Tag Archives: Academy Awards

The Fighter – Movie Review

The Fighter is a 2010 biographical boxing movie about the life of boxer “Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his brother Dicky (Christian Bale).

It is a ferocious movie, sometimes violent, other times funny. And ultimately, it is a movie about the values of family more than anything else. In their tightly-knit community of Lowell, Massachusetts, the people who are cheering this fighter are ultimately the same people holding him back. And regardless of the many boxing games that you will get to see and the many adrenaline-pumping moments you will sit through, this is a movie that is sentimental. It is the story of a man, whose occupation happens to be bloody, and his quest to find himself: failed marriage, career going bad and a messed up family… this is his quest to make something out of his life. The family conflicts in this movie are even bloodier than the battles of the ring and ultimately much more interesting to watch.

The mother, played by the brilliant Melissa Leo, is running a matriarchy. Their father figure is weak to say the least. Melissa Leo, the current frontrunner for the Best Supporting Actress race at this year’s Oscars, immerses herself in her character immensely that at times you think they got this woman from some grocery store, taught her the lines and threw her in the movie. She embodies Ward’s mother in a real way that is also raw and haunting.

Christian Bale, the frontrunner for the Best Supporting Actor race, as Micky’s older half-brother Dicky, is the bad brotherly influence that you cannot escape – and ultimately always seek to impress. He used to be a hotshot boxer as well but lost it all in a spiral descent filled with drugs and whatnot. He wants to resurrect his career through his brother and in doing so, Christian Bale really shines. The sunken-eyed, pale and thin character he portrays is done so well at times that his performance is scary.

Amy Adams, as Micky’s girlfriend Charlene, is also nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards. I believe Amy Adams is one of the best new talents to come to Hollywood and this movie is yet another vehicle for her to further cement this belief. She is gorgeous, as usual, and plays the supporting girlfriend who wants to protect Micky from his own family in a raw, gut-wrenching manner. You can’t help but like her in the movie. And she is my favorite in the Best Supporting Actress race, albeit not the favorite to win.

Mark Wahlberg’s performance is low-key compared to his costars. And it’s precisely that which makes it really good. His subdued performance is the equivalent of his character. And as his voice gets stronger throughout the movie, so does his character’s. This low-key performance also symbolizes his internal struggle between staying faithful to his family and his responsibility towards himself.

All in all, The Fighter is another must see. And if you think all my reviews are ultimately about must see movies, it’s because 2010 has delivered movies of such a high caliber that not watching them would be, ultimately, a disgrace to the art of movie-making.

The Social Network – Movie Review

Who hasn’t heard of this movie? Or at least what the movie’s about?

Facebook.

A movie about Facebook could easily have been boring. After all, many of Facebook’s users are boring: useless status updates, posey-pictures, pointless comments…

But get an interesting topic, a director who has already given a cult-hit (Fight Club) and a very, very strong screenplay and the result is riveting.

The movie tells the story of Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and how he made Facebook, the details of his invention, all the “dirt” that we don’t know about, the enemies he made along the way and his ingenuity.

It’s ironic that the person who made Facebook – the most active and important social network today – is really, not a douchebag as the movie portrayed him in some instances to be, but mostly socially awkward.

The movie’s screenplay, written by Aaron Sorkin, is snappy, smart, fast and really engaging. The first few moments of the movie: a conversation between Mark and his girlfriend is purely based on that: dialogue. It’s such an intense dialogue that those few minutes draw you in and from there forward, there’s no dull moment. The movie is mainly talk-driven. And it doesn’t get unbearable.

The movie jumps around time periods. It does not follow the order of how everything happened chronologically but it’s very easy to understand what’s happening. I mean, this is David Fincher, the guy who brought the world Fight Club we’re talking about.

Even though, as I said earlier, Zuckerberg is not portrayed in the best of fashions, he makes up for a riveting character portrayed very well by Jesse Eisenberg. This is his breakthrough role no doubt.

And for those who thought Justin Timberlake was not capable of serious acting performances, this movie will prove you somewhat wrong. He’s not brilliant but not atrocious either.

Andrew Garfield, portraying Zuckerberg’s best friend Eduardo, does an immense job at that. The contrast between his character and Einsenberg’s is so obvious that it’s difficult to think how the characters are friends in the first place.

The soundtrack is hypnotic. Not my favorite soundtrack of the year but a pretty great one no doubt by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Several songs in the movie are not featured in the soundtrack, the main one being the song played in the California night club scene. So if you’ve been searching for it, it’s Sound of Violence by Dennis De Laat. The soundtrack has already won the Golden Globe.

