Oscars 2012: best dresses, best moments and RDJ

I promised some in-depth analysis, but you can't really expect me to keep a promise I made at 7am after staying up all night. Instead, my favourite dresses and moments, in summary.

Watching the 84th Academy Awards

22:43 HAS IT REALLY BEEN ANOTHER YEAR? Jeez! Well, Oscar night is here again and I'm ready to face the botox and the disappointments. Haha. I've been sick all week (my week off, naturally), and I'm still not completely at my best state of staying up all night long. I will definitely needs some doping here. My sinuses hurt. Haha. Really! Also, I'm watching the Oscars alone this year, because all of my potential companions are unavailable. This is why I decided to blog my way through the night. This should be interesting. And even though I'm watching alone, I have food for at least two people. Got a little excited there...

This year I'll be looking at both the front and the insides of Kodak theatre extra carefully. (I heard Kodak declared bankruptcy just recently, so the home of the Oscars is not actually called Kodak theatre anymore; it's the Hollywood and Highlands Center. Whatever. It's still Kodak theatre for me.) I actually took a tour inside the theatre when visiting LA last fall. It was awesome! It'll also be awesome to watch the gala and keep an eye for seat fillers, while George Clooney sneaks out to the bar every ten minutes. He does that. It's a fact! I've got reliable sources! Meaning our tour guide. Haha.

An hour before the broadcast begins. Better go prepare the pizza, and get some caffeine and medicine in my system. This could be a looooong night...

A word or two about a movie or seven

Writing posts has been incredibly challenging recently, god knows why. Anyways, here are some good, recent films I've seen during the last few months. Just want to say a few words of each. While waiting for tonight.

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The Artist

 I saw this in New York, in the Paris Theatre near Central Park. It was a very nice little theatre, and made you feel like you should've dressed up a bit.

I very much fell in love with this movie! There is just something about good old black and white silent films, some charm that makes you want to build a time machine and travel back to another era to experience that glamour and romantic simplicity of life. Ah! It is so genius that while everyone else is making 3D movies and throwing money to the wind in order to make bigger and better CGI explosions, someone has the sense to return to the roots of cinema and bring us something so genuine and wonderfully straight-forward that you can't help but nostalgize about a time that must have been so much better than the one we live now! Whoever thought it'd be a good idea to shoot movies in color, and with sound... Shame on you! (And if you have to use sound, do it in the clever, creative ways as seen in this movie.)

The Artist has ruled the awards season so far. My thumbs are up high and hopefully the season will end accordingly today.

Carnage

Carnage was the last film I saw during my stay in the US last fall. I saw it in a shady little theatre near the Lincoln Center in NYC. There were hardly anyone else in the audience.

Carnage tells about two pairs of parents, whose kids get into a minor fight, and so they get together in the appartment of one of the couples, to settle the issue... like mature, civilized grown-ups. The story was originally written for the stage, which is quite clear, since the whole movie takes place in the appartment. And the staircase, a little. Even the elevator, once or twice!

I very much enjoyed this movie. It's hugely entertaining and pretty hilarious, leaning completely on the fast, witty dialogue and silly situations that culminate into absurd proportions. Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly all do a fantastic job, portraying their more or less mentally unstable characters, but Christoph Waltz steals the spotlight (he does that, doesn't he?). His character definitely seems like the biggest asshole of them all, but he ends up being the one that makes the most sense. Pretty awesome little movie, highly recommended!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Aka Hollywood comes to Scandinavia.

It is weird seeing Daniel Craig standing next to the Scandinavian traffic sign for a pedestrian crossing. It was also weird listening to his more or less convincing Swedish accent (and all those hej hejs and skåls...). But I got over both of these oddities pretty fast. David Fincher's American remake of the original Swedish story about men who hate women managed to absorb me in pretty well.

The impressive opening credits make it more than clear that the Scandinavian modesty and simplicity is all gone and we're talking about Hollywood now. But I actually thought Hollywood did a lot of good to the story. They hadn't even censored any of the horrible and violent scenes, which is a good thing, I guess, even though not very much fun to watch. The music was Oscar-winner-great, and the altered ending better than the original.

Rooney Mara's Lisbeth Salander was, first, kind of an action hero. I mean, that slide down the escalator? She's also slightly softer, younger, more fragile and humane version of Lisbeth Salander. Yay or nay? Well, she was certainly more approachable and somehow more relatable than Noomi Rapace's interpretation of the character, and you know me, I don't mind a hint of that good old American sentimentality...

So yeah, I kind of prefered the remake to the original. Was this because I'm more used to watching American films, shot, acted and directed in that distinctive American way? Maybe. I don't know. Does David Fincher have something to do with it? Definitely.

