The nominations for the Oscars went out this morning and with them, the first round of quick reactions and predictions. After several months of following smaller, but not insignificant awards, here are our official predictions and complaints. Agree? Disagree? Let us know!

Best Picture

The Artist

War Horse

Moneyball

The Descendants

Tree of Life

Midnight in Paris

The Help

Hugo

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Who Will Win: The Artist. It’s had all the steam throughout the early awards season, and it doesn’t appear any of the other films have the clout to take it down.

Who Should Win: Really it’s a wide open category if The Artist loses, but look for The Descendants to take the statue if Oscar voters aren’t into French silent films.

Who Was Snubbed: Young Adult. Not a single nomination for Jason Reitman’s latest. It’s surprising The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo got nothing, but the lack of any love for Young Adult is a travesty.

Best Actress

Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Viola Davis, The Help

Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Who Will Win: Michelle Williams. She’s clearly been the front runner through most of awards season and though Meryl Streep has had a lot of buzz, Williams is by the far the safest bet of all nominees.

Who Should Win: If not Williams, it will be Meryl Streep. The other three nominees are all deserving, but Oscar politics always trump anything else.

Who Was Snubbed: Tilda Swinton. I’m not sure if We Need to Talk About Kevin was eligable for the Oscars, but if it was, it’s a travesty she didn’t get a nod. Also deserving: Charlize Theron, who carried Young Adult.

Best Actor

Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

George Clooney, The Descendants

Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Demián Bichir, A Better Life

Who Will Win: George Clooney. He has a Supporting Actor award already, and as is the Oscar way, he’ll win because it’s his time.

Who Should Win: Honestly, this category is dynamite. If it’s not Clooney, expect either Oldman, Dujardin, or Pitt, in that order.

Who Was Snubbed: Michael Fassbender for Shame and Michael Shannon for Take Shelter. Two of the most talked about performances of the year got no attention. I expected at least one to get a nod, and it’s surprising neither of them did.

Best Supporting Actress

Octavia Spencer, The Help

Bérénice Bejo, The Artist

Jessica Chastain, The Help

Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids

Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs

Who Will Win: Jessica Chastain. Sometimes the Oscars are about welcoming people into the community of Oscar winners, and after a huge year, expect Chastain to get that honor.

Who Should Win: This is another loaded category in which anyone has a convincing argument, but if it’s not Chastain, Bejo could steal the show.

Who Was Snubbed: Though she really didn’t get nominated for any other awards, Shailene Woodley from The Descendants deserved at least a little attention for her breakthrough performance.

Best Supporting Actor

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn

Nick Nolte, Warrior

Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Who Will Win: Christopher Plummer. This is the closest thing to a lock in this year’s ceremony.

Who Should Win: Honestly, Plummer. He owns Beginners and is truthfully the most deserving.

Who Was Snubbed: Albert Brooks. Without a doubt the biggest snub of the Oscars. Though no one expected him to beat Plummer, not even getting nominated was absolutely crazy. Special Mention also goes to Patton Oswalt for Young Adult.

Best Director

Alexander Payne, The Descendants

Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

Terrence Malick, Tree of Life

Who Will Win: Martin Scorsese. When Oscar voters are in doubt, they always go with one of the all time greats.

Who Should Win: Alexander Payne. Consider it the consolation prize for The Descendants if The Artist picks up Best Picture.

Who Was Snubbed: David Fincher is notably absent from this list, but given the overall lack of love for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, it’s not too surprising.

Best Original Screenplay

Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, Bridesmaids

J.C. Chandor, Margin Call

Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

Asgar Farhadi, A Separation

Who Will Win: Woody Allen. Midnight in Paris was a phenomenal film, and given his uneven work in the last 10 years, this could be the Academy’s last chance to honor one of the greats.

Who Should Win: Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo have the best shot at sneaking in if Allen doesn’t win. Hazanavicius has a shot as well, but he’ll win elsewhere, leaving the door open for the breakthrough comedy duo.

Who Was Snubbed: Diablo Cody for Young Adult. It’s ridiculous this film didn’t get a single nomination. It rank with Albert Brooks as one of the biggest snubs of the year.

Best Adapted Sceenplay

Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, The Descendants

John Logan, Hugo

Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian, Moneyball

George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon, Ides of March

Peter Straughan and Bridget O’Connor, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Who Will Win: Payne, Faxon, and Rash. Again, look for The Descendants to pick up a bunch of awards that aren’t Best Picture. That’s not to detract from the fact that they actually deserve this award though.

Who Should Win: If the Descendants  lose, the safe money is on Sorkin and Zaillian, picking up Moneyball’s consolation prize.

