January/February 2011

2010 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
The announcement of the Academy Award nominees, which used to include a half dozen surprise selections, both outrageous choices and unexpected recognition for small films, now feels more like a coronation. Much of the problem is that the mainstream press has turned the prognostication game into a full-time beat. Once only we Oscar-obsessed nerds and a handful of movie critics looking to fill out their weekly column weighed in on the possible nominees. Now it dominates entertainment coverage for three months.

The Los Angeles Times treats it as if its college football, with weekly listings of the most likely nominees, gauging films’ prospects as the year progresses. But it’s not just in the industry’s hometown paper. It’s all over TV and the internet; I’m sure people are twittering about it. Casual moviegoers who go to the theater three times a year were predicting in November that “The Black Swan” and “Winter’s Bone” would score best picture nods.

The other change, which becomes more evident yearly, is the astonishing lack of viable candidates. I’m not talking about films that were favorites of a handful of critics (“Ghost Writer,” “Please Give”) or barely released indies (“Ondine,” “Get Low”) but legitimate, high-profile movies. The only picture I thought might be among the 10 best picture nominees that fell short was Mike Leigh’s “Another Year”; not because it is a brilliantly written and acted movie (it is) but because Leigh is a high-profile director whose films the Academy has showered nominations on in the past. And to the point of this shrinking pool: Leigh is the only nominee in the writing categories whose film isn’t in the best picture race.

I read newspaper reports that mentioned “The Town” and “Burlesque” as best-picture snubs, but that seemed like writers straw grasping. I wouldn’t be surprised---if we could ever learn the voting totals----that “Winter’s Bone” and “127 Hours” received only slightly more votes than the amount of moviegoers it would take to fill a small screening room.

As for the acting nods, only five were selected from films not among the best picture nominees: Javier Bardem, Nicole Kidman, Michelle Williams, Jacki Weaver and Jeremy Renner. It’s becoming more and more difficult for performers in less-than acclaimed pictures to snag a nomination.

From my perspective, leading the list of 2010 Oscar omissions is Lesley Manville from “Another Year,” whose portrayal of a middle-aged alcoholic desperate for companionship is as affecting a performance as I’ve seen this year. In addition, Olivia Williams, best known as the love interest in “Rushmore” (1998), deserved a nomination for her perfectly measured performance as the manipulative wife of a politician in Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer.”

It was a rare banner year for actresses. Others who I would have give nods to include Gemma Jones, who played the divorcee entranced by a fortune teller in “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” and Rebecca Hall, who was memorable in three films, “Please Give,” “The Town” and the British crime picture “Red Rider 1974.” Other actresses just missing my lists of the best performances were Naomi Watts as Valerie Plame in “Fair Game,” Diane Wiest as the mother in “Rabbit Hole” and Bryce Dallas Howard (Ronnie’s kid) who was stunning in a small but crucial role in “Hereafter.”

But the biggest surprise in the supporting category is the absence of Noomi Rapace, who played the intense loner and title character in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and its sequels. Her visceral performance was the talk of Hollywood last summer---but I guess it’s asking too much of voters to remember that far back.

Among actors, Ryan Gosling’s intense performance in “Blue Valentine” deserved a nomination as did Michael Douglas’ surprisingly insightful work as a disgraced businessman denying his own mortality in “Solitary Man.”

I also thought that Hailee Steinfeld and Geoffrey Rush were misplaced in the supporting category. But that’s the Oscar voters kowtowing to the studios’ requests. Paramount clearly believed Steinfeld, as a child, had a better shot at a nomination (and maybe a win) as a supporting actress, while Harvey Weinstein wanted to separate Rush and best actor nominee and Oscar-favorite Colin Firth. To me, Steinfeld was the clear lead of “True Grit” and Rush was equal partner with Firth in “The King’s Speech.”

For those of us who make a big deal out of a performer’s Oscar nominations, it is interesting to note that Amy Adams, at age 36, now has as many supporting actress nominations as such star character actresses as Shelley Winters, Claire Trevor or Dianne Wiest.

While I’d never list Jeff Bridges’ Rooster Cogburn as among his best performances, I’m always pleased to see this great, unappreciated actor add to his trophy case. While it doesn’t make up for the nominations he deserved but never got for “Cutter’s Way,” “Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” “The Fisher King,” “American Heart” and “The Big Lebowski,” it does move him into the same Oscar-total group with Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall and Michael Caine. Nice company.

(If you missed the American Master’s documentary on this down-to-earth, multi-talented child of Hollywood, “Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides,” be sure to rent it when the DVD is available.)
As for the winners on Sunday, I expect “The Social Network” to win the best picture Oscar, in large part because the academy members want to appear hip even if they’re not. Director Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin will also take home Oscar gold as will Colin Firth and writer David Seidler from “The King’s Speech.”

