If I Ruled the World: My Picks of the Year

I think you meant Carey Mulligan...

          Yes, it's the week of Oscar nominees and Oscar gripes. Nobody got what they deserved (besides Moneyball and Rooney Mara) and, yes, it's all political and self-congratulatory. What did we expect? This is the 84th time we've gotten nominations. After 84 times of being burned, who should we even be mad at? If film awards were really for the most artistically daring and skillfully presented works, what would this year really look like?

        Well, have no fear. I'm taking this awards season into my own hands. These are the real winners, here (In my opinion, obviously.) I ain't got the politics. 

       Also, before we start, I should note that I have not yet seen The Artist, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, A Separation, Shame, and Albert Nobbs. 

Let's get this show on the road. 

Best Female Supporting Performance

          

          Jessica Chastain has had an incredible year in film. She was the embodiment of grace in Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, a woman trying her best to be the embodiment of grace in The Help, and the best supporting performance of the year in Take Shelter. While Chastain's many performances could have all ended up on this list, I choose Take Shelter for its high demands. Chastain had to act against the mighty tower of superhuman skill that is Michael Shannon. And she completely stole the show. Her performance is powerful and honest, and by far the best supporting performance of the year. 

Other Nominees:

Charlotte Gainsbourg in Melancholia

Carey Mulligan in Drive

Shailene Woodley in The Descendants

Chloe Moretz in Hugo

Best Male Supporting Performance

          John Hawkes terrified audiences everywhere in last year's Winter's Bone, and I was eager to see what came next. And boy, did he deliver. Hawkes is mesmerizing in Martha Marcy May Marlene. I believe everything he says as if I'm one of his devotees in the film's cult. Hawkes is one of those rare performers that can say everything he needs to say with a look. Here's hoping he continues down this line of terrific script choices. 

Other Nominees: 

Patton Oswalt in Young Adult

Jonah Hill in Moneyball

Albert Brooks in Drive

Ryan Gosling in Crazy Stupid Love

Best Screenplay

          Say what you will about Diablo Cody's other endeavors, Juno and Jennifer's Body. Talk about her sentimentality, or her reluctance to break free of a certain style over substance, or her "quirky" dialogue. But when you see Young Adult, I promise that you will be blown away. This is some of the most mature and confident writing I've seen in a very long time. Cody's film, inexplicably marketed as a comedy, is one of the saddest movies I have ever seen in my life. Stripped from the screenplay is any of the charm, the quirk, the smugness of her previous work. All we are left with is a lonely, depressed alcoholic trying to come to terms with her meaninglessness. The work is dark, haunting, melancholy, and excellent. One of the best screenplays in a long time. And absolutely what Sofia Coppola wishes she could do, but clearly can't. 

Other Nominees: 

Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian, Moneyball

Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Lars Von Trier, Melancholia

Jeff Nichols, Take Shelter

Dan Fogelman, Crazy Stupid Love

Best Cinematography

         

          Call it boring, pretentious, endless, rambling, or silly. On some days I'd agree with you. But take one look at any frame of this fantastic film, and you'll see that Emmanuel Lubezki's work in The Tree of Life is nothing short of miraculous. This is the most beautiful movie I have ever seen. Any screenshot of this movie could be framed on my wall as a perfect piece of art. Seeing this movie in the theater was one of the greatest movie experiences of my life, if only for those amazing creation shots. 

Other Nominees:

Manuel Alberto Caro, Melancholia

Jody Lee Lipes, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Janusz Kaminski, The Adventures of TinTin

Newton Thomas Sigel, Drive

Wally Pfister, Moneyball

Bob Richardson, Hugo

Alwin H. Kuchler, Hanna

Best Leading Female Performance

          Kirsten Dunst blew me away in Lars Von Trier's elegant, devastating Melancholia. Every second with her on screen is electric, dynamic, fascinating. Dunst, who I've never really thought much of as an actor before this film, has officially solidified herself as one of my favorites. With just one movie. She's that good, here. Dunst takes great material and makes it excellent. I love her performance in this movie. 

Other Nominees: 

Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene

Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Charlize Theron in Young Adult

Viola Davis in The Help

Best Leading Male Performance 

         

           Michael Shannon's performance in Take Shelter is not only my favorite performance, of any kind, all year, but it is one of my favorite performances of all time. He is so convincing, so scary, so effortlessly terrifying in this role that I will have a hard time seeing him as anything else. Shannon works with his eyes, his body language, and silence to craft an intense and emotional performance that is unlike anything I have ever seen. Go see this movie. Now. Michael Shannon is unbelievable. 

Other Nominees:

Ryan Gosling in Drive

Brad Pitt in Moneyball

George Clooney in The Descendants

Asa Butterfield in Hugo

Best Director

          Nicolas Winding Refn had already made a name for himself with Bronson, the Pusher trilogy, and Valhalla Rising before his outstanding Drive, but nothing could have prepared me for what he did with the film. The material itself is quite barebones and minimalistic -- the screenplay based on a novella of the same name that consists mostly of interior monologue. But Reft, after meeting with Ryan Gosling and listing to REO Speedwagon, found a way to make the film something more. With impressionistic cinematography, long takes of silence punctuated by unspeakable violence, and performances from some of the best actors working today, Refn turned Drive into the must see movie of the year. The style, the performances, the soundtrack, the story. Everything works, here. And it's because of Refn's skill as a filmmaker that it all came together so well. 

