Armchair Commentary

The World According to Terrence Malick

As if it needed any greater pedigree than simply being a Terrence Malick film, The Tree of Life arrives in theaters as winner of the 2011 Cannes Palme d'Or, the top honor from the world's most renowned film festival. Malick has directed only five films in 38 years, and The Tree of Life has had critics stumbling over themselves to describe its collision of the cosmos, spirituality, philosophy, and the deeply personal nature of familial love. Most everyone admits it's a tough nut that defies easy interpretation, demands repeated viewings, and may even be (gasp!) flawed in some fundamental ways. But the mantle of genius is sticking strong to Malick and The Tree of Life, along with its ruminative themes on the natural world and existential questions about who we are, why we're here, and where we're going after we've moved beyond our experience of the known.

All five of Malick's films have aspired to the realm of poetry. Because of the mystique that has grown up around him -- he stays resolutely out of the public eye and does not comment about his work -- the grand master label has become a given. He surrounds himself with a trusted creative team, and actors lucky enough to be chosen to share his vision have waxed rhapsodic about his process. In a recent interview with the New York Times' Dennis Lim, The Tree of Life's star Brad Pitt said that Malick fosters an atmosphere that allows for serendipity in capturing both elegiacal imagery and the aesthetics of personal interaction. "He finds perfection in imperfection, and he's always trying to create the imperfection," Pitt told Lim. Pitt said that working with Malick was "liberating but exhausting," and that he gave his actors free rein to answer "this actor’s quest of always trying to be in the moment, which is a bit precious but very true."

 

Others have observed that Malick uses his scripts as a starting point, but that they become less important than capturing moments that arise unexpetedly when shooting begins. Famous for laboring over his work both during shooting and in post production, Malick relies heavily on editing and sound design to shape his films. His intention has been expressed as a desire to capture emotion on film in a way that few directors have ever been able to do.

The Tree of Life certainly follows his obsession with nature and the beauty of living things, be they the branches of a tree or the churning vapors of a distant galaxy. In 2005 he brought the gaze of 17th century explorer John Smith (Colin Farrell) to the exotic shores of North America with The New World. His 1998 interpretation of The Thin Red Line, James Jones' novel about the World War II South Pacific battle on Guadalcanal strove for similar themes of the awesomeness, splendor, and sometimes horror found in the details of life so many of us pass by without a second glance.

Another device revered by Malick is the use of observational voice-over from his actors that intertwine with the spectacle of his images, sometimes in seemingly random ways. Malick is a Harvard educated Rhodes scholar who taught philosophy at MIT, so it's not surprising that he should be interested in bringing his idealistic view of the world to bear in his art. He uses the internal monologues that revolve in his characters heads to give voice to his own existential wonder. In The Thin Red Line, the virtual who's who of male Hollywood stars -- Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson, Nick Nolte, Adrien Brody, Jim Caviezel, et al -- mingled their voices to achieve a higher grace than that of a traditional war movie. The New World and The Tree of Life are also filled with voices of actors musing to themselves and to us, whether their thoughts relate to Malick's narrative or not.

The 20 year gap closed by The Thin Red Line was preceded by what is nearly universally hailed as Malick's golden achievement. Days of Heaven is a breathtaking and heartbreaking glimpse at life in the farmlands of the Texas panhandle in the early 20th century, starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, and Sam Shepard. Golden is also an apt descriptor of the visual style as filming took place almost entirely during "the golden hour" just before sunset, giving every scene its distinctive and entirely natural burnished glow. Malick was awarded the directing prize at Cannes for Days of Heaven in 1979.

Malick's first feature, Badlands was made on the cheap in 1973, but remains the prototype from which all his themes evolved -- the haunting voiceover, the wonderment or sense of dread provoked by environment, and a reliance on the just-so-ness of natural light. Performances by the very young Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as an indifferent serial killer and his teenage lover remain powerfully affecting, as does the striking imagery of the American West.

Perhaps in an effort to make up for lost time, Malick has already shot his as yet untitled sixth film which is set in present day Oklahoma and stars Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams. But it's unlikely we'll see the film in time for next year's Cannes Film Festival, and maybe not even the year after that. For Terrence Malick, neither films nor life are things to be rushed, and each appear to hold eqaul importance in his ethos as one of the great artists of our time.--Ted Fry

The Education of Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of those actors who grew up in front of us. As a child star on TV he showed charm, sweetness, and humor before making a studied move into movies as his body and mind became sinewy, smart, and bursting with barely restrained intensity. On screens now as the title character in Hesher, Gordon-Levitt is again testing his range as a severely damaged mystery man who drives a beat-up van and carries a rage with deep roots that we never really see unearthed. Wearing a grungy fright wig and anarchic death-metal attitude to match, he enters the life of an equally damaged family in desperate need of the help only a character as desperate as he can give. Gordon-Levitt's physical grace is extraordinarily compelling as he pushes and punishes his lithe body in complete commitment to the role. It’s a new peak in a career that deserves a look backward for clues on how he came to be so possessed and confident in roles that have been sweet, terrifying, enigmatic, and everything in between.

