In the last decade, one Best Picture nominee I had the most praise for was Sideways, a beautifully melancholy comedy drama from the pen of Alexander Payne. Oscar seemingly fell in love with Payne after that because both of his next two films were nominated in the Best Picture category.
Seven years after Sideways, Payne's next project was The Descendants; an adaptation of Kaui Hart Hemmings' book of the same name. Just like he did with Sideways, Payne won the Oscar for adapted screenplay this time sharing the award with his co-writers Jim Rash and Nat Faxon. The film itself is based around the life of Hawaiian lawyer Matt King, whose wife Elizabeth has recently been hospitalised following a boating accident. As a result of this, Matt is forced to become a proper father to his mischievous ten-year-old daughter Scottie and her troubled teenager sister Alexandra. Whilst trying to deal with his personal issues Matt is also involved with the sale of an expensive plot of land that was owned by his ancestors. As the lawyer, it's his job to trawl through the legal paperwork and make the ultimate decision whether he and his cousins should sell and to who. Events get even more complicated when Alex reveals that Elizabeth was cheating on Matt with smarmy real estate agent Brian Speer to the extent that she was about to ask him for a divorce. The film then follows Matt's quest to track down Brian, bond with his daughters and decide what to do with the land. At the film's heart is a story about the bonds between family which is represented both through Matt's relationship with his daughters and his decision regarding his ancestral land. I think that Payne and his co-writers did a good job at looking at a man who had essentially been passive all of his life and turn him into someone who had to be active. In a way this is the sort of film I would have a liked A Serious Man to be as Matt King is similar to the protagonist from the Coen Brothers' film. But, thanks in part to Payne's script, you grow to like Matt and his daughters as the film goes on.
A big part of why the film works is due to George Clooney's performance as Matt, in which he changed his image from the debonair film star. Elsewhere in the blog we've seen Clooney play everything from smooth-talking astronaut to intelligent fixer but The Descendants sees him alter his style. Matt is instead quite ineffectual at points and Clooney brilliantly displays his character's hopelessness especially in regards to raising his daughters and Elizabeth's situation. Despite altering his style, Clooney's vocals are still as silky as ever and they are well utilised to deliver several of the film's key monologues. I did feel at times as if Payne, Rash and Faxon were cheating at times by heaping a dollop of exposition onto our plates, but Clooney's delivery is so flawless that it doesn't really matter. Lending able support is Shailene Woodley, who earned a Golden Globe nomination and became a breakout star through her role as the damaged Alex. Woodley and Clooney share a believable chemistry and the scenes between their characters are thoroughly touching. One of my only issues was the fact that Alex had to be accompanied by the frankly useless Sid, a surfer dude who in my opinion served very little purpose. Due to the fact that The Descendants is filmed in and around Hawaii, The Descendants also has some great locations to work from and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael utilises these throughout the film. Further contributing to this theme is the Hawaiian music-heavy soundtrack which I found utterly pleasurable. Whilst The Descendants contains very little in the way of twists and turns it's a lovely little character study on the meaning of family. It also includes one of George Clooney's best performances to date and if you're worried that we haven't had enough of him yet then you're in luck because the next post is dedicated just to him.
But for now we skip two years into the future with Nebraska which, like Sideways, was another road trip film. Interestingly it was the first of Payne's films in which he wasn't actively involved with the screenwriting and instead the script came courtesy of Bob Nelson. Payne had been touted as the director of Nebraska for many years but it was only after completing The Descendants that he decided to work on the film. The key protagonist in the film is Woody Grant, an alcoholic man with two sons and an incredibly outspoken wife who believes he's come into a million dollars. In fact, Nelson establishes right from the start that Woody's money doesn't exist and in fact it's simply a scam set up by a magazine company. Nevertheless, Woody is determined to get to Lincoln, Nebraska to collect his winnings and his younger son David decides to accompany him. In my opinion, Nebraska is as much David's story as it is Woody's as his reason for the trip is to get away from his Montana hometown following his recent break-up. David is another classic Payne protagonist in that he is unlucky in love, has a lowly job as a hi-fi salesman and has a lot less success than his anchorman brother. Along the way David learns that Woody never really wanted children and that he really wasn't bothered about marrying his now wife Kate. The majority of the film's action is set around Hawthorne in Nebraska, Woody's hometown, where he experiences a family reunion of sorts. Despite David's protestations, everybody believes that Woody has won the money and soon people are bothering David asking for money that they loaned to Woody at one time or another. The culmination of the film's story is incredibly sweet-natured as Woody inevitably doesn't get the money he started out wanting but instead gets an even better gift.