Despite the wave of unexplainable support for Natalie Portman in the best actress category, I trust that voters will come to their senses and finally give Annette Bening an Oscar.
In the supporting categories, Christian Bale seems a shoo-in and I thought Melissa Leo, also from “The Fighter” was too, but I think Hailee Steinfeld is making a late-hour push and will pull the upset.

For a full list of the films and actors I thought were the best of 2010, see the web site. Here’s my Top 10:

1 The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper)
2 Another Year (Mike Leigh)
3 Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik)
4 The Social Network (David Fincher)
5 The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)
6 Rabbit Hole (John Cameron Mitchell)
7 Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)
8 Solitary Man (Brian Koppelman/David Levien)
9 The Town (Ben Affleck)
10 Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)



ANOTHER YEAR (2010)
At the center of this emotionally raw, unflinching dissection of aging are Tom and Gerri, a warm, giving, positive couple who do their best to raise the spirits of their less-satisfied friends.
This 60ish couple, played by veterans of Leigh films Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen, he’s a geologist and she’s a counselor in a hospital, have embraced growing old, content in their work, weekend puttering in their communal garden plot and thoroughly enjoying each other’s company.

In contrast, little has turned out well for Mary (Lesley Manville), who works at the hospital with Gerri and is the focus of the first of the film’s four “chapters.” This irritatingly chatty alcoholic is desperate for something good to happen in her life, clinging to Tom and Gerri as her surrogate family. At one point, she shamelessly makes a ploy for their unmarried son---at least 20 years her junior---in a pitiful attempt o be part of the family.

In other chapters, Leigh introduces Tom’s old pal Kenny (Peter Wight), also a sad, unhealthy drunk who hates his job and being alone; Ronnie (David Bradley), Tom’s stoic, emotionally stunted older brother facing life as a widow; and Ronnie’s angry, anti-social son who shows up late for his mother’s funeral.

This episodic movie has plenty of funny, joyful moments and Broadbent and Sheen turn Tom and Gerri into people you’d just love to have as friends. Yet as in any film about aging, there’s a heavy sadness that hangs over everything. When young characters make bad choices or have those choices made for them, they still have years to improve their lot. For Mary and Kenny, they’ve sealed their fates and seem destined to live out their lives in a haze of bitterness and alcohol.

You won’t see many films with such an impressive collection of performances, yet even in this sparkling cast Manville steals every moment she’s on screen. It’s a career-making performance for this 54-year-old veteran of British TV and a half-dozen Leigh films. That she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar is an embarrassment; this is as heartbreakingly sad and uncompromisingly truthful as any performance I’ve seen in awhile. Her Mary is like a car wreck that, as much as you want to, you can’t look away from. At points, you feel as if you’re intruding on someone’s dirty, family business---remember how you felt watching Leigh’s “Secrets and Lies”?---as Manville and the other actors burrow deep into the fragile state of human emotions.

Leigh’s screen work over the past 20 years---“Life Is Sweet,” “Naked,” “Secrets & Lies,” “Career Girls, “All or Nothing,” “Vera Drake”—compares favorably in its probing examination of contemporary life’s disappointments and the misguided choices people make to Woody Allen’s decade long stretch starting in the late 1970s and Ingmar Bergman’s mid career work from “The Seventh Seal” (1957) to “Cries and Whispers” (1972).


FISH TANK (2010)
You won’t see a better portrayal of a confused, sad and unfocused teen (is there any other kind?) than Katie Jarvis’s Mia in this gritty British picture.

She and her little sister pretty much fend for themselves as their mother (Kierston Wareing) spends her time drinking and picking up men. Her latest lover Conner (Michael Fassbender from “Inglourious Basterds”) starts spending time with the girls, taking them on outings and creating a sense of family.

He encourages Mia to pursue her interest in dance, giving her a bit of self-confidence after years of being berated by her mother. But nothing good lasts for this neglected girl and she’s soon forced to take back control of her life. Jarvis manages to bring out both the vulnerability and the anger of Mia.

Writer-director Andrea Arnold follows in the tradition of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh in portraying trouble youths without letting the story become trite or melodramatic. In Hollywood, this script would have been reworked into a fairy tale ending with Mia winning a talent prize or a scholarship and her mother deciding to settle down with the right man. “Fish Tank” paints another, less perfect, picture that shows life a bit darker and dirtier than your typical Lifetime channel movie.


RABBIT HOLE (2010)
Spending 90 minutes with a couple struggling to rebuild their lives after the shattering loss of their young son can be a rough ride. But the script by David Lindsay-Abaire, from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, finds the right balance of heartbreaking sadness and dark humor and utilizes tightly would, emotional performances by Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Diane Wiest and Miles Teller to turn this film into a cathartic, hopeful experience.

The script is essentially a collection of uneventful moments in the lives of Howie and Becca in the months following the car accident that killed their son Danny. Nothing extraordinary happens, but the small moments add up, all leading to this couple rediscovery the meaning in their lives. Director John Cameron Mitchell, best known as the director-star of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” (2001), sustains the tone of the piece through the ups and downs of the couple’s relationship and does a superb job of eliciting just the right kind of performances from each cast member.