3rd Rock from the Sun,1996-2001: Jospeph Gordon-Levitt made his TV debut at age seven and appeared had a few small screen guest shots (including Family Ties and Roseanne) before landing the role of all-American space alien Tommy Solomon at age 15 in 1996 for the acclaimed six-season run of Third Rock From the Sun. He was the youngest member of the family in Earth years, but it was never clear who among the wacky Solomons had the highest level of maturity. With his shoulder-length locks and cute, shy, loveable demeanor, Gordon-Levitt was a favorite character who often was the smartest in the cobbled-together family of dim bulbs played with separate but equal wackiness by John Lithgow, Kristen Johnsten, and French Stewart. His skill at comic timing and ingenuous charm grew rapidly over the series’ life, and when the ensemble show folded his options were open to both comic/romantic offerings or more substantial actorly roles, both of which he pursued vigorously.

10 Things I Hate About You, 1999: On hiatus from Third Rock, Gordon-Levitt took a supporting role as a fully human high school kid in this well-received teen reimagining of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. He had the aw-shucks teenage charisma down pat and nicely complimented the large cast that was headed by Heath Ledger and Julia Styles. It wasn’t his first big screen outing (he had minor preteen parts in the John Grisham adaptation The Juror and Robert Redford’s fly fishing reverie A River Runs Through It), but it made a big impression on industry types that this was a good-looking, sharp-witted professional young man with a career to look forward to.

Manic, 2001: This relatively obscure drama starring Don Cheadle as a counselor at a psychiatric lockup for teens was Gordon-Levitt’s first real break from his blithe past as a sweet kid with a carefree spirit. He plays a troubled kid with a violent streak and a dangerous future ahead of him unless he can reach down and get at his inner turmoil. The glimmers of intensity he brings to the role of a kid who’s crossed the cusp to adulthood show the method-like passion that will soon explode in many more serious roles that unleash real depth of character. His co-star is the relatively unknown doe-eyed cutie Zooey Deschanel who brought him a different kind of romantic turmoil a few years later in (500) Days of Summer.

Mysterious Skin, 2004: This haunting, mysterious, and quietly unsettling indie drama from bad-boy underground director Greg Araki was a major turning point for Gordon-Levitt as a serious actor who brought physical grace, toughness, genuine strength, and an underlying vulnerability to the role of a teenage hustler and victim of childhood sexual abuse. It’s an unflinching portrait, both direct and compellingly oblique about the ways that trauma can manifest itself in the molding of a young mind and how a victim copes with an aftermath that may never heal. Gordon-Levitt took risks that paid off with devastating clarity for his director and for himself as an actor eager to push himself into unfamiliar territory.
 
Brick, 2005: If Mysterious Skin represented Gordon-Levitt testing the waters of his range, the brilliantly conceived homage to literary noir of Brick cemented his ability to run deep with a complex character in a somewhat less experimental, more accessible style. Still in the realm of serious indie, he plays a moody high school kid on the fringe of social cliques who is thrust into a mystery worthy of Chandler or Hammett when his ex-girlfriend ends up dead. Brick creates a sort of alternate reality populated by teens who act and speak in a lightning fast vernacular of 1940s pulp against a backdrop of hardcore drug deals and intricate relational dynamics that unfold in a sort of alternate reality. The script, dialogue, and direction by first time director Rian Johnson were integral to the many accolades Gordon-Levitt won as a noteworthy young actor riding a crest to much bigger things.

Stop-Loss, 2008: Ryan Phillippe starred in this well-intentioned but poorly received drama about a soldier returning from a tour in Iraq, only to find he’s been stop-lossed and redirected back in country for another deployment. Gordon-Levitt has a great time venting all the rage and barely restrained psychosis of his friend in a supporting role that was perhaps his most daring and unexpected to date. Boys Don’t Cry director Kimberly Pierce stumbled over a sometimes clunky script, but the performances were strong all around, especially Gordon-Levitt’s turn as an unpredictable muscle-bound alpha-male with a sense of patriotism that upends and undoes him.
 
