Summer in the City I: Going to a Ballgame
I’m kicking off my Summer in the City series with something I’m pretty sure everyone’s already done. Who hasn’t enjoyed the Tigers on a sunny, summer afternoon? Or the joy of watching the fireworks explode in front of the dramatic backdrop of our city’s finest architectural gems? However, in the last couple of years I’ve had a fifteen game package and I’ve discovered that most people seem to go about going to the ballgame all wrong. So, I’m going to share my bounty of knowledge, or the two or three things I’ve (or more often my husband’s) figured out over the years. Take my advice at your own risk, however. Detroit’s a big city and cars get stolen and people get mugged. You could always get yourself to a Whitecaps game instead.
How to Take Advantage of a Package: I’ll admit the first year I got a package, I bought it for the purpose of only one game, not all fifteen. After the Tigers amazing comeback season in 06, it suddenly became much more difficult to get Opening Day tickets. I used to just head to the Hazen S. Pingree statue a couple of hours before the game. Alas those days are long gone. So I bought a package for the Opening Day ticket, and figured I’d make it to the other 15 games, but sadly due to all sorts of issues, never did. in fact the last few years have been similar, and only this year do I feel that we’re doing anything right. One must take advantage of two tools–first is stub-hub. The minute you realize you’ll have to miss a game, get it up on stub-hub. You can send your tickets electronically and even make a profit selling them at face value, considering the discount of the package. Sometimes, you might not know that you can’t make a game ahead of time. Stuff happens, then you can take advantage of the season ticket exchange policy. You can miss up to three games and exchange the tickets after the fact for another game. Oh, and when you make the exchange, go to the ticket offices well before or after a game and you can park for free in the fifteen minute parking lane.
What to Bring: You can bring food in with you and it’s worth it. Even if you love the finer things, like Germack nuts, they’ll be cheaper in the store than at the game. Save yourself a buck and pack up a bag of snacks or pick up dinner on the way to the game. Unfortunately, you can’t bring any drinks in, but what would a baseball game be without an 8 dollar beer?
Getting There: If you’re coming from out of town, then I guess you’d better follow the signs telling you which exit to take (I’d recommend Madison off I-75 because you get a great panorama coming off the freeway). But if you live around here and you know the roads, then I recommend taking any exit except the one the signs say. We always get off at Mack and take Brush up, but there’s literally hundreds of ways to get to the stadium. Too many people rely too much on the freeways, are too afraid to drive through a neighborhood, but it’s worth a little exploring to find your own route to the game.
Parking: You’d do best to ignore signs for parking too. First off, if you’re paying more than ten bucks, you’re getting robbed, but I haven’t paid to park at the games for years. Just north of the stadium you’ll find lots of side-streets off Brush that have free street parking. Comerica Park recently started posting signs saying not park in this neighborhood. I’m sure they want us to believe it has something to do with robberies, but probably more to do with the fact this is the largest, free parking within half a mile of the stadium. I generally park in front of the old crime lab (this one). There’s often a police car nearby and sometimes there’s kittens in the field next to it. Kittens!
Entrance: This is new discovery. After many arguments on the subject, my husband finally convinced me to try entering the park through the Beer Hall entrance on Brush. I’d always assumed you had to like sit down and eat at the Beer Hall if you used this entrance, but you don’t. There’s never a line, and the ticket-taker/bag-checker guy is literally the nicest employee I’ve ever interacted with at the park. He’s so friendly, possibly because he never has to deal with a line of rude people. Plus this dumps you right in front of the ferris wheel, which is a great place to take a breath and figure out where you need to go, unlike most entrances where all the people just keep pushing you.
So there you have it. Some combination of our non-signed route, not recommended parking, and secret entrance, gets us from Ferndale to our seats, with parking, walking to the stadium, getting in etc., in about 25 minutes flat–and that’s on a Friday evening. Hard to beat that. Look for more exciting insight in the next edition of Summer in the City.
