Logging The 83rd Academy Awards

The Academy Awards are always a big deal at Cinema Romantico's house but the 2011 edition was made an even bigger deal because 1.) Cinema Romantico had someone for whom he was openly rooting and 2.) One of Cinema Romantico's oldest and best friends was in Chicago this weekend and, thus, able to join me in watching the ceremony much like we used to do every year back in the days of yore (i.e. six years ago).

The questions were bountiful! Would James Franco & Anne Hathaway live up to my high expectations as hosts? Would the person for whom I was openly rooting (let's call her Natalie) earn victory so I could rub it in the faces of all the haters? Would one of my oldest and best friends (let's call her Nicolle) become upset when we reached the inevitable point in the evening when I forced her to watch Lady Gaga on DVR? Roll the tape!

5:57 PM (CST): I typically do not watch the pre-gala, red carpet brou ha ha but Nicolle is all about the gre-gala, red carpet brou ha ha which is why we find ourselves watching a woefully un-prepared Ryan Seacrest (seriously, half the time this guy had no idea why the people he was interviewing were even there) interview actors and actresses trying to get the heck inside the building. It is also at this point I learn that the odds one of the major winners of the evening will cry is going off at 3/2 which must mean that the odds of whatever major winners of the evening cry get mocked tomorrow morning are going off at 1/1.

6:25: It turns out feathers are currently a major fashion trend. Nicolle confirms this. I had no idea. I am so uncool.

6:58: First Natalie Portman sighting! She looks insanely nervous which just makes me insanely nervous which means it's time for the first Sierra Nevada of the evening. (Champagne is on standby for when the Best Actress category is announced but we're getting way ahead of ourselves.)

7:25: Halle Berry literally just called herself "a slave to fashion." I am so not going there.

7:33: Our hosts for the evening, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, are in the midst of an "Inception" spoof when Alec Baldwin (one of last year's hosts) turns up and drops the line "ambien juicebox." Classic.

7:37: Now James and Anne are in the midst of a "Back to the Future" spoof. They climb into the DeLorean and rocket to the Academy Awards and for a moment I think they might actually drive a DeLorean on to the stage......but no. If you're gonna go for it, go all the way.

7:41: Anne Hathaway just dropped the line "dancing lesbians." It wasn't so much the line as the unbridled enthusiasm with which she said it. I think she's funny.

Anne Hathaway & The Male Lady Gaga

7:43: First awards of the night. "Alice in Wonderland" gets Art Direction and "Inception" gets Cinematography (i.e. Roger Deakins will never win).

7:51: Is it just me or is James Franco's smile totally insincere? Like, a meta smirk?

7:52: Kirk Douglas up to present for Best Supporting Actress who, at the ripe old age of, what, 94, goes way off script and appears to admit to having the hots for Anne Hathaway before eventually (which is the key word) presenting the Oscar to Melissa Leo for "The Fighter" who campaigned so actively and relentlessly on behalf of herself that I would have figured she'd practiced her speech about 350 times but gets so flustered she drops what I believe to be the first F-bomb I've ever heard at the Academy Awards (time delay!) and then departs the stage with Kirk Douglas, who has his arm around her, apparently, as Nicolle points out, trying to feel her up. Although you can't blame him. The woman's using his cain. He needs some support there. That was all just....wild. I'm so confused. Time for another Sierra Nevada.

8:07: Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis turn up to present Best Animated Feature and Kunis has officially earned Cinema Romantico's 2nd Best 83rd Academy Awards Dress, a dress best described as being (ahem) "Boob Enhancing." Anyway..."Toy Story 3" wins Animated Feature and, honestly, this might be the only pick I get right all night. My picks were kind of purposely ridiculous but still.

8:13: Best Adapted Screenplay. David Lindsay Abaire ("Rabbit Hole") is currently at home with Cool Ranch Dorito crumbs all down his sweatshirt. Not that I'm bitter. Aaron Sorkin, as expected, wins for "The Social Network" and actually gives a fairly classy speech. Throwing out Paddy Chayefsky's name first-thing was a nice touch. David Fincher, however, director of "The Social Network", looks pissed off to be there.

8:18: Best Original Screenplay goes to David Siedler for "The King's Speech." Somewhere Christopher Hitchens just took another shot of vodka. Siedler opens: "The writer's speech. This is terrifying." Nice.

8:24: Potbelly sandwiches & Anne Hathaway singing!

8:25: James Franco turns up in drag which is actually completely perfect because earlier in the day I was trying to pitch to Nicolle the idea that James Franco, with his never-ending schedule, is like a male Lady Gaga.

8:32: Best Supporting Actor goes to Christian Bale for "The Fighter". Everything's playing to form. This is a good sign for Natalie Portman even if it might make for an uneventful evening otherwise. And I'm pretty sure Bale was the first major winner of the evening to get a little misty-eyed. And if you mock him he'll kick your ass.

8:40: Anne Hathaway introduces Hugh Jackman by saying "The wolve to my rine." Did anyone else find this as funny as me?

8:41: Jackman & Nicole Kidman take the stage to present Best Music Score and so I will take this moment to plug the first hour-and-forty-five minutes of "Australia" which I happen to think is certifiably brilliant. And no, Kidman haters, I don't care if her forehead doesn't move.

8:44: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross win Best Score for "The Social Network." My friend Matt texts me: "Do you think he's going to f--- that Oscar like an animal?" Do you think if I forwarded this text to James Franco he'd say it on the air?

8:45: David Fincher still looks pissed.

8:46: Let's make it official - Cinema Romantico's Best 83rd Academy Awards Dress goes to Scarlett Johansson.

Apparently Scarlett Johansson is turning up on the Worst Dressed List the morning after so perhaps she'll take solace in the fact Cinema Romantico, fashion mogul, names it Dress Of The Night.

8:56: "The Wolfman" wins for Best Makeup (ye gods! I got that right!) and Rick Baker & Dave Elsey give, possibly, the best acceptance speech of the night. Short, classy, funny, genuine.

9:02: Via video President Barack Obama gives a shout out to "Casablanca." And just like that he gets my vote again in 2012.

9:28: Old school Oscar host Billy Crystal shows up to toss off a few bad-to-semi-decent one liners. Call me crazy, since I am, but I'll take Anne Hathaway's annunciation of "dancing lesbians" over Billy Crystal one-liners from now 'til the end of time.

9:31: The newly Sienna-less Jude Law turns up with Robert Downey Jr. to present Best Visual Effects (which goes to "Inception") and Nicolle declares them to be the "Presenters of the night." I cannot disagree.

9:36: Best Editing to "The Social Network." David Fincher is still pissed.

9:41: Nicolle makes the observation of the night and it is this: that James Franco is not actually hosting but playing a part (perhaps that of "Oscar Host"?) that he will dissect in the class he's teaching at Columbia College. I mean, really, is this how he was acting in rehearsals? Were the producers watching and going, "Oh my God, we're screwed"? I don't think so. I think he probably nailed it in rehearsals, just to throw 'em off the scent, and then threw the actual set because Oscar hosts always get backlash and he needed the backlash to properly teach the course.

9:43: Florence of Florence + Machine turns up to sing but doesn't sing one of her own songs as I'd hoped. Boo. Then we have to listen to Gwyneth Paltrow sing a song that has waaaaaaaaaaaay too many syllables in every line. Who the hell wrote that thing? Randy Newman wins Best Song and then kinda mocks the Academy in regards to only four nominees in his category as opposed to the traditional five by saying "They couldn't find a fifth song?" to which I say "Randy, I'm stunned they could find four. Shut it and move along."

10:01: Anne Hathaway keeps wooing. Every time she introduces someone she woos. She's such a Woo Girl. Franco's going to get mocked for being too insincere and Hathaway's going to get mocked for being too sincere. Mark it down. No one should ever host because you just can't win.

10:03: Tom Hooper wins Best Director for "The King's Speech." David Fincher's still pissed, but Hooper's speech, whether you wanted him to win or not (and I, as we all know too well, was an Aronofsky - who had no chance - man), gives a good speech, touching on fate and the rewards of "listening to your mother."

10:07: Francis Ford Coppola & Jean Luc Godard (who isn't actually at the ceremony), slightly important figures in the cinema, get, oh, roughly, 17 seconds of screen time. But thank the heavens we got to listen to Mandy Moore & "Chuck" sing whatever song that was they sang. So unbelievable I don't even want to discuss it further.

10:12: And now it's arrived. Best Actress. The only one that's really mattered in this house all night. Jeff Bridges presenting. Bottle of Vueve de Vernay now outta the fridge and at the ready. Bridges opens the envelope. And I actually am stricken with terror for that brief moment where he dramatically pauses. But then he says the magic words I've been waiting to hear since Sunday evening December 5, 2010. And, thus, for the rest of her life, like it or not, Natalie Portman's named will be preceded by Academy Award Winner.

