REMAKE ON THE ROCKS

Perhaps it’s been thirty years and no one remembers Dudley Moore’s scotch guzzling, prostitute bedding, mischievous multi-millionaire alcoholic. Maybe today’s audiences won’t be familiar with the Oscar winning film, in all its perfectly written outrageous and self-deprecating grandeur. Every person involved with Arthur (2011) is betting the farm on it.

Television director Jason Winer (Modern Family) teams up with Borat screenwriter (Peter Baynham) to create a new version of Arthur, which loses nearly all its tenderness and sincerity in the revamping. The title character spends every waking second with a drink in his hand, figuring out the best way to spend his family’s millions, whose cushy life is threatened when he’s forced to marry a woman he doesn’t love – or be cut off financially.

It’s quite obvious that today’s billionaire heiresses gone wild and A-list celebrities’ very public rehab stints might make Steve Gordon’s 1981 story seem as common as supermarket tabloid fare.

Baynham’s answer to inflation and a culture acclimated with alcoholism? Ramp up Arthur’s car collection to include the batmobile and pawn off the drinking as a hobby until the last second.

Unlucky Englishman Russell Brand carries most of the burden of this year’s Arthur, reprising the role Moore made iconic. Brand isn’t altogether a failure; slapstic exploits including dangerous encounters with a table saw (and his tongue) are as poignant and moving as Mr. Winer could hope them to be.

But Brand’s incarnation of Arthur feels more like an oddly extroverted escaped mental patient than a man struggling with the disease of alcoholism. It’s difficult to differentiate Brand’s Arthur as wildly inebriated or just plain bizarre.

Gordon’s characters have been rewritten and genders replaced to anchor this Arthur by women. Not even Helen Mirren can salvage the role that won John Gielgud an Oscar, playing Arthur’s lifelong companion and assistant Hobson. And Jennifer Garner and Nick Nolte (Arthur’s fiancé and future father-in-law) are as uncomfortable delivering Baynham’s soggy dialogue as they’ve looked in recent memory.

It is worth noting that the romantic relationship for which Arthur is willing to give up his fortune (love interest played by Greta Gerwig) is so poorly defined here, that the would-be-moving scenes are the most awkwardly humorous in the film. Intoxicated billionaire-meets-soulmate courting goes as far as Arthur giving his love Pez dispensers with replicas of their respective heads.

This film is lonely and pathetic in all the wrong ways, leaving it looking less like the Arthur it could have been and more like a marriage of Dumb and Dumber meets Richie Rich covered by TMZ.

Someone tell Jason Winer and friends they just lost the farm.

-Hillary Smotherman

THE OSCAR EDGE. WHO SHOULD WIN. WHO WILL.

BEST ACTOR

It wasn't long ago that Javier Bardem picked up an Oscar for No Country for Old Men, and Jeff Bridges won in this category last year. Young Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) did fabulous work portraying egocentric Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, but he’ll need more than Juno and Fincher's film under his belt before a win in this category. James Franco is very lucky that his sky-screaming shenanigans brought him this far.

Colin Firth has this event locked. Earning extra points for being nominated in the same place last year with A Single Man, Firth is beyond due for recognition by the Academy and has won every major award this season.

Should win: Colin Firth

Will win: Colin Firth

BEST ACTRESS

Some people just can’t star in a movie anymore without Academy recognition – but Kidman won’t win for Rabbit Hole. Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) and Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine) get nods here for their work in indie films that strengthen their resumes for future voting seasons. Poor Annette Bening can’t seem to get nominated in a year where the award doesn’t belong to someone else, but at least she won’t be losing to Hillary Swank for a third time.

It’s Portman’s year. Aronofsky drama plus real-life pregnancy and engagement equals Oscar.

Should win: Natalie Portman

Will win: Natalie Portman

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Pity the fool that missed Christian Bale’s performance as crack-addicted boxing trainer Dicky Ward in The Fighter. His embodiment of the irresponsible brother incarnate is just the highlight of a young career already brimming with strong roles (The Machinist, American Psycho). Geoffrey Rush turns in an astounding performance as speech tutor Lionel Logue in The King’s Speech, but it’s not likely he’ll surpass Bale this year.

Should win: Christian Bale

Will win: Christian Bale

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

This is always the Academy’s “wild card” category. Past wins have delivered statuettes to true underdogs, some of whose careers all but halted after having won (Mira Sorvino, Marissa Tomei, Jennifer Hudson… the list goes on).

Jacki Weaver and Hallee Steinfeld phone in their nominations tonight. After years of tainting herself with oddities in Tim Burton films, Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech) will need to show more consistency to garner an award. The Academy loves Amy Adams (previously nominated for Junebug and Doubt). Too bad that the meatier supporting role in her film (The Fighter) belongs to Melissa Leo. Her portrayal of an overbearing mother/boxing manager makes Adams pale in comparison.

