Gangs of New York (2002)

Gangs of New York
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo Di Caprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Brendan Gleeson, Jim Broadbent
Grade: C

Scorsese, usually so good at fleshing out criminal networks and hierarchies, doesn’t quite get there with ‘Gangs’, torn between the various constraints of the story – historical accuracy, romance, and primarily the Jesse James-Robert Ford relationship between Day-Lewis and Di Caprio – that much of it feels overstuffed and undernourished. When he has to widen the scope and chart New York’s escalating lack of rule in the second half, the tone intensifies and the anarchic state of the city is shown through choppy editing and manic cinematography, which feels completely out of place with the rest of the movie. Its unevenness is – in many ways – a double-edged sword; While distracting, at least the erratic nature of ‘Gangs’ means that you can never really settle into it, the theatrical performance of Day-Lewis a disarming treat in itself, and the dourer elements of the period shown to be quite enterprising. As for any grander commentary on New York, the film takes two hours to establish a political system within the city (an election battle seemingly emerges from nowhere), affirming that its helmer may have had a little too much on his plate here.

Final Oscar Predictions 3/3 [The Big Six]

Best Picture:

“Amour”
“Argo”
“Beasts of the Southern Wild”
“Django Unchained”
“Les Miserables”
“Life of Pi”
“Lincoln”
“Silver Linings Playbook”
“Zero Dark Thirty”

Prediction: “Argo”
My preference: “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

When a film wins support from the producers’, directors’, actors’, and writers’ guilds you can pretty much call it over. Affleck’s director snub has definitely helped the film, but probably only to solidify its appeal as a mainstream crowd-pleaser, unlikely to be looked upon fondly in years to come, but nevertheless easy to anoint as a winner of the 2012 crop.

Best Director:

Michael Haneke, “Amour”
Ang Lee, “Life of Pi”
David O. Russell, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Steven Spielberg, “Lincoln”
Benh Zeitlin, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

Prediction: Michael Haneke, “Amour”
My preference: Benh Zeitlin, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

It’s probably foolhardy to choose Haneke over Spielberg, Lee, or Russell, who seem to have stronger films. The lack of a particular frontrunner helps the Austrian, who you can imagine people who don’t even love “Amour” might still vote for, as a ‘cool’ alternative pick, and as he’s the most auteurial of the five men. That’s how I see it, anyway.

Best Actress in a Leading Role:

Jessica Chastain, “Zero Dark Thirty”
Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Emmanuelle Riva, “Amour”
Quvenzhane Wallis, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Naomi Watts, “The Impossible”

Prediction: Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”
My preference: Emmanuelle Riva, “Amour”

Wishful thinking makes me want to predict Riva, who I suspect is close but will likely lose out to the familiar ‘star is born’ narrative surrounding Jennifer Lawrence. If Lawrence does win it’ll be a shame, since she can and will do so much better in the future, with a character she has a stronger handle on than Tiffany in “Silver Linings Playbook.”

Best Actor in a Leading Role:

Bradley Cooper, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”
Hugh Jackman, “Les Miserables”
Joaquin Phoenix, “The Master”
Denzel Washington, “Flight”

Prediction: Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”
My preference, Joaquin Phoenix, “The Master

Best Actress in a Supporting Role:

Amy Adams, “The Master”
Sally Field, “Lincoln”
Anne Hathaway, “Les Miserables”
Helen Hunt, “The Sessions”
Jacki Weaver, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Prediction: Anne Hathaway, “Les Miserables”
My preference: Helen Hunt, “The Sessions”

Best Actor in a Supporting Role:

Alan Arkin, “Argo”
Robert De Niro, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “The Master”
Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln”
Christoph Waltz, “Django Unchained”

Prediction: Christoph Waltz, “Django Unchained”
My preference: Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln”

I feel as if “Lincoln” has very little momentum, and Christoph Waltz has the best role of the five men here. A leading one, but since when have the Academy cared about category fraud? There is an outside chance that they’ll give Robert De Niro the Oscar, as a reward for finally doing something worthwhile, but the amount of lame comedic films he’s been in recently leads me to believe that when he does win a third Oscar it’ll be for a dramatic performance.

In the Mood for Podcast: Episode 34

EPISODE 34: The Wowface Concept

[1:24:38]

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It's Episode 34 of In the Mood for Podcast, a British-based film podcast hosted by Calum Reed of Ultimate Addict and Pete Sheppard of In the Mood for Blog. This week we get heavy with reviews of Oscar-nominated political dramas "Lincoln" and "Zero Dark Thirty," as well as getting into the controversy surrounding the latter. (It's at this point that Cal would like to point out that he is a left-wing pacifist, despite how it might sound on the audio.) We tackle the education system with a discussion of "Won't Back Down" before Pete takes on derided comedy "Movie 43" and Cal opts for Arnie in "The Last Stand." We're also analysing the Oscar races after the Screen Actors' Guild Awards, and previewing next week's top ten lists. Listen out for whose performance Pete thinks is "nothing wowface," kinder words than are offered to Jennifer Lawrence.

