Like everyone else in this rapidly expanding universe, I'm always apprehensive about the Academy Awards, and particularly what their choices for Best Picture say about the Academy/America/culture in general. I tend to come from the standard school of argument--that the Academy favors the middlebrow, the America-centric, the studio Hollywood film. But others have taken the opposite tack, attacking the organization for ignoring science-fiction blockbusters and animated films. And, considering strong fare like The Dark Knight and Iron Man, they have a point. The Academy people saw it that way, and this year expanded their list from five to ten.

But I would never criticize any organization simply because they don't have the exact same taste as I do, especially when I'm more comfortable targeting the politics of the thing. But really, there's already enough of that, and some people have worked themselves up into such ridiculous histrionics about Avatar's supposed "overrated-ness" that I see no point in trying to follow the same path this year.

The reason I pay attention to the Oscars is the same reason that I pay attention to so many different film polls and lists--I enjoy an opportunity to catch up on movies I might have otherwise ignored. So over the past few days I've watched all ten nominated films, and I would like to tell you what I thought of them (in alphabetical order).

Avatar: I happen to be one of those people that refuses to apologize for liking Avatar, and while I was severely engaged by nearly the whole thing, I refuse to be bothered by petty criticisms along the lines of questioning James Cameron's anti-colonial bona fides when he makes movies that both cost and make a lot of money. If this were to win Best Picture, it would be because this film does a more solid and thorough anthropological study of the fictional Na'vi than Dances With Wolves did with real Native Americans. The visuals are, as everybody has told you, as amazing as anything I have seen on a movie screen, and I applaud Cameron for spending a lot of the movie simply exploring his endlessly inventive landscapes. Surely, the pro-environmental plotline is heavy-handed, but I think Avatar is in more interesting territory when it has something to say about the state of masculinity in action movies, post-20th century. The final battle between Sam Worthington's sleek, feminine blue avatar and the General in that familiar Aliens mech suit at the end acts as a sort of contest between the future standard bearers of movie action, people and machines--and I will take this over the cold, metal war-thumping of Transformers any day. On the other hand, he's still running around with a machine gun...

The Blind Side: I remember seeing the trailer for this movie and thinking it was really hilarious, and in a way, embarrassing. Without knowing too much of the back story, it appeared to be about a friendship between Sandra Bullock and a Gentle Black Giant who is shaped by Bullock into a future NFL star. It looked like an alarmingly backward take on southerners and their issues with race, and I dreaded seeing yet another movie with a humongous black man who is kind to white children and loves butterflies or whatever. After seeing the movie, I can confirm it is indeed plenty embarrassing and still pretty bad; however, I will admit that Sandra Bullock is by far the best thing is this movie, and she probably deserves a lot of accolades. As for the rest: we've got a few horrendous child actors, a conflict introduced in the final act that seems laughably invented, and a few good football scenes. I was basically unimpressed, but it is very popular.

District 9: This film, though it contains a few good ideas, isn't nearly as politically incisive or thoughtful as I imagined it to be, given what critics have said. I still liked a lot of the action sequences, as well as the basic atmosphere in the scenes set in alien internment camps, but none of the parallels to Apartheid or Palestine seem very deep or probing. Though it confuses legitimate ideas with set-pieces, I still felt there was a lot left to be said about District 9, especially about the insane inhumanity of the South African government and how that came to be an issue after however many years of Apartheid rule. As far as statements against militarism and unchecked imperialism, I think Avatar is more thoughtful.

An Education: Sandra Bullock was good, but Carey Mulligan is so watchable in this movie, I had trouble concentrating on anything else. Which has its advantages, as once again we have a movie that is actually kind of slight (in a very Nick Hornby manner). For instance, Alfred Molina, who plays Mulligan's overbearing father, strikes me as a cipher throughout merely pretending to be complex and thoughtful. And Peter Sarsgaard's character is also kind of unpleasant and creepy, which makes sense at the end, but you wonder by 16-year olds would fall for him (the question of why he is so into Mulligan is more obvious). Mulligan, at the center, shows talent and a sense of comic timing far beyond her years.

The Hurt Locker: I hate to have to state the obvious, but this movie is basically as good as anyone says it is. I haven't seen any war film like it that I remember--not only is it one with a highly specialized subject (focusing on the dangers and delights of those who are tasked to disarm bombs in war zones), but it also has characters that never seem like they fulfill any war movie caricature--everyone in the movie is competent, smart, more than a little afraid, and always on the verge of losing it. And the action scenes are really exciting too, brilliantly illustrating Hitchcock's comment about the difference between surprise and suspense, and which one we know to be preferable in our Hollywood storytelling.

