Let It Be

Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, who today are the two remaining Beatles, dash to a piano and have some fun with it. Even with his beard and long hair, Paul is still the "cute one" (though no one would imply that the other three were ever ugly). They're eventually joined by George Harrison and John Lennon to sing "Don't Let Me Down," before "Maxwell Silver's Hammer." George is still the quiet one; in five minutes, he's hardly uttered anything. Paul seems a bit bossy, which he reportedly had a reputation for being. They all sing a silly version of "Two Of Us" before "I've Got a Feeling," two of their least appreciated songs. This iconic documentary is "Let It Be," which presents for audiences the Beatles recording their album of the same name, and yet it seems to have been forever remembered as the film documenting the breakup of the most iconic, influential, and excellent group of musical individuals in practically all of human history.

But the center of "Let It Be" seems to be focused on Paul. He calls Ringo "Rich" (the latter's real name, as in Richard Starkey) as they have a ball at the piano, sings with John, and annoys George to the point that during their slightly heated argument, George tells him, "I'll play, you know, whatever you want me to play, or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play. Whatever it is that will please you, I'll do it." He's frustrated, and it's more than clear that he's had it with being "pushed around" like a kid brother from his band mate.

It's almost sadistic of me to say so, but I really preferred to see more scenes like this. The back part of my conscious was yearning for something akin to the hysterical fight between the four in India in the film "Dewey Cox: Rock Hard," when Lennon (Paul Rudd) wonders if McCartney's (Jack Black) songs will "still be shit when I'm 64," before telling Ringo (Jason Schwartzman) that he should just feel lucky that they still let him play with his drums. Ringo smiles and says he just likes having fun, then waves his ever-present peace sign, barely opening his eyes. "Beatles," they are told, "stop fighting in India!" But for the most part, in "Let It Be," the four of them appear surprisingly cordial, which is intriguing especially considering all the tension behind the scenes. What's remarkable is that they stayed together for so long; George did, after all, have an affair with Ringo's wife. "No woman was out of bounds," George's ex-wife Pattie Boyd has said. And yet, here George is giving Ringo some tips on "Octopus's Garden," though he's cheekily grinning; perhaps he's teasing Ringo, or something. Everyone knows that despite their divisions, they all collaborated with each other in some form or another post-breakup, and my favorite consortium is an usual choice: "Photograph," which Ringo and George wrote for Ringo's album "Ringo." As Ringo pointed out at the "Concert for George" event Eric Clapton and Jeff Lynne organized in 2002, the song's lyrics, originally about a hopeless lost love, can also be applied to the death of a loved one. And this is a song he co-wrote with someone who had an affair with his wife.

The documentary won Best Original Song ("Let It Be"), but none of the four were present at the Oscars that year to receive the award. It's a shame we never saw them all together -- the closest was during the making of the "Anthology" documentary in the '90s. There are certainly highlights in "Let It Be," among them "Two of Us" and, of course, the rooftop concert. The director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, caught some almost surreal-looking scenes, such as a closeup profile of Lennon's lips as he sings, and an almost mesmerizing dance with Yoko. Speaking of, she appears, some might say, in an icy state, and fans probably are still under the impression that she broke up the band and will forever remain a terrible person. If you still think she did breakup the band, consider that McCartney has claimed that this isn't true, and if you think she's the real wicked one, consider that she and Lennon once received a letter from McCartney where he called her Lennon's "Jap tart."

Despite this being an essential for rock fans, and definitely Beatles fans, it's a letdown nonetheless. The music is great. The documentary, not so much.

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The Language of Hollywood

Wesleyan College and Coursera offer an exciting MOOC (massive open online course) for film lovers. Titled "The Language of Hollywood: Storytelling, Sound and Color," it's led by Scott Higgins and is a free course examining the history of storytelling with sight, sound and color from the Silent Era to the present day. Here's a look at the films included in the class:

Street Angel
Starring the near-perfect Janet Gaynor and her costar from "7th Heaven," Charles Farrell, this is Frank Borzage's melodramatic love story with a simple plot about a young woman named Angela (Gaynor) who is forced on the street to become a "street angel" in order to pay for a proscription for her ill mother. Angela's run from the law finds her in the loving arms of Gino (Farrell), who is determined to provide for her. One of Higgins' motivation for including the film in the syllabus is Borzage's exuberant visuals, which had the purpose of "externalizing emotions." This is perhaps best demonstrated in the exciting climax in which Gino, bitter about losing his love for reasons he does not understand, lights a match to the face of every woman he encounters; inevitably, he comes across Angela, whose once hopeless face now matches the brightness of the flame. Gino, however, glares back, and the match extinguishes. The film briefly becomes a horror movie. Note the stupidity in such a situation -- we are forced to believe that these two characters happen to both be walking out at night and both happen to be in the same spot in Naples at the same time, and yet we do. Higgins has a theory for this: Silent pictures (especially Borzage's) are emotionalized and abstract, like an opera, whereas sound films have increasingly been grounded in reality. This allows for a heightened sense of melodrama, which critics often complained about. But Borzage's response was that life was melodramatic. This belief guided his rule for movie making: make the audience sentimental, so the players don't have to be.

The Docks of New York
A bit shorter than the previous film and much less melodramatic, "The Docks of New York," from the same year as "Street Angel," takes place in a much smaller, tighter, colder, less romantic, more specific, stronger, and more grounded world. The world is the docks of New York, and more specifically the saloon and hotel. The saloon is not a vast area of lighthearted romance, but a small, degenerate bar with a rowdy group of people searching for sex. The Stoker (George Bancroft) is a big, gruff man, who, despite his affection for one-night stands, falls in love with a woman (Betty Compson) he's rescued from drowning herself. They marry in an orgy of decadence; as Higgins puts it, it's an arena where the saloon patrons find marriage to be a dirty joke. The movie certainly starts with a lot more excitement but bores as it progresses, ending in a similar preposterous manner of "Street Angel." This does not make "The Docks of New York" a bad film, however, it does require a bit more patience.

Applause
Now we're in the era of sound, with "Don Juan" showing the world that film can be accompanied by an orchestral score, "The Jazz Singer" showing us that there can be (a few) audible moments, and "Lights of New York" demonstrating that movies can be all-talking (though Higgins doesn't recommend viewing the film because of the low quality of its content). So we have a 1929 Paramount film called "Applause," by Rouben Mamoulian, and starring Helen Morgan. It cannot be doubted that Mamoulian had a talent for innovation, but the limitations of the technology at the time are too distracting; sound projection and synchronization were tremendous obstacles for early cinema pioneers like Thomas Edison and William Dickson, and yet even by 1929, the sound was so dismal that it seems like barely half of what was being spoken can be interpreted. (Before 1930, there were no blimped cameras, boom mics or sound editing equipment.) Joan Peters as Morgan's daughter looks the part but provides such horribly Transatlantic diction that the annoyance is only surpassed by the awful voice of Fuller Mellish, Jr. as the story's villain. I understand why the acting is so atrocious, but that does not mean I have to like the film, nor does the fact that its technological innovations and feminist viewpoint improve my opinion of it very much. In my mind, it should be stricken from the syllabus.