"Thor", starring Academy Award Winner Natalie Portman. Late yesterday afternoon Academy Award Winner Natalie Portman gave birth to a beautiful baby (boy/girl). "Table for two?" "Certainly. What's the name?" "Academy Award Winner Natalie Portman." And so on.

"I was wondering if I could change the name on my passport to read Academy Award Winner Natalie Portman?"

And then I have to pause the DVR after Natalie's speech (in which she impressively kept composed despite listing about half-a-thousand names and, by the way, she can list any name she wants because it's her moment, not yours) because Nicolle and I find ourselves in the midst of what we'll dub The Natalie Portman Oscar Champagne Fiasco, which is to say I cannot get the damn cork popped. (Perhaps this is a good moment to tell the ladies I bench press a cool 17.) I try and then Nicolle tries and then I try again and finally I have to soak a dish towel and wrap it around the cork and yank on it and then it pops and I spill champagne on my floor and by the time we have composed ourselves after the ridiculousness of The Natalie Portman Oscar Champagne Fiasco, and toasted to her Oscar, and sat back down, well, Colin Firth winning Best Actor for "The King's Speech" and "The King's Speech" winning Best Picture really don't interest me at all. I'm hardly even paying attention. But I think that's about right.

I know a lot of people who check in with this blog from time to time weren't as brazen about Natalie's work in "Black Swan" as I was and that's completely cool. But I ask you to consider this: How often does your favorite performance - literally, your favorite performance - of the year win the Oscar? Not often, right? Maybe never. My favorite performance last year was Kelly Macdonald in "The Merry Gentleman", a performance I cherished just as much as I cherished Portman as Nina Sayers, and I'm still convinced only 39 other people in America even saw that movie. It never even had a chance to be nominated for an Oscar, let alone win. Uma lost to Weist, Kate The Great lost to Hunt, Amy Ryan lost to Tilda Swinton, Johnny Depp never really had a prayer for the first "Pirates of the Caribbean", Billy Crudup's never even been nominated, and none of that really matters because that validation shouldn't be and isn't necessary but, you know, I'm not gonna lie, it was nice. It was nice to see my favorite performance win. It was nice to see Natalie Portman beam up there onstage. I was so happy for her. Natalie Portman in "Black Swan" is why I go to the movies. The girl acted her ass off and I'll defend her to the death if she starts popping up on those Who Didn't Deserve Their Oscar lists 10 years from now. I hope she soaks it in for all its freaking worth because she deserves it. James Franco & Anne Hathaway may have been disappointing and the entire telecast may have been entirely predictable and a little boring but I got to watch it with one of my best friends and Natalie Portman won so yeah......pretty good Oscars. Pretty good Oscars.

The Natalie Portman Oscar Champagne.

A Scene For Oscar Sunday

Stanley Motts: "You want me to produce your war?"
Conrad Brean: "Not a war. It's a pageant...we need a theme, a song, some visuals...it's a pageant. It's like the Oscars. That's why we came to you."
Motss: "I never won an Oscar."
Brean: "And it's a damn shame you didn't. But you produced the Oscars."
Motts: "Yes. Indeed I did. You know, you're a writer, that's your script. You're a director...but if you're the producer, what did you do? Nobody knows what you do. You're a producer, all you've got is the credit. You see? Some plaques on the wall. They don't know what we do. But don't get me started."

What Oscar Means To Me

Steve Martin hosted the 2003 Academy Award Ceremony and this, of course, was only a couple weeks after the second Iraq war had broken out and, thus, the people in charge of the gala decided against implementing the traditional splashy red carpet arrival and during his opening monologue Martin said this: "You probably noticed there was no fancy red carpet tonight. That’ll show ‘em!" I thought that was hilarious. I still do. One of my favorite lines ever by an Oscar host.

Much later in the same ceremony, upon winning Best Actress for her work in "The Hours", Nicole Kidman said this: "Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important. And because you believe in what you do and you want to honor that." I found this entirely moving. I still do. One of my favorite lines ever in an acceptance speech.

And at the heart of each of these moments lies my attitude toward the Academy Awards. We've all heard it a million times. The Oscars are self important and self congratulatory and self reverential and self aggrandizing and, heck, any other adjective you want to toss in there after self. It's all bad jokes and boring montages and awful hip hop dance routines and much ado about dresses. They are big and bloated and over the top. Go ahead! Call them any name you like! Pile it on! Get it outta your system!

And hey, man, it's all kinda true. And kinda the point. After all, this is, like, you know, Hollywood. "The Greatest Show On Earth." Tara. Xanadu. Skull Island. The Emerald City. The train in "Doctor Zhivago." James Cameron re-building part of the "Titanic" so he could re-sink it. Charlton Heston as Moses. Hollywood is big and bloated, bigger and bloated-er (?). Why in the name of Colonel Kurtz wouldn't the Academy Awards be the same? If you buy a ticket for the "Wet Zone" at Kylie's Les Folies Tour, baby, you're gonna get wet. Don't bitch afterwards that your Dolce & Gabbana got soaked. Seriously.

But, at the same time, I'm sort of a sentimental dude. And corny. And (wait, what's the most overused idiotic two word phrase in the English language? Oh! Right!) painfully earnest. And this is why when my homegirl Nicole Kidman got a little teary eyed giving her aforementioned acceptance speech I got a little teary eyed (oh, just f--- off). This is why I still have Kate Winslet's acceptance speech saved to my DVR (no, really, I do). This is why I high fived my friend Rory when "Shakespeare In Love" beat "Saving Private Ryan" for Best Picture because I might be the only person on earth who believed (and still believes to this exact second) that "Shakespeare In Love" was truly a better film.

Eat it, Pvt. James Francis Ryan.

When I expound on my dislike for "Saving Private Ryan" and expound on my infatutation with "Shakespeare In Love" and how that ending - that glorious ending! - makes me soar on wings like eagles and then proceed to make extravagant hand gestures and pound on walls and ring hypothetical bells while shouting how "Shakespeare In Love" winning may very well have been the direct result of Harvey Weinstein and his minions running around Tinseltown threatening to break Academy members' fingers with ball peen hammers if they didn't vote for it but that it doesn't matter because it was the best film and then the person I'm expounding to will inevitably back away from me, frightened.

At that point I remember that not everyone is like me. Not everyone gets lathered up about decade-old Oscar decisions. Not everyone still holds a grudge against Dianne Weist for stealing Uma Thurman's statue. Not everyone is me and my former roommate Chad when we both became enraged at Michael Caine for winning Best Supporting Actor for "The Cider House Rules" (really?) thereby foiling the bet that he and I had been arguing about for a month (he had Haley Joel Osment for "The Sixth Sense", I had Tom Cruise for "Magnolia")." I remember when I saw "No Country For Old Men" the night it opened and the next night I was hanging out with some friends and I was advising everyone how awesome the movie was and my friend Kristin wondered, confused, "Wait, didn't that just come out yesterday?" and I had to advise that I don't wait to see movies because I have so many movies to see that I have to see them the weekend they open - maybe the second weekend at worst - or I'll fall so far behind that I'll never catch up and that I can't really wait for DVD for a lot of movies because, damn it, that's just not how I do it.

My dad sent me an email a month or so ago declaring that he had just seen "The King's Speech" which meant he had actually seen a Best Picture nominee in the theater. I really wanted to email back: "'The King's Speech?!' 10 Best Picture nominees and you choose 'The King's Speech' over the supreme, stupefying, polar ice cap sized magnificence of 'Black Swan???!!!'" Of course, I did not send that email. Not simply because I'm fairly certain my dad would not actually enjoy "Black Swan" but because I was just excited my dad saw a Best Picture nominee. No, no, no, I was just excited my dad went to the movies.

The movies are not front and center in my dad's life much like they are not front center in a lot of people's lives. But the Oscars are the one time each year when the movies are front and center for everyone. Back in February of '99 when the Oscar noms were announced the movie theater I managed received a print of "Shakespeare In Love" because now there was going to be more business for it which made me so happy because it was a movie I so desperately wanted the whole world to see. "Black Swan" has pushed north of $100 million at the box office and this is a direct result of all its Oscar buzz and that thrills me.

I'm sure many movie fans that mirror my sort of insanity are still disappointed that their favorites did not get nominations and so the masses remain unaware of their beauty and, hey, I get it because I have those years too. But it's okay! Because nonetheless people are going to the movies! And that, I think, is what the Academy Awards, down there at the core, really are - a celebration of going to the movies.

I know, I know, I'm making too big a deal. People are reading this and shaking their heads and thinking, "It's all just a bunch of recorded photographic images projected onto a screen in an auditorium. Calm down." You got me. There is Egypt and Bahrain and Yemen and Libya and Wisconsin and any other place where protests have erupted within the last 10 minutes and car bombs and subway bombs and suicide bombers and earthquakes and monsoons and hurricanes and 35,000 feet of snow in New York City alone (!) and unemployment and the Carmelo Anthony Trade and on and on and on and on and on and on and so, basically, obviously, the world is ending and we'd all be better off just offing ourselves and so, really, who has time for the movies? Get over yourself, Cinema Romantico. Wallow in the mire with the rest of us sad-stop-unlucky depressives. "Life isn't like in the movies. Life is harder."

Duh. Of course, it is. Who doesn't understand that? And that's what makes art so important. Especially with the world in such turmoil. I believe in it. Don't you? If you do, let's all get together this Sunday night and honor it, what do ya say?

From Marty To Nina (What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been)

"So you're the little neighborhood Lolita?"

That is what Michael Rapaport's Paul - or, as the response to the aforementioned line goes, "the alcoholic high school buddy shit for brains" - says to Natalie Portman's Marty, named for Marty, an uncle she never knew, who has managed to charm the pants off our protagonist, Willie Conway (Timothy Hutton), back in town for his 10 year high school reunion in "Beautiful Girls" (1996). Problem is, she's only 13 years old. Then again, like she tells Willie, "I have an old soul." And that seems right, doesn't it? Hasn't Natalie Portman always felt like she's had an old soul? Hasn't she always felt like the little neighborhood Lolita?

Her first film was "The Professional", in 1994, directed by Luc Besson, in which she plays a 12 year old named Mathilda. Of course, the first time we see Mathilda she is smoking a cigarette and eventually she begs Jean Reno's Leon, the title character, a professional hitman, to teach her the ways of his trade so she can avenge the death of her brother.

Her follow up to "The Professional" in Michael Mann's masterpiece "Heat" was a year later. She was featured sparingly but was devastating as a neglected child of divorce who seems to have essentially missed out on childhood and winds up slitting her wrists.

Following her career making turn as Marty in 1996 she was featured in "Where The Heart Is" as a pregnant 17 year old who decides to have her baby and raise her child. In "Cold Mountain" she's a widow raising her infant child alone on the frontier. In "V For Vendetta" she finds herself caught up in a revolution in one of those traditional futuristic dystopian societies. In "Free Zone" she's an American who's come to the Middle East in an effort to find herself. In "Goya's Ghosts" she is arrested by the church for heresy. In "Closer" she's a stripper. In the "Star Wars" prequels she's a frickin' queen. Hell, even in Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks!" where she at first appears to be your typical sullen, contrary teenager, Taffie Dale, albeit the sullen, contrary teenage daughter of the President, she winds up being the only surviving member of the U.S. Government once the martians have finally been defeated so....guess who has to run things now? God in Heaven, didn't this young girl EVER get to play a young girl????? Couldn't they let her have a slumber party, gossip about boys, go to the prom, something?

Willie: "What is it you do, kids your age, on the weekend?"
Marty: "Well, what we've been doing lately is smoking massive amounts of drugs, bingeing on Entenmanns and listening to Pink Floyd."

Born in Jerusalem as Natalie Hershlag she re-located to Washington D.C. at age 3 before, soon afterwards, re-locating to Long Island which is to suggest a young girl who emigrates from Israel to the States at age 3 is likely to have a much different world view than someone, say, born and raised along the banks of the Des Moines River. Portman has been a vegetarian since age 8 and been part of The World Patrol Kids, an environmental song and dance troupe who advertise on their web site that - really! - "kids can change the world". In high school I starred as the villain in our class production of an atrocious spoof of "Gone With The Wind" and frittered time away by writing short stories about Juan Valdez and a coffee war between Hills Bros. and Folgers, while in high school Ms. Hershlag starred on Broadway as Anne Frank and authored papers titled "A Simple Method To Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar." A ha! So that's why she's nominated for an Oscar and I'm writing about her Oscar nomination. But I digress. Long story short: Natalie Portman's childhood did not resemble Mischa Barton of "The O.C."

Yet for all that maturity in her own life, Portman's performances, far more often than not, have suggested way too much youthful innocence. Consider 2009's "Brothers", in which she is married to Tobey Maguire's soldier who has just returned, shell-shocked, from Iraq and who is kinda seeing his brother, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, on the sly. Caught between the two, she is the central figure, the movie's crux, but her failure to generate any sort of emotional heat fatally damages the film. Roles such as these are heavy-lifting and all along Portman has been a kind of literal and figurative china doll, too fragile to deal with anything of serious heft. Sure, she won the Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe in 2005 for her work in "Closer" but, seriously, the Globes can't be trusted and while it was admirable for her to take on the role even there she seemed like someone playing dress-up.

"I might just grow to be five-ten. I'll be hot."

No one ever claimed that Portman didn't have promise. I think that much is clear. But she always struck me as someone who invested years and years in top flight acting school, a fact made too obvious because quite often you could clearly see her straining to act, to put all those lessons and long hours with her teachers to good use. My colleague Andrew at Encore Entertainment wrote a tremendous, thoughtful piece on Portman stuffed full of interesting observations and closed, not unintentionally, with "Portman’s sort of incomparable in how much of a slow burn she is – there’s loads of potential there...even if she’s still a mystery to me." An enigma, a mystery wrapped in a riddle, an actress loaded with potential who had been unable since the early days of her career to put it all together for the - lack of a better term - Break Out.

Enter: Darren Aronofsky. In an interview Portman said: "My relationship with Darren felt almost telepathic. I never had that with any director before. Darren could say half a word and I felt like I could understand him, and I could say half a word and he could understand me. We were in some strange zone of focus that allowed us to share this attention." Portman and Aronofsky are both Jewish, both attended Harvard, and both take acute interest in science (albeit in different fields). Does this all have some sort of symbolic meaning, does it suggest Portman is Aronofsky's present and/or future muse? Maybe, maybe not. But what's clear is he wrested something from her not heretofore glimpsed in "Black Swan", the film for which Portman may very well win a Best Actress Oscar this Sunday.

Yes, she had all the dance training and, yes, she lost all the weight but such things, from this writer's perspective, do not and never have been the concrete of masterful performances. Daniel Day Lewis may have learned to trap animals and fire a musket for "Last of the Mohicans" but that was not what most ably assisted in crafting his subtly defiant turn. Sure, sure, now's the part where dissenters swoop in with "But, Nick, all she did was take hold of the cinematic saxophone and hold one note for two hours."

Who is Portman's Nina Sayers? Well, she's a ballerina and, uh, not much else of anything really. Her domineering mother (Barbara Hershey) was once a ballerina and has molded her daughter into a ballerina and she is a ballerina and is going to stay a ballerina and she goes to ballet practice and then returns home from ballet practice to practice ballet at home and......hey, man, this is kind of a (ahem) one note life. Don't you think? Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) is the sadomasochistic artistic director for Nina's company and he wants her to play the lead for their production of "Swan Lake", the only problem being that Nina, at present, really only has the White Swan in her, not the Black Swan, which is to say that she can only play (ahem) one note. So here she is, the poor, poor girl stuck between the obligatory domineering mother and the requisite sadomasochistic artistic director and damned if she has any idea who she is. Perfect, man, she's gotta be perfect, because between being pushed by these two bloodhounds, well, striving for perfection is all she knows.

Yes, a particular facial expression (as if on the verge of a mammoth nervous breakdown) is often present on Portman's face but to claim that's all she's got is a ridiculous generalization. A couple examples: 1.) The 1970's-era Times Square inspired scene on the subway when that leery old guy is, uh, doing sordid things across the way from Nina and Portman's expression here suggests, again, a little girl who isn't necessarily disgusted by what he's doing but more confused - like she's so sheltered she doesn't quite grasp the situation and 2.) The scene at the club with Mila Kunis's fellow dancer where they are talking with the two guys and we get the impression Nina is a shut-in who has never conversed with a member of the male species outside of Lincoln Center in life as she blathers on about "comp(ing)" tickets. You can even go back to the very beginning with that girlish line reading of "It's so pretty" about the breakfast melon. They are merely variations on that one note, yes, but they are variations.

But then this note she's held for the entire movie explodes in the third act when she metamorphoses into the Black Swan and it is at this point - the most crucial point in the whole two hours - when the film reaches its most histrionic that Portman dials it way back down and suddenly, beautifully, turns eerily calm. This is to say that when her descension into the madness has become complete, she reaches peace, which seems about right, doesn't it, as opposed to descending completely into the madness and then becoming even more mad than you've been the whole movie (see: Daniel Day Lewis in "There Will Be Blood"). It's Springsteen singing "State Trooper" in that low wattage but terrified whisper for the entire song until right there at the end he unleashes the exhilarating, sinister "Whoo!!!!!" If he had led up to the "Whoo!!!!!" with exotic, octave-changing vocals the entire impact is blunted.

Now this type of performance may not be your glass of sangria, and that's fine. Honestly. We can't all get worked up over the same performances because that would be no fun. But......I can't sit idly by while people trot out the "She doesn't do anything" or the "All she did was lose weight and learn how to dance arguments" cuz it just ain't true.

And that's why as I sat in the theater back there in December at the conclusion and Leroy was hovering over her asking "What did you do?" this question could have been answered a couple of ways, the way Nina answers it herself, yes, but also in a way that expressed what Portman had gone off and done as an actress. She had to play a little girl to finally grow up.

Bold (And Bolder) Oscar Predictions

The following are the exact predictions I submitted to both the LAMB Oscar Contest and to the Outguess Ebert Oscar contest which is to say that if I get these all right no one is beating me which is to say this predictions list is a most dangerous molotov cocktail of makes-no-sense-unless-you're-on-my-brainwave. Here goes.

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." My Prediction: "Winter's Bone." Because if it happens I want to say I called it. (Slightly Related Tangent: Did you know Kobe Bryant recently said of teammate Pau Gasol this: "(He's) very white swan. I need him to be black swan"? Yeah, that's right, so until arguably the most famous athlete in the world compares Lamar Odom to Mark Zuckerberg or Ron Artest to King George VI, "Black Swan" haters, ya best step off.)

"Inception" was likely eliminated from the Best Picture race when an article at ScreenComplaint.com accused the film of being "riddled with factual inaccuracies regarding the abilities of the subconscious.'"

 Best Director. Nominees: Darren Aronofsky for "Black Swan", Joel and Ethan Coen for "True Grit", David Fincher for "The Social Network", Tom Hooper for "The King's Speech", David O. Russell for "The Fighter." My Prediction: Darren Aronofsky. Why? Because I'm biased, that's why. Deal with it.

Best Actor. Nominees: Javier Bardem in "Bitiful", Jeff Bridges in "True Grit", Jesse Eisenberg in "The Social Network", Colin Firth in "The King's Speech", James Franco in "127 Hours". My Prediction: James Franco. Has that year's Oscar host ever won an award? I don't think so. Let's make this happen, if only so we could see Anne Hathaway feign bitterness, which I think would be quite funny. Imagine it. James Franco: "You were nominated, Anne, what, two years ago? But you didn't win? Right?" Anne Hathaway: "Why don't you eat my a--, Franco." It would be the single greatest moment in Oscar hosting history.

Best Actress. Nominees: Annette Bening in "The Kids Are All Right", Nicole Kidman in "Rabbit Hole", Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone", Natalie Portman in "Black Swan", Michelle Williams in "Blue Valentine". My Prediction: Nicole Kidman. Wait, you're thinking. This is the moron who has spent the last 6 weeks shouting from the mountain tops about how Natalie Portman's performance in "Black Swan" is the greatest thing since Gershwin composed "Rhapsody In Blue" and now he's picking Kidman? What gives? Easy. I don't want to jinx Natalie Portman and since Nicole Kidman already has her Oscar, I can risk jinxing her.

Best Supporting Actor. Nominees: Christian Bale in "The Fighter", John Hawkes in "Winter's Bone", Jeremy Renner in "The Town", Mark Ruffalo in "The Kids Are All Right", Geoffrey Rush in "The King's Speech". My Prediction: John Hawkes. That's right, peeps, he's gonna go all Villanova '85 and punk big, bad Bale.

Best Supporting Actress. Nominees: Amy Adams in "The Fighter", Helena Bonham Carter in "The King's Speech", Melissa Leo in "The Fighter", Hailee Steinfeld in "True Grit", Jacki Weaver in "Animal Kingdom". My Prediction: Amy Adams. I said it 6 weeks ago and I'm sticking to it.

Best Animated Feature. Nominees: "How To Train Your Dragon", "The Illusionist", "Toy Story 3". My Prediction: "Toy Story 3". I'm not a complete idiot.

Best Original Screenplay. Nominees: "Another Year" by Mike Leigh, "The Fighter" by Paul Attanasio, Lewis Colich, Eric Johnson, Scott Silverand Paul Tamasy, "Inception" by Christopher Nolan, "The Kids Are All Right" by Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko, "The King's Speech" by David Seidler. My Prediction: Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko. My heart is not truly on fire for any of these scripts but I'll pick this one because I am in love with the speech Julianne Moore gives at the end. "Marriage is hard. Just two people slogging through the shit, year after year, getting older, changing. It's a fucking marathon, okay?" Okay.

Best Adapted Screenplay. Nominees: "127 Hours" by Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle, "The Social Network" by Aaron Sorkin, "Toy Story 3" by Michael Arndt, story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, "True Grit" by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "Winter's Bone" by Debra Granik and Anne Rossellini. My Prediction: Frankly, I wanted to leave this category blank in protest of my favorite screenplay, far, far and away, of the year - David Lindsay-Abaire's "Rabbit Hole" - not being nominated but apparently both contests anticipated my protest and forced me to select someone. Damn it all to hell. So I pick Granik & Rossellini for "Winter's Bone" since it's my second favorite screenplay of the year.

Will someone please explain why this man was not nominated?

Achievement In Art Direction. Nominees: "Alice In Wonderland", "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1", "Inception", "The King's Speech", "True Grit." My Prediction: "The King's Speech." I'm very afraid, though, that between now and Sunday someone is going to write an article bemoaning the historical inaccuracies of the art director's re-creation of Lionel Logue's office.

Achievement In Cinematography. Nominees: Matthew Libatique for "Black Swan", Wally Pfister for "Inception", Danny Cohen for "The King's Speech", Jeff Cronenweth for "The Social Network", Roger Deakins for "True Grit". My Prediction: Matthew Libatique. Woo Woo!!! All aboard the "Black Swan" bandwagon!!! 

Achievement in Costume Design. Nominees: Colleen Atwood for "Alice In Wonderland", Antonella Cannarozzi for "I Am Love", Jenny Beaven for "The King's Speech", Sandy Powell for "The Tempest", Mary Zophres for "True Grit." My Prediction: Sandy Powell, not because she won last year, though she did, but because I absolutely loved the speech she gave. She dedicated her Oscar "to the costume designers that don’t do movies about dead monarchs or glittery musicals. The designers that do the contemporary films and the low-budget ones actually don’t get as recognized as they should, and they work as hard."  Exactly. Which is why Cinema Romantico's Best Costume Design of 2010 goes to Erin Benach for "Blue Valentine."

Achievement in Film Editing. Nominees: Andrew Weisblum for "Black Swan", Pamela Martin for "The Fighter", Tariq Anwar for "The King's Speech", Jon Harris for "127 Hours", Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall for "The Social Network". My Prediction: Andrew Weisblum. Hey, what'd I tell you? Also, the 3rd act of "Black Swan" was my favorite stretch of film - by far - in 2010 and a lot of that had to do with the editing.

Achievement in Makeup. Nominees: "Barney's Version", "The Way Back", "The Wolfman". My Prediction: "The Wolfman". It's, like, a movie about a man who turns into a wolf.

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score). Nominees: John Powell for "How To Train Your Dragon", Hans Zimmer for "Inception", Alexandre Desplat for "The King's Speech", A.R. Rahman for "127 Hours", Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for "The Social Network". My Prediction: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. I really, really, really, really, really like this.

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song). Nominees: "Coming Home" from "Country Strong", Music and Lyrics by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey. "I See The Light" from "Tangled", Music and Lyrics by Alan Menken, Lyrics by Glenn Slater. "If I Rise" from "127 Hours", Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyrics by Dido and Rollo Armstrong. "We Belong Together" from "Toy Story 3", Music and Lyrics by Randy Newman. My Prediction: "If I Rise", specifically because Florence + Machine will be performing the song at the Oscars in place of Dido and I secretly yearn that instead  of performing "If I Rise" she performs one of her own songs instead and the Academy, realizing Florence + Machine is, like, 387 million x better than all this nominated crap, have an on-the-spot re-vote and give the Oscar to Florence.

Can Florence make history and become the first person ever to win an Oscar despite not having been nominated?

Best Documentary Feature. Nominees: "Exit Through The Gift Shop", "Gasland", "Inside Job", "Restrepo", "Waste Land." My Prediction: "Exit Through The Gift Shop" because you know everyone is jonesing to hear Banksy give an acceptance speech.

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year. Nominees: Biutiful (Mexico), Dogtooth (Greece), In A Better World (Denmark), Incendies (Canada), Hors la Loi (Algeria). My Prediction: "Hors la Loi." Because it's been accused of "falsifying history" and nothing says Best Picture winner like accusations of "falsifying."  

Achievement in Sound Editing. Nominees: "Inception", "Toy Story 3", "TRON: Legacy", "True Grit", "Unstoppable." My Prediction: "Unstoppable." You know what they say, never bet against a movie about a runaway train starring Denzel Washington. 

Achievement in Sound Mixing. Nominees: "Inception", "The King's Speech", "Salt", "The Social Network", "True Grit." My Prediction: "Salt." Because I love this freaking movie.

C'mon, man, Evelyn Salt deserves something. How 'bout Achievement In Sound Mixing?

 Achievement in Visual Effects. Nominees: "Alice In Wonderland", "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1", "Hereafter", "Inception", "Iron Man 2". My Prediction: "Inception." Because that rotating hallway sequence was biscuits and gravy, baby.

Best Documentary Short Subject. Nominees: "Killing In The Name", "Poster Girl", "Strangers No More", "Sun Come Up", "The Warriors Of Qiugang." My Prediction: "The Warriors Of Qiugang." In reading up on it I very much would like to see it. 

Best Short Film (Animated). Nominees: "Day & Night", "The Gruffalo", "Let's Pollute", "The Lost Thing", "Madagascar". My Prediction: "The Gruffalo." Because it rhymes with Ruffalo.

Best Short Film (Live Action). Nominees: "The Confession", "The Crush", "God Of Love", "Na Wewe", "Wish 143". My Prediction: "The Crush." Because it shares the name of Alicia Silverstone's 1993 "masterpiece". Sigh......remember when Alicia Silverstone was an "it" girl? Or does that just reinforce my old age? 

Did The Movie Gods Listen?

As regular readers of this blog know very well, Cinema Romantico's relationship with the all powerful movie gods is rather, shall we say, tenuous.

We implore them to bring Angelina Jolie and James Cameron together to make "Cleopatra" and 48 hours later James Cameron announces he's not taking the project.

We honor them for the trailer for "The Adjustment Bureau", hailing it as quite possibly the greatest preview we've ever seen, and 48 hours later "The Adjustment Bureau's" release date gets pushed back.

Thus, it was with great trepidation that we beseeched the movie gods in January to bring James Franco and Mila Kunis, the real stars of "Date Night", back together and to do it as soon as godly possible. Well......

My generation's screwball couple.

Sources are reporting that Sam Raimi has enlisted the considerable talents of James Franco and Mila Kunis for his forthcoming "Wizard Of Oz" prequel, apparently with sights set on Franco as the Wizard and Kunis as the Wicked Witch Of The West.

I've mocked the idea of a "Wizard Of Oz" prequel but that was before this potential casting coupe. Will they have scenes together? A lot of scenes? Or will the movie gods strike them both down with mysterious illnesses just prior to shooting and force Raimi to re-cast their roles with Dane Cook and Jessica Simpson?

Stay tuned. But we, movie fans, might just have won one. Or I've jinxed it and screwed us all yet again.

Restrepo

“My mindset was: I’m gonna die.”

I cannot conceive of my mindset ever being: I’m gonna die. I mean, I understand the chances a person supposedly takes every time he or she boards a plane or drives a car or simply sets foot on the street. A car once hurtled up and off the freeway and through that bus stop that is right across from the Blue Line stop on Addison and I’ve stood at the bus stop numerous times. But I never have and never will stand there with a mindset of: I’m gonna die. This, however, is the mindset of every American soldier assigned to Outpost Restrepo on the very front line of the foreboding Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. One of the troops returned from duty explains to the camera that psychologists assigned to talk with the men of Outpost Restrepo are dealing with circumstances no one has seen since WWII since no American soldiers since that time have ever so consistently been under such heavy gunfire and duress.

For the 15 months of its deployment between May 2007 and July 2008 the acclaimed author Sebastian Junger and the war photographer Tim Hetherington embedded themselves with the platoon to record its daily routine, equal parts mundane and life threatening. The film is named after Pfc. Juan Restrepo, only 20, the first man in the platoon to die in the Korengal. He appears good natured and fun loving in the clips presented, strumming his guitar, festively, which seems to suggest that those passages in "From Here To Eternity" where the soldiers sit around and play guitar and sing along ("Re-enlistment Blues") actually weren't all that far fetched, which pleases me.

That, however, is pretty much all that's pleasing about this expert, difficult-to-watch film nominated for Best Documentary at this Sunday's Academy Awards and named the #1 movie of 2010 by my esteemed colleague Castor of Anomalous Material. It refrains from coloring in the plights of all the individual soldiers, choosing instead to paint them as one large militarized family, all for one and one for all, thrust into an impossible situation and fighting back against that impossibility with all they've got. The enemy is never seen, only heard through sporadic gunfire, distant and unknowable but ceaselessly present.

Why is the platoon here? To build a relationship with the locals against the Taliban so that, in turn, they can assist each other in building a road through the Korengal to close the distance between them and the rest of their nation and, thus, create jobs and bring money. Supposedly. All this is addressed in meetings the Americans take with elders of various villages in the valley. The most haunting shot to this viewer did not involve attack or gunfire but a U.S. commanding officer explaining to the locals how much this theoretical road could benefit them and the camera focusing in on one disinterested local yawning. It would seem much of the ongoing plight in Afghanistan could be found right there in that man's yawn.

Hetherington and Junger, though, never take sides and allow the images, some staggering, some low-key, some staggering because they're so low-key, speak for themselves. "Black Hawk Down" still contains my favorite war film line when Eric Bana says, nearly disinterestedly, "Don't really matter what I think. Once that first bullet goes past your head politics and all that shit just goes right out the window." It's my favorite line because it's just so right. All these soldiers sent into a valley of death by others who they don't see, don't know, and never will know. It really doesn't matter what they think. But shouldn't it matter, at least a little, what they think?

Offside

Upon Iran scoring a goal to take a 1-0 lead in a soccer match to determine whether or not they will qualify for the 2006 World Cup, a group of five Iranian females, overcome with joy, scream and jump around and huddle together and cheer: "What does Iran do?! It riddles you with goals!" The strange, bittersweet irony here is that these five females are not actually watching the game but listening to it just outside the stadium after having been detained by the Iranian army for attempting to sneak into the game since women are not allowed to watch sporting events with men. Yet here these women are, one of them locked up in handcuffs, shouting just as wildly as the male prison guards.

The director of "Offside" (2007) is Jafar Panahi who in December of last year was sentenced to six years in prison for "carrying out propaganda against the system" and so it was time for this film, which had been wandering in the wilderness of my Netflix queue for the last year, to get bumped up to the top spot. The majority of the film was shot during the actual 2005 Iran-Bahrain contest that is its main plot point and to get the film made Pahani submitted a script to Iranian authorities about a group of men going to the match and upon that script's approval setting about to make his actual film, a film that would then be banned in his country.

It is very much in the style of Italian Neo-Realism - Iranian Neo-Realism, perhaps? A nameless girl (Sima Mobarak-Shahi) dressed up as a boy is on a bus filled with chanting, flag-waving guys and one of the guys can tell she's a girl and advises it's unlikely she'll get in but that he'll help her any way he can and she dismisses this offer because she says she doesn't need his assistance. Another film - maybe any other film ever - might have teamed these two up for the rest of its running time but "Offside" moves this guy out of the picture immediately. She really doesn't need his assistance. Not that she makes it into the game, because she doesn't. She is nabbed by a guard and taken to a makeshift prison that is really just a cordoned off area protected by a few more soldiers at the top reaches of the stadium.

There are several other nameless girls here who tried to sneak in and were thwarted. One girl debates the merits of this whole men-and-women-can't-mix-in-the-stadium law. One girl needs to use the restroom which becomes a whole separate sideshow. Interestingly this initial nameless girl we are introduced to and who we sense is the film's protagonist just blends in once arriving in the pen. It's an All In This Together kinda thing. Even the soldiers, the poor soldiers, seem to agree the ban against women in the stadium is archaic but, nonetheless, have a job to see to in order to avoid the wrath of punishment. If they had it their way they would be watching the game and not dealing with prisoners.

