2012 Oscars: Song and Score

As usual this year has some easy picks, and as usual there are some out-of-left field picks, and as usual many of the more popular songs were left by the wayside.

How all of the original music from Django Unchained got ignore, I'll never know or understand. But at least with Skyfall we get a nominee that was a commercial pop success for the first time in several years.

And sorry, but I was just too lazy to embed or link to any of these songs. Do it yourself, I'm not your mother.

Best Song Nominees
"Before My Time" - Chasing Ice
"Everybody Needs A Best Friend" - Ted
"Pi's Lullaby" - Life of Pi
"Skyfall" - Skyfall
"Suddenly" - Les Miserables

5. "Suddenly"

Aside from the fact that the song wasn't necessary to the film, and aside from the fact that this is clearly just another stage musical that adds an original song likely for the sole purpose of garnering this very Oscar nomination, this song just isn't very good. It wasn't memorable, it wasn't necessary, and it wasn't exactly Hugh Jackman's finest moment in the film. It shouldn't be here.

4. "Everybody Needs A Best Friend"

It's a fun enough song, and Norah Jones is always nice to listen to, but this song doesn't really do anything new or different or unique compared to the songs Randy Newman has already won Oscars for, except perhaps with a more tongue-in-cheek approach to the lyrics.

3. "Before My Time"

This is the one film I wasn't able to see, but for this category that isn't always necessary. Simply put, it's a really lovely song, a sort of lament, that seems to go well thematically with a documentary about glacial melting.

2. "Skyfall"

I know this is probably going to win, and that's okay. It's nice to see a song so closely associated with a film become to popular - that used to be a regular occurrence up until around the beginning of last decade. And look, Adele is great and everyone would love to see her win another award, but let's face it: the song is built on pre-existing musical motifs and occasionally nonsensical lyrics. It's a pleasant thing to listen to, and I like it a lot, but objectively it's not exactly a great song.

1. "Pi's Lullaby"

I never would have thought to nominate this song, and it's probably only here because it got swept in with some greater love for the movie it's from and a desire to show some diversity with an ethnic sound rather than the merits of the song itself. But you know what? It's a really cool song. It's seamless integrated into the film's score at times, and the lyrics are actually really insightful when you think about what the movie is really about:

"are you the peacock or the plumage of the peacock?are you the cuckoo or the cry of the cuckoo?are you the moon or the light of the moon?are you the eyelashes, or the dream?are you the flower or the nectar?are you the fruit or the sweetness?"
It really is a lullaby of sorts, and the questions it asks drive straight to the heart of the movie - what are we dealing with? The truth? Or something that is a shadow of the truth? Reality, or our sensation and perception of reality? 
Should win: "Pi's Lullaby"Will win: "Skyfall"Should have been nominated: "Who Were We" from Holy Motors, "Who Did That to You" from Django Unchained, or almost any other original song from that movie. Also one of the songs from Brave would have been nice to see here. Possibly "Song of the Lonely Mountain" from The Hobbit.
Best Score NomineesAnna Karenina - Dario MarianelliArgo - Alexandre DesplatLife of Pi - Mychael DannaLincoln - John WilliamsSkyfall - Thomas Newman
5. Anna Karenina
Dario Marinelli tries to recreate the magic of his Atonement score with a few more intergrated sound effects into the music (rubber stamps and actors playing instruments, etc.) but aside from a few cues, the score here never really does anything that interesting. It works for the film, sure, and it has some nice Russian-inspired instrumentation and themes, but it's more serviceable than anything else.
4. Argo
When I saw this nomination, I scratched my head trying to even remember the music from Argo. Then I went and listened to the score and found it fairly interesting, noticed some truly beautiful musical moments, and thought that it was something new and different from Desplat's other work. Unfortunately, it's not that new from music that other composers have already written for other film set in and around the Middle East - most of the time it just seems like cookie-cutter Arabian-sounding thriller fare.
3. Skyfall
Thomas Newman is one of my favorite composers and it's a crime that he's gone 0-10 at the Oscars so far in his career. But while he definitely elevates action film music Skyfall to a new level with his signature sounds - unique chord progressions, that crystal clear oboe - at the end of the day, much of it remains typical and let's not forget that he still obligingly draws heavily on the James Bond theme and sound that already exists in everyone's mind. That's not a criticism, mind you - it should be somewhat typical because we go into a Bond movie expecting some degree of familiarity. But it's hardly the best work of the year.
2. Life of Pi
Beautiful work here, and nearly ceaselessly playing during the film. The music really helps tell the story. It is delicate and fascinating. My main problem is that eventually it all sort of sounds repetitive and similar. It would be a completely deserving winner, don't get me wrong, it just doesn't consistently get to me on a gut level. At time it is transcendant, but falls short too often for me to pick it. 
1. Lincoln
I almost didn't even notice the music when I first saw Lincoln. John Williams shows great restraint, frequently letting the music work underneath the images and dialogue, slowly, subtly, but necessary and present nonetheless, almost never drawing attention to itself. The folksy fiddle tunes are wonderful comic relief and do wonders for the scenes in which they are used, the few "themes" are not over used, nor especially catchy - and that's a good thing. The music stays with you, but it doesn't get stuck in your head. And near the end of "The Peterson House and Finale" - essentially a suite summarizing the whole score - I still get chills when the music swells and reminds me of the triumph the movie celebrates (the passage of the 13th Amendment), as well as the triumph the movie is. Some have complained the score sounds like a little too typically John Williams, not exactly his most innovative stuff.  And sure, it's not as radical as his scores for Prisoner of Azkaban, Memoirs of a Geisha, or Tintin, but classic John Williams is still better than 95% of the scores out there. 
Should win: LincolnWill win: Life of PiShould have been nominated: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Cloud Atlas

