The Mad Prophets 2010

Cheer up, I promise that I saw your film.

Continuing on with the "awards season stuff" promised yesterday, it's that time of year once again. The Oscars are on Sunday, and foolishly, the Academy have not given a single inclination of the head, let alone a nod, to great films like Never Let Me Go or Buried. Bastards. My turn, I think.

As with last year's outing, this is for the period starting March 1st 2010 and ending on February 28th 2011, which is about the same period the Oscars are supposed to cover. "Supposed" still being the operative word, given how forgetful Academy voters can be. Also, as ever, going by UK release dates. Here goes...

BEST DIRECTOR

Darren Aronofsky- Black Swan
Rodrigo Cortés- Buried
David Fincher- The Social Network
Christopher Nolan- Inception
Edgar Wright- Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

As in most categories, it's been a good year. All of my usual problems with the Oscars overlooking great films are negated because there are very few cases of undeserved nominations. That said, I would have found room for Christopher Nolan in the Oscars' director race, at any cost. Fincher is the favourite there, having turned in the showiest and most visually engaging way of telling a story about nerds making a website.

Similarly, Aronofsky did his best Sam Raimi, clearly having more fun than you reasonably should with an awards darling, but still managed to turn a melodrama like Black Swan into something I'd love to see on an IMAX screen. Cortés did a marvellous job in the tiniest of spaces for a whole 90 minutes, but ultimately I was more impressed by directors holding together a molass of different elements. While I love Wright's work on Scott Pilgrim, I think Nolan ultimately managed that in a more collected and breathtaking manner.

WINNER- Christopher Nolan, Inception

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Keira Knightley- Never Let Me Go
Lesley Manville- Another Year
Chloe Moretz- Kick-Ass
Emily Watson- Cemetery Junction
Jacki Weaver- Animal Kingdom

While Hit Girl immediately became almost everyone's favourite characters of the year, other, more harrowing supporting performances than Moretz's have stuck with me more in the last year. My review of Animal Kingdom won't be online until tomorrow, but Weaver really impressed with her performance, building power as the film went on.

Emily Watson made a huge impression on me early in the year as the put-upon wife of Ralph Fiennes, his attitude to their relationship making a strong case for the banality of evil. Likewise, Keira Knightley recently gave her best ever work in a very melancholy context as Ruth in Never Let Me Go. but finally, it had to be Lesley Manville. So much of why Another Year resonates is down to her desperate and sympathetic turn, and it's a shame none of the big humdinger awards bodies recognised that.

WINNER- Lesley Manville, Another Year

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Christian Bale- The Fighter
Andrew Garfield- Never Let Me Go
Ben Mendelsohn- Animal Kingdom
Kayvan Novak- Four Lions
Geoffrey Rush- The King's Speech

At the actual Oscars, I believe the smart money is on Bale, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Rush snuck in to take it. Bale is so magnetic in The Fighter that people seem to entirely forget Mark Wahlberg is the lead- like his character, you can't help but like his acting here even if you feel it's a little unfair. On the other hand, Rush bolsters The King's Speech by being just as important to the film as Colin Firth. The two go together perfectly.

Elsewhere, Novak's tragicomic turn as Waj almost entirely sums up Four Lions for me- so much of his performance is why the film works as it's meant to. And I was sad to see that Mendelsohn didn't get a Supporting Actor nod for being the absolute most batshit terrifying thing about Animal Kingdom. But let's not underestimate Never Let Me Go, as everyone else has. People might have first noticed Garfield in The Social Network, but his performance as Tommy is what really blew me away.

WINNER- Andrew Garfield, Never Let Me Go

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Buried
The Disappearance of Alice Creed
Four Lions
Inception
The King's Speech

As much as I applaud Kayvan Novak for bringing it to life, I still have to give kudos to the great Chris Morris for taking suicide bombing and Islamic extremism and making exactly the kind of sensitive satire required. Feeling for the characters without wanting them to succeed is exactly right. The King's Speech is scripted for maximum sympathy with the characters too, but royalty are a little more readily likeable than suicide bombers. 

Although Christopher Nolan wins for imaginative direction, I'm more impressed by the use of one scenario for maximum value on the page. So while Inception is an incredibly imaginative concept, I was more bedazzled by the likes of The Disappearance of Alice Creed. You get the sense it's a calling card script, but it's a fantastic calling card script set in one contained scenario. But they don't come more contained than Buried, which was bloody brilliant.

