Fntstic- THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES Review

If you remember all the way back to March, I talked about how very endearing director Juan José Campanella was on-stage when The Secret in Their Eyes unexpectedly won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. This must mark the very first time I've been sold on a film just by an acceptance speech, so I toddled along to the Tyneside on Monday to watch the film.

Benjamín Esposito is a retired legal counsellor who is fixated upon a rape and homicide case he investigated 25 years prior. He's intensely bored by retirement, left only with the memories of his working life and of an unfulfilled romance with his old boss, Irene. Borrowing a typewriter with a broken A key from his old workplace, he resolves to novelise the case, and through flashbacks, we see Esposito's pursuit of the killer as he tries to find solace in the present.

I'll get my unpopular opinion out of the way first, so we can get to the business of reviewing this truly excellent film. In my opinion, there is no doubt whatsoever that this deserved the Oscar. Some professional critics have used the statuette to beat this film with, whining that A Prophet or The White Ribbon deserved the gold instead.

A Prophet may actually merit another viewing from me, as it's certainly not bad and I thought the first half hour was fantastic. What follows can't possibly measure up to those heights and it's far too long, and I didn't like it for the same reasons that I don't put The Godfather on the same pedestal as most others. I really disliked The White Ribbon, and I think it's being reinforced by a critical double standard- if there were a Hollywood movie where so little happens, it would be slated.

Haneke's direction is great and it's all technically fine, but it's utterly lifeless and pretentious, to me. Sadly, the only professional critic I could unearth who saw it negatively was Chris Tookey, who bizarrely started musing upon how it wouldn't make a very good musical. The White Ribbon is exclusively about subtext and nothing else, whereas The Secret in Their Eyes doesn't let symbolism dominate the telling of a great story. Moving on.

What marks the film apart from any number of police procedurals is how it all comes together. Although the unflinching approach to the all-important case is prominent, I believe this film, at its core, is a romance. Between Benjamín and Irene, sparks fly throughout and it seems all too obvious that they should be together. The lack of fulfilment in that relationship is directly fed by the crime that Benjamín can't get over- as he is perpetually being told, he dwells on the past too much. In contrast, the career-driven Irene is always looking at the future, and thus it seems unlikely their eyes will meet.

Circumstances seem to conspire to prevent any consummation of the yearning between them, and Ricardo Darin is more than equal to the task of playing Benjamín. We see him in his element in the 1970s and of course he's aged up for the scenes set in the present, and he's never any less than mesmerising as he always finds himself in juxtaposition to those around him. He's obsessed with finding justice for the victim, in a state where corruption makes some justice better than none.

There are a number of surprising flourishes throughout the film, most notably in the film's much celebrated tracking shot, which begins in the skies of Buenos Aires and moves through the stands and turnstiles of a football stadium. It's a neat cinematic touch, but in a film that is so fixated on character and plot, it almost becomes forgettable. Likewise, essential moments of humour broaden the characters and further invest the audience in the story, but they're not at all what you'd expect from a film about a rape/homicide case. Maybe it's the unexpected flourishes that make the film so good.

As with all successful foreign films, I cast my mind worryingly to the prospect of an English language remake. It especially worries me with this one because of its most beautiful flourish. If you see the end of the investigation coming, it's fine, because this is a film that demands some thought about what's going on, but that broken "A" key I mentioned pays off magnificently. I think of that heartwarming moment, and how it could never ever translate to an English language version, and I really hope Hollywood leaves this one as it is.

The Secret in Their Eyes is a splendid film that is both introspective and inclusive, and its wonderfully drawn characters, and the deep exploration of their personalities and history, are worth the Academy Award alone. Campanella invites emotional investment where certain other contenders in the Oscar category aimed to repulse and dehumanise instead. This is a tour-de-force, and a film I would be extremely surprised to find absent when I come to compile my top five favourite films of 2010.

The Secret in Their Eyes is now playing in select cinemas nationwide, and will be available on DVD and Blu-ray in January 2011.
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If you've seen The Secret in Their Eyes, why not leave a comment on the film and/or my review? I toyed with the idea of writing this one without the use of the A key, but can you imagine how the blog would look with that? "Michel By is the ultimte twt"?

