A Devastating "Blue Valentine" and Other Oscar Contenders

Neil worked on the computer today and checked to see if anyone besides Eric and him are reading this.  Eric came home early and they put me to stalk.  I didn’t find much, but I could tell that they were going out.  Eric was opening the back door and I jumped up the stairs to back in the kitchen.  I found one of my plastic crystal balls next to my secret place and chased it around until they returned home.  

We’re trying to finish off seeing the major Oscar contenders.  For most Americans (under 18) movies are about the summer.  For us, the movies are about November through February.  The Best Picture contenders pretty much make sense this year (they did last year as well) so even though it was controversial at the time, the 10 nominees are a better representation of what happened during the calendar year, but not necessarily the most interesting or the most important movies of the year.  

It looks like The King’s Speech may win because it has done so at other ceremonies and it has the most nominations.  It’s a good, clear-cut, charming movie with a sense of gravity that is neither pretentious nor tendentious.  In other words, it’s middlebrow and that isn’t a bad thing.  The other leader is The Social Network, which may be the most au courant fictional movie of the year, but hasn’t taken off commercially in the way mainstream Hollywood likes and it’s not an independent movie the way The Hurt Locker was, which meant that it didn’t have to make money and could still win awards.  It is the best script of the year, however.

The only movie we have a problem with is Winter’s Bone; it’s overrated by middle class critics who know little about the Ozarks, the poor, and methamphetamines.  Because of this, many of them have gone nuts about it.  Coincidentally or not, Breaking Bad has been a critical and awards sensation on TV, though an average episode of Criminal Minds has about ten times the audience.  One caveat:  I cannot stand movies about drugs unless it’s cop film like The French Connection.  (I really hate (and will turn off or leave) movies where characters shoot up.  I only sat through Lady Sings the Blues because I loved Diana Ross and the music).  We would have liked to see Please Give up for something (it is, thankfully, winning the Robert Altman Best Ensemble Independent Spirit Award) because it is a deep comedy, precisely structured, and wonderfully acted.  Catherine Keener is ignored this year, why?  What about Ann Guilbert who’s had a genuinely important character actor’s career?  What about Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet who are top actresses regularly overlooked in favor of peers like Scarlett Johansson and Chloe Sevigny.  Why?  

Blue Valentine is exactly what I thought it would be like and that’s pretty tremendous.  The narrative moves back and forth between 2009 and 2001 as a couple come together and then have to face whether they can stay together.  It’s very simple, but it’s deceptive because, although it’s a love story, it doesn’t quite turn into a break up story.  It has the raw power of ambivalent couples movies like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Two for the Road, Loving, and Shoot the Moon (a work that is very special to me because I saw it with my sister a year after our parents’ divorce).  Like those other movies, Blue Valentine doesn’t dot all those I’s or cross those Ts.  We don’t know how long that their marriage hasn’t been working for the wife, but we come to know that this is all that has worked for the husband and therein the domestic tragedy for the couple.  

Ryan Gosling is electrifying and that may be a common place for him.  He’s so good that he might be taken for granted by awards committees.  There is something almost painfully sensitive about him because of his decency.  He’s wonderful as a romantic lead because he makes you believe he would do anything for the object of his love – it’s why The Notebook worked so well even with the gloppy bookend structure (thank goodness that Gena Rowlands and James Garner, both brilliant and underappreciated over the years were able to slice through the senility goo with conviction and the embers of their star charisma).  Gosling has become the idealist who is undercut by the pragmatic forces of society and his characters’ incapability of overcoming either his own demons or bourgeois niceties (the teacher in Half-Nelson, the painfully shy office worker in Lars and the Real Girl – yes, it was lovely that the whole community supported the blow up doll, but he ends up smoothed out as a possible date by the end of the movie).

Why wasn’t he nominated for the Oscar (he has been for a number of other awards though, for 90% of the population that cares about these things, those mean nothing compared to the Academy Awards) instead of Jeff Bridges?  Don’t get me wrong; I love Jeff Bridges and he’s been taken for granted for so long, but he just won last year and I don’t think his version of Rooster Cogburn has the iconic force of John Wayne’s.  It was vexing to watch him on a recent American Masters episode because he seems to be the compleat Method actor (who knew?) and hadn’t quite shaken off the vocal mannerisms of his Rooster Cogburn when he was being interviewed.  Gosling deserves to be nominated because this is a two-hander movie; it’s like Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue in Leaving Las Vegas or Burton and Taylor or Sarandon and Penn in Dead Man Walking – each of the couples gave definitive performances and each should be recognized.  On the other hand, neither Finney and Hepburn nor Finney and Keaton nor Segal and Marie Saint were nominated and that somehow makes sense unfairly.  If you won’t recognize both, then ignore them instead.

