A few quick words

Boy, has it been an underwhelming year for movies so far.

Actually, every year begins this way, with Oscar buzz dying down and the studios dumping its most unanticipated fare into multiplexes nationwide. But considering the weak offerings, January and February have been impressive in terms of box office intake, which is due more to the recession than the overall quality of films playing (apparently, people flock to the theater during times of economic distress).

Of the twenty wide releases in the last two months, I have seen only five. Of those five, I liked one: “Coraline.” My local theater is only a ten-minute walk away, but such a journey hardly seemed worthy of anything involving Kate Hudson, Tyler Perry, shopaholics or male cheerleaders.

I plan on catching up with Tom Tykwer’s “The International” this weekend, but neither of tomorrow’s new releases (a “Street Fighter” picture and a 3-D Jonas Brothers concert) are on my to-see list. Things will pick up again in March, with “Watchmen,” “I Love You, Man,” “Adventureland” and “Monsters vs. Aliens” all piquing my interest. So expect the volume of writing to pick up in the next few weeks.

I’m also going to abandon my ratings system, assigning letter grades to films based on their quality. Not only do I find it to be a simplistic approach to criticism, it’s also a redundant one: The enthusiasm (or lack thereof) expressed in a written review should speak for itself, without being accompanied by a rating.

I have contemplated using the standard star rating, but I feel there’s too much dissent when it comes to stars and how to apply them. Even Roger Ebert gets flack for it. “The star rating system is relative, not absolute,” he wrote. “When you ask a friend if ‘Hellboy’ is any good, you’re not asking if it’s any good compared to ‘Mystic River,’ you're asking if it’s any good compared to ‘The Punisher.’”

So that’s that. If you read one of my reviews, sans rating, and can’t tell how I feel about the film, then I’m not doing my job.

Predicting the Oscars

The Oscars haven’t always been the best forecaster for a film’s longevity. Some Best Picture winners, like “Casablanca,” “On the Waterfront,” “The Godfather” and “Schindler’s List,” have truly cemented their classic status, while others—“Gandhi,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “The English Patient”—simply don’t hold up as well as the movies they beat (can you believe that “Dances with Wolves” won over “GoodFellas,” or that “In the Heat of the Night” took the award when its fellow nominees were “The Graduate,” “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”).

But the reason critics spend so much time blabbering about the Academy Awards (and later recanting their enthusiasm) is because it’s the single biggest movie event of the year, and because it’s fun to calculate and predict what films will emerge victorious; it’s like Fantasy Football for the athletically disinclined. There can be an exact science to determining Oscar wins: For example, films with serious messages usually overshadow the more frivolous ones, dramatic acting tends to trump comic acting and subtlety is rarely awarded (which explains how the shallow, sermonizing “Crash” beat the quiet, thoughtful likes of “Brokeback Mountain,” “Good Night and Good Luck” and “Capote”).

That doesn’t mean, though, that the Oscars aren’t prone to surprise, and it’s the unexpected wins that make the ceremony worth watching (not the red carpet, not the overlong acceptance speeches, not the self-congratulatory tone of the entire proceedings). Following is a look at the nominees in the eight major categories and a brief commentary on them, as well as my predictions and preferences for those categories. At the end of the entry, I’ll post my predictions for the remaining categories (these are not necessarily my preferences, but they come pretty close).

BEST PICTURE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

For me, this is the most underwhelming batch of Best Picture nominees since 2004, when the only nominated picture that really blew me away was “Sideways,” which was the underdog in its category. Only two of this year’s nominees made my top ten list—“Milk” and “Slumdog Millionaire”—although I found admirable qualities in all five films: “Benjamin Button” was a visual masterpiece with cold characters; “Frost/Nixon” was an interesting, if exaggerated, historical drama; “The Reader,” which has been receiving the most vitriol from critics, was two-thirds of a great film. “Slumdog” seems to be the front-runner here—it’s the most universally lauded nominee, as well as the most honored (it’s already won top honors at the BAFTAs and Golden Globes). But “Milk” is, I think, the best film of the five: It is a moving evocation of a radical period in American history, it is told with passion and purpose, and it is anchored by Sean Penn in a breathtaking performance.

