Ladies and Gentlemen...

...I've traveled over half the internet to be here tonight. I couldn't get away sooner because my new film and photo blog was coming in at Blogspot and I had to see about it. That blog is now flowing at two to three posts a week and it's paying me an income of zero dollars a week. I have two others blogging, The Invisible Edge and Cinema Styles and I am one of sixteen blogging in harmony at The Oldest Established Really Important Film Club. So, ladies and gentlemen... if I say I'm a blog man you will agree. I do my own blogging.

I'm a family man- I run a family blog. This is my son and my partner, H.W. Lapper. We offer you the bond of family that very few blog men can understand. I'm fixed like few other blogs in this field. I have a string of posts all ready to go. I can load a screengrab into my photoshop and have a new banner up in a day. I have connections so I can get bad puns for the banner tagline; such things go by friendship in a rush like this. And this is why I can guarantee to start posting again regularly this week now that Christmas is over and I've put up this post to back my word. I assure you, whatever the others promise to do, when it comes to the showdown, they won't be there...

... okay, so I'm exaggerating. Of course they'll be there. We'll all be there. And Oscar will be there, that Golden Boy who throws his weight around Hollywood once a year, starting now and finishing up just weeks before Spring. Last year the man in the picture, Daniel Day-Lewis, took home the Best Actor Oscar and Javier Bardem took home the Supporting Actor Oscar (and don't we all already know who's taking home that award this year?). Here are two other former Best Actor and Supporting Actor winners... when they were boys. And they are?

Future Best Actor



Future Best Supporting Actor (pictured here with his sister)

Evil, Pure and Simple

"I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding, even the most rudimentary sense of life or death,of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six year old child with this blind, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes, the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply evil. " - Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) Halloween.

Some time ago, my father told me a story of a classmate of his in high school who seemed as average, as "normal," as everyone else. One day this classmate went to his English teacher's house and knocked on the door. When she answered, he took the hammer he had brought with him and beat her to death. He was arrested, convicted and locked away. Decades later he was released and one day, by chance, my father recognized him on the sidewalk, leaning against a building, unkempt and dirty, living on the streets. He recognized my father as well. To my amazement upon first hearing the story, my father told me he spoke to him, briefly. "What did you say?" I asked. "I asked him why he did it?" he said. "What did he say?" "He said, 'I don't know, just felt like it.'"

Horror movies have a dizzying cast of characters, from vampires, re-animated monsters and werewolves to zombies, demons and poltergeists. But it is the cold-blooded killer, the remorseless unblinking murderer that has always instilled the most fear in the real world. When one leaves the theatre after seeing a vampire movie, one may be spooked or jumpy but there is no real fear of an undead parasite actually materializing and sucking your blood. But the killer, the mad killer... that's real. That actually exists.

It's also the only sub-genre of Horror that exists in other genres as well with any regularity. Ghosts and ghouls and Frankenstein's monster are used in comedy from Ghostbusters to Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein but even then they exist as their own subset of the genre, the Horror Comedy. But mad or remorseless killers are commonplace in Noir (Kiss of Death), Gangster Films (goodfellas), Police Procedurals (Zodiac), Drama (In the Bedroom) and in one of the most inventive crossovers ever, Science Fiction (HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey). The killer, the psychopath, the enraged lunatic - they're the most frightening characters horror has to offer because they are us. And we are them.

In No Country for Old Men Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) offers a more introspective version of Dr. Loomis' original statement from Halloween:

"There was this boy I sent to the electric chair at Huntsville here a while back. My arrest and my testimony. He killed a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. 'Be there in about fifteen minutes.' I don't know what to make of that. I surely don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, 'O.K., I'll be part of this world.'"

No Country for Old Men isn't a horror movie but it does have a remorseless killer and a character, in Sheriff Bell, who doesn't want to walk into something he doesn't understand. Few people do. Perhaps that's why the killer sub-genre of Horror has become so popular. Because people want to understand, people want to know why evil exists, people want to protect themselves and their loved ones against the horrors that await them in the real world. Perhaps for some it is simply the vicarious thrill of watching the act done at a safe distance. But that vicarious thrill could still be an attempt to understand on a different level. To understand the demons of one's self. In the end, it's up to the viewer to decide because in reality there are scant few answers.

