When you don’t read this, the Oscars will have come and gone. You are probably wondering my predictions. I don’t know, maybe you’re wondering how silly putty picks crap up from comic books*. But I think BABEL will win while Scorsese gets his obligatory Best Director/Lifetime Achievement/Sorry We Haven’t Given You An Oscar Yet Best Living Director statue. The other awards are a shoo-in: DREAMGIRLS will sweep the supporting noms while Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren will take home the big awards. I have seen none of those actorial movies. Like everyone else who lives in the bubble outside the mainstream (not many girls there), I am upset that CHILDREN OF MEN did not receive some arbitrary major nominations that would have opened it to the wider audience it deserved.

Here are my latest thoughts:

THE DEPARTED, on second viewing, gets even stronger. Scorsese gives a perfect overdose of style to a story that is somewhere in between a SOPRANAS knockoff and the Irish version of GOODFELLAS. Marty is working with the best actors available and they’re all excellent. My first impression of Matt Damon was that he was a dull cipher for a character that needed to a lot of buried syndromes. This time, I was pretty impressed by the way Jason Bourne allowed Scorsese to turn his image upside-down: he’s an impotent lothario scumbag who just happens to be very, very smart. Mark Wahlberg wraps his talent around the best dialogue the movie has to offer, and its proof that he has not abandoned the talent that BOOGIE NIGHTS proved he had. Di Caprio is awesome – he’s in the midst of a Nicholson-esque string of great, diverse roles. The supporting cast, particular Alec Baldwin and Ray Winstone, are pitch-perfect.

This is the most acrid Scorsese, normally a life-affirming libertine, has ever been. He attacks, in no particular order: priests, city government, the current Elephant Administration ™, Chinese Democracy (of the non-Axl variety), ceremony, psychiatrists, cell phone culture, the inadequacy of prescription drugs, real estate, the nation’s ultra-patriotic post 9/11 love of firemen, KANGAROO JACK funnyfatman Anthony Anderson, City Pride, TV News Sophists, and funerals. This is the least effective part of THE DEPARTED (the man has never been very good, or needed to be, at messages), but it is still the most powerful piece of High Profile Cinema in the last few years.

THE ILLUSIONIST and THE PRESTIGE

Two magic movies in Fall ’06 and both featured the participation of legendary conjurer Ricky Jay (as a performer in PRESTIGE, a consultant in ILLUSIONIST). THE ILLUSIONIST was, apparently, the bigger hit, which was odd because THE PRESTIGE was the more conventionally entertaining. I liked both films kind of. They both suffered from high concept stories obsessed with making a connection between deception-based magic and deception-based storytelling. With its showy cinematic, THE ILLUSIONIST would seem to be the one making more of a moral about the ILLUSION of movies, but ultimately THE PRESTIGE spends more time in the “You Can’t Really Believe Everything You See” camp. THE ILLUSIONIST is popcorn camp passed off as high style (done very well), while THE PRESTIGE is a grand gesture about all kinds of contrived wizardry pieced together into a genre pic.

Though I liked both films kind of, I preferred THE PRESTIGE mainly because of Christian Bale’s crazy eyes, Michael Caine’s enduring watchability, David Bowie’s participation, Scarlett Johannson’s siren presence, and Hugh Jackman’s perfect mix of vulnerability and cocksure arrogance. Bale, in particular, is an actor who deserves more credit: I found him boring in BATMAN BEGINS, but it wasn’t his fault. Except for maybe fellow chap Clive Owen, he is the most inaccessible persona on the screen, and this makes him fascinating. He refuses to let us in, to show up on talk shows wearing jeans and a blazer and tell funny stories about his kids. He stares in the camera as though he can break the lens. When he laughs, it’s because he’s smarter than you. It’s hard to believe this is the doe-eyed expressive ragamuffin from EMPIRE OF THE SUN.

THE ILLUSIONIST features a tedious performance by Edward Norton, who has only been interesting in movies he could manipulate (like the wretched DOWN IN THE VALLEY). As the cop, Paul Giamatti is always interesting, but Norton sleepwalks through every scene he’s in. Since 25^TH HOUR, Ed has been in a downward spiral that might necessitate the dreaded “comeback.” But since he was never a major star to begin with, and never a pop-culture icon, audiences are likely to yawn when he does, unlike the Travolta/Carradine resurgence models.

Still, a double-bill of both films is more than passable entertainment.

I have been busier than the guy who cleans the toilets in Hell recently, so I have plenty of reasons not the see the hideous January/February releases like the recently released JIM CARREY HAS LONG HAIR AND AN EXPLICIT SEX SCENE AND BABBLES ABOUT NUMEROLOGY. I recently saw a preview that said

"WILD HOGS IS THE FIRST GREAT COMEDY OF THE YEAR! ALLEN, LAWRENCE, TRAVOLTA, AND MACY (why William H, why??!?!) ARE A DREAM TEAM."

Rhetorical question: would anyone arrest a serial killer of blurb artists-for-hire? Not-so-rhetorical conclusion: I think I’ll do it anyway.

Speaking of serial killers: One question about these dud-season releases, why was David Fincher’s ZODIAC dumped at the beginning of March? As I remember, the same thing happened with his mediocre PANIC ROOM. Fincher directed, by my vote, the best Serial Killer movie ever made, and one of the best movies of the last twenty years: SEVEN**. Now he’s back in his wheelhouse, working with a great cast (and, sadly, Jake Gyllenhaal), and making a stylish late-period piece ripped from the headlines. Could it be a bomb? Is Fincher a dead man walking? Has he both betrayed his iconoclastic roots that made him such a force of nature and ruined his chance to make big budget genre pics (of which his THE GAME is one of the best of recent memory)?

A long post, I realize. In case you’re one of the people who hasn't talked to me in the last four weeks, the best album since Arcade Fire’s FUNERAL is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s SOME LOUD THUNDER. I say this only so you can go buy it. I’ll post about it’s Television/Talking Heads-inspired awesomeness in a later post.

* - I ripped off this line from a movie you should see, KISS KISS BANG BANG

** - I absolutely refuse to type the actual title: SE7EN***

*** - I just did