2015 final Oscar Predictions

So the Oscars are tomorrow and through some statistical analysis, here are my predictions with the order of likelihood for the win. As a reminder, these aren't necessarily my preferences.

Best Actor
1. Eddie Redmayne- The Theory of Everything
2. Michael Keaton- Birdman
3. Benedict Cumberbatch- The Imitation Game
4. Steve Carell- Foxcatcher
5. Bradley Cooper- American Sniper

For the first time in a few years, I'm not entirely sure as to who will win Best Actor. It's clearly between Michael Keaton and Eddie Redmayne. Of course in a perfect world, the race would be between Michael Keaton and Jake Gyllenhaal but this isn't a perfect world. For a while, Michael Keaton was the clear frontrunner, winning all of the early precursors, but then Eddie Redmayne won the Golden Globe (for Drama while Keaton won the Golden Globe for comedy), BAFTA, and most importantly, the Screen Actors guild. The last time someone won the Best Actor Screen Actors Guild but didn't win the Oscar was 11 years ago when Johnny Depp won the SAG for Pirates of the Caribbean while Sean Penn won the Oscar for Mystic River. I feel that Michael Keaton deserves the win, but I feel like it'll be going to Eddie Redmayne. There's also the fact that Eddie Rdmayne just had his most recent movie Jupiter Ascending release and its been heavily panned with his performance receiving particular criticism. This might seem irrelevant but Eddie Murphy was the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor 8 years ago, winning at both SAG and the Golden Globes for Dreamgirls. Then his new movie Norbit came out a couple weeks before the Oscars and was arguably the worst film of his career. Next thing we knew, Alan Arkin won the Oscar instead. We'll see.

Best Actress

1. Julianne Moore- Still Alice

2. Reese Witherspoon- Wild

3. Felicity Jones- The Theory of Everything

4. Rosamund Pike- Gone Girl

5. Marion Cotillard- Two Days, One Night

It's going to Julianne Moore. This isn't a surprise. It's essentially a lifetime achievement award and no one else really stands a chance. Cotillard and Witherspoon are previous Oscar winners, Felicity Jones is an excellent young actress but her performance doesn't stand out enough because of the performance by Eddie Redmayne, and Rosamund Pike, as deserving as that would be, is ultimately in a movie that's just too dark to appease Academy voters. There's no competition. The others are lucky to be nominated.

Best Supporting Actor

1. J.K. Simmons- Whiplash

2. Edward Norton- Birdman

3. Ethan Hawke- Boyhood

4. Mark Ruffalo- Foxcatcher

5. Robert Duvall- The Judge

Once again, an easy lock. J.K. Simmons is going to win. He's winning everywhere. Edward Norton has a very small chance of squeezing in a win if the Academy wanted to make up for not giving him an Oscar for Primal Fear or American History X (and not nominating him for Fight Club), but I'd be very surprised if I didn't hear J.K. Simmons' name called tomorrow night.

Best Supporting Actress

1. Patricia Arquette- Boyhood

2. Emma Stone- Birdman

3. Keira Knightley- The Imitation Game

4. Meryl Streep- Into the Woods

5. Laura Dern- Wild

Patricia Arquette is also a clear lock. It's very hard to picture anyone else winning. Laura Dern barely made the cut, Meryl Streep will always get nominated but will only win on occasion, Keira Knightley is great in The Imitation Game but not that great. Emma Stone is the only potential spoiler but I'm not counting on it. Now if Renee Russo had been nominated for Nightcrawler, which she wasn't, well then maybe we'd be having an interesting competition. 

Best Original Screenplay

1. Birdman- Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. Armando Bo

2. The Grand Budapest Hotel- Wes Anderson and Hugh Guiness

3. Boyhood- Richard Linklater

4. Foxcatcher- E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman

5. Nightcrawler- Dan Gilroy

It could go a few ways at this point. I could definitely see Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, or Boyhood walking away with the win. I feel like Birdman may have a slight edge here but it's definitely not a lock so we'll see. Always nice when there's not a clear lock.

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. The Imitation Game- Graham Moore

2. Theory of Everything- Anthony McCarten

3. American Sniper- Jason Hall

4. Whiplash- Damien Chazelle

5. Inherent Vice- Paul Thomas Anderson

If Gone Girl got nominated, we'd have a competition. Since it wasn't, it's pretty likely it'll go to Graham Moore. I wouldn't mind seeing Damien Chazelle win but I'm honestly just relieved that he got nominated.

