Tag: russell crowe

Oscar History: 2001

As far as film history, the year 2001 will most be remembered for the first installments of two billion dollar franchises, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Other than that, not much will be remembered about the year. It was an exceptionally weak year for movies.

This was reflected in a relatively unimpressive group of Best Picture nominees. Ron Howard’s good but not great A Beautiful Mind would take top prize against Robert Altman’s Gosford Park, Todd Field’s In the Bedroom, and Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge. The other nominee: Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which began a three-year streak of the franchise’s entry being nominated.

I’ve always felt Fellowship was the best of the trilogy and I certainly would’ve had no problem with it winning over Mind. The Academy decided against some edgier material, such as David Lynch’s critically lauded Mulholland Drive and Chris Nolan’s twisty thriller Memento.

Ron Howard took Best Director over Altman and Jackson. Lynch would be nominated here for Mulholland, as well as Ridley Scott for Black Hawk Down. Field and Luhrmann were the two auteurs whose Picture was nominated left out. Certainly, I would’ve reserved a slot for Nolan for his work in Memento.

Denzel Washington would earn his first Best Actor prize for Training Day (he won Supporting Actor for Glory in 1989). Other nominees: previous year’s winner Russell Crowe for Mind, Sean Penn for I Am Sam, Will Smith as Ali, and Tom Wilkinson for In the Bedroom.

I would have considered Johnny Depp for his performance in Blow or Billy Bob Thornton in Monster’s Ball. Keeping with the Memento kick, how about Guy Pearce for his challenging lead role? And if you’ve read my previous Oscar History posts, you’ll notice I usually advocate for comedic performances, which the Academy typically ignores. So how about a shout-out to Ben Stiller for his hilarious turn as Derek Zoolander?

Oscar history would be made as Halle Berry became the first African-American to win Best Actress for Monster’s Ball. It would also be the first year where both the Actor and Actress prizes went to African-Americans. Other nominees: Judi Dench in Iris, Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge, Sissy Spacek for In the Bedroom, and Renee Zellwegger for Bridget Jones Diary. Other performances worthy of consideration: Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive and Audrey Tautou in Amelie.

Jim Broadbent was a surprise Supporting Actor winner for Iris, beating out favorites Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast and Ian McKellen in Lord of the Rings. Other nominees: Ethan Hawke for Training Day and Jon Voight in Ali.

Steve Buscemi in Ghost World and Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums were worthy nominees. And here’s a totally outside-the-box selection from me: Bruce Davison’s wonderful performance as Kirsten Dunst’s dad in the romantic drama Crazy/Beautiful, a greatly underrated film.

Jennifer Connelly would win Supporting Actress for A Beautiful Mind. Other nominees: Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith (both for Gosford Park), Marisa Tomei for In the Bedroom, and Kate Winslet for Iris.

I probably would have found room for Cameron Diaz’s effective performance as Tom Cruise’s jilted lover in Vanilla Sky.

So, all in all, other than some historical Actor and Actress winners, 2001 was a pretty blah year for the Academy. A Beautiful Mind is a solid flick, but definitely one of the least memorable Best Picture winners of recent years, as I see it.

Gangster Squad and Broken City Movie Reviews

January is typically seen as a dumping ground for films that studios have little confidence in. When a picture opens in the first month of the year with big stars, that can usually be seen as a red flag. And so it is with Gangster Squad and Broken City, which both opened in January to disappointing box office results. Audiences got it right here – they’re both forgettable titles that don’t deserve the considerable talent involved.

Gangster Squad is from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer and takes place in Los Angeles circa 1949 when gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) has taken over the city with his particularly deadly Mob tactics. A straight-laced Sergeant (Josh Brolin) is enlisted by the police chief (Nick Nolte) to form a squad to take Mickey out and restore order at any cost. Brolin enlists lots of recognizable actors to help in the cause, from Ryan Gosling to Giovanni Ribisi to Michael Pena to Robert Patrick to Anthony Mackie.

The pic is a highly stylized exercise whose tone is closer to The Untouchables than other genre entries. The difference? The Untouchables was really good and effective. Squad feels unoriginal and derivative. Sure, it looks good, but you won’t remember much about it the morning. Most of the actors try their best, but they have skimpy material to work with.

Among the issues I had: we get a romance between Gosling’s character and Mickey’s girlfriend, played by Emma Stone. As you will recall, Gosling and Stone had major chemistry in 2011’s romantic comedy Crazy Stupid Love. Here, their relationship is underwritten and dull and it left me wishing I was watching their previous movie. Sean Penn, one of the finest actors of his generation, goes way over the top as Mickey. Also, his make-up job is pretty ridiculous. Brolin’s character is a bit of a bore and ultra cliched. He even comes with the pregnant wife whose character is straight outta Screenwriting 101.

Gangster Squad wants to bash us over the head with its excessive violence, but never bothers to give us interesting, well-written characters to get involved with. Director Fleischer showed tremendous promise with the original Zombieland. This movie doesn’t have an original idea or thought in its head.

Gangster Squad: ** (out of four)

Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe headline Broken City from director Allen Hughes (who co-directed Menace II Society and From Hell with his brother). The city is New York City, where Wahlberg is an ex-cop turned private eye who’s hired by the corrupt Mayor (Crowe) to find out who his wife is sleeping with days before the Mayoral election. This leads to your usual double crosses and instances where “not all is at it seems!”.

The first hour or so of City is decent if unremarkable. Eventually, the screenplay moves toward twists and turns that rely on BIG and unbelievable conveniences, like Wahlberg finding key pieces of evidence in a dumpster where the rest of the documents are being shredded. Thank goodness they forgot to shred the most important piece of evidence!

Like Squad, the characters are poorly developed. Wahlberg’s story arc is a familiar one – he’s a cop who may or may not have shot an unarmed suspect. He had a drinking problem… wanna take bets on if he relapses? He’s conflicted about doing the right thing, yada, yada, yada…

Crowe adds some decent acting to an otherwise unremarkable character. Catherine Zeta-Jones doesn’t have much to do as his neglected wife, who may or may not be having an affair.

Broken City fails mostly because of a lackluster screenplay. Wahlberg and Crowe deserve better and director Hughes has certainly shown an ability to do far better.

Broken City: ** (out of four)

So the January curse holds true for these pictures. Are they both watchable? Sure, but with lots of end of 2012 titles just reaching home release and the summer season beginning at the multiplex, why waste your time? I just did that for you!