The Revenant (a movie review post)

A beautiful and terrible movie.

I could almost leave it at that, but I suppose it does need more explanation.

First, though:
You know, I'm not going to complain about DiCaprio getting best actor for this. I think a role like this is probably pretty tough. And I don't just mean the rigorous conditions. I mean the not being able to use your voice. There's not a lot of talking in this one. DiCaprio did a more than adequate job of carrying the movie with his facial expressions and stumbling around, much better than Redmayne did last year, at any rate. However, I think Bale would have been the better choice for The Big Short. If he'd been nominated for best actor, that is. What's up with that?

And I don't particularly like Christian Bale.

The movie is beautiful. Even in its terror, it's beautiful. The cinematography is, in a word, amazing.

But, beyond that, the movie doesn't offer much. In that way, you can take "terrible" to mean whatever you want it to. What I can say is that, at the end of the movie, I wasn't left feeling anything. Maybe that's the way Inarritu intended it, but I don't want to watch a movie and then feel nothing. My actual thought when the screen went from DiCaprio's face to the credits was, "Oh... That's it?" There was no joy, no sadness, no nothing. No catharsis. There wasn't even anything to think about as there was at the end of Birdman. It was just over.

Now, this next thing is my own bias:
People talk about this movie as if it is just a revenge tale, but that's not true. It's not even mostly true. Mostly, it's a survival tale. I tend to not like fictional survival tales. They're just... too outrageous. Once you've decided your hero is going to survive, you can do anything you want to the character and, guess what, he survives! I have a hard time with Hugh Glass surviving the trials he went through. A real Hugh Glass, that is. Still, I was willing to go along with it for a while, even the trips in the freezing water, but [SPOILER ALERT!] going over the cliff on the horse was just too much for me. Okay, so was putting gun powder in his wound and igniting it. Clever but too much.

See, if you give me something like 127 Hours, I'm good. That really happened. The things Aron Ralston did to survive were amazing, but it's amazing because it's real. Nothing Hugh Glass did to survive or that he survived was amazing, because it was all a fiction. There's nothing triumphant and nothing to cheer. Then, there's the ending...

Also, there's Tom Hardy. I have nothing good to say about Hardy. Maybe if he takes a role that's more than guttural mumbling.

I Am Not My Own Demographic

My wife and I went to an Oscars event at a local theater not because we wanted to actually see the Oscars, this year -- both of us were rather underwhelmed with the nominations -- but because we (especially my wife) wanted to see Neil Patrick Harris host the Oscars. In that, we were not disappointed. He made it worth it to me with his opening line, "We are here to honor the best and the whitest..." That followed by his opening number made the expense of going to see the Oscars at a special venue completely worth it even if it was all downhill from there, though I was gratified that Birdman got best picture and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu got best director for it. Oh! The performance of "Glory" from Selma was also amazing.

However, Eddie Redmayne as best actor? Give me a break. All he did was sit in a chair and drool. John Travolta (who is not an actor I enjoy at all), did a better job of presenting than Redmayne did as Hawking. But I digress...

Yes, it was required that my wife and I go out to see the Oscars, because we don't have "TV." We could have followed the results online, but we couldn't actually watch the show without going out... somewhere... to do that. But it was a charity event, so that was kind of cool.

But here's the thing: It was full of people that are of the demographic I should belong to... but really don't. My wife and I were among the youngest people there. Well, maybe there were some people in their late 30s but, mostly, it was white people in the 40s and up. This is the group of people that I should theoretically belong to. And, I suppose, the fact that I was there at all means that I must overlap a some points other than relative age and race, but it certainly didn't feel that way.

For one thing, my wife and I reacted to a lot more of the political talk than pretty much anyone else there in terms of agreeing with it. We laughed at more of the jokes and, I think, appreciated more of what was going on. Especially when it had to with inequities within the Academy itself. [Just to point out, the Academy is more than 90% white and nearly 80% men. Rich, old white guys with OWDS.]

But it was the ongoing disdain from the host and the crowd against super heroes and comic books that really allowed me to see how I just don't fit in with "my" crowd. There were multiple comments about how glad we should all be that no super heroes were nominated for... anything. I just want to point out that super heroes have never been nominated. For anything. However, Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America: The Winter Soldier were better than at least half of the nominees. Seriously, Whiplash? What a piece of crap. The Theory of Everything, too. Both worthless movies.