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

The Mad Prophets 2009

It's come to my attention that there were some awards being given out to certain films this weekend. I noticed that, yeah. Seeing as how I gave negligible coverage to the Oscars last year, I decided the beginning of February this year should lend the blog a little more prestige. I couldn't afford a tux, so I donned a jaunty bow-tie and decided to create the inaugural Mad Prophet film awards. This isn't a compilation of my favourite films of 2009, but a more subjective recognition of what I thought were the best in each field last year.

So here's my little awards thing for the period starting March 1st 2009 and ending on February 28th 2010, which is about the same period the Oscars are supposed to cover. Supposed being the operative word, if today's nominations are anything to go by. Also going by UK release dates, a-like so...

BEST DIRECTOR

Kathryn Bigelow- The Hurt Locker
Neill Blomkamp- District 9
Terry Gilliam- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Duncan Jones- Moon
Quentin Tarantino- Inglourious Basterds

If this had been going for February 2008 to February 2009, Danny Boyle would have been the winner by far and away for Slumdog Millionaire, and that should tell you something of my appreciation for directors that have overcome incredible working conditions to deliver an excellent final product. That's naturally why Bigelow, who filmed in a war zone, and Gilliam, who lost his lead actor during filming and still made a cohesive final cut, made the list without a second thought.

Tarantino is naturally on there because as much as he pays homage to the things he loves in his films, they still feel fresh and Basterds is infinitely rewatchable. Blomkamp and Jones are both recognised for bringing back intelligent and enjoyable sci-fi in precisely the way James Cameron didn't last year. However, the win has to go to Kathryn Bigelow, and that's one of the things the Oscars got absolutely right. There just wasn't a film that does what it does better than The Hurt Locker last year, and it's probably one of the best action thrillers ever.

WINNER- Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Tom Felton- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Christian McKay- Me And Orson Welles
Alfred Molina- An Education
Stanley Tucci- The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz- Inglourious Basterds

In contrast to the female counterpart, Supporting Actor is always a category that's bursting at the seams, because it constitutes a great deal of more subtle performances as well as most villains, and everyone loves a good villain. Tom Felton gets special mention for really giving a remarkable performance as the troubled and weary Draco Malfoy after five films making not much of an impression, to be frank. Elsewhere, Christoph Waltz won the Oscar and many more accolades for his unforgettable performance as Hans "the Jew Hunter" Landa. He's like a Nazi Batman in that film- the world's greatest detective and creepy as all hell to boot.

Off-centre for reasons of Zac Efron, Christian McKay's turn in Me and Orson Welles qualifies here too. His villainy is less obvious as he's more of a rival to the protagonist, but he completely embodies Welles, with all his charisma and talent. On the other hand, Alfred Molina is compelling and wonderful in An Education, but he's hardly the violent type- instead, his performance is excellent for the sense of impotence he brings to his patriarchal character. Unforgettable as Waltz and McKay are, I have to hand it to Stanley Tucci, who's tremendously brave in taking on the role of Mr. Harvey, consummately discomforting the audience with his repressed deviance throughout The Lovely Bones.

WINNER- Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Anne-Marie Duff- Is Anybody There?
Anna Kendrick- Up in the Air
Lorna Raver- Drag Me to Hell
Ok-bin Kim- Thirst
Sigourney Weaver- Avatar

Actresses are often heard to complain that there just aren't enough good female roles out there, and whenever you come to tot up the best female performances of the year, it's never hard to argue with that claim. Nevertheless, it certainly hasn't been a terrible year for supporting actresses. Kendrick made her mark as someone to watch in the future with Up in the Air, while Weaver was one of the best things about Avatar, although I'll be mentioning the film in another acting category too.

Both Kim and Raver gave terrific horror performances- horror isn't a genre I've ever been enormously bothered about, and yet both made for brilliant villains in their respective films. The winner has to be Anne-Marie Duff though, in an understated role struggling to keep her business afloat. You really feel for her not just because her melancholy about the family business and about her husband's mid-life crisis, but because she genuinely sells the character to you with her performance.

WINNER- Anne-Marie Duff, Is Anybody There?

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

District 9
An Education
In The Loop
The Lovely Bones
Watchmen

Both The Lovely Bones and Watchmen were screenplays that came across remarkably well from source material that should by all accounts have been unadaptable- a sprawling murder mystery about a child's perspective on the afterlife and an incredibly complex graphic novel respectively. An Education was urbane and witty while District 9 proved a rollicking graduation to the big screen for Neill Blomkamp's original short film. The award would have to go to In The Loop though- it's gloriously profane and laugh-out-loud funny, and a fine companion to the original series, The Thick of It. And if there were any justice, it would've won the Oscar too, cos Precious was way overrated.