Who Was Snubbed: Yasmina Reza and Roman Polanski for Carnage. Easily one of the funniest films I saw all year.

Yes, after 9,000 months of campaigning and preliminary awards, today the Academy separated the contenders from the pretenders and announced who was up for Oscars. There were plenty of surprises, both pleasant and otherwise. Support for Terrance Malick’s masterpiece The Tree of Life was stronger than a lot of people expected, as the film garnered Best Picture and Director nods. Best Actor contained two surprises, as Gary Oldman’s soft spoken spy from Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and Demian Bashir’s illegal immigrant from A Better Life edged out expected frontrunners Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Fassbender. Melissa McCarthy got a well-deserved nomination for Bridesmaids, but unfortunately Albert Brooks got ignored for his work in Drive. Oh and you guys will love this, 9/11 exploitation-fest Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close somehow got nominated for Best Picture. Predictions and analysis to come, but let’s all remember one thing: the Dean from Community is now an Oscar nominee.

First up is “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”. Where to even begin? I guess I should let you know that I only saw bits and pieces of the first one while on a bus traveling to a rowing event. This meant it had bad sound, I was likely tired and in the process of cutting weight. I came to this movie with fresh eyes (you really don’t need to know much about the first movie to get the plot of this one), so maybe I missed something that would have changed my opinion, but I’m skeptical.

The dialogue is terrible. It’s presented as pithy and witty. But it’s neither. You might get wrapped up in the way it’s acted (which has the airs about it), but don’t be fooled. Just take a look at IMDB’s “Memorable Quotes” page and you’ll get the idea.

The only redeeming quality of this movie is the way it looks. The color of the movie is very cool. Blues and greens pop out creating a look that does seem to evoke a historic feel. The movie also periodically slows things down for certain action scenes, sometimes using a narrative to explain the thought process behind certain movements. This produces some effective scenes that breed excitement. But they are few and far between, and had they been used more, they would have likely lost their charm. The final part of the movie I liked was the abundance of amazing facial hair. It’s just luxurious. It’s hard to go wrong when you have beards like this:

(not even the best one, but no appropriate images are easily available)

Rounding out this post is “The Adventures of Tintin”. Which in my opinion was delightful. It wasn’t perfect, and some parts of the movie seemed to drag a bit for me, but I for one had a good time. When I tell people that I’ve seen the movie, they always ask me what I thought about the animation. “Was it creepy?” or “Was it hard to watch for the entire time?” were the two questions I was asked the most. My response is that it seems so for the first few minutes, but tends to just fall into the background.

(Real)

The plot centers around the first meeting of Tintin and Captain Haddock. The movie merges the plot lines of a few of the different comics to set up the series. In a way, it was somewhat of an overview of the whole series. This provided one of the most interesting features of the movie. Captain Haddock, as any reader of the comics would know, is a terrible alcoholic, and it features prominently into the plot. This is the first kids movie that I recall seeing that features alcohol this prominently. It certainly made for interesting questions from my “Little Brother” Joshua on the way back from the movie. It is brought to attention in the film, but the actions still make it a little fun. I’m guessing most of the readers of this review are over 21 or close. But don’t let the alcohol dissuade you from taking young people to see the movie if it’s appropriate.

Anyways, there are the reviews. See Tintin, don’t see Sherlock. It’s that simple people.

I’ll start where the movie starts, Budapest. It’s one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been to, and the opening shot over the parliament building captures it perfectly. We then get our introduction to the story. Having only ever seen the original Mission: Impossible, I can assure you that there’s no need for context. You’re going to get it very quickly. A few bodies later, and we’re straight to the point: Tom Cruise being a badass with a nice cast of backup characters including the always funny Simon Pegg as Benji. 

Directed by Brad Bird (Writer/Director for Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and The Iron Giant among other things) in his first live-action movie, it nails everything down tight. Can we talk about smooth? This movie had some sort of witchcraft that made it so that transitions were completely effortless. Other action movies are like when you play the game Mousetrap. You set it up, but you didn’t set it up quite right. It takes a little bit of human hands to make it work. MI was like the commercial for Mousetrap, it just worked, and it makes it look so easy. We go though such a number of challenges to global safety, threats of defeat, tech failures, car chases, and explosions to fill three action movies, but in the right hands, it just all clicks.

And that brings me to the pacing of the movie. Fantastic. MI puts you through your paces, but recognizes that sometimes you need to cool it off just enough to build a bit of suspense. My cousin who I saw the movie with had just been telling me about this app called RunPee which alerts you when it’s the best time to use the bathroom during a movie. MI only had two spots which they recommended you could skip out on. One of those scenes was a few minutes of the bad guys shooting at things underwater. 

