People who could’ve directed The Soloist better than Joe Wright:

Ron Howard

Any 2^nd year NYU film student

A French tourist with a camcorder

A retarded monkey

The Soloist is the story of Steve Lopez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times who is struggling for new material.  After a rough bicycling accident, he runs across a homeless man playing a violin with only two strings.  After some digging, he discovers that this mentally ill vagabond is Nathaniel Ayers, an amazingly talented Julliard dropout.  Lopez begins writing about the down-and-out musician, and the two strike up an unusual friendship.  This is actually a true story, and is based on the book by Steve Lopez.

The story itself is wonderful.  The characters are well developed, the dialogue is entertaining and emotional, and the musical aspect is at times moving.  The Soloist would have made a great documentary, but this film version was, on almost every level, ill conceived.  Susannah Grant (screenwriter) was an interesting choice, as her previous credits include Catch and Release, Erin Brockovich, and Ever After.  She is the epitome of a chick flick writer, and The Soloist is not a chick flick.  This is probably why Lopez’s relationship with his ex-wife and son are mentioned numerous times, but never flushed out or discussed in detail, which actually detracts from the audience’s emotional attachment to Robert Downey Jr.

Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) is just a pretentious, unimaginative director who always wants to cram every item on his Oscar checklist into his films.  This one is no different.  His long, slow moving camera shots panning the city, moving with characters in and out of rooms, doesn’t fit with this kind of story (I wasn’t a fan of it in Atonement either, but whatever).  This story is about people, about personal demons and inner talent.  We need intimate, we need direct, we need to feel for these people.  What we do not need is a laser light show of colors while listening to a symphony, or grainy homemade footage of interviews and rehearsals.

There are also many flashbacks in the film to when Nathaniel Ayers was growing up.  But we are never told they are flashbacks, we have to figure that out for ourselves, and there really aren’t very many overt clues to this.  No year flashes up on screen, no location, they aren’t even transitioned by a specific sound or shot.  As Ayers gets older, the flashbacks get more confusing.

This isn’t just Joe Wright, either.  Even with only three films under his belt, he has already amassed a group of haughty socialites willing to do his arrogant bidding.  Composer Dario Marianelli, Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, Editor Paul Tothill, and Production Designer Sarah Greenwood have all collaborated with Wright on all three of his films, none of them having a particularly impressive or extensive resume overall.  It’s like Wright put out an ad for filmmakers whose only goal in cinema was to win an Academy Award, not to actually make films.

Though it was slightly hampered by misguided directing and an erratic screenplay, the acting in The Soloist is very well done.  Robert Downey Jr. has had better roles, but he fit the character very well, from his clothes to his attitude.  Jamie Foxx has played musicians before and, though he’s not the best one himself, does it well.  This role was especially difficult because of Ayers’ schizophrenia.  Foxx pulled it off  though.  Maybe not Golden Globe caliber, but it was solid.  And, as always, Catherine Keener was a great addition to the cast as Lopez’s boss and ex-wife.  She supplies some comic relief and emotional support in some of Downey’s best scenes.  However, as I said, this relationship is not expanded on as much as it should have been.

Even knowing who directed this film, I had been looking forward to it since the first preview I saw.  When it kept getting pushed back, my expectations grew slightly.  That may account for how disappointed I was, but the three people with me didn’t feel any differently: This film is nowhere near as good as it could have been.

Final Grade: C-

First and foremost, we would like to thank all of you who supported us on Sunday and followed the live blog. It was a big day for Sexy Gypsy, and it really set the bar high.

Unfortunately, the Academy set the bar pretty low for hosting this year. Hugh Jackman, while slightly entertaining and charismatic at first, bored us to death with the constant musical numbers. This is the Oscars, dammit, we didn’t watch the Grammies for a reason. Also, the new format for actor awards runs a little long for our taste. Do we really need past winners standing up there talking one by one about the nominees for this year? We know Heath Ledger was an amazing Joker, do we really need Kevin Kline to tell us again? And if Cuba Gooding Jr. wants to be on stage at the red carpets, maybe he should be in a movie that doesn’t suck ass.

