Oscar Contenders #3: Come Together

Review: Shame + Melancholia

Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender) glances at a woman across the subway car, prolonged glances. She adjusts herself, averts her eyes, stands to exit the train. He follows her through the car doors and up the stairs, expecting more, but she gets away before he can reach her. This is one of the most erotic scenes of Shame, director Steve McQueen's study of sexual addiction, but we can read it as a metaphor for the whole experience. After a breathless, enticing first hour, the movie (and Brandon) seem to get away from McQueen.

As confident as Fassbender's performance is, the central character is New York City. For an intimate film, McQueen stays on location often (especially several erotic trysts at the exhibitionist Standard Hotel). Counteracting Brandon's private routine, bare white walls and soulless office job, the streets of New York are both empowering and stifling: just look at that shot halfway through of Brandon running several blocks late at night, ultimately stalled at a red light, jogging in place. There's no real escape in this Manhattan. To this end, Carey Mulligan as his sister Sissy sings a melancholy "New York, New York" in a relentless close-up. Mulligan is surprisingly extroverted; but her childlike qualities are still her most interesting feature.

Oscar Contenders #2: End Times Are Coming

Review: Take Shelter + Beginners

I'll wager that Take Shelter will be swept under the rug in the tidal wave of major winter releases. Michael Shannon is a risky gamble; Jessica Chastain looks familiar to fans of The Help, but not enough to sell tickets. Cards on the table: I'm going to back it for a Best Picture nomination that it will not receive. Director Jeff Nichols provokes an astonishing intensity as he follows a man who readies his home for a terrifying storm. To his wife and daughter, it's the occasional Midwestern tornado; but for Curtis, the end of days approaches.

This twister is not the sort that Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton once chased; it comes from within. Curtis, paralyzed by visions that storms are brewing, obsesses with building a high-tech underground shelter, so much that he (and his family) start questioning his state of mind. He assembles his hideaway like a prophet called by a higher power. Nichols stays away from disaster-movie cliches in his script and direction; the suspense builds up slowly, eerily, like a horror flick without of the ghosts that jump out. The final scene to me pushes the film away from its heightened realism to more overt symbolism (i.e. more esoteric), though it doesn't really spoil the fun.

We aren't privy to what makes Curtis tick; and Shannon reads like he isn't even sure himself. It's a wonderful performance, and it wouldn't work in most actors' hands. Michael Shannon certainly plays crazy men often, but beneath the bug eyes and uneasy smile, he grounds his modern-day Noah in human uncertainty. With his hulking form and gruff mumbles, he's vulnerable and still intimidating. Supporting him is Jessica Chastain as his wife Samantha, protecting their daughter Hannah as dad sinks further into madness. Though it could be enlightenment.

Meanwhile, in Beginners out on DVD, Ewan McGregor deals with a more traditional family loss. His father Hal (Christopher Plummer) has recently passed away, and in flashback, we witness him as a widow who finally comes out as a gay man. His son Oliver (McGregor) questions his younger boyfriend, who has other lovers, but as Hal says, "You always dreamed of getting a lion. And you wait... but the lion doesn't come. And along comes a giraffe. You can be alone, or you can be with the giraffe."

At this early date, Plummer might have a chance at Best Supporting Actor. Though it's a sentimental vote, it's also a reassuring one. He gives the film its spark of life. Plummer's had a long run on stage and screen, and he keeps things honest as a man free to start a new chapter, no regrets. To see him smile offers the deepest glimpse into Mike Mills' directorial debut. Mills writes and directs, just as Jeff Nichols did with Take Shelter, this sweet if lightweight affair. After the unshakeable tensions of Nichols' film, Beginners may help you move past your worries about mortality.

Oscar Contenders #1: Topical Storms

Guess who's written in his blog barely at all this autumn? It may take a hiatus here and there, but I thought you dear readers (the few, the proud) deserved my thoughts about the movies coming out this season. I'm looking forward to a heap of interesting indies, and a Best Actress race hot enough to boil bunnies.

I'm kicking off the season with two films about the most topical of events: the onset of the financial collapse, and the elections to restore faith in American institutions. 