Summer Blockbuster Series I: X-Men: First Class Misses the Mark
I realize this movie came out over a month ago and I’m far behind the times here in my reviews, but that’s the way things will be. I’ll be trying to put out one a week, which is frankly more than I’ll be seeing per week, so hopefully come August we will have caught up.
I had sky high hopes for X-Men: First Class. The first X-Men movie, which came out over a decade ago now, is a favorite of mine and I grew up loving the Saturday morning cartoon, not the comic. You know this one:
The theme still brings a smile to my face. The first X-Men movie, like this cartoon, was great and picked up on the best parts of the story. It was exciting, it was funny, the effects were well done, but not overdone and the characters were easy to relate to. A lovely summer blockbuster, which frankly was a part of the kick-off of a decade of big, flashy summer comic book blockbusters. A quick glance at Wikipedia’s list of comic films shows that the vast majority of them came out during the first decade of this century. The success of the first X-Men movie, and to a lesser extent of Spiderman two years later, led to a literal explosion of comic themed films. Even more serious pieces, such as Ghost World, Road to Perdition and A History of Violence, surely benefited from the popularity of relying on comics for stories. I don’t find anything wrong with this recent influx of comic book movies, in fact it’s made a comic book reader out of me and introduced me to literally whole new universes of stories, but when it comes to the flash bang of the average summer blockbuster, I think comic book movies have been letting us down all summer long, starting with X-Men: First Class.
The movie is a prequel which is always a tricky thing, just ask George Lucas. It tells the story of Professor X and Magneto as they assemble the very first team of X-Men in the 60s. Part of the problem is the fact that the movie’s a prequel. We know what’s coming too much of the time and the little surprises are just that, little, but I think the acting is what really fell flat for me. The two leads of the movie, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as the young Professor X and Magneto, are excellent actors and not so hard on the eyes either and, frankly, on their merit alone I thought this movie would be awesome. Throw in Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique who blew my socks off in Winter’s Bone and you’d think it’s a done deal, but both McAvoy and Lawrence never seemed to get their legs under them in this movie and wavered between their usual dramatic roles and something much sillier. Only Fassbender seemed able to commit to his role in a way that made the performance both believable and interesting. Kevin Bacon’s role as the villain Sebastian Shaw was the worst, nearly stiffer than January Jones which is saying a lot, and his horrendous German in the beginning of the film ruined him for me.
There’s a funny thing with comic book movies, that certain films like Iron Man and the recent Batman series have gotten right, you actually need a solid cast to pull them off. The plots of these movies are like Greek tragedies; they zero in on the very make-up of human existence: right and wrong, life and death, fate and freedom. I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but the plots of these stories are complex in their simplicity. You can’t just phone in your performance when your character is literally fighting for the right of his kind to exist. Is it silly? Yes. Is it melo-dramatic? Absolutely. But if the actor doesn’t believe in the role, it can bring down the whole house of cards and make the audience realize just how silly it is.
The other part of this equation is the special effects. They went overboard and tried to do way too much, as movies often do nowadays. A few well-placed, well done effects really make a movie entertaining, but when the film seems to literally be dripping with them and some of them are outright terrible, it distracts from the story-telling. January Jones’ character Emma Frost got the worst of it. Every time her character morphed into this mess I could only cringe. 
And so for me, the film came close to entertaining, but ultimately failed. The story was interesting, but so much of it unsurprising. The effects distracted from the what the story did have to offer and the cast failed to support it with worthwhile performances. I found it lacking, but there are plenty of those who disagree with me. Over at one of my favorite blogs Pajiba, they listed it in the top ten movies of 2011 and it did well at the box office. Even Joss Whedon, king of nerds, described it as a “a stylish film that kind of knew what it was” in a recent story from NPR’s Talk of the Nation. So, clearly, I may be a little picky. In my opinion, however, only two good things came out of the movie: Wolverine’s hilarious and vulgar cameo and this adorable meme that popped up a few weeks ago. But the wonderful thing about summer blockbusters is that there’s more of them than stars in the sky. Look for a review next week about a movie I loved.