(500) Days of Summer, 2009: In what suddenly seemed like a rare departure from his slightly-psycho, super-serious roles that showcased his dramatic intensity, Gordon-Levitt sparkled in this sweet, gentle, and genuinely poignant romantic comedy about a sweet, gentle writer of greeting cards who falls for an irresistible girl who breaks his heart. He’s a true romantic, dedicated to the notion of true eternal love, but she (the irresistible Zooey Deschanel) doesn’t believe in love and is simply looking for a uncommitted fun time with a nice guy for the right now. Showing off his innate physical grace to great effect, Gordon-Levitt sings and dances, reveals great tenderness and depth of emotional feeling that’s the total opposite of his ample capabilities for rage and hostility, that’s further demonstration of his seeming unlimited range.
 
Inception, 2010: Though his performance sometimes seemed a little out of tune with his costars and his character somewhat underdeveloped, Gordon-Levitt was suave and self-assured as the immaculately groomed corporate espionage operative in Christopher Nolan’s ambitious opus. Again showing off his lithe form and skillfully physical presence, he danced and fought on walls and ceilings with the elegance of Fred Astaire, and handled guns and high explosives with the dexterity of James Bond.

It’s exciting to imagine what we’ll be seeing from Joseph Gordon-Levitt in future projects including Christopher Nolan’s next Batman installment, The Dark Knight Rises, in which he’ll play a shadowy Gotham City police detective, and opposite a stove pipe-hatted Daniel Day-Lewis as the only surviving son of Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming historical biopic. --Ted

Arthur, Straight Up: Movies and Alcohol

The new reboot of Arthur, starring Russell Brand as a lovable man-child billionaire playboy with a rather serious drinking problem also presents a rather serious problem in its comedic premise that the 30-year-old original starring Dudley Moore did not. As a piece of bright, shiny entertainment, Arthur 2011 is perfectly fine, but the subject of alcoholism kind of grates as an issue that's easy to make light of. Arthur 1981 didn't really have the same problem, partly because Dudley Moore did such a fine and funny happy-drunk act, and partly because as a societal issue alcoholism wasn't quite as much of a stumbling block. The new version doesn't always know how to handle this rather important plot point, and it gets in the way more often than not. Russell Brand has made no secret of his past as an addict and alcoholic who has found life afresh in recovery. He knows whereof he pretends, but his drunken act is rather more of a silly aside in the movie's grander scheme than anything else.

Drinking, drunks, and the subject of alcoholism on screen has had a long and varied history even before Dudley Moore's Arthur drove his limousine down the streets of New York sloshed to the gills (God help a movie studio that would portray such a thing as a comedic event today). The subject has been addressed head-on, obliquely, or as a plot point that is either inherent or tangential to character or story. As a tribute to the two Arthurs and Dudley Moore's overly theatrical drunk act -- hardly anyone has ever done it better -- what follows is a brief sampling of a few movies that, in no particular order, have tackled the issue of drink with humor, delicacy, offhandedness or the most profound gravity.

When a Man Loves a Woman (1994): Playing it completely straight, Al Franken stepped out of Stuart Smalley mode to address the reality of addiction as co-writer of this affecting portrait of a couple whose marriage slams into the very real wreckage caused by her alcoholism. There's nothing funny about the heavy duty drinking that consumes Meg Ryan and almost destroys her enabling husband Andy Garcia in a way that's just as serious. There's a happy ending, but not before some harrowing vignettes that proves Franken understands that the reality of addiction is no laughing matter.

The Upside of Anger (2005): Drink is not exactly the subject of this flawed, yet funny and poignant romantic yarn about an upscale suburban mom (Joan Allen) whose husband picks up and leaves, but it's in the background of every scene and influences a lot of the characters' motivations. Allen's four grown-ish daughters are foils caught between her rage (often alcohol-fueled) and the growing attentions of the washed-up pro baseball player who lives next door (Kevin Costner). He's also a fairly constant tippler, though he prefers talboys to her high-end vodka, and the story does indeed lob some cautionary hardballs about the dangers of mixing drink with love, comedy, and romance.

