Review: NOAH

NOAH  (DISASTER-DRAMA/FANTASY)
3.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Anthony Hopkins, Douglas Booth, Madison Davenport, Nick Nolte (voice), Mark Margolis (voice), Frank Langella (voice)
Rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images and brief suggestive content.
Verdict:  Love it of hate it, it's unlikely that we'll ever see the likes of NOAH again anytime soon.  More of a Darren Aronofsky film than a "Bible film", it interprets the famous story with brazen boldness and spiritual/emotional integrity.  Visually astounding, emotionally complex and intellectually ambitious, with a stellar cast all around, Aronofsky's film is skillfully crafted to inspire debate, challenge easy interpretation and open new angles of faithful perspective.
YOU MAY ENJOY NOAH IF YOU LIKED:
THE FOUNTAIN (2006)
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (2002)
THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988)
PAN'S LABYRINTH (2006)

Most people know the story of 'Noah's Ark', or at least they know the simplified Sunday School and/or children's storybook adaptation where God floods the Earth, so the prophet Noah built an ark to hold two of every living creature and his family during the storm, and after 40 days and 40 nights of rain had ended, God sent a rainbow.  Obviously the story is actually a very dark one, where a world has become so consumed by wickedness that God, He who gives all, wiped the slate clean by killing millions of human beings.  Still, the storybook illustration of a white-whiskered Noah and his happy family on the ark (with a pair of giraffe heads poking out of the roof) looking at a rainbow persists.
NOAH is probably the least straightforward major film adaptation of a Bible story than we've ever seen (I could call it the 'least faithful adaptation', but the silly controversy being fueled by conservative Christians makes that into a poor choice of words).  It's not even an 'adaptation' per se, as it is an 'interpretation', an attempt to tackle the themes and implications of the ancient story through a new lens.  Purge your mind of the marketing campaign which misrepresents the film almost entirely, but in a saving grace, also holds back so much that even with such well-known source material, it all feels very surprising and fresh.  Don't expect a film version of the story from Genesis (or from the Qu'ran, but Islamic fundamentalists appear more upset about the visual depiction of a spiritual figure than anything else, so it seems like a moot point), because you won't find it here.
Generations after Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, the line of Cain has flourished, building vast cities and mining the Earth dry of its resources and spreading wickedness as the wealthy and powerful gorge themselves on red meat while swaths of starving families surround their borders, willing to trade their daughters for a scrap of meat.  Noah (Russell Crowe), the last in the line of Adam's other prosperous son, Seth, lives outside from the rest of civilization, with his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly, who played Russell Crowe's wife before in A BEAUTIFUL MIND), his sons Shem (Douglas Booth), Ham (Logan Lerman) and Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll), and his adopted daughter, Ila (Emma Watson).  Loathsome of the ways of man, Noah receives a vision of the world washed clean in an apocalyptic deluge that will kill everyone, and Noah is chosen to carry out the task of preserving the building blocks of Creation by building a massive ark that will whether the storm.  With the help of fallen angels called "Watchers", Noah follows the will of The Creator, but the line of Cain, led by Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone), the first metallurgist, has no intention of going quietly.

Jennifer Connelly as Naameh and Russell Crowe as Noah

Darren Aronofsky, the filmmaker behind excellent (though very dark) art house hits like REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, THE WRESTLER and BLACK SWAN, may have $125-$160 million (about $100 million than his biggest previous budget on the 2006 box office failure THE FOUNTAIN) to throw around this time around, but there's no mistaking it for something other than an Aronofsky film.  The visuals are stark and gorgeous, with vast landscapes and vibrant colors, and the Watchers, fallen angels encased in bodies of volcanic rock (they're kind of in the Bible) are really fascinating.  They look like they might be stop-motion animation in some scenes, but I don't actually know for sure.  No "hip-hop montages" this time around, but there's some pretty extensive time-lapse photography.  It's only Aronofsky's second PG-13-rated film (a necessary stipulation to produce a film on this scale), but it might just be his most brutal anyway.  This movie is surprisingly not shy about brutality and gore, very nearly busting through the PG-13 limits.
Regardless of the debated historicity of the Genesis narrative, NOAH doesn't take a "historic approach", at least in the way we'd think of it.  A lot of the fashions used are similar to what's been used in the past 100 years, but woven out of the rough burlap-type fabrics typical of biblical depictions (in one scene, Tubal-Cain wears a crude welding helmet).  Even before the apocalyptic deluge, it's a classic dystopian world.
With the Mad Max-style societies and giant rock monsters, it's pretty visionary a lot of the time, but always there to keep things grounded in relatibility is the stellar cast, led by Russell Crowe, who gives one of his best performances years as a very dark and complicated Noah who, at times, represents the confusing nature of God as in the biblical narrative.  As his wife, Jennifer Connelly well-established and very moving as she fights for mercy against Noah's harsh justice, and Emma Watson continues to mature into deeper and more challenging roles that stand in contrast to her previous high school characters.  Ray Winstone sometimes seems like a bit of a stock villain, but his character is less of an independent and more of a spokesperson for the 'group character' of the wicked people.  As Noah's grandfather Methuselah, held in tradition as the oldest man who ever lived, Anthony Hopkins provides a warm and whimsical presence to the dark proceedings, offering lines of sage wisdom and taking joy in the simple things.
For most people getting on board with NOAH will take some time.  It has to gestate and sink in.  It begs to be talked about and debated, compared and contrasted, and it refuses to play things easily.  Even if Hollywood's upcoming trend of spiritual and Bible-based films is sustainable, NOAH is destined to stand apart, and it should be embraced for that.  If you want the story from the Bible, then read the Bible.  If you want a challenging, interesting and thrilling exploration of the story's characters and themes, then watch NOAH.

Foreground: Logan Lerman as Ham and Russell Crowe as Noah.  Background: The ark (under construction).

Preview: April 2014

April is typically an uneventful month for movies, as the box office makes way for the impending box office juggernauts due out in May.  While for the most part, April 2014 is more of the same, there is at least one huge shakeup out the gates by the first weekend with Marvel's latest, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, my personal pick for most anticipated movie of the season, let alone the month.  With 2012's THE HUNGER GAMES proving the gargantuan potential for brand-name blockbusters outside of the highly-competitive summer and holiday seasons, Disney's Marvel is taking advantage of these lesser months for some very high profile pictures, and CAPTAIN AMERICA is likely to be one of the biggest of the year.  Otherwise, there's potential for minor hits with families and niche audiences, including an animated family musical-comedy (RIO 2), a couple of horror movies (THE QUIET ONES, OCULUS), yet another faith-based drama in a year full of them (HEAVEN IS FOR REAL), and a pair of original stories with movie star leading men (TRANSCENDENCE, DRAFT DAY).

April 4th
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER  (ACTION/SCI-FI)
Directed by Anthony Russo & Joe Russo; Starring Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Hayley Atwell
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, gunplay and action throughout.
Oh boy, I'm excited for this one.  For this ninth film in the "Marvel Cinematic Universe", and the last "Avenger" film before THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON comes out next year (GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY comes out in March, but doesn't appear to have major characters directly related to the Avengers), Marvel Studios unconventionally picked a pair of sitcom directors known for cult classics Community and Arrested Development, Joe and Anthony Russo.  Although their background is primarily in comedy, the advertising has highlighted some spectacular-looking action and some  interestingly dark character developments.  Plus, the early buzz has been comparable to THE AVENGERS, and the recommendations don't get much higher than that.

April 11th
DRAFT DAY  (SPORTS DRAMA)
Directed by Ivan Reitman; Starring Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Tom Welling, Terry Crews, Chadwick Boseman, Ellen Burstyn, Frank Langella, Denis Leary
Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and sexual references.
Evidently an attempt to score a MONEYBALL-esque appeal, this comedy-drama goes behind the scenes of NFL football as Cleveland Browns general manager played by Kevin Costner fights for the number one draft pick in a desperate attempt to turn his long-time losing club around.  With a cast that includes Jennifer Garner, Denis Leary and Frank Langella, the onscreen talent is adequate enough, but director Ivan Reitman is a long time running without a real hit himself, which could either lend an emotional authenticity to Costner's character's similar plight, or prove unsuitable to sustain a sports business dramedy.

