
Sizing Up The 2016 Oscar-Nominated Docs

ANOMALISA (Dirs. Duke Johnson & Charlie Kaufman, 2015)
Yet after a little while, I started to forget that I was watching life-like 3D-printed puppets, and began to feel like I was watching real people – sad, lonely, restless real people, who were much more affecting than in most dramas that actually feature real people.
But then the filmmakers, Kaufman and co-director Duke Johnson, would do something like having the protagonist’s face malfunction (and even detach like a mask), and I would be jarringly reminded what I was really viewing.
There’s also the element of that every character, men and women, except for the two leads is voiced by the same actor – Tom Noonan, who previously appeared in a pivotal role in SYNECDOCHE, who is actually credited here as “everyone else.” This takes a little getting used to, especially as there are times that Noonan sounds erringly like a soft-spoken Jimmy Fallon.
David Thewlis, best known for his role as Remus Lupin in the HARRY POTTER films, voices the principal protagonist, the middle-aged Michael Stone, author of the bestseller “How May I Help You Help Them: 5 Ways To Improve Customer Service.” Thewlis’ Michael, who at times sounds like a drunken Pierce Brosnan, has come to Cincinnati for a speaking engagement and after we witness him making awkward chit–chat with a cabbie, his hotel clerk, and busboy – again, all Noonan-voiced, but also with the same non-descript faces – he gets antsy and phones an ex named Bella, who lives in town that he hasn’t spoken to for over a decade.
Despite her shock at his call, Bella agrees to meet him for a drink at the hotel bar. The meeting doesn’t go well and Bella storms off. Later, Michael desperately and frantically finds himself running down his hotel’s hallway knocking on doors claiming he’s looking for a friend. He happens upon the room of two women, Emily and Lisa, a couple of sales reps who drove from Akron just to see Michael’s speech. Noonan voices Emily (again same face as everyone else), but Jennifer Jason Leigh, in her second stellar performance of 2015 after THE HATEFUL EIGHT, provides the slightly chubby, but pretty and nervously charming Lisa’s voice.
Michael invites them out for a drink – by this time he’s had a half a dozen Belvedere martinis – and the three share some laughs together. On the way back to their rooms, Michael asks Lisa if she’ll have a nightcap with him. Emily encourages Lisa to accept the offer (“he’s gorgeous”), and Lisa and Michael retire back to his room.
Michael is thoroughly taken by Lisa – continually telling her how lovely she is, exuding a loving warmth while she talks about her day and especially as she sings an acapella rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” (she even does an Italian language version of the song). Lisa talks about learning the word “anomaly” from Michael’s book and relating to the term, and he dubs her “Anomalisa.”
Before you know it, we’re watching puppet porn, but, don’t worry, it’s nothing like the infamous sex scene in TEAM AMERICA. Somehow it’s about as tasteful as stop motion puppet intercourse can be.
After that, the film goes on a surreal tangent with a dream sequence in which Michael is called to an office in the hotel’s basement by the hotel manager, who tells Michael that he loves him, and that he shouldn’t be with Lisa.
Michael awakens and, in his shaken state, proposes that he wants to leave his wife and run off with Lisa. Things get screwy though when Michael has a bit of a breakdown at his keynote talk, and the film cuts to him returning to his wife, 5-year old son, and a bunch of surprise party people at his home – all, again, voiced by Noonan with that same damn face.
ANOMALISA is based on a play Kaufman wrote for composer Carter Burwell’s “Theater of the New Ear” series of what were called “sound plays” that was produced with the same cast in 2005, which explains Michael’s speech/rant that calls out the President as being “a war criminal.”
It’s great that the sex scene and the slew of f-bombs dropped make the film the first R-rated animated movie that’s ever gotten an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, but I think it should’ve picked up a Best Screenplay nomination as well. Not one line of dialogue felt convoluted or off at all – as a written work, ANOMALISA is a flawless concoction.
But it’s also a beautifully acted and aesthetically pleasing piece, in which Thewlis and Leigh’s transcendent voice contributions breathe an exuberant amount of humanity into these abstract proceedings.
