The Movie Manifesto

Oscars Analysis 2011: Miscellaneous categories

2012-02-11T02:39:00.002-07:00

It is the Manifesto's solemn, sacred duty to provide, for every Oscar category (stupid shorts aside), analysis that is both cogent and exhilarating. Fortunately, my enthusiasm for the majority of the fields is such that I take great pleasure in ~~trying really hard but ultimately failing~~ triumphing at such a daunting task. Sadly, my typically limitless passion is somewhat, well, limited for the following categories. As I say every year, I don't mean to impugn the importance of these crafts to their respective films. They just aren't that interesting to me personally, and thus I am unceremoniously lumping them together in a single, miscellany-style post.

For a strained but strangely pertinent analogy: Netflix has a setting on its website where you can select the video quality of your streaming service. The three potential options are – and I swear I'm not making this up – "Good," "Better," and "Best". (Aside: These happen to be the same choices I give a woman whenever I ask her to critique my sexual prowess.) Applying that rubric to the Oscars, these are the "Good" categories. So if the text on your screen suddenly turns into Wingdings, or if the quality of the embedded videos reminds you of that time in 1995 when you kept watching late-night Cinemax even though your Dad wouldn't pay for the channel and all you could really see were jagged lines and occasional glimpses of a woman's bare shoulder, don't worry, it'll get better for the "Better" and "Best" fields.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

NOMINEES
Anonymous
The Artist
Hugo
Jane Eyre
W.E.

WILL WIN
Yikes. Can I pass? This category is typically governed by two rules: Always look toward the period piece (The Young Victoria, Elizabeth: The Golden Age), and always pick the film with the glitziest, look-at-me! costumes (Alice in Wonderland, Marie Antoinette). Naturally, all five nominees this year are period pieces, while none (with the possible exception of W.E., which I haven't seen) features costumes that are particularly showy.

So, back to basics. I'm eliminating Anonymous and W.E. because they're both critically reviled, and the Academy generally frowns on rewarding bad movies with trophies, regardless of their merit in a particular field (though the costume branch is admittedly more freelance than most). Each of the remaining three films could win here, but if we're whittling it down, I'm knocking off Jane Eyre next, if only because this represents its lone nomination and it's sandwiched between two powerhouses.

So we're down to the two most heavily nominated movies of the slate: Hugo (the leading candidate with 11 total nominations) vs. The Artist (10 nominations but the frontrunner for Best Picture). And the key question, and one that will animate my analysis for many of the remaining categories, is this: Just how long are The Artist's coattails? Can the silent, black-and-white drama dominate along the lines of a juggernaut like The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (which swept all 11 categories in which it was nominated back in 2003), or at least emulate a heavy hitter like Slumdog Millionaire (which won eight of its nine nominations in 2008)? Or is it more akin to a less craft-oriented picture such as The King's Speech (which garnered trophies in four major categories last year but whiffed on all of its technical nominations)?

My guess is that it's somewhere in the middle, and while most pundits are tabbing The Artist to take the prize here, I don't think it has quite enough juice. The costumes in Hugo are a bit more showy (not to mention in color), and three-time winner Sandy Powell has already flexed her muscle in Scorsese collaborations in the past when she won for The Aviator. Hugo takes it.

SHOULD WIN
Again, I've yet to see W.E., so I abstain there. As for the remaining candidates, it's difficult for me to muster enthusiasm for any of them. The debonair threads in The Artist are fine, but from a craft perspective, it's the polished cinematography and tremulous score that truly linger. Similarly, Hugo is far more memorable for its innovative visual effects and free-wheeling camera movements than for its costume design. The sinister elements that creep through Cary Fukunaga's impressively foreboding re-imagination of Jane Eyre are worthy of a horror film, but the costumes lack any real snap. Anonymous, to its credit, marries its towering Gothic production design with Elizabethan-era elegance, then curdles them both with rot. With this slate of nominees, that's enough for me.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
The Adjustment Bureau
Anonymous
A Dangerous Method
Mysteries of Lisbon
The Princess of Montpensier

As mentioned, Anonymous features award-worthy design work. The Adjustment Bureau illustrates that contemporary films can nevertheless serve as a showcase for finely tuned costume design that advances a movie's central ethos (in this case, that bureaucratic angels in dark suits can be nasty pieces of work). A Dangerous Method has that dress (not to be confused with That Dress, but still). As period pieces go, the costumes are rarely more intricately detailed than those of Portugal's Mysteries of Lisbon, though France's The Princess of Montpensier gives it a go.

My ideal winner: Mysteries of Lisbon.

BEST MAKEUP

NOMINEES
Albert Nobbs
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Iron Lady

WILL WIN
Aging has always been the safest route to a Best Makeup Oscar (a recent example is the uglification of Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, which somehow fended off Oscar tour-de-force Norbit), and that should hold again this year. It's possible that the overall stench emanating from The Iron Lady is so sour that voters will be dissuaded from voting for it altogether, but it's still the clear favorite here.

SHOULD WIN
It irks me that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – only my favorite movie of the entire year – earned just three Oscar nominations, yet I can't help but feel that this one wasn't particularly deserved. Of course, it's considerably more deserving that the nod for Albert Nobbs, which might have made sense if Glenn Close were completely convincing as a man (she isn't). As for The Iron Lady, the opening scene of the film features a batty old woman buying milk. Watching it, I had absolutely no idea that the woman in question was Meryl Streep, so much so that I started wondering if I'd accidentally stumbled into the wrong theatre (no such luck). And sure, part of that derives from the impressive, faltering physicality of Streep's acting, but the makeup certainly had something to do with it.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Iron Lady
The Skin I Live In

The Iron Lady deserves to be an Oscar winner, which is deeply disturbing on a basic level, but such is life. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has the temerity to give nice-girl Rooney Mara a stupendous mohawk – it deserved recognition for that alone (remember, hair is included in makeup, not costume design). I can't even describe why The Skin I Live In merits mention here without spoiling it, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

My ideal winner: The Iron Lady.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

NOMINEES
Bullhead (Belgium)
Footnote (Israel)
In Darkness (Poland)
Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)
A Separation (Iran)

WILL WIN
As is typically the case, I've yet to see any of these films, as none is available at a local theatre nor on Netflix. (Per its official website, A Separation should be arriving in my neighborhood next week, though Sony Classics said the same thing for months about A Dangerous Method, so they're not exactly trustworthy with their release information.) That handicaps my evaluations somewhat, but regardless, A Separation is absolutely beloved by critics (seriously, its scores on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are a little scary). In Darkness is a Holocaust movie, so it can't be completely ruled out, but I have no choice but to go with A Separation here.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Incendies (Canada)
Leap Year (Mexico)
Love Crime (France)
Mysteries of Lisbon (Portugal)
The Skin I Live In (Spain)

Just because I've yet to catch up with this year's nominees doesn't mean 2011 wasn't fertile ground for foreign cinema. An ambitious film that spans multiple continents and generations, Incendies balances its high-pitched melodrama with crisp editing and sharply drawn characters. (It was actually nominated in this category last year, but it didn't play in American theatres until 2011, so deal with it.) Leap Year examines sexual masochism in ways that are genuinely disturbing and surprisingly moving. Love Crime features one of the most deliciously head-spinning screenplays of the year, as well as a masterfully nuanced performance from Ludivine Sagnier. Mysteries of Lisbon fuses monumentally ambitious storytelling with exquisite cinematic technique and proves that movies can successfully challenge audiences without actively alienating them (looking at you, Tree of Life). And The Skin I Live In is Pedro Almodóvar's finest film in some time, a bizarre, hypnotic exploration of sexual perversion and gender identity.

My ideal winner: The Skin I Live In.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

NOMINEES
Hell and Back Again
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Pina
Undefeated

WILL WIN
Like with Best Foreign Language Film, I haven't seen any of these nominees; unlike with Best Foreign Language Film, I have no intention of doing so. Also, for the record, with the exception of the categories discussed in this post (and the shorts), I've seen every single film nominated for a 2011 Oscar, so I won't have to keep minimizing my credibility by claiming ignorance. So there's that.

Anyway, the smart money here is on Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, not least because mainstream directors are falling all over themselves in a race to turn its disturbing true-to-life plot into a feature (Atom Egoyan's adaptation is already underway and will star Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon, while Johnny Depp is also working on his own project). Its biggest challenger is probably Wim Wenders' 3-D dance film (you read that correctly) Pina. I could tell you more, but, you know, I haven't seen any of the movies.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

NOMINEES
A Cat in Paris
Chico & Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango

WILL WIN
Rango. And easily.

SHOULD WIN
Rango. And easily.

(Full disclosure: I haven't seen A Cat in Paris or Chico & Rita. And that's the last "I haven't seen it" disclosure of the year. I promise.)

MY IDEAL BALLOT
The Adventures of Tintin
Rango

Yeah, that's it. I suppose I could include the reasonably diverting Arthur Christmas as well, but these are the only two animated movies this year that I actively liked. Fortunately, they make for a hell of a pair, with Rango's sly, tongue-in-cheek humor and aggressively weird characters contrasting nicely with Tintin's earnest storytelling and dazzling action sequences. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more purely enjoyable double bill.

Oscars Analysis 2011: Nomination Prediction Results

2012-01-25T03:21:00.003-07:00

Well that didn't quite go as planned.

My predictions for this year's Oscar nominations hit on just 50 out of 69 picks, good for a rate of 72%. That's a rather precipitous decline from my 91% mark a year ago (when I only predicted eight categories rather than 13). Nevertheless, this year's slate of nominees has me less frustrated than nonplussed. As it turns out, I overrated the appeal of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (which is a shame, because it's a good movie) and underrated the heft of War Horse (which is heartening, because it's a great movie). I paid a bit too much devotion to guild awards, from which the voters strayed liberally (with the marked exception of the Screen Actors' Guild). And I was absolutely blindsided by one of the Best Picture selections.

But, aside from a pair of unforgivable omissions in the supporting actor and actress categories, I'm relatively content with this year's Oscar nominees. Sure, there's too much The Tree of Life and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and not enough Drive or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 for my liking, but no individual is ever going to be wholly satisfied with the choices of a collective. Perhaps it's because my hopes weren't all that high to begin with – I've been resigned that many of my favorite films of 2011 would fail to synchronize with the Academy's choices for some time – but the results are more eyebrow-raising than appalling. And if nothing else, this year's Oscars should raise the profile for a handful of well-made, little-seen movies. So that's something.

Now let's get to where I fucked up. (Incorrect predictions are in red.)

BEST PICTURE
The Artist
The Descendants
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
The Tree of Life
~~The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo~~ Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Moneyball
War Horse

Takeaways: Alright, let's get this out of the way: As far as the nomination for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close goes, I did not see that coming. In my defense, I haven't seen the film yet (I'm seeing it on Thursday), but that's no excuse for whiffing on it, and it's certainly no excuse for failing to even mention it as a possibility in my prediction column.

In any case, what's particularly intriguing to me about this list nominees isn't the actual selections but the number. Given that the new ballot procedures require any Best Picture nominee to receive at least 5% of all first-place votes cast, I'd anticipated that only seven would make the cut, and I'd considered slicing that to six. As it turns out, the Academy nearly gave us a full decathlon, suggesting that voters are all over the map in terms of their admiration. As for the eventual winner ...

Current favorite: The Artist. True, Hugo led the field with 11 total nominations (The Artist received 10, while no other film earned more than six), and The Descendants hit for the cycle (picture, director, screenplay, lead actor), so this race is hardly sewn up. That said, unless the landscape changes, the Academy will be going silent for the first time since Wings in 1928.

Snubbed: Drive. It never really stood a chance, but no movie this year was more electrically entertaining.

BEST DIRECTOR
Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist
Terence Malick – The Tree of Life
Alexander Payne – The Descendants
Martin Scorsese – Hugo
~~David Fincher – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo~~ Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris

Takeaways: Apparently Fincher isn't the next William Wyler just yet. Allen was hardly a surprise, and I'm a big fan of Midnight in Paris, but the Academy could have been more daring in a year when so many filmmakers wielded their craft with bravery as well as skill.

Current favorite: If Scorsese hadn't won for The Departed five years ago, he'd be my pick here. Given that he already has a statuette, however, I'll lean toward Hazanavicius, as the winner of this category invariably links with that of Best Picture.

Snubbed: Steven Spielberg – War Horse. After convalescing for three years following the critically drubbed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (which is underrated, but no matter), The Beard returned with a vengeance in 2011, exhibiting his unparalleled technique in a pair of thrilling December releases. The Adventures of Tintin is dazzling on its own terms, but with War Horse Spielberg reminds us of the raw, beautiful power of classic cinema.

BEST ACTOR
George Clooney – The Descendants
Jean Dujardin – The Artist
Brad Pitt – Moneyball
~~Leonardo DiCaprio – J. Edgar~~ Demián Bichir – A Better Life
~~Michael Fassbender – Shame~~ Gary Oldman – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Takeaways: When a venerated actor such as Oldman finally receives his first Oscar nomination, it's hard not be pleased; I just wish he'd earned it for a better film (the performance, to be fair, is typically excellent). Bichir's nod is a bit of a shocker and illustrates just how much weight the SAG nominations carry.

Current favorite: It's a toss-up right now for me between Clooney and Pitt, though if I had to guess today, I'd go with Clooney. Of course, given the overall strength of The Artist, we can't count Dujardin out either.

Snubbed: DiCaprio. We've reached the point in his career where we anticipate the extraordinary every time he appears on screen – which is a little scary, given that he's only 37 – so perhaps voters are becoming anesthetized to his greatness (though that never stopped Meryl Streep). Whatever the case, his haunting, mesmerizing disappearance into the tormented, decaying soul of one of America's villains is unforgettable. Kind of like his last half-dozen performances.

BEST ACTRESS
Viola Davis – The Help
Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams – My Week with Marilyn
~~Tilda Swinton – We Need to Talk About Kevin~~ Glenn Close – Albert Nobbs

Takeaways: For all the complaining I'm certain to do over the next month (not to mention the next two categories), let me take a moment to extend a heartfelt "Thank you" to the Academy for recognizing the year's finest screen performance by nominating Rooney Mara for her devastating work as Fincher's titular heroine. (I'd been afraid that she'd lose her spot to Close.) As for Close knocking off Swinton, I'll be stunned if the former is more deserving of a nomination (mainly because the latter is Tilda Swinton), but I'll reserve final judgment until I actually see their respective performances.

Current favorite: None. This is probably a three-way race between Davis, Streep, and Williams. Davis was the pick earlier in the season, but The Help's so-so nomination tally (Best Picture nod notwithstanding) indicates that she's on shaky ground. Smart money's on Williams.

Snubbed: Elizabeth Olsen – Martha Marcy May Marlene. I could have selected Charlize Theron as well for her unflinching portrayal of squirmy immaturity in Young Adult, but by passing on Olsen, the voters failed to recognize a stunning new talent.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Kenneth Branagh – My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill – Moneyball
Nick Nolte – Warrior
Christopher Plummer – Beginners
~~Albert Brooks – Drive~~ Max von Sydow – Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Takeaways: And let the aforementioned complaining begin. I have no idea how it happened (though SAG clearly had something to do with it), but Brooks' exclusion is one of two black marks that will leave a permanent scar on the Academy's credibility. I can't comment on von Sydow's work yet (though I certainly didn't see him coming), but it doesn't matter, as Brooks' exhilarating turn as a remorseless gangster eclipsed each of the remaining four performances. Badly done.

Current favorite. Plummer. Brooks would have been his lone competition. He's not looking back.

Snubbed: Brooks. Still angry.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Bérénice Bejo – The Artist
Jessica Chastain – The Help
Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids
Octavia Spencer – The Help
~~Shailene Woodley – The Descendants~~ Janet McTeer – Albert Nobbs

Takeaways: And here lies the second tragedy of this year's nominations. I had never heard of Shailene Woodley prior to her revelatory performance in The Descendants, but following her note-perfect turn as George Clooney's bitterly wounded, fiercely loyal daughter, I'm confident I won't be seeing the last of her anytime soon. Perhaps she and Albert Brooks can hold their own ceremony in which Drive and The Descendants tie for Best Picture. Hell, Patton Oswalt can host.

Current favorite: Spencer. As with the Best Actor category, Bejo could pull the upset if The Artist sweeps, but Spencer's crowd-pleasing act will be difficult to overcome.

Snubbed: Elle Fanning – Super 8. Obviously Woodley's omission hurts the most here, but Fanning's lovely, tentative turn as a wary teenager was the clear high point of J.J. Abrams' Spielberg homage.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Artist – Michel Hazanavicius
Bridesmaids – Annie Mumolo, Kristen Wiig
Midnight in Paris – Woody Allen
~~Rango – John Logan~~ Margin Call – J.C. Chandor
~~Young Adult – Diablo Cody~~ A Separation – Asghar Farhadi

Takeaways: This was always going to be a difficult category, and while I'm disappointed with my predictions, I'm certainly pleased that Margin Call can now declare itself an Oscar nominee. A Separation is allegedly arriving in Boulder theatres in mid-February and has been appointment viewing for me for months.

Current favorite: The Academy has made some of its nervier decisions in this category in the past, so Bridesmaids or Midnight in Paris could sneak in. That said, it's difficult to bet against The Artist at the moment.

Snubbed: Crazy, Stupid, Love. – Dan Fogelman. The tone is wildly aberrant, but Fogelman provides all of the film's characters with surprising depth, and the dialogue clicks perfectly. There's even a brilliantly executed plot twist.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Descendants – Nat Faxon, Alexander Payne, Jim Rash
Hugo – John Logan
Moneyball – Aaron Sorkin, Steven Zaillian
~~The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Steven Zaillian~~ The Ides of March – George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon
~~The Help – Tate Taylor~~ Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – Bridget O'Connor, Peter Straughan

Takeaways: I was afraid that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy would show up here – that it did so but failed to make an appearance in Best Art Direction utterly baffles me. The Ides of March is a bit more of a surprise but certainly a pleasant one.

Current favorite: None. I'm currently waffling between The Descendants and Moneyball, but Hugo could feasibly throw its weight around as well.

Snubbed: The Adjustment Bureau – George Nolfi. Metaphysics plus politics sounds like an ungainly mix, but Nolfi delivers a thrilling story that is both philosophically engaging and emotionally moving.

BEST ART DIRECTION
The Artist
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
~~Anonymous~~ Midnight in Paris
~~Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy~~ War Horse

Takeaways: Recognition for War Horse in place of Anonymous is hardly shocking, but the Midnight in Paris nod is quite puzzling, especially given that the voters clearly admired Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on a number of levels. And hey, Harry Potter!

Current favorite: Hugo. Blanket sweep of The Artist aside, this one isn't close.

Snubbed: Sucker Punch. Zack Snyder's films aren't exactly marvels of characterization, but he knows how to maximize a set.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Artist – Guillame Schiffman
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Jeff Crenoweth
Hugo – Robert Richardson
The Tree of Life – Emmanuel Lubezki
War Horse – Janusz Kaminski

Takeaways: Hey, a perfect category! I think I had 12 of these last year, and I only picked eight fields.

Current favorite: The Tree of Life dominated the precursor circuit, but I'd be wary, as its photography doesn't scream for your attention, and the Academy tends to favor flashier pictures. The somber black-and-white hues of The Artist and the stately compositions of War Horse are also in play here.

Snubbed: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – Eduardo Serra. The art direction is on a level all its own, but Serra's crisp, dark-toned lensing deserved recognition as well.

BEST FILM EDITING
The Artist – Anne-Sophie Bion
The Descendants – Kevin Tent
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall
Hugo – Thelma Schoonmaker
~~War Horse – Michael Kahn~~ Moneyball – Christopher Tellefsen

Takeaways: Sometimes things don't make sense. My reason for picking against War Horse for Best Picture was that it performed so poorly across the guilds. Not only did Oscar voters nominate it for the top prize, but they also handed it a number of craft nominations, except for Film Editing – which, naturally, was the one guild in which the movie did receive recognition. I give up.

Current favorite: I'd lean toward The Artist, but Schoonmaker is a legend, and the Baxter-Wall combo won last year, so this is a tight race as well. (Sense a pattern?)

Snubbed: Martha Marcy May Marlene – Zachary Stuart-Pontier. The film's nonlinear structure is tricky and could have been off-putting, but Stuart-Pontier turns it into a source of fascination.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Artist – Ludovic Bource
Hugo – Howard Shore
War Horse – John Williams
~~The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross~~ The Adventures of Tintin – John Williams
~~Jane Eyre – Dario Marianelli~~ Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – Alberto Iglesias

Takeaways: I figured the Academy would balk at naming John Williams a double-nominee when he's basically Spielberg's personal composer – so much for that theory. As for Iglesias, his nomination here only makes Tinker Tailor's failure in Best Art Direction all the more perplexing.

Current favorite: Has to be The Artist, although War Horse could make a push.

Snubbed: Hanna – The Chemical Brothers. The electro-punk outfit's limitless energy perfectly serves the film's propulsive drive.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
~~Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol~~ Real Steel

Takeaways: I'm relieved to see The Tree of Life shut out here. The inclusion of Real Steel is a surprise, but I welcome it, as the effects served the story without upstaging it.

Current favorite: Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Game over.

Snubbed: None really, but I probably would have selected Green Lantern or Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol over Hugo.

So that's that. Stay tuned over the next month for more detailed category-by-category analysis.

Oscars Analysis 2011: Nomination Predictions

2012-01-23T05:08:00.003-07:00

The Manifesto's dynasty is about to end.

O.K., to call it a "dynasty" is a bit excessive. Yes, my utter dominance in predicting the recent Oscar nominations has undoubtedly been awe-inspiring to pundits everywhere, but I've only been forecasting the actual nominations for two years (I've been officially predicting winners – often badly – for 10); it's not as if I'm rivaling Bill Russell's Celtics for championship durability here. Still, my success made me feel invincible, and I figured I'd glide off into the sunset and spend the rest of my days reclining luxuriously on the beach while sipping mojitos like Kathleen Turner in Body Heat. Then things got complicated.

Alright, so we all know by now that two years ago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – in its infinite wisdom – expanded its list of Best Picture nominations from five to 10 in an effort to broaden its appeal to a mass audience. Though that maneuver predictably incited a firestorm of controversy among purists about the quality of the films nominated ("Dear God, we're watering down the Oscars!"), it didn't make the actual prediction business that much more difficult, as evidenced by my 10-for-10 showing a year ago.

This year, however, the Academy has added a new wrinkle (possibly as a result of Academy president Tom Sherak waking up one day and muttering to himself, "Shit, did we really nominate The Blind Side for Best Picture?"). Rather than mandating exactly 10 nominations, the Best Picture field will now feature up to 10 selections, with a minimum of five. So for those of us who make a ~~living~~ hobby out of prognosticating the Oscars, we not only have to guess which movies will be selected, but we also have to estimate how many will make the cut.

To make things even more difficult, the specific process for sussing out the Chosen Handful is, shall we say, complex. I won't go into details; suffice it to say that you basically need to be in a room with Microsoft Excel, an abacus, and Stephen Hawking in order to sift through the ballots and determine which movies have earned enough votes for a nomination. But there's one key element in play that's worth emphasizing: The balloting process places a heavy premium on first-place votes. That is, when Academy members fill out their ballots and rank their top five (yes, five – don't ask) Best Picture contenders, a first-place ranking is dramatically more significant than a second- or third-place ranking. Thus, the process places a movie that is generally well-liked by many but perhaps not adored (like, say, War Horse) in a less favorable position than a movie that has a smaller but more ardent following (like, say, The Tree of Life).

What does all of that mean? I have no idea. And that, of course, is the problem. Just bear that in mind when I only hit on three of nine Best Picture nominations and you see me two days later wandering around Boulder taking swigs from a carton of milk.

Alright, enough preemptive pessimism. Let's get to the predictions. Also, I'm expanding the categories in which I'm predicting the nominations to 13 total fields, up from eight in years past. I'm not interested in covering the remaining categories right now, partly because I don't want to bore my readers, and partly because I don't feel like spending three hours analyzing the chances of Transformers: Dark of the Moon earning a Best Sound Mixing nomination. As always, upcoming posts will predict the actual winner of all 21 categories (shorts excluded), but for now, you'll have to settle for this baker's dozen.

BEST PICTURE
The Artist
The Descendants
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
The Tree of Life

Comments: If nothing else, we can be absolutely certain that The Artist and The Descendants will be here, and I'm reasonably confident in Hugo as well. And that, sadly, is where my confidence ends. Gulp.

It breaks my heart not to include War Horse, but its pulse has been ebbing significantly over the past several weeks, and I think the lack of a nomination for Spielberg from the Directors' Guild constituted the moment it officially flat-lined. David Fincher's nomination from that same guild is the reason I'm including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as it's the type of polarizing work that certainly has its share of devoted supporters. Of course, no movie this year is more polarizing than The Tree of Life, and while Terence Malick failed to earn a guild nomination, I've felt a gnawing suspicion for months that it had the juice to land a Best Picture nod, so I'm sticking with that nebulous fear.

Undoubtedly my most dubious omission here is that of Moneyball; it's been a mainstay on the circuit thus far and is liked by virtually everyone, but that sort of universally mild appeal is precisely the type that the new ballot system works against. I'm sorely tempted to exclude The Help as well, but I think its ham-fisted social commentary will engage enough voters to squeeze in.

Potential upsets: Aside from Moneyball and War Horse, the biggest lurkers are Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (my sister just had a heart attack) and Drive. The latter is a sexy sleeper pick, but I think it's too violent and nasty for most voters' stomachs, and I'm already wagering on one non-traditional picture with The Tree of Life.

Long shots: Bridesmaids (under last year's rules, it walks in, but not enough first-place votes this time around); The Ides of March (that Producers' Guild nomination was just a tease); Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (so close); Martha Marcy May Marlene (not so close).

BEST DIRECTOR
David Fincher – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist
Terence Malick – The Tree of Life
Alexander Payne – The Descendants
Martin Scorsese – Hugo

Comments: The Directors' Guild nominations are the obvious point of reference here, but I'm again straying a bit by tabbing Malick, mainly because it's illogical for The Tree of Life to earn a Best Picture nod without corresponding recognition for its director's, er, treatise on the human experience, and I'm not a hedge-your-bets type of guy. In any event, Malick's inclusion means I'm giving short shrift to Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris, though it's possible that both could get in and leave Fincher out in the bitter, digitally photographed Swedish cold. That said, I think the Academy's new, torrid love affair with Fincher (he also deservedly earned nominations in 2008 for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and 2010 for The Social Network) will outweigh its long-simmering romance with Allen.

Potential upsets: Aside from Allen, the two biggest threats here are Tate Taylor for The Help and Steven Spielberg for War Horse. Neither received a guild nod, which is why I'm comfortable excluding them, but if one shows up, I'd bet on Spielberg, because let's be honest, you should never bet against Steven Spielberg (well, unless you're predicting this year's Oscar nominations).

Longshots: Nicolas Winding Refn for Drive (same logic as Malick, only in reverse); Bennett Miller for Moneyball (save it for the screenplay); Tomas Alfredson for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (if you somehow liked the movie, Alfredson's the guy to thank).

BEST ACTOR
George Clooney – The Descendants
Leonardo DiCaprio – J. Edgar
Jean Dujardin – The Artist
Michael Fassbender – Shame
Brad Pitt – Moneyball

Comments: Clooney, Dujardin, and Pitt all won their conference tournaments and are thus automatic bids here. The two at-large spots, however, are considerably shakier. DiCaprio has the Screen Actors' Guild (SAG) mention, but J. Edgar has utterly fizzled, and his star power isn't as significant with the Academy as one might expect (to wit, he wasn't nominated for either The Departed or Shutter Island). For his part, Fassbender stars in one of the most unpleasant movies of the entire year. Both of these spots are there for the taking – I just don't see anyone else stepping up.

Potential upsets: It's possible that I'm severely underestimating Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – if so, then Gary Oldman finally gets his first Oscar nomination here. The other major player is Michael Shannon for his tour-de-force performance in Take Shelter; Shannon is a known quantity with the Academy (he earned a Best Supporting Actor nod for Revolutionary Road in 2008), and he's become increasingly visible due to his work on "Boardwalk Empire", so a mention here would hardly qualify as a surprise.

Longshots: Demián Bichir for A Better Life (he scored a surprise nod from SAG, but that's been it); Tom Hardy for Warrior (probably wishful thinking on my part); Ryan Gosling for Drive (this was the Year of Ryan Gosling, after all); Brendan Gleeson for The Guard (why not?).

BEST ACTRESS
Viola Davis – The Help
Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton – We Need to Talk About Kevin
Michelle Williams – My Week with Marilyn

Comments: As with Best Actor, three of these (Davis, Streep, and Williams) are virtually locked in. Unlike with Best Actor, I'm reasonably confident in a fourth (Swinton). Mara is my wildcard, and my rationale is simple: If voters like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (and they seem to), they can hardly overlook Mara for her searing, indelible performance.

Potential upsets: Glenn Close nabbed a SAG nomination for Albert Nobbs – I've yet to see the movie, so it's difficult to weigh in on Close's Oscar potential, but the buzz has been fairly muted. That said, she's the logical replacement for Mara. A friskier pick would be Charlize Theron, who delivers perhaps the finest work of her career in Young Adult; if Tilda Swinton weren't the greatest actress alive not named Kate Winslet, I'd bump her for Theron.

Longshots: Kirsten Dunst for Melancholia (not with Lars von Trier in the vicinity); Elizabeth Olsen for Martha Marcy May Marlene (c'mon, let's bring back the "Talented hot young actresses who get naked get nominated" trend!); Kristen Wiig for Bridesmaids (you'll see her in the screenplay category); Olivia Colman for Tyrannosaur (further proof that the Brits are taking over the industry).

[Note: This is an incredibly strong field overall. I won't be surprised if I go three-for-five.]

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Kenneth Branagh – My Week with Marilyn
Albert Brooks – Drive
Jonah Hill – Moneyball
Nick Nolte – Warrior
Christopher Plummer – Beginners

Comments: Yikes. Brooks and Plummer have been punching and counterpunching all season and will continue to duel until the ceremony – they're both safe bets, Brooks' lack of a SAG nod notwithstanding. Branagh, Hill, and Nolte all earned recognition from the guild, but I'm really picking them due to a lack of alternatives, as the buzz of their competitors has been tepid at best.

Potential upsets: If I really wanted to go all-in with The Tree of Life, I could stump for Brad Pitt here, but I'm betting that many voters will consider him a lead, regardless of the campaign strategy. Armie Hammer has the SAG nod to his credit for J. Edgar, but I've hardly heard him mentioned elsewhere. If Theron gets in for Young Adult, Patton Oswalt might show up here.

Longshots: Ben Kingsley for Hugo (never count Sir Ben out); Viggo Mortensen for A Dangerous Method (perhaps if anyone were talking about the movie); Alan Rickman for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (weep).

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Bérénice Bejo – The Artist
Jessica Chastain – The Help
Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids
Octavia Spencer – The Help
Shailene Woodley – The Descendants

Comments: Bejo and Spencer are in. Woodley doesn't have SAG recognition, but I'm picking her anyway because I believe that a cosmic justice exists in the galaxy, and that cosmic justice exists primarily to ensure that certain transcendent performances in movies are recognized by the Oscars, and Woodley's astonishingly self-assured turn in The Descendants is just such a performance. As for Chastain and McCarthy, my confidence is minimal, but no one else has put forth a strong case.

Potential upsets: Janet McTeer in Albert Nobbs and Vanessa Redgrave in Coriolanus both have their staunch supporters, but it's difficult for me to judge their credentials because I live in a remote part of the world called "Colorado", and those movies have yet to play in a theatre located near me.

Longshots: Carey Mulligan for Shame (clinging to Fassbender's coattails with all her strength); Evan Rachel Wood for The Ides of March (too much star power around her, too little buzz for her); Elle Fanning for Super 8 (sorry, for a second I thought I was filling out my "Deserves to be nominated" ballot).

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Artist – Michel Hazanavicius
Bridesmaids – Annie Mumolo, Kristen Wiig
Midnight in Paris – Woody Allen
Rango – John Logan
Young Adult – Diablo Cody

Comments: I'm confident that I'll bat .600 in most categories, which would be awesome if this were baseball but is somewhat pathetic for Oscar predictions. In any event, no way The Artist fails to show up here, and I like Bridesmaids and Midnight in Paris to capitalize on their general good will in this category in particular. As for the others, Rango has the irreverence and originality that should appeal to plucky voters, while I'm banking on Juno's popularity to be of sufficient endurance that Cody can score another nomination for a more, ahem, adult script.

Potential upsets: The Writers' Guild nominations are tricky as predictive mechanisms because a handful of high-profile releases (such as The Artist) are ineligible for a variety of lame reasons. Nevertheless, guild nominees 50/50 and Win Win certainly have a fighting chance. Voters could also skew foreign with A Separation or small-scale with Beginners.

Longshots: Margin Call (if these were the Topicality Awards, this would be a shoe-in); Martha Marcy May Marlene (too creepy); Take Shelter (too disturbing).

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Descendants – Nat Faxon, Alexander Payne, Jim Rash
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Steven Zaillian
The Help – Tate Taylor
Hugo – John Logan
Moneyball – Aaron Sorkin, Steven Zaillian

Comments: The Descendants and Moneyball are both locks, and The Help and Hugo should both ride their (presumable) Best Picture nominations to respective mentions here. My wildcard is Zaillian's script for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Conventional wisdom suggests that the screenplay for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is more Oscar-esque, but I simply cannot understand how anyone who saw that movie could have walked out believing that its screenplay deserved commendation, when all it really deserved was a dose of concentrated oxygen to the face from Anton Chigurh.

Potential upset: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (please no).

Longshots: The Ides of March (no Best Picture nod means it's unlikely to show up here); War Horse (ibid); We Need to Talk About Kevin (Tilda Swinton is a greedy tramp who swallows all other praise).

BEST ART DIRECTION
Anonymous
The Artist
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Comments: Hugo and Harry Potter (finally!) are both safe bets, and I'm comfortable tabbing The Artist as well. If there's one category where Tinker Tailor Solider Spy deserves a nomination, it's for the film's sterling set design. Anonymous was a critical and commercial bomb, but it did earn a guild nomination, and I think its look is distinctive enough to show up here.

