AMERICAN ASSASSIN

Cold-blooded killer Jack (George Clooney) is hanging up his sniper rifle after one last job in Anton Corbijn’s The American. Stripped of profuse action sequences or superfluous subplots, this quiet drama is what would happen to Bond films if anyone cared enough to explore character and story.

Jack is an enigmatic conundrum of an assassin. He’s a lonely loner – a reluctant killer. As any seasoned hit man would know, it’s best to not befriend the local priest or neighborhood whore while working. But that’s exactly what Jack does on his last mission. Lessons go unlearned after he is forced to shoot an innocent Russian bedmate in the back of her head, but that doesn’t stop Jack from falling in love with a beautiful brothel employee in Italy.

Disheartened bad boys aren’t a novelty the action genre, but director Corbijn takes careful time to establish his cast in an intimate way; every character here has a secret worth keeping hidden.

Clara (Violante Placido) is Jack’s sexy Italian hooker du jour. What begins as a love affair of convenience takes a different shape as the two get to know each other over picnicking and dinner dates. Sound like true love? It doesn’t really matter. Jack and Clara’s loneliness as individuals is palpable and heartbreaking; their connection is based on an attempt to fill an empty void within themselves – and that’s okay.

Most of Jack’s time alone is spent in his hotel room, where he does push up’s and peruses books that satisfy his obsession with butterflies (imperative shots of butterfly neck tattoos included). The coolest part of Jack’s home away from home? He uses it as a workplace to assemble rifles for terrorist clients – homemade weapons partly made from (because if Clooney can’t, no one can…) used car parts.

Some of the best scenes are between Jack and neighborhood priest Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli). Like a teenager can spot a Twilight actor in a crowd, the priest pinpoints Jack as a man in need of confession. Interestingly enough, Jack isn’t drawn to anyone who doesn’t have some secrets of their own, and Benedetto’s no saint.

As broken and twisted as these characters are, they are all worth rooting for. The American is a departure from today’s run of the mill suave-killer’s-gonna-shoot-‘em action film. Make no mistake, Corbijn’s movie will keep audiences guessing and wanting more – more intimate scenes between Jack and gorgeous terrorist client Mathilde, more homemade rifle assembly, more dinner drinks with Jack and Benedetto.

You’ll be curious where these characters end up. The American chronicles the sentiments that live in moments, and these moments are well worth the wait.


- Hillary Smotherman

ROUTINE SEX: DRESSED UP IN MANOLOS

Mouths worldwide were left agape in 1998 when HBO debuted its groundbreaking series, Sex and the City. “Do women really talk like that?” The show introduced 30 and 40 something’s Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda as workaholic, fashionista New Yorkers with a propensity to discuss sex like horny college frat boys. SATC marked the end of days when men thought they were the only ones who used the “c-word” – don’t make me say it – to describe women.

Series creator Michael Patrick King delivered a nice little bonbon with 2008’s film version of the show. Crude and colorful, fun and uncomfortably honest in almost all the right ways, the film was widely accepted by critics. 2010’s follow up is equally decadent and gay; “gay,” as it is traditionally defined as “merry,” and also gay as it refers to groom-groom weddings in Connecticut, complete with choir boys donning silver top hats who sing renditions of “Sunrise, Sunset” for the invitees.

The film is episodic like the series, cut into geographic and storied vignettes. From “broom” wedding (that’s bride plus groom for the SATC lingo-challenged) to Manhattan, to opulent vacation in the Middle East and back. It would be more effective if the vignettes had plots, but they really don’t. The characters are already established and mostly remain static, experiencing as much new growth as Samantha experiences new sexual positions.

The true SATC cult following won’t care about the lack of substance here. SATC 2 is like having a candy lollipop (no phallic pun intended) for dinner – while it leaves you wanting nourishment and adults might be embarrassed to sustain themselves with something so frivolous, it’s indulgent and satisfying for a few hours.

The nourishing plot points in the layers of the sticky-sweet, saccharin SATC 2 pop? Miranda is under-appreciated at work. Charlotte struggles to maintain her sanity while her buxom nanny juggles her kids without a bra. Carrie defends her unconventional marriage with Big, after they decide to live in separate apartments for two days a week. And Samantha? A little slap from the Middle Eastern hand of the law when she learns she can’t be “affectionate” in public while on vacation.

The film never takes itself too seriously, which is to its credit. There are brutally honest and heartfelt scenes (watch Charlotte lose it when her child finger paints her vintage Valentino skirt) thrown into the mix with force-fed moments of infidelity with past love interests that don’t actually serve as a method for dynamic change, but who cares? This lollipop looks so good when dressed in Gucci on vacation in Abu Dhabi!

Bigger is better with this sequel, which packs in appearances from former series flames and inflates ostentatious to a whole new level when the girls get an all-expense paid vacation equipped with everything from private butlers and limousines to hand-picked glittery garbs for camel rides.

Cameos by Liza Minelli (covering a Beyonce song in tight black sequins) and Miley Cirus (who upstages Samantha on the red carpet in an US Weekly who-wore-it-better moment) will leave SATC cult members squealing with excitement.

Whenever SATC 2 aims for honesty or a faint touch of reality, it falls short. Carrie’s poor book reviews and careless relationship decisions are barely covered in the story, and the audience’s nonchalance will follow probable suit. The harsh reality of oppressed Middle Eastern women is continually made light of, ultimately dismissed as an issue easily solved by donning the new Louis Vuitton line under a burka.

Whatever. Sex and the City 2 provides a nice little reality distraction for its cult members. And if all they find at the center of the lollypop is an abundance of sexual profanity and Liza Minelli dancing at a gay wedding, they’ll get their money’s worth.


- Hillary Smotherman

MASQUERADING AS ROBIN HOOD

Russell Crowe teams up with director Ridley Scott for the fifth time with Robin Hood. It’s difficult to forget the massive entertainment these two forces brought audiences with 2000’s Gladiator, and with similar promises of Crowe sporting armor and archery, bloody civil war battle scenes and a love story complete with Cate Blanchett, Robin Hood vows to be a timeless epic adventure.

