Sometimes movie reviewers reach for the heights: “But even without knowledge of the artist’s life, the photos step beyond neo-kitsch into a realm where child-like transference merges with a dramatic grandeur to create both a feeling of vintage Hollywood artifice and authentic pathos.”
Whoosh! Thank you Village Voice! From a review of the documentary “Marwencol”, the film that inspired the new Steve Carrell movie “Marwen”. It’s about a man who suffered a severe beating which caused permanent brain damage. He retreats into a marvelous world of G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls, that act as a kind of therapy for him. Hope the Carrell treatment is as good as the documentary.
And remember the well-known rules for Oscars:
- accents preferably Polish
- Nazis and victims of Nazis
- a disability
- a white person enduring terrible obstacles in defiance of racist authority
Other Oscar rules–
- the Scorcese rule: you made a brilliant masterpiece we overlooked at the time so we now give you an Oscar for a later mediocre film to make up for our previous misjudgment
- The DiCaprio rule: You are trying so hard and it’s so obvious and we’re sick of it all so here, take your damn Oscar
- the Spielberg rule: you got famous making shallow, popular films and now you did a holocaust film to show you are really capable of being serious so we must give you the Oscar
- And the Amy Adams-Scarlett Johanson-Jennifer Lawrence rule: you gave a brilliant performance in your first film so we knew you were very good but we had to wait for you to be in a big-budget, heavily promoted, commercial Hollywood film before we could give you the Oscar for a far less interesting performance.
The films were “Junebug”, “Ghost World”, and “Winter’s Bone”. Check them out.