A Gallery of My Favorite Cinematic Couples

I'm glad to announce that I'm still well and alive. And I do remember that I own a film blog.

To celebrate this wonderful holiday of love and expensive chocolates on my blog, I decided to make a little gallery of my favorite cinematic couples (in no particular order). So here I go...

Perhaps one of the most romantic moments in film...ever. Short, sweet, and amazingly memorable.

I don't care what happened in the books. I'm delusional: Harry and Hermione forever. And it helps that Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have incredible chemistry.

The best romantic comedy ever made. Gregory Peck (sigh) and Audrey Hepburn shines brighter than ever in that gorgeous Roman backdrop.

Jo and Laurie are my favorite literary couple and I am convinced my life would have been much better if Jo just accepted Laurie's marriage proposal! That said, Winona Ryder and Christian Bale's performances and chemistry makes me even more frustrated and annoyed that Jo and Laurie don't end up together.

How can any list of this sort be complete without the immortal Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler?

This is a very unconventional choice, but I've always found the relationship between Michael Corleone and Kay Adams quite fascinating. The farther Michael moves away from Kay, emotionally and physically, the farther away he is from his American Dream. Al Pacino and Diane Keaton (in one of the most underrated performances ever) portray the dynamics between the two wonderfully.

Unrequited love...sigh.

One of the sweetest couples ever. One boy, one special boy...sigh. Bobby Rydell and Ann-Margret are adorably irresistible.

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan proves the power of predictably cutsey, cheesy charm.

"You hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you!" Then comes the famous line...

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I hope you enjoyed this gallery. Feel free to discuss and bring up your own personal favorites. Next time, I'll aim for something a little more substantial.

81st Annual Academy Awards Nominations

Today was a fairly positive day. I mean, how can anything go wrong on Oscar nomination day? Well, things can go wrong, but the anticipation is always pretty exhilarating.

I haven't seen many of the nominated films, but that won't stop me from sharing my two cents.

Like most people, The Dark Knight snub came as a surprise to me. And of course, all that love for The Reader was also quite unexpected. I've seen both and liked both, but honestly, The Dark Knight deserved the Best Picture and Best Director nominations a little more in comparison. The Reader may be a haunting piece of dramatic cinema, but The Dark Knight possesses a grand, epic vision that is usually void from the stereotypically vacuous superhero genre.

But I'm sure several people are glad to see The Dark Knight snub. The Reader is a pleasing enough alternative, I suppose.

And why does Kate Winslet have to be nominated for Best Leading Actress for The Reader? I guess she is technically the leading actress in the film but I'd rather see her with two nominations--one for Best Supporting Actress for The Reader (in which she would've gone head-to-head with Penelope Cruz, who is currently a bit of a lock as for her performance in Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and another for Best Leading Actress nomination for Revolutionary Road (I kinda-sorta want to see this). I mean, wouldn't that have been amazing? Now Winslet also has less of a chance to win in the Best Leading Actress category, especially with Meryl Streep in the running. And Anne Hathaway, with all that buzz for Rachel Getting Married, is tough competition too.

I'm torn by Amy Adams's Best Supporting Actress nomination for Doubt. She is undoubtedly (ha ha get it? okay, never mind) one of the greatest young talents working in film right now but her performance in Doubt isn't quite Oscar-worthy--in this year, or any year. And this is coming from someone who adores her sweet, charming, and all-around contagious naivete glee in Enchanted and Junebug. Adams does indeed deliver a strong performance in Doubt, but when compared to the likes of Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Viola Davis, she is overshadowed and left clinging to the last resort of fourth place. I guess I'll just consider this as the Academy's apology to Adams for not nominating her for Enchanted.

In a perfect world, David Kross (The Reader) and Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight) would both be nominated for Best Supporting Actor. (I know the Heath Ledger win is nearly inevitable--and will be completely, totally deserved--but these two supporting actors provided the beating heart to their films.) Yeah, I know I haven't seen enough movies to judge, but I'm just throwing it out there in case someone more knowledgeable and wiser actually agrees with me.

And as if the world doesn't know, Brangelina (both parts) are nominated for their work in film, not for the number of times their faces has appeared on a tabloid.

For the complete list of Oscar nominees, please head on over to IMDb's Oscar nominations page.

Obligatory Golden Globes Post

The annual Golden Globes is one of the few prestigious (I use that word loosely) film award ceremonies that conveniently air on network television, along with the Academy Awards. It's always an entertaining event to watch, although I never really catch up with the films until an entire year after the award ceremonies are over. Fortunately, this might change once I get a job and my driver's license.

The Hollywood Foreign Press (the folks behind the Golden Globes) has a reputation for nominating celebrities for the sake of nominating celebrities. That doesn't stop any of the fun that steams from the three-hour telecast (including commercials).

