January, 2009

30 Rock’s Alec Baldwin showed up at the SAG Awards with his gorgeous daughter Ireland as his date recently. Another indication that Baldwin is trying to change his image, having been raked over the coals just last year for a disgusting voicemail leaked to the media.

The audio caught Baldwin in an uncontrollable rant toward his daughter, causing him great embarrassment. (Yeah. Exposure of you calling your daughter a ‘thoughtless pig’ can embarrass you. Clearly he was the victim.)

Thankfully for Alec, 13-year-old daughter Ireland is far more mature. She was simply stunning as she stood statuesque next to her dad, smiling for all the cameras to see. Clearly things are looking up for Baldwin, who won the SAG for Outstanding Male Actor in a Comedy Series for his hilarious portrayal as the egomaniacal boss on the NBC series. (Now if he would just stay off the phone….)

A British TV journalist no one’s ever heard of interviewing Richard Nixon about Watergate. Boring, right?

Definitely not. Ron Howard’s film adaptation of the stage play “Frost/Nixon” is anything but. He takes the potentially boring subject matter of the post-Watergate interviews that’s arguably a generation too late and instead turns it into a taut thriller with compelling performances by its stars Michael Sheen and Frank Langella, who reprise their stage roles as Frost and Nixon, respectively.

The film initially starts with some old black and white video recapping the infamous Watergate scandal we’ve all come to know, but then we’re thrown into the colorful gaudy world of the 1970s where we first meet David Frost hosting a silly variety television show. He runs out on the stage to a roar of applause like a present day game show contestant and cracks corny jokes about sausage. Is this the man who could go one-on-one with Richard Nixon? 

No one thought so including Nixon himself, which is why he agreed to the interview. Any other “serious” journalist on CBS News or any other news network for that matter would be too much of a match for Nixon who just wanted a pushover who he could throw aside so he could spin his story and redeem himself to the American people.

He thought he found that pushover in Frost. (Plus, it didn’t hurt Frost paid him $600,000 nearly all out of his own pocket either.) We are inclined to think Frost is a pushover too. After all he picks up girls on airplanes, signs autographs like he’s Tom Cruise, and attends glitzy movie premieres and parties. But Sheen brings a determinative, appealing spark to Frost that makes us not willing to give up on him yet.

That and the story’s told through his point of view. Even as Frost leaves the heavy burden of research to his team, we see that Nixon isn’t the only one with his career at stake. Frost’s career was exiled to Australia along with his respectable reputation, and he’s relying on this interview to resurrect himself as well. So we’re not willing to give up that maybe just maybe Frost will beat Nixon. After all this is a game, a competition. Only one can win as Frost later tells Nixon.

This is where the tension comes in. There’s a series of four interviews Nixon is granting with the fourth one being the most important as it is devoted to Watergate. Each of the first three interviews are like individual boxing matches leading up until the very last big fight. At first, Frost get pummeled and thrown aside by Nixon who’s like a heavyweight champion. Although he’s far from it.

Langella makes Nixon an oddly sympathetic character. Yes, we all know he’s guilty; but, Langella excels in coloring Nixon as a haunted, lonely, self-loathing man. While he throws demeaning and patronizing slurs at Frost, it’s not quite evident he actually knows what he’s saying. He’s too aloof and isolated from anyone to know how to properly interact. Thus, Langella brings us a character that, while we’re not rooting for him, we still feel for him.

For that reason alone Langella is completely deserving of his Best Actor Oscar nomination, but don’t forget about Sheen. Like Frost, he holds his own against Langella and gives a great performance as a celebrity underdog with a lot of ambition.

In fact, both Frost and Nixon are underdogs and each holds virtues the other is so desperately lacking. So this battle of determination and ability is what propels this film far above just a boring history lesson. That’s what’s great about “Frost/Nixon:” its actors breathe real, complicated emotions into a riveting, true story. 

I only wish it concluded with telling a little more of what happened to the characters. Did Frost marry that girl he picked up on the airplane who turned into a fixture on the interview sets? Were Frost and Nixon really that amicable with each other at the end? If that pivotal, crucial scene that took place the night before the final interview was fictional, what really motivated Frost to suddenly give it his all?

The film isn’t a documentary, so it doesn’t have to answer these questions; but, kudos to a film for making me want to go crack open a history book to learn more.

The Wrestler is a powerful drama dealing with several pressing issues in the life of aging pro wrestler Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson. It is a part played brilliantly by Mickey Rourke. If Rourke manages to edge out Sean Penn for an Oscar, there’s sure to be plenty of talk along the lines of: “But he’s just playing himself.”

