I mostly agree with Jeremy's review of Charlie Wilson's War. It is indeed trapped between genres and the tone is strange at times. Its primary strength is Aaron Sorkin's snappy script which takes advantage of the charisma of the lead actors, in particular Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who really was exceptional. I was relieved Sorkin never went too far with the heavy-handedness, instead simply showing how easy it was for Charlie Wilson to get billions of dollars for weapons for Afghanistan and how hard it was for him to get a (one) million dollars for schools. American foreign policy in a nut shell right there. Anyways, this movie was both entertaining and made some interesting political points but suffered because by trying to do both, it excelled at neither.
Oscar Outlook
Charlie Wilson's War is certainly a contender in pretty much every big category, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Director, Picture, Adapted Screenplay. Ultimately, I think it will suffer because there were so many political films this year that flopped so horribly (Rendition, In the Valley of Elah, etc) so it is likely to get thrown into that group as well, especially with less than stellar box office numbers. So even though it's a quality movie and will get a look, I think it definitely has an uphill battle to receive nominations in the major categories.
Predictions
Best Supporting Actor nomination for Hoffman - PSH was outstanding and should get his 2nd Oscar nomination
Best Adapted Screenplay nomination - the competition is stiff here (Atonement, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, among others all fall into this category) but Sorkin's script was good enough that he should get Charlie Wilson's War a second nomination.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Charlie Wilson's War - 7.0
I mostly agree with Jeremy's review of Charlie Wilson's War. It is indeed trapped between genres and the tone is strange at times. Its primary strength is Aaron Sorkin's snappy script which takes advantage of the charisma of the lead actors, in particular Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who really was exceptional. I was relieved Sorkin never went too far with the heavy-handedness, instead simply showing how easy it was for Charlie Wilson to get billions of dollars for weapons for Afghanistan and how hard it was for him to get a (one) million dollars for schools. American foreign policy in a nut shell right there. Anyways, this movie was both entertaining and made some interesting political points but suffered because by trying to do both, it excelled at neither.
Oscar Outlook
Charlie Wilson's War is certainly a contender in pretty much every big category, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Director, Picture, Adapted Screenplay. Ultimately, I think it will suffer because there were so many political films this year that flopped so horribly (Rendition, In the Valley of Elah, etc) so it is likely to get thrown into that group as well, especially with less than stellar box office numbers. So even though it's a quality movie and will get a look, I think it definitely has an uphill battle to receive nominations in the major categories.
Predictions
Best Supporting Actor nomination for Hoffman - PSH was outstanding and should get his 2nd Oscar nomination
Best Adapted Screenplay nomination - the competition is stiff here (Atonement, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, among others all fall into this category) but Sorkin's script was good enough that he should get Charlie Wilson's War a second nomination.
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2 comments:
I actually think the fact that all of the other war movies flopped while this one took a completely different, humorous angle and was fairly well received will get it a best picture nomination, and it may actually have an outside shot at a win in a completely wide open race.
Reasonable enough I guess, the thing is, some of the other political movies weren't supposed to be bad (like In the Valley of Elah) they just were brought down because the other ones sucked and no one was going to see them. The comedy angle of Charlie Wilson's War, not to mention Tom and Julia, might give it a push but I'd be surprised if it gets a Best Pic nomination and shocked if it won. But you're right, it is wide open so it's pretty hard to say.
Anyways, I might've predicted a Best Pic nom but I think I'm already getting pretty close to 5 (Atonement, Sweeney Todd, Juno, No Country for Old Men) so I'm doing my best not to predict like 10 movies to get a nomination, especially since I still haven't seen There Will Be Blood or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
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