Potential upset: War Horse is the main challenger, and there's a 50-50 chance it will unseat Anonymous, but its relative failure on the circuit prevents me from sticking my neck out.

Longshots: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (creepy mansions are always a plus); The Help (period setting never hurts); Jane Eyre (I think voters will recognize it elsewhere instead); The Tree of Life (catastrophe of the movie aside, the production design was spot-on).

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Artist – Guillame Schiffman
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Jeff Crenoweth
Hugo – Robert Richardson
The Tree of Life – Emmanuel Lubezki
War Horse – Janusz Kaminski

Comments: The Tree of Life is a lock, and The Artist and Hugo should both follow. Digital photography is receiving increased acceptance in the industry (as it should), so Crenoweth should follow up his nomination for The Social Network with another nod for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. My sleeper pick here is War Horse, which failed to received a guild nomination but absolutely reeks of old-school, classical, cinematic beauty – it needs to be here.

Potential upset: Does it make any sense that I feel more comfortable picking against Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy here because I predicted it for Best Art Direction? It does in my head.

Longshots: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (eminently plausible); Drive (less plausible).

BEST FILM EDITING
The Artist – Anne-Sophie Bion
The Descendants – Kevin Tent
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall
Hugo – Thelma Schoonmaker
War Horse – Michael Kahn

Comments: War Horse is the only selection here that makes me nervous, as it's a bit lengthy for an editing nomination, but it's cut together so beautifully that I think it makes the grade (and it scored a guild nomination to boot). And if it seems as though I'm turning a corner on the film's overall Oscar chances over the course of this post, I assure you that it's just a result of the random ordering of the categories.

Potential upsets: Moneyball and Midnight in Paris are two Best Picture candidates that could make a play in this category as well; if forced to pick a substitute for War Horse, I'd go with the former.

Longshots: The Adventures of Tintin (the stigma against animation is mighty indeed); Drive (for being badass); Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (ugh).

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Artist – Ludovic Bource
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Hugo – Howard Shore
Jane Eyre – Dario Marianelli
War Horse – John Williams

Comments: The Artist is a home run, while Hugo and War Horse should follow with relative ease. A year ago, I might have argued that Reznor's and Ross' ambient, unsettling score for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was too abrasive for the Academy; after the duo's Oscar victory for The Social Network last year, that's no longer a concern. Jane Eyre is my wildcard, and it may be motivated by wishful thinking, but Marianelli definitively has what it takes.

Potential upsets: John Williams for The Adventures of Tintin (I'm not sold that he has enough cachet to land a double-nomination at this point, and my money's always on the live-action feature); Alberto Iglesias for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (its pictures are prettier than its music).

Longshots: Alexandre Desplat for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (though he could also get in for one of the other 87 movies he scored this year); Thomas Newman for The Help.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Comments: This is almost cheating, as the field as already been whittled down to a shortlist of 10. In any event, of my five selections, Mission: Impossible is the only one in which I lack substantial confidence, as it's possible that voters will be more dazzled by the stunt work and sets than the effects themselves. That said, they're too flashy and impressive to be ignored.

Potential upset: The Tree of Life. Guh.

Longshots: I might as well just list the other nominees on the shortlist: Captain America: The First Avenger; Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides; Real Steel; and X-Men: First Class. Someday an enterprising college student will write a riveting thesis on the correlation between visual effects and colons in movie titles.

That's a wrap. Check back soon to see how horribly I did.

The Best Songs (and Albums) of 2011

2011-12-08T02:55:00.009-07:00

This past summer, I received bona fide praise regarding my year-end music recap from 2010. Did it come from a journalist at the New York Times? A critic from elitist indie snob-rag Pitchfork Media? My friend Cory, who kinda sorta felt obligated to say something nice to me when I asked him point-blank, "Did you like my post?" As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter. The Manifesto has been lauded for its discerning musical taste; as such, I have no choice but to churn out another "Year in Music" recap for 2011. I owe it to my readers.

We're switching things up a bit this year – my past analysis has been a little too song-heavy for my liking, so I'm appending a list of the Best Albums of the Year to the end of this post as well. By the same rationale, for each song, I'll highlight an alternative track from the same album that's worth checking out. I'll also give an overall album grade for each listed song in a woefully deficient effort to provide some broader context about the listed artist's work (e.g., "This song ruled, but the album was mediocre").

Finally, I'll be embedding videos wherever they exist (if they don't, I'll just provide a YouTube link to an audio version of the song so you can listen), and I'll provide some brief commentary on those as well. That said, a plea from your earnest music enthusiast: Please, for the love of Moses, do not judge a song by its video. Some videos are spectacular, while others are spectacularly stupid, but it's important to remember that they were all created after the song was written. They're fun to watch – just don't let them detract from the music.

(Also, remember the Manifesto's rule: no repeat artists allowed. I strive for variety in all phases of life. Well, with the exceptions of sexual partners and M&M flavors.)

Oh, and just to be crazy and to protest the tyranny of round numbers, this year the Manifesto is highlighting the best 33 songs and 12 albums of the year, because that's how we roll. Let's do it.

The Best 33 Songs of 2011
(Honorable mention: AraabMuzik – Golden Touch; Avril Lavigne – What the Hell; Beirut – Goshen; The Mountain Goats – The Autopsy Garland; R.E.M. – Discoverer; The Vaccines – If you wanna; Veronica Falls – Come on Over)

33. Feist – Graveyard. For a song about death, there's something wonderfully optimistic about Feist's mood here, especially on the insistent refrain, "Bring 'em all back to life!". It's as if she can resurrect the dead with her art.

Alternative track from the same album: Bittersweet Melodies.

Album grade (Metals): B. Nothing earth-shattering, but a cohesive, brittle album nevertheless.

32. Death Cab for Cutie – Underneath the Sycamore. This song actually upsets me, because it's so good that it makes the album's overall blandness all the more glaring. Still, it's further proof that Ben Gibbard can make even the simplest narratives resonate with simple majesty.

Alternative track: You Are a Tourist.

Album grade (Codes and Keys): C+. The most disappointing record of the year. I'm still weeping.

31. The Rapture – Come Back to Me. Good luck not bobbing your head to this one.

Alternative track: Miss You.

Album grade (In the Grace of Your Love): B+. Post-punk is definitively not dead.

30. Evanescence – Lost in Paradise. Amy Lee has always been fascinated by death, but here, she actually dies and ascends to Heaven, only to feel confused, misbegotten, and generally, well, lost. It's a hokey concept, but it works because of the utter conviction of Lee's singing. "I have nothing left," she wails despairingly. Probably because she pours her soul into her music.

Alternative track: The Change.

Album grade (Evanescence): B+. I make no apologies whatsoever for liking this band. None.

29. Foster the People – Helena Beat. I'm a sucker for a falsetto chorus, and Mark Foster's affable high-pitched delivery makes lines like "Yeah-yeah, it's O.K./I tie my hands up to a chair so I don't fall that way" sound a lot less stupid than they deserve. Throw in an unrelenting beat with some electronic snap, and I'm hooked.

Alternative track: Pumped Up Kicks.

Album grade (Torches): B+. Lots to like here – strong beats, catchy choruses, and a lead singer whose voice is just distinctive enough to avoid sounding derivative. Keep an eye on these guys.

Video thoughts: Yikes. Did Rob Zombie direct this video? I'm sort of freaking out right now.

28. The Joy Formidable – A Heavy Abacus. These guitars will knock you the fuck out, and if they somehow don't, Ritzy Bryan's no-holds-barred delivery will finish the job.

Alternative track: Whirring.

Album grade (The Big Roar): B. With some tighter production and a bit more lyrical focus, this could have been one of the best albums of the year.

Video thoughts: This video looks as if it's a freshman's final project for his arts & media class, the one where they encourage you to distort and blur imagery in an effort to glam up otherwise banal material. What a waste.

27. The Antlers – I Don't Want Love. The title pretty much says it all. There's an aching sadness to Pete Silberman's voice that seems insurmountable, as though he's some tragic literary figure borne from the pages of Tolstoy or Hemingway. Thankfully, his pain is our considerable gain.

Alternative track: Putting the Dog to Sleep. (Seriously, how's that for a depressing title?)

Album grade (Burst Apart): B. I wish I could love this album, but it's a bit too sleepy for me. And yes, my friend Brian just took out a contract on my life.

26. The Black Keys – Gold on the Ceiling. The electric riff on display here is absolutely bruising. That the chorus stands up to such a massively energetic buildup is almost miraculous.

Alternative track: Money Maker.

Album grade (El Camino): B. This just arrived last week, so I'm still absorbing it, but in all likelihood, the awesomeness of "Gold on the Ceiling" will simply dwarf the remainder of the album, regardless of its quality.

25. Zola Jesus – Collapse. With perhaps one exception (see #20 below), no band is more cheated by the inherent injustices of a best-song list, as Zola Jesus' magnificence can only be appreciated by listening to its album in full. Nevertheless, of all of the colossal, majestically beautiful compositions on Conatus, this closing track is the most resplendent, a shimmering monument to pain and loss.

Alternative track: Shivers.

Album grade (Conatus): A. Just listen, and be amazed.

24. Adele – Set Fire to the Rain. My problem with Adele is that she only knows one speed, and it's all-out passion. That's fine as far as it goes, and it can make songs such as mega-hit "Rolling in the Deep" impressively powerful. But there's no change of pace in her delivery; even on her gentler ballads, her astounding, uncompromising voice is always at full throttle. "Set Fire to the Rain," however, features sufficient buildup such that its eventual climax ("I set fire to the rain/Watched it pour as I touched your face") achieves actual catharsis. With a weapon as overwhelming as that voice, a little restraint can go a long way.

Alternative track: Rolling in the Deep.

Album grade (21): B-. Sorry, I'm just not a believer.

23. Austra – Lose It. For a song whose high point involves its singer yelping "Oh! Ah! Oh! Ah!" repeatedly, there's impressive sonic activity here. I love the juxtaposition between the piercing pitch of Katie Stelmanis' high-key singing and the ruefully staid bass line, while the production is squeaky-clean and perfectly prioritizes the vocals. The result is a twisty, inventive, and thoroughly engaging piece of music.

Alternative track: The Future. (Note: This song actually features the line, "I came so hard in your mouth".)

Album grade (Feel It Break): A-. Frequently unsettling, consistently compelling.

Video thoughts: It certainly scores points for artistry and ambition. I can't recommend it wholeheartedly, given that it's batshit crazy and makes no sense, but it's watchable.

22. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Ketamine and Ecstasy [no audio available]. For a group with as much indie street cred as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, there's nothing fancy about their latest record, which is probably why I like it so much. "Ketamine and Ecstasy" is the clear highlight, with a rip-roaring chorus and guitars that could punch holes in the walls. It's a reminder that great music can be great fun too.

Alternative track: Misspent Youth.

Album grade (Hysterical): A-. Swirling guitars, soaring choruses.

21. Cults – Abducted. Hey, a duet! The nifty thing about "Abducted" is that, whereas most duets place a premium on equality, the song subverts that dynamic – here, the woman is scorned and damaged, while the man is unsympathetic and cruel. Musically, however, it's Madeline Follin's enthusiasm that carries the day; few women have ever made being dumped sound so good.

Alternative track: Go Outside.

Album grade (Cults): B+. Impressively assured debut from a band whose best is clearly yet to come.

Video thoughts: Simply tremendous. This thing plays like a teaser trailer for the next David Fincher movie. It may, however, give you nightmares.

20. Bon Iver – Calgary. Selecting a single song to acclaim from Bon Iver's self-titled album is like choosing between your children, if your children murmured in hushed, hypnotic voices and created a sustained atmosphere of gentle, enveloping grace. So why "Calgary"? Why are you even asking this question? Shouldn't you just be listening to this album right now?

Alternative track: Holocene.

Album grade (Bon Iver): A. Wow.

Video thoughts: I have no idea what to make of this video. It's ethereal, it's sensual, it's beautiful ... and it's completely indecipherable. Terrence Malick would be proud.

19. The Lonely Island – Jack Sparrow (feat. Michael Bolton). So the joke – three wannabe rappers hire Michael Bolton to bolster their track with a "big, sexy hook", only to have him start yowling about the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films – is funny. But the buried treasure here is that the hook really is big and sexy. Intentional inanity of the lyrics aside, you could absolutely find yourself singing "A mystical quest to the isle of Tortuga/Raven locks sway on the ocean's breeze!" in the shower.

Alternative track: I Just Had Sex (feat. Akon). (Hell, the video for that one is pretty amazing too.)

Album grade (Turtleneck & Chain): B. Hit-and-miss doesn't even begin to describe it.

Video thoughts: The image of Michael Bolton impersonating Julia Roberts is so broadly hilarious that it's easy to miss the subtle nuances that make this video truly great. The ever-expanding exasperation on the trio's faces as Bolton grows increasingly unhinged is masterful. There's a reason these guys make money.

18. How to Dress Well – Suicide Dream 2 (Orchestral Version). Tom Krell's voice just keeps going up and up and up, it's astonishing my computer speakers don't shatter. The emotion on display here is palpable, and the string quartet accompaniment is fluid and gorgeous.

Alternative track: Suicide Dream 1 (Orchestral Version).

Album grade (Just Once EP): B+. It's just a four-song EP, but it sure is stunning.

17. Terius Nash – Long Gone. Composing R&B at its most soulful and intimate, Terius Nash (aka The-Dream) delivers lyrics that are startlingly direct and painful. The story of a curdling relationship broken beyond repair, "Long Gone" begins with confusion ("I don't know what I'm supposed to say ... I don't know what I'm supposed to do") before crumbling into anger ("You're gonna say you love me back/But the thing about that, it's so far from the facts"). Nash's silky vocals prevent the song from becoming unbearably depressing, but even they can't prevent the inexorable destruction, so in the end, we're left with the image of a shattered couple with no hope of reconciliation. And then there's this: "I forgot how to touch you, 'cause every time I reach, you pull away/And I've forgotten how to fuck you, and now when you say my name, it don't feel the same." Ouch.

Alternative track: Wake Me When It's Over.

Album grade (1977): B. A lot to like, but some ugly missteps derail it.

Video thoughts: Simply, elegant, poetic. Well-done.

16. The Decemberists – This Is Why We Fight. Colin Meloy's music has always been pleasant, but there's a surprising urgency underlying "This Is Why We Fight", best personified in an insistent, appropriately combative snare. Meanwhile, the supremely simple chorus ("When we die, we will die with our arms unbound!") features one of the best hooks Meloy has ever written.

Alternative track: Calamity Song.

Album grade (The King Is Dead): A-. Few contemporaries make more consistently engaging pop music.

Video thoughts: A smoothly executed morality play about what happens when you steal cans of tuna fish from a fake war camp. Neat-o.

15. EMA – California. Erika M. Anderson is clearly gripped by bitter, snarling rage, but her gift is to channel that rage into expressions of intimacy rather than pure anger. "California" is laden with instances of bilious hatred – my personal favorite is the scorching insult, "What's it like to be small-town and gay?" – but Anderson's tone transforms them into something redemptive. She's dismissive of her targets (she follows the earlier insult with the casual observation, "Fuck it, baby, I know you'll never change"), but she doesn't allow herself to be swallowed in her own scorn. "I'm just 22; I don't mind dying," she insists earnestly, yet you can tell she wants to stick around. Here's hoping.

Alternative track: Anteroom.

Album grade (Past Life Martyred Saints): A-. Seething rage has never sounded so good.

Video thoughts: Great concept, mediocre execution. Still, I love keeping Anderson in the foreground the entire time.

14. Thursday – No Answers. You want a hook, you got a hook.

Alternative track: Sparks Against the Sun.

Album grade (No Devolución): A-. I'm half-convinced that these guys would be superstars if they didn't have such a stupid fucking name.

13. Peter Björn and John – Second Chance. You want a hook, you really got a hook.

Alternative track: Dig a Little Deeper.

Album grade (Gimme Some): B+. Don't let the easy pleasantness of the songs fool you – this is well-crafted, nimble pop music. Just because it's familiar doesn't make it stale.

Video thoughts: Yawn.

12. Hooray for Earth – True Loves. The sonic verve here is unmistakable, but the pinballing dynamics and lively atmosphere never overwhelm the track's narrative drive. Just a loaded piece of music that will burrow its way into your brain.

Alternative track: Sails.

Album grade (True Loves): A. This is a deeply engrossing record that rewards repeated listens. Where the hell did these guys come from?

Video thoughts: It's Kubrickian!

11. The Rosebuds – Go Ahead. From its opening feral shouts, "Go Ahead" is an instant magnetizer, and as Ivan Howard spins his yarn of mundanity and frustration, it only becomes more intoxicating. "Let's plant a forest where we can hide when the city expels us/We can sleep in the branches, our own little outpost in the trees," he enthuses, and by then you know that this is pure fantasy and that his spouse is having none of it. This is the first Rosebuds record following the divorce between Howard and Kelly Crisp, so some melancholy can be expected. But that bittersweet knowledge lends "Go Ahead" a quiet yearning that somehow makes it more hopeful than depressing. Howard and Crisp may have broken up, but they're still making music together – surely that has to mean something.

Alternative track: Without a Focus.

Album grade (Loud Planes Fly Low): B. I desperately wanted to love this album, but I just never got there.

10. TV on the Radio – Second Song. This song has been genetically engineered to make humans sing along to it. Fighting that urge is fighting our own primordial instincts.

Alternative track: New Cannonball Run.

Album grade (Nine Types of Light): B-. A huge step down from Dear Science.

Video thoughts: Now here's an arts & media project of some value. Sure, it's obscure and inscrutable, but at least there's some narrative continuity at work.

9. Cut Copy – Need You Now. In terms of transcendent moments in music this year, it doesn't get much more epic than the final snare roll leading into the last chorus of "Need You Now". But that's just the gravy. Layering an effortless hook on top of an uncompromising beat, Dan Whitford sings with near-mechanical precision, but that shouldn't suggest that Cut Copy's music is in any way monotonous. On the contrary, "Need You Now" represents one of the world's top new wave bands in peak form, twinning soaring melodies with thumping electronics. That snare roll is just the icing, but it tastes damn good.

Alternative track: Take Me Over.

Album grade (Zonoscope): B+. An almost-great album that can't quite get over the hump.

Video thoughts: I'll give it this: I certainly didn't anticipate where this video was going. Puts a whole new spin on the "athletics are blood sport" motif.

8. Wild Flag – Romance. If you thought the opening riff of "Gold on the Ceiling" was electric, check this baby out. That's just the teaser though – Carrie Brownstein's balls-to-the-wall chorus is downright orgasmic. "We got our eyes, our eyes trained on you!" she spitballs, guitars clanging furiously all around her like metallic beasts. Yet for all of the raucous noise on display, there's a clipped discipline to the songwriting that prevents "Romance" from devouring its own tail. Instead, it pushes forward, again and again, consuming every drop of the band's considerable vigor. It's exhilarating and exhausting at the same time, but the exacting attention to details makes it thoroughly exceptional.

Alternative track: Future Crimes.

Album grade (Wild Flag): B. This one is a bit samey overall, but expect big things next time out.

Video thoughts: Think Office Space crossed with Point Break, only with women and not as awesome.

7. The Weeknd – Wicked Games. Does it get any more depressing than "Tell me you love me even though you don't love me"? That stench of hopeless longing pervades Abel Tesfaye's music, never more so than on "Wicked Games", a twisted, often grotesque ballad of sexual wanderlust and drug addiction. "Bring your love, baby, I can bring my shame/Bring the drugs, baby, I can bring my pain," Tesfaye coos, but you have to wonder if he even knows whom he's talking to. It's more the idea of love that's alluring to him, and he's willing to do anything in an effort to savor a brief taste. But what's truly breathtaking about "Wicked Games" are Tesfaye's towering, high-register vocals, which perfectly convey the depths of his desperation. He's tumbling down, even though his music keeps going up.

Alternative track: The Morning.

Album grade (House of Balloons): B+. Dark, despairing, dazzling.

Video thoughts: A highly persuasive thesis arguing that taking a shitload of drugs is probably a bad idea.

6. Florence + the Machine – Shake It Out. Subtlety be damned. Florence Welch's music is all about provocation, exultation, indulgence. And all the better for us, because when Florence gets hold of a note and shakes the hell out of it, we're treated to an otherworldly spectacle of vocal power. "It's hard to dance with a devil on your back, so shake him off," she instructs us, which is easy for her to say; Satan himself wouldn't be able to harness an instrument of such unbridled potency. But the magnificence of "Shake It Out" is that it doesn't simply function as a showcase for Florence's unparalleled talents; rather, it's an expertly composed piece of songcraft on its own terms. That it builds to a breathless conclusion in which Florence blows the roof off the Sistine Chapel can hardly be held against it.

Alternative track: Heartlines.

Album grade (Ceremonials): A. Top-notch songwriting, show-stopping talent.

Video thoughts: I liked Eyes Wide Shut better the first time.

5. Coldplay – Paradise. Coldplay don't really make music, more gigantic anthems that celebrate music itself. Sure, you can gripe about the lack of subtext, the hearts-on-their-sleeves earnestness, the manifest desire to be beloved. But then you hear the chorus of "Para, Para ... Paradise!" and it all just melts away. Here's a group that embraces the challenge of being the biggest band in the world rather than shrinking from it, and their conviction is undeniable. If they sound a bit entitled singing about immortality, it's because they've earned it.

Alternative track: Charlie Brown.

Album grade (Mylo Xyloto): A. They make good music. Just accept it.

Video thoughts: Sure, the metaphor – that one of the world's most popular bands is so free at heart that they're actually just a bunch of juvenile elephants jamming in the desert – is a bit flimsy. But giant stuffed animals are intrinsically adorable, and when that wandering elephant finds his soulmates at long last, it gets a little dusty.

4. Okkervil River – Mermaid. Whenever I hear this song, I just feel this breathless urge for adventure, and I feel compelled to kiss my wife and children goodbye and venture out onto the lost boiling black water surrounded by wild wailing winds so I can get a glimpse of a mythical creature of indescribable beauty. Then I remember that I'm single, like video games, and loathe boats. But for five minutes, I forget all of that. And so will you.

Alternative track: N/A. Inexplicably, Okkervil River declined to include "Mermaid" on their 2011 LP, I Am Very Far, releasing it as a standalone single instead. They need to fire their producer.

Album grade: N/A. (But "B" for I Am Very Far.)

3. Iron & Wine – Walking Far from Home. The concept is simple: Sam Beam is walking, and he's describing what he's seeing. And from that straightforward premise unspools a narrative of striking loveliness. The images Beam describes range from the mundane (blooming fruit trees, flowers on a hillside) to the poetic (sinners making music, sunlight on the water) to the absurd (a bird falling like a hammer from the sky, a millionaire pissing on the lawn), but they coalesce into a deeply moving tribute to the idiosyncratic wonders of small-town Americana.

Alternative track: Your Fake Name Is Good Enough for Me.

Album grade (Kiss Each Other Clean): B. It's a bit inconsistent, but when Iron & Wine get it right, their potential is limitless.

2. M83 – Midnight City. PERFECTION.

Alternative track: Steve McQueen.

Album grade (Hurry Up, We're Dreaming): A. An affirmation of the transcendent power of music.

Video thoughts: Stupendous. Take the apocalyptic framework from Foster the People's "Helena Beat" video, only replace the ugliness and nihilism with hope, childhood yearning, and euphoria.

1. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Heart in Your Heartbreak. The paradox of music is that it can be so uplifting when it's at its most devastating. Some of history's saddest songs are drenched in power-rock guitars (e.g., Guns N' Roses' "November Rain"), and the driving vitality of the instrumentation is what gives some of the most heart-wrenching music its emotional kick. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart recognize this irony, and they play with it both sonically (the perfectly pitched guitars here are supported by a ruthless rhythm section) and lyrically (see the title). The result is an impeccably crafted pop song that is bouncy, buoyant, and generally delightful. It is also unforgivingly bleak, from its very first line ("Take a look around, you're going down") to its stomach-punching closer ("Even if she'd stay, you know she's gone"). Like all things worth loving, you'll keep crawling back to it again and again, even if it sticks you in the gut every time.

Alternative track: Belong.

Album grade (Belong): A. They said it themselves: Dreams can still come true.

Video thoughts: Plainly skewing toward the "heart" side of the dichotomy, this video is upbeat, invigorating, and generally triumphant. Just don't be fooled.

And, as promised:

The Best 12 Albums of 2011
(Honorable mention: Cut Copy – Zonoscope; Evanescence – Evanescence; Peter Björn and John – Gimme Some; The Rapture – In the Grace of Your Love; The Weeknd – House of Balloons)

12. Thursday – No Devolución
11. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Hysterical
10. Austra – Feel It Break
9. The Decemberists – The King Is Dead
8. EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints
7. Zola Jesus – Conatus
6. Coldplay – Mylo Xyloto
5. Hooray for Earth – True Loves
4. M83 – Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
3. Florence + the Machine – Ceremonials
2. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
1. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong

Till next year.

The Top 10 TV Series on Netflix Streaming

2011-11-11T04:54:00.006-07:00

Over the past few months, Netflix has served as a paradigmatic case study in hapless corporate mismanagement. Between sudden price hikes, ill-conceived ideas (seriously, Qwikster?), and smarmy emails, no company has done more to alienate its customer base and squander an otherwise highly successful product. (You know, besides the NBA.) This is not, however, a post designed to excoriate Netflix. Rather, I'm extolling the service for its most valuable commodity: streaming TV series.

Look, streaming is the future. I confess that I maintain some elitist qualms regarding Netflix's streaming service – the selection is pitiful, the audio/video quality is weaker compared to DVD (and dramatically pales versus Blu-ray), certain features such as subtitles are unavailable, the in-movie interface is pathetic – but for the most part, streaming gets the job done. That's especially true in the Twitter-based Age of Instantania, where all we care about is doing whatever we want at the exact instant we want to do it. (That Twitter is gradually eroding the hallowed industry of journalism into a disgraceful, speed-obsessed circus is also a post for another day.) When people feel like watching something, whether it's the latest Twilight movie or a classic episode of "Seinfeld", they do not want to wait three days for the fucking disc to arrive in the mail – they want to watch it right away. Streaming is the future, and Netflix (and every other company of its ilk) knows it.

And no product is more ideally suited for streaming than the television series. Watching a movie on streaming saves you a trip to the theatre; watching a TV show on streaming can eliminate weeks, months, or literally (in cases of older shows with multiple seasons) years of waiting time. Streaming can yield a more enjoyable and cohesive viewing experience as well, as viewers are more likely to mentally connect plot threads and characters if they aren't required to wait a week between each episode.

Of course, the ability to demolish multiple seasons of a single show within a week is only valuable if the show is actually good, lest you waste hours of your time watching something like "Heroes". So when my friend Travis asked me to recommend "Netflix instant gems", I felt it my solemn duty to point him and the rest of my readers in the right direction. That's why the Manifesto is compiling a list of the Top 10 TV Shows Available on Netflix streaming. So sit back, fire up your PlayStation 3, and enjoy the following shows without ever having to venture even as far as your mailbox.

[Note: I'm not bothering to include "Arrested Development" or "The Office" because both shows have achieved such massive popularity that I have nothing to add. I'm also ignoring "Weeds" because the sixth season isn't available. Suffice it to say that all three shows are well worth watching.]

10. Party Down (2009-10; two seasons, 20 episodes). Workplace satire has become fairly rote since the one-two-punch success of Office Space and "The Office", but it rarely features the lacerating wit and sharply defined characters that conspire to make "Party Down" so appealing. Anchored by a splendidly simple premise – a catering group works a different gig for each episode, inevitably suffering the inherent humiliations therein – the series is indiscriminate in its comedic appetites, with moments ranging from low-key banter to slapstick to outright farce. The most enduring element is the contrast between the ultra-blasé Adam Scott and the superbly straitlaced Ken Marino, while supporting players Lizzy Caplan (the hot girl), Ryan Hansen (the airhead playboy), and Martin Starr (the nerd) receive ample opportunity to subvert their characters' apparent archetypes. "Party Down" also takes care not to be overly contemptuous of its guest stars (i.e., the party hosts), treating them with a curious combination of disgust and envy. Most of the caterers hate their jobs, and they hate their clients, but partly because they'd rather be enjoying the party from the other side. That's one of the nuanced observations that makes "Party Down" such a rewarding show.

(Favorite episodes: Calif. College Conservative Union Caucus; Stennheiser-Pong Wedding Reception; Steve Guttenberg's Birthday; Not on Your Wife Opening Night.)

9. Friday Night Lights (2006-11; five seasons, 76 episodes). The paradox of "Friday Night Lights" is that it's ostensibly a show entirely about football, and the football scenes are the weakest part of the show. That's partially an indictment of the constraints of the genre – the proportion of the show's games that come down to the final play is glaringly unrealistic – but it's more a testament to the extraordinary attention the shows pays to its characters off the gridiron. That's because "Friday Night Lights" isn't really about football the game but about the way that the obsession with that game infects an entire town. With football as its backdrop, the show marries soap-opera-sized themes (abortion, steroids, teenage sex, drug use, the works) with fully realized characters, resulting in a wholly convincing portrait of Dillon, Texas. Yet in spite of the show's overall bigness, the real strength of "Friday Night Lights" is its minor pleasures: the playful spousal bickering between Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, the resolute assertions of sexuality of Aimee Teegarden and Adrianne Palicki, the hilarious needling between friends Zach Gilford and Jesse Plemons. It also features a star-making turn from Gilford as Matt Saracen, a historically well-written character of transcendent likability. In the end, "Friday Night Lights" will make you smile and cry, but it will also make you pump your fist and scream "SARACEN!" as a spiral sails through the air in the warm Texas night.

(Favorite episodes: I Think We Should Have Sex; Mud Bowl; Last Days of Summer; Underdogs; The Son; Always.)

8. Battlestar Galactica (2005-09; four seasons, 73 episodes, plus opening three-hour miniseries). That "Battlestar Galactica" ran for as long as it did is somewhat remarkable, given the stigmatized nature of science-fiction in contemporary pop culture. But the reason for the show's enduring popularity, as well as its excellence, is that it focuses not on the science but on the politics of humanity. The series follows a band of survivors of a nuclear-style holocaust – led by the oft-clashing, sometimes-allied duo of a rugged military leader (Edward James Olmos, supremely dignified) and a pragmatic politician (Mary McDonnell, game) – in their twin efforts to establish a new civilization and fend off a revolt from a race of machines called Cylons. That may sound preposterous, but the richness of the show's characters and the sympathetic nature of their plight makes it compelling stuff, and as the scope of the show continually expands, "Battlestar Galactica" proves to be a persuasive thesis on the role of governance in society. It's also phenomenally well-made, with first-rate production values and a "Deadwood"-sized cast of capable actors; my personal favorites are the scientist Baltar (James Callis, sublimely oily) and the tough-as-nails soldier Boomer (Grace Park, hot as hell), each of whom harbors a secret. The show occasionally becomes bogged down in philosophizing (though even a dissertation on the purpose of machinery's existence can be invigorating when it's delivered by Dean Stockwell), but for the most part, "Battlestar Galactica" is strong storytelling on a grand scale.

(Favorite episodes: Kobol's Last Gleaming; Home; Lay Down Your Burdens; Crossroads.)

7. 24 (2001-10; eight seasons, 192 episodes). Of all of the shows on this list, none is more perfectly tailored to Netflix streaming than "24". Watch the show from week to week and you'll inevitably grow weary of the ludicrous twists, the gaping plot holes, the nonsensical double crosses, and all the other absurdities that make "24" so fucking great. Plow through six straight episodes on streaming, however, and you have no time to ponder the show's patent irrationality; you're too caught up in the frenzied thrill-ride of Jack Bauer saving the world over and over again. People who nitpick "24" for occasionally not making sense miss the point. The show was never designed to make sense – it's designed to induce delirium. Watching "24" is a giddy experience, a jingoistic high celebrating a distinctly American brand of heroism. The show is pure kinetic energy, breathlessly racing from one preposterous plot point to the next with unstoppable momentum. Of course, it's impossible to sustain that level of verve over the course of 200 episodes, so it's unsurprising that "24" falters a bit in its latter seasons. (Then again, maybe that's because I watched those seasons as they aired, whereas I annihilated the first 96 episodes in a handful of weeks.) At its best, however, "24" is perhaps the most compelling action show ever made, eternally anchored by Kiefer Sutherland's intense, fiercely committed lead performance. It's a show that venerates the classical elements of pop entertainment: the crackling of gunfire, the sinister scent of suit-clad bureaucrats, the repellant charisma of pure villainy (Dennis Hopper!), and – most of all – the feverish anticipation of wondering what the hell will happen next.

(Favorite episodes: Day 1: 11:00 PM - 12:00 AM; Day 3: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM; Day 4: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM; Day 4: 6:00 AM - 7:00 AM; Day 5: 7:00 AM - 8:00 AM.)

6. Dollhouse (2009-10; two seasons, 26 episodes). Fox's tragic (if utterly predictable) mishandling of Joss Whedon's borderline brilliant third show – the studio interference, the wasteland Friday timeslot, the feeble promotion efforts – was unforgivable, but it may actually have worked in the series' favor. The most consistently innovative showrunner in the business (as well as one of the two best pure writers alongside Aaron Sorkin), Whedon knew relatively early that "Dollhouse" was ill-fated, and this foreknowledge allowed him to concoct a closed-end story that actually gave his monumentally ambitious show a proper ending. Regardless, "Dollhouse" stands as an extraordinary assemblage of television talent, with an astonishingly persuasive Eliza Dushku leading the way. The premise – Dushku plays one of a handful of "dolls" who can be imprinted with any set of characteristics and abilities (all according to a high-paying client's needs) – is rife with philosophic possibility, and Whedon mines it greedily, with episodes that touch on everything from sexual exploitation to military intelligence gathering to a wild metaphysical excursion on life after death. If that sounds heavy or dry, it's neither, thanks mostly to Whedon's nimble pen but also to his actors. Dushku, never the most versatile actress, disappears into her character (or rather characters) with aplomb, but the real highlights are Fran Kranz as the super-genius computer programmer and Olivia Williams as the dollhouse's icy, acidic overlord. Just like the characters who populate its title, "Dollhouse" is chameleonic, morphing from action extravaganza to comedic farce to apocalyptic war drama. It's alternately funny, suspenseful, and deeply moving. In essence, it's as if we're one of the dollhouse's customers, only instead of seeking a doll, we're demanding the perfect television show, and just as Whedon promised, "Dollhouse" is everything we want it to be.

