Happy Oscars

It's my fave day of the year. And this year there's even more to love about it. For the first time in a long time we actually have a nail biter. Yes Argo will win best pic but there are several top categories that are hard to pin down. Here's hoping to surprises in Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay and Director. I think the shorter time before nominations worked and the longer time aftermight produce surprising winners.

Here are my final predictions :

Picture : Argo

Director : Ang Lee
Actor : Daniel Day Lewis - Lincoln
Actress : Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook

Supp Actor : Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln
Supp actress : Anne Hathaway - Les Miserables
Org Screenplay : Django Unchained
Adapted Screenplay : Ago
Foreign Language Film : Amour

Animated Feature : Wreck It Ralph
Original Score : Life of Pi
Original Song : Skyfall
Art Direction : Les Miserables
Cinematography : Life of Pi
Costume Design : Anna Karenina
Makeup : Les Miserables
Documentary Feature : Searching for Sugarman
Sound Mixing : Les Miserables
Sound Editing : Life of Pi
Visual Effects : Life of Pi
Editing : Argo
Animated Short : Paperman
Live Action Short : Curfew
Doc Short : Open Heart

And if I was an Academy member these would be my votes :

Picture : Amour

Director : Ang Lee - Life of Pi
Actor : Joaquin Phoenix - The Master
Actress : Emmanuelle Riva - Amour

Supp Actor : Phillip Seymour Hoffman - The Master
Supp actress : Helen Hunt - The Sessions
Org Screenplay : Amour
Adapted Screenplay : Beasts of the Southern Wild
Foreign Language Film : Amour

Animated Feature : Paranorman
Original Score : Life of Pi
Original Song : Skyfall
Art Direction : Anna Karenina
Cinematography : Life of Pi
Costume Design : Anna Karenina
Documentary Feature : The Gatekeepers

And here's my Oscar gift : The best opening in recent memory, Jackman in 2009.

Review - Les Miserables

Let's just get it out of the way, Anne Hathaway is the main reason to see Les Miserables. More importantly she is the only reason to love the movie. Her performance is emotional, pierces your heart deeply and might well up the tears. She doesn't shy away from going big with the emotion ; it is a musical after all. It's exactly the kind of performance people who love musicals are looking for. She delivers.


Now I wish the rest the movie delivered as well as Hathaway did. It had all the elements : the beloved musical full of big numbers known the world over, an acclaimed director (Tom Hooper) coming off a big Oscar win; fantastic cast led by musical theater vet Hugh Jackman. The movie has a lot of virtues but it is not the fantastic musical it promised to be.

The movie starts strong, bringing chills and flutters as you hear that bombastic store and the camera pans over the huge shipyard and comes to pinpoint Jean Valjean (Jackman) and Javert (Russell Crowe) the hero and antagonist of the piece. Brilliant set up from Hooper, and he carries these panoramic views that open the action to some of the set pieces giving them epic grandeur. Curiously the only songs he shoots this way are Crowe's. All the others are shot in extreme close up. I get that he wanted to differentiate the movie from the play by highlighting the actors emotional work, but it doesn't work for every number. It works with Hathaway's ''I Dreamed A Dream'' since that song is about Fantine being at the end of the rope and feeling hopeless, trapped and alone so the the claustrophobia works. But why shoot Eddie Redmayne's ''Empty Chairs at Empty Tables'' this way when it's a song about Marius looking at where he and his friends used to sit and argue? Literally why not show the empty chairs and empty tables instead of just Redmayne's bee stung lips?

Jackman and Hathaway

Jackman carries this and as he goes so does the movie. He brings a tenderness and fragility to the performance that makes it endearing. However his singing came off flat. He did not accomplish full lift off with the emotion. "Bring Him Home", his big number, particularly suffers from this. I hardly noticed it. His duet with Hathaway in "Finale'' though is amazing and made me wish there was more of the two of them together.

Samantha Barks, the newcomer and only member of the cast to have played her role on stage, sings beautifully. However she does not have much screen presence making Eponine forgettable despite her screen time. Amanda Seyfried does the best she could with the thankless role of Cosette but does not have any chemistry with Redmayne. The fault is not theirs but the plot's since we are supposed to take for granted that they fall deep in love on first sight and that love is supposed to carry the second half of the movie. Redmayne on the other hand was my big revelation from the movie. He has a great voice and gives it his all , faring well particularly in his scenes with his revolutionary comrades. The less said about Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter the better. They stuck out with their very broad characterizations that didn't belong in this movie. Was this what Hooper intended? Bonham Carter is the major offender with her atrocious singing and Tim Burton make up.

Crowe and Jackman

Crowe was another major surprise. That he brings pathos and gravitas to his villain are no surprise. But who knew he could belt out with such gusto making us completely understand his conflicted righteous character. I think the dismissive chatter about his performance is because he does not do well with the sung dialogue, his voice comes out as off tune in those instances. However he completely sold his two big numbers.

If you are a fan of the musical you will love this movie version. However if you are unfamiliar with it, you might go ''huh?"' several times. There are plot gaps as they had to get the movie in under three hours. The rebellion is front and center then forgotten, the jump between the years is sometimes jarring and might confuse some. The never ending close ups might give you vertigo.  However there is enough emotion to carry you through.

Oscar Bits and Pieces - Best Actor

We've talked Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor before lets now talk Best Actor, or as its known this year The Daniel Day Lewis doesn't have enough Oscars Admiration Society. I like Day Lewis, I think he's a great actor, loved him in almost every movie he made, but is it really time to reward him again? Specially since AMPAS let Meryl wait 29 years to win a third. Come on spread the wealth.