So despite some random last minute decisions, Sexy Gypsy did pretty well in predicting the Oscars this year. Our preview was right on the money for the big categories, even if our ballots weren’t. Unlike past years, there were no really big upsets. So let’s recap:

Best Picture: We all knew that Slumdog Millionaire was going to sweep the awards again. Milk was an amazing contender, but couldn’t stand up to the sheer brilliance in editing, direction, sound, and writing that Slumdog brought. Well deserved.

Best Director: David Fincher and Ron Howard have done better work. Stephen Daldry’s presence, not only in this category, but also in every other category The Reader was nominated, was a ridiculous, unwarranted usurping of Sam Mendes’ rightful seat with Revolutionary Road. Van Sant gave him a good run for the money, but Danny Boyle couldn’t be ignored any longer. Well deserved.

Best Actor: Minus Brad Pitt, this category was stacked. Jenkins, Langella, Penn, and Rourke all gave amazing performances. But it really came down to the latter two, and even though Prop 8 could’ve pushed Penn to the win, he was fantastic, and at least Rourke is again on the radar. Questionable, but well deserved.

Best Actress: Anne Hathaway hasn’t been as typecast as most people believe. Her role in Havoc was enough for us to take her seriously. Unfortunately, she was up against two major actresses (not counting Melissa Leo or Angelina Jolie). However, Streep has had her Oscar recognition, and Winslet was due after so many dead end nominations. Well deserved, wrong film (should have been Revolutionary Road).

Best Supporting Actor: If you read our preview, you know our conspiracy theories in this category. But there was only ever a slight doubt in anyone’s mind that Ledger would walk with this one. His “eclectic” career aside, this was not only his best performance, but one of the best of all time. Hey Downey, why so serious? Well deserved.

Best Supporting Actress: This category wasn’t really stellar, but everyone did a good job in their roles. Amy Adams, however, was definitely a head above the rest, in emotion and in screen time. Predicting this one was disappointing, because we knew Cruz would take it for being involved in an otherwise-not-nominated Woody Allen film. Undeserved.

Other categories of interest

Foreign Language: Waltz with Bashir should’ve taken this, and most people thought it would. Always gotta be on the lookout for the underdog.

Shorts: It is surprising that On the Line or Manon on the Asphalt didn’t take it, considering they were more the Academy’s usual taste, but Toyland was interesting and well edited, and the only WWII film even nominated this year. Also surprising, but definitely exciting, was the Academy’s decision to look past Pixar’s usual animated brilliance and give the Oscar to La Maison en Petits Cubes, the emotional Japanese film with a French name.

Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire was an amazing adaptation, as shown by its eight wins this year. However, we still believe that, with any other director, the script would have fallen short. Doubt, though sub par in acting and directing, was an amazingly well written film, full of amazing dialogue. Milk was the obvious choice for Original Screenplay. It built and developed all the characters for the actors to round out, and there wasn’t a weak link in the bunch.

Another surprise was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. All three of this film’s awards (Visual Effects, Art Direction, and Makeup) beat out The Dark Knight, which was a thousand times better in all of them. This is either an apology to Fincher for ignoring Zodiac, or an apology to Brad Pitt that he will never, ever, ever be Batman. Robin, maybe, but not The Dark Knight.

Overall, a good year for movies, and a solid Academy Awards ceremony. We will of course be starting this all over again next November, but for now we return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Thanks for the support.

-Sexy Gypsy

Best Picture

Of the five films in this category, only two really have a shot. Frost/Nixon was a great stage adaptation with amazing performances and, while solid, was ultimately compromised by Ron Howard’s lack of technical abilities. The Reader was boring, poorly constructed, and probably the most overrated film in the last 20 years. And Benjamin Button was average at best.

That leaves us with Milk and Slumdog Millionaire. And it’s close.

Milk was perfectly casted, acted and edited. Thankfully, Gus van Sant showed enough restraint not to fuck it up with his usual annoyingly pseudo-artistic direction. Add to that the best performance of Sean Penn’s career and you have a serious contender for Best Picture.