(Favorite episodes: Man on the Street; Needs; Spy in the House of Love; Epitaph One; Belonging; A Love Supreme; The Attic; Epitaph Two: The Return.)

5. Sports Night (1998-2000; two seasons, 45 episodes). Aaron Sorkin is smarter than we are. This is his gift and curse. His challenge is not to write a television show involving hyper-intelligent characters engaging in banter so snappy that it borders on musical – he can do that with ease. His challenge is to write such a show without condescending to his audience or parading his intellectual superiority. The chief pleasure of "Sports Night" is that it grants us the opportunity to spend time with smart, articulate people without making us feel as though we're crashing a meeting of Gifted & Talented, Cool Version. Even for his debut show, Sorkin's dialogue is as sharp as ever – his actors don't converse as much as send volleys of silver-spun words back and forth like tennis players. Under a different tone, the dynamic could be alienating, but "Sports Night" bathes its characters with warm compassion, recognizing their foibles even while applauding their wit. As always, Sorkin's actors are remarkably game, most notably Josh Charles and Peter Krause as the two lead anchors, while Joshua Malina occasionally seizes the spotlight with his inimitable sincerity (he perfectly personifies the sports-nerd stereotype only to subsequently obliterate it). In spite of its title, "Sports Night" is even less about sports than Sorkin's "West Wing" was about politics. It's really about people: their passions, their flaws, their laudable desire to do a job and do it well. In that way, they're just like we are. Just much smarter.

(Favorite episodes: Shoe Money Tonight; Rebecca; Dana and the Deep Blue Sea; The Sword of Orion; Eli's Coming; The Cut Man Cometh; Draft Day.)

4. Firefly (2002; one season, 15 episodes, plus post-series movie Serenity). If Fox's mismanagement of "Dollhouse" was unfortunate, its bungling of Joss Whedon's equally magnificent "Firefly" was appalling. When presented with Whedon's stupendous two-hour pilot, the network rejected it as too slow and demanded that he create a more fan-friendly version. It then marketed the show as a jokey action comedy, then aired a number of episodes out of order, then ultimately canceled it before it could complete a full season run. Thankfully, the series can now be seen in its proper sequence, which is a blessing, because "Firefly" is a treasure. A glorious fusion of new-age sci-fi and classic Western, the show exploits Whedon's gift for combining archetypal storylines with richly original characters. As it follows a ragtag group of rebels scrounging for the next day's pay (and a little justice), "Firefly" succeeds as an homage to classic genre tales, but it's no mere imitator, carving out an identity all its own. Nowhere is this more evident than in Whedon's dialogue, in which he creates a lyrical cadence as distinctive as that of Mamet or Tarantino. The acting is also uniformly excellent, most notably Nathan Fillion (oozing Han Solo, only more nonchalant) in a transcendent turn as the crew's captain. (As a special treat, Christina Hendricks smolders in two guest appearances.) An exemplar of the show's guiding spirit is its main set, the spaceship "Serenity", a marvel of both ingenious innovation and rustic charm. Of course, the "Serenity", per the show's mythology, is deemed a Firefly-class. Quite.

(Favorite episodes: Serenity (pilot); Our Mrs. Reynolds; Out of Gas; Objects in Space.)

3. Mad Men (2007-present; four seasons, 52 episodes). "Mad Men" has become so universally praised that it's almost pointless to keep heaping accolades on it. But we've also reached the precarious point where some people are beginning to take the series for granted, and I think it's important to acknowledge the historic achievement the show represents, not just for AMC (now the second must-see network alongside HBO) but for the medium of television as a whole. That may sound hyperbolic, but remember that "Mad Men" is a dialogue-driven period piece set in an advertising agency featuring a morally clouded protagonist and not a single action scene. That's not exactly the formula for commercially successful TV. But what truly sets "Mad Men" apart, aside from its impeccable 1960s setting, is its unceasing devotion to character development. Pivoting on the now-legendary Don Draper (Jon Hamm, peerless) but consistently stretching outward to colorize all edges of its universe, the show adds dimensionality to all of its inhabitants, great and small. It introduces us to the affable executive (John Slattery, wonderfully acerbic), the slutty secretary (Christina Hendricks, dropping jaws left and right), and the timid new girl (Elisabeth Moss, eye-opening), only to expose those classifiers as perfunctory within its first few episodes. Characters morph and grow over time, and "Mad Men" exhibits a fearlessness that belies its status as a smash hit, constantly reinventing itself to stave off the merest possibility of ennui. From a literalist perspective, not all that much happens – the plot unfurls deliberately, and characters often take sojourns seemingly disconnected from the main narrative. But "Mad Men" is nevertheless teeming with activity, and it illustrates that, in conversations within sterile boardrooms and musty suburban houses, the stakes of human drama are high indeed.

(Favorite episodes: Red in the Face; Shoot; The Wheel; Meditations in an Emergency; Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency; The Grown-Ups; Shut the Door. Have a Seat; The Suitcase; Blowing Smoke; Tommorowland.)

2. Breaking Bad (2008-present; four seasons, 46 episodes). I never imagined that I could declare "Mad Men" anything less than the best show currently airing, much less the second-best show on its own network. But the excruciating suspense and formal rigor of "Breaking Bad" simply cannot be denied. This is technically a television series, but no TV show has ever been more abundantly cinematic. The premise is simple: Chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston, forever unpredictable but always compelling) learns he's dying of cancer, so he resolves to bankroll his family by cooking meth, recruiting former student Jesse (Aaron Paul, as magnetic as he is sympathetic) as his business partner. From there, "Breaking Bad" spirals into a series of increasingly nightmarish scenarios, continuously ratcheting up the tension to unbearable heights but never losing its undercurrent of black humor (most memorably personified by Bob Odenkirk as sleazy lawyer "Better Call Saul"). In its implementation, the show pairs the depth of character of "Mad Men" itself with the ruthless craftsmanship of No Country for Old Men; the setpieces in "Breaking Bad" are so immaculately conceived and so breathtaking in execution that they frequently incite a "Rewind that, I need to see that again" response. This is entertainment at its grandest, most relentless level, sucking viewers into its vortex of desperation and feeding off of our energy. Scariest is that the first two seasons, although tremendous in their own right, essentially function as setup for the third and fourth – once the ferocious Giancarlo Esposito takes center stage, every single episode is enthralling. Tragic yet funny, bravura yet restrained, "Breaking Bad" stands as a towering monument to the power of the screen, big or small. It cannot be missed.

(Favorite episodes: Pilot; Crazy Handful of Nothin'; A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal; Grilled; Peekaboo; 4 Days Out; ABQ; No Más; Sunset; One Minute; Half Measures; Full Measure; Box Cutter; Crawl Space; End Times; Face Off.)

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003; seven seasons, 144 episodes). The primary advantage of television is time. Movies will always be my favorite form of entertainment, but even the greatest films only keep us in our seats for 2-3 hours. A great television series, however, permits us to travel to its uniquely formed universe and spend time with its characters for literally dozens of hours. And I have never felt more gratified at the opportunity to explore a new world with new people than at the chance to journey to Sunnydale, CA and hang out with Buffy Summers and her friends and foes. And sure, one can expect from its title that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is a goofy, childish lark, but the simplistic notion that this is a show about a hot chick who kills vampires is so ludicrously shortsighted that it's barely worth repudiating. But it's also impossible to deconstruct the show to a single theme. It's about maturity. It's about sacrifice. It's about longing and romance, about love found and lost. It's about children and their parents, about rebellion and forgiveness, about grief and the strength it takes to overcome that grief. It's about friendship, family, heroism, pain, resistance, loss, happiness, and death.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is a television show about all of these things, but most of all, it's about people. People generally, sure, but its people. No show I've ever watched has employed a more caring, empathetic hand when it comes to defining its characters. Joss Whedon's writing has always been sharp and witty, but in "Buffy" its fundamental characteristic is its humanity. He really cares about these people, and as a result, so do we.

For what it's worth, the show is tremendous fun. It strikes the perfect balance between zany imagination and grounded reality, it's fantastically funny, its plot arcs are gracefully envisioned and deftly implemented, its dialogue is consistently fresh and engaging, and its fight sequences have real energy and snap. It's also an extraordinarily rangy series, with specific episodes varying from musical to silent comedy to action thriller to somber drama. It's slam-bang entertainment at its finest.

But it's also so much more. The pleasure – and the brilliance – of the show is its unnerving, silent ability to draw you into its world, to make you feel as if you belong. And in that way, when I watch "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", I'm not just traveling to a marvelously imaginative universe of vampires and demons, of magic and witchcraft, of pathos and hilarity, of righteousness and truth. I'm also going home.

(Favorite episodes: Prophecy Girl; Innocence; Passion; Becoming; Amends; Doppelgangland; Graduation Day; Hush; The Body; The Gift; Once More, with Feeling; Tabula Rasa; Beneath You; Conversations with Dead People.)

The Best Movies of 2010 (Part II)

2011-07-25T23:30:00.003-06:00

If you missed Part I of this list, you can check it out here. Moving right along, here are the Manifesto's Top 10 Movies of 2010:

10. Fair Game. As befits a film based on books by Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, Doug Liman's political thriller is overtly partisan, bristling with outrage from its authors and scorn for the Bush White House. Politics aside, however, Fair Game is a canny, invigorating piece of muckraking cinema. Tightly plotted, crisply edited (remember, Liman made the first and best Bourne picture), and laden with verisimilitude, the movie swiftly and efficiently paints a portrait of both a country in turmoil and a marriage in crisis. Naomi Watts is typically sharp as outed CIA operative Plame, but it's Sean Penn who provides the film's real force. Bringing his considerable talent to bear, Penn portrays Wilson as part righteous firebrand, part weary husband, a confident, decent man lashing out at the institutions who have failed him. Fair Game may inspire heated reactions (perhaps if anyone actually saw it), but it's a reminder that hushed conversations and shadowy figures can form the backdrop for a movie as gripping as any blockbuster.

9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Violent, nasty, and borderline sadistic, Niels Arden Oplev's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's wildly popular novel is not to be taken lightly. But the film's descent into such grisly territory is necessary in order to illustrate the utter depravity that forms the backbone of Larsson's story. While it traffics in ugliness, the screenplay also exhibits patience, gradually weaving the plot's disparate threads together and setting us up for an electrifying final half hour. Oplev's sense of atmosphere is impressively foreboding, while the haunting Swedish landscape helps to heighten the gloom and the dread. And as the iconic title character, Noomi Rapace is singularly compelling, with her brash physicality camouflaging hidden vulnerability. David Fincher's American remake is set to hit screens this Christmas, and while I like Rooney Mara, I wish her luck – the intensity and nuance of Rapace's portrayal is not likely to be imitated easily.

8. The Secret in Their Eyes. Another suspense film that appreciates the virtues of patience, Juan José Campanella's slow-burning crime picture flows easily from danger to romance and back, slipping in and out of different time periods but remaining insistently urgent throughout. Though it functions successfully on many levels, The Secret in Their Eyes is most memorable for its thesis on humanity's thirst for revenge, and the price we're willing to pay for it. Ricardo Darín is thoroughly persuasive as a lawyer searching for the truth, while Campanella shows off some directorial chops, most notably in a dazzling, single-take sequence that sweeps through a soccer stadium. But it's the film's finale that packs its most powerful punch, as we meet a character who has achieved his lifelong quest for vengeance, at the mere cost of his soul.

7. Black Swan. The endemic problem with most mind-fuck movies (think Mulholland Drive) is that they don't abide by any set of rational rules, meaning anything can happen at any time, so our capacity to relate to the onscreen proceedings virtually evaporates. Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan avoids this trap, partly because it tackles the very notion of perception versus reality as its subject matter, and partly because it's just so damn entertaining. As the story burrows deeper into the fractured mind of Nina Sayers, Natalie Portman's tortured protagonist, it becomes very clear to us that something is not quite right, but Aronofsky tethers Nina's mounting psychosis to real-world elements in her ballet company, only gradually turning up the insanity quotient. The result is that we embrace the film's plummeting descent into mental decay, experiencing Nina's horrors from her own splintered perspective. It helps that Aronofsky treats us to a sensual world of splendorous sights, overwhelming us with visual and aural pleasures, including ravishing cinematography, intricate costumes, Tchaikovsky, and Mila Kunis. Black Swan may be a movie about madness, but madness has rarely looked this beautiful.

6. The Square. Noir pictures are so rife with cinematic possibility – from archetypal heroes to cold-blooded femme fatales to diabolical plot twists – that it's surprising we don't see more of them. Nash Edgerton's The Square takes a standard noir blueprint – an ordinary man hopes to escape his life of drudgery with millions of dollars and a beautiful woman, only to find himself in way the fuck over his head – and laces it with desperation. The genius of The Square is that, as the double-crosses pile up and the brilliant plan starts tumbling down, we continually sympathize with David Roberts' titular hero, even as he commits some truly dastardly deeds. Roberts himself is crucial to the film's success, as he embodies a man of fundamental decency driven to horrific extremes seemingly through no fault of his own. Edgerton, meanwhile, wields his camera with a vigor and dexterity reminiscent of the Coen Brothers, effortlessly snaring his audience with faultless technique and a geometric certainty that suits his title. Buyer beware: The Square's corners are awfully sharp.

5. Toy Story 3. I'll admit that I met the prospect of a third Toy Story movie with limited enthusiasm, as it initially seemed like a purely commercial creation from a studio otherwise renowned for focusing on story rather than profits. But while Toy Story 3 was undeniably a marketing bonanza, it turns out that the folks at Pixar still had plenty of story left for its golden goose of a franchise. The magnificence of the animation – the eye-popping colors, the painstaking detail, the characters' limber and lifelike movements – is expected from Pixar at this point, but what really sparkles is Michael Arndt's screenplay. The dialogue flows effortlessly and is free from artifice, while the story of characters journeying into adulthood is recognizably universal but also vitally new. The result is a picture that's both exhilarating and profoundly touching. Toys may never grow up, but people do, and so do film franchises.

4. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Edgar Wright's freewheeling, frenzied adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novel is, I admit, totally bonkers. It's also the trippiest, funniest, most insistently entertaining movie of the year. Approaching the material with a child's zeal but a filmmaker's eye, Wright gleefully transforms Scott Pilgrim's wacked-out zaniness into the cinematic equivalent of a fun-house ride, but he also adroitly ensures that viewers never get thrown from their seats. The movie employs its share of colorful gizmos – thought bubbles form, animations explode, and sound effects splatter – but Wright (ably assisted by his two editors, Jonathan Amos and Paul Machliss) consistently propels the story forward rather than reveling in his own creativity. And it's that combination of spirited inventiveness and narrative drive that turns Scott Pilgrim vs. the World into the most furiously paced fantasy adventure since Moulin Rouge!. The film doesn't always make sense, but its universe is a seductive black hole of imagination and ingenuity, and as the loaded cast (most notably Kieran Culkin and Mary Elizabeth Winstead) delivers one knockout one-liner after the next, we can't help but be sucked into the vortex.

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Many viewers, even ardent fans, complained that this first installment of the stupendous two-part conclusion to the Harry Potter series dragged, featuring too much scurrying and too little action. I won't deny that the film takes its time, but that's precisely the point. By slowing the pace, director David Yates ultimately heightens the tension, effectively conveying the enormity of the quest that lies before his characters, and the sense of hopelessness that continually gnaws at them. This is not to suggest, however, that the movie is boring. On the contrary, Deathly Hallows: Part 1 hums with excitement and energy, as sporadic bursts of action serve as the perfect ballast to the characters' frantic searching and fraying alliances. Gorgeous art direction and chilling, desaturated cinematography deepen the dread, but it's the three lead actors who carry the film. Led by a heartbreaking Emma Watson (her finest performance yet), they remind us that in a world rich with terrors – snarling snakes, possessed lockets, wizards and witches of blackest evil – it is the discord among compatriots that poses our greatest danger, and the bonds of friendship that forge our greatest strength.

2. The Social Network. It's been three years since I've dared to call a film "perfect", but David Fincher's lacerating character study is just about that. A technical marvel, The Social Network is a production of ruthless efficiency and craftsmanship, from Kirk Baxter's and Angus Wall's precise, whiplash editing to Trent Reznor's and Atticus Ross' eerie, ambient score to Aaron Sorkin's incisive, unapologetically smart screenplay (all three earned Oscars). Yet its story is also compelling and vigorously paced, which is particularly amazing given that it's basically scene after scene of people talking and, well, that's about it. Andrew Garfield's heartfelt decency and Justin Timberlake's shrewd opportunism serve as perfect foils for Jesse Eisenberg's scrupulously unsympathetic lead performance, a singular concoction of confusion, obsession, and loneliness. Meanwhile, behind the camera, Fincher shepherds everything forward with merciless detachment. The Social Network may just be a film about the nerd who invented Facebook, but it's also an astonishing reminder of how so much human feeling can be contained in a movie comprised of – and about – all those zeroes and ones.

1. Inception. I'll be honest: On balance, The Social Network is probably a better movie than Inception. Where The Social Network is taut, streamlined, and visceral, Inception is chaotic, bulky, and fantastical, with a boundlessly inventive screenplay that nevertheless raises more questions than it can possibly answer. Yet it still climbs to the summit of my year-end list for one simple reason: It is transportive. As I watched Christopher Nolan's sublime fusion of James Bond-style action and cyber-punk philosophy on dreams, the walls of the theatre melted away, and I found myself brought headlong into his magnificently detailed universe of hurtling trains, rotating hallways, and bending cities. The movie is absolutely breathtaking. You can move down the checklist if you like, marveling at the seamless special effects, the exquisite production design, Hans Zimmer's electric score, the ridiculously talented cast (with Leonardo DiCaprio leading the way), the labyrinthine screenplay. But the truly transcendent quality of Inception is transcendence itself, the way it yearns to be glorious, to be great, to be new. It's more than just a movie – it's va va voom come to life, right up there on the screen. It's cinema's dream.

Till next year.

The Best Movies of 2010 (Part I)

2011-07-12T02:25:00.008-06:00

Movie critics are supposed to publish year-end top 10 lists. It's part of our job (and while I receive no income for holding this alleged "job", I'm still labeling myself a critic and that's that). Sure, you can grouse about how it's morally objectionable to rank subjective works of art against one another or how 10 is an arbitrary figure (I particularly enjoyed ever-bitchy New York Times critic Manohla Dargis seething that our habit of composing 10-item lists functions as tacit approval of the Ten Commandments), but readers have a ravenous appetite for easily digestible summaries of the year that was, and it's our duty to oblige them.

Back in 2007, I defied this silent edict and published a list of the top fifteen movies of the year rather than my usual decathlon. My rationale was entirely laudatory – there were simply more stellar films than there was available space on a catalog of 10. And while I couldn't quite label titles such as Charlie Wilson's War or Juno as one 2007's 10 best films, I couldn't in good conscience exclude them from my commemoration of the year's superlative features. I had no choice: I had to expand the list to 15.

For 2010, I'm inflating my year-end "best of" list to an even 20 films, but my reasoning this year is considerably different. My problem isn't that I saw too many great movies in 2010; my problem is that I saw too few. Don't get me wrong, the past year offered plenty of pretty good movies, but they were just that – pretty good. Maybe it's a slate of increasingly indistinguishable films, or maybe it's my increasingly jaded cinematic sensibilities, but for whatever reason, I found it difficult to separate the wheat of 2010's theatrical offerings from their chaff.

That's the bad news. The good news is that as a result, I now have double the number of movies to recommend to readers, and just because I can't endorse all of these pictures with the utmost zeal doesn't mean they aren't all worth adding to your Netflix queue.

So let's get to it. This post will provide the back half of the list, with the remaining 10 arriving shortly. Here are the Manifesto's Top 10 20 movies of 2010:

(Honorable mention: The American, Another Year, The Ghost Writer, Hereafter, I Am Love, Lebanon, Love & Other Drugs, Rabbit Hole.)

20. The Town. Ben Affleck has made some questionable decisions in the past as an actor (not to mention as a celebrity), but he's atoning in style as a director. His first feature, Gone Baby Gone, was a riveting thriller that flirted with masterpiece status; The Town isn't quite as good, but it nevertheless confirms Affleck as a filmmaker of considerable poise and confidence. The movie breaks little new ground, but its set pieces are executed with such speed and precision that they create genuine suspense. The acting is uniformly strong (an achingly vulnerable Rebecca Hall leaves the most lasting impression, as she always does), and the brisk pace never flags, even during the overlong climax. The Town may not be a great movie, but it's a thoroughly solid one that indicates that Affleck's best has likely yet to come.

19. You Don't Know Jack. HBO may be ceding some ground to AMC in terms of airing the best shows on television, but it remains the preeminent network when it comes to producing feature films. A compassionate, often captivating examination of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Barry Levinson's You Don't Know Jack strikes a delicate balance between professional objectivity and personal outrage. Anchored by a committed Al Pacino – abandoning his late-period bluster and delivering his best performance since Insomnia in the process – Levinson's film is clearly political, but it employs a terse, matter-of-fact style that slyly camouflages its agenda without blunting its impact. Danny Huston turns in superb supporting work as Kevorkian's lawyer, but this is Pacino's movie, as he portrays with perfect clarity a man whose passion in life was his commitment to death.

18. The King's Speech. Depending on my audience, my assessment of 2010's Best Picture victor can vacillate from critical snorting to earnest support. On the one hand, I firmly believe that The King's Speech is the weakest title to take home Oscar's biggest prize since 2005. The visuals are drab, the story is utter cornball, and little about the film feels vital or fresh. On the other hand, the movie dispenses pure pleasure, dodging its underdog-hero clichés by employing a savvy mix of warm humor and heartfelt sincerity. Colin Firth is magnificent as a dignified man fumbling futilely for respect, while Geoffrey Rush is nearly as good as his wry, acid tutor. The King's Speech didn't deserve to win Best Picture, but that doesn't mean it isn't an enjoyable time at the movies.

17. Agora. Alejandro Amenábar's first English-language feature since The Others, Agora grossed a tepid $600 thousand at the domestic box office, as Newmarket showed little interest in promoting it. That's a shame, because American audiences missed out on an odd, often stirring blend of intimate drama and throwback epic. On one level, Agora is a rousing, straightforward tale of old-school religious conflict and barbarism on the scale of The Ten Commandments. Yet it also spends significant screen time on a subplot in which a woman (Rachel Weisz, in fine form) becomes obsessed with discerning Earth's position in the solar system. This latter focus on academic curiosity would seem incongruous with a sword-and-sandal saga, but Amenábar fuses them into a unified story with nimble dexterity. In the end, Agora is a film of true spectacle, whether dealing with a horde of Christian zealots or a diagram drawn in the sand.

16. Shutter Island. As a director, Martin Scorsese has always been playful, even when exploring such sordid subjects as simmering revenge or gangland violence, but in Shutter Island, he abandons any semblance of discipline. The resulting film is nonsensical but never mundane, grotesquely overwrought but furiously watchable. The plot is basically incoherent and essentially has nowhere to go, yet the movie somehow builds and builds, delving ever deeper into its deranged universe. That universe happens to be the mind of its protagonist, Teddy Daniels, and it helps that Daniels is played by Leonardo DiCaprio, turning in yet another jaw-dropper as a desperate man grappling with both the inmates of an asylum and his own inner demons. Hurtling from one bizarre sequence to the next, Shutter Island is a house of cards, threatening to tumble at the slightest breeze, but Scorsese and his star somehow keep us mesmerized, oblivious to the absurdity that surrounds us.

15. Never Let Me Go. The science-fiction label has recently attained a stigma of sorts, as it's usually appended to movies heavy on explosions and light on plot. Mark Romanek's Never Let Me Go, based on Kazuo Ishiguro's wildly popular novel, is technically a science-fiction film, but there's nary an action sequence or cyborg to be found. Rather, it's a hushed, hypnotic drama about the tyranny of disease and the fraying bonds of female friendship. Romanek operates at an unhurried pace that will irritate some viewers, but he lends his characters real depth and shading, and the film ultimately achieves a catharsis of surprising potency. Composer Rachel Portman essays the year's finest musical score, while Keira Knightley's acrid, hopeless yearning is a music all its own.

14. Barney's Version. Paul Giamatti is a magician of an actor. With his hangdog face, scruffy facial hair, and gruff voice, he's virtually the antithesis of a movie star, but he invariably transforms his characters from bumbling schlubs into everyman heroes of indefinable but undeniable charm. And Barney's Version is its irascible leading man personified. A sprawling character study that lurches from past to present and from one undercooked subplot to the next, the movie is a mess, but it's a wonderfully appealing mess, leavened with sharp humor and a central romance that is both highly improbable and deeply moving. Heartfelt supporting work from Rosamund Pike, Dustin Hoffman, and (against all odds) Scott Speedman help elevate the material, but it's Giamatti's winsome, soulful turn as the title character that redeems a film that first appears, much like its protagonist, to be irredeemable.

13. Dogtooth. "This movie is really weird," wrote a YouTube user posting a clip from Dogtooth. No kidding. Giorgos Lanthimos' demented satire of a family who takes home-schooling to the next level is occasionally depraved, frequently disturbing, and consistently transfixing. Lanthimos' style is one of cool, formal discipline, a rigor that helps undercut a story whose myriad absurdities include three incestuous siblings, two beatings involving home video equipment, and one mutilated cat. But Dogtooth's outright lunacy doubles as its strongest asset, as the film plunges us into its well-manicured wilderness and lets us forage for understanding without any guidance. The great pleasure of Dogtooth is not its madness but the manner in which that madness is gradually revealed, as we ever so slowly come to appreciate the depths of Lanthimos' twisted vision, even as we're horrified by the sight.

12. Let Me In. One of the finest films from 2008 was Let the Right One In, a Swedish concoction of equal parts savagery and tenderness. (Its director, Tomas Alfredson, is helming Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, the long-awaited adaptation of the John le Carré smash due in November.) Depending on one's perspective, the decision to remake it just two years later was either a bald insult to Swedish cinema or a noble attempt to tell its story to subtitle-phobic American audiences (if the latter, it was a catastrophic failure, as it scraped just $12 million). Personally, I felt no need for a new version, but evaluated independently, Let Me In is damn impressive filmmaking, with director Matt Reeves sustaining a sinister mood of coiled suspense. Young actors Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloë Grace Moretz are persuasive, but it's Reeves' patience and restraint – his refusal to rush – that lends the film an exhilarating, exhausting tension. Let Me In may have been unnecessary, but it lingers a long time afterward regardless.

11. True Grit. There probably wasn't any more need for the Coen Brothers to remake True Grit than there was for Matt Reeves to remake Let Me In, but I'm still not complaining, not when the Coens brought their trademark perfectionist craft to the screen. (Admittedly, I've yet to see the prior incarnation that gave John Wayne his lone Oscar.) In the Coen canon, True Grit is neither a diabolically clever tale in the mold of Blood Simple nor a ruthlessly unforgiving thriller à la No Country for Old Men. What it is, however, is the most relaxed picture the brothers have made since The Big Lebowski, an effortlessly told drama that pleases easily, even when it's trafficking in deception and murder. There's minimal subtext beneath True Grit, but there's much to behold on the surface, from Roger Deakins' magnificent cinematography to Jess Gonchor's immaculate production design to the Coens' rhythmic adaptation of Charles Portis' dialogue. The Coens have also done cinema a great service in discovering Hailee Steinfeld, the startlingly self-assured actress whose pitch-perfect performance shall remain in memory long after the spectre of this insubstantial, delightful film has faded.

Check back soon for Part II.

The Manifesto's Guide to March Madness 2011

2011-03-14T05:25:00.003-06:00

In the 2004 remake of the movie Alfie, Jude Law plays a Manhattan playboy who casually sleeps with dozens of women but resists a real relationship, partly because he's British and good-looking and just can't pass up banging countless hot chicks, but more because he can't be with a woman without seeing her flaws. "Hair on her arms," he grumbles about one former fling, dismissing an otherwise knockout blonde due to an excess of follicles. He even throws away guaranteed happiness with a perfect 10 played by Marisa Tomei (still in her extended and perhaps infinite prime) just so he can maintain some nebulous sense of masculine freedom. It's a classic character study of a commitment-phobe: Every time Alfie sees something good, he winds up running the other way.

Well, that's exactly how I feel about college basketball this year. Every time I think about backing a potential NCAA tournament champion, all I can see are its flaws. The main difference between Alfie and me – well, other than the fact that he got laid six times a week, whereas I spent roughly four hours every day watching basketball for the past three months – is that Alfie was an idiot who couldn't appreciate the beauty of what sat right in from of him. I, however, am not so deluded, as the objects of my affection – namely the 68 teams vying for this year's NCAA title – are all more flawed than the characters in The Social Network.

Let's just take a sampling of the top contenders: Ohio State has no killer instinct. Kansas has character issues. Pitt lacks a creator. North Carolina has no depth. Duke relies too much on perimeter shooting. Notre Dame has no inside scoring. Texas is coached by Rick Barnes. UCLA can't bring John Wooden back from the dead.

Of course, that this year's top-tier teams are all impressively flawed is hardly surprising in the current era of college basketball, in which the dynasties of old have been replaced with an oppressive sense of parity. Take away home-court advantage, and virtually any team can lose on any given night. From a fan's point of view, this makes college hoops tremendous fun these days, as the competition invariably results in games that are both highly unpredictable and closely contested. But from a prognosticator's perspective, it's a nightmare. How are you supposed to pick a team to win six consecutive games in March when every time you look at that team, all you see is how many different ways it can lose?

Here's the rub: I am an obsessive basketball fan, and never have I watched more basketball in my life than I have this year. Yet paradoxically, I have never felt less confident in making my picks. The 2011 NCAA Tournament is that much of a crapshoot.

And let's not forget the inherent randomness of March Madness. I picked fifth-seeded Butler to reach the Final Four last year, which is easily one of the greatest achievements of my entire life, up there with going undefeated in the regular season in high school tennis for three straight years, along with that one time I watched 11 consecutive episodes of "24" without ever leaving my sofa. Everyone thought I was insane for picking Butler, and the Bulldogs came within that shot of winning the championship.

Here's the thing though: Butler almost lost last year ... to Murray State in the second round. That game was tied at 50 with less than a minute left, and if Gordon Hayward hadn't deflected a last-second pass, my purported fortunetelling brilliance might have crumbled into dust faster than Julian Glover at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That's just how the tourney works.

But that's why it's so much fun. The odds of me correctly forecasting this year's Final Four are roughly equivalent to the odds of the NCAA tapping Jim Calhoun to teach an ethics seminar, but that just makes it a more worthwhile challenge. So here we go with the Manifesto's official guide to March Madness, region by region. (Here's a blank bracket so you can follow along.)

EAST
The jungle: This region is absolutely loaded. The selection committee is taking plenty of (deserved) flak for some of its questionable inclusions (UAB?) at the expense of more worthy clubs (Colorado?), but its inability to evenly apportion the best teams across the four regions represents its biggest failure. Kentucky is one of the scariest teams in the country – they have an RPI of 7 and just demolished all comers in the SEC Tournament – and they're a four seed? Unacceptable.

The top seed: Ohio State is a good basketball team. They feature one of the only true low-post scorers in the country (freshman Jared Sullinger), a point guard whose play is so poised that his favorite band has to be The Hold Steady (freshman Aaron Kraft), a lights-out three-point shooter (Jon Diebler, who canned a preposterous 17 of 20 threes during a two-game stretch earlier this month), a sturdy swingman who can score in the mid-range (William Buford), and an experienced glue guy who does all the little things and never complains (senior David Lighty). They're well-coached, they defend, and they can score both inside and out.

That said, for such a complete team, the Buckeyes have an alarming tendency to allow opponents to hang around. Six of their wins were by five points or less, not to mention their recent overtime squeaker against Northwestern in the Big Ten Tournament. On the plus side, this means that they've proven they can win close games and won't buckle under pressure. On the minus side, it illustrates that they lack killer instinct, which could bite them against stronger competition. Just keep that in mind when you're considering filling them in as your national champion.

The enigma: Ever since much-maligned point guard Larry Drew "transferred" midseason (assuming his teammates didn't make him an offer he couldn't refuse), North Carolina has looked like one of the best teams in the country. Kendall Marshall is a smart point guard with superb court vision, John Henson and Tyler Zeller are forces in the paint (defensively and offensively, respectively), and alleged phenom Harrison Barnes – perhaps upon glancing at the draft boards on draftexpress.com and realizing he was slipping out of the top 10 – suddenly started showcasing the skills that made him the top recruit in this year's class. It's an impressive team, if a thin one (the drop-off in talent from the aforementioned four studs to the team's remaining regulars is precipitous).

Yet the Tar Heels frequently look disinterested and lethargic, turning their talent on in spurts but sleepwalking for long stretches of games. This lackadaisical play came to a head during the ACC Tournament, when Carolina fell behind by 19 points to Miami before storming back, then trailed virtually the entire game against Clemson before Barnes invoked the spirit of Michael Jordan and dropped 40 points to lead another impossible comeback. They tried a similar tactic in the final against Duke, only their second-half run stalled when Barnes missed an open three that would have cut the lead to seven, and the Blue Devils subsequently pulled away. The lesson is simple: If you're as talented as the Tar Heels, you can relax against teams such as Miami and Clemson and get away with it, but you can't do it against high-caliber competition. And that's why they won't be able to beat Ohio State.

