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...
I've seen 107 new films in 2010 so far. There's been good, there's been bad and there's been Vampires Suck, under which we shall now draw a line. There are more positive things to talk about, because watching The Social Network's neat two hour runtime, I was immediately considering where I would place it in my top ten favourite films of the year.
As you might have heard, it's "the Facebook movie", but crucially, it's not about Facebook. It's about Mark Zuckerburg, a devastatingly intelligent computing student at Harvard who tries to get around his social ineptitude by creating what develops into Facebook, putting the social experience in an arena where he's more comfortable. As Facebook becomes a phenomenon, Zuckerburg encounters the legal and personal implications of his masterwork.
What's so great about The Social Network is where it comes from. Specifically a salubrious and speculative book like The Accidental Billionaires, which is essentially a story about Facebook, to put it in the reductive terms that others have used to describe this film. What Aaron Sorkin transformed it into is both an indictment and an exploration of today's youth in terms that are accessible to people of any age, or gender, or "relationship status".
Sorkin doesn't damn the characters with his writing, but he leaves it to the audience to judge. Astonishingly, he encompasses the viewpoints of three separate parties without inherently leaning towards any of them being right or wrong. At the centre, we have Jesse Eisenberg inhabiting this socially awkward character in dazzling form, perfectly conveying the repressed anger of the smartest guy in the room. Sorkin writes Zuckerburg the way that Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss write Sherlock Holmes- he's a misanthrope who's two steps ahead of most people, and Eisenberg plays him even better. This is a career-making performance, and the point where many who hadn't took notice before will sit up and pay attention.
His best friend, Eduardo Saverin is played by soon-to-be Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield. It bodes well that he carries off a geeky character with just the right amount of wit and swagger to make him more capable than Mark, and he also serves Eduardo's grievances with his friend very well. The most overtly oppositional perspective is that of the Winklevoss twins, both played seamlessly by Armie Hammer. Although they're not too bright, they're dashing and have a great future ahead of them regardless, and they make it easy for Zuckerburg to develop their idea without sharing any of the eventual kudos.
I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't expecting greatness from this. And with the talents of David Fincher, Aaron Sorkin and the cast on board, I can only assume it was because this film was "the Facebook movie". If that's the case, my shame knows no bounds. You'll never be more interested in nerds typing code than you will be watching this film, and the script has a lot to say about the implications of Facebook.
Sorkin even directly contrasts before and after. A feckless classmate of Mark's inspires him to include the "relationship status" by making him realise that most guys are concerned with getting laid. Nevertheless, the classmate's query seems absurd in the time before Facebook. Later in the film, this is juxtaposed with the surrealism of Eduardo's girlfriend demanding to know why his status says he's single. If you're my age and you're watching this film, we're watching the dramatisation of our generation going crazy.
I'm eager to reiterate- the filmmakers aren't judging our addiction to socialising online, but rather chronicling it. Justin Timberlake's surprisingly great rendition of Napster founder Sean Parker incorporates paranoia and hedonism and douchebaggery, but he's technically the "adult" to the bright young things who develop Facebook. Sorkin's earnest intentions are clear throughout, but my only real criticism of the film would be that David Fincher, a director who's previously had a very distinctive voice, is all but absent.
The film is very well directed and the digital photography is stunning, but I felt he gave the script too much room to breathe. It needed that room, but while everyone else concerned has a shot at an Oscar for this, I wouldn't be surprised at all if Fincher was overlooked in the Best Director category. The film already has Aaron Sorkin's authorship firmly ingrained, but it's odd to watch the film knowing it was directed by the man who made Se7en and Fight Club.
His efficiency is appreciated though, because the wealth of The Social Network is in its script, above almost everything else. The great performances and rich cinematography realise that script very well, but its voice is so powerful and yet so restrained that it's impossible not to fall in love with it. The more I think about it, the more I like this film, and it's easily going to place in my top five of 2010. While it's not my favourite film of the year, it is possibly the very best. In ten years' time, I'm confident it will be a film that defines the decade, like Wall Street in the 80s and Fincher's own Fight Club in the 90s. Truly, a profound and seminal film.
The Social Network is now playing in selected cinemas nationwide. ------------------------------------------------------------------ If you've seen The Social Network, why not share your comments below? Having loved this script so much, I'm really going to have to go and catch up on The West Wing- I've never seen an episode.
I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.
Yeah, it's another one of those ads! I don't think you can beat last year's Autumn compilation (I think that young man ATE it all, bless him), but I do believe it's worth mentioning.
