Black Sheep @ The Oscars: BEST ACTOR

This past spring, I caught Thomas McCarthy’s THE VISITOR and found myself unexpectedly taken with Richard Jenkins. I had only known him as the infamous Nathaniel Fisher on “Six Feet Under” and suddenly felt as though I had never seen him before. In October, I caught a press screening of FROST/NIXON and thought Frank Langella had it locked after his pitch perfect incarnation of Richard Nixon. Then I saw Sean Penn in MILK. I’m not a huge Penn fan but, as soon as I was through weeping, I was consumed with how transformative his performance was. I couldn’t imagine it getting any better but then I saw THE WRESTLER. Aside from being completely floored by Mickey Rourke’s comeback performance, I was most excited to know that the Best Actor race at the Oscars would be the most exciting race around. Oh wait, I forgot about Brad. This is probably because I found him and THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON fairly forgettable.

Richard Jenkins in THE VISITOR

For five years, all anyone knew of Richard Jenkins was that he was one of the coolest dead guys around and that he certainly did a number on his adopted television family. In THE VISITOR, Jenkins plays Walter Vale, a widow who hasn’t lived a day since his wife passed. It isn’t until he meets visitors from foreign lands in a home that is supposed to be his own, that he realizes that he is a visitor in his own life.

Jenkins was always a dark horse to get the nomination in this category and this is certainly a case where the nomination will be the ultimate honour. The nod will open plenty of doors though and Jenkins will walk right through them. We may hear his name here again before very long.

Frank Langella in FROST/NIXON

Langella’s Nixon is a tricky one indeed. He is always on top of whatever game is being played. He always has his sights on a grand return to the public eye, one that he never doubts he is fully entitled to. It is the moments where he finds himself alone though that reveal the most surprising aspects of a very guarded personality – fear and uncertainty. Langella makes Nixon human.

Langella originated this role on the stage and has been in Nixon’s skin long enough to make everything look so easy. He was the early favorite this year, with the added sympathy bonus for missing out last year on a nod for STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING, but this race comes down to only two horses really.

Sean Penn in MILK

Penn is considered to be one of the most prolific living actors of his generation. As I mentioned earlier, I’m not always sold on this. As Harvey Milk though, he embodies the spirit of progress, equality and life, all of which made the real Harvey Milk so incredibly charismatic and convincing. Penn’s portrayal of the first openly gay man elected to American public office is no caricature; it is tender and human.

Unfortunately, Penn won the Oscar a few years ago for MYSTIC RIVER, a performance I never felt was that impressive in a film that I always felt was horribly overrated. Having one statue already on his mantle or his toilet (I don’t know where he keeps these things), puts him at a disadvantage here as voters might choose to reward someone who has never won before. That said, he just picked up the SAG award and that has a lot of sway.

Brad Pitt in THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

Pitt is hit or miss most of the time. He definitely hit it in David Fincher’s 13 times nominated epic but was it really him who hit it? Pitt’s facial expressions were captured using CG and subsequently graphed onto a number of other actors’ faces and bodies to show the character’s transition from old and dying to young and new. Personally, I never felt like I truly ever came to know Benjamin Button despite the technical marvel.

Pitt may have gotten swept up in Benjamin Button buzz here because he is way out of his league considering the competition. That’s saying a lot considering the gravitas of this particular superstar. Still, many have argued that Pitt’s performance is a collective collaboration with a handful of other actors, all of which had Pitt’s face pasted on theirs.

Mickey Rourke in THE WRESTLER

It only takes about five minutes of watching Darren Aronofsky’s return to form, THE WRESTLER, before you are amazed by how perfect Rourke is as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, an aging professional wrestler who still has to play in order to pay for his lackluster life. Rourke’s performance inspires such intense sympathy but remains authentic and realistic. It is no exaggeration when people say Rourke was born to play this part.

After picking up the Golden Globe for this performance, it pretty much comes down, in my opinion, to a final death match between Rourke and Penn. Rourke’s recent announcement that he will be fighting in a legitimate WWE wrestling match a few months from now is a little odd but Rourke still has one major advantage over Penn, the comeback vote. Who doesn’t love a comeback … especially when it is this damn good?

All in all, this a very hard one to call. I’m going to have to flip a coin now and make the big decision at the last second. Heads, it’s Penn; tails, it’s Rourke … And Rourke it is!