Benedict Cumberbatch, though, shined the brightest light on the issue. The host, a little Susan Sarandon number (seriously, if she had said, "Hey, I'm Susan," I might have actually believed her), had a serious thing for Benedict. During the commercial breaks, she was asking trivia questions (for prizes), and she got to this one:

What Marvel character is Benedict Cumberbatch signed on to play in an upcoming movie?

And there was... silence. Which was quite a contrast to all of the other questions which had had people immediately yelling answers. After enough of a pause that it was obvious that no one was going to say anything (and I think she was about to tell the answer), I shouted, "Dr. Strange!" And, see, she was surprised that I knew that. She had not expected an answer. Then, she said, "I don't even know what comic book that is," (or something like that), and I said, "Dr. Strange!" And she was surprised again. Seriously.

There were a couple of hundred people there, and no one else knew that. That's as basic as water to me. Or air. But it's not that I have a specialized knowledge set that that group of people didn't have; it was the reaction to my specialized knowledge set that was the issue. The host was both disdainful and dismissive of it, and she was fairly representative of the class of people that were there. It made me feel as if I was an anthropomorphized raccoon sitting there in the theater.

Okay, so not really.

Because I really am an anthropomorphized raccoon.

Okay, fine! I'm not.

I am Groot.

>sigh<
Fine!

Anyway, the point is that I don't really fit into this group of people I'm supposed to fit into, and I probably do a lot better job of it here in California than I ever would have done in the South. I'm sure that's why I don't live there anymore. According to my wife, anyway. It might help if I wanted to fit in with the group of "white dudes" or "rich, old white dudes" or whatever. Not that I wouldn't take "rich," I suppose, at least up to a point. But, my gosh, when the only recognition a movie like Selma gets is for the song, then something is wrong. Granted, it's a great song. Again, I'm just going to say, at least Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu got acknowledged for Birdman.

The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (or Birdman) (a movie review post)

Remember the 80s and how Michael Keaton was "the man"? My first Keaton movie was Mr. Mom; now, thinking about it, I want to see it again. He was perfect in the role as this rather disheveled husband shoved into being the stay at home dad. He had this persistent look of panic that was appropriate.

But then came Tim Burton's Batman, and the look shifted from "panic" to "vacant," which really wasn't appropriate for Batman. He failed completely to pull off a believable Bruce Wayne, the reason he was chosen for the role. Then after Batman... well... nothing. For a long time. Nothing "real," at any rate.

All of that to say that on a certain level I love this movie for the sole reason of having Michael Keaton as Riggan. It brings with it a certain amount of awesome. But he was also excellent in the role. He brought with him just the right amount of desperation to make you wonder wether Riggan is completely sane or not, something necessary for the film to work. In fact, it's this question that elevates the movie from just being about a washed up actor trying to revitalize his career to being a great magical realism story. Keaton was terrific.

In fact, all of the cast were great. Some of them in the ways they normally are, like Emma Stone and Amy Ryan, but a couple of them really stood out.

Zach Galifianakis did not do his normal eccentric weirdo; instead, he was a rather fretful lawyer too heavily invested in Riggan's show. He did a good job. A really good job. If he wasn't so physically distinctive, I might not have known who he was.

But the real surprise of the show was Edward Norton. I should point out that I am not a fan of Norton. At best, I find him annoying. Rarely do I find that he lives up to his own vaunted opinion of himself. Okay, never do I find that he lives up to his opinion of himself. Except this time. His first scene is priceless and I have to think intended as a bit of self-mockery. Whatever it was, it was genius. His portrayal of Mike, a character who can only really be human when he's onstage (not a good human, mind you, but that's the only place he becomes real), is amazing. I would actually love to see Norton pull a best supporting actor nomination for this.

The camerawork is worth noting, too. It has a continuous flow to it leaving you to feel as if you are moving along with the actors, possibly stopping to glance at things that grab your attention along the way. It's not always a smooth flow, lending to the feeling of walking with the actors. The change of character perspective is often accomplished by two of the characters running into each other and the camera following the new character when the two separate.

If you want something with a clear story and no unanswered questions, though, this is not your movie. There are pervasive questions about what is real and what is imagined, and the movie doesn't really answer those. Or even try to. It's the kind of film that will leave you questioning and wanting to see it again just to see if you missed anything. Or to see the Keaton/Norton scenes again. Or to figure out the jellyfish. That's the one I want to know, so, yeah, I'm going to need to see it again.