Day Lewis

Day Lewis is great as Lincoln. It is a heartfelt, subtle performance that is commanding without demanding our attention. I don't know this for sure since I've never heard Lincoln or seen him except in photos; but I'm willing to bet he looks and sounds exactly like him. That's because I believe Day Lewis did the research and almost certainly got everything right.When I saw the movie the performance reminded me of his performance in The Age of Innocence; another subdued turn that was immensely affecting.

Can anyone beat him? For a while I thought maybe John Hawkes in The Sessions could do it. He hits all the academy's soft spots : biopic, disability, previous recent nominee. Plus he's giving a great performance in a really good movie that I thoroughly enjoyed. He could have rested on the trappings of "suffering for his art"but he added lots of humor and pathos to the performance making it a wonder to behold. Alas while he's guaranteed a nomination that movie has not struck a major chord with audiences so he's not a real threat to Day Lewis.

Jackman

I was hoping Hugh Jackman would pull such a wallop of an emotional punch as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables that he'd be the one to beat. I haven't seen the movie yet so can't tell but the reviews so far are only so so for the movie. Still the movie hasn't opened yet; if it becomes a blockbuster and Jackman is all what people are talking about in January we might have a race.

Denzel Washington in Flight and Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook are the other two actors that made all the important precursors including SAG. These five seem to be now the most likely nominees. I liked Washington's performance but wasn't sold on the movie. Apart from the truly amazing crash scene I thought it was pretty mediocre. Cooper's approximation of crazy grew on me. First time I saw it I found it annoying but second time I enjoyed his chemistry with Jennifer Lawrence and the manic energy he constantly brought to his character. He has a scene where he senses that he's slipping away into his head and brings it back in refusing to succumb - that sold me on the performance.

Schoenaerts

There are 3 performances in French movies this year that knocked off my socks. With Matthias Schoenaerts in Rust and Bone I finally understood what everybody's been talking about all these years when they mentioned Brando's performance in Streetcar. He has a ferocity and immediacy of emotion that is both sexy and dangerous and announces the birth of a major movie star.Jean Louis Trintignant in Amour is amazing as well although the emotion there is more reserved but not less strong. Somehow the two are overshadowed by their female co-stars, at least in the eyes of award voters.

The third great performance from a French film is Denis Levant in Holy Motors. While I recognized the artistry and mad storytelling skills that went into making the movie, it didn't really register with me. However there is no denying that Levant gives a virtuoso performance full of audacity and perverse humor. He also inhabits several characters with complete makeovers. None of the three will find traction with Oscar.

Phoenix

Other names in the conversation include Jake Gyllenhaal in End of Watch ( fantastic), Richard Gere in Arbitrage (haven't seen it) and Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. At the beginning of the season Phoenix was a shoo-in and possibly the front runner; now he's on the periphery. He might still get in as the performance has its advocates. I for one hated it. It is is a big "LOOK AT ME I'M ACTING" performance. He contorts his body, throws himself around, stops and gestures before saying anything. Hey Joaquin are you competing in some thespian Olympics we don't know about? Give him all the gold medals now! The film itself is polarizing and was not embraced by audiences although most critics loved it. I was left very cold by it. There's stuff to admire - cinematography, music and production design are all top notch - but the sum doesn't add up.

Predicted Five : Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day Lewis, John Hawkes, Hugh Jackman, Denzel Washington.

Most Anticipated - Les Miserables

Today a lucky few will the movie version of Les Miserables as it begins screening. I'm so jealous. It is my most anticipated movie of the year. Here's why:

It's a musical. I love musicals. It's big, emotional with lots of big juicy parts for actors. I love actors and acting.

They have really done a good job with casting. If there are 2 Hollywood stars who excel at musical theater and started their careers there ; it's Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. Have you seen Jackman's charming opening when he hosted the Oscars a few years ago? And Annie joined him in it for a bit. Fantastic.

Hugh & Anne at Oscars

 Russell Crowe has a band ie. possibly he can sing and he has the gravitas to pull off Javert. Amanda Seyfried can sing and will be a good Cosette. Plus she has the same big eyes of Hathaway's so they are believable as mother and daughter. Aaron Tevit and Samantha Barks are musical theater vets on Broadway and in England respectively.

 Eddie Redmayne is an open question but his "heart full of love"face in the trailer makes me optimistic he can pull it off.

Helena as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd

Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen are the two biggest potentials to ruin this. I mean Carter single handedly ruined the movie version of Sweeny Todd. But their roles as comic relief are not that significant. They get one song, even better Carter only gets to sing half of that song. Even she can't ruin this.

 I was not a fan of director Tom Hooper's last movie The King's Speech. However I think he can definitely make a very interesting movie of Les Miserables

And the marketing for this movie has been brilliant. That first trailer with just Hathaway singing Ï Dreamed A Dream" created the kind of buzz other movies only dream off.

Are you excited as I am? Tell me in the comments.

Australia

Australia is 3 movies in one. It starts as a slapstick comedy, becomes an action adventure and ends as a war romance. Add to that a precocious kid, mystical magic and the plight of the "lost generation" of Australia and it is a hopscotch of many things, but not exactly a good movie.

That said it looks beautiful, well shot and designed. And Hugh Jackman is gorgeous, take your breath away gorgeous. Unfortunately Nicole Kidman does not fare as well. She's too manic and brittle to be an enchanting romantic heroine. And the supporting characters come in two stock types, hissing villians and angelic good people.

Rent it anyway but see it over 3 evenings.