Oscar noms – nostalgia and a bit with a dog

You sit there in the cinema waiting for dialogue. For what seems like an eternity, sure he’s expressive you think so WHY ISN’T HE TALKING? But enough about George Smiley in Tinker, Taylor, Soldier Spy, this year everyone loves The Artist.

The Artist is lovely. Lovingly crafted, lovingly scored, lovingly acted and the reason it will win everything from the Regional Critics Film Awards (yes, I got to vote) to the Oscars is because it is a paean to classic Hollywood (1930s in particular). It’s not just nostalgia though, it is a beautifully told story that fits its silent format perfectly. And it is as light as a silk cummerbund; it's not trying to bash you over the head with themes, or multiple Oscar nominees gurning about their disabilities. I’m not jaded.

Released on Friday in the UK, The Descendants is another big hitter with a best picture nomination. Again, it is a contrast film. It seems to move at its own stately pace, picking up observations and little moments as it winds its way around Hawaii. It’s another gem from Alexander Payne, whose catalogue is redoubtable after Election, About Schmidt and of course Sideways. George Clooney? We know he is a movie star, recently we’ve see more and more of his acting chops. In Descendants, he reins himself in, it is a small performance without pyrotechnics but he shows you sadness, he shows you regret, whilst also giving flashes of charm. His character Matt King is very ordinary in many ways. A Jimmy Stewart sort of guy, muddling through and trying to do the best he can.

For best actor it will be a race between Clooney and French comedian Jean Dujardin. The feeling would be that Clooney’s popularity in the American film business will win through for him, though both are equally good. It is great to see Gary Oldman get his dues as well. He took on Smiley and made the role his own, even though Sir Alec's TV version was sublime.

Feeling all nice and warm? Okay then: M-A-R-G-A-R-E-T T-H-A-T-C-H-E-R. There won't be a consensus on The Iron Lady - a rather hagiographic light-weight take on Maggie - so it's missed out on best picture but has landed Meryl Streep a 17th acting nomination. She is Hollywood's go-to gal nearly every year it seems although her losing streak stretches back since her last win for Sophie's Choice in 1983.

I think she will win because The Iron Lady is all about Meryl as Maggie - and Hollywood loves a biopic and Thatcher won't be the divisive figure over there by the pool in Los Angeles.

For best supporting actor, Christopher Plummer is great and 82, so a win for Beginners seems set - a film which also has the benefit of right-on politics. Max Sydow is also 82 but hasn't been a factor up till now for his film.

Best director? A heavy-weight list indeed: Alexander Payne, Scorsese, Woody Allen and Terence Malick. None of them made The Artist though so my tip here is one they cannot pronounce (yet!) Michel Hazanavicius.

The really terribly dull surprise of how many flicks would make best picture yielded this list:

The Descendants - Second favourite.
The Artist - Everyone's favourite.
Warhorse - Nope.
Moneyball - Nope
The Tree of Life - Left field.
Midnight in Paris - Good to see.
The Help - Filler.
Hugo - Interesting.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - as yet unseen it has Tom Hanks and a 9/11 theme.

Nine films but only two have any chance of winning and nine films but no room for Tinker, Taylor or Senna; well we have to be upset about something don't we?

LFF 2011: The Ides of March review

George Clooney’s political thriller boasts a great cast and snappy dialogue. However an under-powered script suggests people are getting carried away with praise, pre Oscar season.

Any fan of The West Wing will tell you that campaign politics are all about backroom deals and handsome strategy wonks ping-ponging dialogue over 20 hour working days. George Clooney’s adaptation of Beau Willimon’s play Faragut North spins the theme into a satisfying politico-thriller that doesn’t quite have the depth its Champions League cast deserves.

Ryan Gosling plays Stephen Myers, a campaign operative on the rise, with a brilliant line on manipulating the media and spinning the polls in favour of his paymaster. In this case, he’s trying to get Democrat hopeful Governor Mike Morris (Clooney) the nomination on a ticket of vaguely Obama-style progressive politics. Also on Team Morris is Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s Paul Zara, a more senior spin-meister who has seen it all before. As it’s Hoffman, you watch him quietly sizing people up in his opening scenes and wait for him to explode with invective when his buttons get pressed.

