See Marwencol. That’s it. I can try to explain it to you, I can try to let you know how I feel about it, but you and can’t really talk about Marwencol until you see Marwencol.

Okay, I’ll tell you a few things about it since you asked so nicely. The film follows Mark Hogancamp, a man who starts his life over after being beaten half to death. Once he can walk and talk and read again, he begins to learn a few things about his former life, of which he remembers nothing. He was a drunk; a drunk who kept detailed and often horrific journals of his darkest moments. As he slowly tries to put his life together, the pain of dealing with his attack and coming to terms with his former self, he begins practicing his own kind of unconventional therapy. Read on…

The statues are all distributed, the corks are all popped, and now it is time to talk about the 82^nd Academy Awards in the past tense. We’ll get to who won, but first off I’d like to talk about who lost: the viewing audience. This has to be one of the worst awards broadcasts in recent memory. Overlong and underwhelming, the only thing interesting in the show was actually finding out who won, which is weird because that often takes a backseat to the rest of the spectacle.

Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were charming, albeit neutered, hosts. They farmed the opening number out to Neil Patrick Harris, which was predictably fine, but it seemed like a complete redux of his bouts as Tony and Emmy host. On paper it sounds poignant, but in practice it felt stale. I long for the days when Billy Crystal would superimpose himself into the top nominated films. I can understand the new hosts wanting to move forward with an original spin, only this felt like a step backwards. Read on…

Although I detest the idea of lists, I thought I would mention “10” films that convey an amazing articulation of contemporary culture (and they just happen to be a some that I find as my favorites of this year).

Birdsong (Albert Serra)

The limits of plot are less a concern than the grace of an event’s miraculous and personal unfolding for an individual. While the film conveys the infamous birth of a religious figure in a manner that is rooted in secular mortality, the film focuses on the personal contemplation and expressionistic moments inspired by the meaning of the event rather than expository dialog about religious convictions. Amazingly brave in its contemplative execution, Serra continues to allude to things beyond the nature of cinema’s plastics and today’s climate of physicality, technology and the literal. Read on…

As a blogger, I don’t actually have an office in which to conduct business and interviews. So when the opportunity arose to meet with multi-hyphenate John-Luke Montias, the first sport that came to mind was Central Park near the Upper West Side. Being the sport that he is, Mr. Montias trucked over to meet me. Waiting on the corner by a hot dog stand on a warm July day, I began to wonder if so serene a spot was proper for meeting a man whose film deals in sex-slavery, gangsterism, money laundering, and grand theft auto. Then I remembered, this is New York City; we’re all in the soup.

John-Luke studied acting at New York University. After school he did what he refers to as the whole actor-bartender thing: “I got tired of waiting for the phone to ring, I was working at a bar in Hell’s Kitchen that had some really crazy ass characters. I would hear a lot of crazy stories whether I wanted to or not. Then it dawned on me that this was a great opportunity, so I started writing.” That compilation of stories would eventually become the director’s first film, Bobby G Can’t Swim, but he admits that those stories still permeate his work. From listening to him, you can tell that his ears were well-chewed during his days serving drinks. Read on…

Too often, we as viewers fall into filmic ruts. We convince ourselves that our understanding of a particular topic, character or time period has been perfected; questioning such concepts would be blasphemy, or at the very least uninteresting. Collectively, we must be shocked out of such beliefs. With Public Enemies, director Michael Mann has taken everything we thought we knew about the gangster film, deconstructed it, and put it back together into something wholly different and occasionally successful.

Johnny Depp slips into the bad boy role of bank robber John Dillinger. An opening title card informs us that he was enjoying the golden age of bank robbing, though this is hardly a heist film. There is some talk of a big “score” early on, but instead of any major planning going into the robberies, Dillinger and his partners rob as often as needed to pay the bills. The film plays more like a biopic than  anything else, but that doesn’t mean it is wholly impotent in the shoot ‘em up department. Read on…

There are many kinds of war films. Those that celebrate the heroism of men and women who rise to the occasion and those that examine the absurd event that is conflict; those that glorify the gory action on the ground and those that question the human event in its bloodiest hour. The Hurt Locker manages, quite impressively, to check off all of the above and then some. It is a heart-stopping thriller set amidst the modern quagmire that is Baghdad that never lingers long enough to feel preachy yet manages to suspend you in moments of extreme tension for what seems like eternity. In other words, it’s a bad ass good time.