Right…? Wrong.

The classic tale of Robin Hood brings to mind certain unalienable concepts. 13th century battles won with fiery bows and arrows. Robbing the rich to feed the poor. The dynamic between Marion and Hood. Ridley Scott’s version of the story dangles the Crowe-in-armor carrot in front of unassuming audiences this weekend, only for moviegoers to discover Crowe isn’t even playing Robin Hood.

Here Crowe is actually Robin Longstride, an archer in King Richard’s army who takes fate into his own hands after finding the king and some of his best men dead on the battlefield. Assuming the identity of fallen knight Robert Loxely, Robin and his friends deliver the king’s crown to Queen Eleanor (Eileen Atkins).

The film is more of a poorly guided history lesson than the justice-seeking, triumphant Hood tale audiences are used to. Newly appointed King John (Oscar Isaac) can barely contain his excitement over his brother’s death; now he can publicly blame mom for paying France a hefty ransom to get Richard out of jail that left England in debt. He can also pinky swear to his trusting subjects, led now by Robin “of the hood,” that he’ll sign a charter guaranteeing them certain rights if they all fight for England.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think audiences thought they were paying $10 to learn about the horrors of King John and the Magna Carta when they signed up for the director of Gladiator’s version of Robin Hood.

The film feels similar to Gladiator. Crowe’s scenes with Sir Walter Loxely (Max Von Sydow) are reminiscent of the father-son-like moments between Crowe and Richard Harris in the 2000 film. The following of armor-clad citizens being led by Crowe to possible death is oddly familiar, but ever so much more dull and forcibly didactic with Hood.

Between sub-plots involving English traitors close to the king, Robin uncovering the meaning of his father’s death when he was a child, and a pretend-turned-(surprise!)-real relationship with Marion, it’s possible to actually miss the few Robin Hood-esque moments in Robin Hood.

Doze off for a second (and you might) in the first hour and you’ll miss one of the film’s two master archer follow-Robin’s-arrow-to-the-target moments. And there’s something to be said of the fist-pumping speeches given by this Robin. There are none, really. Only a short lecture the length of a Rhianna ring tone (and probably just as inspiring) describing a country’s need for equality of income to preserve honor. Honor schm-onor.

Whether it’s King John lying to England or Robin impersonating someone he is not, there are few honorable moments or storylines to follow here. Perhaps it’s fitting for modern audiences to watch someone masquerade publicly as a hero, promising citizens things they won’t get. Some might agree that Americans are fairly used to disappointment by now – they just didn’t expect it from Crowe and Scott.

- Hillary Smotherman

WHEN SUPERHEROES BECOME ROCK STARS

A rock star hero with narcissistic tendencies. A revenge-thirsty physicist villain with a special suit equipped with electric lightening whips as weapons. An impossibly sexy assistant for rock star who isn’t who she says she is. A seedy senator and greedy US government eager to get their hands on rock star’s “weapon” suit. A palladium core imbedded in our hero’s chest necessary to keep him alive that is poisoning his blood, slowly killing him. Welcome to the first 45 minutes of Iron Man 2.

More plot will be added in the second half – but don’t expect this second installment of the franchise to be weighed down or tired. Fret not about director Jon Favreau dizzying the film with superfluous shots or shoving story down your throat, because he won’t. Don’t be intimidated by an almost entirely Oscar-recognized cast, most of their best recent work in this film. Iron Man 2 is so entertaining, you’ll forget how well done is.

The release of any sequel following a wildly successful predecessor is nearly impossible to live up to. But Iron Man 2 is a spine-tingling adventure, artful and well-designed enough to take it’s seat with comic book sequels like The Dark Knight and Spider Man 2.

Everything has grown since the first film. Public approval of Iron Man/Tony Stark (played by the always endearing Robert Downey Jr.) has reached new heights - as has Stark’s ego. Claiming the world’s longest peaceful run due to Iron Man, Stark charms a courtroom and walks out of a senate hearing before dismissal, blowing kisses at the cameras.

All of this film’s characters have motives of their own, even some closest to Iron Man. At Stark’s birthday party, buddy Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) steals a superhero suit for the government, after a drunken Stark uses his suit to shoot watermelons into pieces in front of an excited crowd (all this after Stark calling attention to urinating – yes, urinating – in the suit).

Stories oscillate from Ivan building warrior drones for Hammer and the US government to shame Stark at his own expo, to Stark searching for a solution to his palladium health problem. And audiences will embrace Stark’s self-described “sold-ish” relationship with Pepper, watching her squirm with envy as he hires Natalie (a seductive Scarlett Johansson) as secretary after Tony hands Pepper the keys to Stark Enterprises.

The strongest scenes shine with comeback kid Mickey Rourke, who plays villain Ivan Ranko to perfection. Seeking revenge for a dead father who was shamed by Stark Sr., Ivan harnesses electrical energy in a contraption to rival Iron Man’s suit. After Stark’s technology rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) bails Ivan out of jail in an attempt to join forces against Iron Man, one wonders how long Ivan will play nice with Hammer – especially when he greets Ivan for the first time with a mouthful of food and wearing a napkin as a bib.

Not a beat is missed in this movie. All hail to comedic actors turned-directors (Ben Stiller very much included) who know how to conceptualize a film and work with actors. Favreau’s second Iron Man installment will leave very few people wanting more. More action. More comedy. More pitch-perfect dialogue or back and forth banter. Crucial fight sequences between Iron Man and Ranko will leave audiences cheering.

If moviegoers stick around for the credits, as all gracious and grateful audience members should, they just might get a taste of Iron Man 3 sequel set-up. Fitting for Favreau to tease Iron Man fans with a scene as they’re exiting the theatre. Every rock star leaves the stage at least once before rushing back for a crowd-pleasing encore.