But, unfortunately for Gus van Sant and Milk, 2009 is the year of Slumdog. With great music, flawless direction and screenplay, Slumdog Millionaire has finally brought Danny Boyle to the forefront of cinema. He’s a versatile director who can excel in any genre, and Slumdog’s complex, non-linear story line really allowed him to showcase his skills. The result was a beautifully executed film whose broad appeal, blending of cultures, and surprising rise to recognition puts it over the top.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Slumdog Millionaire

WHO WILL WIN: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor

Why is Brad Pitt in this category? He gave a much better, rounder performance in A River Runs Through It and is the weak link in this category with his one-note portrayal of Benjamin Button. Richard Jenkins is finally getting the love he deserves, after years of being “that guy”—you recognize him, know he’s in things, but you don’t know his name or why you seem to remember him (if you still don’t know who he is, he’s the dead father in Six Feet Under). Unfortunately, his well-developed performance will be eclipsed by the big three: Mickey Rourke, Frank Langella, and Sean Penn. This will ultimately be decided by politics: the resurrection of Mickey Rourke, the Nixon scandal, or the gay character post-prop 8.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Mickey Rourke WHO WILL WIN: Sean Penn, because the Academy loves him.

Best Actress

First off, the Academy needs to decide what constitutes a leading role, because Kate Winslet should have been up for Revolutionary Road, not The Reader, both for technical and performance-quality reasons. She’ll probably win, but only because Stephen Daldry is a marketing whore and has been politicking for The Reader like he was Blagojevich selling a Senate seat.

Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie both had great roles, but it was more the writing than they acting that made their characters special. While Angelina Jolie will get a nomination for anything in which she’s not half naked shooting at people, Streep didn’t bring the expected veteran-actress energy to an already well written character—and it fell short.

Melissa Leo in Frozen River was an interesting choice. A small, low-budget, independent film shot in 24 days spawns a Best Actress nomination? But it’s a well-crafted story—solid throughout. As for Melissa Leo’s performance, as good a job as she did, she’s not beating out Streep, let alone Winslet.

Anne Hathaway, on the other hand, deserves credit for nailing her part as a fresh-out-of-rehab junkie—a role often cliched, parodied, and overplayed. Sadly, no one saw Rachel Getting Married. It’s not a great film but Hathaway more than makes up for it (Plus, Tunde from TV on The Radio plays her brother-in-law-to-be!)

WHO SHOULD WIN: Anne Hathaway WHO WILL WIN: Kate Winslet

Best Supporting Actor

Robert Downey, Jr. is an amazing actor and definitely deserves some fucking recognition. But Tropic Thunder? Really?? It’s picks like this that make people clown the Oscar. Everyone else was solid, but Josh Brolin, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Michael Shannon picked a shitty year to be nominated.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was miscast in the role of Father Flynn, and he did the best he could. Still, his subpar performance paled in comparison to most of his other work. Josh Brolin, though slightly outshone by the rest of the supporting cast, was impressive in Milk. He just seems to have bad luck—going against Daniel Day-Lewis last year, and now Heath Ledger. Michael Shannon had three great scenes, and blew me away in Revolutionary Road. He was the most interesting character in a Sam Mendes movie, which in itself says a lot, and he had a huge impact in his 120 seconds of screen time.

Yet as good as they were, Brolin and Shannon especially, no one is beating Heath Ledger. A solid, completely immersive portrayal of a psychotic clown in a movie that destroyed box offices everywhere? He deserves the award no matter what, and it only helps that he’s dead.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Heath Ledger (but only because he’s dead) WHO WILL WIN: Heath Ledger (but only because he’s dead)

Best Supporting Actress

How long do you have to be in a film to fulfill the “supporting” criteria? Viola Davis, though very emotional, had one scene in Doubt. However, she was just as memorable as Michael Shannon in her limited screen time. Penelope Cruz didn’t have a much bigger role, and she’s only here because she played a cup full of crazy in a Woody Allen movie, and her crazy wasn’t as good as crazies in the past (Wilkinson in Michael Clayton). But Amy Adams is a head above the rest in this category, and hopefully that’s enough.