I've written a lot about casting choices over the course of this blog and Nebraska line-up of actors certainly benefits the film in the long run. The studio allegedly wanted big names to play the roles of Woody and David, but Payne argued otherwise. Vintage character actor Bruce Dern was chosen to play Woody and earned himself a Best Actor nomination as a result. Dern perfectly portrays Woody as a man who is detached from society for the most part, but who is revealed to have been quite the womaniser in his day. Dern is completely believable as the former alcoholic and you can absolutely understand how he's alienated his family. I personally feel that Dern is at his best when conveying how much the prize-winning letter means to Woody as he frantically reads it throughout the film. Saturday Night Live regular Will Forte was similarly a lesser-known star but really turned in an excellent turn as the begrudgingly compliant David. Forte makes David a character who is easy to sympathise with even though you understand that he's sometimes his own worst enemy. Completing the trio of fine performances is the wonderful June Squibb, who like Dern was given an Oscar nomination for her role as the outrageous Kate. Squibb really portrays Kate as a force-of-nature and she easily makes you believe in her character's backstory. Nebraska is given even more charm by the fact that its shot in black-and-white which makes this traditional story seem even more old-fashioned. I personally felt that this technique really set the film apart from all of its contemporaries and it definitely felt apt for a film from Payne. Although it took a while to get going, Nebraska was funny and poignant look at father-son relationships and once again included a central male character who was detached from the rest of the world.
Next up we have the promised return of George Clooney in his roles as both performer and producer.
Showing posts with label Alexander Payne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexander Payne. Show all posts
Sunday, 17 May 2015
Monday, 23 February 2015
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 382-384: The Rise of The Indie Comedy
So far of all the Best Picture Winners and nominees from the 21st century, only one has been set in the present day with all the others occurring either in the past or in a different realm altogether. I hope to redress this balance with the next three films on the list, all of which take place in present day America and feature quirky characters and bizarre premises. All three are archetypal examples of what has become to be known as 'indie comedy' films that don't feature big stars and are on the whole quite funny. All three impressed Oscar enough to garner a Best Picture nomination with their respective screenplays all garnering Academy Awards in the writing categories.
The first film in this unofficial trilogy is Sideways; director Alexander Payne's adaptation of Rex Pickett's book of the same name. The film follows former college roommates Miles and Jack as they journey to the San Fernando Wine Valley to celebrate the upcoming wedding of the latter. One of the best things about Sideways is the way in which it makes you care about two characters who aren't necessarily the most likeable of guys. For example an early scene sees Miles rock up at his mum's house with the sole intent of eating her food and stealing money from her bedroom. Meanwhile Jack's main intention of getting away from Christine seems to be so he can get his end away one last time. He does this quite quickly when he meets vineyard employee and single mother Stephanie; with the two participating in a whirlwind romance during the week over which the film is set. Meanwhile Jack tries to set up Miles with Maya; a prior acquaintance who works as a waitress at the local restaurant. As the week progresses, Jack leaves Miles on his own whilst he continues a relationship with Stephanie with it eventually ending abruptly after the predictable revelation of the upcoming wedding. Like all three films in this list, it was hard to guess just in what direction Sideways was heading and that's possibly one of its greatest strengths. Although I felt that Miles and Maya may hook up, things get muddied after she finds out about Jack's wedding and the reason the pair were in the wine valley in the first place.