- Hillary Smotherman

A NIGHTMARE, INDEED

Moviegoers should be petrified. They should purchase their tickets with trepidation. Their bodies should shake uncontrollably with anxiety, as their fingernails leave rips in the faux velvet that lines their movie seat. Nothing says “scary” like poorly written villains killing people no one will care about losing, in a movie viewers will only care about finishing. Producer Michael Bay has brought Freddy back, and the result is horrifying.

After breathing new financial life into fright franchises like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, and Friday the 13th, Bay continues his launch of critical horror failures with the reincarnation of Nightmare on Elm Street. One can expect almost any film with a Bay endorsement to come lacking in character definition and believable storyline. If audiences bought the romance in Pearl Harbor, rooted for the escape from The Island, or cried when Bruce Willis gave his life for planet Earth in Armageddon, perhaps the absurdity in Elm Street’s fear factor won’t make a difference.

Bay’s recipe for success with 2010’s version of Elm Street? Open the movie killing an actor from Twilight (Kellan Lutz), keep the movie current with references to using ADD medicine as speed, and embellish a seedy, pornographic plotline to further define a child murderer as “bad.”

2010’s moviegoers are savvy, and today’s successful slasher film formula requires more than busty bimbos running down empty streets and pounding on a neighbor’s door for help they won’t get. The supposed fear-inducing moments in Elm Street are so contrived and expected, so crudely acted and manipulative – intelligent audiences will feel cheated.

Freddy Kruger (played by Oscar nominated Jackie Earle Haley) is Elm Street’s notorious villain. The original 1984 film explains that Kruger was a child murderer acquitted of his crimes and later killed by a group of parents whose children were victimized. Kruger seeks revenge on these kids and their families, stalking them in their dreams. Nightmares become reality; characters force themselves to stay awake and fail, waking up to bed sheets slashed by Kruger’s knife-clad fingernails. Campy, gory and suspenseful, the original movie kept audiences on the edge of their seats.

The new spin with 2010’s Elm Street? There isn’t one. Teenagers of sub-par intelligence stalked by Kruger in their dreams: check. Emotionally battered heroines backed by their emotionally retarded male suitors: check. Beyond inept characters and inane story, what is so disturbing about Elm Street is its obsession with Kruger’s pedophilia. Elm Streets’ characters spend precious screen time doubting the validity of their parents’ (and their own) accusations against Freddy. But every time the movie gets a heartbeat, director Samuel Bayer (this week’s music video director du jour) interjects moronic flashbacks and bizarre dialogue that ruins the tempo of the film.

It’s never attractive to watch a film attempt to be something it’s not. This is a slasher flick devoid of gore, lacking in body count and tension. It’s a scary movie that bores other dull scary movies. This is a disappointing teen horror flick trying to take its place among more mature, intellectual films in its genre like 2002’s The Ring. This is a film with characters so confusing and melodramatic (some stay awake by drinking coffee – some, by burning themselves with car cigarette lighters and injecting themselves with stolen adrenaline), it is more than difficult to care whether they survive their plight.

Welcome to Michael Bay’s first cinematic lie of 2010 - masquerading as a real film, it is poorly concocted, bloody teen camp at its worst.

- Hillary Smotherman

DIRECTOR GONE WILD

Music video director Sylvain White must have been thrilled to helm a mainstream comic film, after delivering critical disasters like the straight-to-video horror flick I’ll Always Know What you did Last Summer and the dance-themed, battle-driven movie Stomp the Yard. I didn’t anticipate much from this April action release, and I was still disappointed in almost every way. I expected more from Friday Night Lights screenwriter Peter Berg than amateur banalities like “showtime fellas!” The filmic result of DC Comic’s war series is an utter mess – a one-and-a-half hour wild and exhibitionistic music video with a cast lackluster enough to make one reminisce the good old action movie days of the 90’s – when superstar heroes (Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan) weren’t given enough successive lines to ruin the film.

I usually love revenge movies because of the sheer simplicity of the story. Someone wronged you. Now you’re willing to put everything on the line for justice. Here we have a CIA special ops team sent in to the Bolivian backwoods to locate and destroy a drug operation. After the team is attacked and presumed dead, they decide to follow the voice on the (inter)”com” which led to their seeming demise. They escape South America through the help of Aisha (played by Avatar’s Zoe Saldana), a mysterious operative with her own plan. Masquerading as a native prostitute (I’m sure there is an ample supply of good-looking-enough-to-be-a-supermodel hookers roaming the backstreet bars in Bolivia), Aisha happens to know where they can find Max, the group’s enigmatic target on the other end of the “com."

The plot was thick enough with revenge, but it congeals like tar as we discover Max (played to uncanny, comic perfection by Jason Patric) intends to purchase “green” weapons of mass destruction. These smart bombs are described as “pure destruction. No pollution.” Terrorists with a conscience and a reverence for the environment? Absurdity.

This film is unbalanced and out of control in so many ways that it becomes comedy to continue watching. We expect Aisha to hook up with Clay (loser leader Jeffrey Dean Morgan), but when she saunters into his room at night, ready for action and holding a bottle of liquor, it’s more confusing than sexy. There’s been no establishment of a connection between them at all.

What’s even more daunting is the devotion the losers have to Clay. Established in the beginning of the film to be in charge of “operational control,” Clay is the officer in command. I get it. But there’s a nonchalant arrogance Morgan gives his character that seems completely unwarranted by any real talents or leadership. He wears a tuxedo shirt and slacks throughout the film for no reason I could decipher other than a futile attempt to channel George Clooney à la Ocean’s Eleven. Clooney was in a casino in that movie. And he’s Clooney.

