A Great Crime Drama In A Most Violent Year

In the new movie A Most Violent Year, you see the work of the three most-Oscar-snubbed artists in 2015 - director J.C. Chandor, lead actor Oscar Isaac and supporting actor David Oyelowo (snubbed for his leading role as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma).

By now, I've seen all three feature films by J.C. Chandor - the first two were Margin Call and All Is Lost. All three were brilliant in their own ways and with A Most Violent Year, Chandor has once again established himself as one of the most versatile and potent directors of all times. If Hollywood breeds more of such fine directors and writers, its potential would be limitless!

There's very little violence in the movie with "Violent" as its title. Even though there were illegal activities throughout the film and intimidating scenes with guns, it's the innuendos and the mood around this crime drama that were captivating. The movie juxtaposed evil versus good; ruthlessness versus a law-abiding conscience; bold ambitions versus cowardice and fear. It's the story of an ambitious immigrant from Colombia who's trying to achieve the American dream while protecting his business and family.

The Juilliard-trained Oscar Isaac is, in my opinion, one of the finest young actors of our times. I never understood why the Oscars overlooked him for his role in Inside Llewyn Davis last year. Now, yet again, his excellent performance as Abel Morales in this most recent film was snubbed one more time. As much as he could convincingly portray a nerdy musician in the Cohen brothers' film, Isaac gave a tour de force performance as the ambitious, but morally stubborn businessman in this flick. It's hard not to think of the young Al Pacino when you saw Isaac's doleful eyes and camel-brown coat in this movie. Physically, Isaac is not much taller than Pacino at 5 feet 81/2 inches; but he commanded a huge presence in the film and, in spite of the numerous comparisons by film critics to Pacino's role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather II, I think Isaac carries his own weight and is a much less exaggerating actor than Pacino.

Isaac got this role because co-star Jessica Chastain, who went to Juilliard with him, recommended that he be cast as Morales after Javier Bardem has backed out. Isaac's own Hispanic roots (born to a Guatemalan mother and a Cuban father) made him the perfect fit as the Colombian immigrant Morales in the movie. It also gave him an opportunity to speak in his native Spanish tongue during parts of the film.

I love the way the movie was shot in a tinted yellow kind of lighting that gave New York City its 1981 look. It's the depth of winter in the middle of the most dangerous year according to NYC crime statistics. Most of the landscape was industrial; the Manhattan skyline was beautiful, nevertheless, reflecting the never-ending American dream.  Kudos also went to cinematographer Bradford Young who was also responsible for another wonderful movie Selma.

I haven't said much about Jessica Chastain's performance not because she wasn't impressive as the Lady-Macbeth-like character in the film, but because after seeing her in The Help, everything became possible for her in our eyes. Apart from her vintage Armani outfits in the drama, it's her extraordinarily long, sharp manicured nails that became her trademark in the entire film. I think any other fine actress could have possibly played her role equally well, but the scene stealer was definitely Oscar Isaac throughout the entire movie.

There's nothing to dislike about this crime drama. There are no cliches and not enough blood to be categorized as a violent movie. But what's not said was as important as what's being said in the film - this was what kept me on the edge of my seat for the entire two hours of the movie!

The Horror of Losing One's Memory

There's a line in the movie Still Alice that keeps referring to "the Art of Losing." In reality, after seeing the movie, there's nothing artistic or aesthetically pleasing about losing one's memory - there are only horror and extreme vulnerability!

Still Alice is a terrific movie on the trauma of the early onset of Alzheimer's Disease faced by a 50-year-old female linguistic professor Alice Howland (played by the 55-year-old Julianne Moore) and her immediate family members. Unlike other movies, such as Away From Her (back in 2006 starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent), exploring the disease, this is about a much younger victim with an accomplished career and a happy family. So the focus of the film was very much on the 'early onset.'

What I like about the movie is the positive message it sent to the victims and their families. Everybody is in it together and trying to cope with it. There are characters in the film who are more selfish than the others. And the seeming theme of Shakespeare pervades in this drama as well - what you see may not be what you get!

I also particularly like the constant butterfly analogy - there are butterfly motifs everywhere from decorations to Alice's necklace once she's been diagnosed with the condition. Alice herself said something to this effect in the movie, "Butterflies don't live very long; but they are beautiful when they are alive and they've lived a very full and good life."

Apart from Julianne Moore who, by now, will probably be a sure win in the Best Actress category at the Oscars, Kristen Stewart also gave a very strong performance as Alice's youngest daughter Lydia who didn't go to college. I personally think that although Moore was excellent in this film, she should have been nominated for her role in David Cronenberg's Maps To The Stars instead. According to the novel's author Lisa Genova, before Julianne Moore was cast, the part was offered to Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Roberts, Diane Lane and Nicole Kidman who all turned down the opportunity. So all the more credit goes to Moore for taking on this project and giving her very best to win her the accolades of her lifetime (this is her fifth nomination at the Oscars and she has never won)!