Taraji Henson is here just because the Academy loved Benjamin Button, but it wasn’t a great film and she wasn’t all that good in it. Outside of Cruz, she’s the weakest nominee in this category. It was like she played the great-great-grandmother of her character in Hustle and Flow.

Marisa Tomei is the dark horse here. She gave an incredible performance in The Wrestler and she’s still ridiculously hot.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Amy Adams WHO WILL WIN: Penelope Cruz

Best Director

If you’ve ever read sexy gypsy, you already know our pick for Best Director. Motherfucking Danny Boyle.

Stephen Daldry is now on my shit list for The Reader—even more so for plugging the fuck out of an inferior movie and tricking everyone into thinking it was great. Who the fuck does he think he is, M. Night Shyamalan?

David Fincher is a great director with some amazing movies under his belt, but the travesty of Curious Case of Benjamin Button is not one of them. The sequence with Tilda Swinton and Brad Pitt was the only time you really saw Fincher’s influence, and it was the best part of the film.

Ron Howard is still Hollywood’s golden boy, so it’s not surprising he was nominated for Frost/Nixon. Aside from persistent anachronisms and mishandling of time, Howard preserved the spirit of the stage play and the camera work was excellent.

Gus van Sant finally decided to humble himself and make a solid, consistent film, and is really the only one who could challenge Boyle. The Academy loves him, and could look to make up for robbing him of Best Director in 1997, plus some Prop 8 guilt could come into play. This is definitely a category to watch.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Danny Boyle (with an honorable mention and apology to Sam Mendes) WHO WILL WIN: Danny Boyle

Conspiracies

• Who did Sam Mendes piss off? He is a great filmmakers and Revolutionary Road, though disturbingly depressing, was an amazing film. Camera work, editing, score, acting, screenplay—all great. Yet the Academy left him out of the running and even changed the nomination for Kate Winslet, calling her performance in The Reader a lead—a role which the HFPA considered a supporting a few months ago. I think he’s in the doghouse for some reason, and Michael Shannon’s nomination is an apology. I suspect that, though Ledger has it locked, they might upset everything and give it to Shannon, just to show there’s no hard feelings.
• Amy Adams deserves to win best supporting, but everything in Hollywood is political (which could also explain Winslet’s bump to lead role after Daldry’s whoring). My guess is that Cruz could walk with this one because the Academy loves Woody Allen and they’re sorry he made a dumb movie they can’t nominate for anything else.
• Again making up for its past mistakes, the Academy has shown major love to Benjamin Button. They want so badly to let Pitt have one, but Babel just wasn’t that good. And Zodiac, Fincher’s first Academy-worthy film, just came out too early for Oscar consideration.
• 4.) Robert Downey, Jr. has been in some great movies, always does his roles beautifully, and the Academy thinks he’s due for something. But since Charlie Bartlett got impatient and fucked off what could have been a serious, profound ending, he couldn’t get anything for that. And Iron Man was entertaining, but no actor will ever get an Oscar for playing a superhero. Downey’s next film is The Soloist with Jamie Foxx, directed by Joe Wright. It would have been a contender for the Oscars but was pulled from its November release date and slated for early March, 2009. So now it comes down to Tropic Thunder.

For the past eight years, Washington has been rocked by the biggest scandal in history. It wasn’t an isolated event (like Clinton’s Monica-gate, or Whitewater-gate…or Lie-to-Ken Star-while-playing-the-saxophone-gate.); it was an ongoing disservice to the American people that I will now dub “Dyslexia-gate”. It has made us forget that we ever had an intelligent president who wasn’t addicted to fat chicks.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Richard M. Nixon resigned the Presidency after his accused involvement with Watergate (*sigh*…try wikipedia). A short time later, Australian talk show host David Frost approached the ex-president to do a televised interview, “No-holes-barred”. In a series of taped interviews that would later make history, Nixon waxed nostalgic and spoke circles around Frost before finally being confronted with his involvement in the scandal on the last day of taping. Nixon was a great politician who got his hands dirty during a dirty time in our nation’s history. That may not be how everyone remembers him, but it’s definitely how Ron Howard and Peter Morgan remember him, and it really shows in Frost/Nixon.

