Happy New Year, New Category

As I said in my last post, I'm now going to start doing years in full, selecting a year, then one category within that year at a time, finishing the year before I move on to another.

So the year I drew this time is 1973. And the first category draw is Best Supporting Actor.

The nominees this year were:

• Vincent Gardenia in Bang the Drum Slowly
• Jack Gilford in Save the Tiger
• John Houseman in The Paper Chase
• Jason Miller in The Exorcist
• Randy Quaid in The Last Detail

As with other years, these films almost all (with one exception) were nominated in other categories as well, and I'll discuss each in my posts on the films. I'll then do a post on my choice for this category before moving on to my next category.

I've seen two of the films from this category already in the past, but will need time to re-watch them so my memories of them are fresh. The other three will be brand new to me.

2004 Best Actress: My Choice

It's time once again to go over the nominees in our most recent category and year, and evaluate them, and pick our own winner. This time I had so little watching time that a couple of these viewings are several weeks old for me, so I'm going off memories that aren't fresh. The individual posts about the movie are fresh (I would usually do them the same day or the day after) but now I'm having to think about how Annette Bening, who I watched several weeks ago, stacks up to Imelda Staunton, who I watched last night.

Anyway, once again the nominees for Best Actress, 2004, are:

• Annette Bening as Julia Lambert in Being Julia
• Catalina Sandino Moreno as María Álvarez in Maria Full of Grace
• Imelda Staunton as Vera Drake in Vera Drake
• Hilary Swank as Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby
• Kate Winslet as Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The Academy's Choice: Hilary Swank

Weighing the Performances:

Annette Bening in Being Julia

We had some real heavyweight champs this time around, no pun intended toward Million Dollar Baby, but I think I can now safely say that Annette Bening was a real featherweight this time, nominated, essentially, for the sort of role that might have won her an Oscar in, say, 1935. No, seriously, I've been watching a lot of the older Oscar-nominated films from the 20's and 30's recently, to sort of ground myself in Hollywood history as I go through these films, and frankly, Bening's performance was fine for that era, but in modern times we demand authenticity, and Bening doesn't deliver here. This is a performance, in the purest sense of the word. Julia doesn't behave like a real person, but as a larger-than-life persona that could only exist on stage. Which is somewhat appropriate as the movie about stage acting, but most of the time, once an actress steps off the stage, and especially when she knows she isn't being watched anymore, she drops the act. Bening is clearly channeling the charming but entirely outdated theatrics of Gloria Swanson or Norma Shearer. It's a nice throwback to old Hollywood, but it doesn't feel self-aware, like she's deliberately trying to hearken back to the era where Davis or Garbo would pour on the theatrics. That would probably be enough to change my opinion entirely, like when Jack Nicholson deliberately made Jake Gittes a Bogart type in Chinatown, but without just "doing" Bogart. In this case, though, it's like she really believed she was doing some real, quality acting here, the kind only one of the greats could do, but in practice it almost comes off like unintended caricature. Considering her entire competition this year are going for utter authenticity, such a performance almost seems ridiculous, and what's really funny is that earlier in the year, I recall people suggesting that this would be the film that got Bening her long-deserved Oscar. Yeah, she was the early (and I mean early) favorite to win, though as I said in my initial review of the film, I really don't understand why people think of Bening as this oft-snubbed actress who should have won years ago. I've never really thought she was anything special. She certainly isn't here.

Catalina Sandino Moreno in Maria Full of Grace

Catalina Sandino Moreno was a newcomer both to American audiences and audiences in general, as Maria Full of Grace was her film debut, making her part of a select group, and in distinguished company, such as Glenn Close, Julie Andrews, Angela Lansbury, Orson Welles, Oprah Winfrey and Edward Norton, among many others. I don't know if it was her direction or her newness that had her performance come off so natural and real, adding to the edge-of-your-seat nature of her plight. Ms. Moreno's best scenes come from when she needs to act normal even as she goes through customs, is caught, and has no choice but to go along with the authorities, not knowing how she's going to get through this. It feels very much like watching a documentary, as she doesn't behave like an actress would be tempted to, but seems to actually be feeling the anxiousness and worry that her character is. And that's just the more intense scenes; her understated but emotionally turbulent performance works in a number of settings, such as at the doctor where she learns her baby has survived her muling with full health, at the home of the sister of a fellow mule who is dead, and she has to pretend she doesn't know this, while confronting her co-worker who also got into muling but now seems to blame her for it, you name it, we're in her skin the entire way. It's such an honest performance one would almost be tempted to suggest she wasn't really acting, though we know she was, and that she's capable of other performances.

Imelda Staunton in Vera Drake

Threading the subtle needle of addressing a hot-button issue in a way that makes it more about the character than the issue, Imelda Staunton had the task of trying to make an unlicensed woman performing secret abortions seem both sympathetic and have us questioning the wisdom of her actions at the same time.. There's no question her character wants to help people, but she also knows what she's doing is criminal, and potentially dangerous (she maintains that the procedure has never harmed anyone before, but she also seems unable to stay around after it's done and watch the results). It's a fine line she has to walk. She portrays Vera as a woman full of heart who lives to help others, but when she's brought face to face with a criminal investigation, she breaks down and is unable to call her actions what they are. It's really something that we're able to watch her court scenes and feel both like she's being unfairly judged but also that perhaps she's earned this. Staunton, like we usually get with Mike Leigh's actors, gives a performance much like what I said of Moreno above; very natural, authentic and seeming more like we're watching an actual person instead of a performance. As Staunton has a stage background, and in other roles I've seen her in she's as theatric and melodramatic as Bening in Being Julia, this actually was a true effort on her part, but was likely helped by Mike Leigh's approach; having her just hang out with the actors playing her family, without a script, just getting used to each other. I don't know that Moreno had that, which makes me lean, so far, to her.

Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby

Hilary Swank did an unconventional "deglam" for her role as Maggie in Million Dollar Baby, a white-trash woman with nothing in her life except her dream of being a boxer. I talked about "deglamming" in my initial review, and I mentioned that here, Swank's deglam consists mainly of not looking like a conventional Hollywood beauty and allowing her face to get messed up and covered in blood, sweat, tears and bruises. It's very easy to see her as the backwoods woman from Missouri she's supposed to be, but most of that has to do with Swank's natural unconventional look. She didn't have to do much to look like a poor wannabe boxer, is what I'm saying. Even her southern accent probably wasn't a stretch for her. What's really crazy is that this is Swank's second win and her first win was another where she deliberately looked masculine and did a southern accent. Somehow that's a winning combo for Swank with the Academy, as since then she's tried for more nominations with more conventional Oscar-type roles like in Insomnia, The Gift, The Homesman, The Affair of the Necklace, Amelia and Freedom Writers and the Academy hasn't cared a whit. She's one of only seven performers to win literally all their nominations, and she did so with two very similar roles. What part of this role impressed the Academy so much that they just had to award her again? After all, her first win was for playing a trans man (how well would that go over nowadays?) so what was more challenging about a woman who wants to box? Well, probably all the off-screen training and prep that went into it, I'll grant that. Going even further, I wasn't impressed with her portrayal of a southerner, thought it might have been the script that let her down there. The line "don't rightly know" still doesn't sit well with me. But the scene where she, only able to move her facial muscles and those not much, tells her mother what she'll do if she comes back again? Oh, boy, that was a chills moment. So I can't say I didn't appreciate the nomination, but a win? Let's look at our final performance, and decide.

Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Kate Winslet is a transcendent actress, who I firmly believe is going down in history for her generation the way we revere Katharine Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland or Elizabeth Taylor today. She's a winner now, as well, but wasn't when this film was made, and I gotta say, I think it was a missed opportunity (I have a feeling she will win again some day, though). This was a very tough role, and one of the true stretches I saw among the five performances here. I've pointed out how she's really playing three versions (maybe more) of the same character, and having to make each convincing and believably a part of the same person. She's the Clementine who's just a young broken bird with her own issues, a spiteful bitch who hates her lover and wants nothing more than to get out of the relationship, a free spirit who encourages her man to come out of his shell, and even just a reflection of how he likes to think of her, and the real question is how much of these are part of her real persona, how many of them are just her ex-lover projecting them on her, or is it possible that they're all facets of the real woman? Man, I'm tired just thinking about what must have gone into that performance.

My Choice: Kate Winslet

It's probably appropriate to say this here; I'm going to change up my methods a bit. Up until now I've been drawing a new category and year each time. It's led to some frustration as I've more than once drawn the same category twice, and there's been several categories I haven't gotten to do at all yet. I mainly set it up the way I did so that I wouldn't get bored doing a full Oscar year in one go, but to be frank, I've actually done this more than once now, and I think I prefer it.

So from now on what I'll do is draw a year, and then do the year in full, still film by film, category by category like always, but in this case, just drawing the category so that I'll know what order I'll do them in for that year.

The main difference is that you'll see a full year finished, category by category, with the same opening and closing posts as always, and I'll be honest; I thought about going back and doing the rest of the year for years I've already covered (1938, 1954, 1929-30 and 1974) but I think instead I'll wait until those years come back around.

Vera Drake

Film: Vera Drake
Year: 2004
Cast: Imelda Staunton, Phil Davis, Daniel Mays, Alex Kelly, Eddie Marsan, Adrian Scarborough, Heather Craney, Sally Hawkins, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Sharp, Liz White, Peter Wight, Sandra Voe, Martin Savage, Jim Broadbent
Director: Mike Leigh
Nominations: Best Director, Best Actress (Staunton), Best Original Screenplay

I'll be honest; I've been putting off watching this movie. There's simply no way to talk about it without talking about its extremely sensitive subject matter, and I've stated several times that I don't want to turn this blog political, or alienate anyone, no matter whom, from reading it.

There's almost no way to do that while discussing this movie.

This incredibly British movie comes from respected arthouse director Mike Leigh, who's noted for coming up with these low-key but compelling slice-of-life dramas about ordinary folks in some sort of crisis, often simply telling the actors what their characters are going through and hoping for, not telling them what the other actors in a given scene are going to do or say, and letting them act it as naturally as they can, usually ending up with performances that seem less like acting and more like we're watching some kind of documentary. As I understand it, he did the same thing here; not telling any of the main actors aside from Imelda Staunton what the subject of the film was until it was revealed in the scenes, as well as having the actors who played Vera and her family just interacting with each other in character off-script for weeks at a time, so that their family dynamic would feel natural.

And it's about a woman who performs illegal abortions in 1950's London.

Might as well rip that band-aid right off from the get-go, eh?

Vera is a middle-aged domestic who likes to go around her neighborhood and check in with the various people in need there, such as elderly men who need in-home care but can't afford it, lonely chaps who might enjoy a quiet evening tea with a family, people who need groceries but can't go out to get them, etc. She seems almost impossibly saintly, but Staunton doesn't overplay the part or make the character seem like an angelic soul; she's just a woman who sees things that need doing and no one else is doing, and she does them. If I didn't know plenty of women like that, I'd say this was harder to believe.

