Helena Bonham Carter Wins- 2011 Oscars Postmortem

Another night of eating Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes and chicken burgers until 4.30am was topped off with a clean sweep for Helena Bonham Carter. Sure, she didn't win in the category she was specifically nominated for, and The King's Speech only won a trifling four Academy Awards, which was just as many as Inception, but let's not forget that Alice in Wonderland won two as well, which places the entire ceremony as a celebration of Tim Burton's missus and occasional psychotic Death Eater.

The film won Best Picture and, predictably, Colin Firth got a deserved Best Actor nod. The award for Best Director was also hoovered up, and surely Helena's Fight Club director David Fincher hasn't been fucked like that since grade school. I can't say that Tom Hooper was undeserving though, even if Christopher Nolan clearly deserved it for Inception and wasn't nominated at all, bizarrely. Nolan also lost out to The King's Speech in the Best Original Screenplay category, which did give David Seidler a chance to take the stage and give a fantastic speech.

The Social Network stands, as I have said before, as an important film, and one that is of more significance in the 21st century than the film that eventually won Best Picture today. Films like that have a habit of being underestimated in their day, like Network in the 1970s and Fincher's own Fight Club in the 1990s. The film still picked up a predictable gong for Aaron Sorkin's script, as well as winning Best Original Score and Best Editing.

The Fighter also made a decent showing, picking up both of the Supporting awards for acting. Christian Bale did a great rendition of a chimney sweep, and I'm looking forward to whatever accent he settles on next- I'm hoping for Geordie. Melissa Leo went and dropped an F bomb as part of what was inarguably the most interesting sequence of the three hour ceremony. This year's outing was more of a boring affair than last year, but here are some things I learned on my all-nighter.

Christopher Nolan always looks the same.

It had never occurred to me until I had to sit through the drudgery of the red carpet coverage and I was looking for something, anything to latch onto, but Nolan always seems to dress the same. He has the same hairstyle, he wears that same suit. Not that I hold it against him, because he's a stylish motherfucker. But better yet, he is the anti-red carpet man- permatanned fashion Orcs quail in terror at the sight of this modern master! Now someone actually give him a fucking Oscar!

Christian Bale should keep his beard for The Dark Knight Rises

The story for some was the accent, but come on, what else could possibly ramp up the stakes after The Dark Knight? It might be that the "BLADDY 'ELL" inflection was a test run of the replacement Bat-voice, but what the Caped Crusader could really use is A GREAT BIG BUSHY BEARD, as Frank Butterman might term it. Get the Bat-beard in. If anybody makes a joke about Batman and Robin, and Catwoman being Batman's beard, then you're dead to me.

Kirk Douglas and Melissa Leo must surely host next year's Oscars.

I didn't outright hate James Franco and Anne Hathaway's efforts, but it was very much the Academy's attempt to be hip and relevant to young Americans, as lampshaded throughout. You can't quite carry it off when you give the Best Picture award to a period piece about British royalty, so why not go back to basics? It would be lovely to see Billy Crystal have a go next year, because his brief appearance this year was a highlight, but for proper intriguing television, they should reunite Douglas and Leo, who enlivened proceedings and made the ceremony as unsafe as it could possibly get for two or three minutes.

True Grit is appealing even when nobody loves it.

10 nominations and no wins for the Coen brothers' latest Western, after previously doing well at the Kodak Theatre with No Country for Old Men in 2008. Saddest of all is that a well deserved win for Inception cinematographer Wally Pfister was marred by the fact that it meant Roger Deakins still didn't win, on his ninth nomination. It still appeals though, because the coverage reminded me that I really need to see the film a second time, and so I'll do that this week. You won't catch me doing that for The King's Speech this week!

For three hours, it's still padded out!

The whole she-bang opened with Tom Hanks giving a tribute to Gone with the Wind and Titanic, which seemed random. Then the randomness continued all through the night, in much the same way as last year brought us sporadic asides about genre and the year before was musical-tastic. Sometimes, the asides were amusing, as with the Autotuned dialogue scenes from Harry Potter and Twilight. And other times, they involved James Franco in drag. At the point where a choir of kids from New York's PS22 were brought out to sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow at the end of the show, the mob from The King's Speech could be seen leaving quickly, to angered shouts of "HEY, WE STAYED FOR YOUR KIDS!"