Sometimes, the problem with a stage play transitioning to the big screen is the sheer scope of everything, the arrogance of the director and actors, and the butchering of the dialog. So I have to tip my hat to Ron Howard, who, when he decided to make this film, insisted that Peter Morgan (author of the play) write the screenplay, and Michael Sheen and Frank Langella reprise their stage rolls (Langella actually won an Emmy for the stage production). I think that had a lot to do with the two actors’ comfort and confidence on screen.

The casting in this film could not have been more perfect. Not only do Sheen and Langella continue their stellar work, but Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon, and Rebecca Hall are perfect additions, each one fitting their characters like a glove. Anthony Hopkins might disagree, but I don’t think there has been a better Nixon than Langella since Tricky Dick himself, and his nomination from the Academy is well earned. He comes across, not like a demented senior citizen, or an evil corruptor, but a man of conviction and heart who may or may not have done regrettable things for the sake of our country (if you can find Cambodia on a map, you probably know the real answer). Sheen’s portrayal of Frost is dead on, a sheepish talk show host with delusions of grandeur afraid to ask the tough questions.

You may not like Ron Howard (I kinda don’t), but his mainstream, formulaic career aside, he is an experienced director who knows how to construct a film. The camera work is fantastic, up close and personal the entire time. No official conversations while walking down an endless maze of hallways to find cheese (stupid West Wing), everything is right in your face. I also found it interesting that the film is constructed like a making of, or an actual documentary, with interviews of the team members and presidential aides interspersed throughout.

Sure you could throw out cliché lessons from this, like “Presidents are people too”, or “The media is bloodthirsty and dehumanizing”, or “Rebecca Hall is hot” (that one’s true). But when it’s all said and done, Ron Howard showed us that, in the middle of all the controversy and media frenzy, there were real people doing what they thought was right.

Ah, Ron…you always give me that warm and fuzzy feeling in the end.

Final Grade: B+

So now that we’ve all had a chance to absorb the Oscar nominations, it’s time to start placing bets. We already mentioned that, in the last three years, every Oscar winner for Best Actor and Actress also won the Golden Globe. This year, however, the nominations aren’t even the same. Kate Winslet won Best Actress for Revolutionary Road, but the Academy decided to nominate her for The Reader. Not surprising, but still unfortunate, is the lack of nominations for Sam Mendes and Revolutionary Road. Michael Shannon is the only one who got a nod, with a Best Supporting Actor nomination. We’re still unclear as to why Mendes is absent on the ballot this year, especially when The Reader is up for Best Picture, and Stephen Daldry is up for Best Director (boring movie, and he’s a rookie).

Heath Ledger has a little more competition in this race for Best Supporting Actor, but we’re hoping he gets what’s due him after arguably the best performance of 2008. And kudos must be given to the Academy for calling our bluff in this category. Robert Downey Jr. is up for Best Supporting for Tropic Thunder; we’re still going to complain, but Downey really deserves an award after being overlooked for so long, so the razor blades we promised will not be forthcoming.

On a lighter note, Danny Boyle carried over all of his Golden Globe nominations, and he’s all over the Oscars. With any luck, the Academy will think outside its microscopic box and give credit to the underdog instead of going with the predictable choice (Ron Howard). The only movie to really rival Slumdog Millionaire this year was Milk. Gus van Sant deserves the nomination, maybe the win. The editing wasn’t as complex as Slumdog, but it was still good. And Sean Penn is definitely giving Mickey Rourke a run for his money as Best Actor.