This year's triumphant victor is Kate Winslet, who won both Best Supporting Actress (for The Reader) and Best Leading Actress (for Revolutionary Road). Being an admirer of Ms. Winslet and having seen her act with electrifying passion in The Reader, I couldn't be more proud of her achievements. Here's hoping she finally gets a well-deserved Oscar.

Last night's Golden Globes also awarded the prolonged Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award to director Steven Spielberg. Spielberg was introduced by friend and fellow director, Martin Scorsese, along with a number of clips from the movies Spielberg has produced and/or directed over the years. It is no secret that I am a relatively huge fan of Spielberg (I have seen all but three of his directed films), and I am thrilled that he was honored for his work in cinema.

Finally, I would like to apologize for ever dissing Slumdog Millionaire's Oscar chances. For the past several months, the film has proved itself to be more of a potential Oscar winner for Best Picture than any other film in contention. This also reminds me that I should see it (post-finals, of course).

Since this must be the tenth (or tenth billion) post about the Golden Globes, I'll just cut the rant short. If you're curious, a complete list of the Golden Globe nominees and winners can be found here.

"I have doubts. I have such doubts."

Playwright John Patrick Shanley adapted and directed his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Doubt for the screen, but the film is trapped in the confines of a stagey setup. Doubt is certainly a delicious showcase of very strong actors delivering riveting performances due to the tension-driven dialogue of Shanley's script, but the film is not quite a full-blown cinematic experience, although the story itself is often dramatic and engrossing. The film plays like a ardent debate between two fierce, persuasive characters. The concluding note is a mist of profound ambiguity that questions the audience on whom they believe based on the evidence provided. But doubt will prevail.

Doubt takes place a year after President John F. Kennedy's assassination. America's spirit has been torn by the fears of uncertainty and a culture captivated by modern ideas of change. St. Nicholas Chuch School is no longer immune to the changes of the outside world and the new priest, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) wants to see the changes come full circle within the heavily traditional climate of St. Nicholas. Father Flynn is friendly with the students, uses a ballpoint pen, and suggests a secular song for the school's annual Christmas pageant. St. Nicholas is finally changing with the times, thanks to a charismatic reformer at the its core.

While Father Flynn develops a fabulous relationship with all the students, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), the universally feared principal of St. Nicholas School, sees Father Flynn as a nemesis and a threat to the very walls of the Catholic church. When the compassionately naive and easily conflicted Sister James (Amy Adams) confides in Sister Aloysius that Father Flynn may have acted inappropriately with the school's first black student, Donald Miller (Joseph Foster), Sister Aloysius takes full advantage of this opportunity to take Father Flynn down--with great certainty in tact.

The performances are uniformly excellent. After four decades, Streep shows that she is still the reigning queen of the film industry, with her complex performance as Sister Aloysius. Sister Aloysius is undeniably cold and stern, but she is a powerful force of nature, accompanied by dry wit, assured judgments, and unyielding confidence. Although he differs in personality, Hoffman's Father Flynn possesses the same inner qualities as Sister Aloysius, which makes their heated conversations a wonder to behold, especially in the head-to-head verbal battles leading up to the finale. Hoffman's Father Flynn holds on to Streep's Sister Aloysius's every word like a calm, biting breeze.

But the true surprise in the cast is Viola Davis, who plays the boy's struggling mother. In a single scene, Davis lets the audience into her hardships at home and her hopes for her son. Nothing can stand in her son's way of future success if she can help it.

Doubt benefits from the finely-tuned performances from its masterful ensemble cast and Shanley's dialogue, but the film is sometimes dull and restrained. After watching Doubt, I wondered if I would admire the cinematic treatment as much if I had already experienced the play on stage. The film has all the bareness of basic theater and doesn't bother to take any risks that go beyond the Dutch angle. But there is an elegance about Doubt, mainly attributed to Roger Deakins' cinematography that paints a blooming yet restricted portrait of a sixties-era Catholic church.

Like another film released in 2008, The Reader, Doubt also dares to ask tough, intense questions attached with its characters' final decisions and the emotional consequences that follow. Doubt tells us that beliefs are rarely not without uncertainty. Despite the film's dismissible theatricality, Shanley directs his story well.

Rating: *** (out of four)

"Do you love me?"

The Reader is a very well-made film with excellent performances by its extraordinarily talented cast. Stephen Daldry once again proves that he's well on his way to becoming one of the finest directors of his generation. The film is also eager--a little too eager, I might add--to ask hard-hitting moral questions to a point that it feels like it's spoon feeding the audience with its questions instead of telling an emotionally satisfying story.

Unlike more impressive films that questions and tests its characters and audiences' morals, such as Letters From Iwo Jima and Schindler's List, The Reader lacks a warm, approachable core. Daldry, who is capable of directing intense, brutally honest scenes that showcase a wide range of character development, constantly keeps his audience at a cold, uncomfortable distance. Daldry's approach nearly works until I began to feel too little for the characters in the very final moments of the film. Then I realize that I've been on a long, hard journey with these characters--I do care for them, but not without difficulty. Daldry wants us to feel like we're eavesdropping but rarely do we go beyond film-watching. I was constantly part of an audience, but never a witness.

