OSCAR Wrap-Up, Reviews of BREACH and RENO 911, and MORE

So yeah, I really should have put some money down on my Oscar picks.

The big one I called was Alan Arkin for Best Supporting Actor, and like I said, the cast of Little Miss Sunshine was too good overall not to be honored in any way, and this was the Academy's way of doing just that. And, honestly, Arkin is more than deserving. Plus, it's kind of a kick in the pants to Murphy, who seems a bit schizofenic when it comes to the roles he selects for himself. I said in my last post that I had one word for those who thought Murphy was a lock: Norbit - and I stand by that movie's mediocrity as big factor in declining will towards Murphy.

Honestly, this was a great Oscars in terms of the movies it honored. In many cases, the right people won, and I don't think there's anything that will be looked back on with puzzlement in a few years, as I suspect Crash's best picture win from last year will eventually be subject to. Well, that is, unless Jennifer Hudson's career tanks from here?

I really was skeptical that The Departed would win for best picture, but was very happy to see it pick up the trophy. Just like when I was composing my Best of 2006 list, The Departed almost seems too obvious to be awarded top honors, when it comes right down to it. But movie fans should be happy to see it win - it's a dark, gritty, funny, and violent crime film that was sheer entertainment from start to finish. Is it the best movie ever, or even Scorcese's best? Not by a longshot. But clearly, THIS YEAR, it was at the top of the heap.

Other huge surprises in my eyes:

- The biggest surprise for me was probably CARS losing out to Happy Feet in the animated category. I still haven't seen Happy Feet, but I feel like this loss solidifies the fact that Cars is now, easily, the most underrated of Pixar's movies to date, especially criminal since in many ways it is their best.

- I was pretty shocked, like most people, that PAN'S LABRYNTH lost Best Foreign Film to a movie that, frankly, almost no one has heard of let alone seen. This isn't to say that "The Lives of Others" is an undeserving film (I'd have to see it for myself to judge), it's just a huge upset as Pan's was on many Best-Of lists and won a few technical awards earlier in the night to boot.

- Marie Antoinette for best costume design was kind of a surprise. Curse of the Golden Flower was definitely my pick. Unfortunately, few people actually saw that movie ...

- I'm sure a lot of people were surprised that Melissa Etheridge won for best song. I know I was, simply because the odds were so much in Dreamgirls' favor. But hey, it's a decent song so whatever ... I mean, how exactly are songs from an adapted musical even considered "original?"

- Finally, a lament for my emplyer, UNIVERSAL, who came away empty-handed last night. I legitimately do feel we were robbed in a few technical categories, where Children of Men really did deserve to win (coug, Cinematography, cough). Also, as I've mentioned, UNITED 93 was really underrepresented, and deserved to be in the Best Picture race instead of, say, Babel.

CHEERS TO:

- William Moinahan (sp?) for winning for his awesome Departed screenplay.
- The writers of Little Miss Sunshine as well.
- Alan Arkin.
- Forest Whitaker - man, even seeing that short clip of him as Idi Amin gave me chills.
- Pirates II - way to lay the smackdown on that crapfest Superman Returns.
- Pan's Labyrnth - well deserved awards for set design and makeup.

As for the show itself, I thought it was okay. Ellen was hit and miss with me - I've grown to appreciate her stammering asides after seeing her in action so many times now on her TV show from my Page days, but, sometimes she tends to come off as a little obnoxious (ie, trying to joke around with Mark Wahlberg seconds after he lost for Best Supporting Actor). Still, she did a decent job overall, even if her jokes were sometimes spotty.

The Will Ferell / Jack Black bit was actually great, I thought, and even made a pretty valid point about comedy being given legitimate Oscar consideration. Why not have a "Best Comedic Performance" category to really recognize achievements in comedy? That way, we can avoid, as the song said, embarrassing "serious" turns by comedic actors just for the sake of recognition (cough*The Number 23*cough - hint, if Joel Schumaker is directing, it's probably not a prestige project).

Man, George Lucas needs to grow his beard so it covers his weird double-chin thingie. Still, he's George f'n Lucas, I guess he can pretty much do what he wants ...

