Phantom Thread

There are few things that many women universally love and covet, but Phantom Thread focuses on two: beautiful things to wear and the love of a man. Both can make a woman feel lovely, wanted and desired. However, if anything comes between her and the things or person who makes her feel this way, retaliation is expected.

In 1950s London, Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a renowned dressmaker. When he meets Alma (Vicky Krieps), a waitress, he takes her out and before the night is over, he is making her a lovely new dress. She becomes his muse and lover, well dressed on his arm, living and working alongside him and his ever present sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville). But the novelty of Alma’s presence begins to wane, and she can sense it wearing on Reynold’s and straining his lifestyle.

Alma describes Woodcock’s as a demanding man. He can often be so cold and focused on his work that even someone buttering toast can get on his nerves. At times, the stress gets to him and you can almost see loose ends of his patience fraying. And when his usual schedule is interrupted, he can verbally lash out. But Alma loves him most when he is in a slump, where he curls up in bed and just needs someone to take care of him. She yearns for these few tender moments with him.

The relationship between Alma and Reynolds is very odd. It’s romantic, gothically romantic, but not seem very loving. It can be very professional at times, with Alma helping to make and model dresses. And there is some intangible bond between the two, something that connects Alma’s strong will and Reynold’s fastidiousness in a way that can only work for them. It can leave many baffled.

Phantom Thread is currently holds six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Daniel Day-Lewis is nominated for lead actor, his sixth nomination in the category that could lead to his fourth win. Lesley Manville is nominated for supporting actress in her role as Cyril. Paul Thomas Anderson is nominated for best director for the second time. Composer Jonny Greenwood is nominated for his original score.  And with all the exquisite dresses, it’s no wonder the film is nominated for best costume design.

To be frank, the film is a very slow burn and most of the action is through dress making and dialogue. Yet, I was surprised how captivating I found it. I clung to every gesture and glance between Lewis and Krieps. The drama and tension created between the characters is so intriguing. And best of all, the crowd in the theater seemed just as invested, gasping at an insult and laughing at a snide remark with perfect timing.

“There is an air of quiet death in this house. I don’t like the way it smells.”

Oscar Predictions 2012

I guess I can’t put this off anymore.  The Oscars will be presented on Sunday and this year I believe I have seen more nominees than in any year since I began this blog, (29/53 total nominees).  However, this feels like one of the most unpredictable years I have ever witnessed.  So, here are my somewhat informed, probably completely wrong Oscar predictions:

Cinematography

Life of Pi, no other film comes close to its visual beauty.

Costume Design

Haven’t seen 3 of these nominees…Why not Anna Karenina? Pretty dresses often help in this category.

Sound Mixing

Leaning towards Les Mis, mostly because of the mix of cannons and singing.

Editing

Zero Dark Thirty, I just feel it.

Sound Editing

Django?  I mean come on, how many westerns have won this category?

Visual Effects

The Hobbit, maybe because I saw it in HFR 3D.

Makeup and Hairstyling

The Hobbit again.  Did you see all those crazy beards?

Original Song

Skyfall for Skyfall because Skyfall.  Anyone else psyched for a the Academy’s tribute to Bond films?

Original Score

Life of Pi, mostly because I really didn’t notice the other scores much and found this so beautiful.

Animated Short

Head Over Heels.  Inventive, imaginative and a lot of heart.

Feature Documentary

So, I thought I saw all of them this year (it would have been my first year to do so!) but I kinda accidentally skipped The Gatekeepers and saw The Imposter instead.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  So..The Gatekeepers! Cause it would be just my luck to miss out on the best.

Foreign

Amour, duh.  Did Up or Toy Story 3 lose best animated when they were also up for best picture?  No.  It’s in the bag.

Animated Feature

Ok, let’s break it down: ParaNorman and Frankenweenie seem to be treading in the same territory and may step on each other’s toes.  Pixar didn’t bring their best work with Brave, that may cost them.  Wreck-It Ralph depends on pop culture too heavily.  Therefore, The Pirates!

