Ghosts are Real, That Much I Know: Crimson Peak

Crimson Peak, at its heart, is NOT a horror film. It's not a ghost story, a haunted house picture, or a monster movie. Its narrative does not rely on the solution to a mystery. Unfortunately, Crimson Peak's various trailers and posters, as well as its very conspicuously spooky October release date, has led many believe that is, in fact, all of the above. This blatant marketing strategy is poisoning audiences against the film, who settle into their theater seats expecting Halloween horror and are greeted with a campy expansion on gothic romance. Of course, there are haunted houses, murderous villains, and ghosts. As the protagonist Edith reminds us, it's not a ghost story so much as a story with ghosts in it.

The plot follows Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska), an aspiring writer and daughter of an industrialist  in Buffalo, New York. She meets a dashing English baronet, Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain), when they two of them come to America to looking for investors for Thomas's mining invention. Edith and Thomas marry and return to the Sharpe Estate, Allerdale Hall, in Cumberland, England, where the appearance of ghosts suggests that the Sharpes hold more than a few horrible secrets.

Edith's narrative takes some of its feminist cues from Jane Eyre. Despite being swept off her feet by Sharpe, she never conforms to the "damsel in distress" archetype. She's the antithesis of Wendy Torrance, a kind of fleshed out, complex version of the "final girl" who survives with intelligence and ferocity. Even as her admirer McMicheal swoops in to Allerdale to save her, he is immediately incapacitated, leaving Edith to handily rescue both of them. As an aspiring writer, she's told by a potential publisher that because he is a woman, a love story must be added to her manuscript. She also decides to increase her chances of getting published in the Atlantic Monthly, she will submit her story as a typed document, in order to conceal her 'feminine handwriting.' At the close, we learned that Edith has used the trauma to her advantage; she had written and published a novel called Crimson Peak. She has not only  saved herself, but she has also fulfilled her greatest dream. Crimson Peak allows Edith's character to mature; it's a coming of age tale in the most dire of circumstances. She remains at the emotional core throughout the film, and her rationality acts as a force of stabilization that carries us through the melodramatic extravagances of the action.

Edith may well be the heart and soul of Crimson Peak, but the real fun lies in the melodrama- and in Jessica Chastain's campy performance as Lucille Sharpe. Chastain's Lucille is palpably demented from her first appearance on screen to her last, and she's fun to watch, a far cry from her performance in Zero Dark Thirty or A Most Violent Year. In comparison, Tom Hiddleston is nearly lifeless. 

The most sucessful player in the film in not an actress (or even a ghost), it's the house itself. Beautifully dilapidated, the house is a blatant parallel to the Sharpe siblings themselves, and as Thomas Sharpe tells Edith, it even breathes with the wind and bleeds red clay. As the Sharpe's souls and fortunes wither away, so does the house itself. Of course, the decaying old estate is a stock image in haunted house horror films and literature; in this case, it borrows a little too much from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher". What sets Allerdale Hall apart from all the rest is its meticulously elegant art direction, the result of Brandt Gordon's interpretation of del Toro's signature style. Everything is lush and decadent, the costumes made of rich, heavy fabrics, the woods dark and luxurious, the rooms airy and elegant. Once we get a closer look, however, it's apparent that everything is in a process of slow decay: dust everywhere, dead flies lying on tables, a hole in the room which allows wind, leaves, and snow inside the main hall.

The ghosts in the film are as richly designed as the sets.They are played by actors (Doug Jones and Javier Botet) , whose performances are augmented with CGI  in post production. They appear in bold red and black, and they have a skin-like texture that is  reminiscent of the flesh that they once had, which grounds them in a strange kind of reality. They are grotesque and terrifying, but by reminding the audience that they were once human, they elicit the kind of empathy required to make their appearance truly effective. 

The plot of Crimson Peak has a melodramatic, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink flair that, although tremendous fun, materializes out of (almost) nowhere  from the romance of the first half of the film. It's hard to say if the film would have been improved by omitting the first act entirely, but its slow pace and sickly sweet attitude did drag it down. It's certainly a mistake for del Toro to dispense so much information so early and so haphazardly. Several rather clumsy conversations between the Sharpes indicate that these two do have some kind of malevolent plan to steal Edith's inheritance, and it's no surprise when one of them appears to brutally murder Edith's father. We're never really allowed to participate in Edith's investigations, because we know far too much far too early. The dramatic irony del Toro employs lessens the blow of the real secret, and the revelation is much less shocking than intended. 

