The big event around here is The Oscars Ceremony. The Kodak Theatre is less than five miles from my house so traffic will be horrible tomorrow and I'll try to get all my errands done today. I'll definitely stay in the Los Feliz/Silver Lake neighborhoods, where the traffic won't be quite so bad tomorrow.
***SPOILER ALERT***
I've seen most of the films nominated for best picture. The one movie I'd not seen is Atonement. I read the book a few years ago and loved it; so, I'm somewhat hesitant about seeing the movie. I imagine this film as being a huge, sweeping melodramatic movie and the themes from the book are somewhat lost in the movie. This, of course, is an unfair judgement since I haven't seen the film but I am just lukewarm about seeing it. Perhaps, if it wins Best Picture, I will go see it or I may just wait until it comes out on DVD and I put it in my netflix queue. I eventually will probably get around to see it.
Of the rest of the films, I liked to absolutely loved them. To me, Juno was a smart, quirky but somewhat forgettable film about a teenage pregnancy. Of the four, I found it to be the one I liked least. Ellen Page did an excellent job of making Juno a likable and funny character but I've had my fill of precocious teenagers and their angst.
The other three movies provide us with some excellent character studies in moral turpitude, greed and evil to differing degrees. Daniel Plainview of There Will be Blood is to me the simplest character. He is competitive and becomes completely destroyed by his lust for oil and to win. Much like Daniel Plainview drilled the oil out of the fields, the oil drilled his sense of morality out of him. He is the essence of greed.
The title character in Michael Clayton is the most morally ambivalent of the three and the weakest. As his law firm's "janitor", he's the go-to person to clean-up their clients' jams and messes. The irony of the movie is Michael Clayton needs to be fixed himself. He is flawed, tired, broke, unhappy, and slightly (or perhaps more than slightly because we don't see exactly how MC fixes those problems) unethical. I loved watching Michael's transformation throughout this movie. Out of the three characters, MC is the one who is most relatable and the one who is probably the most likable.
Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men is the strongest of all three characters. He is a sociopath and evil human being. Whereas Michael Clayton vacillates within that ethical gray area without hardly any moral code of his own, Anton Chigurh operates completely outside of any social norms; however, Anton Chigurh has his own moral code and is driven by that code. He is more amoral than immoral. The audience learns nothing about how he became this monster. He only wants the money and has no regard for human life in his quest to find it. Only once do we see him conflicted about he will do and we don't see how resolves his confliction.
The evilness of Anton Chigurh was only one theme of the movie. In many ways, No Country for Old Men was the most complex of the three and I'm sure I missed a lot of subtleties of the film I may see during the second viewing. There Will be Blood is the most visually stunning of the three. The one scene where Daniel and his crew finds oil in Little Boston is beautiful. It's also nicely scored. It's too bad the score was not eligible for an Oscar nomination.
Michael Clayton is my favorite movie of the three. It's completely low-keyed and is this idea and character driven thriller movie. The gray color palette in which this film is shot is completely befitting of the movie. Truth be told, it surprised me how much I liked it. I guess I was expecting a courtroom drama type movie but instead saw this wonderfully complex character revealed. This is the film I hope wins Best Picture tomorrow.
Of the rest of the films, I liked to absolutely loved them. To me, Juno was a smart, quirky but somewhat forgettable film about a teenage pregnancy. Of the four, I found it to be the one I liked least. Ellen Page did an excellent job of making Juno a likable and funny character but I've had my fill of precocious teenagers and their angst.
The other three movies provide us with some excellent character studies in moral turpitude, greed and evil to differing degrees. Daniel Plainview of There Will be Blood is to me the simplest character. He is competitive and becomes completely destroyed by his lust for oil and to win. Much like Daniel Plainview drilled the oil out of the fields, the oil drilled his sense of morality out of him. He is the essence of greed.
The title character in Michael Clayton is the most morally ambivalent of the three and the weakest. As his law firm's "janitor", he's the go-to person to clean-up their clients' jams and messes. The irony of the movie is Michael Clayton needs to be fixed himself. He is flawed, tired, broke, unhappy, and slightly (or perhaps more than slightly because we don't see exactly how MC fixes those problems) unethical. I loved watching Michael's transformation throughout this movie. Out of the three characters, MC is the one who is most relatable and the one who is probably the most likable.
Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men is the strongest of all three characters. He is a sociopath and evil human being. Whereas Michael Clayton vacillates within that ethical gray area without hardly any moral code of his own, Anton Chigurh operates completely outside of any social norms; however, Anton Chigurh has his own moral code and is driven by that code. He is more amoral than immoral. The audience learns nothing about how he became this monster. He only wants the money and has no regard for human life in his quest to find it. Only once do we see him conflicted about he will do and we don't see how resolves his confliction.
The evilness of Anton Chigurh was only one theme of the movie. In many ways, No Country for Old Men was the most complex of the three and I'm sure I missed a lot of subtleties of the film I may see during the second viewing. There Will be Blood is the most visually stunning of the three. The one scene where Daniel and his crew finds oil in Little Boston is beautiful. It's also nicely scored. It's too bad the score was not eligible for an Oscar nomination.
Michael Clayton is my favorite movie of the three. It's completely low-keyed and is this idea and character driven thriller movie. The gray color palette in which this film is shot is completely befitting of the movie. Truth be told, it surprised me how much I liked it. I guess I was expecting a courtroom drama type movie but instead saw this wonderfully complex character revealed. This is the film I hope wins Best Picture tomorrow.
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