Best Actor

As much as I loved the other performances, especially Cooper’s, I bet Daniel Day-Lewis gets this.  He was a phenomenal Lincoln.

Best Actress

This feels like such a weird category this year.  Seriously, our ladies’ ages range nearly 80 years.  But I think it will fall in the middle, on Jennifer Lawrence.  She was such a force in SLP.

Supporting Actress

Anne Hathaway.  Nuf said.

Supporting Actor

This is tough, partially cause I’m still waiting for DiCaprio to be nominated.  But it might be De Niro.  He owned his scenes.

Original Screenplay

As much as I want to root for the sweet, quirky and wonderful Moonrise Kingdom, I feel like Django will take it.  And Tarantino’s speech will be awesome.

Adapted Screenplay

SLP had such a great script, I loved every conversation.  I really hope it takes this one….and more.

Director

First…the camera might just pan over Affleck as whoever is presenting is blathering on for irony.  Poor Ben.  Honestly, I’m happy if it’s David O. Russell or Ang Lee. If I had to bet on one, it would be Lee.

Best Picture

In the 3 years that I have been keeping this blog, it hasn’t been this hard to pick a favorite for BP.  There was only one film I didn’t really like (Lincoln) but it’s still so good.  Honestly, you might have better luck tossing the names on a dartboard and blindly throwing to pick it.  Lincoln, Argo, Django, Les Mis and ZDT all have some historical elements and could split that vote.  Then again, Hollywood loves stories of itself in their movies (remember the Artist and Hugo last year?), therefore I can’t count Argo out just yet.  Amour isn’t easy to digest.  Beasts is really indie.  That leaves Life of Pi,  SLP and Argo.  Now that is tough, two of these 3 are my favorites.  However, there has been a curse lately that director follows picture…so there goes Argo.  Now, I’m predicting Lee to win director, so naturally his film will take the cake.  There, Life of Pi to win best picture…but I’m not sure.

Also, Seth MacFarlane will use his “Stewy” voice no less than 8 times.  And I will make it a drinking game.

Let me know what you think and enjoy Oscar night!

Lincoln

It has been an interesting year in film for our sixteenth president.  Over the summer, he was portrayed as an ax wielding vampire hunter, which was just as entertaining as it was fictitious.  Now, Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis have brought Honest Abe to the big screen in a drama at the height of the Civil War to portray him as a great president truly working for the best interests of his entire country.

The film does an excellent  job of showing the audience everything that rests on Lincoln’s shoulders.  As president, his main agenda is to end the Civil War, but he realizes that passing the thirteenth amendment (which would abolish slavery) would bring a better end to the war and leave the country less divided afterward.  However, securing enough votes in the house of representatives is not an easy task, some minds cannot be changed.  The longer this debate goes on, so goes the war, with countless lives lost.

At home, Lincoln’s family life is in turmoil as well.  His wife, Mary (Sally Field) falls into deep despair often over the death of their younger sons.  She seems close to her husband, able to break down and tell him her true feelings, but seems to resent his power and responsibilities.  The strong smiling face she puts on in public is a heavy mask to bear.  Their older son, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) wants to join the army, though his parents disapprove fearing for his life while Robert fears for his honor.  And their younger son, Tad (Gulliver McGrath) is asking many hard questions about the war, slavery and how slaves are treated.  Lincoln cannot fix the past for his wife, he’s trying to save Robert from being another loss to the war and he wants to make the future brighter for Tad.

Daniel Day-Lewis portrays Lincoln beautifully.  Physically, we get an aging, tired man who stands slowly, often leans on things and will wrap his shoulders in an old blanket.  His power is in his wits, his oddly humorous personality and his ability to connect with his people.  From the very first scene of the film, I was engrossed in and looked forward to Lincoln’s small stories to make his points.  These come in handy and carry the same tone whether he is talking to a few soldiers, his cabinet or an entire crowd.  And that voice Day-Lewis uses for Lincoln, a bit soft spoken, but never weak makes his Lincoln more easy to connect with.  His Oscar nomination is well deserved, another win, is nearly in the bag.