Just as Becca nears the end of her rope, she spots Jason, the high school student (Teller) who was driving the car that struck and killed her son when he ran out into the street. After following (stalking?) him for awhile, they begin to talk and form a kind of two-person support group. That’s in contrast to her impatient response to the organized support group she and her husband attended for awhile.

Teller gives an impressive portrayal of this smart, creative young man who becomes a surrogate son for Becca and helps her makes sense of a senseless death.

While Kidman has the showier, more complex role, giving one of the best performances of her rich career, Eckhart’s Howie is never reduced to just an argument partner. He responds as anyone would who is being push away by their spouse, but he never gives up on seeking a way to mend the marital wounds.

Providing another sounding board for Becca is her mother, played by veteran character actress Wiest. But her sympathy is both compromised and amplified by the fact that she too lost a son, Becca’s brother who died of a drug overdose at age 30. Wiest, playing a very different role from the flighty romantics she perfected in Woody Allen films of the 1980s and ‘90s, creates a very real, flawed mother in her best performance in a decade.

Even with the help of an Oscar nomination for Kidman, “Rabbit Hole” was lost among the big-ticket, upbeat end-of-the-year movies and should have been released a few months earlier. It’s a shame more won’t see it because it’s an intelligent, moving story that speaks to the way we mourn, the ways we connect to one another and the ways we survive, day after day after day.


GREENBERG (2010)
I’m continually attracted to the scenarios of Noah Baumbach’s movies but the final results inevitably disappoint. “The Whale and the Squid” and “Margot at the Wedding” both focused on eccentric, self-consumed individuals who were clueless to the emotional distress they inflicted on their families.

“Greenberg,” the movie and the character share many of the traits of the writer-director’s other characters, but he’s also the ultimate slacker. Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller), a former musician currently lacking a profession or a passion and fresh off a nervous breakdown, seems to be just floating through life as a slightly interested observer. There’s a hint of existentialism in Greenberg but that would imply that he displays some level of intellect---hardly.

We first meet him when he arrives in Los Angeles to house/dog sit for his brother, who has gone on vacation with his family. Greenberg plans to hook up with his old bandmates but, in truth, only one of them, Ivan (Rhys Ifans, giving the most believable performance in the film), can even tolerate him. Instead, he latches on to his brother’s efficient but rather needy nanny (Greta Gerwig), who puts up with his standoffish posing and general rude behavior. It’s actually hard to work up much sympathy for either of these mismatched oddballs. He acts like an ass and she keeps coming back for more.

A couple of parties he attends expose him to what apparently represents L.A. shallowness, but Greenberg makes these supposed lightweights seem like type-A workaholics. The story goes nowhere as Greenberg apparent maturity is seen in his growing attachment to his brother’s sick dog, but, toward everyone else, he acts as if he’s a 7-year-old.

Once again, Baumbach tricked me into watching one of his movies. Hopefully, I’ve learned my lesson: his films make for good trailers and not much else.


BLUE VALENTINE (2010)
Two exceptional performances turn this emotionally raw examination of a marriage on the rocks---not unlike “Rabbit Hole” but with less traditional plot---into one of the year’s most demanding and truthful films.

Much has been made of the sexual scenes of the film, almost earning it an NC-17 rating (which would have tanked any hopes of box office success) but the sex in the film is far from titillating (as it was in the more mainstream “Love and Other Drugs”). The sex we see is joyless and desperate as Dean and Cindy attempt to save the relationship with a trip to a cheesy fantasy hotel. The night turns out to be their matrimonial end game.

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, two of the most skilled actors of their generation, play an unlikely couple, married, after a brief affair, when Williams’ Cindy discovers she’s pregnant from a preview relationship.

Five years later, the daughter is what holds them together, especially for Cindy, who gave up her dream to become a physician and now works as a nurse. As Dean sees the relationship falter he becomes more and more desperate to hold it together, angry that he may lose his wife and daughter. But nothing is black and white in this film; both characters have moments when you hate them.

As we learn from the numerous flashbacks to their courting days, they never had much in common beyond their sexual attraction and struggle to communicate. In fact, there’s not much in the dialogue that explains the rift between these characters, but the method-style, intense performances express the emotion they don’t verbalize. “Blue Valentine” reminded me of “Love With the Proper Stranger” (1963) with Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood vainly trying to articulate their feelings and any number of John Cassavetes’ films in which conversation feels unrehearsed and unpredictable. This is the rare movie that presents inarticulate characters without degrading them.

Director Derek Cianfrance, whose previous work has been in documentaries, shoots much of the film in severe close-ups, holding shots until the character has nothing more to say and the viewer starts feeling uncomfortable. Williams and Gosling both deserved Oscar recognition (she got it, he didn’t) but Gosling should be used to getting slights at award time---his excellent performance in “Lars and the Real Girl” (2007) also was ignored by Oscar voters.