But one thing Vera does to help people is she performs abortions for young women in trouble. Naturally she doesn't tell anyone about this, as it's the 1950's and not only is what she's doing quite illegal, but also the sort of thing one doesn't talk about.

I'd make a joke about how if Leigh wanted us to feel sympathy for Vera, he went wrong by casting Delores Umbridge, but Ms. Staunton had yet to play Umbridge. In fact, it was probably based on how sweet she could seem in this movie that got her that role.

That said, I'm not sure we're meant to see Vera in an entirely sympathetic light. Oh, make no mistake, we are meant to think of her in a positive light, and it's very easy to see that she's only doing what she does because she wants to help. But the movie is somewhat ambivalent when it comes to how we are supposed to see what she's doing. When the other characters are told about it, what we're seeing are honest reactions from modern actors living in 2004, and in each case it's shock and even some horror. This is particularly the case when she tells her husband (Phil Davis), whispering it in his ear while his face goes from concerned to confused to horrified to finally angry. Her son (Daniel Mays) reacts with utter horror, even saying he can't forgive her, and he's not shown to be some sort of self-righteous hypocrite, either.

I'm skipping ahead; Vera's actions eventually come around to haunt her but not until we've seen her perform several abortions on several women in different states of distress, and this is where I'm wondering whether or not we're really meant to take from this movie the message that she's doing a good and necessary thing.

For starters, there's the fact that her clientele ranges from women who were raped to housewives who simply can't afford any more children, to unmarried women who can't tell their parents what they did to loose women who don't want to face the consequences of their actions. Vera doesn't seem to care why the abortion is requested; she'll just do it. Only once is adoption brought up, and it's by a male psychiatrist speaking to a woman who was raped. Why Vera doesn't suggest this to the overburdened housewife or the loose woman is beyond me.

Then there's her method. Vera's abortion method involved a Higginson bulb syringe with which she pumps water with carbolic soap and a disinfectant into the mother's womb. Even at the time this movie was made, this method was known to be almost 100% fatal to the mother and extremely painful whether or not the mother died. Vera may or may not know that herself, but she treats it as though it will be a slight pain that will go away as soon as the uterus gets rid of everything in it. She claims she's done it numerous times over the course of several years without incident, even though in this film one of her patients nearly dies from the procedure, which is what lands Vera in court. There have been a number of complaints against this portrayal of the procedure, as if it's rare for a woman to have issues with it when in fact most did, but it also really brings home the fact that, regardless of intent, method or anything else, Vera is still performing a potentially very dangerous medical procedure without any formal medical training.

I need to point something out, because regardless of what side you fall on in this debate, there's a simple fact that not many people seem to know, and that is that back when abortions were performed illegally, they were 99% of the time still performed by licensed medical professionals in clean, up-to-code clinics. They were called "back alley" abortions because the doctors let the women into their facilities through the back entrance after hours. The sort of abortions Vera Drake performs in this film were not common, and the women who died from abortions usually were the ones who sought out women like Vera.

Finally, what made Vera seem less than entirely sympathetic were a few scenes where, seemingly, Vera herself isn't sure that she's really doing the right thing. In a scene midway through the film, Vera is shown almost hurrying from the apartment of one scared young woman who wants her to stay until it's done. Vera almost can't wait to leave. Then there's her euphemisms, used in a way that shows Vera's rehearsed what she's going to call it; instead of "when your body miscarries and your fetus is flushed out", she says "when it all comes away", and instead of "I help young women terminate their pregnancies", she says "I help young girls out", and when confronted with the word "abortion", she tearfully says "that's not what I call it". To me, it felt like Vera wasn't entirely at ease with what she was doing, and was mainly involved in it because, as the movie strongly hints without coming out and saying it, someone did the same for her when she was a teen.

There's also a subplot involving the woman who meets with and sets up Vera's clientele (Ruth Sheen). She charges them for the procedure (significantly less than what a woman would pay in one of those "back-alley clinics", but still hefty fees) without telling Vera, making herself a tidy profit. This, too, adds to the feeling of the movie showing both sides of the issue. Vera may only want to help, but in the process, she's enabled a woman's greed and hurt her clients financially as well as perhaps physically.

Staunton, a little-known actress at the time (she's still primarily known for playing Umbridge), carries all these scenes off in a natural, realistic way that helps us stay anchored in the character regardless of how we feel about her actions. As I said, the film never really seems to be judging her either way. A pro-choice person watching this might feel outrage at the way the justice system treats a woman who's just trying to help where no one else would, while a pro-lifer might see a misguided woman who might mean well but who still undertook dangerous medical procedures on women without a license, giving them bad follow-up advice, and perhaps even feeling like maybe it was the wrong thing all the while.

In summary, Staunton is a very talented actress who gave this role the appropriate gravitas and heart, and managed to leave us conflicted even if we still feel that Vera's motives were entirely pure. So, for that, her nomination was earned, but as for whether or not she's a winner, we'll see in the next post.

Mike Leigh received nods for directing and writing the screenplay, and that screenplay nomination, similar to the one he got for Secrets and Lies, always makes me smile since I know that the "screenplay" consisted of writing out a character's motivations and actions and then letting the actors take it from there. I suppose that's a pretty novel and inventive way of doing it, so I won't fault the nomination. I can understand the director nomination even more so, as it takes a great deal of directorial talent to essentially film people not really acting, moving and speaking in unpredictable ways, and manage to frame it perfectly.

