One blog. Two opinions. One zillion films.

.Dav-

Yep, most of us are in the same rowboat this year. Flying blind.  Glad you scored Frozen River, and I know you’ll let me know what you think.

I know you won’t have the WASPs-being-boring-and-insipid problem!

Ok.  I’m picking my picks I feel particularly partial about picking:

*Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke

Best Actress: It may be Streep, but I hope it’s Melissa Leo

( It’s the new austerity, as you once noted.  I think too many portrayals of famous men and women have won Best awards in recent years.  These two acting turns reverse that. )

*Best Directing: Danny Boyle/Slumdog

*Best Supporting Actor:  Heath Ledger. And this is tough, because I’ve enjoyed three other performances very much.  But I’m not deserting Heath now.  And he should have won for Brokeback.  -

Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis.

Best Original Screenplay:  I’ll pick Frozen River.

Best Screenplay Adaptation: Frost/Nixon

Best Visual Effects:  Iron Man

*Best Editing: Slumdog

Best Art Direction: I’ve never been sure what this means.  I’ll pick Dark Knight.

*Best Costume Design: The Duchess

Best Original Song: WAll-E

*Best Cinematography: Slumdog

1/2 *Best Original Score: Button  ( Doh!  I was right the first time! Slumdog!)

*Best Animated Film: WAll-E

Best Sound Editing: Dark Knight

1/2 *Best Makeup: Hellboy II: The Golden Army. ( Because Heath’s makeup was the only real stand out in Dark Knight, and Benjamin Button was just weird…maybe they’ll toss B.B. the bone, though.)

Tam

D.,

A quick post here. You were kind enough to lend me your copy of the real Frost Nixon interviews, and I’m watching that DVD right now.

The interview is excruciating to watch, in that it is akin to watching a chicken get its feathers plucked out, one by one.  The chicken is a rogue chicken, but even watching a rogue chicken get plucked is torturous.

It’s also mesmerizing to see the real Nixon make such sad and transparent attempts to deny the facts laid in front of him.  The camera is tightening on him now, as he begins to talk about “the difficult time he was going through.”  And he’s invoking Tricia, etc.   And saying about himself, by reference to the routing one of Eisenhower’s aids, that his intentions were good but his methods were not.  And he’s crumbling, looks as if he’s going to cry.  His whole premise is that anything he did, he did to protect and help his “friends,”  the office of the President, and the interests of the country.   And as long as that was the motive, the means could be justified.

But means aren’t always justified; utilitarianism is the philosophy that says otherwise, dependent on certain factors.    As Plato might point out,  utilitarianism is often, ultimately,  immoral.

What a sad, tragic chapter in our history.

T.

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Tam, re: Milk, I hear ya. If we can’t fight over how over Harvey Milk’s followers are destroying America by forcing stem-cell babies to gay-marry each other, what can we fight about?

I think you and I were expecting Milk to send us, the way No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and Sean Penn’s superb Into the Wild sent us last year. Me, anyway. Didn’t you say you weren’t that fond of Into the Wild? I think it’s one of the great American movies.  

So we’re 3-down, 2-to-go in the Oscar Best Picture dept. (I’m writing an Oscar picks piece soon. You too?) Milk is the sentimental winner so far; it goes to the heart of a crucial civil rights battle, and I liked how every performance was solid work — more documentary than show-offy. Frost/Nixon is the more dazzling entertainment, however. The less said about Benjy Gump, the better.

Meanwhile, tonight I attended the preview of Off-Square’s production of K2. I forgot how the play is a bit frustrating for mountaineers. Two guys need to work themselves down from The Death Zone yet they natter on about the stuff critical to standard Manhattan cocktail chatter: God, sex, the meaning of life, Clif Bars. Put a sock in it and keep moving, dudes!

Oddly, our town has spent millions on theater facilities yet K2’s production is stuffed into a small room. There’s climbing — those aren’t stage crampons but Stephen’s Koch’s real deal from Everest — and a pretty impressive fall. But it works. Having the audience so close to the actors puts the cast, Jamie Reilly and Todd Hjelt, to a test. Ballsy, those two, and they uncork a few goosebump moments.

