Style Sunday.

Is it me or is this the first year where people dress up for the Critics Choice Awards? They're usually in the Indie Spirit side of informality and "relaxed" style. Emma Stone embodies the transition beautifully in this joyful Jason Wu dress that's appropriate for the beach and this awards ceremony. Also, redheads should always wear green!

Elle Fanning is a beautiful girl and somehow this Rodarte dress makes her look like an old lady. Not sure if it washes her out or if the flowers are a bit too much. Anyone can tell me what's wrong with it?

These two make such a perfect couple! Can you imagine how fashion forward they would be together? Sigh. Charlize looks absolutely stunning in this simple Azzedine Alai and the superb Tilda Swinton pulls off a Marlene Dietrich in this gorgeous YSL ensemble.

Don't you hate it when someone dresses awesomely and then just does something like this? Whoever told Jessica Chastain that this dress was doing her any favors, seriously messed with her.

Diane Kruger always looks breathtaking and this Prada design is nothing short of magnificent. Gotta love that she dares to highlight her boobs like this and still pull it off effortlessly.

Kiki oughta learn not to stand with her legs so wide cause she's making this Christian Dior cocktail dress look butch. Otherwise she's pure perfection.

Michelle Williams is such a boring dresser, somehow this Chanel gown screams Nicole Kidman and would probably have looked gorgeous on her, but it feels so dull on MiWi. 

Oh Elizabeth Olsen bless you for proving that the Olsens have taste. This Emilio Pucci minidress is absolutely wonderful. Did you see the level of detail it has?

It deserves a million more pictures to admire its level of craftsmanship! Too bad the awards season has denied us the pleasure of her presence more. Lizzie should be nominated for everything!

Who's your favorite in this lineup? Excited about the actual winners in the show?

Super 8 ***

Director: J.J Abrams

Cast: Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney, Ron Eldard

Bruce Greenwood, David Gallagher, Riley Griffiths, Gabriel Basso

Ryan Lee, Noah Emmerich

From its opening shot, Super 8 reaffirms something we've always sorta known: J.J. Abrams is a natural born storyteller. In an exceptional display of economy he lets us know the location of the story (the fictional town of Lillian, Ohio), the time frame (1979) and using a tiny bit of backstory, lets us foresee the future of its leading character, 14-year-old, Joe Lamb (Courtney) who after losing his mom is left under the care of his stoic father, Deputy Jackson Lamb (Chandler) who, to say the least, has no idea how to deal with the child.

Fast forward a few months and Joe is now helping his best friend Charles (Griffiths) produce an epic zombie film using a simple Super 8 camera. Their world is shaken when school beauty Alice Dainard (Fanning) agrees to be in the movie. Joe, Charles, Alice and their other friends, Preston (Zach Mills), Cary (the scene stealing, precociously Truffaut-esque Lee) and leading man Martin (Basso) leave their homes in the middle of the night to shoot the film's centerpiece at an old train station.

While the boys gasp in the presence of Alice - the way in which Abrams captures prepubescent awkwardness is delightful - they hear the loud noise of an upcoming train. The Herzogian Charles decides that this event will only help make their movie better and orders for the cameras to roll as the train suffers a derailment and consequent explosion. The children leave unharmed but realize the train had an enigmatic cargo that now has been set free upon their little town.

To say more about the film's plot would be to take away one of the film's many pleasures which is the rich feeling of everlasting discovery with which children face their summer vacations and miniature adventures. Of course, this being a movie and all, their adventure demands to be seen on the big screen, yet under the expert hands of Abrams, the film never loses that sheer cinematic delight which invites audience members to think things like these might happen to them as well.

Shot as a loving tribute to Steven Spielberg's E.T.: the Extra-terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the film reminds us of a time when going to the movies assured us that we were in for a treat. Abrams not only pays homage to Spielberg by recreating his cinematic style (along with the superb DP Larry Fong who despite his overuse of flare achieves some stunning work by reminding us that images can be epic and economic) the director also manages to emulate the emotional content of these iconic films in ways that not even Spielberg himself can achieve now.

Abrams' directing of children is astonishing because he lets them be without having them forget that they are after all playing parts in a movie, this is especially poignant in scenes where the kids shoot their own film and it can arguably be said that Abrams has them playing characters on three different levels.

