24

Ha! I was right about Crash, even with my reluctance to be so. To say I was happy would be a vast understatement.

I CALLED IT! WOO HOO!!!!!


:)

23

Here are a few of my Oscar predictions:

Best Picture - Crash

Brokeback Mountain may be the frontrunner, but against my better judgement I'll be putting my money on Crash. It takes place in LA, which appeals to Academy voters, and had a strong last-minute surge. There have been worse upsets.

My choice: Capote

Best Director - Ang Lee

None of the other contenders are anywhere near strong enough. Lee, without a doubt.

My choice: Spielberg

Best Actor - Phillip Seymour Hoffman

His performance nothing short of amazing, stunning, and touching. Heath Ledger will come in a close second, deservedly so.

My choice: Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Best Supporting Actor - George Clooney

Though a pompous, mean-spirited asshole, Clooney will likey be thrown a bone, since Good Night Good Luck is a possible shutout.

My choice: Jake Gyllenhaal

Best Actress - Reese Witherspoon

Funny and vibrant as June Carter.

My choice: Reese Witherspoon

Best Supporting Actress - Rechel Weisz

The front runner in this category. I've only seen two of these performances, and neither was mind-blowing.

My choice: No preference.


Here is how I would rank the Best Picture nominees:

1. Capote
2. Munich
3. Brokeback Mountain
4. Crash
5. Good Night, and Good Luck

22 - Running Scared

Many have labeled Running Scared a hard boiled crime film, but the label doesn’t fit. It would be better described as a hyper-kinetic trip through one’s worst nightmares. Not nightmarish, but an unfiltered, wake up drenched in sweat nightmare, the kind that sticks with you for the remainder of your days, where you’re lucky if you only have it once. It not feature a scene where the hero literally wakes up, though the film’s dreamlike quality permeates nearly every frame.

Like a dream, the story makes little practical sense, but manages to click together in the manner only the darkest recesses of the brain can comprehend. The hero (dreamer?) of the film, Joey Gazelle(Paul Walker), finds himself bombarded with off the wall scenarios that link together through his relentless quest for a stolen gun. By the time things have come to a close, Joey has crossed paths with mobsters, Russian psychopaths, pimps, hookers, crooked cops, and a very angry wife, usually with bloody, profane results. I haven’t even mentioned the horrific stopover at the home of loathsome, married child molesters.

Running Scared is a mess, but there exists a surprising method to writer/director Wayne Kramer’s madness. Kramer last directed The Cooler an almost pensive examination of Las Vegas gansters. He must have felt bored with taking it slow, because Running Scared crosses a line that few films are willing to. People’s skulls are vaporized with shotguns, female genitalia make gleeful appearances, and children swear like sailors. At one point, the hero gets held down and tortured by having hockey pucks slammed at his skull, the only lighting being the black lights hanging from the ceiling. Like any good nightmare, the torturers dressed in full hockey garb.

Running Scared’s scattergun methodology ensures a lack of greatness, but won’t be forgotten anytime soon by its audience. Kramer as a director enters Michael Bay territory, orchestrating the ludicrous material by punctuating every scene with a huge exclamation point. Even if one hates the material, how can one hold a grudge against a film with the balls and the confidence to hold a shootout in a black-lit hockey rink? I know I can’t.

3 out of 5

21 - Ultraviolet Review

Ultraviolet may be the best video game movie ever made, even though a video game version has yet to be produced. The cheap CGI is plentiful, the colors vivid, the heroine single-handedly takes on hundreds of men at once, weapons quite literally appearing in her hands out of nowhere. I interpreted the recent film Running Scared as a long nightmare, and it’s tempting to interpret Ultraviolet as a nerdy teenager playing a T-rated Xbox 360 game.

The film’s plot transparently serves as nothing more than a string from which to hang ten or so action massacres. Violet (the criminally beautiful Milla Jovovich), the heroine, flips from one scene to the next, clad in laughably revealing outfits, butchering anyone that crosses her sight. It’s not that the gunfights aren’t well done, but without even a limp effort at storytelling, all we get are the mish-mash of comic book colors on screen. Later in the film, Violet refuses to attack a building guarded by 700 soldiers, citing superior numbers, though by now nothing has indicated she can be harmed by anything short of terminal cancer.
Within Ultraviolet’s 84 minute running time (including credits), two different resurrections occur, neither with any accompanying explanation. Perhaps Player 1 had several more lives left and the Pre-Algebra homework could wait, though an extra lives meter at the top of the screen could have been useful to the audience.

In 2002, Ultraviolet writer/director Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium was released. Barely heard of in the U.S. until its DVD release, the film was a sci-fi/action masterpiece, a wildly fun, visually stunning, shatteringly touching assault on the senses. Where Equilibrium’s action was over the top but crisp and sharp, Ultraviolet’s fight scenes simply ratchet up the body count until Violet moves on to the next level. Equilibrium’s dark, moody tones gave way to occasional bursts of vibrant color, while Ultraviolet splatters every frame with techno-comic ink that could give migraines to a child.

What I missed most from Equilibrium was a story that worked, with characters and events that I could care about. In Equilibrium’s best sequence, the hero watches a recording of his wife being tried and executed, and rushes prevent another woman he loves from meeting the same fate. Ultraviolet has a scene where Violet tries to rescue a child, but it makes no sense, giving us not a sliver of believable dialogue or action that would imply she would care. Every interaction in the film reeks of phoniness; it could be taught to show why action flicks really do need good characters, after all.

Wimmer may have gotten a bigger budget with Ultraviolet, but jumped several steps backwards. The filmography seems to be reversed, Ultraviolet looking like the experiment, Equilibrium the glorious result. If none of Wimmer’s fans ask "What happened?", he can assume they’re busy playing video games. Good ones.

1.5 out of 5