Who will WIN on Sunday night? Here are my predictions.
Predicted winner in BOLD

BEST PICTURE

Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be Blood

BEST ACTOR

George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

BEST ACTRESS

Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf’s Up

ART DIRECTION
American Gangster
Atonement
The Golden Compass
Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
There Will Be Blood

CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

COSTUME DESIGN
Across the Universe
Atonement
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
La Vie en Rose
Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

BEST DIRECTION
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jason Reitman, Juno
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Freeheld
La Corona (The Crown)
Salim Baba
Sari’s Mother

FILM EDITING
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Beaufort (Israel)
The Counterfeiters (Austria)
Katyn (Poland)
Mongol (Kazakhstan)
12 (Russia)

MAKEUP
La Vie en Rose
Norbit
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

ORIGINAL SCORE
Atonement
The Kite Runner
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma

ORIGINAL SONG
“Falling Slowly” from Once
“Happy Working Song” from Enchanted
“Raise It Up” from August Rush
“So Close” from Enchanted
“That’s How You Know” from Enchanted

ANIMATED SHORT FILM
“I Met the Walrus”
“Madame Tutli-Putli”
“Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)”
“My Love (Moya Lyubov)”
“Peter & the Wolf”

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
“At Night”
“Il Supplente (The Substitute)”
“Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)”
“Tanghi Argentini”
“The Tonto Woman”

SOUND EDITING
The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
There Will Be Blood
Transformers

SOUND MIXING
The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma
Transformers

VISUAL EFFECTS
The Golden Compass
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Transformers

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Atonement, Screenplay by Christopher Hampton
Away from Her, Written by Sarah Polley
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Screenplay by Ronald Harwood
No Country for Old Men, Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
There Will Be Blood, Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Juno, Written by Diablo Cody
Lars and the Real Girl, Written by Nancy Oliver
Michael Clayton, Written by Tony Gilroy
Ratatouille, Screenplay by Brad Bird; Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird
The Savages, Written by Tamara Jenkins

Nominations for the 80th Annual Academy Awards:

BEST PICTURE

BEST ACTOR

George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

BEST ACTRESS

Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf’s Up

ART DIRECTION
American Gangster
Atonement
The Golden Compass
Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
There Will Be Blood

CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

COSTUME DESIGN
Across the Universe
Atonement
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
La Vie en Rose
Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

BEST DIRECTION
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jason Reitman, Juno
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Freeheld
La Corona (The Crown)
Salim Baba
Sari’s Mother

FILM EDITING
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Beaufort (Israel)
The Counterfeiters (Austria)
Katyn (Poland)
Mongol (Kazakhstan)
12 (Russia)

MAKEUP
La Vie en Rose
Norbit
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

ORIGINAL SCORE
Atonement
The Kite Runner
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma

ORIGINAL SONG
“Falling Slowly” from Once
“Happy Working Song” from Enchanted
“Raise It Up” from August Rush
“So Close” from Enchanted
“That’s How You Know” from Enchanted

ANIMATED SHORT FILM
“I Met the Walrus”
“Madame Tutli-Putli”
“Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)”
“My Love (Moya Lyubov)”
“Peter & the Wolf”

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
“At Night”
“Il Supplente (The Substitute)”
“Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)”
“Tanghi Argentini”
“The Tonto Woman”

SOUND EDITING
The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
There Will Be Blood
Transformers

SOUND MIXING
The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma
Transformers

VISUAL EFFECTS
The Golden Compass
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Transformers

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Atonement, Screenplay by Christopher Hampton
Away from Her, Written by Sarah Polley
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Screenplay by Ronald Harwood
No Country for Old Men, Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
There Will Be Blood, Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Juno, Written by Diablo Cody
Lars and the Real Girl, Written by Nancy Oliver
Michael Clayton, Written by Tony Gilroy
Ratatouille, Screenplay by Brad Bird; Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird
The Savages, Written by Tamara Jenkins

The Oscars are scheduled to be handed out on Sunday, February 24. Cross your fingers!

