Latest screening: Crazy Heart

What a breath of fresh air this film is. Crazy Heart works on every level. It's not that it screams originality - hell this format has been used time and again whether in last year's The Wrestler or other country-singer themed films like Tender Mercies and Honkytonk Man - but everything is firing on all cylinders here.

The story of washed-up alcoholic country-and-western singer "Bad" Blake the film is a gentle and funny tale. It shows the state in which Blake has gotten himself but he's not a tragic figure in the same way as say Mickey Rourke's Randy "The Ram". He is a man enjoying his life as best he can. He's been dealt some bum hands but he's playing with what he's got and seems to be enjoying the game. Then he meets a young journalist who starts to make him see what's wrong with the way things are more clearly. Like i said, nothing mind-blowingly original, but handled in a confident and engaging way by the writer/director, and it sweeps you along with ease, never dragging, never outstaying it's welcome. In fact if there's a criticism i would make of the filmmaking itself it's that sometimes it feels to move too swiftly. The film addresses Blake's alcoholism and realisation that he wants to do something about too quickly and neatly. Perhaps the director didn't want to give the world yet another "the trials of rehab" scene or a "struggles of recovery" moment, and that's fine by to mop it up and sweep it under the carpet the way the film does, does seem to be short-changing the audience that are on this journey with the character just a bit. Still, small complaint.

Jeff Bridges is stunning here. Bridges is always reliable but he excels here and i would say this is his best role to date. He hasn't inhabited the body of a character this convincingly since The Dude in The Big Lebowski and his "Bad" Blake feels as real as characters come. Whether singing on stage, writing songs, getting drunk or getting in over his head he never hits a wrong note. I haven't seen Morgan Freeman in Invictus yet but for my money Bridges trumps all the other actors this year and I hope he finally gets his due for this. It is a towering performance, at once both in your face and yet subtle. A masterclass in acting.

Maggie Gyllenhaal more than holds her own and deserves a best supporting actress nod, though it's a tough field in that category this year and i suspect Bridges performance may eclipse much of the rest of the movie. This would be a shame though. Here she is likeably believable in an understated way and without her balance of the main character the film would struggle more.

Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall are both solid in smaller supporting roles but neither is really in it enough to get any awards attention.

The photography, like everything about this movie, is beautiful; while the soundtrack of new songs is simply stunning. Bridges has a great voice for them and personally i plan to buy the soundtrack album for this one. It'll have you top-tapping and thigh-slapping in the aisles!

One of my favourite films of the year. An awards movie that is also just plain entertaining - which is all too rare - with great songs and excellent performances, including a career-best from Bridges. A must see.

Latest screening: A Serious Man

Ah, God bless the Coens. After No Country For Old Men and Burn After Reading they continue their stunning role in such style it is easy to imagine that The Ladykillers was merely a bad dream!

A Serious Man is at once hilarious, touching, intriguing and confounding – everything the brothers do so well.

After a funny, Yiddish-language parable shot in a different aspect ratio which opens the movie like a Pixar short film – connective to the main film but not really directly related – we launch into the story of college professor Larry (the excellent Michael Stuhlbarg).

Larry is a vintage Coen character. Like a 1960s, lead character version of Steve Buscemi’s Donnie character in The Big Lebowski. He is a somewhat hapless, put-upon character. A character going through life minding his own business who would happily avoid conflict or difficulty at every turn, but whom, like a cat to the allergic, conflict and difficulty is inexorably drawn. Problems beyond his control arise in just about every possible aspect of his life and he greats each one as best he can, while displaying the accumulating weight of this world on his shoulders.

Stuhlbarg is fantastic. As the film heaps more and more bad luck and misfortune on him you can see the despair in his eyes, the weight on his soul. You feel that sense of how close he could teeter on the brink of a breakdown, just hanging on as best he can, struggling for meaning in world that offers none. He is fair-minded, just, honest, hard-working, caring, practical, yet nothing he seems to do helps. The sense of his being overwhelmed grows so naturally that it is hard to believe more is not being verbalized, so clear is Stuhlbarg’s internal feeling.