The Social Network is up for 8 Academy Awards, including best picture. It has already won the Golden Globe for best motion picture – drama. It’s one of my favorite movies of the year – and it’s a must watch for every Facebook user.

Harry Potter To Be Honored at the BAFTAs

Harry Potter fans, rejoice!

The movies based on our favorite books are – finally – beginning to get the recognition they deserve!

The BAFTAs are honoring the Harry Potter movie series with an award for “Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema”.

For those who don’t know, or don’t want to know, the Harry Potter movies are the highest grossing movie series ever, with total revenues upward of $6 billion. The books are one of the best selling books of all time, with the last book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, selling over 11 million copies in the United States on the first day alone. Yes, sorry Twilight!

The latest movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part I, has already grossed over $950 million and is nominated for two Academy Awards.

The Harry Potter series has never won an academy award and many people have been wondering why.

Rumor has it that Warner Bros is preparing a full-blown award-season campaign for the last movie of the series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part II.

Producers are already hyping up the summer 2011 release by saying that the already brilliant part 1 was nothing but a “road-movie”. Part 2 will be a full-blown battle.

Leaked pictures from part 2 show the trio and other characters battered and beaten. And honestly, I cannot wait to watch it!

The DVD for Part 1, available starting April 15th, 2011, will apparently include the opening scene of Part 2.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part II will be released on July 15th, 2011.

Blue Valentine – Movie Review

Overall, a good movie. There were points where I thought it was great. It’s all about the acting. This is a movie built on two brilliant performances.

Michelle Williams deserves all the recognition she’s getting. She has too many scenes where she shines, the best one, in my opinion, being when she’s at the clinic. You can’t but feel what she’s feeling when she’s lying on the doctor’s gurney there and if you don’t feel anything, then you need to get checked. She got an Oscar nomination for her role, and deservedly so.

Ryan Gosling is brilliant in this as well. He delivers a raw, gut-wrenching performance of the man trying to keep himself together and to keep his marriage still standing. I felt he was another snub at the Oscars this year. He deserved a nomination for his performance in this. I honestly thought he was a lock for a nomination.

I liked the story itself, the blooming of a love, told in flashbacks, and its disintegration, in the present, going in parallel. But I felt that both plots were underdeveloped. Like why are they falling out of love? How did they fall madly in love in the first place? that’s one of the shortcomings of this movie. But, as I said, the brilliant performances make up for it.
It’s very interesting, however, to see how this mismatched couple (and they are seriously mismatched) actually comes to the realization that they are, in fact, not suitable for each other. Many marriages are like this, I believe. The couple stays together because they have a child that’s gluing their crumbling relationship apart… and the movie is basically this couple getting to the realization that even the child is not enough anymore. And this is the crux of the movie: the reality. You forget you’re watching a movie at certain points as it draws very close to the life you know many people are leading.

127 Hours – Movie Review

I watched 127 Hours about two weeks ago but didn’t have a blog to share my ideas about it. To say this is a must-watch is an understatement. Brought to you by the same crew that gave you “Slumdog Millionaire” two years ago. And if you thought that movie was brilliant (which most of us did), wait till you watch this. It is one of the most breathtaking, exhilarating, awesome, amazing, brilliant, captivating movies I have ever watched. It was beyond perfect. The movie is James Franco and James Franco is the movie. No one else matters. Nothing else matters. You live the movie with him. You share the emotions he’s going through in the movie and at one point, you’d be holding on to dear life when he does the act that would ultimately save his life.

However, unlike Slumdog Millionaire, this doesn’t look like a surefire hit at the Academy Awards this year. But don’t let the lack of awards fool you. It’s a brilliant movie that simply got lost in the momentum of other movies out there (The Social Network comes to mind).

James Franco got nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for this performance. He is said to be Colin Firth’s main competitor for this year’s award season. He lost the Golden Globe and I believe that, even though this was a more raw performance than Firth, he will lose the Oscar as well because The King’s Speech (Firth’s movie) is building momentum. I will post my thoughts regarding The King’s Speech later.

I won’t go into the plot here but I have to say that Danny Boyle did another great job with directing this. And the overall result is a movie that, as I said, will probably get you to take a look at your life differently – at least for a while.

The score is done by A.R. Rahman. The movie’s theme song is titled “If I Rise” and was co-written with Dido. It is a beautiful tune, representing the movie’s tagline: There Is No Force More Powerful Than The Will To Live, and calling you to rise above the little things in life to lead the best life possible. Check it out: