By Dan Cohen, our Santa Monica Reporter
I had every intention of writing a piece on the 2015 Oscar race, officially called the “2016” Oscars. But I kept putting it off. As time passed I refined my objectives, from speculating on probable award nominees, to ranking the front-runners, to a postscript on the outcome. I blew through every deadline.
Finally, I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to handicap the 2015 movies. It wasn’t that the movies lacked worth—in fact, a handful, most of which came out in the last quarter of 2015–were absorbing and well made. The problem was that few of them added to what we’ve seen in the past.
For better or worse, the movie I enjoyed more than any other last year was “Mad Max: Fury Road,” George Miller’s transcendent chase epic, a reworking of his earlier “The Road Warrior,” from 1981. To say that it has its roots in a prior film is not to say that it’s derivative; Miller’s eye-popping vision, which borrows from sources as diverse as Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” Fellini’s “Satyricon,” and Cirque du Soleil, is so imaginative and meticulously realized, that the director has raised the bar for all action films that follow.
Miller broke the mold for action movies in the same way that Sam Peckinpah shattered the western with “The Wild Bunch” in 1969. When Peckinpah’s movie debuted it was exalted and derided, sometimes by the same critics, in the same article. Warner Brothers, the studio that also made “Fury Road,” had so little faith in Peckinpah’s vision that it cut nearly 20 minutes from the movie before it went into wide release. It wasn’t until its DVD incarnation that “The Wild Bunch” was restored to its original 144 minutes.
While “The Wild Bunch” wreaks havoc on the mythology of the West, “Fury Road” addresses nothing more than itself and the medium, which makes it a little harder to defend. At it’s best it’s as intense and relentless as a painting by DeKooning or Bosch. But it’s a narrative, with a beginning, middle and end, perfectly realized in almost every detail.
I’ve gone on about these two movies because both are unlike anything that came before them. And when we reflect on movies that have made strong impressions on us, that seems to be one of the essential criteria.
While other ambitious projects followed, by years end “Fury Road” had little competition. And that includes the highly acclaimed “The Revenant.” But I’ll argue that point a little later.
For those of us who love movies, new works by directors like Alejandro Innarritu, Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, and Stephen Spielberg, arrive with the highest expectations. While it’s probably unjust to ask filmmakers to regularly push beyond their boundaries, its hard not to think back to their breakthrough projects when their latest films appear.
But it isn’t just the movies themselves that excite us. Cleverly edited trailers, skillful promotion, the talent involved—from cast to cinematographers—inspire us to hope that a confluence of elements will provide us with the kind of stimulation we experienced upon first seeing “Citizen Kane,” “Vertigo,” “2001—A Space Odyssey,” “Taxi Driver,” or “La Dolce Vita,” to cite just a few.
When aliens confronted a confused and addled Woody Allen in “Stardust Memories,” back in 1980, he asked them for advice on how to make the world a better place. They told him to “tell funnier jokes.” The aliens couldn’t foresee Allen writing and directing “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Match Point,” or a dozen other stellar dramas. It’s quite likely that Allen couldn’t either. And while those terrific movies might not have made the world any better, they proved that Allen was one of the world’s greatest filmmakers. Allen consistently dared us to anticipate the next turn in an amazing career. Some of his films met expectations while others marked time. How many times have you heard people remark that while his latest output wasn’t great, it was still better than most of what others were up to?
By those standards, “The Revenant,” the most recent work of Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu, who birthed the terrific and idiosyncratic, “Birdman” and “Amores Perros,” is a great disappointment. After a startling opening sequence, what may be the most ferocious Indian attack in the movie history– a sequence that demonstrates the devastating power of the arrow—Innarritus’ narrative moves forth as an epic tale of survival. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, brings out aspects of the unyielding landscapes hitherto unseen. An assault by an angry bear rattles us to the core. But then the movie devolves into a routine and plodding revenge drama, with very little on its mind other than goosing us with more bloodletting and resolving the plot.
Then there’s Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies. Although this compelling cold war thriller could serve as a master class in directing, it employs tried and true devices to realize familiar ends. Nothing wrong with that, and the movie is completely engaging, but at its conclusion the piece remains familiar. This is not to belittle it, but Spielberg is the director who gave us the one of most terrifying visions of warfare in “Saving Private Ryan,” who realized brutal aspects of the Nazi atrocities in “Schindler’s List,” who portrayed the cruelty of the slave trade in “Amistad.” Anything with Spielberg’s name on it raises expectations because time and again he’s shown so many great things.