April 11th
OCULUS  (HORROR)
Directed by Mike Flanagan; Starring Katie Sackhoff, Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, James Lafferty, Rory Cochrane
Rated R for terror, violence, some disturbing images and brief language.
When a young woman's (Doctor Who hottie Karen Gillan) brother is released from a mental hospital ten years after shooting their father after witnessing him kill their mother, she's determined to prove that the true culprit of the crimes attributed to her brother and father is a possessed mirror with previous owner who like wise met bloody ends.  It's so difficult to make a clear judgement of most upcoming horror movies, because the genre is one of the most subjective and potentially unpredictable.  On the one hand, WWE Studios is behind the film, which is typically a deterrent, but it is an interesting concept and a likable lead.

April 11th
RIO 2  (ANIMATED COMEDY/CHILDREN'S)
Directed by Carlos Saldanha; Featuring the Voices of Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, Bruno Mars, George Lopez, Jemaine Clement, Jamie Foxx
Rated G
Of the highest-grossing, most notable animation studios (particularly headlined by the likes of Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks), Blue Sky Studios, noted for the hit ICE AGE franchise, is definitely the most mediocre, but they churn the movies out and the dollars roll in from non-discriminating families with young children.  RIO 2 is the sequel to the 2011 surprise hit about Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg), a rare blue macaw who learns to fly; now he's with fellow blue macaw Jewel (voiced by Anne Hathaway) and their three kids, and when they hear about the world's last flock of blue macaws living in the Amazon rainforest, they leave their domesticated lifestyle for a wild one.  Once there, they run into Jewel's cantankerous dad, resulting in MEET THE PARENTS-style hijinks, while Nigel, the evil cockatoo from the first film, returns to get revenge.  It's looks very much like Blue Sky's usual low form of children's entertainment rooted in formulaic storytelling, cliches and shameless stunt casting.  Kids aren't likely to mind much.

April 16th
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL  (DRAMA)
Directed by Randall Wallace; Starring Greg Kinnear, Kelly Reilly, Connor Corum, Margo Martindale, Thomas Haden Church
Rated PG for thematic material including some medical situations.
Whether or not the film is any good, it's the kind that really upsets me because its audience is so willing to overlook the aspects of quality or lack thereof, and so militant in their defense of it, because its Christian propaganda, but not for the sake of promoting the faith for the unconverted.  Based on a book written by an evangelical preacher (played in the film by Greg Kinnear) about his little boy's claims that during emergency surgery he went to Heaven where he saw deceased family members and Jesus riding a "rainbow horse".  The trailers are nauseating and embarrassing for the discriminating viewer, with weepy-eyed people listening to the four-year old tell them about their dead relatives, but I suppose if it makes you feel good, then just as well, I guess. 

April 18th
TRANSCENDENCE  (SCI-FI/THRILLER)
Directed by Wally Pfister; Starring Johnny Depp, Kate Mara, Morgan Freeman, Paul Bettany, Rebecca Hall, Cillian Murphy
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence, some bloody images, brief strong language and sensuality.    
This much-anticipated directorial debut of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister, known for his work on the Dark Knight trilogy and INCEPTION, is from an original and acclaimed debut script by Jack Paglen, but the concept as shown in the advertising feels overly familiar.  Johnny Depp stars as Will Caster, a brilliant scientist who's developing the most advanced artificial intelligence system of all time, but when extremists attempt to stop his work in an assassination attempt, they give him the final ingredient he needs to create a sentient artificial intelligence as he makes himself very much a literal part of the technology.  As we very well know by now, from HAL 9000 (2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), Skynet (the Terminator films) and Auto (WALL-E), just to name a few, the technology proves to be too advanced for human safety.  Visually, it's bound to succeed, but without providing a sufficiently human story in its familiar territory, it's bound to fail.  This is one to watch the reviews for.

April 18th
BEARS  (NATURE DOCUMENTARY)
Directed by Alastair Fothergill & Keith Scholey; Narrated by John C. Reilly
Rated G
Disneynature's fifth annual Earth Day theatrically-released nature documentary is about grizzly bears filmed in Alaska's Katmai National Park, focusing on a pair of mother bears as they raise their cubs.  It's from the directors of Disneynature's 2011 offering, AFRICAN CATS, so hopefully, like that film, there'll be some corny characterizations of the wildlife subjects in the tradition of the classic Disney True-Life Adventures that the studio made from 1948 to 1960. 

April 18th
A HAUNTED HOUSE 2  (COMEDY)
Directed by Michael Tiddes; Starring Marlon Wayans, Jaime Pressly, Cedric the Entertainer
Rated R for crude and sexual content, nudity, pervasive language, drug use and some violent images.
If you're actually interested in this, well, you deserve it.

April 25th
BRICK MANSIONS  (ACTION/CRIME)
Directed by Camille Delamarre; Starring Paul Walker, David Belle, RZA
Rated PG-13 for frenetic gunplay, violence and action throughout, language, sexual menace and drug material.
In this remake of the 2004 French cult hit DISTRICT 13, which was essentially a parkour showcase that became hugely popular through the internet, Paul Walker, in one of his last completed roles, stars as an undercover cop, yet again, who infiltrates a violent gang with terrorist potential in an attempt to take down their boss.  Co-written by Luc Besson, an auteur of idiotic and lurid plotlines overloaded with ludicrous action set pieces, and directed by Camille Delamarre, editor on some of Besson's more recent stinkers, there's undoubtedly an audience for this.  That audience, though, likes their movies late at night with as little thought as possible and possibly with a little bit of affecting substance.

April 25th
THE OTHER WOMAN  (COMEDY)
Directed by Nick Cassavetes; Starring Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, Kate Upton, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Nicki Minaj, Taylor Kinney
Rated R for some sexual references.  (Note: Rating pending an appeal; expect either a changed rating to PG-13 or edits to attain a PG-13)
Not unlike a couple of Cassavetes better-known previous films, THE NOTEBOOK and MY SISTER'S KEEPER, THE OTHER WOMAN looks like a film far better for a girls' night out than for a date, and God help the man who gets dragged along.  Cameron Diaz plays a businesswoman who finds out that her boyfriend is married, but unexpectedly bonds with the wife (Leslie Mann), with whom she has much in common.  Together, they discover yet another affair being carried on by their assumed lover, this with a gorgeous but ditzy young woman (Kate Upton), and the trio bond while planning their revenge on the three-timing man who inadvertently brought to together.

April 25th
THE QUIET ONES  (HORROR)
Directed by John Pogue; Starring Jared Harris, Sam Claflin, Olivia Cooke, Erin Richards
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and terror, sexual content, thematic material, language and smoking throughout.
The latest from the legendary horror company Hammer Film Productions, who've made a couple of pretty good horror films in the past few years with LET ME IN and THE WOMAN IN BLACK, is THE QUIET ONES, in which an unconventional university professor (Jared Harris) leads his best students into a dark experiment in an attempt to create a poltergeist, which is obviously a bad idea.  John Pogue's only other directorial credit to date is a straight-to-DVD sequel to QUARANTINE, so there isn't a lot to go on there, but in all likelihood, it will satisfy most horror fans at the very least.

