For Your Consideration - Round 1

With Oscar ballots in the mail and the first round of fine flicks already in theaters, I thought I’d offer up a handful of Round 1 potential Oscar nomination candidates.

Best Supporting Actor

Javier Bardem – No Country For Old Men
In this film Bardem is a presence – he terrifies –while uttering little dialogue, never showing remorse, and always seeking revenge. Hand over the statue now and nobody gets hurt.

Tom Wilkinson – Michael Clayton
Playing a top attorney teetering on the brink of self-destruction, Wilkinson gives the film’s best performance, staying just this side of over-the-top.

Philip Seymour Hoffman – Charlie Wilson’s War
Ever a true chameleon Hoffman steals the show from Ton Hanks and Julia Roberts (who was rather painfully miscast in her role as a wealthy Texas socialite with a political agenda). Hoffman is brilliant as the spiteful and deadpan Gust Avrakotos, whose ego is as big as his mustache.

Best Actor

James McAvoy – Atonement
Everybody loves an epic war-torn romance-drama (as long it’s not Cold Mountain), and Atonement’s success hinges on the two lead performances – not least of which is McAvoy’s. As the Sabrina-ish son-to-“the help” Robbie Turner, McAvoy’s painful war scenes alone are deserving of a nom.

Viggo Mortensen – Eastern Promises
If you weren’t startled by Mortensen’s turn as Nikolai, the right-hand man to the head of a Russian crime family, perhaps you missed his completely naked bathhouse knife-fight scene.

There will probably be some talk about George Clooney (Michael Clayton), but as much as Clooney is a great entertainer/performer, his performance here lacks a soft vulnerability. Clooney doesn’t let his guard down enough to fully realize his character, and with the likes of Mortensen and Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood) in the running, he shouldn’t have to worry about an acceptance speech.

Best Actress

Keira Knightley – Atonement
As the cold and love-starved Cecilia Tallis, Knightley plays this role better than anyone could have done it, infusing real emotion into a period piece.

Ellen Page – Juno
After viewing Juno a second time, I realized the reason I love this film is thanks to a pitch-perfect performance by Ms. Page. Her deft handling of the smart-alecky dialogue maximizes every line, and when Juno lets her guard down, realizing she doesn’t “know what kind of girl she is,” or veers off the road to cry in her mini-van, it just kills me.

When all is said and done, Knightley may walk away with a statue, but my heart will always belong to Page.

(I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Keri Russell wind up in the running for her role in Waitress.)

Best Supporting Actress
Usually this category is packed with greats, but the field is looking a little sparse.
Currently, bets are on Saoirse Ronan, the young girl with a wild imagination in Atonement, and Tilda Swinton, the no-nonsense businesswoman in Michael Clayton. But, I’d say it’s anybody’s game. Heaven knows Amy Adams will wind up nominated for something.


Stay tuned for Round Two – we’ll find out if Johnny Depp, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Paul Dano should ready their tuxes.

My 2007 Must List

As the year draws to a close, and as “Top 10” and “Best Of” lists run rampant, here is the only list you’ll need.

Oscar-noms aside (as those will be mentioned in detail later), there were a few stand-out films:



Musical
Best romance disguised as a musical, involving vacuum cleaners and the lead singer of The Frames
Once

Romance
Best romance involving pie
Waitress

Comedy
Best chance to leave the theater with a laugh-induced bellyache
Death At A Funeral

Double-Feature
Best use of a machine gun/Kurt Russell
Grindhouse

Comedic Family Drama
Best Wes Anderson flick
The Darjeeling Limited

Documentary
Best rock doc involving faux instrument playing
Air Guitar Nation

Western
Best use of non-American actors playing cowboys (Take that, Seraphim Falls!)
3:10 To Yuma

“Kids” Movie*
Best appearance by a rat in the kitchen
Ratatouille

Best use of Daniel Radcliffe in a role not involving horses
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
*Tie


Music

I’m not going to lie, I did not listen to every album that came out this year. But I did listen to as many as I could get my hands on, and with the conceits that I A) like indie rock and B) like to dance – here are my picks for 2007’s top albums.

First, the obvious:

The Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
The follow-up album to the band’s breakthrough 2004 disc Funeral is jam-packed with upbeat instrumentation and automobile imagery. The effort from “Canada’s Most Intriguing Rock Band” is polished and optimistic – even without any “Neighborhood” tracks.

