Oscars post

The Oscars are this Sunday. Here's my will win/should win list:

Best Picture
"The Artist" Thomas Langmann, Producer
"The Descendants" Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" Scott Rudin, Producer
"The Help" Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
"Hugo" Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
"Midnight in Paris" Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
"Moneyball" Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers
"The Tree of Life" Nominees to be determined
"War Horse" Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers

Will win: THE ARTIST
Should win: None of the above. I'd love to see DRIVE, MELANCHOLIA, or BRIDESMAIDS up in here.

So much crap in this category. There are 9 Best Picture noms, and almost all of them are mediocre. Anyway, THE ARTIST will win, because it has momentum, and because Harvey Weinstein. Hot tip: if you want to win Oscars, make a movie that's a love letter to Hollywood's golden age. They love that shit.

Directing
"The Artist" Michel Hazanavicius
"The Descendants" Alexander Payne
"Hugo" Martin Scorsese
"Midnight in Paris" Woody Allen
"The Tree of Life" Terrence Malick

Will win: Malick, in my big upset pick.
Should win: Nicholas Winding Refn for DRIVE. Would love to have seen Steve McQueen for SHAME, Soderbergh for CONTAGION, and Fincher for DRAGON TATTOO.

Actor in a Leading Role
Demián Bichir in "A Better Life"
George Clooney in "The Descendants"
Jean Dujardin in "The Artist"
Gary Oldman in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"
Brad Pitt in "Moneyball"

Will win: Jean Dujardin.
Should win: Demian Bichir or Michael Shannon, who was not nominated for TAKE SHELTER. And no Fassbender for SHAME is still silly.

Actor in a Supporting Role
Kenneth Branagh in "My Week with Marilyn"
Jonah Hill in "Moneyball"
Nick Nolte in "Warrior"
Christopher Plummer in "Beginners"
Max von Sydow in "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"

Will win: Plummer.
Should win: Plummer. Although Matt Damon should be nommed for CONTAGION, Patton Oswalt for YOUNG ADULT and Albert Brooks for DRIVE.

Actress in a Leading Role
Glenn Close in "Albert Nobbs"
Viola Davis in "The Help"
Rooney Mara in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
Meryl Streep in "The Iron Lady"
Michelle Williams in "My Week with Marilyn"

Will win: Viola Davis
Should win: Rooney Mara. Anna Pacquin should be in the mix for MARGARET and Elizabeth Olsen should be for MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE.

Actress in a Supporting Role
Bérénice Bejo in "The Artist"
Jessica Chastain in "The Help"
Melissa McCarthy in "Bridesmaids"
Janet McTeer in "Albert Nobbs"
Octavia Spencer in "The Help"

Will win: Octavia Spencer
Should win: Jennifer Elhe in CONTAGION. Glad McCarthy was nommed, though.

Animated Feature Film
"A Cat in Paris" Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
"Chico & Rita" Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
"Kung Fu Panda 2" Jennifer Yuh Nelson
"Puss in Boots" Chris Miller
"Rango" Gore Verbinski

Will win: Rango
Should win: Rango

Art Direction
"The Artist" Production Design: Laurence Bennett; Set Decoration: Robert Gould
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" Production Design: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan
"Hugo" Production Design: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
"Midnight in Paris" Production Design: Anne Seibel; Set Decoration: Hélène Dubreuil
"War Horse" Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Lee Sandales

Will win: HUGO
Should win: Don't know.

Cinematography
"The Artist" Guillaume Schiffman
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Jeff Cronenweth
"Hugo" Robert Richardson
"The Tree of Life" Emmanuel Lubezki
"War Horse" Janusz Kaminski

Will win: THE ARTIST
Should win: Chivo

Costume Design
"Anonymous" Lisy Christl
"The Artist" Mark Bridges
"Hugo" Sandy Powell
"Jane Eyre" Michael O'Connor
"W.E." Arianne Phillips

Will win: Mark Bridges
Should win: Mark Bridges

Documentary (Feature)
"Hell and Back Again" Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner
"If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman
"Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
"Pina" Wim Wenders and Gian-Piero Ringel
"Undefeated" TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas

Will win: No one has any idea.
Should win: THE INTERRUPTERS or SENNA, neither nominated. Fuck you.

Film Editing
"The Artist" Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius
"The Descendants" Kevin Tent
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
"Hugo" Thelma Schoonmaker
"Moneyball" Christopher Tellefsen

Will win: HUGO
Should win: I don't know.

Foreign Language Film
"Bullhead" Belgium
"Footnote" Israel
"In Darkness" Poland
"Monsieur Lazhar" Canada
"A Separation" Iran

Will win: A SEPARATION
Should win: A SEPARATION

Makeup
"Albert Nobbs" Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston and Matthew W. Mungle
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
"The Iron Lady" Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland

Will win: ALBERT NOBBS
Should win: Don't care.