As well done as this film is, I got a little bored and didn’t find it very enjoyable.  In fact, it feels very preachy and drawn out.  Much of the film focuses on changing minds in the house of representatives in order to secure enough votes to pass the thirteenth amendment.  Spielberg tries to get us more connected to each of these key politicians, and a few do stick, especially Tommy Lee Jones’ character, Thaddeus Stevens.  However, there are just too many, their bickering and voting seems to go on forever and I know enough history that there is not much suspense.  Spoiler alert US history dropouts, the amendment will pass.

This is an excellent film that addresses Lincoln as a man, a president and a tactical politician.  Though it’s rated PG-13, many kids might be bored by the film, unless they’re really into history.  At some points I felt I needed to brush up on history and government knowledge, but the film never really held me back.

“I wish He had chosen an instrument more wieldy than the House of Representatives.”

My Left Foot

Based off Christy Brown’s autobiography, My Left Foot tells the story of his life as an artist, poet and writer in Ireland with cerebral palsy.  Christy (Daniel Day-Lewis as an adult, Hugh O’Conor as a child) was born into a poor Irish Catholic family who tend to have a new child every year or so.  From the moment Christy is born, his father seems withdrawn and upset due to his son’s condition.  As a boy, we see Christy is a loved outcast of the family, assumed to be both physically and mentally handicapped.  All he can do is sit in a little nook under the staircase, receiving sympathetic looks as the rest of his siblings leave for school.  The only one who treats him with any real humanity is his mother (Brenda Fricker).

It isn’t until Christy is about nine years old that his family even knows that he can communicate.  As a child, he does not talk and everyone, especially his father (Ray McAnally), seems to just assume he’s inept.  Christy learns that he can control his left foot and demonstrates his ability to think and communicate by writing “mother” on the floor in chalk.  This accomplishment turns the whole family to suddenly value Christy and see that he has great intelect.

As Christy grows into his late teens and into adulthood, he deals with the adolescent issues in his own way and turns his left foot abilities to painting and poetry.  While he is accepted by his siblings, showing his worth to their friends is more challenging, especially with the girls.  At one point, Christy paints a picture for a girl.  She swoons, thinking it is from his brother, Tommy, but then is embarrassed and gives it back to Christy, breaking his heart.

With Christy showing more and more talent in his painting, his mother saves up for a wheelchair and hires Dr. Eileen Cole (Fiona Shaw) to teach him speech therapy and help accelerate his artistic career.  Christy has never received so much positive attention from a woman before and starts to mistake their relationship as love, sending him into an alcohol fueled depression where he contemplates suicide.  Through this dark chapter of Christy’s life, he finds new awakenings in his artistic mindset and sets out to write his story.

By now, most film fans know the scene from Tropic Thunder about never playing a fully disabled person with no redeemable qualities.  If you have caught the film unedited, the rather crude phrase is, “Never go full retard.”  Though Robert Downy Jr. only mentions mentally disabled characters, I feel that Daniel Day-Lewis in his Oscar winning role as Christy Brown is worthy of praise in this razor’s edge brand of acting.  To portray someone with a case of cerebral palsy with accuracy and decency is one of the greatest challenges I can imagine an actor having.  Daniel Day-Lewis does a fantastic job here keeping Christy authentic and letting his wonderfully smart alic personality shine through a debilitating condition that can often define who someone is, no matter their intellect.  Between the movements, the stance in the wheelchair and the speech patterns Daniel Day-Lewis portrays this condition honestly without falling into an offensive caricature.  It isn’t long into the film that we get over the initial shock of the condition and stop seeing Christy as a man with cerebral palsy, but simply a man of flesh, blood, with poetic genius and an artist’s heart.  Daniel Day-Lewis can worm Christy straight into your heart and then send him into a downward spiral with such ease and gusto, I would rate this performance over his other Oscar winning role in There Will Be Blood.