Despite all the makings of a geek landmark, the film is especially admirable because it's able to work as entertainment and aesthetic treatise, notice the way in which Abrams toys with genre and reminds us that cinema has always tried to position itself in two different aspects of existence. Perhaps the film might have some autobiographical touches - the aforementioned character of Charles for example - but it also succeeds by becoming a mirror onto which the audience can project their own life experiences. It might be corny to say so but more often than not Super 8 is a reminder of why we even go to the movies in the first place.

(My) Best of 2010: Supporting Actress.

5. Elle Fanning in Somewhere

Playing Cleo, the young daughter of a movie star (Stephen Dorff), Elle Fanning gives Somewhere its heart. Sure, you might say, children always give movies their heart.

Yet what Fanning does isn't about "aww"s. Her combination of here-too-soon ennui and keen observance (she's like a movie camera!) are what give the movie its center in a much more transcendental way. Cleo rarely says something without meaning it and the movie delights itself watching her go through seemingly trivial moments (the eggs Benedict moment is one of pure intimate joy, see the way she smiles throughout the entire sequence).

What results heartbreaking about her is how much she needs to be loved by the people she loves. Paired with Dorff she has a natural chemistry that never allows you to disbelieve they are related, what's more, you feel a connection.

Cleo's angelical face lights up when she sees her father and we understand that she has learned to compromise with what she desires and what life can actually give her.

4. Lesley Manville in Another Year

Few performances in 2010 were as painful to watch as Lesley Manville's in Another Year. Playing the needy Mary, friend to an older married couple (Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent) she creates a portrait of someone whose loneliness has become who they are.

Manville takes us through Mary's deconstruction; from insecure yet hopeful temptress to utter desolate woman in such a delicate way that you feel for her.

Her insecurity makes it impossible for us to stop looking at her. Notice how in one of the scenes Mary arrives at a barbecue and talks nonstop about why she's late. She makes her way saying hello to everyone around the table and eventually realizes one of her friends had been holding a baby all along. Because we were so fixed on Mary, we also had been unaware that the baby was there...

Mike Leigh often fixes the camera on Manville and we see how Mary is, in a way, trying to escape the confinement that shapes her universe.

When she's unable to do this, her eventual surrender is a thing of heartbreaking beauty.

3. Barbara Hershey in Black Swan

How does one make Grand Guignol achieve emotional truth? Countless actresses have attempted to this to no avail (think Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford and to an extent Joan Crawford as Joan Crawford) and their performances are usually more admired for their theatricality than their humanity.

Erica in Black Swan would be an exception. Inarguably obsessive and freakishly psychotic to a point, she makes her daughter Nina's (Natalie Portman) life both paradise and a living hell.

Looking after her child in the only way she knows, Erica is nosy, cruel and overbearing. During the first part of the film we see how she behaves with her daughter, often praising her for getting

a starring role while simultaneously bringing her down and reassuring her that everything she lacks is more important than what she can do.

Yet as the film moves forward we realize that Erica in fact despises Nina. This isn't about "living vicariously" anymore, it's a straight forward competition between a bitter human being and her seemingly schizophrenic daughter.

Hershey gives in to Erica's pain with such ease that we never see her twitching or "acting". She doesn't try to make her character likable or understandable. She surrenders to Erica's lack of love for her daughter and explodes through the possessive actions she replaces it with. The last time we see her, she's crying as her daughter dances the Swan Queen.

We understand that these tears are as much about resentful pride as they are about envy.

2. Marion Cotillard in Inception

During Inception's opening scene, director Christopher Nolan indulges himself with the self aware gimmicks of his editing, his cameras and his "groundbreaking" screenplay.

He introduces us to his characters, sets the basic ideas that he will fail to expand for the rest of the film and wreaks havoc like a lunatic orchestra director who has decided nothing but tubas will do.

In the middle of this chaos we spot Mal (Cotillard) for the first time, as perhaps the only feminine presence in the film (don't even mention Ellen Page...) Nolan tries to confine her by the rules of what defines a femme fatale. She delivers her lines with dramatic aplomb, looks like a true movie star and eventually is revealed to be insane.

Of course Marion Cotillard takes this to another level. During that first sequence she possesses this unsettling calm that nobody else in the movie ever achieves. As you see Mal strut her way out of the scene as a, literal, dream begins to collapse, you can not take your eyes away from her.

