Cinéma Geek L'essentiel du cinéma d'auteur, asiatique et geek
Animée par Seth MacFarlane, la soirée nous a offert un des moments les plus hilarants jamais vu aux Oscars, pour ceux qui aiment l’humour vulgaire à la Seth MacFarlane (j’en suis). Certains en ont été choqués et surpris (je n’arrive toujours pas à comprendre pourquoi, à quoi pouvait-on sincèrement s’attendre d’autre de Seth MacFarlane?) et ont trouvé qu’il a été trop loin. D’autres (j’en suis) ont plutôt trouvé qu’il a fait preuve de trop de retenue. Quelques gags au début, puis… plus rien. La soirée était néanmoins excitante avec une compétition féroce qui a même vu deux films différents être récompensés pour le film de l’année et le meilleur réalisateur, ce qui n’arrive à peu près jamais.
Cinema Geek n’était pas encore créé lorsque j’ai rédigé les commentaires suivants sur les différents films. J’écrivais alors dans un anglais pas exactement parfait, pardonnez les erreurs mais surtout, le choix de la langue de rédaction! Je me suis dit qu’importer ce matériel d’archive pouvait avoir un intérêt pertinent pour Cinema Geek.
Argo
I give it a 9/10. Who would have thought that Ben Affleck would become such a great director? I’m far from being a fan of his acting career choices and performances, but so far he’s not disappointed me as a director. Argo took a story from a declassified CIA story happening in the US Embassy of Iran. Taken under siege with all staff held hostages for months, the CIA plans a rescue mission for six diplomats who escaped and hid in the Canadian Embassy. The movie is about the quite original rescue mission. From the moment you realize that the hidden diplomats are not in security at the Canadian embassy, the stress level rises and your hands will grasp your seat, eyes wide open looking staring obsessively at the screen as to not miss a second of it. It’s really, really intense. I tried talking to my wife for a second but got a quick « shhhhh! » for a reply. No talking, no cuddling, there’s just no space and time for that. It’s that effective, and it’s that good.
Nominated for:
Actor In a Supporting Role
Best Picture
Film Editing
Music (Original Score)
Sound Editing
Sound Mixing
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Life of Pi
I give it a 9/10. What a marvellous cruise. Viewtiful, rich story that will stick to your brain for a while, great acting from that kid who made me completely forget that he was acting in front of a green screen, interacting with a non-existing tiger. The special effects and animation are truly artistic and realistic, you can catch some moments when you can say for sure that the tiger is animated, but only a few, which tells a lot on the quality of its execution for most of the time. It’s heading for a great deal of nominations, and certainly not only for the technical prowesses. It’s early to tell, but I’d put it in the best 5 of the year.
Nominated for:
Best Picture
Cinematography
Directing
Film Editing
Music (Original Score)
Music (Original Song)
Production Design
Sound Editing
Sound Mixing
Visual Effects
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7WBfntqUoA
Les Misérables
I give it a 6/10. Another period drama. This one is not superficial, but had a hard time getting through it anyway. I think it’s a nice tribute to a classic, helping to spread it to newer generations and picture it with modern techniques. All technical aspects to the movie are well rendered, it’s not nominated for cinematography, but it might as well have. The actors are exaggerating their play, but that’s a wanted spec of a musical, and the emotions that are exaggerated are the right ones, it’s well played, especially with the difficulty of singing while filming. Now what I didn’t like much is the story itself. It’s a classic story where characters are telling their emotions as they speak. Any story told like this today would be butchered before it gets anywhere. I didn’t see the point of the story to be sung since the really good and melodic songs are a few (one or two?), the rest seems like improvisation singing, no melodic construction to it (or bad one). So why singing if there are no real songs composed? And then, remove the singing element, and you would be left to the boring story of characters speaking their emotions. So the story alone is boring, the songs alone are impossible to listen to. So why exactly is this movie supposed to be good again? Oh yeah, the acting, the costumes and the production design. Well done.
Nominated for:
Actor In a Leading Role
Actress In a Supporting Role
Best Picture
Costume Design
Makeup and Hairstyling
Music (Original Song)
Production Design
Sound Mixing
Lincoln
I give it a 8/10. This is an important part of the American history, a very specific era: how Lincoln managed to get the votes he needs to get an amendment to the constitution. As important as it is, it would have been boring for the academy if it was telling the same story for any other country in the world. So take this as american masturbation over their national pride for their own history? America is great, has always been. Again, important part yes, but I find the interest in this movie and its appreciation greatly exaggerated. It is, however, a better Spielberg movie than usual, my expectation were very low after the extremely annoying War Horse last year, and he surprised me quite much. Day Lewis absolutely deserves another Oscar for that off the charts performance.
Nominated for:
Actor In a Leading Role
Actor In a Supporting Role
Actress In a Supporting Role
Best Picture
Cinematography
Costume Design
Directing
Film Editing
Music (Original Score)
Production Design
Sound Mixing
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Django Unchained
I give it a 10/10. Probably my favorite Tarantino movie so far. As expected in a Tarantino movie, there’s a great cast of bad ass and cool characters, with a story that is just as bad ass and cool. You laugh and enjoy sadistically as bad guys gets murdered by the good guys. Sounds basic, but it’s so well done, it’s orgasmic. Music as present and original as usual, like most Tarantino movies, you could watch the movie blindfolded and still enjoy the experience. And the slavery approach to the movie is what brought this Tarantino movie to the Oscars, like Inglorious Basterds before it: a tough historical and serious touch that makes this something more than just another bad ass movie. It’s seriously bad ass historical movie… Something the Academy can enjoy and not feel ashamed to admit it in public. I’m afraid that it has only real chances to win fo Actor in a Supporting Role, though. Oh yeah, what an amazing performance by Christoph Waltz, again!
Nominated for:
Actor In a Supporting Role
Best Picture
Cinematography
Sound Editing
Writing (Original Screenplay)
Silver Linings Playbook
I give it a 7/10. Now that’s a cute non-cliché romantic comedy (ok, perhaps a tiny bit, but nothing disturbingly cliché). I don’t normally like the genre, but I don’t know what more to say except that this story is well put together. Both characters are interesting (don’t you find that in most romantic comedy, at least one of the characters, if not both, have absolutely no personality making them so supposedly lovable?), and there are quite a bunch of side characters that are just as interesting as well. There are awesomely thought funny scenes in this that makes the movie worth your time for those alone. Although this might not catch any nomination at all as nothing is outstanding, I’d give a fair 80% on everything, which makes a good movie, but not fetching far enough for an Oscar. Perhaps a Golden Globe?
Nominated for:
Actor In a Leading Role
Actor In a Supporting Role
Actress In a Leading Role
Actress in a Supporting Role
Best Picture
Directing
Film Editing
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MP7A1k8Jr0
Amour
I give it a 8/10. I recognize this is a powerful story, powerful theme, powerful cast… But I guess I need more entertainment in movies. Here the realism of the platitude of their lives in the disease context is so well done, it successfully bored me. It’s not that it isn’t good. It’s simply not a style that pleases me. I remember feeling the same way for White Ribbon. So not a director for me.
Nominated for:
Actress in a Leading Role
Best Picture
Directing
Foreign Language Film
Writing (Original Screenplay)
Searching for Sugar Man
I give it a 9/10. That’s a fascinating story of a musician that could have become so big but didn’t. The documentary is well led, has punch, surprises, lots of amazement. I ran on iTunes to purchase the soundtrack after I watched the documentary. Definitely my pick for this year’s best doc, although there are two that are unavailable and I couldn’t see.
Nominated for:
Documentary Feature