The best films should ignite something. Passion, debate, laughter, thought, wonder, thrills, chills, goosebumps, tears, or any other deep-seated emotional, spiritual or intellectual response. A great film should move you, in some way. There Will Be Blood had all the promise of a great film. Yet all it delivers is lost potential.

There are so many stories to tell in this country’s great history. There Will Be Blood, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia and Boogie Nights) and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, promised a screenplay based on Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil!, which set story and characters during the Southern California oil boom of the 1920’s. Rich with the possibilities of exploring issues and themes such as political corruption, class inequality, excesses of capitalism, and the social and cultural impact of greed, I was giddy with excitement, knowing in the hands of these artists, a truly amazing film should be inevitable.

Instead, There Will Be Blood is an over-the-top, bleak and heavy-handed film, cranked up and sucked clean of any light or life. Anderson turns what could and should have been a story about the coming of age of not only a town but of a society into a childish game of one-upsmanship between oilman and preacher. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, an oil man who, along with his son, comes into a small town to harvest the “sea of oil” that lies beneath it. He convinces the townspeople that it’s the best thing for everyone involved to get on board, but he has the hardest time convincing the town’s preacher, Eli Sunday, played by Paul Dano. Sunday is skeptical of Plainview’s intentions towards the town and wants assurances, namely in the support of his church. Plainview, for his part, is equally doubtful of Sunday’s selflessness, sensing the preacher is only out for financial support of his parish. The two embark on a mutual distrust and tug-of-war that, unfortunately, becomes the focal point of the film. While I GET the whole capitalism vs. religion thing, the way they use each other for selfish gains becomes stupid after a while. You just want to say “enough, already.”

You pretty much want to say “enough, already” to most of this film. Everything is so heavy-handed, from the intensely morose and minor-key score that could give anyone nightmares, to the final act, which has so many Citizen Kane overtones to it, I almost laughed out loud. But, amazingly enough, the most heavy-handed aspect to There Will Be Blood is Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance.

I don’t think you would call Day-Lewis a recluse, but, when you think about it, he doesn’t make many films. Since his breakout, Oscar-winning performance in My Left Foot in 1989, he has made 8 films. That’s eight films in 18 years. That’s pretty amazing for an actor considered one of the finest of his generation. (He is so good that of those 8 films, he was nominated for Best Actor for three of them, and almost certainly will win it this year for There Will Be Blood). I am a fan of Day-Lewis, but he is an actor who, when not reigned in by a director, does tend to chew the scenery a bit. And in There Will Be Blood…..scenery chewing does happen. Day-Lewis is so big in this role, so overpowering, he is the entire film. There is no room for anyone or anything else. It almost makes no point in there being a story at all, or any other characters, because all you want to see is how everyone plays against him. It is a tour-de-force in every sense of the word. He is given full reign and makes the most of every second, to the film’s greater detriment. Yes, he will win Best Actor for this performance, but at what cost? It is sad to see that a performance that is so loud, so big, and so over-the-top can be rewarded. His performance in In the Name of the Father was so brilliant yet never got the acclaim that this one is receiving. If you really want to see Daniel Day-Lewis at his best, go out and rent that one.

In the meantime, There Will Be Blood seems to be all the rage. Why? You got me. Critics are easily swayed by films that look and sound different. But just because a film looks and sounds different and has a talented actor dominating every scene doesn’t mean there’s ANYTHING THERE. Bottom line: beyond the larger-than-life performance of Day-Lewis (which is just too much), this film has nothing to offer. Story? Characters? Something to care about? You’re in the wrong theatre. Juno is playing next door.

There’s really nothing worse than a word that’s overused. Especially in Hollywood, where it happens a lot. Hyperbole and exaggeration seem to be the rule, not the exception here, which makes it even harder for me to say what I’m about to say.

Believe the hype.