So this movie has it all. Pretty people, cool gadgets, good humor, and awesome title sequence (not quite as good as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but more on that later) loads of action, but more importantly smart pacing of said action. If you want to understand why we have so many sub-par actions movies, it’s because movies like this (and Die Hard) make them so enjoyable to watch. And I’m sorry for this, but I feel obliged: Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to go and see Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Trust me, it’s an enjoyable and easy mission.

New guy here. Name’s Andrew. I’ll be doing some movie reviews for the good ol’ blog here and might venture further into some other territories like the future of media, it’s cultural impact, and good workout music. But before I do that, I just wanted to take a moment and introduce myself.

To give you a little background, my brother is one of those cool cat you see blogging here. Ah glorious nepotism. Anyways, after a freak science accident left me with super powers charity auction  left me with a year-long movie pass, I decided it’d be cool to write some movie reviews. TUIW has graciously agreed to let me post them here. I warn you in advance many of these reviews will not happen the weekend the movie comes out. So don’t wait for my review before you go out to see movies.

For some personal background, I currently live in St. Louis where I do marketing and product development work for a tech start-up. I was a college DJ for four years and currently am woking on some projects in the music scene down here. I have a wide variety of media taste (including Disco!), and I’m working really hard on being less judgmental of other people’s choices.

I look forward to typing out things for ya’ll. Always feel free to give me your feedback and opinions. And if you want some social ambiance (phatic communication for you nerds) you can follow me on the twitters here. 

Catch you on the flip side,

Andrew

FILMS NOT TO MISS

The Artist

Read Michael’s review here.

Carnage

Lynn Ramsey’s dark story abut a mother raising a disturbed son drew mixed results for the crowd at Trustee’s Theatre, but stood out as being one of the more interesting and better done films of the festival. Tilda Swinton was terrific as always as a the mother of the titular character, played with menacing evil by Ezra Miller. Flashing backwards and forwards through time before hitting the big reveal at the end, We Need to Talk About Kevin employed visuals better than any other film at the festival, providing a sense of dread the entire time. In a lot of ways, it’s a modern day horror film in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby, where the audience knows something bad will happen and spends the entire film waiting for it to happen. Though I don’t see any Oscar nods in its future, We Need to Talk About Kevin is definitely one of 2011’s must see films.

Jeff Who Lives at Home

The latest film from the Mark and Jay Duplass (Cyrus, The Puffy Chair) escaped a lot of attention as one of the last films to be screened, but was among the most enjoyable of the festival. Jeff Who Lives at Home follows the titular character (Jason Segal), a lazy pot-smoker who still lives with his mother (Susan Sarandon). Looking for signs in the world to give him his true purpose, Jeff ends up on a journey around Baton Rouge, where he ends up connecting with his jerky brother (Ed Helms) and sister-in-law (Judy Greer). The Duplass Brothers’ loose, improvisational style gives both Segal and Helms a chance to do their best work on the big screen, each showing depth and range previously unseen. Jeff  is also a significant step up for the directors from last year’s Cyrus, a film that failed to meet its potential. In contrast, Jeff features a tighter story and relies more on the emotional beats of characters than emotional beats in the story. Just as it did at the SFF, Jeff Who Lives at Home could fly under the radar for most moviegoers, but if you have the chance, check it out.

Boy

After a heavy night with Coriolanus (more on that in a bit) I was ready for some laughs. Thankfully, I decided to see Boy, a hysterical and charming film from New Zealander Taika Waititi. The film follows the titular character, a Michael Jackson-loving 11-year-old kid in a small New Zealand town who is left in charge of a house of even younger cousins and his brother Rocky when their grandmother goes out of town for a funeral. When his estranged criminal father (Waititi) returns, Boy finally has a male role model, albeit one that has him steal marijuana and dig holes to find the money he had stashed in a nearby field. Waititi is pitch perfect as the slightly insane Alamein, making him likable and detestable at the same time. The film started right away with laughs and never let up, even in its heavier moments. Boy may not be on the radar of a lot of film followers here in the U.S. yet, but it should be. Unfortunately, it’s not playing again at the festival, but be sure to keep an eye out for this charming and thoroughly enjoyable film.