Million Dollar Baby

Film: Million Dollar Baby
Year: 2004
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Jay Baruchel, Mike Colter, Lucia Rijker, Brían F. O'Byrne, Anthony Mackie, Margo Martindale, Riki Lindhome, Michael Peña, Bruce MacVittie, Marcus Chait
Director: Clint Eastwood
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Eastwood), Best Actress (Swank), Best Supporting Actor (Freeman), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing

It's weird, I know, but watching this movie for this blog was the first time I'd ever seen it. I didn't exactly avoid this movie; I kept meaning to give it a watch at some point. But somehow every time I thought about it, I would file it away under "later", even though I knew I really wanted to see it, mainly because when it was first released it got the kind of gushing response from critics that's pretty rare for any film, and it won four of its seven Oscar nomination, including Best Picture, which is also odd because at the start of Awards season it wasn't even on the slate. Eastwood finished it in record time and got a qualifying release run for it, and it took over. Before it was in the game, most people thought this would be the year Martin Scorsese finally won (for The Aviator) but there wasn't much in the way of backlash when this one powered through and took all the awards we'd thought would be Scorsese's.

What makes this even more odd is that this was marketed as, essentially, a female take on the Rocky story; in fact I saw more than one joke poster made up in PhotoShop of this film's poster with the words "Rocky with Breasts" replacing the title. It's not that at all; it's the story of two lonely people who need each other; both have an empty place inside them that is filled by the other. Frankie Dunn is an old boxing coach whose daughter stopped speaking to him years ago, and his attempts to reconnect with her are met with complete shut down. Maggie Fitzgerald is a woman who came from nothing, lost her father at an early age, and has nothing in her life worth talking about except her determination to become a boxer.

I was surprised, I admit, by how much this story was about Frankie as much as it was Maggie. I knew that Eastwood co-starred and that it was as much about their relationship as trainer and coach, and yes, I knew Eastwood took top billing and was campaigned and nominated as Best Actor, but I guess I assumed it was due to his also being the film's director and being unwilling to take a backseat to Swank, but honestly, the movie really is about both of them, equally, and in the beginning it's almost more his story than it is hers.

But I can see why it was Swank who captured all the headlines. Hers is very much the more demanding role; Eastwood's range has never been that broad and it doesn't broaden here at all (more on him in a moment) but Swank went through a ton to become Maggie. She worked out, training as a boxer with real-life boxer Lucia Rijker (who co-stars in this film as her main opponent) and is entirely convincing as a woman with white trash hillbilly roots. At least, eventually. In her earlier moments, her Missouri accent is hilarious instead of authentic and the first time she said the words "I don't rightly know" without irony, I was rolling my eyes (and I have a bit of an issue with how this film handles people from the south, which I'll get to later). But as the film progressed, I realized that I could totally buy her as a scrappy young woman with nothing to lose, because she doesn't have that "I come from Hollywood" look that most actresses her age have. She's definitely not afraid to "deglam", which is a term that got used a lot around the time of her win, which usually meant an attractive actress undergoing a make-up job that robs her of her Hollywood beauty. Think Nicole Kidman in The Hours or Charlize Theron in Monster, both of whom won before this film came around. Swank's "deglam" doesn't involve much make-up, instead relying on her posture, movements, voice and her willingness to get messed up; she spends several scenes covered in blood, sweat and tears (sometimes all at once) including a scene where she breaks her nose. But even once all that was cleaned off, she looked and felt like exactly what she was supposed to be; a white-trash wannabe boxer.

If anything, Swank's lack of a Hollywood look has worked against her since her two Oscar wins. It's been a long while since she's been in a movie anyone has heard of and/or had a role that was notable in a film. Which sucks, because she really is a talented actress, and I don't think it was her willingness to deglam that won her this Oscar but instead it was the fact that we totally believe her in this role. She doesn't look like an actress deglamming to sell the role of a boxer; she looks like a boxer.

Now let's talk about the ending, which is a bit of a spoiler, but not really since the movie earned some controversy over its ending, and by now if you don't know what it entails I have to assume you don't care about it. Maggie's boxing career comes to a sudden and abrupt end thanks to an overly aggressive opponent who doesn't care about rules and sucker-punches her between rounds. Left with not even the ability to move below the neck, Maggie's entire reason for living is now gone. She states many times in the film that if she doesn't have boxing, she doesn't have anything, and she holds to that. These scenes also probably went a long way toward her Oscar win, as it's been established that if you can make Oscar voters cry, they will be more likely to vote for you, but it's also where the controversy comes in as it seemed like a very ablist move; Disability Advocacy groups suggested that the whole "a life disabled is not a life worth living" message, which may or may not have been the film's intent; Eastwood insisted it wasn't, to be harmful. I can't decide if it's also out of character for Maggie, whose entire attitude is "never give up", but then, if you know you'll never box again and boxing is all you lived for...might not you consider it "giving up" to live as a crippled person dependent on machines to survive?

I'm not going to debate the morality of it as that's not the purpose of this blog, but I will say that Swank sells those scenes as well as she does the scenes of Maggie as a fully able-bodied young woman. One of her more triumphant scenes comes when she confronts her family while still in her hospital bed.

Did she deserve her Oscar, which was her second win? Maybe. I haven't seen Vera Drake yet (I've had so little time to watch movies lately) but she's already got competition from Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Catalina Sandino Moreno in Maria Full of Grace.