WINNER- In The Loop

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

(500) Days of Summer
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
A Serious Man
Up

The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds both took a side-on approach the war genre. Of the two, Inglourious Basterds is probably the more memorable, for Tarantino's trademark dialogue and for its sheer audacity, but hey, the Academy disagreed and went for The Hurt Locker. This was a very strong category for the last year though. All five of these scripts were excellent, from the pure originality of Up's premise to the incredibly well constructed tragi-comedy of A Serious Man. But, the winner has to be (500) Days of Summer- it's the most original romantic comedy in years, by equal turns endearing and insightful, and I think this should have followed Little Miss Sunshine and Juno for some recognition of well-written and original screenplays. Something is rotten in the state of Hollywood.

WINNER- (500) Days of Summer

BEST ACTRESS

Zooey Deschanel- (500) Days of Summer
Lina Leandersson- Let The Right One In
Carey Mulligan- An Education
Saoirse Ronan- The Lovely Bones
Zoe Saldana- Avatar

Now, hear me out. Andy Serkis was unofficially the Best Supporting Actor in 2002 and 2003 for playing Gollum, a performance that wasn't recognised just because it was computer-generated. Similarly, Zoe Saldana gave a terrific performance as Neytiri, however immersed in pixels she may have been. She's really a more worthy candidate than Meryl Streep, who's seemingly reclined into making films for the same target audience as Loose Women nowadays. That's fine, but stop nominating her for awards anyway! Especially as elsewhere, Lina Leandersson and Saoirse Ronan both performed well-rounded young characters in extraordinary and other-worldly scenarios.

Similarly, Zooey Deschanel put a new turn on that usual starry-eyed persona for (500) Days of Summer, possibly to do with the fact that the excellent screenplay gave her some new material. On the other hand, the very same screenplay didn't really expand upon her character so much as Joseph Gordon Levitt's. Carey Mulligan began as a favourite for this award at the Oscars, but eventually lost out to Sandra Bullock, who won a Golden Raspberry for All About Steve the night before. Swings and roundabouts, but Mulligan lost out. So she gets this one, for what it's worth- in recognition of a performance that rings true and utterly compels throughout. And for not blinking.

WINNER- Carey Mulligan, An Education

BEST ACTOR

Michael Caine- Is Anybody There?
Sharlto Copley- District 9
Jeremy Renner- The Hurt Locker
Sam Rockwell- Moon
Michael Stuhlbarg- A Serious Man

Really, properly, this was the hardest one to nail down. Usually it's the Supporting Actor category, but once I figured the best five performances of the year, it was really difficult to decide on one. Every one of these performances was not only believable but really outstanding. At the Oscars, it was bound to be Jeff Bridges, because he's a tremendous actor who was long overdue a nod. The Dude abides, but there should've been more love for Copley's largely improvised turn in District 9, Renner being dangerous and damaged in The Hurt Locker and Stuhlbarg being utterly helpless to avert various impending catastrophes in A Serious Man.

My favourite performance of the year was Michael Caine's in Is Anybody There? and as much as I love that role, and how much you empathise with Clarence as soon as he wanders on-screen, this is based on the best, not my favourite. This is worsened because so few people will recognise this film, being a low-budget, limited release film. The more criminal oversight of the Oscars though was ignoring Sam Rockwell in Moon. I'm maintaining the self-imposed spoiler embargo on that film, but if you haven't seen it yet, go and watch it now. It's a career-best for Rockwell- the role where he finally got to show off all he could do after years in supporting turns.

WINNER- Sam Rockwell, Moon

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Coraline
The Princess and the Frog
Up

I've always taken issue with the Academy separating off films into this category, and this year especially, because there just haven't been enough really good animated films for me to mention. Segregating animated films like this is especially ridiculous when you consider that Shit Chipmunk Film 2 qualified in the longlist as an animated film because of animated rodents, whereas Avatar with its CG landscapes and characters for more than 50% of the running time, is live-action. Presumably because it made more money, but it's an incredibly snooty distinction, especially when you consider that Up is approximately a million times better than Avatar.

So yeah, Up wins it in this category and every other similar category, but the only other reason I included this segregation was to praise the other three. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was the biggest surprise of last year for me, combining a genuinely funny script with some talented and worthy voice actors to make a really entertaining family film. Any other year, I think The Princess and the Frog would've won, because it's so vibrant and memorable. And Coraline also stood out from the sequels and the rest of the 3D gubbins to provide an enjoyably creepy film with real visual flair. But Up is pretty damn close to perfection, so...

