And They're Off!: Predictions for the 2011 Oscar Race

Last week I spent a fair amount of digital space dismissing the Academy Awards and arguing that the winners are rarely representative of the year’s best. Today I’m going spend even space more doing much the opposite. Oscar nominations were announced yesterday morning, setting off the month-long period of guessing and trying to predict the winners and I’m joining the noise too because… well, because it’s fun. What follows are my early predictions for the winners in addition to my choices for who I would vote for in the major categories if I had a ballot.

Last year I got 15 out of 24 by guessing the morning of the Oscars. Let’s see how I do predicting the winners a month in advance.

BEST PICTURE

The nominees: Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King’s Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter’s Bone

My Prediction: The Social Network. Now that the nominees have been announced, The King’s Speech is front-and-center with the most nominations, but my money is that the story of Facebook will stay strong through Oscar night. The movie has everything going for it. Impressive on a technical level and an absorbing human story too. Plus, this is the year everyone started talking about Facebook. The film’s good fortune of being so topical should work in its favor.

My Vote: Black Swan. On my own Top 10 list, Toy Story 3 was my sentimental favorite and Pixar will easily scoop up their umpteenth award for Best Animated Film. If I had a ballot to fill out though, Darren Aronofsky’s surreal, sexual nightmare would get my vote. The film is a virtuosic achievement and in many ways, was the film that most impressed me this year.

BEST DIRECTOR

The nominees: Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), David O. Russell (The Fighter), Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech), David Fincher (The Social Network), Joel and Ethan Coen (True Grit)

My Prediction: David Fincher. Even if The King’s Speech manages to nab Best Picture, Fincher will still win this. So much of the film’s success relies on what he does with the material. No one could have told this story the way Fincher does and this year the Academy will recognize his distinctive voice.

My Vote: David Fincher. I choose Fincher for all of the aforementioned reasons plus, with a slew of unrecognized (but great) films behind him (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac), he deserves this.

BEST ACTOR

The nominees: Javier Bardem (Biutiful), Jeff Bridges (True Grit), Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), James Franco (127 Hours)

My Prediction: Colin Firth. Exactly the kind of performance the Academy loves. Plus, The King’s Speech’s greatest strength is its actors and even if it falls short of Best Picture, this is a safe bet.

My Vote: Colin Firth. Hey, he’s going to win for a reason. This is a strong batch of performances but Firth is deservedly at the top.

BEST ACTRESS

The nominees: Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone), Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)

My Prediction: Natalie Portman. The race is between Portman and Bening, but since actors make up the largest group of voting members, these awards can sometimes be a bit of a popularity contest. The newly engaged, newly pregnant Portman is as likable as they come. She also had to prepare extensively for the role, which always helps.

My Vote: Annette Bening. I loved Portman in Black Swan and she deserves her win, but I’m going to play devil’s advocate a little here and choose her main contender. My favorite performance this year is a tie between Bening and Julianne Moore as the married mothers at the center of The Kids Are All Right. For some reason, Moore hasn’t been recognized for her work the way Bening has, but in their portrayal of a troubled marriage, the interplay between the two is essential. So my vote is for Bening with a write-in for Moore. This is a fantasy anyways, so I can do what I want.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

The nominees: Christian Bale (The Fighter), John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone), Jeremy Renner (The Town), Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right), Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech)

My Prediction: Christian Bale. No one is giving him much competition here except maybe Rush, who has won before. I can’t wait to hear Bale’s acceptance speech too.

My Vote: Christian Bale. One could make the argument that a spotlight-stealing performance such as this one goes against what a “supporting role” should do in a film. Still, Bale’s drug-addled, self-absorbed, and ultimately well-meaning brother to Mark Wahlberg’s Micky is the heart of this film. The movie wouldn’t be as good as it is without him.