Despite this, Crimson Peak's brutal conclusion is engaging and, most of all, great, campy fun, especially in contrast with the slow, emotional opening act. When Edith stabs Lucille with the ball point pen her father  had given her, it's a gleefully satisfying act of revenge, as well as a not so subtle metaphor. Weapons are wielded (knives, shovels, cleavers), blood is spilled, and villains are vanquished, and result is extremely gratifying. 

Crimson Peak is clearly a del Toro passion project, and it's a wonder that a studio consented to finance this decidedly non-commercial enterprise. Despite its self-indulgent melodrama and wild fluctuations in tone, Crimson Peak is a fun, imaginative, and absolutely gorgeous ride, and definitely warrants a viewing before it leaves theaters. 

Horror, Hearth, and Home in Ivan Kavanagh's The Canal

Ivan Kavanagh's 2014 film The Canal  reminds us that dread, carefully cultivated and forcefully deployed, powers a great horror film. The Canal combines the methodology, supernatural and psychological horror, and family drama of The Shining with the basic premise of Sinister. Our protagonist, David, is a film archivist who receives a reel whose footage shows a horrific murder committed in 1902 in the house he lives in with his young child, Billy, and his wife, Alice. Predictably, after watching the footage, a series of strange and horrible events begun to occur, including the mysterious death of Alice. Swamped in grief, David starts to feel threatened by strange noises and ghostly apparitions. Throughout, the audience questions what exactly is the cause: is it really ghosts connected to the 1902 murders or is it David's mental deterioration? Are any of these happenings real? And was Alice's drowning really an accident?

Like The Shining, The Canal features a male protagonist who, after being subjected to intense stress (Jack Torrance's  writer's block, cabin fever, and recovery from alcoholism and David's discovery of his wife's affair), is haunted by his desire to escape from that stressor. Jack Torrance, for example, sees  a ballroom filled with ghosts where he falls off the wagon, and David perceives that he is the victim of malevolent ghosts to avoid acknowledging that he is the real perpetrator of his wife's murder.

At heart, The Canal is a family drama. Its horror is propelled by the the David's deep anxiety regarding the family structure that is dissolving before his eyes. He worries that he will lose his wife to another man. He worries that once his wife has died, he will also lose his son. David's desperate attempts to protect his family are what we hope will redeem him. However, the film's conclusion uses those same sacred familial bonds to endanger David's son, proving that evil truly does live at home.

It's Not All Just Water Under the Bridge: Diabolique, Psycho, and Water as Metaphor

Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1955 film Diabolique is the French question which was answered five years later by the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. Psycho is, of course, a gold-star member of the horror movie canon and a lesson in the deployment of psychological tension in film. Many elements of Psycho, however, echoed Diabolique. These two partner-in-crime films are notable for their somewhat inverted deployment of water as a harbringer of death.

Water in any form is often used as a symbol of rebirth and purification. A timely (and heavy-handed) example occurs at the conclusion of Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, when Dr. Ryan Stone emerges naked from the ocean where her space capsule has crashed. She has survived intense trauma, both in space and on earth, and she is finally able to relieve herself of her psychological burden, a purification which is symbolized by the sea. In Roman Polanski's 1971 version of Macbeth, Macbeth asks after the murder of Duncan: "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood/Clean from my hand?" Lady Macbeth assure her husband that "a little water" will remove the blood from their hands and the crime from their conscience. Later, driven mad by guilt for her actions, Lady Macbeth imagines bloodstains on her hands, and seeks out water to absolve herself. Here, she turns to water as an instrument of repentance.

In Psycho and Diabolque, however, water possesses none of these powers. Instead, it serves as a threatening agent of death and destruction.Our protagonist in Psycho, Marion Crane, is famously murdered in the shower by Norman Bates. Here, the setting is powerful because it signifies vulnerability: Marion is naked, defenseless, and attempting to cleanse herself. But with the appearance of Norman and Marion's subsequent death, the water almost becomes an accomplice in her murder. Her blood mixes with water and Hitchcock directs us to watch it slide slowly down the drain. The second appearance of water is just as powerful, as Norman places Marion's body in her car along with the stolen money  and sinks it in a pond on the Bates Motel property. Now, the water has become both the setting of her murder and her grave. At the film's conclusion, after Marion's sister and lover have apprehended Bates, we see the police dragging Marion's car (and her body) out of the pond, releasing her from the water's power.