Music (Original Score)
"The Adventures of Tintin" John Williams
"The Artist" Ludovic Bource
"Hugo" Howard Shore
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" Alberto Iglesias
"War Horse" John Williams

Will win: HUGO
Should win: Angelo Badalamenti

Music (Original Song)
"Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets" Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie
"Real in Rio" from "Rio" Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown Lyric by Siedah Garrett

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

Short Film (Animated)
"Dimanche/Sunday" Patrick Doyon
"The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg
"La Luna" Enrico Casarosa
"A Morning Stroll" Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe
"Wild Life" Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby

Will win: LA LUNA
Should win: LA LUNA

Visual Effects
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson
"Hugo" Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman and Alex Henning
"Real Steel" Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor and Swen Gillberg
"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and Daniel Barrett
"Transformers: Dark of the Moon" Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler and John Frazier

Will win: HUGO
Should win: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
"The Descendants" Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
"Hugo" Screenplay by John Logan
"The Ides of March" Screenplay by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
"Moneyball" Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. Story by Stan Chervin
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" Screenplay by Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan

Will win: THE DESCENDANTS
Should win: THE DESCENDANTS

Writing (Original Screenplay)
"The Artist" Written by Michel Hazanavicius
"Bridesmaids" Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
"Margin Call" Written by J.C. Chandor
"Midnight in Paris" Written by Woody Allen
"A Separation" Written by Asghar Farhadi

Will win: MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
Should win: A SEPARATION. I'd like to have seen 50/50 in here, as well.

This year's Oscars is more of a joke than usual. Billy Crystal? Still no stunt category? Only 2 songs nommed? Ah, who cares -- let's all get drunk and make fun of it the whole time.

Top Ten of 2011

I think we can all agree that 2011 was a pretty shitty year for movies. Here are ten good ones:

13 Assassins
A Separation
Bridesmaids
Contagion
Drive
The Interrupters
Margin Call
Melancholia
Senna
Shame

BONUS: Although not technically a "movie", the Ross Bros web series about their trip down the Mississippi is easily one of the best things I saw in 2011: http://vimeo.com/32224429

WGA 101 BEST SCREENPLAY LIST RECAP

Here are 15 things I learned from watching and writing about these 101 movies:

1. There is a specific structure to great movies.
That structure is 4 acts, not 3. I will write a longer, more in-depth blog post about this in the next few weeks, but I think this was one of the most important revelations.

2. The films that last deal in life and death stakes.
In other words, the main character(s) must be in mortal danger for us to really care about what is happening to them. CHINATOWN wouldn't be nearly as good if Gittes didn't get his nose cut by a mysterious man in the second act. We wouldn't believe the cross-dressing in SOME LIKE IT HOT without the St. Valentine's Day massacre scene.

3. Story is change.
Look at the first scene and the last scene of the film: if the main character hasn't changed, it isn't a great movie. A good example of this is THE WIZARD OF OZ, where Dorothy is disgruntled, wants to get away, to see something else. She succeeds in that goal, and at the end, she is changed, she now knows she is home, and is happy about that. Or THE GODFATHER, where Michael Corleone goes from a returning war hero to the head of a Mafia family.

4. There must be a clean, clear, often tangible goal for the hero.
There are myriad examples of this: in THE MALTESE FALCON, it's the titular bird; in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, it's the titular ark. In other words, the goal is actually in the title of the movie! That's how important it is.

5. The best movies are thematically consistent.
They use a central idea as a nucleus for everything -- characters, plot, act breaks -- to revolve around. Coppola recently suggested boiling that idea down to one word:

What is the one thing to keep in mind when making a film?
When you make a movie, always try to discover what the theme of the movie is in one or two words. Every time I made a film, I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In “The Godfather,” it was succession. In “The Conversation,” it was privacy. In “Apocalypse,” it was morality.

The reason it’s important to have this is because most of the time what a director really does is make decisions. All day long: Do you want it to be long hair or short hair? Do you want a dress or pants? Do you want a beard or no beard? There are many times when you don’t know the answer. Knowing what the theme is always helps you.

I remember in “The Conversation,” they brought all these coats to me, and they said: Do you want him to look like a detective, Humphrey Bogart? Do you want him to look like a blah blah blah. I didn’t know, and said the theme is ‘privacy’ and chose the plastic coat you could see through. So knowing the theme helps you make a decision when you’re not sure which way to go.

I personally don't believe you need to be that stringent, but look at one of Coppola's own films on this list, APOCALYPSE NOW. To me, the central theme is "War is not hell, war is insanity." Every choice made in that film seems to follow that idea: the main goal itself, to journey to and kill their own colonel; the Colonel himself, who has gone insane; the scene with the Playboy bunnies are the soldiers who attack them; surfing during a raid. Coppola took a central idea and squeezed as much as he could out of it.

6. Great films are great characters.
A high-concept premise or a heavy plot does not a brilliant film make. We care about the characters first, then the situation they are put into. The examples are legendary, and, again, often titular: BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, the wry, often incompetent cowboys; THELMA & LOUISE, the bored housewives on the run; JERRY MAGUIRE, the sports agent with scruples; ROCKY, the down-and-out boxer who gets a shot at redemption; FORREST GUMP, the simpleton whose sweet nature made him a silent participant in much of the 20th century.