Amy Winehouse – Back To Black
Say what you will about the disc’s diva, Back To Black is a flawless effort that manages to escape sounding like a “throwback album,” yet still sound both fresh and retro. Thanks to the deft production from visionary Mark Ronson, Back To Black lends itself to the dancehall as easily as it does a lazy smoky bar.

Music to mellow out to:

Band Of Horses – Cease To Begin

Shout Out Louds – Our Ill Wills

Blonde Redhead – 23


Worth a listen:

Rilo Kiley – Under The Blacklight

Okkervil River – The Stage Names

Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer?

Goods for a good cause

One of the greatest things about the holiday season is that it is ripe with events. From plays to visual art exhibitions to choral performances –‘tis the season for sharing creative gifts. This past weekend I attended two performances – both which had teamed up with the SF Food Bank.

The Friday night play I went to donated a part of their proceeds to the organization, while the Saturday night improv show had a bin set up to take my canned goods. It’s nice to do something with a cause in mind – and nothing is better than when creative arts and canned goods can team up.

Get involved with the SF Food Bank – you can donate food at most SF Safeways, Grace Cathedral, and many Blockbuster Video locations.

Songs I can’t get out of my head: Vol. 5

Dappled Cities – Fire Fire Fire

A fine indie rock offering from a weird little outfit that toured earlier this year with Tokyo Police Club. While at first this track seems like a sensitive groove, its appeal is really in the tongue-in-cheek humor of lines like, “you’re not a fire, so I will not dance in you.”

Band of Horses – No One’s Gonna Love You

This cut, from one of the year’s best albums – Cease to Begin – is simultaneously calming and haunting with melodic guitars smooth southern vocals. The Carolina boys, who are label mates with the likes of The Shins and The Go Team!, manage to create an atmosphere on this album that transcends the individual tracks. If you haven’t already, definitely pick up Cease To Begin.

The Coup – My Favorite Mutiny

Here sounding a bit like The Roots, and including a line that references the miniseries of the same name, The Coup give us a funky groove featuring horns and a tinkling piano.

Timbaland + The Hives – Throw It On Me

This is a strange song and has been around for a while, but I heard it again recently (featured in a phone commercial, of course), and was reminded about the genuinely kitschy video featuring the girls of wrestling. A complete heist of “Sin City” – the video’s palate works thanks to the always impeccably dressed Hives who never deviate from their black-and-white ensembles (and score a couple of successes on their new disc “The Black And White Album”). In listening to the song again, one gets the feeling that Timbaland is out to prove that he can collaborate with anyone. As to whether he should, well, that’s another question.

The Coen Brothers’ Uncharted Territory

Before venturing into No Country For Old Men, I was told by friends that the film was “intense.” After reviving my left leg, which had cramped under the strain of being held clenched in anticipation for two hours, I would add freaking intense.

In comparison to something such as this fall’s Eastern Promises, which was a fully-developed story with rich characters and subplots (until the unfulfilling draw-your-own-conclusions ending), No Country For Old Men is a sparse and desolate story, told with little dialogue and even less music.

But it’s precisely this texture that makes the film so terse and terrifying.

When Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon the bloody and broken remains of a drug-deal gone wrong, he suddenly finds himself with a suitcase full of tainted money and a handful of conniving folks hot on his trail.

Llewelyn sends his wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) to her mother’s in Odessa, while he goes on the lam – knowing someone is coming for him. That someone is the frightening, dream-haunting and genuinely scary Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem).

The subtle side-story that emerges as the films centerpiece, and which holds the picture together, revolves around a fatigued police sheriff, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). Working to train a new recruit, the sheriff seems generally unfazed by the things he sees. But as he ventures deeper into the case that is unfolding, working to protect Carla Jean, we see that the sheriff may be on his last legs. He may think he’s seen everything, but he’s seen nothing like this.

Despite being based on a novel (by Cormac McCarthy), No Country For Old Men offers us little in terms of a deeper story, backstory, or past history. We actually know very little about the characters. Still, what we do get in terms of performances is quite brilliant.

Tommy Lee Jones gives a real depth and sadness to his aging sheriff. And, even playing something of a hero, Brolin’s Moss maintains a determined and brutish creepiness – rivaled only by William Block – Brolin’s character in Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror.

Set against the barren west Texas landscape, the Coen brothers present No Country For Old Men as a rugged and frightening story. It is a rare film that gives intense meaning to every line uttered. And while perhaps a little too much is left to the audience’s imagination (especially concerning characters’ motivations); the film is highly successful in maximizing every detail it does give.

