Film Review: The Monuments Men (2014)

The core argument of The Monuments Men is one that is provocative in the abstract, though less than compelling as the driving force for a lavishly produced war drama. In telling the true story of art scholars who went to the European Front to find, identify and protect great works of art stolen by the Nazis, co-star, co-writer and director George Clooney reframes the conflict as not just being between conflicting ideologies. It was also a battle for history, and the Nazi effort to steal art - and, later in the war, to destroy it - was an attempt to rewrite the very history of the world. In that context, the efforts of the Monuments Men to protect the past seem important, even noble, rather than something flip or insubstantial when compared to the death happening around them.

Online Film Critics Society Award Winners Announced

This morning, the winners for the 17th Annual Online Film Critics Society Awards were revealed. The big winner, as has been case with many other critics' groups, was Steve McQueen's 12 Years A Slave, which was awarded Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay. Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity was no slouch, either; it won Best Director, Editing and Cinematography, and was awarded a special award for its revolutionary special effects.

Meanwhile, Act of Killing won Best Documentary in an incredibly strong category; Cate Blanchett took Best Actress for Blue Jasmine; Blue is the Warmest Colour was awarded Best Film Not In The English Language; and The Wind Rises, the final film from Hayao Miyazaki, won Best Animated Feature. 

Here's the full list of nominations. The winners have been highlighted in red, while the nominees I put as number one on my ballot have been represented by an asterisks.

Film Review: Blue Jasmine (2013)

During his creative peak in the 1980s, one of Woody Allen's greatest strengths was his ability to write complex and captivating female characters. It helped that most of them were played by the incomparable Mia Farrow, and their creative partnership produced some of the best work either has ever done; he wrote great characters and she brought them to sparkling life. After their relationship ended in 1992, Allen still seemed capable of writing great roles for actresses, but they became less varied, falling into a handful of archetypes that could be enlivened by great performances - such as a never better Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite - but they were also flatter and less alive than many of his best. His latest, Blue Jasmine, marks a startling reversal of the trend, offering one of his most complicated characters and one of the best performances of Cate Blanchett's career.