Film Friday: Oscar Winners

The Oscars have come and gone and for the most part, I had a pretty good sense of who the winners would be, whether they were who I thought would win (this ballot) or who I wanted to win (this ballot). The streak of correct Best Picture guesses continues with Birdman. Big Hero 6 helping Disney get the animation double was a pleasant surprise, considering The Lego Movie was left off the ballot completely when it should have won.

But my bigger issue is with the Academy itself. The Hollywood Reporter and Cinema Blend ran stories in the days leading up to the Oscars that Academy members had not seen many of the Best Picture nominees. For example, nearly 10% did not see Selma, a terrific movie I saw at my local multiplex. Some didn't see the films for political reasons (American Sniper, Selma), but Academy members have no excuse. It detracts from the artists that helped create that picture, whether you agree with it or not.

Academy membership is an exclusive privilege and yet, these industry professionals didn't see the films their group nominated for Best Picture. Meanwhile, YouTube reviewers like Chris Stuckmann, Jeremy Jahns and the Schmoes managed to see every movie nominated. I saw five of the eight myself and had some difficulty getting to screenings of Boyhood and Whiplash. I can't speak for the YouTubers, but I'm sure they'd be doing somersaults if they got Academy membership. And they saw these movies the old-fashioned way, seeing them in a theater. They didn't get the DVD screeners that are sent out to most guild and Academy members, which means voters have even less excuse.

While I didn't like Birdman as much as the Academy, it deservedly won for director and cinematography. It did try to push the envelope and had something to say about art and commercial viability in an era of superhero blockbusters (though I could have done without the award ceremony speeches bashing those flicks, considering many Oscar-caliber actors have been involved in that genre, just ask Hugh Jackman, Amy Adams, Christian Bale and Anthony Hopkins, among others.) Also, Birdman had the best ensemble cast of any film this year.

Film Friday: Oscar Predictions

Oscar Sunday is almost here! Have you filled out your Oscar ballot yet?

For many years, I've printed out an Oscar ballot or shared my picks with Facebook friends. This year, I'm putting it all on the line and you're more than welcome to follow along. Four of the last five Best Picture Oscars I guessed correctly (2010 was the misstep; I picked The Social Network over The King's Speech), but thanks to this year's open-ended race, picking the correct ones will be even tougher since there isn't a prohibitive favorite. And while the Best Picture films this year were very good, there wasn't a knockout one like last year's 12 Years a Slave or previous year's Argo.

To see who I think will win, click here. To see who I want to win, click here. Next week, I'll dive in to the picks and see where I more than likely messed up.

Good luck with your ballots and as The Hunger Games say, may the odds be ever in your favor!

Film Friday: Silver Linings Playbook

Valentine's Day is tomorrow, so love is in the air. Plus, the Academy Awards and its celebration of the best films of the previous year is coming up on Feb. 22. That got me thinking back to one of my favorite movies in recent years, the romantic dramedy Silver Linings Playbook. To my chagrin, I saw the movie long before I read the novel, so I tried to make amends for that this year.

The Silver Linings Playbook (2008)
Written by Matthew Quick
Narrated by Ray Porter
Run Time: 7 hours 18 minutes
Publisher: Blackstone Audio/Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Sports fans are some of the craziest people around. Whenever the Los Angeles Lakers win an NBA championship, police get put on tactical alert because there have been riots, car fires and general mayhem in the past. When the Vancouver Canucks lost to the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup on home ice, fans set fires, looted stores and destroyed cars.

In the case of Pat Peoples, he's a diehard Philadelphia Eagles football fan who is let out of a Baltimore mental facility, or "the bad place" as he calls it, when the book begins. As he reconnects with family and friends, he hopes to reconnect with his wife Nikki and end "apart time." When over at a friend's house, he meets Tiffany, who herself has had issues stemming from the loss of her husband. From there, it's a mix of football games, a dance, therapy sessions, running and awkward social moments as the two literally run with each other and start to fall in love, albeit in an unlikely way.

The book was a complete joy to listen to and was a real page-turner. I devoured this book in two days and was hooked from start to finish. At one point, I laughed hysterically on a lunch break at my work, inadvertently spooking a co-worker. I was rooting for Pat and Tiffany most of the way, even as their relationship is messy and tangled with challenges. The side characters are a joy as well, particularly Pat's brother and therapist. Porter's narration is spot on, with each character clearly discernible and he often switches from voice to voice without any noticeable difficulty.