7. The audience wants to be manipulated.
That's what they're there for. The typical filmgoer watches a movie for entertainment, and most of the time that means they want to feel something. Examples abound: Who isn't relieved when we discover Doc Brown's bullet proof vest in BACK TO THE FUTURE? Who doesn't cringe in horror when they see Steve Buscemi's foot poking out of the wood chipper in FARGO? Who doesn't share Bill Murray's joy at finally waking up to February 3rd in GROUNDHOG'S DAY?

8. Dialogue is overrated.
It is icing on the cake, but is nothing without structure, motivation, character arcs. Consider PULP FICTION, rightly known for Tarantino's dazzling dialogue. Something almost all of his imitators in the 90's never understood was that he always uses those words always in service of something else: building tension, setting something up, aligning us with a character. The beginning scenes with Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega discussing Tony "Rocky Horror" do this expertly. First, the interchange is funny, making us like these guys. Secondly, it introduces us to their boss, making their upcoming killing less offensive to us. Thirdly, the fact that a man was thrown out of a window for a foot massage makes us understand that Vincent better behave himself at his upcoming date (and again, makes us like him, because even though he's a hitman, he's now the underdog). Finally, since it begins with a discussion outside of how they "should have shotguns" and how they are about to go up against a room full of dudes, it begins a suspense sequence with us wondering what will happen next.
All of which is to say, Tarantino isn't just trying to dazzle us with how clever he can be and how many pop-culture references he can jam in, he's crafting a fantastic story.

9. Suspense involves the audiences in the story.
A good example would be from The Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, and his NOTORIOUS. Alicia (Bergman) and Devlin (Grant) are in Alicia's husband's wine cellar, investigating a mystery. We see her husband coming down the stairs, and audience, who is already invested in these characters (having seen them fall in love previously, including an iconic kiss), want them to not get caught, especially since they have just discovered uranium in one of the wine bottles. The audience asks: what will happen next? In a pay-off to a previous set-up (the iconic kiss), Grant kisses Bergman, feigning drunkeness. We are temporarily relieved.

10. Set-ups and pay-offs.
In ADAPTATION, this idea is turned on its head in a brilliant way. The story is about "Charlie Kaufman", a Hollywood screenwriter who wants to write movies about real life, real people, low stakes. His twin brother, "Donald", is also a writer, but writes the kind of high-concept, high-stakes genre shlock Charlie detests. At his wit's end adapting a book about flowers, Charlie does two things: he pitches a version of the flower book that basically amounts to an art film, and he goes to a Robert McKee screenwriting seminar. The third act is Charlie Kaufman, the writer of the movie, systematically paying off these two setups by taking McKee's advice and breaking all the rules he set for himself in the pitch: he says there will be no drugs, no car chases, no heroic deaths. Then, his brother dies, Chris Cooper runs them off the road, and Meryl Streep gets high.

11. Reversals/switcheroos.
Han Solo, in STAR WARS, is a rogue. That's why we like him. He cares only about money, about himself (his last name is "solo", get it?). He's only aligned with the resistance and against the Empire because the revolutionaries hired him first. So we are bummed, but not surprised, when he leaves before the final battle against the Death Star. But he's a mercenary with a heart, so when he comes back to the battle, guns blazing, it is a reversal that we buy, and a satisfying one.
Of course, bigger reversals, those that come at the end of a film and make us rethink the entire movie, are called twists. If done well, they make a great movie legendary, such as Bruce Willis being a ghost in THE SIXTH SENSE or Verbal being Keyser Soze in THE USUAL SUSPECTS.
Note: Reversals are closely tied to set-ups and pay-offs. To be an effective reversal, it needs to be set-up so that the pay-off is both unexpected and somehow also inevitable. Not easy.

12. Comedy is largely subjective.
This might explain the Academy Awards' general aversion towards comedy, because they don't know how to judge it. It also might explain my surprise at the inclusion of BROADCAST NEWS, MOONSTRUCK, and THE PRODUCERS on this list. All well-crafted, all funny, none of them much to my taste.

13. The moments of a movie that linger in memory are often fleeting.
I've often been surprised to find that a moment from an iconic movie that is now in the zeitgeist is played subtly or without fanfare in the actual film. The moment's reputation precedes it. One example would be the line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" in GONE WITH THE WIND. It's a big moment in the film (and in Hollywood history, due to it including a curse word), but it is played like a small moment, and the narrative immediately continues to the next moment, does not linger.

14. Although I'm still not great at it, I'm much better at writing about film now than I was when I started.
Consider this analysis of THE GRAPES OF WRATH that spends half the time reviewing the screening at Facets, versus this more recent review of ON THE WATERFRONT, which discusses structure, motivation, and character, and also includes a clip from the film.

15. Sometimes I disagreed.
One thing about educating yourself on something is that you become accomplished enough or secure enough in what you've learned that you become independent in your opinions and skeptical of conventional wisdom. In other words, especially as I was approaching the finish of this list, I sometimes disagreed about whether a movie was well-written. Two recent examples were ALL ABOUT EVE, which I believe was not visual enough and would work much better as a play, and THE GODFATHER PART II, which I found to pale in comparison to the first film.