Eastwood as Frankie is the flip side of the same coin; Eastwood has a way he acts that hardly ever changes much, but it does say something that no matter what, I always believe him. It's almost like Sean Connery; he plays Clint Eastwood so well that I never see him as "Clint Eastwood playing X" but as "X, a kind of Eastwood-type". As the cantankerous old trainer, Eastwood is right in his element and he earned his second, and so far last (let's face it; likely his last ever, as he's presently 89 and acting less and less) Best Actor nomination (his only other acting nod, also for Best Actor, was for Unforgiven, which also won him Best Director like this one did). A deserved nod? Perhaps. One wonders how different things would be had Eastwood not come on board, or had only acted instead of also directing (initially writer Paul Haggis was going to direct, and wanted Morgan Freeman to play Frankie, but Freeman wanted to play Scrap-Iron instead, so Eastwood was hired, then slid into the director's chair as well once filming scheduling issues with the film Crash prevented Haggis from directing both).

It's difficult to say what might have been in other circumstances, but Frankie is a layered role, with a lot for an actor to sink his teeth into. He's not just the "old coach" role, but he's also trying to learn to speak Gaelic for reasons the movie never explains, and in an attempt to atone for whatever he did that drove his daughter away, he's shown praying to a God he's not sure he believes in, and attending Mass daily, even if he does seem to take some joy in baiting the young, not-exactly patient priest (Brían F. O'Byrne). Near the film's beginning, he's shown to have an almost familial relationship with his concurrent client, Big Willie Little (Mike Colter), even helping him replace his wife's car, but unfortunately holding back on getting him a title fight, telling him, not for the first time "maybe you'll be ready next year." Willie eventually drops him, gets a title fight almost immediately and wins, which plays some role in Frankie's eventual coming around to training Maggie.

See, at first, he's a typical old chauvinist, saying he won't train girls and that "girly tough ain't enough", but later elaborating further, telling Maggie that she's too old and nowhere near far enough along for him to turn her into a real fighter before she's too old for actual fights. But her persistence eventually wins him over and gradually she goes from not knowing how to hit a bag or move her feet to knocking all her opponents out in the first round, prompting Frankie to move her up a weight class; something he's always refused to do as it involves too much risk. It also becomes obvious that the two of them are forming the father-daughter bond neither of them has with their biological counterparts, especially when he has a robe made for her with the name "Mo chuisle" sewn into it, which, and this is a bit of a spoiler, is a Gaelic term that means "My beloved" and also "my blood".

As a director, Eastwood does a fine job, and I admit I've always thought of him more as a director who occasionally acts, but I'm not sure he's really "the best" director. I'm not the most qualified to judge here, because as I understand it, directing is kinda being in charge of everything; where the camera goes, what gets focus and what doesn't, the performances, all of it, and in that case there's nothing here to point out as wrong, but nothing that really made me go "okay, that's why he won".

Morgan Freeman plays Eddie "Scrap-Iron" DuPris, manager and maintenance man for Frankie's gym. He's a former fighter himself who won 109 fights, but lost his sight in one eye after his last one. This is the movie that won Freeman his (so far) only Oscar, after four nominations, and most of the critics at the time agreed that while his win wasn't exactly "undeserved", it really was a career Oscar rather than one earned by this film alone. And I have to agree; Freeman is always very watchable, even when phoning it in, and extremely likeable, and he's both here, but he's not given a ton to work with. He does get one incredible scene where he shows that he might be old and might be well past his glory days, but you still don't want to push him too far. It's a real stand-up-and-cheer moment but it's also unfortunately too short. Scrap is also the film's narrator, which might have gone some way toward his win as well. Personally, I think Freeman's best role was the convict Red in The Shawshank Redemption and it still bugs me that he didn't win for that one (he narrated that one, too) so, like many, I will probably always think of his win here as the Academy awarding him for Shawshank a bit too late.

The part of the movie I liked least (which isn't to say it turned me completely off) was its portrayal of southerners. Maggie herself is a southerner but she wants to escape "that life"; her white trash in the extreme family, including a fat lazy mother (Margo Martindale) who refuses to lift a hand except to help herself, a sister (Riki Lindhome) cheating the welfare system and a jailbird brother (Marcus Chait). Maggie's family can be summed up in one sentence, delivered early by Maggie herself: "my sister's cheating the welfare system by pretending one of her babies is still alive". I mean...yow. There's a scene where she uses the money from her fighting wins to buy her mother a house (while Maggie herself continues to live in squalor). Her mom's reaction? Anger, because owning a home might mean she can't collect welfare anymore, and asking Maggie why she didn't just give her the money? This comes back to bite her, though, in one of the most satisfying scenes, when her family shows up after the accident, not to comfort her (of course not; these people are about as comforting as a gravel pit full of broken glass) but to try and get her to sign all her assets over to them. She tells them she knows her mother never signed the lease for the new house (despite going ahead and moving in) so if they ever come back, she'll sell the house right out from under them.

If it were just Maggie's family, I'd be okay with it because God knows horrid rednecks like this exist, but the only other southerner in the film is an uneducated (possibly simple) young Texan calling himself (really) Dangerous Dillard Fighting Flippo Bam-Bam Barch, as if he couldn't make up his mind what his ring name would be, but you can call him "Danger", as most of the other characters do. Danger (Jay Baruchel) can't fight, hasn't paid any gym dues (unlike Maggie, whose paying six months up front is why Frankie doesn't just tell her to stop coming around) and while he means no harm, also is pretty behind the times when it comes to acceptable language (check out the first thing he says to Scrap, and Scrap's rather hilarious response). He thinks he's gonna be the next Welterweight champion, but watching him even just warming up is pretty pathetic, especially as he keeps loudly challenging a retired Welterweight champ (who's nowhere around) to a fight. Scrap talks about how fighting is "mostly heart" but a fighter who's nothing but heart is looking for a beat-down, which is what Danger is. Honestly, Danger is such an over-the-top caricature of a southern good ol' boy that it's almost like he walked in from another movie, and he's so dumb one wonders how he managed to get his gloves on.