Grade: 4/5 stars. The book is a ton of fun on audiobook while still telling a compelling love story that even those with major mental health challenges can find their silver lining.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Written for the screen and directed by David O. Russell
Rated R for language and some nudity
Run Time: 2 hours 2 minutes
Distributor: The Weinstein Company

Before the book was even published, Hollywood studios were aiming to make it into a film. Renee Witt, an executive at The Weinstein Company, convinced founder and major Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein to option the film rights. Four years later, the movie was a smash hit made on a $21 million budget, earning more than $130 million at the North American box office.

The film version of Silver Linings Playbook comes from the Jurassic Park school of screenplay adaptations where the basic structure of the story remains, but a lot of the details and sometimes whole sequences are added or removed. That's not to say the adaptation is bad. I love both of those films, but then again, I saw the movie first and the book much later in both cases. Screenwriter and director David O. Russell admitted to the Huffington Post that he rewrote the screenplay 20 times over a five year period because he was trying to get the tone balance right between the romance and humor aspects and the serious depictions of bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder.

The changes from book to celluloid are numerous, but here are a few. For starters, character names are tweaked and both the brother and therapist, two of my favorite characters in the novel, are featured far less in the movie than the book. Also, Kenny G and his tune "Songbird" terrorize Pat in the book, forcing him to often "close my eyes, hum a single note and count to ten." In the movie, the song that haunts him is Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour." Pat's dad is markedly different in both versions. In the book, he's very distant, moody and obsessive whereas in the movie, he has a gambling problem in addition to being obsessive compulsive. Pat's condition is never spelled out in the novel, though it's strongly hinted that he suffered a traumatic brain injury, while in the movie, he's diagnosed as bipolar.

The scene in the diner is vastly different from the book as well as the dance scene, which the movie makes out to be a major competition and in the book, it's more casual.  The movie essentially ends at the dance, but it happens at about the 3/4 mark of the book. By extension, the endings have the same net result, but very different ways of getting there. Personally, as much as it is a "Hollywood" ending, I like the film version better in part because it has my favorite line in the movie, delivered by Robert DeNiro:

Grade: A-. Terrific performances from the ensemble cast (Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, Jackie Weaver and Chris Tucker) and the film's sensitivity to its depictions of mental illness make for a movie that didn't follow the book, but still maintained its spirit.

The movie was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, all four acting categories and Best Adapted Screenplay. It lost the Best Picture race to the Iranian hostage drama Argo, a fantastic movie in its own right. Ironically, Jennifer Lawrence took home the movie's sole win (Best Actress) despite Russell's initial concerns that she was too young for the part. While the actors were already established by the time the movie came out, the film did propel the musical group The Lumineers to stardom, thanks to their song "Ho Hey" ("I belong with you, you belong with me, my sweetheart") being used in many of the film's ads and trailers.

Have you seen the movie or read the book? Is there a version you prefer?

Film Friday: Oscar Noms and Snubs

Since I was very young, our family would always watch the Oscars. Los Angeles is the movie town, with thousands of people working at the film studios, production companies and costumers, not to mention the hundreds of restaurants and other businesses that cater to the various film productions shooting in and around town. My hometown is on the outskirts of L.A., but it is a bastion for film and television production, providing a big boost to the economy. Seldom does someone not say that they have some involvement with "the industry." All that being said, there is something special about living in L.A. on Oscar night, since the town practically shuts down for the Academy Awards. Couple that with the fact that I and several family members are big film fans or work for the studios and it's easy to see why the Oscars are the awards show most significant to us.

The nominees for Best Picture are...
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

As of this writing, I've seen four of the nominees and hope to see three more. Selma was fantastic with a great performance by David Oyelowo and was the first film I saw this year that I walked out of the theater thinking "That is a sure-fire Oscar best picture." Birdman was good, but I didn't love it as much as the critics did. The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything both were pretty good and I favored Theory a touch more, but I'm hesitant to say they were the definitive Best Picture.

As good as those films may be, it isn't Oscar season without snubs. When Ben Affleck was left out of the Best Director race for Argo in 2012, I thought that would be the last time in a long while that there would be a snub of that epic of proportions. Boy, was I wrong. The omission of The Lego Movie is nothing short of highway robbery. That film has been ranked No. 1 on my rankings for most of the year, was named the presumptive winner by many Oscar handicappers and has a ridiculously high score on Rotten Tomatoes. I went into the movie with little expectation and was beyond pleasantly surprised after viewing it. The film has a lot of heart and can be enjoyed by the widest possible audience while still being smart. It doesn't stoop down to children and entertains adults as well. Were the other animation contenders like Big Hero 6 and How to Train Your Dragon 2 good? Absolutely, but they would have been no match for Lego, whose sole nomination was for the song "Everything is Awesome."