It's been a while since I watched Sideways, although it's a film that I remember liking immensely when I first saw it. That feeling remained upon this most recent viewing and I feel like the film really deserved all of the Oscar nominations it got. Payne's win for Best Adapted Screenplay, which he shared with co-writer Jim Taylor, was an especially worthy win seeing as the script is one of Sideways' greatest attributes. Although I couldn't remember the film entirely, Maya's speech about why she loves wine has stuck with me over the past decade whilst some of the more comedic segments are equally well crafted. As Maya, Virginia Masden was awarded with a nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category, which I felt was more than deserved due to her measured and tender performance throughout the film. Thomas Hayden Church's madcap turn as Jack also saw him pop up in the supporting actor category and I found his performance to be the perfect balance of seriousness and slapstick. One glaring omission was Paul Giamatti's lead actor nod because, as Miles, I thought he was terrific; giving an engaging performance as a miserable middle-aged man who realised that he'd never achieve greatness. The academy realised their mistake by giving Giamatti a nomination the next year for playing Russell Crowe's boxing trainer in Cinderella Man. However, Sideways remains his most accomplished performance to date and it's a shame that Oscar didn't spot this at the time. Rolfe Kent's jazz-infused score and Phedon Papamichael's excellent shooting of the Californian wine region were other brilliant elements of this excellent film. Sideways main achievement though was to put Alexander Payne on the map, with his next two films also garnering Best Picture nods. Overall, Sideways was a witty and wry look at middle-age with a fantastic script and a quartet of fantastic excellent central performances.
Despite not getting any success in the acting categories at the Oscars; the four central players in Sideways shared that year's prize for Best Ensemble Cast at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Two years later the next film in this post, Little Miss Sunshine, won the same prize for its six primary cast members. I personally don't think I can be that objective in my review of Little Miss Sunshine; which I first fell in love with when I saw it at the Stoke-on-Trent Odeon on a Sunday morning back in 2006. At the time I went to see it I knew very little about it but afterwards I instantly wanted to see it again and multiple viewings occurred over the following year. Sitting down to rewatch it I feared that it may not be that good over eight years later but these fears were unwarranted and by the end I was laughing and crying just as I did the first time I saw it. Just like Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine doesn't have characters that are essentially likeable but by the end of the film you grow to love them. The essential plot sees the Hoover family travel from Albuquerque to California so that six-year-old daughter Olive can take part in the Little Miss Sunshine Beauty Pageant. The majority of Olive's family aren't the most identifiable of characters from her suicidal gay uncle Frank to her stroppy brother Dwight; who is currently in the throes of a silent protest. Her father Richard is possibly the most unlikeable of the bunch; a self-help guru who has poured all of the family's money into his scheme entitled 'the nine steps'. The family is completed by Richard's cantankerous drug addicted father Edwin and Hoover matriarch Cheryl who is most concerned with keeping the family unit in one piece. Over the course of the film everybody has their own realisation about their hopes, aspirations and futures but screenwriter Michael Arndt presents the script in such a way that it never becomes sentimental.
In fact Arndt's screenplay won one of Little Miss Sunshine's two Oscars with the film also taking home the Supporting Actor prize for Alan Arkin's turn as Grandpa Hoover. Almost forty years after his first nomination for The Russians are Coming; Arkin finally got to the podium for a broadly comic role that involved him shouting about sex and drug taking. However it was in Arkin's more tender moments that the performance really came alive and I'm so glad that he won the award over original favourite Eddie Murphy. As Olive, Abigail Breslin was also nominated for her performance and I felt she was another deserving nominee as she gave an innocent and mature turn for someone so young. More impressive performances were delivered by Steve Carell as the depressive Frank and Paul Dano; who role as Dwight meant that he had to be silent for the majority of the film. The quirky nature of the film is never overpowering and each character feels realistic which as a result makes you care for them even more. Another character of the film is the Hoover family's yellow VW Bus in which they make their cross-country journey. Over the course of the movie, the van breaks down causing the family to have push it along every time they need to get back on the road. These comic sequences are well executed however the majority of the laughs are reserved for Olive's final performance at the pageant itself. Uplifting, warm, witty and well put together, Little Miss Sunshine is a film that never overstays its welcome and is one that I'll never get tired of watching.