Juno is the wittiest, freshest, and most enjoyable time you’ll have in the theatre this year. Maybe this decade. I can’t call it original, because snappy dialogue I have heard before. Likable characters are not a new concept. However, Juno just fits its pieces together in a way that feels so new and does it in such a smart and unassuming way—-you don’t even realize you’re smiling until your face starts to hurt. It’s not a simple film, but it also doesn’t try too hard, and when was the last time you could say THAT about a Hollywood film?

Great. There. I’ve built it up too much. However, unless you’ve been under a rock, I wasn’t the first one to do that. I do hate it when that happens. The small(er) independent film comes out, and everyone dances around and proclaims it the Next Great Thing and expectations get too high and it usually can’t live up. It happened with Sideways, and it happened with Little Miss Sunshine. Well, Juno runs circles around both of those films, in character, content and creativity. People have fallen in love with this little film because it speaks to them, and people can relate to it.

But that’s not why it’s a great film.

Juno is a great film because it is so unexpected. From the very first scene to the very last, there is nothing that is said, done or believed that is trite or formula. First-time screenwriter Diablo Cody (kudos kudos kudos) creates characters who are real, not caricatures that we are so used to seeing. She also does something so unusual and rare: she creates familiar and relatable situations and characters, but then never once takes them down a familiar path. This film is the definition of the word FRESH. It seems so over-used, so trite, so boring, but, in the case of this film, it is so true.

The story itself is rife with opportunities to go down the easy, well-worn path. The title character is a teenage girl who finds herself pregnant. Instead of an abortion, she chooses to have the child and give it up for adoption. She finds a couple, makes an agreement with them and the rest of the film is spent experiencing the highs and lows of teen pregnancy and the inevitable anxieties and melodramas that would naturally arise with such an unusual circumstance. In Juno’s life are the “typical” hard-bitten father, protective yet somewhat distant step-mother, cheerleader best friend, and gawky boyfriend, who observes from the sidelines. Not to mention the yuppie couple ready to adopt her unborn baby. You probably have lost count, as I did, of how many movie-of-the-week or teen comedy potential scenarios I just laid out, but Juno never once goes there. Ever. No matter how familiar anything may seem or feel, it turns every scene into something new, makes every character real and fresh, and takes you on a journey you’ve never traveled before. And yet, you’ll still feel like these are real people experiencing a real situation.

And yes, although the screenplay is the soul of the film, everything is owed to its heart, the actress who plays Juno, 20-year old Canadian Ellen Page. Page is so refreshingly bold and endearing in this role, not since Frances McDormand’s performance in Fargo has an actress’ personality so defined a film. Page is strong and vulnerable and unbelievably charming. She wins over the audience from the first scene and her Oscar nomination is well-deserved. This is truly her movie.

That’s not to say the supporting cast isn’t exceptional as well. Everyone is strong, from Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner, who play the adoptive parents, to J.K. Simmons and (my personal favorite) Allison Janney, who play Juno’s parents, to Michael Cera, who plays her boyfriend, but what is key is that nobody outplays anyone else. Much like the screenplay, the acting performances are pitch-perfect and never taken too far over the top.

That’s the thing about Juno. It has a lot to say. About people, about life, about love, about relationships, about society, about believing in each other, about believing in yourself. It’s got a big “theme:” teenage pregnancy. Oooh. But it’s quite an odd thing. You almost forget it’s about teen pregnancy. And you don’t really realize all the “issues” it deals with or the things it has to say until you’re miles away from the theatre. You don’t realize it because you’ve had such a good time getting to know these characters, spending time with them, hearing their stories, CARING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM.

In the end, isn’t that all we really want from a film?

How refreshing.

I imagine it would be difficult, as a writer/director, to constantly try to live up to what many refer to as your “masterpiece.” As an artist, you would want to move on, try new things, break new ground, explore different directions. Joel and Ethan Coen might have been at such an artistic crossroad.

I am a huge Coen Brothers fan, and have been ever since Barton Fink, which I consider to be their original masterpiece. BUT the world considers the Coens’ masterpiece to be Fargo. It catapulted them to international prominence, won them an Oscar (for screenplay), was nominated for Best Picture, and was an actual box office success, which is unheard of for guys who make films that are so offbeat they make Tim Burton look like John Hughes.