The only engaging scenes in The Losers are owed to Patric’s cunning Max. Watch for the chemistry between him and his beefy sidekick Wade (Holt McCallany) as an exasperated Max places three orders for a firing squad. With the exception of this duo’s onscreen chemistry, the end of this film could not come quickly enough for me. With ostentatious shots that simultaneously speed up and slow down while zooming in and pulling out, then turn to comic Lichtenstein within five seconds, the speed of White’s movie alone will make the audience want to throw up his/her popcorn. The urge to regurgitate should only continue with lines like “payback’s a bitch,” and a steady bombardment of ridiculousness that does not stop (before a young Bolivian boy catches a helicopter ride to safety, note Morgan’s affected grin as he hands him a stuffed teddy bear and speaks to him in broken Spanish).

If you’d like to watch a good result of a music video director given reign with a feature film, rent David LaChapelle’s Rize. I understand entrusting an acclaimed video director with a documentary chronicling a dance movement. The only result you’ll get from watching The Losers is nausea. If you must see it, go to a matinee - and save the extra four dollars for Dramamine.


- Hillary Smotherman

A DISASTROUS DATE

There are people who will love Date Night. They won’t bat an eye at any of the film’s unexplored characters. They won’t mind that it doesn’t come close to providing the entertainment which similar husband-and-wife caper-oriented films like True Lies (or even the shoddy Pitt-Jolie remake of Mr. and Mrs. Smith) brought to audiences. They will sit back and revel in Steve Carell’s all-too-familiar understated campiness. They will marvel at just how far Tina Fey’s novice acting chops have come since Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update. What a wonderfully fulfilling 88 minutes this film must be for them. I am not one of those people.

Carell and Fey play Phil and Claire Foster, whose uneventful marriage takes an unexpected turn when their weekly date night turns criminal, after Phil steals another couples’ reservation at the hottest new restaurant in Manhattan. A case of mistaken identity leads two dirty cops (loyal to the mafia) to assume the Fosters are the Tripplehorns, who have some incriminating photos on a very important flash drive. Yes, the Fosters alert the mob goons as to their dishonest table-snatching scheme. No, these sub-intellectual detectives do not believe the boring Jersey husband and wife, who evade the duo and the New York City police impossibly and consistently throughout the movie.

You can expect several smile-inducing, albeit not knee-slapping moments from Fey and Carell. Fey’s SNL slapstick experience and lack of vanity onscreen is always refreshing (watch the thick trails of saliva fall out of her mouth as she removes her retainer before some possible intimacy with Carell). But the lack of chemistry and tension between Fey and Carell weighs Date Night down. The couple’s argument over who takes more responsibility in the marriage feels out of place and manipulative; the scenes meant to be pivotal and heartfelt feel canned and sappy.

The film’s best laughs come from stand-out cameo’s played by everyone from Ray Liotta to Mila Kunis. A bare-chested Mark Wahlberg steals scenes as a playboy security professional, while Kunis and James Franco (who have the flash drive the Fosters want) are fantastic as a gushy couple hiding from Liotta’s mob boss.

Date Night isn’t rocket science, and director Shawn Levy (of Cheaper by the Dozen and Night at the Museum franchise fame) knows this. Expect to be spoon-fed tender plot points that will be shoved back in your mouth at the end of the film. Count on the Fosters living through the inexplicable car chases and perilous shootouts. The real question at the end of any onscreen duo action movie is whether the pair is still willing to go on together. Has this experience put them through the wringer enough to tear them apart, or bring them closer together? I said it before. Audiences just might care about the fate of the Fosters. I, however, do not.


-Hillary Smotherman

THE OSCAR EDGE - WHO SHOULD WIN. WHO WILL.

BEST ACTOR

With his 5^th nomination, Jeff Bridges’ work has been recognized by the Academy for nearly 40 years. Solid turns in The Contender and Seabiscuit went unrewarded, but Bridges’ portrayal as a has-been country singer makes him a sure bet in this category. Freeman and Clooney were both recently honored with Oscars, in 2004 and 2005, respectively. International box office totals for (the Cohen brothers’) A Single Man came in at an abysmal $13 million – less people saw Firth’s performance in that film than adults waited in line to see New Moon. Unless The Hurt Locker upsets in several categories tomorrow night, Renner’s breakthrough role will sit second to Bridges.

Should win: Bridges

Will win: Bridges

BEST ACTRESS

I love it when actresses win Razzie’s (Worst Picture/Actor Awards) in the same year they’re nominated for Oscars. If I shut my eyes tight enough, I can still remember Halle Berry accepting her Razzie with her Best Actress Oscar in tow. We’ve watched Sandra Bullock portray the lovable girl-next-door repeatedly since 1994’s Speed, and this is as good as she gets, kids. Although Streep has been nominated a whopping 16 times (more than any other actor), she hasn’t gotten up to the podium to accept an Oscar since 1983’s Sophie’s Choice. Mirren won in this category four years ago with The Queen and won’t be honored for her work in this little-seen film. Mulligan’s British hailing won’t help her here, as it carried her to a Best Actress BAFTA Award, and Sidibe’s heartbreaking turn as a pregnant, illiterate teen has already won her all the awards she’ll see this season.

Should win: Streep

Will win: Bullock

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Every once in a while someone seemingly plucked from obscurity and placed into the open arms of Hollywood wins an Academy Award because they’re just that good (Marion Cotillard, Roberto Benigni). Give Christoph Waltz an Oscar. I haven’t loved to hate a villain as much as his Col. Hans Landa since Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter. No one will touch Waltz – not Damon’s inspiring rugby captain, Plummer’s Tolstoy, Harrelson’s alcoholic nor even Tucci’s homicidal turn in The Lovely Bones.

Should win: Waltz

Will win: Waltz

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

History has proven favorites in this category shockingly remain in their seats as unlikely winners take the stage. Kate Hudson had swept all other ceremonies until Marcia Gay Harden claimed the statuette for Pollock in 2000. This is also the “not-guaranteed-to-solidify-your-career-Oscar” – remember Jennifer Hudson? What about Mira Sorvino? Didn’t think so. So when Mo’Nique is celebrating the culmination of a near perfect awards season with her Oscar tomorrow night, we will hope that her luck continues after Precious. Penelope just won here last year with Vicki Christina Barcelona, and is lucky to be nominated in what I would label an almost total disaster for director Rob Marshall. Critic’s darling Gyllenhaal wasn’t nominated for a single other award this season for Crazy Heart, and won’t win here. Kendrick’s scene-stealing wasn’t enough for her to gain awards momentum in 2009. Farmiga’s ballsy traveler in Up in the Air was the stand-out performance in a film filled with poignant turns by major Hollywood heavy hitters, but it’ll be impossible for her to overcome the Mo’Nique train, especially since this is the only award that Oscar will bestow on Precious.