The third and final film on this list also contained a fine ensemble but oddly wasn't even nominated for that year's Screen Actors Guild Award. This is a shame as I think that the interactions between the quirky cast in Jason Reitman's Juno provided some of its finest moments. Written by former exotic dancer Diablo Cody, Juno focuses on the titular sixteen-year-old who discovers she's pregnant after a one night liaison with her best friend Paulie Bleeker. After backing out of having an abortion, Juno decides to give the baby away to a couple who really want a baby. This is certainly true of Vanessa who, along with husband Mark, are the couple Juno chooses as the adoptive parents. Cody's script then follows Juno's adventures over a year as she struggles with her pregnancy and her various relationships. One thing I like about Juno is the script is very focused with the two narrative strands focusing on our protagonist's feelings for Bleeker and her interactions with reluctant adoptive father Mark. At times you feel you know where the film is going, especially when Cody suggests that Mark and Juno are going to begin some sort of illicit affair, however she surprises you several times over. Of the three films in this post, Juno is the one that made me laugh out loud the most and it's a testament to both Cody and the comic timing of the ensemble cast. Cody's script was criticised at the time for not providing the teenage characters with realistic dialogue however I disagree with this assertion. Instead the offbeat nature of the dialogue adds another layer to the film's already unique style and makes the character of Juno stand out from other female leads.
The aforementioned unique style is evident from the offset as we follow an animated opening sequence that sees Juno head off to take her third pregnancy test, accompanied by an extra-large bottle of Sunny Delight. Reitman makes sure that each character has a specific look from Bleeker's extremely bright athletic kit to Mark and Vanessa's yuppie outfits and Juno's stepmother Bren's collection of homely knitwear. The music is similarly memorable with Mouldy Peaches front-woman Kimya Dawson's voice being present during several of the film's key moments. One of the film's cutest moments involves Juno and Bleeker performing a Mouldy Peaches number on the the latter's front porch. However, I feel that Juno wouldn't have been as well-received if it were not for the Oscar-nominated turn from lead actress Ellen Page. Despite having already been in an X-Men film at this point, Page was still a relatively unknown quantity and I felt she proved herself here by appearing in almost every scene. She made Cody's dialogue feel believable and balanced both Juno's sarcasm with her more vulnerable nature. Ellen Page also shared brilliant chemistry with Michael Cera as the nervous Bleeker; with the two making one of the cutest couples in recent cinema history. As Vanessa, Jennifer Garner was a revelation as, up to this point she had mainly featured in action films however Juno really let her demonstrate what she could do when playing a straight-laced character. Recent Oscar winner JK Simmons and Allison Janney were also on form as Juno's parents with the latter having a rather tender moment with Garner at the end of the film. Another film that is a firm favourite of mind; Juno blends a fantastic Oscar-winning screenplay with a fine central turn and a style which perfectly sums up the indie comedy genre to which all of these three films belong.
Next time we turn our attention to a film that is often considered one of the worst Best Picture winners of all time.