Drunks (1995): Real-life recovering alcoholic Richard Lewis leads a stellar cast in Gary Lennon's adaptation of his play, Blackout about a night in the life of a group of drunks doing their thing at an AA meeting in a seedy pre-Disneyfied Times Square church basement. Lewis, completely out of stand-up comic mode and into serious method acting territory is the riveting soul of an often scarily realistic portrayal of the way it really is for alcoholics in, out, or on the verge of recovery. Addiction isn't funny at all for these bunch of soul-baring drunks which include the likes of Sam Rockwell, Amanda Plummer, Kevin Corrigan, Parker Posey, Dianne Wiest, Faye Dunaway, and Spalding Gray.

Barfly (1987): Director Barbet Schroeder had great fun in tackling the work of famed literary drunkard Charles Bukowski in this loose adaptation of his autobiographical writings. Mickey Rourke plays the Bukowski stand-in in prime, pre-self parody Mickey Rourke form as a disgusting, loathsome, yet sometimes loveable habitue of the seediest Los Angeles dives ever captured on film. He's unrepentant and has fun -- between bouts of sickness and a sobering down-and-out lifestyle in which Faye Dunaway is his alcoholic cohort -- giving the barflies around him a kind of romantic charm. Barfly is famous among many for the oft-quoted line mumbled by a background character: "What's a guy gotta do to get a drink around here!?"

Bad Santa (2003): Billy Bob Thornton's turn as a the most disgusting, despicable, foul-mouthed seasonal Santa who ever allowed a child to approach him is a classic of offensive cinema and perhaps one of the funniest performances ever. Never seen not guzzling down a bucket of booze or barfing it back up, his portrayal of a terminal drunkard and all around jerk who hooks with up for the holidays to do the Santa act, then sticks around to clean out the safe is astonishing for being so funny in the face of the utter lack of fun he ever seems to have. He spews his lines like bile, showing the dark side of drink -- but with the darkest, funniest sides of comedy held closely in tow.

The Lost Weekend (1945): This cautionary tale brought the issue of alcoholism to the masses in a big way for audiences in 1945 and also brought Oscars to star Ray Milland and director Billy Wilder (it also won for best picture and best screenplay). Milland's character summarizes the best and worst of what alcohol does to the life of the drinker and all those around him in a remarkable soliloquy delivered barside, then showed the audiences the horrors of withdrawal in a memorable scene that has him strapped to a bed in the psych ward. The film still makes a huge impact today for the realistic way it portrays the depths of deceit and despair an alcoholic will plumb before -- or if -- he chooses to accept help.

Harvey (1950): This classic from the Jimmy Stewart oeuvre may be closes to the original version Arthur for the way it portrays a happy-go-lucky drunk who never really encounters many problems from his alcoholism. As Elwood P. Dowd, Stewart spends his days happily soused at the bar, charmed to meet anyone in his path and charming everyone he meets in return. Its sweet, slightly sad story may be a cautionary tale, but with his six-foot-tall invisible rabbit friend Harvey always in tow, Elwood never had much to worry about, and neither did the audience.

Leaving Las Vegas (1995): Crushingly sad, yet somehow hopeful in its denouement, Leaving Las Vegas won Nicolas Cage an Oscar for his performance as a man who purposefully sets out to drink himself to death. It is not a pretty picture of the destruction alcohol causes, though its message and tender romantic undertone is as sentimental as it is heartbreaking. Cage scarily reproduces the euphoria, depression, and horrible physical toll alcohol exacts on the human mind, body and spirit.

My Favorite Year (1982): As an homage to early live television -- specifically a tribute to Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, which is the thinly veiled backdrop setting -- My Favorite Year is a sweet and funny coming of age story about a young man trying to keep tabs on an old drunkard. Peter O'Toole played an Erroll Flynn-type aging heartthrob who agrees to appear on a new-fangled '50s TV comedy variety show without understanding what the concept "live" really means. The fact that he's a constant boozer to begin with doesn't help, but at least he's a happy, high-functioning drunk. His performance won him an Oscar nomination and a place in the happy-drinker hall of fame.

Days of Wine and Roses (1962): Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick both got Oscar nominations as a husband and wife who start their drinking careers innocently and with understandable nonchalance. But the booze overtakes them in harrowing ways that are portrayed with great drama and stark realism. It ends badly for them both, even though one of them successfully comes out the other side of the wreckage their drinking has caused each other and all those around them. The movie is also notable as the first to portray the organization of Alcoholics Anonymous as it actually existed, and the basics of how it works in saving the lives of those who choose to embrace it.