And speaking of “Slumdog Millionaire,” which I adored, there seems to be a backlash regarding the film now that it has garnered so many awards and nominations. What is it about a small film receiving mainstream success that so despises some people? Of the five nominated films, “Slumdog” is the only one that I would not consider Oscar bait—it is not a major Hollywood production, it was a festival favorite, it features no big-name stars and its characters speak multiple languages. What a refreshing change. I found it completely winning, and my suspicion is that if you didn’t like it, you’re trying too hard not to.

My Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire
My Preference: Milk

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry – The Reader
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant – Milk

This year, the Academy only gave nominations to the directors responsible for the five nominated Pictures. Usually there’s an outlier, a filmmaker who has been nominated when their film has not (David Lynch for “Mulholland Dr.,” Pedro Almodóvar for “Talk to Her,” Mike Leigh for “Vera Drake,” all of whom were the most deserving in their years), and I can’t rightly recall a time when such a director has ever won the award. The Oscars for Picture and Director usually go hand in hand, so if “Slumdog” wins Best Picture, Danny Boyle will likely get Best Director (he also won the Golden Globe, BAFTA and DGA awards, the latter of which ensures he has about a 90% chance of snagging the Oscar). He’s my personal pick, as well—although I preferred Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” as an overall picture, I admired Boyle’s direction more. It breathed life into the movie, and it brought everything together—the high drama, the light comedy, the romance, the Bollywood dance number—just perfectly.

My Prediction: Danny Boyle
My Preference: Danny Boyle

BEST ACTOR
Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn – Milk
Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler

What the Academy got right: Handing out nominations to the veteran character actors—Richard Jenkins (for his rich, textured, subtle work in “The Visitor”) and Frank Langella (snubbed last year for “Starting Out in the Evening,” reimbursed for his fascinating, complex interpretation of Richard Nixon). What they got wrong: Giving Brad Pitt a nomination for his languid performance in “Benjamin Button” rather than for his wonderful comic turn in the Coen brothers’ “Burn After Reading.” Still, a good batch of nominees, with Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke clearly the favorites. I’m going out on a limb, though, in favor of Rourke (who gave, I thought, the single best performance of the year). Penn’s work is amazing because it is so immersive, while the success of Rourke’s performance is directly related to his own personal anguish, and it is a simple yet deeply effective, honest and heartbreaking turn, as well as amazingly physical.

My Prediction: Mickey Rourke
My Preference: Mickey Rourke

BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie – Changeling
Melissa Leo – Frozen River
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kate Winslet – The Reader

Everyone seems to be in agreement that Kate Winslet (who was, strangely, nominated for Supporting Actress everywhere else) will take home the Oscar for “The Reader.” She’s a brilliant actress, but she will not be rewarded because this is her best work. No, she’ll win because she has been nominated five times prior without ever taking home a statue, and the Academy likes to compensate the long-time losers. As for my personal pick (although I’m still upset that Sally Hawkins’ turn in “Happy-Go-Lucky” was wrongly overlooked), I’m debating between Melissa Leo and Anne Hathaway, both of whom are underdogs and both of whom created characters who felt so real. And am I the only person that liked Angelina Jolie in “Changeling?” I’m sure she’s being nominated purely for her scenes of high drama, but I thought she approached the role with much more nuance than she gets credit for.

My Prediction: Kate Winslet
My Preference: Anne Hathaway or Melissa Leo

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin – Milk
Robert Downey Jr. – Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road

The supporting categories are the ones most susceptible to surprises, but a victory for Heath Ledger seems to be a sure thing. He was revelatory in “The Dark Knight,” creating a villain so terrifying, so calculating, so vile that every other superhero movie seems like child’s play in comparison. Whether or not his death will weigh on his Oscar success is debatable (he will be the second posthumous winner, the first being Peter Finch for “Network” in 1976), but it’s impossible to deny the maniacal invention of his interpretation of the Joker. It would be a shock if anyone else wins tonight, but stranger things have been known to happen. Let it also be said that Robert Downey Jr. and Michael Shannon are inspired choices, and they were the best parts of the films for which they’re nominated.

