By Aaron 12/20/2007

It is hard to explain the plot of Atonement without giving away what makes the movie great. If you have seen the preview, it is easy to describe the premise of the movie without giving it away. On the eve of World War II, an upper class family plans a dinner for their son’s guest and invites a friend of the family, their maid’s son (James McAvoy) to the dinner. He is in love with their daughter (Keira Knightley), who also loves him. But when they get carried away and Keira’s sister (Saoirse Ronan) walks in on them, misinterpreting what her innocent eyes had never seen, she accuses McAvoy of raping her sister and another girl, and McAvoy is promptly taken away and locked up. When World War II breaks out the prisoners are given the opportunity to fight for their freedom. Will he live to get back to her? Will he ever escape the weight that hangs over him from that one night?

As a big fan of Pride and Prejudice, and with the reteaming of Keira and Joe Wright, I expected similar greatness. I was wrong, and it was a pleasant surprise. Refusing to rest on his laurels, Wright uses innovative camera angles and direction to tell his story from different viewpoints and captures that pivotal day and night perfectly. I would go so far as to say that the first hour of this movie is probably one of the best movies I have ever seen. I was also pleased with Wright's continuing ability to tell a great lovestory without slipping into clichés and painful chick flick standbys. Avoiding those pitfalls help Wright turn in a movie that is strongly appealing to both men and women.

Unfortunately, the last hour of the movie, was below average. Losing the focus and precision of a singular event that is the glue for the whole story, the last half jumps around, with time and characters, causing you to lose track of time and leading you into timeline guesswork that is quite frustrating. New characters are introduced – tertiary characters of whom you don’t even know their name. The familiarity we felt for the setting of the first half is gone as the movie jumps from London to France to wherever else. It made me really upset because of how powerful the first half was, but there’s no way around it, the script, direction, and story seemed to disintegrate as the last hour wore on, “saved” only by what I would call a dues ex machina for dramas. The movie’s main theme, atoning for a grievous wrong applies here too – Wright should accept responsibility that he let the best movie of the year slip out of his grasp.

Despite the disappointments of the last half, some of the things from the first half that the movie does well remain. The acting is spectacular – down to those tertiary characters and the child actors employed to play the cousins. Saoirse Ronan is amazing as Keira’s sister, a literary genius who churns out stories and plays left and right about adult themes and concepts, yet does not understand the world she is spinning in her stories. As usual, Keira continues to grow, as an actor, in each and every movie. Here she plays her part with such precision, walking the finest line between seriously austere and deeply emotional. Every scene she is in is stronger because she is in it, and I hope she realizes that Wright really brings out the best in her. James McAvoy continues to show that he is a rising male actor that is just as good, or better, that Keira, as he executes an individual tormented by what has happened to him, and the longing he feels for Keira.

All in all, I can understand why this movie has a lot of Oscar buzz – it would be a travesty if Keira and McAvoy both were not motivated, and Ronan should really get the nod for supporting. I think Wright deserves a directing Oscar, and maybe this flick could squeak into the last spot for Best Picture. At the very least, it can always fall back on the fact that I’m giving it 9/10 saltystix.

Could “Avatar” Win Best Picture?

By Brett Hogan

 

Last week, the trailer for James Cameron’s sci-fi experiment “Avatar” debuted. While initially unimpressed with the teaser, I began to wonder: Could this film win best picture? 

 

Buzz has been generating for this movie for years. Years. The technology to make this movie didn’t exist when Cameron conceived it, so he invented it. When is the last time you heard of a director spearheading the invention of anything? The casting started in 2005. Most movies these days, even epics, are done in half that time. I could go on. 

 

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that people are saying this will be the future of movies. Now, I don’t agree with the idea that CGI will become more prevalent than it already is. But I do believe that this will set the bar miles higher for sci-fi. I mean, that is what Titanic did. And that won some awards if memory serves.

 

I’ll bet you’re asking yourself, how can you even suggest that a film like this will win Best Picture when the initial trailer was nothing better than visual stimulation? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Academy has expanded Best Picture to ten films. This doesn’t guarantee anything other than improved chances for most films on the cusp.

 

Second, after last year’s Oscars debacle, which saw the best film of the year, “The Dark Knight,” not only get shafted in awards but nominations as well, the Academy is pulling out all the stops to appease those with the loudest voices in the film industry, the fanboys. Now, the Academy probably didn’t lose anything because of that other than some viewers of the award show. Perhaps if people are again outraged with the winners or nominees, the heads of the Academy would lose their jobs. So this is all about the Academy protecting itself, which is not so outrageous.  

 

 

Third, there is an economic motive here. I’ve heard this film will cost $190 million, not counting the R&D costs associated with Cameron’s inventions or the cost of getting 3-D cameras into every theater in the country. The Academy will do everything in its power to get people into the seats and make this the next “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight.” But the Academy doesn’t have much power, besides nominating and awarding, so they will slap the “Nominated for Best Picture” moniker onto every commercial and print ad to get the people who didn’t believe the critics to relent and see this movie.

 

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture, and no revolutionary film (Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, etc.) has ever won the Best Picture category because it changed the game. Except maybe Titanic. But still, could this movie actually win? My answer is no but a nomination is certain and who knows what could happen from there. We’ll know more come February 2010.