Will Smith's kid can't read ...?

Okay, I'll stop with these random Oscar thoughts. Nobody wants to read my insight into the wonders of Anne Hathaway ... right?

Anyways ...

A few movie reviews for you:

RENO 911: MIAMI Review:

Reno 911 is no Wet Hot American Summer. But even if I am no forced to concede that the Reno 911 guys and girls are probably the lesser half of the late-great THE STATE, they still did a good job here of taking an intermittantly funny TV show and making it into a pretty damn hilarious movie. Reno 911 isn't going to make any all-time Best Lists, but it had me laughing from start to finish, and had some of the most blatantly over-the-top humor I've seen since Borat. This one, much to my delight, is not for the easily-offended.

Because Thomas Lennon and crew really take full advantage of having no TV censors, and go for the Hard R here. The humor is lude, crude, profane, and hilariously so. It's going to be hard to watch the TV show now knowing that the actors can't go all-out like they could in the movie. Then again, these are some of the best comedy / improv performers out there. Thomas Lennon has been one of my favorites since I first saw him play a perverted lighthouse keeper on The State. Here, he totally transforms himself into Jim Dangle, one of the funniest characters on TV or film in the last few years. Just the visual gag of Dangle, sporting 70's-era mustache and John Stockton-style short-shorts is pretty consistently funny, but Lennon's deadpan, mock-serious delivery of his lines can just be flat-out hilarious.

Lennon is aided by a great supporting cast. While all of the regular Reno players are pretty good, my favorite has to be Kerri Kenney, who is seriously one of the funniest women I've ever seen. Her character on Reno is just totally insane, and gets some of the movie's biggest laughs.

The movie has a few great cameos as well, the best of which is probably from The Rock, who does a hilarious little bit of self-parody, a must-see for any fan of Dwayne "Rocky" Johnson. Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt are a bit disappointing in their roles here though, unfortunately neither one is as good as they've been in other comedies, and most of their lines fall flat, especially Rudd's Scarface-like character, who is very gimmicky and never really quite works.

However, one of the big treats and disappointments of the movie is that every non-Reno 911 member of The State appears in a cameo role. It was awesome seeing the likes of Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, Ken Marino, et al appearing alongside Thomas Lennon et al ... the main problem is that these highly funny and talented guys were given little to do, so while it was cool to see them, they were barely used in the film. Kind of frustrating, as I said. A few other name comedians like Paul Reubens and Danny DeVito show up as well ... but really, no one outside of the principle Reno 911 players (excepting perhaps The Rock) is really used all that well.

Overall, this movie had a few jokes that bombed, no question. In fact, a few characters bombed completely (Patton Oswald, Paul Rudd). But in the end many of the jokes succeeded pretty spectacularly, and a few scenes were among the most hilariously memorable of any comedy I've seen in a while, up there with the best in some of my faves from the last several months like Borat, Tenacious D, Talladega, etc. While the plot is somewhat loosely constructed, it gives the offbeat officers of Reno 911 plenty of chances to shine, and lays the groundwork for plenty of laughs. Fans of the TV show will eat this up, and anyone else will probably at least get a kick out of it.

My Grade: B+

BREACH Review:

This movie is old-school through and through, with deliberate pacing, no fancy action, and cinematography that's about as straightforward as you can get. But that doesn't take away from a movie that really capitalizes on a tight script, very solid acting, and is a fascinating character study. Bottom line is: while it may not be the ideal Saturday night popcorn movie, Breach is a drama well worth checking out.

Basically, Breach tells the fact-based story of an FBI mole (Chris Cooper) who uses his standing as one of the Bureau's top information-analysts to feed sensitive intelligence to the Russians for years, operating just under the radar of the FBI, who finally catches onto him after years of fruitless efforts to find the mole. The question is - how to expose this guy in a way that is definitive and lawyer-proof? The answer lies in a setup - planting a young agent (Ryan Phillipe) in the mole's office, and having him covertly report on what goes on there, all while himself trying to evade suspicion.