Why? Because summer's more or less over. The nights are drawing in, sunsets will arrive around 3pm and movie buffs will begin talking about which of their favourite films of the year will be entirely ignored during awards season.
It also falls to me and my ilk to declare which films we're most looking forward to for the rest of the year, so with that in mind, this post is going to be all about the five films I'm most looking forward to seeing in cinemas this autumn. On the evidence of that trailer, one of the highlights is going to be a re-release of a 25-year-old film, but I suppose that's because it's Certifiably Awesome.
But skirting around Jack Black raping literature, babies projectile vomiting on Ben Stiller for recycling the same joke for a whole movie (again) and Jackass 3D, here are some of the gems in that trailer I'm most looking forward to in what remains of 2010.
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Whozat? It's "That Facebook Movie", and I was highly sceptical that it would be any good until I saw the trailer embedded above.
Why? Aside from Jesse Eisenberg continuing to set himself apart from his similarity to Michael Cera, it'll be the first big acting showcase from both the new Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield, and Rooney Mara, the new Lisbeth Salander. David Fincher's directing, and with the early reviews and previews, I'm hoping for a critique on a generation, closer to Fight Club than to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Expect... a metric fuck-ton of "like" and "poke" wordplay from reviews across the board.
DESPICABLE ME
Whozat? Like Megamind, the other big CG-offering in that trailer, it's a film told from a supervillain's perspective- in this case, one who plots to steal the Moon with the help of a bunch of chattering yellow midgets he's created to serve him.
Why? Unlike Megamind, it looks kooky and different enough to have piqued my interest. It also got rave reviews when it came out Stateside earlier in the summer, and has the voice talents of Steve Carell, Jason Segel and Russell Brand behind it, to name a few.
Expect... something along the lines of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, would be the best case scenario. Worst case scenario... well, Megamind.
RED
Whozat? Based on the DC graphic novel, it's about a band of retired CIA assassins who club together when one of them comes under fire from their old employers. Carnage ensues, and Helen Mirren takes control of a gun turret. That never happened in The Queen.
Why? I've seen that trailer many times in the cinema and I'm always happy to see it. After the embarrassment of Jonah Hex the other week, it's nice to see John Malkovich actually having fun instead of slumming it to pick up a cheque.
Expect... the Academy to be intensely confused that a film they'd consider so low-brow features so many of their favourite people. Maybe it's hoping for too much that the stalwarts here would get acting nods at the Oscars.
LET ME IN
Whozat? The English language remake of Let The Right One In. No, no, no, hold on. It actually looks quite good if you give that trailer a watch. The basic story is more or less the same- a young lad who's victimised by bullies in his school finds a way to fight back when he befriends the vampire girl who moves in next door.
Why? With the talent involved, I'm being open-minded. Even though it looks like they're playing up the horror angle (something that's largely absent in the original film) the director seems to have the utmost respect for the sources, and he's assembled a great cast too.
Expect... criticis to close their minds entirely and lambast it no matter what. They're so convinced the original is perfect that it'll be like having a one night stand with someone who looks exactly the same as your long time partner. But hey, I might like it!
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (Part One)
Whozat? Are you kidding? The only thing I should really need to explain at this stage is how they're splitting the original book into two films to make more money to give the finale room to breathe. It's a move I'm not entirely convinced by, especially as most of the stuff in the trailer above will be from Part 2.
Why? It's the end of a massive cinematic undertaking, or at least the beginning of the end. Under director David Yates, the films are the best they've ever been, with the exception of the series benchmark, Prisoner of Azkaban. This time around, Yates is taking the fairly pedestrian opening of the book and turning it into a paranoid road movie with our three heroes against the world, and even turning on each other...
Expect... half a film. If it exceeds my expectations, I won't come out of it thinking "well I have to wait until summer for all the good parts", but for now I'm keeping my hopes down. Oh, and make sure you don't give any money to the shitty 3D conversion, which is going to hurt how this film is received, in my opinion. Maybe they'll change their mind about the stereoscopy in Part 2. ------------------------------------------------------------------ All of this without mentioning the myriad 2010 features that don't appear in the uber-condensed trail for the season, but somehow I'm still looking forward to them. Amongst those, Burke and Hare, Monsters, Buried and Jackboots on Whitehall.
Hey, the alternative today was to write a review of Cyrus. You want that? I didn't review it because there's not an awful lot to say about it. That's because it's not about much. It's been misleadingly advertised to people who like actual narrative events. The cast do a fine job, but it ultimately fails to take mumblecore into the mainstream. There, mini-review.
I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.