But this is not a depressing film and it is not one of the Coen’s straight, more serious films. Tonally it probably has most in common with Barton Fink, but it is much funnier. A series of meetings with various Rabbis are highlights, especially the second which contains the relating of a story so brilliantly Coen in both imagination and delivery of dialogue that you kind of know how the joke is going to work but you’re enjoying getting there and so happy when it does.

It is very much Stuhlbarg’s film. Beyond Larry the world is the character. It is the Coens world, but also cinematographer Roger Deakins’ world. After skipping out on Burn After Reading Deakins is back with the Coens where he belongs and the world of A Serious Man is typically beautiful. Deakins has done period, suburban beauty with the Coens before in The Man Who Wasn’t There, but here he can also add a colour palette and the result is stunning visual that belie the unflashy setting.

Carter Burwell’s score is also deceptively well judged, to the point you almost forget it’s there but it resonates beyond the film. It’s no Fargo score, which really plays well divorced from image on CD, but it is another crucial part that makes the Coen world seem whole.

The best decision here though was to abandon their regular stock company, not just the “star” names like George Clooney but also the regular character actors like Steve Buscemi, Jon Polito, Frances McDormand, John Turturro, John Goodman, Peter Stormare, Michael Badalucco, etc. About the most recognizable name in the movie is Richard Kind (at least recognizable to fans of the Michael J Fox sitcom Spin City) and Barton Fink’s Michael Lerner does turn up ever so briefly. But Lerner’s brief appearance almost feels like it serves to say, “no, this is not one for the regulars”!

Stuhlbarg is so convincing in the lead, and seems so suited to the Coens world (much like Billy Bob Thornton stepped so easily into the barbers shoes of Man Who Wasn’t There) that while this film doesn’t feature the Coen regulars it did leave me hoping Stuhlbarg becomes one of them.

Some will no doubt find the conclusion frustrating but it feels like the end the film deserves. The Coens have never strived to make a ‘Hollywood’ happy fit movie, they have consistently shown Hollywood what can be done.

A Coen film is also a must see but A Serious Man does not disappoint. It is certainly one of the highlights of the year so far and, given the Coens heightened awards profile post No Country, should at the very least garner strong awards attention for Stuhlbarg if not for the brothers and their behind camera colleagues.

Latest screening: A Prophet (Un Prophete)

It seems to me that Jacques Audiard just gets better and better as a filmmaker and his latest film A Prophet (Un Prophete) is an assured, powerful work that resonates with you well after you finish watching it.

It the distributor gets their act together on screeners for this one A Prophet could be one of those films that breaks out of the limiting ‘Best Film Not in the English Language’ category at the BAFTA Film Awards and easily find itself with thoroughly deserved best actor and supporting actor nominations.

Tahar Rahim is superb as the lead, a character so real it’s like watching a nature documentary, you want to get in there and help him. Set in a prison this is no Shawshank Redemption although it is curiously uplifting in a strange way! Rahim takes his character from outcast, frightened newbie; to put upon weakling, subservient dogsbody; to crafty go-getter; to self-assured player – and all completely naturally. It is as impressive a performance as I’ve seen this year and deserves to stand along side the more typical English-language performances come awards time. At BAFTA at least he should have a shot.

Niels Arestrup, familiar to Audiard fans as the father in the BAFTA winning The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrete), is almost as impressive as the prison heavy, who rules by respect, control and fear, and when called for, violence. Arestrup is the Paul Sorvino Goodfellas character, the gang leader who seems in control and all powerful but deep down is as insecure as everyone else – well aware that not only is he a target for enemies but for ambitious underlings, and that his power is only as strong as his ties to those he controls. Arestrup says so much with just a look here.

A Prophet is Audiard’s best work to date and certainly among the best foreign language films this year, and arguably the best films full stop. The story may not be the most original, often going in directions you imagine it will, but it always feels right, organic, that it should. The prison setting is a familiar one for film goers but it is rarely handled in such a natural way, superbly balancing a sense of honesty, of how such a life would really be, with genuine, driving drama. True life prison story can often be honest but inert. Fiction can be dramatic, uplifting, moving but seldom feels realistic. A Prophet manages in large part to do both.