Michelle Williams was recognized and deservedly so.  She feels like this generation’s Gena Rowlands because she is simultaneously vulnerable and as tough as nails.  Gosling’s character saves her at a difficult time in her life, but she pays for his adoration by giving up on her intellectual ambitions.  She hasn’t yet played a part where she might go off the deep end (a specialty of Rowlands’ in the middle of her career) and that may be what will go against her in the Oscar Derby.  Natalie Portman pretty much has it sewn up in a technically challenging – actually overwhelming—role where she’s beautiful and crazy, but the difference between the two actresses is that Portman radiates charm with a certain touch of class (it’s what reminds audiences of Audrey Hepburn) that defines a star whereas Williams has a quality of watchfulness and intense listening that never makes her seem like she’s acting, though they are the absolute essence of a great actor. 

I knew when she ran into a significant person from her past in a liquor store that he was not only an old flame, but also the father of her child.  It was something in the way in which he leaned into her and she seemed to match his interest before pausing when he asked her a gauche question that was a come-on.  She takes in all the details of a cut-rate romantic theme hotel room and how she measures it up is a metaphor for her character’s existence:  she goes along with it, but she wants it over and, symbolically, she then takes a shower.

There’s an extraordinary group of female actors of in generation since Anne Hathaway, Carey Mulligan, and Sally Hawkins are radiating in different contexts.  None of the other three, however, have been fortunate enough to display their ranges in the past six years to the degree that Portman and Williams have been able.  It’s tough for actresses, though, because they get into their thirties and forties and are doing great work, but the parts aren’t there.  It’s why Holly Hunter, Kyra Sedgwick, and Julianna Marguiles headed for television where they all have done amazing weekly work.  Tyne Daly, Sharon Gless, and then Laurie Metcalf made the same move ten to twenty years earlier.  Sometimes the roles don’t show up or the range can’t be shown.  Think back about ten years ago and we see that Catherine Zeta-Jones has to practice her chops on Broadway, Renee Zellweger has not had many roles of note, and Nicole Kidman (though beloved by many critics) is still beautiful, remote, and not exactly intriguing.  She was great when she got dirty with Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut, but she hasn’t done much that I’ve liked since (sorry).  Actor/stars have about 7 – 11 years to display what they’re about before they sell out, repeat themselves ad infinitum, flame out, or fade away.  There are only a few that go beyond that by challenging themselves and getting the breaks that have resulted in the careers of Julianne Moore, Annette Bening and, earlier, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, and Jane Fonda.  It’s why Hailee Steinfeld – proud, determined, vengeful – should have been nominated for Best Actress (the BAFTAs got it right) for True Grit:  it could be her one chance and she is both the best thing and maybe the only thing about that film.  She could follow Jodie Foster, but she could follow Tatum O’Neal or Quinn Cummings or Kim Darby.

A Birthday Lunch at Jean-Robert's Table

Neil’s birthday was this week and Eric got a wild bug to take him out for lunch.  He ran through a list of places, but Neil hadn’t been to one and Eric had so that was their choice.  Neil gave me milk foam this morning, though he was ticked with me (whatever) and then let me out.  So I had some fun while they had some fun.  Here’s their conversation:

      Ooh La La!  I took Neil to Jean-Robert’s Table on 8th and Vine downtown.  Jean-Robert de Cavel is our Cincinnati superstar chef.  We first saw him when he had to get Bistro Gigi off and running in the summer of 1999 for the Comissar Brothers (former owners of a restaurant empire that was crowned by The Maisonette).  Bistro Gigi did not work out for them though, in its next incarnation as Latin Quarter and then The Quarter on Wooster Pike in the center of Mariemont, it’s been successful and is a capstone (i.e. no longer hot, no longer talked about much, but with a large and committed following).  All I remember from the night we ate there was Jean-Robert running his hands through his hair continually and sweating, all while we could see him in the glassed kitchen.  Ugh!

      He split from the Comissars and was chef and co-owner of Jean-Robert at Pigall’s, a restaurant that could compete with any top nouvelle restaurant in major American cities, but it closed amidst acrimony and a “Rashomon” explanation of events. J-R’s Table is most reminiscent of Jean-Ro, a bistro he started in 2004 across from the Westin Hotel.

J-R’s Table feels like a casually elegant French country bistro.  I think the decorations look a little like that late 70s – early 80s brass, blonde wood, tablecloths, and potted palms.  Neil didn’t see it that way; he thought it was more charming than that.  The food is really good and the prices are very fair, which wasn’t the case with Jean-Ro by 2007.  The best elements were a French Country Soup – a rich vegetable tomato based broth with al dente white beans and duck confit sausage, which was perfectly seasoned.  It was robust without being overbearing or so filling that you didn’t want anything else.  However, it would be enough with a salad.

Neil had the selection of seafood crepes, mixed with mushrooms and spinach and covered in a béchamel sauce.  The presentation was nice, but not beautiful.  It tasted really good, though.

I had the smoked trout BLT, which was a really good portion and a nice combination of textures with steak frites that were golden, crispy, and delicately salted.  They were like super McDonald’s fries.

