Film Review: To The Wonder (2012)

Considering that his last three films were an elliptical war epic, a retelling of one of the founding stories of America and a millennia-spanning chronicle of the warring halves of the human soul, it's hard not to view Terrence Malick's latest film (his sixth in a career moving comfortably into its fifth decade) as a little slight be comparison. After all, how can the problems of two people amount to more than a hill of beans when placed against the stunning grandeur of the infinite?

Oscars 2013 Prediction Scorecard

A few days ago, I posted my predictions for the 2012 Oscars, breaking the categories into Technical and Major Awards. In the process, I predicted that Lincoln would take most of the biggies, that Skyfall would win Best Cinematography, and that rank sentimentality would ensure a third Oscar for Robert De Niro.

Shows what I fucking know, right?

Anyway, I might have gotten a few awards wrong, but how did I do overall? Let's have a quick look.

Oscar Predictions: The Major Awards

Welcome back. I trust that you're all sitting comfortably and are as uproariously drunk as I am. How anyone could even contemplate making it through an awards ceremony sober is truly beyond me. Anyway, that's not important. What is important, is that we're now down to the final, precious few; the Oscars that most people care about! Without any further ado, let's get to it.

Oscar Prediction: The Technical Awards

Hello, and welcome to A Mighty Fine Blog's sixth annual attempt to predict the Oscars, an effort so relentlessly futile that I haven't even bothered to thing of a snappy name or acronym for it. Anyway, a merry AMFBSAAPO to you all!

Joking aside, I really look forward to this time of the year because it's a chance for me to see if my predictive abilities have improved or atrophied in the last twelve months. Having read The Signal and the Noise, I kind of hope that my predictions will be a touch better than in the last few years, though that would be no guarantee that I'm getting better. It could actually just be a sign that the Oscars are getting worse at surprising us all.

As in previous years, the predictions will be split in two. This post will focus on the Technical Awards, by which I mean the ones which are unlikely to get boasted about on future Blu-ray covers. That doesn't diminish their importance to the winners, obviously, who no doubt worked very hard, but it's undeniable that most people tend to care more about the Major Awards. So for the people who just want to know about the big name awards, there will be a separate post going up just after this one. For the cinephiles, though, this is the good shit.

Film Review: Argo (2012)

The real-life story behind Ben Affleck's Argo is so fantastically strange that even a mediocre talent could create a solid film from it. Considering that Affleck has demonstrated with his first two directorial efforts (2007's Gone Baby Gone and 2010's The Town) that he is much more than a mediocre film-maker, it should come as no surprise that he has managed to turn a thrilling true story into a thrilling feature film. Yet in telling the story of how the CIA created a fake movie in order to help people in real danger, he comes dangerously close to out and out lying in service of the story. Whilst it seems apt, given the story, it also verges on being irresponsible.

Film Review: The Town (2010)

Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) is part of a crew of bank robbers who operate out of the Charlestown area of Boston, a section of the city which, according to the (possibly bullshit) text that opens the film, produces more bank robbers than any other place in the world. During the course of their latest job, his impulsive and borderline sociopathic friend James (Jeremy Renner) takes the bank manager (Rebecca Hall) hostage. After letting her go, James has second thoughts, and wonders if she might have seen something and if they will have to kill her to tie off all the loose ends. Doug doesn't want anyone to get hurt, so he befriends her in order to find out what she knows, but quickly finds himself falling for her. Meanwhile, an cartoon pilot FBI agent (Jon Hamm) investigates the robbery and tries to find out who was responsible.