The Desolation of Peter Jackson

I have to say that I was slightly hopeful about this film, the second of three planned Hobbit films. The reviews were good on the whole, and it has a 74% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This obviously set my expectations way too high. It makes me sad that I have to give a thumbs down to The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug because there are some very good bits, almost all of which are bits from the original book. Some day, I hope, there will be a re-edit of these movies, much as was done with Star Wars: Episode I. Just removing all scenes with Radagast the Brown would add a full bottle to my rating. He is the Jar Jar Binks of The Hobbit. I'm happy to say that Radagast's role has been much reduced in the second film. He is only on screen for about 5 minutes. But, where was I? Oh yes, Radagast is not the worst thing about this bloated film, which, at 2 hours and 41 minutes, is actually 8 minutes shorter than the first installment of The Hobbit. The Desolation of Smaug roughly follows the middle third of the book starting with entering Mirkwood and fighting the spiders to a final scene of Smaug flying off in the direction of Laketown.

The action, that is contained in the book, would fill maybe half an hour, so much new material has been added to the film that is nowhere to be found in the book. First, there is the addition of Legolas and the new female elf character, Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), and the associated "love" triangle involving them and Kili. Second, there is a subplot where Gandalf and Radagast go to Dol Guldur to confront the Necromancer. This will seem very familiar since it is almost identical in every way to Gandalf's visit to Saruman at Isengard. Third, there is a huge expansion of the action in Laketown, where the Master (Stephen Fry) is an evil ruler and the enemy of Bard (Luke Evans).

Fourth, Peter Jackson obviously feels that none of the action is exciting enough, so he adds Orcs to almost every scene including the Barrel escape and in Laketown. Finally, the last half hour of the movie is given over to a ridiculous running battle between Smaug and the dwarves, which like a series of Rube Goldberg devices. This ending is sad because it follows the the best part of the movie, by far, in which Bilbo sneaks down to behold the riches of Smaug. The scene where Smaug is first revealed from underneath a pile of treasure is very well done. It is a strange reunion of Benedict Cumberbatch, who does the voice of Smaug, and Martin Freeman, who is, of course, Bilbo. We will see them together again soon as Sherlock and Watson.

The addition of Legolas and Tauriel is welcome, much as was the expansion of Arwen's role in The Fellowship of the Ring. It just feels good to see Legolas sliding around shooting orcs again. And he is doing it through most of the movie. Evangeline Lilly's Tauriel mostly works well too, although the subplot of Legolas falling in love with her and Tauriel falling in love with Kili is laughable. Thranduil, King of the Wood-elves and father of Legolas appears much as he does in the book. Lee Pace plays the role as woodenly as Hugo Weaving plays Elrond, but with a great love of fetishes.

The dwarves are mostly good. Ken Stott is wonderful as Balin. And the movie begins with a nice flashback of Gandalf and Thorin meeting at the Prancing Pony just to set the scene. The size of the dwarves seems to vary a lot depending on whether any humans are around. It is unintentionally funny when Thorin is suddenly three feet tall. Smaug looks quite good and has a nice touch of menace, at least until he has his fight with the Keystone Cops at the end of the movie, which destroys the mood completely.


Bard is quite a good character, but the Laketown subplot combined with attacking orcs is a fiasco. And I almost walked out during the climactic battle between Smaug and the dwarves. Even Beorn was a bit of a disappointment. The most Peter-Jackson-esque scene is when the dwarves are trying to find the hidden door in the Lonely Mountain. They can't find it, so Thorin throws away the key and the dwarves quit and head home. Jackson loves to make the characters do things that hey would never do, as when Frodo sends Sam home, when Theoden wants to run away at Helm's Deep, and when Faramir becomes Boromir. The good parts of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and there are some, are lost in all the Jackson chaos. All in all, it was very disappointing.

Gravity

After seeing the trailer for Gravity, I was a bit dubious seeing Sandra Bullock and George Clooney spinning around in space suits. Then, one of my favorite astronauts, none other than Dr. Mike Massimino said, "Somebody did their homework. Everything is exactly like what it was on our mission." And Buzz Aldrin liked it too. Ok, I didn't need too much convincing to go see it. Gravity was a pleasant surprise. It is probably the most realistic portrayal of life in space since 2001: A Space Odyssey. There's even an homage to 2001, when Bullock has to get into the airlock before she runs out of air, except no there's no HAL 9000 trying to keep her out. 