The first film in this unofficial trilogy is Sideways; director Alexander Payne's adaptation of Rex Pickett's book of the same name. The film follows former college roommates Miles and Jack as they journey to the San Fernando Wine Valley to celebrate the upcoming wedding of the latter. One of the best things about Sideways is the way in which it makes you care about two characters who aren't necessarily the most likeable of guys. For example an early scene sees Miles rock up at his mum's house with the sole intent of eating her food and stealing money from her bedroom. Meanwhile Jack's main intention of getting away from Christine seems to be so he can get his end away one last time. He does this quite quickly when he meets vineyard employee and single mother Stephanie; with the two participating in a whirlwind romance during the week over which the film is set. Meanwhile Jack tries to set up Miles with Maya; a prior acquaintance who works as a waitress at the local restaurant. As the week progresses, Jack leaves Miles on his own whilst he continues a relationship with Stephanie with it eventually ending abruptly after the predictable revelation of the upcoming wedding. Like all three films in this list, it was hard to guess just in what direction Sideways was heading and that's possibly one of its greatest strengths. Although I felt that Miles and Maya may hook up, things get muddied after she finds out about Jack's wedding and the reason the pair were in the wine valley in the first place.
It's been a while since I watched Sideways, although it's a film that I remember liking immensely when I first saw it. That feeling remained upon this most recent viewing and I feel like the film really deserved all of the Oscar nominations it got. Payne's win for Best Adapted Screenplay, which he shared with co-writer Jim Taylor, was an especially worthy win seeing as the script is one of Sideways' greatest attributes. Although I couldn't remember the film entirely, Maya's speech about why she loves wine has stuck with me over the past decade whilst some of the more comedic segments are equally well crafted. As Maya, Virginia Masden was awarded with a nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category, which I felt was more than deserved due to her measured and tender performance throughout the film. Thomas Hayden Church's madcap turn as Jack also saw him pop up in the supporting actor category and I found his performance to be the perfect balance of seriousness and slapstick. One glaring omission was Paul Giamatti's lead actor nod because, as Miles, I thought he was terrific; giving an engaging performance as a miserable middle-aged man who realised that he'd never achieve greatness. The academy realised their mistake by giving Giamatti a nomination the next year for playing Russell Crowe's boxing trainer in Cinderella Man. However, Sideways remains his most accomplished performance to date and it's a shame that Oscar didn't spot this at the time. Rolfe Kent's jazz-infused score and Phedon Papamichael's excellent shooting of the Californian wine region were other brilliant elements of this excellent film. Sideways main achievement though was to put Alexander Payne on the map, with his next two films also garnering Best Picture nods. Overall, Sideways was a witty and wry look at middle-age with a fantastic script and a quartet of fantastic excellent central performances.
Despite not getting any success in the acting categories at the Oscars; the four central players in Sideways shared that year's prize for Best Ensemble Cast at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Two years later the next film in this post, Little Miss Sunshine, won the same prize for its six primary cast members. I personally don't think I can be that objective in my review of Little Miss Sunshine; which I first fell in love with when I saw it at the Stoke-on-Trent Odeon on a Sunday morning back in 2006. At the time I went to see it I knew very little about it but afterwards I instantly wanted to see it again and multiple viewings occurred over the following year. Sitting down to rewatch it I feared that it may not be that good over eight years later but these fears were unwarranted and by the end I was laughing and crying just as I did the first time I saw it. Just like Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine doesn't have characters that are essentially likeable but by the end of the film you grow to love them. The essential plot sees the Hoover family travel from Albuquerque to California so that six-year-old daughter Olive can take part in the Little Miss Sunshine Beauty Pageant. The majority of Olive's family aren't the most identifiable of characters from her suicidal gay uncle Frank to her stroppy brother Dwight; who is currently in the throes of a silent protest. Her father Richard is possibly the most unlikeable of the bunch; a self-help guru who has poured all of the family's money into his scheme entitled 'the nine steps'. The family is completed by Richard's cantankerous drug addicted father Edwin and Hoover matriarch Cheryl who is most concerned with keeping the family unit in one piece. Over the course of the film everybody has their own realisation about their hopes, aspirations and futures but screenwriter Michael Arndt presents the script in such a way that it never becomes sentimental.