SOLITARY MAN (2010)
I’ve never been a big fan of Michael Douglas. He’s an old fashioned actor---a chip off his old man’s block---with more charisma than acting chops, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. (As witnessed by the continuing fine work of such performers as Clint Eastwood and Richard Gere). It’s Douglas’ smarmy swagger, overly studied smirk and self-satisfying bravado that has put me off for most of his career. Even in his best films (“Wall Street,” “Basic Instinct,” “Wonder Boys”) he’s never completely won me over. Until now.

In this small, under-the-radar picture in which he plays a down on his luck one-time car dealer, Douglas gives the performance I’ve been waiting for since “The Streets of San Francisco.” It’s a classic lion-in-winter role, coming just before his current bout with throat cancer.

We meet Ben Kalman after he’s screwed up his life (literally and figuratively) with a series of affairs with women half his age and a reckless scheme that ruined his business and his marriage to his down-to-earth wife (Susan Sarandon). He’s the kind of guy that doesn’t want his daughter calling him dad in public because he’s looking to pick up the even younger woman at the next table.

He sinks his already troubled life when he sleeps with his current girlfriend’s daughter while they’re on a trip to his alma mater in Boston. Beyond wrecking his relationship, it kills the backing of the woman’s powerful father for Ben’s plan to get back in the car business. Some of the film’s best moments are set at his old college, where he longs to recapture the magic of better days, hanging out at a frat party with new friend Daniel (“Social Network’s” Jesse Eisenberg) and getting reacquainted with old pal Jimmy (Danny DeVito), who owns the local deli.

No matter what the consequences, Ben just can’t pass up yet another chance to deny his age, and his mortality, by smooth talking a younger woman into his bed. But even as one cringes at some of his actions, you can’t help like the guy or at least feel a tinge of sympathy as he foolishly stumbles into his senior years.

Veteran screenwriter turned director Brian Koppelman and co-director David Levien, have fashioned a quirky, funny and thoughtful examination of the smartest guy in the room now reduced to sleeping on a friend’s couch. And, best of all, they elicit the best performance of this popular actor’s 40-year career.


THE EXPENDABLES (2010)
It seems appropriate that early in this paint-by-numbers, bloody action film tattoo artist and retired mercenary Tool (Mickey Rourke) finishes off the extensive body art that covers cohort Barney’s (Sylvester Stallone) body. Having commented on how plastic surgery has sadly altered the looks of some of our best actresses (Jessica Lange, Barbara Hershey, Meg Ryan), I’d be negligent in not mentioning the wreck the lifestyles/surgical procedures have done to Sly and Mickey. It’s hard to believe these guys were considered heartthrobs when they entered films, Stallone in the 70s and Rourke in the ‘80s.

I could care less about an actor’s looks as long as they create a convincing character, but the “look” these guys have created makes it hard to concentrate on their performances---they might as well be wearing a hat adorned with oversized fruit.

If you can get past his face and bizarre outfits (he smokes a long stemmed pipe right out of the Plymouth Rock collection), Rourke gives his usual quirky, highly entertaining performance in the middle of this blunt-force, ham-fisted picture.

The other “big” stars of this film—the casting earned it 10 times the publicity it deserved---are Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, but they appear in just one pretentiously humorous scene (it’s like a Bob Hope walk on) and then disappear. Also joining this washed up brigade of tough guys is Dolf Lundgren, a couple of oversized pro wrestlers, current action star Jason Stratham (who can act but isn’t required to here) and Jet Li, the Hong Kong martial arts star.

The plot involves this thick-necked squad of amoral killers being hired by “the agency” to take out a South American dictator, who turns out to be a pawn of an ex-CIA egomaniac, played with his usual overheated intensity by Eric Roberts.

This is the kind of film where bullets rip men’s heads off and a single man can kill dozens of enemy soldiers in mere seconds.

Did I mention that Stallone directed this exercise in excess? He provides the same scattered, slow-moving style of storytelling he brought to the later “Rocky” pictures.

But you’ve got to give credit to Stallone: He’s survived in the film industry against all odds. He should have been doing dinner theater productions of “On the Waterfront” in South Florida by now, but instead he’s starring in and directing major movie releases. What can you say about a guy who, at age 64, is still willing to take his shirt off and fire a huge gun at any nonwhite who dares to cross his path?

And if you missed this gunfest, Part Deux is already in the works.


PLEASE GIVE (2010)
I found Nicole Holofcener’s previous pictures, “Lovely & Amazing” (2001) and “Friends With Money” (2006) insufferably trite, filled with boring, self-indulgent characters. These characters are still around in her latest picture, but the writer-director has layered her screenplay with plenty of dagger-sharp sarcasm and self-deprecating laughs.

Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt are a daffy New York couple who resell furniture purchased at estate sales, while setting their sights on buying the apartment next door. The only thing standing in their way of expanding their home is the orange-haired, grumpy elderly woman (hilariously portrayed by 82-year-old Ann Morgan Guilbert, Millie from “The Dick Van Dyke Show”) who still lives there.

Kenner’s Kate has the worst case of liberal guilty, insisting on giving money to every homeless person she walks by and inviting the neighbor woman she’s counting on dying soon and her two granddaughters to dinner.

The sisters have little in common, with Rebecca (portrayed by Rebecca Hall, quietly becoming a major star), a soft-spoken, thoughtful radiologist, who focuses her attention on her ungrateful grandmother while Mary (Amanda Peet) is a self-absorbed massage therapist more interested in her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend than her grandmother.

Tying all these people together with varying degrees of empathy is Alex and Kate’s teen daughter Abby (Sarah Steele), a smart, observant girl with blemish problems and an obsessive need for an expensive pair of blue jeans.

As I wrote last month, Platt brings authenticity to every film he’s in and here he manages to come across as both the most sensible half of the couple and the most reckless. He’s perfectly matched with Keener, who’s been in all four of Holofcener’s films, but has never been more effective than in “Please Give,” creating an authentically mopey and misguided woman.

TV veteran Guilbert steals every scene she’s in, giving laugh-out-loud reading of her dry, cutting lines. Since her days as Mary Tyler Moore’s best friend on the early ‘60s landmark sitcom, she’s been a constant TV presence with her most recent prominent role being the outrageously dressed, senile grandmother on “The Nanny.”


CORRECTION: In my write-up of “Black Swan” in the December posting, I confused Vincent Gallo with Vincent Cassel. French actor Cassel stars as the ballet director. Gallo is a wacky American who works mostly in independent films. He would have been perfectly cast as Natalie Portman’s boyfriend in the film, but, in fact, he wasn’t in “Black Swan.”

December 2010

THE KING’S SPEECH (2010)
A man being treated by a speech therapist for stuttering hardly seems like the plot of a great film. Then again, it doesn’t hurt that the patient is the future king of England.

Tom Hooper, director of last year’s underrated “The Damned United” and the acclaimed cable series “John Adams,” has made a near-perfect character study of a pivotal figure of the 20th Century as he faces both his frustrating disability and the dark clouds of war.

Colin Firth portrays Prince Albert, know to his family as Bertie, second son of the gruff, cold George V and brother of Edward (Guy Pearce), the dashing and well-spoken heir to the throne. Albert prefers to be in the background, limited by his inability to speak fluently and his reserved personality.

Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), in her continual pursuit of a cure for her husband’s speech problem, visits unorthodox Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), who agrees to take on the royal patient, but only under his terms.

The give and take between Firth’s taciturn Bertie and Rush’s gregarious, plain-speaking Lionel is superbly written (by David Seidler) and realized, painting a difficult relationship that goes from royal and commoner to brothers. The performances are career bests for both of these excellent actors.

Raising the dramatic stakes is the biggest crisis faced by the Royal family since Richard III started killing off heirs to the throne: Edward refusal to give up American divorcee Wallis Simpson even after becoming King. The possibility of having to take his brother’s place on the throne doubles Bertie’s insecurities, especially with the newly popular medium of radio requiring the country’s leader to speak directly to the nation.

The film captures the intensity of the times---Hitler is about to launch his assault on Europe---while never losing its focus on the therapy process and the growing bond between these two, very different, men.

Firth, who earned a 2009 Oscar nomination for his subtle portrayal of a gay man mourning the death of his partner in “A Single Man,” finds the right balance of royal macho and frail human in Bertie, as this accidental monarch slowly becomes a warmer, more likeable person. These two performances elevate the 50-year-old Firth to the top ranks of film actors. Yet Rush, who won an Oscar for his first major role in “Shine” (1996), is equally impressive as a nervy eccentric who treats the King as just another patient and also deserve a spot in the best actor category.

Bonham Carter captures Elizabeth’s earthy, no-nonsense persona and unflagging confidence in her husband, foreshadowing her role in leading the country through the harsh times of World War II and her beloved status as “Queen Mother” until her death in 2002.

The film is filled with impeccably acted supporting roles, including Pearce, displaying both the bravado of the young King and the anguish behind one of the most celebrated romances of the era; Timothy Spall as Churchill; Derek Jacobi as the Archbishop; Claire Bloom as the Queen; and Michael Gambon as George V.

While “The King’s Speech” has the trappings of a “Masterpiece Theatre” production, the movie also possesses an unhinged, unpredictable undercurrent that makes the political issues come alive and the characters seem very contemporary.

There’s a poignant, insightful moment when Bertie’s children----future Queen Elizabeth, then 10, and Margaret----greet him with curtsies rather than hugs now that he’s also their King. The difficult balance between personal and public, country and family, turns this story of a very private, privileged man and his informal, working man friend into a fascinating study of class and individual priorities in an unpredictable, changing world.