Almost makes one think the writer (either FX O'Toole who wrote the short stories this movie is based on, or Haggis himself) has an issue with southerners. But it's not enough to really over-turn my overall opinion.

Was this movie really deserving of its four wins, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor? Honestly, I'm not sure. It was very good, but I'm not sure I'm ready to call it the best. I've seen two of its competitors in the past and was a bit more impressed by both of them, and due to Swank's kinda weird beginning here, I'm wondering if Winslet wasn't the better performance in this category, but we'll decide that two posts from now.

Maria Full of Grace

Film: Maria Full of Grace
Year: 2004
Cast: Catalina Sandino Moreno, John Álex Toro, Johanna Andrea Mora, Virginia Ariza, Yenny Paola Vega, Guilied Lopez, Patricia Rae, Orlando Tobón, Rodrigo Sánchez Borhorquez, Charles Albert Patiño, Wilson Guerrero, Jaime Osorio Gómez, Selenis Leyva, Ed Trucco
Director: Joshua Marston
Nominations: Best Actress (Moreno)

Give me a minute, gotta let the heart palpitations stop.

Phew, okay. It's just that while watching this, I was alternately afraid I was gonna cry, puke or have a panic attack.

I remember back in 2004 this film took the critics by storm, while the rest of the English-speaking world was barely aware of it. They missed out, and the critics were absolutely right.

What I love about movies like this is how authentic they feel. I didn't enjoy Being Julia for several reasons, one of which was how obvious it was that everyone in it was acting, and I would say they were trying to out-ham each other but really, everyone was obviously holding back from taking too much attention off its leading lady. With Maria Full of Grace, it felt so honest on every level that you feel like it wouldn't be much different if it were a documentary.

Which it almost is. The tagline for this movie is "Based on 1000 true stories", as it's a very authentic look at what drug mules go through, and why they get into it in the first place.

Maria Álvarez (Catalina Sandino Mareno) is a seventeen-year old poor Colombian girl forced to not be in school and spend her days working in a flower plant de-thorning roses to support her family, which includes her working mother (whose salary doesn't cover even half the household needs), and non-working sister, an unwed mother who stays at home to care for her newborn son, meaning that all the money Maria's meager wages bring covers more than half the entire income for the house.

To make matters worse, her boss (Rodrigo Sánchez Borhorquez) is a jerk who seems to pick on Maria more than the others, her boyfriend (Wilson Guerrero) is a bit of an idiot, and Maria is now beginning to suspect she's pregnant. After puking on the job and getting a dressing down from her boss (who completely fails to recognize that Maria doesn't feel well and believes she's just slacking off, even after she throws up), she quits. There aren't many jobs available to someone her age and without much schooling, so what is she to do?

After meeting the charming Franklin (John Álex Toro) at a party, she ends up agreeing to become a mule. Before she even commits herself, she realizes her friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega) has already agreed, and she's slightly encouraged to do so herself after meeting Lucy (Guilied Lopez) who has successfully muled twice before and has advice that will help Maria.

There are several risks involved to Maria's health, not the least of which is that if one of the pellets of heroin bursts while in Maria's stomach, she will die. And she has to swallow 60 of them, which strikes me as a crap-ton, but apparently is based on reality, as is the idea that a large man would be made to swallow a hundred.

At this point, the movie becomes incredibly tense. I was on the edge of my seat for the last half of it. What makes this so much worse is knowing that it does happen, and that the risks are incredible. In fact, Maria isn't alone, as Blanca, Lucy and at least one other lady are all on the same flight to America, all stuffed with dozens of heroin pellets, and things get very tense when Lucy, whom Maria had started thinking of as a mentor, starts to feel sick and realizes a pellet likely has burst inside her.

So how does Moreno do? Incredible. I don't know why we've seen so little from her since, or at least so little that lives up to the potential she shows here. Very pretty, but in a real way rather than a Hollywood way, and simultaneously tough and fragile, her performance as a girl pushed to the edge and willing to undertake work she'd never consider in other circumstances is raw, heartbreaking and riveting. Several times while watching her, I wondered what I would do if circumstances brought me as low as hers had. This is what keeps her sympathetic, even as she gets deeper and deeper into her new "career", running more and more out of options. And of course there's the constant thought that she's pregnant, and what is all this doing to her baby? Moreno really sells all the conflicting emotions while not becoming overwrought.

My next two films will be Million Dollar Baby and Vera Drake to finish off this year and category, and then I'll be taking a bit of a break from posting, but not from viewing. See, most of the watching I get to do comes from streaming services, and movies can disappear from those without warning, and also in part it's from some movies I've borrowed from friends and family, and I don't want to be accused of holding onto those forever, so I'm going to prioritize the borrowed and streamed movies first, but I'll keep doing draws, they just might be very slow in posting, and my memories of the films might be a few weeks old from this point rather than fresh.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Year: 2004
Cast: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, David Cross, Jane Adams
Director: Michel Gondry
Nominations: Best Actress (Winslet), Best Original Screenplay

Now we come to a film that, unlike a lot of the films on my blog, isn't just more recent but also probably the most well-known.

Before I talk about the movie, and the nominated actress from it, I want to talk a little bit about its leading man, Jim Carrey.