Two other features, “The Big Short,” and “Spotlight” received their share of recognition. Both movies took on complex and difficult matters and managed to present them coherently, no easy feat. Better still, in an environment commanded by superheroes, both found an audience. But they dealt mainly with external events; “Spotlight” with child molestation among the Boston priesthood; “Big Short” with catastrophic fraud within the banking system. Both films employed the principles of suspense; they baited us with crimes and kept us wanting to know what, how and why? But finally, “The Big Short,” and “Spotlight” are more concerned with a flow of events than uncomfortable insights into human nature.
The film that came the closest to getting beneath its characters’ skins and casting a bit of light on their unruly nature was “Steve Jobs,” which failed to impress both critics and audiences. Of all the mainstream releases, this biopic, which is structured around three distinct moments in time, engages us through intimacy. Moviegoers passed. “Steve Jobs” was all but forgotten by awards givers.
I was glad to see Brie Larson singled out for her remarkable performance in “Room” an indie that established a quirky means of telling the story of a woman forced to raise a child in a grimy garage, and followed through with conviction. And while the film didn’t recruit much of an audience, those who see it on cable or DVD will be impressed by its refusal to embrace tabloid style clichés. The film remains clear-eyed to the end.
The problem with “Room” is that it brings up far more issues than it can handle in two hours. The material is so rich and disturbing that it might have been better served by a mini-series. At the same time, a movie that leaves us wanting more is a lot better than a movie that leaves us wanting less. There were plenty of those last year.
“The Martian,” probably the best family film of the year—and by that I mean that it satisfies several age groups without pandering to any one in particular—was a welcome return to form by director Ridley Scott. After less engaging projects like “Gods and Kings,” and “The Counselor,” he needed the hit that “The Martian” became. While Scott may be as prolific a producer as Spielberg—he’s credited with over a hundred projects—he made his reputation directing the game changers “Blade Runner” and “Alien.” So he’s another one who raises our expectations.
Though “Martian” remains within a certain comfort range, Scott’s lively retelling of “Robinson Crusoe” relies on character as much as plot turns. Matt Damon brings humor and feeling to the astronaut who’s forced to fend for himself after an accident leaves him abandoned on the red planet.
Critics couldn’t heap enough praise on “Carol,” although the Academy failed to anoint it. It didn’t strike me as the watershed lesbian drama some made it out to be. I can think of several that came before “Carol;” “The Kids Are Alright,” “Boys Don’t Cry” and “High Art,” to name a few, that portrayed lesbians with a high level of sympathy and candor, and that developed more complex and interesting stories.
At it’s best, “Carol” is an exquisite essay on the 1950s, the least mannered and most affecting drama from director Todd Haynes. Having abandoned his compulsion to mimic the work of director Douglas Sirk, (grab a DVD of “Written on the Wind,” sometime,) Haynes, aided by a finely tuned script, found his own, distinctive voice in the story telling. A steady flow of events, spot on performances by Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett, sensitive camerawork, and the subtle period recreation, are so smoothly integrated that the movie plays like a long, lavishly coiffed dream. But as strong as it is, “Carol” doesn’t break barriers: “Boys Don’t Cry” did that.
As far as the other nominees go, I found “The Danish Girl,” a snooze and “45 Years,” starring the reliably compelling Charlotte Rampling, a bit thin. Bryan Cranston was great in “Trumbo,” an overblown but pleasurable gloss on the esteemed Hollywood screenwriter who stood up to American style fascism during the cold war. It appears that the filmmakers took considerable liberties with the facts, but that comes as no surprise. Still, Cranston’s crackling wit breaks through the mediocre filmmaking.
Finally, I failed to catch “Brooklyn,” or “Joy.” My bad, probably, but no one who saw them implored me to make either a priority.
And there you have it; an uneven year boasting a number of enjoyable films with very specific virtues, that didn’t quite live up to their hype.
There were other, smaller movies that made strong impressions. In my last column I mentioned “Tangerine,” which may be someday be seen as some kind of milestone. Also worth mentioning is the overlooked, finely crafted “Mississippi Grind”—an unvarnished look at obsessive gambling. “Grind” is more telling than any drama about gaming that I can remember. It also boasts Ryan Reynolds’ best performance to date. Both films, along with several others that I mentioned, flew under the mainstream radar.
No surprise there, but you who can catch them all on cable or DVD, in high definition and Dolby sound, in between binges on “Homeland” or “House of Cards”: So go for it!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dan Cohen recently published “Single Handed” and has been kept busy on promotional tours of the popular book, now in third printing, soon in paper back, and perhaps someday as a motion picture.