A truly impressive film.

Along with the Mesrine movies the French have set a high bar this year.

Latest screening: Up In The Air

It’s starting to seem like every other George Clooney film brings with it a tag of George’s best performance yet. Intermixed with fun, goofy roles like in Burn After Reading and, from the looks of it, the upcoming Men Who Stare At Goats, we’ve had Syriana, Michael Clayton and now Up In The Air.

Up In The Air is not as serious as those other two but it is not goofy either. It is funny, very funny, but perhaps is Clooney’s most human performance.

Much of this can, no doubt, be credited to writer/director Jason Reitman. With Thank You For Smoking, Juno and now this he has shown a trend for mixing humour, both subtle and caustic, with heart and emotion without sentimentalising his character and descending into schmaltz. It is a fine line to tread and if anything Reitman is only getting better at it.

Up In The Air is a well judged look at the relationships in the life a guy who thinks he needs none. His relationship to his job, his “hobby”, his colleagues, his potential nemesis, his family, his lover, all come into the mix as we follow him as he flies around the US building up his air miles toward a dream goal and doing his day job – firing people for companies who don’t want to do their on dirty work.

This too is well handled. Reitman could have brought the more cynical and satirical edges he did particularly in Thank You For Smoking (and they do occasionally pop up, George one-liner following the revelation of how a boyfriend broke up with another character is the zinger of the year and evoked a massive audience reaction) but in a time when job loss and economic misery are effecting so many Reitman uses real people, mixed with an occasional actor (such as the ever reliable JK Simmons) to make you feel what they are going through. While doing this he also manages to make a likeable character out of the completely self-absorbed Ryan Bingham (Clooney) despite his job description. This alone would be an impressive feat.

This is almost a Frank Capra movie. Except this is a Frank Capra movie with edge. Ryan Bingham is no Mr Deeds or Mr Smith, an instantly sympathetic, loveable character. Bingham is kind of an ass but this is his story and you’ll be routing for him.

Clooney, as said, has rarely been better and Vera Farmiga gives sterling support as his literally fly-by-night lover. Danny McBride, Amy Morton and Melanie Lynskey are all solid in small roles, and Jason Bateman likewise has little to do. The real stand-out in support though is Anna Kendrick. It’s a tricky role that could easily come off whiny and irritating, or calculating and bitchy, etc but Kendrick takes an again not wholly likeable character and invests her with such vulnerability and well-meaning naivety that she wins you over. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a supporting actress nomination headed her way amongst several possible nods for this highly enjoyable and well judged film.

Latest screening: A Single Man

Well, we have an early contender – certainly for Best Actor (Colin Firth) and Best Supporting Actress (Julianne Moore – who was robbed in the Best Actress category for Far From Heaven in 2002) – but arguably also for Film and Director.

A Single Man is one of the most assured debuts I can recall.

A beautiful film in every sense there are a few moments early on when the fact it is a film by fashion designer Tom Ford leave your mind getting in the way. One or two moments elicit an expectancy for a product logo to appear, but these are quickly thrown aside as you get drawn into the story.

The screenplay, co-written by Ford, is timed to perfection. The pace is quick yet allows for easy entry. Nothing about the world is covert and hidden yet neither is it in-your-face and confrontational. Each of the three leads, Firth, Moore and About A Boy’s Nicholas Hoult is given a fully rounded character regardless of screen time, because you can feel the unsaid underneath and each gets their own arc, without the story ever feeling like there is too much going on in its fairly short (99mins) running time.

The direction is highly stylised but it never gets in the way, always serving the story. It will be interesting to see if Ford can change the style down a gear when tackling other stories in future but here he has the balance right. It is easy to focus on the style in the early stages because of fore-knowledge but this is a film that just gets better as you watch.

It helps that is served by a faultless cast. It is interesting that Ford has chosen Brits Hoult, Matthew Goode and Lee Pace to play Americans and American Moore to play a Brit but it works and as most people won’t know (except for Moore) the nationalities of the cast the illusion will never be broken – you wouldn’t suspect.

Firth has simply never been so good. If every actor has one perfect, flawless role for them out there then Firth has found his here.