Director Kathryn Bigelow, probably most well known for the 1991 surf action film Point Break, decided to stem the intellectual deconstruction of the war in Iraq that has hampered most recent attempts to bring the conflict to the big screen. Instead, she has no bones about making a first rate action thriller. The opening scene alone, in which a radio controlled robot breaks just before it can detonate an IED, is worth the price of popcorn. If you can’t handle it straight away, leave the theater.

In need of a new Bomb Tech on their team, Sergeant JT Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge find themselves under the command of Staff Sergeant William James. James is a reckless cowboy who rarely lets the others in on his half-cocked plans as they traverse Iraq in search of bombs. The relationship that the three form is complicated to say the least. In Sanborn we find a rationalist who offers us a moral grounding. Eldridge is more complex, a man-child thrown into the war probably trying to prove his strength.

But the most interesting character is certainly Sergeant James, played with boyish bravado by Jeremy Renner. Acting as if he is an army of one, James always seems to come out in one piece no matter how stupid his plans seem to be. As soon as we feel we know him and understand his motivation, he goes and does something even crazier. Not quite a patriot nor a mercenary, his character slowly unravels and we begin to see an incredibly strong deconstruction of modern masculinity. I don’t want to get into the details because it is the little things in this movie that become shocking to you as it progresses.

Ms. Bigelow has done what many of Hollywood’s biggest guns have failed to do: make an interesting film about Iraq that people will actually watch. Steering clear of political statements, she has crafted a solid character study amidst the most important international issue our nation is embroiled in. It’s the Iraq movie we have been waiting for, but we hardly notice that fact as we wipe the sweat from our brow and stand up from the edge of our seat.

I’m sorry, but I am going to have to hike up my crotchity old man pants and whip my suspenders; it’s time to do a little ranting about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

Recently, outgoing President Sid Ganis announced that next years Oscar ceremony will feature 10 Best Picture nominations instead of 5. This unprecedented (at least in 60 years) announcement was followed by a few lesser publicized changes. The rules for Best Original Song are now such that there may not even be an award every year and supplemental awards, such as the Thalberg or the Honorary Oscar, will be distributed at a separate event. It is great to see AMPAS blow the dust off of the arcane rule book they have been following for nearly a century, but other changes are needed. Like what, you may ask? Good thing you came to the candler blog.

Axe the Best Animated Feature Category, and Fast

Part of the thinking behind expanding the Best Pic pool is to give films that rarely make it into the running a fighting chance. Comedies, summer blockbusters and animated features are rarely nominated, but only one of those genres has been pushed out of the running completely. Instituted in 2001, with the first award going to Shrek, the Best Animated Feature award was meant to get gold into the hands of animated filmmakers whose work accounts for an incredible amount of box office grosses yet is rarely honored at the annual ceremony. Instead, it has pigeonholed all animated films into one giant lump that is out of the running of the Academy’s top honor.

Over the last decade, Hollywood and audiences have taken note of animation auteurs. So many people are required to make an animated film, the makers often get lost in the shuffle. However, Brad Bird has now become a marketable name, as have Andrew Stanton and John Lasseter. (These are all Pixar guys, I know, but hey, they’re the major studio) As films become more closely linked to specific names, they start to feel more like works of art rather than DVDs to keep the kids happy in the back seat. With a bigger Best Pic pool, there is no longer a need to push animators into a corner with this useless, offensive award. Read on…

As my twitter followers may know, I dragged my bones to the IMAX at 2 am last Wednesday to check out Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It has taken me longer than usual to sit down and review the film mainly because the airwaves are clouded by so much of the same everywhere. In an effort to speed things along and get the candler blog back on track, I have decided to simply offer up my opinion on the film in short bullet points. Is this a cop out? Yes. Will you forgive me? I hope!

Is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen a good film?

In short, no. However, it is not the worst film ever. I would say it beats out X-Men Origins: Wolverine for overall watchability. The plot is almost non-existent and clunky at it’s most coherent points. Though the film may have generated an incredible amount of box office receipts, it does not stand out as a great action film to say the least. There are too many characters and the camera is always moving in a manner that makes it impossible to focus on anything. But don’t worry, there is a choice soundtrack to ground your auditory senses at least. Read on…