30 RoI can’t renounce that claim as one that’s untrue, but it diminishes the value of his performance. There is something within the subtleties of Rourke’s characterization that is downright touching and deeply moving.

This film immediately made me recollect “Million Dollar Baby.” They are both powerful dramas staged in the realm of sports. The difference here is that The Wrestler presents a unique behind-the-scenes-like look into the world of wrestling experienced firsthand by Randy ‘The Ram.’ We are struck by the savagery of the sport; if this is just acting, as we have been led to believe, then why do the actors go to such extremes to make it appear painful and real? “Million Dollar Baby,” on the other hand, presented its sport (women’s boxing) merely as a backdrop for the dilemmas its two protagonists were confronted with along the way.

Not in this case. Wrestling is much more than that here; it literally defines Mickey Rourke’s character. He is (as stated in the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen’s title song) a “one-trick pony” through and through. He wrestles initially for glory; twenty years later he wrestles simply because it is who he is. He’s been reduced to eking out an existence between the ropes in his own words as a “broken down piece of meat.”

But that living has come to define him now; and if you were confronted with the prospect of dying alone, no loved ones by your side, as ‘The Ram’ is, can you really fault him for wanting it to happen between the ropes?

Sringsteen’s Super Bowl performance this Sunday will be a teaser for his upcoming world tour. The tour officially kicks off in San Jose, California on April 1. He’s also headed to Europe, hitting countries like Spain and Sweden. This news comes on the very day of his latest release, “Working on a Dream.” Best wishes, Bruce.

With the history being made by Tuesday’s events, it seems fitting to celebrate other famous moments in history. These 5 movies tell the stories of the young, adventurous and sometimes not so glamorous life of the United States of America.

Forrest Gump – There is no other movie that covers more historical ground in such an entertaining and lovable way than “Forrest Gump.” From Watergate to Vietnam to the invention of the Apple Computer, he’s been there and seen it all. This is a terrific glimpse at American History although not very detailed. The sheer amount of events Gump is “involved” with in combination with the amazing cinematic technology used to place actor Tom Hanks in old news footage create a very real sense of remembrance even for audience members who may not have yet been born during those times.

John Adams – Some of this award winning HBO mini series about the adult life of our 2nd President was shot on location in Williamsburg, VA which adds a certain character to the film that may not have been there say if it had been shot fully on a sound stage. The historic locations aid the tremendous cast (Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, Stephen Dillane, David Morse, Tom Wilkinson and many others) in fulfilling an honest portrayal of the life and death of one of the men who started this country.

Good Night & Good Luck – History has occurred in the entertainment world as well. “Good Night & Good Luck” made in 2005 was shot in black in white to set the mood of broadcast journalism in the 1950’s during the McCarthy era when the search for secret Communists was at its height. Edward R. Murrow and his team at CBS decide not to stick to the rules and voice their opinions about the unfair blame game Senator McCarthy is playing and ultimately make history (and news) themselves.

Band of Brothers – George Clooney and HBO get two mentions on this list. Clooney is part of the cast of this hugely successful mini series about soldiers in World War 2. “Brothers” won 9 awards including a Peabody for “…relying on both history and memory to create a new tribute to those who fought to preserve liberty.” This captivating mini series follows the Easy Company of the 2nd Battalion from basic training to war. It’s a beautiful film but difficult because the fictional characters are based on real soldiers and therefore end up with the same fate – life, injury or death.

The Crucible – A movie written by the famous man who penned the play, Arthur Miller. He brings the witch hunt of Salem, Massachusetts to the screen instead of the stage this time. The plot focuses on the young girls of the town and a ceremony they are caught doing in the woods. Thinking of witch craft and demonic possession, everything goes hay wire, accusations mount, tempers flair and confessions are made by a cheating husband all for the sake of ending the chaos of the Salem Witch Trials for which we get to be right in the middle of.

Sunday night’s 15th annual Screen Actors Guild Award ceremony was almost a carbon copy of the Golden Globes two weeks ago with “Slumdog Millionaire,” “30 Rock,” Kate Winslet and “John Adams” winning big.

Since the SAG Awards only honors actors it doesn’t award a Best Picture, but “Slumdog Millionaire” took home the biggest award of the night: Cast in a Motion Picture. The cast of unknown Indian actors was shocked and grateful. Anil Kapoor accepted the award saying it was enough to be nominated and the win was “unbelievable,”and Freida Pinto took a moment to personally acknowledge all the children who played the actors’ younger counterparts.