In fact Arndt's screenplay won one of Little Miss Sunshine's two Oscars with the film also taking home the Supporting Actor prize for Alan Arkin's turn as Grandpa Hoover. Almost forty years after his first nomination for The Russians are Coming; Arkin finally got to the podium for a broadly comic role that involved him shouting about sex and drug taking. However it was in Arkin's more tender moments that the performance really came alive and I'm so glad that he won the award over original favourite Eddie Murphy. As Olive, Abigail Breslin was also nominated for her performance and I felt she was another deserving nominee as she gave an innocent and mature turn for someone so young. More impressive performances were delivered by Steve Carell as the depressive Frank and Paul Dano; who role as Dwight meant that he had to be silent for the majority of the film. The quirky nature of the film is never overpowering and each character feels realistic which as a result makes you care for them even more. Another character of the film is the Hoover family's yellow VW Bus in which they make their cross-country journey. Over the course of the movie, the van breaks down causing the family to have push it along every time they need to get back on the road. These comic sequences are well executed however the majority of the laughs are reserved for Olive's final performance at the pageant itself. Uplifting, warm, witty and well put together, Little Miss Sunshine is a film that never overstays its welcome and is one that I'll never get tired of watching.
The third and final film on this list also contained a fine ensemble but oddly wasn't even nominated for that year's Screen Actors Guild Award. This is a shame as I think that the interactions between the quirky cast in Jason Reitman's Juno provided some of its finest moments. Written by former exotic dancer Diablo Cody, Juno focuses on the titular sixteen-year-old who discovers she's pregnant after a one night liaison with her best friend Paulie Bleeker. After backing out of having an abortion, Juno decides to give the baby away to a couple who really want a baby. This is certainly true of Vanessa who, along with husband Mark, are the couple Juno chooses as the adoptive parents. Cody's script then follows Juno's adventures over a year as she struggles with her pregnancy and her various relationships. One thing I like about Juno is the script is very focused with the two narrative strands focusing on our protagonist's feelings for Bleeker and her interactions with reluctant adoptive father Mark. At times you feel you know where the film is going, especially when Cody suggests that Mark and Juno are going to begin some sort of illicit affair, however she surprises you several times over. Of the three films in this post, Juno is the one that made me laugh out loud the most and it's a testament to both Cody and the comic timing of the ensemble cast. Cody's script was criticised at the time for not providing the teenage characters with realistic dialogue however I disagree with this assertion. Instead the offbeat nature of the dialogue adds another layer to the film's already unique style and makes the character of Juno stand out from other female leads.
The aforementioned unique style is evident from the offset as we follow an animated opening sequence that sees Juno head off to take her third pregnancy test, accompanied by an extra-large bottle of Sunny Delight. Reitman makes sure that each character has a specific look from Bleeker's extremely bright athletic kit to Mark and Vanessa's yuppie outfits and Juno's stepmother Bren's collection of homely knitwear. The music is similarly memorable with Mouldy Peaches front-woman Kimya Dawson's voice being present during several of the film's key moments. One of the film's cutest moments involves Juno and Bleeker performing a Mouldy Peaches number on the the latter's front porch. However, I feel that Juno wouldn't have been as well-received if it were not for the Oscar-nominated turn from lead actress Ellen Page. Despite having already been in an X-Men film at this point, Page was still a relatively unknown quantity and I felt she proved herself here by appearing in almost every scene. She made Cody's dialogue feel believable and balanced both Juno's sarcasm with her more vulnerable nature. Ellen Page also shared brilliant chemistry with Michael Cera as the nervous Bleeker; with the two making one of the cutest couples in recent cinema history. As Vanessa, Jennifer Garner was a revelation as, up to this point she had mainly featured in action films however Juno really let her demonstrate what she could do when playing a straight-laced character. Recent Oscar winner JK Simmons and Allison Janney were also on form as Juno's parents with the latter having a rather tender moment with Garner at the end of the film. Another film that is a firm favourite of mind; Juno blends a fantastic Oscar-winning screenplay with a fine central turn and a style which perfectly sums up the indie comedy genre to which all of these three films belong.
Next time we turn our attention to a film that is often considered one of the worst Best Picture winners of all time.
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