The Sunshine Award

Hey guys, so my fellow blog compadre Ben nominated me for a Sunshine Award, and I could not have been more shocked. Literally. I didn't even know they gave awards to bloggers. The Sunshine Award is an award given to bloggers by other bloggers to, you know, share the love. I am honored and will comply, somewhat, with the rules, which are as follows:

RULES
1. Include the award's logo in a post or on your blog.
2. Link to the person who nominated you.
3. Answer 10 questions about yourself (use these or come up with your own).
4. Nominate 10 bloggers.
5. Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blogs, letting them know they have been nominated.

QUESTIONS
1. WHY DO YOU BLOG?
Because I love writing and watching movies. Why not share the two on a free platform? It's also an amazing community to be a part of and share your interests and have great dialogues with others who also love what you love.

2. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB IN THE WORLD, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
My only goal in life is to get paid to watch movies all day....and ride a unicorn into the sunset while Frank Zappa's Watermelon in Eastern Hay plays in the background. Since the latter is probably a no-go, I figured I'd make some investments in trying to be a film critic. I would love to write for Indiewire and cover all the major film festivals: Sundance, Toronto, Telluride, SXSW, Venice, Berlin, Cannes, etc., if only I could do it from home...

Winning.

3. FAVORITE DIRECTOR?
Pedro Almodovar. Hands down. If I were a director, his films are the type of films I would possibly want to make.

4. FAVORITE TV SHOW (CURRENTLY)?
R.I.P. Breaking Bad. Hmm...I don't know if I have one, so here are my must-see's every week: The Walking Dead, because - c'mon? Masters of Sex. A great new show this season; Michael Sheen is fantastic. American Horror Story, because I love that a show like this even exists and its anthology set-up makes for amazing seasonal casts. South Park - for always making me laugh at things we normally don't allow ourselves to laugh at in public. Also, House of Cards, Game of Thrones, The Newsroom, and my guilty pleasure - Long Island Medium.

This has been my desktop for the past 6 months.

5. FAVORITE MOVIE?
Out of all the questions, ever, this one I detest the most. I know it's weird, but I don't have one. Out of all the movies I've seen, you're telling me I have to pick one? It's disgusting. Instead, I will select one movie from major periods in my life, corresponding to my evolving love of film:
Jurassic Park: It encompasses everything I loved about films growing up and introduced me to entertainment cinema and larger-than-life spectacles.
American History X: I saw this in high school when I started getting into more independent film, with controversial subject matter.
12 Angry Men: After high school is when I started getting into classics. Henry Fonda's performance was mesmerizing to me.
Sans Soleil: This one represents my more recent period. I pick this Chris Marker film, because it took everything I ever loved and thought I knew about cinema, crumbled it up and tossed it in the trash. I hated movies for a while after I saw it, because it challenged what I believed to be true. It's haunting, lyrical, irritating and beautiful.

6. FAVORITE ACTORS/ACTRESSES STILL ALIVE AND WORKING?
Actresses: Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, Tilda Swinton, Natalie Portman
Actors: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kevin Spacey, Gael Garcia Bernal, Ryan Gosling, Michael Fassbender

7. FAVORITE FILM YOU STOP TO WATCH WHENEVER IT'S ON TV?
Mean Girls

You go Glen Coco!

8. A FILM YOU THINK IS UNDER-RATED?
I've also heard people say this film is over-rated. Whatev. In light of the news this past week of Andy Kaufman possibly having faked his own death, I give you Man on the Moon. I think this is Jim Carrey's best performance after Eternal Sunshine.

"You don't know the real me."

9. A DIRECTOR YOU ADMIRE BUT WOULDN'T WANT TO BE TRAPPED IN A ROOM WITH?
This is so random, I know, but Lars von Trier.

Ss-sca-sca-sca-scary!

10. FAVORITE MOVIE SO FAR THIS YEAR?
Instead of going with some obvious picks (Gravity, This is the End), I think I'll go with a few that aren't as recognized, but deserve to be seen: Trance, Only God Forgives, Fruitvale Station, I'm So Excited!, The Spectacular Now and Stoker. I know, I'm terrible at picking one. But this is my blog, after all. I do what I want!

