The Sessions (2012)

Surprisingly upbeat and quite moving, this is based on the true story of Mark O'Brien, a polio victim mostly confined to an iron lung, who has sessions with a sex surrogate to lose his virginity at age 36. There's a lot of Oscar buzz on this for John Hawkes and Helen Hunt, both of whom were nominated for Independent Spirit Awards today. O'Brien published On Seeing a Sex Surrogate four years later (1990) in The Sun magazine (you can read the entire article here, but there are a few spoilers and it's explicit). That would explain why the working title of the movie was The Surrogate.

Hawkes (last in these pages in Contagion) has been quoted as saying he doesn't think it's interesting to see someone wallow in self-pity and his O'Brien is proactive in seeking out advice from therapists and a forward-thinking priest played by William H. Macy (profiled in The Lincoln Lawyer). Hunt's (won Oscar for As Good as It Gets (1997); my favorites include Twister (1996), Dr T and the Women (2000), Pay It Forward (2000), Cast Away (2000), What Women Want (2000) [big year for her!], A Good Woman (2004), and Then She Found Me (2007), which she also directed and co-wrote in her feature debut) Cheryl, the surrogate, starts off calm and businesslike (too businesslike at a time when I would have expected more sensitivity--now that I've read the article I see why the scene went that way) but is clearly nonplussed as events proceed.

Composer Marco Beltrami (Oscar-nominated for 3:10 to Yuma (2007) and The Hurt Locker; other work includes I, Robot (2004), The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005), and a lot of horror movies) gives us a lovely score with lots of violin. You can sample it at the amazon page.

Director/writer Ben Lewin has but a few credits (at age 65), none familiar to me, and I'm surprised no writing credit is given to O'Brien, who died in 1999. But this is the actors' movie and you should definitely see it before the Oscars.

Independent Spirit Awards Nominations

Announced today. Ones about which I've written are linked. Ones I've seen and will post soon are starred*. And some day I might update this to my 2012 award winners and nominees.

Best Feature
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Bernie
Keep the Lights On
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook

Best Director
Wes Anderson - Moonrise Kingdom
Julia Loktev - The Loneliest Planet
David O Russell - Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs - Keep the Lights On
Benh Zeitlin - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best First Feature
Fill The Void
Gimme the Loot
Safety Not Guaranteed
Sound of My Voice
The Perks of Being a Wallflower

John Cassavetes Award
Breakfast With Curtis
The Color Wheel
Middle of Nowhere
Mosquita y Mari
Starlet

Best Male Lead
Jack Black - Bernie
Bradley Cooper - Silver Linings Playbook
John Hawkes - The Sessions
Thure Lindhart - Keep the Lights On
Matthew McConaughey - Killer Joe
Wendell Pierce - Four

Best Female Lead
Linda Cardenelli - Return
Emayatzy Corinealdi - Middle of Nowhere
Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook
Quvenzhane Wallis - Beasts of The Southern Wild
Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Smashed

Best Supporting Male
Matthew McConaughey - Magic Mike
David Oyelowo - Middle of Nowhere
Michael Pena - End of Watch
Sam Rockwell - Seven Psychopaths
Bruce Willis - Moonrise Kingdom

Best Supporting Female
Rosemarie DeWitt - Your Sister's Sister
Ann Dowd - Compliance
Helen Hunt - The Sessions
Brit Marling - Sound of My Voice
Lorraine Toussaint - Middle of Nowhere

Best Screenplay
Wes Anderson - Moonrise Kingdom
Zoe Kazan - Ruby Sparks
Martin McDonagh - Seven Psychopaths
David O Russell - Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs & Mauricio Zacharias - Keep the Lights On

Best First Screenplay
Rama Burshtein - Fill The Void
Derek Connolly - Safety Not Guaranteed
Christopher Ford - Robot & Frank
Rashida Jones & Will McCormack - Celeste & Jesse Forever
Jonathan Lisecki - Gayby

Best International Feature
Love (Amour)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Rust & Bone
Sister
War Witch

Best Documentary
The Central Park Five
How To Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present
The Waiting Room

Best Cinematography
Ben Richardson - Beasts of the Southern Wild
Roman Vasyanov - End of Watch
Lol Crawley - Here
Robert D. Yeoman - Moonrise Kingdom
Yoni Brook - Valley of Saints

Piaget Producers Award
Mynette Louie - Stones In The Sun
Derrick Tseng - Prince Avalanche
Alicia Van Couvering - Nobody Walks

Someone To Watch Award (for directors)
David Fenster - Pincus
Adam Leon - Gimme the Loot
Rebecca Thomas - Electrick Children

Stella Artois Truer Than Fiction Award
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Pravel - Leviathan
Peter Nicks - The Waiting Room
Jasonyyyee Tippet and Elizabeth Mimms - Only the Young

Robert Altman Award (for ensemble acting)
Starlet

A Late Quartet (2012)

Loved this lush drama of a classical string quartet and their interpersonal tangles. Glorious sunny, wintry Manhattan (I wonder if the exteriors were shot on the same day with fresh clean snow in Central Park, perhaps the storm late in the movie shot the day before) and interiors that are Woody Allen-like in their opulence are alone worth the price of admission. 