Monkey Business
The class moves into specific genres, starting with comedy, or more specifically, vaudeville. Set almost entirely on a cruise ship until they have exhausted just about all they could do with the specific situation, Grouch, Chico, and Harpo -- the Marx Brothers -- and their less shticky brother, Zeppo, star in their third film. "Monkey Business," from 1931, has aged a bit; Professor Higgins remarks that the situation comedy is sort of a "law of diminishing returns" with respect to each situation involving less for the brothers to do, but it also features fewer returns in the sense that the over-the-top slapstick hasn't aged so well. Still, it is a humorous change of pace for the course. Grouch's verbal barrage, Chico's piano scene, and Harpo's pantomime and harp scene, all practically self-contained acts that are gag-centered and feature practically no logic, are all delightful (though the racism and anti-women moments are all creepy). It's a very labor-intensive production by these four, particularly the three more recognizable Marx brothers. (Zeppo didn't continue to pursue the vaudeville-style film performances, but eventually became a millionaire through his work in film engineering.) There's such anarchic bursts of energy throughout it all as they run around the ship in a "world of straight men," tearing up the scenery, sometimes literally.

Scarface 
While just about everyone has seen Brian DePalma's 1983 remake, less folks have seen its source: the original, from 1932, produced by Howard Hughes, directed by Howard Hawks, and based on a story by Paul Hecht. Sold as sort of a societal film (that at times comes across as too unnecessarily preachy), it is nevertheless quite stylized with great sound effects and dark expressionistic lighting; just as the oranges in "The Godfather" four decades later, the cinematography in "Scarface" featured at least one letter X whenever a character was about to be killed. Paul Muni, who would go on to win an Oscar and a Tony, puts in a pretty stellar performance of the title character, though he sometimes overdoes it (perhaps influencing the bombastic yet iconic performance of Al Pacino in the remake sixty years later). Also supplying decent performances are George Raft, Karen Morley, Ann Dvorak and Boris Karloff, who a year earlier shot to stardom with Universal's "Frankenstein." Fans of "Some Like It Hot" might recognize Raft poking fun at his coin-flipping image from "Scarface." With all due respect to the remake, I think I might like this one better.

The Ghost Ship
Another genre explored is horror, although Higgins admits immediately that this could hardly be defined as a horror film. It's more of a psychological thriller, produced by the Val Lewton low-budget unit at RKO films. Lewton, whose more famous low-budget horrors include "Cat People," "The Body Snatcher," and "I Walked With a Zombie," and director Mark Robson are more interested in suggestion and utilize a lot of sinister, low lighting. Taking place almost entirely in a claustrophobic ship led by a captain (Richard Dix) suffering from the onset of insanity, "The Ghost Ship" was a hit in 1943, but a lawsuit by two playwrights caused it to be pulled from theaters and not shown for another fifty years, and it wouldn't be discovered again until it entered the public domain. Despite a genuinely eerie start and a thrilling sequence involving a giant hook, "The Ghost Ship" soon becomes a more boring version of "The Caine Mutiny," and at a length of just over an hour, it barely is saved in time. Higgins, though, does an effective job at explaining why the film is important, and he claims that the way it uses sound to create such an unsettling atmosphere for perhaps the first time by a Hollywood film is why "The Ghost Ship" deserves to be studied.

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
The second three-color film ("Becky Sharp," opening to harsher reviews, was the first), "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" from 1936 is considered the first to set aesthetic standards for films in color. Despite the limitations the crew had in requiring more lighting than black-and-white films, "Lonesome Pine" is a "film of restraint," filmed with a lot of neutrals (grays and browns) that surprisingly still looks gorgeous. That said, despite its technological advances, this film, while not as torturous as "Applause," bores more often than not. Its cast is mostly sufficient -- Sylvia Sydney, Fred Stone, and Beulah Bondi (James Stewart's mother in four films, including "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "It's a Wonderful Life") are pretty good, but its male leads, Fred MacMurray and Henry Fonda, two of the 20th century's most respected actors, mostly disappoint. MacMurray laughs and smiles a lot, while Fonda mostly looks angry; neither of the two provide much else. Just about every viewer, though, will delightfully recognize two actors: George McFarland (Spanky in the "Our Gang"/"Little Rascals" series) and Clara Blandick, who appears in a small role in one scene, and whom most viewers would easily recognize as Aunt Em in "The Wizard of Oz."

The Adventures of Robin Hood
Most likely the most well-known of Higgins' list of films in his syllabus, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" was filmed on a budget of $2 million at a time when the average production cost per film was several hundred thousand dollars. The costs largely paid off, and despite the ostentatious laughter throughout, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" is quite good fun. Originally to star James Cagney, it instead reunites Errol Flynn with his "Captain Blood" co-stars Olivia de Havilland and Basil Rathbone, and it was Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" that inspired Warner Bros. to film it in Technicolor. Its color palate is much denser, according to Higgins, than "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine," with many more colors, almost like a mosaic. The primary vehicle for this is its extravagant costume designs. Its cast includes Claude Rains, Eugene Pallette, Melville Cooper, Una O'Connor, and Alan Hale, Sr., who appeared here as Little John, and also did so in 1920 alongside Douglas Fairbanks, and then again in the role in 1950, making it one of the longest character spans in Hollywood history. But the real star is Rathbone, who is terrific in every scene.

All That Heaven Allows
Next to "Applause," Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows" is the worst film included in the course. True, this is a beautiful color design by Sirk and his cinematographer, Russell Metty; to be drained of color, Higgins tells us, is to lose life in a Sirk movie. There are great uses of matte paintings, including the farm scenes. The film's leads, Jayne Wyman and Rock Hudson, do a mostly decent job. But "All That Heaven Allows" is, on the whole, quite boring. Its impressive use of color doesn't erase this fact.