Should win: Melissa Leo

Will win: Melissa Leo

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Good job Joel and Ethan Cohen (as always) with True Grit. And Anne Rosellini did a masterful job getting into the minds of every sordid character in Winter’s Bone. Thank you, John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton for collectively bringing us smartly animated whoppers like Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc, and WALL-E (this year they get nominated with Toy Story 3). Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy adapted the material for 127 Hours and left us with nothing but James Franco hallucinating for an hour and a half; perhaps it was slim pickings for that fifth slot.

The Social Network is one of the most astute adaptations of material (in any form) in recent memory. Thank you for leaving television, Aaron Sorkin.

Should win: Aaron Sorkin

Will win: Aaron Sorkin

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Inception was a selfish display of pushing screenwriting into the realm of what-can-digital-effects-do-with-this-script territory. The Fighter's family saga is a worthy candidate, and The Kids are All Right does a nice job of blurring social family lines.

But the Oscar goes to David Seidler for undertaking what could have been a humdrum period piece and creating a mammoth drama about a simple stutter.

Should win: The King’s Speech

Will win: The King’s Speech

BEST DIRECTOR

There’s no stopping Fincher here. Known for pushing the cinematic envelope with films like Seven and Fight Club, 2008’s achievement with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button solidified him as an Oscar force with which to be reckoned. And The Social Network is his finest work by far, so far.

Should win: David Fincher

Will win: David Fincher

BEST PICTURE

It’s a close race between David Fincher’s The Social Network and Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech. When the Best Picture winner actually deserves to win - not when it wins because Martin Scorsese or the Cohen brothers can’t be slighted one more time (The Departed, No Country for Old Men), the Academy likes to award current, groundbreaking, boundary-pushing films (note Slumdog Millionaire; 2009, and Crash; 2006). The Social Network should be a shoe in, right?

Wrong. Voters haven’t awarded a British period drama since 1998’s Shakespeare in Love, and Hooper just upset Fincher at the DGA’s for his achievement in directing. Only six times has the DGA winner not gone on to win the Oscar for Best Picture.

Should win: The Social Network

Will win: The King’s Speech

FEAR THY NEIGHBOR

An Ozark town full of bad teeth and worse attitudes creates a menacing framework in Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone. The film that won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize blurs the lines of trust and devotion; every could-be-kind mountain town neighbor is a threat, every family member might deliver a punch before an embrace.

Granik’s gritty, piercing drama places her in the über-talented, female director category with Kathryn Bigelow (last year’s Oscar winner for The Hurt Locker). With Bone she delivers a simple, seek-and-find scavenger hunt.

It’s a one week quest for seventeen year-old Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) to find her crack-dealing father, who is out of jail and has lovingly put up the family home (with the family in it) as bond. She sets out to accomplish what the police cannot, or her “nut-job” mother and two younger siblings-turned-kids-of-her-own are homeless.

Young Lawrence embodies Ree with the acumen of a woman twice her age. Her performance does for Bone what (Timothy) Hutton’s did for Ordinary People – except Lawrence carries this film through every scene. The twenty year-old actress lends Ree an unwavering determination and ballsy everything-to-lose attitude that opens some of the most closely guarded and dangerous neighborhood doors.

But the road to discovery is fraught with friction at every turn. Drug dealing uncle “Teardrop” nearly strangles her for asking about his brothers’ whereabouts. A family down the road (with all the charm of the deranged leatherface hoarders from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) nearly kills Ree before she stops asking about dad.

In a hillbilly town where women are forced to do dirty work way beyond hanging clothes on the line outside to dry, it seems there are few left on the side of the “good girl” spectrum. Dale Dickey is sensational as the female head of the Texas Chainsaw-like tribe. Her most loving gesture towards Ree involves a secluded lake and a power tool.

Bone’s cast is so hostile, parts of the movie straddle the horror genre. Creepy girls with pot-marked faces lead Ree through desolate fields to ominous destinations. An intimidating redneck violently herds her into his truck to take her somewhere “down the road,” with no further explanation. By the time Ree receives any gestures of kindness from her family, one wonders when the hand that helps her will come back to shoot her in the foot.

The axiom here could be plainly “when there’s no one you can trust, learn to trust one’s own courage.” And that is paramount. But the ultimate grandeur of Granik’s movie lies in the beauty of human fallibility. There’s tenderness to be appreciated in the backhanded assistance of monsters. When help arrives in the guise of the feared, there’s merit learned in letting go of one’s instincts.

Unsettling and poignant, Bone takes the audience somewhere unfathomable and brings them back safely. And they’ll root for Ree to come back too.


- Hillary Smotherman

M-M-M-MESMERIZING

Everyone has an Achilles heel. That one, inescapable handicap that prevents us from achieving “to be or not to be” status. In 1925, King George VI employed a man who promised to remedy the liability that threatened him most - his stutter.