Other Nominees:

Lars Von Trier, Melancholia

Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Steven Spielberg, The Adventures of TinTin

Kelly Reichardt, Meek's Cutoff

Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Bennett Miller, Moneyball

Joe Wright, Hanna

Best Film of the Year

          Despite his insistence that he's a Naze. Despite his inability to have a charming persona in public, Lars Von Trier really is one of the great living directors. Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves, Antichrist, Dogville, and Europa are all masterpieces. And then, even further up the spectrum, there is Melancholia. This is the movie Trier has been trying to make for over twenty years, and he has finally done it. It has his dark humor, his knack for pulling incredible performances from his female stars, his gorgeous cinematography, his ever-present need for some kind of gimmick (another planet in the sky!), and signs of his devastating depression. Melancholia is a near-perfect movie. The best film of the year. 

Other Nominees: 

Drive

Young Adult 

Moneyball

The Tree of Life

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Take Shelter

The Adventures of TinTin

Hugo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Descendants

Crazy Stupid Love

Insidious 

Hanna

Who are some of your picks for the year? Let me know in the comments or on Facebook!

Movie Review: Martha Marcy May Marlene

          When I saw the emaciated, tired, dehydrated John Hawkes in last year's fantastic Winter's Bone, I knew that I'd quickly see him again in a role that truly let him inhabit what Bone only hinted at. He's got a spark in his eyes that requires attention, even sympathy. Even when the rest of him is angular and cold. He's got a mean face and a cracked voice. In Winter's Bone, all it takes is one long look for him to make his points. We can just look at his eyes and know what he's seen.

          Sean Durkin, the writer and director of the haunting Martha Marcy May Marlene, must have seen what I saw in Hawkes last year. Only, instead of playing a guilty man trying to go clean, Hawkes has been cast as the charismatic leader of a small commune in the Catskill mountains.

         Sadly, Hawkes' character, Patrick, has been relegated to a supporting role.

         This is not to say that the film is ruined by this fact, but I am confident that a film about Patrick would be infinitely watchable. Hawkes gives the best performance in the movie, and one of the best performances of the year, and there is, somewhere deep down, a pain in my heart that he isn't given more screen time here to work with. But lucky for us, Elizabeth Olsen is also in the movie.

          Playing the titular Martha (sometimes Marcy May, sometimes Marlene) is Olsen, giving a totally out-of-nowhere debut performance that somehow carries the enormous weight of Durkin's unusual and disturbing screenplay, jumping between the confused and emotionally exhausted Martha and the confident leader that is Marcy May. The chronology of the film is jumbled, not unlike 21 Grams or Pulp Fiction, and sometimes the audience is unsure of which timeline Martha is in until late in the scene.

         Martha Marcy May Marlene centers around a young woman, Martha, who is accepted into a commune in the Catskills and is slowly brainwashed into believing the increasingly dangerous rules and philosophies professed by the commune's leader, a much older, enigmatic man named Patrick.

          A parallel plot runs through the film in which Martha has run away from the commune and is taking shelter at her sister's lake house in Connecticut. Martha, in these lake house scenes, is tormented by her memories of the commune, where she took the name Marcy May and witnessed countless disturbing and horrifying actions by her "family."

        The film seamlessly cuts between the two stories, linking them with visual motifs, music cues, and lines of dialogue. Before long, it becomes clear that Durkin wants to confuse us the way Martha is confused by her memories. "Do you ever wonder if something is a dream or a memory?" Martha asks her sister one night after a particularly haunting flashback. For the audience, we're thinking the same thing. These flashbacks are often followed by Martha waking up confused, scared, and looking for a way to escape.

        The cinematography is elegant and fluid, much like the camerawork of Roger Deakins or Harris Savides, and the up-close, raw handheld moments in the otherwise perfectly framed shots punctuate the film with bursts of intensity. Durkin is a visualist who seems capable of creating the imagery we've seen from filmmakers like Andrew Dominik or Ingmar Bergman--ghostly visions that stay with us long after the lights have come back on. His ability as a writer may not be quite on par with his excellent eye, but his screenwriting chops are definitely there. The film's dialogue is mostly solid, but the real pleasure in Martha is its interesting use of story structure and juxtaposition. To give away the transitions and cues he uses would be a disservice to those of you who wish to see the movie for yourselves. So I'll just say this--the transitions are magic.

      The highlights of the film are the great performances from Hawkes and Olsen, the beautiful cinematography, and the interesting structure Durkin has given the entire work. These highlights are definitely worth the price of admission.

     What the film lacks is convincing motivations for the supporting characters, and what I think is a much-needed focus on the backstory between Martha and her sister's relationship. I could also do with more Patrick. Hawkes' performance is too good for us to get as few scenes with him as we do.

I give Martha Marcy May Marlene 7.5/10 confusing movie titles.