Eventually a bus will arrive and everyone will pile on so the guards can escort the girls to the Chief and all the people aboard find themselves listening breathlessly via radio as the final seconds tick away and their country qualifies for the World Cup. And once they have, celebrations erupt, the bus becomes snared in traffic and first the guards and then the girls are pulled out into the street where everyone is singing and dancing and lighting firecrackers and, for a little while at least, nothing else much matters.

I think it's safe to assume Panahi being jailed is far beyond heinous and I, like everyone else, hope he is released tomorrow but what if his government continues its dumbass stance and in 2014 Panahi remains behind bars and his country once again qualifies for the World Cup? Can't you imagine him cheering at the scoring of a crucial goal and lighting firecrackers in its aftermath despite his circumstances? As Panahi himself has said, "I make films, first, for Iranians."

A.O. Scott of the esteemed New York Times wrote that the film "made clear that such a victory, like the outcome of any other sporting event, is unlikely to really change anything." Sure. But it also makes clear that such a victory, like the outcome of any other sporting event, still counts for a whole big bunch of something.

Four Cinematic Statues That Should Have Been Erected Yesterday

As has been reported breathlessly, there is a serious endeavor underway in Detroit, Michigan to erect the Motor City's answer to Philadelphia's famed Rocky Balboa statue via a sculptured ode to Paul Verhoeven's 80's, uh, classic character "Robocop." This has, as it would, sparked numerous other lists wondering what other movie characters deserve their own statues. Naturally I had no choice but to get in on the fun.

Four Cinematic Statues That Should Have Been Erected Yesterday:

The Bride, "Kill Bill", in "The City Of El Paso, Texas". While El Paso possesses a plethora of history I think it goes without saying that, far and away, its most significant historical event to this day remains "The Massacre At Two Pines."

Chuck & Cindy, "Elizabethtown", at The Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. Oh, they may merely be supporting characters with not a whole lot of screen time but the about-to-get married lovebirds who turn the same hotel where "Elizabethtown's" protagonist is staying into one endless, glorious party are a personification of true love and living life to the fullest. "Lovin' Life - Lovin' You." If only all of America were as earnest as these two.

Rose DeWitt Bukater, "Titanic," at the Santa Monica Pier. If you to ask, "Why the Santa Monica Pier?" then, please, just get outta my face. And if you have to ask, "Why does Rose DeWitt Bukater deserve a statue?" then perhaps you should go join the campaign to get a statute of Keanu Reeves erected down at the Michigan Avenue Bridge since you're obviously an idiot.

The Dude, "The Big Lebowski", at The In-and-Out Burger on Camrose. I'm honestly not even sure why this hasn't happened yet.

The Heiress

"When the promise is broken you go on living but it steals something from down in your soul." - Bruce Springsteen, "The Promise"

Broken hearts in movies anymore mean so little. They're a trifle, a piece of plot, signifying nothing. Think about the times when your heart has been broken. It hurts, doesn't it? It's not a tepid bruise where you attractively mope about the town while awaiting the inevitable turnabout for the happy ending, is it? Nope. The freaking thing's broken. And it's painful. And maybe other people think you're just being overemotional but, of course, they're full of it because when their hearts are broken they feel like you do. And you change, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse, maybe for a bit of both, but there is a distinct change because a broken heart is too monumental a event to leave you unchanged. And maybe that's why broken hearts in movies anymore mean so little. No one whose heart is broken undergoes any kind of real change. They don't get that faraway look in their eyes that exposes a brand new, hardened edge. It's all Movie Change where no deeper knowledge is acquired aside from Hey, She/He Really Does Love Me! But when in William Wyler's "The Heiress (1949) Catherine Sloper (Olivia de Havilland) has her heart broken not once but twice, damn, man, it counts for something. I've never seen a cinematic heartbreak count for more.

Despite the film's base material, Henry James' 1880 short novel "Washington Square", "The Heiress" starts out feeling so much like a modern day romantic comedy. Catherine is the title character, already inheriting $10,000 a year from her deceased mother, and set to inherit another $20,000 from her father Austin (Ralph Richardson), a well-to-do doctor, upon his passing. But Catherine is shy - awkwardly, painfully shy, almost a Jane Austen-esque introvert. Suddenly, one might say magically, into her life comes dashing, worldly Morris Townsend (dashing, worldly Montgomery Clift), who introduces himself at a lavish engagement party and instantly begins courting Catherine, much to the surprise of her father and aunt (Miriam Hopkins) since Catherine's anti-social nature has long left her man-less. Ah, Morris is just in it for the inheritance. Right? This is what Dr. Sloper suspects, of course, but Morris seems chivalrous in the way he admits right outta the box that he's poor, essentially penniless, and can't offer Catherine much more than in the way of love. Catherine seems convinced. We seem convinced. At least, I seem convinced. But the movie, adapted for the screen (and originally the stage) by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, has so much more on its deceitful, duplicitous mind. It takes you on a wild ride that for all its parlor rooms and top hats and fancy gowns pulls back the curtain to bitch-slap the everlasting hell out of the Victorian Age.

I have mentioned numerous times on this blog that I grew up with the films of Olivia de Havilland. My mom felt about "Gone With The Wind" the way I feel about "Last of the Mohicans" and so I'd seen her as Melanie Wilkes probably before I had any real comprehension of the burning of Atlanta. I saw her films with Errol Flynn, "Captain Blood" and "Adventures Of Robin Hood" and "Charge Of The Light Brigade", at the same age I was watching He-Man cartoons. But I'd never seen "The Heiress" and, to put it most mildly, de Havilland's work here astounded me. Despite watching it on DVR, when I needed to go to the bathroom I couldn't even pause it and walk away.

Within the first half-hour de Havilland (who won the Best Actress Oscar for her work) unleashes such expressive physicality it had me laughing out loud in pure pleasure. When the father of the soon-to-be bride at the party congratulates his daughter and her fiancé, de Havilland's face - her lips quivering ever so slightly, a tear or two threatening to roll - registers cheer and envy and heartache in equal doses. It's the sort of shot that renders character development and backstory - however well done - mute. You can see an entire life lived in that face. The joy she feels for the happy couple and the dejection that this has not yet happened to her and perhaps a resignation to the fact that it won't. And then Morris turns up on the scene and asks her to dance and they do and her eyes dart up and down, disbelieving of this event but thankful it is happening, and so he asks if he can call on her and he does, several days in a row, and he follows her around the house, the staging of this sequence being just sublime, as he leans in, eagerly, to talk and she leans back, away from him, every time, displaying her uneasiness, her lack of so-called People Skills. In fact, when Catherine's aunt mentions the flowers that Morris has sent you can see the expression form on Catherine's face of "Oh, right, now I have to be polite" and so she says "Yes, thank you, they were very fresh, I mailed you a thank you note this morning" in a rigid, rehearsed, forced tone.

This seems to be her greatest flaw. This inability to interact. She is "unmarriable", and that's the word her father - her own father - uses. His wife, as he says over and over and again and again, was perfect. She was full of "grace and gaiety" while Catherine has "no social adeptness" and is "without a shred of poise." Ouch. Richardson's turn here is outstanding, too (he won Best Supporting Actor that year), kind but domineering, adherent to the restrictive code of the Victorian Age, delivering backhanded compliments with an acidity to rival the Alien's blood. What he does may very well be in the best interests of his daughter, but the way he goes about it and, most importantly, the way he thinks of her is devastatingly cruel.

Catherine, sadly, but expectedly, remains unaware of these feelings of her father's and it is not until after Morris has told Catherine he loves her - and consider her reaction to this, when he asks "Do you love me?" and she says, quickly, almost automatically, realizing she knew even though she didn't, "Yes", and then the kiss and then she repeats with a delicate pause after each word, as if clarifying, as if savoring the joy of actually getting to say these words and meaning them, "I. Love. You." - and asked her to marry him and she says she will and her father refuses to grant permission for them to be wed until he has taken his daughter to Europe for six months to ensure that Morris does not stray and then returned to America when it becomes clear Catherine can't get Morris out of her head that her father reveals his true feelings about his own daughter to her face.

It's as brutal as a sucker punch, as ghastly as a high speed car wreck, and when Catherine and Morris then have the obligatory kiss in the rain your spirit momentarily soars until the turn, the moment when she declares, "Oh, I can do anything, my dearest." It's the first moment in the whole film when she leaves behind her soft-spoken girlish voice and sounds grown up. And just a little bit angry. She's still smiling, she's still hopeful, she's still in love with this man, but her heart has been broken and she's changed even if it's almost imperceptible at this point.