After years of being cult and critics’ darlings, they seemed to use their newfound mainstream cache to make films that were a little…different: The Big Lebowski (a comedy about bowling), O Brother, Where Art Thou (a comedic retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey, set in the deep South in the 1930’s), The Man Who Wasn’t There (a film noir), Intolerable Cruelty (a romantic farce), and The Ladykillers (a crime comedy). While The Big Lebowski gained a sizable fan following and O Brother, Where Art Thou pleased the critics, none of these films even came close to Fargo’s critical or commercial success.

Why, do you ask, am I spending time re-hashing the filmography of the Coens instead of focusing on their current project? I go back to the Fargo of 1996, the site of their last true cinematic crowning achievement, because I believe that is where the seed of their current cinematic achievement is planted. Deeply and firmly. I believe the Coens have been carrying Fargo around for 11 years, and, while they probably never regret for a second its existence or success, they have been looking for a way to purge it. To put it to rest. To put it behind them. And Ladykillers didn’t do it.

So they made No Country For Old Men. Their anti-Fargo.

No Country For Old Men is everything Fargo wasn’t. And, in a lot of ways, it is everything Fargo was. It’s about violent men who kill innocent people for money. It’s about good-hearted, clear-thinking lawmen who are chasing them. And it’s about the stupid people in the middle.

But what’s really interesting about No Country For Old Men is for all it has—- violence, intrigue, suspense—-it lacks something Fargo had in spades: a soul. It’s as if the Coens decided to purge Fargo by actually remaking it. But, this time, they made its opposite, its spiritual and moral flipside.

Looking back to Fargo, that film’s spirit is dominated by the strong and good-hearted sheriff, who seeks justice for the innocent and triumphs over evil. In No Country For Old Men, on the contrary, the sheriff, played by Tommy Lee Jones, is a distant figure and seems almost ambivalent about his profession, even questioning his effectiveness. His desire to pack it in, feeling that he is overmatched by the world is the polar opposite to Fargo’s little-engine-that-could. In No Country For Old Men, the dominant figure and the spirit of the film is the criminal, a thinker, philosophical and unstoppable. Relentless, friendless, unforgiving and pure evil, he is Damien with history’s worst haircut, played by Javier Bardem.

Even with all its violence, Fargo was essentially a feel-good film. It gave you bumbling fools who got caught, a clear-cut heroine to cheer for and, finally, closure, all nestled in a linear story arc with dileneated characters and motivations. No Country For Old Men could not be any more different. This film is dark. It is slow and unforgiving. From first frame, we have no information about anyone. We are thrust into a world, dropped in as if from a plane with no parachute, and expected to watch and not ask questions. Men do things that make us wonder “why?” There are no motivations for any of the characters. Evil comes and we know it when it arrives, but there’s nobody and nothing to stop it. We wait for the good-hearted hero to step up, but instead he gives up and walks away. We are not sure if he even admits defeat.

There is a chill that runs through this film, a blanket of evil from first frame to last. There is an emptiness in the world painted here, and there is no humor. Humor is such a Coen trademark, in every film, even the dramas, that the clear absence of it here speaks so loudly to the film’s themes of inevitability and evil triumphing over good.

And then there’s the ending…..

Frustration. Confusion. Questions. Depression. I don’t remember feeling this way at the end of Fargo. A-ha. Maybe that’s just the point.

This film is based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy, so the Coens didn’t originate the idea (even though they wrote the screenplay). But there must have been a reason the Coen Brothers chose to make THIS book. And a reason they chose to make it THIS way. They had something more to say. Or, more appropriately, they had something else to say.

And the irony of it is, the brothers are enjoying the best reviews of their career since Fargo, and it’s the front-runner to win the Oscar for Best Picture. There’s nothing like inspiration to motivate.