2012 Oscars: Sound Editing and Mixing

These are probably the most difficult categories for your average everyday moviegoer to figure out, along with Editing. After all, when the post-production team is doing their very best work you aren't supposed to notice it! Things are supposed to look and sound seamless, real, authentic. No one wants to hear dialogue that seems out of sync with an actor's lips, and no one wants to hear explosions or music so loud that important dialogue becomes indiscernable. We notice the bad sound but not the good, so how do we evaluate a category like this?

I don't know, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

NOMINEES - SOUND EDITING
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty

5. Zero Dark Thirty
There really wasn't anything bad here, it's just that at times I felt like the sounds I was "supposed to hear" didn't feel like they were naturally part of the scene I was watching. I can't explain or pinpoint it, there were just moments when I thought "that doesn't sound quite right."

4. Argo
Argo had really good sound actually, but if suffers from not having especially impressive sound. Everything fits into place and works, but it all seems like relatively simple recording.

3. Skyfall
Action movies are natural choices in sound categories because they typically have higher technical demands than the typical Oscar-bait dramas. Skyfall excels on nearly every level, and the sound is pristine. Explosions and gunshots, of course, but also atmospheres. Consider the background noises in the Macau casino, or the  always busy yet somehow empty sounds of the underground MI:6. Not to mention this is a surprisingly dialogue-heavy action film, and all of those weighty conversations were also recorded well. This would be a worthy winner.

2. Django Unchained
I place Django higher than Skyfall for two reasons: first, because I don't remember ever noticing the sound sticking out anywhere, and second, because of the challenges of creating sound for a period piece. There were shootouts and dynamite and minutes-long scenes of nothing but dialogue, and wagons and horses and blood spattering the walls. And none of it ever seemed out of place. Plus the recording had to eliminate anything that sounded too distinctly modern - the gunshots had to be antebellum pistols, the wagon wheels had to creak with their age, and and anything remotely electric had to be eliminated. This film was impressive because I never noticed.

1. Life of Pi
Of all the films here, my bet is Life of Pi had the least amount of usable production sound (or sound recorded on set during filming). They shot much of the movie in boats on water and in green-screen studios. I suspect that roughly 95% of every sound you hear in the movie was recorded separately from the images you see. Flying fish, meercats, zebras, tigers, orangoutangs, and other animals not included, you're also dealing with thunderous storms, the wood and canvas of a lifeboat, a giant ship sinking, and even the slightest sound of still water lapping against Pi's raft. To face this kind of monumental recording challenge and pull it off, every bit of audio sounding authentic, is remarkable.

