The Return

So I'm back...sorta.

We had a lot of things happen all at the same time a few weeks ago, and while all of those issues aren't entirely dealt with, enough of them are that I think I can start posting a little more regularly again. The girls have been picked up from their summer programs, the older child has moved out, school is about to restart for both kids, and I've made it through a couple of absolutely hellish weeks at work. So, I may not be back to a post a day, but I'll be back to more than one or two per week.

Thanks to everyone who stayed with me. Talk to you soon.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Animated Feature 2010

The Contenders:

How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3 (winner)

Nick's Picks: Hanson: Strong Enough to Break

Films: Hanson: Strong Enough to Break
Format: Internet video on laptop.

This is the eighth in a series of twelve movies suggested by Nick Jobe.

One of the most interesting stories in the music world for me is what happened to the band Wilco in 2001 and the years following. They were dropped by their label for producing an album that the company thought was unmarketable. Ultimately, the band released Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to tremendous (and deserved) critical acclaim, suffering through people leaving the band and other heartaches. Ultimately, it’s a story of a band’s dedication to their craft and the triumph of artistic freedom and vision over crass commercialism. This is documented in the 2002 film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. How interesting, then, that the same thing happened to another band in the same time frame. Hanson: Strong Enough to Break parallels the Wilco story in a lot of ways. The two movies make interesting companion pieces for each other.

Nick’s relationship with the band Hanson—known almost exclusively for the surprise smash hit “MMMBop”—is one I understand as well. It’s a similar relationship I had with the band Barenaked Ladies. Nick knows about Hanson because his fiancée loves Hanson. I knew all about BNL because my wife was a superfan of the band for a few years, going so far as to help plan and attend a convention in Canada. So sure, I got why Nick wanted me to watch this. You can’t be immersed in that environment without either imploding or at becoming at least a marginal fan.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1995

The Contenders:

Braveheart
Mighty Aphrodite
Nixon
Toy Story
The Ususl Suspects

Picks from Chip: House of Flying Daggers (Shi Mian Mai Fu)

Films: House of Flying Daggers (Shi Mian Mai Fu)
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the seventh in a series of twelve movies suggested by Chip Lary.

There was a time around the turn of the last century when wire fu and wuxia films were a thing. The Matrix and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon probably started the trend, which seems to have ended with House of Flying Daggers (or Shi Mian Mai Fu). There’s something dreamy about wire fu films and the way the characters move. I like everything about the style—I like the action, I like the way they are filmed, and I particularly like the kick-ass fight scenes that are filmed in a way that the audience can actually follow the action.

What I was expecting was something that looked a great deal like Crouching Tiger both in terms of visual style and plot. I kind of got that, but kind of didn’t. House of Flying Daggers posits a world closer to Hero in terms of the plot, but gives us a love story closer to Crouching Tiger. There’s a veneer of political intrigue here, a sort of social McGuffin that causes the rest of the plot to happen without really being that critical to the plot that we care about.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1965

The Contenders:

Cat Ballou
The Collector
Dr. Zhivago (winner)
Ship of Fools
A Thousand Clowns

Run for Your Life

Films: The Naked Prey
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

There’s a difference between a screenplay and a script. Nowhere is that more evident than in a film like The Naked Prey. There’s clearly a screenplay here, but for most of the film’s running time, the only dialog is in a southeast African Bantu language without subtitles. There’s a bit of English at the start and in the final few minutes, but the bulk of the film is done without any speech from the unnamed main character. Remade today, The Naked Prey would be a 90-minute monologue instead of focusing on the survival of the main character.

The man (played by director Cornell Wilde) is a safari guide leading a hunting expedition through an unidentified part of Africa. The man paying for the expedition (Gert van der Bergh) is the epitome of a colonialist, the sort of person who would be easy for the audience to hate on sight even in the mid-1960s. The bulk of his dialog is about how much he’s enjoyed shooting elephants and how he’d like to get started in the slave trade. It’s not too surprising then that when the hunting party meets a group of natives who expect gifts for their chief, the hunter snubs them despite being warned.