Punch-Drunk Love
Fortunately, Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love" from 2002 not only fantastically uses color, but also tells a great story. Calling this Anderson's least presumptuous film (because it's a 90-minute rom-com starring Adam Sandler), it tells the story of a man named Barry, tortured by his many sisters growing up and who probably has some kind of personality disorder. He falls in love with a friend of his sisters, but must protect her from being harmed by a violent group of men hunting him down for blackmail money due to Barry's one-time use of a phone sex operator. "Punch-Drunk Love" is half the length of "Magnolia," Anderson's previous film, and yet "Punch-Drunk Love" has aged so much better than "Magnolia" (which does suffer a bit from presumptuousness). It's one of Anderson's best films, certainly Sandler's best, and is the best film in the class. The best was saved for last.


There isn't too much to complain about this course. I've already mentioned that some of the films are less than impressive, and some of Higgins' lectures get a bit too carried away when discussing color. But Higgins has a plethora of film knowledge, and his course is a recommendable course, one that will likely teach you a lot about movie making.

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His Was the Most Human

To simply call him Spock, the iconic character from one of film and television's most innovative adventures in science fiction, would be a tragedy, one he might not appreciate. Leonard Nimoy, who died yesterday at age 83, was much more than Spock: After "Star Trek" ended after only three seasons, he successfully shifted to "Mission: Impossible" as a master of disguise, then hosted the documentary series "In Search Of..." before eventually having a reoccurring role in "Fringe." He starred on Broadway several times, dabbled in music (if one can call it that), directed the 1987 hit "Three Men and a Baby," and even appeared in the alternative music video of Bruno Mar's "The Lazy Song." His transition to film basically started with the remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," the year before he hesitatingly returned with his fellow voyagers in 1979's "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." The film, one of the weaker entries of the series, was at least a box office hit, mostly banking on the science fiction craze of the late '70s and especially the fans of the series who eagerly awaited the return. 

But it was the second film, "The Wrath of Khan," that was not only the greatest of all the "Star Trek" films, but also the one that showcased the best of Nimoy's acting. In that powerful final scene of his, Spock offers the utilitarian intellect of the film, calmly reminding his captain of his viewpoint that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. "The Wrath of Khan" might best be remembered for William Shatner screaming at his nemesis, but its best moment is its climax, where Spock proves that he will walk the philosophical walk. "Don't grieve, Admiral," he tells Kirk with a frighteningly hoarse voice. "It's logical." Director Nicholas Meyer, who had never seen any of the original "Star Trek" episodes, was perplexed at his crew for crying during the scene. Upon later watching the series, it suddenly occurred to him why they wept.

Just about anyone could relate to Spock in at least one way. The most obvious is the fact that the character grew up with a Vulcan father and human mother. "Star Trek," as many know, was at the time exploring societal issues and controversies in a way no other series even dared. One young girl, herself biracial, identified with the character and wrote to Nimoy seeking advice. He wholeheartedly replied, telling her to be true to herself as opposed to simply trying to be popular. The current president has been criticized for being "too Spocky and not enough Rocky," but relying on the former's qualities seems to have served him better. Barack Obama, obviously, is also biracial, and perhaps this is why he told the nation yesterday that he himself "loved Spock." Beyond issues of Spock being biracial were issues of him simply being different; Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times suggested that these days we would simply say Spock is "on the spectrum." Spock is different, no doubt, but he is also undeniably talented, strong, and influential. As Captain Kirk tearfully tells his crew at the conclusion of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," Spock's heart was the most human. 

Nimoy was at his best when he played Spock. Watch some of the best episodes of the original series -- "Charlie X," "The Corbonite Manuever," "The Managerie," "The Galileo Seven," "The City on the Edge of Tomorrow," "The Return of the Archons" -- and you will see some of Nimoy's finest work. To call Mr. Spock emotionless would be a mistake, for Nimoy knew that Spock was half-human, not fully Vulcan, thereby requiring the character to be completely the master of his emotions rather than simply devoid of them. Some of the episodes, like "Devil In the Dark," demonstrated that sometimes, frankly, Nimoy hit the wrong mark. He later claimed that his co-star and friend for several decades, Shatner as Captain James Kirk, was away from the set to attend a funeral. When he returned, the scene was explained to him: Nimoy as Spock performed a "mind meld," transferring a bizarre alien's thoughts to his mind. "Pain!" Spock yells. Shatner asked if Nimoy could show him, and Nimoy sort of performed a tame version of his previous performance. Shatner grew frustrated and asked rhetorically if that's how he did it, to which Nimoy said no, before really shouting "pain!" again, eyes completely closed and tense. Shatner didn't miss a beat: "Will someone get this man an aspirin?" Nimoy didn't speak to him for two weeks. But, as mentioned, they remained close. In addition to their three live action seasons and one animated, the two joined their fellow trekkers for a total of six "Stark Trek" films from 1979 to 1991, two of which Nimoy directed ("The Search for Spock" and "The Voyage Home," which is the second best of the original six). Nimoy also directed Shatner in an episode of the latter's TV show "TJ Hooker," and they even lent their voices to two computer games in the '90s, but with the most recent "Star Trek Into Darkness," Nimoy surpassed Shatner's record for the most "Star Trek" appearances. Nimoy, portraying Spock Prime, guiding Zachary Quinto's younger Spock in the alternate timeline, sort of served as an ambassador to the newer fans of the franchise, humbly and appropriately passing the torch in J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" in 2009. His cameo in the most recent one might have been unnecessary, but it was, in retrospect, a nice final appearance from him.

But by now Nimoy's ambiguous feelings toward the character that made him famous at age 35 and a permanent part of American pop culture even in death are fairly well known. He claimed that when he was walking in an airport, a woman approached him with her young daughter, and excitingly told the girl that before her very eyes was the television character she so very much loved. But the girl looked up and did not see Spock, with his raised eyebrow, pointy ears and overly regulated emotions. Instead she saw a man with shaggy hair and street clothes, and the girl was disappointed. Nimoy's response eventually came in the form of his first autobiography, titled "I Am Not Spock." I have not read the book, but apparently Nimoy meant it to be a discussion of the character and how he performed the role, not a bitter rejection or insult. But there was certainly a negative reaction, and to clarify, he later wrote another autobiography: "I Am Spock."

LLAP

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The 87th Academy Awards

The Oscars, saluting the best and the whitest, as host Neil Patrick Harris said at the beginning of the show, wasn't supposed to be this unpredictable. J.K. Simmons would be expected to follow Javier Bardem, Heath Ledger and Christoph Waltz in their villainous footsteps by easily winning Best Supporting Actor. Patricia Arquette, for her astonishing performance in "Boyhood," would follow with an easy win, as she has been a lock all awards season. Julianne Moore, long overdue for a win, would win without any serious competition for "Still Alice." That would leave three races -- Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor -- to be the difficult ones to guess. Not so this year, for it was a year of surprises. The big winner was "Birdman," but I'm not entirely sure what the deal with this film is. All I know for certain is this: it's the most overrated Best Picture winner since "Driving Miss Daisy" from 1989, and it only won because "Boyhood," its main competitor, was released in the summer. That's it.