Should win: Life of Pi
Will win: Life of Pi (Possibly ZDK or Skyfall)
Should have been nominated: Wreck-It Ralph

NOMINEES - SOUND MIXING
(This category has a habit of nominating dialogue-heavy movies - like The Social Network or The King's Speech a few years ago - because mixing dialogue is both difficult and vital, but rarely rewards that work.)

Argo
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall

5. Les Miserables
Musicals frequently get nominated and frequently win this category because they combine the challenge of mixing dialogue/words with music/instrumentation on top of all the other sounds that go into fleshing out a scene. Les Mis get a lot of attention this year for recording the singing life on set, meaning the sound recordist/mixer did a lot of work on the ground making sure the recording itself was mixed well. It was a challenge, I'm sure, and for most of the film I think it usually worked out fine. Except not always. For about the first 10 minutes I was straining to hear and understand a single thing anyone was singing.  The soloists sounded muffled because the chorus overtook them. It could have been my theater's speakers, but I was in a Regal theater's RPX set up so I doubt it. Eventually I got used to the audio and I could hear things most of the time, but the orchestral music was so overwhelming usually that I had to work just to follow the scenes at times. This might actually win the award (due to the attention paid to its recording-live technique), but I sincerely hope not.

4. Argo
Same problem as above, this is quality work, just not particularly unique or impressive. The opening scenes of the embassy takeover and the groups excursion to the bazaar are probably the standout moments when it comes to mixing. But there's a lot of dialogue that has to be mixed well so that the movie still make scenes sound authentic in various locations, which deserves more attention than it will probably get.

3. Skyfall
Technically there's not a thing wrong here, but in terms of sound work it's not really anything new or interesting. It's an action film with a better script than most, more dialogue than most, and executed with skill on a higher level than most. Like above, this would be a worthy winner, but not an especially interesting one.

2. Lincoln
This is probably the film most likely to get overlooked in this category - I wouldn't be surprised to learn it comes in 5th place. It's easy to think, "Lincoln? For sound?" But quieter movies are frequently more difficult to mix because the very slightest variation in the audio will draw the viewers attention, whereas in big action films, if an explosion is a bit too loud or a tad too soft, usually the car chase is already in another location before the audience has time to think about it. But think about the quiet emptiness of the cabinet meetings, where all you hear are words and clothing rustling. Or the scenes in Congress where everyone tries to shout over each other, but we always seem to hear exactly what the director and screenwriter want us to hear in order for the story to move forward. It is a quieter movie than its fellow nominees, yes, but the sound mixing is all the more impressive because of it.

1. Life of Pi
Same reasons as above, this is the movie that probably had the most work to do, and there's not a hair out of place. Of course, there's the sinking of the Tsimtsum, but I think the scene I remember being most impressed by is one where Pi is trying to train Richard Parker, who is stubbornly clawing at the seats in the life boat and, well, pouting. The claws, the wood splintering, a grown tiger growling and mewing like a kitten (but with gravitas), all set against a background of ocean water and breeze. The big scenes are probably what will win the Oscar for this film, but it's the quiet ones that earn it.

Should win: Life of Pi or Lincoln
Will win: Les Miserables because I think they'll want to give it more than just supporting actress for Hathaway, but depending on how much the Academy loves a given film come the big night, this could go to Argo, Skyfall, OR Life of Pi.
Should have been nominated: The Impossible

2012 Oscars: Makeup and Hairstyling

Wow, this category is all wrong.

No really, I don't think any of these films should be nominated.

Nominees
Hitchcock
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Miserables

3. Hitchcock

This is easily the worst offender. It's okay in a biopic to not have your actors look exactly like their historical counterparts. It's not okay to have them look cartoonish. Half the time Anthony Hopkins looked more like Elmer Fudd than Alfred Hitchcock. I doubt very much that this film is nominated because Scarlett Johansson had a wig that looked like Janet Leigh, but instead for the Hitchcock makeup, in which case I have no clue what happened here.