MILK

Written by Dustin Lance Black
Directed by Gus Van Sant
Starring Sean Penn, James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna and Josh Brolin


Harvey Milk: How do you teach homosexuality? Is it like French?

It was difficult for me to stand up after seeing Gus Van Sant’s masterful MILK. The lights had already come on so my puffy eyes could be hid no longer but I had forgotten how to move. I was too engulfed with sadness and dismay. All I could think about was how far we think we’ve come as a supposed progressive people. Harvey Milk, the man whose story Van Sant is telling, was elected into public office in the late ‘70’s in San Francisco. He was the first openly gay man to be elected to any significant level of government in American history. He was also shot and killed after being in office for less than a year. His last major political accomplishment was successfully campaigning to defeat a bill called Proposition 6. This bill would call for the dismissal of all openly gay school teachers and any persons who supported them. The bill had already passed in a number of other states and fear was mounting that even the country’s most gay-friendly city might follow suit. Harvey wouldn’t have it and ultimately, neither would San Francisco, or all of California for that matter. Why then are gay men and women still struggling to be treated like human beings to this day?


MILK picks up Harvey Milk’s life in the eight years preceeding his assassination. In that time, he meets a man who would become his lover for many years; he moves from New York to San Francisco to find new challenges; and he runs a number of times for public office as an out and proud gay man. He also loses a number of times but Milk was not a man who could easily be deterred from his very important goal. It was Milk’s mission to represent his people; to show the city he loved that the gay population was one of the reasons that the city itself was so well loved by all who visited and that they too had a powerful and reasonable voice. Milk was committed to making sure that voice was heard. Van Sant, an openly gay man himself, is just as committed to the cause but his part is very different. Even today, the image of the gay man is still being sold to mainstream, or straight if you will, audiences in a delicate way. Van Sant’s Milk is an ambitious entrepreneur. He has a strong character, funny and flighty one moment, romantic and intimate the next and always dedicated to the bigger picture outside of himself. Apparently, painting the gay man as human is still necessary because many still haven’t figured it out for themselves.


Of course, Van Sant can’t get all the credit as he is only as strong as his parts. In this case, his parts are all perfect. “Big Love” staff writer, Dustin Lance Black’s sensitive screenplay is heartbreaking and genuine. Director of photography, Harris Savides, who has brought a dreamlike lucidity to Van Sant twice before on GERRY and ELEPHANT, goes back and forth between archival and new footage seamlessly planting the viewer in both the historical context and the surrounding human drama. Danny Elfman fills the soft space with a score so layered, it can easily be described as his most original work in recent memory. And then of course, there are the men. I will never describe a straight man playing a gay role as an act of bravery. I will, however, always applaud an actor’s ability to shed their entire ego and transform into another being so fearlessly. The caliber of the mostly male ensemble cast of MILK seems raised by a desire to do justice to this important man and the difference he made. James Franco as Milk’s longtime lover continues to show versatility that I never expected by embodying support and strength. Josh Brolin, as the fellow city supervisor who ultimately kills Milk, gives a ferociously internal performance that is in constant turmoil. And though I have never been as huge a Sean Penn fan as most would appear to be, I am a devout admirer now. Penn’s performance is a rarely achieved transformation – one so believable and so gripping that it lifts the entire film to new levels of excellence and inspiration.


MILK is not only a Gus Van Sant career high but also an instant American film classic and a contemporary gay film masterpiece that, like the revelatory BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, transcends the gay experience and steps firmly into the human experience. If only for that reason alone, MILK has the potential to be more than a film and be part of a movement. After all, if there is one thing that Harvey Milk fought so hard for for so long, it was to be seen as a man who deserves the same human rights as his neighbours. Thirty years after his death, the fight he fought is still ongoing and thanks to Van Sant, Harvey Milk is back to help make sure it finally gets won.

BLACK SHEEP @ THE 32ND ANNUAL TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL III

3:10 TO YUMA and INTO THE WILD


My third and final day at the Toronto International Film Festival was considerably less rushed than the previous two. In fact, I only had one film scheduled. During my manic search for tickets, I contacted a colleague at the National Post. Craig couldn’t help me with tickets but wanted to know if I would participate in the upcoming Popcorn Panel film discussion on 3:10 TO YUMA. As I love these opportunities, I said I would and found myself buying a ticket to a movie for a reasonable price and without any serious stress over whether it would be possible to get in or not for the first time all weekend. It was liberating. And so my final day in Toronto became all about casual shopping on Queen Street, a first-run movie with the regular film-going folk and a world premiere of Sean Penn’s INTO THE WILD.