I realize that none of these are new lessons, and could be gleaned from reading screenwriting books, but there is something to be said for direct experience, for watching great movies and seeing how they work firsthand.

I should mention that many of these lessons were illuminated by the reading I did concurrent to watching the movies. Some of the things I read that furthered my learning about screenwriting:

* HITCH/TRUFFAUT

* MAMET'S BAMBI VS. GODZILLA, 3 USES OF THE KNIFE, Memo to writers of THE UNIT

* SAVE THE CAT

* TODD ALCOTT

* DAN HARMON'S CHANNEL 101 TUTORIALS

---

Here are my writings about the entire list, in numerical order:

1. CASABLANCA
   
   
2. THE GODFATHER
   
   
3. CHINATOWN
   
   
4. CITIZEN KANE
   
   
5. ALL ABOUT EVE
   
   
6. ANNIE HALL
   
   
7. SUNSET BOULEVARD
   
   
8. NETWORK
   
   
9. SOME LIKE IT HOT
   
   
10. THE GODFATHER PART II
    
    
11. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
    
    
12. DR. STRANGELOVE
    
    
13. THE GRADUATE
    
    
14. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
    
    
15. THE APARTMENT
    
    
16. PULP FICTION
    
    
17. TOOTSIE
    
    
18. ON THE WATERFRONT
    
    
19. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
    
    
20. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
    
    
21. NORTH BY NORTHWEST
    
    
22. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
    
    
23. GONE WITH THE WIND
    
    
24. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
    
    
25. THE WIZARD OF OZ
    
    
26. DOUBLE INDEMNITY
    
    
27. GROUNDHOG DAY
    
    
28. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
    
    
29. SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS
    
    
30. UNFORGIVEN
    
    
31. HIS GIRL FRIDAY
    
    
32. FARGO
    
    
33. THE THIRD MAN
    
    
34. SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
    
    
35. THE USUAL SUSPECTS
    
    
36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY
    
    
37. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY
    
    
38. AMERICAN BEAUTY
    
    
39. THE STING
    
    
40. WHEN HARRY MET SALLY
    
    
41. GOODFELLAS
    
    
42. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
    
    
43. TAXI DRIVER
    
    
44. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
    
    
45. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
    
    
46. THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE
    
    
47. THE MALTESE FALCON
    
    
48. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI
    
    
49. SCHINDLER'S LIST
    
    
50. THE SIXTH SENSE
    
    
51. BROADCAST NEWS
    
    
52. THE LADY EVE
    
    
53. ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN
    
    
54. MANHATTAN
    
    
55. APOCALYPSE NOW
    
    
56. BACK TO THE FUTURE
    
    
57. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
    
    
58. ORDINARY PEOPLE
    
    
59. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
    
    
60. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
    
    
61. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
    
    
62. MOONSTRUCK
    
    
63. JAWS
    
    
64. TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
    
    
65. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
    
    
66. JERRY MAGUIRE
    
    
67. E.T.
    
    
68. STAR WARS
    
    
69. DOG DAY AFTERNOON
    
    
70. THE AFRICAN QUEEN
    
    
71. THE LION IN WINTER
    
    
72. THELMA & LOUISE
    
    
73. AMADEUS
    
    
74. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
    
    
75. HIGH NOON
    
    
76. RAGING BULL
    
    
77. ADAPTATION
    
    
78. ROCKY
    
    
79. THE PRODUCERS
    
    
80. WITNESS
    
    
81. BEING THERE
    
    
82. COOL HAND LUKE
    
    
83. REAR WINDOW
    
    
84. THE PRINCESS BRIDE
    
    
85. THE GRAND ILLUSION
    
    
86. HAROLD AND MAUDE
    
    
87. 8 1/2
    
    
88. FIELD OF DREAMS
    
    
89. FORREST GUMP
    
    
90. SIDEWAYS
    
    
91. THE VERDICT
    
    
92. PSYCHO
    
    
93. DO THE RIGHT THING
    
    
94. PATTON
    
    
95. HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
    
    
96. THE HUSTLER
    
    
97. THE SEARCHERS
    
    
98. THE GRAPES OF WRATH
    
    
99. THE WILD BUNCH
    
    
100. MEMENTO
     
     
101. NOTORIOUS
     
     
     
     

1. CASABLANCA

Story is change.

In this case, we have a character who changes throughout the course of the film for the better, for the greater good, against his basest instincts, and thus becomes noble.

"Everyone Comes To Rick's" was the original title, and while it's inelegant, it's correct: this movie revolves around Rick and his cafe. Rick, we are told by others, never has a drink with patrons, is attached to no woman, and is essentially a loner. Rick, by his own words, "sticks his neck out for no one." In this sense, Rick is a metaphor for America's isolationist policies.

But watch how things gradually change: from watching Rick brusquely escort a drunk one-night stand out of his cafe, to later passionately embracing Ilsa; from being business-like with his money throughout, to later helping a young woman cheat at roulette to buy passage out of Casablanca; from being resolutely apolitical, to helping a resistance fighter escape, risking his own life and giving up the woman he's pined for in the process.

