Rise of the Planet of the Apes ***½

Director: Rupert Wyatt

Cast: James Franco, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox

Tom Felton, David Oyelowo, Tyler Labine, Jamie Harris, Andy Serkis 

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is simply put: a history of evolution. To say it's simple is nothing but a hopeful invitation for audiences to discover the movie that might've contributed the most to popular culture iconography as far as this year goes. 

Not because the film is especially complicated, or convoluted, plot-wise, but because to dwell too much into its twists and turns might be to rob people of the pleasure of its discovery. How director Rupert Wyatt managed to not only reboot, but also refresh this franchise is perhaps a bigger mystery than the scientific alternatives offered in it.

Perhaps setting the tone for what will be a revolution of minorities, the film is set in San Francisco, where we meet Will Rodman (Franco) a young scientist trying to develop a cure for Alzheimer's disease to help cure his father (Lithgow). Will tests the drug on chimpanzees who begin showing signs of cerebral improvement, but to fulfill dramatic purposes, the program is shut down after an accident involving one of the test subjects.After this Will is left in charge of a newborn chimp, which he names Caesar.

Like a story out of the Old Testament, Will raises Caesar in secret and realizes this is no ordinary creature as his brain capacity increases by the day. As he grows up though, Caesar is left adrift in an existential limbo wondering whether he's a human (because of his ability to communicate) or a wild creature (because of his inability to fully control his instincts).

The burning shrub for this figurative Moses (and this isn't the only nod to Charlton Heston and the 1968 classic) arrives in the shape of an ape sanctuary where he is sent after attacking a human. There -among the abused circus veterans and mistreated test subjects- he realizes that he must save his kind from those who have oppressed them. Singlehandedly, Caesar leads the revolution that will set the apes free.

It's safe to say that humans are the least interesting factor in the film. Other than Lithgow's moving performance and Cox's wicked villain turn, the human storylines are plagued with clichés and things we've seen a million times before (there's a strange romance between Franco and Pinto - who plays a vet - that never really clicks).

The film's soul is obviously Caesar, and more than him, it belongs to the man who plays him: Andy Serkis. Without the need to rely on phony ape suits, Serkis' motion capture performance is a thing of haunting beauty. Not for a second do we doubt this creature is alive and thriving with burning inner desires.

To witness this performance is to find ourselves at the peak of an evolutionary path that began with the first cave paintings, through which humans tried to emulate life using external tools. 

This is one of the evolutionary paths observed keenly by Wyatt and his splendid crew; the transition from rudimentary pencil creations, then to more complex methods and finally to recreate and encourage life using computers isn't a mere technological achievement, it also serves as a sort of ethical clause that makes us wonder: what's next?

The film doesn't rely on a Frankenstein theory to make us understand that its main point is to point out the thin lines that divide our existential ambiguity: we can be monsters or gods. 

Therefore the film follows a parallel road and through Caesar's biography we are given a glimpse of how the actual biological evolution must've occurred. How wild apes slowly had different needs and were forced to develop skills that would help their preservation.

Commanded with a precise, breathtakingly economical, hand by Wyatt, the film is an exemplary blockbuster that proves how our achievements as a race will always have the ability to both mesmerize and terrify us. 

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger **

Director: Woody Allen
Cast: Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Pauline Collins, Anna Friel
Anthony Hopkins, Neil Jackson, Gemma Jones, Freida Pinto
Lucy Punch, Naomi Watts