There's not really a lot else to say- there were few surprises, Toy Story 3 didn't win Best Picture like it should have done, and the Academy invalidated themselves by failing to notice Never Let Me Go. But if you want to follow the excitement of the night as it happened, with excitement ('Once again, I will shit myself and die if Aaron Sorkin doesn't win this.') and resignation ('"The sky has become the limit"- I know there's something grammatically wrong with that'), you can look through my tweets from the night.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and I for one welcome our new Bonham Carter overlord/lady...

ANIMAL KINGDOM- Review

I have a confusing relationship with crime films. While I can always appreciate the technical achievement of the Godfather trilogy or Goodfellas, they can often leave me cold if there aren't any relatable characters. I think In Bruges is brilliant, but DePalma's Scarface is an overlong and over-hyped mess of a film that (I'll say it again) ruined Al Pacino. And that part's got nothing to do with the crime part.

A crime film that's been hoovering up acclaim for over a year ahead of its UK release this Friday is Animal Kingdom. Set in Melbourne, we follow a family of armed robbers called the Codys, as they effectively go to war with the police. J Cody is a teenager whose mother overdoses on heroin right in front of him, and so he's sent to live with his grandmother and his uncles. J shortly becomes embroiled in the escalating feud between his family and the police, and finds his life may depend on where his loyalties lie.

Maybe my difficult relationship with the genre is the reason why it's taken me so long to actually put down my review. Happily, it doesn't glamourise crime, not by any stretch of the imagination, and for that it should be applauded. Nonetheless, I have spent a couple of hours just looking at the last two paragraphs and listening to "All Out Of Love" by Air Supply, which is put to excellent use in both the film and its trailer, and trying to articulate my feelings about it. It's not only that it's difficult to put my own spin on a film in which I can't particularly relate to any of the characters, but also because it's tough to adequately sum up its brilliance.

OK, actually, Guy Pearce played a character who's very sympathetic at times. At one point, I hear he was pegged to play Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, and his performance as dedicated cop Leckie is just as I imagine his spin on that character would have been, even if he's wearing Gary Oldman's Jim Gordon facial hair. I didn't really care about any of the other characters, but that's not to say they aren't interesting to watch. Writer-director David Michôd's admirable feat is to present us with characters who made me want to run away screaming and yet still hold my attention for the duration.

Let's be clear- it is a very good film, exceptionally well made, and complemented by a cast at the peak of their powers. But it also inhabits a very grubby world, in which the animal kingdom of the title refers more to the Circle of Life than criminals being the king of the jungle. Within the first ten minutes, we're told in no uncertain terms that crooks must come undone. The Codys are crooks. Remember how the title of There Will Be Blood became a prophecy that filled you with dread all the way through watching the film? This film's mantra- all crooks come undone- is no less unsettling.

That dreadful statement eventually becomes reassurance, as the terror of the criminal characters, amped up and embellished all the way through, grows almost unbearable. Largely, it's down to Ben Mendelsohn, who plays Pope. Pope is the most batshit terrifying character you've seen in a film in at least the last 12 months. His short temper and frightening brutality makes him an absolute force of nature- he's like Hitchcock's Bomb Theory in action, as we wonder just what the fuck he's going to do next as soon as we see him in a scene.

He's the most outright scary actor in the film, but the most formidable performance comes from the Oscar-nominated Jacki Weaver as the Codys' matriarch, Smurf. As a character, she's a veritable lioness- though initially passive and subservient to her male offspring, she becomes fiercely protective of her ability to dote on her family. When that character turns nasty, Weaver packs a mighty dramatic punch, and she just keeps building in power all the way through the film. While Pope's inhumanity is the terror of the film, Smurf's humanity is somehow more disquieting at certain points.

All of the ingredients would be there for me to have really loved Animal Kingdom if I could only say that newcomer James Frecheville was an identifiable hero, as J. Instead, I found him to be a pretty lifeless character. Pulled between the moral obligation asserted by the police and the fierce loyalty of his mad relatives, there should be more conflict there than Frecheville really conveys. But then it's not all his fault- there's a point late on in the script at which I just completely stopped rooting for his character. It's a small action, but one which utterly ruined any iota of sympathy I might have had for him.