WINNER- Buried 

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Kick-Ass
Never Let Me Go
The Social Network
Shutter Island
Toy Story 3

Many would argue that Alex Garland's script was Never Let Me Go's failing, for being uncinematic. Our characters are not passive, but they're not exactly raging against the dying of the light. It's embarrassing to have had conversations with people who felt it should have been more like Michael Bay's film The Island. On a happier note, most people liked Shutter Island, with its script that gains even more depth upon multiple viewings.

It's possible to have a lot of fun with Kick-Ass, which is not something I could say about the source material, once I gave it a look. The script version takes the mean-spirited edge off, which works in its favour. It's also great to see the prison movie format put to use in both comedic and emotional ways in Toy Story 3. All good scripts, but ultimately, I'm blathering- we all know this one goes to Aaron Sorkin's amazing script for The Social Network.

WINNER- The Social Network

BEST ACTOR

Leonardo DiCaprio- Shutter Island
Colin Firth- The King's Speech
James Franco- 127 Hours
Ryan Reynolds- Buried
Mark Wahlberg- The Fighter

Poor Mark Wahlberg. I know The Fighter was his dream project and he's probably just happy it got made, but the way his performance here is being so shamefully overlooked was the indignant focus of more than half of my review of the film. I shan't dwell upon it much longer except to give him his dues alongside the likes of Firth, who did get nominated for an Oscar and shall probably win for his performance as King George VI.

DiCaprio played characters with similar backgrounds in Shutter Island and Inception, but the former gave him more to get his teeth into- it sucks that Shutter Island got bumped to a date after the consideration for last year's Oscars, and so Scorsese's film was too readily forgotten. I also managed to honour both of the excellent claustrophobic performances of the year- Reynolds' and Franco's. Franco bristles with such energy that you know he has even better performances to come, which is why Reynolds swipes it.

Winner- Ryan Reynolds, Buried

BEST ACTRESS

Jennifer Lawrence- Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman- Black Swan
Noomi Rapace- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hailee Steinfeld- True Grit
Michelle Williams- Blue Valentine 

Three out of five certainly ain't bad, Oscar. Portman is everybody's favourite to pick up the gold at the end of the month, but I wouldn't consider either Lawrence or Williams out of the running just yet. All three of them were pulled this way and that by their character's circumstances- Portman's Nina by her unravelling psyche, Lawrence's Ree by her shitty neighbourhood and Williams by her disintegating marriage.

Plenty of room for characters who were in control of their situation, mind. It's possible to draw a line connecting Steinfeld's Mattie Ross with Jesse Eisenberg's performance in The Social Network, and she also manages to outact even the fantastic cast of more experienced actors who co-star in True Grit. For me, it's all about Lisbeth Salander- due to plot restrictions, she peaked in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but none of the Millennium trilogy is ever as interesting when Rapace is off-screen as it is when she's on-screen. Rooney Mara has big shoes to fill.

Winner- Noomi Rapace, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

BEST ANIMATED FILM

How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
A Town Called Panic
Toy Story 3

As before, I'm loath to separating this category out on its own, especially this year. It does give me the chance to give a shout out to the profound message about the death of innocence in The Illusionist, and the sheer weirdness of A Town Called Panic, and the psychedelic and epic visuals of Zack Snyder's owl movie. But in this year above most others, it's been proven that animations can be just as great as the more celebrated live-action movies.

Take that other toy movie, for instance. Toy Story 3 is the cap on a perfect trilogy, bringing in prison movie tropes to great effect and wrapping up the story of the Best Loved Characters of a Generation. It's quite rightly proven to be the best reviewed movie of the year. So it sucks to be Dreamworks, perpetually trembling under the heft of Pixar's oeuvre, when they did actually make a really good movie this year. So it annoys me to separate stuff out with animation, because it means I have to be diplomatic and do this...

WINNER- How to Train Your Dragon

BEST FILM

The 10 best films of the last 12 months, according to me...

1. Toy Story 3
2. Inception 
3. The Social Network
4. The King's Speech
5. Never Let Me Go 
6. Buried
7. Animal Kingdom
8. True Grit
9. Shutter Island
10. Black Swan

Yeah, yeah, boo away. Toy Story 3 gets to be the Best Film of the last 12 months and yet not the Best Animated Film because there's no real reason to separate animations except to recognise films that wouldn't otherwise be recognised. So that's what I did. Toy Story 3 holds its own against any of the other sterling contenders of the year, and it won't win Best Picture at the Kodak Theatre.

