311. Les Miserables

311. (15 Dec) Les Miserables (2012, Tom Hooper)* 28



Midway through act two, Hugh Jackman and Eddie Redmayne quite literally are up to their necks in fecal matter. That Les Miserables willfully offers that metaphor makes it the ballsiest or most clueless film of the year. Considering how dreadful it is, I'm leaning toward the latter.

There's not an iota of scale in Les Miserables, with roughly four wide shots that so much as hint that this is a historical epic in its entire bloated runtime. Just like in The King's Speech, Tom Hooper's amateurish aesthetic undermines every moment. Here he's as reliant on dutch angles as he is on dopey framing, keeping heads in the corner of a shot while negative space dominates the background. It's one of the worst photographed major studio films I've seen. But there's simply not much to work with since the sets and costumes are decidedly unremarkable. When Les Miz is not irritating to look at, it's boring.

Tom Hooper's direction is astoundingly misguided. Without dialogue, he relies on the score to tell the story. Unfortunately, only five musical numbers are at all good. Most of the talk-singing is instantly forgettable (namely the added and useless tune "Suddenly"). The nasally Hugh Jackman and overly emotive Samantha Barks are shameful standouts in the cast. Russell Crowe channels Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia! Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfriend, without a hint of romantic chemistry, are wasted vocal talents. The much discussed Anne Hathaway is the only performer to give emotional impact to the film at all, overplaying her part, but at least not embarrassing herself in an intense close-up during "I Dreamed a Dream."

Hooper has suggested he attempted to emulate West Side Story, at least during "One More Day," which shows how ambitious and incompetent he is. His shoddily edited film not only is totally incoherent, unmoving, and uninteresting, it's laughable. Crowe's biggest dramatic moment is the most obvious joke, but it's impossible to enumerate the goofs in a film where next to nothing works. Empty heads and empty filmmaking.

277. Silver Linings Playbook

277. (17 Nov) Silver Linings Playbook (2012, David O. Russell)* 31



Grating and mind-numbingly pandering, there's not a single genuine moment to be found in Silver Linings Playbook. There is, at least, the effervescent presence of Jennifer Lawrence, who at least elevates every scene she's in. But she's the only one bringing nuanced work alongside actors who are pure caricature. Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver, in particular, could hardly be in worse form, offering performances without the slightest hint of humanity in them.

David O. Russell's script is pure amateurism. He feels the need to cram all of his small ensemble into every scene, even when they have no place there (e.g. the psychiatrist at the football game, the cop at the dance competition). This gives the false sense that people from all walks of life are bonding when, in fact, this underscores the phoniness. And what could be further from reality when, out of nowhere, someone shouts to a busload of Philadelphia Eagles fans who happen to be Indian, "Go back to your own country! The Eagles are our team!"

The gags here are about as subtle, revolving around something as stupid as a mispronunciation of Trazodone. The so-called drama includes a manic episode where Cooper freaks out about his missing wedding video. Such scenes are painfully out of place considering the serious tonal shift it requires from broad comedy, but it emphasizes just how bad Cooper is in the lead. It's all the more reason why I'm certainly overrating Lawrence, who at least can read a line without seeming like she's in a high school play.

268. Lincoln

268. (10 Nov) Lincoln (2012, Steven Spielberg)* 51



With their decisively titled Lincoln, Spielberg and company have invited the expectation that this will be the definitive film about the man's life and work. This is no sweeping biopic, however, as it narrowly focuses on his efforts to get the 13th Amendment through the House of Representatives. The confinement in time, along with Tony Kushner's careful selections of scenes, the right dramatic moments, and a surprising amount of humor keep this reined in. But other than a superb performance from Daniel Day-Lewis, this in no other way lives up to an overly ambitious title.

Spielberg attempts to play silly tricks on us, trying to draw suspense out of the final House of Representatives vote, for instance, which plays like we're watching C-SPAN more than anything else. A far more questionable decision comes when we're misled into thinking we're at Ford's Theater at the moment of assassination when in fact we're at another theater entirely.

Kushner understandably has to inject expository dialogue here and there, but it's often shockingly clumsy. Scenes with Sally Field, as a thoroughly unconvincing Mary Todd Lincoln, are full of bits where she explains something that's happened in years past, from her buggy accident to the death of their son. It places on undue burden on Field, who has to enlighten us on critical history that would be far more compelling if it had played out on-screen.

The cast is a mixed bag. Tommy Lee Jones and Lee Pace are the strongest scene stealers. Many smaller roles are downright distracting, notably appearances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Adam Driver and S. Epatha Merkerson. Work by Michael Stuhlburg and Walton Goggins is shamefully lacking in nuance.

To Lincoln's credit, the film mostly make efforts not to be too much a revisionist history. Only a dopey moment where Mary Todd and Abraham chat about how history will remember them, near the film's end, feels totally unnecessary. Injecting African-American characters into a story that might otherwise have only been about white people granting equality is also well-advised.

In terms of crafts, Janusz Kaminski's cinematography looks like something you'd see on the History Channel. A handful of sets stand out, but the costumes are wholly unremarkable. John Williams has composed a subdued score that reminds me just how shameless and boisterous his work on War Horse was.