Similarly, in Diabolique, the appearance of water means death is imminent. Christina and Nicole both drown Michel in a bathtub. As they return to the boarding school with his body, water leaks from the wicker trunk, attracting notice and and almost getting the women caught. Back at school, they throw the body into the pool, surprising that when his body rises to the surface, Michel's death will be deemed to be an accident. At this point, water's role is as both crime scene and burial ground, like Psycho, although in this case it is also the medium of murder, which only strengthens its associations with death.

After attempting  to orchestrate the discovery of Michel's corpse by students, Nicole and Christina drain the pool, and discover that the body has disappeared. Here, water reminds us of its powers of resurrection.

Later, an unidentified corpse is found drowned in the river, and Christina believes it may be Michel, although it is revealed to be a stranger. Once again, water appears in conjunction with death. Here, and in the swimming pool from which Michel's corpse has disappeared, water also alludes to Nicole and Christina's impending doom. Each incident suggests that the two women will be caught, and the psychological effects of this are especially evident in Christina, whose already sickly heart grows even weaker.

Water's final appearance is indeed the most significant. Christina is awoken during the night, and finds Michel's dead body submerged in her bathtub, looking exactly as it did when Nicole and Christina murdered him. Christina clutches her heart and dies. We see
Michel stand and remove a pair of contact lenses, dripping water, and reunite with Nicole, where it is revealed that Michel's murder was a plot contrived by Nicole and Michel to frighten Christina to death, so the two lovers can be be together and so Michel can inherit the boarding school and her money.Water is once again a force of dark resurrection, while retaining its association with death and evil.

In both Diabolique and Psycho, water negates its usual associations. Instead of being a nurturing substance, water is an instrument of death, a cousin to murder, and a grave site.

Inherent Vice: "She's not just a boat, Doc... She's much more than that."

Postmodernist author and notable recluse Thomas Pynchon has only had one of his novels turned into a movie, and for good reason. Loose plots, unintelligible conspiracies, social satire, clever wordplay, and brobdingnagian length combine to make most of his works prime candidates for "unfilmability." Not to be intimidated, America's cinematic master Paul Thomas Anderson took up the challenge, adapting Pynchon's Inherent Vice into a film of the same name. 

In an atmosphere of pothead paranoia, Anderson crafted a sunny California noir, where Doc Sportello ( a hilarious Joaquin Phoenix) , a malingering hippie gumshoe living in southern Los Angeles in 1970, receives a request from his ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth 
(Katherine Waterston)to find her missing millionaire boyfriend (Eric Roberts). From here, plots and subplots converge; diverge; disappear, only to be picked back up again. Eccentric characters- most with indiscernible motives and all with something to hide- flicker in and out of the film's periphery, pushing and pulling Sportello on his quest to restore Los Angeles to the peaceful optimism of the 1960s.

The tangled plot is, of course, reminiscent of those films noir of the 40s and 50s, with all the same stock characters (detective, femme fatale, millionaire involved in a troublesome organization) and convoluted mysteries. Anderson populates his version of the noir with California beaches and hopeful neon lights punctuating a haze of pot smoke in the darkness. Here, the mystery is really unsolvable, because the mystery is never what Doc (or the audience) thinks it is. The bigger mystery, bigger than Wolfmann and Harlingen and the Golden Fang, is what exactly has happened to Calfornia, which was to have been the last refuge of the idealistic; the version of America that might have been. The shopping malls are taking over, the cracks are beginning to show: even Doc's Los Angeles has fallen apart. The America of the imagination has been unintentionally self-destructing, and as the sixties roll into the seventies, there is nothing good left. Human nature will inevitably ruin even what it tries to create. Not even Doc's hippie counterculture is safe from destruction. 

The film opens up with an epigraph: "Under the paving stones, the beach!" This refers literally to the 1968 Paris student riots, where protesters pulled up paving stones to throw at the police, only to discover that sand lies underneath. For Pynchon and Anderson, it means that the construct of the corrupted American society conceals and suppresses the ideal life that lies beneath. Inherent Vice tells us that it's too late to save even the Doc Sportellos; that Los Angeles is no longer a refuge. That eventually even the ark sinks.  