All this being said, what do I think of No Country For Old Men as a film? Speaking both as a fan of film and as a fan of the Coens, I was disappointed. The film is slow and the characters lack motivation, so it is difficult to get involved. There are huge gaps in the story, answers to questions that never come, which bring frustration, but mostly, the film grinds to a screeching halt about twenty minutes before the end. The film is a moral tale and the philosophizing comes at you all at once, which bogs the film down.

BUT, it is still a Coen Brothers film, which makes it superior to 90% of all films made. It still has SUPERIOR cinematography and art direction. I still and always believe the mood created in a Coen Brothers film is second-to-none. If you don’t feel you are IN rural Texas when you’re watching this film, then there’s something wrong with you. Their film-making style is stark, simple and a pure joy to experience, every time. Their shots are at times breathtaking and their use of shadow and light are genius.

Normally, exceptional acting is a staple of a Coen Brothers film. It surprises me to say that the acting in this film is not exceptional. Javier Bardem plays a vicious killer with a philosophical bent, and he delivers a fine performance, but it is quiet and one-dimensional. Tommy Lee Jones, who plays the sheriff, doesn’t do anything I haven’t seen before. Josh Brolin, the man in the middle and the “star” of the film, is the one surprise here, simply because I wasn’t expecting this kind of performance out of him, but he’s not given much to sink his teeth into. This is just not an actors’ film.

In fact, I’m still not sure what exactly this film is, except a wasteland of death and depression. The Coens may have purged their Fargo ghost, but I hope they find their smile again soon.

My favorite time of the year. Football season has begun, baseball playoffs have begun, and, even better, the Red Sox are in the postseason! BUT, even better than all of that, it’s fall and that means the studios have started to roll out their Oscar contenders. The dog days of summer sequels and kids’ fare are over (The Game Plan not withstanding) and the flicks with serious subjects and meaty performances await….three months of pure cinematic bliss. Pinch me.

Oscar season means two things: big talent and serious themes. Past Oscar nominees and winners start showing up in front of and behind the camera, and films with serious themes become the cinema staple. Comedies, for some reason, still have the unfortunate stamp of disapproval from the Academy, so these next three months will be chock-full of heavyweight topics and downer plot twists. Nothing like a little depressing movie-going to lighten the holiday mood.

The first two so-called Oscar contenders of ’07 have both of these traits. 3:10 to Yuma stars two-time Oscar winner Russell Crowe and The Brave One stars two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster and is directed by an Oscar-nominated director (and Oscar-winning screenwriter) Neil Jordan. They are both serious films, but would seem to be completely different. 3:10 to Yuma is a Western, while The Brave One is a modern tale set in New York City. However, each film follows a character seeking personal redemption of some kind, a morality tale, if you will. Both films feature a character facing a moral dilemma, each one standing at a crossroads, making a choice which path to choose. What makes these films so crucially different is in how each film delivers this theme, how each character is drawn, and how their choice is played out.

It comes down to the essential question of what makes a good morality tale. What, at the heart of it, makes a human, who is standing at a crossroads, stop and ponder a choice. If that choice is between good and evil, whether that choice is temptation or something that could cause harm yet also result in pleasure or reward (or a sense of justice or revenge)…what are the choices we make? We all know such choices are rarely, if ever, black and white. These choices are never easy and the two “sides” are never clearly marked for us. That is, seemingly, why the choice is difficult and so dramatic.

In 3:10 to Yuma, Christian Bale plays a down-and-out farmer who has the chance to earn a good deal of money to pay off his debts and redeem himself in the eyes of his family, especially his son, if he escorts a wanted outlaw, played by Crowe, to a train (the 3:10 to Yuma). The problem is that Crowe’s gang is in the way and has promised a reward to any civilian who kills anyone who tries to get Crowe’s character onto the train, which essentially turns the assignment into a suicide mission. Bale’s character has a choice, to walk away, and let a killer walk free (and lose the prize), or to follow through, face the possible risk of death, but also face the potential redemption and reward if he succeeds. Thrown into the mix is the fact that Bale’s character is not drawn as purely sympathetic and Crowe’s character is not wholly evil. Grays. The world is not black and white. 3:10 to Yuma is complex, well-drawn, involving, compelling, stirring, moving, and, at its heart, uneasy. Just like life. There are no easy answers.