The story of Christy Brown told here is captivating and inspiring.  What I liked most is that Christy is not shown to be a perfect human being despite his imperfect condition.  He has some huge faults that make him all the more human.  The embarrassing, drunken scene he makes in a restaurant is one of the greatest feats I’ve seen from any actor or director on such a simple scale.  For those interested in the life of Christy Brown or want to see Daniel Day-Lewis in his greatest role, My Left Foot is a must see.

“All is nothing, therefore nothing must end.”

A Room with a View

“Don’t you agree that on one’s first visit to Florence, one must have a room with a view?”

Though I have never been to Florence, I must agree.  Whether I’m looking thirty stories over Boston, sitting in a window to watch the rain pour over the Black Forest or climbing on furniture to peep my head out a skylight to see the Swiss Alps in the distance, it’s always worth it to get a room with a view.  Of course, in A Room with a View, with its Edwardian society, scaling furniture is ever deemed appropriate.  There is a dignified air that must be maintained at all times.  So when Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) and her chaperon Charlotte (Maggie Smith) find themselves view-less in Florence, they hesitate on trading rooms with the kind Emersons, a father and son on holiday.  How rude it would be to leap at such kindness, so the Emersons take the initiative and make the trade, reasoning that, “Women like looking at a view.  Men don’t.”

The trade is worth it and they spend time with the Emersons in Florence.  As Lucy and young George (Julian Sands) experience misadventures together a bond grows which eventually leads to George kissing Lucy on a day in the country.  Unfortunately, Charlotte sees this lewd behavior and must get Lucy back to England without anyone knowing about the incident.  They make a pact to never speak of it to anyone, for the sake of Lucy’s reputation and for Charlotte’s job.

Not long after returning to England, Lucy accepts the proposal of Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis).  While socially, this is wonderful for Lucy, it looks like a trap for such a passionate young lady.  Cecil is extremely snobby and cynical, I doubt he could ever know real enjoyment in anything.  Their first kiss, that Cecil is extremely formal and cautious about taking, is so hilariously awkward his glasses nearly fall off.  All it does is make Lucy remember her and George together, the relationships are quite opposite.

Things get stirred up when the Emersons are staying close by.  This puts Lucy and Charlotte into a damage control status.  But it turns out that Charlotte has broken their silent pact and told Eleanor Lavish (Judi Dench), a novelist, about Lucy and George’s moment together.  Now that scene is in full detail in her latest book, which Cecil reads aloud in front of Lucy and George.  This only flares up the flames Lucy left Florence over.  In this society of repression will Lucy choose the safe path with Cecil or the one that will make her happy with George?

I always find Edwardian and Victorian era films so fascinating because of their quiet repression.  In A Room with a View, it seems we’re on the threshold of the modern era and some of the young people are trying to move forward while most of the older generation are trying to hold them back.  We see Lucy playing Beethoven on the piano with such passion and vigor she’s sometimes scolded by older women for it.  Yet, Mr. Emerson (Denholm Elliott) seems to encourage George in his eccentricities and eventually encourages Lucy to accept her love for George.

One scene I was not expecting in this sort of film was the scene where George, Lucy’s younger brother Fred (Rupert Graves) and the priest go for a swim.  It starts off like a normal summertime swim, the boys strip down and splash around.  Eventually they start horsing around and chasing each other naked around the pond.  Surely this is not proper etiquette, and it only gets better when Lucy arrives at the pond hilariously horrified at the nudity displayed before her.  Just remember that British films are very generous about male nudity, you will get more ball shots here than most Edwardian women saw in their lifetime.

I enjoyed A Room with a View much more than I thought I would.  The elegant society, the forbidden romance and tip-toed scheming all drew me in so well.  Plus, it is all filmed in such beautiful scenes and lavishly landscaped courtyards.  Unless you are the kind that can only watch action movies, I highly recommend this film.

“A young girl, transfigured by Italy!  And why shouldn’t she be transfigured?  It happened to the Goths!”

In the Name of the Father

In Belfast Ireland, Gerry Conlon (Daniel Day Lewis) is not a model citizen.  In the first few scenes of the film, we’re shown how he’s a petty thief, stealing scrap metal and then inciting a riot against the IRA.  With all the trouble he’s stirring up, Gerry’s father, Giuseppe (Pete Postlethwaite) sends his son to London to let things cool down at home.  He gives Gerry a little advise, “Remember, honest money goes further.”  Gerry’s the kind of wayward son that just shrugs this off, “He had a cliche for every occasion.”

While in London, Gerry’s ways don’t change.  Instead of staying with family and looking for work, he finds a house full of hippies, where he can find free love and dope.  When bombings start happening in London, some of the hippies become suspicious of Gerry.  He did just come from Ireland.  After a pub is bombed, while Gerry was looking for a place to sleep and stealing money from a hooker, he becomes the main suspect.  He is arrested at his family’s home and they all become accomplices with the bombing.

Gerry is innocent, but after days of fierce interrogation and being told he did it, Gerry breaks and signs whatever the police want him to.  That breaking point comes after one officer whispers a threat into Gerry’s eat that he’s going to kill his father.  It’s an eerie scene, the way that man just plays with Gerry is horrible and rightly sends Gerry over the edge.  With Gerry signing the confession, he, his father and two others are sentenced to life in prison.

From here, it’s father and son, two innocent men in jail.  Given the name of the film, I was dreading a conventional father-son bonding time where Giuseppe brings Gerry into the right light using faith.  Thankfully, the film only lightly brushes against that idea, bringing the father and son closer but overall it becomes a struggle within prison.  And when Joe McAndrew (Don Baker), the man who confessed to and really did bomb the pub is brought into their prison, times get tougher but stakes are higher.

The real motive in this film, is to prove that Gerry and all accused with him are innocent.  That takes one determined lawyer, Gareth Peirce (Emma Thompson) and a long listen to Gerry’s tapes telling his story.

In the end, the film didn’t really get to me.  It was just another one of those movies making sure to tell the real story behind a huge injustice.  While morally, I applaud that (and the Academy often does too), I wasn’t feeling a good balance between the struggles of prison life and the injustice happening outside the prison.  The first part of the film was much more exciting than the time in prison.  I completely understand that the focus is on Gerry and Giuseppe during the imprisonment stage of the story, but about the other nine people wrongly accused?  Besides later hearing the time they served they are not important.

A father-son wrongly go to prison movie doesn’t sound like a good father-son movie night, does it?  Instead, I would suggest In the Name of the Father if you’re interested in films about real-life injustice.  If you’re not into such serious topics that ultimately can bum you out, skip it.  Daniel Day Lewis is always good, but he’s better now with an awesome mustache anyway.

“You haven’t the maturity to take care of yourself, let alone your mother.”

There Will Be Blood

Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) is an ambitious oil man.  He’s spent his adult life out in the desert risking his life to dig mines and pump oil from the ground.  With his young son and partner, H.W. (Dillon Freasier) he gets a tip from young man Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) about a place called Little Boston full of oil .  Daniel and H.W. venture out there claiming to hunt for quails and try to get on good terms with the Sunday family, who own a sizable ranch.  Paul’s tip proves accurate; oil just seeps from the ground.  So Daniel offers to buy the ranch from the Sundays with no mention of oil, hoping to get a cheap price (i.e. swindle the poor family off their oil goldmine).  But Paul’s twin brother, Eli (also Dano) knows about the oil and ups the price, wanting to put it toward his church.  Daniel sees that Eli is going to be quite the obstacle.

So tables start turning in Little Boston go create the oil well.  At the opening ceremony, Eli wants to give the well a proper (and public) blessing, but Daniel just kinda glosses over that.  When tragedy strikes, Eli turns it against Daniel and says it could have been avoided with his simple blessing.

The middle of the film just kinda drags for a while.  It’s the setup, the tragedy and the end that act as the meat.  That middle bit with the brother helps us expand Daniel’s character a bit, but feels like a limp leaf of lettuce on an otherwise delicious sandwich.