Should win: Farmiga

Will win: Mo’Nique

BEST DIRECTOR

Like Best Picture, this field belongs to Cameron and Bigelow. Cameron’s achievement isn’t easily ignored; Avatar is a spectacle to behold in terms of technical advancements in filmmaking. It has become more than just a film, but a phenomenon reaching far beyond blockbuster epic expectations. And that could come back to bite Avatar on its nicely shaped, blue-skinned behind. Mr. Tarentino hasn’t won an Oscar for directing, but this is unfortunately not his year to rise above Cameron’s massive undertaking or Bigelow’s supreme storytelling. Reitman’s turn will come soon, I’m sure. With 2007’s Juno and this year’s Up in the Air, we can count on this 33 year-old to deliver again. Lee Daniels is lucky to be included here, edging out the Oscar-winning Cohen brothers for a nomination. Bigelow’s slice of life war portrait of American soldiers in Iraq was the most poignant 2 hours of film I saw last year. Be watchful for Avatar-weary Academy members who may feel inclined to vote against the grain.

Should win: Bigelow

Will win: Cameron

- Hillary Smotherman

*For Best Picture Prediction, go to http://rosebudisa.blogspot.com/2010/03/dont-take-it-personally.html

DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY

Whoever decides where Kathryn Bigelow will sit for tomorrow’s Oscar ceremony is in on “it.” The red carpet reporters who decide to skip interviewing Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey (producers of An Education) for a quick twenty seconds with James Cameron know “it,” as well.

There are obvious front-runners during awards season no matter what organization is holding the ceremony. You can expect surprises at the SAG Awards, where any actor who made enough last year to buy a used Dodge Neon can vote for his/her favorite candidate. You can expect the unexpected at the BAFTA’s (the British version of the Oscars), where a European dialect is sure to make any actor a voting favorite (congratulations, Colin Firth). Even the Golden Globe Awards, decided by a handful of critics and journalists, have proven to turn heads and bestow statuettes to people who go on to be left out of the Oscar race, entirely (you’re a lucky guy, Robert Downey, Jr.).

What gives you “it” at other ceremonies doesn’t mean much at the Oscars. There’s a formula to success here, and the Academy hardly ever deviates from it. The “it” is all political. It doesn’t matter if you deserve to win – do you deserve to win THIS TIME?

As they mark their ballots each year, stuffy Academy members take political inventory. Have you won before – how recently, and how many times (Meryl, Jack)? Are you overdue for an Oscar (Winslet, Freeman and Scorsese get my drift), having been nominated consistently without a win? Will you be skipped by Oscar this year because we know you’ll be back soon (Leo)? Does the Academy have to recognize you because this is probably the best work you’ll ever do (Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, Sandra Bullock…?). And why does the pity category never transfer over to Best Actor (poor Tom Cruise)?

This year Best Picture is a close race, because politics are slim in the category. It’s between James Cameron’s Avatar and Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker. If you bet a dollar on any of the other eight films in this category and got lucky, you could buy a fancy new refrigerator with your winnings. Cameron’s won in this category before, but it’s been 13 years and he doesn’t make films very often. To be quite honest, the hype that follows Avatar and the assurance it will win here is dangerous. Have we not learned our lesson in handicapping since Shakespeare in Love’s triumph over Saving Private Ryan, or the shock of Crash’s win in 2005?

Bigelow is new to this Oscar thing, and her film has been quietly gaining recognition since its release last summer. She recently won top honors at the Director’s Guild of America Awards. In 60 years, only six times has the DGA winner not gone on to collect Best Picture at the Oscars.

I’m just sayin’.

Should win: The Hurt Locker

Will win: Avatar

- Hillary Smotherman

* For predictions of Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Director, go to http://rosebudisa.blogspot.com/2010/03/oscar-edge-who-should-win-who-will.html

CONGRATULATIONS - YOU SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED

Every year when the Oscar nominations roll around, there is almost always a “wild card” nominee in the Best Picture category. We’re all familiar with the wild card – that pitiful film just marginally special enough to have made the rank with the other, more deserving four. That one hundred-to-one shot people in Vegas will put a few bucks on “just for fun.” The director of this film will walk down the red carpet the night of the awards ceremony cloaked in shame. He is the one who continues to tell reporters along the carpet, “it’s such an honor to be recognized in this category.” He knows it. The reporters know it. The viewers at home are laughing about it. His film is good – really good. But there’s not a snowball’s chance in you-know-where that he’ll return home with Oscar gold.

Thanks to the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2010’s Oscar ceremony will not bring us just one of these unfortunate Best Picture nominees, but six. Last summer, the academy’s president (Sidney Ganis) announced they would be “casting (the) net wide,” in an attempt to include films more widely seen.”

So rarely do movie-going audiences get the chance to see all films up for Oscars. Unless you live in New York, Los Angeles, or a major city with theatre houses owned by people who don’t mind risking showing An Education over James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar, you probably won’t get the opportunity to see some films in the theatre. Because the academy wants the Oscar telecast to remain in the top 2 Neilson spots (television rankings, folks) with the Super Bowl, they’re going to widen the Best Picture category. No one can dispute that some films are just better than others. Because you can’t simply eliminate the best, broaden the category to include the mediocre.

There were four films this year we could count on to be voted into the Best Picture category: Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Bastards, and Up in the Air. Each year, the members of the academy vote for two categories: their own (if you’re registered as a “director,” you vote for Best Director, and so on) and for Best Picture. Members cast their ballots for Best Picture listing up to five names, ranked in order of preference.