In subsequent scenes, the more Nolan tries to make her worse (even her name is meant to diminish her) the better Cotillard gets. She finds the soul of this woman who ironically isn't an actual person. It's her performance alone that delivers the message Nolan tried to express using his technical prowess like an army. Cotillard understands that exercising extreme control would've made her mechanical and dull, it's through delicately violent restraint that she becomes the only thing about Inception that truly haunts your dreams.

1. Amy Adams in The Fighter

The thing about Amy Adams' Charlene in The Fighter is that you never see her coming. Like the best pugilists she seems to come out of nowhere to deliver unexpectedly powerful blows.

The first time we see her she's working at a bar. The actress, who has used us to her naivete and cute eagerness, here blends seamlessly into the seedy bar background.

She gives Charlene an entire history with subtle movements, facial expressions and a lot of attitude. As we learn more about her character she becomes more and more enigmatic. We understand why Micky (Mark Wahlberg) is fascinated by her.

On their first date they go to a movie. Micky chooses to impress her with Belle Epoque, Charlene's confused reaction and straightforward "I had to read the whole fuckin' movie" are priceless.

The best thing about Charlene is that she's so un-selfconscious that you chuckle when you think that she would probably hate a movie like The Fighter.

She's judged by Micky's family as a girl who thinks she's better than the rest (an MTV girl...whatever the fuck that is) and as such she's trapped in a limbo of sorts. In a way she's better than the rest of the characters (even from a human point of view) yet at the same time she's deeply frustrated because she hasn't done all she wanted to do in life.

Adams infuses Charlene with a deep melancholy only overshadowed by her relentless love for Micky. She supports Wahlberg's character in a non-scene-stealing way by merely being herself. She's sassy without becoming a cliché, sweet without becoming a victim, sexual without becoming vulgar and overall she's the one character in the film whose too real humanity punches you right in the gut.

Somewhere ***½

Director: Sofia Coppola

Cast: Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning

Chris Pontius, Michelle Monaghan, Simona Ventura

The Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood has become an institution that houses legend that range from the tragic (John Belushi's death), the iconic (James Dean auditioned for Rebel Without a Cause there...) and the purely Hollywood-esque (in the best Holly Golightly tradition, Keanu Reeves lived there for years until he was ready to buy a house).

It makes sense then, that Sofia Coppola decided to use this setting for her delicate portrayal of an actor (Dorff) trying to make sense of what his life has become.

The Chateau Marmont arguably represents more than just Hollywood, it also embodies Coppola's rich history within this industry. Writers are always told to write about what they know and Coppola has always been a master of extracting seemingly trivial details from her own experience and molding them into something that recalls universality.

On the surface then, the film captures a slice of the life of movie star Johnny Marco during a few days during which we see him attend press junkets, engage in casual sex, travel to Italy for an awards show and spend time with his daughter Cleo (Fanning).

It's this surface that always makes Coppola's films seem like the work of a spoiled teenager with dreams of filmmaking, but those willing to be seduced by her presentation of a world that's completely external to them, are usually rewarded with melancholy essays that deal with the inherent humanity that can be found in extreme separation.

Where Lost in Translation was a film about finding each other, Somewhere explores what happens when people begin to isolate themselves from the world.

As such, the film has undertones of Greek tragedies in which the heroes faced the wrath of the gods in order to fulfill a mission. The difference is that we don't see Johnny Marco battling Medusa (although the prominent gold statues during an Italian sequence could say otherwise) we see him battling the unnamed anger of someone who sends him insulting messages on his Blackberry.

We are therefore forced to look beyond the strokes of "poor little rich boy" the film suggests in order to empathize, or at least sympathize with someone that has it all but really has nothing.

The thing about Sofia Coppola's films is that they suffer from the very human tendency to oversimplify and the moment you try to encompass their meaning in words, this seems to evaporate in front of our eyes.

Somewhere consists of a series of precious little moments that lack any meaning when seen with judgmental eyes but whose meaning at the same time is so personal and unique that the whole movie could be taken as a recollection of memories pieced together randomly.

Coppola indeed seems to try hard to please her audience and find an ultimate meaning for everything she put together; therefore, the movie's finale might seem unsatisfying, when it could've been ethereal.

We could say then that the film fully depends on its audience's reaction to be something other than shadows projected on a screen. Yet, then again, isn't this what all movies are about?