What makes this particularly frustrating is that it's not as if I was madly in love with "Boyhood." But the nominees for Best Picture this year were mediocre ("Selma," "Whiplash," "The Theory of Everything," "The Imitation Game") and the others, like the most culturally significant ("American Sniper") or the winner ("Birdman"), were terribly overrated, and so "Boyhood" was simply the best. I really don't see "Boyhood" going down in the records as the one that lost the battle but won the war in the hearts and minds of moviegoers; that is, it's not the next "Star Wars," "Raging Bull" or "Pulp Fiction," all of them Best Picture losers. But in terms of actual merit, it truly sounds impossible to argue that it deserved to lose to "Birdman." Beyond that, perhaps the biggest shocker of the night was Wes Anderson not being one of the many winners of "The Grand Budapest Hotel" when he lost to the writing team for "Birdman." Adding to my frustration is that the one Oscar "Birdman" actually deserved -- Michael Keaton for Best Actor -- it lost, and with all due respect to the terrific performance by Eddie Redmayne, his win over Keaton proved that if you really want to win an Oscar, your chances are significantly improved if you're a white guy playing a protagonist with a disability.

But I should at least be happy that I got to watch the awards. You see, in my present country, the awards had been broadcast for at least two years on Fox Movies, making it for easy viewing. (They even offered a re-airing later in the day.) The following year, it was available for viewing on channel Dubai One, making it a bit difficult to find at first, but I was successful nonetheless. This year, however, the Oscars aired on OSN, a private channel requiring its own super, special cable box. ABC, which has aired the Academy Awards in the U.S. since the 1970s, allowed for live streaming of the show on its website, but only for those who already had a cable subscription (which would sort of negate the need for viewing it online), and only for those who had a subscription and reside in one of the eight markets that have ABC-owned-and-operated stations. Those living in Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle and other major American cities would be out of luck. (One could, however, watch the red carpet interviews and backstage clips for free online; oh, joy.)

Why all the hassle? As Will Oremus at Slate points out, money. "If this sounds like cruel and arbitrary from the cord-cutter's perspective," he writes, "it is. But ABC has business reasons for limiting its live stream in this way. In short, networks don't make as much money from the ads sold of their telecasts. And, in general, media companies have little interest in catering to cord-cutters, whom they view as undermining a bulwark of their business models. Yes, ABC networks are free to watch over the air, but ABC is owned by Disney, and the company also owns a slew of cable channels." Because of this, I went to bed late Sunday night (my time) prepared to wake in a few hours on my birthday and not be able to view the Oscars. However, at the very last minute, I found the good folks at ustream, where there was a channel with a live stream (illegally) available. That being said, for the last four awards, the Big Rat found us and shut the channel down, leaving two drunk ladies watching the Oscars as the only available channel that was at least somewhat relevant to the Oscars (really) but would be the fastest way of learning who the winners were. These ladies appeared to be engaging in some kind of bizarre drinking act where every time the camera showed Benedict Cumberbatch they took a sip of wine, I think. (The camera focused on them and their drinking, not the screen.) Their howling in approval left me confused for several minutes as to who the actual winner was; how was I to know that they were such huge Eddie Redmayne fans?

Neil Patrick Harris turned out to be a surprisingly awkward (and boring) host, especially considering how much experience he has hosting the Tony and Emmy awards. Despite a fairly entertaining opening number about the magic of movies (or something) with Anna Kendrick and Jack Black, the remainder of his time, save for a fairly clever (and brave) spoof of Michael Keaton's underwear scene in "Birdman," was devoted to lame and certainly uncomfortable jokes. He should have anticipated what kind of a reaction he would get regarding his running gag involving Octavia Spencer guarding his ballot, which at best was this year's "who wants pizza?" and at worst was a message to Oscar-viewers everywhere that if you win an Oscar for playing a black maid in the 1960s, you will one day return to serving white folks at the Oscars.

It's moments like these -- the inability to open up the show for all viewers, its predominantly white male membership shutting out Ava DuVernay for a deserving nomination, the insult of refusing to let the winners actually talk, and the painful yawns throughout -- that make me wonder why I bother watching. But whereas the show was its usual bore, at least the speeches were awesome. Here's a few of them:

Arquette (Best Supporting Actress, "Boyhood"): "To every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this country we have fought for everyone else's rights. It's time to have our wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America." Two women, in particular, really enjoyed her speech. (It's a bit depressing, though, that she had to say that in 2015, not 1980, the year "Nine to Five" was released.)

Simmons (Best Supporting Actor, "Whiplash"): "Call your mom, call your dad. If you're lucky to have a parent alive on this planet, call them. Don't text, don't email; call them on the phone and talk to them and listen to them as long as they want to talk to you."

Graham Moore (Best Adapted Screenplay, "The Imitation Game"): "Here's the thing: Alan Turing never got to stand on a stage like this and at look out at all these disconcertingly attractive faces. I do, and that's the most unfair thing I've ever heard. When I was 16 years old, I tried to kill myself because I felt weird and different and I felt like I did not belong. And now, I'm standing here. And so, I would like this moment to be for that kid out there who feels like she's weird or she's different and she doesn't fit in anywhere. Yes, you do. I promise you: you do. Stay weird and stay different."

John Legend (Best Original Song, "Selma," shared with Common): "We wrote this song for a film that was based on events that were fifty years ago, but we say that "Selma" is now, because the struggle for justice is right now. We know that the Voting Rights Act that they fought for fifty years ago is being compromised today." He also said that we live in the most incarcerated country in the world, and that there are more black men under correctional control today than there were in slavery in 1850, a claim that was validated by the fact-checking site Politifact.

And aside from the speeches, there was Lady Gaga's wonderful tribute to "The Sound of Music," as well as the Lonely Island teaming up with Tegan and Sara for "Everything Is Awesome," two of the few moments of life for the show. So in sum: memorable speeches, great singing, disappointing-as-usual host, unjustified (for the most part) winners. 364 more days till the next one.

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The Best Movies of 2014

I've already ranted about the dismal slate of movies we were given last year, and how disappointing it was that so many critics were in love with them. Still, there are at least five movies from 2014 that I think you should see, and they are:

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
A powerful allegory of many of today's societal problems, "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" might even be better than its predecessor from three years before. The visuals surely look better, and if it weren't for the breathtaking visual effects of Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar," this would certainly land a Best Visual Effects Award at the Oscars.