The impostor: The Big East landed 11 teams in this year's field, easily a record for a single conference. As a result, you might think a sensible strategy would be to ride as many Big East teams as possible. So why can't I watch Big East basketball without reflexively covering my eyes like I'm watching the scourging scene from The Passion of the Christ? Every Big East game this year seemed to involve two teams that (1) played aggressive defense, (2) were extremely athletic, and (3) executed their half-court offenses as if they were high school JV clubs. With the exception of a composed Notre Dame squad, every team in the Big East is a nightmare to watch on offense. (I remember watching Villanova-Syracuse with my friend Beale, and the quality of play was so bad, Beale kept screaming every five minutes as if he had Tourette's.) West Virginia is no exception. The Mountaineers landed a five seed because of their conference, but it doesn't make them any good.

The headliner: Mark it down: A potential Sweet Sixteen matchup between Ohio State and Kentucky may be the most exciting game of the entire tournament, much less the third round. As I've mentioned, this Kentucky team scares the hell out of me. Terrence Jones is a tremendous talent who can score from anywhere on the court, Josh Harrellson may be the best per-minute rebounder in the country, Doron Lamb and Darius Miller defend and make plays, and Brandon Knight ... well, Brandon Knight is a bit of a wildcard, but he can carry the team when he's on. I was all set to take Kentucky as my sleeper pick for the Final Four until the committee decided the Wildcats should face the top overall seed in the Sweet 16. Damn them.

The snub: Georgia was widely considered a bubble team that lost its chance to make the field of 64 68 when it lost to Alabama for the second time (thanks to an unforgivable timeout from coach Mark Fox that made Chris Webber's gaffe in the '93 championship game look innocuous by comparison). Somehow they landed a freaking 10 seed. Meanwhile, UAB played one ranked team all year (and lost) and somehow squeaked in.

Now, on paper, the two teams with the best case for making the field over the likes of Georgia and UAB are Colorado and Virginia Tech. But the snub that really breaks my heart is Saint Mary's, because I was all set to take the Gaels to the Elite Eight behind the play of Mickey McConnell, possibly the best player in the country no one's ever heard of. Everyone raves about Jimmer Fredette, and rightly so, but McConnell's shooting percentages (51% from the field, 46% from three, and 91% from the line) are reminiscent of Steve Nash. He's a heady player who always makes the right decision and consistently gives his team a chance to win. America deserved to watch him play in March.

The Picks
Play-in games: Texas-San Antonio over Alabama State, Clemson over UAB.

Sweet 16: Ohio State over George Mason, Kentucky over Clemson, Syracuse over Xavier, North Carolina over Washington.

Regional Final: OHIO STATE over North Carolina.

WEST
The jumble: At first glance, this region appears weak. Duke was the lowest-ranked #1 seed, San Diego State plays in the Mountain West and played a creampuff nonconference schedule, and Uconn finished 9-9 in regular season play in the Big East. But let's not forget that the regional final takes place in Anaheim, where San Diego State could have a major crowd advantage. Furthermore, as with Kentucky, Texas is a ferocious #4 seed (I'd pegged them as a #2 seed heading into the selection show). Overall, it's probably the second-weakest region, but it's closer in caliber to the strong Southwest than it is to the embarrassingly bad Southeast.

The top seed: This Duke team is not quite an elite ballclub, but neither was last year's, and all that team did was win the title. The Blue Devils have a Player of the Year candidate in Nolan Smith, a triple-threat guard who defends and doesn't shrink from big moments. They have two sharpshooting guards in Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins, plus a pair of athletic bigs in the Plumlee brothers, both of whom have come on of late. And they have Mike Krzyzewski, which is usually (though not always – see the St. John's debacle from earlier this year) a good thing.

They also have Kyle Singler, my favorite college player since J.J. Redick and potentially one of the best all-around players in the country. I say "potentially" because, for all of the things Singler does well – he's turned himself into an elite perimeter defender, he's offensively versatile in that he can out-quick bigger defenders and out-muscle smaller players, and he's an absolute iron man (he hasn't played fewer than 36 minutes in a game since mid-February) – he won't be truly complete until he discovers who illicitly sold his jumpshot on eBay (he's shooting a horrendous 10% from three over his last nine games). For Duke to win six straight games, they'll need Singler – one of the best players in the school's history – to produce on both ends of the floor.

But Singler's shooting woes embody Duke's Achilles' heel as a unit: They're a perimeter team. Smith is a capable penetrator, especially when driving to his right, but he's as likely to drive-and-kick as he is to finish at the rim, meaning Curry, Dawkins et al. need to be able to knock down open shots. As with most Duke teams, this one's loaded with players who can shoot (including Ryan Kelly, a steady sophomore who's primed for a big season next year), but they're also liable to go cold, and when that happens, they're in trouble.

The incalculable loss: I don't have too much to say about Kyrie Irving. When your team loses the best player in the entire country eight games into the season due to some mystifying toe injury and still lands a number one seed, it's been an impressive season regardless of how it turns out. Suffice it to say that if Irving were healthy, Duke would win the championship. That is not an opinion.

(And if Irving just happens to pull a Willis Reed in the Final Four ...)

The mirage: Don't get me wrong, Kemba Walker is a talented basketball player, and Uconn's blitzkrieg through the Big East Tournament was an astonishing display of athleticism and determination. But that doesn't change the fact that the team simply isn't that good. They have no inside scoring, their perimeter players are wildly inconsistent (three of their regulars shoot less than 40% from the field), and their halfcourt strategy seems to be, "Let's pass the ball around for 28 seconds, then let Walker create". There's a reason they lost four out of their last five regular season games.

Now, it's tempting to think that a player of Walker's caliber can carry a team that plays solid defense and scores in transition. I can buy that for 3-4 games, but six? What happens if he gets in foul trouble? What if a smart team throws a box-and-one at him and forces Shabazz Napier and Roscoe Smith to make plays? What happens if he simply has an off night? He can't win the title by himself.

The nightmare matchup: If a duel between Ohio State and Kentucky is a dream matchup for a general basketball, a contest between Duke and Texas is downright terrifying to Blue Devil fans. This Texas team is athletic, they rebound (ranked fifth in the nation), and as my buddy Mike pointed out, they'll have two tough defenders (Dogus Balbay and Cory Joseph) to throw at Nolan Smith. That they're the only team to beat Kansas at Kansas in the last two years is not an accident. If Rick Barnes weren't involved, I'd be picking Texas to reach the Final Four.

Of course, such a nightmare might remain a mere spectre that haunts my dreams, because Texas might lose to Oakland in the first round. The Longhorns have lost four of their last eight games, including an epic choke against Colorado in which they blew a 22-point lead and played as if God had turned on the "CPU Assist" button in favor of the Buffaloes. Am I really supposed to pick this team to make the Elite Eight? Are we sure there have to be eight teams in the Elite Eight?

(Seriously, can you believe that a year ago there was talk of expanding the tournament field to ninety-six teams? Given this slate of mediocre clubs, I'd be willing to consider reducing the number of eligible teams to 48.)

The farce: Remember that hilarious SportsCenter commercial in which Kenny Mayne and Stuart Scott play basketball with a bunch of kids and flip out whenever the kids did something wrong? I think of that commercial whenever I watch Derrick Williams play on Arizona. A potential top-three pick in the draft (how many freakishly athletic 6'8" forwards shoot 60% from three?), Williams playing in the Pac-10 is like Peyton Manning playing in a Pee Wee league. By all accounts, he's a good teammate, but I can totally see him snapping the next time Kyle Fogg throws up a brick. "When I pass it to you, give it right back. GIVE IT BACK!"

The Picks
Sweet 16: Duke over Michigan, Texas over Arizona, Uconn over Cincinnati, Temple over San Diego State.

Regional Final: DUKE over Temple.

(For the record, I've flip-flopped roughly 35 times on the outcome of that Duke-Texas game. I'm likely still not done.)

SOUTHWEST
The right stuff: This is a strong, well-balanced region – not as loaded as the East, but not as barren as the Southeast. With the exception of Georgetown landing a #6 seed (because Chris Wright is supposedly coming back completely healthy from a broken hand, sure), I can't say a bad thing about this region. And that's rare for me.

The top seed: Part of me thinks that Kansas is the most complete team in the country; part of me thinks the Jayhawks would rather be playing beer pong than focusing on winning a national championship. But when in doubt, I tend to choose talent over character, and make no mistake – Kansas has talent. Brady Morningstar and Tyrell Reed combine to form a steady backcourt, Thomas Robinson is a load inside, and Marcus Morris might be the most underrated player in the country (and he still won Big 12 Player of the Year). They would probably be my clear favorite if Bill Self weren't constantly jerking freshman stud Josh Selby around like he's trying to emulate Jon Voight in Varsity Blues. Still, as long as they keep their heads in the game, the Jayhawks will make it to Houston.

The quiet ones: Notre Dame is hardly an imposing team on the court and would be an afterthought in the overall tournament picture, if it weren't for the irritating fact that they hardly ever lose a game. In a conference defined by athleticism and toughness, the Irish make their living through patience, execution, and perimeter shooting. Could they get riled against a hard-nosed Florida State squad? Sure. Could they ride Ben Hansbrough's decision-making and court savvy to a Final Four berth? It's entirely possible. Basically, I have no idea what to make of them.

The noisy ones: Purdue features one phenomenal talent (JaJuan Johnson, a high-flying big man with shooting touch), one sturdy senior who's capable of taking over a game (E'Twaun Moore), and a bunch of gritty role players who defend, hustle, and generally make life miserable for the opposing team. That's exactly the kind of roster that can give Notre Dame problems, and it's also a roster that has no chance of beating Kansas. Sometimes, things just shake out that way.

The lucky ones: By all accounts, VCU has no business playing in the tournament. They've lost five of their last eight games, they beat one ranked team all year, and they finished third in the Colonial. So why do I feel like they could parlay their good fortune into a serious run, at least beating an overrated Georgetown squad and possibly making Purdue sweat?

The unlucky ones: I like Louisville. I like Kansas more.

The Picks
Play-in game: VCU over USC.

Sweet 16: Kansas over UNLV, Louisville over Richmond, Purdue over VCU, Notre Dame over Florida State.

Regional Final: KANSAS over Purdue.

SOUTHEAST
The wasteland: What a mess. Are the people who placed the teams in this region the same people who are currently negotiating the NFL's labor dispute? I honestly think that the East and the Southeast engaged in secret trade talks, whereby the Southeast sent Kentucky and North Carolina to the East in exchange for Florida, Wisconsin, and the right to host the top overall seed in 2013. There's no other explanation for this putrid collection of teams.

The top seed: If this year's NCAA Tournament were Super Mario Kart, Pitt would be Luigi. It's a team that does everything reasonably well but nothing extraordinarily well. They play defense, they rebound, they're physical, they have one dead-eye shooter (Ashton Gibbs), and they have a sneakily talented all-around player in Brad Wanamaker. And yet, no one on this Pitt team scares me. It's one thing to have a balanced squad; it's another not to have a go-to-guy in crunch-time. Can a team with no stars really make the Final Four?

The fraud: I've been secretly rooting for Florida to do well in the regular season, just so they could get a high seed and inevitably choke in the tournament. I certainly got the first half of my wish, as the Gators inexplicably landed a two seed. The only problem is that every other team in their half of the region is as bad as they are. Nevertheless, I dislike this team. They're led by two guards (Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker) who don't like to pass, make bad decisions, and are inefficient shooters (Boynton shoots just 38% overall and 33% from three). Their big guys are talented but don't get enough touches because their guards don't share the ball. And their best player, small forward Chandler Parsons, is a liability in close games because he shoots 56% from the free-throw line. And they could feasibly reach the Final Four. The Southeast is that bad.

The scouting report: Alright, here's the Manifesto's take on BYU's Jimmer Fredette: Obviously he's a remarkable collegiate player who deserves to be National Player of the Year. But what's his pro stock? Fredette has two major strengths: unlimited shooting range, and an uncanny ability to wriggle into the lane and get his shot off against bigger players. The first should translate just fine to the NBA, but the second will not – Fredette just won't be able to create his own shot at the next level. But that doesn't mean he won't be a reliable scorer off the bench. He's a willing passer with decent vision, and if he works on his defense (given his size, he'll need to defend shooting guards), he could be a valuable role player on a good team. Just don't expect him to drop 52 points against NBA defenses.

In any case, as good as Fredette is, BYU is obviously toast without Brandon Davies. Ever since Davies – the Cougars' lone athletic big man and leading rebounder – was suspended for engaging in some hanky-panky that violated the university's honor code, the team has been in a tailspin, and there's no reason to expect that to change against a high-energy team such as St. John's. That'll teach Davies to have consensual sex with his girlfriend.

The great unknowns: In case you couldn't tell, the amount of college basketball I've watched over the past few months could charitably be described as "unhealthy". And yet, I never managed to catch either Utah State or Belmont. I did, however, watch plenty of both Kansas State and Wisconsin, and I saw more than enough to know that I'm not backing either team against an opponent who's won 30 games. All hail the second-round matchup between 12 and 13 seeds!

The vendetta: Every year, I predict Michigan State to lose in the first or second round, always citing their poor regular season performance. And every year, they advance further than I predict, reaching the Final Four six times in the past 12 years. Well guess what? I'm picking against them again this year. They lost 14 games this season, and they haven't won three in a row since November. You will have to kill me, Tom Izzo. I'm like Lee J. Cobb in 12 Angry Men – I am the last holdout. I will never vote for you while I am alive.

The sleeper: I recognize that ritual requires me to pick at least one team from this wretched region to reach the Final Four. I've already written off the top five seeds (Pitt, Florida, BYU, Wisconsin, and Kansas State). St. John's is intriguing, but the Red Storm are too inconsistent to win four straight games in March. UCLA hails from that wilderness called the Pac-10. Butler doesn't have Gordon Hayward anymore. I'm tempted to write in "Saint Mary's", but ESPN's bracket interface won't let me. Which means I'm left with ...

... Old Dominion.

Sure, it's a stretch, but it's not unfathomable. Old Dominion is good. They've won 13 of their last 14 games. Their only bad loss all season was to VCU. They play a brutal, suffocating zone. They're seventh in the nation in rebounding. And if they pull off a win against Pitt in the second round (basically a home game for ODU in D.C.), the entire New Orleans crowd will be vigorously behind them in the region's final two games.

Besides, I'm taking three #1 seeds in the other three regions, so I need to shake things up a little. It's that kind of year.

The Picks
Play-in game: UNC-Ashville over Arkansas-Little Rock.

Sweet 16: Old Dominion over Pitt, Utah State over Belmont, St. John's over BYU, UCLA over Florida.

Regional Final: OLD DOMINION over St. John's.

FINAL FOUR
Semifinal #1: The only reason I'm picking Duke to get past Texas is that Mike Krzyzewski might be able to out-coach Rick Barnes. He won't be able to do the same to Thad Motta. Ohio State over Duke.

Semifinal #2: If I have the balls to pick Old Dominion to make the Final Four, doesn't that mean I should ride them all the way and back them to beat Kansas? No.

Championship: In a battle between the two most talented teams in the country, I'll take KANSAS' depth and balance over Ohio State's firepower.

And that's a wrap to the Manifesto's guide to March Madness 2011. I look forward to getting most of this wrong, but no matter what happens, I still have this from last year.

2011 gets off to a hot start

2011-03-07T04:44:00.007-07:00

I call it "December Syndrome". It's the strategy whereby movie studios, believing that Oscar voters have short memories, wait to release their best films until as late in the year as possible. Case in point: Of the 10 Best Picture nominees in 2010, four arrived in theatres in December, while only one (Toy Story 3) was available to the public at large prior to July. Similarly, of the past 14 Best Picture winners, eight were released in December, while only two (Gladiator and Crash) came out in the first half of the year.

It's hard to blame studios for sticking with a pattern that works, and as long as voters keep paying homage to movies released late in the season, the months of October through December will continue to constitute a glut of cinematic glory. But the unfortunate byproduct of December Syndrome is that it turns the multiplex into a veritable wasteland for the first half of the year. If you crave high-quality entertainment prior to the summer solstice, you'd better be prepared to burrow into your Netflix account

The months of January through April are particularly barren. Indeed, over the past eight years, of the 80 movies that have appeared on the Manifesto's annual top 10 lists, only five (Adventureland, Duplicity, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Sin City) were released prior to May in their respective years. Obviously that's just one viewer's subjective opinion, but I think it paints a fairly representative picture of the cinematic calendar, and it suggests a rather sober truth: Good movies just don't come out early in the year anymore.

Or so I thought. Happily, 2011 is showing signs of reversing the trend. Not only have I already seen two excellent movies this year; I saw them on back-to-back days. Of course, this is hardly dispositive evidence – for all I know, I won't see another good movie until the final Harry Potter film arrives in July. But this past weekend's one-two punch of Rango and The Adjustment Bureau represents one of the best weekends I've had at the theatre in years. Naturally, the two films could hardly be more different, though they do share one trait: They're both stupendously entertaining.

Rango, which is Gore Verbinski's first feature since the third installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (one of the Manifesto's favorite trilogies, and Exhibit A of the massive gulf between my own taste and that of proper critics), is a magnificent curiosity, both agreeably familiar and wildly original. On one level, it's a traditional western about a solitary drifter played by a movie star (Johnny Depp) who rides into a dusty town that's rife with corruption and who must save the citizenry from seemingly certain doom. On another level, it's an animated movie about a lizard with theatrical aspirations who receives a vision quest from a nearly-severed armadillo and whose travails are narrated by a mariachi quartet who just happen to be owls. So it's safe to say you've never seen anything like Rango, even if you've seen it a hundred times before.

Part of the fun of Rango – and the movie, much like Verbinski's Pirates films, provides just so much fun – lies in its gleeful homage to the classic westerns of yesteryear. In creating the aptly named town of Dirt, the art department concocts a landscape of dust, drought, and tumbleweeds, while the saloons are so shadowy and menacing that you half-expect to walk into a gunfight between Lee Marvin and John Wayne. The plot, in which nefarious evildoers have drained the town of its water supply, instantly recalls Chinatown, while Rango invariably finds himself partaking in gun duels in the sun. Depp's drug-addled character from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas makes a sudden appearance, while Clint Eastwood's archetypal gunslinger from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (voiced flavorfully by Timothy Olyphant) drops in for a rueful cameo, poncho and all (in a coy postmodern touch, he's even referred to as "the man with no name").

Having more fun than anyone is composer Hans Zimmer, who, fresh off soundtracking the dream worlds of Inception, delivers an aural pastiche that pays obvious tribute to the timeless spaghetti scores of Ennio Morricone. Zimmer is best known for his brawny, electronic-infused scores on movies such as The Dark Knight, but his work on Rango is entirely classical, if jovial. He has the gall to ape the famous "Rise of the Valkyries" sequence from Apocalypse Now, only replacing the brassy trumpets with a banjo, while his main theme features a lilting flute. It's some of the most innovative and colorful work in his storied career.

But apart from its sly send-ups of past films, Rango has virtues all its own, most notably in its wacky, off-kilter personality. The voice work is strong, especially Depp, who showcases the same offbeat sensibility he brought to Capt. Jack Sparrow, along with Bill Nighy as the malevolent Rattlesnake Jake, a venomous villain whose rattle doubles as a machine gun. John Logan's dialogue is full of delightful non sequiturs ("Irrelevant! Obfuscation."), with the owls serving as a demented Greek chorus. (My personal favorite: "And so the stranger basks in the adulation of his new friends, sinking deeper into the guacamole of his own deception.")

Visually, the movie is resplendent. The first animated film from George Lucas' Industrial Lights and Magic, Rango is dazzlingly bright but also grimy and gritty, as befits its western locale. The textures are beautifully detailed, from the title character's scaly skin to the dust motes that clutter the frontier. Moreover, Verbinski brings a maestro's discipline to his action sequences, which are energetic but not disorienting, meaning we can actually comprehend who's going where.

Rango isn't perfect. The ultimate resolution is a bit ordinary for a film of such sparkling verve, and the romance between Rango and his designated love interest never quite pops. But those are quibbles. When a film treats its audience to a shot such as the one below – an image that encapsulates the epic sweep of an entire genre that also happens to feature a lizard riding a chicken – we're hard-pressed not to bask in the glory of the sunset.

The Adjustment Bureau carries a whiff of Rango's gung-ho spirit, though it channels that energy in markedly different ways. On the surface, it's a dystopian metaphysical thriller about a man fighting against his own fate. The forces working against him are, quite literally, the agents of God, and the film addresses such weighty philosophical topics as predestination vs. free will and the fundamental flaws of humanity. It's a high-concept picture that occasionally seems as though it was scripted by a devotee of 2001: A Space Odyssey who did a bit too much LSD.

Yet the best and most important scene in The Adjustment Bureau is entirely bereft of any element of science-fiction, philosophy, or even action. It takes place in a hotel bathroom and involves an ordinary, mundane conversation between a man and a woman. Or it would be mundane, were it not for the crackling chemistry between Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, who play David and Elise, the two lovers at the epicenter of the movie's vertiginous spiral. It's a simple meet-cute – he's practicing his speech in the men's room, where she's hiding from security – that transforms into an exhilarating patter between two intelligent, sexually hungry people who are irresistibly and forever drawn to each other. There's just one problem: God doesn't approve.

The reason The Adjustment Bureau works so well is that it anchors its metaphysical goofiness in the problems and feelings of very real people. The basic thrust of the movie is that David, upon falling in love with Elise, learns that powerful forces are determined to keep them apart, only he refuses to acquiesce – that is, he is simply incapable of giving up on his true love. Accordingly, the success of the entire film hinges on that opening scene. If we are honestly to believe that David would do everything in his power (and a few things beyond his power) to reunite with Elise, then the bond that forms between them must be both pure and visceral.

And Damon and Blunt play it perfectly. In both the initial meet-cute and a chance encounter (or is it?) on a bus shortly thereafter, they instantaneously exude lust, longing, and actual love. It helps that they're both spectacularly good-looking; in our minds, keeping such bastions of beauty apart would be nothing short of sinful. But it's more about the electricity that surrounds them. George Nolfi's dialogue buffets the characters' words back and forth like a fencing match, and the actors seize on the dialogue. David, a young and already jaded politician, can sense the presence of authenticity, and Damon plays this recognition with baffled, awestruck wonder. Blunt, for her part, is an absolute firecracker, commanding her foil's attention with the slightest lean of her lithe body. Watching them, we recognize that they're meant to be together.

Except, of course, they're not. David quickly finds himself face-to-face with an army of "case officers" clad in monochrome suits and clutching books that seem to be continually writing themselves. Their affiliation is ambiguous, but their powers are unassailable, and their message is equally clear: Stay away from Elise.

What follows is a dizzying series of improbable events, buttressed by some philosophical ruminations on world history and the nature of man. All of this is preposterous; it is also tremendous fun. You can't put a price on the exchange between David and a particularly severe adjuster named Thompson (an effective Terence Stamp), when David wonders what happened to free will, and Thompson replies, "We tried free will. Didn't work.".

Yet I don't mean to imply that I'm mocking The Adjustment Bureau. It is, to its great credit, a movie about big ideas, and it approaches those ideas with a seriousness that's generally anathema to the multiplex. Nolfi, adapting a short story by sci-fi legend Philip K. Dick and also making his directorial debut, shows an ability to ask probing, academic questions while constantly pushing the pace and upping the stakes. He also expresses his ideas visually, such as in a magnificent shot in which the camera lingers on two lovers sprawled on a bed in apparent bliss, then pans down to reveal a figure watching over them with questionable intentions.

Casting is crucial in any movie that stakes its success on romantic chemistry, and The Adjustment Bureau gets it right. Damon served as the ideal Jason Bourne because he could be both intense and oddly blank, and that latter quality informs his character's cynicism toward politics; it also allows him to bounce from playing the sleepwalking, speechifying candidate to the earnest, smitten champion. Blunt has the more challenging role because she's required to exude exasperation and confusion as well as emotion, and she nails it – the fear on Elise's face when her world is suddenly turned upside-down is hauntingly real. Meanwhile, John Slattery slips into the well-oiled shoes of a high-level adjuster with supreme ease.

For a movie that takes as many nervy chances as The Adjustment Bureau does, it's unsurprising that not all of them work. The final voiceover is far too on-the-nose and should have been excised, while some of the plot contortions feel forced. But perhaps that sense of narrative suddenness is only fitting in a film that has the temerity to suggest – with a straight face, no less – that we're all moving along some preordained path that can be continuously adjusted.

Walking out of the theatre, I gushed to my father how much I enjoyed the movie, and he stoically replied, "Well, you're a romantic". Indeed I am, and a hopeless one at that. My three favorite films of the past decade were Atonement (a love story between an aristocrat and her gardener), Spider-Man 2 (a love story between a superhero and the girl next door), and Wall-E (a love story between two robots who can't talk). There's something singularly satisfying about watching a movie that properly captures the giddiness of falling in love and the desperation of losing that feeling. The Adjustment Bureau, for all its metaphysical ambitions and penetrating societal insights, is at its heart about the existence of love and its transcendent value. It's about a simple, cockamamie belief that's so crazy it has to be true: Love can change the world.

And that was my weekend at the movies. I never imagined I'd say this, but if the rest of 2011 can keep pace with the first weekend in March, it's going to be an awfully good year.

Oscars Analysis 2010: Recap

2011-03-04T02:42:00.004-07:00

For someone who's completely obsessive about the awards handed out at the Oscars, I'm somewhat indifferent about the actual Oscars themselves. That's because the Academy Awards telecast, often dubbed the "Super Bowl for women", is a showcase for high fashion ("you're talking about fashion? you?"), banal stargazing, and inoffensive self-congratulation, absolutely none of which interests me. Don't get me wrong, I still view the Oscars as the most important event of the year in terms of cinematic recognition; I just think the show itself is a bit of a bore.

That said, this year's telecast has taken a relentless drubbing of criticism, and I'll venture that it wasn't that bad. Yes, James Franco was lifeless and disinterested, the original song performances remain a gigantic snooze, and most of the speeches were bland and uninspired. But the show had its share of moments, including Robert Downey, Jr.'s and Jude Law's rat-a-tat chemistry, Kirk Douglas reaching back for a mid-90s fastball, Billy Crystal's welcome cameo, and Jennifer Lawrence showing up in a stunning red dress and sending thousands of horny teenagers to their laptops to desperately Google "Jennifer Lawrence Esquire photo shoot". Plus Anne Hathaway did her damnedest to compensate for Franco's apathy with an abundance of boisterous energy, most memorably in an amusing rendition of Les Misérables' "On My Own". So while the 2010 Academy Awards telecast was hardly memorable, it was by no means a catastrophe.

(Personally, my favorite moment came during the Best Actress presentation, when a friend of mine, who shall remain nameless in order to protect his identity/relationship, texted me, "Whoa, who the fuck is Jennifer Lawrence and why is she so hot?" To answer the first question, she's the highly talented star of Winter's Bone, and although only 43 people in America saw that movie, mainstream audiences will have the opportunity to savor her this summer as Mystique in X-Men: First Class. To answer the second, I'll let that photo shoot speak for itself.)

Regardless, I tune into the Oscars for the awards, not the spectacle. As far as my predictions turned out, I – much like the show – delivered a thoroughly mediocre performance. I hit on 15 of 21 categories, and while that's hardly a disastrous showing, it's two off from my 17-for-21 mark at last year's Oscars. That said, it was a relatively difficult slate this year, so it's hard to be too disappointed. Besides, next year I can devote countless hours to the same pursuit in an effort to bounce back. (As if I needed an excuse.)

Alright, let's put a bow on the 2010 Oscar season and rip through the categories, with some brief (no, really) commentary for each. In order of the presentation of the awards:

Best Art Direction
Predicted winner: Alice in Wonderland
Actual winner: Alice in Wonderland

This was an early victory for me, as I had been concerned about a broad sweep in the technical categories for The King's Speech. I needn't have worried in that regard, as the high-prestige drama failed to pick up a single craft award.

Best Cinematography
Predicted winner: ~~True Grit – Roger Deakins~~
Actual winner: Inception – Wally Pfister

Probably my biggest whiff of the night (I had labeled my confidence in True Grit as 3/5). I was convinced poor Roger Deakins would get off the schnide, but the Academy went with the more technically impressive picture overall. I had my issues with certain areas of Pfister's photographical style, but the film's visuals on the whole are magnificent, so I can hardly complain.

Best Supporting Actress
Predicted winner: ~~Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit~~
Actual winner: Melissa Leo – The Fighter

The lone major category that was up for grabs, and I choked. Unfortunately, Leo's legacy will likely be that she dropped an f-bomb during her speech, when she really should be remembered for robbing Hailee Steinfeld. On the plus side, Kirk Douglas' meandering, unapologetically senile presentation of the award was phenomenal.

Best Animated Feature
Predicted winner: Toy Story 3
Actual winner: Toy Story 3

No bragging points here, as another victory in this category for Pixar was an absolute lock. For what it's worth, I cracked up at Justin Timberlake's confession to Mila Kunis, "I'm Banksy," even if I was only one of eight people in the country who laughed.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Predicted winner: The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin
Actual winner: The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin

It wasn't the only victory of the night for The Social Network, but it was the most important, as well as the most deserved.

Best Original Screenplay
Predicted winner: The King's Speech – David Seidler
Actual winner: The King's Speech – David Seidler

I'll admit that after Inception's surprise victory for cinematography, I was pulling for an upset here, but it wasn't to be. Kudos to first-time winner Seidler for perhaps the line of the night, when the 73-year-old informed the audience, "My father always said to me I'd be a late bloomer". Indeed.

Best Foreign Language Film
Predicted winner: ~~Biutiful~~
Actual winner: In a Better World

I had absolutely zero confidence in my pick here, so I'm hardly surprised I was wrong. I look forward to catching up with Susanne Bier's latest, highly regarded film on Netflix in 2014. Also, Russell Brand and Helen Mirren showcased more chemistry in presenting this award than James Franco and Anne Hathaway displayed in the entire show.

Best Supporting Actor
Predicted winner: Christian Bale – The Fighter
Actual winner: Christian Bale – The Fighter

I should hope so.

Best Original Score
Predicted winner: The Social Network – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
Actual winner: The Social Network – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross

Probably my best call of the night, as many pundits had pegged The King's Speech here. It was at this point that I started talking myself into David Fincher winning for Best Director. I hate it when I talk myself into things.

Best Sound Mixing
Predicted winner: Inception
Actual winner: Inception

The most technologically savvy movie of 2010 had no difficulty grabbing its share of Oscars, as it actually tied The King's Speech with four.

Best Sound Editing
Predicted winner: Inception
Actual winner: Inception

Ibid.

Best Makeup
Predicted winner: The Wolfman
Actual winner: The Wolfman

My favorite part of this category was when they showed clips of Benicio del Toro's various transformations, and my mother covered her eyes and groaned, "Tell me when it's over". I remember doing the exact same thing while watching The Fountain, only I had to keep my eyes covered for an hour and a half.

Best Costume Design
Predicted winner: ~~The King's Speech~~
Actual winner: Alice in Wonderland

Prior to the ceremony, I'd likened The King's Speech performance at the Oscars to that of Slumdog Millionaire, which used its coattails to bring in eight total trophies. As it turned out, the more appropriate doppelganger was No Country for Old Men, which also won for its screenplay, director, and one of its actors but failed to garner any additional awards (you know, other than Best Picture). And the similarities between the two movies pretty much end there.

Best Documentary
Predicted winner: Inside Job
Actual winner: Inside Job

Ha! Take that, Banksy! And I hadn't even seen any of the nominees. Then again, perhaps that indicates that my fervent efforts to watch effort Oscar-nominated movie (outside of this category) is simply a waste of time. I don't want to think about this, let's just move on.

Best Visual Effects
Predicted winner: Inception
Actual winner: Inception

You were expecting something else? Also, Downey, Jr. and Law absolutely demolished their presentation and made a strong case for hosting next year. Then again, it's probably easier to come off as winning and natural when you're only on stage for three minutes as opposed to three hours.

Best Film Editing
Predicted winner: ~~The King's Speech – Tariq Anwar~~
Actual winner: The Social Network – Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall

Kudos to the Academy here for not just tagging along with the Best Picture frontrunner and recognizing the superlative editing work in The Social Network. Poor Fincher must have considered himself the favorite for Best Director at this point.

Best Original Song
Predicted winner: ~~Tangled – "I See the Light" (Alan Menken, Glenn Slater)~~
Actual winner: Toy Story 3 – "We Belong Together" (Randy Newman)

Boring song. Decent speech. Whatever. This category can get lost.

Best Director
Predicted winner: Tom Hooper – The King's Speech
Actual winner: Tom Hooper – The King's Speech

And this represented the one true moment of suspense on Oscar night. Following moderately surprising victories for editing and original score, The Social Network had positioned itself, if not to walk away with the big prize, then at least to see its mastermind receive recognition. No such luck.

Best Actress
Predicted winner: Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Actual winner: Natalie Portman – Black Swan

Anyone else disappointed that Mila Kunis didn't present this award as well?

Best Actor
Predicted winner: Colin Firth – The King's Speech
Actual winner: Colin Firth – The King's Speech

A friend of mine gambled on the Oscars, which can be sensible in certain situations. But it made me wonder: How high would the odds have had to be for me to pick someone other than Colin Firth here? I think I would have required a 500-to-1 return on my investment before even considering wagering on someone else. And I still probably would have chickened out.

Best Picture
Predicted winner: The King's Speech
Actual winner: The King's Speech

The actual award was a foregone conclusion, but the presentation itself featured some interesting moments. The first was the Academy's curious decision to have the climactic scene from The King's Speech act as the voiceover while showing a montage of clips from the 10 nominees, almost as if they were saying, "Look, you know what's winning as well as we do, and there's no point pretending, so we might as well have some fun with it".

The second was Steven Spielberg's remark that the losers in the Best Picture race would go on a list of films that included The Grapes of Wrath, Citizen Kane, The Graduate, and Raging Bull. (I would have been more impressed if he'd mentioned Saving Private Ryan, then just stalked off the stage in a huff.) It may have been innocuous, but if you were feeling cynical, you could argue that it suggested that The King's Speech, for all its gloss and prestige, is less likely to achieve cinematic immortality than losing nominees such as Inception or The Social Network. In any case, it was an intriguing end to an otherwise predictable night at the Oscars.