Summer Series
Now that the Fourth of July has come and gone, I thought I might do a little housekeeping around here. I enjoyed the Oscar series so much, that I thought maybe I could do something similar with the rest of the summer. So I’m starting two summer series. (Note of interest–the plural of series is series. Weird.)
Summer Blockbusters Since summer movies are the opposite of Oscar fare, in general, I’m going to be doing different sorts of reviews. I’ve got a soft spot for blockbusters, especially when they’re both entertaining and well done, though I’ll take just entertaining if I can get it. Hopefully, this summer will have that much to offer.
In the Summer in the City My other summer focus will be a series on cool stuff to do in and around Detroit. Just fun stuff I like, hopefully I can offer some tidbits that not everyone’s aware of. Some of the best things about Detroit are hidden–I hope I can reveal a bit this summer.
Look for the first of each of these series in the coming week and until then, please enjoy this New York Times article, which frankly tells us things we already know, but hopefully reaches lots of readers who don’t.
An American in Kenya
I recently returned from an amazing vacation. My husband and I spent 5 days in Amsterdam and 6 days in Nairobi, staying with my friend and fellow blogger Anna. It was a seriously amazing trip and those of you who read my Out of Africa review will know how in love I was with Isak Dinesen’s Africa. So it was truly a wonderful experience to go there, albeit eighty years later. I’ve wanted to do a blog post about my trip, but there is just so much that happened, that I’ve been at a loss for words for a couple of weeks now. After much consideration, though my husband said I should make a list of all the animals we saw (giraffes, hippos, gazelles, warthogs, baboons, monkeys, impalas, buffalos, lizards, ostriches, zebras, (baby) elephants, eagles, herons, crocodiles, snakes, camels, cows, donkeys, goats, sheep, cats, dogs, a lion, a rhino, and one big deer-like thing), I was thinking I might go a sort of Out of Africa route and talk about the people there and what it was like to be an American in Kenya.
The idea for this came from a question that I got from a Kenyan named Basel. He asked me, “Is it weird for Americans to hear their music in other places?” And it is weird. It’s totally weird, but it’s question I’ve never been asked before and I’ve sort of been waiting for it for 13 years. Thirteen years ago I traveled off the North American continent for the first time and went to Rome and I have to say that the most astonishing, culture-shocking thing for me, besides maybe the very open flirting of Italian men, was the American stuff. It was everywhere. I had no clue about the amount of and the effect of American culture outside of America. My knowledge of the world was kind of like Epcot–everywhere had their own unique culture and was encapsulated, but what I soon discovered was that America’s biggest export is culture. I heard American music, saw American movies, ate American food, saw American businesses like McDonald’s, and found that when we told our taxi driver where we were from, not only had he heard of Detroit, but he even had an American pop-culture reference for it: Robocop. So, yeah, it was weird to hear an American rap song on the radio in Kenya, but I guess I’ve gotten used to the idea, that, no matter where you go, the people there know a lot about America and American people. They’ve probably met Americans and certainly can name famous ones if asked. When Americans visit foreign countries, we find everything around us new and surprising, but the people who meet us not only know about 100 times more about our culture than we do about theirs, but also have already formed an opinion about it. I never get to give a first impression of America.
When we were in Amsterdam this opinion seemed to range from genuine interest (like one guy) to bored fake hospitality interest (nearly everyone) to outright annoyance (here and there guy), but the vibe in Kenya was quite different. First of all, there was the welcome. I must have learned the word for “welcome” from about ten different smiling, honestly welcoming Kenyans: Karibu. It got to be kind of a joke. When Anna introduced me to the security guard at her apartment complex, and he said “Karibu, do you know what that means?” we all burst out laughing, cause he must have been the fifth person to say that that day. And it’s not funny, it’s wonderful. People were honestly very kind and welcoming. To be fair, not everyone knew we were American, some even thought we were English, but regardless it just felt so warm.