The Help

The Artist might still be my favourite in the Oscar race, but maybe if The Help had equal chances for victory, the tables might be turned. I'm not really sure why, but I liked this film enourmously and was very much touched by it.

For one, I'm happy to see a great movie concentrating on women and it's great that its greatness is acknowledged. There are not many such movies out there; movies about women, movies that can be taken seriously even though they are about women. In addition, in The Help, most important characters are black, which I suppose is another unusual thing to be pointed out. Sure, there's the thing about black people only being able to be saved by white people, but let's put that aside. I'm just happy about this movie, because it's genuine and true and funny and touching, and the characters and the acting are just suberb. I actually want Oscars for all of these people! I still have about twelve hours to decide whether I'm rooting for Octavia Spencer or Jessica Chastain for Supporting Actress!

Also, I'm currently reading the book and it's excellent. Very engaging.

Midnight in Paris

I don't usually like Woody Allen. I mean, his earlier work is kind of charming, even for me, but that more recent stuff just made me want to skip Midnight in Paris altogether. I'm glad I didn't, though!

First, it's le Paris, ah, oui, l'amour, c'est la vie, and other stuff I could say to pretend I actually
speak French. Paris is beautiful, and the beauty of it is more easily transfered on screen than the beauty of any other place on Earth. It might even look better on screen than in real life! No! Yes! Yes. Shoot me! OK, kidding...

The story of the movie was not what I expected. I mean, it was just what I expected until the first midnight. Then it got interesting and odd and fascinating, and that's what makes it stand out in my book, making it my favourite Woody Allen film I've seen so far.

Hugo

Very much like The Artist, Hugo is a love song for early cinema, in it's own, charming way. And not just for early cinema, more like for cinema as a whole, as an art form.

I did like Hugo. It was quite captivating and magical and sweet. Again, Paris is merveilleux! (Yeah, I used a dictionary for that...) The actors did a solid, good work, though none of them really stood out for me. Except maybe Christopher Lee, in that tiny role he had. Darn, does that man have a presence!

If nothing else, Hugo is a reminder that it's pretty nice, after all, to live in the era of CGI and 3D. My gosh, this movie looked amazing! Every frame was a work of art!

So this is what we'll do tonight: Hugo gets the awards for all the technical stuff. The Artist gets the real cream. Deal?

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P.S. Finally, I have to say something about Drive. Everyone's been going on and on about how it's so awesome and one of the best, if not best, film of 2011, so I expected a lot. And... um, ok? I have absolutely nothing to say about it. It didn't affect me in any way. I didn't even find Ryan Gosling desirable. Nothing. Blank head, no emotions. No wait, I was annoyed by what a sorry little bitch they had turned Christina Hendricks into. Despicable! Oh well. I just didn't get the movie, I guess. I usually don't get this kind of gangster nonsense.

The world will indeed be watching

If you like epic, and I do, there is a lot to look forward to.

The newest Hunger Games trailer came out some days ago. Still looking extremely good, still getting tremendous goosebumps, still not enough Haymitch. But Stanley Tucci, ah! And I'm starting to be very convinced that Lenny Kravitz will rock the role of Cinna, so shut up, haters.

Super Bowl also gave us another teaser of the upcoming Avengers. Whoa! Just, whoa! I mean... whoa! It's going to be simply... whoa! And my patriotic little fangirl heart is pounding very excitedly for Captain America. There's just something about those stars and stripes... and abs...

I haven't been too stoked about The Amazing Spider-Man, but the new trailer is beginning to tickle my fancy a bit. Good old Andrew will of course rock my world, no doubt about that, but also, it seems darker and more complex than the Tobey Maguire fun rides. P.S. I'm hoping Emma Stone will have something proper to do, besides being the damsel in distress.

Hulluna Saraan (2012) / crazy about Emilie

directed by Samuli Valkama / starring Emilie de Ravin, Jussi Nikkilä, Ville Virtanen

Vieläkö on villihevosiaaaa...

 

On aina hauska huomata että kyllä meiltä täältä kotimaastakin löytyy mainioita elokuvantekijöitä. Kyllähän se nyt tässä vaiheessa olisi varmaan pitänyt jo sisäistää, mutta jotenkin se vaan joka kerta yllättää ("Yllättävän hyvä suomalaiseksi leffaksi!" Kaikki ovat joskus joko kuulleet tai itse suustaan päästäneet tuon kommentin, am I right or am I right?) kun kotimainen onnistuu naurattamaan, viihdyttämään tai koskettamaan. Tai kaikkia kolmea, vähän niinkuin Hulluna Saraan! I enjoyed it a lot, for a Finnish film! (...) Tästä tulee varmaan kaksikielinen postaus, but isn't that only appropriate, since the film I'm discussing is bilingual, too.

