is, undoubtedly, the happiest man in the movie, yet each pause he takes is filled with so much danger the film nearly stops. The first scene alone, in which he and Dennis Menochet discuss seemingly banal metaphor until it’s not, takes around fifteen minutes.

This film takes its time. There are so many loaded pauses it could make one yearn for the rat-a-tat-tat pace of Jules and Vince in Pulp Fiction. That film only comes up in this one because Samuel L. Jackson makes a few random vocal cameos as narrator, for no reason other than to add a little of the blaxploitation narrative style of which the director is fond. Most of Tarantino’s little devices feel out of place here, such as chalky arrows pointing to various Nazis to indicate that they are very important assholes. However, there is ample time for introductions, or for the various plotters to go over their main targets.

The violence is to be expected in a Tarantino movie, but kudos to said director and writer for using conversation as well as he does a knife or bullet. In fact, the brutal violence is pretty much exclusively used against the Nazis, not by them. Brad Pitt and his fellow Basterds are cruel, cruel men. In fact, some of the German soldiers (including one drunk with joy over the birth of his baby son) seem more sympathetic than the nameless or faceless Americans. Is it intentionally ironic? It’s difficult to tell, but, then again, time makes things clearer. This may very well be Tarantino’s break into “serious” cinema, if he can manage to part with his more cartoony elements.

Ultimately, the Basterd subplot is just that. The story of a young Jewish woman, Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent), is not only more engaging than that of the American commandoes, it also has more dramatic heft. Here is a portrayal of a Jewish woman as a brave, daring, and heroic figure. Her war paint is lipstick, and her weapons are film stock and a smile. The film takes huge liberties with history, but the victory it celebrates is that of Laurent’s deeply affecting heroine. Critics have both lauded and trashed Tarantino’s representation of women (especially one Uma Thurman), but whether because of his writing, direction, or casting choices, Shoshanna comes across very, very positively.

I'm Not There

There are about four great movies trapped inside “I’m Not There.” But I didn’t get to see any of them.

There is the lush, Crayola-hued swinging seventies of Heath Ledger’s unhappy movie star (irony is not lost in this film).

The stark black-and-white of Cate Blanchett and Ben Wishaw, both doing straight impressions of the elfin Bob Dylan in his prime, is too similar. Could not both actors have been condensed into one, praiseworthy and complex role? There seems to be a fear of range in this film. Each character has one note that they play over and over again.

Ledger slowly self-destructs. Blanchett is an addled contrarian. Wishaw dispenses slump-shouldered wisdom to critics. Christian Bale does next to nothing, but does reproduce a few of Dylan’s songs with his lip-synching (disappointing; he can sing). His character exists only within a sort of rock-mockumentary (until he doesn’t, and then he does again) that directly contrasts the straight narrative of the film’s other components. Marcus Carl Williams is a boy beyond his years, hitching rides on boxcars despite the fact that it’s already 1959. In one scene he races in dressed like Charlie Chaplin and carrying the Virgin Mary. Somehow, this image should serve as some sort of visual metaphor, but only encapsulates the convolution of this movie.

The final Dylan is Richard Gere, who looks as though he doesn’t know what he’s doing in the film. Honestly, neither do I.

Complexity is increasingly rare at the average multiplex, so it’s commendable to see such a strange and fragmented picture reach so many big names and big name-reviewers. But there is too much of a good thing, and a point where complexity becomes an excuse for a lack of breathing room. The production design alone is constantly fighting for attention. Franklin and Bale’s characters barely last the whole movie while Gere takes up valuable time in the third act. In fact, it is the supporting actors that manage to do some of the best work. Bruce Greenwood, Michelle Williams, Charlotte Gainsberg, and Julianne Moore all put aside self-indulgence for better performances.

What is disappointing is that there are many promising moments sprinkled throughout. Blanchett’s Dylan attends an art deco party held in rooms of solid white. It is like watching a particularly good actor overcome an overly pretentious stage play.