254. The Sessions

254. (27 Oct) The Sessions (2012, Ben Lewin)* 69



John Hawkes and Helen Hunt offer two of the performances of the year with The Sessions, a film that captures the power and poignancy of intimacy better than just about any other. Their scenes together are funny, poignant and astoundingly moving. Both excel even when they're not sharing screentime, but they work so well together it's transportive and career-defining.

The film itself is powerful throughout. Ben Lewin's script is clever enough, but it's in moments like where he visually explores the ecstasy of an orgasm that it's clear he's a director first. There are issues with the peripheral characters here, who are mostly stock or comic relief. They make Hawkes and Hunt's scenes together even easier to relish.

205. The Master

205. (16 Sep) The Master (2012, Paul Thomas Anderson)* 76



It's not disappointing to see Paul Thomas Anderson in such similar territory to There Will Be Blood, but the earlier film's such a stronger indictment of religion and a more ordered, compelling narrative. It's still extraordinary to see Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman build off one another's performances with such collaborative spirit. The deprogramming scene, in particular, is an acting master class. Each man's use of charisma to different ends is intriguing enough and there's much to be said for the strength of Anderson's script. However, the film's final third feels sluggish, distractingly on-the-nose when when Amy Adams delivers a monologue in her last scene. Adams seems slightly out of place here, simply not keeping up with her co-stars. With the most limited of screentime, Laura Dern makes a far better impression. It's difficult to imagine anything will come close to matching Mihai Malaimare Jr.'s perfect cinematography.

032. Bridesmaids

032. (26 Jan) /Bridesmaids/ (2011, Paul Feig) 59



Watching Bridesmaids back knowing its screenplay is Oscar-nominated makes it apparent just how weak the writing is. Exposition and transitions could scarcely be clumsier. The film is funny regardless and there's some genuinely good dialogue in the scenes between Wiig and O'Dowd, but it's a bizarre Oscar nominee when they usually look toward strongly structured comedies like In Bruges. The McCarthy nomination is less objectionable than I initially thought, though it is indefensible.

475. Albert Nobbs

475. (23 Nov) Albert Nobbs (2011, Rodrigo Garcia) 51



Not since Barbra Streisand in Yentl has there been a less convincing actress masquerading as a man than Glenn Close. Janet McTeer very slightly completes the illusion better. There are emotionally effective moments in Albert Nobbs, all of them due to Close letting some emotion break through an otherwise stoic character. She won't win the Oscar and shouldn't, but it's a performance that has its share of nuance and success.

Mia Wasikowska is in dreadful form and former model Aaron Johnson is completely inappropriate casting for a 19th century period piece since his shirt comes off. Their romantic subplot is a major inconvenience to the film. For the most part, it's a competent enough film about the miserably high price of repression. In the hands of Ang Lee, it might have been noteworthy.

457. The Artist

457. (06 Nov) The Artist (2011, Michel Hazanavicius)* 48



The first thirty minutes of The Artist are lighter than air, suggesting a rather promising comedy. Then the film turns dramatic and whatever momentum was being gained is lost. A charming series of takes where Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo's flirting interrupts filming on a movie they're making gives way to suicide attempts and house fires and all sort of melodramatic nonsense. The movie simply ceases to be any fun and, considering it's sustaining on the gimmick of being silent, that makes the last three-fourths of the film quite a chore. There are amusing moments along the way, mostly involving an adorable dog. It's one of the frothiest, dopiest movies I've seen in quite some time. I guess that certifies it as a Best Picture contender.

408. The Help

408. (03 Sep) The Help (2011, Tate Taylor)* 54



The Help is so cloying and manipulative, it's almost implausible a performance like Viola Davis' can exist within it. The film simply doesn't deserve her, as Davis gives a performance with such grace and nuance the rest of the cast looks amateurish in her wake. The bug-eyed Octavia Spencer, for instance, is positively exhausting to watch, playing broad comedy as if she wandered out of a TBS sitcom. I'm unclear how both of these ladies can be considered on par in Oscar buzz.

The film itself is so shamelessly tear-jerking, sentimental, and crowd-pleasing, it seems destined for a Best Picture nomination. That's an excessive honor, to be sure, for a film that overplays a poopy pie joke and derails in its unrelentingly upbeat finale. (A senile Sissy Spacek saying she can only remember that she was put in a nursing home by Bryce Dallas Howard and that her daughter ate poop is where the gag has clearly been beaten to death.) The lengthy run-time is felt in the last hour when an out of nowhere argument erupts between Emma Stone and Chris Lowell. For the most part, The Help is well-structured enough to maintain interest, but the need to tie up loose ends with the last few scenes is the film's undoing.

Sharen Davis' costumes would be a worthy awards competitor. A plaid jacket Lowell wears in his second scene with Stone is an outstanding costumes and all of the work here easily outshines her forgettable garbs from Ray and Dreamgirls. She rivals Anna B. Sheppard as one of those costume designers with no range, but she's in her wheelhouse with The Help.