On a side note, no Armie Hammer for his dual role as the Winklevoss twins from The Social Network here? For shame.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

The nominees: Amy Adams (The Fighter), Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech), Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

My Prediction: Melissa Leo. Leo is an actress that has gone underappreciated for a long time, and my feeling is that she will finally get recognition from her peers here. This isn’t a lock, however, and if Adams splits support for The Fighter’s actors, the young Steinfeld may swoop in. My bet is still on Leo, though.

My Vote: Hailee Steinfeld. For such a young actress to carry a film is impressive. She’s only in the “supporting” category because of inexplicable Academy logic. I was thoroughly impressed by her restraint and conviction in the part, and holding your own against Jeff Bridges is no easy task.

Another side gripe: Had Mila Kunis been nominated here for Black Swan, I’d have voted for her.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The nominees: 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter’s Bone

My Prediction: The Social Network. The year’s two favorites (Network and Speech) are divided in the screenplay categories, which should mean they will both get their honors here before duking it out for Best Picture.

My Vote: The Social Network. Two hours of discussing computer programming and copyright laws shouldn’t have been as absorbing as Aaron Sorkin made them. He took the story of a website’s creation and made it a fascinating (if also largely fabricated) character study and human drama.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The nominees: Another Year, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King’s Speech

My Prediction: The King’s Speech. See above reason.

My Vote: The Kids Are All Right. Director Lisa Cholodenko along with her co-writer Stuart Blumberg capture every nuance of their characters’ quirks and speech. The movie is alternately hilarious and heartbreaking and we have a great script to thank for that.

My foolhardy predictions for the rest of the nominees, including some wild guessing on the shorts:

Animated Film: Toy Story 3

Art Direction: The King’s Speech

Cinematography: The Social Network

Costume Design: The King’s Speech

Documentary Feature: Restrepo

Film Editing: Black Swan

Foreign Language Film: Biutiful

Makeup: The Wolfman

Music (Original Score): The Social Network

Music (Original Song): “If I Rise,” 127 Hours

Sound Editing: Inception

Sound Mixing: The Social Network

Visual Effects: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Documentary Short: Strangers No More

Animated Short: Day & Night

Live Action Short: God of Love

I’ll return in a month to see how wrong I was.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/26/11

REVIEW: No Strings Attached

No Strings Attached (2011): Dir. Ivan Reitman. Written by Elizabeth Merriwether. Starring Ashton Kutcher, Natalie Portman, Kevin Kline, Jake Johnson, Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges and Lake Bell. Rated R (sexual content, language and some drug material). Running time: 110 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

I wonder, how did the script of No Strings Attached describe its leads? “Enter Adam, an attractive young man who looks and acts exactly like Ashton Kutcher.” Or maybe: “Emma is a beautiful young woman who, if we’re lucky, looks and acts exactly like Natalie Portman.” The movie seems to have been constructed around the knowledge that two likable stars would fill these roles, which allows the filmmakers to forgo the arduous process of creating interesting and believable characters. We come to the movie already prepared to like these people because the trailers and posters have informed us who plays them, a trick that works for No Strings Attached more than it should.

Adam (Kutcher) and Emma (Portman) are not quite friends at the beginning of the film. They have had a few awkward encounters in their youths, including a humorous failed seduction by Adam at summer camp and a chance reunion at a college party years later. From the start, Adam clearly likes her. And who wouldn’t? She shows up to a pajama-themed frat party wearing long johns and still manages to look good.

Emma decides to follow up this second encounter by inviting Adam to her father’s funeral the next morning. The funeral scene, the last of a brief prologue, opens the door for a decidedly darker sense of humor than the movie continues with afterward. Think for a moment though about what kind of girl would party the night before her father is buried and then invite a more-or-less stranger to the services. That girl probably wouldn’t look or act anything like Natalie Portman. But never mind that. The opening scenes lay down the groundwork for characterization that the rest of the film largely ignores. Never again do we see these morbid tendencies from Emma, nor does Adam ever resemble anything close to the goofy frat guy he is in the movie’s second scene.