 I will only nominate four, to uphold my lack of conformity (and because everyone's moved to wordpress, apparently). Be honored, be very honored:
Angry Vader's Movie Blah...
The Reviewing Dead with Nate
A Film Junkie
Vits-ing the Movies

12 Years a Slave

In this stark and boldly oppressive tale, the only thing perhaps more harrowing than the protagonist's journey to survive false enslavement and torture is director Steve McQueen's brazen way of depicting it in the most honest and, quite often, deeply uncomfortable, yet cinematically applaudable manner.

12 Years a Slave is based on the memoir of the same title by Solomon Northup - an African American, living in New York, who was born free, kidnapped, sold into slavery, and kept in bondage for 12 years in the antebellum South.

In the film, Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a talented violinist, is hoaxed by two men claiming to be searching for musicians, who escort him to dinner and take advantage of him in his inebriated state. Solomon wakes up chained to a wall and told that he is no longer a free man. The rest of the film follows his journey working under the ownership of different slave-holders for the next 12 years of his life.

Solomon's survival is fueled by his desire to reunite with his wife and two children in New York but is tested by his own intelligence and often fool-hardiness. Solomon is an intelligent man, who has to hide his literacy from each master. At times, his intelligence gets the best of him and challenges a vapid-minded white man for faulty instructions -- this scene is cheer-inducing in the short run, but breath-holding-ly painful in the long run.

McQueen (Shame, Hunger) is not shy with his depictions of slavery; Beatings, whippings, rapes, hangings and other tortures are shown explicitly and unapologetically. Like Shame and Hunger, McQueen employs the long-take to capture such heinous acts in the most realistic and uncomfortable manner. There's nothing docile or, in the opposite extreme, overtly-gratuitous for the sake of it in these scenes -- they just...are.

McQueen's camera is often poetic, even ironic, capturing the enticingly open Louisiana sky. In one scene, Ejiofor breaks the fourth wall, by looking at the camera in a slow sweeping gaze - Ejiofor's haunting and pleading eyes gaze at us for a few seconds, before looking off camera again. This is similar to a scene in McQueen's Shame, where his sex-addict protagonist stares at the camera during an unemotional three-some. It's heartbreaking.

The film lacks on exposition and characterization in the beginning. We only see a few scenes of Solomon with his family, before he is surreptitiously whisked away. That's expected, though, with a film encompassing a long narrative time frame. Solomon's sorrow and bereavement, however, are not lost on us, which is the crucial part.

What is astounding, however, are the gritty performances. Ejiofor has a solemn and serious disposition, disrupted by weighty outbursts. He is completely vulnerable - physically and emotionally. By the end of the film, he appears as a man who's been through Hell and back, but maybe that's his settlement. "I don't want to survive," he states. "I want to live."

Paul Dano plays Tibeats, a hot-headed slave driver who has it out for Solomon and sings a deplorably nasty song (that I hope doesn't catch on). Tibeats' volatile and creepy persona draw comparisons to Dano's performance in There Will Be Blood, where he played a God zealot with greedy intentions. Here, Dano's portrayal of such an abominable character is superb. Somehow, we've come to love to hate him.

Among the many wonderful performances, none come close to Michael Fassbender's portrayal of Edwin Epps, a cotton plantation owner and a drunk who takes joy in waking his slaves in the middle of the night and making them dance, tiredly, in his lavish Southern home. Fassbender's magnetic off-screen charm is completely lost here. Epps is a deranged man with little self control and his uneasy physical proxemics to his slaves make him all the more creepy.

Unfortunately the soundtrack is not as memorable. Hans Zimmer's score is, in the moment, potent but tragically forgettable thereafter. At best, it appropriately ornates the story without overpowering it. Sometimes the most powerful scenes are ones accompanied by deafening silence, because they're usually a cacophony of emotions.

At its worst, the film is long and depressing. At its best, it's emotional and unnerving. There's little sense of resolution or cause for joy at the end. There's nothing uplifting about this film but that's the point, isn't it? The melancholic ending demonstrates that there is little to erase the tragedies that have occurred.

There's no forgetting this film either. Each scene is like sipping a cold pint of Southern-brewed sobriety. By the end, we're intoxicated with our country's shameful history.

Rating: A