Critic's Corner

Friday, March 24, 2006

The Accused

Best known today as the original Special Agent Clarice Starling, Jodie Foster has had a stronghold on the drama genre since her performance as Iris in Taxi Driver. However, too often forgotten is the subject of her first Academy Award, the role of Sarah Tobias in “The Accused.” Quite a different role from the law-abiding, success driven Clarice, this film provides a realistic view into the lives of those in a disadvantaged white neighborhood and sets the high water mark for movies like it that would follow, for example, the recent “North Country”.

Sarah is a gang rape victim who does not get to tell her story because Deputy District Attorney Kathryn Murphy believes that her character is “questionable”. After Murphy feels the pains of guilt for not letting the victim tell her story, she decides to prosecute the men who cheered on the three rapists. What we are left with is a performance like no other.

Throughout the duration of the story, the audience sees small superficial changes that Sarah goes through as she cuts her hair and kicks her good-for-nothing boyfriend out of the house, but we see very little character development. Although she is the center story, her self-effacing character is overshadowed by the brash Kathryn. Sarah continues to drink and lose her temper at inappropriate times, making scenes when she should be trying to keep a low profile. In the beginning, excluding the first scene, she is whispering and sees herself as merely a victim of everything that happens. She is a victim of rape. She is a victim of the prosecution when she must remain silent. She is a victim of an all-but-estranged relationship with a mother who hears from Sarah only when she is in need of something. As the movie progresses, her self-esteem stays low but she begins to find the voice that was once just a whisper.

Herein lays the irony, though. It is not when Sarah finally gets to let her voice be heard that her high key performance finally kicks in. She takes the stand and tells her story, crying, to the DA and breaks down upon cross examination when the Defense Attorney pokes more holes in her story than in a college dorm room wall. Foster keeps Sarah’s attitude in check and keeps it low key, because she knows that she is no saint and is ashamed to have to admit it. In fact, apart from the first scene where Foster runs out of the bar screaming mere moments after having been raped, the entire performance is low key, even when she is acting out. The audience almost feels like Sarah is so self-conscious that only when she loses her temper does she feel that she is entitled to any respect.

That is, until Kenny Joyce takes the stand. As Kenny gives his eyewitness account of the rape which he saw his best friend perform, the scene flashes back to the night and the actual gang-rape and the audience gets to finally see the real Sarah. She is trashy and vulgar, drinking too much and acting loosely, flirting and throwing her sexuality into the faces of her accused. Her shirt sleeves fall down, barely exposing her breast. She is drunk and has lost all inhibitions, until the first attacker starts to get too frisky. When she tries to stop him, she is held down and gang raped in one of the most brutal scenes ever put on film and her performance kicks into high gear as the incident takes place. The close up shots of her face as her mouth is being pressed down on with such force she can hardly speak show the combination of agony and fear that Sarah is experiencing. Her eyes, wide and full of tears, convey a thousand times more emotion than simply telling her story ever could. The realistic style in which Sarah tries to fight off three men (who are so much bigger than she) puts the viewer in the room, and all the while, the other men are screaming and dancing around and urging other men to rape her too. The cacophony of sound blends together to make the scene a horror to watch, and it is in this scene that Foster perfects the role and nabs the Oscar.

Although Foster had been in many productions before this and had been nominated for another Academy Award twelve years prior, this was the role in which she became well known. Still three years away from icon status, which she achieved after her performance in The Silence of the Lambs, she allowed her talent to set a precedent that few people dare to exceed. Taking the script and making it hers, all the while being careful not to overact or drown out the other characters is how Foster shows her peers the meaning of versatility with humility.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

The Shield

Fx- the best network this side of pay cable. I LOVE this show!

If you haven't seen tonight's show and plan to, stop reading now.

Tonight was the season finale. Mackey and his lackeys- Shane- aka teeth, Lem the giant, and Ronnie the other guy... vs. Tom Cavanaugh- IAD. Last week, Mackey gave Cavanaugh's ex the old in-out and boy was Tom pissed. So much so that he went after the former Mrs. Mackey. She held off his advances, unlike crazy Mrs. Cavanaugh did with Vic.