Inglorious Basterds: I was really surprised by this movie. Far from the hyper-violent and hyperstylized World War II movie I was expecting, the movie seemed to be more about Tarantino's love of film lagniappe than any particular action or character sequence. Tarantino's geekery really shows in the scenes set in the movie theater, and there are several conversations throughout the film that basically amount to the kind of conversations I imagine Tarantino had in film school. Christoph Waltz is good as the villain, easily overshadowing most of the Basterds, but this is also a movie that I think is more concerned with its female characters (this continues to be more of a Tarantino trademark with each passing movie). The scenes of extreme violence tread familiar territory, but there really aren't that many compared to something like Reservoir Dogs. Good for Tarantino. It makes me think that Tarantino could make a great movie even if he lays off the ultraviolence that basically defined his previous films.

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' By Sapphire: Other than The Blind Side, this was probably the worst film of the nominated, and I judge this entirely apart from whether or not the Klan would think this was an accurate depiction of black poverty. The problems start with Mo'Nique's evil mother, a cartoon character whose purpose is to be as scary and unforgivable as possible, basically so Precious can look as much like a saint as possible. Precious herself is not a very well-written character either, her distinguishing characteristics basically being illustrated by the hardships she faced and a fantasy life where she sees herself as a famous and beloved singer/model. I don't think it's fair of me to criticize Lee Daniels' depiction of the character in that she is dull (since she is supposed to be monosyllabic and illiterate at the beginning anyway), but I don't think it is wrong of me to complain that the movie does nothing legitimately insightful with her character: it's as if, by casting Gabourey Sidibe, people will find she resembles or typifies something about poor black people that doesn't need to be spelled out in the script. The result is basically anti-drama fueled by a series of drama queens.

A Serious Man: Despite those old complaints that Hollywood is masterminded by Jews, there don't seem to be many mainstream movies that look deeply at American Jewish communities and their customs. And certainly the few that do exist were never as dark as this movie, which ranks up their with the best Coen Brothers movies, in my opinion. Whether or not the Coens' intended it, I am the perfect audience for this movie, in that I have lived through enough of this and have found enough Jewish customs to be strange and off-putting to feel at times like I was in a Coen Brothers movie. While being a great Jewish movie, it's also a great secular movie (the two often go together) in that it really illustrates just how unhelpful religious guidance can be in the face of absolute tragedy--illustrated most plainly in the scenes between Michael Stuhlbarg's hapless, miserable protagonist, and a series of rabbis, each more obtuse and blind to the plight of modern American Jews than the last. And it asks us: should we really be using this bizarre, contradictory, and at times inhumane Old Testament as a means to make our lives better?

Up: Like Inglorious Basterds, I was really surprised and delighted by the third act of this movie, which morphs from a sad and austere look at old age and loneliness into an adventure movie that pits said old man against an army of talking dogs. It seems like every Pixar movie these days has at least one scene that will have me on the verge of tears; this movie has two. And Ed Asner is great as the old man, even as I was reminded of his old voicework for the 90s Spider-Man series as J. Jonah Jameson (at least I think that was him). I wonder how Pixar can top this.

Up In The Air: Another film I found to be generally successful, and a big improvement, in my opinion, over Jason Reitman's Juno. There seems to be two movies at work here: one that tacitly explores the intense emotions surrounding those who have been recently fired due to economic reasons, and another movie about a guy who basically lives in airports and rarely has to go home. These two movies could each have been satisfying in themselves, with the former just happening to match the tenor of our times, but thrown together, they basically amount to a vehicle for George Clooney's charisma, particularly in the way this lonely man interacts with the few females in his life. Despite the underlying tone of sadness that manifests itself obviously in the scenes with Clooney doing his job, a lot of the film is very hopeful in that it suggest that old, graying people are still capable of crashing parties, getting drunk, and dancing to Young MC. Of course, the film also suggests that you still have to be very good-looking to do that, but I credit Clooney with giving me hope that I will still be attending concerts in my 40s and 50s. As long as I stay alone and unloved.