I asked my father if he was afraid to talk with his old classmate. He said no. He had no fear of him and didn't shy away from asking him why he had done it. In fact, it was the first thing that came out of my father's mouth. He'd always wanted to know. Was the answer satisfactory? That depends on how you look at it. Would "she failed me on a test" have provided any fulfillment or only created more questions? I asked my father what his reaction was to the answer he received . He said he stared, slightly bewildered, and said, "Okay." He gave him some money and never saw him again.

Most of us will never have the opportunity to ask a killer why they did it and most likely, as in my father's case, no reasonable answers would be provided besides. Horror allows us to examine them from a distance, safely and comfortably. But once we leave the theatre we don't leave the characters behind. Dracula and the Wolfman exist only in the movies but the mad killer exists in our world as well. And that makes the mad slasher, the remorseless killer, the most horrifying character of them all. Pure and simple.

The OSCARS!

Best Picture - No Country For Old Men

Best Director - Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men)

Best Actor - Daniel Day Lewis (There Will Be Blood)

Best Actress - Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose)

Best Supporting Actor - Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men)

Best Supporting Actress - Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)

Best Original Screenplay - Diablo Cody (Juno)

Best Adapted Screenplay - The Coens (No Country For Old Men)

* I wrote this on December 13th before there were even nominees: "But this early on I'd lay my money on Marion Cotillard. Why? Because lately the Academy loves honoring actors playing real people. Of the last eight Best Actress Oscars, starting with Hillary Swank winning for Boys Don't Cry, six have been for portrayals of real people. Only Swank in Million Dollar Baby and Halle Berry in Monster's Ball were playing fictional characters." Holy Crap! Someone give me a special award.

*I also wrote this just two days ago, "So the fact that I think There Will Be Blood will win Best Picture almost certainly means it will not." So I kinda got that one right too. Sorta. Otherwise, as usual my predictions blew. I was disappointed that No End in Sight did not win Best Documentary and that In the Shadow of the Moon wasn't even nominated.

* Roger Deakens split the vote all by himself. There Will Be Blood has the bigger, epic look that the cinematography branch loves giving Oscars to. I thought it looked magnificent but I would have preferred to see Deakens win for No Country For Old Men.

Musically speaking I'm very glad that Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová won for Falling Slowly from Once. I thought Once was a terrific simple little movie. As for Musical Score I couldn't help recall Johnny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood which was played briefly when it won its Oscars. It's another controversial aspect of the film with many people feeling it was, like Daniel Day Lewis' performance, too "big" and intrusive but I found its dissonance with the images on the screen to be quite captivating and the other nominees just felt blasé. I wish it hadn't been disqualified.

* There has of course been a lot of back and forth over Daniel Day Lewis' performance in There Will Be Blood. Personally, as you all know, I love a big over the top performance by a great actor. Big over the top performances by mediocre actors are insufferable but by great ones they're pretty damn entertaining and I was pretty damn entertained by Lewis. I'm glad he won.

* First double win for Director since Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise for West Side Story, 1961.

*Finally Best Picture. I'll make it short and sweet: They picked the right movie.

And in the End...

***Warning: Big stinking spoilers throughout. Read at your own risk.***

Roger Ebert wrote this recently in his positive review of There Will Be Blood concerning the ending: "Those who hate the ending, and there may be many, might be asked to dictate a different one. Something bittersweet, perhaps? Grandly tragic? Only madness can supply a termination for this story."

The ending of There Will Be Blood is indeed insane. I laughed throughout. I don't know if that offends Paul Thomas Anderson or if he intended people to laugh at the ending but I was not laughing in a mocking, condescending way. It was more of a "giddy with delight" kind of laughter. If you haven't seen the film and don't want it spoiled for you then stop reading now. If you don't care about spoilers, read on. To sum it up quickly and cleanly, the movie follows the life of Daniel Plainview and his selfish, megalomaniacal descent into madness. He is a cold businessman who hates people and takes offense where none was intended. He has dealings with Eli Sunday, an evangelist who uses Plainview's success to build his church. All of this is told in a sweeping manner among the dust strewn wastelands of the oil fields. Then suddenly, after two and a half hours of slow burn, we are jettisoned sixteen years forward, Eli comes to see Daniel in his mansion, Daniel humiliates Eli, chases him around his bowling alley and clubs him to death with a bowling pin. Daniel's butler walks in, presumably to collect Daniel's breakfast tray, and Daniel says, referring to the breakfast tray and his meeting with Eli, "I'm finished." The End.