And the people in the service sector were so happy to serve. We had this tour guide at the top of the Kenyatta Conference Center and his name was Peter and he was awesome. He told us like three times that he won the employee of the year award for the conference center two years in a row, and he totally deserved it. I thought he was just the guy that let you onto the roof, but no, he walked the entire circumference with us and pointed out all the major buildings, neighborhoods, forests, mountains (Kilimanjaro, whaaat?), and even golf courses and he did it all with a smile on his face and a theatricality that made it hand’s down one of the most entertaining events of the trip. And after all of that, he looked at us with such sincerity and asked us to go home and tell our people how wonderful Nairobi is. He so clearly loved his city that doesn’t have a great reputation (some call it Nairobbery–lame), and as Detroiter, I could really understand that. He knew we were Americans, and he had the power to make a few believers out of us, and he did. Nairobi is pretty awesome, and from me and from Peter, I highly recommend you go.
Now Peter already had our attention and he made good use of it, but I found that those people who wanted our business and lost it were as friendly as those who got it. When we got off a bus in Karen one afternoon, there was the usual flurry of taxi drivers who wanted to give us a ride. We shook our heads and said, no, no, we knew where we were going. One of them shouted after us “OK, maybe later,” with so much enthusiasm that we all smiled. About ten minutes later when we realized we didn’t know where we were going and turned around, he came running up to us smiling “I knew you would be back!” he shouted. His name was Francis and he drove us all over Karen for the day and gave us some really good recommendations. He even said he knew a guy at the Safari Walk, who, if you slipped him some money, would let you hold a cheetah. We declined that last offer, but I have to admit he managed to be a great tour guide and taxi driver and made our trip to Karen very fun. I just don’t think a New York taxi driver would be nearly as helpful and entertaining.
And I can’t mention taxi drivers without mentioning John, who Anna recommended, and who drove us practically everywhere, acted as tour guide, got us in places a little cheaper, was an amazing animal spotter on safari and even took us into his home to meet his wife before we left. John was happy to do everything from explain Kenyan politics to recommend a great restaurant and when he came on a hike with us, he kept telling our guide when to stop and take our picture. And all he really wanted in return, in addition to a fair wage, was that we give his card to anybody we know who’s going to visit. He’d love to help them plan a beautiful vacation in Kenya.
This not to say that all the people of Kenya are perfect angels. We did get pick-pocketed once. After my husband, Wynn, had painstakingly made a tiny map of the forest we were heading to, he stuck the map in his back pocket, but, by the time we got there, it was gone and some pick pocket was super disappointed. And there were certainly some people who tried use our American-ness to their advantage. At a look-out point of the Great Rift Valley, a salesmen tried to use classic American guilt to get me to pay too much for toy for my nephew. “But you live in America,” he said. “You get to have Obama as you’re president and my president is corrupt.” And that was why I should pay 40 bucks for something that was worth 6. I haggled him down to 6 bucks, though, and John said that I was now a true Kenyan.
There was only one person, who seemed truly distrustful of me, when I was in Kenya. We were riding a bus back from Karen and there weren’t many seats, so I had to squeeze into a seat that a little boy was already occupying. We were obviously foreigners and the only white people on the bus, so I can understand why he pulled closer to his mother and stared at me open-mouthed. I said “Hi,” and sat down, but he just kept looking at me, with a little bit of fear in his eyes. The little boy and I didn’t speak, we just spent the bus ride together, but his fear subsided as the ride went on. By the time we got to our destination, his hand was firmly planted on my knee and he was asleep on my shoulder. It occurred to me, that I might have been the first American he’d ever met. After years of traveling, here was the thing I’d been searching for, someone who I could give a first impression to. I’m not sure I was the first American he every met, but if I was, I think that I made a good impression, not by anything I said or did, but just by being there.
Anna, Wynn, me and John, hiking Hell's Gate National Park.
List of Seven Good News Stories About Detroit
After the long and irritating Spring, I emerge from my cocoon of new box office systems and unnecessarily complicated finals to once again share my voice with you, my adoring public, also known as my mother and random people who accidentally click on my blog thinking it’s about comic books or architecture–and maybe it is a little bit. Is it coincidental that I start posting again the Tuesday after Free Comic Book Day? Yes, yes it is, free Mike Mignola comics aside.