Du musst Caligari werden: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the Beginnings of Horror

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Dir. Robert Wiene. Perf. Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Frederich        Feher. Decla -Bioskop, 1920.

Film is a progressive medium. Each moment of enlightenment, such as the advent of  sound technology with 1927's The Jazz Singer, advances the next generation of movies, steadily expanding the boundaries of filmmaking and making possible revolutions that have lead us to the exciting possibilities of the modern motion picture industry.

Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one such moment of enlightenment. It has been acknowledged as both the beginning of the German Expressionist movement and one of the first true horror films, and has allowed for the development of the modern horror genre as well as being extremely influential in the advent of film-noir. 

Caligari recounts the tale of Francis, a young protagonist who encounters a sinister man called Dr. Caligari operating a sideshow exhibit at the Holstenwall fair. The exhibit is a somnambulist, Cesare, who has allegedly been asleep since birth, awakening periodically to operate as a soothsayer.  The arrival of Caligari coincides with a series of brutal murders, including that of Francis's friend Alan, an event which was predicted by Cesare. Dr. Caligari and Cesare soon fall under suspicion. After some investigation, Francis learns that Caligari is in fact a madman who induces Cesare to commit the murders by proxy, and the man is admitted into an insane asylum, where he will presumably remain for eternity.

Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) 

Of course, as a modern, film-going audience, we are almost trained to suspect a "twist ending." Here, in Caligari, the twist was completely innovative, and was actually imposed by producers who desired a less horrific experience. In the last ten minutes of Caligari, we are informed that the entire narrative was actually Francis's delusion. There is no Caligari. All of the players are actually residents in the mental institution where Francis is also a patient, and the man whom Francis believes to be Caligari is actually Francis's psychiatric doctor. 

Cesare (Conrad Veidt), the sonambulist, and Jane (Lil Dagover)

Considering that the film actually inhabits the headspace of a psychotic, the set design proves itself absolutely appropriate, and is vital to the film's success. As created by designer Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann, and Walter Rohrig, the sets exist at slanted right-angles; everything is distorted, as if the viewer is gazing into a funhouse mirror. Shadows are painted directly onto the sets, emphasizing the horrible two-demionsionality. The psychological result in the viewer is emotional unrest and psychological dread, paralleling and perhaps even compounding the mental state of the protagonist, Francis.

 The atmosphere of Caligari is created not as a direct and faithful representation of reality, but as an assertion of emotion, a window into the interior mind and soul that would otherwise be unreachable. As Caligari employed this technique, it became the first and most prominent example of movement of German Expressionism, and served as an example for later expressionist films such as M, Nosferatu, and The Golem.

Shadows and angles in Nosferatu

It has been suggested by scholars and academics that this development was a reaction to the state of Germany during and immediately preceding the first World War, as film noir was connected to the horrific impact of World War II. Film noir has obvious roots in the German Expressionist movement, as exaggerated lighting was used to create high-contrast, angular shadows that reflected the internal turmoil of angst-ridden detectives as well as the overall vileness of human nature. Directors such as Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Curtiz, and Carol Reed, using their experience in the German film industry, injected elements of  German Expressionism into their work, creating a genre that is indebted to films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Off-kilter set pieces in Carol Reed's The Third Man

Indeed, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari allowed the use of lighting and set as an expression of psychological and emotional state, which contributed greatly to the cinematic element of "mood." This specific influence is traceable through to today's films- without Caligari, the dark, thickly melancholic atmosphere of David Fincher's films, Se7en, Zodiac, and  Gone Girl in particular, would not be possible.

This film is innovative in its technique and its form, and its influence can be traced through almost a hundred years of film history.As the father of horror and a primary example German Expressionism, the guiding hand of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is visible from the modern films of Fincher and Tim Burton to the noirs of the forties and fifties to the monster movies of the thirties and its close German Expressionist cousins.

Love and Hate: Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter

The late actor Robert Mitchum was born 97 years ago today. It is especially fitting, then, to discuss what was arguably his best performance: the cunning Reverend Harry Powell in Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter.


The film itself is notable for many reasons, and especially unique in the canon of film noir. It features impeccable cinematography that borrows heavily from the German Expressionists. It eschews the classic noir urban settings like Los Angeles and New York City for the gothic South. It has influenced today's most prominent directors, David Lynch. Jim Jarmusch, and the Coens among them. Still, its most impressive element just might be its villain and the powerhouse performance delivered by Mitchum.