Best Director

1. Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu- Birdman

2. Richard Linklater- Boyhood

3. Wes Anderson- The Grand Budapest Hotel

4. Morten Tyldum- The Imitation Game

5. Bennett Miller- Foxcatcher

If Linklater wins, then Boyhood will win Best Picture but if Gonzalez Inarritu wins, well, we'll see. However, I'm still putting my money on Gonzalez Innaritu because he won at the Director's Guild of America. Of its previous 66 ceremonies, only 7 of its winners didn't go on to win the Academy Award for Best Director, one of those was Ben Affleck who was infamously snubbed in 2012 for Argo in spite of being a frontrunner so that hardly counts. So Gonzalez Innaritu has an 89.3% chance of winning and I like those odds. Fun Fact: If he wins, that'll make two Mexican directors winning in a row as Alfonso Cuaron won last year for Gravity.

Best Picture

1. Boyhood

2. Birdman

3. The Grand Budapest Hotel

4. Imitation Game

5. American Sniper

6. Whiplash

7. Theory of Everything

8. Selma

Last year 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture and Gravity won Best Director. 2 years ago Argo won Best Picture while Life of Pi won Best Director. Could there be another split for the 3rd year in a row? I think it's very possible with the close competition this year but it could definitely go either way. The reason I'm predicting Boyhood is because Birdman wasn't nominated for Best Editing. That may seem irrelevant but the last time a film WON Best Picture without being nominated for Best Editing was 34 years ago when Ordinary People won. Boyhood was nominated for Best Editing. On the other hand, Birdman won both the PGA (Producer's Guild of America, a notable predictor for Best Picture) and the SAG for Outstanding cast and only 2 movies have won both of those awards and NOT won Best Picture (Apollo 13 and Little Miss Sunshine). It could seriously go either way but since the Oscar for Film Editing has been around far longer than the SAG and PGA, I'm giving Boyhood a very slight edge, although I'd personally rather see Birdman win. This is honestly one of the closest Best Picture races in years. Hell, Boyhood and Birdman could even cancel each other out and make room for Grand Budapest Hotel. I'm excited to see how things play out.

So yeah, go fill out those Oscar ballots and scream in anger when the films you want to win don't win. It'll be a fun night.

Why 50 Shades of Grey is shit

Warning: Strong profanity, graphic sexual dialogue, yadda yadda. Shouldn't be a shock.

50 Shades of Grey is a shitty book and now a shitty movie.

It's easy for me to laugh at 50 Shades of Grey with all of those lines about Ana's inner goddess, Christian cocking his head to one side, Ana biting her lip, oh and of course her anthropomorphic subconscious. Yeah, it's all pretty laughably bad stuff and we should all enjoy laughing at it together. I initially thought it was nothing more than a poorly written book read by horny housewives

Also, it would have been a better story if it was more like what the title implied

You all probably knew that. But what you probably didn't know is that it's more than just poorly written garbage. It's dangerous garbage. It's garbage that glorifies abusive relationships.

Now before anyone freaks out and assumes I'm judging alternative lifestyles, I'm not. People who know me well know that I'm a very strong believer in individual freedom. Secretary (more on that later) is one of my favorite movies and hell, I personally think being dominant is pretty damn fun, plus I've got several good friends in the lifestyle (all who agree the book is horrible). There's nothing wrong with BDSM and what consenting partners want to do to each other behind closed doors is their business. Emphasis on the word consenting which the book seems to be more than a bit iffy on. Hell, lots of the creepy and abusive stuff isn't even related to BDSM.

There are too many creepy moments to name them all so I'll start off with when Ana graduates college in Chapter 4 and parties with friends. She ends up drunk-dialing Christian, who at this point she's had a single coffee date with. He demands to know where she is but she refuses to specify beyond being at bar in Portland (he was looking for an exact location) and hangs up. He then calls her back, says he's coming to get her and goes from Seattle to fucking Portland to pick her up from this bar. How did he find her? He traced her fucking cell phone. Then he takes her back to his fucking hotel room instead of taking her home, even though they barely know each other at this point. But we're supposed to think he's a gentleman because he didn't try to have sex with her. Raise your expectations, people.

Christian seems to care about nobody but himself. And this goes beyond their sexual relationship. We've got such wonderful lines as "You need to learn to manage my expectations. I am not a patient man." The idea that it takes two shouldn't be far fetched but Christian seems to think that his needs and wants come above Ana's.

A lot of people have defended the relationship, explaining that Ana consented to everything because she signed a contract. First off, relationships, BDSM or otherwise, do not and should not require a goddamn contract. That's the stupidest shit I've ever heard. Secondly, that contract is garbage. People have insisted that she could walk away at any time if she really wanted to. Not true.