Throughout his filmography, Woody Allen has been characterized for delivering existentialist meditations filtered through comedy and relationships, yet even his darkest movies have been characterized by something that resembles hope. Yes, even in something like Interiors, we find ourselves finding that there's always more than meets the tragic eye.
It's a surprise then to find the master feeling so jaded in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. And it's not that feeling of bitterness itself what makes the film fail where other of his works have blossomed, it's just that it feels more like a work in progress than an actual film.
For all the plot twists, winks at some sort of divine justice and quips Allen inserts here, there's also an unintentional sense of disconnect within the characters who this time merely seem to become puppets in a convoluted plot that doesn't know where it's going.
The plot is quintessential Allen, a series of interconnected characters all trying to find their way in the misery of life.
We first meet Helena (Jones) a woman who has just been abandoned by her husband (Hopkins) who ends up marrying former prostitute Charmaine (Punch). Heartbroken, Helena begins to visit a fortuneteller (a delightful Collins) who begins to fix her life.
Helena's daughter Sally (Watts) has developed a crush on her employer (Banderas who curiously isn't the stranger from the title) while her husband (Brolin) tries to get out of his writer block by spying at their sensual neighbor (Pinto).
Allen's dialogues are fascinating as usual, even if sometimes the quips sound forced and cold and while it would be easy to say that any Allen is better than most things playing out there, the truth is that this film in particular shows that as a writer some of his tricks don't work as they used to.
For all the charm contained in the fact that his characters still say things like "erotic" and study musicology sometimes his lines feel derivative. This movie would've been aided by the use of silence and restraint.
If Allen fails a bit, his actors are mostly fantastic (even if this cast doesn't particularly fit together). Brolin broods marvelously and reaches a level of dishevelment that's an act upon itself, while Watts should get an award for being the actress who reached the lower depths of selfdeprecation in films this year. When she confronts a character to ask him if he ever fathomed the idea of falling in love with her, she asks it from a place of such pain that your heart will be broken along with her character's dignity.
It's interesting to see that when it comes to the two central characters in the film Allen pretty much redoes Interiors.
Jones as the resentful wife gives a layered performance filled with the over the top theatrics muffled by her sensitive British comedic timing, it's like watching Blance Dubois being played by Helen Mirren's version of Queen Elizabeth.
Then there's Punch who proves that nobody writes a hooker with a heart of gold like Woody does. Sometimes she comes off looking as an inferior version of Mira Sorvino's character in Mighty Aphrodite but even in cliché Punch finds an odd sense of beauty. Watch her act next to Hopkins, while he tries a bit too hard, she flows effortlessly like a skanky Eliza Dolittle.
It's the cast that make this stranger more alluring than he has any right to be.

A Quickie Through the Orange Carpet.

Since I've no BBC or SKY or something that airs the BAFTAs, the next best thing I'm left with, while waiting for the results is fashion.
I've noticed the stars usually tone it down for these awards, they all wear sober, rather usual dresses in dark colors or go the entire opposite way and "dress up" (last year's Marion Cotillard mini-feathered-sequin creation was a breath of fresh air and a bold choice that looked good despite its riskiness).
As usual this time everyone wore black, it was expected of Meryl, but even Angelina Jolie donned the color, at least this time her dress has shape, not like those weird moo-moo/toga things she's been wearing in like forever.
Anyways without further ado, here are the loveliest women I saw:

Did you really think I wasn't going to include her?
Her hair is perfection (and very "Broken Embraces") and while I'm not fully loving the velvety black, she looks gorgeous.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed so that she has her first big award moment of the season tonight.
Go Penélope!

Freida Pinto is a beautiful woman and she knows it, but if she doesn't she should log on to the internet and watch how we all talk about her (skipping the acting parts of course). A vision in pink she forces me to wonder is there any color she won't look like a vision in?

Even the lovely Marisa Tomei got into the "Slumdog" groove...
But her sari is nothing short of majestic.
And I just realized the three women I chose are all Best Supporting Actress nominees grrr.
I wouldn't be completely offended if Marisa won, next to Penélope she's the one I'm rooting for.
And last I checked the ceremony was turning into a "Benjamin" "Slumdog" lovefest.

BAFTA: or How Slumdog Got Out of Control.