Okay, let's be frank: That's crazy. And to many viewers it is a disconcerting and bizarre way to end the movie. But I enjoyed it (obviously - I've since watched the closing scene on YouTube several times and just laugh and laugh when I see it - Paul Thomas Anderson hates me right now). It's even funnier than Dirk Diggler wagging his rubber dick in front of the mirror. The truth is I usually like understated films. If you look at what I've reviewed on Unseen Images (Luck of Ginger Coffey, So Big, Walkabout) you can get a good idea of what I prefer in a movie, and it's usually not something like There Will Be Blood. But occasionally I like something big and sloppy and messy and this movie is as equally full of flaws as it is ambition. But the real point is the ending.

Ebert suggests those who don't like it write another ending for it. This is unnecessary as there already is another ending for it, written some thirty four years ago by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo. The ending I'm referring to is the ending of The Godfather, Part II.

I have a hunch that many people who don't like the ending of There Will Be Blood were subconsciously hoping for the ending of The Godfather Part II Redux. Daniel Plainview slowly but surely isolates himself from everyone around him and finally rejects his own family (his adopted son). At this point it would be perfectly understandable and fitting if a filmmaker decided the best way to end the story was to have Plainview's son walk out and the camera fades to a day or a week later. The camera then slowly zooms in on a lonely and empty Daniel Plainview staring coldly ahead, his whole life reduced to this, to nothing, to meaninglessness. Slow fade to black and silence as the credits slowly crawl up the screen. After all, there really is little reason or motivation to even bring Eli Sunday back into the story. He's been absent for quite some time at this point and practically forgotten. He never made much of an impact as far as the story arc is concerned in the first place except for providing some juicy embarrassment at the baptism of Daniel. So why not give the movie a tragic dignified ending?

I don't have the answer to that question but I'm glad Anderson didn't. This may sound insulting, but I am vaguely reminded of Kevin Bacon pitching his stark winters tale to the studio executive in The Big Picture until it is finally reduced to Beach Nuts! I have this fantasy where Anderson is pitching the movie and describing Plainview's bitter loneliness in the snow as the camera fades to black. The studio executive stares at him blankly.

Anderson quickly realigns himself and says, "But then Plainview realizes his tragedy and reunites with his son."

Nothing from the studio exec.

"Uh, um, okay maybe Plainview joins forces with Sunday and decides to become a new man."

Still nothing.

"Okay, I got it, Sunday comes by, Plainview goes batshit insane, chases him around the bowling alley hurling bowling balls at him while screaming, 'I am the Third Revelation' then beats Sunday to death with a bowling pin!"

BINGO!

"We'll call it Oil Nuts!"

I think there could have been straighter played, more dignified, more overtly tragic endings to this movie but I don't think there could have been a better one. I have seen many a stoic character study that ends in understated silence. I believe many are excellent (such as The Godfather Part II, although I am not its biggest fan) but every now and then it makes me feel good to know that there is a filmmaker as reckless as Paul Thomas Anderson (rubber dicks, frog downpours, bowling pin clubbings). I have a feeling as he makes more movies he will become more sedate and subdued and learned in the wise ways of constructing a stoic character study in which Burt Reynolds, Marky Mark and the music of E.L.O. have no place. There will be no room for hyper-acted scenes where characters scream phrases like "Drainage Eli!" and "I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!" or biblical plagues in the middle of Los Angeles. There will be more Godfather, Part II and less Apocalypse Now. And certainly no room for One From the Heart.

Perhaps it's because I like understated smaller films that when I see a big drama I want it to just barely graze this side of a train wreck. If I'm going to spend three hours on a character study when I believe most good ones can be done in two, I want some goddamn spectacle. I want some madness. I want the filmmaker to do the equivalent of ordering a bunch of Peruvian natives to haul a 320 ton steamer over a mountain. And dammit, I want Michael Corleone to get off that damn bench, run inside the boathouse, call Tom Hagen a "basket bastard" and then club Al Neri to death with the row boat anchor. I'd drink that milkshake! I'd drink it up.