"The Dominant reserves the right to dismiss the submissive from his service at any time and for any reason. The submissive may request her release at any time, such request to be granted at the discretion of the dominant." 

So even if Ana wanted to leave, apparently all Christian has to do is say "no" and she's stuck with him. Yeah, in BDSM, the dominant is supposed to have the ILLUSION of control. The whole point is that the submissive has the actual control and can leave and stop whenever they goddamn well please. They don't need anyone's permission. Of course, Ana is completely uneducated on all of this but rather than educate her himself, Christian decides to direct her to a Wikipedia page. I'm not joking.

At one point, Christian spanks Ana hard after she rolls her eyes at him.

"How did you feel while I was hitting you and after?"
"I didn't like it. I'd rather you didn't do it again."
"You weren't meant to like it."

Once again, not accurate BDSM. First of all, the only reason you should spank your sub is because the two of you want to engage in some kinky fun, not because she rolled her eyes at you. Secondly, actually the sub is meant to like it. It's supposed to be a mutually enjoyable experience. The dom enjoys spanking the sub's ass, the sub enjoys having her ass spanked. Not a radical concept. Now if they were going to engage in a roleplay where she pretended she didn't like it but they both knew that she actually did, that'd be one thing. But this isn't a roleplay. Christian doesn't want Ana to enjoy it.

At one point, Christian takes Ana to his parents' house for dinner and Ana mentions going to Georgia for a few days to see her mother. Christian is very angry upon hearing this because he's a controlling asshole and apparently his S.O. seeing her mother is a huge deal to him. Okay, maybe she could have mentioned it earlier as a courtesy, but she certainly doesn't need his approval and he has no right to respond the way he does:

He narrows his eyes, and then seems to remember himself. Releasing my hand, he takes my elbow and leads me out of the room.
"This conversation is not over," he whispers threateningly as we enter the dining room."

Threateningly? Charming fellow.

During dinner, Christian discreetly caresses Ana's thigh from under the table but she responds by abruptly shifting her legs away from him. Certainly a normal response since his family is right there. But it makes him angry. After they go outside, he says he's going to spank her and then fuck her and this is how she responds.

"Please don't hit me," I whisper, pleading.
His brows furrows, his eyes widening. He blinks twice.
"I don't want you to spank me, not here, not now. Please don't."

A spanking in a BDSM relationship should not bring pleading and fear. If it does, then you have failed as a dom. Your sub should not be scared of you.

"This is mine, he whispers aggressively. "All mine. Do you understand?" He eases his fingers in and out as he gazes down at me, gauging my reaction, his eyes burning.
"Yes, yours," I breathe as my desire, hot and heavy, surges through my bloodstream, affecting... everything.

While it is common for the dominant to play games with the submissive, i.e. "Your pussy belongs to me now", it's all in the context of a roleplay. It's acting. The dominant knows that he doesn't actually own her pussy because the actual concept of owning someone else's body is fucking ridiculous. Yet good ol' Christian Grey doesn't seem to think of these concepts in the context of pretend roleplays. He thinks he actually owns Ana's body, which is both offensive and absurd. He doesn't respect her as a person.

He then proceeds to have rough sex with Ana (I'm not sure if I should call it sex), once again going through the abusive motions

“We don’t have long. This will be quick, and it’s for me, not you. Do you understand? Don’t come or I will spank you,” he says through clenched teeth.

Okay, so I understand that orgasm denial is a thing in BDSM and there are submissives that actually enjoy it. But it's a thing that occurs through clear communication. If Christian wanted to do some orgasm denial with Ana, he should have talked to her beforehand, be sure that she was cool with it, and then proceeded to do some kinky and rough orgasm denial sex. And in any kind of BDSM games, the submissive might pretend whatever is happening is a punishment, but it's not. As mentioned before, if a dominant is doing rough stuff with the submissive, the submissive should be just as turned on as the dominant. Christian doesn't seem to care about mutual enjoyment. But the context makes the scene even worse. It isn't even about BDSM. He's doing this to her because he's angry....because he's angry she's going to see her mom. He's punishing her for wanting to see her fucking mom. That's not kinky sex. That's abuse.

Oh and if that doesn't cross the line for you, maybe the part where Christian proves that he doesn't give any shit about consent will, also known as rape.

Okay, so Ana sends Christian an email saying she's not interested in furthering a relationship with him ("It's been nice knowing you") which apparently she sends as a joke, but Christian thinks it's serious. Unlike a normal person, who would either send a reply back or simply forget the whole thing, Christian decides to show up at her apartment uninvited (apparently the roommate let him in) and tries to talk her into rethinking what she said.