Leviathan
I like movies that make me think of allegories. The obvious parallel of "Leviathan" is to the story of Job in the Bible; this is where the title comes from, for ancient religious texts refer to sea creatures (or whales) as such. (Director Andrey Zvyaginstev also has described how the real-life situation of Marvin Heemeyer in the United States inspired the story.) But there's another likely inspiration: Thomas Hobbes. His famous philosophical work, calling for an absolute sovereign to rule, shares the title, and the cover features the biblical text from Job: "There is no power to be compared to him." How is that relevant? The film "Leviathan" has been described by Ethan Gates in the New Republic as the movie Hollywood loves but the Russian government hates. There are not so unobtrusive criticisms of Russian corruption, and so it's as if the film makers are saying that there is no power compared to Putin, and that's not necessarily a good thing. (This is a powerful sentiment considering how popular Putin is in Russia.) In "Leviathan," there are also moralistic Orthodox clergymen and moments of sexual violence sprinkled throughout the film. And this all, ultimately, follows the expected path -- the total opposite of American movie's usual trajectory -- that "all's well that ends unwell." This is a dark, depressing movie that, allegory or no allegory, requires a bit of patience, but it's certainly well worth it.

Pride
"Pride" is the reason movies should still exist. This is a film that with ease marries the belief that movies should be about something with the simple requirement that they should entertain. And entertain "Pride" does. I think Dominic West dancing to "Shame Shame Shame" was the best thing I saw in the movies all year. Based on the true story of a queer organization coming to help striking miners in rural Wales, this often does feel like a pretty standard message-film, but it's a lot more than that. It's funny, it's heartfelt, it's smart, it has terrific acting. It embraces cliches, but who cares? Messages about friendship and acceptance can sometimes be forgiven for this. One of the best moments in when the group, Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, drags the leader of the local striking miners to a gay bar in London, and practically pushes him on stage to thank them for their support. While the crowd isn't exactly thrilled to see him, he eventually, like a natural, gives a genuine moment of thanks: "What I'd really like to say to you tonight is thank you. If you're one of the people that's put money in these buckets, if you've supported LGSM, then thank you, because what you've given us is much stronger than money. It's friendship. When you're in a battle against an enemy so much bigger, so much stronger than you, well, to find out you had a friend you never knew existed, well, that's the best feeling in the world. So, thank you."

The Babadook
"The Babadook" isn't necessarily scary because it features some kind of demon-ghost haunting a mother and her son; it's scary because of what it represents. Even the most amateur film historian will recognize the tribute to early cinema German expressionism, but it's deeper than that; consider what one blogger has said about expressionism, that it is "at its bare essence taking the internal and making it external. Expressionists seek to express meaning and emotional experiences -- often radically to reflect mood and tone -- rather than physical reality." Sure, the monster (or whatever the hell it is) is terrifying, as is the poem that accompanies him (where, "if it's in a rhyme or it's in a book, you can't get rid of the Babadook..."). But what's more horrifying is (slight spoiler alert) the way this movie demonstrates, primarily through Essie Davis' character, that the fall into madness is one of the true horrors of life, that real demons are what's inside us, what often can only be put at bay rather than defeated outright. Understanding this will potentially help viewers understand the ambiguous ending a bit more clearly.

(Another good movie from 2014 about mental health is "Two Days, One Night" from France.)

Life Itself
"Life Itself" was by far the best film of the year, and yet this year's Academy Awards would certainly never give you that impression. I wasn't demanding a Best Picture nomination, which it definitely deserved, but Best Documentary is obvious, and yet, now the overrated "Citizenfour" will go home with the win. Why the film was ignored is something I don't understand, though the film's summer release probably didn't help, as the Academy has a terribly short memory. As I wrote back in July, "Life Itself," the documentary tribute to Roger Ebert, is of course a story largely exploiting our love of nostalgia, for there is a lot of footage of Ebert and his partner Gene Siskel dueling over movies. But "Life Itself" is also the best romance of the year and a truly heartfelt homage to the man who most would agree was the film critic of his time.

Honorable Mentions: "Guardians of the Galaxy," "The Overnighters," "In Bloom," "Snowpiercer"

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SNL40

BLTN

"Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake opened the 40th anniversary special of "Saturday Night Live" with a practically comprehensive rap of memorable moments of the most important comedy institution in American history. Energetic and zany, the right mood was set immediately. And then the man himself -- one half of the Wild and Crazy Guys, King Tut, a.k.a Steve Martin -- entered the center of Studio 8H, as he has done 15 other times over the past four decades, to formally introduce the show. Martin made sure the show wouldn't lose its edginess, mentioning to his audience (the SNL family at their seats and the estimated 23 million people at home) that the anniversary feels like a high school reunion, "a high school that is almost all white," ribbing the show for its controversial lack of diversity. Tom Hanks, usually not one of the funniest but certainly one of the most likable hosts in the show's history, and Alec Baldwin, the man who currently holds the record for hosting appearances, both joined Martin. So, too, did Billy Crystal, who was set to appear on the very first episode back in 1975 but was cut for time and eventually hosted and then joined the cast, helping to fill a post-Eddie Murphy void in the mid-80s.

But then, in addition to these four, came Chris Rock, who was better later on in the evening giving a heartfelt tribute to Murray, his idol, and then came Melisa McCarthy, Peyton Manning, and Miley Cyrus in what quickly became SNL celebrity-crowding at its worst; not even Paul McCartney and Paul Simon making their way to sing "I've Just Seen a Face" in wonderful harmony could save this sinking ship. But saved it became. Six minutes of montage clips -- featuring, among many others, the Blues Brothers, Gumbi, Schweddy Balls, and a man living in a van down by the river -- chronologically showcased SNL's golden moments, and should do more than enough to remind everyone of the significance of this New York -- American -- tradition. But was this telecast really three hours long? Yes, it was. Unnecessarily so, and frankly, "Saturday Night Live" over the years often has felt like it could have done better with a little less rather than a little more. Why was it necessary to have Kate McKinnon as Justin Bieber, Baldwin as Tony Bennett, and Tarem Killam as Christoph Waltz in the "Celebrity Jeopardy" sketch when Will Ferrell as Alex Trebek, Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery, Jim Carrey as Matthew McConaughey and Norm Macdonald as Burt Reynolds sufficed? Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader's comedic perfection wasn't enough to rescue the never-ending, yet delightfully sophomoric, "Californians." (Taylor Swift and whatever accent that was shoved in the killing knife.) Emma Stone was funny several years ago singing about her broken arm, but impersonating Gilda Radner's Roseanne Roseannadanna was simply awkward.