This year, it’s as if we get to see the five or six films ranked last on those ballots. How embarrassing for The Blind Side. How exhilarating for Jonas Rivera (Up’s producer) to remain in his seat for this category after winning Best Animated Feature. I’m sure Peter Jackson and the Cohen Brothers won’t be writing acceptance speeches, their movies having won in recent years.

Ganis wanted to make sure that people watching the Oscar telecast felt included – that they had seen some of the films nominated in the Best Picture category. Ironic that the category is being widened in a year where there are probably only a handful of folks on this planet who haven’t seen (Avatar) the movie that will win in this category. Thank you, academy. Problem solved.

-Hillary Smotherman

A CYNCIAL DEPARTURE

You want to hate the characters in this film. Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) flies over 350,000 miles a year firing employees at companies whose bosses don’t “have the balls” to sack their own. He’s a work-a-holic loner. The most important things to Ryan: his American Airlines concierge key card, and accruing enough miles to get his name on the side of a plane.

Up in the Air is a comedy that takes itself seriously. It’s a drama that laughs at each uncomfortable situation in which its characters find themselves. Ryan’s boss (played by the always comically flawless Jason Bateman) excitedly embrace’s America’s economic ruin, telling his employees, “this is our moment.” But there’s a ruthlessness Ryan lacks that endears him to us.

A young, recent college graduate named Natalie (Anna Kendrick) threatens his way of life by introducing a more efficient way of letting people go – via internet ichat. When Ryan’s boss orders him to show Natalie the ropes of firing people on the road, the pair jet off across the country. Forced to endure each other’s company, the eager girl full of hope and the jaded cynic learn lessons from each other in ways only opposites could. The characters in this film are so detached from feeling, so isolated – we want them to change.

Ryan’s biggest threat for change comes in the form of a beautiful, feisty female traveler named Alex (thank you, Vera Farmiga). In a film brimming with excellent performances, Farmiga’s is the stellar, stand-out one of them all. The maturity Farmiga brings to Alex is seamless - witty and intelligent. She and Ryan bond over their shared knowledge of rental car companies and trade stories of life on the road, beginning a one-night stand hotel relationship whenever their schedules land them in nearby cities. The two are dangerously similar – unattached incarnate. Perfect for each other.

The honesty of the movie can be found in scenes where we get to see the characters exploring unchartered territory within themselves: Natalie getting drunk and solving her problems with sex, Alex describing her (less-than-perfect) version of the perfect man over airport drinks, Ryan attempting to talk his future brother-in-law out of cold feet on his wedding day. And when the scenes are honest, Up in the Air is a fine example of heartwarming and clever, cynical comedy.

I’d be remiss to ignore giving major kudos to this film’s director. Jason Reitman (who brought us 2007’s Juno) is part of a very small, elite group of writer-directors who have overcome their famous family label to gain respect for their work. Reitman again proves himself worthy of acclaim with this piece, candidly illustrating the beauty in altogether uncomfortable, awkward situations.

This isn’t a movie that crescendos from beginning to end. There is a lack of tension at the end of the film that is settling. Reitman’s intelligent storytelling assumes that his audience can make up its own mind as to whether these characters have changed or not. I have to say that I love films where the catharsis is implied. For characters whose professional lives could be altogether defined as “successful,” how much of what really matters to them is “up in the air?” You’re intelligent. You decide.

-Hillary Smotherman

A SORDID EDUCATION

How different the world was in 1961. Life was innocent, families stayed together, and their kids could play in the street without worry of being abducted. Well, unless one defines “abductor” as a charming, 40 year-old “art dealer” who falls in love with your daughter at first sight and rescues her from the rain with his maroon sports car.

An Education centers around a 16 year-old English schoolgirl named Jenny (brilliantly embodied by Carey Mulligan), whose dreams hinge on her getting into Oxford for college. Her father, Jack (Alfred Molina), has impressed Oxford upon Jenny as being the single most important thing in her life – and she believes it. She’s happiest when she listens to French music and ponders life at university – where she can smoke, “read lots of books,” and “talk to lots of people who know about lots.”

Jenny’s plan changes when she meets David (the “abductor,” played by Peter Sarsgaard) through a chance encounter. Quickly falling under the spell of her dashing new suitor, her days become a whirlwind of social and romantic ecstasy. From schoolgirl to social butterfly in a matter of weeks, Jenny’s life is transformed to include classical concerts, art auctions and weekends in Paris.

I’ve seen better versions of this story before - 1992’s The Lover, and Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita. Although both these films know they’re venturing into forbidden territory, as older men establish relationships with extremely young girls, there’s an undeniable yearning between the characters that makes you invested in the choices they make. I found no such investment in An Education. Here, we don’t feel a love blossoming, but we more or less watch each character continually make ill decisions to pursue what they covet: wealth and ease of existence (for Jenny), and (a very young) prize for David.

Jenny’s parents don’t bat an eye at the age of her new companion. Any qualms they have are quelled by a few drinks with David, where he charms them with wit and cheesy impersonations. He even promises to introduce their daughter to his buddy, C.S. Lewis, when they visit Oxford. It seems she has hit the perpetual jack-pot of male suitors, and no one seems more delighted than Jenny.

The intoxication of love and carefree life leads her astray from school, as her grades suffer and she loses the respect of teachers who have gotten wind of her escapades with an older man. Jenny tells one of her teachers that it’s not enough to educate women anymore – “You have to tell us why you’re doing it.” If she is able to achieve the life she dreamed of by simply being with David, why continue to study? She believes her choice is to do something “hard and boring” for the rest of her life, “or go to Paris, and have fun.”

As their relationship progresses (avoiding spoilers here), we discover that David may be less than meets the eye. How much of his life is he willing to disclose to his young Lolita, risking her disapproval? And how much of his daughter is Jack willing to lose so that she may live the fantastical life of which she dreams – the life he never got to have?