Review: DIVERGENT

DIVERGENT  (ACTION/SCI-FI-THRILLER)
2 out of 4 stars
Directed by Neil Burger
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Zoe Kravitz, Miles Teller, Jai Courtney, Kate Winslet, Tony Goldwyn, Ashley Judd, Maggie Q, Ansel Elgort
PG-13 for intense violence and action, thematic elements and some sensuality.
Verdict: Led by another winning performance by the hugely appealing up-and-comer Shailene Woodley and stylish direction by LIMITLESS director Neil Burger, DIVERGENT has a good run, but at a nearly two-and-a-half running time the film starts to fracture before the action and cheesy one liner-packed final act is underway.  For a film that's two-parts an overly elaborate science fiction interpretation of summer camp basics and one-part a generic young adult action-thriller though, it's not so bad.
YOU MAY ENJOY DIVERGENT IF YOU LIKED:
THE HUNGER GAMES (2012)
THE HOST (2013)
THE SPECTACULAR NOW (2013)
THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER  (2012)
SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN  (2012)

Shailene Woodley is rapidly becoming one of the most likable young actresses in film these days (not that Miss Lawrence has any cause to worry), and without her, the newest young adult literature adapted to film, DIVERGENT, would be at a loss.  I assume fans of the book will love the movie for what it is, although I haven't read the book myself.  For those who aren't so familiar with the source material, it comes off as a bit complicated at first, demanding some extra attention for the opening scenes' exposition, but it soon becomes simple afterwards.
Set in a post-WWIII world, where the remnants of Chicago, Illinois are (presumably) the last remaining region suitable for human habitation and have been walled off from the rest of the world, the population is sectored off into five faction based on personality traits in order to maximize social efficiency and minimize conflict.  The factions are: Amity, for the peaceful (they're kind of like hippies), Candor, for the honest (ironically though, they're basically the lawyers), Erudite, for the intelligent (you know, scientists), Dauntless, for the brave (the security and militant faction) and Abnegation, for the selfless (like missionaries without the proselytizing).  Beatrice Prior (Woodley) was born into Abnegation, but never quite fit in, and when she reaches the age of 16, like all her peers, she is required to take the aptitude test that will determine what faction they are best fitted to.  While the test assesses the best faction for each person, each person still can choose whichever faction they want, but once they've chosen, they can never go back, and if their assimilation fails, they risk the worst fate imaginable as one of the "factionless".  When Beatrice takes the test though, her results come back as a rare "divergent", assigning her to multiple factions and threatening the faction system altogether.  So she keeps her results a secret but opts to enter Dauntless, where she changes her name to "Tris" and a rigorous and sometimes deadly training regime awaits, while the faction leader of Arudite, Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet), is intending to manipulate Dauntless remove the overall governing faction of Abnegation to make way for an Arudite government and eliminate all who threaten the sanctity of the faction system, especially the divergents.
Don't worry, it's not as complicated as it sounds.  In fact, the film's most prominent shortcoming is that the script is too often formulaic and predictable, following the tropes of previous young adult science fiction stories (in a lot of ways, it reminded me of ENDER'S GAME).  The dialogue isn't always up to scratch either, especially in the climactic action scene where cheesy one-liners abound.
Director Neil Burger, who directed the excellent 2011 thriller LIMITLESS, brings a welcome stylish approach and the production is certainly helped by a vote of confidence from Lionsgate in the form of an $80 million budget, doubled from the initially approved $40 million.  The amber-lit dystopian scenery and flashy cinematography are more engaging than the story.  The DIVERGENT world is amusingly like a summer camp on steroids, where everyone gets divided up into distinctive groups and play capture the flag (they actually play a particularly violent variation on capture the flag).
The cast is led by Woodley, an up-and-coming actress with "girl-next-door" good looks, who shows a grittier side than we've seen in her big screen debut, THE DESCENDANTS, and last year's exceptional teen romance, THE SPECTACULAR NOW.  Her THE SPECTACULAR NOW co-star Miles Teller appears in DIVERGENT as the antagonistic Peter Hayes, and in one particular scene, we get to see one of last year's sweetest screen couples duke it out in a brutal mixed martial arts fight, so that's interesting.  The role of Jeanine is uncharacteristic for Winslet, not least of which is because she doesn't do a nude scene, but her cold, calculating villain doesn't get a whole lot to do, despite her casting.  Theo James' romantic interest Four is also a fairly dull major role, but he's suitably hunky to satisfy the young female audience, and he does a lot of eyebrow furrowing.
DIVERGENT is a pleasant-enough mixed bag, never really distinguishing itself and perhaps a little lengthy, but very watchable nonetheless.

Theo James as "Four" and Shailene Woodley as "Tris".

FROZEN as a Gay Metaphor Redux and The Substance of Subtext

As nice as it is to be in the "in-crowd" it can be very hard to really care about something that lots of other people care about too, especially because there will usually be those who care about it in a way that conflicts with your own reasons of devotion.  In humanity's eternal quest for existential meaning and moralistic understanding, the philosophies of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, polytheism, monotheism, atheism and thousands of other religious systems of belief have sprouted and developed their own variations throughout the millenniums.  And while most of these faiths have far more in common than do they differ, the little differences make all the difference, and civilizations push and shove to justify the way something matters to them as the right way over the way the same thing matters to another.
You could argue that in comparison to the matter of faith, movies are trivial, but I would disagree.  Arts and entertainment are very similar to the purposes of faith as part of our aspiration to understand and feel and "live" in the most figurative sense of the word, and ever since the early 20th Century, movies have taken a leading role in chronicling human history, emotion, intellect and so much else, and in the ways we perceive and connect through these issues.
However, when we think about cinema as an art, as sophisticated with multiple layers of meaning and ambition, there's a fairly limited range of films that most people are willing to accept; CITIZEN KANE, perhaps being the most obvious, also RAGING BULL, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, THE GODFATHER, etc.  These are films that are made for and marketed to adults, serious on the surface and revered by critics and scholars.  Then there's this thing that we call pop art or popular entertainment; films of this sort often being referred to as "popcorn movies".  I resent the label of popcorn movie.  It's used in a manner meant to justify the enjoyability of a popular movie, to say that it's entertainment and little else, and any attempt to seriously discuss it can be dismissed as a case "reading in too far", applying one's own irrelevant agenda to the material or in other ways ridiculous.
Animated movies and/or family movies, are usually considered in this category of popcorn movies, even if the precise terminology may not be present.  I made no secret of what I saw as a gay "coming out" sentiment in last fall's surprise smash hit, FROZEN.  It wasn't just myself who considered it though, but for whatever reason, it took a little while for the floodgates to really bust through.  It seems like the internet finally exploded into the debate sometime last month, but what sparked it was a voice from the other side of the debate.  A fellow blogspot.com presence, "A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman", aka Kathryn Skaggs, a clear-cut case of the gay politics side of the infamous "I'm not racist, but..." philosophy, posted an article titled "Frozen: Not Gonna "Let It Go" When Movie Advocates Gay Agenda".  Her following evidently being, ahem, less exclusive than my own, Skaggs' post went viral, and before long, most of the entertainment/culture columnists and other such pundits who had been totally silent about it before (if it even had occurred to them) had to have their say.  Unfortunately, for most of them, having their say involved ridiculing the idea of any subtext to the film altogether.  After all, it's a kids movie, right?  Just a kids movie with pretty colors and imaginative visuals, ultra-catchy songs and a bare-bones, easy-to-swallow moral about sisterhood, I guess.  Sigh.
While I abhor her anti-gay sentiments (I just don't see how anyone can stretch their imagination far enough to justify her "disclaimer" outside of blatant dishonesty), at least she's willing to consider movie outside the laziest interpretation.  Of course an animated musical fairy tale marketed at children and families can make a statement on contemporary political issues.  It doesn't have to, but it sure as hell can.  It wouldn't be unheard of.  Some of the most obvious cases would be HAPPY FEET (an overall anti-tradition/dogma fable with specifics about commercial overfishing), THE LORAX (a lackluster film version of an already politicized environmentalist fable by Dr. Seuss) and the most current box office sensation, THE LEGO MOVIE (a full-on subversive parody of the establishment and individualism).  Those aren't films with so-called "hidden agendas" though.  They wear their agendas on their sleeves.  There are some movies with well-known allegorical readings, despite never coming straight out about it in on the celluloid, such as THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, based on Christian icon C.S. Lewis' book series; ROBOCOP, SUPERMAN RETURNS and the Harry Potter films (suck it, fundamentalists) are Christ allegories and ALIEN is about rape, just to name a few.
Then there are all the movies that critics, scholars and fans just can't stop debating about, Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING being an ideal example, as seen in the documentary ROOM 237, in which various voices argue the cases that THE SHINING is about either the United States government's systematic relocation and genocide of indigenous peoples, a confession that Kubrick assisted to create false Apollo 11 moon landing footage, a reinterpretation of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur or an allegory about the Holocaust.  It's impossible to prove if any of these theories are true, although a few of them smack of falseness more than others (the moon landing one in particular), but they can be interesting ways to experience the film.  I particularly favor the one about indigenous peoples and American violence, and while I suspect that Kubrick, a famously calculating filmmaker, may have used some of those elements intentionally, it doesn't really matter, does it?