Discussed on the podcast: 

Opening Segment: Analysing the impact of the Screen Actors' Guild awards on the Oscar races. [2:40 - 18:30]


*Preconception Corner*

Reviews of: 

• "Lincoln" [audio lost at 34:40 but returns at 35:44]
• "Won't Back Down"
• "Movie 43"
• "The Last Stand"

[23:40 - 1:00:05]

Closing Segment: Discussing Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" and digging into the controversy surrounding its depiction of torture  [1:00:10 - 1:17:25]

*Shag, Marry or Kill?*
*The Watson Factor*
*The Poupaud Range*

Intro Music: New theme music!
Outro Music: Blondie, "Hanging on the Telephone"

Addicts 2007: Best Actor in a Leading Role

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Daniel Day-Lewis
There Will Be Blood

Enough has been said about Day-Lewis as the dark, ruthless Plainview. He is indeed the frightening, towering everything that people say. When I watched There Will Be Blood it shook me because you just don't see films as volatile, uneven and downright gutsy, and I can't imagine what a strange situation it must have been to be involved in the making of it. Most of the film flows through DDL's character but for me this film does not belong to him, and neither does it belong to director Paul Thomas Anderson, or original novelist Upton Sinclair. The entire film feels untamed and so, really, Day-Lewis' job stretches far beyond that of portraying a literary figure. His Jekyll and Hyde job (the self-evaluative nature if not the compassion of Jekyll) ensures that the random shifts between scheming, meditative oil-man and uncontrollable eccentric monster feel as terrifyingly huge as an 80's power ballad, and a loose and organic allusion to human nature.



Benicio Del Toro
Things We Lost In The Fire

I started to write a review for Things We Lost In The Fire the day after I saw it, but later realised I was only really writing about Benicio Del Toro. The refreshing thing about his performance as a struggling heroin addict is that he doesn't seem to want or need your sympathy. He's visibly troubled but in a way that serves as an acknowledgement of addiction and its power over him. Del Toro gets the balance perfect, sustaining Jerry's potential as a productive long-term presence in the Burke family, juggling the sadness of his best friend's death and the guilt and depression of his recovering drug habit in a way that escapes false theatricality. He's the perfect choice for a character that's perhaps painted a little too cleanly by the film at times -- ironic, I know -- it's that modest effortless charm that makes him 'special' in a way you know he'd never want to be. The biggest weapon in his armery those come-to-bed eyes, which can make me a lovesick teenager and a ponderous wannabe-reformist all at once.

Emile Hirsch
Into The Wild

In many ways Hirsch reminds me of Leonardo Di Caprio's Jack in Titanic; young, fresh-faced, plucky, bold, content to be lost in a world so much bigger than his adventurous aspirations. Perhaps this is why it's easier to accept both their mortal punishments, but Hirsch doesn't have the luxury of a romance (at least an overt one) or a sinking ship to chronicle his development as a character. He is able to imbue so much thought about identity and purpose with his comfortable, reflective temperament, his placid tone a reminder that McCandless was someone eager to shrug off judgement and labels, and even ideology itself. On the face of it it may seem as if this boy was crazy, but things are only 'crazy' if you don't understand them. Hirsch may not have to run the gamut of emotions in every scene, but at the end of it all I felt like I understood him, and for a guy that was roaming the desolate West alone for almost all of his adult life -- that's an achievement.



Shia LaBoeuf
Disturbia

His troubled, misunderstood badboy demeanor forming the basis for Disturbia's continual sense of injustice, Shia's Kale is a 'have-a-go' hero of the most convincing stature, driving our interest through his.

Taken from review

LaBoeuf is undoubtedly the babyface badboy of a commercially-driven, and fascinatingly self-aware project, but while the film takes a lot from Rear Window, it puts a lot more pressure on its star. He has to inhabit the film's ideas about a rebellious, misunderstood generation, while exercising his dynamic hero status to the max. While Stewart's interfering neighbourhood watch was much tamer, LaBoeuf's Kale pushes things too far on more than one occasion and yet Shia emerges as a rash victim more than an unruly teenager. The true 'performer' in this excellent bunch of men, his character, a teenage hero in an action thriller, calls for more flair than Deerfield, Sunborne, Plainview or McCandless, and his boundless energy sells every bit of Disturbia, and makes for a manic and entertaining time. Slick, smart and sexy.

Tommy Lee Jones
In The Valley Of Elah

Paul Haggis' film is one that requires Tommy Lee Jones' Hank Deerfield to become an amateur sleuth in the quest to find the murderer of his son. Elah doesn't achieve any of what it wants to say (which is itself frustratingly vague) through overt, crass symbolism, and so its up to Tommy to hammer some of it home through the grief-stricken ex-Colonel. Jones' work, which somehow manages to come across as poignant, is laden with layers, and transforms a predictable character into someone worth studying. It's all in what he doesn't say; the methodical nature of the military man at the forefront of his character Deerfield is an intent and driven animal for most of Elah, but only to mask his engulfing grief. Jones can express his loss without having to be emotionally open, exposed without knowing it, or wanting to know it. And when called upon to deliver the cracks in Hank's emotional blockade (the main purpose of which is often to further the investigative elements of the story anyway) he does so with such guilt and self-loathing that you feel as if you've done well to obtain anything from this man. A man that gives so little away.

Winner: Shia LaBoeuf - Disturbia

Runner Up: Benicio Del Toro - Things We Lost In The Fire

Sad To Exclude: James McAvoy in Atonement, who has several heartbreaking moments but overall perhaps has less to do than the five men here. Chris Cooper, for a strange but nevertheless enthralling turn in Breach. Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, whose performance in The Game Plan is flat-out hilarious. Josh Brolin, Johnny Depp, Glen Hansard, I salute you.