And that's a wrap. Thanks for following the Manifesto's coverage this year, and here's to doing it all over again in 2012.

Oscars Analysis 2010: Prediction roundup

2011-02-27T05:37:00.002-07:00

Last year, my friend K-Bails told me that she printed out all of my Oscar predictions and scrutinized them while watching the actual telecast. I have no idea why she did this; all I know is that when she told me, it was the proudest moment of my life since I made a game-winning over-the-shoulder catch in my first ever rec league softball game. Moments such as those are all too elusive – you have to treasure them.

Accordingly, I'm consolidating my 2010 predictions in this post for handy reference. Go nuts, K-Bails.

Also, in general, this is one of the more difficult Oscar slates in recent memory, as a number of races are incredibly close, while several others could go a number of ways. As such, I'm supplying a confidence level for each of my predictions, just to illustrate where I'm reasonably comfortable and where I'm completely grasping at straws. Of course, I'll probably wind up drilling the difficult categories and whiffing on some of the easy ones, but I suppose that would only prove my point (sort of).

Here goes nothing. Categories are listed in order of least to most confident (as always, I'm omitting the shorts):

Best Supporting Actress
Will win: Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit (confidence: 1/5)
Should win: Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit
Worst snub: Lesley Manville – Another Year

Best Art Direction
Will win: Alice in Wonderland (confidence: 1/5)
Should win: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Worst snub: Shutter Island

Best Original Score
Will win: The Social Network – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross (confidence: 1/5)
Should win: How to Train Your Dragon – John Powell
Worst snub: Never Let Me Go – Rachel Portman

Best Original Song
Will win: Tangled – "I See the Light" (Alan Menken, Glenn Slater) (confidence: 1/5)
Should win: Tangled – "I See the Light" (Alan Menken, Glenn Slater)
Worst snub: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – "Let's Get Lost" (Bat for Lashes/Beck)

Best Foreign Language Film
Will win: Biutiful (Mexico) (confidence: 1/5)
Should win: Dogtooth (Greece)
Worst snub: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Sweden)

Best Film Editing
Will win: The King's Speech – Tariq Anwar (confidence: 2/5)
Should win: The Social Network – Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall
Worst snub: Inception – Lee Smith

Best Costume Design
Will win: The King's Speech (confidence: 2/5)
Should win: Alice in Wonderland
Worst snub: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best Makeup
Will win: The Wolfman (confidence: 2/5)
Should win: abstain (haven't seen the remaining nominees)
Worst snub: Let Me In

Best Director
Will win: Tom Hooper – The King's Speech (confidence: 3/5)
Should win: Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
Worst snub: Christopher Nolan – Inception

Best Cinematography
Will win: True Grit – Roger Deakins (confidence: 3/5)
Should win: True Grit – Roger Deakins
Worst snub: The American – Martin Ruhe

Best Documentary Feature
Will win: Inside Job (confidence: 3/5)
Should win/worst snub: abstain

Best Picture
Will win: The King's Speech (confidence: 4/5)
Should win: Inception
Worst snub: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Best Actress
Will win: Natalie Portman – Black Swan (confidence: 4/5)
Should win: Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Worst snub: Tilda Swinton – I Am Love

Best Supporting Actor
Will win: Christian Bale – The Fighter (confidence: 4/5)
Should win: Christian Bale – The Fighter
Worst snub: Sean Penn – Fair Game

Best Original Screenplay
Will win: The King's Speech – David Seidler (confidence: 4/5)
Should win: Inception – Christopher Nolan
Worst snub: The Square – Joel Edgerton, Matthew Dabner

Best Adapted Screenplay
Will win: The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin (confidence: 4/5)
Should win: The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin
Worst snub: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 – Steve Kloves

Best Sound Mixing
Will win: Inception (confidence: 4/5)
Should win: Inception
Worst snub: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Best Sound Editing
Will win: Inception (confidence: 4/5)
Should win: Inception
Worst snub: How to Train Your Dragon

Best Actor
Will win: Colin Firth – The King's Speech (confidence: 5/5)
Should win: Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Worst snub: Ryan Gosling – Blue Valentine

Best Visual Effects
Will win: Inception (confidence: 5/5)
Should win: Inception
Worst snub: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Best Animated Feature
Will win: Toy Story 3 (confidence: 5/5)
Should win: Toy Story 3
Worst snub: Tangled

And that's a wrap. Thanks for following the Manifesto's 2010 Oscar coverage. As a reward, here is a clip of one of the greatest opening scenes in movie history.

Oscars Analysis 2010: Best Picture and Best Director

2011-02-27T04:37:00.002-07:00

For most of the Oscars' history, the categories of Best Picture and Best Director were virtual redundancies, with the filmmaker of the former almost always being honored in the latter. Yet the Academy started spicing things around the turn of the century, and in the eight-year span from 1998 to 2005, four directors earned trophies for movies that failed to come away with the big prize.

The last four years, however, have signaled a return to the systematic overlap of the prior half-century. Will 2010 prove to be different? We can only hope.

BEST PICTURE

NOMINEES
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

WILL WIN
I normally save my analysis of Best Picture for last, but this year, there's little point, given the complete lack of suspense. Anyone picking against The King's Speech is grasping for an elusive justification and ignoring the simple truth. (For example, those desperate to pick an alternative might eagerly point out that The King's Speech takes considerable liberties with the facts, namely that the character played by Guy Pearce was actually a Nazi sympathizer. It's an entirely correct charge, and it's just as entirely meaningless. Indeed, you could levy that exact same complaint against The Social Network. This isn't an award for best documentary, folks.)

That simple truth is twofold. First, The King's Speech bears all the hallmarks of a classic Oscar winner (historical drama, British pedigree, triumphant ending, protagonist with physical disability, naked Gwyneth Paltrow – O.K., that last one only applies to Shakespeare in Love, but everything else is valid). Second, the movie won at the Producers' Guild, an association that uses the same (moronic) preferential voting system as the Academy and that just happens to be the single best predictor of Best Picture at the Oscars.

Defy those facts at your peril. I wish I could mount a serious argument in favor of The Social Network, but as ardent a supporter of that film as I am, it just doesn't have the Oscar juice. This race was over a long time ago.

SHOULD WIN
With 10 nominees, let's break these into five tiers of two films apiece.

Tier 5: These aren't the droids you're looking for. I liked Winter's Bone just fine, but why critics singled it out as the standard-bearer of the 2010 indie scene is beyond me; it's an appropriately small-scale film that doesn't try to do too much, but its ultimate impact is correspondingly slight. 127 Hours is almost the opposite – a brash, sensory-heavy experience that can't recognize when to hit the brakes.

Tier 4: Decent movie. Can we go now? The Fighter is a suitably pleasant filmgoing experience that, outside of Christian Bale's extraordinary performance, takes no chances and breaks no new ground whatsoever. The Kids Are All Right is more cagey and ambitious, but it can't quite connect its themes of familial strife and sexual identity into a unifying thesis.

Tier 3: Solidly workmanlike and thoroughly enjoyable. The King's Speech may be as safe as The Fighter in terms of its traditional style and its exploration of underdog genre tropes, but it proceeds with such clarity and fluidity that it's impossible not to enjoy. True Grit similarly mines familiar territory, but the Coen Brothers' masterful dexterity elevates it to high art.

Tier 2: Prepare to get your world rocked. Black Swan, in its own maniacal way, provides the giddiest moviegoing experience of the year, as if you surrender yourself to its flights of phantasmagorical fancy, you'll be hypnotized with horror. Toy Story 3, meanwhile, revisits old friends with a strikingly new perspective, resulting in the most emotional moment at the movies this year. Either way, you're feeling something, and that's what great movies are about.

Tier 1: Wow. My two favorite films of the year, as I've been saying for some time, are Inception and The Social Network. Both are products of impeccable craftsmanship, but the similarities may end there. Inception is a daring, singular vision, a lavishly designed thrill ride down the rabbit hole of our own minds. The Social Network, in contrast, is a precise, surgical character study of innovative genius and a gripping examination of the twin desires for individual recognition and human connection. Both are magnificent cinematic achievements that will be remembered long beyond this year's Oscar ceremony.

So which is better? It's a bit unsavory to reduce the discussion of two monumental works of art to a question that is so vulgarly binary, but the award is for Best Picture, so such is life. The answer, I think, depends upon what you most value in movies. Do you favor intimate, dialogue-driven pictures that prod at society's eternal need for relationships in an increasingly isolated world? Or do you prefer excruciatingly detailed, boldly original set pieces that function both as thrilling escapism and as probing philosophical questions about the very nature of dreams?

Again, this is a false choice, as the proper answer is "both". But the question must be answered, and fantasy junkie that I am, I tend to favor the latter. Make no mistake, The Social Network is perfect. But Inception is transcendent. And that's why it's the best movie of 2010.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
I'll unveil this at some point when I post my own top 10 list for 2010. My reason for waiting isn't that I'm intentionally teasing my readers (the nerve! the suspense!) but that I want to see as many movies as possible before finalizing my list. Granted, of all the releases in 2010, I watched 92 in theatres, plus another 34 on Netflix, but there are still many more I need to consume. A movie fanatic's work, it appears, is never done.

BEST DIRECTOR

NOMINEES
Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
Joel & Ethan Coen – True Grit
David Fincher – The Social Network
Tom Hooper – The King's Speech
David O. Russell – The Fighter

WILL WIN
Now we're talking. The curious thing about this year's Oscars is that, while the Best Picture award is virtually a foregone conclusion, the Best Director race remains thoroughly in debate. It's merely a two-party show, however, as the only real contenders are Tom Hooper for The King's Speech and David Fincher for The Social Network. The prevailing theory from some pundits is that The Social Network, being fucking awesome, has to win at least one major category, and given that Colin Firth is a Fenster-Sneckler-380 lock for Best Actor, Fincher is the Facebook crowd's best bet. Moreover, said pundits contend that Fincher is a known name amidst Academy circles, whereas Hooper is a relative amateur, meaning the latter hasn't yet paid his dues.

Unfortunately, I have major issues with that theory. First, Hooper won at the Directors' Guild, and no filmmaker who won that award has lost at the Oscars since Rob Marshall for Chicago in 2002. Second, I'm already pegging The Social Network to win a major award, namely Best Adapted Screenplay. And finally, Fincher isn't exactly Clint Eastwood – this is only his second nomination, and he's still just 48 years old, so voters will have plenty of opportunities to reward him in the future.

I hope I'm wrong, of course, as I do in so many categories at this year's Oscars. But too many arrows are pointing in Hooper's direction. And if I'm right, well, here's to what Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park.

SHOULD WIN
Russell's nomination is a sham and merits no further discussion. Hooper's isn't much more deserved, as his workmanlike approach to The King's Speech is serviceable but hardly award-worthy. The Coens do their usual magnificent work in True Grit, and even if the result is strangely unmemorable, that shouldn't take away from the Brothers' poise and precision.

Now, outside of the completely badass Henley Regatta sequence, it's tempting to overlook Fincher's masterful command of The Social Network, given that the film plays host to Aaron Sorkin's superb screenplay and a bevy of flawless performances. But it's Fincher's movie, and he ensures that the pacing remains tight, the editing crisp, and the visuals sharp yet unobtrusive.

That said, I'm actually going to go against The Social Network and take Darren Aronofsky for his startlingly ambitious work in Black Swan. Part of it is just a matter of relative value-add; Fincher started his movie with a great script and a top-notch cast, whereas the premise of Aronofsky's picture is utterly preposterous and stars an actress who, until this film, had never truly wowed audiences. But the helmer of Requiem for a Dream dives into the absurdity of Black Swan with both a fanboy's relish and a maestro's discipline, transforming a potentially laughable horror flick into an unforgettable movie that is delectably nightmarish.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
Christopher Nolan – Inception
Martin Scorsese – Shutter Island
Edgar Wright – Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
David Yates – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Aronofsky's nomination is welcome; Nolan's snub is criminal. Scorsese abandons all sense of discipline and turns a nonsensical mess into a compelling psychological thriller. Wright brings boundless energy to the off-kilter universe of Scott Pilgrim, and the result is pure joy. Yates, in contrast, approaches the penultimate installment of a landmark cinematic franchise with patience and restraint, creating an exhilarating adaptation that stands quite well on its own.

(Note: I could write 3,000 words about the following clip and still have plenty left in reserve. Suffice it to say that it perfectly embodies everything that's great about Yates' adaptations – refusal to bind himself slavishly to the books, willingness to let music and visuals tell his story, and a deft, unassuming hand with his actors. It's magic.)

MY IDEAL BALLOT: SECOND TIER
Joel & Ethan Coen – True Grit
Nash Edgerton – The Square
David Fincher – The Social Network
Luca Guadagnino – I Am Love
Roman Polanski – The Ghost Writer

A former stunt coordinator, Edgerton brings the same ruthless craftsmanship that the Coen Brothers brought to their debut 26 years ago in Blood Simple. Joel and Ethan, meanwhile, have hardly lost their touch, as True Grit shows. Guadagnino proves that Scorsese isn't the only director who never knows when to stop, converting potential schlock into serious art. Polanski, the great auteur, has rarely seemed to be enjoying himself more than in The Ghost Writer, right down to his devilish final shot.

Also deserving: Ben Affleck – The Town (for injecting energy into a stock crime picture); J. Blakeson – The Disappearance of Alice Creed (for that riveting silent opening sequence); Juan Jose Campanella – The Secret in Their Eyes (for that riveting single take at the soccer stadium); Anton Corbijn – The American (for proving that imagery can speak as loudly as dialogue); Giorgos Lanthimos – Dogtooth (for observing insanity with extreme detachment); Matt Reeves – Let Me In (for illustrating that scary movies aren't all about the "Boo!" moments).

Oscars Analysis 2010: Lead Actor and Actress

2011-02-25T06:12:00.002-07:00

In his column detailing the 10 best movies of 2010, New York Times critic A.O. Scott – better known in some circles as "God with a typewriter" – delivered the following gem: "Only a great director can make a great movie, but a good actor can make a bad or mediocre or not-quite-great movie much better." It's a perfect truism, and it also buttresses my current assessment of contemporary cinema as a whole. I don't see very many truly great movies these days, and that's partly because there aren't very many truly great directors operating behind the camera. But I do see plenty of good movies, and that's substantially a result of the surfeit of talented actors currently practicing their craft. So while I always find plenty to grumble about come Oscar season, the only real complaint I can lodge against the lead acting categories is that they limit themselves to five nominees.

BEST ACTOR

NOMINEES
Javier Bardem – Biutiful
Jeff Bridges – True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Colin Firth – The King's Speech
James Franco – 127 Hours

WILL WIN
Firth. Four months ago, Eisenberg may have had a shot, but that ship has long since sailed, and Bridges' victory last year for Crazy Heart nullifies any chance at a lifetime achievement award for The Dude. And as perversely entertaining as it is that The King's Speech was apparently shot on the same set as a gay porno called Snookered, that news didn't surface until the day ballots were due, so it's nothing more than a bizarre footnote.

(Massive spoilers in this clip.)

SHOULD WIN
Quite the quintet here. The only actor whose work didn't speak to me was Bridges, as the cagey veteran turns in a serviceable performance that is nevertheless thoroughly overshadowed by that of his 14-year-old costar. Bardem's great achievement is that he almost makes the drudgery of Biutiful watchable, bringing quiet dignity to his character even as he sinks into despair. And Franco's riveting performance is really the only reason to see 127 Hours, as the actor communicates the gravity of his protagonist's plight without ever pleading for our sympathy.

But for me, this is really a duel between Eisenberg and Firth. The latter is, if you'll pardon the British colloquialism, spot-on in his portrayal of the World War II monarch. It's true that Firth has the benefit of a character with a speech impediment (at the Oscars, the advantage always goes to the disadvantaged), but the actor doesn't use the stuttering problem as a crux. You can see the pain on his face in every scene, and Firth uses his character's forced silence to communicate his revulsion, both with the world and with himself. For this regal man, opening his mouth is pure torture.

Yet as impressive as Firth's performance is, it can't quite rival the astounding work from Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network. Playing Mark Zuckerberg as half-revolutionary, half-asshole, he delivers an unyielding performance of matchless rigor. Eisenberg's command of Aaron Sorkin's ruthlessly rapid-fire dialogue is nothing short of masterful, but it's his nonverbal acting that elevates the performance to immortality. It's always dangerous playing an unlikable protagonist, but Eisenberg somehow conveys the torrent of emotions that buffet Zuckerberg internally, even while displaying a steely, off-putting exterior. Watching him, we are watching a man who is simply smarter than we are (watch the way his eyes constantly dart around a room, as if he's continuously assimilating additional information). Yet as a result of the chasmic intellectual gap between this innovator and the ordinary mortals surrounding him, he can't connect with those close to him, and Eisenberg illustrates Zuckerberg's massive isolation without softening the edges of his prickly persona. He brought the whole world together, and he's all alone.

(Did I adequately answer your condescending question?)

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Leonardo DiCaprio – Shutter Island
Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Colin Firth – The King's Speech
James Franco – 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling – Blue Valentine

Eisenberg, Firth, and Franco earned their seat at the ceremony (interestingly, as with the Best Supporting Actress race in 2009, a majority of my suggested candidates in this category match the Academy's – a rare case indeed). DiCaprio continues his run of impeccable performances with a nervy, immersive portrayal of a man on the brink; it's a tour de force of acting that is borderline-unhinged but also perfectly controlled. Gosling, meanwhile, finds humor amidst the heartbreak in Blue Valentine, though in the end, heartbreak wins out.

MY IDEAL BALLOT: SECOND TIER
George Clooney – The American
Aaron Eckhart – Rabbit Hole
Edward Norton – Leaves of Grass
Al Pacino – You Don't Know Jack
Ryan Reynolds – Buried

Clooney sheds his cloak of stardom to deliver a quiet, unflinching performance that is muted but no less resonant than his more typically glittering work. Eckhart matches Nicole Kidman blow for emotional blow as a grieving father. Norton creates not one but two compelling characters in Leaves of Grass. Pacino simply disappears into the role of Jack Kevorkian – it's his most fully committed performance since The Insider. And Reynolds gives Franco a run for his money in the "I'm trapped and am about to fucking die" sweepstakes.

Also deserving: Casey Affleck – The Killer Inside Me (for being singularly creepy); Russell Crowe – The Next Three Days (for somehow being convincing as a wimpy badass); Matt Damon – Hereafter (for lending credence to the movie's overall absurdity); Ricardo Darín – The Secret in Their Eyes (for his longing); Robert Downey, Jr. – Iron Man 2 (for continuing to be awesome); David Roberts – The Square (for his hopelessness as he descends into Hell).

BEST ACTRESS

NOMINEES
Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence – Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine

WILL WIN
Portman, although this one isn't as locked in as Firth's certain victory for The King's Speech. Black Swan earned its share of nominations, but it's a highly niche film that might chafe some of the Academy's more old-fashioned members. In that case, Bening could sneak in for a surprise win. But Portman has been cleaning up on the circuit, and it would be foolish to predict the Oscars would have the audacity (or the stupidity) to buck the trend.

(And for the record, yes, the sex scene in Black Swan between Portman and Mila Kunis does indeed win the Femme Fatale Award for Best Sex Scene in a movie this year. In a distant second is the impressively graphic scene in The Girl Who Played with Fire, followed by the bordello scene in The American.

Also for the record, the 2010 winner of the Irreversible Award for Worst Sex Scene is, without doubt, Blue Valentine. If you watch this movie with your girlfriend, be prepared to fly solo for the following month. Ugh. Let's just move on.)

SHOULD WIN
This is another strong group, although it isn't as collectively overpowering as its set of male counterparts. Bening gives a typically nuanced portrayal of a strong, self-empowered woman whose world starts to crumble. Kidman, as beautiful and forcefully present as ever, never succumbs to histrionics and ensures that Rabbit Hole doesn't either. Lawrence has the burden of carrying an entire film thrust upon her fragile shoulders, and she carries the weight ably, refusing to crack even when her character finally does. And Williams, though not matching her costar punch for punch, brings poignancy to the misery of Blue Valentine.

Natalie Portman, however, outshines them all, and frankly, it isn't close. The sheer lunacy of Black Swan is part of the fun, but it wouldn't work without Portman's fully committed, coyly duplicitous performance. As a character, she's meek, she's vengeful, she's terrified, she's terrifying. As an actress, she's just good.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Kim Hye-ja – Mother
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Noomi Rapace – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit
Tilda Swinton – I Am Love

Portman delivers by far her career-best work in Black Swan. As a woman committed to protecting her son at all costs, Kim Hye-ja is impressively disturbing and wholly unforgettable. Rapace embraces the challenge of playing a larger-than-life protagonist and creates an iconic character in the process. Steinfeld captivates the screen for the entirety of True Grit's run time in a debut performance that hopefully heralds the start of a stellar career. Swinton, who just happens to speak Italian for this movie (apparently with a Russian accent, no less), should just have a fucking statue named after her already.

(By the way, I couldn't mention the music of I Am Love in my Best Original Score analysis because it isn't original music but previously existing work from a composer named John Adams. That said, the use of Adams' music in the movie is absolutely phenomenal, adding further spectacle to a film that is already magnificently operatic.)

MY IDEAL BALLOT: SECOND TIER
Greta Gerwig – Greenberg
Anne Hathaway – Love & Other Drugs
Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
Giovanna Mezzogiorno – Vincere
Mary Elizabeth Winstead – Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Gerwig is a naturally incandescent presence who lights up Greenberg whenever she's on screen. Hathaway strips away all remaining vestiges of her Princess Diaries image, as well as her clothes, and both of those are fine with me. Mezzogiorno brings single-minded intensity to her role as Mussolini's mistress, though even she can't save Vincere from tedium. And Winstead offers a laconic, arch portrayal that nicely counterbalances the overall zaniness of Scott Pilgrim's world.

Oscars Analysis 2010: The screenplays

2011-02-23T03:49:00.003-07:00

The prevailing trend of criticism among stuffy movie reviewers over the past few years (or decades, or millennia) is simple: Hollywood pictures are too rote. Scan the web for reviews of movies such as The A-Team, and you'll invariably find cineastes grousing about how studios are recycling the same tired ideas over and over and how filmmakers are prioritizing action and star power over foundational elements like plot and character. Now, the Manifesto has always prided itself on steering clear of this haughty line of scholarly arrogance; I can't say that I've never met a blockbuster I didn't like, but I've never dismissed a movie solely because it made money.

Nevertheless, if we assume that these stodgy critics actually have a point (and, on occasion, they do), then perhaps no two Oscar categories are more important to modern cinema than the next two. Good movies begin with good scripts, so the celebration of top-tier screenplays is particularly noteworthy in the current era. In theory, an Oscar-winning screenplay could shape the contours of stellar screenwriting for years to come. Or it could be the script for Crash.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

NOMINEES
127 Hours – Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 – Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
True Grit – Joel & Ethan Coen
Winter's Bone – Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini

WILL WIN
It's tempting for me to just triumphantly shout "SOCIAL NETWORK!" and be done with it. But I'm wary of that film's 2009 doppelganger, a truly excellent movie that dominated on the awards' circuit for most of the season before inexplicably lagging during the home stretch, ultimately coming away with exactly zero Oscars. The film I'm referring to is, of course, Up in the Air, which charged out of the gate only to fizzle at the finish, with the final insult coming when it lost this category (where it had been perceived as a virtual lock) to Precious. And the similarities between Up in the Air and The Social Network are alarming: Both received near-unanimous adulation from critics, both were warmly embraced by audiences, both were initially perceived as the Oscar frontrunner at the time of their release, and both eventually ran out of steam (presumably, in the latter's case).

The crucial difference, at least for this category, is that whereas Up in the Air featured a highly visible cast – with an established superstar in the lead role – The Social Network's most recognizable figure is Aaron Sorkin. Don't get me wrong, Jesse Eisenberg is already a phenomenal actor, and Andrew Garfield is fast on his way to becoming one, but they don't yet have moviestar cachet (nor does Justin Timberlake – remember who's voting here). Sorkin, on the other hand, is the guy who created "The West Wing" and is reputed as one of the most gifted writers in the business.

It helps that his competition isn't particularly strong. (Of course, I said that about Up in the Air vis-à-vis Precious last year. Grr.) 127 Hours features limited dialogue, and the Academy tends to focus on wordplay more so than storytelling in this category, while the sparse, slow-paced narrative of Winter's Bone is unlikely to inspire many voters. Toy Story 3 packages a delightful story within its witty script, but if Wall-E can't win this award, no animated movie can.

The only true challenger to The Social Network comes from the Coen Brothers, who already won a screenwriting Oscar three years ago for No Country for Old Men. Yet while the redemption tale of True Grit is undeniably appealing, the movie is less memorable for its screenplay than for its striking imagery and breakthrough performance. In any case, none of the competitors features the snap-crackle-pop dialogue that only Sorkin can pen. So even if the movie will find itself grotesquely marginalized for the majority of Oscar night, The Social Network can at least content itself with this award for Sorkin. Why? Because he's CEO, bitch.

SHOULD WIN
I always feel obligated to throw out a cautionary note here in that I'm not qualified to weigh in on this category. That's because the award is for best adapted screenplay; the key is how skillfully the writer can translate previously existing material to the screen. And given that I haven't read the source material for four of the nominees, I can't opine with authority about the relative quality of the adaptations.

That said, The Social Network is my clear winner here for a number of reasons. First, 127 Hours is a screenwriting zero; Aron Ralston's journey may have been extraordinary, but Danny Boyle's and Simon Beaufoy's script fails to adequately communicate the metaphysical weight of his struggle. Second, Toy Story 3 shouldn't even be here – it's an entirely original story that just happens to be based on characters created 15 years ago, so what the hell is it adapting? Third, Winter's Bone was boring. And fourth, as enjoyable a movie as True Grit is, it never digs under the skin of its characters and discovers what makes them tick.

Which is not to say that Sorkin deserves his Oscar as a result of mere process of elimination. The omnipresent danger of a Sorkin script – and the best and worst thing about "The West Wing" – is his tendency to outsmart his audience and cross the line from intelligent writing to outright showmanship. But the dialogue of The Social Network, while smart, is never condescending. True, the characters frequently engage in Sorkin's whiplash-style back-and-forth, but the banter has a surprisingly naturalistic feel, resulting in a script that's both sharp and honest. Throw in a dizzying, brilliantly conceived narrative structure that fluidly dips and dives across multiple timelines and character arcs, and you've got a screenplay for the ages.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Fair Game – Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 – Steve Kloves
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World – Michael Bacall, Edgar Wright
The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 – Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich

The Butterworths do a magnificent job encapsulating years of thorny political gamesmanship in Fair Game while nevertheless providing a refreshingly partisan perspective. Steve Kloves continues his impressive run with the Harry Potter franchise, excising subplots and spinning new scenes that are fully cinematic yet still feel as though they were birthed in the Potterverse. Wright and Bacall keep the pedal to the metal in Scott Pilgrim in a spirited effort to capture the colorful vitality of a graphic novel. And if I'm forced to consider Toy Story 3 in the adapted category, it's certainly making my ballot – the following scene says more than I ever could (spoilers follow).

Also deserving: The Ghost Writer – Robert Harris, Roman Polanski (for turning something as potentially boring as political intrigue into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse); Love & Other Drugs – Charles Randolph et al. (for never fearing to mix humor with emotion, even if the mixture never quite settles); Never Let Me Go – Alex Garland (for its patience); Rabbit Hole (for its sensitivity); The Secret in Their Eyes – Eduardo Sacheri, Juan José Campanella (for tying its multi-timeline story together with grace and economy).

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

NOMINEES
Another Year – Mike Leigh
The Fighter – Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Keith Dorrington
Inception – Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right – Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg
The King's Speech – David Seidler

WILL WIN
You know the drill. The past five Best Picture winners have also scooped an award for their screenplay, so it's impossible to pick against The King's Speech here. It's true that the Oscars have shown the tendency to go off a map a bit in this category, awarding such oddball titles as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Talk to Her. That, however, is potentially a byproduct of the curious fact that seven of the past nine Best Picture winners have served as adaptations of previously existing material. The last time the winner in this category triumphed over the eventual Best Picture victor was when Almost Famous knocked off Gladiator in 2000.

If there's a potential spoiler here, I'd point to Inception, as its sheer originality could give it the, ahem, kick that it needs. Alternatively, The Kids Are All Right is a dialogue-heavy film that resides right in Hollywood's backyard. But those are both hefty longshots, so Seidler should feel plenty secure.

SHOULD WIN
Inception, and handily, but I do want to acknowledge Mike Leigh's muted, perfectly pitched screenplay for Another Year. The movie isn't perfect – it could have trimmed a decent chunk of its material without fear of losing its theme (as my father put it, "They should have called it Another Nine Months") – but Leigh continues to showcase a sharp ear for the nuances of everyday conversation, as well as a keen eye for the desperation that clouds the banality of everyday life.

That said, Leigh's screenplay doesn't feature a freight train barreling through a crowded city street as projections of the dream subject's subconscious open fire on a team of extractors who are waiting to burrow two levels deeper into that subconscious before they plant an idea about corporate espionage disguised as a cathartic father-son reconciliation, even though they're all actually just sleeping on a freaking jumbo jet the whole time. Nolan's does. So there.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Agora – Alejandro Amenábar, Mateo Gil
Another Year – Mike Leigh
Inception – Christopher Nolan
The King's Speech – David Seidler
The Square – Joel Edgerton, Matthew Dabner

Agora is a curious combination of scientific discovery, religious zealotry, and historical bigness, and the script blends it into a thoroughly engaging melodrama. I've been harping on The King's Speech quite a bit recently, mainly in a comparative sense, but Seidler's screenplay is both economical and reasonably stirring. The Square, meanwhile, is chilly noir at its darkest and finest.

Also deserving: Ajami – Yaron Shani, Scandar Copti (for taking an intimate look at a cultural problem); Black Swan – Mark Heyman et al. (for making ballet batshit crazy); Dogtooth – Giorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou (for making homeschooling batshit crazy).

Oscars Analysis 2010: Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress

2011-02-21T04:25:00.001-07:00

And now, we get to the good stuff.

Of course, you could argue that the supporting actor/actress categories are, in a weird way, overrated by the moviegoing public. That's partly because the awards often pay homage to the quality of the role more so than the actual performance, meaning they're saluting the screenwriter rather than the actor. There's also a visibility issue: Everyone notices actors, but fewer viewers appreciate the labors of cinematographers, art directors, composers, and other craftsmen whose contributions are no less essential to the overall quality of a film. And because so many performers these days are so damn talented, supporting actors typically sport a low VORP (value over replacement player) – swap one out for another, and it's unlikely your movie will suffer terribly as a result.

(For the record, I briefly addressed VORP and its unlimited allegorical potential here. But I'm going to repeat what I said previously: Never, ever use VORP as a metric for evaluating girlfriends. Not unless you want to become the most reviled misanthrope this side of Louis Farrakhan.)

But that last point is exactly why I love the supporting categories. Hollywood is absolutely loaded with high-caliber actors right now. As far as movies go overall, I only find myself blown away 2-3 times per year, but I'm astounded by the quality of a particular performance with far greater frequency. The movies may be stagnating – that's a debate for another day – but the actors keep getting better, and there's no harm in paying homage to that.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

NOMINEES
Christian Bale – The Fighter
John Hawkes – Winter's Bone
Jeremy Renner – The Town
Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush – The King's Speech

WILL WIN
More than any other category, this race represents the threshold test for The King's Speech. Christian Bale is the heavy favorite here for his transformative work in The Fighter, and it would be foolish to predict anyone else. That said, he isn't officially a lock, as it's feasible that Geoffrey Rush could sneak away with the statuette. If that happens, then The King's Speech's awards pedigree mutates from sturdy frontrunner with coattails (think Slumdog Millionaire) to absolute behemoth that will slaughter everything in its path (think The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King). Currently, I have The King's Speech pegged to win seven Oscars out of its 12 nominated categories; if Rush wins here, then the pleasant prestige picture could feasibly take home 11 trophies (a win for Best Sound Mixing isn't happening), which would tie it for the most in Oscar history.

What's especially intriguing is that the Best Supporting Actor award is usually announced early in the telecast, so we'll know early on what to expect. If Bale wins, Social Network fans can keep holding onto that fledgling feeling called hope. If Rush wins, we could be in for a long, boring, thoroughly depressing night.

SHOULD WIN
See what I mean about talented actors? Just a tremendous group here, with Jeremy Renner as the lone weak link, and even his performance is eagerly entertaining, if entirely lacking in subtext. Hawkes' nomination is particularly satisfying, as the reliable character actor of "Deadwood" fame disappears into his role without a hint of artifice. Another scruffy character actor, Ruffalo has received somewhat better recognition for his talents to this point, but he nevertheless delivers a career-best performance in The Kids Are All Right, adding a barely perceptible scent of desperation to his otherwise easygoing charm. Geoffrey Rush faces the danger of being swallowed in Colin Firth's formidable shadow, but he proves a worthy foil, parrying his costar's pronounced pain with both empathy and sly wit.

Christian Bale, however, is in another league here. As my sister pointed out, the minute he walks onto the screen, you're transfixed. The performance is simply mesmeric. Unfortunately for The Fighter, he's only in about half the movie, and the other half is dominated by the haplessly outmatched Mark Wahlberg, but that doesn't make Bale's work any less of a knockout.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Christian Bale – The Fighter
Andrew Garfield – The Social Network
Sean Penn – Fair Game
Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are All Right
Justin Timberlake – The Social Network

The Academy's utter indifference toward Fair Game represents the quietest injustice at this year's Oscars, and Penn's portrayal of righteous dignity ranks among the best performances of his career (and this is Sean Penn, so that's saying something). Garfield – one of the hottest risers around and starring in the upcoming Spider-Man reboot – counterbalances Jesse Eisenberg's ruthless intellect with painful poignancy, bringing pathos to a picture already brimming with feeling. Timberlake, meanwhile, demolishes every scene he's in, reeking so heavily of charisma that you can almost smell his cologne.