Gravity tells the story of two astronauts, played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, who are repairing Hubble Space Telescope when all hell breaks loose. Clooney is an old space hand who loves to tell stories like Robert Duvall in Deep Impact. Bullock is a space rookie and a bio-engineer. The Russians blow up a satellite which creates a huge expanding cloud of debris which places the astronauts and the Space Shuttle in imminent danger.

Not to give too much away, but soon Bullock and Clooney are alone in space with no spacecraft to get them home. They are tethered together and proceed to give the best ever demonstration of Newton's Laws of Motion. Both outside in their space suits and inside various spacecraft, there is an amazing attention to detail much like in Apollo 13, where they actually flip the right switches at the right times. Clooney even pulls the knife switch to detach the Hubble Space Telescope from the Space Shuttle.

Clooney has a new jetpack and they can move around a bit so he gets the bright idea to head towards the International Space Station to save themselves. This would be a bright idea except that the

Hubble Space Telescope is in an orbit at an altitude of about 350 miles and an inclination of 28.5 degrees, and the ISS is in an orbit at an altitude of about 250 miles and an inclination of 51.6 degrees. Why am I telling you this? Well, this means you can't get from the HST to the ISS with only a jetpack. This is the only big error in Gravity, and is done for plot reasons. There is one other violation of Newton's Laws, again done to advance the plot, but on the whole it's very realistic.

My main qualm about seeing Gravity was Sandra Bullock. Don't get me wrong, I have always liked her, but after seeing her in the trailer, I was a bit worried. But she won me over as the movie went on. She is an academic in space for the first time and thinks she is about to die. I think she portrays that pretty well, and despite being terrified, it turns out that her character is very competent. She has to deal with US, Russian, and Chinese spacecraft, and like a real astronaut she pulls out her manual and starts following the checklist. Another nice bit is that all the instructions on the Russian Soyuz are in Russian, and on the Chinese spaceship, they are all in Chinese. 

I wasn't worried about George Clooney. He is perfect for the role of the old astronaut near retirement, who has seen it all. Like him or hate him (I like him), he always makes good, interesting choices for his roles. The director of Gravity is Alfonso Cuarón, who has directed some movies I like a lot, Children of Men, Y Tu Mamá También, and the best of the Harry Potter films, The Prisoner of Azkaban. He does a great job of keeping this movie simple. Ok, there are lots of scenes of various spacecraft being destroyed (in absolute silence!), but Gravity only runs 90 minutes. There are only two actors and most of the action is between them and in their own heads. This is really an Indie movie in space with a few explosions. The numbers are coming in and Gravity is breaking box office records, as well as getting Oscar buzz already. It's a great movie to see on the big screen and in 3D. 

Geoff's Oscar Nominations

Read my previous post about my picks for best movies of the year. My list does not include four of the Oscar Best Picture nominations, Argo, Amour, Les Miz, and Django Unchained. These are all good movies and Argo is likely to win for Best Picture. But, they didn't quite make my Top Ten.

In this post, I list what would be the Oscar nominations for the acting categories if it were up to me. My pick for the Oscar is number one in the list for each category. In two of the categories, there is no real competition for number One. For Best Actor, Daniel Day-Lewis blew away the opposition with his portrayal of Lincoln. It was nothing short of amazing. But the other four actors in the category were all fabulous too. In any other year, they could have won the Oscar. Denzel Washington is the only one in a movie that is not in my Top Ten. Flight is very good and Washington, as usual, is excellent as an airline pilot who saves his passengers in a plane crash that leads to the revelation of his many personal problems.

The second category that is already sewn up is Best Supporting Actress. Anne Hathaway didn't have much screen time in Les Miz before she died, but she made the most of it, particularly when she took advantage of the extreme closeups and live singing to deliver a memorable version of "I Dreamed a Dream." I have included three actresses who are not on the Oscar list. Emily Blunt had two nice movies last year, the sweet, quirky, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, and the classic Indie movie, Your Sister's Sister. Olivia Thirlby had a breakout role in another little seen film, Being Flynn, which starred Robert De Niro and Paul Dano. And Judi Dench is, well, Judi Dench.