And then there's the cast! Christopher Walken (profiled in Dark Horse) for the first time in years gets to play a man of dignity, the recently widowed cellist Peter, who sets the plot into motion. He expresses volumes without uttering a sound. Catherine Keener (most recently in these pages in Cyrus) is the violist Juliette, who was adopted by Peter and his wife when she was orphaned at birth. She is spectacular as usual. The always reliable Philip Seymour Hoffman (last mentioned in The Master) is her husband Robert, second violinist--capable but not too confident, even after 25 years together. Then there's Mark Ivanir (known best to me for a recurring role on Royal Pains as Dmitry (he's had that name 4 times so far--he was born in Ukraine) and two episodes of The Riches, he was in Schindler's List (1993), small part in What Just Happened, and lots more) as the intense first violinist Daniel. 

Never having played a stringed instrument myself, I thought it looked like the four were playing (and the two or three coaches per actor will be gratified to know that, as will the Brentano String Quartet, the New York Ensemble who actually played). The luminous Imogen Poots (A Solitary Man) shines as Juliet and Robert's headstrong daughter Alexandra. Beautiful Liraz Charhi runs in the park with Robert, and I enjoyed the cameos by cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey (I love her Indian green beans with three kinds of mustard) as the doctor and Wallace Shawn (his first role was in Manhattan (1979), his best known are probably My Dinner with Andre (1981) and Rex the Green Dinosaur in the Toy Story movies (1995, '99, 2010), and my favorites include The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), Radio Days (1987), The Princess Bride (1987), The Moderns (1988), Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994), and Clueless (1995)) as another musician. The Sotheby's auctioneer is a real one and cellist Nina Lee appears briefly as herself (warning: if you click through from her page to the movie's website, the trailer is rife with spoilers).

The movie's title comes from the piece they are rehearsing to perform, Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14, Op. 131, regarded as one of the most challenging pieces a string ensemble can perform, composed shortly before Beethoven's death in 1827. Other music is composed by Angelo Badalamenti, best known for Twin Peaks and everything afterwards by David Lynch. And speaking of Lynch, his frequent collaborator, cinematographer Frederick Elmes (also Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth (1991), Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997) and Hulk (2003), Mira Nair's The Namesake (2006), and Brothers, to name a few), shot the gorgeous pictures inside and outside in the city as well as a horse farm somewhere else--still snowy. Even the interiors are in sun-drenched rooms.

Yaron Zilberman directs and co-wrote (just one documentary under his belt) with Seth Grossman (wrote and directed an award-winning short film, a feature with Ellen Burstyn, and has a comedy set to come out this year), basing the script on several real life quartets.

Nonetheless, I heartily recommend this, not just for musicians, even though it scored only 70% from critics and 76% from audiences on rottentomatoes. I know that Jack would have liked it, too, but he was otherwise occupied with his football team's victory today.

The Day I Saw Your Heart (Et soudain tout le monde me manque - 2011)

Merveilleux! Another winner from France, about a woman struggling with her relationship with her distant father (just one of the meanings of the English title), it has lots of humor, some pathos, and a great deal of creativity, both visually and in the plot. Mélanie Laurent (last seen in Beginners) is wonderful as Justine Dhrey, the beautiful radiologist who resents her father for seeming not to care about anyone. Michel Blanc (dozens of roles, but not familiar to me) is quite funny as the father, Eli, oblivious to others' feelings.

Directed and written (with collaboration from Romain Lévy, who is cute in his role as Alex, and Cécile Sellam) by Jennifer Devoldère (she is sure to get more work after this), it has everything you want in a movie, including subtitles that will tell you to say joo-steen for Justine and ay-lee for Eli. The literal translation of the French title is "and suddenly I miss everyone," but, as I noted above, the various entendres of the translation serve this well.

Because the Dhrey family is Jewish, this has been making the rounds at American Jewish Film Festivals, and we were lucky enough to see it last week before its opening for a limited run. Be sure to catch it before it leaves. It's great fun.