There are no Republicans here, we're all about the Primaries and the Democrat scramble for the nomination. On the competing side of the drama is Paul Giamatti's slightly darker, ever more manipulative huckster, with a candidate of his own and an eye on recruiting the wonderboy Myers.



You can also throw in Marisa Tomei, as a journalist with the inside track and actors of the caliber of Jeffrey Wright and Gregory Itzin (he was the Nixon-style bad president in 24).

The trouble is, with all that talent, and with Clooney's proven eye for the material after Good Night and Good Luck, the story is down-shifted by a sexual peccadillo involving a pretty intern on the campaign (Evan Rachel Wood as seen in Mildred Pierce). The reversals in fortune that drive the movie are mundane and don't leave enough room for some of the depth or fireworks you might expect.

Don't get me wrong, it is still a classy drama with passages to enjoy in it. Clooney himself gives an onscreen performance that is two parts charm and one part menace, when the serious business has to be done. Ryan Gosling makes his character play by hinting at intelligence and steel even when the script doesn't necessarily give him the ammunition to back this up. With three films in the multiplex right now, he seems to have a mystique around him. Whether he plays hit-man, lothario or political grifter, he's giving off some Steve Macqueen, crossed with some Edward Norton - a potent combination.

In the end, The Ides of March pales compared to series six and seven of The West Wing, which cover the same ground in far more depth, so if you haven't seen those episodes you might get more out it. Either way, it is still an engaging thriller with efficient melodrama at its heart.

My photos from The Men Who Stare at Goats press event LFF 2009

I was told Mr Clooney was not best pleased at the press conference for Fantastic Mr Fox a few days before, but he seemed in good enough form to discuss The Men Who Stare at Goats so - strangely for me - I popped on my photographer's cap and took some photos. Enjoy.

Pictured (copyright JMessias 2009) are George Clooney, Kevin Spacey and [Goat's director] Grant Heslov

George Clooney and his unfeasible sex-machine (Thanet Extra October 17 2008)

Apparently one of the tell-tale signs of a recession is a rise in cinema attendances as folk go for relatively inexpensive nights out.

Well, we have seen the highest ticket sales since 1974 in this country. That could have less to do with economics mind and more with singalong with Mamma Mia!

What with Abba-based musicals cleaning up and the global economic meltdown we need something to cheer us up.

The new Coen brothers' outing, Burn After Reading, is a start. It revolves around a disgruntled CIA operative, Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), who loses a computer disc containing his confidential memoirs.

When this falls into the hands of two gym employees (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand), the two dummies try to blackmail money out of Cox. They are clearly in over their heads against this tough (and sweary) operator.

Throw in a bemused treasury agent (George Clooney), with a penchant for running and bouts of adultery, and you get a very slight, but oh-so-drole caper about double-crosses and human stupidity.

With character names like Linda Litzke (McDormand) and a Russian consulate official called Krapotkin, you can tell the Coens are just having fun after the heavy, death-centric, No Country For Old Men.

Not much happens in Burn After Reading but it happens quickly and there is fun along the way, with a goofy performance from Brad Pitt and a loveable loser role for Clooney. Look out for his character's mechanical invention too.

The Rocker is a comedy vehicle for Rainn Wilson (the nerdy Dwight Schrute in The American Office) as Robert "Fish" Fishman, a back-in-the-day guitarist who was thrown out of a rock band before they became super-famous.

Twenty years later, now bitter and the black sheep of his family, he gets a second chance at living the dream when his nephew's high school band need a new drummer.

Before you can say "hang on a minute isn't this a bit like School of Rock with a poor man's Jack Black", the movie turns into a road trip with Wilson the centre of the comic pratfalls.

Unoriginal, but funny enough when it needs to be. If you've already seen Tropic Thunder, this one is a half decent, silly comedy that not once mentions the words credit or crunch.