WINNER- Up

BEST FILM

An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Lovely Bones
Moon

Best, not favourites. And yeah, I know I'm allowed ten, technically, but look at the good that idea's done in its inaugural year.

While I think The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds did have one or two problems, they're both very technically good, and Basterds has the distinction of being really entertaining to boot. Again, The Hurt Locker won overall, and in those nominations, it was probably second only to Up, which, as mentioned, was segregated somewhat. An Education was picking up the slack from 2009's surfeit of unrealistic and vacuous teen romances on film by subverting all audience expectations when we hear "a minor and an older man" and boasting some of the best performances of the year. And The Lovely Bones is a beautiful film that could and should have gotten more recognition, but I feel was killed by its poor critical response. Bloody critics.

And it's with some awkwardness that I avoid justifying my choice of Moon as the first Mad Prophet winner for Best Film, on account of that spoiler embargo. Go and watch it! You'll enjoy a consummate and personal film that re-establishes sci-fi cinema as a serious dramatic device and gets a tremendous and personal performance from Sam Rockwell. This was the most criminal oversight by the Academy this year.

WINNER- Moon

Join us next year for the 2nd Annual Mad Prophet Awards, to see Robert Pattinson NOT win Best Actor and to enjoy Michael Bay's head getting tap-danced on by Neil Patrick Harris for the opening number.

Welcome to Camp Victory- 2010 Oscars Postmortem

Ladies and gents, it's always nice to be wrong twice. Because when you have two choices, you can pass it off as "I was right all along!" The Academy Award winners now validate the original sentiment from my Avatar review that...

"It's probably not going to win an Oscar for Best Picture..."

... and we can utterly ignore my more recent assertion that...

"...Avatar will win Best Picture on March 7th. Not because it's the best film nominated, but because that's what the Academy's like."

It's really a good thing I didn't put any money on anything. It was a sweep for The Hurt Locker, which picked up Best Picture and Best Director for Kathryn Bigelow. In the end Avatar picked up three awards, all in technical categories. Arguably as it should be, really.

The acting categories were all fairly predictable, with Christoph Waltz and Mo'Nique both being recognised for critically lauded turns and Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock receiving recognition for their hard work in their respective careers thus far. Yes, that Sandra Bullock, who is the only actor ever to win a Razzie (for All About Steve) and an Oscar (for The Blind Side) in the same year, and fair play to her too. She's immensely likable in even the most awful shit, and I daresay she deserves it more than Mo'Nique deserved hers.

I was also pleased to see Up make a strong showing, winning Best Animated Picture and Best Original Score, both very well deserved nods. And Up is the only nominee that might have deserved Best Picture more than The Hurt Locker. I was also gleeful that the make-up work on Star Trek was recognised too, along with a laugh-out-loud presentation from Ben Stiller in full Na'vi make-up.

However, I always have my bugbears with the Oscars, and this year, being the first where I've pulled an all-nighter and watched it live, is no exception. So after four hours of caffeine and speeches, here are the top 5 most annoying, silly and downright bizarre things about last night's ceremony.


5. The acting profiles
While nothing trumped the oddly erotic sound of Sir Ben Kingsley saying "Randy the Ram" last year, this year's ceremony saw an irksome return for the back-slapping profiles on the acting nominees before they got to who'd actually won the buggers. They were seemingly picked for the most tenuous of connections in a couple of cases, i.e. Forrest Whittaker reminding us that he directed Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats, which boded worse for her chances of winning than we actually should have anticipated. With that link, I'm surprised they didn't dredge Chris O'Donnell up to say "George was a fantastic Batman, and I feel another sequel would've really shown that..."

4. The Best Original Score dances
Sure to be the most lampooned aspect of the whole affair, a group of break-dancers took to the stage before the award for Best Original Score was presented. What followed was an interpretative dance routine to each of the nominees. While the tribal dances of Avatar were fairly appropriate, and I think actually imitated the final scene of the film itself, the others were just bizarre. I mean, you can imagine without me telling you how surreal a Hurt Locker dance was. And I don't know why the Married Life refrain from Up warranted a re-enactment of the clockwork musical number from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or why Sherlock Holmes just screams "the worm" to interpretative dancers.