Why Oscar Loves Royalty

After the collective "feh" that most people sighed in reaction to this year's tepid Oscar show, there remain a couple of moments that linger as highlights between James Franco's smug slouch and Anne Hathaway's fretful zeal. The King's Speech preordained wins were not among them, but the thoughtful, moving speeches given by star Colin Firth, director Tom Hooper, and screenwriter David Seidler that stood in contrast to the graceless, boring, "bad TV" moments of so many other honorees certainly were. There's been a lot of grousing about how The King's inevitable coronation insidiously seeped into many aspects of the show, especially the final Best Picture montage. But one royal reference that was also among the shows standout moments was when Helen Mirren and Russell Brand appeared to award the Best Foreign Language Film. Deadpan, elegant, and in perfectly accented French, Dame Helen announced the award category, and then paused for translation from her unlikely pal and upcoming co-star in the Arthur remake: "What Helen said was, ‘Yo, my Oscar winning performance as a Queen was much more realistic than Colin Firth's as a King.'"

Whether or not that's so, it's true that Oscar loves royalty. Add that to the fact that an actor's skill in portraying and overcoming a disability gives the Academy an even deeper glow, any doubt that The King's Speech would walk away with quad top honors of Picture, Actor, Director, and Screenplay should have surprised no one. And hey, it didn't!

As anecdotal evidence of Oscar's penchant for the Crown, here's a list of some other notable wins and nominations that have tickled Academy voting fingers over the years:

The Queen (2006): Helen Mirren was a pretty obvious choice by any standard when she won Best Actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II, a modern monarch with chilly warmth and a palpable struggle that kept her loyalties divided between family and country. She was in good company with co-nominees Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz, and Judi Dench (more about her later). It was also not Dame Helen's first nomination for playing the Queen of England. She was in the Best Supporting Actress category in 1995 for The Madness of King George (more about that later too). Hers was the only win for The Queen, though it was also nominated for Best Picture, Director (Stephen Frears), Original Screenplay (Peter Morgan), Score (Alexandre Desplat), and Costume Design.

Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age: (2007): Cate Blanchett was twice nominated for her decade-apart portrayals of the icy, beautiful, Queen Elizabeth I, but was trumped the first time by non-Queen Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love (more later again), then by Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose. In addition to several art and technical nominations, Elizabeth was one of the Best Picture entries at 1999's Oscar show (it earned four other nominations, winning only for Best Makeup), but Elizabeth: The Golden Age was shut out of all other categories in 2008 except Costume Design, although it did win that category. Cate Blanchett does have an Oscar statuette on her mantel, having won Best Supporting Actress in 2005 for The Aviator. She also received Supporting Actress noms in 2007 for Notes on a Scandal, and in 2008 for I'm Not There (in competition with herself for the Elizabeth Best Actress performance!).

Shakespeare in Love (1998): In addition to darling Gwynnie's win, Dame Judi Dench took home a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing a similarly wintry Elizabeth II (was she better than Cate Blanchett? Hmmm…). The movie that the Academy adorned with 13 nominations took home five others, including Best Picture. It beat heavy favorite Saving Private Ryan in that top category, but at least Steven Spielberg took home the Best Director statuette so he could bonk Shakespeare director John Madden over the head with it.

Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown (1997): Speaking of Judi Dench, her role as a curmudgeonly Queen Victoria gained her a Best Actress nomination, but she was aced at 1998's Oscar show by Helen Hunt for As Good As It Gets. Dame Judi has since been honored with Supporting Actress nominations for Chocolat (2000), and Leading Actress nominations for Iris (2001), Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005), and Notes on a Scandal (2006).

The Madness of King George (1994): The great Nigel Hawthorne reprised his original stage performance in Alan Bennett's adaptation of his play The Madness of George III, and rightly earned himself a Best Actor Nomination for portraying the monarch who lost the American colonies, then went completely loony. Speculation is that the madness was caused by the disease porphyria, while Hawthorne's Oscar loss was most definitely blamed on a shameless win by Tom Hanks for Forrest Gump. The Madness of King George did take home an Oscar for Art Direction-Set Decoration, and Alan Bennett was nominated for his Adapted Screenplay. As mentioned above, Helen Mirren earned a Supporting Actress nomination as George's devoted Queen Charlotte.

The Lion in Winter (1968): Katharine Hepburn won Best Actress honors (in a rare tie, with Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl) for her portrayal of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who married Henry II and became Queen of the English in a rather roundabout way. It was a consecutive win for Hepburn after having taken home the Oscar the previous year for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? It represented another milestone in that Katharine Hepburn still holds the record for multiple lead acting Oscar wins -- she also received Best Actress honors for one of her first roles in Morning Glory (1931), and for one of her last in On Golden Pond (1981). As for the Lion himself, Peter O'Toole was nominated, but lost that year to Cliff Robertson for Charly.