Argo (2012)

Jack and I loved it. Ben Affleck directs and stars in this dramatization of an operation to get six hostages out of Iran in 1980. This one truly is both a drama and a comedy--there are plenty of laughs, a lot of action, and some nail-biting suspense. Be sure to see it, as it is a "best bet" for multiple Oscar nominations. As my friend Mike advised me, the scenes with Alan Arkin (profiled in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee) and John Goodman (covered in The Artist) are priceless. Affleck's last picture was The Town, which he directed, starred in, and co-wrote. He's terrific in this as Tony Mendez, the mastermind behind "the best bad idea we've got" to return the hostages safely home, showing us bravado, fear, resourcefulness, and even humor. The fast-paced screenplay is written by Chris Terrio in his debut (after a credit for "additional screenplay material" on something he directed 7 years ago) and based on an article by Joshuah Bearman, which was then optioned by George Clooney (one of the producers). Good supporting work from the hostages: Kerry Bishé (she looked familiar to me because she was in the final season of Scrubs), Rory Cochrane (with the biggest mustache), Christopher Denham (first and most recently in these pages in Sound of My Voice), Tate Donovan (he works a lot, most recently in 39 episodes of Damages), Clea DuVall (she does, too--here's a picture from Girl Interrupted (1999), but in this her hair is brown and her eyeglasses big, like everyone's), and Scoot McNairy (star of In Search of a Midnight Kiss); as well as Bryan Cranston (last mentioned in Contagion), Victor Garber (6 Emmy supporting nominations, SAG ensemble nominations for Titanic (1997) and Milk, other work on screens big and small), and many more.

So far this has won Hollywood Film Festival Ensemble of the Year and nominated for a People's Choice Award for Favorite Dramatic Movie (my list of winners and nominations is a work in progress with much progress yet ahead, but check back in case I get caught up after I write about all the actual movies).

We enjoyed the close-ups of old telephones and great picture cars of the period, among many aspects of the beautiful cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto (last discussed in We Bought a Zoo).

Imdb has given us a list of the songs, mostly of the period, that accompany the appropriate (suspenseful and middle Eastern-tinged) soundtrack by the prolific Alexandre Desplat (I mentioned him most recently for his soundtrack for Moonrise Kingdom). While writing I called up the movie's website and let it play in another window to get me back in in the mood 16 days after seeing it. Do make a point of catching this one. Oh yeah, it has been rated 95% by both critics and audiences on rottentomatoes.

Another placeholder, another 6 movies

Sing Your Song, seen 10/27. Fabulous documentary about Harry Belafonte. We learned a lot about his activism. He sings in the movie, mostly in old footage, including on The Smothers Brothers and Muppets shows. Imdb has given us this list of songs.

Seven Psychopaths, 10/31. Pretty darn funny story about some bumbling petty thieves and the big-time criminals whose paths they cross. With Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, and a ton of well-known cameos. Directed and written by Martin McDonagh, who brought us the excellent In Bruges.

The Paperboy, 11/1. Sultry story about low-lifes in the 1960s south. Jack hated it and I didn't like it much. Roger Ebert called it "trashy" in his positive review. With Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, Matthew McConaughey, David Oyelowo (you'll be seeing a lot of him soon), and John Cusack playing against type as a particularly despicable character.

My Best Enemy (Mein bester Fiend) 11/4. I had trouble laughing at this holocaust story (listed on imdb as both comedy and drama) about an Austrian Jew and a Nazi whose lives are intertwined, but that's probably just me. There were some funny moments and the rest of the audience seemed to love it. Starring Moritz Bleibtreu (Soul Kitchen, more) and Marthe Keller, among others.

Argo, 11/7. Loved it. Ben Affleck directs and stars in this dramatization of how his character helped get six hostages out of Iran in 1980. This one truly is both a drama and a comedy--there are plenty of laughs, a lot of action, and some nail-biting suspense. Be sure to see it, as it is a "best bet" for multiple Oscar nominations. As my friend Mike advised me, the scenes with Alan Arkin and John Goodman are priceless. See my longer post here.

Flight, 11/11. OMG. So good. This is a powerful story about addiction with Denzel Washington turning in an amazing performance with help from Kelly Reilly (Mary Watson to Jude Law's Doctor in the Sherlock Holmes movies) and others. Every time John Goodman showed up (usually to Rolling Stones music), we laughed. Director Robert Zemeckis decorates the movie with excellent vintage tracks a la Forrest Gump. I'm working on a song list for when I write more about this. I walked into the theatre today wanting to see the plane flying upside down. Turns out that part had my heart pounding and my eyes filling.