But, oh, another twist is to come - and I won't say what it is but you can probably guess - and then the naive armor cracks completely and your gut is wrenched as she climbs her stairs. This is the second of three shots showing Catherine going up that staircase and the whole movie can be found in them. Giddiness and sadness and then the second-to-last shot of the film which grips you in the vice of its conflicting emotions. The specifics of it will not be given away by me but in this final ascent there is a strange triumph but also an irrevocable bitterness. The promise was broken and, sure, Catherine has and will go on living but it's stolen something from down in her soul and you can see it. You can see it. You can feel it.

Now I want to stress that what I am about to say I do not say lightly. Not in the slightest. We all know I'm a superlative enthusiast and of this fact I am proud. After all, one of my mottos is Life Is Short - Be Hyperbolic. As the days and years scarily speed up and time goes faster and faster, I'm becoming even less about restraint. But what I am about to proclaim are not the words of the overwrought melodramatic you know so well. I first saw "The Heiress" two weeks ago and I waited and pondered, on the train to and from work, over coffee, at lunch, in those moments before I drifted off to sleep, during my 150,000 listens to "Born This Way", because my initial feelings were serious business that deserved the utmost consideration. Well, I've considered and what I've determined is that I experienced a pictorial revelation.

One question an avid moviegoer such as myself often receives is What Is The Greatest Movie You Have Ever Seen? As all avid moviegoers are aware there is a vital difference between Greatest and Favorite. We all know my personal favorites. Greatest, on the other hand, implies perfection or at least the very closest to perfection attained in the medium. So when someone asks me to name The Greatest Movie I've Ever Seen, I answer "Chinatown." When someone asks me to name The Greatest Male Screen Performance I've Ever Seen, I answer George C. Scott in "Dr. Strangelove." But when someone asks me to name The Greatest Female Screen Performance I've Ever Seen I have never really had an accurate reply. Kate Winslet is my favorite actress, sure, but as we just established that's not the same thing. Faye Dunaway is magnificent but she has never taken me on a transformative journey. Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace meant a presposterously great deal to me but in no, way, shape or form is that The Greatest Female Screen Performance. Maybe I would have said Ingrid Bergman in "Notorious" or "Stromboli" or Lauren Bacall in the first 45 minutes of "To Have And Have Not" or Bette Davis in "All About Eve." But now I realize why I never had an appropriate answer. I had not seen it. Now I have. You can scoff, yes, and that's cool, but, make no mistake, I mean what I say. This film is a fucking miracle and its lead actress belittles the term tour de force.

Olivia de Havilland in "The Heiress" is The Greatest Female Screen Performance I've Ever Seen.

Huge Post Coming Tomorrow

If I've said it once I've said it 4,700 times: often the most essential movie-watching experiences of our lives are entirely unexpected. Like I'm sitting on the couch of my Urbandale townhouse one weekday evening and my roommates are all gone and I'm scrolling TV channels looking for a movie to watch and I happen upon the Sundance channel and something called "The Myth Of Fingerprints" which I've never even heard of except it appears Julianne Moore is in it and, hey, I dig Julianne Moore and it appears to be starting right now and so why not? I watched it. And now it's my third favorite movie of all time, on the coveted top row of my DVD shelf right next to "Last of the Mohicans." I mean, what if I had not been home that night? What if I'd found the movie 10 minutes after it started or 10 minutes before it started? Would have I watched it? What if I had not watched it? My God, what if?! DON'T THESE KINDS OF THINGS BOTHER ANYBODY ELSE???

Did you know that I was not really all that interested to see "Atonement"? Seriously. I had not read the book, had not so much as seen a preview, did not know much about it at all, but that Friday evening I wanted to see the 5:30 show of a movie at my favorite theater in the city and everything showing at 5:30 I'd already seen......except "Atonement." So I bought a ticket. Two hours later I was watching the credits roll with tears rolling down my eyes and then I went and saw it again less than 48 hours later and then when I was home for Christmas two weeks afterwards I dragged my mom and sister at gunpoint to the theater to watch it and now it sits on the coveted top row of my DVD shelf right next to "The Myth Of Fingerprints" and, well, WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF IT DIDN'T HAVE A 5:30 SHOW THAT DAY???

Well, a couple weeks ago, again, out of the absolute blue, on an exceptionally frigid Saturday afternoon, via DVR, I had a massive movie watching experience. I had planned on going to see "Biutiful", one of the Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Picture, but it was, like, 12 degrees outside and there was so, so, so much snow, just endless banks of snow in every direction and down every sidewalk, which turned even the usual 3 minute walk to the grocery store into a trek reminiscent of Shackleton's Trans-Antarctic Expedition, and I knew "Biutiful" was going to be super depressing and I just didn't have it in me and so I stayed home and turned instead to my DVR where I'd recorded a couple films I'd never seen that were part of Turner Classic Movies 30 Days Of Oscar and so now, in retrospect, we can safely assume one of the main reasons for The Great Chicago Blizzard of '11 was to keep me home that Saturday so I could watch this particular movie. Thanks, movie gods!

One interesting thing about falling so hard for a film is how uninteresting all other things cinematic become in the face of your true love. At the time of "Atonement" my friend Rory and I had our short-lived Cinematic Arena blog where we both saw the same movie and then debated it in often ornery tones and we had decided to see "The Golden Compass" that weekend and debate it and so I went and saw it the day after "Atonement" and, honestly, I did not want to be there. I could not focus. I'd hear, like, two words Nicole Kidman would say and then I'd drift back to that lush montage of James McEvoy and Keira Knightley prepping for the dinner party and eventually I'd come to and have no idea where this current movie was or what was going on. Is that polar bear talking? A couple weeks later "Once", a movie I also fell hard for, was released on DVD and I had been waiting and waiting desperately for that DVD but, I don't know, man, it just lost something in the face of "Atonement." I didn't want to admit it but it was true. Kinda like how in the face of this particular massive movie watching experience of a couple weeks ago I've sort of lost interest in Natalie Portman's drive for an Oscar (which no doubt comes as a relief to some of my readers.) Don't get me wrong, this doesn't lessen Natalie's fine work as Nina Sayers or my rapturous feelings toward "Black Swan" on their own terms but in the face of what has unexpectedly occurred I'm helpless. Natalie's great and all but compared to this......

But because of what I saw and what I felt and what it meant and so forth I wanted to give it some time and let it soak in so I could ensure that my initial gut reaction was accurate and then be able to type up a post in complete control of my facilities without employing my typical extravagant prose. Well, I reached a definitive conclusion that my gut reaction was right but I still typed up a post by employing my typical extravagant prose. It's me, man. It's all I know.

Nevertheless...I wanted to build it up a little bit because, hey, it's more fun that way. This is significant stuff. Trust me. Cinema Romantico will never be the same.

Cedar Rapids

The Ed Helms of "The Office" has always been a little innocent, a little naive, a little too infatuated with ugly sweaters, yet, unbelievably, the Ed Helms of director Miguel Arteta's "Cedar Rapids" is a little more innocent, a little more naive, a little more infatuated with ugly sweaters. He is Phil Lippe, an insurance salesman in the sweet hamlet of Brown Valley, Wisconsin, a place he has never left - that's never - and where he has struck up a relationship with his grade school teacher (Sigourney Weaver, deft) whom he envisions marrying, though it's rather clear her plans differ. The sweetness surrounding Brown Valley is tested, however, when the most prestigious agent at family-oriented Brown Valley Insurance turns out to have a, uh, dark side, and winds up dead of sinful causes.

The Fearsome Foursome.

This is bad because said agent was set to attend the ASMI in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where he had helped his company to reap the coveted Two Diamond Award - representing exemplary service to clients, community and God - four years running. And so his boss (Stephen Root, taking his role in "No Country For Old Men" and lightening it just one octave) sends Phil over Iowa way to wrap up yet another Two Diamond.

Phil is delivered explicit instructions, like keep close contact with soft-spoken, properly-annunciating Ron Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) and stay away, whatever the cost, from Dean "Deanzie" Ziegler (John C. Reilly), the AMSI's ultimate wild card. Thus, naturally, Phil finds himself sharing a three person junior suite with Ron and Deanzie before the spectacularly named Joan Ostrowski Fox (Anne Heche, real and ridiculous at once) - "The O Fox!" - joins this insurance proffering rock group on lead vocals. It does not take long for Deanzie and The O Fox, with mostly pointless reluctance from Ron, to get the non-drinking Phil to start tossing back liquor and indulging in misbegotten, illicit adventures which threaten to ruin Brown Valley Insurance's Two Diamond streak. And even if "Cedar Rapids" disappointingly was not actually filmed in Cedar Rapids, well, give the film some mad props for knowing that, yes, in Iowa, right outside the city limits, there is always going to a be a shabby house in the middle of nowhere with a bunk of drunks and druggies listening to really bad heavy metal. (Speaking of which, our little Maeby Fünke is all grown up. But you will have to see the movie.)