Anyways, as many of you remember my last series of posts revolved around the Oscars. I’ve added a page in the upper right hand corner where you can easily access all the reviews from the series–so please check it out. Today’s post is not about comics, architecture or movies, however, it’s about the site’s namesake, D-town. I’ve noticed a number of positive news articles recently that touch on my beloved city and since that NEVER happens, I thought it might make a lovely little list of seven.
I like these articles, because a number of them are not focused on the past, but the future. I’m of the opinion that “bringing Detroit back,” is entirely the wrong sentiment, and we should instead focus on “bringing Detroit forward.” Whatever city exists in the childhood memories of our parents and grandparents will never be again, and should never be again, because cities change and grow and it’s the 21st century, our city should reflect it. I’m big proponent of loving the city we’ve got and doing our best to make it better, without constantly comparing it to a place long gone. I think these pieces represent that.
1. Urban Farming Case in point. The level of urban farming going on in the city right now is huge and it just keeps getting better. This may not have been something that defined Detroit 50 years ago and that’s ok, that is in fact amazing. We’ve got a wealth of land, no one can deny that, and people are doing wonderful things with it. Just check out the Model D’s recent piece on it here.
2. Draft Winner Moving from real important stuff to sports, for a moment. We had a seriously kick-ass draft this year. And you may say, so what? But you’d be wrong, because, although Detroit is an awesome sports town and people here are generally hardcore fans of all sports, around the nation football rules supreme and we suck in football. If had a dime for every Detroit jab that begins with a comment on the Lions and ends with the phrase “bombed out,” well, I’d have at least two dollars. For whatever reason the recent successes of the Tigers, Red Wings and Pistons in the past decade mean nothing to the nation. Characters from Detroit are most often depicted in Lions gear (See Mr. Mom case in point below), however improbable this may be, perhaps because it makes a good metaphor or whatever. Anyways, good news for the Lions is good news for everybody and according to a number of sources they were the draft “winners.” Just ask Mel Kiper in this recent article from sbnation.com. 
3. High-Speed Rail Speaking of the Lions, they’ll be playing the Bears in a Monday Night Football matchup in the Fall. Wouldn’t it be nice if Chicagoans could take a high speed train to Detroit to see it? What’s that I hear? Florida’s governor is a stubborn asshole who’s refusing money because the GOP told him to? But who shall they ever find to accept funds to improve rail lines? Why, yes, us! We’ll take it–we’ll take the free money! Our governor’s a Republican, but he’s not an idiot, at least in this regard. Any money that goes to mass transit is good, good news for the Motor City–you know trains have motors too . . . The Washington Post with the scoop.
4. NY Times 36 Hours in Detroit Perhaps some people will take the trains to Detroit for a vacation. Or maybe they’ll be in town for business and decide that there are fun things to do in the evenings. Or maybe they already live here and go “Oh!” to something in this recent article from the New York Times. As my friend Anna recently said, the highlights in the piece are “the usual suspects”, but still there is something to be said for reminding the rest of America of the good stuff here. Also, there’s a mention of the new hostel, which will hopefully bring more urban explorers to our shores. Check it out for yourself here and don’t miss the slideshow.
5. The DSO is Back! Speaking of culture and things New York people might like . . . the DSO strike is over! I know, I know, it’s not like a teacher’s strike or anything, but a number of good things have come out of the end of the strike. First, they returned with a weekend of very successful free shows, then they announced that they would be cutting ticket prices by 50% to be more accessible (check it out in the Freep), and they’ve begun live streaming some of their events on the web. Even their ad campaign that got cut is circulating quickly through facebook and twitter right now–as my brother just posted “Who needs TV?” Pretty amazing turn around, compared to how annoyed everyone was when they were striking in tuxedos. Welcome back DSO!