Catholics Vs. The Mentally Handicapped

Perhaps no single religious organization has played such an important role in censoring art and prosecuting new and interesting ideas as the Catholic Church. The examples are numerous and well-documented. The Church, in particular, has always been inextricably linked with the censorship of Hollywood movies, going back to the days of the Hays Code (so afraid, people were back then, of Cecil B. DeMille's period dramas). In fact, a lot of people don't know that the original text of the Code was authored by the priest and writer Daniel A. Lord. When that was replaced by the MPAA rating system in the late 1960s, Jack Valenti devised a system by which a lot of those strictures would stay in place, and you can still tell today from the obvious problem the MPAA has with grownup depictions of sex, as opposed to finding wanton displays of violence generally less offensive.

This is all common knowledge. Did you also know that the Catholic Church actually has people in their employ whose sole job is to evaluate movies based on how appropriate they would be to the average Catholic audience? The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has an "Office For Film and Broadcasting" that classifies movies according to these ratings:

A-I: General Patronage
A-II: Adults and Adolescents
A-III: Adults
L: Limited Adult Audience
O: Morally Offensive

It's sometimes fun to read their capsule reviews. I mean, they're readable, which is something you can't say about Peter Travers. At least half of their movies end up being rated "O," I've noticed. Their considerations don't always match up with the MPAA, as you will see from their review of The Invention Of Lying, which (most people don't know this) contains a pretty devastating takedown of organized religion:

Venomous supposed comedy, set in a world where lying is unknown and every word spoken is accepted as truth, and where God does not exist until a failed documentary screenwriter (Ricky Gervais) discovers the ability to deceive and, to comfort his dying mother (Fionnula Flanagan), invents the fable of an afterlife, going on to fabricate the story of a "man in the sky" who rewards good deeds and punishes evil, all of which is eagerly accepted by the credulous masses who flock to hear his message. Along with his co-writer and co-director Matthew Robinson, Gervais launches an all-out, sneering assault on the foundations of religious faith such as has seldom if ever been seen in a mainstream film, despicably belittling core Judeo-Christian beliefs and mocking both the person and the teaching of Jesus Christ. Pervasive blasphemy, some sexual humor and references, and a few rough and crude terms. O -- morally offensive. (PG-13)

Most of the reviews are in a similar, hilarious vein. But check out this writeup of Kevin Smith's Mallrats, and see if you find anything odd (my boldness):

Sophomoric sleaze about two college-age retards (Jeremy London and Jason Lee) running amok in a suburban mall after being rejected by their girlfriends (Claire Forlani and Shannen Doherty). Writer-director Kevin Smith plumbs the gutter for laughs but finds only mindless tedium. Sexual situations, nudity, drug abuse, toilet humor and constant gross language. (O) (R) ( 1995 )

The USCCB, which is the official voice of the American Catholic Church, is calling people retards? Any normal standards and practices committee would have nixed that pejorative in a heartbeat, and would probably have had words to say with the writer in question. Such is the intellectual state of American Catholics today.

NOTE: I wonder if this review was colored by the controversy surrounding Smith's Dogma in 1999? Still, that's just harsh, USCCB, to make fun of Jason Lee like that.

NOTE II: Although I saw Mallrats again recently and they're probably right...

Maybe I Just Don't Get It

Does the upcoming Allen Ginsberg biopic need to be called Howl? (suggested better title: Love Poem On Theme By Whitman). And why is he being played by James Franco, an (admittedly excellent) actor who looks about as Jewish as Harry Osborn? The biopic premiered at Sundance today; expect the standard long national rollout and Oscar buzz (with a 10% chance of severe backfire) at the end of 2010. Here's a clip:

You will hopefully remember that David Cross played Ginsberg fairly recently in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, and although similarly goyish, I thought he did a pretty good job. Or at least he had the look down, so the question has to be: can Franco rock the beard?

(Scene I'm most hoping will be dramatized [as if that is even needed]: Ginsberg vs. William F. Buckley on Firing Line).

It also has Todd Rotondi as Jack Kerouac and Andrew Rogers as Lawrence Ferlinghetti. In the annals of beat movies, will this be Naked Lunch or The Subterraneans? I'm surprised by how strongly this movie resembles hard boiled, low-budget noirs of the 50s, but that is no indicator of overall quality. The worst-case scenario is that we have another retro biopic in the most regressive sense of the word.

In other related news, Jay Farrar of Son Volt and Ben Gibbard of 500 Garden States of Elizabethtown have joined forces to release an album inspired by Kerouac's most unreadable book, Big Sur. Find out more about it here, but don't blame me if you find it a lot more compelling or enjoyable than the source material.