3. The rude orchestra
The formidable Get Off The Stage song is feared by all, and maybe it was only because I've never seen it in use before, but I found the orchestra playing off speeches to be incredibly rude at certain points this year. Most unforgivably, Juan José Campanella was cut off in the midst of a rather marvellous speech after the surprise win by The Secret in their Eyes for Best Foreign Language Film. The guy seemed incredibly endearing and deserved his say as much as Mo'Nique. I for one wanna hear more of Juan José Campanella! Fuck off, you trombone-wielding cads!

2. Lack of love for Moon
And assorted other films that were sadly overlooked. OK, so it would have been more than just a minor upset if Moon had won an award despite not having been nominated for anything, but it should have got something, dammit. And so should The Lovely Bones and Me and Orson Welles, and even some of the films that were nominated but overlooked, like In The Loop or Up in the Air. But I'm always going to disagree with the choices on some level, so I'll be content to post my own picks in certain categories later in the week.

1. The Sky panel
Courtesy of Rupert Murdoch, the UK coverage of the event was chaperoned by a panel moderated by Claudia Winkleman. Said panel comprised David Baddiel, Ronni Ancona and Balls of Steel's Mark Dolan. Way to round up whoever was around the studio, Sky. Those lot obviously know nothing about film and yet minutely explained everything after each ad break. The absolute nadir of the show was a "bawdy" review of the In Memoriam sequence, in which potential Bizarro-Me (Dolan) said that dying was a great career move to get in that montage. At various points, I was moved to paraphrase Avatar. "The Sky Panel have sent us a message... that they will not shut the fuck up. We will send them a message... AND MUTE THE FUCKS!"


So it's over for another year, and it's been a particularly long night for me having watched the whole ceremony. As co-host Steve Martin said, the ceremony lasted so long that Avatar now takes place in the past. If you want to chart my all-nighter on Twitter, through all the suspense, ("I'd happily be declared a turkey fucker if the underdog here won...") from the dizzying highs, ("Oh my God, the Married Life song") to the crushing lows ("Michael Sheen's killed my video stream with awesomeness") then by all means, do so. I tweeted up a storm as a document to my struggle.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, support your troops over the Smurfs.

Travolting

Films like The Exorcist and The Evil Dead have been appalling and entertaining audiences for decades, and in cinemas this week are two films that are similarly revolting, albeit in entirely different ways- the harrowing awards darling, Precious, and a big dumb Travolta vehicle, From Paris With Love.

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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Taken director Pierre Morel collaborates with Luc Besson once again to bring us From Paris With Love, which matches James Reece, a US ambassador's assistant who's complicit with the CIA, with a brash twatbag of an American spy called Charlie Wax. Reece has to keep an eye on Wax's methods while carrying a vase full of coke and trying to stop the bad guys. Who are the bad guys? Why, terrorists, of course! Terrorists who plan to do very bad things to America, a country it's entirely easy to stop caring about when their top man in this film is played by John Travolta.

John Travolta isn't funny. Hell, I'm pretty sure he's barely capable of actually acting these days, but "John Travolta isn't funny" is a much more potent synopsis of From Paris With Love. To expand on his not being funny, you'll find he's once again in Taking of Pelham 123 mode, saying "motherfucker" as much as he can, because someone somewhere obviously thinks that's funny. It's not, and the in-jokes about the Royale with cheese are pretty soul-destroying too. It's like he's constantly nostalgic for times when he was in better films than this, or Old Dogs, or Battlefield Earth. He must be REALLY missing Quentin Tarantino.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers is as obscured by Travolta's hammy acting and sheer volume as many of his recent co-stars have been. But he gamely trundles from shootout to shootout, and is embroiled in the most token love-interest story you'll see in an action film this year. This isn't dumb fun, it's just dumb, and hateful to boot. For instance, one typically bullet-riddled scene has a shootout with a gang of Asian bodyguards in an apartment block, with a nervous Reece following a wave of destruction left by Travolta's accomplished douchebag, Wax. "How many more of them?", Rhys Meyers enquires. "By the last census, around a billion", Travolta replies. Doesn't a little bit of joking about racial cleansing go a long way?
Wax is seen in one scene to leave litter on a park bench even though there's a bin not two feet away. The shot lingers even after Wax has gone out of it, and for a moment I wondered if it was a clever admonition of American wastefulness. In fact, between this and Taken, I have to wonder if Morel isn't actually executing some massive feat of irony and parodying American action cinema in his films by centring them around Americans and making them as xenophobic as possible without incurring charges of racial hatred. I'd actually be intrigued if I could stomach another viewing of this tripe. Any intended irony fails here because Taken was at least entertaining in its daftness, but this is just dumb and hateful, as opposed to just dumb fun.