There's another layer of change in this story, as well, the flashbacks to Paris where we see Rick and Ilsa in love. It is years prior, and they are carefree, the world is their oyster. That she leaves Rick with only a note at the train station is what changes him into the hardened, cyncical, jaded man he is at the start of the picture, and her reemergence in his life is what eventually spurns him to become a better man.

The changes continue at the end, where Rick has successfully risked everything to get Laszlo on the plane and sacrifices his own relationship with Ilsa for the greater good, for her to remain with Laszlo. To do all this required him to sell his cafe, so beyond changing internally, Rick must walk off into the uncertain future, a different and better man.

3. CHINATOWN

Lies. This movie is all about lies.

The story concerns LA private detective Jake Gittes, who takes a case from Evelyn Mulwray, who thinks her husband is cheating on her. Right away, we are caught in a lie, because after tailing Mr. Mulwray, a player in the city's water department, we discover that Mrs. Mulwray was a fake. The real Mrs. Mulwray reveals herself at Gittes' office and subsequently hires him to find out who impersonated her.

The lies continue, both small and big: Jake lies to access a police investigation at the reservoir, Mrs. Mulwray lies to Jake about why her husband and her father had a falling out, Jake and Mrs. Mulwray lie to get admitted at an old-folks home to ask questions.

And, of course, the biggest lie of the film is one of omission: "She's my sister. She's my daughter." Finally, Mrs. Mulwray comes out with the truth: "She's my sister and my daughter." And the ugly truth is revealed.

Here's the genius of designing a movie around a string of lies: you have no shortage of obstacles for the hero of the story, who must uncover lie after lie and sort the truth out from those. This is especially rich for a character like Jake Gittes, a smooth operator who always seems one step ahead of the game. It gives him a real challenge and tests his very nature, because as much as he discovers the truth behind one lie, that leads to another, and he's always playing catch-up.

Another great thing about designing a movie around lies is that you keep the audience engaged throughout, since they are aligned with the hero is trying to figure out what's real and what's a lie.

The title itself refers to a state of mind where you think you know what's going on, but you really don't. Where you dig deeper into something, and the more you discover, the more you realize you have barely scratched the surface. A big way to be put into this state of mind is through lies, and everyone in the film experiences it: Jake in various ways throughout with his investigation; Evelyn, who knows secrets about her husband and father but doesn't know what got the former killed or the extent of the power-grab by the latter; Escobar, lost at sea in his police work; the Cross daughter, who has no idea of her true identity but must know something that she can't quite articulate is dead wrong.

My movie year 2011

Here are all the movies -- plus a few other things -- that I watched in 2011:

1. Get Him to the Greek


2. The Hurt Locker


3. The Usual Suspects


4. True Grit -- 2010


5. Four Lions


6. The Fighter


7. The Road


8. Guy And Madeline on a Park Bench


9. Night Catches Us


10. Marwencol


11. Somewhere


12. Boogie Nights


13. Say When -- rough cut


14. Blue Valentine


15. Smokey and the Bandit


16. The Third Man


17. The King's Speech


18. The Leopard


19. Jesus Camp


20. L'Atalante


21. After Last Season


22. Harry Potter and the blah blah blah


23. The Godfather


24. And Everything is Going Fine


25. Starship Troopers


26. Block of shorts -- Texas shorts


27. Wuss


28. The Innkeepers


29. The Catechism Cataclysm


30. Futurestates -- dystopian shorts


31. Dragonslayer


32. Silver Bullets


33. Septien


34. Bellflower


35. The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye


36. Convento


37. No Matter What


38. Sound of My Voice


39. Fambul Tok


40. Freakonomics


41. The Big Lebowski


42. Demolition Man


43. 4192


44. Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World


45. Surrogate Valentine


46. Your Highness


47. His Girl Friday


48. Rear Window


49. Unforgiven


50. Restrepo


51. The Terminator


52. Jurassic Park


53. Days of Thunder


54. Melvin and Howard


55. Philadelphia


56. Uncle Kent


57. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives


58. Cave of Forgotten Dreams


59. Shakespeare in Love


60. The Beaver Trilogy


61. Double Indemnity


62. There Will Be Blood


63. Bridesmaids


64. The Wizard of Oz


65. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind


66. The Exodus of Charlie Wright


67. 13 Assassins


68. The Tree of Life


69. I Love You, Man


70. Burn After Reading


71. Jackass


72. Vertigo


73. Hall Pass


74. Risky Business


75. March of the Penguins


76. Super 8


77. Monster's Inc.


78. The 40-Year-Old Virgin


79. The Break-Up


80. Beginners


81. Double Team


82. Due Date


83. The Last Picture Show


84. Swingers


85. Page One


86. Conan O'Brien Can't Stop


87. Ferris Bueller's Day Off


88. Harry Potter and the blah blah blah Part 2


89. Close Encounters of the Third Kind


90. Incredibly Small


91. The Incredibles


92. Ratatouille


93. Friends With Benefits


94. Incredibly Small


95. Easy A


96. Gone With the Wind


97. Crazy, Stupid, Love


98. Goodfellas


99. The Shawshank Redemption


100. Tabloid


101. Finding Nemo


102. Wall-E


103. North By Northwest


104. Attack the Block


105. Sixteen Candles


106. To Kill A Mockingbird


107. Another Earth


108. Stop Making Sense


109. Wattstax


110. Footloose - 2011


111. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp


112. The Rise of the Planet of the Apes


113. Incredibly Small


114. Fingerman: Dr. London and the Triangle Force


115. On the Waterfront


116. Tootsie


117. Contagion


118. Act Naturally


119. Drive


120. Until the Light Takes Us


121. Soul Power


122. Pulp Fiction


123. Bronson


124. Valhalla Rising


125. Bridesmaids


126. Random shorts -- Jason Reitman, Spike Jonze, David Lynch, more


127. The Graduate


128. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb


129. Autoerotic


130. 50/50


131. One Too Many Mornings


132. The Asphalt Jungle


133. General Orders No. 9


134. The Interrupters


135. Margaret


136. Moneyball


137. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid


138. The Ides of March


139. Take Shelter


140. Meet the Parents


141. Beetlejuice


142. American Pimp


143. Halloween


144. Tchoupitoulas -- rough cut


145. Saturday Morning Massacre -- rough cut


146. Melancholia


147. The Godfather Part II


148. Jurassic Park


149. Network


150. Saturday Morning Massacre -- rough cut


151. A Mighty Wind


152. The Muppets -- 2011


153. The Descendants


154. Panic Room


155. Patrice O'Neal -- Elephant in the Room


156. Martha Marcy May Marlene


157. Shame


158. Sunset Boulevard


159. All About Eve


160. The Skin I Live In


161. Richard Pryor -- Live on the Sunset Strip


162. Louis CK -- Live at the Beacon Theatre


163. Richard Pryor -- Live in Concert


164. Kenneth Anger shorts


165. Raiders of the Lost Ark


166. Raiders of the Lost Ark -- The Adaptation


167. Elf


168. Young Adult


169. A Christmas Story


170. Chinatown


171. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo -- 2011


172. Hugo


173. Citizen Kane


174. Casablanca


175. * Cincinnati to New Orleans By Water -- web series (not technically a movie, but still one of the best things I watched this year.)

I also watched pretty much every episode of FRIENDS, JUSTIFIED, and THE OFFICE.

4. CITIZEN KANE

It's about the search for love.

Kane is sent off from his mother, "for his own good", to live with a rich guardian. He runs a newspaper, marries the President's niece. We see a decade of that marriage over the breakfast table. He meets his mistress, a would-be singer. He runs for governor. He builds an opera house to give his lady a place to perform. He buys art, surrounds himself with possessions. He throws lavish parties.

In all that he does, he is trying to fill the hole that was his initial rejection from his mother, who sent him away when he was young. With his newspaper business and run for office, he is looking for love from the public. With his marriages and his relationship with his best friend Jed, he is looking for love privately. And finally, with his building of Xanadu, his estate, he is looking for love materially. He never finds it.

One of the smart things about the movie is that it is structured like a detective movie. One of the even smarter things is that the objective of that quest: "Figure out what his final word, 'Rosebud", means" is actually fulfilled, and yet, it explains nothing.

Another reason this movie has endured is that it is uniquely American: it is about a Great Man who goes from rags-to-riches like Horatio Algiers, defying class conventions. The Great Man is a public man, but ultimately he is unknowable, a jigsaw puzzle, complex.

Like ALL ABOUT EVE, we get voiceover and perspective from multiple characters. By contrast, however, each of these stories constitutes a complete 3-act mini-structure inside the larger narrative. Accordingly, the narrative shifts around in time, non-linearly. This play with time was innovative in its day, and still holds up.

5. ALL ABOUT EVE

This should have been a play.

It is really simple: a movie must be primarily visual. This film relies too much on dialogue to move the story along, together with pervasive voiceover (which, while innovative -- more on that later -- is still a crutch).

A good example is directly after the midpoint, when Margot (played by Bette Davis), a star in the theatre, arrives to the table reading of a new play late. Her assistant, the titular Eve, read in lieu of her and killed. And now the writing is on the wall: her suspicions about Eve trying to replace her are seemingly confirmed, and she continues to feel over-the-hill, old, expendable.

The problem is that we get this information through back and forth dialogue between Margot and DeWitt in the theatre lobby. It is a break of the age-old writer's maxim: Show, Don't Tell.

What if, instead of a scene of dialogue, Bette Davis comes in late and before, she comes through the door, hears the dialogue being read by Eve and stops short. What if she peeks through the door and watches Eve transformed, acting her ass off. She watches the admiring faces of the others at the table as this assistant is revealed to them as a new star. We see Davis watch them explode into applause at the end of Eve's reading, and we see Davis' face as she realizes her time is up. And then we see her wipe her tears away and compose herself, put her public mask back on as she barges through the door with panache to try to take the focus off Eve, trying to regain control of the room and, thereby, her future as a viable actress.