The influences here are obvious. Phil is essentially Steve Carrell's "The 40 Year Old Virgin" transplanted to the midwest without the virgin tag. It also riffs on the raunchy, buddy nature of "The Hangover", though it's much, much better than the latter, partly because it's not overlong and partly because its humor is less reliant on the obviously crude than on the endearingly unexpected. Consider Ron's impression of "The Wire's" Omar at a crucial juncture ("And I always keeps one in the chamber in case you ponderin'") or the Shakespearean puerile pep talk Weaver gives Phil over the phone, telling him that it's time to finally let go of Brown Center and become a man of the world. And, of course, as any Iowan can tell you, there is no better place to become a man of the world than the city housing the inimitable Five Seasons Center, the arena where any band worth its salt that couldn't get booked at Hilton Coliseum in Ames would play instead during the days of my youth.

Maybe, more than anything, the film's strongest trait is its refusal to let its characters become outright caricatures. Deanzie, for example, in the end proves to be just as much a Dean, this is in part from the writing and in part from the performance. He's an obnoxious, loudmouth a-hole, yes, but makes no attempt to dispute it and stands behind and supports Phil the whole way and while his methods of assisting in Phil's quick maturation may not be the most prudent, well, anyone with good intentions these days should at least be treated as a minor hero. Kinda like Phil who comes to Cedar Rapids, opens his eyes for the first time in his shut-in life and lives, damn it. Give Helms credit for making it feel as if an important lesson, amidst so much madness, is truly learned.

But let's not kid ourselves. The madness is the main point and the madness makes for a rollicking time. Who knew an insurance convention could be so eventful? Just think if they brought the G8 to Cedar Rapids.

My Great Movies: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

"Blessed are the forgetful for they get the better even of their blunders."

No disrespect but I happen to think Frederich Nietzsche was full of it. You know what movie I kept thinking of while watching "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" (2004) for the first time since I saw "Atonement"? Uh, well, "Atonement." You know that part near the end where the Vanessa Redgrave version of Briony Tallis is giving the interview about her new book and she reveals she has "vascular dementia, which is essentially a series of tiny strokes. Your brain closes down, gradually. You lose words, you lose your memory, which for a writer is pretty much the point." Amen. To lose your memory, that's a frightening prospect. After all, I'm the guy who went to Hawaii, hardly took any pictures and then let the pictures I did take sit untouched on the camera for eight months. Pictures? What pictures? You think those pictures could be as powerful as my own personal mental images and memories? No chance. At my best friend's wedding, after the ceremony and the reception, a big bunch of us had returned to a totally awesome downtown Des Moines bar and I bought myself and this girl who I would kinda, sorta fall in love with for that night each a beer and brought them back to where we were sitting and we were drinking and talking and I spied, just a couple feet away, my best friend talking to my friend Daryl who I had not seen in months and just completely blown off nonetheless because, you know, I had to squire those beers to this girl I had kinda, sorta fallen in love with and, please don’t ask me why, but I will go to the mattresses for that memory. I will claw with my fingernails for that memory. I will kick and scream and punch and filibuster to keep that memory. Do you hear me?!

And all that is appropriate because the protagonist of "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind", Jim Carrey's Joel Barish, “constitutionally incapable of making eye-contact with a woman (he doesn’t) know”, finds himself fighting to preserve his own memories, specifically memories of his relationship with hard-charging Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet), she of the ever-changing hair, blue-to-red-to-tangerine-to-green, and whose simple orange sweatshirt becomes a bolder and more beautiful fashion statement than anything even Lady Gaga's ever worn. The film opens with this duo having an extended Meet Cute on a wintry Long Island beach and then aboard a train back into the city before re-uniting again by chance and spending the evening together and the next evening, too. Except this film, directed by Michel Gondry, toning down his trademark visual flare, and written by the grandmaster flash of explorations of the human mind, Charlie Kaufman, will eventually let on that, in fact, this opening is happening much later in the scheme of things. But we’ll return to that later.

Soon after this beginning stanza we catch up with Joel weeping in his car and then explaining to his married pals (David Cross and Jane Adams, who go to show how much care Kaufman takes in sketching these brief supporting characters - we know exactly which type of married couple this is) how he went to see Clementine and how she did not so much as even pretend to recognize him and his friends, in turn, explain, even though they are not supposed to, that Clementine has had her memory erased. Wait, what? Yes, indeedy. Presented entirely real world and matter-of-fact, it seems one Doctor Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), of Lacuna Inc., has perfected the procedure of memory erasure.

-“Is any there danger of brain damage?”
-“Well, technically speaking, the procedure itself is brain damage.”

Angered that Clementine would simply do away with all the everlasting memories of their time spent together, Joel decides to reciprocate and get his mind wiped clean of Clementine, that “vindictive little bitch” (her words). Thus, Mierzwiak advises Joel to gather and bring every object he possesses associated with his ex and to present an oral report on their Meet Cute and their Break Up so a “map” of memories can be made in his mind which, that evening, after Joel has taken a couple pills to pass out hard and fast, a couple of Mierzwiak’s flunkies, Stan (Mark Ruffalo) and Patrick (Elijah Wood), can locate through their high-tech equipment and go through, one at a time, to entirely eradicate.

The film is then presented as Joel and Clementine’s relationship backwards, from the sad, horrible ending when she drunkenly enters his apartment after crashing his car prompting him to tell her off in his own sad-faced way, and it all falls apart to the beautiful opening on a (hmmmm) Long Island beach where she says to him, “I saw you sitting over here by yourself and thought, ‘Thank God, someone who doesn’t know how to interact at one of these things either.’” (Swoon......)

Except, of course, midway through the procedure, Joel realizes what is happening and realizes that, damn it, he doesn’t want to lose all these memories and mental images he has cultivated with Clementine and so, more heroically than John Wayne ever sounded babbling about one thing or the other, the two of them work together to form a kind of resistance to the memory erasure, hopping and skipping into other memories of Joel’s from other time periods to go “off the map”, which also allows for Gondry - to his mighty relief, no doubt - to employ some wackier camera work, though even then the distinct emotional core of this masterpiece stays front and center.

As soon as he goes off the map, Stan, who has invited the office secretary, Mary (Kirsten Dunst), his girlfriend, over for several-to-a-few beers, plus whiskey, and some Clash (“the only band that ever mattered”), has to call in the help of Mierzwiak to discover just where in his own head Joel has gone. But this event turns more problematic than could ever be expected when eventually it becomes clear that Mary has more affection for her boss than for her boyfriend, though this affection goes deeper and further back than we or she realizes. Mary, it seems, was Mierzwiak’s greatest champion. But was she off base? What price is paid to obliterate a person’s mementos?

As Clementine, Kate The Great, throughout, must strike a delicate balance between luminous and unlikeable, considering this is the rise and fall of an entire relationship, and she summarizes this in those opening scenes when she approaches Joel on the train and alternates between flirting with him and frightening him before departing with a vicious “take care” punch to Joel’s arm. Consider the moment in Joel's car when she opines "Sorry if I came off kinda nutso. I'm not really." Her face gives away the fact that, actually, she is really kinda nutso but also gives away the fact that though she may be kinda nutso she's also wholly genuine.

Carrey, meanwhile, is merely giving the performance of his career. In every movie I’ve ever seen him, even if the character is supposed to be separate from his normal persona, you can still occasionally catch him drifting back to his typical rhythms (see: “The Truman Show”) but here he completely breaks free from his showmanship, his exorbitant mugging, his overbearing line readings. This is not to suggest he just does something else which automatically makes him brilliant, no, he melds a whole new persona. He's always been tall but here he becomes gangly. Gondry sets shots so that it appears Joel's parka is threatening to suffocate him. His shyness and introversion can endear but also irritate. He mumbles. Any inquiry into his personality his feelings and he shuts down. “My life just isn’t that interesting.” Both of these people are terribly insecure, they simply show it in different ways - she acts out, he closes off. It's that which pulls them toward one another that very first time at some awkward barbecue and when Joel, in his head, re-lives the Meet Cute as it's being taken away, love dying and blossoming simultaneously, when she led him on a beach front home break-in before he fled the scene in fear, he admits, "I wish I'd stayed." And Clementine calls out to him, "What if you stayed this time?"  

And that might be the film’s greatest piece of significance. Even upon having their memories erased it takes all of what, eight hours, for Joel and Clementine to re-unite. For all its deliberations on the capabilities of the brain it seems the most vital organ to “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind” is a different one. The human heart, bless itself, knows what it wants.