In the present day, they meet once more and possibly feel a spark so they exchange numbers. Adam soon breaks up with his current girlfriend and has a bad night of drunken phones calls that leads him to Emma’s apartment the next morning. From here they decide to embark on a relationship their friends tell them is impossible: to have casual sex without ever allowing romance to enter the equation.

To pad this rather weak premise, No Strings Attached is filled with supporting performances, perhaps even crowded with them. Adam’s buddies (Jake Johnson and Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges) give him the requisite “guy advice” and Emma’s apartment-mates (The Office’s Mindy Kaling, Greta Gerwig and Guy Branum) take their turns ogling Adam and envying her new fling. The best of these actors is Jake Johnson, who has enough charm to make an otherwise forgettable role funny. Ludacris too gets some chuckles, though the strangeness of him even being in this movie might have a lot to do with that.

Then there is Adam’s father (played by Kevin Kline), a one-time TV celebrity who starts sleeping with Adam’s ex (Ophelia Lovibond). These scenes strive for comedy but consistently fail, though fault does not lie with Kline or Lovibond. Too often, these goofy scenes try to hang real emotions on their characters, resulting in an uneven tone.

Despite the overabundance of side characters, attention never strays from Adam and Emma for very long. Unfortunately, their characters are almost entirely defined by their relationship. Adam hopes for romance and so he is painted as the emotional and considerate Nice Guy. Emma prefers to keep her distance from such intimacy and is an Independent Woman. Their jobs are typical for a movie of this kind and serve little purpose other than to supply potential romantic rivals. Emma works at a hospital where an improbably rugged doctor-in-training (Ben Lawson) shows some interest in her, and Adam is a production assistant for a Glee-type show with aspirations of becoming a writer. Also on the set of Adam’s show is Lake Bell, whose foul-mouthed turn as a neurotic co-worker obsessed with Adam deserves more screen time than she gets.

The comedy in No Strings Attached is hit or miss and the movie is better at crafting cute moments than it is funny ones. The movie elicits a fair amount of smiles but no real laughs. This is really only a problem in Kline’s scenes as the father, which go for the laughs and fall short. For the most part, however, the movie is content to be a middle-of-the-road romantic comedy made up of recycled parts. That Ivan Reitman, who once upon a time made Ghostbusters, directed this movie is a little disconcerting, but as an entry in the romantic comedy genre, there has been much worse than No Strings Attached.

Strip away the side characters and meager plot, and you have the one element that every romantic comedy lives or dies on: the chemistry between its leads. The chemistry between Kutcher and Portman is hardly sizzling, but they were cast for a reason. More often than the movie deserves, the likeability of its actors keeps the production afloat. Their characters' relationship doesn’t have enough substance to get us really rooting for them, but there is a certain comfort in seeing two nice, attractive people get together on screen. For a movie with such modest ambitions as No Strings Attached, that seems to be enough.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/23/11

Awards, Lists & Prestige: A Look at the Year-End Awards Craze and the Top 10 of 2010

Now mid-January, we find ourselves in the thick of movie awards season. The critics have published their Best of the Year lists, and just about every other weekend you can catch a glimpse of the Hollywood elite sipping on drinks and wearing their designers’ finest on any number of award broadcasts. But what are we supposed to take away from this frenzy? What does winning Best Picture mean? Or topping a Top 10 list? The cynic in me is tempted to dismiss it all. “There’s no way to determine an objective best film in a given year,” he says. And he’d be right to say so.

On the other hand, the realist in me (a close cousin to the cynic) understands that, for better or worse, the end of the year hubbub that builds up to the Academy Awards is an unavoidable part of the movie industry, so there’s no sense in bemoaning its existence. Despite what one might think seeing the annual onslaught of big-budget blockbuster hopefuls each summer, studios aren’t solely interested in box office receipts. Those glittering statuettes – whatever shape they may be – offer a chance to accumulate that other type of wealth (the non-monetary kind): prestige. The fight for prestige is not limited to studios either. Who wouldn’t want those three wondrous words (“Academy Award Winner”) attached to their name in trailers for the rest of their career?