The Supporting categories are also a bit strange, in that several of the nominees had very little screen time in the film. Viola Davis has like two scenes in Doubt. Penelope Cruz wasn’t really in Vicky Cristina Barcelona until the very end. Taraji P. Henson had a slightly bigger role in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but it was three hours long, and you didn’t see her that much. Even Michael Shannon only had three scenes in Revolutionary Road. Not that this is a first for the Academy (Tom Wilkinson for Michael Clayton, Ruby Dee for American Gangster), we’re just not sure how you justify giving an Oscar to someone who wasn’t really in the movie.

This year will not be the clash of the titans that last year was, but there are a lot of interesting choices, some standard nominations, and some unexplainable absences. It’s really anyone’s guess, but here at Sexy Gypsy, we’re smarter than everyone else, including the Academy, so be on the lookout for our official Oscar ballot choices next week.

by The Great White Gypsy

White people are crazy.

I never really got into wrestling.  I know, it’s real, they are like stuntmen, and people have died in the ring.  But it’s scripted, it’s retardedly violent in a white trash kinda way, and they wear tights.  So when I saw the poster for The Wrestler, I wasn’t really interested.  Then I read that Robert D. Seigel wrote it (his only credit so far is The Onion Movie) and I got less excited.  Then I learned that Darren Aronofsky directed it, and Mickey Rourke was the main star.  So I went right out and watched it.  Ten minutes in, one single thought was creeping around in my head:

White people are crazy.

Watching Rourke jump off the ropes onto a guy’s head, seeing them using ladders, chairs, barbed wire and staple guns on each other (yeah, staple guns…in the face), I felt slightly detached from the story; I couldn’t identify with these kind of people.

Then I saw Mickey Rourke cry, and I was moved.

The premise has been done before in sports films.  Rourke is The Ram, an aging wrestler who at one time was as big in underground circuits as Hulk Hogan.  He now plays smaller venues; high schools, civic centers, YMCA type stuff.  Then he has a heart attack, and the doctor tells him he can never wrestle again.  So he reevaluates his life, tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), and form a meaningful relationship with a stripper (Marisa Tomei).  Sounds like a Ron Howard movie, right?

Wrong.  Darren Aronofsky is a fairly young director.  However, even with only three films under his belt (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain) he has proved that he can carry a project, and do it well.  Possibly his best trait is he uses the camera like an extension of his mind.

Requiem for a Dream was one of the first films to use a camera strapped to the actor’s waist while they were running.  He complimented that with close-up shots of irises when drugs were being used, and a Danny Boyle-style way of making a cramped apartment seem vast and lonely (which he also used in his fantasy love story, The Fountain). 

In the wrestler, you could tell it was Aronofsky behind the camera.  In the first five minutes Rourke is on screen, even though it is well shot and acted, you don’t see his face.  The camera is always behind him.  This may seem simple, but it was actually profound.  Not only did this provoke a feeling of anticipation watching The Ram walk through hallways before emerging into the main room to the sound of screaming fans, but it made every situation he got into a wrestling match.  This technique was used when he was going into work at a deli, when he was walking up to his daughter’s house for the first time in years, when he was walking into the strip club to see his only “friend”.  It also established the character very well, giving the feeling that he turned his back to most of the world, hiding his face and his fears.

When I first saw the trailer, I assumed (maybe because it’s Mickey Rourke) that the main character would be an asshole.  That he’d be an alcoholic, a drug addict, a slave to the chanting masses.  He’s none of these things.  He’s actually a really cool guy, but he just can’t get his life to work right.  He tries, he really does.  And despite my detachment from his profession, I really felt for the guy. 

But I guess that’s Aronofsky in a nutshell.  He has extreme, unrelatable settings (everyone’s a drug addict, or traveling through time in search of love, or putting a drill to your head), and yet, somehow, the characters are so compelling and real that nothing seems that outrageous.

Perhaps even more impressive is that, at age 52, Mickey Rourke does most of his own stunts, jumping off the ropes, doing crazy acrobatics.  He really was a wrestler.

If there is any decency left in the Academy, this will get nods for best actor, director, picture, and screenplay.  If not, at least Marisa Tomei will inexplicably walk with a Best Actress nomination.

Final Grade: A-