Twelve Years Amazing!

This year my son (he's 22) has invited me on a quest to see the top Academy Award nominated movies with him.

I'm honored that he wants to spend that much time with his mother and there aren't a lot of things we have in common to do together anymore, so I have accepted his invitation.  Some mom/son time is pretty awesome!

We are three weeks into the quest and so far we have seen three films:  Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club, and today we saw Twelve Years a Slave.  

I'm not sure why Wolf of Wall Street was even nominated; it was an orgy of excess, an unlikable protagonist, and I think the lead was miscast.  I found Leo to be irritating.  I know the character was not supposed to be likable, but I didn't see anything particularly memorable or award winning about that one.

Dallas Buyers Club was our second movie; I started to get interested in this odyssey with that one.  If Jared Leto does not win for Best Supporting Actor there is no justice.  He was amazing as a she.  I thought Matthew McConaughey was great as Ron Woodruff but I suspect the fact that Mr. McConaughey is a native Texan will work against him.  Voters will probably think that playing a Texan wasn't much of a stretch.  Even though he lost 40 pounds for the role and by all accounts he nails the portrayal of Woodruff as he battled both AIDS and the FDA.  

McConaughey would have a better shot at winning his Best Actor category if Twelve Years a Slave had not been made.  Chiwetel Ejiofor was absolutely riveting as Solomon Northup.  When I learned today that Slave was the next film on our list I inwardly groaned; "Not another Hollywood movie about slavery..." I thought.  

Boy was I wrong.  Twelve Years a Slave is definitely not just another movie about slavery.  It was painful to watch, naturally.  But Mr. Ejiofor's performance was like nothing I've ever seen.  Based on a true story, Solomon Northup was a free man working as a musician and living in New York when he is hoodwinked, kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841.  

Mr. Ejiofor's eyes speak more about his plight than his words.  Throughout the film he continues to hope that somehow he will be freed from this injustice once word reaches the right people that he was a free man.  At one point there is a long, lingering shot of his face; he is all the way to the left of the screen and the landscape behind him is empty.  As the shot lingers, Northup casts his eyes downward, then slowly to the left and right.  Very slowly.  Then he brings his face back to the front and he stares directly into the camera, not just breaking the fourth wall, but shattering it.  He's staring right at you.  And stares.  As the shot lingers, you can see the confusion and pain in his eyes.  Then he looks ever so slightly downward again.  It was an amazing scene.  In that moment, it seemed to me, the director challenges the viewer to confront slavery, to see it as it was.  No Hollywood caricature or romanticizing here.  

The entire film was amazing.  There were many excellent performances (including Brad Pitt!) and were it not for Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club, I would pull for Michael Fassbender for the Supporting Actor category.  His performance as plantation owner Edwin Epps was just psychotic.  I was also pleasantly surprised to see Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) as one of the plantation owners.

While we haven't seen all the movies on our list yet, I can't imagine anyone beating Mr. Ejiofor's performance.

I think American Hustle is on our list for next week; and I really want to see Nebraska.

For someone who has a pretty low opinion of Hollywood, I'm really enjoying this quest!  But it could also just be that I love the mother/son time!

Two Movies in 24 Hours

I have seen two movies in 24 hours which is very unusual because I can't remember the last movie I actually went to see one in a theater.  Probably it was Runaway Slave.  Maybe True Grit before that.

Steve and I went to see Lone Survivor yesterday and today I went to see Wolf of Wall Street.

We wanted to see Lone Survivor because we'd both read the book when it came out and well, what a story it is!  I thought the movie was very good and it made me even more appreciative (if that's possible) of our military and what they are willing to sacrifice for this country.  Simply amazing.  I was sorry that the movie deviated from the book in the final scenes; wasn't the real story intense and dramatic enough without making up events?  That being said, it was well worth the time to see.  I highly recommend it if you get a chance.

I went to Wolf because my 22-year old son wanted to see it and asked me to go with him.  Yeah, it's not really a movie to see with your kids, no matter how old they are, but there we were.  I have mixed feelings about Wolf.  I thought that artistically the movie was well done, especially with regard to how it represented the eighties.  But there was an awful lot of gratuitous naked people and sex that could have been left out.  The three hour movie could easily have been done in 2 hours if some of that was trimmed.

My other problem with Wolf is that it seems the older I get the less tolerant I am about glorifying criminals.  The guy needed to be in jail (not a federal country club) and needs to be held to his restitution agreement.  I'm all for freedom of artistic expression and I know a lot of people enjoy movies like that.  I have certainly watched my share of Godfather movies and own a copy of Scarface.  I can't really put my finger on why this one bugs me; maybe it's because this real person defrauded other real people and so far doesn't seem to have paid much of a price.  Maybe it's just that I don't like Belfort.  There's nothing likable about him.

Leonardo DiCaprio probably did a fine job in his role of Jordan Belfort (although I think I would have preferred it if he and Matthew McConaughey had switched roles.  McConaughey would have been excellent in that role.)

I am content now to sit back on the couch and stick to reading books.  And considering the previews I've seen, that's probably going to be a very wise decision.

Paul Newman

I'm so sad to hear this morning of the loss of Paul Newman. He was one of the classiest actors in Hollywood, in my opinion. I have admired his long-standing marriage in a land where marriages often last 48 hours, as well as his extensive charity work and films. Some of the very greatest movies were graced by his performance. No way to name them all but I have to point out Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as one of my favorites; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Hustler, The Sting, The Color of Money, Slap Shot, and of course, Cool Hand Luke ("I can eat fifty eggs.")

What a sad day for his many friends and fans.

(Image credit: IMDB.com)