Then I turned my Media student head off, because From Paris With Love doesn't warrant deserve such consideration. And even if it did, it's not entertaining enough to carry any undercurrent of satire. There's nothing so clever in this crass and xenophobic effort from Morel, and the character of Charlie Wax is simply revolting. Travolting, if you will. Not funny, not entertaining, but at least it's brief. And for the latter at least, merci, Pierre Morel. Now go away.
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A much more subdued film than that is Lee Daniels' Oscar darling, Precious, and sadly its unwieldy full title, (take what you've got already and add Based on the novel Push by Sapphire) gives you a fair idea of the film itself. In Harlem, 1987, an obese and illiterate black girl called Claireece "Precious" Jones is pregnant with her second child by her own father. Her spiteful mother resents her husband's preference for her daughter and constantly abuses her, both verbally and physically. When Precious is drummed out of her old school, she goes to an alternative one where she's brought into contact with the caring Ms. Rain and has the chance to turn her life around.

Early on, the film put me in mind of an episode of Doctor Who from a few years ago, where John Simm's Master snarks about how our fugitive heroes- David Tennant, Freema Agyeman and John Barrowman- are "ticking every demographic box, so well done on that." In tackling issues of race, family, young pregnancy and poverty in a coming-of-age tale, it ostensibly seems like Lee Daniels and screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher were very much on the awards season campaign trail. It's certainly gotten a lot of recognition thus far, with Mo'Nique one of the few absolute locks for an acting win this Sunday at the Academy Awards. I don't disagree that it's worthy of recognition for its performances, but I think it's curious that Mo'Nique and Gabourey Sidibe are the ones who have been marked out as the best.
Mo'Nique is certainly quite good in it, but her character felt like it was drawn in broad strokes to me, and I never really felt Precious' mother was anything but a one-dimensional character, even towards the end of the film. She's too well-performed to be something out of panto, but she's not vile enough to appear as anything more than a particularly riled guest on Jerry Springer. That's not the actress' fault, as she copes rather well with what I feel was a weak script. Elsewhere, Gabourey Sidibe doesn't make the strongest debut here, but then she's not an actress- again, it's not her failing but Hollywood's that there aren't trained actresses working of the build required for Precious. Both are capable with what could easily descend into melodramatic caricatures, but I felt the really great performances came from Paula Patton and Mariah Carey.

Yes, that Mariah Carey. I understand the lack of awards recognition there, as she's only in it for a bit and she's also Mariah Carey, but she makes a surprisingly strong impression in the screentime she has. Patton is instantly endearing as Ms. Rain, and I really felt she elevated each scene she was in. That might seem somewhat incongruous with my criticisms of Sidibe and Mo'Nique, but in the scenes where those two were together I was always very aware I was watching performances rather than people, and there's none of the realism in that stuff that a film like this requires to work. And that's true of a fair bit of Precious. It's not mawkish, but it is cloying, really striving to evoke a reaction from its audience rather than letting it occur naturally. It's all the more jolting when the film lapses into loud and bright fantasy sequences- as bad as her life is, it's as if Daniels felt the audience needed those breaks from bleakness more than Precious.

Even with its overriding bleakness and desperate tugging at your heartstrings, Precious isn't a bad film, but it's not enjoyable either. Is it worthy of Best Picture? I think not, but there have certainly been worse films nominated in previous years. Aside from The Blind Side, which I haven't seen yet but suspect may be worse, I'd say it's the weakest of the ten nominated this year. Oscar glory isn't the only reason you ever go to see anything though, and the film remains an honourable but overwrought endeavour to bring important social issues to greater public awareness. Think Slumdog Millionaire with a more ambiguous ending, or Juno with a fuckton more misery. I don't see why anyone would want to see a film this depressing, but that's not to say that you shouldn't see it, full stop. The extent of performance on show left me feeling unaffected by the bleak stuff. If for whatever reason you want to see a film that Oprah Winfrey heartily endorses, make it The Princess and the Frog.
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If you've stomached either From Paris with Love or Precious, why not share your comments below? For me, a viewing of Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland by Disney is imminent, so that review and some awards-speak will be up as the weekend goes on.

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