The Reverend Harry Powell is a serial killer who travels the country preying upon women, marrying and subsequently killing them in the name of God. "These are the things that you do hate, Lord," he says, praying to himself. "Perfume smellin' things, lacy things, things with curly hair." In the pursuit of these "godly" obligations, he hears the rumour of a widow whose husband had robbed a bank and hidden the money. Sure that the widow must know where it is (she doesn't), Powell rushes to court her and her two children.

Of course, Mitchum's portrayal of Powell is impeccable. He allows the audience to see the impossible, psychotic evil that lies beneath the charming exterior. Mitchum showcases Powell's dichotomy perfectly; we perceive his malevolence while at the same time experiencing the believe-ability of Powell as the ultimate con man.

This dichotomy is echoed liberally throughout the film. Powell has the words "LOVE" and "HATE" tattooed across his knuckles, and he explains to the children why: 

              "Ah, little lad, you're staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand? The story of good and evil? H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low. L-O-V-E! You see these fingers, dear hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man. The right hand, friends, the hand of love. Now watch, and I'll show you the story of life. Those fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warring and a-tugging, one agin t'other. Now watch 'em! Old brother left hand, left hand he's a fighting, and it looks like love's a goner. But wait a minute! Hot dog, love's a winning! Yessirree! It's love that's won, and old left hand hate is down for the count!"

The dicotomy between love and innocence and hate and evil is also emphasized with the juxatopsition between Powell and JJohn and Pearl Harper. There's something especially terrifying about watching Mitchum share the screen with the widow's children. They are innocent and good, and when Powell sweet talks them, touches them, or even looks at them, it seems as though he might be actively corrupting their sweet souls.

Mitchum's ability to radiate the absolute power of evil is tremendous. The result is a villain which the cinematic world will never forget, a villain who will be referenced again and again, a villain who will haunt the minds of every viewer.

Alain Resnais, master of modern lyricism in film, dead at 91

French filmmaker Alain Resnais died yesterday in Paris at the age of 91.

Resnais's films exist as outliers in the oeuvre of the French New Wave, more closely allied with Left Bank intellectuals like writers Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbes-Grillet. He managed to inject his extremely personal films with the grace and intellectual lyricism usually found only in the masterworks of literature.

The highlights of his career include Night and Fog, a documentary about the devastation of the Holocaust, and Hiroshima mon Amour, a revolutionary fictional meditation on the bombing of Hiroshima, and more generally, the moral depravity of war. Other works include Last Year at Marienbad, The War is Over, and Je t'aime, Je t'aime.

2014 Oscar Predictions

These are my official predictions for the victors of the 2014 Oscars. Then again, how would I have any idea what's going to win? I'm a female in her early twenties. 

PICTURE

Gravity (Dear God, I hope not)

DIRECTOR

Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave

ACTOR

Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyer's Club

ACTRESS

Amy Adams, American Hustle

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Jared Leto, Dallas Buyer's Club

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Luptia N'yongo, 12 Years a Slave

ANIMATED FILM

Frozen

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Emmanuel Lubezki, Gravity

COSTUME DESIGN

Michael Wilkinson, American Hustle

 DOCUMENTARY

The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sorenson

 EDITING

Alfonso Cuaron and Mark Sanger, Gravity

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

The Broken Circle Breakdown, Belgium

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

Adruitha Lee and Robin Matthews, Dallas Buyer's Club

MUSIC

Her, William Butler and Owen Palett

ORIGINAL SONG

"Let it Go" from Frozen

PRODUCTION DESIGN

Judy Becker and Heather Loeffler, American Hustle

VFX

Gravity, Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, David Shirk, Neal Corbould

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

12 Years a Slave, John Ridley

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Her, Spike Jonze

If You're a 62-year-old White Male, You'll Love the Oscars

As a person who is both perpetually behind schedule and wont to neglect my duties, I have neglected to write a single review of any of the Oscar nominated films of 2013. This sad reality has led to this: an informal consideration less than a day before the ceremony. To be candid, I lost what little interest I had when my personal favorite film of the year (which I will withhold, for now) failed to receive a nomination in any of the major categories, save Cinematography (definitely deserved, although it will not win. Gravity will surely take the prize this year). This was an affront to my cinematic sensibilities. I'm sure the Coens could really care less. Still, it is a shameful snub, though not entirely surprising. The Oscars have a history of ignoring the right films and praising the wrong ones (see Argo's Best Picture win last year); this can probably be accounted for in its demographics. 77% of the Academy is male, 94% is white, and the median age is a whopping 62. 