TRUE GRIT (2010)
More than 40 years ago, this comic Western was viewed as a remnant of old Hollywood, a relic in the midst of a revolution. It earned just a single Oscar nomination (for John Wayne) and was out grossed at the box office by the hipper “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” And the Western movie critics were raving about that year was “The Wild Bunch.”

The Coen brothers’ remake, which offers only cosmetic changes from the original, has benefitted from the rarity of Westerns today and the filmmakers’ cutting-edge reputation to earn critical raves. But what’s on the screen is too often a by-the-numbers horse opera that doesn’t match the energy of such recent Westerns as “3:10 to Yuma” (2007) or “Open Range” (2004).

What saves the picture is its perfect casting: Jeff Bridges is a more disheveled, inebriated Rooster Cogburn than Wayne; Hailee Steinfeld, a 14-year-old newcomer, nails the precocious Mattie; and Matt Damon brings to life the egotistical LaBoeuf, a character than had been left on the page in the original by amateur actor Glen Campbell.

Both films, based on the acclaimed novel by Charles Portis, follows Mattie’s determined pursuit of the low-life drifter who killed her father, a successful rancher, for no good reason. After much hemming and hawing, she hires Cogburn, a federal marshal, to help her bring the killer, who has escaped into Indian Territory, to justice. Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, after the same man for another crime, joins the hunting party.

Even with the spunky, self-reliant Mattie as the focus, the film never picks up much speed until the mismatched trio hits the trail, and even then the Coens add little spin to the tale.

The only interesting addition to the new version is the brief, oddball appearance of a medicine man/trader wearing a bear skin (including the head). A few more “wild” animals could have done wonders for this movie.

Bridges, like Wayne, was born to play Rooster and he does have some fun with the role, but not as much as you’d expect. He plays it pretty straight just like everyone else in the picture.

Steinfeld, discovered during auditions for the role after having very limited acting experience, shows the character’s steely resolve and verbal maturity while displaying real cinematic charisma. Not once is she out acted by Bridges, Damon or Josh Brolin (who has a small role as the killer) and should not be stuck in the supporting actress category just because she’s a juvenile. She is the film’s lead actress.

Unquestionable, this version is better directed and acted than Henry Hathaway’s 1969 movie, and, from all reports, sticks closer to the novel. Yet, overall, it’s the same picture; an occasionally amusing, run-of-the-mill Western.


WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE WAR, DADDY? (1966)
While it’s hard to take seriously a director who made eight “Pink Panther” films---each progressively less funny and more embarrassing---Blake Edwards, who died a few weeks ago at age 88, is hard to dismiss. The grandson of a silent filmmaker, Edwards started in Hollywood as an actor (he played a soldier in “The Best Years in Our Lives”) and then a screenwriter before making his directing debut with “Bring Your Smile Along,” a 1955 B-level musical comedy starring pop singer Frankie Lane. Four years later, he scored his first hit with the military comedy “Operation Petticoat,” starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis.

For television, Edwards created the short-lived 1959-60 series “Mr. Lucky” about a profession gambler and the better remembered “Peter Gunn,” with Craig Stevens as a cool private eye, which ran for three seasons starting in 1958.

He was just hitting his stride. For his next film, he turned Truman Capote’s novel about a New York City party girl named Holly Golightly--- with the help of Andy Hepburn’s iconic performance---into a classic, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961). The next year he directed one of the era’s most memorable dramas, “Days of Wine and Roses,” featuring searing performances by Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick as an alcoholic couple.

Then he created the anchor, for better or worse, of his career: “The Pink Panther” and “A Shot in the Dark,” both starring with Peter Sellers as the thick-headed, clumsy French detective, Inspector Clouseau. Essentially, a Hollywoodization of the absurdly goofiness of the English comedies of the ‘50s combined with the silent pratfalls of the Keystone Cops, the 1964 comedies made Sellers a star in America. But it was another ten years before the pair returned to the series.

A string of box-office failures and high-profile battles with studio chiefs marked Edwards’ last ‘60s career, culminating with his move to England after his married to Julie Andrews in 1969. One of his misfires was the oddly titled 1966 World War II satire, “What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?” The film starts out promisingly, when a ragtag platoon ordered to take an Italian town finds the enemy troops more than willing to surrender. All the Italians want is to celebrate their festival that evening and then, in the morning, they’ll become prisoners.

James Coburn and Aldo Ray, as leaders of this troop of partiers, have no problem with the arrangement and, with the right measure of alcohol and the affections of the local beauty, neither does the uptight lieutenant from headquarters, played by Dick Shawn.

The next morning, the plan goes awry and so does the William Peter Blatty (“The Exorcist”) script, turning into a series of flipped-out officers and mistaken identities. Once the Nazis show up, the film loses any sense of intelligence it started with, wasting the first-rate comic skills of Coburn and Shawn.

