Oscar Impressions

I was going to give a rundown on what I did and did not like about this year's Oscars telecast, but Holly pretty much hit on everything I was going to, and much more succinctly than I ever could. Check it out.

The Wrestler

It's Oscar night, and I've only seen one of the Best Picture nominees (Milk). I had hoped to see more of the nominated films, but time and money didn't allow for it.

I did get to see The Wrestler last weekend, which was worth both the time and the money. It is a fantastic film, one of Darren Aronofsky's best, if not the best film he has made. All the hype you've heard about Mickey Rourke's performance is spot on. This is one of those rare occasions when a role and an actor are so perfectly suited for each other it is mesmerizing. He is the center of the film, appearing in practically every scene much like Daniel Day-Lewis in last year's Best Actor performance in There Will Be Blood (although the movies are completely different in scope). The movie is filtered through this man's eyes so completely, that when his heart breaks you can't help but feel it.

This being an Aronofsky movie, you should know that it isn't all happiness and sunshine. It does have a lot more heart than his previous films (with the exception of The Fountain, which is all heart). The movie is practically a study in world-weariness, but Aranofsky clearly has so much respect and compassion for the characters and the worlds they inhabit. This makes their suffering all the more tragic, because you really care so much about them. Even more so than a film like Requiem For A Dream, which is unrelenting in its punishment, but ultimately feels cold and slightly removed. The Wrestler grounds you in its world from the opening scene, because it is so stripped of the stylistic flourishes that Aronofsky is known for. It's hard to believe this is the same guy who invented the "hip-hop montage" as an editing transition. Nor does the SnorriCam make an appearance.

Also noteworthy are the performances of Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, and Todd Barry. All of them do a great job playing characters who highlight, in one way or another, various frustrations Randy "The Ram" Robinson has with the way his life has turned out. They may also be the only way through which he can redeem himself.

I won't say too much else about the film, other than that I think it is fantastic. It could have been one of the Best Picture nominees, in my opinion. But I'm glad that Rourke is at least getting the recognition he deserves.

High And Dry

"We can't look each other in the face! You don't understand the humiliation of it - to be tricked out of the single assumption that makes our existence viable - that somebody is watching...The plot was two corpses gone before we caught sight of ourselves, stripped naked in the middle of nowhere and pouring ourselves down a bottomless well.

There we were - demented children mincing about in clothes that no one ever wore, speaking as no man ever spoke, swearing love in wigs and rhymed couplets, killing each other with wooden swords, hollow protestations of faith hurled after empty promises of vengeance - and every gesture, every pose, vanishing into the thin unpopulated air. We ransomed our dignity to the clouds, and the uncomprehending birds listened. Don't you see?! We're actors - we're the opposite of people! Think, in your head, now, think of the most... private... secret... intimate thing you have ever done secure in the knowledge of its privacy. Are you thinking of it? Well, I saw you do it!

We're actors...we pledged our identities, secure in the conventions of our trade, that someone would be watching. And then, gradually, no one was. We were caught, high and dry. It was not until the murderer's long soliloquy that we were able to look around; frozen as we were in profile, our eyes searched you out, first confidently, then hesitantly, then desperately as each patch of turf, each log, every exposed corner in every direction proved uninhabited, and all the while the murderous King addressed the horizon with his dreary interminable guilt...Our heads began to move, wary as lizards, the corpse of unsullied Rosalinda peeped through his fingers, and the King faltered. Even then, habit and a stubborn trust that our audience spied upon us from behind the nearest bush, forced our bodies to blunder on long after they had emptied of meaning, until like runaway carts they dragged to a halt. No one came forward. No one shouted at us. The silence was unbreakable, it imposed itself upon us; it was obscene. We took off our crowns and swords and cloth of gold and moved silent on the road to Elsinore."

- Tom Stoppard
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Codebreaker - "Fire"

I'm on a tilt-shift kick! The effect is used wonderfully in this video. The song has a cool vibe, too.

[via Boing Boing]

Tilt-Shift Dollhouse

I watched the first episode of Joss Whedon's new show, Dollhouse. It was a good pilot, and I was delighted to see some brief tilt-shift shots in the opening credits. I think this is the first mainstream use of tilt-shift.