Many things could have been done to salvage “I’m Not There.” Splitting it into pieces, for one. A straight biography of Bob Dylan going electric would have been an engrossing film, especially aided by a complete performance by Blanchett. Ledger and Bale, who share a piece of storyline by no scenes, could have also fit together as the story of a folk hero who ultimately finds himself in the God his contemporaries have shunned, and the actor who portrays him, faced with ugly problems and opinions of his own. It may just be layman’s ignorance, but I don’t see the huge connect between Franklin’s character and Gere’s, which is pushed heavily, particularly at the close of the film.

“I’m Not There” owes too much to its title. Most of the characters seem vacant for the majority of the film. And while Dylan’s music is a constant background, he doesn’t feel there, either. Ambition is a wonderful thing, but Todd Hayes’ seems to ultimately be blind.

Watchmen

An oldie but goodie.

*Keep in mind that I have read the book, but only twice. Once for the specific purpose of reading it before the film came out, and once today, directly after I saw the movie.

“Watchmen” is one of those adaptations that has expectations that are so huge it can’t help but falter a little, only because everyone is waiting for it to.

That said, it is a visual masterpiece and one of the better “serious” comic book movies. I would argue that “The Dark Knight,” “Sin City,” and “300” all faced the same challenges that Watchmen did in terms of getting made, yet all three were better. However, I would not sell “Watchmen” short by leaving it out of their category, and will also readily admit that all three have a cynical sense of humor that broadened their popularity. Not to mention "V for Vendetta," which I almost forgot. Simply dazzling filmmaking and wonderful adaptation. Not copy-catting, but actual adaptation. Consideration of what looks good on a movie screen and how to achieve the overall affect that the source has on people.

As I said before, this movie is best in terms of visuals (And no, I don’t JUST mean Billy Crudup naked and glowing in the dark, though that didn’t deter me, exactly). The fight sequences are gritty and painful to watch, but never wavering, never blurred. They ran full force into the R-rating, and the level of gratuitous violence seems (from what I’ve heard) to send some who were expecting a standard comic-book movie running.

And while the violence would normally not bother me it really made me cringe. It just seemed like characters like Nite Owl and Laurie just, I don't know, enjoyed the gore. And to me, that was always what separated them from Rorshach.

The script, which was trimmed thoroughly in editing (apparently the original Director’s Cut runs nine hours?), is a little abrupt where it could be suggestive and a little vague where it seems like they just weren’t sure about what they were doing. Blaming Dr. Manhattan for the explosion that closes the movie is not a bad change—I myself was never a fan of the inexplicable squid that appeared “from space” in the book—but there was little time spent on the world’s fear of Jon, only on the awe.

I think what could have made it play was his willingness to just go. To be gone, to sever all ties with humanity. But the way they miscut his scene on Mars left out when he's considered something to fear. They also left out when Sally quips to Laurie that Jon is the H-bomb, which also would have subtly built up what they were trying to do.

EDIT: You know what I totally forgot but also hated? When Jon keeps electrocuting Laurie in the head for no reason. Manhattan was the coolest character by far in the book, but that random shit kind of ruined him for me in the movie, leaving the Comedian/Silk Spectre I relationship as my favorite. "Do that thing you do." Didn't like it.

The acting was adequate.

Jackie Earle Haley found the only superhero he’ll ever play, and threw himself into it. Not for a moment was he out of character, and while I hated what they did to his last scene, he nailed it. Unfortunately, while he gave the best performance, his character is not heroic. I wanted to sympathize with him, but I couldn’t. Rorschach is an extremely principled guy, a sociopath, so all I could do was admire the acting and that creepy mask. The same thing happened to me in the book.

Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl was the same as Patrick Wilson in anything. He was boring, uncomfortable, and a little punk, yet he had an EXCEEDINGLY comical, awkward sex scene. Watch “Little Children” and you’ll see what I mean. I do think some of it came from the character, but more could have been done to make Nite Owl less of a pussy.

Malin Ackerman suffered through pretty much every scene as Silk Spectre II. Actually, that’s a lie. Her performance depended too much on her scene partner. When she was with a gifted actor, she was fine, but she could not hold up her scenes with Wilson, who was a gracious costar, letting her have the spotlight. Unfortunately, she didn’t deliver.

