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