During this dry period, Edwards occasionally made interesting pictures, including “The Party,” a satire of hipsters of the ‘60s starring Sellers; “Wild Rovers” (1971), an entertaining Western with William Holden; and “The Carey Treatment” (1972), a murder-mystery starring Coburn.

Then came Edwards’ impressive return to box-office glory with the daring sex comedy “10” (1979), followed by the hilarious, uncensored assault on Hollywood in “S.O.B.” (1981) and the gender-bending comedy “Victor/Victoria” (1982), his best film since “Tiffany’s.” All three movies featured Andrews.

Between the never-ending “Panther” retreads, Edwards explored the theme of “10”---the anxieties of middle-aged men especially in regards to sex---for the rest of his career. “Micki & Maude” (1984), with “10” star Dudley Moore; “That’s Life!” (1986), a high-profile acting platform for Jack Lemmon; and “Skin Deep” (1989), with John Ritter in the Dudley Moore role, were Edwards’ late-career best. His final picture was, appropriately, “The Son of the Pink Panther” (1993), this time starring the nutty Italian actor Roberto Benigni.

Though Edwards only helmed one great film, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” and produced at least four too many “Panthers,” this writer-director had his finger on the pulse of what made audience laugh for more than four decades, a rare skill considering the ever-changing tastes of moviegoers. And in between the sophomoric sight gags and pratfalls, his movies always possessed a dark, sarcastic undercurrent that kept him relevant longer than most of his generation of filmmakers.


THE FIGHTER (2010)
Great acting cannot turn a predictable, simplistic screenplay into a good movie, but it certainly makes it a more entertaining two hours.

This true story of a pair of prizefighting half-brothers, Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and Dicky Ecklund (Christian Bale) from a small town north of Boston follows the template that’s been used in boxing films since the 1930s. Dickey had his shot at glory (he never tires of boasting that he knocked down the great Sugar Ray Leonard) but now is the wild-eyed, irresponsible, cocaine-addicted trainer of Micky, a welterweight struggling to get a shot at a decent fight. Offering little help is his trashy, ambitious mother/manager Alice (Melissa Leo) who dotes on the washed-up Dicky and only sees Micky as a way to keep the money flowing for her and her seven big-haired, loud-mouth daughters.

Under the influence of a feisty bartender (Amy Adams), the soft-spoken Micky break with the family and starts getting better fights. About the same time, Dicky’s robbery scheme lands him in prison, where he attempts to right his life.

If you’ve seen many boxing films, or nearly any sports movies, the story arc and characters are as familiar as an old sock. Yet the ferocious, authentic performances by Bale and Leo are worth the price of admission.

Bale, the reigning “Batman,” who showed what an extraordinary actor he can be in “Rescue Dawn” (2006), turns this sad, drug-addled goofball into an unforgettable character; outrageous, funny and frustratingly human.

Leo’s brassy, overbearing dame runs the family as if she’s a Vegas monster, giving her troubled son and dependent daughters free rides. The actress’ best performances---she was Oscar nominated for “Frozen River” (2008) and deserved to be for “21 Grams” (2003)---have been portrayals of uneducated, determined women and she finds just the right balance again with her Alice, making her both cartoonishly funny and horror-movie scary.

The film is the pet project of Wahlberg, a longtime fan of Ward, having grown up in the area, and he gives a solid performance, especially in the very authentic looking fight scenes. But he should have demanded a better script.

Director David O. Russell (“The Three Kings”) keeps the movie lively and makes great use of real locations in Lowell, Mass., but he’s stuck with the “true story” and sometimes that’s not the best source of convincing drama.


BLACK SWAN (2010)
I’m never surprised when I see a bad film---I feel lucky if 20% of the new movies I watch are any good. What amazes me is the number of bad or mediocre pictures every year that receive the big-budget studio push for prestigious awards. Of course, some of these bad films end up winning awards, which might never have happened if they had slipped into theaters in March.

Example number 186 is “Black Swan.” This overwrought melodrama about an immature, mentally unstable ballet dancer is a glossy version of a low-budget exploitation film. I half expected characters to sprout fangs or wings or, like in a 1970s Roger Corman picture, transform into some kind of beast.

Natalie Portman matches the skin-and-bones look of a prima ballerina and, at age 28, is still believable as a child-like adult. Her Nina lives under the domineering thumb of her mother (Barbara Hershey), a former dancer whose controlling behavior has never allowed Nina to develop relationships or emerge from childhood.

That Nina holds on to a spot in a prestigious New York City dance company is hard to buy; as the movie keeps hammering home, it takes more than physical perfection to be an artistic dancer. Nina has zero personality, lacking any interests beyond her tights and slippers.