MY IDEAL BALLOT: SECOND TIER
Niels Arestrup – A Prophet
John Hawkes – Winter's Bone
Danny Huston – You Don't Know Jack
Geoffrey Rush – The King's Speech
Michael Shannon – The Runaways

Forgive me, but I can hardly limit myself to five. If Penn brings righteous fury to Fair Game, Arestrup brings merciless cruelty to his role as an aging gangster in A Prophet. As Jack Kevorkian's lawyer, Huston nimbly straddles his character's dual nature as protective surrogate and wily opportunist. Shannon is absolutely electric as the flamboyant rock promoter in The Runaways – he gets bonus points for taking a role diametrically opposed to his work as the terrifying prohibition agent in "Boardwalk Empire" and being frighteningly convincing in both.

Also deserving: Kieran Culkin – Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (for being hilarious every time he opens his mouth, thanks as much to his perpetually winking delivery as the stellar screenplay); Edward Norton – Stone (for continuing to take adventurous roles long after he's ascended to the A-list); Sam Rockwell – Iron Man 2 (for never mailing it in); Michael Sheen – Tron: Legacy (for being the only person in the movie who seems to be having any fun).

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

NOMINEES
Amy Adams – The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter – The King's Speech
Melissa Leo – The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit
Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom

WILL WIN
This is where the pros make their money. With the exception of a few categories (namely Best Picture and the lead acting fields), this year's Oscar races are generally difficult to handicap, but the Best Supporting Actress field is easily the toughest of the entire show. Aside from Jacki Weaver, any of the nominees has a legitimate chance at the prize. If you're going to win your pool on Oscar night, you need to drill this category, and you're probably going to guess wrong.

Alright, I'll knock off Amy Adams, as she'll function more as a vote-siphoner from Leo than as an actual contender. (Oddly, this is the second time in three years in which Adams has shared a nomination in this category with a colleague, last time with Viola Davis in Doubt.) But a strong case can be made for the remaining three. Leo was the de facto frontrunner following the nominations, and she strengthened her case with a win at the Golden Globes, but she's facing several obstacles. First, The Fighter's buzz has dimmed noticeably over the past month, as the movie failed to cross the magical $100 million mark at the box office. Second, there's the Adams issue, and even while Leo has the showier role, Adams is well-liked and just happens to turn in the superior performance. Third and most bizarrely, Leo took the unprecedented step of actively campaigning for herself by purchasing her own "For Your Consideration" ads, which has drawn considerable flak from the Oscar community. (I would say such a reaction is inexplicable, but there might still be some residual fear after Harvey Weinstein bought up nominations during the late-'90s like a teenage girl who just stole her mother's password to gilt.com).

Meanwhile, if The Fighter has diminished as a vehicle, Bonham Carter has the virtue of appearing in the year's most beloved film. She's also highly regarded in Hollywood but has never won an Oscar, meaning she could be in line for a sympathy vote, though perhaps it's a bit early in her career for that. Finally, she's British, and it's a known truth that British people give superior acceptance speeches specifically and that they're just better than we are generally.

The real wildcard here, though, is Steinfeld, as it's difficult to get a read on her chances because we weren't even sure which category she'd be up for until three weeks ago. And even though voters grotesquely marginalized her when they shunted her into the supporting category, they actually did her a favor in terms of her awards chances. Not only is this a weaker field overall (i.e., Natalie Portman isn't in it), but young actresses have traditionally had success in the supporting category (with Tatum O'Neal and Anna Paquin serving as the prime examples).

Of course, all of this analysis hasn't brought me any closer to predicting a winner, but I'm going to take Steinfeld, and here's why: Presumably, at least a handful of voters acted with sense and initially nominated her for the lead actress award, yet she still had enough strength to muster her way into the supporting field. Now, those (sensible) voters can consolidate their ballots with the other (lazy) members who pegged her as supporting in the first place. Throw in the fact that Leo will split votes with Adams and that Bonham Carter, well, just isn't that good, and Steinfeld gets the edge.

SHOULD WIN
Steinfeld. Not by a little.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Keira Knightley – Never Let Me Go
Mila Kunis – Black Swan
Lesley Manville – Another Year
Ellen Page – Inception
Emma Watson – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Keira Knightley effortlessly embodies the hopeless struggle that chokes the characters in Never Let Me Go, conveying her predicament with heartfelt passion and despair. Kunis seethes sexuality in Black Swan, transforming a seemingly innocuous pursuit such as ballet into a wrathful seduction. Manville defines heartbreak and will make you fucking cry. Page pulls off the tricky feat of acting as the audience's surrogate while also shaping a fully developed character with her own fears and desires. And Emma Watson, sidelined for the better part of the past two Harry Potter pictures, returns to the fore in Deathly Hallows and continues to shine, imbuing Hermione Granger with both fierce intelligence and radiant warmth.

(Note that I'm not including Hailee Steinfeld here because I consider her to be the lead in True Grit because I am not an ageist.)

MY IDEAL BALLOT: SECOND TIER
Amy Adams – The Fighter
Rosemarie DeWitt – The Company Men
Gwyneth Paltrow – Iron Man 2
Mia Wasikowska – The Kids Are All Right
Naomi Watts – Mother and Child

Take a look at Amy Adams and you wouldn't exactly peg her as a foul-mouthed bartender from Lowell, but there's such feeling in her performance that you'll find yourself convinced. DeWitt takes an assignment fraught with danger (nagging wife alert) and somehow spins a testament to the enduring strength of marriage. Paltrow parries one-liners with Robert Downey, Jr. with experienced ease (and blows Scarlett Johansson out of the water in the process). Ironically, The Kids Are All Right earned most of its critical praise for its adult actors (who were certainly better than all right), but Wasikowska is equally compelling as a frustrated and confused teenager coming to grips with life's sticky unpleasantness. Watts, meanwhile, bares her fangs in Mother in Child, then bares her soul in a vain quest for redemption.

Oscars Analysis 2010: The big techies

2011-02-14T05:30:00.001-07:00

The following four categories can be considered "technical" awards only in the purist sense of the word. True, each field in this quartet involves a highly specific area of filmmaking and thus requires the wielding of precise, technological skill. But to label these disciplines "technical" is to diminish their significance, as it is in these areas where movies can truly distinguish themselves as extraordinary. Moreover, a film's success (or failure) in any of these categories can dramatically affect even casual viewers' opinions, be it consciously or otherwise.

Put more bluntly, these categories matter. Just keep that in mind the next time you hear some Oscar nut raving about Roger Deakins' unlucky streak and think ~~I'm~~ he's out of his mind.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

NOMINEES
Black Swan – Matthew Libatique
Inception – Wally Pfister
The King's Speech – Danny Cohen
The Social Network – Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit – Roger Deakins

WILL WIN
Hey, I was just talking about Roger Deakins! Weird. But the longtime lenser for the Coen Brothers has been nominated eight times previously for this award, and he's yet to walk away with a statuette. And while an 0-for-8 streak may not alone suffice for a sympathy vote, it's looking like this is Deakins' year, though that's more due to the weaknesses of his respective competitors than to his own achievement on True Grit.

Still, it's hardly open-and-shut here. The only contender I'm comfortable eliminating outright is Libatique for Black Swan, whose photography is far too quirky and unsettling to curry favor with Academy members. The Social Network is a visually meticulous film, not least in terms of Cronenweth's scrupulously composed frames, but voters are likely to dismiss it as a dialogue-heavy movie that thus merits no recognition in a visual field. Pfister just earned a trophy from the cinematographers' guild, and a guild win can never be wholly discounted, but I still think the Academy will reserve its admiration for Inception for the more effects-driven categories.

Which leaves Danny Cohen for The King's Speech as Deakins' fiercest rival here. Frankly, even Cohen's nomination is a textbook case of frontrunner syndrome, as The King's Speech's drab visual style has no business loitering in this quintet whatsoever. But the movie was hardly shorn of its coattails after the nominations were announced, and given that it just pulled off a monstrous, seven-gun salute at the BAFTAs, it can't be counted out of any category at this point.

Nevertheless, I'll give the voters some credit; they'll likely pay homage to The King's Speech in a handful of other categories (like, you know, Best Picture), but they won't be able to deny Deakins' mastery any longer. True Grit takes it.

SHOULD WIN
I look forward to this category with considerable eagerness every year, so it is with a heavy heart that I suggest that this year's slate represents a massive disappointment. The King's Speech is hardly the only offender here, though it certainly is the worst, as Cohen's photography is at best unmemorable and at worst staid. Yet it isn't as grating as Libatique's work on Black Swan, which alternates between magnificent, unobtrusive takes (as in the film's ravishing opening sequence) and lurching handheld tracking shots that mistake restlessness for energy.

Inception is a visually dazzling film, but it's dangerous to conflate its inconsistent cinematography with its bravura production design. As he illustrated on The Dark Knight, Pfister has the ability to create extraordinary angles and viewpoints, but he often has trouble sitting still, and several of the movie's chase scenes are unnecessarily jumpy. I have no quarrel with Cronenweth's understated work in The Social Network, though I'm naturally more inclined to prefer the grandeur of Deakins' work on True Grit. Displaying his trademark exactitude, Deakins composes every frame with both delicacy and boldness, resulting in a exquisite production that maximizes the Coens' sly evocation of the Old West.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
The American – Martin Ruhe
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 – Eduardo Serra
Shutter Island – Robert Richardson
The Square – Brad Shield
True Grit – Roger Deakins

If Deakins exercises subtlety in capturing the visual tropes of a classic western, Ruhe employs remarkable restraint in chronicling the travails of George Clooney's subdued assassin in The American. The noir genre has rarely been more clammy than in The Square, thanks largely to Shields' dead-on framing, most memorably in a stunning helicopter shot of a suburban neighborhood that eventually pulls its focus onto a single burning roof. Released from the confines of Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows, Serra delivers one extraordinary shot after another, while he uses harsh lighting to thrilling effect in the snake sequence. Richardson, meanwhile, enhances the unreliable narrator approach of Shutter Island by constantly keeping things off-kilter, resulting in an unsettling visual experience that continually amplifies the viewer's sense of dread.

Also Deserving: Agora – Xavi Giménez (for finding beauty in human depravity); Never Let Me Go – Adam Kimmel (for twinning Rachel Portman's score to images nearly as heartbreaking); A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop – Xiaoding Zhao (for observing the madness of this Blood Simple remake with resplendent detachment).

BEST FILM EDITING

NOMINEES
Black Swan – Andrew Weisblum
The Fighter – Pamela Martin
The King's Speech – Tariq Anwar
127 Hours – Jon Harris
The Social Network – Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall

WILL WIN
Sobering fact: The Best Picture winner has also emerged victorious in this field in four of the last five years, as well as six of the last eight. That would be just fine with me if the snappily edited Social Network had maintained its juggernaut status. But it hasn't. Ironically, the only movie that could derail The King's Speech would be Inception, only Lee Smith's devilishly tricky feat of editing somehow didn't even land a nomination. Whoops.

All the same, the free-riding trend of this category should actually make you prick up your ears on Oscar night when the winner is announced. If The Social Network pulls off the upset, then the Best Director race (if not the Best Picture derby) just got a whole lot more interesting. But don't count on it. The King's Speech continues to pad its stats.

SHOULD WIN
In theory, Harris' nomination for 127 Hours makes sense, because you need taut editing in order to bring cinematic verve to a movie that spends the majority of its running time focusing on a single, immobilized character in a single location. Unfortunately, Danny Boyle's histrionics submarine an otherwise compelling picture, and no editor could have saved Boyle from himself. The quality of Martin's editing on The Fighter mirrors that of the film itself – serviceable, competent, forgettable. I've been harping on The King's Speech a bit, and that's more due to its comparative shortcomings versus other more deserving contenders than its own failings, so I'll acknowledge that Anwar's editing is reasonably brisk and well-paced. More impressive is Weisblum's work on Black Swan, which somehow shepherds Darren Aronofsky's maniacal impulses into a semi-coherent narrative.

But this is a one-horse town, as The Social Network is an editing marvel. Not only does the film pinball back and forth in time with flawless, near-mathematical precision, but every scene seethes with crisp cutting. Consider the following clip: It's a sequence that positively pulses with energy (the electronic score works wonders), advancing the movie's theme (the contrast between the privileged elite and Zuckerberg's own haughty intellectual classism) while also laying out crucial plot points. But what's truly amazing is that this is a scene about a nerd sitting at his computer. Yet it has more rambunctious vitality than any stock action sequence. That's great editing.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Black Swan – Andrew Weisblum
Inception – Lee Smith
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World – Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss
The Secret in Their Eyes – Juan José Campanella
The Social Network – Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall

Black Swan and The Social Network earned their nominations. Were it not for a fellow named Chris Nolan, Smith's omission would constitute this year's most egregious Oscar snub; Inception's final third alone – in which the movie canvasses three simultaneous sequences with impeccable clarity – ought to have secured it a spot here. In Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the editors pull of the delicate feat of indulging in the film's manic energy while also ensuring that the movie doesn't self-combust. Editing his own film, Campanella maintains the suspense of The Secret in Their Eyes by cutting across different timelines with sharp-eyed acuity.

Also Deserving: Buried – Rodrigo Cortés (takes an already tense situation and ratchets up the tension continuously for 90 minutes); The Town – Dylan Tichenor (would be on my ballot if the final shootout didn't drag on as long as it does).

BEST ART DIRECTION

NOMINEES
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
The King's Speech
True Grit

WILL WIN
Deathly Hallows is out for the simple reason that no Harry Potter movie will ever win an Oscar until God stops hating me, and there's no sign of that happening any time soon. I'm also reasonably comfortable bouncing True Grit, as I think its cinematography will sap up any potential for recognition in other areas.

That leaves three, and it brings us to an odd piece of Oscar trivia. In a bizarre coincidence, the ultimate Best Picture winner has failed to be nominated for Best Art Direction in every year since 2003. What does that mean? It means The Social Network is going to win Best Picture! Just kidding. But it does mean that Art Direction isn't necessarily a category in which a heavy hitter automatically enjoys preferential status with the Academy. Now, one could argue that the mere fact that The King's Speech was nominated suggests that its art direction is especially impressive, thus making it even more of a lock. But I'm not buying that, largely because I've seen its art direction; apart from the throne, it's hardly laudable.

Instead, I'm going to back an upset, and while I don't see Inception receiving much of an embrace here, I do think Alice in Wonderland can pull off a surprise win. The Academy has used this category to recognize films that were less than critically beloved, as past winners include Memoirs of a Geisha, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Sleepy Hollow. Not for nothing, but two of those are Tim Burton pictures, and Burton just happened to direct Alice in Wonderland as well (or so I'm told – you'd never know it from watching the movie). And Burton's fantasy film certainly has plenty of visible art direction. Want more circumstantial evidence? The King's Speech just lost at the BAFTAs in this category (to Inception, but still), and the BAFTAs weren't exactly shy about honoring the prestige product. So fuck it, we're feeling frisky and heading down the rabbit hole.

(I can't believe I talked myself into this.)

SHOULD WIN
Harry Potter. Look, I adore Inception, but the environments in Deathly Hallows are simply jaw-dropping. From the foreboding architecture of the Ministry of Magic to the brittle desolation of Godric's Hollow to the chilly darkness of Malfoy Manor to the aching beauty of the Forest of Dean, every location in the movie is a standard-bearer of bold, breathtaking art direction. Kudos to the Academy for at least nominating it.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Agora
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
Shutter Island

Alice in Wonderland, for all its (many) faults, is a visual showstopper, and Tim Burton knows how make the most out of his locations (real or otherwise). Inception serves as a flamboyant survey of modern movie architecture, with environments ranging from a pristinely manicured Asian villa to a snowy fortress transplanted right out of a James Bond film. Agora brilliantly realizes ancient Rome, both in its storied glory and its crumbling decay. And Shutter Island makes the title location one hell of a creepy place.

Also Deserving: The Book of Eli (for making a post-apocalyptic world look thoroughly unpleasant); The Company Men (for punctuating its pointed themes about corporate America with gaudy mansions); The Ghost Writer (I would absolutely have believed it was shot in New England if I hadn't known its director was an exiled rapist); Monsters (doing for Mexico what District 9 did for South Africa, sort of); North Face (it emphasizes the sheer lunacy of mountain-climbing just by pointing its camera and gawking); Tron: Legacy (think of it as a minimalist Avatar); Vengeance (for the phenomenal scene in which gunfighters take cover behind rolling bales of rubbish).

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

NOMINEES
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Hereafter
Inception
Iron Man 2

WILL WIN
Wait a minute, where's the automatic nomination for The King's Speech? There must have been some sort of ballot snafu. In any case, the only way Inception loses here is if Alice in Wonderland pulls a Matrix and wins every technical award in which it received a nomination (three, in its case). But that only happened with The Matrix because voters realized they should have nominated it for Best Picture, so they let it sweep the techies as an apology. Alice in Wonderland, for all its visual ingenuity, will be receiving no such apology. Inception wins in a walkover.

SHOULD WIN
It's ironic that the Academy finally expanded this field to five nominees – a change I've been lobbying for since before steroids were an issue in baseball – in a year in which very few films actually distinguished themselves via visual effects. It's also interesting to see Hereafter show up here, as that movie only employs visual effects in its (admittedly stunning) opening sequence. Iron Man 2 does a decent job showing off Tony Stark's kickass gadgets and Bond-like computer software, but it's markedly less successful in its frenetic action scenes. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows wisely uses effects sparingly, never letting them supersede the story, though the opening broomstick chase doesn't quite achieve maximum clarity. And to the best of my recollection, there are lots of neat-o effects in Alice in Wonderland, though I saw the movie 11 months ago and didn't remember it much then.

As for Inception, let me put it like this: It's always a strangely awe-inspiring experience to watch a particular scene and know immediately that it's going to be a landmark sequence in the history of cinema, that it's a piece of celluloid that will be remembered through the ages. Movies survive generations, but we don't remember them in their entirety, just in fragments. So when one of those fragments arrives on screen, that's a monumental event. Recent past examples include the married life montage from Up, the opening bank robbery in The Dark Knight, the Dunkirk tracking shot in Atonement, the bathhouse fight in Eastern Promises, and Kayden Kross' final scene in Flight Attendants.

Well, 2010 actually featured two such historic sequences. The first is the opening scene of The Social Network, a rapid-fire dialogue sequence that will serve as the gold standard for romantic nihilists for years. The second, of course, is the hallway fight in Inception.

There's a moment in the movie Se7en in which Brad Pitt stares in mute horror at the appalling crime scene in front of him, then turns to Morgan Freeman and whispers, in awestruck terror, "Honestly, have you ever seen anything like this?" Freeman's character, the consummate veteran, has seen it all, but he just shakes his head and says "no".

That's the best way I can sum up the visual effects in Inception. I have never seen anything like this. And neither have you. I'd say that deserves an Oscar.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Splice
Tron: Legacy

If Deathly Hallows employed admirable restraint in toning down the effects, Scott Pilgrim overloads them into every frame of the movie, with giddy results. Splice uses its effects to create a thoroughly disturbing hybrid character who will give queasy viewers nightmares. And Tron: Legacy uses a deft, minimalist approach to build an entire world out of binary code – pity about the script.

Oscars Analysis 2010: Five totally unrelated categories

2011-02-07T01:55:00.004-07:00

I'm lumping the following categories for one reason: I don't particularly care about them. I don't mean to suggest that they're unimportant. I would never impugn the invaluable contributions of, say, a film's costume designer, and besides, as a rabid Oscar fan, I think every category is important. But I lack the motivation to delve into these categories with the Manifesto's typical zeal, and rather than spreading the analysis over a series of separate posts, I figured I'd just blow through them all at once. As Ron Livingston said in Office Space, "It's not that I'm lazy – it's that I just don't care". Indeed.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

NOMINEES
Alice in Wonderland
I Am Love
The King's Speech
The Tempest
True Grit

WILL WIN
I'm bouncing I Am Love immediately, as its nomination here was a total surprise, and it lacks the corresponding guild nod. (Strangely enough, this represents the lone nomination for I Am Love, a movie that was very well-received by critics, if not by my Dad.) True Grit does have a guild nomination, but according to my research, no western has ever won this award, and I don't see the Coens bucking the trend. The Tempest does feature work from three-time Oscar winner Sandy Powell, but the movie was absolutely ravaged by critics, and I doubt many Academy members even saw it.

This means we have a two-horse race between Alice in Wonderland and The King's Speech, and it's an intriguing litmus test to see just how far the latter's reach can extend. Alice in Wonderland is clearly the showier product in terms of its costumes, and the design branch has never shied away from honoring relatively ill-regarded movies – past winners include The Young Victoria, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and Marie Antoinette. Those, however, were all period pieces, whereas Alice in Wonderland is a fantasy film, a genre the Academy has been hesitant to embrace (The Lord of the Rings excepted). Throw in its historical setting and British pedigree, and The King's Speech gains the edge almost by default.

SHOULD WIN
Yawn. I haven't seen The Tempest (and given that its current gross stands at $272 k, who has?), so I have to punt there. The costumes in The King's Speech are hardly memorable (seriously, close your eyes and name me two outfits from that movie), and the same goes for True Grit. Tilda Swinton paraded around in some stylish garb in I Am Love, but she looked at her best with her clothes off, and I can't give the costume designers credit for that. Alice in Wonderland, at least, got to toy with Helena Bonham-Carter's prim-and-proper image, and while praise for the Red Queen's flaming auburn hair should more properly be recognized in Best Makeup, the outfit as a whole remains impressive.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Atonement
The Duchess
Never Let Me Go
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Pride & Prejudice

Whoops, I loaded up on past Keira Knightley movies by mistake. Yeah, like there will ever be a better costume than that dress. Let's just move to the next category.

BEST MAKEUP

NOMINEES
Barney's Version
The Way Back
The Wolfman

WILL WIN
This one's tricky for me, as I've only seen one of the nominees, meaning I'll have to omit the "Should Win" section for this category. (In theory, I'll catch Barney's Version before long, provided Century Boulder follows through after playing the trailer 18 times in the past three weeks. Sadly, I can't say the same for Peter Weir's The Way Back, which has barely sniffed a multiplex outside of New York and Los Angeles.) That said, I can't imagine The Wolfman losing here, unless voters are skeptical and think that Benicio del Toro is actually a werewolf and that no actual makeup was applied. Which is totally possible.

(Note: Massive spoilers on this Wolfman clip. But the movie is lame, so you probably shouldn't care.)

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Alice in Wonderland
Let Me In
The Wolfman

The Wolfman's makeup needs little elaboration. As I mentioned, the makeup artists of Alice in Wonderland deserve considerable credit for the occasionally magnificent look of Tim Burton's latest. (Sadly, they couldn't save the story.) As for Let Me In, it takes considerable courage to physically transform a young girl into a bloodthirsty (albeit emotionally sensitive) vampire, and the crew of Matt Reeves' Let Me In pulls off the feat with impressive visual force, thanks to many a bucket of blood.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

NOMINEES
Biutiful (Mexico)
Dogtooth (Greece)
In a Better World (Denmark)
Incendies (Canada)
Outside the Law (Algeria)

WILL WIN
Again, I'm flying partially blind here, having seen only two of the five nominees thus far. (This is honestly no fault of my own; I'm typically forced to wait until Netflix to peruse foreign fare, at least until Boulder caves in to the demands of its fanatical Algerian base and opens an upscale art-house.) Naysayers will grumble that the Academy favors inspirational, borderline innocuous films here, thus marginalizing more ambitious but less formulaic films. I don't entirely buy that argument – recent winners The Lives of Others and The Secret in Their Eyes can hardly be characterized as soft-pedal entertainment – but there is some general aversion to riskier pictures.

Given that, a victory for Dogtooth is virtually unfathomable, given that the movie traffics in incest, child abuse, cat-killing, and other less-than-family-friendly tropes. Not that the relentlessly depressing Biutiful fits the Oscar bill either, nomination for leading man Javier Bardem notwithstanding. The latter film is a rough, often torpid slog through Barcelona's underbelly, and it isn't likely to inspire even faint praise, much less outright admiration.

Unfortunately, that means I'm forced to choose from three films I've yet to see. The smart money is apparently on Susanne Bier's In a Better World, especially given Bier's relative popularity (she was nominated here four years ago for After the Wedding, while her Afghanistan film Brothers earned an American adaptation). Yet the prospect of forecasting victory for a movie I've never watched feels, frankly, disingenuous. As such, I'll throw my hat in with Biutiful, as Bardem's nomination has to carry some weight here. And if I step wrong, I'll let you know why eight months from now, when In a Better World finally shows up on Netflix.

SHOULD WIN
There are depressing movies that shake you to your core because you feel deep empathy for the fate of their characters, and then there are depressing movies that you just want to fucking end as soon as possible because you're sick of watching people stuck in wretched situations and acting miserable. Biutiful is the latter. If it had done its job, it would have ruined my appetite; instead, I just kept thinking (and thinking, given its interminable 145-minute running time) about how excited I was to eat a Chipotle burrito when the damn thing was finally over. That isn't quite my definition of an Oscar winner.

Dogtooth is by no means a happy film, but it is endlessly interesting. Its twisted blend of black humor, social satire, and outright repulsion doesn't necessarily coalesce into a cohesive thematic whole, but it's never boring, and the picture it paints of a cloistered family is, in its own nightmarish way, unforgettable. Just don't go in expecting a movie about pets.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
Dogtooth (Greece)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Sweden)
I Am Love (Italy)
Lebanon (Israel)
The Secret in Their Eyes (Argentina)

I can't really criticize the Academy's current slate of nominees, given that I haven't seen 60% of them, but I can lament the exclusion of several of these sterling selections. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a model suspense thriller, with Noomi Rapace's fearless performance anchoring a marvelously chilling story. I Am Love, for all of its self-indulgence, is a thoroughly fascinating film, featuring yet another mesmeric performance from Tilda Swinton. Lebanon takes a potentially grating concept – the movie takes place entirely within the confines of a tank during a disastrous land assault – and spins it into a claustrophobic nightmare. And The Secret in Their Eyes actually won this award in 2009, but I didn't catch up to it until this past June, and I can't possibly leave out its deftly woven, multi-timeline screenplay.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

NOMINEES
Exit Through the Gift Shop
GasLand
Inside Job
Restrepo
Waste Land

WILL WIN
Hey, more movies I haven't seen! I can only blame myself this time around (perhaps someday I'll overcome my aversion to documentaries, but not this year). In any case, in the wake of the rather astonishing exclusion of Davis Guggenheim's Waiting for Superman, the clear favorite here is Inside Job, Charles Ferguson's supposedly acidic examination of the recent Wall Street meltdown. (From what I've heard, it's similar to Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, only it replaces obnoxious grandstanding with actual filmmaking.) The wildcard here is Exit Through the Gift Shop, which is apparently some sort of super-subversive "Is it really real?" movie about a graffiti artist. I've been intentionally ignorant of most of the self-generated buzz regarding that film's various hoaxes, mainly because that stuff doesn't interest me in the slightest. More to the point, I doubt it interests Academy members either. Throw in the fact that its chief competitor is critically beloved – A.O. Scott named it the best movie of the year – and Inside Job takes it.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

NOMINEES
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

WILL WIN
Toy Story 3 is the overwhelming favorite here. That said, there's always danger that its inclusion in the Best Picture field could rob it of some votes in this lesser (and totally unnecessary) category. Furthermore, How to Train Your Dragon was itself a strong performer with critics and audiences alike, so this is far from a lock. In the end, however, Pixar's quality won't be denied.

SHOULD WIN
I'll be seeing The Illusionist as soon as it arrives at the nearest theatre, but until then, the jury's out. My thoughts on Toy Story 3 are known, but I want to discuss How to Train Your Dragon briefly. It's being positioned here as the scruffy underdog, and that representation isn't entirely accurate. From a marketing and polishing sense, the DreamWorks product is virtually on par with its Pixar foe. Its animation is undoubtedly first-class – colors pop, movement is remarkably lifelike, and some of the flying scenes capture the soaring spirit of childhood joy that the medium is designed to encapsulate. The voice casting is also spot-on, with Manifesto fave Jay Baruchel effortlessly embodying the lead character's balance of nerdery and bravery. Yet from a story standpoint, How to Train Your Dragon is disappointingly ordinary. It's a perfectly pleasant movie, and it hits all of its notes precisely, but it does little to carve out new territory. It's a nicely told, expertly-made movie, and that's as much enthusiasm as I can muster for it.

My enthusiasm for Toy Story 3, by contrast, has no upper bound. Carry on, Pixar. And please make sure that Cars 2 doesn't suck.

Oscars Analysis 2010: Music and Sound Categories

2011-02-04T03:19:00.006-07:00

For our first batch of categories for this year's Oscars, we're taking a look at the music and sound branches. So I suppose you could call this the Aural Edition. Whatever works.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

NOMINEES
Country Strong – "Coming Home" (Tom Douglas, Hillary Lindsey, Troy Verges)
127 Hours – "If I Rise" (A.R. Rahman, Rollo Armstrong, Dido)
Tangled – "I See the Light" (Alan Menken, Glenn Slater)
Toy Story 3 – "We Belong Together" (Randy Newman)

WILL WIN
In eight years of detailed Oscar analysis, the Manifesto has predicted this category correctly exactly twice (ignoring one abstention in 2003). That's a worse rate than Baron Davis' three-point percentage. And given that the producers of this year's telecast apparently planned an entire segment around a song that wound up not even being nominated ("You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" from Burlesque – insert quip on the title here), it's not as if there's a frontrunner, so I'm in some trouble here.

Accordingly, I'll have to perform some more devious (i.e., desperate) analysis. Specifically, what's interesting about the modern Best Original Song category is how the nominees are presented to the voters. In the past, Academy members used to listen on audio; now, however, they receive DVD clips that show how the songs play in the context of the actual movies. Thus, songs that feature in closing credits are far less likely to win than those integrated into the film. As such, I'm willing to write off "If I Rise" despite the Best Picture nomination of 127 Hours, as I don't even remember that song playing in the movie. Similarly, "We Belong Together," despite originating from industry legend Randy Newman, plays over Toy Story 3's credits, and while it's nevertheless accompanied by cute visuals, I don't think the sequence carries much dramatic weight.

"I See the Light," however, is the musical centerpiece of Tangled (which isn't saying much, but still), and it plays on screen as a pleasant but emotionally resonant duet. (For the record, I can't comment on the context of "Coming Home" because I haven't seen Country Strong, but I'm guessing most voters haven't either.) An Alan Menken tag has never hurt a song's chances, and while Newman is no Oscar slouch himself (this represents his twentieth nomination across the two music categories), I think Menken adds a staggering ninth statuette to his mantel.

SHOULD WIN
Technically I should abstain from weighing in on Country Strong, not having seen the movie and all. I did, however, zip through "Coming Home" on YouTube, and it's a reasonably sturdy number – well-produced, with a burgeoning second half that makes it a pleasant overall listen. That's more than I can say for "We Belong Together" – I know Randy Newman's had an impressive career, but that doesn't make his voice any less insufferable. "If I Rise" features a breathy Dido sighing her way through A.R. Rahman's delicate orchestrations; it's innocuous enough, but it's ultimately insubstantial.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of "I See the Light", but compared to its competition, it's the clear winner. Mandy Moore's and Zachary Levi's tentative vocals complement each other nicely, and the chorus, while not lyrically revolutionary, provides a catchy summation of the movie's general theme.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
How to Train Your Dragon – "Sticks & Stones" (Jon Thor Birgisson)
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – "I Remain" (Alanis Morissette)
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – "Let's Get Lost" (Bat for Lashes/Beck)
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – "Eclipse (All Yours)" (Metric)

Sigur Rós front man Jónsi takes a break from crafting haunting, atmospheric melodies and delivers a piece of perfectly modulated pop music, with Jónsi's trademark falsetto accompanied by a surprisingly insistent rhythm section. As for Twilight, perhaps no artist is better equipped to lend voice to the franchise's theme of unrestrained longing (or rather, desperately trying to restrain such longing) than Bat for Lashes' Natasha Khan, with her trembling timbre and ghostly beauty. For that film's title track, Metric shrewdly tailor their alt-rock sensibilities to Howard Shore's score, resulting in a triumphant ballad that effortlessly conveys the movie's go-for-broke spirit. As for the Prince of Persia track, I'm not sure if you knew this, but Alanis Morissette can really fucking sing.

BEST SOUND MIXING

NOMINEES
Inception
The King's Speech
Salt
The Social Network
True Grit

WILL WIN
If The King's Speech wins here, then its coattails are so long that Colin Firth could probably get elected as the next U.S. President while running on the Tea Party ticket. Still, despite the few scenes that involve some tricky calibration of 1930s radio, sound didn't exactly play a central role in this year's Best Picture favorite, so it's out. Also out are True Grit (because it's far more noteworthy for its visuals than its audio) and Salt (because it's Salt). A few weeks ago, I might have considered The Social Network as a player here as part of a sweep, but that was then. As it is, Inception takes this one comfortably, in the lamest attempt at a consolation prize since Xander asked Willow to Spring Fling after Buffy shot him down.

SHOULD WIN
Inception, obviously. When my sister walks out of a movie gushing about its sound design, it probably deserves an Oscar.

But I want to briefly discuss the sound of The Social Network here. When I watched the movie recently with my parents on Blu-ray, my mother complained that the mix was poor because she couldn't make out the dialogue during the film's music-heavy scenes. I understood her complaint, but it wasn't the fault of the mix; the problem was that we were watching on a thoroughly shitty sound system. And given the current consumer trend toward home theatre (and away from the multiplex), it's important to point out that unless you're willing to pay for a truly kickass sound setup, you're going to have issues with this sort of thing, regardless of the audio quality of the Blu-ray disc.

My point isn't to encourage people to drop two grand on a Yamaha system but rather to encourage people to go to the theatre to watch movies. I had absolutely no difficulty discerning the dialogue when I watched The Social Network in the theatre – in fact, the sound mixing was pitch-perfect, which is why its nomination here is well-deserved – but the same wasn't quite true at home, meaning the latter constituted an inferior viewing experience. Obviously this is coming from the perspective of an obsessive filmgoer, but it's disheartening to me that more casual movie fans are unwittingly subjecting themselves to a rendition of a movie that's technically subpar. Just keep this in mind the next time you're complaining about the sound quality of that random Russian movie you rented off Netflix.