6. Possible New City Council Structure Now that the DSO has the right idea, city council maybe making some positive changes soon too. The Detroit Charter Revision Commission has proposed a change to the council structure to elect council members from districts, instead of all at large. This could give the council a more representative make-up and allow voters to have a more localized voice in the city government. If the revised charter passes in November, we could see a city council that actually represents and serves its community. Jack Lessenberry’s excited and so am I. Check out the Detroit News article here.
7. Red Wings Are Tough I thought it fitting to end with the Wings, since they are playing tonight. I mentioned earlier how annoyed I was with Detroit Lions as a metaphor for the city, so let me offer up a different sports team. The Red Wings were down 0-3 in this series, they were full of injuries and they were beaten down, but they did not give up. The commentators on Versus were saying that usually a turn around like theirs is linked to a significant change, like a shuffling of players or a set of new tactics, but as far as they could tell, the only thing that changed about the Red Wings was their attitude–they quite simply were not going to lie down and die. The Red Wings may win tonight and they may lose–they may win and go on to lose Game 7 or they may shock the world and take the series, but no matter what happens, no one will say they gave up. Check out the national coverage of Game 5 here and here and the Freep’s hopeful blog post about tonight.
So there you have it, there is good news about Detroit. Take this positive energy and carry it with you today. You have the choice in your hands tonight. At 8 pm, you could watch the Red Wings give it their all, or you could watch while Dan Rather conducts a biased, re-hashing of the sorrows of Detroit Public Schools entitled “A National Disgrace.” I’m not saying we should ignore the bad, but I don’t think the nation’s love affair with our failings is healthy either. I say, Go Wings! (and suck it Rather).
It Ends with the Beginning: Oscar Predictions
Here we are at the end of the line a few short hours a way from the big show. I’d like to thank all my readers who came with me this far. It’s been a fun weekend of movie viewing and reviewing. Hopefully tonight will do all our films justice. Before we get to my predictions though, something a little more important than the winners, a montage. If all they showed tonight were 20 montages in a row, I’d be thrilled. Here’s one from youtube of our Best Picture nominees.
Doesn’t it get you excited! It’s gonna be a fun night. I’ve decided to something a little different with my predictions this year. Since I’m so bad at predicting the winner, I’m going to put my personal favorite in italics and who I think will actually win in bold. This way I get two shots at guessing the best in any category. It’s like a handicap for people who’ve seen too many movies and can’t decide., but also there’s a big difference between the performance that most affected me and what I think has the politics and appeal to win. I’ve also notated each with an S if I’ve seen it and N, if have not.
Actor in a Leading Role
- Javier Bardem in Biutiful N
- Jeff Bridges in True Grit S
- Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network S
- Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech” S – Winner Favorite
- James Franco in 127 Hours S
Actor in a Supporting Role
- Christian Bale in The Fighter S – Winner
- John Hawkes in Winter’s Bone S – Favorite
- Jeremy Renner in The Town N
- Mark Ruffalo in The Kids Are All Right S
- Geoffrey Rush in The King’s Speech S
Actress in a Leading Role
- Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right S
- Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole N
- Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone S
- Natalie Portman in Black Swan S – Winner Favorite
- Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine N
Actress in a Supporting Role
- Amy Adams in The Fighter S
- Helena Bonham Carter in The King’s Speech S
- Melissa Leo in The Fighter S
- Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit S - Winner Favorite (This may be a long shot–but I just love her.)
- Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom N
Animated Feature Film
- How to Train Your Dragon Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois N
- The Illusionist Sylvain Chomet N
- Toy Story 3 Lee Unkrich S – Winner (Hard to call a favorite having only seen this one film . . .)