“30 Rock” swept the show once again with the cast winning Ensemble in a Comedy series and stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin winning Female and Male Actor in a Comedy Series.

Fey threw in a jab at the ongoing contract negotiations between SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers when she thanked her young daughter, Alice. “Someday, she’ll be old enough to watch 30 Rock reruns on the Internet and understand where mommy was going at 6 a.m. every day for all that time. And she’ll look up at me and say, ‘What do you mean, you don’t get residuals for this?’ I love you, Alice. Take care of me when I’m old and broke!” 

“Mad Men” also scored big yet again winning Ensemble in a Drama Series, and star Jon Hamm thanked their “dozens of viewers.”

Surprise winners Hugh Laurie from “House” and Sally Field from “Brothers and Sisters” won Male and Female Actor in a Drama Series. They were even shocked themselves: “I had $100 on James Spader – this is just not my night,” Laurie deadpanned, and Field admitted, “Oh dear, I thought it would be a cable girl.”

“Doubt’s” Meryl Streep who won Female Actor in a Leading Role was so shocked she won she didn’t even buy a dress as she showed all of us when she stepped around the podium to show off her simple black pants. Yet, after Winslet’s astonishing double-win at the Globes, we were all kind of surprised too.

Alas, Winslet didn’t go home empty-handed. She won Female Actor in a Supporting Role for “The Reader” and gave a much more subdued speech this time around.

Sean Penn beat out Mickey Rourke for Male Actor in a Leading Role for “Milk” and gave a much more dynamic speech talking about the statue’s “rather healthy package,” saying he “wept” at his fellow nominee’s performances, dissing the voters for not acknowledging actors like Benicio Del Toro, and reprimanding the media for making the award competition a “dog fight.”

Not all competitions have been a dog fight, however. Heath Ledger once again won a posthumous award for Male Actor in a Supporting Role for “The Dark Knight” with costar Gary Oldman accepting on his behalf and “John Adams” stars Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney won acting awards in the Television Movie or Miniseries category again.

Besides honoring the year’s best actors, the Guild also honored James Earl Jones by giving him the Lifetime Achievement Award. While these awards can often be the boring part of ceremonies, we learned some interesting things about Jones such as that he had a stutter as a child and subsequently barely spoke for twelve years.

Who would have guessed that about the man who breathed “Luke, I am your father” ?

The nominees for this year’s 81st annual Academy Awards were announced Thursday with not too many surprises. The top two films slugging it out are “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which leads the pack with 13 nominations, and “Slumdog Millionaire,” which won Best Picture at the Golden Globes and has 10 nominations.

What about the snubs? “The Dark Knight” didn’t get a Best Picture nomination, Clint Eastwood and his film, “Gran Torino,” got shut out, “Revolutionary Road” got no noms including its stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, Bruce Springsteen’s song from “The Wrestler” didn’t get nominated even after it won the Golden Globe, and Sally Hawkins didn’t get a Best Actress nom fresh off her Best Actress Golden Globe win.

But the biggest surprise? Who would have ever thought Robert Downey, Jr. would get a nomination for his role as “a dude playing a dude, disguised as another dude”? 

Find out who wins on Feb. 22 at 8 pm EST on ABC, and in the meantime the nominees are:

Best Picture

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Frost/Nixon

Milk

The Reader

Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director

David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon

Gus Van Sant, Milk

Stephen Daldry, The Reader

Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionare

Best Actor

Richard Jenkins, The Visitor

Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon

Sean Penn, Milk

Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best Actress

Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married

Angelina Jolie, Changeling

Melissa Leo, Frozen River

Kate Winslet, The Reader

Meryl Streep, Doubt

Best Supporting Actor

Josh Brolin, Milk

Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt

Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, Doubt

Penélope Cruz, Vicky Christina Barcelona

Viola Davis, Doubt

Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin

Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Best Animated Feature

Bolt

Kung Fu Panda

Wall-E

Best Original Screenplay

Dustin Lance Black, Milk

Courtney Hunt, Frozen River

Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky

Martin McDonagh, In Bruges

Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon, Wall-E

Best Adapted Screenplay

Eric Roth and Robin Swicord, The Curious Case of Benjamin

John Patrick Shanley, Doubt

Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon

David Hare, The Reader

Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire

“Last Chance Harvey” could also be called “Mediocre Harvey.” Or “Ho-Hum Harvey.” It’s a low-key romantic comedy about two lonely hearts who strike up a connection in London ironically without too much romance or comedy.