As a preview, things were pretty well polished except that Jamie and Todd seemed to forget the labored-breathing aspect of the Death Zone. Then again, K2 is not Touching the Void but an arty play of whopper metaphysics. The finale is quite gripping and on the money.

D. & K. & D. – Thank you for a super Super Bowl Sunday football and commercial rating extravaganza.   K., I am listening, marginally, to reviews of Super Bowl 43’s  commercials, and you know what?  These ad ’specialists’ are blowing it out their front teeth.   Giving kudos to some VERY lame commercials, really stretching it…obvious they don’t believe their own baloney, and no mention of our favorite, the  HULU ad with space alien Alec Baldwin.

Back to Frost/Nixon. It’s a crackerjack entertainment, brisk and, as history, useful. (Unlike Oliver Stone’s “history” in JFK, which is loony — I fear for kids who use it for Cliff’s Notes.) It’s unusual to see Ron Howard employ subtlety but it’s sharp the way he has Pat Nixon, Milhous’s classically long-suffering wife, floating about as if a ghostly peripheral.

Pat Nixon is portrayed almost as an asylum patient, wandering through the Nixon’s San Clemente gardens; and yes, floating in and out of rooms.  When she appears, she’s treated with great deference, but she’s a marginal presence.  When not in frame, I imagined her quietly arranging flowers, writing little notes, painting watercolors, being visited by her daughters.   Would Nixon have had an openly passionate, high-profile spouse?  Probably not.  Pat was quiet; we never knew her.   Tricia Nixon played a role in producing, I noticed.

The movie’s dramatic arc is phony, dramatic-license-yadda-yadda. The fact that Nixon was on board for 20% of the profits is a major factor to the actual event, suppressed in the movie.

The film’s arc is the hoopla surrounding the manic activity of Frost’s efforts to produce these interviews.

The movie’s David Frost is presented as a bit of a fop and a twit. You’ll see the real David Frost possessing a feral, engaged intellect and a genteel hunger and willingness to probe for truth. (You may also realize that in comparison our current stock of hero interviewers like David Gregory and George Stephanopoulos are fops, twits, and pretty much useless.)

This Frost was a pretty boy, a peacock.  The characterization served its purpose, I suppose; a huge counterpoint to Nixon’s terrifying and menacing persona.  But the real David Frost never projected such a silly boyishness.

I can handle Gregory–although I think Barnicle would be a much better choice to replace my hero, Tim Russert.   Stephanopoulos is slime; and he was half of the worst presidential debate panel EVER.   No links for you!

Milk is next on my movie agenda.   Enjoyed watching Turner Classic’s screening of The Sweet Smell of Success the other evening.  Lancaster, Curtis.  Talk about slime.

Uh-oh, Tammy. Plenty of Oscar big-dogs are suddenly in town. I’ll take them in this order: Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Reader.

Taken too. Liam Neeson always refreshes; K and I are both still baffled over 1995, the year everyone went gaga over the corny, pretentious Braveheart when Neeson’s similar and far superior Rob Roy got no respect. And while I’m plugging Neeson: ever see Gun Shy? Sandra Bullock produced it in 2000, gave herself a small, charming role. It’s a funny, offbeat take on macho culture, quite refreshing.

Back to Frost/Nixon. It’s a crackerjack entertainment, brisk and, as history, useful. (Unlike Oliver Stone’s “history” in JFK, which is loony — I fear for kids who use it for Cliff’s Notes.) It’s unusual to see Ron Howard employ subtlety but it’s sharp the way he has Pat Nixon, Milhous’s classically long-suffering wife, floating about as if a ghostly peripheral.

And more movies with Oliver Platt, please.

I’ll get you our DVD of the real Frost-Nixon clips. It’ll change the movie, not necessarily for the better.

• The movie’s dramatic arc is phony, dramatic-license-yadda-yadda. The fact that Nixon was on board for 20% of the profits is a major factor to the actual event, suppressed in the movie.

• The movie’s David Frost is presented as a bit of a fop and a twit. You’ll see the real David Frost possessing a feral, engaged intellect and a genteel hunger and willingness to probe for truth. (You may also realize that in comparison our current stock of hero interviewers like David Gregory and George Stephanopoulos are fops, twits, and pretty much useless.)

• The movie needs Nixon to lose his cool. The real-life Nixon was unsurpassed at lying to himself. He did not lose his cool. You may find the real Nixon more chilling than Langella’s, and therefore more awesome.