But the show was mostly wonderful, funny and tearful, politely yet unabashedly reminding the world why it is still needed. We were shown clips of original auditions of cast members -- Jon Lovitz, Jay Pharaoh, Will Forte, Radner, and others -- and some whom producer Lorne Michaels surely regrets not hiring, like Carrey, Stephen Colbert, and Zach Galifianakis. Jack Nicholson reminded the audience of what America was like in 1975 -- the last Americans were leaving Vietnam, Watergate was still fresh on everyone's mind, and President Ford, according to the New York Post, felt NYC should "drop dead." SNL in those days responded with furious gusto, allowing a tall, handsome comic who shared virtually no physical similarity to Ford convince Americans that a few stumbles equaled complete clumsiness and stupidity. Perhaps no other show has done more to shape how Americans have viewed their political leaders. (Bush even called his meetings "strategery meetings," and Tina Fey turned Sarah Palin's explanation of Russia's proximity to Alaska into "I can see Russia from my house.") The show did not refrain that night either. Original cast member Jane Curtin joined fellow former "Weekend Update" anchors Fey and Amy Poehler to note that she used to be the only pretty blond presenting fake news; "now, there's a whole networked devoted to that."

After the re-airing of the hilarious "Colon Blow" fake commercial in its entirety, Martin Short (whose one season of SNL, with Crystal and others, turned him into a household name in America) and Maya Rudolph as Beyonce introduced several returning members to recreate some of their memorable musical performances -- Ana Gasteyer and Ferrell as Bobbi and Marty Mohan singing their version of "Uptown Funk," Joe Piscopo as Frank Sinatra, Adam Sandler's Opera Man, and Bill Murray as lounge singer Nick Ocean, who added lyrics to the "Jaws" theme, accompanied by Paul Shaffer. This wasn't simply a several-hour series of clips, as the anniversaries in 1989 and 1999 were, though it would have been appreciated to see more of the non-live clips the show does, like the hysterical "TV Funhouse" cartoons Robert Smigel, Louis C.K. and others wrote. We were, though, treated to a brand new Digital Short of Andy Sandberg's, featuring his co-star from "That's My Boy" and fellow SNL alumn Adam Sandler. One near-final moment was the touching, Oscars-style in memoriam for its crew and cast members who have passed away; it was a very touching tribute to Jan Hooks, Don Pardo, Tom Davis, Andy Kaufman, Michael O'Donaghue, and many others. Bill Murray closed with saying that he had to include one final bit of news, and in the spirit of his fellow cast member, Garrett Morris, told the audience that Francisco Franco is still dead.

Fans of one of the most memorable sketches, Wayne's World, might have had to stay up pretty late to see Mike Myers and Dana Carvey reunite to party on (perhaps in tribute to the fact that the skit was nearly rejected initially and only given the dreaded last slot of the night). Myers remarked of the 40-year stretch that is the show, to which Carvey asked, "Do you mean this show has been going on for 40 years?" After mocking the apparent lack of originality in some of the show's critics and doubters during the not-so-good years who asked if the show should be called "Saturday Night Dead," the two sported their dueling Lorne Michaels impersonations, and Myers', in particular, should remind movie-watching audiences of a certain character.    

I suppose I have to mention what seemed to so very much upset viewers: Eddie Murphy's brief, admittedly awkward, return to the show that made him famous. By now, just about everyone knows his famous rise on the show; how, after the departure of Michaels and crew (and the disastrous sixth season), Murray almost single-handely carried the show, or, as "Live From New York: The Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live" co-author James Andrew Miller has said, "saved the franchise." But after supposedly becoming livid after cast member David Spade dismissively called him a "falling star" in the 1990s, it has been no secret that Murphy had had no intentions of ever returning or even discussing his time on the show. Was I disappointed by the brevity of Murphy's appearance? I suppose. Would I have liked to have seen him appear as Michaels originally wanted him to appear? Not really. Was it the worst part of the show? No. Is he still a legend? Yes. Did he still save the show? Obviously. Was it incredible to see him there? Definitely. Do I hope and have faith that he will one day appear as host? That's not even a serious question.  

Of all the numerous amounts of ink that have recently been spilled about this iconic show, none have been as fascinating to read as Rob Shefield's article in Rolling Stones magazine ranking all 141 cast members of the show's history. (Coming in at dead last is a cast member from the 11th season named Robert Downey, Jr.) Look at some of those in the top ten: Chevy Chase (the man who "took one season to define the franchise"), Gilda Radner ("the most beloved of the original cast members"), Amy Poehler (who "could do warmth," yet was "always buzzing with a real don't-mess-with-me hostility never far from the surface"), Phil Hartman (the "grown-up in the room" and "'the Glue' for holding the show together"), Dan Aykroyd (the cast member with "biker-intellectual intensity"), John Belushi ("the first rock & roll star of comedy"). Certainly an argument could be made that the world would not be witnesses to decades of laughter from these individuals if not for the man who put them on the show: Lorne Michaels. Michaels, who for forty (technically thirty-five) years led the show through high and low, is a Canadian who created an American institution, one that, as Paul Simon sang near its closing moments of its 40th anniversary, is still crazy after all these years. Perhaps it still will be for the next forty. Here's hoping.

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Oscar Predictions

What was supposed to be the Oscar year in which Richard Linklater and "Boyhood" took home the big prizes, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and "Birdman" might just pull it off instead. The past several weeks have proved that the momentum has almost decisively shifted to the latter's favor, even if its lead actor's chances have gone done. Who will win?

The real horse-race this year is the Best Actor category. While it initially seemed like it was Michael Keaton for his comeback role in "Birdman," with wins at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, as the man to beat, Eddie Redmayne seems to have taken the lead with his best performance yet in "The Theory of Everything." Redmayne also won at the Globes and then took home trophies at the Screen Actors Guild ceremony and recently at the BAFTAs. Had Keaton and Redmayne not been nominated, this easily would have been Benedict Cumberbatch's win for his exceptional work in "The Imitation Game," but with such fierce competition from Keaton and Redmayne, this isn't his year. Incidentally, Steve Carell has also given us his best work in "Foxcatcher," but in a role that essentially is a supporting one, and with all due respect to Bradley Cooper and his third consecutive nomination for "American Sniper," David Oyelowo's performance in "Selma" was more deserved. Carell and Cooper are the least likely to win.