There's a man who needs no introduction, at least to the current generation. For a while, he was one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. As a comedian, he was considered by many, myself included, to be the heir to Robin Williams's throne. Some questioned whether he would have the staying power of Williams, or if he could do dramatic films with the same believability that Williams did, and Carrey himself responded with his mid-90's/early 00's film choices. Carrey desperately wanted to win an Oscar, and tried hard with two films in immediate succession: The Truman Show and Man on the Moon, the latter being a biopic of Andy Kaufman. He would go on to try a third time with the quickly-forgotten The Majestic, a movie meant to harkin back to the films of Frank Capra, with Carrey in the role that likely would have been filled by James Stewart, but Frank Darabont proved he was no Capra and Carrey was certainly no Stewart. There won't be another Stewart, so he shouldn't have tried.

This was his fourth attempt, and now I come to something that, as an adult, bothers me about Carrey. I refused to see this about him when I was younger, but now it's pretty obvious to me, and that is there is a certain "Carrey-ness" that he nearly always has with him, and it rubs people the wrong way. Robin Williams had a certain "Williams-ness" as well, but it worked in his favor whereas Carrey's worked against him. The best way I can describe it is that Williams always gave you the sense that he was a funny, sweet man, while Carrey gave you the sense that he was a funny jerk. This could be utterly wrong; Williams might very well have been a jerk (he was a double-divorcee and I think there were some less-than-savory rumors about him), and Carrey could be a great guy (this I'm near certain is wrong; numerous reports are that Carrey really is a jerk), and it doesn't matter what character they're playing or if it's comedy or drama; Williams was always likable (even at his least sufferable) while Carrey...isn't. Even when he's supposed to be. Think about his most popular comedy movies; Ace Ventura, The Mask, Dumb and Dumber; seeing a pattern yet? Even as Truman Burbank he had his Carrey-moments, and as Kaufman he was trying to be unlikable, so...

If you really don't understand what I mean by "Carrey-ness", watch the trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog. Or don't because no one needs to suffer that way.

I watched a couple of his more recent movies; The Number 23 and Yes Man, and that's when I first understood the "Carrey-ness" problem, because both were movies in which he was trying to leave his rubber-face big goof persona behind, with The Number 23 being a straight drama we would expect to star someone like Kevin Bacon, while Yes Man was a comedy, but a more down-to-earth comedy like we usually get from Hugh Grant. In both of them, Carrey tried to be Bacon, or Grant, but in both of them, that Carrey-ness was still there, and you just didn't buy it. His serious performance seemed like Carrey mocking someone else's serious performance. He just couldn't turn off that Carrey-ness.

Well, if there's a movie where he turns it off with 100% success, it's this one. I totally believed him as sad-sack Joel Barrish, a man with nothing going on in his life and who personifies social anxiety and general awkwardness. You know that he was tempted to really play this up, acting the nebbish role with the same gusto as his other "weird" characters, with rapid eye twitches, sudden about-faces to avoid eye-contact, etc. But he doesn't do that. He feels familiar, like we've met this guy before, or even, perhaps more so, been this guy. As I understand it, we can thank director Michel Gondry for this in its entirety, because he was determined that Carrey be an everyman, and did things like ask him to hold on the hurt of a relationship of his that had just ended, allowing everyone to improvise except Carrey, giving him wrong orders or filming when he said he wasn't, not filming when he said he was, etc. Whatever all he did, it worked.

Joel essentially lives for his relationship with free-spirit Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) but the relationship between them isn't what it used to be, and after a big fight, in which he says something inexcusable to her, she storms out. The next time he tries to call, she's changed her number, and when he visits her at work, not only does she have a new boyfriend, Patrick (Elijah Wood), she behaves as if she doesn't recognize him. He learns that she's undergone an experimental procedure wherein she's wiped her memory of him, which hurts him to his core, and he decides he wants to do the same thing, so he won't have the pain of losing her. Midway through the procedure, when he's literally walking through memories of his time with her, he realizes he doesn't want to forget her after all, and tries to save the rapidly disappearing memories.

There's a lot more going on here, and a lot to explore. First, the whole idea of specific memory erasure could be a compelling film concept all on its own, but screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (along with Gondry and Pierre Bismuth) don't want to tell a sci-fi story. Their focus is on people, and we get a better movie for it. Second, a majority of this movie takes place from Joel's perspective as the erasure process is being performed, which is alternately, beautiful, creepy, wistful, sad, and angering. I love the ambiguity as to whether or not his recollections have anything to do with reality, and how we're never told because we only get his perspective. Third, the people doing the erasure easily could have been flat, undeveloped labcoat-wearing extras, but they're actually compelling enough that they could have starred in their own movie. The drama going on between the four of them (Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson and Elijah Wood) is enough to almost be its own story, with multiple secrets and breaches of ethics. That's all I'll say about it, and I'm afraid I've said too much already.

But the main focus of the film is on exploring Joel's and Clementine's relationship, retro-actively and in anachronic order; we see literally nothing in the order it happened and we have to kind of piece together what brought them together in the first place, what went wrong, whether or not what we're seeing is what really happened and whether or not the two of them should have ever been together.

There's a reason this film got a screenplay nod, too.

Clementine is a fascinating character in her own regard, mostly because we see three versions of her; the one in the real world, the one who purely exists in Joel's memories (almost a fourth character, as we see her when they were happy together and when they were about to break up), and a version he creates in his mind who's trying to help him remember. She's alternately fun and freaky, bitchy and supportive, and Winslet has to balance all of this and make each aspect true to the character, even as we get to see her both the way Joel likes to remember her and the way she really is. It's totally believable that they're the same woman. One crucial scene has her telling Joel right off that she's just a girl with her own problems and has no interest in being used by him as some sort of saving grace...and then Joel admits that's exactly what he tried to make her. Later, he says that unforgivable thing to her, and we wonder if he means it or if he's just angry and hurling an accusation, if he's right and she's in denial or if he's just a suspicious clingy jealous guy. We never really learn the answer and either is possible, but when he goes to have her erased from his mind, even though he's doing it to get over the pain, he starts repeating the same stuff that caused her to leave him, getting as vindictive as he thinks she's being.

