![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tartysuzI saw very few movies this year, so I don’t have a lot to say about the Academy Award nominations.
But I was very glad to see Jeremy Renner nominated for best actor and A Serious Man nominated for best original screenplay and best picture.
Renner is an underdog. He’s a newcomer in a year that Academy voters may decide that it’s finally time to give Jeff Bridges an Oscar. I haven’t seen Crazy Heart, so I can’t say anything about the merits about Bridges’s performance, but I can say that I prefer Renner in The Hurt Locker to Clooney in Up in the Air. Clooney was good as a rogue you can’t help but like. However, Renner is riveting as a complicated hero who is often dislikable, and a few times, possibly downright wrong. It’s a tough acting assignment, and Renner carries it very well.
A Serious Man has about zero buzz, despite being a Cohen Brothers film. Like Renner’s character, this movie isn’t easy. It’s funny as hell, but it’s challenging and doesn’t offer easy answers. It also draws heavily on Jewish lore – heck, it’s all about Jewish lore and its uses.
I had some insight into this a couple of weeks ago, when my Unitarian minister spoke about Talmudic study, which is the act of reading the Jewish bible by taking into consideration a legacy of textual interpretations (like the prophecies of Agnes Nutter in Good Omens!) in contrast to the fundamentalist project of literal readings. Midrash is the act of calling upon stories from the past to illuminate the present, not using historical texts as if they were predictions of the ineffable present. The example he gave is that when people say Sidney Crosby is the new Wayne Gretzky, they aren’t saying that he is literally Wayne Gretzky resurrected (especially since the Great One is not remotely dead), but that there is precedence for the talent of and excitement around Crosby, and that is the similar example of Wayne Gretzky. It is a way of understanding new phenomenon by identifying – but not being a slave to – old frameworks. Therefore in Midrash, Crosby ~ Gretzky; while in Fundamentalism, Crosby = Gretzky.
Anyway, A Serious Man is about active storytelling, active engagement and active doubt. I’m glad it was recognized by the Academy, though its chances of winning are slender.
Selected predictions:
Best Actor – Jeff Bridges
Best Original Screenplay – Quentin Tarantino
Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow
Best Picture - Avatar
But I was very glad to see Jeremy Renner nominated for best actor and A Serious Man nominated for best original screenplay and best picture.
Renner is an underdog. He’s a newcomer in a year that Academy voters may decide that it’s finally time to give Jeff Bridges an Oscar. I haven’t seen Crazy Heart, so I can’t say anything about the merits about Bridges’s performance, but I can say that I prefer Renner in The Hurt Locker to Clooney in Up in the Air. Clooney was good as a rogue you can’t help but like. However, Renner is riveting as a complicated hero who is often dislikable, and a few times, possibly downright wrong. It’s a tough acting assignment, and Renner carries it very well.
A Serious Man has about zero buzz, despite being a Cohen Brothers film. Like Renner’s character, this movie isn’t easy. It’s funny as hell, but it’s challenging and doesn’t offer easy answers. It also draws heavily on Jewish lore – heck, it’s all about Jewish lore and its uses.
I had some insight into this a couple of weeks ago, when my Unitarian minister spoke about Talmudic study, which is the act of reading the Jewish bible by taking into consideration a legacy of textual interpretations (like the prophecies of Agnes Nutter in Good Omens!) in contrast to the fundamentalist project of literal readings. Midrash is the act of calling upon stories from the past to illuminate the present, not using historical texts as if they were predictions of the ineffable present. The example he gave is that when people say Sidney Crosby is the new Wayne Gretzky, they aren’t saying that he is literally Wayne Gretzky resurrected (especially since the Great One is not remotely dead), but that there is precedence for the talent of and excitement around Crosby, and that is the similar example of Wayne Gretzky. It is a way of understanding new phenomenon by identifying – but not being a slave to – old frameworks. Therefore in Midrash, Crosby ~ Gretzky; while in Fundamentalism, Crosby = Gretzky.
Anyway, A Serious Man is about active storytelling, active engagement and active doubt. I’m glad it was recognized by the Academy, though its chances of winning are slender.
Selected predictions:
Best Actor – Jeff Bridges
Best Original Screenplay – Quentin Tarantino
Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow
Best Picture - Avatar
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 07:41 pm (UTC)I liked it, but at best, I gave it a B-. At the end of the day, it's a standard serving of a story that's been told several times before.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 07:53 pm (UTC)I'm tickled at the novelty of the ex-spouses duking it out in so many categories. Perhaps as in a divorce settlement, they'll split the items of value 50-50.