A Man For All Seasons (1966): The Academy really loved this rousing adaptation of Robert Bolt's play, and it took home six Oscars in 1967, including Best Picture, Best Director (Fred Zinnemann), Best Adapted screenplay (Bolt), Cinematography, and Costume Design. Paul Scofield won as Best Actor for playing Sir Thomas More, the Chancellor of England who denied King Henry VIII a divorce from Catherine of Aragon and lost his head for it. A youngish Robert Shaw, nominated in the Supporting category for playing the King kept his head, but lost the Oscar to Walter Mathau for The Fortune Cookie.

A few more films with Royal themes that Oscar loved a little bit include Mary Queen of Scots (1971), which earned Vanessa Redgrave one of her five nominations (she won as Supporting Actress in 1978 for Julia), and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), which got nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor (Richard Burton), Best Actress (Geneviève Bujold), and Best Supporting Actor (Anthony Quayle), among its 10, but won only for Costume Design. The Young Victoria (2009) also won for Costume Design, but was not recognized for a fine performance by Emily Blunt as the Queen who would much later achieve lasting fame for loosing a sexy secret in the retail sales arena. The beautiful Emily Blunt may yet have a chance, for playing British royalty clearly plays to Oscar's weakness, especially if there's a pretty face and/or a stumbling speech involved.--Ted Fry

The Best Movie Music of 2010

Film scores generally fall into two categories: the bad ones you don’t remember and the great ones that are impeccably crafted to heighten your overall experience, becoming as crucial as script, direction, and performances. A third class is music that stands out from a lesser film and draws attention to itself, good or bad. Film music in 2010 gave us an unusually rich sampling of the kind that you may not have noticed because it was so perfectly tuned to the movie. There were also a few notable scores that distinguished themselves from some otherwise undistinguished material.

The Oscar nominated scores are pretty squarely in the so-good-you-don’t-notice category, but they deserve plenty of notice as standalone pieces of contemporary composition by artists in full. My winning pick is Hans Zimmer for his eerily affecting and innovative contribution to Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Zimmer is a longtime pro whose collaboration with Nolan and composer colleague James Newton Howard were also integral to the outstanding dramatic impact of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Zimmer's moody, alternately subdued and dominant themes in Inception are thrilling echoes of the film's emotional intensity and ingeniously executed action. (Do some Internet snooping for the fascinating link between one of Zimmer's recurring cues and Edith Piaf's recording of "Non, je ne Regrette Rien," which is a key plot device.)

The rest of the nominees are all strong runners-up, especially the dark, techno-flavored partnership Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross provided for The Social Network. The score impacts what could have been a thoroughly mundane story in the hands of talents lesser than director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. It is unexpected and often jarring as a compliment to the film's striking visual style. A.R. Rahchman's score for 127 Hours takes a similarly daring approach to the anachronistic way Danny Boyle presents his story of courage, boredom, terror, and triumph. "Liberation," the piece which accompanies the film's gruesome money sequence is an excellent example of how expertly music can heighten mood with its extension of dramatic sensitivity. Rahman and Boyle are as in sync as they were two years ago when they both won Oscars for their respective roles in Slumdog Millionaire.

John Powell's score for the animated feature How to Train Your Dragon is much better than it needs to be by maintaining integrity to tradition in its soaring, sweeping themes. It sometimes lilts with Celtic influence and sometimes drifts into the whimsy that captured the movie's delightfully entertaining reach to such a wide, enthusiastic audience. And Alexadre Desplat, one of the most prolific and adept film composers working today gave The King's Speech a big part of its audience appeal, adding to the poingnance of the story without pandering to its sentimentality.

Desplat is also in contention for the Film Composer of the Year award from the International Film Music Critics Association based on his work in The King's Speech and in Roman Polanski's deliciously quirky thriller, The Ghost Writer. Though Polanski's film was shockingly shut out of Oscar contention in any category, Desplat's score could easily have had a real shot at winning and is arguably more interesting and more essential to an artistic whole than his work in The King's Speech. Using signature tinkles of piano and a light touch in orchestration motifs, Desplat's music in The Ghost Writer has a playful mystery that archly reflects the mischievous tone of Polanski's matchless technique. (Desplat's busy year of composing also produced scores for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Stephen Frears' little-seen comic romance, Tamara Drewe.)