I don't know that Carrey deserved to be nominated just for finally (this one time) turning off his Carrey-ness, but Winslet, an actress who's always watchable and always feels totally comfortable and natural, absolutely did, because this was a tough job and she pulled it off without even making it look hard. Just thinking about what it took to play three characters who are actually all the same character, and all are different but just similar enough to be believably the same person...ow, my head. Winslet is playing against type here, but to be honest, she's becoming such a chameleonic actress that I'm not sure she has a type anymore. She manages in this movie to steal scenes from Jim Carrey, who infamously upstages everybody in all his movies (on purpose), and is the most memorable part of what was supposed to be a Jim Carrey movie. She was supposed to be an added bonus and yet she's the real star of this.

So far, and admittedly that's only two down, Winslet is head and shoulders above her competition, but we'll see how the others do.

Being Julia

Film: Being Julia
Year: 2004
Cast: Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons, Shaun Evans, Michael Gambon, Lucy Punch, Bruce Greenwood, Juliet Stevenson, Miriam Margoyles, Tom Sturridge, Sheila McCarthy, Rosemary Harris, Rita Tushingham, Maury Chaykin, Julian Richings
Director: István Szabó
Nominations: Best Actress (Bening)

Ever seen a movie that you knew from the opening titles was made for no other purpose than to get its lead performer an Oscar nomination?

I mean, that's the only reason I can think of that anyone thought to make a movie like this in 2004. It's a costume drama about the theater, set in 1938 and starring a bunch of consummate actors we already know could handle a movie like this in their sleep, with all the focus on its leading lady, every scene she's in framed as if it's a "For Your Consideration" clip.

It's based on a novella by W. Somerset Maugham, and re-titled so there's no mistaking which performance we're supposed to be focused on (the novella was named simply Theatre), and her co-stars are careful not to upstage her in any way, while she gives the performance we all know she can give.

I'd usually give a plot description here, and I will in a moment, but the plot's not why this movie was made. It's purely a way to get Annette Bening an Oscar nod, and her performance certainly shows; every note of it is a clear, desperate, urgent plea for the Academy to notice her. And when I say that this movie was made to get her nominated, I mean it. This isn't an award-winning performance. It's the kind designed to get on the ballot, not the kind designed to win. And there's literally no other point to this movie; they couldn't have thought, after screening it, that it would make any money (it didn't; it cost 18 million to make and earned less than 15), or that it would garner any other nods. Its costumes and sets look like a dozen other movies set in the 30's, the score is listless and dull, the story is nothing special at all. From start to finish this was a movie whose sole goal was to make it possible for Bening to bill herself as "Three-Time Academy Award Nominee Annette Bening". That it worked kinda irritates me.

Bening stars as Julia Lambert, an aging but very respected stage actress in London, who is bored with her glamorous life, stuffy theatrical director husband Michael (Jeremy Irons) and I'm putting myself to sleep just describing this thing. Oh, boo hoo, you're rich, admired and glamorous but you're bored. A younger man, Tom (Shaun Evans), enters her life and flatters her ego enough that she begins an affair with him; an affair entirely based on her need to feel appreciated, which is odd because she's surrounded by flatterers wherever she goes. In fact, there's more than an implicit suggestion that her maid, Evie (Juliet Stevenson), is in love with her, but knows she can't ever say that.

Michael doesn't really give a rip about her affair with Tom, as the both of them have had numerous affairs over the years, but for some reason both feel the need to pretend to each other that they don't. Tom reveals pretty quickly that he's a manipulative bastard who is at least as skilled at lying to everyone as Julia is. She realizes that Tom has begun seeing a young ingenue (Lucy Punch) and even though Julia has been pretending the entire time that Tom is just her side piece, seeing him with another woman clearly hurts her. So she plots an elaborate revenge that involves casting the young actress (who can't act) in her new play, praising her performance the entire way, and really, honestly, do you even care?

That's the main problem; this movie has no stakes. We don't like Julia, but we're expected to sympathize with her, and she has no real problems, but the entire movie is about her hardships and how she overcomes them. She has an affair, but there's no reason to worry about her husband finding out. She's hurt by her lover, but she only ever cared about how he relieved her boredom and made her feel younger. She's getting on in years but never really seems all that threatened by her fading youth and fame. The story proceeds by numbers and Bening's character has no real arc. The one nice touch was Julia frequently imagining that her long-departed theater coach (Michael Gambon) is still around, directing her on how to act in life. It's not enough to make me care, and as a narrative device, it's not used anywhere near enough.

As for Bening herself, I've already talked about how she's clearly gunning for an Oscar nod here, but the performance isn't terrible, just really self-indulgent. I'll confess, I've never found Bening to be an actress to get excited about. Nothing's wrong with her, per se, but I have never known her to elevate a film by her presence, or to give a performance that really packs a punch. When this movie's release was first announced, several Oscar watchers wondered if this would be the performance "that finally wins her an Oscar", as if she's been unjustly robbed for years now, but honestly, what performance of hers truly deserved to win? I'll say right now, it ain't this one. Which is odd, because I remember this year clearly, and I recall that it was a forgone conclusion that Bening was getting nominated. She won the Golden Globe (for Comedy) and got a SAG nod (in fact, SAG's Best Actress slate was the same as the Academy's that year) and no one was surprised that she got the nod, but...really, what for?