ANOMALISA (Dirs. Duke Johnson & Charlie Kaufman, 2015)
Yet after a little while, I started to forget that I was watching life-like 3D-printed puppets, and began to feel like I was watching real people – sad, lonely, restless real people, who were much more affecting than in most dramas that actually feature real people.
But then the filmmakers, Kaufman and co-director Duke Johnson, would do something like having the protagonist’s face malfunction (and even detach like a mask), and I would be jarringly reminded what I was really viewing.
There’s also the element of that every character, men and women, except for the two leads is voiced by the same actor – Tom Noonan, who previously appeared in a pivotal role in SYNECDOCHE, who is actually credited here as “everyone else.” This takes a little getting used to, especially as there are times that Noonan sounds erringly like a soft-spoken Jimmy Fallon.
David Thewlis, best known for his role as Remus Lupin in the HARRY POTTER films, voices the principal protagonist, the middle-aged Michael Stone, author of the bestseller “How May I Help You Help Them: 5 Ways To Improve Customer Service.” Thewlis’ Michael, who at times sounds like a drunken Pierce Brosnan, has come to Cincinnati for a speaking engagement and after we witness him making awkward chit–chat with a cabbie, his hotel clerk, and busboy – again, all Noonan-voiced, but also with the same non-descript faces – he gets antsy and phones an ex named Bella, who lives in town that he hasn’t spoken to for over a decade.
Despite her shock at his call, Bella agrees to meet him for a drink at the hotel bar. The meeting doesn’t go well and Bella storms off. Later, Michael desperately and frantically finds himself running down his hotel’s hallway knocking on doors claiming he’s looking for a friend. He happens upon the room of two women, Emily and Lisa, a couple of sales reps who drove from Akron just to see Michael’s speech. Noonan voices Emily (again same face as everyone else), but Jennifer Jason Leigh, in her second stellar performance of 2015 after THE HATEFUL EIGHT, provides the slightly chubby, but pretty and nervously charming Lisa’s voice.
Michael invites them out for a drink – by this time he’s had a half a dozen Belvedere martinis – and the three share some laughs together. On the way back to their rooms, Michael asks Lisa if she’ll have a nightcap with him. Emily encourages Lisa to accept the offer (“he’s gorgeous”), and Lisa and Michael retire back to his room.
Michael is thoroughly taken by Lisa – continually telling her how lovely she is, exuding a loving warmth while she talks about her day and especially as she sings an acapella rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” (she even does an Italian language version of the song). Lisa talks about learning the word “anomaly” from Michael’s book and relating to the term, and he dubs her “Anomalisa.”
Before you know it, we’re watching puppet porn, but, don’t worry, it’s nothing like the infamous sex scene in TEAM AMERICA. Somehow it’s about as tasteful as stop motion puppet intercourse can be.
After that, the film goes on a surreal tangent with a dream sequence in which Michael is called to an office in the hotel’s basement by the hotel manager, who tells Michael that he loves him, and that he shouldn’t be with Lisa.
Michael awakens and, in his shaken state, proposes that he wants to leave his wife and run off with Lisa. Things get screwy though when Michael has a bit of a breakdown at his keynote talk, and the film cuts to him returning to his wife, 5-year old son, and a bunch of surprise party people at his home – all, again, voiced by Noonan with that same damn face.
ANOMALISA is based on a play Kaufman wrote for composer Carter Burwell’s “Theater of the New Ear” series of what were called “sound plays” that was produced with the same cast in 2005, which explains Michael’s speech/rant that calls out the President as being “a war criminal.”
It’s great that the sex scene and the slew of f-bombs dropped make the film the first R-rated animated movie that’s ever gotten an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, but I think it should’ve picked up a Best Screenplay nomination as well. Not one line of dialogue felt convoluted or off at all – as a written work, ANOMALISA is a flawless concoction.
But it’s also a beautifully acted and aesthetically pleasing piece, in which Thewlis and Leigh’s transcendent voice contributions breathe an exuberant amount of humanity into these abstract proceedings.