2. Les Miserables

There was actually a lot of really good work here: the level of detail with the dirty teeth, every hair in - or appropriately out of - place, the gaunt faces of revolutionaries, etc. There was an awkward tension though between reality and fantasy. There's something gritty and raw in Valjean escaped prisoner, something painful in his face that I believe was as much the makeup department as Jackman's performance. But then all the prostitutes look nearly like Heath Ledger's Joker. The tension between the  stagey musical conceits and the epic drama of angry men was awkward and I think the makeup choices have something to do with that. But what bugs me most is how poorly done most of the aging was. Valjean and Javert go through a 20 year journey together and they hardly look any worse for the wear by the end of the film. Something was missing.

1. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

This is really just more of the same work we saw in LOTR, but that's not to say it isn't just as good. Each of the dwarves has a distinct face and their faces are still able to emote, unlike in Hitchcock. Their beards are also pretty epic, and since this category name for the first time accurately reflects the contribution of hairstyling to the film, I think the diversity of characters who we are still able to recognize is impressive. In this instance, given these nominees, I think most does equal best.

Will win: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (though I wouldn't be shocked by a Les Mis upset)
Should win: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Should have been nominated: Lincoln, Holy Motors, and Cloud Atlas

This time I'm definitely going to explain why three entirely different films should have been nominated.

Lincoln: Excellent and very subtle aging on Day-Lewis, and even allowing Sally Field to look her age (instead of the 20 years younger that Mary Todd Lincoln was than Field) added enormous depth to their characters. Lincoln did not look so much old or aged as he did weary. His shadowy eyes and what looked like hundreds of tiny wrinkles instead of a few deeper ones. He was a weathered man. And again, consider the unique hairstyles that went to each and every member of congress, pulling back Sally Field's hair to match the high-forehead style of the times. With Les Mis I mentioned an uncomfortable tension between the comic and the drama, but consider here something so simple as James Spader's wig and mustache.  His physical appearance alone gave the film a lightness and comic relief while still feeling authentic and a natural aspect of his character.

Cloud Atlas: One of the most ambitious projects of the year, there was a ton of makeup that went into transforming every actor into two or three or six characters.  From false teeth to prosthetic noses, from tattoos to full latex masks, this movie had it all. And most shockingly, it worked probably 95% percent of the time! The one transition I'd argue did not work at all was turning Doona Bae into (what I think was) a Mexican woman. That was weird. Most of the others worked well enough to go relatively unnoticed, while others were truly shocking (Halle Berry as Old Japanese Doctor?!).  There was some murmuring about potential racist elements to the "yellow-face" but personally I think that's a load of hogwash.  The Asian-eye makeup was set in a futuristic society where human genetics had hypothetically merged certain racial qualities.  It wasn't "yellow-face" because they weren't actually playing Asian characters, but white and black characters with certain Asian-influenced attributes. So shut up.

And finally, Holy Motors, in which the makeup goes beyond character or gimmick or ambition and is actually a vital narrative element.  Denis Lavant plays something like 8 or 9 characters over the course of his day who are each unique, compelling, and convincing. It's difficult to explain the use of makeup without explaining the movie, which is itself rather difficult to do, and I can't find enough of the different characters' photos, so watch this trailer.

 

2012 Oscars: Costume Design

I know, I know, I said I was going to do the techs first, then the artistics. I'm sure you're very disappointed and confused that I'm going out of order. But there's a single costume in particular that kind of blew my mind and I want to talk about it.

So get over it.

Nominees
Anna Karenina, Jacqueline Durran
Les Miserables, Paco Delgado
Lincoln, Joanna Johnston
Mirror Mirror, Eiko Ishioka
Snow White and the Huntsman, Colleen Atwood

5. Mirror Mirror

Some of the dresses were pretty, I guess. The bright colors gave a nice fairy tale feel to the whole movie And Ishioka died a year ago, so yes, there's a bit of a sympathy vote here. But at the end of the day, these were cookie-cutter costumes that we've seen before, and they lacked a certain detail and texture to help them blend into their surroundings. Julia Roberts' giant yellow dresses were distracting. The costumes drew attention to themselves rather than aiding the story, and that's just not okay.

4. Les Miserables

These were fine, I guess. I wasn't a fan of the movie, and I don't want that to affect my position here, but given that most of the film was shot in closeups, most of the costumes we really got to see were of the collars and lapels, so it's rather difficult to tell if they were really all that good or not. They were appropriate enough, I guess. They seemed to fit the period and the characters, and there was a certain elaborateness that reflected the heightened musical atmosphere of the film, but really there wasn't a whole of really interesting work going on here.