Review: Margin Call + The Ides of March

"These people have no idea what's about to happen," Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) says as he gazes out the windows of his investment firm. The office is a fishbowl: everyone under scrutiny from the outside, trapped in a bubble. The employees watch through glass doors as layoffs pick up, and everyone's on the lookout for a scapegoat. 

But as Sullivan's research that the company has borrowed more than it can chew rises higher in the company, so does the realization that nobody knows how they got here. The firm calls in CEO John Tuld (an unsurprisingly villainous Jeremy Irons), and he begs Sullivan to explain the problem in plain English. One of the film's running jokes is pointing out the increasing ineptness at the top of the office chain: "I don't get any of this stuff," Tuld admits. 

Director and writer J.C. Chandor moves Margin Call forward with focused velocity. He keeps the atmosphere claustrophic, confined to board rooms, offices, and technical financial lingo that lay viewers never have a real chance to parse. All the vocabulary hits us too quickly, and appropriately so. Even the morning sunrise portends the impending collapse more than the inkling of hope. Even timely material like this wouldn't be as riveting if it didn't take a step back. Chandor lets us emphathize with these blindsided leaders; for all their corporate greed, they're as clueless as the rest of us. 

My High School Reading List

Did I really do a book report 
on this in ninth grade?

Shame. The burden of an English major. And not just because most people use your degree as a one-liner. Unlike most other subjects, an English major requires that you have actually read (cover to cover) the essential texts of literature.* Because it's what everyone thinks--we read and we write! History majors, philosophy majors: they read texts and write to interpret and theorize just like English majors, but for some reason, our degree is knocked down. Less noble than philosophy! Less tangible than history!

So yes, I feel shame I haven't sailed cover to cover through the classics. I didn't even read classics on my own until high school was over. Suddenly, this great fear struck me: Everyone at college would have read everything! And what had I read?

The answer to that: My high school reading list, as best I can remember, after the jump:

How to Win an EGOT

I've been away, but I had to pop in to share thoughts I had from the Emmys. Namely, only 10 people have won the coveted EGOT... ever! (13 counting honorary awards.)

Why is this number so small? OK, it's not so easy to waltz onto Broadway and grab a Tony. Though wealth and fame can help elevate a good performance to gold (see: Catherine Zeta-Jones).

And it's not easy to win an Oscar. You have to really campaign for it, and most great actors win them early in their careers or never at all. James Earl Jones* has an asterisk on the EGOT list because his Oscar is (surprisingly) honorary only.

But here's my Surefire Oscar Advice: Start out as a singer. If you sing really well, you are almost guaranteed an Oscar just for being in a movie (see: Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Cher, Jennifer Hudson).

Trouble staying on-key? Then take my Surefire Grammy Advice: Spoken Word album. This worked for actual EGOTs Helen Hayes, John Gielgud, Audrey Hepburn, and James Earl Jones*. Or record yourself doing stand-up, a la EGOTs Mike Nichols, Whoopi Goldberg, and Mel Brooks.


All right, you worked hard and won a Tony. You sing great, so hey, pile on the Grammys. You made one movie for a lark, and bam, Oscar. What's left?

Surefire Emmy Advice (aka Piece of Cake):
1. Guest star on SNL. You can be an expert comedian (Tina Fey), an expert beloved comedian (Betty White), or 4-time-Emmy-winner Justin Timberlake. In fact, you really just should be Justin Timberlake.

2. Miniseries or Movie. Don't deign to go near those SNL hippies. Just call HBO and tell them you want a seventeen-hour movie based on some Wikipedia entry you Stumbled Upon. Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall... the list of Oscar winners who casually tossed off a hit Miniseries/Movie is staggering.

3. Don't work on Mad Men. If you film even one episode of Mad Men, Best Drama Series-four-times-running, you are almost guaranteed never to win. They should really consider some HBO miniseries work.

Who's next in line? Cher and Martin Scorsese could collaborate on a musical, starring Kate Winslet and Eminem. How about a remake of On Golden Pond with Bette Midler and Dick Van Dyke? And please, Lord, let Maggie Smith record that smooth jazz album she's always talking about.