The problem is that the winners are not always deserving of their new titles. Often, the Oscars generate a lot of (ultimately fleeting) enthusiasm around undeserving films and so the list of Best Picture winners becomes riddled with forgotten movies that, in their year, were deemed the best of the best. The Academy Awards are also painfully predictable. Nominations have yet to be announced, but I can already confidently say that The Social Network will win Best Picture.

Hold on a moment, though. The cynic in me is taking control again. Sure, the Academy Awards are a fallible cultural game that cannot accurately predict which films will be remembered 10, 20, or 50 years later, but they’re hardly worthless. They help to highlight movies that the general public might not have paid attention to otherwise.

A few weeks back, for example, I saw The King’s Speech at my local theater. The movie had been getting a lot of critical attention and the Oscar prognosticators had begun to beat their drums, so I was excited to see it. I wasn’t the only one either. The movie played to a sold-out theater and ended up being a crowd-pleaser. Exiting the theater around me as the credits rolled were excited moviegoers chatting about their favorite parts. Oscar buzz led us into the theater, but the film’s humor and heart sent us home, wanting to recommend it to a friend. The film overcame the daunting expectations that are placed on an Award Winning Film and was able to sway the many subjective opinions in its audience.

Which leads me to critics’ lists. Like the Academy Awards, they do not offer a definitive statement of the year’s best films, but instead provide insight into a critic’s personal tastes. Seeing which critics chose which films as their favorites says something that the blinding glitz and glamour of the red carpet cannot. Of course, a critic’s list can be just as susceptible to end-of-the-year hype as an awards show. In my own experience, I often look back at my choices for the year’s best and scratch my head. In 2007, I wrote that Juno was the year’s best, with No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood and Zodiac all taking a backseat to that cutesy-quirky romantic comedy. Three years later, Juno is still a funny movie, but each of those other films has appreciated better, rewarding multiple viewings in a way that Juno’s one-liners cannot.

Predicting which films will be remembered years from now can be a tricky thing. So with that limitation in mind, I craft my Top 10 of 2010 list. There were no movies this year that I found truly great in the four-star sense of the word (last year I saw at least four: The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, A Serious Man and Up in the Air), but there were still some very fine movies that may yet become great in time.

The numbered order is subjective almost to the point of arbitrariness, but when organizing the list, I kept in mind the following: To what degree was the film a wholly satisfying experience? How have these films appreciated in the short time since I left the theater (or ejected the DVD as the case may be)? Organizing the list in this way led to some surprising results for me, but I think the list is an honest one. What follows are the ten films that most affected me in their various ways.

10) True Grit

Of course a Coen Bros. western would be heavier on talking than shooting. The prolific writer/directors seem to be able to take their style in just about any direction they please, and their adaptation of the novel that also inspired the 1969 classic is a witty and often violent trip out West. Add a grumbling, drunken Jeff Bridges in the John Wayne role and the promising young talent of Hailee Steinfeld and you have a very entertaining film.

9) The King’s Speech

Sometimes the best historical dramas are the ones with the narrowest focus. The King’s Speech centers on King George VI’s stammer in the burgeoning years of the Radio Age. This may not sound like much of a subject for a drama, but the story is a surprisingly touching and inspirational one. Colin Firth as the titular King and Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist are thrill to watch play off each other too.

8) The Kids Are All Right

No other movie I saw this year has as keen an understanding of how people interact as The Kids Are All Right. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore star as lesbian mothers who struggle with their children’s desire to connect with their sperm donor father (Mark Ruffalo). This is wonderful comedy that occasionally flirts with melodrama but even then remains an honest a depiction of family dynamics. That the family is an unconventional one dampens none of its universality.