[Note that I'm omitting the "My Ideal Ballot" section for the sound categories. If you have a friend who considers himself qualified to evaluate the relative merits of the sound editing of The Wolfman and The Chronicles of Narnia, I'd love to meet him.]

BEST SOUND EDITING

NOMINEES
Inception
Toy Story 3
Tron: Legacy
True Grit
Unstoppable

WILL WIN
Interesting to see just a two-film overlap across the two sound categories (both are Best Picture nominees), the lowest ever in the five years since this category expanded to five nominations. Given that I've already summarily dismissed the sound quality of True Grit, I have no hesitation about picking Inception here as well. The only potential challenger I see is Tron: Legacy, but given that movie's surprising omission in the Best Visual Effects field, it appears as though voters have marginalized it. (And it's hard to blame them.)

SHOULD WIN
What's here isn't as important as what's missing, namely the extraordinary, wide-ranging sound design from How to Train Your Dragon. Animated films are traditionally a showcase for sound engineers to really strut their stuff, but while I'm a huge fan of Toy Story 3 in general, its rival from DreamWorks was clearly superior in the sound department. Pity.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

NOMINEES
How to Train Your Dragon – John Powell
Inception – Hans Zimmer
The King's Speech – Alexandre Desplat
127 Hours – A.R. Rahman
The Social Network – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross

WILL WIN
Yikes. First of all, it's worth noting that the Best Picture winner has doubled as the victor here only once in the last six years. In four of those years, however, the top dog didn't even earn a nomination for its score, so that negative correlation is a bit misleading. Still, the music branch has shown a willingness to diverge from the popular vote, with one-off titles such as Frida and The Red Violin taking trophies home in the recent past. And they've even paid homage to animation (last year with Up), meaning How to Train Your Dragon – the lone contender here that doesn't also find itself in the Best Picture field – can't entirely be written off either.

All of which is a convoluted way of me saying that I really have no idea. If we ignore the films' overall currency and just look at their music, then The Social Network seems like the logical first cut, as Reznor's and Ross' score is likely too chilly and ambient to find a home with most voters. Then again, this is the same branch that singled out current nominee Rahman's propulsive, highly percussive score two years ago for Slumdog Millionaire. But that movie had the added advantage of winning Best Picture ...

Alright, I need to stop. I could feasibly talk myself into any one of these contenders. So I'm just going to take a leap of faith and go with The Social Network. If they were ballsy enough to nominate it, they're ballsy enough to give it the win. (Maybe.)

SHOULD WIN
One could make an engaging argument that a comparison of the musical scores of The King's Speech and The Social Network mirrors the debate over the two films as a whole. For the former, reliably polished composer Alexandre Desplat has crafted a stately, well-mannered, piano-centric score that complements but never inspires. The latter, in contrast, features an edgy, ultra-modern, electronic-based accompaniment by the guy from Nine Inch Nails. The dynamic of traditional versus new-age has rarely been so obvious. That's overly, reductive, of course, but it's an intriguing microcosm nevertheless. All the same, I'm not a huge fan of either score. Desplat's delicate keystrokes fail to conjure a memorable musical theme, while Reznor and Ross, though intermittently energetic (not least when they're boldly adapting Edvard Grieg's legendary "In the Hall of the Mountain King"), keep their sound in the background. It's an approach that serves the film well, but this listener requires a bit of bombast before doling out an Oscar.

There's bombast aplenty in Inception, as Hans Zimmer has never been one for restraint. Yet while Zimmer's electric (if not electronic) score adds yet another tool of impeccable craftsmanship to Inception's belt, I surprisingly find myself more partial to John Powell's soaring music for How to Train Your Dragon. Creating themes both towering and tender, Powell's varied compositions function almost as their own character, an impressive feat for the man who once made his living off the thumping theatrics of the Jason Bourne trilogy.

MY IDEAL BALLOT
How to Train Your Dragon – John Powell
Inception – Hans Zimmer
Never Let Me Go – Rachel Portman
Toy Story 3 – Randy Newman
Tron: Legacy – Daft Punk

Powell and Zimmer earned their nominations and then some. Portman remains the most effortlessly elegant composer working today, and the aching melancholy of her score for Never Let Me Go finds her at the top of her form. I may not be a fan of Newman's voice, but he's a talented composer, and the breadth of his score for Toy Story 3 is astonishing (he even brings in electric guitars), bouncing from playful action to quiet emotion with aplomb. Electronica outfit Daft Punk was the ideal choice for a project as effects-driven (and character-deficient) as Tron: Legacy, and they deliver with a giddily enjoyable romp through modern soundscapes; if I were being cynical, I'd argue that their music is the most fully developed character in the movie.

Oscars Analysis 2010: Nomination Prediction Results

2011-01-26T02:53:00.005-07:00

When predicting this year's Oscar nominations, I suggested that it was highly unlikely that I would do as well as I did last year, when I correctly pegged 40 of the 45 main nominations. And – in what amounts to a twist here at the Manifesto – I was right. I did not do as well as I did last year.

I did better.

Forgive me, but I need to gloat for a bit. I mean, come on, how else am I supposed to celebrate a performance that will (a) earn me no money, (b) generate no job opportunities, and (c) fail to even incrementally increase my odds of getting laid? You don't have to tell me that my primary passion in life – obsessively following the Oscars – is ultimately meaningless. I know. But if I had a reason for doing this, it wouldn't be a passion. (There's an infinitesimal percentage of the population to whom that last sentence makes sense. We're all unemployed and single.)

Anyway, the hell with the meaning of this exercise. I rocked. I correctly forecast 41 of 45 nominations this year. That comes out to 91%, which is higher than Steve Nash's career free-throw percentage. I will forever be thoroughly, disproportionately proud of myself as a result.

Of course, an obvious counterargument to my boasting is that I only predicted eight of the 21 feature categories. In theory, if I really want to brag about my powers of prognostication, I should be predicting all 100-plus nominations, all the way down to Best Sound Editing. And I'll have to think about that for next year. I still can't shake the feeling that even my most loyal readers (hi Dad!) would be less than enthused by a post in which I mull the awards potential of the makeup techniques in The Wolfman, but perhaps that's the only available route from here. Otherwise, I'll just remain playing in the minors with the rest of the lollygaggers.

But that's for next year. In the meantime, let's take a look at the current slate, where I'll provide some quickie analysis. Incorrect predictions are highlighted in red.

BEST PICTURE
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Takeaways: Hey, where are all the red crossouts for the ones I missed? Sorry, couldn't resist.

Current favorite: Oof. Last week I would've said The Social Network without thinking twice, but I suppose now I have to go with The King's Speech, given that it's riding high following its win at the Producers' Guild. It also leads all films with 12 nominations. That said, I don't place all that much stock in the latter statistic. The King's Speech is a prestige period picture – it's supposed to earn nods in categories like Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. Despite receiving "only" eight nominations, The Social Network remains a major player. This race – like the reprehensible invasion of 3-D into the Hollywood studio system – is far from over.

Snubbed: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. What's bitterly ironic is that Warner Brothers is supposedly preparing an all-out promotional launch for the Oscar chances of Part 2 next year, given that it's the final film of the historic eight-movie franchise. It makes sense for the studio, and it's a strategy that worked beautifully for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (though the earlier installments of that franchise admittedly earned superior praise). The only problem is that Part 2 is supposedly action-heavy, which actually makes me pessimistic, given that action scenes represent the lone area in which David Yates and his team have struggled creatively thus far. Meanwhile, Part 1 – a hypnotic production featuring beautifully restrained storytelling and bravura craftsmanship – remained on the sidelines (its nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects provide minimal consolation). Boo.

BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen – True Grit
David Fincher – The Social Network
Tom Hooper – The King's Speech
~~Christopher Nolan – Inception~~ David O. Russell – The Fighter

Takeaways: The most shocking announcement of the entire nomination slate – Christopher Nolan losing out on his seemingly assured first ever directing nod – doubles as the Academy's most inexplicable snub. I acknowledged in my writeup that Nolan was on "somewhat shakier" ground than the three frontrunners, but that didn't minimize my astonishment once the lineup was announced. With Best Picture expanding to 10 nominations, the Best Director quintet essentially represents the Academy's new top five, so this is strong evidence that voters refused to appreciate the ingenuity of Inception (though they did award it a screenplay nomination, an honor they denied Black Swan). Unforgivable.

Current frontrunner: I'll take Fincher for now, as I still think he'll receive recognition from the Directors' Guild (which will further muddle the Best Picture race – should be fun). But if Hooper wins here, you can lock in The King's Speech for the top prize; obviously, the reverse doesn't hold for The Social Network.

Snubbed: Nolan. To pour gasoline on the fire, this marks the third time (following Memento and The Dark Knight) in the auteur's brilliant career that he's earned a nod from the Guild but failed to receive recognition from the Academy. At this point, the guy could make a Holocaust movie starring Meryl Streep with a score by John Williams, and he still probably wouldn't earn a ticket to the Oscars.

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges – True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Colin Firth – The King's Speech
James Franco – 127 Hours
~~Ryan Gosling – Blue Valentine~~ Javier Bardem – Biutiful

Takeaways: Gosling was my wildcard pick here, so I can't be too disappointed. In an abstract sense, I suppose it's good to see the Academy recognizing a foreign language film in a major category. Now I just need to see the damn movie before the Oscars actually roll around.

Current favorite: Firth. He's been racking up wins across the board. And he's become exceedingly efficient at it.

Snubbed: Gosling. I can't really complain, given that I've yet to see Biutiful and the other four performances are all strong, but it's disappointing that the Academy honored Michelle Williams' work in Blue Valentine but failed to recognize her superior co-star.

BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence – Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine

Takeaways: That's more like it. Williams can thank category confusion, as Hailee Steinfeld rightfully deserves to be here, but one can never overestimate the Academy's ability to shunt a younger performer to the supporting sidelines.

Current favorite: Portman. She might not be as ironclad a lock as Firth – Black Swan's buzz has diminished, and Bening might make a push – but I'm still not close to betting against her.

Snubbed: Noomi Rapace – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That the whole movie was shut out isn't entirely surprising, but it would have been delightful had the Academy recognized the year's most fearless performance. Fortunately Rapace leveraged her success into a part in the upcoming Sherlock Holmes sequel; that won't exactly propel her to instant Oscar success (you'll forgive me for being dubious of its artistic integrity), but it indicates that won't be disappearing from the scene anytime soon.

(Note: I thought about including a video from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo here instead, but then I decided that I don't want to get arrested.)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale – The Fighter
John Hawkes – Winter's Bone
Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush – The King's Speech
~~Andrew Garfield – The Social Network~~ Jeremy Renner – The Town

Takeaways: I suppose you could argue that Garfield's omission bodes poorly for The Social Network overall, but I'm not buying. He was never a lock in the first place, and with the exception of Jesse Eisenberg's lead performance, the movie is more about its spectacular screenplay and perfectly controlled pacing than its acting. I'll admit, though, that I was more confident in Garfield showing up here than Hawkes. In any case, in a sense it's good that The Town landed at least one nod, as perhaps this will encourage studios to bankroll similarly gritty adult dramas in the future.

Current frontrunner: Bale. Any concerns about his infamous industry rep appear to be moot at this point. The only way a challenger presents himself is if The King's Speech sweeps, in which case Rush could sneak in.

Snubbed: Sean Penn – Fair Game. Penn has already won Oscar gold twice in the past seven years, but it's not as if he's burned any bridges or become tiresome, so why the complete disregard for Fair Game? One theory is that Hollywood loathes anything involving either politics or the Iraq war, and Fair Game trafficked heavily in both (and with heavy bias to boot). Regardless of the rationale, it's a shame, because Penn delivers one of the best performances of his distinguished career, infusing Joe Wilson with both bone-deep integrity and smoldering rage.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams – The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter – The King's Speech
Melissa Leo – The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit
Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom

Takeaways: I'm fairly proud of myself for nailing the full slate on this one, especially with Weaver. Poor Hailee Steinfeld obviously deserves better, but she might come away with a trophy as a result, so I doubt she'll complain.

Current frontrunner: None. Honestly, this race is incredibly close right now. Leo has been doing well on the circuit, but that was before True Grit started raking in dollars, so she can't be considered a clean favorite. Throw in Bonham Carter's potential to ride The King's Speech's coattails, and this one won't be resolved until Oscar night.

Snubbed: Keira Knightley – Never Let Me Go. I give up.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Another Year – Mike Leigh
Inception – Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right – Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko
The King's Speech – David Seidler
~~Black Swan – Mark Heyman et. al~~ The Fighter – Scott Silver et. al

Takeaways: If the Best Director snub of Nolan was an indictment of Inception's overall reception with the Academy, this category showed that voters didn't entirely embrace the borderline-psychotic Black Swan. The Fighter scored points with the Writers' Guild, so it's inclusion isn't all that surprising, though I'd imagined it would have bounced Another Year instead.

Current frontrunner: The King's Speech. If Nolan had been nominated, I might have backed Inception here, but as it is, I think The King's Speech cruises in a category where it doesn't have to compete against The Social Network.

Snubbed: The Square. Not that I ever imagined this deliciously twisted Australian noir ever had a chance with the Academy (I honestly don't know if it was even eligible), but writers Joel Edgerton (who starred all too briefly in Animal Kingdom) and Matthew Dabner delivered a knockout script all the same.

(Warning: The Manifesto received an "R" rating as a result of the following clip. Fucking MPAA.)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 Hours – Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 – Michael Arndt
True Grit – Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter's Bone – Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini

Takeaways: All too easy.

Current frontrunner: The Social Network. If it loses this category, I quit the Oscars. (Unless Toy Story 3 wins, which would be shocking but kind of amazing.)

Snubbed: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. Adapting a Harry Potter book is challenging enough; adapting half of one is miraculous. But Steve Kloves maintained the novel's tone of desperation and gnawing fear while also lending cinematic urgency to the narrative.

(As for this video, let it be known that "Is it Stanford?" is in contention for line of the year.)

O.K., that's it for now. We'll be checking back in over the next month with winner predictions for each category. Till then, I'm off to bask in my newfound glory. And look for a job.

Oscars Analysis 2010: Nomination Predictions

2011-01-24T04:53:00.004-07:00

When Michael Jordan (temporarily) retired from basketball in 1993, after leading the Chicago Bulls to three straight NBA championships, he did it for one reason: He was on top. He had nowhere else to go. He decided to challenge himself through minor league baseball, a disastrous experiment that nevertheless proved what a ruthless competitor he really was.

I bring this up not because I'm nostalgic for Jordan's greatness on the hardwood but because I'm wondering if I should just quit prognosticating the Oscars right now. When I predicted the Academy's nominations last year, I hit on 89% of my picks, resulting in a crowing post where I compared myself to Eliza Dushku's character in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and lost half of my readers in the process. Where can I possibly go from here? Maybe I should just switch gears and start pegging the Grammys.

But fuck it. I don't just want one great year – I want a dynasty. I want to be the John Wooden of Oscar predictions. (And maybe 40 years from now when a woman goes on an even better streak, Geno Auriemma can accuse the media of misogyny.) And I want to prove to my readers that last year was not a Brady Anderson-level flash in the pan but the beginning of a sustained level of greatness. Besides, I can't walk away from the Oscars – they're kind of my thing.

Alright, the nominations will be announced Tuesday, so let's get to it. And remember, while the Manifesto will eventually forecast the winner of all 21 categories, I'm limiting myself to the top eight categories for the nomination predictions.

Here we go. Michael Jordan, you better watch your ass.

BEST PICTURE
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Comments: We can essentially break these into confidence tiers. The absolute locks are The King's Speech and The Social Network; those two will be battling down to the wire for the top prize. After that, Black Swan, The Fighter, and Inception are similarly surefire bets, as all three combine critical praise with strong box office grosses. Toy Story 3 will cruise to Pixar's second straight nomination (after last year's Up) and struggle to avoid being labeled as occupying the "token animated slot". The Kids Are All Right came out an awfully long time ago, but its pace hasn't flagged throughout the season. True Grit may not have been a critical smash, but it's been a force at the box office, and reviews are nevertheless strong enough to grant it the populist vote.

That's when things get shaky. The prevailing wisdom is that three films – 127 Hours, The Town, and Winter's Bone – are vying for the two remaining slots. The Town nabbed a nod from the Producers' Guild (outdistancing Winter's Bone), but its narrative just seems too rote to me for it to land in the top 10. Winter's Bone, on the other hand, is an indie darling (hailing from Sundance, no less), and given that the current lineup already includes three movies that crossed $100 million (Toy Story 3, Inception, and True Grit), I imagine that voters will throw more of their weight behind the low-key Ozark drama than the star-studded Boston heist flick. As for 127 Hours, its buzz has lessened somewhat, but I still think Danny Boyle's cred with the Academy – plus the movie's holy-shit-that-really-happened story – give it enough of a lift.

Potential upset: Besides The Town, Shutter Island could sneak in behind Scorsese's clout, although it came out 11 whole months ago. Also, keep an eye on Mike Leigh's Another Year; it predictably won with critics, but I think it's been too-little seen.

Longshots: Blue Valentine (it's an acting vehicle); How to Train Your Dragon (someday two animated films will land in the top 10, but not this year); The Ghost Writer (maybe if the Polanski hullabaloo had happened more recently); Rabbit Hole (supposedly great, so why no buzz?); Biutiful (if any foreign language films makes the cut, it's this one); Secretariat (dubbed as this year's The Blind Side, except it barely made one-fifth the gross); Hereafter (Eastwood's name just isn't what it was four years ago).

BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen – True Grit
David Fincher – The Social Network
Tom Hooper – The King's Speech
Christopher Nolan – Inception

Comments: You can write Fincher's nomination in permanent ink. I don't see Hooper going anywhere, and I'm also reasonably confident on Aronofsky. Nolan is on somewhat shakier ground, especially given Inception's summer release date, but in the end the Academy won't be able to deny his mastery of the medium. By far my diciest proposition is the Coen Brothers, as I'm choosing them over the Guild-nominated David O. Russell (for The Fighter). Part of that is personal bias, but part is that Christian Bale is likely swallowing up all attention for The Fighter, whereas True Grit was as much about its sumptuous visuals and flawless filmmaking as its story.

Potential upsets: I'm essentially calling an upset with the Coens over Russell. Two months ago I'd have pegged Danny Boyle for 127 Hours – then I saw the movie. Debra Granik could sneak in here for Winter's Bone, especially if she can ride some pro-female sentiment following Kathyrn Bigelow's win last year for The Hurt Locker.

Longshots: Mike Leigh for Another Year (he'll have better odds for his screenplay); Lisa Cholodenko for The Kids Are All Right (too much buzz for Bening, not enough for the film); Martin Scorsese for Shutter Island (only if it also lands a Best Picture nomination); Ben Affleck for The Town (ibid); Roman Polanski for The Ghost Writer (hey, after The Pianist, who knows?).

(FYI: Massive spoilers on this True Grit clip. Certainly no more than in the film's damn trailer though.)

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges – True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Colin Firth – The King's Speech
James Franco – 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling – Blue Valentine

Comments: Eisenberg and Firth are rock-solid locks (anyone sensing a pattern?), and Bridges seems reasonably secure. It's possible the buzz for 127 Hours has dwindled so dramatically that Franco might miss the cut, but he carries his picture more so than any other performer this year (with the possible exception of Ryan Reynolds in Buried). My admiration for Gosling's performance is undoubtedly swaying my prediction, but I can't help myself, and I'm not sensing all that much enthusiasm for the Guild-nominated Robert Duvall (for Get Low).

Potential upsets: Conventional wisdom pegs Duvall, while Javier Bardem could slide in for his supposedly stellar work in Biutiful (I've yet to see it). It's possible The Fighter has more pull than I'm anticipating, in which case Mark Wahlberg could land a nomination for his ~~incredibly bland~~ serviceable performance in the title role.

Longshots: Stephen Dorff for Somewhere (did anyone see it?); Paul Giamatti for Barney's Version (definitely no one saw it); Leonardo DiCaprio for Shutter Island (as with Scorsese, only if it's part of an all-out Shutter Island blitz).

BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence – Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine

Comments: Here's where things get messy. The distinction between lead and supporting performances at the Oscars is often blurry, and that's only exacerbated when studios campaign for stars to show up in one category (usually for probability purposes), even though they clearly belong in the other. (The most bizarre example of this came two years ago, when Harvey Weinstein promoted Kate Winslet for Best Supporting Actress for The Reader, but the Academy resisted and nominated her in the lead category, which she eventually won.) This year features no fewer than three such confusing considerations: Lesley Manville for Another Year, Julianne Moore for The Kids Are All Right, and Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit. (The latter is being pushed for supporting but is so clearly the film's star that it illustrates the lunacy of the entire process.)

To demonstrate how difficult this makes the prediction process, let's look at the approaches of two different agencies. The BAFTAs (i.e., the British awards) ignored all politicking and nominated both Moore and Steinfeld as leads while registering Manville as supporting. The Screen Actors' Guild (SAG), in contrast, toed the studio line and slotted Steinfeld as supporting, then muddled everything further by not even nominating Manville or Moore, instead opting (somewhat shockingly) for Hilary Swank for Conviction. Meanwhile, Michelle Williams is watching everything unfold like the piranha in You Only Live Twice, hoping to swoop in for the kill her after her enemies have exhausted themselves fighting each other.

So where does that leave us? Well, only one slot is really up for grabs, as Portman and Bening are shoo-ins, while Kidman and Lawrence can feel reasonably comfortable. I'm disenchanted enough with Academy voting procedures to bet that they'll place Steinfeld in the supporting category, not least because of her age. Moore would probably have better luck in supporting, but she's being overshadowed by Bening either way. So for me it's a tossup between Manville and Williams, and it's made all the more difficult because I've yet to see Another Year. Still, if I have the balls to predict a nomination for Gosling, I might as well go out on a similar limb for his (arguably more-beloved) co-star. And when Noomi Rapace shows up here for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, well, that'll just prove that this was all just a waste of time.

Potential upsets: You mean besides Manville, Moore, Rapace, Steinfeld, and Swank?

Longshots: Tilda Swinton for I Am Love (perhaps as an apology for failing to recognize her masterwork in last year's Julia); Sally Hawkins for Made in Dagenham (perhaps as an apology for failing to nominate her for her stellar performance in Happy-Go-Lucky two years ago); Carey Mulligan for Never Let Me Go (perhaps as an apology for failing to properly give her the win last year for An Education).

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale – The Fighter
Andrew Garfield – The Social Network
John Hawkes – Winter's Bone
Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush – The King's Speech

Comments: Bale and Rush are golden, while Ruffalo isn't dogged by any of the category concerns surrounding his running mate Moore. I'm backing Garfield largely because I'm banking on a massive showing from The Social Network, but he's by no means assured. Hawkes is my shakiest pick, but he landed a nod from the SAG, and given that I've already thrown in my hat for Winter's Bone in my Best Picture predictions, there's no point in hedging here.

Potential upsets: The biggest potential disruptor here is Jeremy Renner for The Town. He showed up in both the SAG and Golden Globe nominations, and he's likely riding some residual good will from his star-making turn in The Hurt Locker. It's possible that The Social Network could double-dip via Justin Timberlake. Matt Damon could sneak in for True Grit, but I feel like Bridges and Steinfeld are dominating the market on that movie.

Longshots: Michael Douglas for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (a pure sympathy pick); Pete Postlethwaite for The Town (same); Jim Broadbent for Another Year (not enough buzz); Sam Rockwell for Conviction (if Swank doesn't get in, neither does he).

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams – The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter – The King's Speech
Melissa Leo – The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit
Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom

Comments: Adams and Leo shouldn't have any difficulty earning nominations for the same film, though only Leo is a sure thing. Bonham Carter isn't going anywhere. Steinfeld, of course, could lose out due to the category confusion I've mentioned, but I'm anticipating voters will look at her age (not to mention her co-star's stature) and marginalize her here. For the elusive fifth slot, I'm going Down Under with Weaver, an actress who's garnered plenty of press and has no concerns about category fraud whatsoever.

Potential upsets: Obviously Lesley Manville and Julianne Moore could both show up here. Weaver's biggest challenger is likely Mila Kunis for Black Swan, although she might wind up losing votes to Barbara Hershey for the same film.

Longshots: Kristin Scott-Thomas for Nowhere Boy (maybe if anyone had seen it); Miranda Richardson for Made in Dagenham (name recognition, perhaps); Marion Cotillard for Inception (voters love her); Dianne Wiest for Rabbit Hole (she always seems to show up here every five years or so); Mia Wasikowska for The Kids Are All Right (she'll be here someday, but not this year); Keira Knightley for Never Let Me Go (I freaking wish).

(By the way, this is easily the best scene in The Fighter. Note that Mark Wahlberg isn't anywhere near it.)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Another Year – Mike Leigh
Black Swan – Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, and John J. McLaughlin
The Kids Are All Right – Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko
The King's Speech – David Seidler
Inception – Christopher Nolan

Comments: I'm pegging four of these five for Best Picture nominations as well, meaning Another Year is my wildcard. Leigh generally does well with his screenplays at the Oscars, and while the Writers' Guild nominated The Fighter, I again think that Christian Bale's towering performance snuffs out that film's chances here.

Potential upsets: Besides The Fighter, the Guild also highlighted Nicole Holofcener's scruffy screenplay for Please Give, though I think it's too downbeat and off-kilter to show up at the Oscars. Blue Valentine is primarily an actors' vehicle, but it's possible voters could be impressed with its cross-cutting timelines.

Longshot: Greenberg (perhaps Noah Baumbach can garner some residual report for his critically beloved The Squid and the Whale); Somewhere (can Sofia Coppola cash in on Lost in Translation seven years later?).

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 Hours – Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 – Michael Arndt
True Grit – Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter's Bone – Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini

Comments: Unlike with Best Original Screenplay, I'm calling a five-for-five match between this category and Best Picture. If one were to drop out, I'd pick 127 Hours, but the Writers' Guild nomination should give it enough heft.

Potential upsets: The Town managed a nod with the Guild as well, though that's partly because Toy Story 3 was weirdly ruled ineligible. (I'm frankly unsure just what it is that Toy Story 3 is adapting, but no matter.) Similarly, I Love You, Phillip Morris scored with the Guild, but its paltry gross (under $2 million) should rule it out.

Longshots: How to Train Your Dragon (more plausible than a Best Picture nomination); The Ghost Writer (Polanski will have better luck in the Best Director category); Rabbit Hole (I'd know better if I'd actually seen it).

That's a wrap. Feel free to sound off with your own predictions in the Comments, and check back soon to see whether or not I remain invincible. I'm not betting on it.

The 25 Best Songs of 2010

2010-12-13T03:57:00.005-07:00

I am not a music snob. I feel it's important to declare this upfront, as the forthcoming list has the potential to brand me as a hipster indie fan who loathes mainstream pop artists because their music is too inclusive and caters to the low-brow cravings of the slovenly masses. And that honestly isn't the case. My problem with modern music isn't one of elitism but awareness. Following the Manifesto's prior music post, my friend Chuck pointed out that my taste "rarely weaves outside of indie pop/rock," and that's typically true, but it isn't because I don't like mainstream music – it's because I've usually just never heard it.

See, with movies, I watch so many that I'm generally able to maintain a comprehensive overview of the current state of cinema. Sure, I'm a bit lacking on the foreign film market, and there will always be a handful of obscure low-profile releases that evade my eye, but watching over 100 new releases per year grants me a reasonably informed perspective of the world of film. But with music, the market is so heavily saturated – literally dozens of new albums are released for public consumption every week – that I just don't have the ability to keep up. (Life as a law student doesn't help.) Furthermore, the two music websites I peruse regularly – the supremely arrogant Pitchfork Media and the only-marginally more welcoming Onion A.V. Club – tend to employ tunnel vision in championing burgeoning, underground artists at the expense of the Top 40. And while I frequently receive recommendations from my friends Brian and Maloney – both of whom are far more knowledgeable about music than I – their tastes, while not entirely insular, nevertheless tend to be indie-focused.

So if you read this list and immediately react, "I've never heard of any of these fucking bands, this guy must be an asshole," just bear in mind that I hold no ill will toward successful musicians. I probably just don't know who they are.

That said, one advantage of the massive breadth (if not wealth) of the contemporary music industry is that good new sounds are arising from everywhere, and regardless of your familiarity with the following artists, let me assure you that I'm highlighting some very good music. Sure, music more so than most art forms carries with it a degree of subjectivity – you won't find any tribute to Kanye West on this site, for example – but I'm confident that most readers will enjoy at least a handful of the following songs, most likely a large majority.

As for the list itself, you'll notice that this post is highlighting 2010's best songs rather than albums. This is a bit of an ideological reversal for me, as I try to be very album-focused when I listen to music. For whatever reason, however, very few albums impressed me in their totality over the past year; rather, I found myself routinely returning to particular songs, then skipping forward to other favorite tracks, as opposed to absorbing albums in their entirety. For better or worse, 2010, it appears, was the Year of the Single.

But what a collection of singles. Going forward, I'm unlikely to listen to very many albums from 2010, but I'll revisit the following songs again and again. One note: In an effort to diversify, I'm limiting myself to a max of one song per artist (meaning I can't put three Yeasayer tracks in my top five, but no matter). And with that, I present the Manifesto's Best Songs of 2010:

(Quick note on the videos: For songs that feature an accompanying music video designed specifically for that song, I'm embedding it. For those that don't, I'm just linking to a YouTube upload of the song that includes the audio, so even if an actual video doesn't exist, a listen is just a click away. As for the videos themselves, I am recommending the songs, not the videos. In general, some music videos enhance the power and meaning of a song through restraint, well-chosen thematic imagery, and overall directorial savvy. Most don't. Take that for what it's worth.)

25. Delorean – Stay Close. Two minutes into this track – a frothy slice of upbeat electronica – the backing vocals suddenly hiss "Get up, get-up, get-up-get-up get up!" They needn't have bothered, as you'll already be on your feet by then. Rarely has summery electro-pop been more breezily enjoyable.

24. Titus Andronicus – Theme from "Cheers". Titus Andronicus' first album, The Airing of Grievances, was a frenzied assault on even the roughest roughneck's auditory sensibilities, a heavy-metal barrage that was as incomprehensible as it was loud. Their follow-up, the high-concept effort The Monitor, represents significant growth, though it still didn't quite click for me as a cohesive narrative. This track, however, showcases their talents for combining quippy storytelling with earnest, smashing hard-rock. And with lyrics such as "Let's get fucked up, and let's pretend we're all O.K." and "I need a whiskey right now!", it makes me want to get really, really drunk. So there's that.

23. Midlake – Rulers, Ruling All Things. Midlake's quiet, ramshackle sound can stray from subtly insistent to simply somnambulant. Few bands can adequately imitate the backwoods charm and urgency of Bon Iver, and on their latest album, Midlake frequently step awry. But on this track, they marry their inherently low-key strumming with surprising verve. They rarely raise their voices, but the low-register bass line builds gradually, and the chorus ("I only want to be left to my own ways") possesses an unmistakable resolve.

22. The Depreciation Guild – Dream About Me. The best and worst thing about great shoegaze is that the words don't really matter. That's disturbing in that I can find myself "singing" along to a song without knowing any of the lyrics, which in theory is impossible and disparages any effort the band put into crafting the lyrics. But certain music is more about soundscapes than words, and the rich, shimmering haziness of the Depreciation Guild forms its own language of poetry. It also makes the imperative of the title – which, taken objectively, is a bit creepy – a soft-spoken, entirely reasonable request.

21. The New Pornographers – Crash Years. "Traffic was slow for the crash years! There's no other show like it 'round here!" When Neko Case puts her voice into something, she's wielding a weapon of enormous power. That voice is biblical – if she ever switched from singing to sermonizing, she could incite a new Crusade.

(Love the video, by the way. While most music videos are hyperactive to the point of disorientation, this one features a formal discipline on par with the Coen Brothers. In fact, it recalls the Brothers' famous parking lot scene from Fargo, only married to the brisk whimsy of Mary Poppins.)

20. Broken Bells – The Ghost Inside. Broken Bells is a collaboration between James Mercer (of The Shins) and Brian Burton, whose stage name is Danger Mouse and who is apparently one of the most talented producers in the business. "The Ghost Inside," which combines a flamboyant falsetto with a magnificent bass funk, doesn't sound much like a Shins song (though Mercer delivers a reliably appealing bridge), but it's just as unpredictably weird as that band's best music.

(Two great videos in a row. This one stars "Mad Men"'s Christina Hendricks and is as fascinating as it is nonsensical. Did I mention it stars Christina Hendricks?)

19. Bat for Lashes/Beck – Let's Get Lost. This collaboration was made for the third Twilight movie, and whatever derision you may direct toward that franchise, you can't deny that it's attracted some mighty impressive musicians. "Let's Get Lost" utilizes Natasha Khan's breathtaking vocal delivery to its full, ethereal effect, resulting in a mythic romanticism that the film earnestly strives for but can't quite match (though it's damn enjoyable, but that's another story). "Just for tonight, darling, let's get lost" she pleads over and over again – like you'd say no?

18. Surfer Blood – Floating Vibes. This was a tough decision, as I could just as easily have selected "Swim" or "Take It Easy" from Surfer Blood's delightful debut album Astro Coast and come away happy. But "Floating Vibes", the opening track on Astro Coast, is a perfect slice of pop music. The production is tightly wound, the songwriting is punchy ("If you're moving out to the West/Then you'd better learn how to surf"), the percussion never stops pushing forward, and the electric guitars just plain rock. Expect big things from these guys.