After a few years of noble efforts and oddities Moore reminds us that she really is one of the best American actresses working. This rivals Far From Heaven, while perhaps not quite matching it only because it is very much a supporting role. But if this isn’t the role that finally bags Moore a long overdue Oscar then there’s a phenomenal performance hiding out there somewhere because Moore ought to be a shoe-in.

There best summary is simply that A Single Man is a beautiful film – beautiful in tone; in intention; in acting; in realisation. If Ford can repeat the quality of this debut in future film projects people will be wishing he’d been doing this all along.

Latest screening: Milk

Yet another case of performance over film here. Milk, like Doubt, is elevated as a film by uniformly excellent performances but the film itself is not great. Comparably to something like Monster or Capote, it is not that the film is bad per se, but that it is fairly forgettable. I challenge people that say it is a great film to remember much of the actual style and delivery of the film itself a month on. I'll bet they will remember little beyond the performances.

Of course such cases and dominating the awards season this year and an ensemble film like this could elevate it to best picture and best director status simply because there isn't a weak link in the actors on screen. See Crash for a recent example of this - the acting and the issue at its core drove its nominations and eventual win not it's actually being the best film of the year (which it plainly wasn't). With the recent hoopla over Prop 8 in California this is incredibly timely and so it does have the issue-ensemble angle that Crash had - it's also a better film.

It's not a great film though. The contrived way around of delivering narration Van Sant uses grated on me from the first instances and some of it was too laudatory i felt. I like me biopics with a sense of perspective and Milk was unashamedly in awe of its God-like (movie portrayal not opinion) subject. No doubt this will go down great in the US but i just didn't buy it, i wanted more from it.

Awards chances: It has the pedigree for Best Picture and Director noms in a slow year (which this is) but Sean Penn is electrifying and completely deserves the Best Actor nomination so is assured. It truly is a fantastic year for Best Actor possibilities this year (the one really hard to call category) and many deserving performances are going to miss out.

I am officially retracting my Josh Brolin prediction though. He's good here but he's just not in it enough. If he had already lost for a robbed central role (like Judi Dench) then it could happen, but his presence at the core of No Country and great turn in W. won't be enough for this.

Latest Screening: Che, Part One

Again, this was a pleasant surprise. I had come to believe from Cannes reviews of the full film that it was bloated and dull. Well, i don't know how Part Two plays but i found Part One (which is the only half that qualifies for this awards season in the UK) to be fast moving and fascinating.

Benicio Del Toro commands your attention as Che and the intercutting between Che in New York in the 60s and the younger Che getting involved with and then becoming a key player in the revolution worked well, with Soderbergh using black-and-white for the New York scenes, to evoke the documentary camera crew aspect that ties in with his being directly interviewed.

This is Del Toro's film and while Catalina Sandino Moreno, Julia Ormond and a few other recognisable faces appear from time to time no one can make headway against his impact. Del Toro can make a poor film better by his usually solid presence but he is truly excellent here and you can see how he won the Cannes Best Actor trophy.

The cinematography and production design work well, Soderbergh being typically stylish, but unlike in Traffic the alternating styles to denote time or place changes is less jarring.

Awards chances: Del Toro should have had a good run at Best Actor but it is a tough year even to get a nomination and the fact the film has been split in two may dilute his impact. As i've noted before the last two Americans to win Best Actor at Cannes (Tommy Lee Jones in Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada and Sean Penn in She's So Lovely) didn't even receive Oscar nominations, though Jones deserved one far more than he did for In The Valley Of Elah last year! Equally no Cannes Best Actor or Actress winner has gone on to win the Oscar since Holly Hunter in The Piano 15 years ago. So, slim perhaps but possible.

Latest screening: Doubt

I have no doubt that Doubt will feature heavily come the awards nominations. While the film itself may be a long shot - it is another of this year's seemingly unending set of solid films with incredible performances - the four leads are uniformly excellent.