As the Academy Award nominations are going to be announced tomorrow, I thought it was finally time to unveil my top 10 movies of the last year. I saw over a hundred movies on the big screen in 2015, and I found it to be a good, not great, year for film.
There are a number of notable films I haven’t seen yet, but, of course, you can never see ‘em all. So let’s get right to my favorite motion picture picks of ’15, in descending order:
Like I said in my review last fall, if Brie Larson doesn’t get a Oscar nomination for her harrowing role as a woman who’s been held captive in a backyard shed for five years taking care of her five-year old son (the result of a rape by her abductor), I’ll be very offended. The kid (Jason Tremblay) was pretty “on” too.
7. THE HATEFUL EIGHT
(Dir. Quentin Tarantino)
The “Eighth Film by Quentin Tarantino,” as it’s identified in its opening credits (who else does that?), is his most divisive work for sure, but its bloody Western mix of THE THING with RESERVOIR DOGS, with a splash of Agatha Christie, really entertained the bejesus out of me. Here’s why.
A stop-motion emotional masterpiece from the guy who brought you BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, ADAPTATION, and SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK. And it’s the second film on my top 10 that has Jennifer Jason Leigh in it! My review of this delightful yet unnerving piece of high art will be posted when it opens in my area later this month.
Todd Haynes’ film follow-up to one of my favorites of 2007 (I’M NOT THERE) is a sophisticated, complicated, and immaculately artful look at a lesbian love affair in the oppressive era of 1950s New York City. The performances by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are as pitch perfect as their setting. Read my review.
4. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
(Dir. George Miller)
Leonardo DiCaprio deserves (and will probably get) the Oscar for what he went through in the punishing wild here, but I predictTom Hardy will at least get a nomination too for his supporting part. The film itself, as well as Iñárritu, may also get nods, but coming after last year’s win for BIRDMAN, I wouldn’t bet on it. My review.
Spillover: In no particular order, here’s a bunch of other 2015 favorites:
LOVE & MERCY (Dir. Bill Pohlad)
THE BIG SHORT (Dir. Adam McKay)
STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON (F. Gary Gray)
AMY (Dir. Asif Kapadia)
THE END OF THE TOUR (Dir. James Ponsoldt)
Legacyquel Tie: STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Dir. J.J. Abrams) / CREED (Dir. Ryan Coogler)
STEVE JOBS (Dir. Danny Boyle)
THE WALK (Dir. Robert Zemeckis)
EX MACHINA (Dir. Alex Garland)
THE SALT OF THE EARTH
(Dirs. Juliano Ribeiro Salgado & Wim Wenders)
WHILE WE’RE YOUNG (Dir. Noah Baumbach)
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION (Dir. Christopher McQuarrie) – Hey, it’s a lot better than SPECTRE!
So, those are my picks for 2015. Let’s see what Oscar has to say about it tomorrow morning.
Now playing at an indie art house, and maybe a multiplex or two, near you:
Todd Haynes sixth film, CAROL, his follow-up to his masterful 2007 Dylan deconstruction I’M NOT THERE, has been drawing comparisons to John Crowley’s BROOKLYN, which was released earlier in the prestige picture/Oscar bait season of fall 2015.
THE REVENANT
(Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2015)
There are a couple of things that people are talking about pertaining to Alejandro González Iñárritu’s sixth film, the follow-up to his brilliant, Academy Award-winning BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE), releasing today in the Triangle.
A friend joked, “I bet the bear will win the Oscar!”
But beyond the bullet points of the Leo buzz and the bear lies an epic, uncompromising tale of survival that has just earned a prominent slot on my soon to be posted top 10 films of 2015.
In the film’s stunningly shot opening sequence, the hunters and trappers get ambushed by a tribe of Arikara Indians, and the survivors along with what they could save of their pelts, escape on a boat down river. Glass voices that, to avoid further attacks, they should ditch the boat and continue on foot – a plan that Fitzgerald doesn’t favor.