The Bully Project

In recent years, issues such as climate change, America’s school system, and the financial crisis have been greatly impacted by some incredible documentaries. An Inconvenient Truth changed the way we think about the environment, Waiting for a Superman was watched and mentioned by President Obama, and Inside Job put a spotlight on who was actually responsible for the financial collapse. What made these documentaries so successful was not just that they were well done, but that in some way, they impacted every viewer. Appropriately screening after a panel on how films can change the world, Lee Hirsch’s The Bully Project aims to do the same with a problem that impacts many kids and their parents across the country, hitting all the right notes in the process. The film tackles bullying from nearly every facet, following a middle-schooler facing it in his school, a girl who brought a gun on a bus to stop bullies, a small-town lesbian, and the families of two kids who took their own life because of bullying. Each segment features crushing moments of cruelty that largely goes unpunished or recognized by school and town officials, including one in which an assistant principle tells a boy to just ignore the bully that had told him he would kill him. It’s an incredibly touching film that at times touched very close to home. It may seem bleak at points, but The Bully Project does an excellent job at leaving its audience with a feeling of hope and purpose. What was especially great about yesterday’s screening was walking out and seeing a large group of local students in their seats. All of them were quiet and evidentially shaken by film. As much as it’s a documentary for adults unaware of the issue, The Bully Project is an should be required watching in middle and high schools around the country. See it if you can.

THE GENERALLY GOOD

The Muppets

Kermit, Miss Piggy, and Fozzie got their world premier in Savannah as the secret Director’s Choice on Friday night, a move that simultaneously delighted and infuriated the festival crowd. As far as the film goes, it’s a classic Muppet movie, full of laughs, celebrity cameos, songs, and plenty of positive vibes. Jason Segal’s script does a great job of staying true to the Muppets while also bringing them into the 21st Century. Followed up by a predictably great Toy Story short, The Muppets is a great family movie that will entertain both kids and their parents. That being said, it was a particularly odd choice for a festival that featured many darker, adult films in the marquee 7:00 screening. A large number of people left when it was revealed as the film, many more (including myself) complaining outside afterwards. While an enjoyable film and one I’m glad I stuck around for, The Muppets is in no way a festival film, representing a gross misunderstanding of the audience on the part of the film festival.

Like Crazy

The closing night selection, Sundance winner Like Crazy, also lead to a split decision from the audience. An entirely improvised film shot on a prosumer camera (the Canon 5D), I found Like Crazy to be a film with terrific performances, a great visual style, and a lackluster story. The film follows Jaccob (Anton Yelchin) and Anna (Felicity Jones), two college students that fall in love and suffer through a long distance relationship after visa problems keep her stuck in her native England. Both Yelchin and Jones are terrific, and the small camera allows the filmmakers to capture some terrific, intimate, improvised moments, but the film’s biggest flaw is its glacial pace and some plot decisions that lack explanation or motivation. There’s a good story in Like Crazy that is largely lost, leading the film to rely on visuals to work. While it doesn’t stick the landing, it’s an impressive low-budget indie that deserves the attention its gotten.

FILMS TO SKIP

The biggest disappointment of the week came with David Cronenberg’s latest, a period piece about the relationship between groundbreaking psychologists Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Dry dialogue, relatively conventional visuals, and poor performances doom the film, which felt like it dragged on forever. Kiera Knightley offers a terribly over-acted performance as a patient of Jung’s that begins an affair with him after he gets her craziness under control. Fassbender breaks his hot streak, playing Jung with virtually no emotion, providing no reason to connect to his character. The film’s saving graces are Mortensen, who is charming and funny as Freud and Vincent Cassel, who turns up for about 15 minutes as a doctor/patient that encourages Jung to pursue his affair with Knightley. Overall, the film is sterile and devoid of any sort of emotional connection with the audience. Though the temptation to see a Cronenberg film may be there, skip A Dangerous Method and to avoid crippling disappointment.

Coriolanus

Hands down the worst film of the festival, Coriolanus is clearly the vanity project of director/star Ralph Fiennes. Taking one of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays and setting it in “modern day Rome,” the film is an overindulgent mess that finds Fiennes in constant closeups while forgetting a terrific roster of supporting actors including Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain, and Gerrard Butler. If Fiennes knows anything about film directing, it’s not apparent in Coriolanus. Do yourself a favor and spend two hours doing something other than seeing this movie.

A Year in Mooring

USA, 2011, 91 min., HDCam
Director: Chris Eyre
Producers: Kevin Reidy, Sally Jo Effenson
Writer: Peter Vanderwall
Cast: Ayelet Zurer, James Cromwell, Jon Tenney, Taylor Nichols, Josh Lucas

Synopsis: A successful businessman, attempting to escape his past, moves aboard a dilapidated boat in a remote harbor. Told over movements framed by the calendar year, the Young Mariner meets other harbor inhabitants with pasts of their own.