The Brave One, on the other hand, offers quite the opposite theory to life and its complexities. It posits the theory that life and the world is painted in black and white, where good is purely good and bad is unredeemably bad. Jodie Foster plays a talk radio host whose fiancé is killed by a gang of punks in Central Park when they are walking their dog and they both get attacked. She escapes death and just gets a terrible beating, but when she emerges from the hospital, her life is empty, and her spirit is dead. She has somehow decided she “won’t survive the next 30 days” without a gun, so she gets one and begins a vigilante killing spree….but ONLY kills bad guys. This is where we, as audience members, feel a strange sensation where we should feel good about what she’s doing. The way these guys that she kills are portrayed, ANYONE would stand in a theatre and cheer their being wiped off the face of the earth. And, on the other side, we have petite Jodie Foster, who has just been beaten within an inch of her life….shaking and quivering, a white woman who, before this, has never hurt a fly…has a conscience and would ONLY hurt those who are really BAD. And look what she’s been through, after all. So all of this makes it ok. Right?

There’s no denying films are the master manipulators. But come ON. Yes, we do like to go see our wildest dreams and fantasies acted out on the big screen….superheroes, superspies, romantic superstuds. And sure, this film may serve to act out our deepest desires…which of us hasn’t wished to act out against the cruelties that lie in the urban jungle, if only the law and our own fears weren’t holding us back? But this film is just too neat and too clean…it just doesn’t sit right, at the end of the day. It pretends to be one thing but ends up being another. It presumes to have a conscience, yet loses its conscience little by little throughout the movie, and, by the end, all conscience is totally gone.

The worst part, however, is that the good and bad is painted as purely good and purely bad. What makes 3:10 to Yuma so compelling are the varying shades of gray. What makes The Brave One so unbelievably un-compelling is its glaring black-and-whiteness. The “bad guys” are such cartoons, it’s laughable. It’s as if I was expecting a neon sign to flash “CHEER” every time she would blow one of them away, that’s how the audience was supposed to feel. And she, being the angel of justice, doing this service to humanity, while soothing and somehow healing her own wounds, is just so pure and good, we almost want to stand up and root her on with every shot she takes. When I finally stepped back and found myself being sucked in, I was appalled at how well it had actually worked.

Yes, the question of the moral right and wrong of vigilante justice is a valid one and one that should be debated. Does The Brave One continue the debate? Depends if you believe the world is painted in black and white or not.

As for the films and their potentials to be hanging around the Oscar debates come December, I believe Russell Crowe’s performance in 3:10 to Yuma is one of the best performances I’ve ever seen from him. But, unfortunately, it will be forgotten come Oscar time because it’s too subtle. Christian Bale delivers a stunning performance, layered and complex, but I doubt the Oscar voters will remember him. As for Jodie Foster, she always is in the Oscar discussion and her performance is up to her usual standards, but do I believe this is an Oscar-worthy turn? No. But I have been wrong before. It’s never black-and-white.

The season’s just beginning……get out to the movies!

Animated movies have certainly come a long way. In the beginning, they seemed to be about fairy tales, like Snow White and Cinderella. Even when they made their comeback, they were still fairy tales, like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. Then they got digital and a whole new world of animation opened up and the little computer-animation-company-that-could, Pixar, blew Disney out of the water. Films like Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo and The Incredibles and Cars not only furthered the genre, but gave it a new level of respectability, even proving to be the catalysts behind the Academy creating an entire new category for the Oscars: Best Animated Feature.

Even so, lately, animated pictures, while exceedingly good technically, have felt more about merchandising than about telling a story. The last two Pixar films, The Incredibles and Cars, had more merchandising tie-ins, it felt like, than Batman and Superman combined. It’s almost as if the animation renaissance had worked against itself. Now that it had gained all this ground and earned all this respect, it was now losing it by selling out. How many celebrity voices do we need in a single movie? How many product placements do there need to be in a film aimed at an audience that can’t afford to buy much more than a GameBoy?