These placeholders are my only hope of staying current. When (if?) I write longer postings I will link these short blurbs to the completed posts.

Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012)

Jack and I loved this grown-up romantic comedy co-written by and starring Rashida Jones as a career woman pulling away from her Peter Pan husband played by Andy Samberg. I wrote a little about Jones way back in I Love You, Man, then skipped right over her in The Social Network, The Big Year, and The Muppets. Had I gone that way I would have mentioned her funny stuff in Parks & Recreation. She  wrote the screenplay with her writing partner Will McCormack (he played Courtney Cox's brother on the series Dirt and one of the tech guys on Brothers & Sisters; this is the first produced script for both of them) based on their relationship: better as friends than lovers. He has a cameo as a sleazeball friend of Jesse named Skillz. They also have in common that they come from show business families. His sister is actress Mary McCormack (whose husband produced Brothers & Sisters) and her father is Quincy Jones and mother is Peggy Lipton from The Mod Squad. Samberg (best known for 138 episodes so far of Saturday Night Live 2005-2012, he was in I Love You, Man and a few other things) and Jones definitely have chemistry as the about-to-be-divorced couple who want to remain close.

We saw this seven weeks ago as I was about to go out of town, planning to see another movie written by a woman that day, but at the last minute I chose this instead. I can't remember what the other one was, though. This one was directed by a man, Lee Toland Krieger (The Vicious Kind).

There are a lot of hip songs, listed here, on the soundtrack. Additional music is provided by Rashida's nephew (and Quincy's grandson) Sunny Levine with Zach Cowie.

Shot mostly with a handheld camera, this induces motion picture motion sickness (MPMS) on the big screen. Lucky for you, it isn't playing on any now and you'll be fine watching it at home.

Farewell, My Queen (Les adieux à la reine - 2012)

We very much liked this beautiful costume drama about the spoiled Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger), her devoted servant (Léa Seydoux), and her best friend (Virginie Ledoyen), with both of whom she cuddles every chance she gets, at the end of the empire. Noémie Lvovsky has a wonderful turn as the head ladies' maid who speaks volumes wordlessly. Kruger (last in these pages in Unknown, but I didn't notice when I wrote about Inglourious Basterds that she was Helen to Orlando Bloom's Paris and Brad Pitt's Achilles in Troy (2004)) is very good as the petulant queen. If you saw Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006), with Kirsten Dunst as the queen at the beginning of her reign, you can well imagine her growing up to be this adult. Seydoux (quite the chameleon, she had one look as a blonde assassin in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, another in the modern part of Midnight in Paris, and yet another as the demure brunette in this one) convinces us of her devotion. Lvovsky has acted in, written, and directed a number of things, but I didn't recognize her all the while admiring her work as Madame Campan. Ledoyen's (I didn't see her in The Beach (2000) with Leonardo DiCaprio but quite liked The Valet (2006), among others) Duchesse is a frosty foil to Kruger's affectionate queen.

Director Benoît Jacquot (none of his many titles rings a bell, though this has been hailed as his "triumphant return"--strange, since he directed a 2010 release) and Gilles Taurand adapted Chantal Thomas' novel for the big screen.

It's been two months since we saw this. I was going to skip the music since I don't recall it. But then I realized it was scored by Bruno Coulais (most recently composed for Babies). Here's a clip from this one. Rottentomatoes' critics loved it, averaging 93%. Audiences not so much with 60. We did. It isn't yet out on DVD so save it to your netflix queue.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

Jack and I were eager to see this teen coming-of-age movie and liked it very much. About a shy high school freshman who is taken under the wing of some offbeat seniors, it's heavier than the trailer might suggest, but the filmmakers are well up to the task. We're big fans of Ezra Miller (last in these pages in We Need to Talk About Kevin)--the one in the trailer with the football cheer, "Be! Aggressive! Passive! Aggressive!"--and he is wonderful as Patrick, the gay brother of Emma Watson's (after all those Harry Potter movies she was in My Week with Marilyn, with four features coming up, including the 2014 release Noah, ironically delayed due to Hurricane Sandy) Sam. She shows remarkable depth in this role. Though his character Charlie is by design less colorful, Logan Lerman (covered in My One and Only) owns the movie. The adults in the story have little to do for their big credits (Paul Rudd as the English teacher, Dylan McDermott and Kate Walsh as Charlie's parents, Melanie Lynskey as his aunt, and Joan Cusack in a short sequence at the end), even though some of their characters' actions are important.