The only other thing to discuss about the list is my placing The King's Speech below The Social Network. I maintain that The Social Network defines the last decade, like Wall Street and Network defined decades beforehand. Films like that don't tend to win outright though- The King's Speech is still a favourite of mine over it, and it's almost certain to win big on Sunday. Whether you like the list or not, Toy Story 3 still trumps the lot.

Winner- Toy Story 3

Join us next year for the 3rd Annual Mad Prophet Awards, where there still won't be any "sweeps" like in those other, boring awards ceremonies. Not unless Deathly Hallows Part II actually has sex with my brain, anyhoo.

Millennium Part 3- THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST Review

The final part of the Millennium trilogy brought Lisbeth Salander's story to a close this week, in The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. This review will be spoiler-free as far as this film is concerned, but it may contain minor spoilers for the first two instalments, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Lisbeth is in hospital, there to go to police custody just as soon as she's recovered, to be tried for crimes she didn't commit. With the evidence he's gathered, Mikael Blomkvist sets about composing a shattering exposé of her treatment by the Swedish government. A dastardly covert group, the Section, is prepared to do anything to suppress the truth as the case heads for trial. This shit just got as real as it can get.

It's a funny thing, really. I've gone from dreading the idea of an English language remake after seeing the first instalment earlier this year, to really looking forward to it after seeing the final instalment. Two things have changed between then and now. Firstly, David Fincher signed on to direct and had The Social Network, one of the best films of the year, released in cinemas. Secondly, I realised how director Daniel Alfredson effectively pranged the Swedish language version when he took over with the second film.

At the time, I quite liked The Girl Who Played With Fire, even if it inflated the world of the previous film to the point that it wasn't recognisably taking place in the same universe. I felt it built the series to a point that the third film could go either way, and end the trilogy with either a fizzle or a bang, so long as either one was well made and thought out. They opted for a fizzle, and boy, was I wrong. And the very worst thing I can say about the underwhelming third instalment is that The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest makes the previous film look weaker in retrospect.

Here's the problem. The series is called "the Millennium trilogy", Millennium being the trendy political magazine that Blomkvist co-edits. With two films of it being the "Lisbeth Salander is awesome" trilogy, we have to have a film where the Millennium part actually becomes operative. Even after Lisbeth gets out of her hospital bed, she really doesn't have a lot to do in this film. There's a lot to be said for Noomi Rapace's always brilliant portrayal of a woman so damaged and defiant that she can't bring herself to rely on others, and she's fantastic whenever she's given some room for triumph, but let's not understate the fact that it's bloody boring to watch her character relying on others as she does for most of this film.

It's not that Michael Nyqvist hasn't done a sterling job as the minor lead for these three films, but the plot is pretty weak too. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had a compelling whodunnit plot, the reason why many people praised that film in the first place, as much if not more than for Noomi Rapace. The Girl Who Played With Fire is a film about Lisbeth's past, and it should have just been one film about her past. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is only a satisfying conclusion by the measure of showing the distended aftermath of its predecessor, with more exposition than investigation.

The main showcase sequence of the film is the trial, which consists of people arguing about what we already know, and creating false tension by leaving it to the latest reasonable moment to bring in crucial evidence that we, the audience, are already aware of. The new stuff is contrived, referring with an alarming frequency to one character undergoing dialysis, and also bringing in the ominously named Section, labelling them collectively not only for administrative and bureaucratic purposes, but also so they sound more evil than my own previous collective term for the bad guys- "that shower of bastards".

More than that, you have the most ridiculous element of the previous instalment, hulking Aryan Bond henchman Niedermann, just wandering around with nothing to do. He pops up every now and then to remind us that he still exists, attacking random people in much the same fashion as Jaws whenever he's not facing off with Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me or Moonraker, because he's back for the ending. After over two hours of sub-par courtroom intrigue, his reappearance is so extraneous to the rest of the film that it's laughable.