Danny gave birth to her son, Lee, rumored to be Mackey's kid. And from what we saw tonight, it looks like he is.

Lem is a fugitive. Now he's giving up the Money Train from 2 seasons ago. Bekkah asked Lem to turn and go into witness protection after he gave up all of his cards, but he refused like any dignified man would. Trying to get Lem over the border proves to be difficult when they can't find him; instead they find hundreds of grenades that DEA has been looking for.

Now that Claudette is the cheif, Ex Chief Billings is teamed up with "Hungry Like the Wolf" Dutch. What a pair. Hilarity on all sides. Dutch is so concerned with getting laid and getting justice from having been burned by the vending machine coffee that he can't focus on anything else. Billings has his head so far up his ass and is putting a major crick in whatever style Dutch has ever had. With Dutch, being the man of routine, this does not bode well, but it certainly leaves next season open for more drama- until Dutch drops the bomb- he's filing for a transfer. That is, until he finds out that Billings has a secret.

The Sheryl Crow looking "victim" that Dutch has his eye on is actually a whore. How funny. She calls her "legal counsel" and he looks more like a pimp than anything legit. As everyone goes into the room where she and her "legal counsel" are supposed to be discussing the charges, they catch him doing her from behind over the interrogation table. What a trip.

Aceveda is SUCH a Benedict Arnold. I thought that playing both sides was supposed to be Julian's thing- oops!! I shouldn't have said that- not since he's found Jesus.

Shane ends the show with a bang- literally. (I literally sat there with my mouth agape for 3 minutes when it happened. I KNEW something like that was going to happen!!!!) Lem was going to turn himself in and keep the other 3 out of everything. Aceveda, in a ploy to help IAD, told Mackey who told everyone else that Lem was going to give them up. So Shane goes to give Lem a sandwich and drops into the car a stolen grenade- sans the pin. The car explodes and Shane screams "I'm sorry" as Lem fights to stay alive. Then Shane goes to meet the rest of the team with a secret that he won't tell. As the department finds the mess, Mackey and Cavanaugh get into a fist fight. The troops break them up and as what remains the Strike Team walks away, Vic swears vengeance on "whoever did this", not knowing it was one of his own.

Roll credits.

Shawn Ryan has created a masterpiece.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Let's See How I Do

http://www.oscar.com/nominees/list.html

best actor: philip seymore hoffman- winner!!

best actress: reese witherspoon- winner!!

best supporting actor: george clooney - winner!!

best supporting actress: frances mcdormand- rachel weisz won. Anyone who has seen North Country knows that Frances Mcdormand should have won.

best picture: brokeback mountain- CRASH won! Wow... that was great. I haven't seen Crash yet, but I am glad that BM didn't sweep this year.

directing: brokeback mountain- winner!!

adapted screenplay: brokeback mountain- winner!!

original screenplay: crash- winner!!

best animated: wallace & gromit- winner!!

costume: memiors of a geisha- winner!!

documentary: march of the penguins- winner!!

film editing: crash- winner!!

makeup: narnia- winner!!

music: brokeback mountain- winner!!

art direction: good night/good luck- memoirs of a geisha won

cinematography: brokeback mountain- memoirs of a geisha won :)

song: crash- hustle & flow won. The first rap song to ever win, I bet.

sound mixing: walk the line- king kong won

visual effects: narnia -king kong won

sound editing: memiors of a geisha- king kong won. what is going on with king kong tonight??

foreign language: paradise now- tsotsi won- not surprising- so many people were up in arms about paradise now. A film putting the audience into the mind of a terrorist- quite controversial, to say the least.


A little commentary-

Oh my god how many more montages are they going to do? Please say no more. Just get them over with. But for the "In Memoriam": Where were Don Knotts and Darren McGavin? They'll probably be top on the list next year.

Brokeback Mountain, although I gave it a horrible review, I have to admit that the score IS beautiful.

Well, 12 out of 22. 54% probably my best yet. haha.