For all I know, the entire cast never wore pants.

3. Snow White and the Huntsman

Colleen Atwood never fails to deliver, and where Mirror Mirror's costumes seemed distracting and inappropriate even for its bubblegum fairy tale vision, Atwood's work here adequately fits the darker medieval world of the film, without being too garish. Charlize Theron's costumes frequently had a sharp angular feel that matched her villainous character, and all the armor and chain mail seemed original and unique. That said, a few notable pieces aside, I feel like I've seen this all before.

2. Anna Karenina

Of the nominees thusfar, I think these costumes are the ones that best struck a balance between the authentic, period-based demands of the design with the colorful, exaggerated nature of the film itself. The film is intentionally theatrical, where films like Mirror Mirror and Les Miserables were accidentally theatrical. Therefore in my mind it gets a little leeway with its flamboyance. What's more, I never felt like I was focusing on the costumes, they seemed to simply exist in the world and became a part of the characters who wore them.

1. Lincoln

This will be the first of several awards I personally think Lincoln deserves, although it almost certainly won't win all of them. (And just to clarify now, in each of these categories I don't necessarily think Lincoln had the best such-and-such of the year so much as the best such-and-such of the nominees.) At face value, the design of Lincoln seems based in simply historical authenticity. Joanna Johnston has said as much, that "getting it right" was really the goal. So you see muted tones and rich textures to recreate the clothes and the mood of the times of the Civil War. Much of the outfit in Lincoln are indeed dutiful recreations, right down to the use of Lincoln's shawls, which he was apparently quite fond of. One of the few garish pieces was the bold yellow Asian-looking garment worn by Secretary of State Seward, and it does call attention to itself because it seems so out of place. Yet apparently, Seward had been a world traveller and was known to wear these sorts of things in private. So it is at least justified in it's out-of-placeness. Mary Todd Lincoln frequently wears finer fabrics and bolder colors in the film because, as she explains in one scene, she is intentionally living beyond her means so that the office of the Presidency maintains its dignity while she inhabits the White House. Her costumes are driving partially by history, but also by character.

My favorite example of character-driven costuming this entire year is the suit that Bob Lincoln wears on an outing with his father. It's a simple suit. The first time I saw the film, though, I frequently thought, "Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks odd in this film..." The second time I realized why: his clothes were almost always too big for him. In the film, his character is basically the son who wants to grow up and be a man in conflict with his parents who want to protect him and keep hold of their child. It's as though the entire film he's trying to wear his big boy pants, but something is stopping him from growing. It isn't until he does enlist in the military that he finally looks right in his own clothes.  It's honestly a brilliant piece of character-driven costume design, and just because the suit is an ugly brown instead of bright yellow, and just because the military uniforms are recreations instead of original armor and mail, and just because Charlize Theron looks hotter in her gowns than Sally Field does, that doesn't mean Lincoln is any less deserving of this award.


BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Will win: Anna Karenina (and that's not necessarily wrong or undeserving)
Should win: Lincoln
Should have been nominated: Argo and Django Unchained, instead of Mirror Mirror and Les Miserables.

(By the way, if anyone wants me to explain my "should have been nominated" choices any further, indicate it in the comments. I just dont' want to bore anyone too much.)

2012 Oscars: Visual Effects

Over the next several weeks, I'll be going through each Academy Award category giving my personal rankings of the nominees. I'll give my thoughts on which films/performances didn't deserve to be nominated, and which should have been in their place. I'll start with the techs, move to artistics, then the major categories. I'm holding off on shorts, foreign, and docs since they're harder for me to get a hold of, and as often as possible I only want to address categories when I've seen all the nominees.

(Heads up, the most vs. best comparison comes up frequently in end-of-year awards discussions. Most cuts doesn't mean best editing, fanciest shots doesn't mean best cinematography, most beads and boldest colors doesn't mean best costumes, etc., etc.)

Nominees
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi
Marvel's The Avengers
Prometheus
Snow White and the Hunstman

5. Snow White and the Hunstman

This movie really did look pretty great and the effects were effective enough, but something about shards of black glass and ravens flying around just seems kind of "been there, done that." Not to mention the celebrity actor faces on dwarf bodies was a bit peculiar-looking.