Once an artwork is out there and becomes part of a culture, it takes on a new identity that is not exclusive to the artist's sole vision, and besides that, on something as complex as a film, there's definitely more than one vision at work.  So does a film have to absolutely mean one thing?  Of course not!  In fact, even for one person, what a film means can change as that person changes.  When I was four, THE LION KING was about lions (some of nature's biggest badasses), with cool music and colorful visuals.  When I was about 12, THE LION KING was something nostalgic, still with cool music and visuals, but something a bit weightier.  Now when I watch THE LION KING, it's an animated epic with inspirations from the theories of Joseph Campbell, the biblical stories of Moses and Joseph (especially the former); it's a story about the figurative death of innocence that gives way to the birth of adulthood and something greater.  For some people, I'm sure it stands for the annoying cartoon that their kid watches over and over again.  Movies are a lot about personal experience.
When I first watched FROZEN, and each time that I watched it again afterwards, I identified the character of Elsa as a "gay" character.  That doesn't necessarily mean that I identified the character as specifically being attracted to a character of the same gender, which sounds silly, but people talk about their favorite television characters this way, so bear with me.  Romantic relationships are irrelevant to the character of Elsa in the story that FROZEN tells.  She's not the main character and her part of the story already has enough drama that there wouldn't be room for a romantic interest, so her romantic interests don't even matter.
I do believe sincerely though that there are enough elements to suggest that Elsa has some connection to a gay identity, beyond the obviously vague themes of persecution and being an outsider.  As I've pointed out before, the film takes the time to point out that she is born with it, not cursed (potentially alluding to the "nurture vs. nature" controversy); she is advised "conceal, don't feel" (potentially alluding to a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" philosophy); and her defining characteristic in the first act is that she locks herself away in a figurative "closet", in her room or with the locked gates.  She feels shame and is compelled to lock everyone out, but she flourishes in her "Let It Go" coming out moment.
But you know what?  It doesn't matter whether she is a legitimate gay character or not, because one way or another, she resonates with the gay cause, doesn't she?  If there were no truth to it, then it's unlikely that the debate would have gotten as much attention as it has.  There just wouldn't be enough people embracing the idea or feeling the need to address it at all.  The fact that columnists take the time to say that it's a meaningless theory indicates that there's weight to it.  If you genuinely believe that it's all made up in the minds of conspiracy theorists, then you can enjoy FROZEN for what you see in it.
Seeing Elsa as a gay figure helps me embrace the film even more though.  It makes her plight more identifiable and emotionally resonant.  I really feel for those who feel cast out for something as integral as their sexual identity, and I believe they flourish with self-acceptance and familial love.  In reading the story through that lens, her fears and joys hit me so much harder, and it makes Anna's quest mean something more than just a sisterly bond.  It adds a more human and accessible conflict.
It's possible that you may feel something different to embrace in the character and story, and your reasons may not have even occurred to me.  However, I think it's unfortunate if the idea of Elsa as a gay character actually offends you.

Even if the makers of the film deliberately injected gay politics into the film, they would never make an explicit point of it for several reasons, among them being the marketability of a family film, avoiding provocation and most importantly, if people are arguing about your film and thus fueling free publicity, then why interfere with that?  "Never let fear or shame keep you from celebrating the unique people that you are," is how Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, songwriters for the film, put it in their Oscar acceptance speech for "Let It Go".  Not changing who you are is a long-standing favorite moral message of kid-friendly entertainment, but it does apply well to the gay community.  The way the message is approached in the film easily brings that connection to mind, and whether it was clearly decided or utterly unintentional, it's a perfectly reasonable understanding of the film.  I don't think the filmmaker would be unanimous about a subtext, but considering the substantial gay presence and tolerant atmosphere of the Disney company (which provides employee benefits to both heterosexual and same-sex relationships), it would be practically impossible to argue that no one had such themes in mind.  There are no specifics about it, and in future years, after gay relationships have been "normalized", as the silly Ms. Skaggs would describe it, it's possible that the possibility of gay themes in films like FROZEN will be entirely unnoticed and instead applied to an entirely separate cause.
Whether or not FROZEN is a "pro-gay" film is unimportant though.  What is significant is how you react to the notion of it as a gay film.  If Elsa being intended as a gay character ruins the movie for you, I'd say you have a problem.  In a totally upfront way, it's a film about familial love, self-sacrifice and loving someone even in spite of their differences, and if you can't get with that moral just because the person you should be showing love for is gay, then you suck.  Elsa doesn't have to be gay, but why shouldn't she be?  That's what you should ask yourself.

Review: MUPPETS MOST WANTED

MUPPETS MOST WANTED  (FAMILY-COMEDY/MUSICAL)
2.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by James Bobin
Starring: Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey, Ty Burrell, Jemaine Clement, Ray Liotta, Danny Trejo
Featuring the Muppet performers: Steve Whitmire, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, Eric Jacobson, David Rudman, Matt Vogel, Peter Linz
Rated PG for some mild action.
Verdict: An occasionally inspired but ultimately lackluster follow-up to the excellent 2011 revival of Jim Henson's classic Muppet characters, MUPPETS MOST WANTED lacks the warmly exuberant charm and strong sense of character in its predecessor.

If you saw the 2011 reboot THE MUPPETS, then you might know what I mean when I say that MUPPETS MOST WANTED feels more like a "Moopets" movie than a Muppets movie.  It is modestly entertaining in its own less-than-modest way, but it's also kind of creepy and violent; it looks like the Muppets, but isn't quite the Muppets.
MUPPETS MOST WANTED immediately follows THE MUPPETS, so immediately in fact, that stand-ins for non-returning actors Jason Segel and Amy Adams are required.  At the suggestion of Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais), an international criminal posing as an international tour manager, the Muppets take their newly revived musical-comedy variety show on tour through Europe.  Unbeknownst to the Muppets however, Dominic is merely using them to provide a cover for a series major heists at the behest of his boss, the recently-escaped super-criminal and "World's Most Dangerous Frog" Constantine, who bears a striking resemblance to Kermit the Frog. 
There are some great moments of humor, such as when Constantine watches footage of Kermit from earlier Muppet films in order to mimic his voice or some inspired bits with human co-stars Ty Burrell as an outrageously European Interpol agent and Tina Fey as a Russian GULAG officer who falls for Kermit (one of the funniest bits is in reference to an Ingmar Bergman film that most of this film's audience are unlikely to recognize).  On the other hand, some of the jokes (?) are creepier than they are funny, as is Constantine most of the time.
Most problematic is the lacking sense of character identity that was so potent in THE MUPPETS whereas now iconic characters like Kermit and Miss Piggy feel a bit like an imitation.
Still, while as a Muppet movie it seems particularly weak, it's a decent family film on its own standards.

