One Category at a Time: Supporting Actor

This might take the cake as the year's most unpredictable category. Composed entirely of past winners, there are no narratives of “overdue actor still waiting for first Oscar” to be had. And with a pair of co-lead performances masquerading as supporting amongst true supporting players in popular Best Picture nominees, it leaves the contest as wide open as we've seen in years.

SAG solidifies Argo as Best Picture frontrunner

I was going to liveblog tonight's SAG awards, but the local TV station that was supposed to carry it checked out for the first 40 minutes. By the time they corrected their error, I was too embittered to bother blogging, forced to watch an hour of TV categories before getting back around to the movie ones.

Things shook down mostly according to plan. Daniel Day-Lewis, Anne Hathaway, and Jennifer Lawrence strengthened their holds on Best Actor, Actress, and Supporting Actress respectively. Best Supporting Actor was predictably unpredictable, but it ended up going to Tommy Lee Jones, as likely an Oscar bet as any.

Review - Lincoln

In a fashion uncharacteristic of his famously dazzling aesthetic, Steven Spielberg has produced one of the finest films of his career in Lincoln; a densely worded but deftly handled political drama that illuminates the man behind the myth as he fought to enact the 13^th amendment.

In the waning days the American Civil War, the two-term president (Daniel Day-Lewis) stares down the horns of a dilemma as put to him by his Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn): Either he can entertain negotiations from Confederate delegates to bring about an end to the conflict now in its fourth year, or he can push for the abolition of slavery, dangling it as a carrot before the divided House of Representatives as a quicker alternative to peace. Opting for the latter, “Honest” Abe is forced into some decidedly manipulative politicking. As behind-the-scenes history plays out, we see how freedom for the slaves was not so much won on the floors of Congress as it was craftily massaged into being from the smoky drawing rooms of Washington.

Sunday Top Ten: Batman characters; the movies + The Animated Series tag team

With the recent release of a teaser poster and trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, I can't be the only one who's had Batman on the mind lately.

Everyone has a favourite Batman character (well, except for people who don't care about Batman, but they're just an urban legend), but with so many different incarnations of all the heroes and villains having been contributed over the decades, it's hard to give a consistent assessment of each one. Do you have a favourite continuity? The 1960s Adam West TV series, maybe? Any of the films by directors Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher, or Christopher Nolan? I can tell you right now my definitive Batman canon is the fantastic Warner Brothers cartoon from the 1990s, whose dark and mature treatment of the material made for an atypically grown-up childrens program. For kicks, I'm appraising ten character combos that team up the performances from the major motion pictures with their animated doppelgangers.

Review - Captain America: The First Avenger

I want YOU to go see Captain America! The final pillar upon which Marvel will rest next summer's Avengers movie is terrific fun, putting a bright Cap (pun intended) on the Superhero Summer That Kept On Giving.

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) may have the right heroic attitude Uncle Sam looks for in a soldier, but his scrawny 90-pound frame – a brilliantly achieved illusion that disguises Evans' truly beefy musculature for nearly the entire first act – disqualifies him at every attempt to enlist. German expatriate Dr. Abraham Erskine (the wonderfully warm Stanley Tucci) immediately recognizes the virtue of Rogers' dedication, and makes him the prime candidate for an experimental formula that should transform this playground punching bag into an ass-kicking Adonis. It works! But no sooner does Rogers' new bodywork emerge from the chamber than the last sample of the serum is stolen by an agent of Hydra, a Nazi R. & D. department headed by the maniacal Johann Schmidt, aka: Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), the original test subject of Erskine's imperfected formula that left him grotesquely disfigured and all the more determined to personally attain Godlike power.

Best of the Decade #8: No Country for Old Men (2007)

Hopelessly dire in its content and tone, No Country for Old Men is the most entertainingly depressing film of the decade, and an A+ social commentary from the prolific Coen brothers. As implied by its ambiguous and divisive ending about a discouraging dream had by the film's hero and moral centre (played with superb restraint by Tommy Lee Jones), the main theme of the film is about the futility of battling evil, and the desperation felt by those that take up the good fight anyway. Like the film’s steely villain (an outstandingly creepy Javier Bardem), violence and chaos cannot be stopped. Delayed, wounded perhaps, but to try and vanquish it is a fool’s errand. It'll walk the earth ‘til the end of time. Fun, huh? The Coens also dabble with themes of the randomness of the universe, what we can chalk up to fate and what we can control ourselves.

Ever the visual storytellers, the Coens and their DP of choice, Roger Deakins, give the film a dark and foreboding atmosphere. The Coens themselves (under their longtime pseudonym Roderick Jaynes) cut the footage together as only they can, amping up the excitement so subtly that you barely notice. Equal praise must be given to sound designer Skip Lievsay, whose nuanced sound mix is one of the most effective of the decade.