Danny Novo
Watching the Oscars last night (at TiVospeed) I was hoping for the success of Michael Clayton, one of the few movies I’ve seen that I would like to see again soon. Now that I’ve seen the plot, I want to watch the acting, the cinematography… it was that good. Tilda Swinton did win, and it was well-deserved, but the movie got shorted in the other categories. Oh well.
Here are the notes I wrote down after seeing the movie last October.
“See it in a theater, if you can. Some of the quiet moments require the pent, not-quite-hush of a theater. Our audience in Kansas City gasped and clapped at all the right spots, and it really made the movie more fun. The movie was directed with great restraint by Tony Gilroy, he lets the camera linger when it should. I am reminded especially of an elevator ride Clooney takes. Nothing happens on the ride, except a hell of a lot of acting. Clooney and Swinton were superb, and I wanted to see them together more. As it is, they have just two scenes together. Swinton actually does most of her best acting when she’s alone in a scene. For that matter, so does Clooney. And Gilroy is masterful at capturing it. See this movie.”
I haven’t seen the two big winners of the night, There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men, but Michael Clayton stands out to me as a fine bit of moviemaking. I should really see those other movies, though.
What did you think of Oscar night?
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I wasn’t too surprised by the proceedings. Was glad Pixar scored, mostly because I’m a firm believer that the world really does need more of what they’re selling (merchandising not included, but I blame Disney for that).
We’ve been trying to rent Michael Clayton for a week or so now. Leah got a Netflix subs for her birthday, and MC is in our queue, but we don’t know when it’ll arrive. We’re eager to see it. And we’re eager to see There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. In their first acceptance speech, the Cohens struck me as people I would not want to stand with at a cocktail party. Maybe they were just tired.
We watched Gone Baby Gone and American Gangster over the weekend. I enjoyed both, though I had the former figured out about 15 minutes into the movie. I chalk it up to an inexperienced director and/or bad casting. Note to inexperienced directors/bad casting agents: You cannot flash a picture of a known actor like Mark Margolis at the beginning of your movie and then expect people to believe that you’re not going to see him again. In a movie with a plot twist like the one in Gone Baby Gone, your audience knows that Margolis is going to show up again, which means they know the story isn’t going to be over until he reappears. Tsk tsk tsk.