It’s a ride worth taking, and that ride is freaking intense.

Down And Dirty

While we were perched on our knees, wielding metal picks, and whacking into the rocky soil early Saturday morning, the guy across from me said, “You know, my regular job is ‘data mining’.”

Perhaps that’s a comment you’d only hear in the Silicon Valley, but never the less, as we dug and planted at McLaren Park, I was glad to be stepping out of my normal routine to do something for the earth.

For my weekend project, helping to replant some of the hillsides in the park, I signed up through an organization called One Brick. They’re here in SF, and they have chapters in New York, Chicago, and Washington DC.

For anyone who is looking to get involved when they have the time – even if they can’t make an on-going commitment, One Brick is definitely worth looking into. Plus, they’re heavy on the socialization aspect – so not only can you serve a meal or plant a garden, you may find a new friend. Or at least someone who’d like to mine your data.

Reuse it

In a season that’s often about “stuff” – it’s good to take a look around at how much stuff we already have. Granted, it seems that we don’t realize how much we have until we’re moving and have to box everything up and take it to a new location… But looking through our closets and cupboards, we should ask ourselves what we really need and what we’re really using.

I took a look around and then took my books to the Friends of the Public Library bookstore, and clothes to Goodwill. It’s good to routinely clean house and keep a check on our excess of stuff. A sweater I haven’t worn in 2 seasons isn’t doing anything but taking up space – until it gets in the hands of someone who can really use it.

So take a look around and ask yourself what you’re really using, and what’s just taking up space. Find an outlet that can put your stuff to better use.

Back to the land & over the airwaves

Yesterday I signed up to spend a part of my weekend planting in McLaren Park. If it’s been a while since you’ve had some dirt under your fingernails, I’d suggest you volunteer at a park near you. We spend so much of our day-to-day lives touching little more than a keyboard, that it’s nice to get a firm grip around a shovel. It could do wonders for your carpal tunnel.

I also made a new pledge to KQED – the large Bay Area public broadcasting channel. If this seems like an odd donation choice – let me deconstruct it a bit.

In Bill McKibben’s “Deep Economy,” he devotes a part of his chapter on “The Wealth of Communities” to public radio and non-Clear Channel/etc.-owned stations. McKibben points out that “entertainment” is easy to come by, but it is nearly impossible to build community and discuss community issues on stations being run by a central entity thousands of miles away.

McKibben states: “Public radio stations testify to the instinct for community, if only because they all rely on listeners being willing to pay for something they can get for free.”

I can switch on the radio or TV any time of the day and be “entertained.” But if I want to know about local events, what local people care about, and how I can help out – supporting public stations can help deliver those messages.

My month of giving

Each year during this time, we’re encouraged to give presents. Regardless of your religious affiliation, the celebration of “Christmas” in America seems to have long ago transitioned into a national shopping holiday. Anyone who has ever fought tooth-and-nail for a parking space to go into a crowded mall and sit on Santa’s lap knows that the key question he asks is: “What would you like for Christmas?” And unlike a Miss America pageant, if you say “World Peace” – he’s going to give you a weird look.

So instead of making this season about buying, I want to truly make this season about giving. Christmas is not about acquiring more stuff – it’s about (and brace yourself, because I’m about to get hokey here) realizing how much love you have, and sharing it with others.

This year, I am aiming to spend at least 20 days during December giving – either by a donation of money or time.

Yesterday marked World AIDS Day, with events held around the world – including a huge 10-hour concert in Johannesburg, South Africa – the country which is estimated to have the world’s highest percentage of people living with AIDS.

I donated online through the UN Foundation, which works directly with the United Nations to identify and direct funds to worthy organizations worldwide. (You can donate as little as $5.)

Possibly the most visible campaign against AIDS, the Product (RED) campaign – also contributes a portion of money made through the sales of Product (RED) items towards the Global Fund, which focuses on eliminating AIDS in Africa. If you’ve purchased a (RED) Gap t-shirt, iPod Nano, or Armani wristwatch – a portion of those proceeds support the campaign.

This year, make a pledge to yourself. Skip a couple of morning lattes, pack a lunch from home, take the $10 or $15 you save and give it to a worthy organization. Or donate an old coat to kids who don’t have one. Serve a meal at a shelter.

If you can, hand-make cards and gifts. They’ll be more meaningful – because they were made with love.

Stay tuned for more ways to give.