In the case of Cars, a film so over-the-top with style that it totally forgot about substance, there seemed to be more emphasis on merchandising and celebrity voices and rock music and flashy animation that they forgot the most important thing of all: story. Remember the rock band Pop Will Eat Itself? I thought of them as I watched Cars, fondly remembering the early beginnings of Pixar, when their little animated shorts were simple and heartfelt—- before all their success went to their heads and corporate mergers lined their pocketbooks.

Animated Success Will Eat Itself.

But alas, nothing succeeds without an audience to pay for it. And I am a member of the masses that feed the beast. I’ll admit it. I am a sucker. For my part, though, up until Cars, Pixar did produce quality stuff. Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc. are two of the best films ever—-live action or animated. But with Cars, that sinking feeling did start to swell in my stomach. It just wasn’t the same. It seemed a total sell-out. Still, I believed.

And YET, when it came time for the newest Pixar release to come around, I was the first to critique the billboards I saw sprouting up all over town. Ratatouille, I thought? They’re trying to sell a movie in FRENCH? And not just that. It seemed too simple. I became curious. I wondered….where was the hook? Where was the glitz, the…..thing? By the “hook” and the “thing” I mean where was the merchandising opportunity? Where’s Mr. Incredible’s chest logo? Where’s the car? This is too boring! A rat who cooks in Paris? This is crazy! What are they thinking? Kids are so not going to be interested in this. And I started to look at the fine print…..no celebrity voices! Well, Janeane Garafalo is there, but she’s no Owen Wilson. And she’s not one of the leads. The leads are some guys named Patton Oswalt and Lou Romano. Who?

I was confused. They are releasing this in the summer. This is a movie set in France. About cooking. No flying cars. No superheroes. No celebrity voices. The only animals in sight are rats. Where are the penguins? Have these Pixar guys finally and officially lost their minds? God, this movie looks boring! Nobody’s going to go see this.

Then I realized it…..I had become what I despised. I had bought into the hype. I had believed what they had sold me…that an animated movie can only be good if it has celebrity voices and an easily merchandisable hook. It can only appeal to the masses if it’s dumbed-down and accessible on a wide scale.

So, I slapped myself and plunked down my hard-earned cash to see Ratatouille, to see if the Kool-Aid I had drunk had any nutritional value.

Ratatouille, the final result, left me even more confused coming out than I was going in. On the one hand, it reminded me a lot of an actor who earns their money and their fame doing big-budget mainstream films and then uses their clout to do a small, independent film where they can follow their heart. Ratatouille is not very flashy, has a very adult setting and subject matter, and will probably bore younger kids to tears, and I can imagine is the kind of screenplay that could only have been made by a studio and a director/writer (Brad Bird) that had the kind of success right before it (The Incredibles) that allowed them the leeway to get this made.

On the other hand, I would expect somewhat more “personal” pictures like this to have much more to say than this has. While the basic story is nice, the opportunities to really communicate something with meaning are totally lost and the film ends up being one-dimensional, emotionally, which, to me, is the biggest tragedy of all.

Breaking away from the mainstream hype could have given Ratatouille the chance to borrow elements from some of the all-time animated classics, films that found ways to blend true darkness with light, tragedy with comedy, peril with rescue. In the great animated classics, films like The Rescuers, 101 Dalmations, Dumbo and even Bambi, the film-makers made films that were truly multi-dimensional, they took the audience on a journey, they established characters and stories, had heartfelt themes and left the audience with something. These films have soul.

Ratatouille is a nice film. It certainly feels better to watch than Cars. It is charming. I wonder how it will appeal to young children, since it is about cooking, but it holds my attention, and I root for the…rat. But I found myself uninvolved emotionally. And, for me, that’s the bottom line. If you can’t get my heart involved, nothing else matters.

This was Pixar’s chance to show they had soul. It turns out all they really have is a good cream sauce.