As a result of this, most real cinephiles (and most people involved in the film industry) recognize that this particular awards show, and all awards shows, really, doesn't mean all that much in terms of artistic achievement. That sentiment, however, doesn't erase the historic and cultural significance of an Academy Award, as well as the potential for increased publicity and expanded opportunities. 

In conclusion: The Academy Awards are stodgy and frustrating (unless you're a 62 year old white man), but still manage to retain their prestige. 

Let's talk movies. I'm not going to discuss Philomena at all, because I have absolutely no interest in seeing sentimentalized Hollywood drivel, although I really do adore Steve Coogan. Also not on the list is Her, simply because I haven't yet seen it. 

If you need to be reminded of the various nominees, please go here for the official list. 

First things first: I was monumentally disappointed in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, which took everything that I hated about Goodfellas and amplified it to 11. Scorsese's trademark ebullience was ineffective precisely because of the film's inability to create any kind of complexity. The film took an entire three hours to hit (scream) a single note (DEBAUCHERY! OVERINDULGENCE! DISHONESTY!) over and over again, without variation. As a satire, it seemed entirely unconscious of itself, making it boring to watch despite all of the activity on screen. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill are adequate, each making an entertaining spectacle of their characters without injecting any nuance into their performance. All-in-all, I don't think this film earned any of its nominations. 

Although American Hustle is not without its flaws (read: sloppy plot line and slick self-awareness), it does manage to succeed where Wolf of Wall Street fails, offering its audience comedy as well as complexity (!). I think this film is very much held afloat by Amy Adams, who delivers marvelously. With all her charisma, Jennifer Lawrence manages to hook her red talons/nails, although her performance is a little exaggerated. Christian Bale is good but not great, and Bradley Cooper just doesn't cut it. The mania that suited him perfectly in Silver Linings Playbook is too much here. I don't think American Hustle should win for Best Picture or Director due to its overwhelming structural flaws, but Adams should be recognized for Best Actress, and the film definitely deserves a nod for its elaborate costumes. 

Gravity does not live up to its hype; the only thing it has going is its absolutely stunning visuals. The screenplay is very clumsy and heavy-handed, the characters are not fleshed out, and the film is poorly paced. Nonetheless, this may win for Best Picture, as it is such an innocuous, visually spectacular crowd pleaser in the vein of a James Cameron "epic."

12 Years a Slave is an achievement, to say the least. Steve McQueen couldn't have managed a more debilitating examination of the American tragedy that was the institution of slavery. He keeps sentimentality out of the film entirely, brutally forcing his audience to confront one of the worst offenses in human history. The acting in this film is first class all-around (except for a certain producer and movie-star extraordinaire, but that's really beside the point),  and the cinematography is breathtakingly beautiful, a graceful contrast to the ruthlessness of McQueen's images. Ejiofor, N'yongo, and Fassbender all deserve to win in their respective categories, as does McQueen for direction, and the film for best picture. It's difficult to predict if the Academy will embrace the film as a whole, over safer choices like Gravity.

Dallas Buyer's Club is everything a great film should be: well-structured, emotional, and impeccably acted. Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto both shine in this film, and both underwent incredible physical transformations in order to play their respective roles (which the Academy notoriously adores. The showier the performance, the better). I wouldn't be upset if eithier of these actors were recognized tomorrow night, and I also would not be shocked or enraged if the film was recognized as best picture. 

Honestly, Captain Phillips does not belong here any more than Philomena does. It was a perfectly adequate action film, with an interesting subtext that examines the failure of the American dream, which we have seen in both The Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle year. Everything about Captain Phillips is good, but nothing is really great. It pains me greatly to think that this is taking up Inside Llewyn Davis's or Short Term 12's spot. 

Finally, Nebraska. I loved this film very much, but as it is, for the most part, quiet and understated compared to its brethren, it will probably be overlooked. The only criticism I have is for June Squibb's character, who seems like a parody of the 'grandma who spots profanities' that we have seen a million times before. Other than that, the movie is honest and true and sweet, and I am pleased that it received mainstream acknowledgement. I would b ecstatic if Bruce Dern saw a win. I really think DeNiro should consider following in his footsteps. 