7) A Prophet

This fascinating French film follows a young man’s years in prison as he navigates the multicultural politics of organized crime on the inside. Though only a handful of scenes take place outside the prison walls, the film is as expansive and grand as a crime epic. Absorbing from beginning to end.

6) The Ghost Writer

A political thriller about a biographer (Ewan McGregor) who agrees to write the memoirs of former Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) after Lang’s former ghost writer mysteriously committed suicide. Director Roman Polanski hasn’t lost any of his knack for crafting great thrillers, and this one is one of the most rich and involving mysteries in recent years. It has a phenomenal ending too.

5) The Social Network

How much is fact and how much was made up? Does it matter? Director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin take the story of Facebook’s creation and turn it into the stuff of Greek drama. Jesse Eisenberg is wonderful as the borderline misanthropic Mark Zuckerberg and is surrounded by a strong supporting cast. Often dark, sometimes funny, and always engrossing.

4) Inception

Christopher Nolan is a marvelous craftsman and he outdoes himself here. He builds, then solves his own puzzle, playing by the rules he invents for himself. The result is one of the most dazzling and inventive action movies since The Matrix. Like that earlier film, Inception toys with metaphysical ideas just long enough to hold you over until the action scenes, all of which are exceptional.

3) 127 Hours

Only Danny Boyle could take the true story of Aron Ralston, who was trapped in a rock crevice for over five days, and turn it into one of the most entertaining movies of the year. Despite the seeming physical limitations of Ralston’s story, Boyle’s film is a kinetic and exhilarating ride. 127 Hours has all the tension of an action movie and its protagonist doesn’t even move for most of the film. Credit must also be given to James Franco for carrying the film in a career-best performance.

2) Black Swan

The best horror movie in years. Darren Aronofsky’s tour de force about a ballerina losing her mind is an eerie, paranoid thriller with top-shelf performances from Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey and Vincent Cassel. There are a number of twists and turns along the way, but the movie wisely does not trap itself into any one version of reality. The movie exists within Nina’s mind, so the question of what is or isn’t real is irrelevant. To her, everything is real, and I’m only all too happy to get caught up in her surreal nightmare.

1) Toy Story 3

Each of the previous Toy Story movies followed a basic formula: The toys leave the house, have an adventure, and eventually find their way home. In between, we’re treated to some exceptionally clever gags and top-notch animation. The third film delivers all of this plus a pitch-perfect, heart-breaking coda. Rarely does a sequel work as hard as Toy Story 3 to thematically unite its predecessors, but Pixar rises to the occasion and ends a wonderful series in a wholly satisfying way. Not even the unnecessary 3D could bring this movie down.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/17/11

REVIEW: The Fighter

The Fighter (2010): Dir. David O. Russell. Written by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson. Story by Keith Dorrington, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson. Starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo. Rated R (language throughout, drug content, some violence and sexuality). Running time: 115 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

Boxing dramas often tell the story of one man’s path to redemption. In The Fighter, we get two. The film is based on the life story of half-brothers Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund, and follows Micky’s struggle earn a name for himself in the shadow of his older brother and trainer.

Thirteen years earlier, Dicky (played by Christian Bale) beat Sugar Ray Leonard and he hasn’t stopped talking about it since. He’s known as “The Pride of Lowell” (his hometown in Massachusetts) and watching him mingle and greet local faces on the street, it’s easy see how he became a town hero. Following him around is an HBO film crew that Dicky explains to his family is shooting a documentary about his comeback. That comeback seems unlikely, though. Whatever talent he had years earlier looks to have left him. His current life is in shambles and his frequent visits to a local crack house make him absent for much of Micky’s training.

Micky (Mark Wahlberg), meanwhile, shows great promise in the here and now but can’t seem to get the fights he needs. His mother and manager (Melissa Leo) is too hung up on Dicky’s former glory to recognize this, and so Micky gets pulverized by guys outside his weight class just so his family can get paid for the match. He’s ready to quit the sport entirely when he meets Charlene (Amy Adams), a bartender who encourages Micky keep fighting, but without his family bringing him down.