More so than anything else, I found this to be a pretty fascinating character study of a company man gone bad. Chris Cooper does a fantastic job here, alternatively earning our sympathies as an unrecognized, spit-upon genius, and making us resent his bitter, destructive, intrusive personality. Cooper really owns this movie, and every second on screen he pulls you into the movie's admittedly slowly-paced plot just from sheer force of character.

The rest of the cast is decent, but operating on a slightly different plane than Cooper. While Cooper is treading Oscar-worthy territory, the rest of the cast turns in servicable-TV-movie-quality performances. I mean, I love Dennis Haysbert (President Palmer!), but his role is way too thin here to avoid simply thinking of him as That Guy From 24 and The Allstate Commercials. Similarly, it was hard to get over Gary Cole as a condescending buerocrat when he was basically playing a non-comedic version of his famous character from Office Space. Again, a great actor, but without much meat to his role, it was more a case of "look, it's Bill Lumbergh!"

As for Phillipe, he's been up and down with me depending on the movie. I was praying that this one wouldn't be a retread of the godawful Anti-Trust, and thankfully it was much, much better than that Razzie-worthy flick. Truth be told, Philipe was pretty good here. Not good "I wish he got Harvey Dent over Aaron Eckhart good," but he was well-suited for the role, and his slow, deliberate style was a good match for the movie's no-frills execution. Basically, Philipe is a long way away from being compared to young actors like DiCaprio and Damon, but he's pretty good nonetheless.

In sum, this was certainly an interesting movie with some fun dialogue and a very candid, non-glamorized version of the FBI. It actually reminded me a little of The X-Files in that it kept its hallways musty and poorly-lit, the walls bare save for the obligatory portrait of the Commander in Chief, the agents world-weary and lacking in their personal lives due to the rigors of their work (as a bonus for X-Philes, it even featured a small part played by Chris Owens, aka Jeffrey Spender). I liked how real this movie felt. It drew me in thanks to its authenticity. These felt like real people dealing with real issues, never all that larger than life, and that to me was a huge asset to the film and the story it was trying to tell.

So there you have it - it's not a slam-bag spectacular, not hyper-stylized, not particularly flashy. There are no huge twists or jaw-dropping revelations. In a way, it reminded me a bit of the Morgan Freeman movies Kiss The Girls and Along Came A Spider - that same gritty, old-school feel, nothing to distract from the minutiae of the plot, the characters. Some may get bored at this type of movie, but I enjoyed it. Solid stuff.

My Grade: B+

TV STUFF:

- I caught most of SNL for the first time in a while this week. Ugh - this show really needs to do something about its writing. All save one or two sketches were weakly written, cruising by on the talents of the actors. I mean come on, Nuni was funny ONE TIME, and even then it was a decently done ripoff of the style of humor that made Mike Myers' classic Dieter sketches so great. But now? Again? Not. Funny. At. All. I was ready to laugh at the Office parody, but really, there was nothing to it save for SNL cast members doing their best impressions of Jim, Pam, and Michael Scott. Yep, Bill Hader perfectly captured Jim's facial expressions. Now, where is the joke ...? I kind of liked the sketch with the guys at the bar reminiscing about what that one song reminded them of - pretty clever. Other than that, just weak sauce all around. Except I was really impressed with Arcade Fire - I'll have to check out more stuff from them, they have a cool sound.

My Grade: C -

- Holy crap, VERONICA MARS is AWESOME. I finally saw last week's ep and it was so, so good. I mean, this episode was amazing. What the hell, how is this not an Emmy-nominated show? This was a superlative episode - packed to the brim with plot, character development, and huge reveals on not one but two separate mysteries. Sherrif Lamb ... damn! Wasn't expecting that. Parker and Logan? Hmmm. I love Parker now though. Anyways, I won't go into too much detail suffice to say its a joke that this is going on hiatus in April to be replaced by the Pussycat Dolls reality show. VM is kicking ass right now. Next weeks' conclusion to the season's second storyarc promises to be great, and I can't urge you enough to watch this show.

My Grade: A

- Alright, I gotta jet. Back tommorow with 24 and lots more. PEACE.