Hulluna Saraan, or "crazy about Sara", or Love and Other Troubles, is a comedy about Finnish men, about unusual daddy issues, about love, about other troubles, and a little bit about clashing cultures, too. It brings the Australian Lost actress Emilie de Ravin to the streets of Turku and the fields of the Finnish country side, as an American girl who sweeps both the son and the father off their feet. Se toi mukanaan nostalgisia tuntemuksia muistuttaessaan että olipa kerran tv-ohjelma nimeltään Tenavatähti (olisin niin halunnut itse Seppo Hovin pikku cameo-rooliin!). It made me long for summer even more than I already do; because you know what they say about the Finnish summer... It's always worth the wait. It is what gets us through the rest of the year. Meaning, from August to June. Sigh. Anyways. We know it's worth it.

Tämä elokuva oli melkoinen piristysruiske! Hyvin ilahduttava ja sympaattinen, ja äänenkin sai naurahdella useamman kerran. Todellinen hyvänmielenelokuva, genressään melkoisen täydellinen. Feel-good, feel-good! I should watch more shameless, honest, guilt-free feel-good flicks! In fact, maybe I should watch ONLY such films! Because, you know, I feel good now! Earlier today I watched a distinctively Finnish, depressive kind of film, and I felt crappy. Now... I feel goooood! Simple as that.

The characters in this film were fun and likable, and they worked well together. The father/son relationship was of course the corner stone of it all, and it was very amusing to watch these two completely different personalities tear apart everything we thought we knew about the traditional roles of fathers and sons. It's hilarious, and the actors do a great job. Also, the Finnish language and the way of speaking can be used in such a comical way; the wonderful awkwardness and blunt expressions make great comedy!

Ja entäs meidän ihana ulkomaan vahvitus! Emilie is just adorable, cute as a button! And of course I very much appreciate her for coming to Finland and making this film! Two thumbs up, girl! I mean, she's worked in Hawaii and she's kissed Robert Pattinson, so saying yes to a weird little project like this...? Awesome, she's totally cool and extremely amazing in my book now. She was cool and amazing before, but now she's got the intensives too.

I'm always a sucker for stories about the Finnish culture clashing with another. It is both interesting and absolutely hilarious to look at Finland and the Finns from another culture's point of view; in this case, American. It makes it extra fun that you happen to be familiar with that other culture, too. (By the way, if you haven't yet, I very much recommend reading How to Marry a Finnish Girl by Phil Schwarzmann. He makes such spot-on comments and observations about this country, you can't help but laugh. And he gets pretty harsh, too. I actually kind of felt like moving away from this country after finishing the book, haha.) Finnish-ness in general is just very entertaining to discuss and analyze, we are such a peculiar group of people!

Lopuksi huomautettakoon, että Ebookers.fi:n mainos hollywoodilaisen taksin katolla oli aika hauska yksityiskohta. Jokseenkin hienovaraista piilomainontaa. Ja voi, se riemu kun tunnistaa valkokankaalla näkyvän paikan ja voi kertoa käyneensä siellä! Me Miinan kanssa vingahdettiin riemusta yhtä aikaa kun Roosevelt Hotel vilahti kuvassa. Ah ja voi.

Kautta Ronald Reaganin haamun, olipas ilahduttava elokuva. (Olisikohan tämä se ihmeidentekijä joka saa minut ostamaan suomalaisen leffan DVD:lle toista kertaa elämässäni? Menolippu Mombasaan on vähän yksinäinen hyllyssäni.)

Oscar nominees 2012

It seems it was about a month ago when they last gave away a bunch of Hollywood's golden boys, but here we are again. The nominees for this years Academy Awards were just announced. I must say I haven't been building up any expectations, and I'm feeling a lot more indifferent about these awards than usually. Maybe because there hasn't been a Toy Story 3 or a Social Network for me this year, meaning nothing has gotten me too pumped up. And of course, I still have a LOT to see before February 26. Funny, you'd think that spending the fall in the country where all the biggest and best movies come from (and where a movie comes to theatres the same day it's released - not four months later, if at all) would give you an advantage in keeping up with your Oscar hopefuls, but apparently not. Maybe it was my inopportune location (Emporia, Kansas isn't exactly the Mecca of culture). Maybe I just saw the wrong movies (whooot, I was CERTAIN Glee the 3D Concert Movie would rob all the awards!). Anyway. Here are a few of my thoughts.

It's a good year for animated film. And when I say good I mean unpredictable! Since Pixar spent the year making Cars 2, there is no Pixar film nominated for best animated film, so someone else finally has a chance! Good for them.

The Bridesmaids! Well well well. I'm not a huge fan of the film, but it certainly is refreshing to see a female-centered comedy nominated for best original screenplay, and one of its stars in the supporting actress category.