The movie has an odd structure that shifts focus back and forth between its two main characters, leaving the viewer a little unsure of who the protagonist is meant to be. Dicky’s exuberant personality dominates the early scenes and draws attention away from the more stoic Micky, a dynamic that no doubt mimics their real-life relationship. Once Dicky hits rock bottom though, the middle third of the film consists of Micky’s training and rise to success.

This being a boxing movie, the story is a fairly familiar one. The Fighter’s surprises, however, do not necessarily come from the outcomes of the fights but from the source of the film’s emotional payoff. In the final leg of the film, the brothers’ relationship comes front and center. Dicky’s search for redemption is inextricably tied to his brother’s efforts to succeed in the game, and this balance of storylines ends the film on a very strong note.

This is also a movie filled with strong performances. Christian Bale leads the pack with a career best as Dicky, whose charismatic energy is a far cry from the stone-faced heroes the actor is asked to play in action movies. Once again, Bale has lost weight to play the role but his performance goes beyond a physical transformation or imitation (a clip of the real-life Dicky in the closing credits though shows that Bale’s acting is spot on). Dicky is a tragic figure who doesn’t have much to hold onto. Even his one proud accomplishment is believed by some to have been a fluke (“Sugar Ray tripped,” says a few of the locals). He projects a charming persona but is consumed by inner shame and Bale is thrilling to watch as a man careening through this complex set of emotions.

Mark Wahlberg gives a effective and restrained performance, though next to Bale he might be mistaken for underacting. The long-suffering Micky isn’t as dynamic to watch as his brother, but Wahlberg is a strong leading actor and can more than carry his scenes without Bale. Melissa Leo shines in a supporting role as their mother, a manipulative woman whose love for her eldest son comes through even during her fervent denial of his drug addiction. Amy Adams gets the opportunity to play against type as the feisty and sexy love interest and she’s a joy to watch in the role. Also noteworthy is Mickey O’Keefe playing himself, the upstanding cop who trains Micky in Dicky’s absence. Despite having no prior acting experience, O’Keefe holds his own amongst A-listers and gives a memorable performance.

Mark Wahlberg worked very hard to get The Fighter made and though the project shifted hands numerous times between different writers and directors, the final product shows no mark of its long road to theaters. Director David O. Russell’s past features have included stylized fare such as Three Kings and I ♥ Huckabees, but his work here bears the restraint of one who treads more carefully when handling another’s story. His presence is still felt though and the movie is wonderfully shot, particularly in the ring. The matches are faithfully recreated and easy to follow (even to a boxing novice such as myself).

The Fighter at first seems more like a pair of character studies than a plot-centric story, but builds over the course of its two-hour running time, slowly drawing you in. By the end, one can’t help but get swept up in the stakes of these two brothers. The final match is a requisite scene in any boxing drama, but it works so well here because the characters and story have earned our emotional investment.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/15/11

REVIEW: True Grit

True Grit (2010): Written and Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the novel by Charles Portis. Starring: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper. Rated PG-13 (some intense scenes of western violence including disturbing images). Running time: 110 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

For the Coen brothers’ version of True Grit, who better to fill the shoes of John Wayne than Jeff Bridges? Though this neo-western isn’t as much a remake of its 1969 predecessor as it is a second adaptation of the original novel, a comparison to the film that won John Wayne his only Oscar is certainly warranted. Fresh off his own Best Actor award for last year’s Crazy Heart, Jeff Bridges reunites with the Coens for the first (and only) time since The Big Lebowski. Bridges proves to be just as triumphant as Wayne playing the one-eyed, whiskey drinking U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn, and his performance is arguably even better because of its placement in a more confident and focused film.