Tom Hooper directs The King’s Speech like a finely orchestrated symphony. Characters lean on each other like bows on a fiddle; they complement like horn and trumpet. And no instruments in this film sound better together than Colin Firth’s Albert (the King), and speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush).

After countless doctors try every humiliating exercise imaginable to cure his stammer (including filling his mouth with marbles), Albert’s had enough with therapy. But Logue’s approach is psychological – he treats “Bertie” like a friend. What begins for Bertie as a cautious and guarded, “if we were equals, I wouldn’t be here” affiliation with Lionel, unfolds as a partnership masterful and symbiotic.

To see Albert achieve a syllable sans superfluous hesitation is like watching a one-legged climber reach the peak of Everest. It is thrilling to witness Firth’s emotional breakdowns and breakthroughs. Scenes with Albert’s wife, played with resolute brilliance by Helena Bonham Carter, are poignant and raw. What a treat to see her back in British film mode, and out of the odd grasp that is (husband) Tim Burton’s work.

Fantastic supporting turns by Guy Pierce (the King’s brother) and Michael Gambon (King George V) create strong illustrations as to why Bertie would be swimming in self-doubt. Lionel unveils the science of Albert’s stutter, which proves to be a fear-based peripheral reaction to an inward lack of conviction.

But behind Lionel’s closed doors, the King is safe. And as breathtaking as it is to watch Firth’s character triumph and fail with each word he utters, it is Rush’s performance as a wannabe actor-turned speech guru that emerges as the glue to Hooper’s so eloquent mold.

Left alone in a room to conquer a microphone and broadcast a profoundly important nine-minute speech, Firth and Rush deliver one of the most simply riveting scenes in recent film memory. With Logue (quite literally) conducting the King’s every breath, the world fixedly gathers around their radio, straining to hear every might-be-annunciated word. And so do we.


- Hillary Smotherman

SELF-MADE ENEMY

Before he created Facebook, Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg was just a condescending, self-righteous, my way or your sub-par-online-highway jerk. Or at least that’s what (The Social Network) director David Fincher wants us to think.

Mark (played with steely cold sophistication by Jesse Eisenberg) is so hubristic, it’s like watching a Greek tragedy. While his professional career escalates at a meteoric rate, he bulldozes through every personal relationship with complete nonchalance.

He offends perfect marriage material by insulting her inferior Boston University education. He steals ideas from fellow students. He hacks into campus websites, pirating photos and information in order to create something unique on his own, and once he does – he cheats his best friend out of billions of dollars.

No one will feel too sorry when Mark’s life (however undeniably successful) is whittled down to sitting in front of his own Facebook page, constantly refreshing to get “friend request” validation. But that’s how Fincher’s Zuckerberg ends up.

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (who admits to threading some of his own yarn with his script) has created a relentlessly intelligent, near perfect bon bon of colorfully sarcastic scenes. The film triumphs with every carefully written “I’m CEO Bitch” line of dialogue (Mark’s well earned title and business card headline).

This is 2010’s Citizen Kane, where it’s just so lonely at the top of one’s self-made, friendless empire. Perhaps it’s karma that the person who created a website famous for connecting people is hopelessly socially inept and incapable of sustaining any real connection of his own.

Whether or not audiences relate to Zuckerberg on a professional level is futile. At a molecular level, as one lawyer says, Mark’s “not an a—hole.” He’s “just trying so hard to be.” And it’s impossible not to be mesmerized by watching him try.


- Hillary Smotherman

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A BORING PLACE

94 minutes is all Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle could squeeze out of James Franco talking to a boulder and a camcorder. Thank God.

The oscar-winning director takes a stab at chronicling mountain climber Aron Ralston’s true story of survival with 127 hours. Just as film audiences knew Titanic would sink and Emile Hirsch’s character in Into the Wild would perish eating toxic berries, only if you had been in a coma for the year 2003 would you not be somewhat familiar with Ralston’s tale.

After a boulder falls and pins Aron (James Franco) deep in a cavern tens of miles away from civilization, he spends over five days hallucinating and rationing a burrito, water (and yes, finally his own urine) to prolong what would usually be certain death. When he decides to do the unthinkable with a cheap, dull made-in-China-multi-tool stocking stuffer from his mom, it’s way too late in the film to be invested in his survival.

The first 45 expository minutes of Cast Away are missing here. The character depth we received in the flashbacks of Into the Wild is gone. The audience’s only escape from Ralston’s rock in over eighty minutes include several fantasies of soda and beer, momentary childhood remembrances and a vision of an unborn son.

It’s worth mentioning that Franco’s performance is gripping – even if he does little more than bodyslam a fallen rock and scream begrudgingly at the sky. He’s just great at it. And Slumdog cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle breathtakingly paints the desert skies like a vividly colored 80’s Kodak commercial. This is an artful film that’s sometimes fun to look at and listen to (thanks A.R. Rahman).

Too bad the boulder couldn’t have had more lines. Then there might have been a story.


- Hillary Smotherman