Review: MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN

MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN  (ANIMATED/FANTASY-COMEDY)
2.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Rob Minkoff
Featuring the Voices of: Ty Burrell, Max Charles, Ariel Winter, Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann, Allison Janney, Stanley Tucci, Patrick Warburton, Zach Callison, Stephen Tobolowsky, Dennis Haysbert, Guillaume Aretos, Lake Bell, Lauri Fraser, Mel Brooks
Rated PG for some mild action and brief rude humor.
Verdict:
YOU MAY ENJOY MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN IF YOU LIKED:
STUART LITTLE  (1999)
THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE  (2000)
THE CROODS  (2013)
BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE (1991)
TIME BANDITS  (1981)

Based on the Peabody's Improbable History segments of the 1960s animated television series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Mr. Peabody (voiced by Modern Family's Ty Burrell) is the most intelligent being on Earth, a titan of the business world, a world-class inventor, scientist, a winner of the Nobel and the Olympics and occasionally a gourmet chef, among other things.  He also happens to be a (talking) dog.  After achieving excellence in practically every field, he decides to give parenting a shot, after discovering an abandoned infant in an alleyway.  A judge rules that if "a boy can adopt a dog, then a dog can adopt a boy", and Peabody raises the boy, Sherman (voice of Max Charles), while tutoring him in the lessons of history with the use of his time machine, the WABAC (pronounced "Way-back").  Eventually, Sherman has to start school though, and his eagerness to share his knowledge in the classroom, combined with his unique parentage, results in conflict with fellow student Penny Peterson (voice of Ariel Winter).  When a bigoted Children's Services agent (voiced by Allison Janney) is thrown into the mix, intent on proving that a dog, even one as talented as Peabody, is unfit to be a parent, Mr. Peabody invites Penny and her parents (Mr. and Mrs. Peterson voiced by Stephen Colbert and Leslie Mann, respectively) over for dinner in hopes of smoothing things over.  While Peabody is entertaining, Sherman, in an effort to show up Penny, takes her out for a spin in the WABAC, but loses her in Ancient Egypt, so Peabody and Sherman must both go back to retrieve Penny and get back to the dinner party without permanently damaging the space-time continuum, which, of course, is easier said than done.
Not being a fan of the creepy cartoons that this film is based on (if enough baby-boomers are nostalgic about something, they'll call anything a classic), I was never concerned about the integrity of the original characters, but the general spirit is still there, with Peabody cracking the most godawful puns imaginable throughout (although less deadpan than the original) and an array of highly colorful, comically-stylized historical figures.  The best one is probably Leonardo da Vinci (voiced by Stanley Tucci), who we see clashing with Mona Lisa (voiced by Lake Bell) about her smile and haunted by a "child" he created.  There's also King Agamemnon (voiced by Patrick Warburton, doing his usual schtick), King Tut (voiced by Zach Callison), Maximilien Robespierre (voiced by Guillaume Aretos) and others, laying a groundwork for children's education in history, and perhaps that of a few adults as well.
There are several moments of genuine wit and laugh-out-loud hilarity, but they're spread pretty thin over the hour-and-a-half running time, which is generally composed of mildly amusing but mediocre episodes.  Director Rob Minkoff's greatest claim to fame by is far is THE LION KING, which he co-directed with Roger Allers, and while that film is easily one of my all-time favorites, every film he's made after that is defined, at best, as mildly charming/interesting, but ultimately lackluster, i.e. STUART LITTLE, THE HAUNTED MANSION and THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM.  Following the intense brilliance that nobody saw coming in THE LEGO MOVIE just last month, it was not likely that MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN would be the best animated movie of the year so far, but it never quite its its own modest bar of expectations.  It's harmless, and perhaps a bit too much so, but it's older audience-friendly enough and kids certainly won't mind it.

Review: 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE

300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE  (ACTION/FANTASY)
2 out of 4 stars
Directed by Noam Murro
Starring: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, Hans Matheson, Callan Mulvey, David Wenham, Rodrigo Santoro, Jack O'Connell, Andrew Tiernan, Yigal Naor, Andrew Pleavin, Ben Turner, Ashraf Barhom, Christopher Sciueref
Rated R for strong sustained sequences of stylized bloody violence throughout, a sex scene, nudity and some language.
Verdict:  300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE is bound to slake the bloodlust of even the most ravenous fanboys/fangirls and may even get some history lessons (albeit heavily corrupted) to stick with even the less intellectually ambitious audiences, but it's unlikely to impress those not already in adoration of the original.  The story is less streamlined, without the movie quotes manufactured for easy remembering, but problematic ideologies are still laid on thick.  On the other hand, Eva Green, as a sexy and psychotic harridan is a magnetic onscreen presence that makes the relatively dull interpretation of history a lot more interesting.
YOU MAY ENJOY 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE IF YOU LIKED:
300 (2006)
TROY (2004)
CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010)
CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982/2011)
IMMORTALS (2011)

At the risk of negating my input toward anyone reading this, I should be forthcoming in that I'm not exactly a big fan of the original 300.  Oh sure, I enjoyed it the first couple times, but it quickly loses its savor with subsequent viewings.  The speed-ramps become predictable and nauseating, the jingoistic ideologies grating and the whole thing has an overtly manufactured feel that turns bland very fast.  It feels like a "cookie-cutter" epic, but without the a bunch of similar movies to make up the other cookies.
It's hard to say whether its follow-up, 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE, is an improvement, but I do think fans of the original will be pleased nonetheless.  The bloodshed is totally unmitigated, the history is still hugely distorted and the imagery, while just a tad toned down, is still comic book-stylized. 
"Follow-up" is the appropriate terminology as well, because it isn't exactly a sequel.  The first act is a prequel, covering events prior to 300, the second act occurs simultaneously to the Battle of Thermopylae and the climactic third act shows what happened after.  Rather than the Hot Gates however, the focal point of RISE OF AN EMPIRE is Athens, or more specifically on the seas off the coast of Euboea, where the Battle of Artemisium takes place.
It starts 10 years before at the Battle of Marathon, where Athenian Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) defeats the Persian Empire in the first Persian Invasion and looses the arrow that slays King Darius, father of Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro).  At the urging of the ruthless admiral of the Persian navy, Artemisia (Eva Green), Xerxes embarks on the quest that makes him the "God-King", and returns to wage war on Greece with the largest invasion force the world has ever seen.  Themistokles, whose valor at the Battle of Marathon has propelled him into a respected political position and made him admiral of the Athenian navy, persuades Athens to defy the Persian Empire and leads the fleet to defend Athens at sea against the massive Persian navy under the command of Artemisia.
I didn't see it in 3D, but it's plenty obvious how much blood is deliberately splattered out in stereoscopic dimensions, and its in the gallons, and that's just what coming "out" of the screen, with so much more everywhere else.  I'm not sure why, but in the first two-thirds of the movie, the blood seems to have an annoyingly "goopy" consistency, but it gets a lot better in the final battle.  I guess that's nitpicking, but it bugged me.

Sullivan Stapleton as Themistokles of Athens in 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE.

Worse is the militaristic, jingoistic ideology of the film, carried over from the original, where the "good" guys are beefy he-men who kill without mercy in the name of territorial patriotism and some sense of "freedom", and the "bad" guys are all-accepting who bring the so-called "freaks" and "undesirables" of society into their fold.  There's certainly no sufficient evidence that the Greeks are any more "free" than the Persians, beyond throwaway lines about democracy and liberty.  There's also a lot of problematic exaggerated Middle Eastern stereotypes with Greeks easily cutting down Persians clad in all manner of historically inaccurate Bedouin-style robes and keffiyehs, and even a "suicide bomber" scene that all smacks of race-baiting.  That said, all these issues were present in the original 300, and on a more brazen level; at least this time around there seems to be a very slight effort to ease up on the more sadistic and exaggerated jingoism and anti-Arab sentiments, no doubt helped by a lesser focus on the comic book-styled Sparta.
In spite of my substantial complaints, it isn't actually a "bad" film; it's okay.  Eva Green, as a gorgeous harridan with a hugely justified grudge against her Greek homeland, is the most fun, taking the lead in humorously aggressive sexual encounter with her bland co-star Stapleton and beheading a man with a knife before planting a kiss on the twitching severed head's lips.  In a film of mostly unremarkable performers, she chews the scenery in a league above the movie itself.
Ever since the early 2000s, the notion of R-rated blockbusters has fallen out of fashion to give way to the PG-13 superhero/sci-fi event films, so it's something of a novelty to see a major investment in not just an R-rated period action film, but a very hard-R-rated one.  There's even a sex scene, and a real wild one at that, while most of the recent major studio films, especially those aimed at a "fanboy" audience, are distinctly sexless.  Some critics speculate that it's because fanboys are averse to sex, but it's obvious that they're just getting their sex kicks from easily accessible, more explicit and out-of-context pornography, and the studios are just as happy to skimp on the sex if they can bring in families too.  There's no question about RISE OF AN EMPIRE's lack of interest in family audiences though.  The whole point is to have copious amounts of blood gush without consequence and if there's time, exposed buxom feminine orbs and rippling male torsos.