I really can't say much, because there's so much yet to be seen before I can shout out opinions that are not completely baseless and biased. From the best picture category I've actually seen just one film, so it's not very surprising that I feel like naming The Artist as my favourite. Well, it was a wonderful film, and I think it might remain my favourite, even after I've seen some of the other candidates. Let's see.

I am very eager to see The Help and Hugo; these are actually the two that I believe might have a shot at challenging The Artist in my book, and I will do my best to check them out before the Oscars.

I'm not sure why, but The Descendants seems really annoying to me. The trailer kind of makes me yawn. I'm not excited about Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, either, it just gives me a too strong The Blind Side kind of vibe, you know, one of those oh-so-sentimental and inspirational and disgustingly American stories. Might skip it. I've never been one for Woody Allen, and Tree of Life just seems boring as hell. I'm not sure about what The War Horse might have to offer for me... And Moneyball. Well, it's about baseball. Baseball is officially the most numbing sports in the world. I might still give the film a chance. Maybe it's not all about baseball. And if it is, maybe they've edited out all the parts where the players try and try and try and try hit the ball but never do.

When it comes to the acting categories, I, again, don't dare say much. Bérénice Bejo was absolutely lovely in The Artist, so her nomination made me happy. Sure, she wasn't exactly in a supporting role, but never mind, she's better off in a category without Meryl Streep, haha. Speaking of whom, I really want her to win that third Oscar, it's been a damn long time coming. Even though Michelle Williams as Marilyn really won me over, too... Rooney Mara's nomination was a nice surprise, but I guess she doesn't stand a chance, and that's ok.

I've been kind of inattentive, so I don't know if someone got snubbed. I did notice the lack of J. Edgar. Shame, it was an alright film. And yeah yeah, I have good memories about it since I saw it in Washington, a few blocks from the FBI building. Ah! Good times. Anyways. Enough with the bragging, haha...

In summary... Hugo got most nominations (11), with The Artist right behind it (10). I guess I'm happy! My favourite and my potential other favourite! And lo and behold, it is indeed a "kids' film" leading the game! Hurray! Take that, stupid adults!

Scarface & Manhattan aka let us prerend it's still 2011

January 1

18:25 New Year, old pains in the rear. This is me watching Scarface, as the part 11/12 of my 2011 Resolution project. Yeah, yeah, I broke the resolution. They're not meant to be kept, anyway...

18:29 ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY MINUTES? Oh. Fun. I'm gonna need some ice cream here.

18:40 Ok, let's go.

18:43 Is this the Say Hello To My Little Friend one? I think so.

18:46 That's a pretty good accent, Al, I give you that.

19:00 Ooh, Espanol.

19:50 Why are these movies always about grumpy, violent men, who take themselves too seriously...

20:48 "Can't you stop saying fuck all the time? Can't you stop talking about money? It's boring."

21:37 Yay, I did it! And it wasn't even that bad! I mean, it could've been a lot worse. I think Scarface goes in the same category with Sunset Boulevard and Citizen Kane; I do kind of see what the fuss it about, but there's nothing in it for me personally.

January 4

19:38 Alrighty, time to wrap up 2011! This should be fairly easy. I've only seen some more recent films by Allen, and though I've disliked them all, I think I just might enjoy Manhattan, at least a little. Because, my guess is, it sets in Manhattan. And it's only an hour and thirty minutes, so even if I'll suffer, I won't suffer for long! Ha! Let's go.

21:16 Ha ha! Watched the whole movie without one snide remark!

So. I did enjoy watching this movie. Compared to the torture the recent few classics have been (yes, I'm talking to you, Goodfellas and Scarface), this was a very pleasant experience. Give the girl her relationship dramas and she'll be happy; that's how it goes, I'm afraid. Also, compared to my previous Woody Allen experiences (yes, I'm talking to you Cassandra's Dream, Match Point and especially you, Vicky Christina Barcelona), I got quite a lot more out of Manhattan. It's pretty charming and smart and relatable, and you can't really not like Allen's character, so comfortable with his own awkwardness. Meryl Streep was (and is) a goddess. I couldn't keep my eyes off of her! And New York! (I can't believe it's been only two weeks since I left the States, and cruised in a yellow taxi in Manhattan, on my way to the airport... Life is so weird.)

Still, there's still something too Allen-y that kept me from liking the film more. One thing must be the endings, and the indecisive and aimeless nature of the story. It feels so purposeless, watching a movie and in the end... nothing's really changes. Like I was wasting my time, putting my mind into a story that ends up going nowhere. Agh, I just need closure, or at least change.

Anyway. That's that for 2011. Now I can fully acknowledge that it is 2012.