4. Marvel's The Avengers

I warned you: most effects doesn't mean best effects. There are great effects in all the Marvel films, but by the end of The Avengers I just lost any sense of reality when the flying slug things were floating up and down the streets. It was CGI overload. I know these films aren't trying to bring a gritty true life feel to comics the way Nolan tried with Batman, but there was something unintentionally cartoonish about The Avengers and I don't think it was intended the way I took it.

See what I mean?

3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Again, most doesn't equal best, but The Hobbit felt real the entire time. I believed I was looking at Middle Earth the whole time - even in 48 fps - and with the excellent 3D cinematography, at times I believed I was in Middle Earth. The fighting rock formations in the rainstorm was one of the most simultaneously terrifying and majestic scenes of the year. That alone deserves recognition, but the whole film was visually stunning. The main missteps would be the CGI goblins in the Misty Mountains. I thought the taller, more humanoid orcs of Moria had a stronger, realer presence. Peter Jackson wanted a lighter feel for these films, and that works, but for me the Misty Mountain goblins stepped a toe over the line from light to silly.

2. Prometheus

Lots of people hated this movie, and plenty of people loved it. It basically depends on how much you choose to focus on the plot holes. I would also argue that since it's a film about human origins and cosmogony and religion, how much one likes the film is dependent on one's interests in that subject matter. But no one complained about the way the movie looked. The production design and especially the realization of that design by the FX team is near flawless.  Again, at times I felt like I was looking at real, tangible sets and creatures and sand storms, etc.

1. Life of Pi

Life of Pi, though, managed to find a brilliant balance between that real, tangible sort of effect (those flying fish look like they're hitting you in the face) and the fun, more colorful sort of effects like in Avengers (the gorgeous "Tiger Vision" scene).  Then consider the backgrounds and seascapes, the shipwreck, the "God Storm," and it becomes clear this movie had the best visual effects of the year. And all of that goes without mentioning Richard Parker, who this year trumps even Gollum as the best animated creature on the screen. That tiger was a thing of terrifying beauty and subtle character which all by itself earns this award. Just watch the trailer below for proof. The most visually stunning film of the year.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Will win: Life of Pi
Should win: Life of Pi
Should have been nominated: Cloud Atlas, instead of Snow White and the Huntsman

Process Stories

It's Oscar season again, which is about the only thing that can usually pull me out of the woodwork to start blogging regularly again, for at least a month or so.  I'll get into what I think about specific categories as the next several weeks go by, but today is something different.

Looking up and down the list of major awards contenders, I began to notice a trend this year in the types of stories that were being told.  With many of the acclaimed or otherwise successful films this year, we usually know the ending before we get into the theater, or at least by a few minutes into the movie.  

Does Lincoln get the 13th Amendment passed?  

Do the hostages get out of Iran?

Do we find Bin Laden?

Does Hitchcock manage to make and release Psycho?

Does the family in The Impossible manage to survive the tsunami aftermath, reunite, and sell the movie rights to their story?

These are, of course, matters of history or common knowledge.  But then consider the fictional films.

Does Django get his revenge on the oppressive/racist White Man? It's hard to imagine a bleaker story than one in which the slaveowner wins the day.

Does Pi survive his adventure at sea? Considering the adult Pi is narrating the tale from the start, the question of life or death seems moot.

Does Snow White defeat the Evil Queen? Always and forever.

Does Denzel get away with the tragic consequences of his alcoholism, or does he ultimately face his demons? 

You get my point.

There really weren't many surprises this year.  Yet I'd argue 2012 gave us one of the best crops of films we've had in quite a while.  How is it that so many movies with predictable endings could be so fascinating and satisfying?  Because ultimately we don't go to the movies to see what happens - we go to see how they happen.  The big twist ending or the big reveal or whatever is maybe five minutes of what following two hours of how.  You can have a crappy ending and still have enjoyed the ride and be grateful for the experience.  Or you can have a crappy ride, but get blown away by the finale, and subsequently confuse that with high quality.  But the best cinematic experiences are the ones that strike a balance.  When you suspect the ending will be satisfying regardless, and the trip the filmmakers take you on to get there is the truly enthralling part.  

