Kathryn Bigelow

a word about the Oscar nominations

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Quvenzhane Wallis in BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

Mainly, I’m just so glad that Beasts of the Southern Wild was nominated for Best Picture and that its star Quvenzhane Wallis (now nine years old) was nominated for Best Actress.  Both are very deserving of nominations, and it would have been easy for the Academy to overlook such a small indie film and its first-time director and actress.

For the most part, the Academy avoided leaving out the obviously deserving and rewarding the ridiculously underserving – very few big brainfarts this year.  I am completely baffled that Ben Affleck of Argo and Kathryn Bigelow of Zero Dark Thirty did not receive Best Director nods; (I would have passed over David O. Russell and Michael Haneke).  But that’s just about my only quibble.

Eight of the nine nominees for Best Picture are currently playing at your local theaters (although Amour is harder to find until next weekend).   Beasts of the Southern Wild is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streams from a host of VOD services.

You can also find Flight at the theaters and watch Oscar-nominated Denzel Washington.  The Sessions, with Oscar favorite Helen Hunt, is still lurking in some second run houses.  Among the nominated documentaries, Invisible War is available on Netflix Instant and some VOD services, while Searching for Sugar Man is available from several VOD services (although pricey).

Zero Dark Thirty: a great director’s enthralling tale

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Zero Dark Thirty is director Kathryn Bigelow’s inspired telling of the hunt for Bin Laden.  Bigelow, who won the directorial Oscar for The Hurt Locker, once again demonstrates an uncommon ability to enthrall.  She chose to tell the story of the frustrating, wearying and dangerous ten-year man hunt, not just the exciting raid in Abbottabad.

We should all be grateful that this movie was made with Bigelow’s directorial choices.  She is content to invest half of her screen time on false leads and wasted efforts – and makes them utterly gripping.  She neither lingers on the violence nor shies away from it.   In a scene where a CIA operative is looking for a man talking on a cell phone,  the camera pulls back to reveal that he is on a chaotic Pakistani street with hundreds of men on cell phones – perfectly conveying the needle-in-a-haystack aspect of the search.  As  the Navy Seal team returns from the successful raid, the music is deeply thoughtful and reflective, not the triumphalist anthem that many directors would have used.

Zero Dark Thirty contains realistic and non-gratuitous depictions of war, terrorism and torture. The movie is, to my sensibilities, not too uncomfortable for most viewers.   (Tomorrow I will comment on the torture controversy surrounding this movie.)

Jessica Chastain brilliantly plays the CIA analyst who doggedly and passionately pursues an unlikely lead that finally pays off after a ten-year grind.  I’ve already rhapsodized several times about Chastain’s sudden emergence as perhaps our best current screen actress.  She is profoundly gifted and can do anything.   Let’s just say that, as good as Zero Dark Thirty is, she carries it.

The rest of the fine cast includes Jason Clarke (Lawless), Joel Edgerton (Animal Kingdom), Jennifer Ehle (The Ides of March, The King’s Speech), Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights), Fares Fares (Safe House), Jeremy Strong (The Guard),  Mark Duplass and James Gandolfini.

I’ve added Zero Dark Thirty to my list of Best Films of 2012.