More of the year's best movie music includes some other glaring Oscar omissions for Academy rule violations. Carter Burwell, who has risen among the greatest and most productive American film composers was deemed ineligible to compete for two of the three scores he wrote in 2010. Burwell has scored all but one of the Coen brothers' films, and his exclusion for the beautiful, evocative work that made True Grit so great has outraged many. His lovely, sorrowful compositions that run counter to the themes traditionally heard in westerns are based on 19th century Protestant hymns, and therefore "diluted by the use of tracked themes or other preexisting music," according to a story in Variety. Burwell's music is original as can be, and gives True Grit a large part of its affecting splendor. The Academy's second slap came when it excluded his score for The Kids Are All Right, which was "diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs," according to its rule book. Hogwash.

Michael Brook's haunting, ethereal score for The Fighter was subject to the same spurious decree for the inclusion of too many period pop songs. A third composer who ran afoul of the Academy's statutes was Clint Mansell, whose classically tinged and spooky accompaniment to Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan echoed aspects of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake," but was hardly an adaptation and was easily among the top scores of the year based on the merits of its own dramatic resonance.

A final few of the best of 2010 include the taut, edgy compositions from old timers Howard Shore for Edge of Darkness, James Newton Howard for Salt and The Tourist, and Elliot Goldenthal for Julie Taymor's eccentrically handsome interpretation of The Tempest. In the category of scores that rise well above the movie's that gave them life, the French techno-dance duo Daft Punk was a good enough reason to make Tron: Legacy an experiment that was not an utter failure. And to follow the rule of if you you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, I'll also make mention of The Wolfman. Anthony Hopkins, Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, and the audiences who wasted their time with the loony remake may wish to forget, but the talented composer Danny Elfman can still honorably keep the memory alive with music that was biting and brutal, even though the movie should have been euthanized.--Ted Fry

"Ip Man" and The Essentials of Hong Kong Action Films

Fans of Hong Kong martial arts action movies have had a tough decade or so as stars, funding, and devoted followers drifted away from the glory days of the '70s and '80s. One of the primary culprits was the magnet of Hollywood, which lured several of the industry's most accomplished players with bigger paychecks and a concerted marketing push. Apparently American moviegoers didn't know they liked the genre of gymnastic fight scenes performed and choreographed by skilled athletes and appealing entertainers. It wasn't long before martial arts and the artists who advanced it were becoming a part of mainstream Hollywood, especially in the wake of The Matrix.

But Hong Kong action has been coming home to roost in recent years, most recently with the excellent, historical dramas Ip Man and Ip Man 2: Legend of the Grand Master. Both films are based on legends from the life of the man who championed the Wing Chun fighting style and was lionized for being mentor to that icon of the Hong Kong actioner, Bruce Lee. They were huge hits in China, and Ip Man 2 was one of the world’s top-grossing non-English-language films in 2010. The first film covers Ip Man's courtly life before and ater the brutal Japanese occupation of World War II, and the sequel follows him into Hong Kong in the 1950s where he establishes his reputation as a revered teacher and ultimate "Grand Master."

The popularity of the films has been reviving more homegrown interest in Hong Kong action, and has certainly caused a renewed pride in the legacy of Ip Man himself. Later this year American audiences should get their chance to see what might be the penultimate Ip Man saga in The Grandmasters, from Chinese auteur Wong Kar Wai, starring his frequent collaborator and Hong Kong superstar, Tony Leung.

In the meantime, casual fans and neophytes alike can do themselves the favor of revisiting or discovering for the first time both merely entertaining and downright epic entries into the broad genre of martial arts action.

Bruce Lee, Ip Man's star pupil, starred in only four feature films before his death in 1973 at age 32. Check out Fist of Fury for what many regard as the ultimate in Bruce Lee, then move on to the movies that sealed his reputation as an international star, Enter the Dragon and the Way of the Dragon (featuring Chuck Norris in his second screen role).

A young acrobat who trained with the Peking Opera named Jackie Chan entered the HK action scene in the 1980s. Two of the many notable movies that made international noise and made him famous for outrageous practical stunt work as well as martial arts moves were Police Story and The Legend of Drunken Master (a sequel that came 16 years after the original, Drunken Master). When Hollywood knocked on Jackie Chan's door, he answered first with Rumble in the Bronx in 1995, then kept on answering with three Rush Hour installments and a slew of other vehicles for his agility and comic chops. Chan has become a genuine movie star with nimble feet that move between Hollywood box office (witness his success in The Karate Kid) and Hong Kong where he's still doing his part to reboot that industrial scene.