Based on a German novel by Bernhard Schlink, The Reader begins with a torrid, secret affair between a fifteen year old boy and a thirty six year old woman. In 1958, a fever-stricken Michael Berg (David Kross) fatefully encounters Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), a tram conductor. Hanna takes pity on the boy and helps him home. A few months later, Michael recovers and finds Hanna to thank her for her kindness. Michael, with his innocent, schoolboy crush on Hanna, is immediately seduced by her. Hanna takes advantage of Michael's obvious trust and infatuation to get sex and, strangely enough, literature. Michael eagerly agrees to this; he is simply teenage boy in love. Erotic sex scenes follow, but under Daldry's direction, they never feel too gratuitous.

When Hanna receives a promotion to work in the office due to excellent reviews, she leaves her tiny apartment and disappears.

Several years later, Michael is a law student, with the opportunity to observe a war-crime trial that was a result of a popular book written by one of the survivors. To Michael's complete and utter shock, Hanna is the star defendent of the trial. Hanna, along with several other middle-aged women, is charged with locking up a group of Jewish women in a church when the church was being bombed.

But Michael possesses a secret about Hanna that will change the outcome of the case. I will not reveal the secret since it seems to be central to the film's advertising, but it is a secret that Hannah is so ashamed of that she would rather die than have it revealed to the masses.

Like Hanna, Michael is ashamed too, but for something entirely different: He feels guilt for ever loving Hanna--a guard of a Nazi prison, a criminal.

Many years later, an unhappy, recently divorced, and middle-aged Michael (Ralph Fiennes) begins to come to terms with his relationship with Hanna. He still feels the lingering guilt for never summoning up the courage to help Hanna, so he begins to help Hanna in a way that he hopes can benefit her, even in prison.

But the fact that Michael never tries to persuade Hanna to reveal her secret--which would have definitely changed the outcome of her sentence--frustrates me to no end. I haven't been more angry with a film character since Rolf in The Sound of Music. This is where the spoon feeding starts: Would you convince a criminal to reveal her secret if it could help change the outcome of his or her sentence, even though you feel shame for sharing an inappropriate relationship with him or her many years ago? Michael chooses the easy path, the cowardly path. But wouldn't most people in Michael's position do the same thing? Perhaps. We never know what we'd really do in a situation until we're really in that particular situation. But whatever we decide, we have to face the consequences--whether it's guilt, shame, or regret.

A film as thought-provoking as The Reader should immediately considered a worthy film, right?

I'm honestly torn between whether I like this film or not. As I said before, The Reader is a well-made film. The cinematography by Chris Menges and Roger Deakins is superb. The score by Nico Mulhay is wonderfully effective and provides intensity and tension when needed. Daldry does a great job showing character development and even in the midst of the film's rather cold surface, there are several moving scenes but those scenes aren't enough to provide a lasting impact. But they do make me think.

I tend to exaggerate when it comes to good performances (at the moment, I'm rather ashamed to bring up any examples) but Winslet and Kross deliver spectacular performances. I don't think I've been more impressed by Winslet before, which actually makes me wonder where I've been for the past ten years. (I haven't seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...yet.)

Hanna is unquestionably a flawed and despicable character, but when Michael finally discovers her secret, my heart broke for her, even though I knew it all along. When Hanna finds a way to cure her shame (with Michael's help), I cheered for her. No one can ever forgive her for her terrible crimes, but redemption is always a second option. What I feel for Hanna is all due to Winslet's complex performance--a performance that is deservingly one of the frontrunners for this year's supporting actress line-up at the Oscars. Winslet sinks into all those layers of aging make-up, but she never loses touch with her character.

Fiennes gives a fine performance here as the older Michael, but it is Kross who steals his thunder. Kross is a promising newcomer who can go head-to-head with a master like Winslet; he has endless potential. Kross makes me care for Michael when it matters most, especially when I see how he sacrifices his adolescent social life just to maintain an affair with the woman he loves. Kross makes Michael whiny and naive, wishy-washy and cowardly, like many teenage boys, I'd imagine. In the same way I eventually sympathize for Hanna, I sympathize for Michael too, all due to the foundation Kross successfully builds in the first part of the film.

David Hare's screenplay is too bare to provide any grand emotional impact, but the performances and the direction do help. There is plenty to admire in the film; the positives outweigh the negatvies. The tough questions the film asks, which can feel forced and manipulativs, are rightfully asked. As much as I pondered, comfortable answer is nowhere in sight. The Reader features a guilt-ridden atmosphere of post-WWII Germany that ponders for easy answers but finds none. At its heart, The Reader is a haunting coming-of-age story. While a nation gradually heals in the shadow of its atrocious crimes, a man begins to mend his shameful past and a woman realizes that there is a cure for her secret shame. In the case of The Reader, redemption may be key.