Other notable snubs include Gone Girl and Nightcrawler for Best Picture, Ava DuVernay (director) and Oyelowo (actor) for Selma (both pictured at right). Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo (acting), David Fincher (director) and Gillian Flynn (adapted screenplay) also got snubbed for Nightcrawler and Gone Girl, respectively. Having said that, some of the categories like actor and director were stacked full of viable nominees, so I'm less disappointed over these than the glaringly obvious omission of Lego.

For a full list of the nominees, click here. I'll be revealing my picks before Oscar night Feb. 22.

Film Friday: The Blind Side

Fall is a time to watch the boys of the gridiron and this month marks the 5-year anniversary of the theatrical release of The Blind Side. Based on the book by Michael Lewis, the film earned $255 million at the box office as well as a Best Picture Oscar nomination and netted Sandra Bullock an Academy Award for Best Actress. I remember finishing reading the book within a few days of seeing the movie opening night, hoping as all book fans do that the adaptation doesn't botch what was beloved about the original source material. Thankfully, director and screenwriter John Lee Hancock delivered.

In professional football, the game has become more dependent on the quarterback who captains the offense and often throws the ball. In order for the quarterback to get the proper amount of time to throw a pass or determine what he wants to do with the ball, he has to have a strong offensive line, particularly an all-world left tackle to protect his blind side from defensive pressure. Often, the left tackle is the second-highest paid player on the team besides the quarterback. Essentially, they're the QB's insurance policy.

Lewis' book delves into the history of the offensive lineman position and specifically, Michael Oher, a Memphis teen with a troubled childhood who gets taken in by the Tuohy family and discovers a talent for protecting the quarterback's blind side on the high school football team. The book's structure is set up to where the two key threads alternate, so one chapter is on the football specifics, then the next one is on Oher's story. At the time I read the book, I was more into the sports minutiae than the human interest side of the story, but there were moments where I wanted to blaze through the lineman history chapter and get to the next part of Michael's story. The book is well-paced and informative, but may not be the best for readers not interested in the football position details.

That's where the movie comes in, for better or for worse. The explanation of the offensive lineman position is limited to a brief opening sequence, but then focuses exclusively on Oher. Bullock was well-deserving of an Oscar for her role as Leigh Anne Tuohy, who spearheads the effort to take Michael in. The film is firmly rooted in realism (there's a lot of cameos by college coaches, namely current University of Alabama head coach Nick Saban) and the film's final scene is archive footage from the NFL Network of Oher being drafted by the Baltimore Ravens. When I saw the movie with friends who had not read the book, they were able to guess the plot threads correctly, so there are few twists and turns for the average audience. Overall, Bullock's performance elevates what would otherwise be a very ordinary movie. Rating for both the movie and book: 4/5 stars.

When the film was released, Oher was in his debut season with the Ravens. He went on to a 5-year career in Baltimore, winning the Super Bowl in 2012. He currently plays for the Tennessee Titans. Meanwhile, Oher's alma mater, the Ole Miss Rebels, has an outside shot of competing for the national championship as of this writing. They were at one point this season the No. 3-ranked team in the country. The team is coached by Oher's high school coach, Hugh Freeze. The Tuohys have gone on to be featured on television and countless interviews (Leigh Anne is an interior designer, husband Sean owns dozens of restaurant franchises and previously worked as a broadcaster for the Memphis Grizzlies NBA basketball team).

When Oher won the Super Bowl, ABC News did a follow-up piece on the story. If you can't see the video below, click here.

Since the film's release, director John Lee Hancock earned acclaim for directing Saving Mr. Banks, one of my favorite movies of 2013. Sandra Bullock was terrific last year in Gravity and Tim McGraw (Sean Tuohy) will be in next year's sci-fi film Tomorrowland, but actor Quinton Aaron (Michael Oher) and actress Lily Collins (Leigh Anne and Sean's daughter Collins Tuohy) have not had the same level of success post-Blind Side despite receiving acclaim for their roles.

Have you seen or read The Blind Side? What did you think?