I also want to briefly mention The Act of Killing. This should, by all accounts, win Best Documentary, as it is one of the most exhausting and challenging films that I have ever seen. I also found three Best Foreign Film nominees to be of note:  The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium), The Hunt (Denmark), and The Great Beauty (Italy).

I'll be posting my picks and predictions (in two separate lists, of course) before tomorrow night's ceremony. Please look for my in-depth reviews of the films mentioned above in the coming weeks.

In closing, I would like to suggest that on Monday, after watching at least fours hours of stuffy television, you sit down and enjoy one of the great films the Oscars managed to under appreciate, overlook, or entirely ignore. Inside Llewyn Davis, Short Term 12, Blue Jasmine, Before Midnight, Blackfish, Wadaja, or Blue is the Warmest Color would be a few great places to start.

"I think you should be serious about what you do because this is it. This is all you've got."

Philip Seymour Hoffman died sometime in the morning of February 2, 2014, at 46. A revered actor, Hoffman graced both the stage and screen, each time able to dedicate himself to finding his character's truth, revealing his flaws in the process, and thus bringing a basic human vulnerability to each performance. A consummate actor, his soul was always visible in his work.

His work is quite personal to me. Hoffman grew up only thirty minutes from where I did, and as such, I always there was a connection between us, some kind of small but significant reason to be proud of his talent and his success, despite the fact that I had nothing at all to do with it. His work in film intrigued and impressed me, especially the films he made with Paul Thomas Anderson and Charlie Kaufman's very special film Synecdoche, New York. I also had the distinct pleasure of watching Hoffman as Willy Loman in the 2012 revival of Death of a Salesman. It was the first time I had seen a play on Broadway, and Hoffman was masterful. He was able to imbue his performance with a beautifully haggard dignity that lived subtly beneath the surface of Loman's quiet desperation.

A few months after watching him on stage, I watched him perform exuberantly in The Master, playing what could have, in the hands of another man, become a calculated, coldly cerebral character. Instead, Hoffman gave us a manipulative master whose insecurities and weaknesses he allows us to glimpse as the fuel behind Lancaster Dodd's megalomania. As he twists his sheep-followers with pseudoscience, supreme confidence, and fatherly condescension, we are allowed to see that there is something poisonous within him, something soft and vulnerable that he refuses to allow to be exploited. In The Master, Hoffman clearly understood the inner workings of not only Lancaster Dodd but of all human beings, an understanding which he was able to bring to very much of his work.

My personal favorite performance of his comes in the 2008 film Synecdoche, New York, which is quite honestly the most complex and the most terrifying movie I have ever seen. Here, he gives us a fucking mess of a person with a fucking mess of a life, who, when tasked with  using the money from a MacArthur Fellowship to write a play that he wants to be truth itself, begins to restructure and manipulate his own life as inspiration. It is a daring meditation on life and death, on what means to die, and on what exactly reality is. This movie came to me at a time when I was unsure about a great deal of things, and Hoffman's Caden Cotard allowed me to come to terms with that uncertainty, to cry and to breathe and to think deeply about my own life, what it meant, and what it could mean. That is really the power of Philip Seymour Hoffman at his best. With his acting, he was able to push you so far off the deep end that you weren't even sure that you had fallen. And then, just when you thought you might be drowning. he allowed you to surface, a mess of adrenaline and thought and more clarity than you would have ever conceded on your own.

It is for this, the power of his performances, that we must remember him. It is not our perogative to judge him, to moralize, to condemn, to turn his life and his work into some kind of perverted cautionary tale. Hoffman was a great artist struggling with something, as all artists do; indeed, as all men do. We must remember him the man who created Lancaster Dodd and Scotty J, who embodied Truman Capote, who reinvented Willy Loman, who brought a heartbreakingly heavy sense of human flaw and vulnerability to every role that he played. Let Hoffman live in the memory of ages as a beautiful artist whose talent will transcend his ephemeral life.

Philip Seymour Hoffman did not speak this monologue from Synecdoche, New York, but his character listens to it. I think this speech stands as an appropriate memorial to Hoffman's exceptional genius. Thank you, Mr. Hoffman.

"Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I've felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I've been pretending I'm OK, just to get along, just for, I don't know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, fuck everybody. Amen."