I also understand that co-director Richard Glatzer suffers from ALS and cannot speak. Not only did he co-write the screenplay, but he also directed the film using a text-to-speech app on an iPad.

Still Alice is a touching, realistic movie. It is also very scary because this could happen to any of us boomers and if it happened, we should really take the film's positive ending as an encouragement!

American Sniper Not Worthy Of Six Oscar Nominations

Bradley Cooper's American Sniper was disappointing! After all that hype and box-office-breaking records, it is, at best, an entertaining war movie. But does it deserve six Oscar nominations? Absolutely not.

You've got to admire Bradley Cooper's focus nowadays. Since he's become famous and wealthy, he has been using his own money and energy to try to make movies and Broadway shows on subjects that are close and dear to him. For instance, in 2011, he produced the film Limitless in which he played an author suffering from writer's block, living in New York, and then accidentally coming across a miracle drug called NZT-48 which helped bring his creative mojo back. The film was not a box-office success, but it was nevertheless very unique and creative.

Ever since he was a child, Cooper has been fascinated with The Elephant Man John Merrick. So, it's now his dream come true when Cooper is currently playing the lead in The Elephant Man on Broadway to great critical acclaim. He was the executive producer for Silver Linings Playbook in 2012 and for American Hustle in 2013 - two movies that need little introduction because he was the male lead in both of them and garnered him Oscar nominations for Best Actor.

And now in 2015, his American Sniper was released and earned him a third consecutive Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The other five nominations for this film are Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. I understand that David O. Russell (director of Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle) originally considered directing the movie at one point, but a deal with Warner Brothers didn't work out. Then Steven Spielberg was interested in the project but he subsequently moved on as well. Eventually, Clint Eastwood became the director as well as one of the producers of the film.

When Cooper initially bought rights to the movie, he intended to only produce it with Chris Pratt starring, but he later changed his mind and decided to take up the role himself. In fact, he bulked up 40-plus pounds to look like the real sniper Chris Kyle and worked with a vocal coach twice a day to talk with a heavy Texan accent like Kyle. Having seen some footage of Kyle, I personally think that Chris Pratt would have been a better choice because he looks like a twin brother of Kyle's.

Apparently Cooper built up his physique just by Olympic lifting and went from 185 pounds to 225 pounds for this role to look huge like Kyle and according to IMDb, he even sported a gut for the film. All the more respect goes to Cooper for demonstrating that he's not just a pretty face and the sexiest man alive according to People Magazine. But in spite of all these efforts, I think his performance in this film was less impressive than his acting in Silver Linings Playbook  and American Hustle. If those two previous roles didn't earn him an Oscar, I doubt very much whether this one would.

But I'm not an American and, therefore, cannot understand the patriotism and fascination with a Navy SEAL who is known as The Legend for achieving 160 kills in the Iraq war over four tours. To me, this is just another war movie that depicts the inhumane decisions soldiers in combat have to make to protect themselves and their comrades. The battle scenes were tense but I can count so many other war movies such as Black Hawk Down and Zero Dark Thirty which are 10 times better than American Sniper.

Some may argue that Chris Kyle's Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the film was provocative and sad. Yet, not even this subject was dealt with profoundly enough in this film when compared to the very successful TV drama Homeland.

What really bugs me about this film is the lack of authenticity when it comes to attention to detail. By now, you might have already heard about the big hoopla around the fake baby doll from the social media. I understand that when a production assistant approached director Clint Eastwood about real baby #1 being sick, and then real baby #2 being a no-show, Eastwood immediately settled with a doll faking the baby of Kyle and wife Taya (played by Sienna Miller) in the film. Now, Eastwood might have bragged about how Morocco looked like Iraq in the movie and how the battle scene in the sandstorm was executed to great precision. But a fake baby? How insulting to us the audience!!

I'm not sure whether Kyle's memoir (from which the screenplay was adapted) actually mentioned The Legend sniper talking to his wife while in full action on the battleground. But, for more than once, Kyle was communicating with Taya via something that looked like an Iridium satellite phone while others were firing away and he was supposed to watch the enemy so that he could protect his fellow marines. Now how credible was that?

I'm not an expert in sound editing in movies, so if this film won an Oscar for Film Editing, Sound Editing or Sound Mixing, I might not have an objection. But I would be very unpleasantly surprised if it won a Best Picture Award or a Best Actor Award even though I like Bradley Cooper and agree that he's come a long way from being a reformed alcoholic and a hotel bell boy in his youth!