Jet Li is another certified international martial arts star whose best Hong Kong showcases still stand strong, especially Fearless, Fist of Legend, and the seminal actioner, Once Upon a Time in China. Jet Li's Hollywood career has been somewhat rocky, but movies like Unleashed and The One were audience favorites, and he just made a welcomed addition to the ensemble cast of Sylvester Stallone's action homage, The Expendables. His dual skills as an athlete and accomplished actor were big parts in making historical epics Hero and The Warlords big hits worldwide.

A couple of prominent Chinese directors who have had crossover success in Hollywood and Honk Kong are John Woo and Ang Lee. Hard Boiled auteur Woo recently wowed the world with his epic historical saga Red Cliff (available in its original five-hour form or shorter theatrical version). And Ang Lee, who has given us some of the most all-American stories ever told by a non-native American delighted the world with balletic martial arts sequences and wonderful storytelling in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

This kind of rudimentary rundown makes it obvious that there are way too many Hong Kong action movies to single out, and reinforces the point the genre and industry will never fade away. Go and explore the unending depth and breadth of all things martial arts action. --Ted Fry

Jeff Bridges vs. John Wayne: Battle of the "True Grit"s

Whether or not it's a foregone conclusion that Colin Firth has the Best Actor Oscar locked up for The King's Speech, there's an opposing buzz that Jeff Bridges stands a good chance of pulling a hat-trick win for his wonderfully crotchety work as Rooster Cogburn in the Coen brothers' True Grit. After finally and rightly being honored by the Academy with last year's win for Crazy Heart, Bridges may yet have a bit of an edge with voters. Plus he's absolutely terrific in the role. He's certainly proven to be a hit with audiences, making True Grit the Coen's biggest box office success by a long shot.

Bridges is regarded as a consummate professional among his peers. The recent American Masters documentary on PBS, Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides was an excellent critical tribute that ran down his brilliant career and was filled with praise from a string of colleagues who honored him for his warmth and humility. Bridges' career has spanned genres, peaks, and valleys since his big screen breakout role in Peter Bogdonovich's The Last Picture Show in 1971. His first nomination as a supporting actor came from that defining '70s golden-age film for playing a small town Texas roughneck (he was aced by his old timer co-star Ben Johnson), and went on to get nods in the supporting category in 1974 for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Robert De Niro won for The Godfather: Part II), then again in 2000 for playing the American President in The Contender (Benicio de Toro won for Traffic). His only other Best Actor nomination was in 1984 for playing a sensitive alien with an emerging soul in Starman (the Oscar went to F. Murray Abraham for Amadeus).

In the popular press at least, Bridges also finds himself up against the legacy of John Wayne, who won his only Academy award for playing Marshall Cogburn in Henry Hathaway’s 1969 adaptation of Charles Portis's novel. Wayne's only other acting nomination was for 1950's Sands of Iwo Jima (Broderick Crawford deservedly took home the Oscar that year for his towering work in Robert Rossen's All the King's Men). The True Grit win prompted a minor controversy from an emerging generation of the new Hollywood and wave of raw American cinema that all but swept away the old guard studio system as the ‘70s progressed. Sickly and on his way out, Wayne was judged by many to nab the Oscar out of sympathy, sentimentality, and a sense of entitlement based on his long career and lifetime of box office earnings. He had some real competition in the category from Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, both of whom won their nominations from bold, courageous work in John Schlesinger's groundbreaking Midnight Cowboy. But they must have seemed just too much of a risk against the traditionalism that still held industry sway, so the safe bet was for the Duke.

Both Hathaway's and the Coen's interpretation of Portis's excellent source material are fine, maybe even great movies. The characterizations, subtext of fundamental morality, and base theme of genuine right overcoming genuine wrong are powerful forces in both, but it's a specious argument to consider one being better than the other given the 40 years of change in how we accept and absorb movies as entertainment. Wayne does a lot of hamming and mugging, playing up his well-established persona (which probably also helped him with Academy voters), while Bridges gets to the gritty soul of a man with a strength of character and gruffness of spirit that still can't completely hide a caring heart.

And speaking of specious claims, talk of Bridges' Cogburn being some old west ancestor of the Dude (a role for which he absolutely should have been honored as star of The Big Lebowski) seems to me a silly, entertainment media ploy that merely serves to squander publicity ink. It's true that Bridges' Rooster Cogburn abides to the depths of his soul, but the Dude stands alone as a genuine abiding spirit that will never have an equal. Nevertheless, let's hope that with his second triumph as the Coen's leading man Jeff Bridges returns to their stock company of actors again and again. --Ted Fry