The above would be visual, would rely more on acting with the body than the mouth, and, I believe, would engage the audience better by letting them fill in the blanks.

That said, there's quite a few things to recommend the film:

* For a movie that leans so heavily on dialogue, it provides some great lines:
"Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night."
"Bill's thirty-two. He looks thirty-two. He looked it five years ago, he'll look it twenty years from now. I hate men."
"Nice speech, Eve. But I wouldn't worry too much about your heart. You can always put that award where your heart ought to be."
"Don't cry. Just score it as an incomplete forward pass. "
"When you're a secretary in a brewery, it's pretty hard to make-believe you're anything else. Everything is beer."

* It's an archtypical story, an inside baseball tale about a simultaneous rise and fall, about ambition and fear of failure. It has been copied often because the tale of a young climber and an old timer barely hanging on a nerve in the zeitgeist.

* The innovative use of voiceover. The VO switches between characters throughout the film to various characters as needed. I'm not sure if that had been done before this film, but I don't think it has ever been done as effectively.

So, it isn't that the movie is poorly written. The problem with ALL ABOUT EVE is that it would be far better as a play than as a movie.

6. ANNIE HALL

Three things come to mind when thinking about ANNIE HALL:

1) The unity of theme in the movie.

The working title of the film was ANHEDONIA, the inability to experience pleasure. Everything in this film, from the overall arc of the two main characters down to individual lines. Allen's character is miserable, and spends his romantic relationships trying to fill that hole. He never succeeds, but comes to terms with it. Annie Hall herself is similarly neurotic, but she is able to improve and begin to come to terms with herself and experience pleasure. Her increasing comfort with herself and self-actualization becomes serious conflict with Alvy. Finally, Allen is smart to create an opposite character as his best friend. Rob is Alvy's contrast, living only for pleasure, and doing so without regret.

2) The use of set-ups and pay-offs.

Set-ups and pay-offs are some of the most important and underrated script techniques. Allen uses this beautifully, most notably in the two lobster cooking scenes. In the first, Allen and Annie are at the beach house, having a great time bonding while putting live lobsters in pots. Later, when Allen is with a new woman, he tries to recreate this sense of fun, but the outcome is decidedly different and results in a disaster.
Another example, less poignant and more comedic, is Christopher Walken revealing his fantasy about crashing a car on purpose. We then cut to Allen in the car with Walken driving, Allen white knuckled. You can see the sequence below in its entirety:



3) The playfulness of the film's bending of film grammar.

Like PULP FICTION, this film bends the language of film in a way that conveys sheer joy from the filmmaker. The ways are myriad:

* Non-linear structure, cutting between Alvy's different relationships, starting in the middle of Alvy and Annie's relationship and doubling back.
* Breaking the fourth wall, Allen addressing the audience directly as a framing technique at the head and tail of the film.
* Use of fantasy, when Allen brings in Marshall McLuhen to argue a point for him, or when Annie floats out of her body to look for art supplies, or incorporating an animated sequence ripping off SNOW WHITE.
* Split-screens, to compare and contrast Alvy's rambunctious family with Annie's staid family.

I have a lot of problems with Woody Allen's work, but there's no doubt that this movie is a masterpiece.

7. SUNSET BOULEVARD

A dead body in a pool. Intrigue immediately.
-- compare this with SOME LIKE IT HOT, which starts off with a car chase, or DOUBLE INDEMNITY, which begins with a gutshot Fred MacMurray announcing "I killed Dietrichson." Wilder's quote was "Grab the audience by the throat and never let them go," and he practiced what he preached.

A young writer who can't sell his stories. Repo men come to get his car. He's in dire straits, broke. He needs $300.

He goes to a producer he knows, tries to pitch a script to Paramount. He gets denied, is still out of money.

Gets on the phone, calls around to friends for the cash. Meets with his agent, who also refuses to lend him the money. Drives around, contemplates going back to (Dayton) Ohio, returning to the newspaper business (this comes from real life, I'd assume, since Wilder started out as a newspaper man before getting into the movies).

He sees the repo men while he's driving around, they give chase. Ends up in a random rich person's garage.

12 minutes in. He's somewhere new, at a huge white mansion. He gets called into the house -- they treat him like he's expected, even though he's obviously not.

Already we have a main character in a SERIOUS bind (he's broke), we have him taking actions to alleviate his problem, and we have scenes that end on intrigue, making us always wonder: what will happen next?

What happens next is that he meets a movie star: "You're Norma Desmond. You used to be big." "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." She's eccentric, theatrical, a has-been. She lives alone, only a butler with her, in this mansion.

He tells her he's a writer; she laments sound, tells him to read her script. Again, here's where we can discuss motivation: normally, a guy like this would get out of the creepy old mansion with the has-been actress, but two things are making him stick around: he's being chased, and he thinks she might able in a position to give him money. So he stays.