My Prediction: Heath Ledger
My Preference: Heath Ledger

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams – Doubt
Penélope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis – Doubt
Taraji P. Henson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler

There doesn’t really seem to be a front-runner in this category, although Penélope Cruz has been labeled by some as the favorite. Although she was great, and although Marisa Tomei broke my heart in “The Wrestler,” the single best female performance of the year, supporting or otherwise, came from Viola Davis in “Doubt.” She shows up nearly an hour into the film and is on-screen for only ten minutes, but she is absolutely stunning. This is a risky prediction (Roger Ebert made the same one), but I think Davis could (and should) take home the award, mainly because the span of her performance is concentrated: In the course of one scene, she lays it all out on the table, and never before have I seen such a minor character so richly defined. Anyone, though, could win in this category, and I think it’s the only category that’s entirely up in the air.

My Prediction: Viola Davis
My Preference: Viola Davis

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Frozen River
Happy-Go-Lucky
In Bruges
Milk
WALL-E

A good, creative batch of nominees, and all (save for “WALL-E”—could its script have been more than forty pages long?) from under-the-radar pictures. “Frozen River” was a painfully realistic look at a poor woman’s desperation to help her family; “In Bruges” was a quirky thriller that expertly blended violence, comedy and pathos; and “Happy-Go-Lucky,” written using Mike Leigh’s signature free-form style, focused on a bubbly British woman with a lust for life. But I predict that “Milk” scribe Dustin Lance Black, who has never before penned a feature-length screenplay, is going to take the Oscar. Although I’d love to see Leigh finally win (he’s been nominated five times prior), Black will be awarded for his virtuoso writing, his intriguing characters and the sense of immediacy and importance he brought to the film.

My Prediction: Milk
My Preference: Happy-Go-Lucky

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

What I love about “Slumdog Millionaire”—more than Danny Boyle’s effervescent direction, more than the colorful Indian locations, more than the charming young actors—is Simon Beaufoy’s script. I love the game show framing device, the jumbled timeline, the old-fashioned story; some find it contrived, but I found it invigorating. Quoting my original review: “Just reading the synopsis makes you want to see the movie, doesn’t it?” We have seen countless underdog stories brought to the screen before, but never one that has been told like this: I admire pictures that make old themes relevant again, that entertain and affect us even though they travel on well-trodden paths. “Slumdog Millionaire” does just that.

My Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire
My Preference: Slumdog Millionaire

Further Predictions:

CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

EDITING
Slumdog Millionaire

ART DIRECTION
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

COSTUME DESIGN
The Duchess

MAKE-UP
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

ORIGINAL SCORE
Slumdog Millionaire

ORIGINAL SONG
Jai Ho - Slumdog Millionaire

SOUND
The Dark Knight

SOUND EDITING
The Dark Knight

VISUAL EFFECTS
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

ANIMATED FEATURE
WALL-E

FOREIGN FILM
Waltz with Bashir

DOCUMENTARY

Man on Wire

Not quite the exception

He’s Just Not That Into You
Review by Nathan Weinbender

“He’s Just Not That Into You” was based on a popular dating advice book, and it shows. The script shoehorns so much self-help dialogue into the script that the characters never become believable human beings and, most problematically, we never come to care about their romantic woes.

They only seem to care about are their love lives (their jobs and families are never brought up in conversation), and they exist either as helpful sources of exposition and information, as exemplars of the film’s various relationship mores or as broad personifications of the rigid gender roles in upper-middle class America.

I just realize I’ve made the movie sound more thoughtful than it is. Let me simplify it: All of the women in the film are desperate for commitment, and all of the men in are afraid of it, and the screenplay presents us with an interconnected series of characters who are always second-guessing their position in life and their selection of significant others.

Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly and Ginnifer Goodwin all work in the same office, yet they can’t possibly be efficient employees, since they just sit around discussing their relationships all day. Aniston is living with Ben Affleck, but he won’t marry her; Connelly is married to Bradley Cooper, but he isn’t keen on having children.

Goodwin plays Gigi, the single girl, and she and her co-workers (the movie doesn’t bother specifying what exactly they do) exhaustively dissect the details of her dates. Did he give you his number before you gave him yours? When he said “Nice to meet you,” was it at the beginning of the date or the end of it? How long has it been since your date, and has he called you yet?