Eva Green as Artemisia I of Caria in 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE.

86th Academy Awards: Post-Ceremony Commentary

The 86th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 2013, have come and gone.  There were no real surprises this year, or at least, certainly not in the major categories.  Not to brag or anything, but my predictions this year were all correct, although in five categories (Best Foreign Film, Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, Best Live Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film), I did not venture any guess, because I was not well enough informed in the nominations.  GRAVITY, by a very substantial margin of four awards, won the most with a grand total of seven.  DALLAS BUYERS CLUB and 12 YEARS A SLAVE were each tied as the runners-up, with three awards each, but it was 12 YEARS A SLAVE that took home the top prize of Best Picture.  However, unsurprisingly, 12 YEARS A SLAVE's Best Picture standing was somewhat mitigated by the big winner that was GRAVITY, taking the awards for Best Director and Best Film Editing, only rarely awarded to a film other than the Best Picture winner.  The dilemma was whether the most "worthy" film wins, that being 12 YEARS A SLAVE, or the "best" film wins, that being GRAVITY.  In the end, they appear to have gone with the most worthy, but then nullified the effect.  One of the big highlights of the night was seeing Broadway star Idina Menzel (John Travolta's misreading when announcing her has earned him an awful lot of ire already) perform the Academy Award-winning "Let It Go" from FROZEN, live.
Other notable occurrences in this year's proceedings include a total shut-out of AMERICAN HUSTLE in all ten of its nominations (it was tied with GRAVITY for most nominations), although that's one snub short of the record tied between 1977's THE TURNING POINT and 1985's THE COLOR PURPLE, each of which won none of their 11 nominations.  In fact, of the five films nominated in both the top categories of Best Picture and Best Director (every Best Picture/Best Director nominee also had nominations in the writing and acting categories, with the exception of GRAVITY, holding no nomination in writing), only two won any awards.  NEBRASKA, nominated for six awards, won nothing, and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, nominated for five awards, won nothing.  It wasn't exactly a "share the love" night, not that I'm complaining.  Overall, I think this was one of the better years for the biggest awards show in the entertainment industry.

The producers and cast of 12 YEARS A SLAVE, with producer/director Steve McQueen at the microphone, accepting their awards for Best Picture.

BEST PICTURE:  12 YEARS A SLAVE, produced by Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen and Anthony Katagas
Best Picture was a bit of a dilemma this year, because there were few who doubted that GRAVITY was the "best" film of 2013, but 12 YEARS A SLAVE was the most "important".  Unsurprisingly, the Academy settled on the most important (that's kind of the whole function of the Academy, to imbue the film industry with a sense of importance), but I can't deny that even while GRAVITY is better, 12 YEARS A SLAVE is nonetheless a film of Best Picture caliber.  I'm not complaining.

BEST DIRECTOR: Alfonso Cuaron for GRAVITY

Alfonso Cuaron- Winner of Best Director

This is where Best Director comes in as second Best Picture.  It's hard to argue that, with all the importance we place with directors in the role of creating a film, the best film of the year wasn't also the best directed, but it's not unheard of to split the categories, just unusual.  It happened just last year, in an even rarer occurrence, with the Best Picture winner even failing to garner the Best Director nomination.  Although this year, both frontrunners had nominations in both categories, the result was similar to last years, albeit on a grander scale, with the Best Director winner taking the lion's share of the awards.  Essentially, they're saying that GRAVITY was technically the "Best Picture", but 12 YEARS A SLAVE was too important to deny.  I'm not cynical about it; I can see where they're coming from.

BEST ACTOR: Matthew McConaughey for DALLAS BUYERS CLUB
Aw dammit, McConaughey; he wasn't exactly the most deserving of the nominees (this year had some very surprising snubs in the nomination stage), but he gave one of the best acceptance speeches of the night and he's definitely evolved into an actor of definite Oscar-worthy quality.  Good on him, even if Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance was better.

Academy Award Winners Jared Leto (Best Supporting Actor) and Matthew McConaughey (Best Actor) in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB.

BEST ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett for BLUE JASMINE
This was no surprise, with Blanchett sweeping acting awards at every turn for her spectacular but depressing character study performance in Woody Allen's BLUE JASMINE, and it was kind of fun how Blanchett threw in a little bit of a slight to the awards process while accepting it.  This is her second Oscar after winning Best Supporting Actress for playing actress Kate Hepburn in Martin Scorcese's THE AVIATOR.  I wouldn't say it was my favorite actress performance of the year (that'd be Sandra Bullock for GRAVITY), but it was definitely the best.  It's kind of funny, I saw BLUE JASMINE the day it opened in wide release, but I actually had only first heard of it a couple days before, knew nothing about what it was about and was just filling some time between seeing one movie and seeing another movie later.  Maybe that's more common for some people, but I almost always have enough information about a movie that I could sell someone else on it without having seen it yet.  That was a novel experience for me.

Cate Blanchett, winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress, in BLUE JASMINE.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jared Leto for DALLAS BUYERS CLUB
I realize it sounds like the eye-rollingly obvious role that wins Oscars, but Jared Leto as the transgender woman Rayon, fighting the imminently fatal AIDS virus, was highly deserving.  Fully immersed in the role, playing with just the right portions of comic sass, mortal desperation and tragedy without an ounce of cheapness or sentimentality, Leto was the correct pick.  I thought Barkhad Abdi, as the Somalian pirate in CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, was stellar, but I'm skeptical that it may be a case of great casting.  Hopefully, Abdi proves he has the suitable versatility in future work, but he got a BAFTA this time around, so that's nice for him.

Lupita Nyong'o- Best Supporting Actress

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:  Lupita Nyong'o for 12 YEARS A SLAVE
Although for a moment there it looked like Jennifer Lawrence was going to get her second Oscar in two years, newcomer Lupita Nyong'o pulled through in the end to win the award in her feature debut.  The charming Mexican-born Kenyan actress well deserved the award for her performance as the tragic slave Patsey in 12 YEARS A SLAVE.

BEST WRITING- ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: HER by Spike Jonze
This is one of the most deserved awards of the night, especially having known ahead of time that HER was unlikely to win more than one of its five nominations, but it would have been a crime to give to anything else.  HER is an excellent movie on multiple levels, but most of its heart is in its ingenious script.  It's both fantastic and relatable, intimate and ambitious.  This by the man who teamed up with Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine to create the infamous stunt reality show "Jackass" and its film versions.

BEST WRITING- ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:  12 YEARS A SLAVE by John Ridley
 There was no way that the Academy would award a film with Best Picture without also giving it an award for writing, even if it was giving Best Director and Best Film Editing to another film.  The screenplay for 12 YEARS A SLAVE was written by John Ridley, writer of the films RED TAILS (dreadful) and UNDERCOVER BROTHER (umm.. not bad), and yep, it's a perfectly good script.  I would have like to see THE WOLF OF WALL STREET get it though, while knowing fully well that it wouldn't, but I suspect time will look favorably on that film.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE:  FROZEN, presented to directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee and producer Peter Del Vecho

FROZEN won the award for Best Animated Feature.