Down-on-his-luck Harvey’s  (Dustin Hoffman) life is a mess. He’s over-the-hill. He’s a music composer whose job has become all but obsolete because of the wonders of technology. Worst of all, he’s also essentially been replaced by his ex-wife’s new perfect husband (James Brolin), and he flies to London for his daughter’s wedding only to find out the stepfather will be walking her down the aisle.

Lucky for him, he found Kate (Emma Thompson), the equally sad albeit younger woman. Like Harvey, she’s a misfit in society who never seems to connect with anyone. She also wants to be a writer but is instead confined to the Heathrow Airport conducting surveys from arriving travelers, which is where she meets Harvey.

Their romance, however, isn’t so lucky for us. They bond roaming the streets of London discussing their lives and failed aspirations and while they prove to be good for each other, their romance lacks intensity, passion and reality. They know each other for all of a day and Harvey’s willing to risk everything for a woman he barely knows.

It’s the movies so of course we expect couples to instantly fall in love and live happily ever after; but, we’re not really rooting that hard for them. They just seem like two lonely people who can connect because they’re both… well lonely.

To make matters worse, a few obligatory problems are thrown into the mix to propel the story through its three acts. Yet, these problems are themselves problematic to the film because they’re both created and solved way too easily making for a predictable and slow-going story. Even the beauty of London was lackluster and not all that romantic or interesting, so even a few red double-decker buses and Big Ben can’t save “Harvey.”

It’s not that “Last Chance Harvey” is a bad film. It’s just not a great one. While the acting is good, it’s nothing exceptional from Hoffman and Thompson. It just seems like two veteran, talented actors decided to take a break from big-budget Hollywood films to instead tell a small-scale, quiet story that harkens back to their thespian days.

So do give “Harvey” a chance. Just wait until it comes out on DVD.

“The Reader” is a film that manages to simultaneously be relatable and unfathomable, as well as emotional and distant all at once because of its characters, plot and locale.

Based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Bernard Schlink, it’s the story of the unlikely but captivating love that starts in 1950s Germany between a lonely tram worker and a teenage boy nearly two decades her junior. After the train ride, Hanna (Kate Winslet) helps Michael (David Kross) home because he has fallen ill with scarlet fever.

When he eventually gets better and brings her flowers to thank her, she initially acts almost cold to him. Things, however, quickly heat up between them leading to some pretty explicit sexual scenes between them. The sudden, intense physical attraction is almost repellant at first due to the age difference and their lack of familiarity with each other. They don’t even know their names until after a few of his… um…visits, and even after she learns his name is Michael, she still calls him “kid” like he’s never her equal.

So why is she so suddenly – and brazenly – attracted to him, we wonder?

It’s because he reads to her. (The Reader, get it?) It may sound odd, but they finally start to build an emotional connection to each other when he begins reading his school books like “The Odyssey” to her, and it’s actually heartfelt. By the time they truly connect and we actually start to accept their relationship, she suddenly leaves.

At this point the story shifts eight years forward to when Michael is a mature law student. There he and his classmates attend a trial for Nazi war crimes and to his surprise and ours, he sees Hanna on trial. Not only does Michael learn of her Holocaust involvement, he realizes another secret she’s been hiding.

While the latter secret is supposed to be much more meaningful and shocking, it comes as no surprise to the audience and doesn’t really garner the intended impact. The former secret, however, is extremely captivating. While it’s hard to relate to the specific circumstances at hand, it brings into question the issue of how you’re supposed to grapple with the situation of realizing someone you so deeply loved could be capable of something so horrible. Not only that, but does that change things and the way you felt?

The framing of the film is effective in revealing how Michael perceives Hanna at various times throughout his life. It initially begins in the 1990s with a middle-aged, emotionally guarded divorced lawyer who turns out to be the older version of Michael (Ralph Fiennes). Throughout its entirety, the film shifts around to different moments in his life, and we feel for Michael and his tale because we see and experience everything how he himself saw it.

We never quite understand Hanna’s motives or desires though. Coupled with the fact she was affliated with the Nazis, we never quite feel or relate to her. It doesn’t hurt she’s played by the wonderful Winslet, however, who just won a Golden Globe for her performance.

While we never love Hanna, Winslet doesn’t make her a monster which is good because Michael never knows quite how to perceive her either. Even better, it’s true to real life because people don’t always know the motivations or desires of others making it all the more frustrating when those people are the ones we love.

So even though this tale takes place a half a century ago in Germany and involves presently incomprehensible topics like Nazis and scarlet fever, it ultimately doesn’t matter. We get it anyway.