Take it easy, Urvashi: LION and Cultural Displacement/Connection

There's a Hindi phrase that kept popping into my head while watching Lion: "na idhar ke, na udhar ke." Literally it means neither here nor there. But colloquially it suggests a sense of constant displacement. A lack of belonging in any place. The phrase came to mind during a scene where Saroo (Dev Patel) is walking to a party with his white girlfriend Lucy (Rooney Mara). The sequence is very Bollywood especially with the song "Urvashi Urvashi." The party is hosted by some Indian friends' house. And these friends are immigrants from India. There is Bollywood music playing and a Hindi movie on the TV. Lucy does some Indian dancing, Saroo struggles to eat with his hands. Through his facial expressions and body language, Saroo is visibly uncomfortable. This isn't his culture, his life, even if he is surrounded by people who share his skin tone. In another parry scene--this time, with mostly white people--Saroo is even more uncomfortable and sticks to the wall while Lucy dances with her friends. Saroo seems out of place wherever he goes.

Lion is the directorial debut of Garth Davis, who worked on the acclaimed miniseries Top of the Lake. The film is based on the autobiography A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierly. Adapted by novelist Luke Davies, Lion stars Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Priyanka Bose, David Wenham, and Nicole Kidman along with debut child actor Sunny Pawar. The cinematography was handled by Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty), with editing by Alexandre de Franceschi (The Painted Veil).

Oscar Notes: LOVING and ARRIVAL

In part 2 of my Oscar Notes series, I look at two Oscar hopefuls: the civil rights romance biopic Loving and the sci-fi mind-bender Arrival.

Loving
The buzz: Jeff Nichols' film had its world premiere at the Canned Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme D'or. The film is based on the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, who were persecuted under anti-miscegenation laws. Forced to leave their home in Virginia, the couple settled in DC to raise their children. Unable to live far from their family, they decided to fight the laws and took their case to the Supreme Court. The fim stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga.

Possible nominations: Ideally, this movie could get nominated for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Original Screenplay, and Cinematography. I think that is not going to happen. At best, this movie could be nominated for Picture, Actress, and Screenplay. Joel Edgerton could get a nomination because the Best Actor category is rather light this year. Ruth Negga should be a shoo-in, but Best Actress is more crowded than ever in recent memory. Jeff Nichols will probably get lost in the busy Best Director list.

What Will the Oscars Look Like Under the (Barf) Trump Administration?

I'm still processing how Donald Trump--liar, fraud, racist, misogynist, hysterical, under-qualified--won the presidency. There are a million reasons why, and others better suited than I have some hypotheses. But I am a pop culture blogger so I am curious what's gonna happen with Trump being in (barf) Oval Office. I think Hollywood and the media as a whole is going to have a strong reaction to the Trump presidency; he's too much a forceful presence to be ignored. But there are a few ways the Academy Awards could play out under these dark new times.

I don't mean to minimize the problems our nation and our world face with that man as President. However, this is a pop culture blog--and until March, mostly an awards blog--so that's where I want to focus. Hollywood has an effect on politics and obviously vice versa. Now, there are four major Best Picture contenders (among many hopefuls and long shots). And I think each of the four represent different reactions the Oscars could have next year regarding the 2016 election and the upcoming (barf) four years.

ARRIVAL is the Feminist Sci-Fi Mind-Bender We've Been Waiting For (Review)

Amy Adams is one of the best actors of our times. She plays the conflicted nun in Doubt, a displaced princess in Enchanted, the creative but silenced painter in Big Eyes, the scheming matriarch in The Master, and a searching soul in Her with equal conviction, empathy, and inner strength. Recently, the five time Academy Award nominee has been a superb character actress in a large number of diverse films, but has yet to carry a film completely on her shoulders since Enchanted. (Even in Big Eyes, her restrained performance had to compete with Christoph Waltz's obnoxious showboating.) However, that film has arrived with Arrival, a ponderous, sublime science fiction drama from current hot commodity filmmaker Denis Villenueve. Much like with his previous films Prisoners and Sicario, Villenueve takes on a genre movie and invokes it with intelligence and questions about humanity.

Arrival stars Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Tzi Ma. Adapted from the acclaimed short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, the screenplay was written by Eric Heisserer (this summer's surprise horror hit Lights Out).  The cinematography was handled by Bradford Young (Selma), with editing by Oscar nominee Joe Walker (Sicario, 12 Years a Slave). The haunting score is by Oscar nominee Johann Johannsson (Sicario, The Theory of Everything).

Oscar Notes: MOONLIGHT

I am starting a new series where I take some notes on the potential Oscar heavy hitters. This week I'm looking at Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins. The film stars Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders, Alex Hibbert, Andre Holland, Mahershala Ali, Janelle Monae, and Naomi Harris. The film is scripted by Jenkins, from the unproduced play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McRaney. The film is about a young man (played by Rhodes, Sanders, and Hibbert) at different stages in his life as he comes to terms with his sexuality and masculinity culture in the black community.

The buzz: Moonlight opened to widespread critical acclaim. It earned rave reviews during festival season ever since its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival in September. The film has received several nominations at the Gotham Awards, including a win for a Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Performance. Also, the movie is doing well at the box office in limited release. However,when the movie releases wide this weekend, we'll see if it clicks with mainstream audiences. Moonlight is expected to make a big splash at the Spirit Awards as well as the Academy Awards.

But can it go the distance?

DENIAL and the 2016 Presidential Campaign

There's a small movie playing in select theaters called Denial, directed by Mick Jackson. The film stars Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz, alongside Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Spall, and Andrew Scott. The film is about acclaimed historian Deborah Lipstadt (Wesiz) and her legal battle with infamous Holocaust denier David Irving (Spall). The film is small scale --I doubt you've even heard of it--but it's very significant. The film is essentially a courtroom drama, with impassioned speeches and suspenseful "waiting for the verdict" scenes. It's the kind of movie that warrants an iTunes rental. I definitely think people should see it, but you don't need to rush out to the megaplex.

While the film will mostly be known as a period piece about the Holocaust, I think it does have some unintentional relevance to politics today. I say unintentional because I don't think the filmmaker Mick Jackson had any goal other than to tell this specific story. And maybe I'm just too immersed in election coverage. This election is drowning our national conversation and it's quite probable I'm seeing it in places where it isn't. But the film Denial is about trying to prove something that doesn't need to be proved by physical evidence and I see a lot of that in this election.

THE BIRTH OF A NATION is the 5th Grade Thanksgiving Pageant of Slavery Epics (Review)

I really wrestled with going to see The Birth of a Nation. Its director Nate Parker and co-writer Jean Celestin are rapists, who escaped conviction thanks to the failings of the justice system and 1990s slut-shaming. Nate Parker is also homophobic (saying he'd never play a gay character because he doesn't want to take away from black masculinity or something). I don't really know much about Nate Parker except I liked him in Gina Prince Bythewood's sublime Beyond the Lights (but he was outshined by his co-stars Gugu Mbatha Raw and Minnie Driver). Ultimately I decided to go see it because I wanted to write about it, just to see if it was good enough that I can separate the art from the artist.

Sadly, The Birth of a Nation is a garbage movie that is barely worth its running time let alone the pretzel I had to turn my crazy liberal mind into in order to justify spending money on it. I am not happy to report that the movie is an artistic failure, despite the air of prestige Oscar movie it has carried with it for the last nine months.  The film stars Parker as slave rebellion leader  Nat Turner, along with Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley, Gabrielle Union, and Penelope Ann Miller.