Director/novelist/screenwriter Stephen Chbosky (pronounced sha-BOS-kee) began his career at age 25 in 1995, directing, writing, and acting in The Four Corners of Nowhere, which was nominated for Grand Jury prize at Sundance. He finished his novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, in 1999, then adapted Jonathan Larson's novel Rent for the big screen and executive produced a TV series Jericho before moving on to this one.

You should know that the movie is supposed to be set around 1990--this was revealed to us in dribs and drabs (e.g. a mix tape on cassette, a big giant cordless phone) but there are a few goofs which make it harder to be sure. There's plenty of great "old" music as well as the original score by Michael Brook (clips can be accessed from this link) and you can listen to excerpts from Brooks' compositions on the amazon page.

Rottentomatoes critics average 86% and audiences 95. Last week it moved from 16 to 15 at the box office and is still playing around town here. We saw it a week and a half ago. Good stuff.

Premium Rush (2012)

Awesome special effects of Joseph Gordon-Levitt appearing to bicycle madly in and out of Manhattan traffic kept us on the edges of our seats watching this inventive action movie about a messenger, his girlfriend, his rival, and a bad guy played by Michael Shannon (last in Take Shelter), who does crazy so well. The flashbacks, flash forwards, and cinematic thought processes add to the excitement. David Koepp (I liked his direction of Secret Window (2004), his script for Panic Room (2002) and his co-writing on Jurassic Park (1993), The Paper (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996), Spider-Man (2002), and Angels & Demons) directs and co-wrote the script with John Kamps.

Gordon-Levitt (I finished writing about Looper minutes ago) really did hurt himself making this movie, as shown in this clip, discussed on the trivia page, and shown during the credits of the actual movie. Maybe I'm wrong about it all being special effects! Co-stars include Dania Ramirez (series arcs in The Sopranos, Entourage, and more) and Sean Kennedy (his debut) who, like Gordon-Levitt, look great in bike shorts with chain locks slung around their trim midsections, as well as Jamie Chung (Lauren in The Hangover Part II, more) and Aasif Mandvi (most recently in The Dictator and Margin Call).

Composer David Sardy also wrote the music for 21 (2008), Jack's favorite Zombieland (which shares with this one producer Gavin Polone), and End of Watch, which I'll write up soon. Here's some good music from Premium Rush. Some of the songs used in the movie are listed here.

We liked this a lot more than the rottentomatoes folks (75% critics/68 audiences) when we saw it almost seven weeks ago. Those with more than a passing interest in Manhattan will also appreciate the maps and should save it to your netflix queue for its expected December release.

Looper (2012)

Jack and I quite liked this well-crafted thriller about time travel in the near future, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a young Bruce Willis, much the same way Josh Brolin played a young Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black III. Only here, in addition to imitating the voice, Gordon-Levitt's eyebrows and certain facial characteristics have been altered so that he resembles Willis. The acting (I last mentioned Gordon-Levitt in these pages in The Dark Knight Rises, Willis in Moonrise Kingdom) is first rate, with support from Emily Blunt (most recently Your Sister's Sister), Jeff Daniels (covered in Away We Go before he starred in the HBO series The Newsroom), Paul Dano (last in Ruby Sparks), an adorable little boy, Pierce Gagnon, and many more.

It's the third feature from director/writer Rian Johnson (I covered his second, The Brothers Bloom, in great detail) and, though none is in the hopper yet, I'm sure more are to come. This has fared well on rottentomatoes, with 93 from critics and 88 from audiences. Naturally, there are some veiled references to Back to the Future, just like in Men in Black III.

Nathan Johnson again composes the score for his cousin's movie and discusses some of his techniques in this video (confirming my guess that Rian is pronounced Ryan). I love this exciting track. Here is another. And here's a list of some of the songs used in the movie.

We saw this almost four weeks ago but it's still playing, having ranked 14 at the national box office last weekend. It has some gore, but if that doesn't bother you, you'll like it, too.

Trouble with the Curve (2012)

This predictable story with Amy Adams as a career woman and Clint Eastwood as her cranky baseball scout dad provided Jack and me with some entertainment after my team completely fell apart in the post-season. A little syrupy in the third act, it still had some good bits (nice Georgia locations, some standing in for North Carolina), leading us to agree more with rottentomatoes' audiences at 69% than its critics at 59, despite our distaste for Eastwood and his empty chair. We certainly appreciated the symmetry of another October baseball movie (last year it was Moneyball).

Written, in his debut, by Randy Brown, and directed, in another debut, by Robert Lorenz (a high level executive at Eastwood's Malpaso Productions), this will win no awards, but could be fun for die-hard baseball fans.