Gigi has “needy” written all over her, and she spends most of the film staring helplessly at the phone, waiting for it to ring. She turns to a savvy bartender played by Justin Long, who has obviously read “He’s Just Not That Into You” and knows all the rules of courtship. If a guy wants to date you, he says, he’ll make it happen. If you sense that he’s not into you, move on.

There’s also Scarlett Johansson as a wannabe chanteuse who begins an affair with Cooper, Kevin Connolly as a real estate agent confused by the Johansson character’s advances and Drew Barrymore as a harried ad executive who pines for the days when our lives weren’t dictated by endless means of communication.

The all-star cast is appealing, made up of actors I admire, but the story revolves around so many of them that they hardly have a chance to develop their characters beyond mere summations of their romantic shortcomings.

“He’s Just Not That Into You” clearly has loftier ambitions than most romantic comedies, but it plays like a faint echo of a Woody Allen picture: Its use of intertwining relationships, pedantic banter, chapter titles and monologues delivered directly to the camera remind us of Allen’s wonderful “Hannah and Her Sisters,” but executed with far less wit, warmth and intelligence.

As cute and inoffensive as this film is, it never produces a moment of genuine inspiration or truly remarkable insight. Since we’re already comparing it to Woody Allen, let us also observe that “He’s Just Not That Into You” is also lacking Allen’s touch for cutting dialogue. Remember Allen’s character in “Manhattan,” whose wife left him for another woman? “I thought I took it rather well under the circumstances,” he says indifferently. “I tried to run them both over with a car.”

What’s the most memorable piece of dialogue I culled from this film? “You have an ass so hot it makes me wanna dry hump.” I’m not too into that.

Grade: C+

Directed by Ken Kwapis. Written by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein. Based on the book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo. Starring Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johnasson, Ginnifer Goodwin, Justin Long, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Connolly and Drew Barrymore. PG-13; 129m.

I’m your pusher, man

Push
Review by Nathan Weinbender

An expository voiceover at the beginning of “Push” tells of a race of human who harness amazing psychic powers. We’re told that the Nazis utilized them in attempts to create super-soldiers that would be physically and mentally superior to mere mortals, and now a secret division of the government has taken the reigns of the shady experiments.

Some of their genetically-altered subjects are still around, and they and their descendants walk the streets, harboring abilities beyond our comprehension.

I perked up in my seat. This concept had potential. Imagine the historical ground the script could cover. Imagine how it could toy with our preconceived notions of the limitations of reality and how it could dodge down unexpected wormholes and emerge on the other side in an entirely different place.

My high expectations were quickly dashed. “Push” quickly descends into a dumb, routine story of good versus evil, developing a murky, complicated logic that consistently contradicts itself.

After that all-too-brief explanation regarding the origins of its characters, the movie puts us right in the middle of the action, hardly giving us a chance to gather our senses. (This is the type of picture that hurtles along at a mile a minute and hopes we’ll be able to keep up and understand the plot. We don’t always.)

The psychics in “Push” all have different monikers—Pushers, Movers, Watchers, Bleeders, Sniffs, etc.—and they aren’t defined by their abilities so much as by their usefulness in getting the screenplay from one point to another.

Chris Evans, for instance, is a Mover, and he has telekinetic abilities. He lives in China, for reasons I don’t remember, and one day Dakota Fanning is at his door. She’s a Watcher, meaning she can see into the future, and although her abilities aren’t fully developed, she knows they’re both in danger of being killed; why and for what reason she isn’t completely sure.

The bad guy is played by Djimon Hounsou, who, as far as I could gather, is a government agent looking for a missing briefcase containing a powerful serum. Camilla Belle, an old flame of the Evans character who has just escaped from an institution, shows up, too: She’s a Pusher and, in the film’s most convenient plot device, can make fiction a reality.

Am I overlooking important elements of the plot? I’m sure, but does it matter? Not really. The movie races through its plot as if there’s a time limit, and I couldn’t even begin to describe who certain characters are, why they do what they do and how they’re able to figure things out when their particular abilities should not allow it. I don’t know—it all seemed to make a lot more sense to itself than it did to me.

Grade: C

Directed by Paul McGuigan. Written by David Bourla. Starring Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle and Djimon Hounsou. PG-13; 111m.