Perhaps what makes Somewhere so difficult to connect to for some, is that the characters fails to ask their audience to love them. Failure in this terms is solely judged from a popular point of view, given that the characters themselves are so well constructed and thoroughly expressed that they never seem to be aware that they are being watched.

The issue of intrusion is also deal with in the movie. Johnny fears being followed by paparazzi and during a seemingly trivial moment he shows mild discomfort when he's sitting on a restaurant having a beer and a stranger goes "hey, Johnny!". We have to ask ourselves where can we draw the line when it comes to celebrities who arguably asked to be thrown into the public eye but are keenly trying to preserve whatever amounts to privacy.

Coppola handles this beautifully and despite the fact that we aren't technically invited to see Johnny's life, Dorff acts like there's no one there and gives in to moments of utter carelessness as when he engages in sex with a hotel guest.

Dorff, who has rarely shown this much emotion, makes a complex figure out of Johnny. What resonates the most about his character is his utter lack of self awareness. He plays him like someone who just "is". His indifference as he falls asleep watching two strippers perform in his room is hilarious and gains pure joy when sequences later the twin strippers return with a new routine for him involving rackets. The look in his face is one of pure childlike wonder and we understand then and there that this man has become someone who determines his life's worth by the moment he's living.

Dorff along with Coppola, make Johnny Marco a symbolic figure who's also quite real. Leave it to the director (along with the extraordinary DoP Harris Savides) to let us see Johnny's problems externally. Notice how he's rarely seen in open spaces, except for two crucial moments, otherwise he's inside a hotel room, inside his car driving around or walking through the hotel hallways which seem to get tighter with each scene.

This oppression is perhaps best represented with a not so subtle cast on his arm, which Johnny attributes to making his own stunts. In the life of an actor that means he got it just living his life.

Johnny rarely seems to be moving and Coppola often catches him in bed, drifting on a pool or being taken to places.

The director suggests that, more of a salvation, Cleo is who he once was. We see her as a free spirited child who despite having a famous father has not forgotten who she is. Her introduction in the film is done in a way that pretty much symbolizes their entire relationship.

In the previous scene one of the strippers comes up to Johnny's face and blows bubblegum (bubble is about to burst for him). Cut to the next scene and we see Cleo carefully signing her father's cast while he sleeps.

The camera moves towards Johnny and we get a glimpse of a tattoo in his other arm that reads "Cleo". She was there all the time.

This also represents what might be the central theme in Somewhere: the fear of being forgotten. Each of the characters seems to be drifting but trying hard to leave something behind. Whether it be Johnny's movies (which judging from the posters seem forgettable), Cleo's lovely ice skating routine or the whole idea of the Chateau Marmont (perhaps stories will be told about Johnny being there...) the characters seem to be scared about the possibility of not being remembered.

There's even a scene where they watch an episode of Friends dubbed in Italian but seem to rely on its nostalgia and feeling of home so much that they don't mind not understanding what's going on.

Yet this, like everything else in this fragile work, is out of the protagonists' hands. There is only so much they can control and eventually they too must face the fact that they might just be guests in this world.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.


The Girl Who Played With Fire

I saw and loved the entire trilogy but I'm very pleased the American poster stays away from the Photoshopped cheesiness of the European version.
It's quite a surprise considering they would've usually gone for something more over the top and awful, instead they choose to concentrate on Noomi Rapace's wonderful face and the mysterious dragon figure made out of fire to well, link the first movie to this one.
Quite a nice, if not altogether groundbreaking choice.


The Social Network

Jesse Eisenberg's face looks right at us from geeky limbo to announce the first image of David Fincher's Facebook movie.
If I wasn't interested in it at first, this amazing poster (surely made by whoever made Michael Clayton's) surely makes me want to give it a look. Like the best (?) Facebook profiles, it makes you interested in poking at what's behind the face.
Plus that tagline totally deserves a "like".


Somewhere

Sofia Coppola might be adhering too much to the old "stick to what you do best" adage but there's a certain inviting quality to this poster despite the fact that we probably will have nothing in common with Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning's characters.
But wait, that's what we would've thought of the people in Lost in Translation and it proved to be one of the most earthy, empathic movies of the decade.
I love how the poster looks like something out of a faux Wes Anderson movie and the slight nod to Citizen Kane is masterful.