I glance around it, plotting an escape route, no – there’s still only the door or window. My room is functional but cozy – sparse white wicker furniture and a white iron double bed with a patchwork quilt, made by my mother when she was in her folksy American quilting phase. It’s all pale blue and cream.

Remember what I said about how your sub shouldn't be afraid of you. Here it is again. In any relationship, whether it have BDSM or not, your partner should never think about plotting a fucking escape route.

Christian does one decent thing in the novel at this point. Before tying Ana up, he asks her if she trusts him and doesn't tie her hands up until after she confirms that she does. But then he turns into an absolute creep. He starts undoing her sneakers and she freaks out because her feet smell bad.

"No", I protest, trying to kick him off.
He stops.
"If you struggle, I'll tie your feet too. If you make a noise, Anastasia, I will gag you. Keep quiet. Katherine is probably outside listening now."

And yeah, that's rape. I've heard people defend the scene saying that Ana wasn't trying to kick him off because she was opposed to having sex, she kicked him off because her feet smelled bad from running. And yes, that's true, but Christian doesn't know that. All he sees is a woman he's trying to have sex with protesting and saying "No" and he thinks the proper response is to threaten her. That's fucked up. And a "no" is a "no" regardless of the reason. If Ana doesn't want to take her shoes off because her feet smell bad, then he has no right to take her fucking shoes off. And it's not like they discussed safewords or anything so his immediate response to her saying "no" should have been to stop doing what he was doing and ensure that she felt okay. That's not rocket science.

So basically, instead of creating a relationship built on trust, mutual enjoyment, aftercare, and maybe some kinky sex roleplays, we're left with a story about a creep who stalks and abuses a naive young woman with low self-esteem which he attempts to justify by pretending he's just kinky. And those examples of Christian's creepiness I mention in this post, well those aren't even all of them. There are plenty more. There actually could have been an interesting story there. Like a story about a woman who achieves some kind of a sexual awakening through her kinky sex relationship and how these two awkward people who have been unable to open up are able to find something in each other. Oh wait this was already done in Secretary with Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader. The dominant guy is even named E. Edward GREY. I initially had some problems with the third act of the film but upon rewatching it and hearing some thoughts from others, I realized I may have been interpreting it incorrectly (save that for another blog post). Anyways, Secretary was a good film.

I can't speak on whether or not the movie is less creepy than the book so I won't say anything there, but considering the source material, I'm sure you can understand why I'm hesitant and have no intention of spending any money on it. All I'm saying is that the novel sucks and not just because it's poorly written but because of what it represents (abuse) and what it misrepresents (BDSM). It's not something I can just laugh off as a dumb story and move on.

Written by Alex Bauman

American Sniper Review

American Sniper has been dealing with controversies from its alleged glorification of Chris Kyle to its portrayal of babies as fake. I'm going to leave politics at the door and simply review this as a film.

The fake baby did give a good performance though

With the exception of the fake baby, American Sniper is a well done film. At 84 years old, Clint Eastwood is still an excellent director. The action scenes are very well shot and the acting is good. Bradley Cooper just received his 3rd Oscar nomination in a row for this film and while I personally wouldn't have nominated him (I wanted Jake Gyllenhaal to be nominated for Nightcrawler), I won't deny the fact that he continues to prove himself as a very strong actor who can do both comedy and drama effectively. His performance carries the film. His Texan accent is surprisingly believable which is a relief because a bad Texan accent can veer into unintentional hilarity and there are a couple nice subtle moments in particular when his acting stands out (particularly a scene set in a bar). I also liked the way his version of Chris Kyle did not embrace his legendary status, and seemed uncomfortable with people cheering him on for kills. Unfortunately, my praise mostly ends there. The film has so many story issues that really bring it down. It's hard to know where to begin.

Bradley Cooper in American Sniper

I guess I'll start off with the beginning of the movie. We've got a flashback to Chris as a kid. His father tells him that there are three kinds of people in this world: Wolves (the evil people), Sheep (the stupid people who need to be protected), and sheepdogs (the people who protect the sheep). It's a set up for one of the most blatantly obvious metaphors I've ever seen. I don't mind metaphors in film, I enjoy them, but I don't like them being spelled out to the audience.

The one thing that surprised me was that I figured the sheep were either Iraqi or American civilians, but they're actually U.S. Marines. I'm not a Marine and I don't have any Marine family members but I feel like this movie would upset Marines. Most of the film seems to involve Chris Kyle, the Navy Seal, protecting the Marines who seemingly can't do anything themselves. This gets especially ridiculous when Chris literally abandons his sniper post (which is apparently allowed because he doesn't get in trouble for it) to help teach the marines how to properly raid a house, because Chris Kyle, the Navy Seal, even has to do the Marines' jobs for them.