Can you believe that this is the first time that Walt Disney Animation Studios, the first American studio to even make an animated feature film, has only just barely won their first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature?  Of course, the award was only just introduced in 2001, when it went to SHREK, but after a ten-year streak of great films from 1989-1999, Disney's quality significantly lessend, while Pixar stole the spotlight, until about 2009, when Disney started putting out more Oscar-worthy product, but still outpaced by Pixar.  Disney could have, and should have, won last year with WRECK-IT RALPH, but in what I cynically assume was the Academy leaping at the chance to award an animated princess film with feminist values and its female co-director (Brenda Chapman, who was ousted from the project and ultimately left Pixar, but became the first female recepient of the award), Best Animated Feature went to BRAVE, a disappointingly impersonal but well-produced film.  But heck, if they had just waited one more year, they would have gotten the same opportunity, but a far more deserving one in FROZEN, which they have awarded justly.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: THE GREAT BEAUTY, presented to director Paolo Sorrentino
The only nominee in this category that I've seen was Denmark's THE HUNT, and I thought that would have been deserving, but I can't compare, so I don't have an opinion on this.  It is the first time an Italian film has won the award since Roberto Benigni famously climbed on and over the audience seats in outrageous excitement over his film LA VITA E BELLA (LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL) won fifteen years ago.

BEST DOCUMENTARY- FEATURE:  20 FEET FROM STARDOM, presented to director Morgan Neville and producers Gil Friesen and Caitrin Rogers
I haven't seen the winner, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM; actually, the only nominee I saw in this category was the critics' favorite, THE ACT OF KILLING, which was undoubtedly the "important" one.  The thing is that documentaries are typically judged on a sense of importance, and while there's definitely some that have surprised me, I rarely find myself drawn to documentaries that aren't involved with something that I'm already interested in, so I have a hard time comparing them even if I have seen them.  This decision by the Academy voters has been subject to some disdain though, with them awarding a film about "under-appreciated" people working in Hollywood over a film that encouraged a country to face their dark legacy of genocide, in an apparent display of stereotypical Hollywood vanity.

BEST DOCUMENTARY- SHORT SUBJECT:  THE LADY IN NUMBER 6: MUSIC SAVED MY LIFE, presented to producer/director Malcolm Clarke and producer Nicholas Reed
Again, haven't seen it.  Haven't seen any of these nominees, actually; they aren't widely seen by most.  I do know that this is about a Holocaust survivor whose passion for music gave her the hope to survive, which troubles me a bit, because although it makes us feel good, it suggests that if you believe hard enough, you can survive the Holocaust.  But what does that say about those who didn't survive?  Eh, but like I said, I haven't seen it.


BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM:  HELIUM, presented to director/producer Anders Walter and producer Kim Magnusson
Like the other short film categories, if you don't go to the big film festivals or really go out of your way to, it's difficult to see these films, so I haven't seen a one.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM:  MR. HUBLOT, presented to director/producer Laurent Witz and producer Alexandre Espigares
One last category for which I didn't see most of the nominees and didn't have an opinion about which won, especially because the one that I did see, Disney's GET A HORSE!, was mildly amusing, but hardly remarkable.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE:  GRAVITY, composed by Steven Price
Of the nominations for Best Original Score, GRAVITY was the one for which music played the most significant part, plus while it was emotionally motivating, it was never intrusive.  It was the right pick.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG:  "Let It Go" from FROZEN, by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
Disney has a legacy of great music and of winning awards for their great music, even prompting the Academy to split the Original Score category into two from 1995 through 1998 because it kept going to the same Disney composers.  "Let It Go" happens to be the best song from a Disney animated film since THE LION KING two decades ago, and deserves the award more than most of the past dozen winners.

Broadway star Idina Menzel, voice of Elsa in Disney's FROZEN, sings the Best Original Song, "Let It Go" at the 86th Academy Awards.

BEST SOUND EDITING: GRAVITY, presented to sound editor Glenn Freemantle
As I understand it, the category for sound editing involves the managing of recording sound while in production, in which case it may have been ideal to give the award to a more on-location production, but these kinds of awards tend to end up in clusters, and GRAVITY made a full sweep of the technical categories.

BEST SOUND MIXING: GRAVITY, presented to sound mixing team Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead and Chris Munro
As I understand it, the category for sound mixing involves the assembling of the recorded sounds for a final product, in which case, GRAVITY is the undoubted choice.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN:  THE GREAT GATSBY, presented to production designer Catherine Martin and Set Decorator Beverley Dunn
HER deserved it more, but the best traits of its genius production design were probably too subtle for the tastes of the Academy, and there were no flashier productions this year than THE GREAT GATSBY.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:  GRAVITY, presented to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki
GRAVITY was the most beautiful film of the year, and thus fittingly, wins Best Cinematography.  Emmanuel Lubezki, who has put together some very beautiful shots for SLEEPY HOLLOW, THE TREE OF LIFE and CHILDREN OF MEN, and in GRAVITY, before the visual effects team came in to fill them in, Lubezki set up the astounding framings.

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSYLING:  DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, presented to hairstylist Adruitha Lee and makeup artist Robin Mathews
As fun as it would have been to refer to JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA as an Academy Award-winner, it was not at all surprising that DALLAS BUYERS CLUB won, considering that it was the only real respectable candidate.  It's surprising, however, that AMERICAN HUSTLE, with all of its stunning seventies styles, failed to garner a nomination.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: THE GREAT GATSBY, presented to costume designer Catherine Martin
I liked the costumes in AMERICAN HUSTLE better, but I guess GATSBY is more fun, with flashy Roaring Twenties styles in every possibility of excess.  Glitzy, glamorous excess.

BEST FILM EDITING: GRAVITY, presented to co-film editors Alfonso Cuaron and Mark Sangers
It's probable that the Academy awarded Best Film Editing, a typical prerequisite to winning Best Picture, to GRAVITY as a way to emphasize the unimportance of its later lack of a Best Picture recognition, but there are more significant reasons for GRAVITY to deserve the award.  On multiple viewing, while paying close attention to the structure of the film and the prolonged singular shots, the editing itself tells another level of the story, a life cycle in parallel to the character story.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS:  GRAVITY, presented to visual effects team supervisors Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk and Neil Corbould
This was quite possibly the most obvious award of the night, considering that there is practically no dispute that GRAVITY was a visually splendorous advance in film technologies, even if it was hard to imagine that what it was doing hadn't been done before.  GRAVITY was intended to be a quick production until it was realized that visual effects technologies were just not advanced enough, so over the course of four and a half years, the technology was invented for the film.  That kind of thing wins Oscars.

FORREST GUMP

FORREST GUMP  (ROMANTIC-DRAMA/COMEDY, 1994)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Sally Field, Mykelti Williamson, Geoffrey Blake, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Michael Conner Humphreys, Hanna R. Hall
Rated PG-13 for drug content, some sensuality and war violence.