The soundtrack is composed mostly of a string quartet to add their input on the overall unhappy mood.  They play very long violin chords that just kinda hang and hum in and out of pitch.  Then as a more action arises they play something a little more plucky.  The whole feel is very simple and nothing in the film that needs a sweeping orchestra.

The film is very visual, no words spoken for nearly the first twenties minutes.  First, we must see process of finding oil, watch the hard labor, the bodies in motion, the rickety rigs, the black glistening goop being brought up in buckets.  Only then can we appreciate the voices that come later and truly understand the oil spewing from the earth, into the sky and raining back down.

One of the best scenes is when the oil well explodes or gushes, I’m not sure what the technical term is.  Anyway, the music starts like a very subtle Jaws theme and suddenly a rope shakes out of control and  H.W. thrown about twenty feet backwards.  Oil spews up to the sky and rains down. The music turns to a racing heartbeat of percussion as Daniel runs with H.W.  When the spraying oil goes up in flames, the camera moves across field running with the men running to the burning well.  The inferno burns into the night, beautiful and terrifying.  Or perhaps it isn’t night, there’s blue sky, a red glow from fire and the frame nearly outlined in black smoke.  There’s something eerie and less human about oil covered faces glowing in light of the flames and silhouettes against the fire.  If you want to see why this won cinematography, this scene says it all.

Don’t beat me with your bibles, but in this film, religion is used as a tool to get ahead.  It gives Eli power and authority in his community and later in the film it gives Daniel a second chance to be accepted and trusted by the community he once wronged.  That’s just how it is here: plain, simple and bleak.

Hang in there though, the ending is worth the wait and finally fulfills the title.

“I’m finished!”

Gangs of New York

Think about the wild west set in New York.  Instead of cowboys and indians there are Irish and Italians.  Throw in some conflict with the Civil War and you’ve got Gangs in New York.

The film starts with young Amsterdam (no older than eight) watching his father, the Priest (Liam Neeson), die at the hand of Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis) in a huge street battle against the Italians.  With his father dead and the Five Points area ruled by the Butcher, Amsterdam is sent away to get an education and returns sixteen years later during the midst of the Civil War.  Luckily, hardly anyone recognizes Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio), except his old pal Johnny (Henry Thomas) and his father’s loyal friend, Monk (Brendan Gleeson).  The Butcher takes Amsterdam under his wing, unaware of his identity.  Amsterdam wants revenge on the Butcher, but you know the saying, friends close enemies closer.

I know I’ve said this before, but one of my favorite things about a Scorsese film is the epic violence, and Gangs is no exception.  The beginning battle where the Priest dies really sets the tone, telling the audience that there will be blood.  (Ha!  Sorry, Daniel Day-Lewis joke.)  When we know a film isn’t afraid to spill it and let it flow, that can set up some amazing tension for later in the film.

The knife throwing scene streatches the tension to agonizing lengths.  By this point in the film, we’re aware of the bloodshed the Butcher is capable of and he’s powerful enough to get away with anything.  He can make the line “Whoopsie daisy!” absolutely frightening.  With every knife flung and then clapped into the wood our adrinaline pulses more.  We’re thinking it could be the next knife, or the next that he hurls straight into some fragile flesh.  You almost wish it would happen already, and that’s what makes it riviting and brilliant.

Gangs of New York had a god ten nominations on Oscar night, but came home empty handed, and I’ve got to agree.  While it is good and deserves the recognition, it isn’t the best.  The story is engaging enough, everything is visually well done and Daniel-Day Lewis knows how to steal the show with his volatile ruthlessness, but next to the competition Gangs just comes up short.

I don’t want to diss this film, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  It looks cool, feels cool and doesn’t bog you down.  If you’re looking for a wild west feel with a look at New York during the Civil War, look no further.  Scorsesse, DiCaprio or Day Lewis fans need to pick this up.  For those who enjoy an old fashioned bloody time, you’ve gotta see this.

“It’s a funny feeling being taken under the wing of a dragon. It’s warmer than you’d think.”