This is not a cinematic ending. Not that it needs more car chases or shootouts, both of which is has in measured amounts, but the ending of this film feels like the ending of a TV episode, and not the ending of a three film undertaking. I plan to read Stieg Larsson's books now that I've seen the films, and I realise that to some extent they must have been bound by the source material, but this is a really weak story to finish on. Part of what makes a David Fincher interpretation so enticing is that the man doesn't have a bone in his body that isn't absolutely cinematic in his approach, so if he chooses to make all three films, this one could stand to be improved.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is an underpowered ending to the trilogy, and all in all, it feels like the afterbirth of The Girl Who Played With Fire. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the strongest of the series by a mile, so the blame must lie at Daniel Alfredson's door. Elements that made the first two instalments good are still there, like the terrific performances and the literary detail that manifests itself so well, but the story is plodding and, at 147 minutes, severely overstretched.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is showing in selected cinemas nationwide. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is now available on DVD and blu-ray, and The Girl Who Played With Fire arrives on DVD and blu-ray on 10th January 2011.
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If you've seen The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, why not share your comments below? If you're wondering what the relevance of the title is, join the club. It would suggest all hell breaks loose for a barnstorming finale, but... really?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Millennium Part 2- THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE Review

I finally caught up with the second part of the Millennium trilogy in cinemas after a few near-misses on my trips to the Tyneside Cinema. It eventually came to the local Cineworld, which was a nice change. The Girl Who Played With Fire, for those who don't know, is the sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I reviewed here earlier this year.

A year on from the Vanger case, Lisbeth Salander returns to Stockholm from travelling the world, and is promptly framed for a triple murder. She becomes the subject of a national manhunt, and one of the few who believes in her innocence is Blomkvist. He also believes the murders to be connected to a sex trafficking ring Millennium was about to expose, and tries to re-establish contact with Lisbeth as he investigates.

Since I reviewed the first film, it has been confirmed that Rooney Mara will play Lisbeth in David Fincher's English-language remake of the series, with Noomi Rapace having finished with the role to try and break into Hollywood as the female lead in Sherlock Holmes 2. After two films, it's all too clear that everyone involved in the remakes have their work cut out for them, if they want to come close to matching the quality of filmmaking on display from the Swedish versions.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is simultaneously a step forwards and backwards from its predecessor. In the way of many sequels, it raises the stakes exponentially and makes for a very gripping continuation. Unfortunately, the stakes are inflated to a point where it's almost difficult to recognise this as taking place in the same universe as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This is mostly down to the presence of Niedermann, a seven foot tall Aryan antagonist who has the physiological quirk of being immune to pain.

In this way, it's ironic that Daniel Craig has signed on for Fincher's version, because the original seems to have been invaded by an old-timey Bond henchman. I'm waiting to read Stieg Larsson's books until after I've seen the films, but this introduction just seemed bizarre at first. I got past my initial surprise though, and I admit that Niedermann is an intimidating presence rather than a comical one, which only makes the last act revelation of a full-on disfigured sub-Bond villain more of a betrayal.

There's also a surfeit of the infamous teal and orange look that's becoming more and more prolific in Hollywood films, and I was astonished and annoyed to see colour grading used so liberally here. After seeing Niels Arden Oplev shoot the snowy vistas of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo so well, I'm not sure why new director Daniel Alfredson went the other way entirely- it's distracting.

Right, onto the step forward stuff. After the televisual pacing of the previous instalment, the enlarged stakes do help to make the story feel more cinematic. For all of the flaws I picked out above, it does grab your attention and clutch it all the way through. Noomi Rapace expands upon her initial performance as Lisbeth, proving that it was no fluke, and she's still the most watchable character. Michael Nyqvist gets a bit more to do this time around as Blomkvist, given more motivation by his intellectual infatuation with Lisbeth.

It's also admirable that this story expands to bring in new characters without ever forgetting the existence of minor characters from the last time around. We catch up with several characters from the first film and this continues in the slightly literary feel that made the first one so captivating. Without having read the books, I can tell that some of the dialogue is lifted straight from the prose, i.e. "It was like he'd had boxing lessons, but he hadn't really paid attention." While it often doesn't quite work when you lift wholesale from the source, in films like the first two Harry Potter adaptations, there's a rich sense of detail in the Millennium films that seems to have leapt right off the page.

It all builds to a conclusion that is both typical of the second act of a trilogy and boldly enticing. It ends with the same kind of hook for the final part of the trilogy that we've seen in The Empire Strikes Back or The Two Towers, but I'm damned if it didn't have me counting down the days until I can see the final film. The mystery at the heart of this film isn't so much self-contained as it is a connector between the introduction to the characters and the inevitably epic conclusion, and I can only express mild disappointment that it didn't end as definitively as the first film.