Art Direction
- Alice in Wonderland N
Production Design: Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Karen O’Hara - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 S
Production Design: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan - Inception S
Production Design: Guy Hendrix Dyas; Set Decoration: Larry Dias and Doug Mowat – Winner - The King’s Speech S
Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Judy Farr – Favorite - True Grit S
Production Design: Jess Gonchor; Set Decoration: Nancy Haigh
Cinematography
- Black Swan Matthew Libatique S – Winner
- Inception Wally Pfister S
- The King’s Speech Danny Cohen S
- The Social Network Jeff Cronenweth S
- True Grit Roger Deakins S – Favorite
Costume Design
- Alice in Wonderland Colleen Atwood N – Winner
- I Am Love Antonella Cannarozzi N
- The King’s Speech Jenny Beavan S - Favorite
- The Tempest Sandy Powell N
- True Grit Mary Zophres S
Directing
- Black Swan Darren Aronofsky S – Winner
- The Fighter David O. Russell S
- The King’s Speech Tom Hooper S
- The Social Network David Fincher S
- True Grit Joel Coen and Ethan Coen S – Favorite
Documentary (Feature) (Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to see any of these, so I’ll just take a guess based on what I have read.)
- Exit through the Gift Shop Banksy and Jaimie D’Cruz N
- Gasland Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic N
- Inside Job Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs N
- Restrepo Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger N
- Waste Land Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley N – Winner
Documentary (Short Subject) More guessing . . .
- Killing in the Name Jed Rothstein N
- Poster Girl Sara Nesson and Mitchell W. Block N
- Strangers No More Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon N
- Sun Come Up Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger N
- The Warriors of Qiugang Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon N – Winner
Film Editing
- Black Swan Andrew Weisblum S
- The Fighter Pamela Martin S – Winner, Favorite
- The King’s Speech Tariq Anwar S
- 127 Hours Jon Harris S
- The Social Network Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter S
Foreign Language Film Sadly more guessing–it’s like I didn’t see any movies this year!
- Biutiful Mexico N – Winner
- Dogtooth Greece N
- In a Better World Denmark N
- Incendies Canada N
- Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi) Algeria N
Makeup And guessing . . .
- Barney’s Version Adrien Morot N – Winner
- The Way Back Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng N
- The Wolfman Rick Baker and Dave Elsey N
Music (Original Score)
- How to Train Your Dragon John Powell N
- Inception Hans Zimmer S
- The King’s Speech Alexandre Desplat S -Winner Favorite
- 127 Hours A.R. Rahman S
- The Social Network Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross S
Music (Original Song) No favorites here.
- “Coming Home” from Country Strong Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey N
- “I See the Light” from Tangled Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater N
- “If I Rise” from 127 Hours Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong S
- “We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3 Music and Lyric by Randy Newman S -Winner
Short Film (Animated) Sadly missed these this year.
- Day & Night Teddy Newton N
- The Gruffalo Jakob Schuh and Max Lang N – Winner
- Let’s Pollute Geefwee Boedoe N
- The Lost Thing Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann N
- Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary) Bastien Dubois N
Short Film (Live Action) And these . . .
- The Confession Tanel Toom N – Winner
- The Crush Michael Creagh N
- God of Love Luke Matheny N
- Na Wewe Ivan Goldschmidt N
- Wish 143 Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite N
Sound Editing
- Inception Richard King S -Winner Favorite
- Toy Story 3 Tom Myers and Michael Silvers S
- Tron: Legacy Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague N
- True Grit Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey S
- Unstoppable Mark P. Stoeckinger N
Sound Mixing
- Inception Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick S – Winner
- The King’s Speech Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley S – Favorite
- Salt Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin N
- The Social Network Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten S
- True Grit Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland S
Visual Effects
- Alice in Wonderland Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips N
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi S
- Hereafter Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojansky and Joe Farrell N
- Inception Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb S - Winner Favorite
- Iron Man 2 Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick S
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
- 127 Hours Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
- The Social Network Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin -Winner
- Toy Story 3 Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
- True Grit Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen Favorite
- Winter’s Bone Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini
Writing (Original Screenplay)
- Another Year Written by Mike Leigh N
- The Fighter Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson;
Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson S - Inception Written by Christopher Nolan S
- The Kids Are All Right Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg S
- The King’s Speech Screenplay by David Seidler S-Winner Favorite
Best Picture
- Black Swan Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers S
- The Fighter David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers S
- Inception Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers S
- The Kids Are All Right Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers S
- The King’s Speech Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers S – Winner
- 127 Hours Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers S
- The Social Network Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers S
- Toy Story 3 Darla K. Anderson, Producer S
- True Grit Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers S – Favorite
- Winter’s Bone Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers S
There you have it! Enjoy the show everybody!
