Oscar Bait - Round One

During the last quarter of the year, studios begin bringing out their "prestige" pictures, which are films designed to catch the fancy of the awards-granting community. Often, these films are more serious in tone, anchored by A-list performances, and intended to be far more "arty" than the summer blockbuster season.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

 From the trailer, you could be forgiven for thinking that Guillermo del Toro's gothic Crimson Peak is a horror movie. Indeed, there is gore and scare here, but this film is far more melodrama than horror - and I mean that in a good way. If you're expecting Pan's Labyrinth 2, you'll be disappointed. (Then again, why would you expect that? Del Toro doesn't repeat himself.) Peak is delightfully over-the-top in terms of taking stock characters - the blonde damsel, the penniless cad, the raven-haired spinster sister, the honest doctor, etc. - and giving them dark, dark twists. Melodrama is characterized by moremoreMORE! and Peak has that in bundles. The decrepit mansion hiding a sinister secret! The isolated countryside! And more Georgia clay that you'll find in Gone with the Wind. If you go into Peak knowing that you're going to see something that is far more Grimm fairytale crossed with Wuthering Heights than straight-up horror decked in lace, you'll  probably find yourself enjoying it tremendously. Marvel at the inability of homeowners to patch a hole in the roof! Cringe at the combination of open flame and waist-length tresses! Speculate on the sheer amount of yardage in the costumes! And be on the lookout for butterflies and moths! I say catch this on the big screen just for the visual feast that del Toro has provided to you - Peak is lush, rich, and unlike anything else you're likely to see this year. Featuring Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, and Mia Wasikowska.

Steve Jobs, on the other hand, left me a bit confused. Michael Fassbender does a fine Job here (sorry - bad puns sometimes sneak in), Kate Winslet is having fun as his long-suffering (funny how everyone in Jobs' inner circle can be described as "long suffering." The man may have been an obsessive visionary, but he was also an ass), talk-him-down-from-a-ledge, right hand Joanna Hoffman, and Seth Rogen and Jeff Daniels turn in solid performances, yet the film just doesn't seem to really go anywhere. The film, which is based off Walter Isaacson's 2011 book, covers the period from 1984, when the highly-touted Macintosh was launched (which nearly destroyed the company) to 1998, when the iMac was launched. This gives the audience ample time to see Jobs be a jerk to his co-founder and best friend, his CEO, his engineers, his assistant, and his daughter. The use of product launches to frame the events of the film is interesting, but ultimately, it doesn't help the film progress in any way other than marking time. Truly a puzzlement. Rent it if you like, but it's also fine to pass on this one. Directed by Danny Boyle.

Burnt - ah, this is a fun one! My co-host and I have been agreeing too often lately and Burnt breaks that streak decisively. Everything I enjoyed about this film, Ensley hated. Not disliked - actively hated. (Which should at least make for an interesting show when we review it!) No doubt about it, Burnt is Oscar bait for Bradley Cooper, an incredible actor who has been nominated for three consecutive acting Oscars but has yet to take the award home. Here, he plays a superstar chef (Adam Jones) who has thrown away his opportunities through addiction (far more common in the restaurant world than you might think, by the way - it can be a hard-partying life when your work ends after midnight) and general bad-boy behavior. He's burned every bridge he had and done a sort of self-imposed penance (also, he fled to avoid some bad debts) and wants back into the world of Michelin-starred, incredibly high-end restaurants. His addictions are under control (and he's blood-tested weekly to make sure of that), but he's still a raging jerk to others around him. The behavior is tolerated for the sake of that elusive third Michelin star and people will overlook a lot when they think you're pursuing perfection. I thoroughly enjoyed Cooper's performance; Ensley wanted to walk out. I agree that Burnt celebrates the bad-boy chef (sort of like Steve Jobs does, only here Adam Jones actually makes the things he's obsessing about) and there is a romantic subplot that feels terribly tacked on and is a waste of Sienna Miller, but I can't help it - it's fun seeing Cooper rip things up. Who knew the American Sniper would get so upset over an overdone scallop? Oscar loves a redemption story, and Burnt has it in ten-foot letters, complete with a buffet. However, Oscar also loves a winner, and this film is not doing well at the box office. It's a rental - there's really nothing here that demands to be seen on the big screen - but I say give it a try. Directed by John Wells.

Smoke, Not Fire

This is the problem with pre-screening hype - it gets expectations up.  Instead of just having a nice little movie, it has to be the BIGGEST THING EVER!!  Instead of showcasing stylish framing and camerawork, it has to SHOCK YOUR SENSES!!  And instead of adding a puzzle piece or two to an existing storyline, it has to ANSWER ALL THE BIG QUESTIONS!!

Prometheus does none of those things, although much is promised.  It's not a bad film; in fact, director Ridley Scott shows once again that he knows how to both capture breath-taking beauty through a camera lens and how to create memorable environments for his characters to cavort within.  But ultimately, Prometheus is a movie that didn't need to be made, much less hyped to within an inch of its life.

The chief problem here is Alien, which shot Scott to A list stardom some thirty years ago.  (His position there was cemented with Blade Runner a few years later, a two-fer that made him a science fiction darling, if not a downright wunderkind.)  Alien is so good and stands up so well after all these years that . . . well, let's put it this way.  Alien is the horror equivalent of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Lee didn't write a sequel, prequel, or much of anything afterward.  It's not that Prometheus is bad; it's that it's not Alien, yet it tries to answer the questions Alien left unanswered.  Here's a tip, Hotshot.  There's no reason to answer them and trying to just feels forced.  There's a heavy patina of philosophy and theology coating Prometheus and it doesn't fit well.  It certainly can fit well in science fiction; in fact, I've said repeatedly that science fiction is a genre that is ideally suited to asking the Big Questions such as "What makes us human?" and "What really matters?"  But just because a film asks those questions doesn't make it a Good Film.


Alien is all about cramped spaces, shadowy things-that-want-to-kill-us, and figuring out how to survive as the crew are picked off, one by one.  (And a cat.)  Prometheus can't do that, because we already know what was a mystery in the first film.  We already know what the aliens are and how awful they are.  We already know the shape of the ship and the look of the bridge.  Wisely, Prometheus doesn't try to flat-out copy that.  We get a large cast of scientists who have followed cave paintings to a faraway moon in hopes of "meeting our maker."

The problems begin early.  The first scene, which is lovely and terrifying in turns, is not needed and removes any trace of mystery from the rest of the film.  The film further suffers from too large a cast - it never gels as an ensemble and there's not enough screen time to develop each character, so a few become throwaways.  The scientists aren't particularly curious about the alien civilization they've discovered, they are overly mercenary, and they make some deeply stupid decisions.  While Alien gave us Ellen Ripley,  Prometheus thinks simply passing the Bechdel Test automatically makes it a Worthy Film.  Charlize Theron's Vickers has daddy issues and Noomi Rapace's Shaw has way too much symbolism tied up in jewelry.  Alien gave us a treacherous android and a shadowy corporate agenda.  While Prometheus retains both, those elements have lost the power to shock us.  Oh, and sex is bad and pregnancy is a horror.


Prometheus is not without its moments, however.  Michael Fassbender as the android David is especially noteworthy and Idris Elba as the captain could be - I suspect there's a scene or two on the cutting room floor that should have been left in there on that score.  The scope and sweep of the cinematography is jaw-dropping and deliberately invokes David Lean (maybe a key to the android's name, now that I think about it), especially Lean's masterwork Lawrence of Arabia.

In short, Prometheus wants to be an Important Film and it tries mightily to be that.  Unfortunately, along the way, Scott substituted bombast for joy.