Inuk

France/Greenland, 2010, 90 min., HDCam
Director: Mike Magidson
Producers: Mike Magidson, Sylvie Barbe
Writers: Mike Magidson, Jean-Michel Huctin
Cast: Gaaba Petersen, Ole-Jorgen Hammeken

Synopsis: In Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, sixteen year-old Inuk lives a troubled life with his alcoholic mother and violent step-father. One morning, after pulling the half-frozen boy out of an abandoned car, the social services decide to send Inuk north to a children’s home on a tiny island in the middle of the arctic sea-ice. Shortly after arriving, Inuk meets Ikuma, a local polar bear hunter who has his own share of problems, and is asked to take Inuk on his annual seal-hunting trip. So when Inuk, the troubled boy from the city, joins Ikuma, the last great hunter of the North, on this epic dogsled journey, they will face much more than the bitter cold and fragile sea-ice.

Let Go

USA, 2011, 109 min., HDCam
Director: Brian Jett
Producer: Leif Lillihaugen
Writer: Brian Jett
Cast: Alexandera Holden, Amy Stiller, Brian Huskey, Catherine Reitman, David Denman, Dov Davidoff, Edward Asner, Gillian Jacobs, Johnny Pemberton, Kali Hawk, Kevin Hart, Kirk Fox, Maria Thayer, Rance Howard, Simon Helberg

Synopsis: A comedy that follows the intertwining stories of Walter Dishman, a melancholy parole officer struggling with the doldrums of married life, and three eccentric ex-convicts that were recently placed under his supervision. Using the afflictions of modern love as a common thread, the stories build to a poignant climax as each of the characters struggle to free themselves from both literal and figurative bonds.

Take Me Home

USA, 2011, 97min, Blu-Ray
Director: Sam Jaeger
Producer: Michael Hobert, Jane Kelly Kosek
Writer: Sam Jaeger
Cast: Sam Jaeger, Amber Jaeger, Victor Garber, Cristine Rose, Lin Shaye

Synopsis: When Claire jumps in Thom’s beat-up cab in New York, neither realize that they have just begun a journey together of self-discovery that will have them crossing the United States in an effort to find home.

While it was indeed painful to watch the events of the night unfold (Moises Alou’s reaction to Bartman, Alex Gonzales’ error on a sure thing double play, the Marlin’s 8-run rally), Alex Gibney’s documentary did more than simply talk about an infamous man that people know almost nothing about. Instead, Gibney tells the story of a night in which 40,000 fans let nearly 100 years of disappointment on one guy who made an honest, human mistake.

What makes Catching Hell so interesting is the way in which Gibney dissects every possible angle of the game. He sets the stage by reviewing the Bill Buckner error of the 1986 World Series, pointing out that Buckner may have missed the ball, but it was preceeded by one pitcher loading the bases and another throwing a wild pitch. Buckner just had the bad timing of being last and the most easily remembered. Gibney’s driving question about Bartman comes out right then and there: did he actually cause the Cubs to lose or did they lose it themselves?

Gibney also questions the mob mentality that overtook Wrigley Field and Chicago following the incident. Several of his interview subjects mention that all of the sudden, every fan in the park thought the game and season was over when there was still an inning and a half of baseball to play. The crowd starts chants of “asshole” directed at Bartman. They throw beer on him. One piece of footage featured a fan yelling “put a 12-gauge in his mouth and pull the trigger!” It’s a shameful sight that actually hit closer to home as a Cubs fan than rewatching footage of the actual game. Wrigley Field is supposed to be the Friendly Confines after all.

The most riveting part of Gibney’s documentary is the way he humanizes Bartman. He mentions that Bartman was at the game with two friends, both of whom appear to be trying to distance themselves from him and who left him alone as soon as they could. He interviews the reporter who badgered him right after incident and a fan who was thrown out of the game for harrassing him. Most heartbreakingly, Gibney talked to the security guard that was with Bartman in the aftermath, watching him process what happened and seeing he wasn’t concerned with himself, but whether the Cubs won or lost. Anyone that still hates the man after watching Catching Hell probably has no capacity for sympathy in them.

On the surface, Catching Hell is about scapegoats and the assignment of blame in sports, but deeper, Gibney offers brilliant commentary on the idea of fandom. Gibney only interviews two players on that Cubs team, Alou and first baseman Eric Karros, talking mostly to people that were in the stands or covering the game that night, clearly pulling the film away from the field and into the seats. Did the crowd at Wrigley that night actually lose the game? It’s a big question that Gibney wisely leaves to the viewer, but one that leads to a rabbit hole of questions about the notion of being a fan and the lengths we go to to support teams in our culture.