The film manages to avoid the trappings of its stage origins well, a particular surprise given that director John Patrick Shanley is both writer of the screenplay and of the original play, and hasn't directed a film since the painful Joe Versus the Volcano (the Hanks/Ryan collaboration most people conveniently forget!) This may largely be due to typically stunning cinematography by Roger Deakins (presumably the film that prevented his working with the Coens on Burn After Reading). It is an intimate film as necessitated by the play construct though and that is perhaps why the film does not resonate like the performances do.

Much will, and already has, been made of Meryl Streep's performance and rightly so but Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and, in a single but memorable split-scene Viola Davis, all bring their A-game and match her. There is a feeling in Hollywood right now that Streep will take best actress and it would be no bad thing were she to, but i suspect not. Streep, like Hoffman, is typically excellent here but there are other performances this year as good (see my first predictions later today) and this feels like a nomination not a win. Personally for my the performance that really resonated was Adams.

Awards chances: Expect to see Streep and Adams get nominations with possible spots for Hoffman (although with best actor so strongly contested this year i suspect not) and maybe Davis who, despite very limited screen time, makes an impression and supporting actresses worth nominating currently seem few and far between. The screenplay if also likely in the adapted category and Deakins may well find himself short-listed once again. The film is more in doubt, though it is not a strong year so it could do. Director i'd be very surprised.

Latest screenings (UK wkd openers): W., Pride & Glory, Easy Virtue

Three new films in the UK this week, all passing by the executioner's chopping block.

Best of the week: W.
Oliver Stone has returned to form with W. - his best film since Nixon. Stone attempts to fairly even handed in his treatment of Dub-ya, which has annoyed many critics who were out for blood, but he can't avoid a few swipes that are the film's biggest problem. Making Bush look stupid by using this own sayings is fine and accurate, but two or three moments, including the use of the song Robin Hood are overdone and smack of the film the left-wing hoped he'd make and the right-wing thought he'd make. He can't have it both ways and they feel out of place in this film. As does Thandie Newton's sketch-show gurning as Condoleeza Rice. She is hilarious but it's too much really.

Brolin though is excellent. You feel sorry for his W. while at the same time seeing the figure of ridicule we love to mock. Brolin has been gaining more and more momentum in the past few years and this is a stunning turn. No matter how good or bad those acting around him (and most are very good for one reason or another) Brolin is so good that by the second half you just feel like you're watching footage of the 43rd president. It's spooky.

Awards chances: Brolin should get a nomination and it'll be interesting to see if should he get a supporting nod for Milk whether this will happen. He should, but the Milk nod may be seen as a good excuse to avoid the hot potato that W. will no doubt be in awards season. A Bafta nom for him seems more certain. The film may be too soon for much Oscar attention beyong Brolin but Stone is a two time Best Director winner and this is the best film he's made in a decade and it comes in a poor year (so far) for Best Picture certainties so i wouldn't rule it out. Personally i suspect come Jan 22 we won't be seeing key noms for this one outside of Brolin.

He'll never win for this, but if he is nommed for W. as Best Actor and Supporting Actor for Milk then expect to see Brolin walk away with the supporting trophy - especially only a year after he was the central glue to, but most ignored part of come awards season, of last year's Best Picture winner No Country For Old Men. I'm seeing Milk next week and confirm my thoughts on this then.

Pride & Glory - Much better than it has any right to be, this cop thriller is as predictable as it looks and offers little new to the genre, but it is efficiently made by director Gavin O'Connor and his team and raises its game with uniformly strong supporting performances.

It is odd that of all the performances the weak link is Edward Norton, not because he's bad (is he even capable of being so) but because he's sleep-walking through his performance. But Farrell tries valiantly to inject a depth to his character that the script has not provided, Noah Emmerich and Jennifer Ehle shine throughout and Jon Voight shows just how good he can be. A scene with Voight drunk at a family dinner is a masterclass in how to play drunk realistically - if you were told be sank a few shooters ahead of the take you'd believe it.

Awards chances: Not a chance. The film is solid entertainment but unremarkable and has no awards traction at all. Still, it's leagues better than the excrable Righteous Kill!