The heart of the movie lies in the scenes between Jack and Jenny. And there are some heart-breaking ones that are palpable. Jack apologizes to his daughter through a closed door for some not-so-perfect parenting in a gut-wrenching moment. He admits that all he has known is how to give his daughter “an education.”

This film asks how far you’re willing to go to gain what you want. When you’re young and impressionable, it’s difficult to decipher whether love and the promise of a good life is worth giving up your dreams for. It’s tough to tell whether the brilliant mind you’ve cultivated is worth more than a lifetime’s worth of concert tickets and expensive clothing.

This movie answers the questions it poses. It takes a look at just how easy it is to confuse dream with desire. Sometimes the education that matters most has nothing to do with learning Latin or mathematical equations; it’s the one heard by your father’s voice, behind closed doors.

-Hillary Smotherman

A SLICE OF WAR

Few films leave me riveted. This one did. Katherine Bigalow’s slice of life war movie doesn’t confuse itself with political commentary or take sides in the fight. This film doesn’t pretend to answer questions as to why the war is taking place, but instead allows us to walk in the shoes of Bravo Company, as they follow orders and ask themselves, “why do I choose to fight today?”

The Hurt Locker centers around a team of soldiers led by a “bomb tech,” who has the dubious job of dismantling roadside explosives (IED’s). If the team can’t send in a robot to shut down a device - which can be concealed underground, hidden in the trunk of a car, or even in a decaying human body – they send in the tech. The space-like protective suit these guys wear doesn’t ensure survival if there’s an explosion, as we learn in the first ten minutes when Bravo’s tech is killed.

He’s replaced by the rebellious and stubborn, but talented SFC William James (played seamlessly by Jeremy Renner). With over 800 devices safely dismantled, James is determined to get the job done his way. He refuses to use the robot, taking matters into his own hands and dismantling the most threatening bombs without wearing his helmet so he can “die comfortably.”

You could cut through each scene’s palpable tension as pressure builds with every mission in which Bravo’s involved. Nothing distracts from the drama in this film. Ms. Bigalow didn’t deliver an ostentatious, 2 hour music video, nor did she cast big name heavy-hitters in the main roles. With only a few beautiful shots that call attention to her exquisite direction, and two recognizable actors in supporting roles (Guy Pierce and Ralph Fiennes), the movie never shows off.

This film takes a non-compromising look at the day-to-day struggles American men experience being soldiers. Spc. Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) already seems to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, distracting himself with violent video games in his spare time and seeking counsel from a psychologist soldier. After the team survives an explosive strapped to a civilian they can’t rescue, Sgt. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) breaks down and questions the validity of his life.

While his partners air on the side of caution and follow orders, James continues to push the envelope. When a young boy he mistakes as his friend is killed to play host to a body bomb, James seeks revenge – tearing through a local house and threatening innocent citizens. He later orders his team off course of a mission to figure out who may have been responsible for a tank bombing, jeopardizing their lives and causing Eldridge to get injured. These men have wittingly signed up for a situation that gives them no control over their daily lives– and renegade James wants some.

At the end of the day, when the job for which you’ve signed up is filled with fear and uncertainty at every turn, how does one breathe easy? When soldiers normally safely confined to an office decide to take a ride into the field and get killed by IED’s, when enemies strap explosives to innocent civilians as bait and you risk losing your lives to save one; how do you keep up the fight within yourself to keep fighting the war?

Because soldiers don’t quit, these characters go on in different ways. When the sink can’t aptly wash off the blood of battle, James walks fully-clothed into the shower and lets the water turn crimson. When he calls his girlfriend back home and can’t find the words to speak, he simply hangs up. After the team nearly gets killed by the human bait bomb, Sanborn asks James how he “takes the risk” of being the bomb tech. James’ answer: “I don’t think about it.”

The purpose of the plot and the sum of the stories in The Hurt Locker don’t add up to a big blow-out finale. Every second of the movie is fraught with tension – dramatic and action-packed. Its character-driven theme peeks into the fears of the men carrying sniper rifles. It shines a light into the minds of men who dig in the sand to unveil a mess of wires about to destroy everything around them. Why do they do this? For some: duty. For a few: an adrenaline rush. Or maybe because it’s the one thing they really love to do.

The Hurt Locker is recent American filmmaking at its finest, leaving its grip on you long after you return home from the theatre. Poignant and telling, honest and raw, it’ll leave you riveted.

-Hillary Smotherman

ANOTHER SAVORY EPHRON CONCOCTION

I could spend a full day at Meryl Streep’s feet thanking her for being an actress. I could spend a subsequent day thanking her directors for convincing her to sign on and play roles so methodically that the actress just seems to melt away. With Julie & Julia, Nora Ephron brings us a delightful, feel good film - due in no small part to a fabulous cast and pitch perfect acting.

Julie & Julia tells the stories of two women, separated by space and time, who are sick and tired of their mundane lives. Julie (Amy Adams) is an average modern day New Yorker about to turn 30. After giving up writing her novel, she works a dead-end job answering phones for a government agency and longs to be more than “just a person in a cubicle.” Her refuge is in food; she comes home and cooks spectacular dinners for her husband.

How does a failed novelist/foodie escape boredom and add spice to her life? Start a blog about cooking so you can write about your true passion and be your own “publisher.” Julie takes her husband(Chris Messina)'s advice and challenges herself to cook every recipe in her idol(Julia Child)'s cookbook in one year and countdown the progress on her blog.

You can’t help rooting for Julie, whose social life beyond the cubicle is defined by cobb salad social lunches with pompous friends who demean her secretarial job and grab breadsticks out of her mouth. Adams hasn’t mis-tepped once since her star-making turn as Leonardo DiCaprio’s finance in Catch Me if You Can. Her comic vulnerability is a sheer joy to watch. She’s a relatable movie star – not intimidatingly beautiful, and brings an honesty and self-deprecating humor to every role she takes.