Though Bridges receives top billing, the story belongs to Mattie Ross, played with restraint and poise by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld. While the original film was more of a John Wayne vehicle than anything else, the Coens stay closer to the source material by centering their film on Mattie, the 14-year-old girl who seeks vengeance on a drunken criminal named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) who has murdered her father. The determined young girl takes a train into town to see that her father’s body is returned her family’s home in the countryside. While in town, she has “some business” to take care of. That business includes hiring Rooster Cogburn to help her track down Tom Chaney and bring him back to town to be hanged for the murder of her father.

Though the sheriff recommends other men for the job, Mattie Ross is drawn to Cogburn. We first see him in a courtroom, fending off questions for a questionable shooting. The prosecutor tries to get him to admit that he shot an unarmed man, but Cogburn has no patience for such legal technicalities. He shot a man because the man was an outlaw, simple as that. Any discussion that belabors the point is time that could be better spent drinking. When Mattie approaches him after the hearing and offers him fifty dollars to catch Chaney, he dismisses her. He’ll believe her tall tales when he sees the money in front of him. And so she promptly wakes him up the following morning, cash in hand.

Throughout the film, Mattie Ross says that if no one will help her, she’ll shoot and kill Chaney herself. We believe she means it not because she’s a cold-blooded killer but because she speaks with unflinching sincerity. Her vocabulary exceeds that of everyone she comes across and she threatens to make use of her lawyer more often than Cogburn brandishes his pistol. The Coens place a lot of a trust in Steinfeld – who was only thirteen when the movie was filmed – and their faith in the young actress is rewarded. She gets a number of extended close-ups, a choice that might have betrayed a lack of experience in a lesser actress, but Steinfeld rises to the challenge. Her performance is every bit as resolute as her character.

In addition to Bridges, Steinfeld shares screen time with several seasoned veterans. Matt Damon is good as LaBeouf, a Texas Ranger who’s after Chaney for the murder of a Senator. He’s awfully proud of his badge and the film plays for laughs LaBeouf’s failed attempts to act slick. Josh Brolin gets a few scenes’ worth of snarling and looking mean, and the indispensable Barry Pepper appears as the gaunt, almost skeletal outlaw leader “Lucky” Ned Pepper (a role played in the original by Robert Duvall). As is the case in all Coen Bros. films, not a single actor is wasted. Even the briefest of roles deserves some attention, and the film is filled with colorful supporting performances.

When compared to the original, the Coens’ True Grit is paradoxically darker and also funnier than its predecessor. The original has its moments, but mostly suffers from tonal issues. The original True Grit was released in 1969, well after the Golden Age of westerns and despite telling a rather gritty (pardon the pun) story of revenge, the film’s Technicolor landscapes and jubilant score from Elmer Bernstein hark back to that earlier era. Visually, the Coen brothers' take on the story is considerably darker, and they also allow for a little more violence, some of which is even played for darkly humorous effects.

This is also an exceptionally talky western. Bridges garners laughs in some of Cogburn’s more bumbling, drunken moments, but the film’s humor is mostly rooted in its snappy dialogue. The Coen brothers are a remarkably assured team of writer/directors. They’ve carved out their own stylistic niche (Barton Fink, Fargo, and A Serious Man are a few that come to mind as more traditional Coen fare), but they are more than capable of handling a genre flick like this one without losing their distinctive voice.

True Grit is an enthralling execution in an age-old cinematic genre. The western has changed a bit since John Wayne’s days but the genre has proved itself to be an enduring one. In recent years, we’ve seen a handful of westerns make their way to the big screen and while I can’t see a flood of them arriving anytime soon, accomplished features like True Grit show that a one-eyed cowboy and a six-shooter still make for some fine entertainment.