Day of Reckoning: The Fighter
Just got back from the theater, where I completed the Best Picture nominee challenge with The Fighter. I can’t believe I pulled this off, but here we are a few short hours away from the big show and I got all my reviews in. Look for one more post to come with my predictions, which I will warn you, are notoriously wrong. Sometimes you have a better chance with these things if you don’t see the movies, but what fun would that be. Anyways, moving on to our final nominee.
The Fighter is the true-story tale of two boxing brothers Micky and Dicky. Interestingly, it starts with an almost documentary of a documentary feel, following the documentary crew that filmed an HBO special about Dicky Ekland in the 90s. HBO is making a film about how Dicky’s a crack addict, but he thinks they’re making a film about his comeback. Meanwhile, his brother Micky, who still has an actual fighting career, is constantly putting up with Dicky’s drug habit and lack of commitment. Dicky and Micky’s mother Alice seem to only get him fights, even fights he’ll lose, in order to make money to support Dicky’s drug habit and their mess of loud-mouthed sisters that live in the family home. The movie follows Dicky and Micky, as they both hit rock bottom and then rise back up to the top.
I didn’t know what to expect from this movie going in. I’d heard a story about it on Fresh Air in which Melissa Leo comes off as kind of egotistical jerk, but the movie sounded interesting. I don’t know much about boxing and hadn’t heard of the two main characters going in and I’m really glad I didn’t. Not knowing anything about these guys, I was able to experience everything like a live fight. The film helped out with that, though. The fight scenes were a mixture of actual original footage and the film itself seamlessly sown together–even making the film look grainier to match the original footage. All of the fights had such a real feel, like you were really watching it on television and they even brought in HBO to film them like they would a real fight. For me, who knew nothing about the real fights, the surprise wins and losses were absolutely exhilarating. I don’t want to give too much away, but the fight at the end of the film was by far the best ending of any of the films nominated this year.
In between the fights themselves came a harsh look at the life of Micky and Dicky. Unlike the HBO documentary of the 90s which humiliated Dicky, the director and filmmakers worked very closely with the family and tried to make a film that more honestly represented their lives and relationships. Many of the actors worked with the actual people they portrayed and the family was on set. All of this comes across in the depiction of the family and their relationships. They felt like real people and Dicky Ekland (Christian Bale-nominated) and Alice Ward (Melissa Leo- nominated) come off not as caricatures of an over-bearing mother and no-good brother, but people who are doing the best they can in a situation, who make mistakes, but ultimately love each other.
Christian Bale was, as usual, incredible. He lost a lot of weight and traded in his English accent for a Massachusetts one. He’s a favorite to win Best Supporting and he definitely earned it. Melissa Leo was excellent, even if she is rather full of herself. And I think these Oscar campaign ads she personally took out were frankly tasteless. 
That being said, her performance was excellent. With her usual chameleon-like charm she transformed into Alice Ward. Amy Adams is also nominated for playing Charlene Fleming, Micky’s girlfriend, but she was nothing to write home about. I think Mark Wahlberg deserved a nomination for playing Micky more than she did.
But the fights are really the star of the movie and it’s no surprise The Fighter picked up nominations in Directing, Film Editing and Original Screenplay. I think it may be a serious contender for Film Editing–piecing together the original footage with the film itself must have taken a lot of time and skill. The storyline could have been a little tighter, it did drag in the middle, but I’m not sure if that’s the fault of the narrative or the directing–maybe a little bit of both.
I didn’t expect it to before I saw it, but now that I’ve seen it, I think it could really steal Best Picture. It’s certainly up there with The King’s Speech, Black Swan and True Grit as a whole package kind of film, in my opinion. Just seeing it sort of got me excited for tonight. I know The King’s Speech could sweep, but with the all the really great films that are nominated this year, I just feel like there could be any number of surprises. We’ll just have to wait and see . . .
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