If crime films are your bag, then you absolutely cannot miss Animal Kingdom. It's intense, terrifying and compelling from start to finish in its treatment of the crime movie expectations. Aside from the lead character, there's a bunch of superbly drawn and often disgusting characters, performed by the cast with blistering skill. It comes back to that Air Supply song, in the end- for me at least, I'm now unable to hear that song without thinking of this film. The song isn't even hugely important in the grand scheme of things, but an inextricable link has been forged between that song and this brilliantly made film. Likeable or not, it's still pretty much unforgettable.

Animal Kingdom is showing in selected cinemas nationwide from tomorrow.
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If you've seen Animal Kingdom, why not share your comments below?

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

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.

RABBIT HOLE- Review

I never did get around to reviewing Blue Valentine, did I? If anybody's wondering, I thought it was very good, but it wasn't as affecting as expected. I'll go into it in greater depth to coincide with the eventual DVD release, but I noticed this omission because Blue Valentine is a film that a lot of people seem to be comparing to Rabbit Hole.

Based on his own play, writer David Lindsay-Abaire tells the story of Becca and Howie, whose four year old son was killed in a traffic accident eight months prior. Having exhausted the traditional channels of dealing with grief, Becca still finds herself in a deep state of anguish, and the couple's repression is damaging their marriage. After growing sick of bereavement groups, she lets her husband continue going to those sessions alone while she tries to find solace in more unusual places.

The comparisons to Blue Valentine do the film no justice. Although I think both are very good, Rabbit Hole is clearly a very different beast. The false expectation built up by these tenuous comparisons meant that the film was constantly subverting my expectations, as I expected it to take a left turn into tragic misery at any moment. For instance, when we're told that Howie's son died after being hit by a car and then see how little time he spends looking at the road when he's driving, you might have a certain expectation of where the film's going. But it doesn't go there.

Indeed, it actually trusts an audience to connect the dots and find an emotional truth in the events on-scree, rather than do anything silly like show a flashback of the accident to open the film. A mutual trust is established between the audience and the narrative as it unfolds, and it's most satisfying to watch. On the whole, the tone is actually decidedly more upbeat than expected, considering that it's a story about moving on from the death of a child. It's not that it's a funny film, although it's not above a couple of nice little comedy moments here and there, but it just has an optimism and a good humour that distinguishes this from Blue Valentine in so many ways that people might as well be comparing the film to A Clockwork Orange.

Moreover, Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are worlds apart from the performances given by Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling. They are of a similar calibre, and both Kidman and Williams deserve their respective Oscar nods in the Best Actress category, even if they're both likely to lose out to Natalie Portman. But at the same time, Kidman and Eckhart powerfully play their desolation out in the context of characters carrying on with their everyday lives. Eckhart's Howie might appear to suffer less, but that's because the central conflict of the film begins with Kidman, as Becca, deciding that enough is enough, and beginning to properly seek catharsis instead of wallowing in sadness and resentment forever.

The only major criticism I would have about the film, and about this approach, is the underlying cynicism about those traditional means of bereavement counselling. In the context of focusing on Becca and Howie, it works. When you grieve, your loss is the centre of your work, and so it's easy to sympathise with their frustration in the early scenes, in which another pair of bereaved parents talk about how their child's death was God's plan. But at the same time, certain developments in the film seem to imply that doing things conventionally can only lead to rack and ruin- I might agree on the God thing from an atheistic standpoint, but it's not to say that I begrudge anyone who actually finds peace through that channel.

In the later stages of the film, Becca sits down with Howie to talk about their future, even if only so far as to say what they're doing that afternoon. Such moments mark Rabbit Hole as a surprisingly warm and upbeat introspective piece on death and bereavement. Far more melancholic films have been made- much longer films in which characters do wallow in misery for the duration. It's a tale of empowerment insofar as it's all about Becca seeking to resume control over her own life, and trying to hold together her connection with her husband at the same time. It's also deeply absorbing, and really nothing like the weepie that some have touted.

Rabbit Hole is now playing in selected cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Rabbit Hole, why not share your comments below?

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