Note: I found it interesting that this violent revenge story, which at one point shows a pair of fingers get chopped off a hand, received a PG-13 rating while The King’s Speech (also in theaters now) got an R rating for an innocent scene that features a brief string of f-bombs. There is nothing particularly offensive in either film, but the disparity reveals just how morally backward those supposed protectors of decency, the MPAA, are.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/07/11

REVIEW: The King's Speech

The King's Speech (2010): Dir. Tom Hooper. Written by: David Seidler. Starring: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Gambon and Guy Pearce. Rated R (some language). Running time: 111 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

Prince Albert of York (played by Colin Firth) has a problem. As the second son to King George V, he is called upon to make the occasional public speech, but a crippling stammer leaves him silent behind the microphone, struggling to get his words out. The recent invention of radio allows his public speaking failures to be broadcast to an entire nation. At one point in The King’s Speech, George V remarks how earlier kings had it easy. All they had to do was stand still and look good for their portrait. In 1925 (when the film begins), however, radio was a revolutionary modern invention that forced politicians and royalty alike into a new realm of public attention.

The King’s Speech captures a society that is still adjusting to its newfound modernity. Coming into the 20^th Century, the British monarchy had more symbolic power than it did political. Britain’s kings were expected to simply give voice to the nation’s people, leaving the actual politicking to the Prime Minister. Such expectations are understandably daunting for Prince Albert considering his speech impediment. The film dramatizes Albert’s ascension to King (when he becomes known as George VI) and focuses on his struggle to overcome his stammer.

King George V (Michael Gambon) has no patience for his son’s disability and though he knows Albert is the more capable of his two sons, he fails to understand what holds him back. The rightful heir is David (Guy Pearce), but the firstborn’s cavalier attitude and infamous womanizing make him a less than ideal candidate for the throne. This puts pressure on Albert to be ready should his brother step down from the responsibility.

A king with a stammer, however, is no king at all and so Albert’s wife (Helena Bonham Carter) takes him to a number of correctional doctors, all of who are unable to help. Then she discovers the Australian speech specialist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), who takes a more Freudian approach to Albert’s condition by treating it as a mental impediment. Logue’s unconventional treatment is met at first with resistance, but a friendship and an understanding soon forms between the two men.
In some ways, the film is reminiscent of the excellent 2006 film The Queen, which also examined a brief period in the life of a British monarch. Both films touch on larger themes of leadership and British nationalism by focusing on a ruler’s struggle with their public persona.

As in The Queen (whose star Helen Mirren won a deserved Oscar), at the center of The King’s Speech is an excellent peformance. Two, actually. Colin Firth gives a superb performance as the soon-to-be King by humanizing him. His recreation of the stammer is entirely convincing, but his performance goes deeper than this. The stammer is a key to the character’s emotional life. Watch how he not only shuts down in public speeches, but in private conversations with his father and older brother too. We see how he is a good man at heart capable of great leadership if only he can overcome his anxieties.

Geoffrey Rush is wonderful as well and his playful take on Lionel gives the film much of its lighthearted tone. The scenes between Albert and Lionel are a joy to watch and director Tom Hooper wisely gives the two actors the time and space to stretch out and develop their characters’ relationship. In one scene, Lionel pushes Albert and asks him to vent his anger. The slew of profanities that fly out of Albert's mouth make for one of the film’s funniest and surprisingly touching moments.

Also good is Helena Bonham Carter, whose performance may get overshadowed by those of her co-stars. In the role of Albert’s supportive wife, she lends a tender, warm-hearted performance to the film and while her scenes with Firth are not as noteworthy as those between him and Rush, they give the film an emotional core.

Shot largely on location, The King’s Speech is also beautiful to look at. The spacious, luxurious halls of castles and cathedrals fill the screen and cinematographer Danny Cohen shoots the film’s regal locales with their awe-inspiring size and grandeur in mind. Hooper uses these settings to heighten the pressures put on Albert, who is more at home in smaller, cozier rooms. We can understand how the pressure put on him must feel when he’s positioned at the bottom of a frame that captures a vast and expansive ballroom.

The King’s Speech questions what it means to be a leader and brings up historical themes of British nationalism but never pushes these larger ideas too hard. This is an enjoyable, often humorous character-driven film that, like all good biographical films, transcends the facts and tells a human story, an exceedingly charming one at that.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/02/11