D.-

First thing, I gotta get a look at the real interviews!   Fab.  I watched them back in the day, but certainly don’t recall details.   To compare this film with the real deal–I don’t know, the era just turns me on.  I was basically a kid, but my younger sister tells me I jumped up and down when Nixon resigned, screaming “Do you know what this means?  This is huge history, this has never happened, our President is an ex-president, he’s ceased to exist as Commander in Chief!”

Sarah replied, “Tammy, I’m six.”  My parents drank whiskey sours.  My brothers said something to the effect that I should be under house arrest, not Nixon.  Baby sister Annie told me in her own spirited way that her diapers needed changing.

I admire your review discipline.  The last credit line states that though the movie chronicles real events, there’s a fair amount of made up stuff.   I’m dying to know what.

Frost/Nixon is a Samson and Goliath tale.  A boxing parable.   “In this corner, wearing a Rep tie, Riiiiiiiiiiiichard M. Nixon!   And in this corner, wearing blue satin shorts and lip gloss,  Daaaaaaaaaavid Frost!” Get ready to rumble.   They go a round, throw some punches, bounce off the ropes, head back to their corners, get rubbed down, get a pep talk, strategize. Frost sees some stars, but in the final round, Nixon’s down for the count.

The movie is not about Watergate so much as it is about the emotional aftermath of Nixon’s presidency.

Langella plays Nixon so well; see how he inhabits this man without hitting the character over the head?  Lots of close-ups, his face fills the screen.  It is impossible not to start re-considering him.  Narcissist Nixon excels at painting himself the wronged hero.  He disarms accusations by spinning a Checkers story befitting the circumstance.   Frost and his crew meet the man, and they’re all knocked off their moorings.

This movie, as a reviewer put it, “…provides considerable insights into Nixon’s intelligence, caginess and fraudulent sentimentality…” Yes.  Fascinating.  Here’s an image that came to mind:  Nixon as a huge menacing Macy’s Day balloon, a gigantic floating presence staring down at us mere mortals.  But he’s fragile, and all it took was a sharp needle, inserted just so, to bring him crashing down.  All the air goes out of him.  He’s rendered meek, quiet, stunned.   He needs a friend, he pets the Dachshund.

I found myself thinking, too, of an endangered gorilla—a lone male, staring out at us, dark eyes, wary, alert, and a bit startled.  This Nixon was cagey, but so primal.

Well directed by Ron Howard.   A Beautiful Mind.

The interviews themselves were a journalistic triumph; the jury is still out as to whether they were historic.

On the occasion of Pat Nixon’s funeral,  I watched Nixon on television, walking behind his wife’s coffin.  He was inconsolable.  He sobbed openly.  It was heartbreaking.

T.

Tam,

It is with tremendous discipline that I limit this post to discussing the movie Frost/Nixon. K ushered into our home over the holidays a DVD of the original Frost-Nixon interviews; I just finished reading “Nixonland,” a whopping, fascinating tome of hot scholarship by Rick Perlstein. So there’s lots to say about Richard Milhous Nixon even without an Oscar-nominated movie to distract.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Frost/Nixon. Ron Howard had become an efficiently boring director for middlebrow tastes; I personally can’t forgive him for wedging a goddam car chase into that movie about the mathematician, a movie about science that wallowed in pure emotional hysterics. (Hence its Oscar haul.)

Howard’s efficiency is well used here. Peter Morgan’s screenplay and both stars, Michael Sheen and Frank Langella, had already been buffed onstage. It’s a crisp two bours and a delightful history lesson for those who wonder why the heck “-gate” gets attached to every unseemly event in politics.

Lots of actors have taken a shot at Nixon; Frank Langella comes the closest to getting under the man’s skin. Langella avoids the jowl-shaking caricature and lets us witness the brilliant political calculations Nixon routinely performed under pressure.

I like this movie mostly because it challenges how I feel about Nixon. He was built of timber destined for greatness; his weaknesses are a critical area for study, assuming mankind can learn from history. There’s a fabricated scene when Morgan imagines a Nixon drunk-dialing Frost. It’s an encapsulation of the thesis Rick Perlstein explores in “Nixonland,” which by the way is subtited “The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.”