The Best Actress category is wide open. In the actual Oscar nominations, I think four of the five actresses have a chance to win, Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild), and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook). This year, they have the youngest (Wallis) and oldest (Riva) Oscar nominees in history. They both, deservedly, have a good chance of winning. The only one I think who is out of the running is Naomi Watts, who gave her usual great performance in The Impossible. In another year, she might have won too. I have included two actresses not on the Oscar list, Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone), and Helen Mirren (Hitchcock). These performances are both fantastic but almost no one has seen these movies. Put them on your Netflix list. I pick Jessica Chastain as my winner for her portrayal of the very intense, obsessed Maya in Zero Dark Thirty.

The last category, Best Supporting Actor, is also wide open. All five of the Oscar nominees are former winners. I have only included two of them on my list. I nominated John Goodman instead of Alan Arkin for Argo, just because he also had two other memorable roles last year, in Flight as Denzel Washington's friend and drug source, and in Trouble with the Curve as an old baseball man. But I do love Alan Arkin too. It was nice to see Christopher Walken do his thing in A Late Quartet, where any of the other three musicians, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, and Mark Ivanir, could have been nominated as well. Tom Hardy had a breakout year in Dark Knight Rising (although we never saw his face), and in Lawless with Jessica Chastain. But, I pick Christolph Waltz for Django Unchained. He was completely unknown to me before he stole every scene in Inglourious Basterds and won Best Supporting Actor in 2010. He is at it again in Django Unchained, where he steals every scene he is in. Waltz is amazing.

Best Picture:

1. Zero Dark Thirty

2. Silver Linings Playbook

3. Lincoln

4. The Avengers

5. Life of Pi

Director:

1. Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)

2. David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)

3. Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)

4. Joss Whedon (The Avengers)

5. Ang Lee (Life of Pi)

Actor:

1. Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)

2. Denzel Washington (Flight, Safe House)

3. Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)

4. John Hawkes (The Sessions)

5. Anthony Hopkins (Hitchcock)

Honorable Mentions: Ewan McGregor (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, The Impossible), Robert Downey Jr. (The Avengers), Tom Hanks (Cloud Atlas), Bill Murray (Hyde Park on the Hudson), Jean-Louis Trintignant (Amour)

Actress:
1. Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, Lawless)

2. Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook, The Hunger Games)

3. Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone)

4. Helen Mirren (Hitchcock)

5. Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild)

Honorable Mentions: Naomi Watts (The Impossible), Emma Watson (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Greta Gerwig (To Rome with  Love, Damsels in Distress, Lola Versus), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)

Supporting Actor:

1. Christolph Waltz (Django Unchained)

2. John Goodman (Argo, Flight, Trouble With the Curve)

3. Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)

4. Christopher Walken (A Late Quartet)

5. Tom Hardy (Lawless, The Dark Knight Rises)

Honorable Mentions: Matthew McConaughey (Killer Joe, Magic Mike, Bernie, The Paperboy), Edward Norton (Moonrise Kingdom), Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty), Phillip Seymour Hoffman (A Late Quartet, The Master), Mark Duplass (Your Sister's Sister, Safety Not Guaranteed), Alan Arkin (Argo)

Supporting Actress:

1. Anne Hathaway (Les Miz, The Dark Knight Rises)

2. Emily Blunt (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Your Sister's Sister)

3. Helen Hunt (The Sessions)

4. Judi Dench (Skyfall, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel)

5. Olivia Thirlby (Being Flynn)

Honorable Mentions: Scarlet Johansson (The Avengers, Hitchcock), Amy Adams (The Master, The Trouble with the Curve), Frances McDormand (Moonrise Kingdom, Promised Land), Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)

Geoff's Top Ten Movies of 2012

1. Zero Dark Thirty

Forget all the uproar about torture. Zero Dark Thirty is a great film, directed by Kathryn Bigelow (inexplicably not nominated for an Oscar), and written by Mark Boal. They are the same team that produced The Hurt Locker, which won Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay three years ago. This film stars the ubiquitous Jessica Chastain as the relentless CIA operative, who figured out where Osama Bin Laden was hiding. This is an exciting, taut, suspenseful thriller, all the more so for being a true story, which, rather than supporting torture, shows it for what it is. Chastain has a great role to play, and does an amazing job with it. The supporting cast is also wonderful, including James Gandolfini, Jason Clarke, Mark Strong and Jennifer Ehle. 

2. Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook may be the most enjoyable movie of the year. The screenplay is amazing, and the cast is wonderful. Bradley Cooper, playing a guy suffering from bipolar disorder who has just been released from the hospital, and Jennifer Lawrence, who plays a young woman who recently lost her husband, make an improbable couple. Add to that, Robert De Niro, playing Cooper's father, who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, and you have a wacky plot that works perfectly. Silver Linings Playbook is definitely the feel-good movie of the year.

3. Lincoln

Daniel Day Lewis gives one of the great performances of all time as Abraham Lincoln, and he will definitely take home the Oscar for Best Actor. This movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, is quite un-Spielbergian. Rather than making an epic movie about Lincoln and the Civil War, Spielberg zooms in on the last four months of Lincoln's life as he tries to pass the 13th Amendment. It shows both what a great President Lincoln was, and how politics has not changed at all in the last 150 years. 

4. The Avengers

This movie was an eye opener. The Avengers is a superhero epic in 3D, with lots of CGI effects, but it is a wonderful movie even without all of that. The director, Joss Whedon, is beloved in geek-dom as the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. In The Avengers, he showed what real characters and a good script can do even for a comic book. The always lovable Robert Downey Jr leads a great cast, including Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlet Johansson, Jeremy Renner, and Mark Ruffalo. Only Whedon could end Superhero epic with that final scene with the Chicken Schwarma. 

5. Life of Pi

Ang Lee is a great director, responsible for Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, etc, etc. And Life of Pi is a great book by Yann Martel. But this movie is just amazing to watch. It may be the best use of CGI and green-screen ever. It is unbelievable that the Tiger is 100% CGI. This may be one of the few movies to actually benefit from being in 3D. If you didn't see it on the big screen, then I'm sorry. You really missed something. 

6. Hitchcock

Some great movies seem to go by without anyone noticing. Hitchcock was fantastic. I couldn't believe how good it was as I was watching it. But, Hitchcock only grossed $6 million at the box office. This film, about the making of Psycho, is structured like a Hitchcock film, itself, and keeps you in suspense right to the end. Anthony Hopkins, completely unrecognizable in his makeup, and Helen Mirren are fabulous. Mirren, at least, got nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA, but Hitchcock is only nominated for Best Makeup at the Oscars. This is a movie you have to see when it comes on Netflix. 

7. Moonrise Kingdom

I love Wes Anderson, the director of Moonrise Kingdom, because he is different. He doesn't always produce a great film, but like the Coen Brothers and Woody Allen, you just want to give him some money, and then stand back and see what happens. I have loved him ever since he made Rushmore, and saved Bill Murray's, career. Moonrise Kingdom is funny and quirky, as only Wes Anderson can be. The two kids in love who run away together, are so adorable. And the supporting cast speaks for itself, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, and Tilda Swinton. This is also one of the feel-good movies of the year.

8. The Sessions

In The Sessions, which is based on a true story, a man (John Hawkes) who had polio as a child, must live most of the time in an Iron Lung. He decides that he doesn't want to die a virgin, so he hires a sex therapist (Helen Hunt) to help. This is an unbelievable story, especially since it is true, about how someone, who should just lie down and die, goes to college, becomes a writer, and has a sort of normal life. John Hawkes is one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood and he is great here. And it's wonderful to see Helen Hunt in a good role. You have to love a movie that casts William H. Macy as a Catholic priest, who advises Hawkes' character on his sex life. 

9. Beasts of the Southern Wild

This was the movie that came out of nowhere and blew everyone away. Beasts of the Southern Wild, set in the bayou of Louisiana, has a cast of non-actors, including the then 5 year old, Quvenzhane Wallis, who is a force of nature. The performances, that the director, Benh Zeitlin, got out his non-actors, like Dwight Henry, who plays Wink, and has now gone back to his day job running a bakery, are incredible. And you have to live down here to know how true Beasts of the Southern Wild really is. 

10. Rust and Bone

This is the other movie in French with subtitles this year. Amour is depressing and traumatic, but it has nothing on Rust and Bone. Let's just say that the scene, where the whole audience gives out a collective gasp, is not the one early in the film when Marion Cotillard loses her legs. Cotillard is always great, but she is fantastic here. This is also one of two movies this year, along with The Sessions, which deliver the uplifting message, that serious disabilities do not preclude sex. 

Honorable Mentions: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Cloud Atlas, Lawless, Argo, A Late Quartet, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Django Unchained, Skyfall, Amour