So who will win Best Actor? My head tells me it's going to be Redmayne. While the Academy has traditionally picked a veteran over a newbie (e.g. Humphrey Bogart over Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck over Peter O'Toole, and John Wayne over Dustin Hoffman), these days, they're not too interested in a comeback (e.g. Sean Penn over Mickey Rourke), and definitely are in love with biographical portrayals (for films like "Ray," "The Iron Lady," "The King's Speech," "Capote," etc.). There is an understandable controversy about Redmayne's performance, centering on the Academy's constant rewarding of actors without disabilities portraying characters with disabilities. However, with Redmayne's case, because he was playing Stephen Hawking in his earlier years as well as Hawking as the figure we now recognize, I wouldn't be surprised if Academy voters ignore the controversy. Still, while Redmayne's is a really great performance, Keaton, in my mind, slightly surpasses him. For one, it's true that comedy is harder than drama. It is also, it could be argued, equally or more difficult to create a new character, especially one that seems to, in some respect, tease Michael Keaton and his status as former superhero star staging a comeback. My prediction is still that Keaton will win, but I'd say it's only slightly higher than 50 percent; it is, essentially, the toughest Best Actor race in a long time.

Regarding the final major nail-biter, the Best Picture race, this is also the hardest race to predict in years. "Boyhood" seems to be the choice of critics, as it won at the New York and L.A. film critics awards as well as the Critics Choice Awards; "Birdman," however, stole its thunder with wins at the Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, and Producers Guild awards. The latter three in particular are usual good indicators of who will win. This is another head-versus-heart match. I think "Birdman," Inarritu's fifth film, could very well likely win, but my gut still tells me that the Best Picture (and Director) Award will go to "Boyhood." "Boyhood" is an epic of the 21st century, and I think the Oscars will reward that.

Regarding the rest of the races, they should be fairly predictable:

Best Actress: Julianne Moore ("Still Alice")
Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette ("Boyhood")
Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons ("Whiplash")
Best Adapted Screenplay: "The Imitation Game"
Best Original Screenplay: "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
Best Song: "Selma"
Best Visual Effects: "Interstellar"
Best Makeup: "Guardians of the Galaxy"

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2014: The Year of Shitty Movies

Hey there, cats and kittens,

While this time of year typically brings great joy to release my list of the best films of the year (as I did in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013), I regret to inform you that there will be no top ten list this year. This past year has given us, by far, the worst slate of motion pictures in more than a decade. Whereas the previous year gave us such noteworthy greats as "Wadjda," "12 Years a Slave," and "Nebraska," this year gave us a disappointing mess, for lack of a better word.

There were a variety of different duds, from blockbusters ("Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier") to independent artsy movies ("Only Lovers Left Alive"), and movies so boring the best solution was probably to turn them off ("Particle Fever" and "Le-Weekend"). Some big names gave us crap, too -- there was Darren Aronofsky's worst film ("Noah"), and Tim Burton's most boring ("Big Eyes"). And of course, how can I not forget Mr. Clint Eastwood? Eastwood, though still a universally-loved legend, this year not only gave us the awful "Jersey Boys" (which actually was ridiculed by the critics), but he also directed the most divisive, controversial (and arguably the worst) movie of his career: "American Sniper." Aside from the fact that this movie dumbs down and rewrites history while painting the Iraq War in black-and-white moral terms, this movie was simply boring--dreadfully boring (and you would think that a guy with four Oscars would notice a fake baby). Aside from its opening moments, there wasn't a single scene that really engaged me, and people might be able to legitimately claim it's "powerful" if they've never seen a plethora of other superior war movies. "American Sniper" is one of the worst movies of the year.

Then there's "Birdman," a movie I really, really wanted to like. What a cast -- Michael Keaton, in his comeback role, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Zach Galifianakis. Coupled with a clever screenplay, as well as a respected director and great cinematography, this should have been a movie I really liked. And yet, like so many other 2014 movies, I felt letdown and bored out of my mind. That being said, I hope Keaton wins the Oscar. His performance is excellent, and is one of the few good things about "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)." Perhaps one day, I will re-watch it and enjoy it, but I doubt that will happen.

There were movies that had great performances, like the always perfect Marion Cotillard (deservedly nominated this year for "Two Days, One Night") in "The Immigrant," Joaquin Phoenix in "Inherent Vice," Tom Cruise in "Edge of Tomorrow," Melissa McCarthy in "St. Vincent," Oscar Isaac in "A Most Violent Year," and the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman in "A Most Wanted Man"; great performances in crap movies that could cure insomnia. There were other movies that were just utterly ridiculous, like "Fury," a movie in which five Americans in a tank defeat practically the entire Nazi army, or pretentious junk like "Begin Again," or dull documentaries like "Citizenfour," or puffed-up animation such as "Big Hero 6," Disney's movie where they turn a likable healthcare-providing robot into a weapon of mass destruction. And it wasn't simply Hollywood that released such garbage. Films from a variety of different nations also bored me to tears: "Ida" from Poland; "The Tale of Princess Kaguya" and "The Wind Rises" from Japan; "Stranger by the Lake" and "Ernest and Celestine" (two radically different movies) from France; "What If" from Canada; "The Missing Piece" from Cambodia; "Calvary" from Ireland; "Mr. Turner," "Starred Up," and "Under the Skin" from the U.K.; and "Force Majeure" and "We Are the Best" from Sweden and Denmark.

Maybe I should just quit.

Here's hoping for better movies in 2015.

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Into the Woods

Once the familiar becomes strange, as Michael Sandel has said, things are never quite the same. So it is in Disney's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's "Into the Woods." Here, the familiar becomes quite strange. I recall complaining to my theatre professor when my university put on a production of "Into the Woods" my freshman year that I didn't care for the sudden change in mood during the second act of the musical. But he and others convinced me of this necessity; strange is often quite good, and Disney, of all studios, has done a mostly good job of avoiding the "Disneyfication" of these famous stories like it did for practically a century.

"Into the Woods" is a musical featuring a variety of different fairy tales so juxtaposed with each other that one might be advised to take a copious amount of notes. There's the usual suspects: a little hungry girl with a red cape; Cinderella, slaving away at home for her terrible step-family; Jack, unable to help his mother because their cow will not produce any milk. But then there's something about a curse being placed on a house of a baker and his wife, or something like that. The plot is not too interesting. But the couple are forced to collect a series of items for a witch (Meryl Streep), who placed the curse, and so on their journey they come across all these characters.

