MovieManifesto

Kingsman: The Secret Service—Making Violence and Stupidity Look Cool

February 27, 2015April 28, 2021 Jeremy BeckReviews

Colin Firth tutors Taron Egerton in "Kingsman: The Secret Service"

The centerpiece of Kingsman: The Secret Service, a happily idiotic action comedy from Matthew Vaughn, takes place in a Kentucky church. As a bigoted preacher spouts fiery rhetoric to his eagerly racist flock—including an undercover spy played by Colin Firth—an invisible toxin is released, infecting everyone in the pews with a bloodthirsty savagery. For the next five minutes, the church turns into a carnival of death, with the parishioners murdering one another with any and all weapons available (guns, knives, grenades, organ pipes), until only Firth’s impeccably dressed secret agent is left standing. It’s a sequence that sounds nightmarish, but it plays almost like a musical number, with limber choreography and a rollicking tempo. All that’s missing is the “applause” button.

Welcome to the world of comic-book writer Mark Millar, an execrable place of severed limbs, exploding heads, and casual misogyny. It’s the kind of cinematic universe where the hero saves the world, then rewards himself by having anal sex with a Scandinavian princess. Cool, right? OK, maybe not. Yet as loathsome as Millar’s worldview may be, adaptations of his work can at least carry a certain charge, even if it’s not the provocative kind that Millar would wish. That’s especially true when the man doing the adapting is Vaughn, a nimble and fast-moving filmmaker whose fleetness allows him to faithfully recreate Millar’s orgies of revulsion without lingering over their repellent implications. Take that scene in the church. From any sane perspective, it is thoroughly grotesque. But Vaughn stages the horrific spectacle with such alacrity and flair that, as the camera swoops and soars and the blood spurts everywhere, you may find yourself tapping your foot to the rhythmic slashing of arms and the symphonic spray of bullets. Read More

Oscars 2014 recap: “Birdman” soars, “Boyhood” slips, and Neil Patrick Harris flops (and Sean Penn cracks wise and ill-advised)

February 23, 2015June 30, 2021 Jeremy BeckOscars

So how were this year’s Oscars? It depends on which part of me you’re asking. As a movie fan, they were intriguingly democratic—each of the eight Best Picture nominees walked away with at least one statuette—even if I was disappointed in the Academy’s choice for its top prize. As a show business fan, they were pretty awful, with a limp performance from host Neil Patrick Harris and a draggy first two-and-a-half hours that were only marginally redeemed by some strong speeches on the back end.

But as a prognosticator, they were pretty good. I went 17-for-21 this year (81%), a dip from last year’s career-best 19-for-21 performance, but still reasonably impressive given the relative unpredictability of this year’s slate. (Translation: I couldn’t just check off Gravity for one-third of this year’s races.) My success, as always, was the combination of painstaking research and dumb luck. I’ll take it.

Oscars 2014: The Manifesto’s Complete Oscar Predictions

February 20, 2015June 30, 2021 Jeremy BeckOscars

Last year, the Manifesto had an incredibly strong showing at the Oscars, correctly predicting 19 of the 21 feature categories. I can assure you that will not be the case this year. But the surprises are part of the fun, and I look forward to seeing just where I went disastrously wrong in my predictions. Scanning through this list, I wonder if I’ve overrated The Grand Budapest Hotel (which I’m pegging for five wins) and underestimated American Sniper (which I’ve chalked up for just two wins, both in the sound categories). It’s also rather bizarre that I came close to choosing Boyhood to win Best Picture, yet I’m ultimately predicting it walks away with just two trophies (and only one of those victories is relatively assured).

In any event, here are the Manifesto’s official predictions for each of those 21 feature categories (per usual, I’m skipping the shorts). I’m organizing them in order of confidence levels; I try to distribute these evenly, even though I’d really rather assign the lowest possible confidence to 14 different categories.

Oscars 2014: Best Picture and Director — Boyhood vs. Birdman

February 20, 2015June 30, 2021 Jeremy BeckOscars

Ellar Coltrane and Ethan Hawke in Boyhood

And here we are. Thus far in the Manifesto’s Oscar analysis, we’ve looked at the technical categories, including the ones that really matter and the ones that matter a little less; the supporting actor and actress fields; the screenplays; and the lead actors. And now, we come to the two big ones. In a refreshing change of pace from the Oscars’ usual predictability, they’re two of the more uncertain awards of the night.

BEST DIRECTOR

NOMINEES
Wes Anderson—The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alejandro González Iñárritu—Birdman
Richard Linklater—Boyhood
Bennett Miller—Foxcatcher
Morten Tyldum—The Imitation Game

WILL WIN
Given how much low-hanging fruit The Grand Budapest Hotel is likely to scoop up over the course of the evening, Anderson has a theoretical shot. But this is really a faceoff between Iñárritu and Linklater, the helmers of the two Best Picture favorites. As it result, it really comes to what Academy voters value in this category. The argument for Linklater is more conceptual than technical; there’s obviously never been a movie like Boyhood, and it took its director’s incredible vision to make it happen. But as recent wins for Gravity‘s Alfonso Cuarón and Life of Pi‘s Ang Lee suggest, the Best Director award is increasingly becoming tied to technical achievement. And as astonishing as Boyhood is in its scope and its storytelling, it’s fairly ordinary in its technical execution, whereas Birdman is a showy and dazzling piece of cinematic artistry. On that score, Iñárritu is the pick. (He also has the guild nod, which hardly hurts.)

Oscars 2014: Best Actor and Best Actress

February 20, 2015June 30, 2021 Jeremy BeckOscars

I say this every year, but modern cinema is blessed with an abundance of high-quality acting talent. You can argue about whether the movies themselves are better or worse than they used to be—I’d suggest that it’s a bit of both—but the caliber of the actors is as good as it’s ever been.

BEST ACTOR

NOMINEES
Steve Carell—Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper—American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch—The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton—Birdman
Eddie Redmayne—The Theory of Everything

WILL WIN
Carell and Cumberbatch are out. American Sniper somehow became a phenomenon late in the season, so it’s possible Cooper could pull an upset here, but his name hasn’t been mentioned as regularly as either Keaton or Redmayne. If you’re pegging Birdman to rip through Sunday’s entire show, then Keaton is the pick here. But as well as Birdman has performed on the circuit, I don’t think it’s ever achieved a Slumdog Millionaire-level of momentum. Redmayne won the Trinity—again, that’s scooping awards at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors’ Guild—and more importantly, he plays a famous historical figure with a physical disability, thereby hitting two of the Academy’s sweetest spots. Eddie Redmayne wins his first Oscar.