Then there's the character of Mustafa, a Syrian sniper and arguably the main antagonist of the film. Mustafa is not a completely fictional creation as he's mentioned in a single paragraph in Chris Kyle's book as a rumor, but I still feel his character served no purpose. He has no lines and no physical presence so he's not an interesting antagonist. He literally serves as a parallel to Chris Kyle, the evil Chris Kyle, I guess you could say and those parallels sure do get heavyhanded at one point. Having scenes from Mustafa's viewpoint honestly really took me out of it. The Hurt Locker was so effective to me because we saw things only from the soldiers' point of view. The insurgents were mysterious figures in the shadows so we were just as in the dark as the main characters were. By including Mustafa's viewpoint, there's no shock for the viewer when a U.S. soldier is killed by an enemy sniper because we literally just saw the sniper's scope seconds earlier. I do think showing both points of view in a conflict can be effective in some films, but since Mustafa is such a boring character, it doesn't work at all here. And the parkour scenes are just laughable and feel like something out of a cheesy action film, not a gritty war drama.

Sammy Sheik's one-note performance as Mustafa

Perhaps the most irritating thing was the way the film squeezes 9/11 into the plot. There's a scene where Chris and his wife are watching the news and see the 9/11 attacks on TV. This scene serves no purpose as Chris goes to war in Iraq, not Afghanistan. I've heard people defend the scene because it explains why Chris became a Navy Seal in the first place which makes me question if they were paying attention to the film. Chris joined the Navy Seals in 1999, not 2001, and the film shows that Chris Kyle joined the Seals in reaction to the 1998 United States Embassy Bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, so it made sense to show his reaction to those terrorist attacks. Showing 9/11 was just cheap. I've heard people accuse the film of trying to make it seem like the Iraq war was in response to 9/11 but I don't think it was intentional deceit. However, I do think the film used 9/11 as a cheap plot device to emotionally charge the audience which isn't much better.

Several people have criticized the film for not discussing America's reasons for being in Iraq (there's a really quick scene where Chris justifies it), but that wasn't an issue for me. The Hurt Locker doesn't go into the politics of the Iraq war either. The difference is that The Hurt Locker made up for that with three really interesting characters and thrillingly staged tension throughout while American Sniper seemed stuck in mediocrity.

Other small issues are present throughout which aren't huge problems on their own but feel like a lot when combined with everything else. We've got Kyle's brother who we learn joins the military (which seems to concern Chris initially) except it doesn't matter because the movie promptly drops his character who is never even mentioned again. There's a kill scene that's done in ridiculously cheesy slow motion. I'm generally not a big fan of slow motion but it can work if done effectively (it worked in The Hurt Locker). It didn't work here. There's also an unintentionally hilarious scene where the wife of a terrorist Chris Kyle shot claims he was carrying a Koran. Chris Kyle responds by saying (paraphrased) "I don't know what a Koran looks like but that was a gun." I get that there aren't a lot of Muslims in Texas but you don't have to ever see a Koran to know that it's a book...and he should know what books look like. Why couldn't he have just said "That man wasn't carrying a Koran. That was a gun." It would send the same message without making Chris sound like an idiot.

Besides that, Sienna Miller (the only other actor in the film with more than 10 minutes of screentime) doesn't have a lot to do, but she does decent enough as Chris Kyle's wife. I thought the PTSD portrayal was also solid, particularly a scene involving a dog, but the PTSD scenes are such a small portion of the film and it felt simplified by the end.

Sienna Miller in American Sniper

As for the ending, well I wasn't a fan of it. I won't explain it for those who don't know the actual story (though I imagine most people do at this point). I'm guessing Eastwood and co. thought it would be exploitative to show what could have been the film's climatic scene, but I feel it would have been a lot less exploitative than showing 9/11, because at least the unseen climax has to do with the main plot. I'll admit this is entirely subjective and some would feel that my ideal ending would be exploitative, but to me resorting to captions to explain the rest of the film is a cop out. In contrast, Foxcatcher (a film which also features Sienna Miller as a wife who gets upset on the phone) does show the climax and has a far more memorable ending in my opinion. I can respect the film's decision to end it how they did, but I don't agree with it.

Unless a film is aggressively bad, I never tell people to not see a movie because I'm always eager to hear someone else's thoughts, whether they be similar or different to mine. So if you wanna see American Sniper, go ahead and see it. I didn't care for it, but 73% of critics saw something in it that I didn't. To me, it lacked the emotional resonance of Eastwood's excellent war films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, but it could've been worse.

Rating: 2/5