Oscar Watch Update

I've seen more films now that will be vying for the Oscar and it still comes down to two I think. Those two are No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Granted, there are still many to see from 2007 that I have not seen yet but for now, these two seem like the top Oscar hopefuls.

In my first Oscar conjecture I figured Sweeney Todd would make a bigger splash and while I didn't particularly dislike it or particularly like it, none of it has stayed with me and I can't imagine it has any legs going into the nomination process.

I believe NCFOM and TWBB have the best shot at Best Picture. I've just seen TWBB and the objections of some over the music left me shrugging my shoulders. I see no problem with the music being used in an operatic way to propel the story towards its inevitable conclusion. Every note implies that doom is just over the horizon. The title implies it as well. And so there is. And over-acting? No. Bad actors over-act, great actors skillfully play it big. Daniel Day-Lewis plays it big and his Daniel Plainview character is big - and it is mesmerizing to watch.

Others have tried to look at it as an allegory but I don't see it. If so it is the most unfocused allegory I have ever seen and I'm not even sure what it would be (Capitalism destroys Religion? Competing dogmas destroy each other? You got me.) But to understand further I have to talk about the ending and so if you haven't seen it I will begin spoiling NOW.

Eli Sunday (played terrifically by Paul Dano) comes to see Daniel Plainview (the aforementioned scenery engulfing Daniel Day-Lewis). Eli needs help, financial help, and Daniel has the money and power to clear everything up. Daniel makes Eli reveal himself as a fraud and renounce his belief. Earlier in the film, Daniel has to go through a baptism in order to get what he needs from one of Eli's followers. When Daniel is admitting to abandoning his son there are moments of real emotion in his voice as he says before others what he doesn't want to say to himself. Despite his cruel behavior later with his son, I believe that he loved him at one time and losing him later in life drove the final nail in Daniel's coffin of sanity. If not, why bother having the scene of complete and final abandonment of his son in his home take place at all, much less right before the final scene with Eli.

Back to Eli and his humiliation at the hands of Daniel. This is where there is argument amongst viewers as to whether Eli ever believed to begin with. If not, the renouncing of his beliefs is just as empty as Daniel's renouncing of sin at the baptism (with the single exception of the statements relating to his son). So was Eli a fraud all along? I think that depends on the viewer. I think Eli believed and does believe at the moment Daniel begins humiliating him but is desperate enough to renounce anything to get what he needs. Just as Daniel did not want to say he had abandoned his son but said it anyway - he needed that pipeline and nothing was going to stand in his way, certainly not his heart or soul. Both characters are willing to sacrifice integrity and honesty with themselves to get what they need. Beliefs are tossed aside to make way for necessity. If he never believed, there is no point to this humiliation. And if he did believe then we can see just how far he is willing to go to get what he needs.

After the humiliation is successful Daniel tells Eli he won't give him any money for what Eli offers because he, Daniel, has already taken it. In fact, he drank it up. At this point Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano go into hyper-acting overdrive and I must admit (and I hope I don't offend any viewers who found the ending deadly serious) I was giggling like a schoolgirl. I couldn't stop laughing. Not guffawing, just uncontrolled giddy chuckling as I watched these two actors perform a final scene so insane that a viewer probably would have had as much luck guessing this ending as they would have had guessing a movie about lonely people in Los Angeles would end with a frog shower. But my laughter had a joyous quality to it. I was happy that there's someone making movies who doesn't take themselves so goddamned seriously that they can't occasionally say, "Hey, why not end it with Plainview, Sunday, bowling pins, blood and a butler?" Why not indeed? Plainview's crazy, bitter and broken. That's clear in the final scene with his son. So where to take his character from there? To the end of course. The logical end. And then? He's finished. Finished with his tasks, finished with "wrapping up personal business," finished with his son, finished with revenge and finished - as in 'ruined' - because there's a corpse with a bowling pin imprint on the back of his skull laying in the middle of his home bowling alley. He's finished. I wonder what his last line should be?

Spoilers Ended

So there's a quick reaction. I think No Country for Old Men carries more weight to it but There Will Be Blood has the "bigness" that Oscar notices. For now, I'll stick with No Country for my own personal pick and put my money on There Will Be Blood as the Oscar pick.