We asked Heather, our waitress, for her recommendation for dessert.  Whenever you do this, you pretty much should order that choice.  We did – the Macadamia milk chocolate Tart – and it was the right thing to do.  The caramel sauce was perfect and the balance between the small, whole nuts and the chocolate cake bar tart – somewhere between a cake and chocolate bar, but not a molten or lava type dessert – was just right.

This is worth a visit.  Lunch on Monday at 1:20 p.m. meant the restaurant was about a third full.  Evenings are busy to packed; it’s still the buzz restaurant right now.

$$$
http://jrtable.com

Desperate Dexter

Dexter Arrives at the Back Door

I hadn’t eaten in three days. The last time had been when I was batting around a ball, something I could keep going for pass after pass and usually to wide-eyed and gasping approval. That time it had meant dinner, though I kept glancing quickly over my shoulders to eat it before the Others appeared. They would challenge, they would elbow me, they would push, and I’d be forced to stand my ground. I could be patient; I’d had to be on a daily basis. I couldn’t take my eyes off whatever might be dinner. The slightest movement in my range of vision would alert me. As the day darkened, it was much easier to pinpoint whatever I might need because the Others were either frightened or inattentive; he was rarely either.

Water was fine. I could always locate it in a container, or along a path or on the banks of a hill, or by searching for a dripping faucet or hose. Nights were getting longer and would soon be colder so I would have to find or create shelter. There was a deck I’d hidden under for a couple of nights though, almost unbelievably, a female had appeared from around the wall and started pacing around me. I stayed still, wondering if she was a friend or foe. She circled me and she was certainly attractive, considering her long, thick, smoky dark hair, but I wasn’t interested. She rubbed against me and I jumped back. I wished she would just go away. I could smell her and it was what had surrounded me from when I’d entered the garden so she lived there. Couldn’t she just go on and leave me here 

alone for the night?

Her yowling pushed me against the wall. I reached out to touch her, just to quiet her, and she rolled onto her back. I knew I should get out of there immediately. This was a complication that was beyond my survival. I slowly – almost imperceptibly, I thought – moved along the wall. She didn’t notice as she rolled back and forth, obviously in a state of self-ecstasy. I was near the threshold to the garden when an enormous monster roared at me and shot water all over me. I ran, darting along the fence. I leapt to the top of the fence and then jumped to the next garden.

I’d found a place beneath the back steps in this place. It was cool and dry. There were some newly fallen leaves that I’d pulled together. I could sleep there that night; it was large enough for me, but too tight for the Others to attack me. I hadn’t seen anyone else around there for a few days. I’d scouted around, investigating at dawn and after dark. The next morning, after stirring and sharpening my weapons on the bark of a sorghum tree, I sat underneath the purring machine they moved around in and waited for one of them to leave the house and discover me.

The dark one found me and reached towards me. I paused but, once his hand was too close, I darted away. He had energy and I thought he might wrench me up. I’d found some leftover food in a bowl a few houses away during that day. I’d avoided contact with any of the Others before returning to the leafy place for a second night. A couple of creepy-crawlies were staggering around the bottom of the tree so I clomped them quickly and swallowed them before I could take a breath. They were crunchy and there was a slight after effect of goo, but they’d get me through until I could find a real home.

I wasn’t always outside. I lived in a house; it was my house and I thought I’d stay there forever. Something went wrong, but I don’t know what it was. It’s fun being outside because you have to live for adventure. Sometimes you gotta take a stand, be ready to defend yourself, keep the Others at bay. It’s tough, but that’s the way it goes. The worst is the cold. You can’t tell how long it will go on: that’s the major challenge. I don’t like cages and certainly not after they put me in one and latched the metal teeth together so that I was stuck. I yelled at them, but they weren’t listening. They carried me into the big purring machine and we rode and rode. It was a long time, more than when I nap. They stopped and carried me out, pulled the teeth apart and bid me to come out. I sniffed and looked around. One of them (the young one who had played with me ever since I could remember) put out a bowl of milk for me. I went over to it immediately and felt it with my pads, then licked them. It was really good and I drank some more and some more. I didn’t hear the big purring machine start again or that it took off. I finished the milk and looked up and saw that I was alone. It was a great distance from there to where I’d come from and I didn’t know how to get there. Instead, I started to look around where there might be ones who’d let me share their home.

I let the dark one rub my head the second day and then under my chin the third day and I hoped. It was going to take a gift so that he and the other one knew I cared enough to do my part. Through the day, I prowled around the house, hiding behind the bushes. There were many flowers where I could hide and not be seen by the little running things with their skinny, tapering tails. They smelled of dust. When night fell, they would come out, scampering beside walls. Hours passed and a grey one ran, stopped, and ran again. I leapt, my weapons out and slicing through its throat. I nibbled it, enough to survive for another day, but then I laid it out at the bottom of the steps so that both the dark one and the light one would know that I wanted to stay.