He finishes the script, has some thoughts on how to make it better. She hires him to do a touch-up/rewrite, so he stays the night. As he does so, he looks around the grounds: "It was all very queer, but queerer things were yet to come."

This is how Act 1 ends! With the writer basically telling us directly that we should wonder what's next.

So: Act 2. He moves in, begins working, she breathes down his neck. He tries to cut a big scene with her, she resists. "The public wants to see me!" She is narcissistic, has an inflated ego, is unreasonable. They watch silent movies occasionally, always ones where she was the star.

30 minutes in -- the repo men find him, tow his car away. Now they use her car. He is getting in deeper and deeper -- she buys him clothes, he moves into the main house from the garage due to a leaky roof in his room.

New Year's Eve party -- set piece -- she's trying to seduce him, he resists, she slaps him. He leaves, goes to a young person's party with other struggling entertainment world folks: his peers. He's made his decision: he will move back in with a friend, leave Norma's world, the dusty, ancient, dying world she inhabits, the lonely world. That's contrasted by the liveliness of the party and his reemerged libido, with which he tries to kiss his friend's lady, who likes his script.

He calls Norma's to get his stuff packed, finds out from the butler that Norma tried to kill herself, and thus he returns and is sucked back in to her world, a world he doesn't belong to and almost escaped. "Happy New Year, Norma," she says, and kisses her. He's locked in.

That's the midpoint. The girl calls, tries to find him, the butler denies her.

They all go to Paramount to see DeMille unannounced. She thinks this is her big break, but DeMille doesn't want to see her, even though the public flocks to her on the soundstage. She thinks they've been calling her about a role, but instead they've been calling her to use her old car for a period piece. "How did it go?" "It couldn't have gone better!" But DeMille never wants to see her again.

Act 3, it becomes almost all plot. She undergoes a montage of beauty treatments. Gilles sneaks out every night to work on script with the girl. The butler, Max, reveals that he directed her and was her first husband.

She finds his other script. Betty kisses him, is in love with him, wants to leave her boyfriend. Norma calls Betty, tries to tell her off. Betty comes over, he resists her, doesn't steal her, unlike what we thought he would do. She leaves.

He packs, prepares to go back to Dayton. He reveals the truth to her: There were no fan letters, DeMille doesn't want her, she's old and over-the-hill.

She cracks. She has built up an entire world where she was special, where she was relevant. That's gone now. She shoots the messenger.

Back to the opening scene, the cops come to see her and arrest her. She's completely insane now, no longer in the real world, completely consumed by fantasy. They get her to come downstairs and be arrested by telling her that she's wanted on set.

"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille."

10. THE GODFATHER PART 2

This is not a great movie, nor is it a great screenplay. This was a cash grab.

It's not a bad movie, per se. How could it be? You have Coppola in his prime, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, even Lee Strasburg! You have a large budget, which allows a variety of top-notch technicians and department heads.

What you don't have is a compelling story, or one that comes remotely close to the brilliance of the first film. But it exists to give backstory to a character who doesn't need it and to further another character's story in a way that we don't require.

We follow two storylines, intercutting between them: Michael Corleone, who has taken over his father's mafia business and moved it to Nevada; and his father, Don Vito Corleone, as he immigrates to America and beings his rise to power in New York in the early 1900's.

The parallels between those two storylines are tenuous at best, the time frames don't match up (Vito's story takes place over many years, Michael's is shorter), and character arcs happen out of the blue.

On that last point, the arc of Vito from poor, hard-working immigrant to low-level gangster to killer to kingpin is too fast, unexplained, and unbelievable. We never see a lightbulb moment where he makes his choice. We never see him starving, or in peril himself. We never get a sense of his motivation, other than that we already know he becomes a mobster later. He becomes a killer because it's convienent to the plot.

Contrast this with the superior first film, where Michael's motivation to kill for the first time, thus changing the course of his life, are shown to us clearly, and are both primal and twofold: he's protecting his father; he's exacting revenge.

The final act, after a perfunctory Don Vito return to Sicily to kill the man that killed his mother, we get an intercut killing of all of Michael's foes, including Hyman Roth at the Miami Airport, as well as Michael's brother Fredo. This is an echo of the first film's intercut killing, contrasted with a baptism. Again, the first film is superior in this regard, because that contrast between good and evil, light and dark, works in the context of the film, and the character's motivations made that scene make sense: Michael was using the baptism as an alibi so that he couldn't be implicated in the slaughter.

Here, he's just being cruel, and in a way that doesn't make sense: he could have had Fredo killed in Cuba and been much less culpable, we're honestly expected to believe he's more eager to have Hyman killed in America, at a busy airport, rather than abroad, and he somehow has the power to have Tom convince someone to kill himself in prison?

And then we get Michael alone, with nothing but his memories of the time his father was to come home, the time he enlisted in the Army. I, for one, felt nothing for him. I watched the credits, dumbfounded about how this could be considered great cinema. A few weeks later, I was vindicated: Francis Ford Coppola: There Should've Only Been ONE 'Godfather' Movie.

Here are a few posts that echo my disappointment:

* Movie Rapture
* dfuse.in
* Roger Ebert