Easy Virtue - A funny and entertaining adaptation of the more serious Noel Coward play, but it suffers from pendulum swings in tone. Kristin Scott Thomas does her cold and calculating best, Colin Firth is fine if unremarkable and Jessica Biel shows a lightness and skill she hasn't previously displayed. Biel should certainly continue to show people what she is capable of in choices like this and The Illusionist, things we could never have guessed from watching the likes of Blade Trinity and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But Ben Barnes is terrible. Yet another in a long line of good looking wooden young British actors, much like Orlando Bloom or Keira Knightley - not that it hurt their careers.

The script can't balance the humour with the more serious elements retained from the play and it struggles to not fall into a peaks and troughs pattern of enjoyment and boredom.

Awards chances: As always with this type of film costume and production design and related technicals are possible - especially with the period film friendly BAFTA. But there is nothing here in script, film or acting of particular note. Scott Thomas is the best here but she's just playing the cold and witty role she always does and shouldn't get attention here which could distract from her assured (for BAFTA at least) Best Actress nom turn in I've Loved You So Long. I'm surprised awards screenings are going on, but like i said BAFTA is period film friendly so that might explain it.

It you want to see how UK audiences voted with their wallets on opeing weekend:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2008/nov/10/2

New trailers: Tale of Despereaux, UK version of Che

Two new trailers are up now. Can Tale Of Despereaux put up a fight for the third animation nom spot beside what will surely be guaranteed places for WALL-E and Kung Fu Panda? There's a lot of varied competition from Madagascar 2, Igor (and in the US, Bolt) to Waltz With Bashir (and in the UK, Persepolis). That said the scream moment in this trailer already surpasses the entirety of the excrable Igor so you never know:

http://movies.yahoo.com/holiday-movies/Tale-Of-Despereaux/1809420569/trailers/164

Second up with have a Cannes best actor winner Benicio Del Toro throwing his hat into the best actor ring with Che. Del Toro of course won his supporting actor Oscar in a Soderbergh film but it is worth noting that no Cannes actor or actress winner has gone on to win the Oscar since Holly Hunter for The Piano in 1993! And the last two Americans to win best actor at Cannes (Tommy Lee Jones in 2005 for Three Burials, and Sean Penn in 1997 for She's So Lovely) weren't even nominated at the Oscars (shame for Jones).

But this could be the fourth political nom (alongside Langella's Nixon, Penn's Harvey Milk and Brolin's Bush) that can count each other out and help Mickey Rourke's Randy "The Ram" Robinson to be the first wrestling Oscar winner. Go Ram go!

http://download.wire9.com/substance/che_trailer/che_trailer_850k.mov

Latest screening: The Wrestler

Another week, another great film. And the best actor race is getting impossible. Frank Langella, Josh Brolin now Mickey Rourke.

I have already posed the question in an election between George W Bush and Richard M Nixon just who exactly would you vote for? The answer could well be Randy "The Ram" Robinson.

A film which really took me back to the 80s with great 80s tunes, the original 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (which i still have and occasionally use like the character in this film) and a wrestling plot seeing a big blonde American hero vs the Ayatollah (Hulk Hogan vs Colonel Mustafa and Sgt Slaughter if ever i saw an inspiraction). Gotta love that nostalgia.

But The Wrestler is so much more than that, chiefly a superb performance by an agonising Mickey Rourke. Got to have an excellent Oscar shot. Bafta? Maybe less so because British old school voters might shy away from the wrestling theme, which would be a shame.

On a side note - apparently Leo DiCaprio is "a guarantee", really? For what? Certainly not for the dull, over-cooked Body Of Lies (more on this soon) and i question Revolutionary Road. Great movie but he is the least impressive of the performances here. Thanks to his reputation he may score a nom but in a year with a lot of very strong actor performances i suspect he may not make the cut.

Awards chances: Rourke has a great chance here, especially if all the other noms go to the politically themed films (Frost/Nixon, W., Milk, Che) and help Rourke's down-on-his-luck wrestler stand out from the pack. The film is solid but less likely, this is Rourke's show, like Hurricane or Monster the performance is the film. In a slow year Rachel Evan Wood is good enough to stand a chance at a supporting nom but it's a small part so competition could be too high - after all no matter how good Christina Ricci was in Monster no one noticed because she was so overshadowed by Theron, that Charlize's performance was all you remembered.