Which brings me to Argo. I saw it in theaters and I was underwhelmed. I thought it was a well-made film, and Ben Affleck's direction held everything together. But Best Picture? Meh. 

You see, the whole time I was stuck in my head. I kept thinking, "This thriller isn't very thrilling. We know they're going to get out of Iran, we know the plan worked, so why am I here?" So I enjoyed the film but I questioned its necessity. 

But I watched it a second time recently and it was a different experience.  Having gotten the negativity out of my system, I realized that even though we know the hostages escape, they don't. And suddenly a tautness entered the movie that wasn't there before. I was also able to step back and look at some of the production elements more objectively - the costumes and production design were superb.  Giving the "Film Director" character curly hair and an ascot was brilliant.  The story juggled two or three locations/subplots at a time, but the editor never loses track of them so neither do we.  There's really not a bad performance in the entire ensemble.  The screenplay shows a fascinating look at the Hollywood system and the US intelligence system but includes just enough family tension to give Affleck's character an emotional core.  

All that said, it's not a perfect film. Because there are so many characters, only a few of them are developed beyond their function or the lines they are obligated to say to move the story forward.  And I think Affleck made a mistake in casting himself in the lead role - it might have been the writing, but it simply wasn't a charismatic enough performance from the guy who's supposed to be leading us through the adventure.  Not a bad performance by any means, but not exactly a memorable one. 

I looked up the historical accuracy and noticed that the screenplay takes liberties to create a more heightened sense danger than may have actually existed, but that doesn't really undermine the preposterous nature of the extraction plan or the fact that they actually pulled it off.  The story of the process trumps the announcement of the outcome. 

Life of Pi is essentially a story making that very point. Pi narrates the tale of his sea voyage with a tiger named Richard Parker, and when its integrity is questioned he responds simply, "Which story do you prefer?" 

Filmmaking is storytelling, and stories are how you get there, not where you get.  

Election Day

It’s election day. And i’m not voting. 

I don’t have any problems with voting, and i would vote if i had thought it through. But i didn’t want to register in Massachusetts, and i waited too long to request my North Carolina absentee ballot. Perhaps if i cared more i would have been more proactive, but i don’t really care. I don’t believe that the winner of this election will decide or even affect my happiness over the next four years, and i don’t believe he will have the power to really change the things that trouble me. 

In a way, i am truly grateful that i cannot with good conscious place that much trust and faith in one man. I am left with only one place to put my trust and faith.

Oswald Chambers writes:

“...if we love a human being and do not love God, we demand of him every perfection and every rectitude, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictivel we are demanding of a human being that which he or she cannot give. There is only one Being Who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Why our Lord is apparently so severe regarding every human relationship is because He knows that every relationship not based on loyalty to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no man, yet He was never suspicious, never bitter. Our Lord’s confidence in God and in what His grace could do for any man, was so perfect that He despaired of no one. If our trust is placed in human beings, we shall end in despairing of everyone.”

Four years ago, i believed many people placed President Obama on a pedestal on the same level as, if not above, God. And when he only delivered some of what he promised, their enthusiasm diminished. As a recent episode of 30 Rock pointed out, “We’re not doing that this year - no one’s that excited.”

What interests me about this phenomenon lately is how we can do the same thing in our personal lives. I have very recently had a friendship dissolve, a good friendship i thought. I put a lot of time and energy into my relationship with someone, trying to support him and be there for him when he had problems. Unfortunately, when i expected reciprocity, when i needed someone to return the support i had given him, he proved unable or unwilling to deliver - the burden of another’s problems proved too much to handle. I learned a valuable lesson in the risks of trusting people. 

I'm not saying you shouldn't vote this election, or that i never will, only that i don't feel compelled or convicted to do so right now. Oh, i still trust many politicians and i still have faith in our political system, just as i have trust and faith in many of my other good friends. I know there are people who will be there for me when i need it. But the only being that i know will always be there for me is God. 

This election and my recent falling out with a friend remind me of that, and comfort me. The people i see who place their trust in human beings have thusfar only ended in despairing of everyone, and i thank God i haven’t reached that point.