The plot involves Nina’s struggle to portray the Black Swan in a production of “Swan Lake” staged by the dance company’s demanding director (French actor Vincent Cassel). What little confidence she possesses is crushed by the arrival of a younger, sexier dancer (Mila Kunis), sending Nina into schizophrenic, disturbing visions.

The performances are alarming poor, led by Portman’s one-note portrayal of this fragile young woman. Her look of pained fear never changes (she’s on the verge of tears for the entire two hours) until she somehow becomes completely possessed in the grand finalé.

Hershey might as well be carrying around a wire coat hanger---it would have provided a more subtle insight into her character than she ever approaches. Gallo hits all the clichés of an overbearing choreographer while Kunis’ character is made to fit whatever the disturbed mind of Nina’s requires.

Darren Aronofsky, whose best known films examined the agony of drug abuse (“Requiem for a Dream”) and the pain of an aging pro wrestler (“The Wrestler”) is clearly fascinated by the physical abuse people are willing endure for their obsessions, but this latest version never rises above TV-movie disease-of-moment dreck.

Yet “Black Swan” has already picked up four Golden Globe nominations and looks to be a shoo-in for a best picture Oscar nomination. Timing is everything.


MADE IN DAGENHAM (2010)
This British docudrama, about a landmark strike by female workers at an English Ford Motors plant in 1968, plays like a TV movie, except for the vibrant, cinematic performance at its center.

Sally Hawkins, who received numerous accolades for her high spirited performance in Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” (2008), portrays Rita O’Grady, one of the seamstresses producing seat covers at the plant, who steps into a leadership role when the women strike for a pay raise that had been promised by the company. This working wife and mother, who never pictured herself as an activist or leader, finds it comes naturally as she confronts arrogant company executives, sexist union leaders and suspicious male co-workers who lose their paychecks when the company locks out all the workers.

Hawkins’ spunky, unaffected performance turns these 40-year-old events into relevant issues in a way that William Ivory’s script, Nigel Cole’s direction and the stock characters who surround her can’t do.

Bob Hoskins gives his usual feisty, bemused performance as the union rep on the women’s side, but Miranda Richardson overplays her role as the Labor Secretary who takes an interest in the dispute. All the officials---government, company, union---are portrayed as narrow-minded fools, which makes the accomplishments of O’Grady and the strikers seem less impressive. In fact, this group of small-town women changed the way one of the world’s largest corporations paid workers, eventually leading to equal pay laws across Europe and North America.

One can’t help but admire “Made in Dagenham” for bringing this little-noted but far-reaching bit of history to the screen, even if it makes for predictable, by-the-numbers cinema.


WILD GRASS (2010)
Legendary French director Alain Resnais’ latest film falls well short of his 2006 effort, “Private Fears in Public Places,” though both share a neon-light look that makes you wonder if it isn’t all a dream. If it had been, “Wild Grass” might be more convincing.

When a retired, somewhat unstable man (veteran actor André Dussollier) discovers a wallet in a parking garage, he becomes obsessed with the owner, in large part because the wallet contains her pilot license. Though he turns the lost wallet into the police (in an extraordinarily laborious scene), he calls and then writes the woman in a desperate attempt to meet her.

Marguerite (Sabine Azéma), who is a dentist and flies planes for pleasure, can’t decide if she wants Georges out of her life or, in some bizarre way, enjoys his attention. When he slashes her car’s tires, she finally goes to the police, but still ends up tracking him down for a meeting.

As with most of Resnais’s films---the best known being “Hiroshima Mon Amour” (1959), “Last Year at Marienbad” (1961) and “Providence” (1977)---“Wild Grass” unfolds at a leisurely pace and the motivations of the characters change on a dime. Most irritating in this movie is the incessive narration of the character’s thoughts that offers bland details rather than real insight. The script, by Alex Reval and Laurent Herbiet, from a novel by Christian Gailly, seems to be attempting to comment on the difficultly in making connections in a modern society and that fate sends us down unexpected paths, but it never made much impact on me. Seriously, the dramatic conclusion hinges on a broken zipper.

But what do I know: critics polled by Film Comment magazine selected “Wild Grass” as one of the ten best films of the year.

That vote probably speaks more to the director’s status in world cinema than the quality of his latest film. Following the deaths in 2010 of Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol, 88-year-old Resnais is the only major figure of the French New Wave still making commercial films. (I’m not sure what you call the recent work of Jean-Luc Godard. His films have become so polemic and indecipherable that you need to be one of his acolytes to appreciate them.) Amazingly, Resnais is shooting another film scheduled to be released in 2012, when he turns 90.


BAD MATH: In last month’s review of “Howards End,” I casually threw out the “fact” that 80% of movies are adapted from books. One of “Thoughts on Film’s” more careful readers pointed out that I was way off the mark and he was correct. In a survey of a two recent years, 78% of movies were original screenplays and just 22% started as books. Of those “original” screenplays, 18% are remakes, sequels or based on real events.