Ephron blesses us with a fantastic dual-plot that oscillates between following Julie’s challenge and watching Julia Child’s early struggle to become a chef. Before she pioneered American French cooking, Child was just the wife of a diplomat who pondered hat-making so that she would have something “to do.” Because she loved eating French food, why not learn how to cook it? Meryl’s Julia is the laughing stock of the Cordon Bleu in Paris before she proves herself a worthy competitor to her male G.I. classmates chopping onions faster than them and flipping pancake-like eggs over in a pan.

Julie nearly loses her job and her husband when she skips work over recipes gone wrong and throws tantrums in the kitchen. Julia gains the respect of fellow chefs and aspiring cookbook authors who ask her to sign on and help them write a French cookbook for everyday housewives. Julie begins to experience success as her blog becomes the 3^rd most popular and both women find themselves gaining acknowledgement where it’s deserved.

If not for any other reason, go see Julie & Julia to witness Streep’s 16^th attempt at Oscar. She flawlessly delivers Julia’s over-the-top voice, and with every awkward sway of the upper body to and fro as Child, Streep brings to life a woman very much at ease with herself (and her 6’2’’ frame) and a talent for something that was quite laughable in the 1950’s.

This film is strongly backed by supporting roles, including another stand-out performance by Stanley Tucci (Paul Child). Both Tucci and Messina are fantastic at playing the real doting housewives as they support their women while they embark on soul-searching journeys.

This isn’t a romantic comedy, folks. But there’s lots of love to spread around. Yes, Julie and Julia are both nurtured by loving husbands at home. But in the end, it is the love from within (yuck, I know), stemming from self-discovery and accomplishment that warms the heart here. Julia and Julia, melted nicely together like their love for butter and devotion to learning to bone a duck, show us that it’s worth your time to pursue what you love to do. Is there any message better?

-Hillary Smotherman

WELL WORTH THE HYPE

Welcome to the most inescapable film of 2009. It’s difficult for any movie to live up to the hype that accompanies a budget in excess of $300 million, much less the 12 year hiatus from directing a feature film that James Cameron took after Titanic. But Avatar satisfies in every way. It is a visually mesmerizing miracle, reaching far beyond simply filling the slot of the quintessential Christmas blockbuster and providing inspiration for your pre-teen’s next video game obsession.

If you remember the way you felt when you first experienced dinosaurs in Jurassic Park or the bullet time slow motion martial arts in the Matrix films, your mind won’t rest for 2 ½ hours of Avatar. What Cameron’s done here is take another simple narrative and illustrate it with an unimaginably inventive, digitally painted backdrop unlike anything audiences have ever seen.

The story is set in the year 2154, where US Military forces are “on the brink of war.” Scientists on Earth have found the solution to the energy crisis in a rare mineral on Pandora, a moon light years away. The problem: the richest mineral-laden portion of land on Pandora is occupied by the Na’vi – a peaceful group of blue-skinned aliens who dutifully revere the natural world and will vehemently defend it, if threatened.

Another problem: How does one mine for a mineral on a planet whose air is toxic and un-breathable to humans? Create a genetic hybrid of human and Na’vi DNA that is controlled by the human counterpart and aptly get the job done – the Avatar. In an effort to communicate and learn from the Na’vi, a group of American scientists headed by Dr. Grace Augustine (Cameron veteran Sigourney Weaver) created the Avatar. Now the military will use them to infiltrate into Na’vi society for their own reasons.

After one of the scientific team members is murdered, his twin brother (same DNA) is chosen to step in and use his Avatar as part of a last ditch effort to “find a diplomatic solution” with the Na’vi. Enter Jake – a paraplegic marine played by Aussie actor Sam Worthington (who has thankfully perfected his American dialect since last summer’s Terminator: Salvation). Colonel Miles Quaritich (embodied with menacing precision by Stephen Lang) tells Jake if he can gain the trust of the Na’vi and get them to relocate, he’ll see to it Jake gets his “real legs” back. Our renegade hero has nothing to lose, and the race is on.

What can be said of the ensuing two hours? Magic movie-making at it’s best; A dazzling Cameron affair that eclipses Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator and even Titanic. Movie audiences are used to seeing films that are almost entirely computer-generated, at this point. Cameron has labeled the technique that brings Avatars to life “performance capture,” and dare I say that every cobalt tiger-striped Na’vi, each blinking golden eye, every forehead furrow and wrinkle that matches the actor’s proves that this technique has been perfected. And Pandora is a mouth-watering, spine-tingling adventure that doesn’t disappoint - including floating mountains, monsters that resemble rhino-dinosaurs and fluorescent weeping willow trees capable of memory and communication.

Jake (of course) falls for the hopelessly beautiful Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) who is ordered to teach him the ways of the Na’vi people. Neytiri tells Jake he has “a strong heart, no fear. But stupid. Ignorant. Like a child.” It naturally doesn’t take long for the two to fall in love as Jake continues to prove himself one of the most talented warriors her people have ever seen. As time ticks down and military forces are set to bulldoze Na’vi land, Quaritich asks Jake if he’s forgotten which team he’s playing for. And he has. “The strong prey on the weak, and no one does a thing,” Jake says.

Decide for yourself whether armed forces invading a territory that poses no foreseeable threat sounds familiar in today’s world. There are decisions to be made by these characters that may not be breaking narrative ground, but will make you invested in what they do. The story is one of redemption and moral choice. In the year 2154, good vs. evil is as simple as defending nature or destroying it. It’s as plain as “going up against gunships with bows and arrows.”

Go ahead and see Avatar with expectation. See it with all the uncertainty that comes along with the price of today’s $12 movie ticket. Watch with disdain as another love story is forced upon you, when what you wanted was action. Be hesitant to believe that tiger-striped Avatars are real. And then let it all melt away. Cameron waited 12 years to bring you something unique: a $300 million movie that delivers. Sit back and enjoy the hype. It’s colored in Oscar gold.


-Hillary Smotherman