Zero Dark Thirty still holds up... Extremely well

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Several weeks ago Hugo did not initially impress me. But impressions change, and I not long ago had a tete-a-tete within the cozy confines of my own mind. The mind of a genius is an amazing thing: able to entertain itself when needed; able to bowdlerize in order to grow a more encompassing, generous opinion of the world. What brought the change of heart? Oddly enough, a reading of a little know piece by von Goethe entitled Clavigo. It's a marvelous work, which coincidentally introduced me to Caron de Beau Marchais, the watchmaker and tutor to Louis XV's children. As a result, through the marvels of Google scholar, I began reading some of his works and thought, and in it, I found this gem: "It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them."

Was he speaking to The Arts Board specifically or to the masses of critics who have flocked to The Artist calling it this year's best? Don't get me wrong: The Artist is a good movie. It's creative, well written, well acted, and has a positive message. But best of the year when you have others like The Tree of Life, Sarah's Key, and Midnight in Paris? I like a perfectly fried shrimp at Harbor Seafood, but by no means am I going to claim it's the best meal in New Orleans.

Who could be leading such a campaign? Perhaps it the people who see through the wafer-thin existential snoozefest, The Descendants, a movie that tries to be much smarter than it really is. About Schmidt was Alexander Payne's best film, but Payne is anything but the deep philosopher that he so effortfully tries to be. Perhaps it is the old guard of Hollywood, a little upset that other films set in the golden age of film, whatever that means, a film like Hugo, received little fanfare. So now these geriatrics truckle at the feet of a foreign attempt to pay homage to them.

The Artist works on all levels it attempts to reach. It shows a zero sum game of fame. We see how pride destroys. We feel heartache and empathy. We may even have a moment of aletheia when we see a love that is unearned and undeserved. But the artists behind this film aren't very interested in reaching very far. This is the sort of movie made to please many people, but I will guarantee that most people who approbate today with "I love this movie!" will moderate in ten years and say little more than, "I liked that movie." 7/10

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Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy

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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Politics isn't business. Politics is personal and often paphian. The Donations of Alexandria was the culmination of a grudge between Mark Antony and Octavia. The subsequent battle a testament to Antony's love for Cleopatra. Iraq II was fought, at least in part, for family vengeance. Lilliput and Blefuscu are excellent examples of the pettiness and personal nature of political warfare. Political espionage is just as personal in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

The movie does its best to be a pretentious, transcendent arthouse masterpiece. But the film is easily deconstructed, and behind it we find a flawed, smug, contextualized, and flat attempt to be a Euro spy film noir. I get it, as much as a bald, fatuous, angry, and over-the-hill votary to himself who believes that by condescending praise his intelligence is made superior to his superior. The film, as much as I enjoy independent films, is not good. Oldman is decent enough, playing the demure introvert, saving his words for daring and correct conclusions character to whom he is no stranger. His character is the only character that has any depth and his performance the only that isn't awful. Tom Hardy, however, has come on strong of late, and I look forward to following his career.

I have not read the book, nor do I plan to because this film has nothing important to add. The film is hard to follow because there are too many characters who play essential roles. There are too many names to keep track of. Even for a person of my intelligence, I found it to be an overload of information. If you miss any of it, you miss the picture. Keeping track of the plot and characters is hard enough, and I can only imagine the director did this to the audience because he hoped that we would be so focused on the instruments in the film to miss the film itself. I assume we're supposed to learn about each character, to play a game of Clue: Who is the mole? By the middle of the movie, however, I didn't care. Why? Because no character outside of Oldman's had any depth. They were all simply there. And just as the recent Conan film jumped from scene to scene as fast as LSU fans turned on Les Miles, so too does Tinker Sailor Soldier Spy jump from character to character. The result is an apathy for all of the characters. I didn't care who died. I didn't care who was a traitor and why. I didn't care.

In the climatic scene, where the mole gives his reasons for treachery, I did not care. The climax for me was entering the film and it was a steady descent from there. And thank the heavens I did not care because as we await his reasons, expecting a shocking sockdolager, we get the reasons of a college-aged flibbertigibbet. If any critic rates the film highly, it's because of prejudices because the film is atrocious. 2/10

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Zdt >>>>> Argo

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Zero Dark Thirty

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It's not surprising which one won the Oscar for Best Picture

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