The London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony will reflect "people's Games," and hundreds of children will be pulled from ghettos all over the world for the production, says Danny Boyle.
"Cleansing…but victorious" is how the lead protagonist of The Surrogate describes his first sexual experience. The former emotion comes close to describing the resonance of writer-director Ben Lewin's film about the libidinal awakening of Mark O'Brien (John Hawkes), a real-life polio-afflicted poet and journalist. Thanks to Hawkes's fantastic performance as Mark and Lewin's clever, nuanced dialogue, The Surrogate is an accomplished portrait of a resilient man that, through sex therapy, was able to experience something new and extraordinary.
Mark, a Catholic with all kinds of stereotypical faith-based hang-ups about sex, first starts thinking about doing it after he develops a crush on Amanda (Annika Marks), a pretty young woman who briefly serves as his caretaker and assistant. Mark's temporarily crushed when Amanda doesn't reciprocate his feelings, but after he starts to research an article about how the handicapped have sex, repressed passions are suddenly aroused within him. So after talking candidly with Father Brendan (William H. Macy), a conflicted by empathetic Catholic priest, Mark agrees to meet with Cheryl Greene (a frequently naked Helen Hunt), a sexual surrogate that teaches Mark about his body and how to stimulate a woman's body too. Continue Reading »
Hollywood is a windfall business. Stars are easily born, but once the the cracks in their public image start to show, careers can evaporate in 24 frames per second. This scenario describes many of the silent-era stars stripped of their powerful stature by the invention of talkies in the late 1920s. The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius's beguiling new silent film about these iconic personalities dumbfounded by the sound revolution, tap dances through the end of an era with effortless panache. Striking black-and-white cinematography and brilliant flourishes of sound amid an otherwise silent landscape give The Artist its stylistic identity, but this story of evolution and adaptation is all about the power of on-screen chemistry.
George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a titanic personality, hamming it up in adventure films and real life with equal measure. Despite his endless charisma, George's eyes reveal hints of loneliness, further confirmed during a Citizen Kane-esque montage of cold-shouldered breakfasts with his wife (Penelope Ann Miller). Always accompanied by a tenacious Boston terrier, his co-star in all situations, George bumps into an aspiring young actress named Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) while leaving a packed theater premiere. Their initial meeting spins into a feature-length flirtation of knowing glances, charming asides, and fateful disappointments, a dual character arc that aligns with the technological changes taking place in cinema. Classic Hollywood music becomes a crucial confidant for the characters, magnifying Dujardin's welling eyes and Bejo's lovely smile during key close-ups. Continue Reading »
Not sure there's much more to say here than I did two years back ago when I called this for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight except that this is probably one of two categories where The King's Speech most deserves to win. Christian Bale, for eating, regurgitating, then shooting up The Fighter's scenery, has lapped up nearly every supporting actor accolade since the start of the awards season. Oscar loves a showboater, and unlike his co-star Melissa Leo, Bale seems to have kept the drama on screen. I'm not sure the momentum he's mustered can be toppled, even by some slightly unhinged awards speeches that suggest playing Dicky Eklund wasn't exactly a stretch for the actor—though we knew that already from the way Bale talks to his mother. I know, it's been less than a month since industry awards revealed that The Social Network was probably never our Best Picture frontrunner, but even then the only honor Geoffrey Rush has wrestled from an unkempt Bale's twitchy fingers, not counting SAG's ensemble award, was a prize from the Central Ohio Film Critics Association. Oscar loves a saint, but in the supporting categories at least, they love losers even more.
Javier Bardem, Heath Ledger, Christoph Waltz. Though the template for winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar these days seems to require leaving a body count inversely proportional to the average age of a typical Best Actress winner, this year's slate of contenders indicates voters are ready to see the men behind the monsters. The prime case in point: Andrew Garfield's turn as The Social Network's spurned and spat-upon baby entrepreneur Eduardo Saverin, which has glided past Justin Timberlake's showier antics as Napster-teer Sean Parker and Armie Hammer's equally compelling double dip as the Winklevii twins to emerge as the sole boy from his film's well-tanked fraternity to contend here—especially on the strength of his Golden Globe nod. Okay, he does pull a sick, Joker-worthy stunt on a chicken, but off screen. Otherwise, David Fincher devotes most of Garfield's screen time to chopping onions under his big, brown puppy-dog eyes. (Never mind reports that the man he represents on screen is reportedly nearly as misrepresented as Mark Zuckerberg, in the precise opposite direction.) Continue Reading »
Hollywood is a windfall business. Stars are easily born, but once the the cracks in their public image start to show, careers can evaporate in 24 frames per second. This scenario describes many of the silent-era stars stripped of their powerful stature by the invention of talkies in the late 1920s. The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius's beguiling new silent film about these iconic personalities dumbfounded by the sound revolution, tap dances through the end of an era with effortless panache. Striking black-and-white cinematography and brilliant flourishes of sound amid an otherwise silent landscape give The Artist its stylistic identity, but this story of evolution and adaptation is all about the power of on-screen chemistry. 
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