Like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire fumbles the resolution of its individual storyline, but in Lisbeth, these films have a central enigma far more intriguing than whatever criminal activities have aroused the interest of our players. Her continuing story is fascinating, aided by the fantastic Rapace, and this is exploited by keeping Blomkvist, the audience's viewpoint, separate from her for much of the film. This sequel is more or less on equal standing with its predecessor, but I'll judge the series as a whole once I've seen how it ends- with a whimper or with a bang.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is showing in selected cinemas nationwide. Part 3, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest arrives in selected cinemas on November 25th.
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If you've seen The Girl Who Played With Fire, why not share your comments below? If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're wondering if Richard Kiel will play Niedermann in the English language version, just for the LOLs.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Millennium Part 1- THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Review

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.
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Coming to this a little late, but it's still a timely juncture to review the first film based on Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as the film is released on DVD this week. Parts 2 and 3 are due later in 2010, so you'll see reviews of those as I try my utmost to catch them in cinemas.

The trilogy follows an altruistic journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, as he becomes entangled with a haunted and intelligent hacker, Lisbeth Salander. In this first instalment, Blomkvist loses a legal battle with a corrupt business tycoon and is sentenced to three months in prison for libel. With a six month reprieve, he's enlisted to solve a 40 year old cold case involving a powerful industrial family, drawing Lisbeth's attention in the process...

All three films in the trilogy were released in 2009 in mainland Europe, and with the books' worldwide success, a similar release of all three films in the UK and America began in March. It's a schedule that I'm very pleased with indeed, because The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a film that gripped me mercilessly, and at the back end of watching it, I was dying to see what happens next.

For one thing, it's intensely and deliberately constructed to lift the murder mystery off the page and onto the screen. The film itself feels almost literary, and the way it assembles its narrative elements is entirely dissimilar to the Hollywood production line of crime thrillers. There's one major action sequence to be found here, and though it serves as the resolution of the mystery, it's not the climax of the film, which comes as a more satisfying and cerebral finale.

There's a lot to be applauded in the structure, which keeps the intrigue bubbling away for the film's 150 minutes, but it's almost difficult to see such mechanics past the glowing central performance. Noomi Rapace plays Lisbeth magnificently, and its refreshing to see a female character like hers so finely detailed and realised. Her story unfolds parallel to Blomkvist's for the first part of the film, and you can't help but wonder where her story's going everytime she's off screen.

It's not that Michael Nyqvist isn't compelling as Blomkvist, because he is. It's just that while he is at most a facsimile of other virtuous journalists on film like Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in All The President's Men, Lisbeth is something else entirely. Larsson apparently conceived her as a grown-up Pippi Longstocking, and the sexual politics within that framework are markedly different, and she spearheads the film's indictment of patriarchy and, as the Swedish title puts it, of Men Who Hate Women.

As usual when a film depicts violence towards women, you may have already heard how disgusting scenes between Lisbeth and her probationary guardian are, but be assured that Lisbeth doesn't let herself become a victim or a damsel- she's much more capable than that. When she gives sex thereafter, she never falls into bed like other female leads so much as she reclines into bed on her terms. And once she's done, it's the act of making an emotional connection that holds much more fear to her.

This is brought to life better than I'm describing it, and so it's best to watch the film and see how good she really is. The fact that I've given so much of the review over to her highlights the film's problem though. With the two subsequent films in mind, so much of this is to establish our two central characters that it feels almost like the pilot for a TV detective series. There's nothing wrong with being character-driven rather than plot-driven, but it's a pretty decent plot that ultimately recedes in importance as the film goes on.

With that in mind, I can't help but wonder how different the announced English language remake will be. It'll presumably be a lot less subtle, but when a performance is as integral as Noomi Rapace is here, I can't see it translating too well. The only actress I could credit with taking over as Lisbeth would be Ellen Page, and my interest in the remake will automatically go up several notches if they fix that. It's still likely to be inferior to this version though- they're still setting it in Sweden, so I can only assume they'll take the Valkyrie approach of letting the big stars talk normally and burden others with attempting an accent like that chef on the Muppets.

It doesn't feel as long as it actually is but it's still vigorously uncomfortable to watch. If you're any kind of film fan, you should be catching up with the story so far while it's one instalment in, so you can catch the other two in cinemas later this year. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo makes a superbly watchable thriller from a strong mystery plot and some breathtaking performances. The trilogy has every chance of getting better now that we're acquainted with its players, but it's certainly made an impressive start. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is now available on DVD and Blu-ray. Part 2, The Girl Who Played With Fire arrives in selected UK cinemas on August 27th, with Part 3, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest scheduled before the end of the year.
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If you've seen The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, why not share your comments below? If you're discouraged by the idea that it's like a TV murder mystery pilot, be assured it has a lot more teeth than the likes of Midsomer Murders.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.