Matthew Goode drove me insane as Ozymandias. I couldn’t buy that he was the smartest man in the world or the most dangerous. I thought he was “most likely to get his ass handed to him by everyone else.”

Crudup was good as Dr. Manhattan, as I think it takes skill to decide not to act. He broke pretty much every rule of acting—when to pause, when to shout, how to move his face—to showcase the character. He also (like Bill Nighy in “Pirates of the Caribbean”) managed to act through CGI.

I also thought Carla Gugino and Jeffery Dean Morgan did excellent supporting work as the Comedian and Silk Spectre. I got a sense of those characters’ pasts, and the relationship of the past to the present is very important to “Watchmen,” in my opinion.

Editing hurt this movie where it should have helped it. With Dr. Manhattan, who physically embodies quantum physics With the relationship between one generation of heroes and the next. The lack of visual quirks, the rush of the ending, and the choice of when to use slow motion. I think slow-mo works when something needs to movie slower than time to be felt properly. When moments drag on too long, or too much is happening to see it all at one time. Not when something just happens to look cool.

And, my personal pet peeve, why exactly didn’t they just get Philip Glass to compose the score for the entire film? Yes, they thankfully used “Pruit Igoe,” but they also used My Chemical Romance covering Bob Dylan. Glass would have given the picture a dash of class. The elevator music that seemed to play every time Ackerman took off her shirt for Wilson just made me groan.

I know I had a lot of complaints, but that’s just my critical nature. I thought it was overall a good film. Not a “great,” but if everything was “great,” then “greats” would hardly be so impressive. I think what “Watchmen” has done is show, yet again, that graphic novels are often as complex as pieces of literature.

(500) Days of Summer

Like the parentheses in the title, “(500) Days of Summer” is a movie that has good intentions, and good results, but each laugh feels the tiniest bit calculated, the framing device all but shouted. Unlike a film such as “Pulp Fiction,” which took a non-linear approach simply for the hell of it, or “Memento,” which ingeniously took a plot point and twisted it to play with perspective, “Summer” is caught between the two. There is something to be said about telling a story as though it were a memory; with frequent lapses of coherence to jump around, but the story has no logical reason to be told in such a manner. That said, the writing is surprisingly tight, and wonderful art direction at least makes the movie look nice.

There may be a little too much “indie” for my personal tastes—honestly, The Smiths may be a great band, but not good enough to fall in love with a fellow fan—but also keeps things grounded—the protagonist figures out the same thing. It’s no spoiler to say that things indeed go south between Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel before the credits roll. Unfortunately, the “twee” factor (which, as a fan of “Pushing Daisies” and porcelain dolls, usually doesn’t bother me) gets stratospheric at times. The titles, upon which the film relies to place the scene on the timeline, decay from a brightly sprouting maple tree (Day 21! Day 113! Relationship bliss!) to drab gray clouds (Day 250… loneliness. Bummer.). It’s a detail caught between inventiveness (like when “Rushmore” did it) and eye-roll worthy (“Juno”). I mentioned earlier that the art direction is wonderful. It is, along with the costume and production design. The film feels worn in, like the shabby-chic vintage looks that the characters wear despite the Los Angeles heat. Does it add to the twee-ness of it all? Of course. But the attention to detail just gives the film more depth, in my opinion. Everything has a haze of blue and gray splashed across it. There is a moody romanticism to it.

The story is less revolutionary than it claims, but the fact that it is a film about young attractive people in a city that doesn’t adhere to standard romantic comedy formula is a welcome relief. Even the meet-cute encounter on the elevator is sweet. And once Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel are the cute couple, their bonding is childlike and the sexual content onscreen is next to zero.

Ultimately, “(500) Days of Summer” is a sweet story about two opposites that don’t attract, despite the media infatuation with against-all-odds love affairs. It’s a message I could get behind, and despite a fairly standard send-‘em-to-hell speech that says so near the end, it’s played with a low-key, airy feel to it. It’s a movie to enjoy even more once you leave the theater and realize it wasn’t a waste of time by-the-numbers Hollywood flick.