Before I take a look at the films I saw that day, I want to talk a bit about what I found to be most inspiring about the entire festival. It is one thing to be surrounded by celebrities and premieres; this alone is extremely surreal. What was even more baffling to me was the number of volunteers in and around every venue at the festival and how these volunteers seemed appreciative of their place in the system. They were always courteous and smiling. They were apologetic if the wait was too long as if they cared that you might not be having the best time ever. It was near moving to see so many motivated, energized people who only got to keep their T-shirts and sneak into movies if there was any space left as payment for their time. Before each screening, several sponsors screened tags announcing their support. NBC/Universal was the official sponsor of the volunteer program and each time their tag played and announced their pride in supporting the volunteers, the crowd would erupt in genuine warmth and applause. Maybe that appreciation, plus the T-shirt, made it all worthwhile. Thank you volunteers; you were all helpful and lovely.


3:10 TO YUMA was one of those films that truly surprised me. You know the kind of movie I’m talking about; it’s that movie that you don’t really want to see but you somehow end up seeing it and go in with zero expectations of quality or what will unfold. Seeing a movie under those circumstances can either go one of two ways. Either your suspicions that it was not a movie for you are confirmed and you leave knowing you should trust your judgment next time or you leave impressed and thinking you should probably be a little more open-minded in the future. My experience was clearly the latter. 3:10 TO YUMA has an energy driving it forward that stems from its originality. This might seem a stretch to say given it is a remake of a 1957 film so I’ll elaborate. It is original much like AMERICAN BEAUTY breathed new life into the existing suburban exposition drama or the way THE DEPARTED showed us Scorcese awake for the first time in years. There is something new being brought to the table. Here, director James Mangold (WALK THE LINE) combines a quiet, introspective script (like modern Western, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN) with a classic, straightforward story (like the Western classic, STAGECOACH) to create something visually lush that has both exhilarating action and gunfight as well as depth of character. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale are both excellent as men at different ends of the moral code. They learn from each other but have strong enough characters to begin with to not falter from their true nature without just cause. With 3:10 TO YUMA, Mangold is forcefully establishing himself as one of the best in the West.


Then there is this other Western director, whom I’m sure believes himself to be one of the best. When Sean Penn was brought on stage before the world premiere of his film interpretation of the life of Christopher McCandless, a university graduate who abandons his possessions, family and attachments in pursuit of life’s greater truths, the crowd was happy to receive him. People clapped, many cheered. However, the next audience response, for a surprise appearance by Eddie Vedder, who contributes four songs to the film, was so much more spontaneous and sincere that it made Penn’s seem almost automatic. Most of the cast, from William Hurt to Catherine Keener to Jena Malone to star, Emile Hirsch, proceeded to fill the stage. This was clearly an event. The moment quickly faded though as it became apparent within the film’s first scenes that INTO THE WILD was going to live up to its name. As McCandless rejects society and conformity, so does Penn with his style. While this does make for many beautiful shots, some entirely scenic, some involving dangerous wildlife in peaceful surroundings, the manner in which it is all strung together is ultimately pretentious. There is so much beauty but so little purpose. The numerous supporting roles come in and out throughout the film, much like the people would have on the adventures McCandless would have experienced. Only this isn’t that experience, this is a film. Consequently, many performances come across as overly dramatic and the adverse affect on the film itself is a disdain for the lead character carrying you everywhere. As McCandless, Hirsch is strong and mature but his character, as noble as he is for pursuing greater meanings in life, is not likable for the emotional pain he caused, especially when it is apparent that he is only running away from his own truths. It’s hard to respect someone who is running away while pretending to be a pioneer. Many people left before the screening had ended and when it finally did, the applause slowly but surely transitioned into a standing ovation. When I saw this, I bolted. My stomach turned seeing all these people paying lip service when a respectful applause would have been sufficient.


This was a bit of a sour note to end my festival experience on. This is the gamble though. You’re not going to like all the movies and we shouldn"t base the entire experience on its final moments. I hope to have the opportunity again next year to go, maybe for longer. For all its industry-centric catering, the Toronto International Film Festival still gave me the chance to see so many movies I was excited to see. I’ll just make sure to have a Visa gold card by this time next year so I can cut to the front of the line.