FORREST GUMP was based on a 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom, loosely based.  The novel is somewhat saltier, telling the story of Forrest Gump as a 6'6'', 242 lbs. Southern idiot savant (he got a perfect score in his college physics class) who speaks with lots of strong profanity and has super-crazy sex, lives with cannibals for four years, and has careers as an astronaut, a Hollywood stuntman (working with a naked Raquel Welch), a professional wrestler and a chess champion.  Like in the movie, he also plays college football, joins the Army during the Vietnam War and plays Ping-Pong for the United States in China, but it isn't until the last chapters of the book that he gets into the shrimping business.  Groom has stated that he had envisioned the character in his novel as being played by John Goodman, and if you had added to that Joel and Ethan Coen directing, that R-rated FORREST GUMP might be something I'd be very interested in seeing.
What became the classic film FORREST GUMP, however, is just about as widely appealing, simple and sentimental as they come, tonally opposite from the book.  In an Academy Award-winning screenplay by Eric Roth, the relatively minor love story (heck, more of a sexual fling really) from the book becomes the core of the movie, where, even through all the remarkable adventures and historical encounters that Forrest finds himself in, his childhood sweetheart, Jenny, is what is always at the front of his simple mind.
Named for General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a founding member and first "Grand Dragon" of the Ku Klux Klan, Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks, in his second Academy Award-winning performance, in consecutive years no less) is a slow-witted Southerner from Alabama born in 1944, who grows up with his single mother (Sally Field) who speaks in simplistic one-line lessons like "Stupid is as stupid does," and "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get".  In his childhood, Forrest, with his below-average intelligence and leg braces, is a social outcast who bonds with his neighbor Jenny (played as an adult by Robin Wright).  Forrest instantly falls in love with Jenny from the first moment he sets eyes on her, but is oblivious to the fact that her alcoholic father is sexually abusing her, and while they're friends through high school, they soon after go very different ways.  After discovering that he can run very fast, Forrest is accepted into the University of Alabama on a scholarship to play football,  and during that time witnesses the Governor George Wallace's Stand in the Schoolhouse Door to protest racial desegregation, not thinking much of it, but helping Vivian Malone Jones with her books.  After graduation, Forrest casually applies to the U.S. Army, where he thrives thanks to his simplicity in following orders and befriends Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue, a slow-witted black man with a passion for "shrimping", which the two decide to go into business in together after their tour of duty in Vietnam.  Before shipping out, Forrest pays a visit to Jenny, who he saw in a Playboy, and is now playing guitar in not but a thong in a girlie show, and is well on her way into the hippie counterculture.  In Vietnam, Forrest's platoon, led by Lt. Dan Taylor (Gary Sinise) is ambushed and Forrest saves four men, but Bubba is killed in action, and Forrest is shot in the butt.  Recovering in the Army hospital, next to "Lt. Dan", who is resentful of being rescued by Forrest and having both legs amputated, Forrest becomes a ping-pong talent and receives the Medal of Honor from LBJ, who he then thoughtlessly moons on television.  He reunites with Jenny at a massive anti-war rally at the National Mall, but after walking around all night, she dumps Forrest for her abusive and angry hippie boyfriend.  Forrest goes on to play ping-pong for the United States on a goodwill tour in China, before returning to Alabama to start the Bubba-Gump Shrimp company for which he teams up with Lt. Dan, and they soon find themselves so overwhelming successful that they hardly have to work anymore, and they become millionaires when Lt. Dan invests their money in Apple Computers.  Jenny, having hit rock-bottom, returns to Alabama and spends some time with Forrest, and they have sex, but she leaves the morning after because she's crazy.  Forrest, kind of at a loss, decides to go running, and he doesn't stop for three years, running from coast to coast and back, inspiring a national jogging craze and inadvertently inspiring the "Smiley" and "Shit Happens" bumper stickers.  After he gets bored of that, Forrest returns home yet again and gets a letter from Jenny.  He reunites with her again, discovers he has a son (played by Haley Joel Osment, the kid who starred in THE SIXTH SENSE five years later), marries Jenny, and in 1982, Jenny dies, probably from AIDS, leaving Forrest a happy single father.  The end.
It all goes over better in the actual movie, as I assume you, the reader, already knows, but there you have it.

Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump, carrying Mykelti Williamson as Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue.

FORREST GUMP was the top movie at the domestic box-office in 1994 and the second highest-grossing film worldwide (behind THE LION KING) that year, making it one of the last three highest-grossing movies of their year to also win an Academy Award for Best Picture (THE LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING in 2003 and TITANIC in 1997 are the other two).  Despite its evident affection from the public, it's one of the more controversial picks for "Best Picture" in Oscar history, and it isn't strictly disdain from "snobby" critics either, who lauded the film with praise.  It won five other Academy Awards as well, for Best Director, Best Actor (Hanks), Best Visual Effects (it isn't always recognized as such, but FORREST GUMP is a notable special effects landmark), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing, and has been frequently honored by the American Film Institute on lists of best American movies and memorable movie quotes.  It was even selected for preservation by the American Film Registry for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant", noting its "technological innovations" and "resonance within the culture".  But it's the sort of movie that people are cautiously divided over.
In the words of director Robert Zemeckis, "Gump is a completely decent character, always true to his word. He has no agenda and no opinion about anything except Jenny, his mother and God".  True, Gump has no agenda, but that hasn't convinced a lot of people that the movie doesn't.  Many political conservatives have claimed, and still claim the films values as their own, and more than a few liberals have been willing to let them have it.  The conservative periodical National Review included on their list of "25 Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years" (to be fair, that list is kind of ridiculous, also citing The Lord of the Rings trilogy, THE DARK KNIGHT, UNITED 93, GROUNDHOG DAY and others that can just as easily, if not more so, be argued as espousing "liberal" values), and conservative political figure of the 1990s, like presidential candidate Bob Dole, commended the film for its supposedly conservative values, and citing it as the reason for the film's success.  While some liberal critics criticized the character of Forrest as "hollow" and "self-congratulatory in his blissful ignorance", some have since gone as far as to critique the film as a "conservative fable" about a man who comes out on top by living by "conservative values" of obedience, simple living and patriotism, and a healthy dose of chance capitalist success, contrasted with Jenny, who in the counterculture movement of drugs and sex nearly destroys herself and dies of what is probably AIDS anyway.
Steve Tisch, one of the film's producers, described the phenomenon as "...all over the political map, people have been calling Forrest their own. But, Forrest Gump isn't about politics or conservative values. It's about humanity, it's about respect, tolerance and unconditional love."  With the possible exception of "tolerance", all the mainstream political opinions would no doubt claim those as their values, and perhaps even exclusive to their faction, so that doesn't help a ton.  However, the filmmakers are insistent that the film is apolitical, despite dealing with such politically-charged topics.  Some of the liberal voices in the debate believe the film is a work of irony, tragically overlooked by conservative readings.  I can see the conservative themes, but to accept them as simple fact, one has to completely dismiss the well-known liberal opinions of the major talents involved, which undoubtedly factor into their work.
Overall, the counterculture of the 1960s-1970s eventually left a bad taste in peoples' mouths as certain negative elements like drugs and promiscuity spiraled out of control, overshadowing positive advances such as civil rights, feminism and welfare programs and colliding with a misguided effort to maintain conservative values expressed in the Vietnam War, and a movie like FORREST GUMP shows a lot of that, with whatever an audience's opinions largely being those they took in with them.  Looking at history through a 1994-1982 frame as the story does though, it isn't hard to see the conservative advantage.

Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump.

Where cinephiles get upset on the other hand, is FORREST GUMP receiving recognition over now-more highly-regarded contenders PULP FICTION and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (the aforementioned National Review article egregiously cited the former as "far more expressive of Hollywood’s worldview" (indicating the sentiment of Hollywood as far-left and amoral), although PULP FICITON prominently embraces religion; SHAWSHANK, on the other hand, is a blatantly liberal cry for prison and legal system reform).  PULP FICTION, one of the early independent filmmaking landmarks of the 1990s, won the Palme d'Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and was a more prominent critical darling of 1994, winning a single but notable Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.  Today, PULP FICTION is considered as culturally significant as FORREST GUMP, appearing in the National Film Registry just two years after the latter.  THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, a Stephen King-based prison drama which won no Academy Awards and had a tepid box office performance, was not a very serious contender despite its seven Academy Award nominations, but had a surprisingly successful second life in rentals and cable TV, becoming a long-term word-of-mouth success before notably taking the top rank on IMDb's user ratings.  Ever since then, FORREST GUMP has been struggling to defend its legacy against PULP FICTION and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION.  I like PULP FICTION better, but I think I might put SHAWSHANK beneath GUMP (don't hate me for it), at least from where I'm at right now.
Either way, the sweet-natured idiot from the South, with his stupid crew cut, cream-colored suit and box of assorted chocolates has an undeniable resonance, for better and worse.