...yes Freida Pinto is absolutely gorgeous. And yes, she does make yellow stand out in a rather distinctive way. And yes, she does become a key instrument to the last plot twist in "Slumdog Millionaire". And yes she does dance beautifully.
But how the hell does anyone nominate her for Best Supporting Actress?
"Slumdog Millionaire" led the British Academy Award nominations with 11, followed by "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" with the same amount.
If I had been counting on an award group to shake things up a bit, or at least turn them less boring it was BAFTA, but no, they went almost for the same stuff everyone else has been voting for and their Best Picture lineup was one film shy of the feared "Oscar five" to be.
Of course they didn't kick out the worst movie in the bunch ("Frost/Nixon") instead bumping the Batman and inserting "The Reader".
I get that they love their country and what not, but they seem to have chosen the most blah in their island.
How's this for an example: "Slumdog Millionaire" gets 11 nominations while "Happy-Go-Lucky" gets 0.
Yes, not even for the divine Sally Hawkins who couldn't be more British even if she wore one of those hats guards in Buckingham Palace wear, or dressed with the Union Jack or had been in the goddamn Spice Girls.
This means that Mike Leigh was not nominated either which I find quite strange, considering how they love him and not even that, but considering what a magnificent film "Happy-Go-Lucky" was!
Instead we have double nods for Brad Pitt, "Mamma Mia!" in for "Best British Film", Dev Patel for "Best Actor" (yes Lead...) and a nomination for Tilda Swinton even she would accept is a complete "wtf".
But wait, there must be something good in this mess...
Not really. But I have to say I'm very pleased Penélope Cruz got in for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and Marisa Tomei for her beautiful turn in "The Wrestler", now if Pinto beats them I'll have a stroke.
Oh and I'm happy someone finally remembered Kristin Scott Thomas for "I've Loved You So Long" (as well as the movie in Screenplay and Foreign Film), if there was any justice she'd be a lock a week from now for Best Actress.
The rest of the rather dull nominees are here.
Oh and I can't believe I stayed up so late for this rubbish.

Kate Kraze.

"Oh G-d, who's the other one?"
- The gorgeous Kate Winslet congratulating, and forgetting, her fellow nominees upon winning her second Golden Globe of the night.

I never thought I'd feel so happy to see Meryl Streep, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Penélope Cruz and Anne Hathaway lose an award until they all lost to the lovely Kate Winslet.
When she first won Best Supporting Actress for her work in "The Reader" I realized she'd go and win 'em both (I'd predicted her for Drama Lead despite Hathaway-gate) and when Cameron Diaz gave her that look my heart stopped as Kate came to collect her Best Actress award for her brilliant performance in "Revolutionary Road".
And really she was the highlight of the show, one that had some of the worthiest winners I've seen in ages. Mickey Rourke and Colin Farrell got Best Actor in Drama and Comedy respectively and were in fact the best in their categories (toss up between Sean Penn and Rourke for me) and the lovely and extremely Amy Winehouse-like Sally Hawkins got Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy (who'd guess they're both so shy and quiet when in their professional lives they seem just so fiery?).
"Vicky Cristina Barcelona" got Best Picture Musical or Comedy and that made my day despite Penélope losing, but back to Kate for a minute...
She single-handedly put some spice into this season again. Best Actress has been extremely tough to guess this year and with this double whammy what the hell will happen at the Oscars?
Ballots are due tomorrow so tonight won't have any effect anymore, but will the Academy also get her a double nod? And if so can she actually go ahead and win them both?
I shiver with excitement and if she eventually gets both awards the thing is that she would be perfectly capturing what seems to be the spirit of this awards season which is rooting ecstatically for your favorites.
Not only with Kate, but with Heath Ledger obviously and on the TV side this was captured perfectly with "30 Rock" and "John Adams" rightfully sweeping, but if a crossover appeal was ever more obvious it was "Slumdog Millionaire".
Whenever the nominees for the film were announced there was thunderous applause and cheering and each time it got an award the room just exploded.
When the film eventually won Best Picture-Drama and the camera captured Christina Applegate going "it's soooooo good" it was obvious that everyone there wanted this film to win.
There is no way this movie can lose that Oscar now. The energy of people who like it is contagious, even if I didn't love the movie I was happy it was winning things.
And don't even get me started about Dev Patel and Freida Pinto. They are just so cute and rootable (?).
They did this silly Bollywood dance class on the red carpet and instead of making me laugh at them I went "aww" and that is exactly what the movie is doing to everyone else.
Can it be so wrong that we have the need to share joy? And why is joy only as obvious in crowd pleasers?
The answers to those questions are too deep for tonight...for now I'll leave you with my favorite fashion of the night (ranked in no particular order).


Finally. What the hell is this?
I'm one of the only people who still likes her, but this is just impossible to defend.