17. Jimmy Eat World – Cut. Hey, a mainstream band! Of course, I have no idea if Jimmy Eat World are still popular, but they should be, especially after releasing such a finely tuned album as Invented. The composition of "Cut", however, is a far cry from the band that briefly took over pop radio nine years ago with "The Middle". It's a grand, vaguely operatic apology piece that slowly builds to a soaring chorus of warning ("If it's your name in lights, and if the time is yours/You'd be on your back/You'd be on the floor"). Done wrong, such a piece could come off as untethered and self-indulgent; done right, it's majestic.

16. Metric – Black Sheep. In releasing their stellar 2009 album Fantasies, Metric – for reasons I will never be able to adequately discern – elected not to include this slammin' piece of pop-rock. That worked out just fine for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World director Edgar Wright, who snatched up the track and assigned it to his film's fictional megastar rockers, The Clash at Demonhead. And while Metric may not yet possess the global fame of that comic-book quartet, this song should send them well on their way. A titillating tour de force of sonic explosiveness, "Black Sheep" is exactly the kind of song that a wildly popular band would play at a concert crawling with rabid, ravenous fans. It is also a supremely well-constructed song, with thrashing guitars yielding only to Emily Haines' (or Brie Larson's, in the film) fiery vocals. Rock on, Clash at Demonhead.

15. Frightened Rabbit – Nothing Like You. This was another tough call, as The Winter of Mixed Drinks features 4-5 single-worthy tracks. But "Nothing Like You" takes the spot thanks to its marvelously vindictive description of a rebound relationship. "There is nothing like someone new/This girl she was nothing like you," Scott Hutchison seethes while the guitars swirl around him. But there's some sadness amidst the clamor as well, and as Hutchison admits that "she was not the cure for cancer", we have to wonder just how much catharsis he's really achieved.

(The predictably frenetic video plays nicely on that sentiment, as after the music stops, the band slowly looks around as if to wonder if their rage and bitterness have meant anything.)

14. Shearwater – Castaways. If Neko Case's voice can compel men to go to war, Jonathan Meiburg's can make them stop in their tracks and weep. Ceaselessly flirting with falsetto, Meiburg's relentless octave-shifting lends his songs a hushed, spellbinding grandiosity, as if he's forecasting the end of the world in the most gorgeous way possible. Shearwater's sound is often contemplative, and "Castaways" is by no means bombastic, but neither is it soft-pedaled, and a relentless snare line emphasizes the breathless urgency of Shearwater's music.

13. The Gaslight Anthem – Old Haunts. For a band that traffics so heavily in nostalgia, "Old Haunts" is a wry piece of self-criticism, with its admonishing refrain, "Don't sing me your songs about the good times/Those days are gone and you should just let 'em go". Whether or not the Springsteen worshippers stake out any new territory compared to their storied predecessors is a question for a more learned musical historian; as far as I'm concerned, their sound captures the essence of enjoyable rock music. Perfectly balanced guitars, rock-solid hooks, an energetic bridge, pumping percussion – there may not be that much new to see here, but what we have is plenty.

12. Diamond Rings – Wait & See. The beat for this song is unhealthily compelling. Whenever I listen to it while driving, I start bobbing my head like I'm in a slow-motion version of A Night at the Roxbury. Throw in the extraordinary timbre of John O'Regan's voice – the guy sounds like Johnny Cash filtered through David Bowie – and the result is one of the most insidious can't-stop-singing-this-to-yourself-in-the-shower songs of the year.

(Also, this video is incontrovertible proof that you should never watch a music video before listening to the song first. O'Regan looks like a reject from the Marilyn Manson Fan Club. If someone had sent me this video absent any context, I would have shrieked and closed it immediately, terrified that I'd just been spammed by a gay porn site. The scary part? Once you accept the outrageousness of it, the video is kind of cool.)

11. Against Me! – Because of the Shame. Is there a sadder opening line to a song than "We used to get high together instead of getting high alone"? The sound of Against Me! is pure punk-rock (with a deceptive measure of craftsmanship), but the fury of their noise can disguise some truly depressing narratives. The intriguing dichotomy of White Crosses, their latest album, is that their id-powered rage-rock receives the benefit of a polished, near-meticulous production. That might suggest a contradiction, but it dramatically enhances the communication of their message, and Tom Gabel's lyrics are refreshingly prioritized ahead of the clanging guitars and percussion. That's particularly important on "Because of the Shame", which tells the sorrowful story of a girl searching for a fresh start, only to wind up dead anyway. "I watched your mother bury you today with tears in her eyes/Oh it wasn't her words that shook me but the resemblance you shared," he laments. Gabel isn't the only one being shaken here.

10. Arcade Fire – City with No Children. I wasn't plugged in to the music industry in 2004, so when the zeitgeist hit along with Arcade Fire's Funeral, I missed it. I wonder if that's prevented me from fully engaging with their music, as their soothing alt-rock has always kept me at a bit of a distance, but I liked a great deal of The Suburbs, no track more so than this one. Backed by a single bass that never, ever stops, Win Butler delivers a narrative about ... well, I'm not exactly sure, but he somehow sounds both alarmed and strangely contented. Sure, the concept of a city – much less a suburban one – lacking in children is thoroughly terrifying, but Butler's vocals carry with them a quiet sense of confident, against-all-odds optimism. He's swaddling the apocalypse in silk.

9. Vampire Weekend – Giving Up the Gun. Unlike Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend's arrival on the indie music scene in early 2008 was virtually synchronized with my own dawning realization that pop music existed in a realm outside animated Disney films. Still, I never entirely embraced their self-titled first album, which, while pleasant and well-crafted, felt a bit samey to me (though whenever you title a song "Oxford Comma", you've earned my attention). I'm a bigger fan of their sophomore effort, Contra, which explores a wider variety of sonic tropes and concludes with the startlingly introspective "I Think Ur a Contra". Yet the crowning achievement of that album is clearly "Giving Up the Gun", an upbeat slice of groove-rock that would have felt comfortably at home on their first album but is nevertheless indicative of the band's growth. The guitars perfectly complement Ezra Koenig's vocals, and the chorus is predictably catchy, but there's a moment at the four-minute mark when Koenig's voice suddenly drops out and the pace slows as the backup singers simply repeat the refrain ("I see you shine in your way/Go on, go on, go on"), and then a rapid-fire snare brings us back up to speed. It's a lovely little detail from a tremendously talented band whose best is still yet to come.

(Hard to decide the best thing about this video. For one thing, it features a hot redhead playing tennis (sort of). For another, Jake Gyllenhaal randomly shows up. And yet I think my favorite detail is that the redhead is left-handed. Good-looking southpaws are hard to find.)

8. ceo – Illuminata. There's a classic scene from In & Out (which is a terrible movie, but no matter) in which Kevin Kline, who's gay, listens to a self-help tape that informs him that "truly manly men do not dance". He then spends the next minute trying against his will to resist the beat of Aretha Franklin's "I Will Survive" before ultimately yielding to his base desires and going berserk. I bring this up because I dare you to listen to this song – with its rapid-fire electronic beat and scat-based backing vocals – and not dance. You will fail.

7. Taylor Swift – Back to December. In a sense, Kanye West's idiotic sabotage of Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at last year's MTV Music Awards served her interests, because it likely engendered some measure of sympathy for her, thus postponing the pop-culture backlash that inevitably accompanies any popular musician's ascension to global fame, much less one who caters to earnest young girls. That backlash is still coming (if it hasn't already arrived), and that's a shame because Taylor Swift is really fucking talented. The best thing about her latest album, the excellent Speak Now, is that in spite of its flawless production, it carries no acknowledgment of Swift's current status as an icon. Rather, it's an astonishingly earnest set of songs by a truly earnest artist who doesn't seem remotely aware that she now basically rules the world. No track typifies this more beautifully than "Back to December" (though "Dear John" comes pretty damn close), a yearning, heart-on-her-sleeve apology to an ex-boyfriend she once dumped. Brutally frank lyrics like "Turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you/Wishing I'd realized what I had when you were mine" could turn to mush in the wrong artist's hands, but Swift's sentimentality – not to mention her dead-center vocal delivery – is so heartfelt that we can't question the authenticity of her emotions. She may be one of the biggest pop stars in the world, but she's still just a scared little girl. And that's what makes her music so good.

(Also, never in my life have I fantasized that an ex-girlfriend would stand outside my apartment blaring this song from a boom box. Just wanted to clear that up.)

6. The Hold Steady – The Weekenders. No 2010 album disappointed me more than the Hold Steady's Heaven Is Whenever – not because it was bad, mind you, but because it didn't reach the potentially unreachable standards I've set for one of my favorite bands. But while the album as a whole is disappointing, "The Weekenders" represents the Hold Steady at the peak of their form, a hard-charging ballad of lost love and bitterness. Finn still displays his gift for casually dispensing witticisms ("She said 'The theme of this party's the industrial age'/And you came in dressed like a train wreck"), but he continues to mature as a singer, expanding the range of his voice while retaining the intimacy of his half-spoken style. But it's the band's gift for transforming the rough-and-tumble sound of bar-punk into a venue of unsuspecting majesty that remains its greatest strength. Late in the song, Finn prophesies, "If you swear to keep it decent, then yeah I'll come and see you/But it's not gonna be like in romantic comedies/In the end I bet no one learns a lesson," before Tad Kubler's guitar solo ascends into the stratosphere. They can still make music magical, even if they're dressed like a train wreck.

5. Hot Chip – I Feel Better. I'm not much of a dancer (and by "not much" I mean "so totally not at all"), so it might seem strange that I enjoy Hot Chip's dance-pop so immensely. But in a sense, they're really an emo group disguised as an electronica outfit, and Alexis Taylor's swooning falsetto is magnetically arresting. On one level, "I Feel Better" is pure, groove-happy dance music, with a pulse-pounding beat and wave upon wave of restless synthesizers. On another, it's a sad, desperate love song. "I only want one life together in our arms," Taylor pleads over and over as the beat slams relentlessly behind him, and it's hard to know whether we should dance, cry, or both.

(Quite the bait-and-switch from the video. You'll see what I mean.)

4. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Say No to Love. There is some music with which I feel an inexplicable connection, an intimacy, a sense that it was written solely for me. And then there's a song like this, which is basically saying, in the most dulcet tones possible, "You will never be happy, so you might as well stop trying". That it is exquisitely produced, sonically upbeat, and just generally frighteningly beautiful does little to detract from the cruelty of its message. It's a gilded knife, and it's headed straight for your heart.

3. Belle and Sebastian – I Didn't See It Coming. I know, I'm just being predictable; I love Belle and Sebastian, so obviously they're going to show up high on my list, right? But wait a minute: Are we even sure this is a Belle and Sebastian song? Their frontman, Stuart Murdoch, plays second fiddle to Sarah Martin, and more importantly, the song isn't remotely clever. Murdoch is a poet slumming as a musician, so where are the coy quips, the witty asides? Instead we just have one simple imperative: "Make me dance, I want to surrender." And from that command blooms a rich, tender duet that is gorgeous in its magnificent simplicity. Buoyed by subtle harmonies, "I Didn't See It Coming" builds and builds until Murdoch finally takes center stage, crowing to the crowd, "Read about us in the morning papers when we make it/When we make it alive!" The result is a superlative piece of music that will make even the most hard-hearted listener surrender.

2. Yeasayer – Madder Red. This Brooklyn quartet delivered three pantheon songs on their latest album, and I could just as easily have gone with "Ambling Alp" or "O.N.E." But the majesty of "Madder Red" is impossible to deny, with its cooing backup singers doing battle with its ruthless rhythm section, while Chris Keating's full-bodied vocals glide from baritone to falsetto and back. "Never gave a thought to an honorable living/Always had sense enough to lie," Keating confesses in the bridge, but that's false cynicism, and it masks the inherent beauty of Yeasayer's music. It's a soaring brand of glistening glam-rock that fearlessly rejects musical norms, but "Madder Red", daring as it may be, is by no means the product of random experimentation. This is craftsmanship at its finest.

(Warning: This video, featuring Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Kristen Bell, will absolutely make you cry. I'm not kidding.)

1. The National – Conversation 16. "I think the kids are in trouble/I do not know what all the troubles are for." And so we enter the life of Matt Berninger, a lost soul trying helplessly to cope with middle age and wondering how the hell he's gone so wrong. That's a lie, of course, at least as it pertains to his music; The National are becoming ever more successful, which makes sense given that with every successive album they somehow improve upon their last. But a haunting sadness pervades their latest release (the transcendent High Violet), and on "Conversation 16" they hit rock-bottom. "You'd never believe the shitty thoughts I think," Berninger mumbles in his inimitable bottomless rumble. He then illustrates just how shitty those thoughts are, whether he's referring to tedious dinner-dates ("I'll try to hold it together till our friends are gone"), his subsistence "on coffee and flowers", or his contemplation of suicide ("I have my head in the oven so you know where I'll be"). Meanwhile, the band's production is quietly terrific, with the drums constantly pushing Berninger forward when all he really wants to do is turn back and search for an escape. "We'll leave the silver city 'cause all the silver girls gave us black dreams," he resolves, but he's just fooling himself. As "Conversation 16" reaches its dire, spellbinding conclusion – the rat-a-tat snare sending him toward a cliff while his band mates sigh like broken angels – Berninger finally gives up and yields to his own demons: "I am evil." Could have fooled me – the music is sublime.

2010's great movies thus far. All three of them.

2010-08-18T15:35:00.002-06:00

A few months ago, my friend Brent sent me the following email: "Is Robin Hood worth watching for a guy who doesn't go to many movies?" It was his last phrase that forced me to remind myself of a simple fact: Not everyone is obsessed with movies. Not everyone sees over 100 movies per year. Not everyone considers movies to be among the five most important things in his life, along with his family, his softball team, his PlayStation 3, and Kyle Singler.

So when people ask me whether or not I recommend a certain film, I need to recognize that many people demand excellence from movies in a way that I don't. Don't get me wrong, I have high standards for movies – it's just that, because they're my preferred method of existence, I can feel satisfied after watching a perfectly decent one as opposed to a truly great one. But if I'm going to recommend a film to someone like Brent – someone who simply doesn't watch that many movies – then it needs to pass a certain threshold.

And when viewing the first eight months of 2010's cinematic slate through that particular prism, things look pretty bleak. Sure, I've seen more than a handful of good films, but very few would pass the Brent test. Still, lest I paint myself as one of those dour curmudgeons who never ceases complaining about modern movies, I wanted to highlight three films released thus far in 2010 that are truly great. (Note: I'm leaving off The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, partly because I already championed it here, partly because it is most assuredly not for everyone. But it's pretty great.) Overall, the first two-thirds of 2010 at the theatre may have underwhelmed, but these three pictures all earn the Manifesto's enthusiastic recommendation – and that, I must say, is tough to come by.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Color me surprised. Going into the theatre for this movie, I knew virtually nothing about Edgar Wright's post-punk fantasy, only that it played well with the nerds at Comic-Con and starred Michael Cera of Superbad/Juno/"Arrested Development" fame. So when I found myself thrown into a videogame-inspired universe that seemed like a cross between the romantic surrealism of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and a classic "Street Fighter" bout, I felt like I'd just been pummeled with a 64-hit combo. But despite possessing a frenzied energy rivaling that of Moulin Rouge!, Wright's valentine to nerddom and indie rock isn't just an assault on the senses. It's also a finely textured, deeply heartfelt romance that treats both its universe and its characters with nostalgic, near-fetishistic affection. Of course, it tanked at the box office, but the world of Scott Pilgrim – endlessly inventive yet strangely at home – will live on for years to come.

Toy Story 3. Critics have been decrying the epidemic that is sequelitis for decades, but Toy Story 3 proves that a numeric appendage to a title doesn't automatically deprive a film of originality. Of course, Toy Story 3 builds from its predecessors' lovingly constructed universe, but it gleams with a vibrancy all its own. That's true of course in terms of the predictably dazzling animation, but it's also in the franchise's gentle maturation into adulthood, both in terms of its subjects and its subject matter. It's overly facile to suggest that Toy Story 3 is about growing up, but it is about how the world is ceaselessly changing and how difficult it is to combat that inexorability. The genius of the movie is that it conveys its brute-force themes with such nimble dexterity and abundant humor that it glides along effortlessly, right until its devastating finale, which delivers the most powerful emotional stomach-punch I've felt at the movies in years.

Inception. As if you were expecting something else. I won't get into the frivolous meta-debate between stuffy critics and self-righteous bloggers that consumed the blogosphere upon the release of Inception – though for those interested, A.O. Scott chronicled the matter nicely – but I'll happily thrown my hat in with those declaring Christopher Nolan's mind-bending thriller to be a masterpiece. Praise can be heaped on Inception for virtually every aspect of its filmmaking, from its agonizing craftsmanship (Lee Smith's editing, Hans Zimmer's score, and Guy Dyas' production design lead the way) to its preposterously talented cast (Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Tom Hardy are among those providing sturdy support for the incomparable Leonardo DiCaprio) to its intriguing metaphysical exploration of how dreams intermingle with reality. For fans of cinematic technique, it's a feast.

But for me, the magnificence of Inception lies in the breathlessness of it all, the slack-jawed wonder that gripped me in a way I haven't felt since The Matrix. It's the same sense of electricity that Nolan brought to The Dark Knight, only this time he's tethered his vast moviemaking genius to a meticulously constructed screenplay that grants Inception just the proper dosage of realism; there's a firm element of order to his mad labyrinth, buried amidst all of the crumbling buildings and spiraling stairs. The result is an utterly gripping moviegoing experience, the kind that renews my faith in cinema as a medium.

In retrospect, I suppose the only problem I have with Inception is that it ends. But I suppose that's the way of things: You can dream for awhile, but sooner or later, you always have to come back to reality.

Get your subtitles on: Foreign films you need to see

2010-07-16T07:26:00.008-06:00

When we were growing up, my sister refused to watch foreign movies. I can't recall her precise rationale for this, although given how childish we both were at the time, I'm not sure our reasoning processes could have been deemed to have anything resembling a "rationale". I think she complained about having to read the subtitles, which didn't make much sense given that she was perfectly literate. Regardless, whenever my father suggested watching a foreign movie, he was met with extreme disdain, not to mention occasional wailing.

Nowadays, armed with the power of a Netflix account, my sister probably watches 5-6 foreign movies each month. This victory over her earlier cinematic xenophobia can largely be attributed simply to growing up, but I'll tentatively argue that it's symptomatic of our country's maturation toward foreign movies as a whole. Over the past decade, films like Amelie, City of God, and Pan's Labyrinth have gained prominence not just abroad but within American cultural circles (all three earned major nominations at the Oscars, not just for Best Foreign Language Film). As a national collective, our moviegoing tastes have ever-so-gradually expanded, and subtitled pictures lack the stigma they once possessed.

Of course, there's still work to do. Distribution for foreign films, though improving, remains woefully inadequate, meaning that most American moviegoers have to wait until the DVD release in order to partake in imported entertainment. Fortunately, the advent of Netflix is a tremendous boon to viewers who desire to expand their horizons beyond our borders. As consumers, we are no longer at the mercy of the tyrannical multiplex infrastructure; if we want to watch a movie about suicidal Turkish lovers, you're not going to fucking stop us.

Don't misunderstand me: I'm in no way decrying the current state of American cinema. I've always fashioned myself a champion of mainstream movie entertainment, and there's a great deal to like about a number of studio-helmed blockbusters that dominate the contemporary landscape. There's just no reason to limit our collective sphere of interest when we can finally gain access to the fertile soil that's available overseas.

To that end, this post is designed to introduce readers to 20 high-quality foreign films of which, for whatever reason, you just aren't aware. (Note that by "foreign" I really mean foreign language, so movies from Britain and Australia are ineligible. Also note that all but two of my selections are from this past decade because, well, such is life.) Now, this compendium is by no means intended to be an all-encompassing. Obviously there are hundreds of other excellent foreign films out there that I've excluded, either because I've forgotten about them or – more likely – I simply haven't seen them. That's the great thing about movies: There are always more good ones to watch.

So, feel free to sound off regarding any particularly egregious omissions in the Comments. In the meantime, if you're feeling avant garde or just in the mood for some foreign flavor, you can't go wrong with any of these. In no particular order (i.e., I spent three hours carefully selecting the order, but I can't possibly describe the method to my madness) ...

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Romania, 2007). This one's a no-brainer. Cristian Mungiu's ferociously gripping drama set during the Romanian dictatorship in 1987 starts off slowly, as we meet two friendly female college students who seem to be planning some sort of trip. By the time it ends, Mungiu has subjected both his characters and his audience to primal fear and grotesque villainy, all presented with prosaic, chillingly observant technique. Featuring a number of excruciatingly long handheld takes, Mungiu's camera makes no comment on the bleakness of his characters' predicament, though the body language of his actors – most notably the achingly sympathetic Anamaria Marinca and the quietly terrifying Vlad Ivanov – says plenty. Stylistically austere, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days uses no music whatsoever, but that doesn't mean it doesn't sing.

Just Another Love Story (Denmark, 2009). Love that title. Ole Bornedal's chaotic, unpredictable thriller indeed focuses on just another everyman, a world-weary crime scene photographer played with perpetually expanding disbelief by Anders W. Berthelsen. One minute he's on a routine investigation, and then suddenly he's sleeping with an amnesiac in her hospital bed, ducking stares from an eerie masked man in a wheelchair (or did he imagine that?), and impersonating a shadowy figure who was murdered in the Thai underworld (wasn't he?). Bornedal's script zigs and zags frantically, resulting in a breathless, giddily entertaining thriller that gleefully toys with its viewers' preconceptions. An American remake is already in the works, with (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb rumored to be at the helm, and while a retooled script could provide some welcome ballast to Bornedal's freewheeling twists and turns, it's hard to imagine another love story quite like this one.

Let the Right One In (Sweden, 2008). Great, another fucking vampire movie. Hold on: The vampire in question is a skittish 12-year-old girl, and the movie is really about her gentle, burgeoning friendship with the bullied boy next door. Tomas Alfredson's film is part tender romance, part delicate coming-of-age story, and part Carrie-esque horror. That might sound like an ungainly mixture, but Alfredson pulls it off thanks to true regard for his characters, as well as masterful command of his craft. There are moments in Let the Right One In – such as a scene in which the camera observes from afar as a figure silently scales a building – that constitute pure filmmaking on the level of Spielberg or, well, Brian de Palma. Cloverfield director Matt Reeves has a remake (titled Let Me In and starring Kick-Ass' Chloe Grace Moretz and The Road's Kodi Smit-McPhee) arriving in October, and while it may be a noble attempt to introduce American audiences to the mythology, it's difficult to conceive how he can possibly improve on the original.

Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico, 2006). If the goal of this list is to introduce readers to films they've never heard of, then Pan's Labyrinth doesn't really belong. It made a healthy $38 million at the U.S. box office and garnered six Oscar nominations (winning three); clearly, it's already found its audience. But I just can't leave it off. A supremely original story combining whimsical childhood fantasy and acutely adult rebellion against fascist rule, Guillermo del Toro's majestic movie retains its innovative hue four years after its release. Originality may be a theme of this post as a whole, but innovation isn't an end in itself – there are plenty of bad movies that are no less terrible simply because they're original. But del Toro weaves his disparate threads together so fluidly that he creates a cohesive tapestry depicting both a child's plight and a nation's defiance. It's a story that's magical in any language.

Tell No One (France, 2008). Pure suspense. Guillaume Canet's thriller sinks its hooks into its viewers with a spooky, economical opening – a man gets knocked out, a woman disappears – and never relinquishes its hold. The screenplay, which spans at least eight years and half-a-dozen double-crosses, is frenziedly complicated in the vein of classic noirs like The Big Sleep, but Canet shepherds us along gracefully. He's ably assisted by François Cluzet, who grounds the movie in his fiercely pragmatic performance as a doctor desperately trying to unravel the mystery of his wife's death. The film's high point is a frantic foot-chase across a highway, a sequence that is free of visible special effects but nevertheless matches the freeway chase from The Matrix Reloaded for verve and adrenalin.

Head-On (Germany, 2005). And here are those suicidal Turkish lovers I was talking about. Titanic twin performances from Birol Ünel and Sibel Kekilli drive Fatih Akin's poignant drama about two desperate souls who find a measure of peace in each other. The photography is drenched in grime and grit – this is not a flattering portrait of Germany – and the narrative pulls no punches in its descent into despair (a stabbing sequence is particularly disturbing, as are multiple suicide attempts). Yet Head-On is somehow strangely optimistic, and it plays some light grace notes of humor and hope amidst its agony. There's a lot of filth in the world, and this movie shows us plenty of it, but it also shows us how the intimacy of love can repel even the foulest elements of human nature.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Sweden, 2010). A self-described international sensation, the first installment of Stieg Larsson's fantastically popular Millennium Trilogy surprisingly doesn't cater to typical populist tastes. It is pervasively, almost uncomfortably violent, and it traffics in seedy topics such as incest, rape, and Nazism. It is also riveting entertainment. Briskly paced and tightly plotted, it shades its lead characters with depth and nuance incongruous with its pulpy subject matter. And the performance of Noomi Rapace is revelatory. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo represents yet another film on this list rumored to be the target of an American remake, this time with David Fincher behind the camera and, um, Carey Mulligan in the title role. Don't get me wrong, I think Carey Mulligan is an excellent actress, but I can't possibly see her matching Rapace's intensely focused ferocity. Best not to try.

The Wages of Fear (France, 1953). Whoa, wait a minute – 1953? Sue me, I watched it for the first time a few years ago. And unlike a handful of films deemed to be critical classics (cough, The Rules of the Game), I was fully on board with this mesmerizing thriller. After a meandering first half that wanders aimlessly through a dilapidated village, Henri-Georges Clouzot abruptly centers his film on a simple task: Four men must navigate two trucks laden with explosives across twisting roads and treacherous terrain. The setup is simple, but the execution is magnificent. As Clouzot's relatively mundane heroes grapple with naturalistic elements such as a hairpin turn and a rickety bridge, he presents their challenges with uncanny detail. The term white-knuckle suspense is often misapplied, but it's valid here – watching the trials in The Wages of Fear, you'll be clenching your fists so tightly that you may as well be gripping that steering wheel yourself.

Waltz with Bashir (Israel, 2008). An animated documentary in Hebrew about a massacre in Lebanon? Who wouldn't want to watch that? Documentaries, of course, are not my strong suit as a filmgoer – in fact, I basically can't watch them – but the rippling animation in Ari Folman's picture breathes life into its story of death. The movie is more a collage of memories than an admonition of military tactics, but it's presented with such exquisite clarity that it generates a far more powerful experience than would have a mere collection of talking-head interviews. Waltz with Bashir may not hew closely to traditional narrative methods of documentation, but Folman's creativity within the medium lends undeniable force to his message.

The Lives of Others (Germany, 2007). This Cold War thriller set in 1984 East Germany feels like it was made during the Cold War. Ostensibly the story of a popular novelist tentatively exploring the prospect of defection, the film really focuses on a secret police agent, played with heartbreaking loneliness by Ulrich Mühe. As the two characters slowly encroach on each other's orbits, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (now there's a name) heightens the tension, and we get a true sense of the claustrophobia and terror that pervaded the country and its citizens (not unlike the atmosphere of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days). The film's conclusion is both stirring and sad, a testament to the decency of humanity in its never-ending battle against the corrupt and the cruel.

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (France, 2003). If I had to pick a single film on this list that I'm confident you've absolutely never heard of, this is the one. Despite the presence of the singularly charming Audrey Tautou, Laetitia Colombani's coy drama never crossed over. That's unfortunate, because it's the product of a daring, fiendishly clever screenplay that examines weighty romantic conceits such as destiny and true love but does so in a lithe, nimble style befitting its gamine star. The movie, like Tautou's protagonist, at first appears to be fluffy and inconsequential, but as its narrative dips and dives, you realize it's far more substantive that you thought.

Lorna's Silence (Belgium, 2009). I don't know much about the Dardenne Brothers, except that they're allegedly masters of realism, or some high-brow crap like that. Ordinarily I shy away from cinema verite – mainly because I find it really freaking boring – but Lorna's Silence is hypnotic in that way it captures the lives of its characters with pristine, clinical detachment. As the two leads, Arta Dobroshi and Jérémie Renier (the latter can be seen in remarkably different form in the critically acclaimed Summer Hours) are devastatingly real, and while the film's conclusion is a bit too metaphysical for my tastes, there's no denying the overall power of this tale of sacrifice, regret, and redemption.

House of Flying Daggers (China, 2004). The major knock on contemporary action filmmaking is that it's too frenetic. Bullets whiz, cars fly, planes explode, editors cut, and the entire time the audience really has no clue what's actually happening on screen. Zhang Yimou eschews this path in favor of a more elegant style, one in which both his combatants and his camera move with grace and fluidity. That makes the action in Zhang's movie sound boring, but it's anything but, as he choreographs his set pieces with the flair and artistry of a maestro – it's just that he communicates the action to his viewers rather than assaulting us with sound and fury. Of course, action is subservient to story, and the story in House of Flying Daggers is appropriately solemn and earnest, while the performances from Takeshi Kaneshiro and Zhang Ziyi give the central romance the requisite weight. But it's the elegance of Zhang's filmmaking that makes the movie truly memorable.

Z (Algeria, 1969). I'm not much for politics in general, and that disdain often extends to my taste in film, but there's something courageous about a movie that ends with the disclaimer, "Any resemblance to real events, to persons living or dead, is not accidental. It is DELIBERATE." Yet one doesn't need to be familiar with the political history surrounding Z's genesis in order to appreciate Costa-Gavras' depiction of a ruthlessly corrupt government. Jean-Louis Trintignant – who appeared 35 years later in Kieslowski's magnificent Red – is flawless as a lone honest bureaucrat attempting to expose the truth behind an assassination, but honesty and integrity are no match for the power wielded by the corrupt. Z may have been deliberately focused on a specific historical event, but its themes of governmental deception and tyranny remain resonant.

The Secret in Their Eyes (Argentina, 2010). The Oscar winner last year for Best Foreign Language Film, here is a movie that at first appears to be a standard police procedural only to transform into something else entirely. Of course, those procedural elements are pretty damn compelling, thanks to a tightly scripted screenplay and a heartfelt performance from Ricardo Darín; the film's romance, while a tad malnourished, is similarly stirring. But it's the finale of The Secret in Their Eyes that really packs a wallop, a mournful commentary on the fleeting nature of love and the corrosive power of obsession. The movie provides a hesitantly hopeful coda, and perhaps its characters have earned it after journeying through such despair for so long. But the darkness of that finale that haunts their eyes – and their lives – cannot soon be forgotten.

Thirst (South Korea, 2009). Park Chan-wook is best known for Oldboy, that rather revolting tale of a man kidnapped for 15 years who attempts to unleash vengeance on his captors. I found Oldboy to be intriguing but ultimately vile, but I responded quite differently to Thirst, the bizarre story of a priest who becomes a vampire. The absurdist tone of Oldboy is still present, but the characters in Thirst are far more sympathetic and interesting. The resulting confection is undeniably grotesque – this is a film about murderous vampires, after all – but there's an odd sense of sentiment about the whole enterprise that lends it a curious appeal. Sure there is Park's usual combination of gruesome violence and pitch-black humor, but Thirst has something else that elevates it above the canon of pulp: The movie – if not its characters – has a beating heart.

Infernal Affairs (Hong Kong, 2002). I've highlighted a number of films on this list that have been slated for Hollywood remakes in the future. Well, if you're looking for someone – or something – to blame, look no further than this tidy little tale of police corruption and mob brutality. In 2006, a little-known filmmaker named Martin Scorsese refashioned this actioner into a little movie called The Departed. I won't suggest that Infernal Affairs is the superior picture (though its ending is far, far superior to Scorsese's), but it holds up just fine, untangling its twin stories of duplicity and betrayal with both energy and precision. The film lacks the sprawling ambition of The Departed, but it matches Scorsese's version in terms of intensity and suspense, while Andy Lau and Tony Leung bring pathos to potentially stock roles. Though it spawned two messily enjoyable sequels, Infernal Affairs is best viewed on its own – when you do, you'll find it doesn't need to be compared against anything.

Sin Nombre (Mexico, 2009). There's something highly pleasurable about sitting down to watch a movie and realizing you have absolutely no idea where it's going. At first Sin Nombre appears to be a brutally frank look at gangland culture in Mexico, and in a way it is. But it's also an out-of-nowhere character study and a thoughtful meditation on the instant decisions we make and their ultimate consequences. Cary Fukunaga could have made a pointed melodrama laced in despair, but he focuses instead on quiet character beats and unspoken moments. For a film rife with violence and conflict, it's these beats of silence that speak the most.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (France, 2007). This one doesn't really need my help either, as it earned four major Oscar nominations (though not one for Best Foreign Language Film, thanks to the Academy's inane rules), but it's worth seeking out regardless. The premise – a man who is completely paralyzed, except for his ability to blink one eye, develops a method of communication and ultimately writes a book – would be preposterous if it didn't also happen to be true. Director Julian Schnabel improbably finds beauty in his protagonist's predicament, and he exploits it through remarkably vivid photography (cinematographer Janusz Kaminski is Spielberg's longtime collaborator) and keen ingenuity (the sequence where a needle dances toward the camera in its effort to sew an eye shut remains firmly etched in my memory). It's a stranger-than-fiction type of tale, but after watching Schnabel wield his technique, it's clear that a simple documentary would have failed to do this extraordinary story justice.

Curse of the Golden Flower (China, 2006). The second Zhang Yimou picture on this list, this one replaces the delicate subtlety of House of Flying Daggers with out-and-out decadence. This is not to suggest that Zhang has discarded his painterly gifts for nuance and detail, just that he's employing those gifts on an exponentially larger canvas. Curse of the Golden Flower is a vaguely ridiculous epic, but it's ridiculous in all the right ways and befitting its gargantuan scope. The action scenes have never been more elaborate, the colors never brighter, the production design never grander. Most filmmakers would crumble under a movie of such magnitude, but Zhang – who orchestrated the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics – has never shown a surer hand. His actors join him in accepting the challenge. Chow Yun-Fat is mercilessly exacting as a cruel despot, but it's Zhang's perpetual muse Gong Li who infuses his squalid opera with a true sense of tragedy. The demise of a dynasty has never looked this good.