Many of the musical numbers fall fairly flat in terms of interest, but there is something certainly peculiar about it all. Here, as our characters sing, the woods are just trees, and the trees are just woods; stay on the path, they may try, but something wicked surely will come. Little by little, we see these characters' stories becoming intertwined. Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) embarks on her journey into the woods to bring some bread to Granny (who is sick in bed), and, as we all expect, she comes across a hungry wolf (Johnny Depp). Depp appears only in one sequence as the Wolf, ears pointed and tie undone, with long black claws. It's a pretty good scene, and despite the (mostly) unfair wave of recent criticism he has recently received, like when the Washington Post's Stephanie Merry called him a "51-year-old ham," it shows that Depp still has it. Is the sequence disturbing? Yes, but by now everyone knows the dark history of these old fairy tales and their didactic nature -- take a read to find out what really happens to Cinderella's stepsisters in the original Grimm stories.

The other actors are also quite good. I knew Meryl Streep and Anna Kendrick (Cinderella) could sing, but I had no idea Tracy Ullman (Jack's mother) and James Corden, who plays the baker, could as well. But the one who really is impressive is Captain Kirk himself -- Chris Pine, as Prince Charming, belts out "Agony" with co-star Billy Magnussen in one of the best scenes in the movie. Also giving good performances are Crawford and Daniel Huttlestone as Jack (of the "Beanstalk" story). (Huttlestone appeared in "Les Miserables" two years ago and Crawford makes her film debut here; she also played the title character in "Annie" in the Broadway revival.)

Job certainly well done to director Rob Marshall. We all knew he could get great singing from his actors from his previous movies, but beyond that he deserves credit for this incredible production design, especially its design by Dennis Gassner and Anna Pinnock, and visual effects team lead by Christian Irles, Matt Johnson, and Stefano Pepin. In addition to a nomination for Streep and the production design team, Colleen Atwood is deservedly nominated for her costumer design. This is truly one of the most visually impressive movies of the year, especially the sequences featuring the angry lady-giant, imaginably one of the more difficult moments to visualize. Beyond that, there might be some disappointment. There isn't quite as much thought as I think many people would want, and I don't think there's any way of being able to decipher if this is or isn't a parable about AIDS, as some have theorized the original musical is. Still, compared to many of the disappointing duds of December, "Into the Woods" is quite the treat.

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Selma

"Our feet are tired, but are souls are rested."
-Martin Luther King

In the opening scene of "Selma," directed by Ava DuVernay, Martin Luther King stares into a mirror and mentions a "disdain for hopelessness." He's simultaneously putting on his tie. It is 1965. It's an incredible way to open the movie, with a haunting score by Jason Moran (in his debut). But then we immediately go from Oslo, Norway to Birmingham, Alabama, where four young girls are descending stairs in what appears to be a church, and it doesn't require a PhD in History to at least suspect what is coming. The church explodes, killing the four girls inside.

King, played exceptionally by David Oyelowo, is not going to tire from his success in helping to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and becoming a Nobel laureate -- he's instead going to Washington, D.C. to try and stress to President Lyndon Johnson that more urgent work is desperately needed, and they need LBJ's help. Despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act, blacks are still being systematically persecuted, and this is made possible by segregationist white governors, police chiefs, juries, etc. If a perpetrator actually sees his day in court (a rarity), then the white jury always finds the white criminal not guilty. Why? Because, MLK tells LBJ, to serve on a jury, a person needs to be registered to vote. And while, technically, blacks did have the right to vote in 1965, as the next scene demonstrates, this was often not actually the case. In the scene, Annie Lee Cooper (played by Oprah Winfrey, a producer of the film), attempts to register (again) to vote. She is rudely asked to recite the preamble to the Constitution. Upon beginning, she is then rudely demanded to identify how many county judges there are in Alabama. She answers correctly. "Name them," is the next order. Her request is denied.

The film accurately portrays Cooper's bravery and her punching a police officer, and Winfrey has stated that she wished to portray the character because of her courage. The depiction of President Johnson, however, has become a bit more controversial. A group of historians and Johnson advisers have pushed back against the notion that King and Johnson had a tense relationship, or that they disagreed about the procedure for solving the problems. Johnson historian Julian E. Zelizer recently wrote at Vox that Johnson and the civil rights leaders were partners, not adversaries. And as Bill Moyers, himself a former Johnson adviser, has pointed out, it was not Johnson who was behind the wiretapping of King's phones. The culprit? Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, two years earlier. And it should not be doubted that the FBI was ruthless toward King. In addition to the wiretapping, an FBI agent, using terms like "filthy" and "abnormal," sent King a letter suggesting the civil rights leader kill himself.

While the scenes with Johnson might be seen as dumbing-down the history of everything, I don't think they hurt the film too much. While it's truly bizarre that Oyelowo didn't receive a Best Act nomination, his fellow Brits give disappointing performances. Tom Wilkinson isn't particularly good as LBJ, and neither is Tim Roth, whose accent sounds more like an exaggerated version of Kevin Spacey in "House of Cards" than it does than the venomous governor of Alabama, George Wallace (whose daughter, incidentally, claimed Wallace saw the errors of his ways and regretted his years of proclaiming that in Alabama there would be "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever"). The rest of the cast, however, is sufficient and plentiful: Common, Wendell Pierce, Lorraine Toussaint, and Cuba Gooding, Jr. all appear as civil rights activists, as does Martin Sheen as a judge hearing the case of the legality of the banning of marching in Selma, and Carmen Ejogo (another Brit) is excellent as Coretta Scott King. In her scenes, Ejogo (who also played the character in "Boycott" from 2001 and who had met her) portrays Coretta not only as a concerned wife but one understandingly angry about her husband's infidelity in scenes demonstrating that DuVernay and her team aren't afraid of de-mythologizing MLK a bit.

"Selma it is." King and his advisers agree to go to Selma to march to Montgomery in a demonstration to demand their right to vote. They concentrate on a "defined battleground," and predictably are met with violence; it's "open season," as Johnson warns. One young man is shot and killed in front of his family. In scenes that provoke demonstrators to ask how it can be that troops were being sent to Vietnam but not Selma, skulls are cracked and scores of people chased. These are not, in any stretch of the imagination, easy moments to watch. As the judge Sheen plays notes, "the wrongs are enormous." So it was then, and so it is, frankly, now.

Is "Selma" a great film? No, and at times it doesn't aspire to be more than a mediocre movie about history, much like "The Imitation Game" before it. I hope that this continues the success of Oyelowo, who also appeared in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and "Lee Daniels' The Butler," and I hope that the Academy (which is 93 percent white and 76 percent male, and has been stung by a Twitter campaign called #OscarsSoWhite with tweets like "they didn't see 'Selma' but their housekeeper said it was really good") continues to not only diversify but also has enough sense to nominate DuVarney when she earns it. That being said, "Selma" is a movie you should see, but that does not make it one of the year's best.

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